Misplaced Pages

#759240

90-467: A " Machiavellian moment" is that moment when a new republic first confronts the problem of maintaining the stability of its ideals and institutions. Machiavellian thought was a response to a series of crises facing early 16th century Florence in which a seemingly virtuous state was on the cusp of destruction. In response, Machiavelli sought to revive classical republican ideals. Works like The Prince and those of some pre- English Civil War thinkers and

180-551: A "Venetian vogue" for "stability" by mixed government , and the 1942 article in which Fink examined the Discorsi passages translated and quoted in the works of James Harrington , partially germinated their research. Pocock especially credited Fink for beginning a study on Englishmen "impressed by the stability of Venetian constitutional reforms" and the classical ideas that spawned such reforms. Pocock wished to further research and elaborate on this project: "...what I propose to do

270-443: A "civil way of life". Commentators disagree about how much the two works agree with each other, as Machiavelli frequently refers to leaders of republics as "princes". Machiavelli even sometimes acts as an advisor to tyrants . Other scholars have pointed out the aggrandizing and imperialistic features of Machiavelli's republic. Nevertheless, it became one of the central texts of modern republicanism , and has often been argued to be

360-607: A character to rule, who will inevitably attempt to replace the ruler. Machiavelli has become infamous for such political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history through the adjective "Machiavellian". Due to the treatise's controversial analysis on politics, the Catholic Church banned The Prince , putting it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum . Humanists , including Erasmus ( c.  1466  – 1536), also viewed

450-470: A city, which he felt was a key to understanding its later development. Moreover, he studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. Machiavelli denies the classical opinion that living virtuously always leads to happiness. For example, Machiavelli viewed misery as "one of the vices that enables a prince to rule." Machiavelli stated that "it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since

540-434: A decade before contributions to this research field by Pocock, literati Zera S. Fink demonstrated that Polybian and Machiavellian ideas, the latter primarily in the Discorsi , had been transmitted into (what Fink described as) "the classical republican" minds of seventeenth-century England—one in particular, Fink averred, was none other than James Harrington . Both Pocock and Hannah Arendt claimed that Fink's 1945 book on

630-504: A few consistently made proposals concerning what was most new in Machiavelli's work. Machiavelli is sometimes seen as the prototype of a modern empirical scientist, building generalizations from experience and historical facts, and emphasizing the uselessness of theorizing with the imagination. He emancipated politics from theology and moral philosophy. He undertook to describe simply what rulers actually did and thus anticipated what

720-590: A general decay of the people which would invite the intrusion of evil and despotic rulers, and the encroachment of executive authority upon the legislature, the attempt that power always made to subdue the liberty protected by mixed government. The American Revolution revealed that this radical Whig understanding of politics had embedded itself deeply in American minds. [...] Radical Whig perceptions of politics attracted widespread support in America because they revived

810-532: A government system that is composed of "more than one" of these basic principles, which then was called a mixed government system. The ideal of a mixed government was popularized by Polybius , who saw the Roman Republic as a manifestation of Aristotle's theory (Millar, 2002). Monarchy was embodied by the consuls , the aristocracy by the Senate and democracy by the elections and great public gatherings of

900-559: A group of American Revolutionary personalities all faced similar such moments and offered related sets of answers. In 1965, J.G.A. Pocock published "Machiavelli, Harrington, and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth Century" in the William and Mary Quarterly . In this article, Pocock interrogated Machiavelli's focus on armed militancy in the Discorsi as a recourse for temporal stability in polities subject to

990-510: A group of writers essentially the same as Fink's Venetian theorists." Pocock, more than Fink and Hannah Arendt , critically crystallized a purpose of Machiavelli 's Discorsi . The Machiavellian promotion of armed militancy became a possible recourse for temporal stability in polities, connected not only to "reversals of fortune," but to "revolution" as a technical problem solved only by multiple approaches to mixed government . The remainder of J.G.A. Pocock 's article appraised politicos that

SECTION 10

#1732773260760

1080-561: A high priority on consistency. Others such as Hans Baron have argued that his ideas must have changed dramatically over time. Some have argued that his conclusions are best understood as a product of his times, experiences and education. Others, such as Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield , have argued strongly that there is a strong and deliberate consistency and distinctness, even arguing that this extends to all of Machiavelli's works including his comedies and letters. Commentators such as Leo Strauss have gone so far as to name Machiavelli as

