This chapter explores how Machiavelli examines urban life as a privileged setting for the cognitive and belief processes that define the people as a collective political actor. For Machiavelli, the city represents a form of human community built through separation from nature, embodying both civilization and a self-imposed confinement. His Florentine Histories provide a quasi-anthropological view of urban life, describing cities as “mixed bodies” governed by “humours”, or primal impulses that shape political dynamics and conflicts. Central to his analysis is the concept of fama (reputation and rumour) as a mechanism of influence. Starting with the Ordinances of Justice in Florence (1293), Machiavelli traces how public opinion gains autonomy, acting as a social force capable of supporting or undermining political actors. He highlights how leaders like Cosimo de’ Medici leverage fama to build informal power networks and maintain control over the public realm, showing how non-institutional voices wield authority in shaping the city’s governance. The chapter concludes by contrasting institutional liberty with the underlying “moral economy” of the populace—values held by the extra-institutional multitude, which operates outside formal political discourse and sometimes resists it.