Machiavelli: From Radical to Reactionary 1789146151, 9781789146158

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Note on the Texts, Translations and References
Preface
1. Humanist, Poet, Civil Servant, 1469–1512
2. The Aspiring Medici Courtier, 1512–16
3. Republican, Critic of Christianity and Man of Letters, 1515 and Beyond
4. The Emerging Conservative, 1519–27
5. Machiavelli’s Legacy
Chronology
References
Further Reading
Photo Acknowledgements
Index of Works
General Index

Citation preview

machiavelli

☞ Books in the renaissance

live s series explore and illustrate the life histories and achievements of significant artists, rulers, intellectuals and scientists in the early modern world. They delve into literature, philosophy, the history of art, science and natural history and cover narratives of exploration, statecraft and technology. Series Editor: François Quiviger Already published Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe Mary D. Garrard Blaise Pascal: Miracles and Reason Mary Ann Caws Botticelli: Artist and Designer Ana Debenedetti Caravaggio and the Creation of Modernity Troy Thomas Donatello and the Dawn of Renaissance Art A. Victor Coonin Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Spirit of a Scholar William Barker Filippino Lippi: An Abundance of Invention Jonathan K. Nelson Giorgione’s Ambiguity Tom Nichols Hans Holbein: The Artist in a Changing World Jeanne Nuechterlein Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares Nils Büttner Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy Niccolò Guicciardini John Donne: In the Shadow of Religion Andrew Hadfield John Evelyn: A Life of Domesticity John Dixon Hunt Leonardo da Vinci: Self, Art and Nature François Quiviger Leon Battista Alberti: The Chameleon's Eye Caspar Pearson Machiavelli: From Radical to Reactionary Robert Black Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time Bernadine Barnes Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life Bruce T. Moran Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer Christopher S. Celenza Piero della Francesca and the Invention of the Artist Machtelt Brüggen Israëls Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature Elizabeth Alice Honig Raphael and the Antique Claudia La Malfa Rembrandt’s Holland Larry Silver Rubens’s Spirit: From Ingenuity to Genius Alexander Marr Salvator Rosa: Paint and Performance Helen Langdon Titian’s Touch: Art, Magic and Philosophy Maria H. Loh Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens John Robert Christianson

MACHIAVELLI From Radical to Reactionary rob e rt black

REAKTION BOOKS

To Adam Charles Ellis

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd Unit 32, Waterside 44–48 Wharf Road London n1 7ux, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2022 Copyright © Robert Black 2022 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

isbn 978 1 78914 615 8

cover: Cristofano dell’Altissimo, Niccolò Machiavelli, 1552–68, oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, photo © 2022 Scala, Florence.

contents

note on the texts, translations and references 7

Preface 9 1 Humanist, Poet, Civil Servant, 1469–1512 11 2 The Aspiring Medici Courtier, 1512–16 53 3 Republican, Critic of Christianity and Man of Letters, 1515 and Beyond 93 4 The Emerging Conservative, 1519–27 149 5 Machiavelli’s Legacy 213 chronology 226 References 232 further reading 236 photo acknowledgements 239 Index of works 241 general index 248



note on the texts, translations and references

References and footnotes have been kept to a minimum. Full references for the first four chapters of this book can be found in Robert Black, Machiavelli (London, 2013), and in its updated Italian translation, published by Viella libreria under the title Machiavelli. L’uomo, il politico, il letterato (Rome, 2022). The Further Reading here is limited to publications in English. Fuller bibliographies, including works not written in English, can be found in the above two books. Specific references to The Prince are from Il principe, ed. Giorgio Inglese, (Turin, 2013); to the Discourses, from Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livo, ed. Francesco Bausi, 2 vols (Rome, 2001); to the Istorie fiorentine, from Opere storiche, ed. Alessandro Montevecchi and Carlo Varotti, 2 vols (Rome, 2010). Most of Machiavelli’s writings in the original languages are collected in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere, ed. Corrado Vivanti, 3 vols (Turin, 1997– 2005). An anthology containing many of his writings in English translation is Allan Gilbert, trans., Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, 3 vols (Durham, nc, 1958). This collection is supplemented by John R. Hale, ed. and trans., The Literary Works of Machiavelli (London, 1961), and Joseph Tusiani, trans., Lust and Liberty: The Poems of Machiavelli (New York, 1963). For Machiavelli’s correspondence in English translation, there is James Atkinson and David Sices, ed. and trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996).

Preface

M

achiavelli is for most just a name, conjuring up duplicity and amorality in politics. The majority of English-language readers will be familiar with only The Prince, available in countless translations. But Machia­velli is far more than a cliché. He was a Florentine, the con­tem­ porary of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He was a high-ranking Florentine government official, who had close dealings with the leading political players of both Italy and Europe. He was a prolific writer, the author of not just The Prince but other vastly important and influential political, mili­tary and historical works. He was a notable poet, producing several large-scale verse compositions throughout his life. He was a first-rank dramatist, the author of the greatest Italian Renaissance comedy and arguably the greatest Italian comedy full stop. He was not only a theorist of monarchical rule in The Prince, but, paradoxically, an ardent republican. He was a religious radical, rejecting not only the contemporary Catholic church but Christianity as such; he may even have been a clandestine atheist. Most surprising, however, is his intellectual biography. He started life as a conventional champion of Florentine popular republicanism. In his middle years, he became a political radical, the author of an outrageous Bust of Niccolò Machiavelli, 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

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handbook on tyranny composed for the benefit of aspiring Renaissance despots. He then changed colour, champion­­ing a revival of ancient Roman republicanism. What is truly astounding is that, at the end of his life, he emerged as a conservative, upholding aristocratic government and the traditional politics, values and mores of the social and political Establishment.

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R

enaissance Italy was a geographical, not a political, entity. The peninsula was divided into a number of political units, ranging from small republics and principalities to large territorial aggregations. There were five main regional states. The north, stretching from the Alps to the valley of the river Po, was divided between the lands ruled from Milan and the territories held by Venice, roughly the equivalents of modern Lombardy and the Veneto. The Apennines divided central Italy between Tuscany, ruled mainly by Florence in the west, and the pope’s nominal dominions in the east. The papal territories extended south to Rome and beyond. Southern Italy was governed from Naples. The region of Lombardy was ruled by the dukes of Milan. The Veneto was held by the Venetian republic. Tuscany was mainly in the possession of the Florentine republic. The popes were the rulers of Rome, claim­­­­ing and sometimes exercising power over much of what would later be called the Papal States. The kings of Naples held south­­ern Italy, often joining Sicily to their dominions. Smaller independent entities were the northern duchies of Ferrara and Mantua, and the republics of Lucca and Siena in Tuscany.

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Florence rose to prominence in the thirteenth century, becoming the economic hub of Tuscany. Its industrial base was the cloth industry, first wool and then silk. By the fourteenth century Florence had become the banking centre of Italy and of Europe beyond. The city had subdued the local feudal nobility by the early 1300s. Constitutionally it was a republic in which power was theoretically shared among the

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Florentine citizenry, but since the foundation of the commune in the twelfth century the city was dominated by a succession of elites. In the fourteenth century its upper-class rulers were challenged by the middle and sometimes even working classes, but by the end of the 1300s the elite had prevailed, henceforth marginalizing the middle and lower orders. In the early decades of the fifteenth century, the ruling elite was divided Francesco Petrini and Raffaello Petrini, ‘Veduta della catena’ (chain map), 1887, tempera on canvas, copy of a map of Florence attributed to Francesco Rosselli, c. 1471–82.

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into two factions, the more conservative headed by the Albizzi family, who were challenged by a party led by the Medici, a family of rich bankers. In 1434 the Medici finally prevailed, led by Cosimo de’ Medici. Their regime lasted until 1494; the leaders were successively Cosimo himself (d. 1464), his son Piero (d. 1469), Piero’s son Lorenzo (d. 1492) and finally Lorenzo’s son Piero (d. 1503). Under the Medici Florence remained a nominal republic, with power theoretically in the hands of rapidly rotating magistracies staffed by Florentine citizens. But the Medici family controlled the government by ensuring, through electoral manipulations, that these political offices were dominated by their partisans. Politically Florence remained an oligarchy, which the Medici leaders controlled. At the height of Medicean power, Lorenzo di Piero (now popularly known as Lorenzo the Magnificent) was the effective prince of Florence. The Machiavelli family had been members of the Florentine elite since the turn of the fourteenth century. They regularly held high political offices in the city, but they were neither socially nor politically at the top: they belonged to the second rank of the oligarchy. The famous Niccolò’s great-grandfather Buoninsegna had held one of Florence’s highest offices in 1385 and 1396, but his son, Niccolò’s grandfather, also named Niccolò, was undecided about his career. The Machia­velli fam­­ily had a number of possessions in the countryside south of Florence, including rights of patronage over several rural parishes. Niccolò di Buoninsegna acquired the livings of one or two of these rural benefices at the beginning of the fifteenth century. He was not ordained a priest, but it was possible for him to enjoy the income of the parishes while

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he made up his mind whether to pursue a clerical career or to serve in communal office as his father Buoninsegna had done. By the 1410s and ’20s he was veering in the secular dir­ection, holding a series of lesser Florentine communal offices. In such an ambiguous position, he remained a bachelor (since marriage would have ended his ecclesiastical aspirations), but he did not remain celibate. In about 1426 a woman called Gostanza (whose surname is yet unknown) gave birth to his son Bernardo, who was Niccolò Machiavelli’s father. Gostanza was not a member of Niccolò di Buoninsegna’s household, and it seems that she lived in a rural property belonging to the Machiavelli family with her baby son Bernardo. So Niccolò Machiavelli’s father was illegitimate by birth. Bernardo di Niccolò’s illegitimacy had far-reaching consequences for his own life and for the life of his son Niccolò. As a bastard, Bernardo could not inherit property in Florence. This difficulty was overcome through a series of legal ruses. Niccolò left his property to an unrelated Florentine banker, on condition that he would hand it over to Niccolò’s son Bernardo after his death, which occurred in 1430. By the 1440s Bernardo was in possession of this small patrimony. Bernardo himself joined the household first of his uncle Giovanni and, after his death in 1440, of his other uncle Totto, who himself died in 1450. Both Giovanni and Totto lacked legitimate male heirs, and the bulk of their estates went to Bernardo. The com­­bined wealth from his father and his two uncles should have given Bernardo the makings of a comfortable lifestyle, and yet he was by no means rich: his was the poorest of the five Machiavelli households listed in 1480. Bernardo’s annual income has been estimated at only 110 florins, derived entirely

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from rural properties. When Bernardo married off his eldest daughter in 1483, he gave her a dowry of a mere 1,000 florins, less than half of what was often provided for other elite Floren­­ tine brides. The wedding breakfast was meagre, with only one guest invited outside the immediate family. Bernardo’s household included a sole female domestic. It is no wonder that the famous Niccolò declared, ‘I was born poor and I learned to scrimp early on, and not to enjoy myself.’1 At first Bernardo aimed to supplement his modest patrimony with the income from a profession. In the fifteenth century the Machiavelli family included two prominent lawyers, the most important of whom was Bernardo’s cousin Girolamo. He taught at the University of Florence, and was a member of the examining board for prospective doctors of law. He was a legal consultant for the Florentine government and a prominent politician, serving as an ambassador and speaking frequently at official advisory meetings; he was also a leading member of the Medici regime in the 1440s and ’50s. Bernardo intended to follow in Girolamo’s footsteps. In the 1440s he was identified as a law student at the University of Florence, and by the 1450s he had accumulated his own collection of Latin texts and law books. It is probable but not certain that he gained a doctorate in law; in later life he was well known as a legal expert. But Bernardo was prevented from pursuing his career. A serious attempt was made to undermine the Medici regime beginning in 1454 on the part of the middle classes and disenchanted members of the elite. One of the latter was Girolamo Machiavelli. As soon as the regime took back power in 1458, Girolano was arrested, tortured and exiled to Avignon

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for 25 years. In 1459 he was declared a rebel, with all his and his immediate family’s property confiscated. The following year he was captured and imprisoned in Florence, where he died in July, having suffered further maltreatment and torture. One of his brothers was exiled in 1458, and in 1459 another was decapitated. Bernardo now suffered yet a further setback. In 1457 Bartolomea, the sixteen-year-old wife of Niccolò Benizi, was widowed and shortly thereafter remarried to Bernardo Machia­­­­ velli. Unfortunately for him, the Benizi family were heavily involved in the anti-Medici conspiracy too. No fewer than four Benizi were exiled together with Girolamo Machi­av­­­­­­ ­­­­­­elli. So Bernardo’s marriage to a Benizi widow was a disas­­­trous mésalliance. For Bernardo the year 1458 represented a decisive turning point: he acquired not just the wrong wife but lost the patronage of a powerful legal sponsor. Bernardo was credited with lamenting, ‘it often happens that just and principled men lose their good name and reputation as the innocent heirs and relatives of someone in disgrace.’2 For Bernardo the anti-Medici plot of 1458 marked a professional and political watershed: his solution was to withdraw totally from civic life. Illegitimacy formally excluded Bernardo Machiavelli from Florentine public office; nevertheless it is not certain that a professional career as a lawyer would have been closed to him. In formal terms only legitimate citizens could be qualified for membership of the Florentine guild of lawyers and notaries. ‘Bastardy . . . generally carried a stain of some sort,’ but ‘men could be made to overlook it by the force of power and place or by means of money and a dispensation.’3 If Bernardo

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had never enjoyed any hope of membership in the Florentine legal guild and hence was always without prospects of pursuing a legal career in Florence, it is impossible to understand why he would have embarked on the long course of study leading to a doctorate in law – the essential qualification for a Florentine professional lawyer. It is far from fanciful to imag­­­ine that he hoped, through the influence of his cousin Girolamo Machiavelli, to have obtained a dispensation en­­ abling him to matriculate in the Florentine guild of lawyers and notaries. Whatever such hopes might have been, they were dashed by the events of 1458. By birth Bernardo was disadvantaged; by political association all possibility of a professional career in Florence came to an end. Bernardo lived as a modest rentier. His town residence, on the south side of Arno just beyond the Ponte Vecchio, forming part of the Palazzo Machiavelli, was destroyed during the Second World War. His country property was at Sant’Andrea

Exterior of Machiavelli’s house, known as the Albergaccio, Sant’Andrea in Percussina, south of Florence.