1170-492: A man control more of his future, in the place of allowing fortune to do so. Najemy (1993) has argued that this same approach can be found in Machiavelli's approach to love and desire, as seen in his comedies and correspondence. Najemy shows how Machiavelli's friend Vettori argued against Machiavelli and cited a more traditional understanding of fortune. On the other hand, humanism in Machiavelli's time meant that classical pre-Christian ideas about virtue and prudence, including

1260-501: A more comprehensive work than The Prince . Major commentary on Machiavelli's work has focused on two issues: how unified and philosophical his work is and how innovative or traditional it is. There is some disagreement concerning how best to describe the unifying themes, if there are any, that can be found in Machiavelli's works, especially in the two major political works, The Prince and Discourses . Some commentators have described him as inconsistent, and perhaps as not even putting

1350-540: A sect was that it makes men weak and inactive, delivering politics into the hands of cruel and wicked men without a fight. Mixed government List of forms of government Mixed government (or a mixed constitution ) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy , aristocracy and monarchy , ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived in Aristotle's Politics as anarchy , oligarchy and tyranny . The idea

1440-519: A series of lessons on how a republic should be started and structured. It is a larger work than The Prince , and while it more openly explains the advantages of republics, it also contains many similar themes from his other works. For example, Machiavelli has noted that to save a republic from corruption, it is necessary to return it to a "kingly state" using violent means. He excuses Romulus for murdering his brother Remus and co-ruler Titus Tatius to gain absolute power for himself in that he established

1530-588: A series of political upheavals—the Civil War (Puritan Revolution), the exclusion crisis of 1679–1681, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Second, an intense public debate about the best, most liberal and most stable form of government. Its main participants were John Milton , John Locke , Algernon Sidney and James Harrington . Their thinking became the basis of the radical Whig ideology. It "described two sorts of threats to political freedom:

1620-529: A sign of major innovation in Machiavelli, because classical materialists did not share the Socratic regard for political life, while Machiavelli clearly did. Thucydides Some scholars note the similarity between Machiavelli and the Greek historian Thucydides , since both emphasized power politics . Strauss argued that Machiavelli may indeed have been influenced by pre-Socratic philosophers , but he felt it

1710-571: A state of nature from which rights arose which the civil polity, created by mutual consent, guaranteed; they argued that a contract formed government and sovereignty resided in the people". So mixed government is the core of both the British form of modern-era democracy, constitutional monarchy , and the American model: republicanism . The "father" of the American constitution, James Madison , stated in Federalist Paper No. 40 that

1800-578: A stomach ailment at the age of 58 after receiving his last rites . He was buried at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. In 1789 George Nassau Clavering , and Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany , initiated the construction of a monument on Machiavelli's tomb. It was sculpted by Innocenzo Spinazzi , with an epitaph by Doctor Ferroni inscribed on it. Machiavelli's best-known book Il Principe contains several maxims concerning politics. Instead of

1890-503: A student of Socrates more known as a historian, rhetorician and soldier, was a major source of Socratic ideas for Machiavelli, sometimes not in line with Aristotle. While interest in Plato was increasing in Florence during Machiavelli's lifetime, Machiavelli does not show particular interest in him, but was indirectly influenced by his readings of authors such as Polybius , Plutarch and Cicero . The major difference between Machiavelli and

SECTION 20

#1732773260760

1980-482: A vote in his own government...it was a well-watered soil on which the ideas of Montesquieu fell, and out of which some of them grew." J. G. A. Pocock divided the book into three sections: Niccol%C3%B2 Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance . He

2070-401: A well-known correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to become involved once again in political life. In a letter to Francesco Vettori , he described his experience: When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter

2160-407: A wide range of influences is in itself not controversial. Their relative importance is however a subject of ongoing discussion. It is possible to summarize some of the main influences emphasized by different commentators. The Mirror of Princes genre Gilbert (1938) summarized the similarities between The Prince and the genre it obviously imitates, the so-called " Mirror of Princes " style. This

2250-855: Is also important to historians and scholars of Italian correspondence. He worked as secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. After his death Machiavelli's name came to evoke unscrupulous acts of the sort he advised most famously in his work, The Prince . He claimed that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics has always involved deception, treachery, and crime. He advised rulers to do likewise when political necessity requires it, and argued specifically that successful reformers of states should not be blamed for killing other leaders who could block change. Machiavelli's Prince has been surrounded by controversy since it

