[1] In his Histoire du gouvernement de Venise, he undertook to explain, and above all to criticize, the administration of that republic, and to expose the causes of its decadence.
This work, and especially certain notes added by the translator, so offended advocates of the unlimited authority of the Pope that three memorials were presented asking for its repression.
Under the pseudonym of La Motte Josseval, Amelot later published Discours politique sur Tacite, in which he analysed the character of Tiberius.
[1] A 21st-century interpretation of Amelot's role argues that Amelot, having been jailed for his political criticism expressed in his History of the Government of Venice, turned to annotated editions of classic and renaissance texts in order to continue his critique of the absolutist government of Louis XIV by indirect means.
Amelot's versions of Tacitus' account of Tiberius and other sections of the Annales, along with his influential translation of Machiavelli's The Prince, became crucial elements in the development and expansion of critical political analysis during the Ancien Régime.