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in Percussina, about 40 kilometres (24 mi.) south of Florence. The country house there was the refuge where his son Niccolò would write The Prince in 1513 and 1514. The most unusual feature of Bernardo’s family life was his departure from normal Florentine economic practices: the great majority of his fellow citizens supplemented their agricultural revenues with commercial or professional activities. Bernardo’s disavowal of similar pursuits subjected his family to a regime of economic privation. Otherwise Bernardo led the life of a normal member of the Florentine upper classes. He was associated with the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence, the usual burial site of the Machiavelli family. Both his wills were drawn up there and witnessed by friars from the convent. He was a member of a prominent lay confraternity which met near the Dominican convent of San Marco. He kept a family diary, a quintessential custom for Florentines. He was proud of his heritage, writing a memoir recounting some of the Machiavelli family’s history. Another activity widely diffused among Florentines, reflect­­ing contemporary Renaissance culture, was book collecting. In the fifteenth century many Florentine families had their own private libraries, which tended to consist of devotional texts and popular literature in the vernacular, including not only works originally written in Italian but vernacular translations of the Latin classics and of medieval Latin texts. In such private libraries works in Latin were usually limited to schoolbooks, except for the collections of professionals such as medics, lawyers and notaries, who often owned books in Latin needed for their jobs. On the one hand Bernardo followed suit with a number of legal volumes, but the scope

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of his Latin books ranged further, showing a strong interest in humanism, that is, the movement to revive the language, literature and culture of classical antiquity. Likewise the books in Latin that he borrowed reveal similar humanist tastes. In contrast, Bernardo had little time for Italian texts. He borrowed a vernacular translation of the elder Pliny’s Natural History for a month in 1478. A new book owned by Bernardo has also recently emerged – a fourteenth-century manuscript containing a series of vernacular texts, mainly scientific and mathematical. Bernardo’s annotations here, at times extensive, show a particular interest in geography, astronomy, cosmology and astrology, besides philosophical topics such as providence and fate, thus confirming the scientific bent of his extra-legal collection. It is surprising that a Florentine such as Bernardo was indifferent to Italian vernacular literature. Tuscany and Florence were the great centres of Italian language and literature in the earlier Renaissance; other Florentines from the middle and upper classes, more or less cultivated, had libraries dominated by vernacular literature. But not Bernardo: for him, books and reading were in Latin. Bernardo’s interest in Latin extended to composition. In a miscellaneous collection of medical and astronomical texts, a six-line Latin poem attributed to Bernardo was copied on the dust jacket. Its subject was the seasons of the year. Although the poem has been dismissed as ugly, it confirms both Bernardo’s interest in nature and his penchant for Latin. Although he did not actively pursue the legal profession, Bernardo continued to acquire law books, which he sometimes had rebound and illuminated. His interest in law seems to have been primarily erudite. In a literary dialogue by his friend

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the Florentine chancellor Bartolomeo Scala, he was portrayed as a legal pundit. At the same time, he continued to follow his humanist interests, borrowing, buying or having rebound ancient texts on rhetoric, moral philosophy, geography, history and grammar, and modern humanist works on history and archaeology. His antiquarian interests went even further. He agreed to compile an index to the surviving writings of Rome’s most prolific Latin historian, Livy, in exchange for a copy of the work. He waited ten years to have it bound, but in the end the new indexed edition was never published. The copy of Livy acquired for this project was printed. In fact Bernardo was particularly taken with the press. In his library the number of printed books was three times greater than his manuscripts. So Bernardo was not only an enthusiast for avant-garde humanist writings, but preferred them in the most modern format (although it must be observed that printed books were cheaper than manuscripts). In the Dialogue with his friend Scala, Bernardo evinces dis­­­quiet about Medicean Florence. Defending the supremacy of law, he declares that the people alone can make laws – a point of view implying a republican regime; as a consequence Bernardo condemns the abuse of power and the tyranny of his day: ‘too often we see that an appetite for unreined power takes hold of rulers . . . Little by little ambition grows and juris­­ diction turns into tyranny.’4 It seems possible that these views represent Bernardo’s genuine opinions: Scala assures the reader that he accurately reported the conversations he held with Bernardo. The heritage of his father and his family affected Niccolò in several ways. One was a preference for a republican form

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of government that was traditionally practised in Florence before the rise of the Medici regime. Another was a less than enthusiastic attitude to religion. In his family diary, Bernardo avoided the mention of God, refraining from expressing religious sentiments, unlike other contemporary Florentines when compiling their diaries. Bernardo’s membership of a confraternity, his meagre donations to the convent of Santa Croce, his small contributions for prayers to be said in his memory speak more of social conformity than of genuine faith. It is not impossible that the seeds of Niccolò Machiavelli’s hostility to Christianity were planted within his own family. In the eighteenth century a descendant of his mother’s family, the Nelli, attributed some Italian religious poetry celebrating the Virgin Mary – now lost – to Machiavelli’s mother; it is not inconceivable that Niccolò’s poetic inclinations in the vernacular were inherited from his mother. In Scala’s dialogue, a prodigious memory was attributed to Bernardo; perhaps from his father came the germ of Niccolò’s intellectual genius. What is undoubted is that Niccolò Machiavelli was raised in an intellectual, bookish and learned environment. These are all positive legacies bequeathed to Machiavelli. But there was a powerful negative inheritance too. Bernardo Machiavelli was a bastard. As such he was barred from holding public political office in Florence – unlike his many male relatives in the Machiavelli family. When the Florentine constitution was overhauled after the expulsion of the Medici in 1494, a sovereign Great Council was established, constituting the most democratic regime in Florentine history. The membership of this council ran to about 3,000 citizens – not far off 7.5 per cent of the city’s total population. But

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illegitimate men and their sons were excluded. In fact, although in every other respect Bernardo and his son Niccolò would have been qualified, neither was listed as a member of the Great Council. In this sense, Bernardo and the famous Niccolò were second-rank citizens, or in effect hardly citizens at all. Niccolò Machiavelli had to wait until 1525 to be qualified for political office in Florence. Bernardo’s response to this disqualification was withdrawal from active life in Florence. Niccolò’s was different: he was willing and indeed keen to serve whatever Florentine regime was in power: the reborn republic from 1494 up to 1512, or the reinstated Medici from 1512 to 1527. Many – if not most – Florentines found such political flexibility or indifference problematic or impossible. Not Niccolò Machiavelli, who worked as a civil servant for both the revived republic and the restored Medici regime.

Niccolò Machiavelli was born on 3 May 1469; according to Florentine and Italian custom, he was always known with his patronymic, Niccolò di messer Bernardo Machiavelli (‘messer’ indicating his father’s status as a lawyer). He had two older sisters, Primavera and Margherita, and a younger brother, Totto. According to Bernardo’s diary, Niccolò began to learn Latin at the age of seven. At nine he started a course on commercial arithmetic (although his lessons in this subject were more abbreviated than usual in Florence). When he was twelve he began to study Latin prose composition. The teachers employed by Bernardo were the best that Florence had on offer, particularly his advanced Latin master Paolo Sassi, who

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was the teacher of famous humanists. There is no doubt that Bernardo – in line with his own education, interests and accomplishments – intended to provide a first-class Latin education for his elder son. When Niccolò was between ten and twelve years old, Bernardo borrowed a number of Latin texts often studied at school by advanced pupils, including Cicero’s On Moral Duties (De officiis) and On the Ideal Orator (De oratore) and the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium. There is no absolute proof that Niccolò went to the University of Florence, but one contemporary source suggests that he attended lectures in classics by the top professor of the day, Marcello Virgilio Adriani. By the last quarter of the 1400s, it had become fashionable for sons of the Florentine upper class to study under famous humanists at the University of Florence; Adriani’s pupils included Machiavelli’s later intimate friend Francesco Guicciardini, as well as his acquaintances Alessandro de’ Pazzi, Iacopo de’ Nardi and Filippo Strozzi. Given his father’s interests and his own later classical inclinations and knowledge, it would seem perverse to argue that Machiavelli did not share the same humanist education and culture as numerous contemporaries and friends. Further proof of Machiavelli’s classical education comes from his work as a scribe. In the 1490s he copied the Eunuchus, one of six surviving comedies by the Roman playwright Terence. This comedy was a standard Latin school text in the fifteenth century and Machiavelli’s annotations, consisting of simple Latin grammatical explanations in the margins, were ostensibly typical grammar-school fare, but he also included a number of unusual variant readings of Latin words in the text, indicating a more erudite approach. More revealing still

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is his autograph copy of Lucretius’ pagan philosophical poem On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura), also dating from the 1490s. This was a rare text, and never a schoolbook in the fifteenth century; its pagan materialism and atomism led to a ban even on citations from it in early sixteenth-century schools. Here Machiavelli included emendations by Adriani and another erudite humanist, Michele Marullo; Machiavelli’s readings constitute part of an avant-garde edition of Lucretius’ text projected in the early 1500s. Machiavelli’s work here extended to a series of unusual autograph marginalia, dealing with the question of free will – a problem that would pre­ occupy him from his early correspondence to his mature writings (The Prince, the Discourses on Livy and The Ass); his annotations were unusual in focusing on scientific rather than moral philosophical questions, highlighting him, in one sense, as the intellectual heir of his father Bernardo. Machiavelli’s humanist background is confirmed by his career. His first job came when he was appointed at the age of 29 as Florence’s second chancellor. This was an important civil service post, involving correspondence with Florence’s subject cities, towns and territories. Although the letters written by the second chancellor were mainly in Italian, never­ theless a high linguistic standard would have been taken for granted: Machiavelli’s two predecessors had been humanists, one amateur and the other professional. It is far from likely that the Florentines would have elected as the successor to these two chancellors a man lacking humanist credentials, abilities or education. A major problem in understanding Machiavelli comes from misconceptions about Italian Renaissance humanism.

Autograph transcription by Niccolò Machiavelli of vv. 940–966, c. 1497, in Lucretius, De rerum natura, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City.

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The humanists were devoted to the revival of classical culture. They were at first professionals (secretaries, teachers, professors), and later amateurs (gentleman scholars or scholars aspiring to be gentlemen). Their discipline derived from the medieval subjects of grammar and rhetoric. ‘Grammar’ meant expertise in Latin (‘grammar’ was a synonym in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance for Latin). Humanists studied ancient Latin texts and taught Latin at the school and university levels. When working as secretaries to monarchs, republics, popes, bishops and so on, they attempted to write Latin as the ancients had done. But humanists became increasingly preoccupied by the difference between contemporary and ancient Latin. The result was that they attempted get back to Latin as it was originally written and spoken in antiquity, both in terms of the texts they studied and taught and in their own writings. As such they were the precursors of modern classical philologists. Another side of humanism was rhetoric – the classical art of persuasion. Many of the ancient authors whom the humanists admired and imitated were professional rhetoricians and orators, of whom the most famous and influential was Cicero. Rhetoric had its own set of rules, practices and examples. Rhetoricians in antiquity also branched out into other areas such as history, letter writing or literary composition. The upshot is that, in the Renaissance, there were humanists who were proficient in rhetoric and others who were specialists in philology; a few particularly able and learned humanists were both philologists and rhetoricians. By the 1400s and especially by the 1500s, humanists were practising their skills not just in Latin but in Italian (relatively few humanists mastered ancient Greek before the

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1500s). Machiavelli was definitely a rhetorician and hardly a philologist. As such he excelled in letter writing, in prose composition and in history. Machiavelli has been blamed by some modern writers and even scholars because he was not a philologist (Machiavelli did not know ancient Greek). How­ ever, as a rhetorician and prose writer in Italian he excelled and had few, if any, equals. There can be no question that, if properly understood, Machiavelli was not just a humanist but one of the greatest humanists. A window onto Machiavelli’s early humanism is his Italian translation of another comedy by Terence, Andria. Traditionally this version was attributed to Machiavelli’s maturity, but recent textual scholarship has dated it to the 1490s. Here Machiavelli was jumping on a bandwagon. Andria had been the subject of a lecture course in Florence by Angelo Poliziano, the greatest humanist philologist of the 1400s, and Machia­velli’s likely university professor, Adriani, had been Poliziano’s student. On the other side of the Apennines, Ferrara had seen a spate of Roman comedy translations in the 1490s, and a prominent grammar teacher in Florence, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, had staged his pupils’ Latin performance of Andria in 1476. Latin classics had frequently been translated in later medieval Italy, but these vernacular versions were free, romanticized renderings, straying far from the Latin originals. Machiavelli’s Andria was just the opposite: he followed the Latin text so slavishly as occasionally to produce nonsense. He also sought the aid of commentaries, to such an extent that his version frequently followed the commentators rather than the original. Here Machiavelli was indulging in normal student practice. In the 1490s Latin texts were available either in

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manuscript or early printed versions (incunables): the manuscripts were corrupted by centuries of recopying and the printed texts were produced for a wide ownership, rarely subject to scholarly scrutiny. The result was that Latin texts were extremely difficult or even impossible to comprehend without the aid of commentaries; even the famous humanist Giovanni Boccaccio admitted he could not read the Latin classics without a commentary. So in the Andria of the 1490s Machiavelli breathed the air of the schoolroom or lecture theatre. In fact, when Machiavelli produced other works based on the classics in his maturity, he did not consult commentaries. But there is a more arresting side to Machia­velli’s first work as a translator. Terence’s original version was often stodgy, but in the hands of Machiavelli the text came to life: Terence had written ‘I fear that this foreigner would not do it’; Machiavelli wrote, ‘I’m afraid this foreigner would shit his pants.’ The language of the Florentine streets was not far from Machiavelli’s pen. As a student and an aspiring humanist, Machiavelli conforms to the habits of other upper-class Florentines, but on an everyday level he was far from typical. Florence was a city of shops and crafts: industry, commerce and business were its lifeblood, from the humblest workers to key figures of the elite. Florentines frequently lamented their lazy offspring, unstinting in their efforts to find a place in a shop or business for the most problematic progeny, and fear of unemployment haunted Florentine families at all levels. Not so Machiavelli: there is no sign of professional training or of business apprenticeship. He famously wrote that he could talk of neither the silk nor the wool trade, nor of profit and

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loss.5 It is strange, given his family’s financial straits, that Machiavelli made no efforts to get a job until the end of his twenties. He seemed para­­lysed by his father’s illegitimacy and by his cousin Girolamo’s fate. Before entering the chancery, Machiavelli’s main pastime was writing Italian verse. One of his first efforts was a jocular sonnet to his father, teasing him for paying more attention to his law books than to putting food on the family table. Other verses from his pre-chancery years were written to a younger friend, Giuliano de’ Medici (b. 1479), the adolescent youngest son of Florence’s effective prince Lorenzo the Magnificent. This series of poems focuses on Giuliano’s youthful beauty. Scholars in the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century insisted on Machiavelli’s unflinching heterosexuality, but close study of Machiavelli’s vocabulary in these poems points to a homosexual attraction between Machiavelli and Giuliano in the years before the fall of the Medici regime in 1494. Particu­ larly revealing is the reaction of Machiavelli’s chancery colleague, friend and scribe Biagio Buonaccorsi. When making a manuscript copy of these poems after the return of the Medici to Florence in 1512, Buonaccorsi changed the name Giulio to Giulia: adolescent same-sex infatuation was tolerated in Renaissance Florence, but adult homosexuality was frowned upon or ridiculed. In 1512 Machiavelli was 43 and Giuliano 33. When the Medici took control of the city in September 1512 Giuliano was put in charge of Florence when his older brother Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici returned to Rome towards the end of that year. Buonaccorsi’s editorial action is explicable only on the premise that Giuliano and Machiavelli would have found their youthful relationship embarrassing.6

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The earliest example of Machiavelli’s political writing is a letter dated 9 March 1498, probably to Ricciardo Becchi, a Florentine churchman, papal curialist and Florence’s ambassador to the Borgia pope, Alexander vi, from 1495 to 1498. After the Medici’s expulsion in 1494, Florence fell under the spell of the firebrand preacher Girolamo Savonarola. From the pulpit he vilified fashionable Renaissance culture, including pagan literature; he intervened in politics, too, arguing for the establishment of the more democratic Great Council. He was not a Florentine citizen, but a political faction gathered round him called the frateschi (partisans of the brother, Savona­rola being a Dominican friar resident at the Florentine convent of San Marco). The leader of the frateschi was Francesco Valori, a former Medici supporter. Opponents of Savonarola and the frateschi were called arrabbiati (the angry brigade, so to speak), among whom were former Mediceans as well. The frateschi were politically dominant in Florence until the beginning of 1498. Savonarola’s sermons against the corruption of the Borgia papacy had led to his excommunication and ban from the pul­ pit. Nevertheless, the Florentine government, still dominated by the frateschi, allowed Savonarola to preach again in 1498. Becchi was a critic of Savonarola. He asked Machia­­­­velli for a full report on Savonarola’s renewed preaching, and Machiavelli’s reply by letter was caustic. Fearing the new Florentine government taking office on 1 March 1498 would back the pope’s campaign against him, Savonarola appealed to his supporters and discredited his enemies, warning of an unnamed tyrant who aimed to take hold of Florence. Nevertheless the new government turned out to be less hostile to Savonarola than he had feared, and so he altered his target, now spewing his

Florentine artist, Girolamo Savonarola (front) , c. 1500–1540, oil on wood.

