Machiavelli was removed from office in the change of regime and was arrested for conspiracy against the Medici. Machiavelli produced his most important literary and political writings during the subsequent years when he retired to his estate outside Florence, while not abandoning his political ambitions. Around the same time he was also composing his Discourses on Livy , a larger undertaking not finished till at the earliest.
Neither political treatise, however, was published in his lifetime; the Discourses reached print in , The Prince in Following , Machiavelli continued to exercise his literary skills.
His Golden Ass , though never completed, was written in , followed in the subsequent year by his comedy Mandragola. His writings are maddeningly and notoriously unsystematic, inconsistent and sometimes self-contradictory.
He tends to appeal to experience and example in the place of rigorous logical analysis. Yet there are good reasons to include Machiavelli among the greatest of political philosophers, some of which are internal to his writings. In spite of the temptation to emphasize his political pragmatism, a lively scholarly debate rages about the presence of a coherent and original philosophy, addressed to topics of concern to philosophers, at the core of his thought Benner ; Zuckert , ; Baluch Moreover, succeeding thinkers who more obviously qualify as philosophers of the first rank did and still do feel compelled to engage with his ideas, either to dispute them or to incorporate his insights into their own teachings.
Even if Machiavelli grazed at the fringes of philosophy, the impact of his extensive musings has been widespread and lasting. Machiavelli's critique of utopian philosophical schemes such as those of Plato challenges an entire tradition of political philosophy in a manner that that commands attention and demands consideration and response. Thus, Machiavelli deserves a place at the table in any comprehensive survey of political philosophy.
Relatively little is known for certain about Machiavelli's early life in comparison with many important figures of the Italian Renaissance the following section draws on Capponi ; Vivanti ; Celenza He was born 3 May in Florence and at a young age became a pupil of a renowned Latin teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione.
It is speculated that he attended the University of Florence, and even a cursory glance at his corpus reveals that he received an excellent humanist education. It is only with his entrance into public view, with his appointment in as the Second Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, however, that we begin to acquire a full and accurate picture of his life.
For the next fourteen years, Machiavelli engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity on behalf of Florence, traveling to the major centers of Italy as well as to the royal court of France and to the imperial curia of Maximilian.
A large body of extant letters, dispatches, and occasional writings testify to his political assignments as well as to his acute talent for the analysis of personalities and institutions. Florence had been under a republican government since , when the leading Medici family and its supporters had been driven from power.
During this time, Machiavelli thrived under the patronage of the Florentine gonfaloniere or chief administrator for life Piero Soderini. In , however, with the assistance of papal troops, the Medici defeated the republic's armed forces and dissolved the government. Machiavelli was a direct victim of the regime change: he was initially placed in a form of internal exile and, when he was wrongly suspected of conspiring against the Medici in , he was imprisoned and tortured for several weeks.
His retirement thereafter to his farm outside of Florence afforded the occasion and the impetus for him to turn to literary pursuits.
The first of his writings in a more reflective vein was also ultimately the one most commonly associated with his name, The Prince. Written at the end of and perhaps early , but only formally published posthumously in , The Prince was composed in great haste by an author who was, among other things, seeking to regain his status in Florentine political affairs.
Many of his colleagues in the republican government were quickly rehabilitated and returned to service under the Medici. Originally written for presentation to Giuliano de'Medici who may well have appreciated it , the dedication was changed, upon Giuliano's death, to Lorenzo de'Medici, who almost certainly did not read it when it came into his hands in Meanwhile, Machiavelli's enforced retirement led him to other literary activities. He wrote verse, plays, and short prose, penned a study of The Art of War published in , and produced biographical and historical sketches.
Most importantly, he composed his other major contribution to political thought, the Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy , an exposition of the principles of republican rule masquerading as a commentary on the work of the famous historian of the Roman Republic.
Unlike The Prince , the Discourses was authored over a long period of time commencing perhaps in or and completed in or , although again only published posthumously in The book may have been shaped by informal discussions attended by Machiavelli among some of the leading Florentine intellectual and political figures under the sponsorship of Cosimo Rucellai.
Near the end of his life, and probably as a result of the aid of well-connected friends whom he never stopped badgering for intervention, Machiavelli began to return to the favor of the Medici family. In , he was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de'Medici to compose a History of Florence , an assignment completed in and presented to the Cardinal, who had since ascended to the papal throne as Clement VII, in Rome.
Other small tasks were forthcoming from the Medici government, but before he could achieve a full rehabilitation, he died on 21 June It has been a common view among political philosophers that there exists a special relationship between moral goodness and legitimate authority. Many authors especially those who composed mirror-of-princes books or royal advice books during the Middle Ages and Renaissance believed that the use of political power was only rightful if it was exercised by a ruler whose personal moral character was strictly virtuous.