2340-529: Is best known for his political treatise The Prince ( Il Principe ), written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science . For many years he served as a senior official in the Florentine Republic with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence

2430-406: Is investigate the significance in the eighteenth century of a current of ideas that stems mainly from James Harrington, but can be traced additionally to the seventeenth-century theorists studied some years ago by Z. S. Fink under the name of the 'classical republicans'...[Caroline Robbins' The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman illustrated] how regularly recourse was made, throughout the century, to

2520-425: Is simply a "realist" or "pragmatist" who accurately states that moral values, in reality, do not greatly affect the decisions that political leaders make. German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1946) held that Machiavelli simply adopts the stance of a political scientist – a Galileo of politics – in distinguishing between the "facts" of political life and the "values" of moral judgment. On

2610-519: The Realpolitik of figures such as Otto von Bismarck . Machiavelli was born in Florence , Italy, the third child and first son of attorney Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli, on 3 May 1469. The Machiavelli family is believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice , one of

2700-468: The Cambridge School historian dubbed the "neo-Harringtonians." Pocock charted the consequences of an "increased awareness of the role of commerce and finance as historical determinants." It was the eighteenth-century "neo-Harringtonians" who narrated a "Gothic commonwealth of freeholders...an economy of masters and servants, defined mainly in agrarian and traditional terms," that had been lost to

2790-667: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 created a mixed constitution. Madison referred to Polybius in Federalist Paper No. 63 . However, much more important was that "most" ideas that the American Revolutionaries put into their political system "were a part of the great tradition of the eighteenth-century commonwealthmen, the radical Whig ideology". One school of scholarship based mainly in the United States considers mixed government to be

The Machiavellian Moment - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-472: The Enlightenment and were discussed in detail by Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , Giambattista Vico , Montesquieu , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant . Apart from his contemporaries, only Montesquieu became widely acknowledged as the author of a concept of separation of powers (although he wrote rather on their "distribution"). According to some scholars, for example, Heinrich August Winkler,

2970-770: The European Union and the United States , as possessing mixed constitutions. Plato in his book The Republic divided governments into five basic types (four being existing forms and one being Plato's ideal form, which exists "only in speech"): Plato found flaws with all existing forms of government and thus concluded that aristocracy, which emphasizes virtue and wisdom, is the purest form of government. Aristotle largely embraced Plato's ideas and in his Politics three types (excluding timocracy) are discussed in detail. Aristotle considers constitutional government (a combination of oligarchy and democracy under law)

3060-421: The assemblies . Each institution complements and also checks the others, presumably guaranteeing stability and prosperity. Polybius was very influential and his ideas were embraced by Cicero (Millar, 2002). St. Thomas Aquinas argued in his letter On Kingship that a monarchy, with some limitations set by an aristocracy and democratic elements, was the best and most just form of government. He also emphasized

3150-402: The landed gentry in their remonstrances, ostensibly "to win support from country gentlemen discontented with the progress of court government." The "neo-Harringtonians" demanded the replacement of this "instrument of corruption" with "an ancient institution known as the militia...where Harrington contrasted the republic of armed proprietors with the feudal combination of monarchy and aristocracy,

3240-459: The "deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. (Xenophon is also an exception in this regard.) Classical republicanism Commentators such as Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock , in the so-called "Cambridge School" of interpretation, have asserted that some of

3330-473: The Church had come to accept, allowed practical decisions to be guided too much by imaginary ideals and encouraged people to lazily leave events up to providence or, as he would put it, chance, luck or fortune. While Christianity sees modesty as a virtue and pride as sinful, Machiavelli took a more classical position, seeing ambition, spiritedness, and the pursuit of glory as good and natural things, and part of

3420-564: The Florentine Republic on diplomatic visits to France, Germany, and elsewhere in Italy. Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time he began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that (unlike his works on political theory) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime. Politics remained his main passion, and to satisfy this interest, he maintained

3510-613: The Great and Theseus (he treated pagan and Christian patriarchs in the same way) as the greatest of new princes, the glorious and brutal founders of the most novel innovations in politics, and men whom Machiavelli assures us have always used a large amount of armed force and murder against their own people. He estimated that these sects last from 1,666 to 3,000 years each time, which, as pointed out by Leo Strauss, would mean that Christianity became due to start finishing about 150 years after Machiavelli. Machiavelli's concern with Christianity as