Florentine artist, Execution of Girolamo Savonarola (reverse), c. 1500–1540, oil on wood.

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venom, so Machiavelli declared, on the pope; Machiavelli’s verdict was that he changed his cloak with the times, and col­­ oured his lies accordingly. Machiavelli’s vision of religion is secular; he sees Savonarola as a political animal, guided in the ruthless world of politics by the instinct to survive. His objective was to unite his faction, strengthening it for his own defence. Evident here is Machia­velli’s anticlericalism, his scepticism about Christianity and the church, not to mention his biting irony: he points to the contradiction in Savonarola’s warning that Florence’s divisions would be ruinous, although earlier he had declared that Florence would flourish as Italy’s ruler. Machiavelli appre­­­ciates the force of religion in politics, highlighting Savonarola’s power as a preacher and his ability to sway the populace. Savona­­rola, according to him, depicts two battle lines: one fighting under God – his party – and the other under the Devil – his adversaries. Machiavelli’s hostility to Savonarola signalled a turning point in his life. Most appointments in Florence were now in the Great Council’s hands, not only to political offices but to administrative posts, including the chancery. In February 1498 Machiavelli was put forward as a second chancery secretary, but he was defeated by a fratesco. At the beginning of the year, Savonarola’s supporters still held the political balance, but in the spring the tide turned in favour of the arrabbiati: Francesco Valori was killed, Savonarola was condemned and executed, and the chancery (as well as the government) was purged of frateschi. When Machiavelli stood again in June, he was elected by the Great Council for the higher office of second chancellor. Doubtless Machiavelli’s success was due to the fall of the frateschi, but there were other forces at work

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too. The Floren­tine chancery was analogous to a civil service. Political offices rotated rapidly, but chancery officials enjoyed tenure for long periods, sometimes for life. The chancery was supposed to keep out of politics, often serving a succession of political regimes. Some senior chancery figures could be foreigners and not Florentine citizens. But this divide could break down, particularly in times of political tension. The Medici gradually put their placemen in the chancery; Lorenzo the Magnificent used chancery offices for patronage and to strip the official government of political power. After the Medici regime fell in 1494, factions continued to have re­­­­ course to the chancery to strengthen their political clout. But with the fall of Savonarola, a majority in the Great Council wanted a return to a traditional republican regime in which the barrier between political office and civil service was restored. Machia­velli profited from such sentiments. When elected second chancellor in 1498, he defeated contenders from both the frateschi and arrabbiati factions. Although Machiavelli was critical of Savonarola and his party, there is no evidence that he was more than an onlooker at Florence’s political turmoil. In the 1490s Machiavelli’s friends included both Mediceans and members of the successive regime. In 1498 his father, always a practitioner of political quietism, was still alive. Neither he nor his son had a seat in the Great Council. Machiavelli fitted the bill in 1498: he was excluded from Florentine politics; he would have been, evidently, unobjectionable to various political factions. He was a political outsider and as such attractive to the traditionalists who wanted a return to less factionalized politics and to a more impartial civil service.

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Machiavelli served as second chancellor from 1 June 1498 to 7 November 1512. The sovereign Florentine magistracy was the Signoria, composed of eight priors and a gonfalonier (standard bearer) of justice; the Signoria changed every two months, and was assisted in foreign, diplomatic and military affairs by the Dieci di Balìa (Ten of War), who were a nearly permanent magistracy. Theoretically the first chancellor oversaw foreign affairs while the second chancellor dealt with Florence’s subject towns and territories, but in fact there was considerable overlap: in Machiavelli’s case, he worked just as much in foreign as in domestic relations. In July 1498 he was made a secretary of the Dieci di Balìa, a role that further en­­hanced his involvement in foreign and military affairs. In January 1507 he was given a yet more extensive administrative portfolio: he was made chancellor of the recently created Nove della Milizia (Nine of the Militia), a magistracy in charge of Florence’s new native armed contingent – a reform that was his own idea. Like all chancery officials, Machiavelli’s duties consisted of preparing written documents. During the fourteen and a half years of his government service, Machiavelli wrote more than 5,000 letters. For the Nove della Milizia he was both a letter writer and their general administrator, even recruiting troops in the Florentine countryside. A particularly important job was his role as a negotiator and diplomat, not just in the subject territories but to foreign powers, and not only in Italy but to ultramontane rulers such as the king of France and the German emperor. In his chancery career Machiavelli went on 26 foreign embassies and at least 27 missions within Florentine territory. As a diplomat,

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Machiavelli was never a fully fledged ambassador, empowered to sign binding agreements with foreign powers, but he was one step below, playing a crucial role as information gatherer, situation assessor and negotiator. Before the later fifteenth century, chancery figures had had only a small part in diplomacy, but under Lorenzo the Magnificent and his son and successor Piero they began to be major diplomatic players, continuing as such under the restored republic. Machiavelli had diplomatic duties similar to the two second chancellors preceding him. Machiavelli’s humanist background and his diplomatic endeavours were typical in the Florentine chancery. More problematic were his politics. He was profoundly involved in Florence’s foreign, diplomatic and military affairs. But to what extent did he enter the internal political arena? How far was he involved in Florentine factional politics, particularly after Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier of Justice for life? Machiavelli became Soderini’s right-hand man in war and diplomacy: did that mean that he was his political henchman? This question has led to a major historical controversy for at least the past seventy years. A simple answer is yes and no. No: there is no clear evidence that Machiavelli directly involved himself in Florence’s factional conflicts. No: Piero Soderini himself often took a back seat in partisan struggles, reluctant to adopt ruthless meas­­ures against his enemies. Yes: Piero Soderini’s younger brother Francesco, bishop of Volterra and then a cardinal, was a political tiger. Yes: Francesco Soderini favoured extreme measures against his brother’s enemies in Florence. Yes and no: Piero Soderini sometimes went along with his hot-headed

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brother; sometimes he stood back. Machiavelli was an on­looker: if extreme policies were adopted against the enemies of his boss, he did not object, but he was not in a position to gainsay Piero’s brother or Piero himself. Possibly he relished the discomfiture of Piero’s opponents in private. What is known is that he left no evidence of his political feelings until his job was threatened in the first week of November 1512: Piero Soderini had gone into exile and the Medici were in power, themselves divided between extreme measures, which would have included Machiavelli’s dismissal, and compromise, which would perhaps have saved Machiavelli’s job. But if Machiavelli was not a partisan, why was he sacked? It has often been assumed that, when the Medici returned to power in September 1512, Machiavelli paid the price for his close association with Piero Soderini. But this is an oversimplification. The Medici took full power on 16 September 1512, but Machiavelli’s dismissal occurred nearly two months later on 7 November. This time lag is essential to finish the story. Machiavelli himself wrote a memo to one or more of the Medici between 1 November and 7 November (the day he was sacked). Here he warned the Medici that they were in danger from Piero Soderini’s foes, who were working not for the benefit of the Medici but rather only for themselves. These enemies of Soderini were not the prominent moderate optimates who favoured a return to an oligarchy that they would dominate, but rather the radical aristocrats who had ousted Soderini physically from power at the end of August 1512. The leader of the conservative oligarchs was Iacopo Salviati, who in fact had a friendly personal meeting with Piero Soderini in Rome during September 1512. This divide

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between moderate and radical aristocrats mirrored a similar rift among the Medici themselves. The head of the family was Cardinal Giovanni, the elder surviving son of Lorenzo the Magnificent: he favoured a radical approach in Florence after the Medici’s return to power in September 1512. His younger brother Giuliano, in contrast, advocated compromise. After Soderini’s fall, the Florentines established a moderate oligarchic regime, with a new Gonfalonier of Justice in the person of Giovambattista Ridolfi and an aristocratic Senate on the Venetian model. Giuliano favoured and cooperated with this new middle-of-the-road government, but his brother Cardinal Giovanni, together with their cousin and right-hand man Giulio de’ Medici, veered towards extremism. Paolo Vettori, one of the radicals who had ousted Soderini, sent a memorandum at this point to Cardinal Giovanni, telling him that his brother Giuliano was too weak to run Florence; he also cautioned that the secretary of the powerful magistracy, the Dieci di Balìa, had to be a reliable and committed Medicean, in view of this official’s access to important confidential information. Cardinal Giovanni accepted Paolo Vettori’s advice: when departing from Florence for Rome on 6 November, he left his cousin Giulio in Florence to keep an eye on his brother Giuliano; he had already secured Giovambattista Ridolfi’s resignation from the gonfaloniership; he put Iacopo Salviati out the way by sending him as Florentine ambassador to Rome; and, effective the day after his own departure, he sacked Machiavelli, the secretary of the Dieci di Balìa and Giuliano’s friend.

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As a diplomat, more than twenty of Machiavelli’s missions were particularly important, some lasting as long as six months. He spent from July to December 1500 as envoy to the French court. His legation to Cesare Borgia, from October 1502 to January 1503, was particularly eventful, witnessing the revolt of Borgia’s lieutenants, their reconciliation, the brutal exe­ cu­­tion of Borgia’s second-in-command Ramiro de Lorqua and the betrayal and murder of the former conspirators on New Year’s Day 1503. His first mission to the Roman court lasted from October to December 1503, when he was a spectator at Cesare Borgia’s own betrayal by the new pope Julius ii. His second legation to France went from January to March 1504, and on his second mission to the papal court, he observed Julius ii’s audacious triumph at Perugia over the city’s de facto ruler Giampaolo Baglioni. From December 1507 to June 1508 he was sent as a colleague of his future correspon­dent Francesco Vettori to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian i. From January to June 1509 he supervised the surrender and submission of Florence’s rebel city of Pisa. He had two more missions to the French court in 1510 and then 1511. While he was engrossed in organizing Florence’s native militia in 1512, the Battle of Ravenna was fought between the Holy League and King Louis xii’s French army on 11 April 1512, signalling the withdrawal of France from Italy, Julius ii’s determination to secure Florentine adhesion to the Holy League through the Medici’s return to the city, the sack of Florence’s subject town Prato by Spanish troops on 29 August and the flight of Piero Soderini from Florence two days later. Machiavelli’s diplomatic correspondence and reports anticipate some of the political ideas developed in his later

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famous writings, including The Prince and the Discourses on Livy. He is famous for recognizing the autonomy of politics from morality, duplicity, bad faith, the notorious doctrine that the ends justify the means, the indispensability of force in politics, the ideal of the new prince, the danger of hatred, the power of blind fortune, the necessity of indigenous armed forces, the condemnation of mercenaries, the importance of Albrecht Dürer, Emperor Maximilian i, 1519, oil on panel.

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political leadership – all themes in his diplomatic dispatches. Nevertheless, by its very nature, diplomatic and chancery correspondence offered a limited field for political reflection; Machiavelli was intensely involved in the details of negotiation, diplomacy and military action, and neither he nor his political masters were inclined to indulge in digressions drawn from contemporary experience or ancient history. Few of his chancery letters – out of the thousands he wrote – offered opportunities for personal reflection; only exceptionally do these writings anticipate the author of The Prince and the Discourses. There is a gulf between his diplomatic dispatches and the reflective letters he later exchanged with Francesco Vettori and Francesco Guicciardini. Nevertheless, during his chancery years Machiavelli wrote a series of brief pieces devoted to political and military affairs, many directly connected with his official duties. These include reports at the conclusion of important missions and rough drafts or definitive versions of legislation (particularly prefaces justifying new laws). It has often been taken for granted that such extensive writings offer a window onto the mature Machiavelli, the political thinker and analyst, but in fact during his chancery years Machiavelli was already contemplating, and preparing to write, a history of Florence: there is good reason to believe that at least four of these larger early political tracts may not have been the direct result of diplomatic or political experiences but rather rough drafts for a future history that would have continued beyond 1492, the closing date of his Florentine Histories as offered to the dedicatee, Pope Clement vii. These four texts (Description of the Manner in which Duke Valentino put Vitellozzo . . . to Death, Remarks on the Raising of

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Money, On the Method of Dealing with the Rebels of the Val di Chiana and the Portrait of German Affairs) contrast with the Discourse on Peace between the Emperor and the King of France, the Report on German Affairs and the Portrait of French Affairs, which are genuine significant and arresting products originating in the wake of important diplomatic activity. In his chancery years, Machiavelli’s correspondence is for the most part personal and specific. But there is one exception: the letter, datable to September 1506, intended for Giovam­battista Soderini, the nephew of the gonfalonier. It is the only piece of Machiavelli’s correspondence that bears a title: ‘Ghiribizi’ (whims, caprices, fantasies, musings). It was written on the occasion of his mission to the papal court in the autumn of 1506 when he witnessed Julius ii’s impetuous yet successful march on Perugia. Here Machiavelli really does anticipate his mature political thought: how differing actions produce the same result; how fortune favours the young; how fortresses vary in the security offered; how the impulsive Julius ii succeeded contrary to reasonable expectation; how circumstances change but not the individual’s character. With the contrast between Hannibal and Scipio, Machiavelli makes his first un­­­­doubted reference to Roman history as a fundamental guide to understanding present-day politics. The memory of Julius ii’s audacity remained with Machiavelli, who many years later recounted the same episode in Book i, Chapter xxvii of the Discourses on Livy. Machiavelli had already encountered the problem of free will in his Lucretius transcription of the 1490s and then again in a letter of 1504, now lost, when discussing the possibility of evading astrological influences. Here the mature political thinker makes his first

Luca Signorelli, Vitellozzo Vitelli, c. 1492–6, oil on panel.

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appearance: putting to one side conventional wisdom guaranteeing man a measure of liberty, as well as Lucretius’ atomism, also implying human freedom, Machia­velli in the ‘Ghiribizi’ opts for a type of determinism based on the immutability of individual human nature – a theory further developed in The Prince and the Discourses, not to mention his

Raphael, Pope Julius ii, c. 1512, tempera on wood.

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Tercets on Fortune (Capitolo di fortuna), also the product of his chancery years. In fact, Machiavelli’s early poetry is the real occasion of his first steps as a deep political thinker.