Thus rulers were counseled that if they wanted to succeed—that is, if they desired a long and peaceful reign and aimed to pass their office down to their offspring—they must be sure to behave in accordance with conventional standards of ethical goodness.
In a sense, it was thought that rulers did well when they did good; they earned the right to be obeyed and respected inasmuch as they showed themselves to be virtuous and morally upright see Briggs and Nederman forthcoming.
Machiavelli criticizes at length precisely this moralistic view of authority in his best-known treatise, The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good.
In this sense, Machiavelli presents a trenchant criticism of the concept of authority by arguing that the notion of legitimate rights of rulership adds nothing to the actual possession of power. The Prince purports to reflect the self-conscious political realism of an author who is fully aware—on the basis of direct experience with the Florentine government—that goodness and right are not sufficient to win and maintain political office.
Machiavelli thus seeks to learn and teach the rules of political power. For Machiavelli, power characteristically defines political activity, and hence it is necessary for any successful ruler to know how power is to be used. Only by means of the proper application of power, Machiavelli believes, can individuals be brought to obey and will the ruler be able to maintain the state in safety and security.
Machiavelli's political theory, then, represents a concerted effort to exclude issues of authority and legitimacy from consideration in the discussion of political decision-making and political judgment. Nowhere does this come out more clearly than in his treatment of the relationship between law and force. Machiavelli acknowledges that good laws and good arms constitute the dual foundations of a well-ordered political system.
But he immediately adds that since coercion creates legality, he will concentrate his attention on force. In other words, the legitimacy of law rests entirely upon the threat of coercive force; authority is impossible for Machiavelli as a right apart from the power to enforce it.
Consequently, Machiavelli is led to conclude that fear is always preferable to affection in subjects, just as violence and deception are superior to legality in effectively controlling them. Machiavelli observes that. Love is a bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.
Prince CW 62; translation revised. As a result, Machiavelli cannot really be said to have a theory of obligation separate from the imposition of power; people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges. And of course, power alone cannot obligate one, inasmuch as obligation assumes that one cannot meaningfully do otherwise.
Concomitantly, a Machiavellian perspective directly attacks the notion of any grounding for authority independent of the sheer possession of power. For Machiavelli, people are compelled to obey purely in deference to the superior power of the state. If I think that I should not obey a particular law, what eventually leads me to submit to that law will be either a fear of the power of the state or the actual exercise of that power.
It is power which in the final instance is necessary for the enforcement of conflicting views of what I ought to do; I can only choose not to obey if I possess the power to resist the demands of the state or if I am willing to accept the consequences of the state's superiority of coercive force. Machiavelli's argument in The Prince is designed to demonstrate that politics can only coherently be defined in terms of the supremacy of coercive power; authority as a right to command has no independent status.
He substantiates this assertion by reference to the observable realities of political affairs and public life as well as by arguments revealing the self-interested nature of all human conduct. For Machiavelli it is meaningless and futile to speak of any claim to authority and the right to command which is detached from the possession of superior political power. The ruler who lives by his rights alone will surely wither and die by those same rights, because in the rough-and-tumble of political conflict those who prefer power to authority are more likely to succeed.
Without exception the authority of states and their laws will never be acknowledged when they are not supported by a show of power which renders obedience inescapable. The methods for achieving obedience are varied, and depend heavily upon the foresight that the prince exercises.
Hence, the successful ruler needs special training. Machiavelli presents to his readers a vision of political rule allegedly purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics in the effective exercise of power. Machiavelli sees politics to be a sort of a battlefield on a different scale. Fortuna is the enemy of political order, the ultimate threat to the safety and security of the state. Machiavelli's use of the concept has been widely debated without a very satisfactory resolution.
Where conventional representations treated Fortuna as a mostly benign, if fickle, goddess, who is the source of human goods as well as evils, Machiavelli's fortune is a malevolent and uncompromising fount of human misery, affliction, and disaster. While human Fortuna may be responsible for such success as human beings achieve, no man can act effectively when directly opposed by the goddess Discourses CW — Machiavelli's most famous discussion of Fortuna occurs in Chapter 25 of The Prince , in which he proposes two analogies for understanding the human situation in the face of events.
Initially, he asserts that fortune resembles. Yet the furor of a raging river does not mean that its depredations are beyond human control: before the rains come, it is possible to take precautions to divert the worst consequences of the natural elements. Prince CW Machiavelli reinforces the association of Fortuna with the blind strength of nature by explaining that political success depends upon appreciation of the operational principles of Fortuna.
