OnePeterFive offers Andrew Latham's reading-list of international theory in Christendom. It starts with Augustine, back in Latin Late Antiquity. Then the mediaevals: John of Paris, Aquinas, Dante, and Pierre Dubois [the Scholastic].
I pointed out there that Machiavelli's antecedent was none of these. To understand Ol' Nicky, you must go to the North African tradition, of Ibn Khaldun. Ibn Khaldun (pdf) had abandoned Greek political theory and compiled a theory of his own, on pure power-politics. He owed nothing to the Latin tradition of course... but he also shows overt scorn for the Arabic tradition. Nicky just takes Ibn Khaldun's theory, and swaps its Islamic(ate) examples for European Classical and Italian examples.
(As we see in Iran today, Islamic republicans have leaned upon Plato. This was true in mediaeval Islam as well.)
A question we might have is, how come Islam has relied so little on Christian thought. I'd propose, as paradox, precisely because Islam is so Christian at base. But not Latin; 'tis Byzantine, and Miaphysite (the Orient had some Sasaniana in there as well). Islam was religiously idealist, holding onto tropes of an ultimate imperium. And they didn't own much access to Latin.
It may be that Dante owes his monarchical theory to the same Last Empire ideal. Although he'd never admit to owing anything to Islam, as Nicky would owe to one particular Muslim.
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