Hitherto, it has been thought that, during his time in the chancery, Machiavelli’s first verse composition was the First Decade (Decennale primo) of 1504. However, it now seems clear that Machiavelli’s Pastoral Tercets (Capitolo pastorale) actually date from 1502. In October of that year Machiavelli was sent on a mission to Cesare Borgia’s court at Imola (see p. 40). He mentions the hardships endured by the poem’s protagonist: if the work dated from before 1494 or after 1512 neither Giuliano nor his younger nephew Lorenzo (previously identified as recipients of the poem, either before or after the Medici’s banishment) had afflictions to bear, unlike Giuliano during his family’s exile from 1494 to 1512. Further indication comes in the following line (v. 93): ‘similar to Caesar duke among all dukes’.7 This allusion has been hitherto read as referring to Julius Caesar, who, however, was not a duke and who, moreover, was consistently vilified as a political figure by Machiavelli. More apposite would have been a direct invocation of Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois. At that moment Borgia was Machiavelli’s hero. Towards the end of the poem Machiavelli wrote that he would conceal his feelings for the protagonist. There would have been no reason for Machiavelli to hide his affection for either Giuliano or Lorenzo the Younger after their return to Florence in 1512, or indeed to have done so for Giuliano before the Medici’s expulsion in 1494. The reference to a return home and to awaiting a later

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occasion to sing the protagonist’s praises must allude to the end of Machiavelli’s mission to Borgia’s court and his homecoming in January 1503 to Florence, where he evidently hoped an occasion would arise for the continuation of his renewed friendship with Giuliano. In fact, the seed of The Prince is already apparent in this early poem: Giuliano is seen even now, on the model of Cesare Borgia, as the hope for the future.8 Machiavelli composed his poetry while chancellor in rare leisure moments; in the second of these lyrics, the Decennale primo, he complained of having only fifteen days to write 550 verses. The work offers a direct political message: Florence’s travails could be overcome by a revived indigenous militia and unstinting support for Soderini’s government. The Decennale’s first dedicatee was Alamanno Salviati, the leader of Florence’s conservative aristocrats. The poem closes with a plea to Salviati to back the Soderini regime. When it was written in 1504, there was hope that the aristocrats would still support Soderini; by 1506 they had fallen out with the gonfalonier, whom they now vilified for his policies favourable to wider government as represented by the Great Council. When Machia­­­­velli’s friend and chancery colleague Agostino Vespucci had the Decennale primo printed in that year, the dedication to Salviati was dropped, the poem at this point being addressed to the Florentine people. The Decennale primo now carries a generic message: back Soderini and the republican regime that he headed.9 The poem enjoyed a notable success, as attested by an attempted pirate printing that was blocked by the work’s editor; one or two further editions followed, corrected and approved by Machiavelli. The Decennale primo was not a disturbing composition, its conventionality reinforced by its political

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message. Unlike the future Discourses on Livy it underlined the importance of concord and the dangers of discord. There was no separation between politics and religion: Cesare Borgia suf­­­fered the punishment merited by Christ’s enemies. Unlike the letter to Becchi, where Savonarola is simply ridiculed as a liar, in the Decennale he is now highlighted as the cause of Florence’s divisions and ruination, his divine light extinguished by a greater flame – a grotesque allusion to his form of execution. Its message was unity, loyalty and leadership. It is the most forthright expression of Machiavelli’s early republicanism. By the time that the three Capitoli in tercets were composed between 1506 and 1509, Machiavelli’s mood had darkened. The irrationality of political success, linked to immutable human nature and fortuitous circumstances, had replaced the simple faith in republican authority that had characterized the Decennale. Machiavelli felt personally betrayed when Soderini had caved in to aristocratic opposition over his mission to the imperial court in 1507. In the wake of the Lombard war, he was appalled by the spectacle of death and devastation to which he was an eyewitness in 1509. These poems presage Machiavelli’s later political thought more suggestively than the Decennale. The Capitolo on fortune was evidently composed at the same time as the ‘Ghiribizi’ in 1506, sharing an identical addressee and numerous themes. The conviction that audacity and youth can overcome fortune – alluded to in the ‘Ghiribizi’ – is further developed in the Capitolo, now with remarkably similar wording to The Prince (chap. xxv). The themes of harmony with the times as the essential ingredient of success, of immutable human nature and of individual incapacity to

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adapt to circumstances are key topics here as well as in the ‘Ghiribizi’ – not to mention in The Prince (chap. xxv) and the Discourses (iii.ix). The frustration with Soderini’s backpedalling over the imperial legation is given vent in the Capitolo on ingratitude with Machiavelli’s complaint that popular governments are egregiously ungrateful to their public servants. The Capitolo on ambition – evidently written at Verona in 1509 when Machia­velli was sent as an envoy to North Italy – particularly evokes themes of his later political writings: the real world of politics (Prince, chap. xv), bad human nature (Prince, chap. xvii–xviii), the constancy of both nature and history (Discourses, preface), the vital role of upbringing in forming national character as well as in political and military success, the reasons for modern military failure in contrast to ancient triumphs in war (Discourses, ii.ii). Especially topical here is Venice’s military weakness as the cause of the defeat at Agnadello in 1509 and the loss of the Venetian mainland empire (Prince, chap. xii; Discourses, ii.x.xix.xxx; iii.xi). The Capitoli’s first circulation was notably slower and more limited than the Decennale’s. One wonders whether their grim tone, contents and unconventional attitudes were less attractive to early readers. The publication mode of these four longer poems merits further consideration. ‘Although printing was beginning to spread through Italy when Machiavelli was born in 1469, the culture of manuscript publication was still strong, and in his case predominant.’10 Machiavelli’s antipathy to printing is in marked contrast to his father Bernardo, who, as has been seen, not only owned mainly books from the press but collaborated in a would-be printed edition of Livy. As shown by his preference for the vernacular rather than

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Latin and his civic and political involvement in contrast to his Bernardo’s quietism, once more Niccolò was treading a different path to his father. Machiavelli wrote six Carnival Songs (Canti carnascialeschi), three of which can be dated to his chancery years. This was a genre favoured by Lorenzo the Magnificent, himself a signi­ ficant poet, as well as by a clutch of fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury versifiers. The earliest of this series seems to be ‘By the Devils Driven out of Heaven’ (‘De’ diavoli iscacciati di cielo’), written in 1502. Its subject-matter anticipates Machia­velli’s renowned novella Belfagor, suggesting that Florence was worse than Hell. Another, ‘Of Men who Sell Pine Cones’ (‘Le pine’) was written no later than 1508. Typical of the genre is the omnipresence of double entendre; once again the poem anticipates a more famous Machiavellian work, the comedy Mandragola. Their common feature was an aphrodisiac, the difference being the active ingredient: in the former, pine kernels; in the latter, mandrake root. Similarly lascivious is ‘By the Snake Charmers’ (‘De’ ciumadori’), dated 1509. Here there is a more serious sub­­­­ject – certain lizards known for their predatory attacks. The theme of betrayal recalls the Capitolo on ingratitude. It seems that in 1509 Machiavelli was still smarting from delusion at his boss Piero Soderini, incurred two year earlier on the occasion of the imperial legation. Their relationship, so it appears, was permanently compromised, at least on Machiavelli’s part. When the republican regime collapsed in 1512, he was quick to blame Soderini. As he wrote in a famous letter to an unnamed woman (probably Isabella d’Este, the marchioness of Mantua) after 16 September 1512, Soderini procrastinated, deluded by his own chimeras.

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Shortly before losing his job, Machiavelli penned a brief political memo, different from all the rest of his chancery writ­­ings. Datable between 1 and 7 November 1512, the note ‘Memo­­­randum to the Mediceans’ (‘Ai Palleschi’) is Machia­ velli’s first (and only) piece written as a civil servant under the republic dealing with internal Florentine factions rather than external affairs: the Medici, he declares, having returned to power, needed to distrust the radical aristocratic opponents of the popular republic and instead gain the favour of the middle classes. These altered objectives are a measure of Machiavelli’s desperation to impress the Medici – more than conscious that his close collaboration with Piero Soderini and the previous regime was putting his job on the line. Never­ theless, even in extremis, Machiavelli was not telling the Medici what they wanted to hear. The popular republic was a curse for Florence’s new rulers, who proceeded to dismantle all the institutions that had empowered the middle classes between 1494 and 1512. The doctrine that a ruler must base his power on the popolo (middle classes) rather than the nobles would become a key theme in The Prince. So the ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’ presaged Machiavelli’s perilous situation after losing his job: he needed to win Medicean favour, but his inclinations and previous record were out of step with the regime that the Medici had established after returning to Florence in 1512.

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The Aspiring Medici Courtier, 1512–16

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or Machiavelli to have a future in Florence after the Soderini government’s collapse and particularly after the Medicean coup d’état on 16 September 1512, he had to gain the Medici’s goodwill. But there were substantial obstacles. He was hated by many Florentine aristocrats for his rapport with Piero Soderini. While in office he had been the target of more than one accusation. He had helped Soderini flee from Florence with the aid of Francesco Vettori, who was himself worried he had thereby been compromised with the new regime. In the ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’ Machiavelli had pointed out that the middle classes (‘il popolo’) blamed the radical aristocrats for having scuppered the popular republic; if the latter could discredit Soderini, they would absolve themselves in the eyes of the popolo. Machiavelli’s aim was to make the Medici aware of the radicals’ intrigues; nevertheless, the upshot was that he still appeared to be Soderini’s man. And yet Machiavelli retained some credit with the Medici. His juvenile relationship with Giuliano had not been forgotten in eighteen years of Medici exile. Isabella d’Este, the marchioness of Mantua, wishing for an update on the Medici coup, had evidently turned to Giuliano, who then apparently passed Cristofano dell’Altissimo, Niccolò Machiavelli, 1552–68, oil on canvas.

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the request on to Machiavelli, who replied in turn with his famous letter ‘To a Gentlewoman’. This missive – Machiavelli’s first attempt to curry favour with the restored Medici – contains an obsequious prognostication of the new regime’s success. Conscious of his precarious situation, Machiavelli now attempted to demonstrate his value as a counsellor. On 29 September 1512 a commission was appointed to identify and return Medicean property confiscated in 1494. In a letter to Cardinal Giovanni, he suggested it would be prudent to leave the new owners in possession and compensate the Medici with an annual indemnity: the Medici needed friends, not new enemies. Machiavelli reminded Cardinal Giovanni that his great-grandfather Cosimo had advised his son Piero to put himself in the hands of Cosimo’s long-term collaborator Dietisalvi Neroni, who had counselled Piero to call in sizeable debts, thereby incurring general disfavour in Florence; according to Machiavelli, Dietisalvi had thereby been enabled to launch the attempted coup of 1466, which nearly cost Piero the regime’s leadership. Similarly frank was the ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’. In Machiavelli’s view, the Medici had to ensure that the middle classes would continue to hate the radical aristocrats, who thereby would become completely dependent on the Medici. Here Machiavelli formulated explicit comments on the relationship between the Medici and the middle classes: the reason for their unpopularity with the middle classes was their dismantling of the more democratic republican constitution. The Medici would not have wanted to hear that they were making enemies in the attempt to regain their confiscated property, that their ancestors had been foolish and that their new regime was hated by the middle

Palazzo Vecchio (formerly Palazzo della Signoria or Palazzo dei Priori), Florence.

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classes. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Machiavelli was sacked within days of sending the ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’. This memo, together with the letter ‘To a Gentlewoman’ and the advice to Cardinal Giovanni, is all that is known about Machiavelli’s activities in the 74 days between Soderini’s escape and his own dismissal from the chancery. Three days after his sacking he was condemned to a year’s confinement within Florentine territory, and to a security of 1,000 florins, guaranteed but not in fact paid by his friend Francesco Vettori and his cousins Filippo and Giovanni Machiavelli. A week later he suffered a year’s ban from setting foot in his former workplace, the Palazzo della Signoria. He was then obliged to endure a series of interrogations about large sums disbursed for the militia that he had administered. But there was worse yet to come. Machiavelli later admitted that, after the Medici’s return, his behaviour had been indiscreet. According to his friend Francesco Granacci, Entry of Charles viii into Florence, c. 1518, oil on panel.

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Giovanni Folchi, his main topic of conversation was Piero Soderini and the Italian Wars, but Machiavelli also declared, so Folchi continued, that the new regime would survive only with difficulty, because it lacked a leader of Lorenzo the Mag­ ni­­ficent’s calibre; he added that, in his personal opinion, the Holy League, which had put the Medici back in power, was

Warrant for the arrest of Niccolò Machiavelli, 19 February 1513.

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far from firm. Machiavelli’s views, as recounted by Folchi, reflected the state of limbo in which the city was plunged after Cardinal Giovanni’s departure: his brother Giuliano, who remained as caretaker, lacked a firm hand, and his position was compromised by their cousin Giulio, who had been left in Florence to prevent the Medici regime from unravelling. Machiavelli’s bluntness alarmed his friends: Folchi dissociated himself from Machiavelli’s pronouncements and claimed to be avoiding his company, while Paolo Vettori admitted that Machiavelli was a troublemaker. Thus it came as no surprise that, when Machiavelli’s name was found on a list drawn up by two conspirators against the regime, he was arrested on 19 February 1513 and imprisoned in the communal gaol. In accordance with usual practice, he was questioned under torture. He resisted with notable sangfroid but was still left to rot in his cell. Machiavelli had sent some thrushes trapped in the country to Giuliano de’ Medici in the autumn of 1512, accompanied by a sonnet bemoan­­ing his ill treatment at the hands of his enemies. On hearing the actual conspirators as they were led to execution on 23 February 1513, he directed another sonnet, particularly famous, to Giuliano de’ Medici – now, so it seemed, his only hope for the future. In a third sonnet sent to Giuliano not long afterwards, he sought to distinguish himself from the ruck of contemporary writers. Besides the condemned conspirators, a pair of Machiavelli’s friends, Niccolò Valori and Giovanni Folchi, were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in the grim fortress of Volterra. Machiavelli was ordered to pay a large bond; while he was waiting for his bail to be raised, Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici was elected to the pontificate

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on 11 March 1513, following the death of Julius ii. To celebrate the first Florentine pope, a general amnesty was declared the following day and Machiavelli was freed forthwith. He himself realized that his release was due to the amnesty, but, prudently, he thanked Paolo Vettori, an influential supporter of the new regime, and Giuliano de’ Medici. Machiavelli now retreated to his country property at Sant’Andrea in Percussina, with only few brief visits to Florence. Over the next year or more Machiavelli hardly refrained from lamenting his miserable situation and his poverty. He continued to look to the Medici and particularly to Giuliano as his only hope for the future. Money was a constant problem. In April 1513 he complained that, out of his annual income of 90 florins, he had to pay 40 florins in taxes. His friend Francesco Vettori took pity on him, assuring the tax officials that he was a good sort but penniless and weighed down by children. Machiavelli’s principal recourse was now, in fact, Francesco Vettori, then Florentine ambassador to Rome. For a moment he thought of his former patron and diplomatic colleague, Cardinal Francesco Soderini, rum­­oured to have regained the favour of the pope, who had also pardoned his brother Piero, the former gonfalonier and Machiavelli’s erstwhile boss. But soon he thought better of a visit to Rome and the Soderini brothers: returning to Florence, so he feared, he would dismount not at his own house but at the Bargello (the judicial headquarters where criminals were tried and executed). At the end of 1513 Vettori let Machiavelli have the bad news: there was no possibility of a job in Rome. There was talk of a legation to France for Giulio de’ Medici (created a cardinal by his cousin Pope Leo x), where Machiavelli’s

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experience of the French court and customs would have been advantageous, but in the end that prospect came to nothing too. While he waited for something to turn up, Machiavelli was able to enjoy an indirect involvement in foreign politics and diplomacy through his epistolary dialogue with Francesco Raphael, Pope Leo x with Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi, 1518–19, oil on panel.