His own experience has taught him that. In other words, Fortuna demands a violent response of those who would control her.
Machiavelli's remarks point toward several salient conclusions about Fortuna and her place in his intellectual universe. Throughout his corpus, Fortuna is depicted as a primal source of violence especially as directed against humanity and as antithetical to reason. Thus, Machiavelli realizes that only preparation to pose an extreme response to the vicissitudes of Fortuna will ensure victory against her.
The main source of dispute concerned Machiavelli's attitude toward conventional moral and religious standards of human conduct, mainly in connection with The Prince. For many, his teaching endorses immoralism or, at least, amoralism. Moral values have no place in the sorts of decisions that political leaders must make, and it is a category error of the gravest sort to think otherwise.
Concentrating on the claim in The Prince that a head of state ought to do good if he can, but must be prepared to commit evil if he must Prince CW 58 , Skinner argues that Machiavelli prefers conformity to moral virtue ceteris paribus. He is thereby set into the context of the scientific revolution more generally.
More recently, the Machiavelli-as-scientist interpretation has largely gone out of favor, although some have recently found merit in a revised version of the thesis e. Other of Machiavelli's readers have found no taint of immoralism in his thought whatsoever. Jean-Jacques Rousseau long ago held that the real lesson of The Prince is to teach the people the truth about how princes behave and thus to expose, rather than celebrate, the immorality at the core of one-man rule.
Various versions of this thesis have been disseminated more recently. Some scholars, such as Garrett Mattingly , have pronounced Machiavelli the supreme satirist, pointing out the foibles of princes and their advisors.
The fact that Machiavelli later wrote biting popular stage comedies is cited as evidence in support of his strong satirical bent. Thus, we should take nothing Machiavelli says about moral conduct at face value, but instead should understand his remarks as sharply humorous commentary on public affairs.
A similar range of opinions exists in connection with Machiavelli's attitude toward religion in general, and Christianity in particular. Machiavelli was no friend of the institutionalized Christian Church as he knew it. Machiavelli speaks at least twice of the prophet Mohammed FH 1. He discusses various Muslim princes—most importantly Saladin FH 1. The main aim of this article is to help readers find a foothold in the primary literature.
A second, related aim is to help readers do so in the secondary literature. It has followed the practice of many recent Machiavelli scholars—for whom it is not uncommon, especially in English, to say that the views on Machiavelli can be divided into a handful of camps. Many of the differences between these camps appear to reduce to the question of how to fit The Prince and the Discourses together. Five are outlined below, although some scholars would of course put that number either higher or lower.
Readers who are interested in understanding the warp and woof of the scholarship in greater detail are encouraged to consult the recent and more fine-grained accounts of Catherine Zuckert , John T.
Scott , and Erica Benner The first camp takes The Prince to be a satirical or ironic work. The 16th century Italian jurist Alberico Gentili was one of the first interpreters to take up the position that The Prince is a satire on ruling. Rousseau and Spinoza in their own respective ways also seemed to hold this interpretation. Members of this camp typically argue that Machiavelli is a republican of various sorts and place special emphasis upon his rhetoric.
The most notable recent member of this camp is Erica Benner a, b, , and , who argues that The Prince is thoroughly ironic and that Machiavelli presents a shocking moral teaching in order to subvert it. However, members of this camp do not typically argue that The Prince is satirical or ironic.
They do typically argue that The Prince presents a different teaching than does the Discourses ; and that, as an earlier work, The Prince is not as comprehensive or mature of a writing as the Discourses. The most notable member of this camp is Quentin Skinner , , and Pocock and , Hans Baron and , and David Wootton could be reasonably placed in this camp. Maurizio Viroli , , , , and could also be reasonably placed here, though he puts additional emphasis on The Prince.
In other words, members of this camp typically claim that Machiavelli presents the same teaching or vision in each book but from different starting points.
However, members of this camp do not typically argue that The Prince and Discourses begin from different starting points.
The most notable member of this camp is Leo Strauss Harvey C. Mansfield , , , and , Catherine Zuckert and , John T. Scott , , and , Vickie Sullivan , , and , Nathan Tarcov , , a, b, , , , , and , and Clifford Orwin and could be reasonably placed here.
The fifth camp is hermeneutically beholden to Hegel, which seems at first glance to be an anachronistic approach. The most notable member of this camp is Claude Lefort []. Miguel Vatter , , and could be reasonably placed here and additionally deserves mention for his familiarity with the secondary literature in Spanish an unusual achievement for Machiavelli scholars who write in English. Below are listed some of the more well-known works in the scholarship, as well as some that the author has found profitable but which are perhaps not as well-known.