3600-706: The Socratics, according to Strauss, is Machiavelli's materialism, and therefore his rejection of both a teleological view of nature and of the view that philosophy is higher than politics. With their teleological understanding of things, Socratics argued that by nature, everything that acts, acts towards some end, as if nature desired them, but Machiavelli claimed that such things happen by blind chance or human action. Classical materialism Strauss argued that Machiavelli may have seen himself as influenced by some ideas from classical materialists such as Democritus , Epicurus and Lucretius . Strauss however sees this also as

3690-421: The advent of new technologies being invented in both good and bad governments. Strauss argued that the unavoidable nature of such arms races, which existed before modern times and led to the collapse of peaceful civilizations, show that classical-minded men "had to admit in other words that in an important respect the good city has to take its bearings by the practice of bad cities or that the bad impose their law on

The Machiavellian Moment - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-432: The advice – tyrants or good rulers. That Machiavelli strove for realism is not doubted, but for four centuries scholars have debated how best to describe his morality. The Prince made the word Machiavellian a byword for deceit, despotism, and political manipulation. Leo Strauss declared himself inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was self-consciously a "teacher of evil", since he counsels

3870-460: The ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savour. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them. Machiavelli died on 21 June 1527 from

3960-419: The book negatively. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political realism and political idealism , due to it being a manual on acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle , Machiavelli insisted that an imaginary ideal society is not a model by which a prince should orient himself. Concerning

4050-557: The central characteristic of a republic and holds that the United States has rule by the one (the President ; monarchy), the few (the Senate ; aristocracy), and the many ( House of Representatives ; democracy). Another school of thought in the U.S. says the Supreme Court has taken on the role of "The Best" in recent decades, ensuring a continuing separation of authority by offsetting the direct election of senators and preserving

4140-743: The city for a year. In 1513, the Medici accused him of conspiracy against them and had him imprisoned. Despite being subjected to torture (" with the rope ", in which the prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists from the back, forcing the arms to bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement and was released after three weeks. Machiavelli then retired to his farm estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina , near San Casciano in Val di Pesa , where he devoted himself to studying and writing political treatises. During this period, he represented

4230-458: The deliberate originator of modernity itself. Others have argued that Machiavelli is only a particularly interesting example of trends which were happening around him. In any case, Machiavelli presented himself at various times as someone reminding Italians of the old virtues of the Romans and Greeks, and other times as someone promoting a completely new approach to politics. That Machiavelli had

4320-519: The differences and similarities in Machiavelli's advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in The Prince and his more republican exhortations in Discourses on Livy , a few commentators assert that The Prince , although written as advice for a monarchical prince, contains arguments for the superiority of republican regimes, similar to those found in the Discourses . In the 18th century, the work

4410-459: The discovery of a means whereby the county [from "county assemblies"] freeholder could equate himself with the Greco-Roman polites and profess a wholly classical and Aristotelian doctrine of the relations between property, liberty, and power...Harrington's citizen may or may not be an entrepreneur, but he is primarily a freeholder...the right to bear arms [from Machiavelli's Discorsi ], and

4500-439: The early modern "corruption" of "money in government: of public finance...[and] a well-financed court bureaucracy... a Marxist might say that this was a [neo-]mercantilist rather than an entrepreneurial consciousness, if that were not probably revisionism." The "neo-Harringtonians," extant dissidents against the "mercantile court" and "coffeehouse intellectuals living by their wit," began to deride "standing army" excursions against

4590-615: The exhortations in his other works of political philosophy. While less well known than The Prince , the Discourses on Livy (composed c.  1517 ) has been said to have paved the way for modern republicanism . His works were a major influence on Enlightenment authors who revived interest in classical republicanism , such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Harrington . Machiavelli's political realism has continued to influence generations of academics and politicians, including Hannah Arendt , and his approach has been compared to

SECTION 50

#1732773260760

4680-1054: The founding of new modes and orders. His advice to princes was therefore certainly not limited to discussing how to maintain a state. It has been argued that Machiavelli's promotion of innovation led directly to the argument for progress as an aim of politics and civilization . But while a belief that humanity can control its own future, control nature, and "progress" has been long-lasting, Machiavelli's followers, starting with his own friend Guicciardini , have tended to prefer peaceful progress through economic development, and not warlike progress. As Harvey Mansfield (1995 , p. 74) wrote: "In attempting other, more regular and scientific modes of overcoming fortune, Machiavelli's successors formalized and emasculated his notion of virtue." Machiavelli however, along with some of his classical predecessors, saw ambition and spiritedness, and therefore war, as inevitable and part of human nature . Strauss concludes his 1958 book Thoughts on Machiavelli by proposing that this promotion of progress leads directly to