Spanish school, King Ferdinand v of Spain, King of Aragon, c. 1470–1520, oil on panel.

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Vettori, beginning immediately after his release from gaol in March 1513. At first the correspondents could hardly touch on contemporary affairs, hindered, so they felt, by divergent points of view. Vettori had no faith in logical analysis and prog­­ nostications based on reason: he did not want to carry on a reasoned debate, because he had found himself thereby so often deceived. Machiavelli admitted that things often turned out differently from what had been discussed, but by temperament and previous experience he felt qualified to discuss either politics or nothing at all: as he famously wrote, ‘fortune has seen to it that, since I don’t know how to reason about either the silk or wool business, or profit and loss, I have to reason about [foreign] politics.’1 But Vettori soon changed his mind: a partial truce between France and Spain, signed at the beginning of April 1513, stimulated one of history’s most famous epistolary dialogues. For Vettori what counted was experience; in contrast, Machiavelli believed it was possible to predict future developments on the basis of reason alone. When Vettori cited Aristotle’s Politics as an authority, Machiavelli feigned ignorance of Aristotle. Other themes looked forward to Machiavelli’s Prince, a work that was taking shape at the time of the Machiavelli–Vettori correspondence. Machiavelli’s letter of 26 August 1513 – with its realistic description of contemporary powers, with its references to Cesare Borgia, to the loss of Venice’s mainland Italian empire and to fifteenth-century figures such as Louis xi of France, with mentions of ancient Roman, Greek and Near-Eastern history – gives the impression that he was at work planning and writing The Prince. As in The Prince, Machiavelli stressed timely forward planning;

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emphasized the superiority of indigenous military forces over mercenaries; focused, together with Vettori, on the Swiss problem (following their victory over France at the Battle of Novara in June 1513); showed contempt for Venice in the wake of their defeat at Agnadello in 1509; sketched a portrait of Ferdinand of Aragon, emphasizing his disloyalty, dishonesty and bravado, pointedly anticipating Chapter xxi of The Prince. The epistolary exchange between Machiavelli and Vettori represents a significant context for The Prince: not only in terms of themes and examples but the work itself – offering principles for the survival, success and glory of a prince in the Italian political world – served as a reply to Vettori’s scepticism about predictions for political action on the basis of reason alone. But there were other more concrete, immediate and pressing circumstances leading to the composition of The Prince.

Initially, the prince was meant for Giuliano de’ Medici; in the end it was dedicated to his nephew Lorenzo. When Machiavelli told Vettori about the book on 10 December 1513, he was desperate, so he declared, to win Medici patronage for a new job. He was facing ruin and disgrace; if the Medici were to take him on, he would be even willing, metaphorically, to roll a stone; if he did not gain their favour, he would give up all hope. When they read The Prince, they would see that, during the fifteen years spent studying the art of politics, he had been neither asleep nor at leisure; anyone would be glad to exploit the experience gained at another’s expense; no one would doubt his loyalty, because, having always been

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trustworthy, he had never learnt how to be disloyal; having been faithful and upright for 43 years, he was incapable of changing his nature. As witness to his loyalty and merits, he cited his poverty. So Medici ambitions are essential for understanding the work’s purpose. It is common knowledge that Machiavelli’s Prince is a new prince: speaking of the book for the first time on 10 December 1513, Machiavelli declared that it would be welcome especially to a ‘new prince’, and for that reason he was directing it to Giuliano de’ Medici. A more specific perspective on The Prince has emerged from recent research on Giuliano himself. It has been seen that he was a moderate, favouring a constitutional republic for Florence, dominated by an aristocratic Senate. After rejecting Giuliano’s approach in Florence, Leo x’s aim was to carve out a permanent principality for his brother in the Romagna, on the model of what the Borgia pope,

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, duke of Nemours, c. 1526–34, Medici Chapel, Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence.

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Alexander vi, had attempted for his son Cesare. Here a new context has emerged for Machiavelli’s infamous advice: he is teaching his friend Giuliano not to follow his hitherto moderate and worthy inclinations but to put traditional moral and political virtues to one side in order to survive and thrive as a new prince. More than twenty years after Machiavelli’s death, the historian Benedetto Varchi wrote that The Prince had been addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici (who had subsequently replaced Giuliano as dedicatee) ‘so that he could make himself Florence’s absolute ruler’.2 But it is clear that The Prince was not intended to offer advice about a Medici principate in Florence. As Francesco Vettori wrote to Machiavelli on 12 July 1513, ‘these relatives of the pope think little about Florence, which is a sign that they have fantasies about states that are permanent and where they don’t have to think continually about coddling people.’3 Vettori was suggesting that these aspiring Medici princes could not be bothered about the likes of Florence, where the leader in charge had to gain formal approval (alluding to the manoeuvres practised by the fifteenth-century Medici in order to maintain control); instead they wanted territories where their authority would be permanent and absolute. This line of thought was also evident in The Prince, where Machiavelli cautioned how difficult it would be to impose absolute rule on a city-state (such as Florence) in which the leader governed by way of a constitutional republic’s institutions. In what is now the most famous letter in Italian literature (dated 10 December 1513), Machiavelli narrated how, at his country house in Sant’Andrea in Percussina, he wrote The Prince.

Spanish school, Pope Alexander vi, c. 1490s, oil on canvas.

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His account was an answer – not without irony – to Vettori’s letter of 23 November, when his correspondent recounted an ambassador’s tedious routine in Rome that featured days devoted to conversations with dignitaries and secretaries and evenings passed reading ancient Roman history. Machiavelli’s account echoes Vettori’s: daytime spent on trivial encounters with the locals and reading Dante, Petrarch, Tibullus or Ovid, and evenings in dialogue with the ancients – the result being On Principalities (the alternative title of The Prince). As handed down, The Prince consists of a dedicatory letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici, followed by 26 chapters. In the above letter to Vettori, Machiavelli gives his own description of the work’s contents: what a principate is, what are the types of principate, how it is maintained, why it is lost. There is reason to think that, when he announced its composition to Vettori, he had completed only the first eleven chapters – matching as they arguably do this description. Chapter xi opens with Michelangelo Buonarroti, Tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino, c. 1525, Medici Chapel, Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence.

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the introduction to a conclusion (‘There remains for us only to discuss ecclesiastical principalities’) and ends with a closing peroration (‘His Holiness Pope Leo has therefore found the papacy extremely strong: if his predecessors made it great with armed force, he will make it even greater and more venerable through his goodness and infinite other virtues’). In the letter to Vettori, Machiavelli says he has not finished the treatise, adding that it needs filling out and refining. He was possibly still at work when on 24 December Vettori wrote that he had still not seen the text. Machiavelli seems not to have yet finished on 18 January 1514, when Vettori wrote that he had seen some chapters, but could not provide a final judgement until he had seen everything. Chapter xii opens with an introductory summary, indicating the beginning of a new section: ‘Having discussed all the characteristics of those principates that I initially proposed to deal with, and having considered in part the reasons for their prosperity or their failure.’ The expression ‘in part’ suggests that Machiavelli judged his treatment in the preceding chapters to have been incomplete and now he intended to remedy those deficiencies. In the text the latest historical reference is to the fire at Mestre, which occurred shortly before the Battle of Vicenza on 7 October 1513. Machiavelli’s efforts at filling out the text do not seem to have extended beyond spring 1514. In the final chapter, he declares that the Medici need to reassemble their own indigenous army, thus hoping for a revival of the Florentine militia which had been suppressed after the fall of the popular republic. The militia was reconstituted on 19 May 1514. Given that Machiavelli would not have called for the restoration of a military institution that had already

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occurred, the final chapter of The Prince must have been completed by May 1514. It has been wondered if Machiavelli ever presented the work to Giuliano de’ Medici. The fact that Vettori, who enjoyed intimate relations with the Medici, ceased to mention the work after January 1514 has led to the conclusion that the presentation to Giuliano never took place – a hypothesis reinforced by the absence of any copy of The Prince bearing a dedication to Giuliano, whereas a large majority of manuscripts open with the dedication to his nephew Lorenzo. The date of the new, definitive dedication and presentation to Lorenzo de’ Medici is even more problematic. Some manu­ scripts refer to Louis xii, who died during the night of 31 December 1514, as ‘the present king of France’ (chap. xvi.9), suggesting that the text transmitted by these manuscripts was completed by the beginning of 1515. But this was not the definitive version of The Prince, because there is another group of manuscripts that correct the reference to Louis xii omitting the word ‘present’. A few lines later all the manuscripts refer to Ferdinand of Aragon, who died on 23 January 1516, as the ‘present king of Spain’ (chap. xvi.10). These textual features suggest that The Prince was updated in 1515 or in early 1516, between the deaths of Louis and Ferdinand. There is a further indication of when Machiavelli re­­ touched the work. Referring to the military experience essential to a prince, Machiavelli cited the example of Milan’s Sforza rulers: ‘Francesco Sforza, because he was armed, rose from a private man to become duke of Milan; his descendants, wanting to escape military hardships, fell from the status of dukes to become private individuals’ (chap. xiv.2–3).

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Among Francesco Sforza’s descendants who were dukes of Milan, only his son Ludovico il Moro and the latter’s son Massimiliano lost the duchy. Massimiliano was defeated by the French at the Battle of Marignano on 13–14 September 1515. Therefore Machiavelli must have made this alteration after that event. Workshop of Jean Perréal, Louis xii, King of France, c. 1510–14, oil on panel.

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So Machiavelli carried out the final changes to The Prince between 13–14 September 1515 and 23 January 1516. Presum­ ably at the same time he made another brief alteration. Chapter i subdivides the treatise’s contents into two categories: hereditary and new principates. But Chapter ii, entitled ‘On Hereditary Principates’, opens with a reference to republics: ‘I shall put to one side discussion of republics, because on another occasion I treated this topic at length.’ This sentence has led to innumerable hypotheses. Machiavelli wrote at length about republics only in the Discourses on Livy. The Prince’s chronological problems vanish if this sentence was added at the time when Machiavelli is known to have inserted the earlier mentioned reference to the Sforza. Machiavelli began work on the Discourses or on a primitive version of that work no earlier than 1515 and apparently no later than that year. Machiavelli’s lectures on Livy were well known in Florence,

Maître à la Ratière (attrib.), Battle of Marignano, c. 1515, watercolour on parchment.

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encouraged by a number of prominent individuals. Thus the addition of the first sentence of Chapter ii would have constituted a timely addendum. The most significant revision to The Prince was not the last chapter (often regarded, erroneously, as an afterthought) but to Chapter iii, which, with its comparison between contemporary France and republican Rome, was based on a detailed reading of Livy’s history. This chapter is atypical of The Prince, whose principal sources are neither classical nor humanist. There the ancients and humanists receive a negative treatment: Machia­­­velli challenges Plato’s idealism in Chapter xv and overturns Cicero’s moral philosophy as articulated in On Moral Duties and disseminated by the humanists in their treatments of virtue. In The Prince Machiavelli gives the impression of a former student of classical and humanist literature who is seeking to go beyond the heritage of the past. In the letter to Vettori of 10 December 1513 Machiavelli declares that he has taken note of those passages from ancient authors that he has been able to turn to his advantage – an accurate description of the cherry-picking of the classics typical of The Prince, rather than the profound study of Livy and Polybius (the ancient Greek historian of Rome) that formed the basis of the Discourses. A particularly clear indication of Machiavelli’s repudiation of the classics comes in The Prince’s dedication, where he rejects the lofty rhetorical Ciceronian style beloved of the humanists. The only substantial lesson drawn from ancient Roman history occurs in Chapter iii, where Machiavelli finds fault with Louis xii’s expansionist policies in contrast to Roman republican practice. Such a treatment is more characteristic

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of the Discourses than of The Prince. The implication is that the chapter was rewritten when the Discourses were well under way. Other elements suggesting a revision datable after Louis xii’s death are the vehement denunciation of his reign and the inser­­tion of the phrase ‘vivendo lui’ (‘while he was alive’, chap. iii.43), as well as the obituarial character of the chapter, offering a final negative verdict on Louis’s intervention in Italy. The presentation to Lorenzo de’ Medici would have taken place before he became duke of Urbino on 18 August 1516, because Machiavelli addresses him as merely ‘Magnificent Lorenzo de’ Medici’, and not with his ducal title. The similarities between Machiavelli’s letter of 31 January 1515, when Giuliano is still seen as the potential new prince, and The Prince itself suggest that Machiavelli had not yet had the idea of a new dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici. After the disappointing and discouraging reception of the work by Vettori and the veto of a job for Machiavelli by Cardinal Giulio and the pope, directed to Giuliano in early 1515, it is plausible that Machiavelli shelved The Prince. Given the military emphasis of the book, it is tempting to think that he was led to Lorenzo as a suitable alternative dedicatee after the latter’s appointment as Captain General of the Florentine militia on 6 June 1515. In his capacity as Florence’s former official military coordinator and leading expert on military organization, Machiavelli was arguably consulted directly by Lorenzo on the militia that he himself was then restructuring: such a contact, in all likelihood, evidently inspired a rededication of The Prince. Machiavelli would have begun to consider a dedication to Lorenzo in the summer or autumn of 1515, and would have put the final touches to the book in autumn or winter 1515/16. The work could have

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been presented to Lorenzo at any time after the Battle of Marignano, but Machiavelli would probably not have waited too long after January 1516, given that there was no updating of the text arising from Ferdinand of Aragon’s death.

It has sometimes been suggested that The Prince was the fruit of Machiavelli’s diplomatic experience, as filtered through his dialogue with Francesco Vettori. It is true that many ideas fully expressed in The Prince had been formulated during his chancery years; similarly the correspondence with Vettori was a testing ground for many themes and examples subsequently developed in The Prince. But undoubtedly The Prince did not only grow out of examples that Machiavelli had gathered from experience and reading: it was an original creation, and as such discrepancies between The Prince and Machiavelli’s previous writings, including the Vettori correspondence, are just as abundant as their connections. Cesare Borgia has been considered the hero of The Prince, and Machiavelli’s opinion of him was for the most part positive during his missions to the papal court in 1502 and early 1503. But after the election of Julius ii in November 1503 Machia­­ velli’s attitude quickly became negative. By 1504 Machiavelli was overtly hostile to Borgia, as is clear from the Decennale primo. In The Prince Machiavelli’s judgement on France as a European power was negative, as indicated by his celebrated observation to the French prime minister Cardinal Georges d’Amboise: ‘the French do not understand international politics’ (chap. iii.48). By contrast, in the correspondence with Vettori Machiavelli’s philo-French sympathies are unequivocal.

