This article proposes a new way of studying the reception of Machiavelli in Spanish political thought during the Siglo de Oro. While Maravall's approach classifies Spanish thinkers according to their agreement or otherwise with Machiavelli's ideas, the reading I propose here considers the history of Machiavellism from a more material perspective, namely the accuracy of these authors' knowledge of Machiavelli's works. In this article, I examine Jerónimo Gracián's Diez lamentaciones from this standpoint with the intention of showing how one of the first great Spanish critics of Machiavelli levelled his criticism against the Florentine Secretary without having read his work directly.