4770-460: The good". Strauss (1958 , pp. 298–299) Machiavelli shows repeatedly that he saw religion as man-made, and that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed with if security requires it. In The Prince , the Discourses and in the Life of Castruccio Castracani he describes "prophets", as he calls them, like Moses , Romulus , Cyrus

4860-427: The ideal form of government, but he observes that none of the three are healthy and that states will cycle between the three forms in an abrupt and chaotic process known as the kyklos or anacyclosis . In his Politics , he lists a number of theories of how to create a stable government. One of these options is creating a government that is a mix of all three forms of government. Polybius argued that most states have

4950-486: The late Middle Ages . It existed both in the Catholicised form presented by Thomas Aquinas , and in the more controversial " Averroist " form of authors like Marsilius of Padua . Machiavelli was critical of Catholic political thinking and may have been influenced by Averroism. But he rarely cites Plato and Aristotle, and most likely did not approve of them. Leo Strauss argued that the strong influence of Xenophon ,

5040-402: The leaders were banished from the city, a strategy which Machiavelli had favoured from the outset. From 1502 to 1503, he witnessed the brutal reality of the state-building methods of Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) and his father, Pope Alexander VI , who were then engaged in the process of trying to bring a large part of central Italy under their possession. The pretext of defending Church interests

5130-493: The misuse of political power, John Calvin advocated a mixture of aristocracy and democracy as the best form of government. He praised the advantages of democracy: "It is an invaluable gift if God allows a people to elect its overlords and magistrates". To further safeguard the rights and liberties of those who are ordinary, Calvin also favored the distribution of power to several political institutions ( separation of powers ). Mixed government theories became extremely popular in

5220-506: The monarch's duty to uphold the divine and natural law and abide by limitations imposed on the monarch by custom and existing law. Cicero became extremely well regarded during the Renaissance and many of his ideas were embraced. Polybius was also rediscovered and the positive view of mixed governments became a central aspect of Renaissance political science integrated into the developing notion of republicanism . In order to minimise

5310-441: The more traditional target audience of a hereditary prince, it concentrates on the possibility of a "new prince". To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully balance the interests of a variety of institutions to which the people are accustomed. By contrast, a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling: He must first stabilise his newfound power in order to build an enduring political structure. Machiavelli suggests that

5400-399: The neo-Harringtonians contrasted it with the professional army maintained by the executive power." Pocock concluded that "if the armed force of the nation is embodied only in this form [a militia], there can be no threat to public liberty or the public purse; and the proprietor's liberty is guaranteed as much by his right to be the sole fighter in his own defense as by his ultimate right to cast

5490-445: The noble is destroyed by the base. Therefore Thucydides' History arouses in the reader a sadness which is never aroused by Machiavelli's books. In Machiavelli we find comedies, parodies, and satires but nothing reminding of tragedy. One half of humanity remains outside of his thought. There is no tragedy in Machiavelli because he has no sense of the sacredness of "the common". – Strauss (1958 , p. 292) Amongst commentators, there are

SECTION 60

#1732773260760

5580-702: The notion also influenced the writers of the United States Constitution who based the idea of checks and balances , in part, upon the ancient theory. The constitution of Britain during the Victorian Era with a Parliament composed of the Sovereign (monarchy), a House of Lords (aristocracy) and House of Commons (democracy) is a prime example of a mixed constitution in the 19th century. This political system had its roots in two closely related developments in seventeenth-century England. First,

5670-477: The offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months and who formed the government, or Signoria ; he was never, though, a full citizen of Florence because of the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time even under the republican regime. Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini in 1501. They had seven children, five sons and two daughters: Primerana, Bernardo, Lodovico, Guido, Piero  [ it ] , Baccina and Totto. Machiavelli

5760-419: The other hand, Walter Russell Mead has argued that The Prince ' s advice presupposes the importance of ideas like legitimacy in making changes to the political system. Machiavelli is generally seen as being critical of Christianity as it existed in his time, specifically its effect upon politics, and also everyday life. In his opinion, Christianity, along with the teleological Aristotelianism that