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In the letters to Vettori France was the only hope against the Swiss and the Spanish. In The Prince, on the contrary, the salvation of Italy would not be France but a prince-redeemer who emerges in the last chapter. Machiavelli’s philo-French sympathies antedate the Vettori correspondence. In the Portrait of French Affairs from 1511, he had declared that previously it had been easy for any neighbouring ruler to attack France because they could count on the support of the powerful nobility who Altobello Melone, Portrait of a Gentleman (Cesare Borgia), c. 1513, oil on panel.

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governed the kingdom’s territories; now, since these appanages have been brought under royal control, the possibility of threats to the king were lessened. In The Prince, however, Machiavelli wrote, ‘you can enter France easily by allying with any baron of the realm, because you will find malcontents and nobles everywhere wanting change. They can open the way to that country and facilitate your victory’ (iv.13–14). Equally striking is the contradiction between the Vettori correspondence and The Prince regarding a peninsular alliance capable of expelling the foreigners from Italy. In The Prince he wrote – not without emotion, ‘Everyone is ready and willing to follow a standard, provided someone takes it in hand . . . What Italian would deny his allegiance?’ (xxvi.7, 28). But writing to Vettori on 10 August 1513, this is what he had had to say about an Italian alliance: With regard to a union of other Italians, you make me laugh. First, because there will never be any union to achieve anything; and if the leaders were united, they would not be adequate, because their arms aren’t worth a farthing, except for the Spanish, and they are too few to be enough; secondly, the tails are cut off from the heads. No sooner will the Swiss take a step . . . than everyone will race to join them.4 In substance The Prince itself differs from anything Machiavelli had hitherto written. He has now articulated a coherent and extraordinarily powerful thesis of monumental originality. He has not been bothered by what he had previously written, nor indeed by concerns for historical accuracy. Outlining a

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devastating picture of the political world in which the new prince must operate, Machiavelli states with incisive clarity the necessary objectives of his actions and, with stupefying frankness, the means he must adopt, ending with an ecstatic vision worthy of Dante. In terms of style, Machiavelli has deliberately avoided the appearance of a finished product, but intellectually The Prince is absolutely unique, overturning the entire heritage of Western political thought.

the prince ’s environment is wholly negative; the new prince inhabits a bad political world: ‘a man who wants in all things to profess goodness will necessarily come to ruin among so many who are not good’ (xv.5); ‘of men one can say this in general that they are ungrateful, changeable, hypocrites, dissemblers, cowards, greedy for gain’ (xvii.10). The world is drowning in sin, not so much religious as political and military. The stench in The Prince is overpowering. It is a world of misery and slavery. Mercenaries have caused Italy to be enslaved and vilified. Contemporary Italians are compared to Israelites chained and oppressed by the Egyptians; to Persians discontented by the rule of the effeminate Medes; to the Athenians dispersed. The negative political world of The Prince is the domain of tyranny. Even if the words ‘tyrant’ and ‘tyranny’ are not found in the text, Machiavelli’s new prince is a synonym for tyrant, as is made clear by Book i, chapters xxv and xxvi of the Discourses on Livy. In The Prince Machiavelli refers to Nabis as ‘prince of the Spartans’ (x.19) but in the Discourses he writes of Nabis, ‘tyrant of Sparta’ (i.xl.38). Machiavelli considered

First page of The Prince manuscript, before 1527, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City.

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that the terms ‘tyrant’ and ‘tyranny’ would be offensive to his Medici dedicatees – hence the euphemism ‘new prince’, an expression hardly occurring in ancient, medieval and humanist writings on government. The political environment of The Prince is the ‘stato’, used 115 times in the text. This word is usually misunderstood as ‘State’ in its modern meaning. In Florentine usage, ‘stato’ did not signify the public incarnation of power – the State or nation; it did not refer to the sovereign entities of the period – empire, kingdoms, republics, city-states. Up to the earlier six­­­ teenth century, ‘the usual terms for [what is now called] the “State” . . . were Imperium and Respublica, regnum and civitas’ or ‘communitas.’5 On the contrary, ‘stato’ had mainly the contemporaneous meaning of regime, used in the sense of membership of the ruling group, or of a form of power exercised over a territory, city or people. Often ‘stato’ carried no value judgement, but when applied to the rule of a new prince or tyrant, ‘stato’ could have negative connotations. A particularly virulent attack on the ‘stato’ came from Francesco Vettori. Writing at the time of the last Florentine republic (1527–30), Vettori lam­­­basted the supporters of the ‘stato’ as ambitious, avaricious, debased, vicious and foolish.6 It is no accident that Savonarola saw a particular connection between ‘stato’ and tyranny. Notwithstanding this desolate picture of tyranny, degradation and enslavement, Machiavelli still had hopes for the future: since Italy had touched bottom, the only possible direction was to rise again. He retained hope for renewed Italian glory. In The Prince the purpose of politics was glory. For Machiavelli history was the final judge: glory would be determined by the verdict of successive generations. It is no

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accident that, in The Prince, Machiavelli hardly mentions the common or public good. With the focus on the prince’s glory, the effect of his rule on his subjects is relevant only insofar as they will support his ‘stato’ (regime). Machiavelli thus reduces the common good to a secondary status, subordinate to the prince’s benefit. In The Prince Machiavelli never mentions the term ‘politico’ – a term normally reserved for a positive or altruistic political order in expressions indicating the public good (‘vivere politico’) or referring to a person dedicated to the common good (‘uomo politico’). The praise for Cesare Borgia’s good government in the Romagna is, in the end, focused on his own benefit. Good government is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The prince-redeemer works first to achieve honour and glory for himself and only second to benefit the Italian people. Putting the common good to one side, Machiavelli employs a vocabulary used traditionally to describe tyranny (of course without explicitly mentioning the word). As Giles of Rome had written in his bestselling On the Government of Rulers (De regimine principum), following Aristotle’s Politics, ‘the king looks to the common good, while the tyrant regards his own good’7 – an idea repeated by the famous hum­ anist Poggio Bracciolini (‘a king differs from a tyrant insofar as the former is concerned with the welfare of his subjects, the latter with his own interests’8). The political world depicted in The Prince is unique: no other political thinker – not even St Augustine when focusing on original sin – had eliminated innate human goodness. Machiavelli goes even beyond Hobbes, for whom fear renders man wickedly selfish; for Machiavelli man is intrinsically evil. A political theorist such as Cicero had seen glory as man’s

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highest goal but for him it was inextricably linked to the common good; in The Prince it is the prince who counts, not his subjects. If Machiavelli’s vision of man and the goals of politics were outside accepted traditions, the means he specified to achieve these aims were equally original. Machiavelli rejects conventional morality as not only idealistic but dangerous. The sole place left for traditional ethics was as an expedient, or, to use his expression, a cloak to protect and disguise a necessarily unscrupulous prince. Any discussion of means in Machiavelli’s political thought must start from the notion of virtù, a translation of the Latin term virtus. Virtus derives from vir (man), with the additions of the suffix -tus to form an abstract noun. Fundamentally virtus indicates the attributes of a real man: courage, virility, valour; it particularly applies to military aptitude. This basic Latin mean­­ing is the kernel of Machiavelli’s usage of the Italian term virtù to indicate the virile and warlike qualities needed to achieve success and, above all, glory. According to Cicero, if an individual acts virtuously, he will have the greatest likelihood of achieving glory – the reward of virtue. The humanists and Machiavelli agreed that the possession of virtue was the key to a prince’s success. But in classical Latin virtus had the further meaning of moral excellence, and here the term carries the same sense as the modern word virtue. Ancient, medieval and humanist moralists agreed that there was no contradiction between these two meanings of virtus. Success and self-interest could never contradict morality. It was here that Machiavelli disagreed profoundly with previous writers on princely rule and on politics in general. For Machiavelli the two classical meanings of virtus were

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contradictory and irreconcilable. Virtù could enable a prince to achieve success and glory, but not if he practised the moral virtues alone, or if he behaved in accordance only with the traditional moral virtues. Not that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil alone. The essential guide was necessity. Here Machiavelli anticipated Hobbes: it was a question of survival, not of just or good action. Machiavelli’s provocative originality emerges when discussing three particular virtues: liberality, compassion and truthfulness. With regard to liberality or pars­imony, the voice of tradition was not unanimous. Cicero had warned against excessive generosity, and Machiavelli indicated that a prodigal reputation could be ruinous for a prince, who should not mind notoriety as a miser. Some medieval and humanist moralists, however, had recommended liberality more keenly than Cicero, and their point of view would have particularly disconcerted Machiavelli. Seneca the Younger had upheld the need for clemency, and Machiavelli agreed that a prince should make a display of humaneness. But when it came to the alternatives, clemency or cruelty, a humanist such as Giovanni Pontano gave absolute preference to the former. For Machiavelli, it was just the opposite: compassion could lead to disorder, murder or plunder, whereas cruelty could result in order, loyalty and obedience. Machiavelli went on to the question of whether it was better to be loved or feared. Here Cicero, together with his medieval and humanist successors, gave categorical preference to the former, whereas Machiavelli took the opposite view: love is at the discretion of subjects whereas fear was in the hands of the prince, who should rely on what is in his gift rather than what is in the gift of others. Cicero had said the basis of justice was good

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faith and keeping promises – a principle to which the humanists wholeheartedly subscribed. Machiavelli’s infamous critique was overtly cynical: experience has taught that those princes who have achieved great results have taken little account of their word; it is necessary to be a practised liar and deceiver. For Machiavelli conventional virtue could be disastrous in politics, but the pretence of virtue was another matter. A prince need not have all the virtues, but he must make a virtuous impression. The semblance of virtue was the particular asset put to use by Ferdinand of Aragon: in the name of religion he despoiled the Moriscos, expelling them from Spain; using the same cloak he invaded Africa. When tyranny was discussed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was common practice to highlight the tyrant’s efforts to appear virtuous: if a tyrant lacks virtue, he must at least be considered virtuous. But there is an abyss between such conventional commentators and Machiavelli. The former call attention to the false pretence of virtue in order to condemn tyranny; the cloak of virtue and religion that Machiavelli urges the new prince to don is a positive and essential attribute of his political skill. Machiavelli’s originality does not consist of drawing attention to the tyrant’s or new prince’s hypocrisy, but in giving it approval. In this way Machiavelli was the first to com­ mend – not to deplore – the fact that, in politics, appearance counts for more than substance.

If a prince possessed virtù in its fundamental sense of virility, if he put aside the moral virtues and concealed himself behind a veil of integrity and religion, then there was hope of

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attaining glory. But success or failure remained uncertain because the political world was subject to irrational forces that could frustrate even the most virtuoso individual. Most important was fortune, seen by Machiavelli and his contemporaries as an unpredictable and chaotic element capable of frustrating endeavours planned and executed with greatest possible forethought. In The Prince the treatment of fortune was far from simple. Machiavelli puts forward one theory only then to contradict it. He begins by denying fortune’s omnipotence: it held sway over only half of human actions, with the rest under man’s own control. Here he compares fortune to an overflowing river needing to be dyked in advance. Then he returns to the notion of harmony with the times, expounded years before in the ‘Ghiribizi’ and then in the Capitolo di fortuna: an individual will get the better of fortune insofar as his character accords with prevailing circumstances. He then puts forward a third thesis: fortune is a woman and therefore favours boldness and audacity: if it is a choice between circumspection and impetuosity, it is better to be bold. For Machiavelli the implication is that politics is a natural process: a man who yields to his im­­­pulses is more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, Machiavelli soon rejects even this thesis: Cesare Borgia offers an example of how audacity and virility are useless against malign fortune. Machiavelli is here engaged in a dialogue with himself; the ultimate solution is suggested indirectly. The key factor is the right occasion: a prince can succeed if he chooses the opportune moment. The answer to the challenge of fortune is a variation of an ancient proverb: carpe diem. Another natural force to be confronted is hatred – a peren­ nial problem for tyrannical rule. In Chapter xix – the longest

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in The Prince – Machiavelli recalls his message to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici in 1512: a prince must abstain from seizing his subjects’ property or violating their women. He must avoid a reputation for volubility, effeminacy, cowardice and indecision, demonstrating instead his virtù. Machiavelli cites the example of France, where an independent arbiter, the parlement, was created to divert unpopular measures from the king, for whom, in contrast, the bestowal of favours was reserved. Machiavelli then recounts the history of the Roman Empire from Marcus Aurelius to Maximinus to prove his theory that princes lose power through hatred or contempt. The exceptions are Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus: the first because he was an hereditary prince as well as a good ruler; the second because of his ferocious virtù. Goodness was often regarded a sign of weakness, inspiring contempt. A prince must imitate Severus’ bestial cruelty in order to win power and then emulate Marcus’s good government in order to retain his dominion and win glory. In The Prince a third irrational element is animal instinct. The classic point of reference here was Cicero’s On Moral Duties: there were two ways of fighting, one with reason and the other with force; because reason was the preserve of men and force of beasts, it was necessary to have recourse to the second only when the first was inadequate. There were two ways to attack: either with violence or with deception; the latter was appropriate to the fox, the former to the lion; both are unworthy of man, but deception was the more odious. In The Prince Machiavelli reverses Cicero’s argument: since human methods are often inadequate, it is necessary to revert to the beast. Because a prince must know how to adopt the

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methods of the beast, he has to imitate the fox and the lion. The lion does not know how to defend himself from traps, whereas the fox cannot protect himself from lions: thus it is necessary to imitate the fox in order to recognize traps and the lion in order to frighten foxes; whoever looks only to lions is a fool. Machiavelli suggests that in recent history man has departed too far from nature. Animals act according to instinct, but man has been corrupted by reason. The ability to act in the world is proportional to the capacity to regress to a form of instinctual behaviour that puts man in a position to act in harmony with nature. Machiavelli, like his contemporaries, was stunned by the inexplicable forces that seemed to engulf Italy after 1494, but his reaction was not simply to throw up his hands, like Francesco Vettori, and deny the possibility of rational analysis: as a thinker an individual had to be rational, but as a man of action he needed to follow his natural instincts. Connected with Machiavelli’s attitude to animal instincts is his notion of force. After 1494, when Italians became conscious of their weakness in comparison to ultramontane powers, many began to believe that force was the only remedy: while their ancestors had relied on diplomacy and persuasion, now the only option was brute force. Political analysts including Paolo Vettori, Francesco Guicciardini or Goro Gheri came to this conclusion – a opinion shared by Machiavelli, who famously wrote, ‘All armed prophets have conquered and the unarmed have come to grief’ (Prince, vi.21). Indigenous armed force became Machiavelli’s hobbyhorse. Mercenaries and auxiliaries (troops hired from another power) were useless and dangerous. The reason for contemporary Italy’s decadence

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was its reliance on mercenaries. A prince must have no aim or thought apart from war.