They are arranged as much as possible in accordance with the outline of this article. It goes without saying that there are many important books that are not mentioned. Some examples include Benner a , Celenza , Black and , Atkinson , Skinner , Viroli , , and , de Grazia , and Ridolfi Vivanti offers an intellectual biography. Other good places to begin are Nederman , Viroli , Mansfield , , and , Skinner and , Prezzolini , Voegelin , and Foster Johnston, Urbinati, and Vergara and Fuller are recent, excellent collections.
Lefort and Strauss are daunting and difficult but also well worth the attempt. Skinner , Benner , and Mansfield discuss virtue. Spackman and Pitkin discuss fortune, particularly with respect to the image of fortune as a woman. Biasiori and Marcocci is a recent collection concerning Machiavelli and Islam.
Nederman examines free will. Blanchard discusses sight and touch. Regarding various other political themes, including republicanism, see McCormick , Slade , Barthas , Rahe , , and , Patapan , Sullivan and , Forde and , Bock , Hulliung , Skinner , and Pocock Palmer , and de Alvarez On deception, see Dietz and Langton and Dietz Mansfield and Walker are the two notable commentaries.
Anyone who wants to learn more about the intellectual context of the Italian Renaissance should begin with the many writings of Kristeller e. See also Hankins , Cassirer [] , and Burke Regarding humanist educational treatises, see Kallendorf Regarding Ficino, see the I Tatti series edited by James Hankins especially , , , and Regarding Xenophon, see Nadon and Newell Regarding Lucretius, see A.
Palmer , Brown a and b , and Rahe The most comprehensive recent treatment of Savonarola can be found in Jurdjevic Those interested in the Italian scholarship should begin with the seminal work of Sasso , , and Lastly, Ruffo-Fiore has compiled an annotated bibliography of Machiavelli scholarship from to The Youth Machiavelli was born on May 3, , to a somewhat distinguished family.
The Official Not long after Savonarola was put to death, Machiavelli was appointed to serve under Adriani as head of the Second Chancery. The Philosopher In late , Machiavelli was accused of participating in an anti-Medici conspiracy.
Machiavelli died on June 21, His body is buried in the Florentine basilica of Santa Croce. Philosophical Themes If to be a philosopher means to inquire without any fear of boundaries, Machiavelli is the epitome of a philosopher. Politics: The Humors Machiavelli is most famous as a political philosopher. Politics: Republicanism Some scholars claim that Machiavelli is the last ancient political philosopher because he understands the merciless exposure of political life.
Discourses on Livy There is reason to suspect that Machiavelli had begun writing the Discourses as early as ; for instance, there seems to be a reference in The Prince to another, lengthier work on republics P 2.
Art of War The Art of War is the only significant prose work published by Machiavelli during his lifetime and his only attempt at writing a dialogue in the humanist tradition. Possible Philosophical Influences on Machiavelli Machiavelli insists upon the novelty of his enterprise in several places e.
Renaissance Humanism Although Machiavelli studied ancient humanists, he does not often cite them as authorities. Renaissance Aristotelianism Aristotle is never mentioned in The Prince and is mentioned only once in the Discourses in the context of a discussion of tyranny D 3. Xenophon Xenophon is mentioned only once in The Prince P Savonarola There is no comprehensive monograph on Machiavelli and Savonarola. Contemporary Interpretations The main aim of this article is to help readers find a foothold in the primary literature.
References and Further Reading Below are listed some of the more well-known works in the scholarship, as well as some that the author has found profitable but which are perhaps not as well-known. The Art of War , ed. Christopher Lynch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Rome: Salerno Editrice, The Chief Works and Others. Three volumes, trans.
Allan Gilbert. Durham: Duke University Press, []. Clizia , trans. Daniel T. Long Grove: Waveland Press, The Comedies of Machiavelli , ed. David Sices and James B. Indianapolis: Hackett, []. Discourses on Livy , trans.
Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, []. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio , ed. Giorgio Inglese. Milano: Bur Rizzoli, Digitized Florentine Histories , trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, Machiavelli and Friends: Their Personal Correspondence , ed. James B. Atkinson and David Sices. Mandragola , trans.
Mera J. The Prince with Related Documents , trans. William J. The Prince , second edition, trans. Il Principe , ed. Torino: Giulio Einaudi, Tutte le opere. Florence: Sansoni, Secondary Sources Abensour, Miguel. Cambridge: Polity Press, []. Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press, []. Althusser, Louis. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition , second edition. John M. Najemy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ascoli, Albert Russell, and Victoria Kahn, eds.
Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Atkinson, James B. Baron, Hans. In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance.
Benner, Erica. New York: W. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, b. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Berlin, Isaiah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, []. Biasiori, Lucio, and Giuseppe Marcocci, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, Blanchard, Kenneth C. Black, Robert. London: Routledge, Edited by John M. Machiavelli and Republicanism. Brown, Alison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, a. The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, b. Burke, Peter. The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford: Blackwell, Butters, Humfrey. Cabrini, Anna Maria. Cassirer, Ernst. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Celenza, Christopher S. Machiavelli: A Portrait. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Cesati, Franco. The Medici. Florence: Mandragora, Chabod, Federico. Machiavelli and the Renaissance , trans. David Moore. London: Bowes and Bowes, Chiappelli, Fredi.
Nuovi Studi sul Linguaggio del Machiavelli. Florence: Le Monnier, Studi sul Linguaggio del Machiavelli. Clarke, Michelle Tolman. Coby, Patrick. Lanham: Lexington Books, Colish, Marcia L. Connell, William J. Cox, Virginia. Croce, Benedetto. Elementi di Politica. Bari: Laterza, De Alvarez, Leo Paul. De Grazia, Sebastian. Machiavelli in Hell. Dietz, Mary. Duff, Alexander S. Falco, Maria J. Feminist Interpretations of Machiavelli.
Ficino, Marsilio. On Dionysius the Areopagite Volume 1 , ed. Michael J. Commentaries on Plato, Volume 2, Part 1 , ed. Maude Vanhaelen. Commentaries on Plato, Volume 1 , ed. Platonic Theology, Volume 1 , ed. James Hankins and William Bowen and trans. Forde, Steven. Foster, Michael. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, Fuller, Timothy, ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Gilbert, Allan H. Durham: Duke University Press, Gilbert, Felix.
History, Choice, and Commitment. Cambridge: The Belknap Press, Gramsci, Antonio. Note sul Machiavelli, sulla politica e sullo stato moderno. Torino: Einaudi, Hankins, James, ed. Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections. Hankins, James. Machiavelli and Empire. Hulliung, Mark. Citizen Machiavelli. Jurdjevic, Mark. Kahn, Victoria. Kallendorf, Craig W. Humanist Educational Treatises. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, []. Kristeller, Paul Oskar.
Renaissance Thought and Its Sources , ed. Michael Mooney. New York: Columbia University Press, New York: Harper and Row, Landon, William J. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Langton, John, and Mary Dietz. Lukes, Timothy J. Lynch, Christopher. Lefort, Claude. Machiavelli in the Making , trans. Michael B. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, Major, Rafael. Mansfield, Harvey C.
Timothy Fuller, Martinez, Ronald L. Masters, Roger D. New York: Free Press, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power. McCormick, John P. Machiavellian Democracy. Nadon, Christopher. Berkeley: University of California Press, Najemy, John A. Najemy, John M. Nederman, Cary J. London: Oneworld, Newell, Waller R. Tyranny: A New Interpretation. Lucretius and the Early Modern. Orwin, Clifford. Palmer, Ada. Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance.
Palmer, Michael. Parel, Anthony J. The Machiavellian Cosmos. New Haven: Yale University Press, Parsons, William B. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, Patapan, Haig. Pesman, Roslyn. Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. Pocock, J. Prezzolini, Giuseppe. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ruffo-Fiore, Silvia. New York: Greenwood Press, Rahe, Paul A. Rebhorn, Wayne A. Ridolfi, Roberto. Cecil Grayson. Sasso, Gennaro. Bologna: Il Mulino, Machiavelli e gli antichi e altri saggi.
Milan: Ricciardi, Studi su Machiavelli. Naples: Morano, Savonarola, Girolamo. Apologetic Writings , ed. Trattato sul Governo di Firenze. Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, Anne Borelli and Maria Pastore Passoro. Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31 , ed. John Patrick Donnelly. Milwaukee, Marquette Press, [].
The Triumph of the Cross. London: Sands and Co. Saxonhouse, Arlene W. Scott, John T. Skinner, Quentin. New York: Sterling Publishing, []. The Renaissance , vol. Slade, Francis. Holger Zaborowski, Washington, D. Spackman, Barbara. Strauss, Leo. Thoughts on Machiavelli. Sullivan, Vickie B.
The Comedy and Tragedy of Machiavelli. Tarcov, Nathan. Andrea Radasanu, Essays in Honor of Heinrich Meier.
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