5850-423: The possibility of trying to control one's future, were not unique to him. But humanists did not go so far as to promote the extra glory of deliberately aiming to establish a new state, in defiance of traditions and laws. While Machiavelli's approach had classical precedents, it has been argued that it did more than just bring back old ideas and that Machiavelli was not a typical humanist. Strauss (1958) argues that

5940-427: The princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception. Strauss takes up this opinion because he asserted that failure to accept the traditional opinion misses the "intrepidity of his thought" and "the graceful subtlety of his speech". Italian anti-fascist philosopher Benedetto Croce (1925) concludes Machiavelli

6030-609: The propertied independence enabling one to provide one's own, become the tests of citizenship in Harrington's England as they had been in Athens or Rome." Pocock nuanced his previous interpretations of James Harrington 's writings and allowed for the possibility of freeholder entrepreneurship, but still held that "government" was more manifest than "trade" in his ideas. Of course, during the Second World War and more than

6120-415: The republican themes in Machiavelli's political works, particularly the Discourses on Livy , can be found in medieval Italian literature which was influenced by classical authors such as Sallust . Classical political philosophy: Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle The Socratic school of classical political philosophy, especially Aristotle , had become a major influence upon European political thinking in

6210-423: The saying, often attributed to interpretations of The Prince , " The ends justify the means ". Fraud and deceit are held by Machiavelli as necessary for a prince to use. Violence may be necessary for the successful stabilization of power and introduction of new political institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, destroy resistant populations, and purge the community of other men strong enough of

6300-598: The second chancery, a medieval writing office that put Machiavelli in charge of the production of official Florentine government documents. Shortly thereafter, he was also made the secretary of the Dieci di Libertà e Pace . In the first decade of the sixteenth century, he carried out several diplomatic missions, most notably to the papacy in Rome. Florence sent him to Pistoia to pacify the leaders of two opposing factions which had broken into riots in 1501 and 1502; when this failed,

6390-403: The social benefits of stability and security can be achieved in the face of moral corruption. Machiavelli believed that public and private morality had to be understood as two different things in order to rule well. As a result, a ruler must be concerned not only with reputation, but also must be positively willing to act unscrupulously at the right times. Machiavelli believed that, for a ruler, it

6480-529: The traditional concerns of a Protestant culture that had always verged on Puritanism . That moral decay threatened free government could not come as a surprise to a people whose fathers had fled England to escape sin". 18th-century Whigs, or commonwealthmen , such as John Trenchard , Thomas Gordon and Benjamin Hoadly "praised the mixed constitution of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and they attributed English liberty to it; and like Locke they postulated

6570-416: The two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved." In much of Machiavelli's work, he often states that the ruler must adopt unsavoury policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime. A related and more controversial proposal often made is that he described how to do things in politics in a way which seemed neutral concerning who used

6660-409: The virtue and prudence that good princes should have. Therefore, while it was traditional to say that leaders should have virtues, especially prudence, Machiavelli's use of the words virtù and prudenza was unusual for his time, implying a spirited and immodest ambition. Mansfield describes his usage of virtù as a "compromise with evil". Famously, Machiavelli argued that virtue and prudence can help

6750-429: The war that makes their allegiance fickle and often unreliable when most needed), and instead staffed his army with citizens, a policy that yielded some positive results. By February 1506 he was able to have four hundred farmers marching on parade, suited (including iron breastplates), and armed with lances and small firearms. Under his command, Florentine citizen-soldiers conquered Pisa in 1509. Machiavelli's success

6840-521: The way Machiavelli combines classical ideas is new. While Xenophon and Plato also described realistic politics and were closer to Machiavelli than Aristotle was, they, like Aristotle, also saw philosophy as something higher than politics. Machiavelli was apparently a materialist who objected to explanations involving formal and final causation , or teleology . Machiavelli's promotion of ambition among leaders while denying any higher standard meant that he encouraged risk-taking, and innovation, most famously

6930-438: The whims of fortuna . In Pocock's estimation, " Polybius was the most representative among the ancients and Machiavelli--the Machiavelli of the Discourses --among the moderns." In the 1656 The Commonwealth of Oceana , James Harrington retained armed militancy as secondary to landholdings for temporal stability in polities: "Harrington conveys what was to be perhaps his chief gift to eighteenth-century political thought:

7020-424: Was a classically influenced genre, with models at least as far back as Xenophon and Isocrates . While Gilbert emphasized the similarities, however, he agreed with all other commentators that Machiavelli was particularly novel in the way he used this genre, even when compared to his contemporaries such as Baldassare Castiglione and Erasmus . One of the major innovations Gilbert noted was that Machiavelli focused on

7110-413: Was a new combination: ...contemporary readers are reminded by Machiavelli's teaching of Thucydides; they find in both authors the same "realism", i.e., the same denial of the power of the gods or of justice and the same sensitivity to harsh necessity and elusive chance. Yet Thucydides never calls in question the intrinsic superiority of nobility to baseness, a superiority that shines forth particularly when

7200-497: Was better to be widely feared than to be greatly loved; a loved ruler retains authority by obligation, while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment. As a political theorist, Machiavelli emphasized the "necessity" for the methodical exercise of brute force or deceit, including extermination of entire noble families, to head off any chance of a challenge to the prince's authority. Scholars often note that Machiavelli glorifies instrumentality in state building, an approach embodied by

7290-527: Was born in a tumultuous era. The Italian city-states , and the families and individuals who ran them could rise and fall suddenly, as popes and the kings of France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire waged acquisitive wars for regional influence and control. Political-military alliances continually changed, featuring condottieri (mercenary leaders), who changed sides without warning, and the rise and fall of many short-lived governments. Machiavelli

7380-491: Was conventionally regarded as the principal characteristic of classical democracy ). The concept of a mixed government was studied during the Renaissance and the Age of Reason by Tomás Fernández de Medrano , Niccolò Machiavelli , Giambattista Vico , Immanuel Kant , Thomas Hobbes and others. It was and still is a very important theory among supporters of republicanism . Various schools have described modern polities, such as

7470-591: Was even called a satire , for example by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Scholars such as Leo Strauss (1899–1973) and Harvey Mansfield ( b.  1932 ) have stated that sections of The Prince and his other works have deliberately esoteric statements throughout them. However, Mansfield states that this is the result of Machiavelli's seeing grave and serious things as humorous because they are "manipulable by men", and sees them as grave because they "answer human necessities". The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) argued that Machiavelli's audience

7560-406: Was later called the scientific spirit in which questions of good and bad are ignored, and the observer attempts to discover only what really happens. Machiavelli felt that his early schooling along the lines of traditional classical education was essentially useless for the purpose of understanding politics. Nevertheless, he advocated intensive study of the past, particularly regarding the founding of

7650-461: Was popularized during classical antiquity in order to describe the stability, the innovation and the success of the republic as a form of government developed under the Roman constitution . Unlike classical democracy, aristocracy or monarchy, under a mixed government rulers are elected by citizens rather than acquiring their positions by inheritance or sortition (at the Greco-Roman time, sortition

7740-452: Was published. Some consider it to be a straightforward description of political reality. Others view The Prince as a manual, teaching would-be tyrants how they should seize and maintain power. Even into recent times, some scholars, such as Leo Strauss , have restated the traditional opinion that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil". Even though Machiavelli has become most famous for his work on principalities, scholars also give attention to

7830-597: Was short-lived. In August 1512, the Medici, backed by Pope Julius II , used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato . In the wake of the siege, Piero Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state and fled into exile. The experience would, like Machiavelli's time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily influence his political writings. The Florentine city-state and the republic were dissolved, with Machiavelli then being removed from office and banished from

7920-459: Was taught grammar, rhetoric, and Latin by his teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione. It is unknown whether Machiavelli knew Greek; Florence was at the time one of the centres of Greek scholarship in Europe. In 1494 Florence restored the republic , expelling the Medici family that had ruled Florence for some sixty years. Shortly after the execution of Savonarola , Machiavelli was appointed to an office of

8010-587: Was the common people, as opposed to the ruling class, who were already made aware of the methods described through their education. The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius , written around 1517, and published in 1531, often referred to simply as the Discourses or Discorsi , is nominally a discussion regarding the classical history of early Ancient Rome , although it strays far from this subject matter and also uses contemporary political examples to illustrate points. Machiavelli presents it as

8100-575: Was used as a partial justification by the Borgias. Other excursions to the court of Louis XII and the Spanish court influenced his writings such as The Prince . At the start of the 16th century, Machiavelli conceived of a militia for Florence, and he then began recruiting and creating it. He distrusted mercenaries (a distrust that he explained in his official reports and then later in his theoretical works for their unpatriotic and uninvested nature in

#759240