Even if the prince is not directed to the Medici as actual or potential princes of Florence, nevertheless Machiavelli does, on one occasion, implicitly confront the key political prob­­ lem created by their return to power in 1512: in Chapter ix, ‘On the civic principate’, he discusses the type of regime, existing in Florence up to 1494 and from 1512, where the prince rules indirectly through official magistrates. What Machiavelli means here is a principate in which the prince holds the reins of power but does so using the existing constitutional institu­ tions. There is no doubt that Machiavelli is alluding here to Medicean Florence: this is the only chapter lacking a specific example to illustrate the type of regime discussed. His silence is eloquent: he did not want to risk offending the Medici. Here Machiavelli recommends that the Medici put aside their preference for the aristocrats and instead favour the middle classes (‘il popolo’). A civic principality is less stable if reliant on the nobles rather than the people. In the former case the prince cannot rule effectively owing to competition from the optimates who regard themselves as his equals; in the latter case, he has no competitors because the people want only protection from the nobles. Although it might seem distasteful to modern sensibilities, Machiavelli demonstrates little sympathy with the civic principality. The civic principality is exemplified by the Roman Decemvirate (451–449 bc) when Appius Claudius nearly managed to overturn the republic and establish an autocratic regime. Appius is a figure for whom Machiavelli

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shows no sympathy, repeatedly describing him as a tyrant and his regime as a tyranny (Discourses i.xl). For Machiavelli, a civic principate is a euphemism for a tyrannical republic. The civic principate is innately unstable, especially when the ruler aspires to absolute power. Machiavelli doubted that such a regime was practicable for long in Florence – a view he would elaborate later in the Discourse on Florentine Affairs after the Death of the Younger Lorenzo (see Chapter Four). In reality The Prince was doubleedged: on the one hand it was an attempt to win the Medici’s favour by showing that Machiavelli was their ideal adviser; on the other, it conveyed a subtext that the Medici were tyrants. Like his future intimate friend Francesco Guicciardini or his former colleague Francesco Vettori, Machiavelli hoped to work for the Medici while at the same time implicitly suggesting that they were tyrants in all but name. Machiavelli is frequently considered the founder of a new school of political realism. If realistic politics mean adherence to empirical data rather than to abstract theories, then Machia­velli does not qualify: The Prince is an intellectual crea­ tion in which Machiavelli, as usual, plays fast and loose with historical facts. But if realistic politics mean a rejection of idealistic and ethical theories as expounded by Cicero and the Italian humanists, then there is some basis for the designation. It is sometimes asserted that Machiavelli is misunderstood, that he never made amoral claims such as ‘the end justifies the means.’ But in The Prince he did declare, ‘in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to hear a complaint, one needs to look to the end result’ (xviii.7). Machiavelli was no misunderstood altruist.

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After his letter of 18 January 1514, Vettori made no further mention of The Prince. It is doubtful that he would have felt much sympathy for Machiavelli’s book: The Prince amounted to a refutation of his own opinion that politics were not susceptible to rational analysis and prediction. With regard to a possible visit to Rome, Vettori was not encourag­ ing: Machia­velli had not gone there, so he replied, held back in fact by Vettori’s discouragement, which he himself had already anticipated. Machiavelli got the message: as far as Vettori was concerned, The Prince was a dead letter. He now fell into deep depression. He imagined he would have to become a private tutor to a rich family, a secretary to a mercenary captain or an elementary school teacher – the three most demeaning jobs imaginable for a person with a humanist education. Machia­velli went on to confess that he had abandoned thoughts of great affairs, experiencing no enjoyment from reading about antiquity or from analysing modern events. At the end of 1514 Vettori, prompted by Pope Leo x and Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, posed a problem for Machiavelli (evidently amounting to a test of Machiavelli’s suitability for a job with the Medici). Should the pope ally with Spain and the Swiss, or should he fav­­our France and Venice? Machiavelli replied with a long letter – a virtual treatise – arguing for France and Venice rather than Spain and the Swiss. This was the wrong answer: the pope had already cast his die with Spain and the Swiss. Early in 1515, nevertheless, the prospect of work with the Medici arose yet again. At the end of January Giuliano de’ Medici was in Florence, where he had occasion to meet Paolo Vettori, Machiavelli’s friend. Giuliano had promised to appoint Paolo as governor of the territories that, under papal auspices,

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he would be given to rule. At this point Machiavelli advised Paolo how to proceed: there should be one governor only for all Giuliano’s new possessions. In support of his analysis, Machiavelli once again cited the precedent of Cesare Borgia, as he had done in The Prince: if he were a new prince, he would always follow Borgia’s example. The real (and frank) verdict on Machiavelli’s suitability for Medicean service soon emerged. A Medici secretary, Pietro Ardinghelli, wrote to Giuliano de’ Medici on 14 February 1515. Cardinal Giulio wanted to know whether Giuliano had taken on Machiavelli. The advice was blunt: in no circumstances should Giuliano have anything to do with Niccolò Machiavelli. It seemed that the door to enter Medici service was closed once and for all, and yet later in 1515 Medici prospects were again alluringly renewed. It has been seen that the Florentine militia was revived on 19 May 1514. Its companies were to be commanded by the younger Lorenzo de’ Medici, who would be formally created the militia’s Captain General on 12 August 1515. The new legislation was copied from Machiavelli’s original version drawn up under the republican government: thus it is not surprising that he was now contacted with regard to the revived militia. Following preliminary discussions, Machiavelli sent a brief note that he later called ‘Speculations on Conscription’ (‘Ghiribizzi d’ordinanza’). The document was arguably directed to Lorenzo de’ Medici. It was logical for Lorenzo to have contact on this occasion given that Machiavelli had been the organizer of the former republican militia. It is even possible that these contacts could have inspired Machiavelli to rededicate The Prince to Lorenzo.

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Machiavelli’s hopes could have been revived for a moment by this prospect of a new dedication of The Prince to Lorenzo; he even wrote on 15 February 1516 that he was biding his time in readiness for a change in fortune. In the second half of the sixteenth century Riccardo Riccardi, a Florentine gathering material on Machiavelli, stated that Machiavelli had actually presented The Prince to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but unfortunately Raphael, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, c. 1516–19, oil on canvas.

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this gift coincided with the donation of a pair of dogs, which interested Lorenzo more than Machiavelli’s book. According to Riccardi, Machiavelli left in a huff, swearing that, if Lorenzo put The Prince’s scandalous advice into practice, he would have his due vengeance. The sneering description of Lorenzo, more interested in dogs than books, has an authentically Machia­vel­­lian ring; in 1532 the first publisher of The Prince confirmed that Lorenzo had failed to appreciate the work. The concrete results of Machiavelli’s contacts with Lorenzo were nil: like his uncle Giuliano, he never gave Machiavelli a job. In the later 1510s Machiavelli would have to look beyond the Medici for encouragement and practical recompense.

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s the 1510s progressed, Machiavelli continued to lament his misfortunes, unable to open the door to official patronage – firmly in Medici hands. But the year 1514 was not entirely fallow: he reached the end of The Prince’s 26 chapters, and attributable to that year are two further carnival songs. ‘Desperate Lovers and Ladies’ (‘Di amanti e donne disperati’) depicts Hell as a haven for unrequited love, while ‘The Hermits’ (‘De’ romiti’) suggests that, if ladies fear a predicted universal flood, they should share the mountainous retreats with religious hermits: the former anticipates Machiavelli’s famous tale Belfagor, where Hell is a refuge from unsatisfactory marriage, while the latter is a typically Machiavellian anticlerical satire. The most ambitious poetic venture of 1514 was the Decennale secondo, a sequel to his successful Decennale primo, which had left off in 1504. The principal event narrated was the reconquest of Pisa, the greatest achievement of Machiavelli’s chancellorship. The Venetian defeat at Agnadello in 1509 was yet again, as in The Prince, recounted as a cautionary tale. He found similarities between his own treatment and the military hero, Antonio

Introduction to Book i of the Discorsi sopra la prima decade di Tito Livio, autograph draft by Machiavelli, 1515–19.

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Giacomini’s fate – both victims of Florentine ingratitude. The poem’s narrative is interrupted at the halfway point in 1509. Like its predecessor it is rooted in the communal trad­ ition of vernacular moral narrative verse, with numerous Dantean and Petrarchan affinities. While at work on the poem, Machiavelli may have begun to feel the classical and humanist influences that would lead to his greatest political, literary and historical undertaking – the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio).

The discourses are subdivided into three books of 60, 33 and 49 chapters. The first two books have individual prefaces; the dedication unusually follows rather than precedes the work. The Discourses are datable to between 1515 and 1519.1 They represent Machiavelli’s longest theoretical treatment of politics. The internal and external political affairs of republics and principalities constitute the work’s theme: the ordering of republics, the governance of kingdoms, the administration of military affairs, the conduct of wars, the expansion of empires. The Discourses are complementary to Machiavelli’s Prince, but their discussion ranges wider and deeper. A prominent circle of humanist activity met in the Florentine gardens of the aristocratic Rucellai family. The gath­­erings were hosted in the early years of the sixteenth century first by the statesman and amateur humanist Bernardo Rucellai, who, however, as an implacable opponent of Piero Soderini and his regime, had left Florence in 1505 or 1506, appalled at the populist direction of the revived republic under Soderini. Bernardo returned to Florence shortly before the

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Soderini regime fell, but there was no possibility of patronage or support by the Rucellai family for Machiavelli as long as Bernardo lived. He died in October 1514, leaving his grandson, Cosimo Rucellai, as the new host at the gardens. Much of the activity connected with the Rucellai circle was literary. Neoclassical tragedies and comedies were written; the status of the Italian vernacular was debated; the relative merits of the ancients and moderns were disputed. Members of the circle were central figures in the revival of classical poetic genres in the Italian vernacular. But history and politics were topics of contention too. Not just key political and historical works by Machiavelli can be connected to members of the circle, but treatises of advice for Florence’s Medici rulers emanated from the gardens as well. Members of the circle were on amicable terms with the Medici after they returned to Florence in 1512. The discussions in the gardens were not overtly anti-Medicean. But among the group, only one or two can be described as unwavering Medici partisans. The fact is that Medici rule after 1512 soon became widely disliked in Florence, especially after Giuliano de’ Medici, Machiavelli’s old friend, was replaced in May 1513 as the Medici supremo there by his and the pope’s nephew, the younger Lorenzo de’ Medici. Even Lorenzo’s closest advisers among the Florentine elite withdrew their backing and despaired of his regime. What united most of the Rucellai circle with the majority of the Florentine aristocracy was profound disappointment that the Medici had not restored an aristocratic regime after 1512. Machiavelli’s later intimate friend, the statesman and historian Francesco Guicciardini – a loyal Medicean – depicted the Rucellai gardens as a Trojan horse out of which sprang anti-Medici conspiracies.

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Filippo de’ Nerli, Machiavelli’s close friend and a fellow participant in the debates at Rucellai gardens, described how Machiavelli’s Discourses emerged out of discussions there: During the lifetime of Cosimo Rucellai – who died very young, having shown great promise in Latin – a group of young Latin scholars of high ability had met for a long time in the Rucellai gardens, and Niccolò Machiavelli was continually among them (and I was a great friend of Niccolò’s and of all of them, and very often joined in their conversations). They devoted great energy, through the medium of Latin, to lectures on histories; and regarding these histories, at the behest of his companions, Machiavelli composed his book of Discourses on Livy.2 So according to Nerli, Machiavelli’s Discourses developed from a series of lectures at the Rucellai gardens. Iacopo Nardi, another contemporary Florentine participant in the Rucellai discussions, stressed Machiavelli’s magisterial influence as the intellectual leader of the group. ‘For Cosimo Rucellai and his other companions in the Rucellai gardens Machiavelli wrote and dedicated his Discourses . . . for which Niccolò was greatly admired by them . . . and they delighted in his wonderful conversations.’3 The Discourses were dedicated to two members of the Rucellai group, its host Cosimo Rucellai and another Floren­ tine aristocrat, Zanobi Buondelmonti. In the dedication, Machiavelli remarks suggestively, ‘I do not know which of us is less beholden to the other, I to you for having obliged me

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to write what I should never have written of my own accord’ (Dedica 5). Nerli identified Buondelmonti and Rucellai as promising Latinists, and so it is plausible that they urged Machiavelli to dedicate himself to a proper commentary on Rome’s most prolific Latin historian. Several individual Discourses begin with quotations from the Roman historian Livy. Machiavelli was no classical scholar in the league of Florence’s past and present university professors, and so his remark that he was urged to undertake an enterprise that he would never have contemplated himself is explicable in the sense that he was embarking on a prestigious academic activity for which he regarded himself as hardly qualified. Despite their genesis, Machiavelli’s Discourses were anything but a pedantic academic commentary on a classical text. Machiavelli had already demonstrated his unconventional and radical approach to politics in The Prince. In many respects Machiavelli’s two great masterpieces of political thought shared the same perspective. In the Discourses, as in The Prince, the political world is corrupt. Human nature is invariably bad. Glory remains the goal of politics. Manly virtù is still the path to glory. The rules of conventional Christian morality do not apply. Deception must be practised. The idea that the ends justify the means, suggested in The Prince, is spelled out in the Discourses (i.9). As in The Prince, it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved. The political path is strewn with obstacles laid by irrational forces, most importantly fortune. Military virtù continues to be given priority, as does boldness. Nevertheless, the context of the Discourses is different. In The Prince Machiavelli was writing for two particular

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individuals, Giuliano and then Lorenzo de’ Medici, both of whom had real prospects of becoming new princes. In contrast, Machiavelli dedicated the Discourses to two members of the Rucellai circle – Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai – who, so he declared, were not, but deserved to be, princes. So, unlike The Prince, the Discourses had no immediate political context or purpose: in one sense they were an academic or quasi-academic exercise. Nevertheless, the work had a wider context: it aimed to teach the Florentine middle and upper classes how to govern their republic, if ever they should regain the opportunity. For these political lessons, Machiavelli turned to anti­ quity. In the dedication of The Prince, Machiavelli had claimed his qualifications to advise the Medici princes on the basis of long experience of modern politics, and continual reading about ancient affairs. It has often therefore been assumed that The Prince was a humanist work. But in fact The Prince, as has been seen, rejected the antiquity’s moral and political consensus. The closest literary model Machiavelli had for The Prince was not the humanist mirror-of-princes treatises but rather the bestseller by Giles of Rome, On the Government of Rulers, with its numbered chapter headings in the scholastic manner. The Discourses represented a new pathway for Machiavelli in their relationship to classical sources and their lessons. In commenting on Livy, Machiavelli’s aim was to demonstrate how ancient Rome’s political and military practices diverged radically from modern and contemporary usages. ‘So many institutions’, he wrote,

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observed in ancient Rome – pertaining to internal as well as external affairs – are not only not now imitated, but are held to be of no importance, some being judged false, some impossible to imitate, some irrelevant and useless; the result is that, while we remain ignorant, we are prey to whoever has wanted to overrun this country. (ii.iv.36) The way forward is now to become an admirer of antiquity, whose lessons will enable contemporaries to rise up again: Because fortune is unstable, republics and regimes frequently vary in prosperity, and will always do so, until there arises someone who is such an admirer of antiquity that he will control fortune in such a way that it will not have cause to demonstrate, with every rotation of the sun, how great is its power. (ii.xxx.32) For Machiavelli, history has now become the key to political salvation. The Prince, with its focus on new rulers in the Papal States, had hardly been concerned with Florence and the Medici: only one chapter regarded an effective prince, like the Medici, who ruled a nominal republic behind the scenes – the socalled civic principality – which Machiavelli dismissed as inherently weak and unstable. But now in the Discourses Florence moved to centre-stage. The policies practised by previous regimes had left the elite at the political margins: the benefit of time, which signified remaining uncommitted in expectation of how events would turn out; the policy of

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the middle way and of neutrality; the monopoly of leadership by the upper classes; the fear of strong leadership. The ancient Romans, as Livy’s history showed, were bold and decisive, preferred extremes to the middle way, empowered the middle classes and had recourse to dictatorships in emergencies. The Florentine upper classes had traditionally looked to Venice – with its legally dominant aristocracy – as a model of stability, but Machiavelli pointed to the Venetian loss of its mainland territories in 1509, in contrast to the ancient Roman Empire, energized by its citizen army instead of Venetian reliance on mercenaries. In The Prince Machiavelli had referred obliquely to republics as the most difficult or even impossible potential conquests for a new prince, but in the Discourses he revealed himself as an unequivocal republican. The Roman experience showed that only free republics gain empires; the series of ever more corrupt emperors eventually lost the unsurpassed empire that the Roman republic had won. Rule by the people was inherently preferable to princely governance. Contem­porary Italy was filled with tyrants, but Roman history showed that tyrants nearly always came to grief, unable to overcome the love of liberty. Machiavelli was not only antityrannical in the Discourses but anti-monarchical: the Roman kings were in the end harmful to the city; the institution of monarchy was by its very nature unsound. In line with his prorepublican stance, Machiavelli – disappointed time and again by the Medici – emerges as their fervent critic in the Discourses. He describes how a citizen appears innocently to seek friends for self-protection, in the end reaching an unassailable position: the similarities to the rise to power by Cosimo de’ Medici, the founder of the Medici regime, are hard to miss.

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Machiavelli goes on to compare Cosimo to Julius Ceasar, whom he excoriated as a tyrant and as the wrecker of the Roman republic. The resemblances to The Prince can only go so far when looking to understand the Discourses, which also announce radical changes of direction, including a full commitment to humanism. Here Machiavelli has been reawakened to the relevance of antiquity’s legacy and particularly of Roman history: the work’s presupposition is that the classical heritage, and particularly Livy, provide the key to politics; humanist knowledge of the past now makes possible contemporary Italy’s regeneration. It was typical of humanism to bring to light or make use of rare classical authors, and Machiavelli made his own particular contribution in the Discourses with the ancient Greek historian Polybius. Machiavelli had turned to Polybius’ Histories a couple of times in The Prince, but his use was limited to the sections of the text (Books i–v) well known since Niccolò Perotti’s fifteenth-century Latin translation. In the Discourses, Machiavelli’s use of Polybius became more intensive, significantly exploiting Book vi, which had survived only in fragments and which he was among the first to draw on, relying on Janus Lascaris’s manuscript translation, in the possession of the Rucellai family. His comparison between Sparta’s constitution as ordained by Lycurgus and Rome’s as created fortuitously is founded on Polybius vi. The analysis of Sparta’s incapacity to expand in contrast to Rome’s dynamism has the same source. Machiavelli’s attitude to political religion and to the political consequences of irreligious societies were nurtured by Polybius’s corresponding ideas.

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His notion of leadership, essential in a corrupt society, as exemplified by Thebes, has its source in Polybius vi, as does, most famously, his cyclical scheme of regimes. Machiavelli drew on other rare classical authors in the Discourses, for example Lucretius and the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but his reliance on Polybius, at times cited virtually verbatim, is more direct. Another new direction in the Discourses regarded virtù. In The Prince, virtù was centred on the prince: the problem was how to stimulate him to gain and retain virtù; in the Discourses the issue has been redefined in terms of creating a virtuoso population and preventing its corruption. Liberty was indispensable in keeping a nation virtuoso: only free peoples could maintain their political vitality; servitude went hand in hand with corruption. The link between freedom and vigorous political life had been a time-honoured feature of political thought, central for ancient republicans such as Sallust and reiterated by the like of Aquinas, but Machiavelli’s idea of discord as a stimulus to liberty and virtù was totally novel: To me people who condemn the tumults between the [Roman] nobles and the plebs [in Rome] appear to be blaming the very element that was the principal reason why Rome retained its freedom . . . in all rep­ ublics there are two different humours, that of the people and that of the elite and all laws favouring liberty are brought about by the discord between them . . . good laws arise from those very tumults that many so hastily condemn . . . if tumults brought about

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the tribunes, they deserve the highest praise because, besides giving the people a share in the administration, they served as the guardian of Roman liberty. (i.iv.5–11) Machiavelli’s originality here was only too obvious to his contemporary Guicciardini, who recoiled at this endorsement of discord: ‘to praise dissension is like praising a sick man’s disease because of the excellence of the remedy applied to it.’4 Machiavelli’s panegyric of political division was contrary to the traditions of Roman as well as medieval Italian political thought, Florentine communal practices and fifteenth-century Florentine political thinking. This was an astoundingly original insight, foreshadowing the positive view of political parties in recent history and significant for the rise of modern pluralism. Wealth had been regarded as a cause of corruption by Roman moralists including Juvenal and Horace, and the poverty of early Romans was held up as model by Sallust. In the Discourses Machiavelli followed suit. Not only did he maintain that money was not the sinews of war, contradicting commonplace opinion in Florence, but he drew attention to Juvenal’s encomium of poverty and abhorrence of wealth. It is essential ‘to keep the citizens poor, so that, lacking virtù, they cannot corrupt themselves or others with their riches’ (iii.xvi.9). ‘Well constituted republics need to keep the public rich and their citizens poor’ (i.xxxvii.8). Particularly idiosyncratic was Machiavelli’s view that equality favoured virtù and prevented corruption:

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Those republics where a republican way of life has been maintained uncorrupted do not allow any of their citizens to be or to live like noblemen, but rather maintain a level of equality among themselves and do not countenance lords and noblemen in that country. (i.lv.17) He goes on to define these foes of republican life and equality: And in order to explain what this name of noblemen means, I say that those individuals are called noblemen who live at leisure and in luxury from the income of their possessions involving themselves in agriculture or other tasks necessary to sustain life. Such people are pernicious to every republic and to every country; but even more detrimental are those who, besides such fortunes, control castles and have subjects who obey them. (i.lv.18–19) Such a feudal aristocracy is synonymous with corruption and is antithetical to a republican constitution: whoever wants to establish a republic where there are many noblemen, cannot do so without killing them all first; and whoever wants to establish a kingdom or a principality where there is great equality must select from that egalitarian population a number of ambitious and dissatisfied men and ennoble them and . . . the rest will be made to put up with such a yoke that

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only force, and nothing else, makes them compliant. (i.lv.27) Machiavelli’s conclusion is blunt and without qualification: ‘Let [a founder or reformer] therefore establish a republic where there is . . . great equality, and, on the contrary, set up a principate where there is great inequality; otherwise he will create a political body ill-proportioned and ephemeral’ (i.lv.35). For Machiavelli, a critical inducement to virtù was religion. In The Prince the cloak of religion, as employed by Ferdinand of Aragon, had been emphasized, and in the Discourses Machiavelli further elaborates the notion of religion as a political tool. Rome’s second king, Numa, ‘discovering the people . . . to be ferocious . . . turned to religion as the device needed above all else to maintain civic life’ (i.xi.3). Religion was vital for military institutions, as well as for legislation. Religion was a fundamen­ tal reason for Rome’s glory: ‘the religion launched by Numa was among the primary reasons for Rome’s prosperity, resulting in good institutions; good institutions led to good fortune; and from good fortune arose the felicitous outcome of undertakings’ (i.xi.17). Absence of religion is a fatal political defect: And, just as the observance of divine worship is the reason for greatness in republics, so its neglect is the cause of their ruin. Because, where the fear of god is lacking, a kingdom will inevitably go to ruin, unless sustained by the fear of a prince, who would compensate for the absence of religion. And because princes are short-lived, that kingdom will fail when it loses his virtù. (i.xi.18–20)

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Religion is a safeguard against corruption: ‘there can be no surer indication that a country is in decline than the indiffer­ ence to divine worship’ (i.xii.2), which fosters civic welfare. Machiavelli summed up his attitude to the benefits of religion with the phrases ‘religione usata bene’ and ‘religione bene usata’: religion used well, that is, religion employed for political advantage. In Chapter xi of The Prince, Machiavelli’s antipathy to the papacy had been suggested with irony and sarcasm, but now his censure was expressed openly. The papacy was the cause of religious decay in Christendom: ‘Those peoples close to the Rome church, the head of our religion, are most lacking in religion’ (i.xii.13). Machiavelli denies that the growth of Italian cities was due to their proximity to the Roman church; on the contrary, ‘because of the wicked example set by the Roman curia, this country has lost all its devotion and all its religion . . . The first debt which we Italians owe to the church and to priests, therefore, is that we have become irreligious and evil’ (i.xii.16–18). The second reason for Italy’s troubles is that, neither able to rule the whole of Italy, nor allowing anyone else to be its rulers, the church . . . has been the reason for Italy’s inability to come under one head and for its subjugation by many princes and lords, who have brought about such disunity and weakness, that it has now become the prey, not only of barbarian powers, but of any assailant. (i.xii.21) In Chapter xxvi of The Prince Machiavelli had called for a peninsular alliance to drive out Italy’s transalpine invaders

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and in the Discourses he now expressed regret that, because of the church, Italy had failed to achieve the same unity as France and Spain. He ends his denunciation with an ironic gibe: whoever wants to see and experience the truth . . . would need . . . to send the Roman court, with the authority it enjoys in Italy . . . to reside in the territories of the Swiss, the only people today, with regard both to religion and to military institutions, who live like the ancients. He would then see that before long the evil mores of this court would result in greater disorder there than any other event at any time has brought about. (i.xii.17) It is tempting to relate Machiavelli’s heightened animus towards the church to the climate of opinion that prevailed in Florence as a result of Rome’s growing domination of the city. The Discourses were written in the period 1515 to 1519, years when Florentines felt increasingly frustrated by the papacy’s mounting interference in their affairs. It is arguable that Machiavelli’s move from irony in The Prince to overt hostility in the Discourses was a product of Florentine resentment in these years. Machiavelli had advanced several arguments respecting the maintenance of virtù that would have astonished his contemporaries: in the capitalistic environment of the Italian city-states and above all in a city such as Florence, to advocate poverty and to vilify wealth ran counter to deeply imbued commercial and acquisitive values; to uphold equality ran counter to Italy’s and particularly Florence’s hierarchical and

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snobbish social conventions; to propose discord as the fount of virtù contradicted all the received wisdom of ancient and medieval political authorities. Most scandalous, however, were his religious attitudes: in the Discourses Machiavelli did no less than identify Christianity as the greatest foe of virtù, anticipat­ ing Gibbon by more than two hundred years. Machiavelli was no more (and probably much less) than a nominal Christian. In the Discourses, when pondering how to refute the AristotelianAverroist notion of the eternity of the world, he failed to cite arguments or authorities endorsing the Christian doctrine of creation (offering instead oblique but indisputable support to the anti-Christian, heterodox and Averroist idea that the world was eternal, so denying the biblical doctrine of creation). He intimated that Christianity was just another religious sect, subject to corruption and decline, similar to ancient pag­­­­an­­ism, salvaged temporarily by the Franciscans and Dominicans. Apropos of Christianity and virtù, Machiavelli begins from the question why in antiquity there was so much more love of liberty than in his day: I believe it comes about from the very cause that now makes men weak, namely the difference in our up­­ bringing [educazione] from that in antiquity, founded in turn on our religion’s diversity from that in antiquity. For our religion, having shown the ‘truth and the true way’, makes us value worldly honour less; but pagans set great store [by worldly honour] and regarded it as the highest good, and so were more fierce in their actions. One can derive this from many of their religious customs, beginning with their magnificent

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sacrifices [in contrast to] the modesty of ours . . . [Pagan rituals] had pomp and magnificence, but also boasted acts of sacrifice full of blood and savagery, with the slaughter of a great number of animals, a terrifying spectacle which, as such, made men similarly ferocious. (ii.ii.26–9) In addition to the contrast between pagan and Christian ceremonial, there was a profound contrast in religious ethos: Ancient religion . . . honoured only men replete with worldly glory, such as army captains and republican leaders. Our religion has exalted the meek and contemplative rather than men of action. It has put the highest value on humility, mortification and scorn for human affairs; [paganism] valued magnanimity, bodily strength and all other attributes likely to make men strong. (ii.ii.30–32) Machiavelli recoiled at the Christian doctrine of ‘turn the other cheek’: And if our religion requires you to show your strength, it wants you to suffer rather than to react forcefully. This way of life seems to have made the world feeble and prey to evil men, who are able to escape with impunity, because, in order to reach heaven, they think of enduring injuries rather than of taking vengeance. (ii.ii.33–4)

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Machiavelli ends this extraordinary censure of Christian values by calling for a more militant Christianity: And although it seems that the world has been made effeminate and that the heavens have lost their arms, the cause, without doubt, has arisen from the ignominy of men, who have interpreted our religion according to passivity and not according to virtù. For if they realized how it promises the glorification and the defence of the fatherland, they would understand how it should be loved and honoured, and prepare themselves for its defence. (ii.ii.35–6) ‘By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the word politicus, and its Latin and Italian equivalents civilis and civile, had been pre-empted for the republican regime.’5 Machiavelli adhered to this usage in the Discourses, with expressions such as ‘vivere civile’, ‘vivere libero’, ‘vivere politico’, ‘stato libero’ and ‘civiltà’ to designate a republic in a positive sense. He adopted various related usages too: ‘senza alcuna civiltà’ (without any respect for republican norms), ‘il vero vivere politico’ (a true republic), ‘vivere civile’ (republican order or way of life), ‘civiltà’ (republican order), ‘costume civile’ (republican norms), ‘civilmente’ (in a republican manner), ‘vivere libero’ (republican order) and so on. Like other political writers of his day, he extended the notion of ‘politic’ (politicum) to include both republics and monarchies, provided that the latter up­­held law and constitutional institutions (‘ordini’): ‘vivere politico, o per via di republica o di regno’ (‘constitutional government under the law, whether republic or monarchy’); his examples

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here were Rome under its early kings, particularly Romulus and Numa, and the French monarchy. None of this terminology had been used in The Prince, and so the question arises to what extent was Machiavelli following a different political philosophy in the Discourses. This contrast is all the more striking in view of the fact that, in the Discourses, he also introduces the concept of the common good: ‘comune bene’, ‘bene com­ une’, ‘comune utilità’, ‘salute publica’, ‘bene dello universale’, ‘beneficio comune’ and ‘utile publico’. In The Prince the idea of the common good scarcely appears, and when it does, it has the significance of yet another tool to bolster the new prince’s regime, rather than an inherently desirable goal. Has Machia­velli been transformed from a defender of monarchy and an apolo­g­ist for tyranny in The Prince into a traditional champion of republicanism in the Discourses? Was he now writ­­ ing a conventional political treatise, contrasting positive values of good government (whether republic or monarchy) with the negative qualities of bad government (tyranny)? The answer to these questions is no: Machiavelli was not the same as Aristotle, Cicero, Ptolemy of Lucca, Dante, Marsilius, Salutati, Bruni, Alamanno Rinuccini, Savonarola or the array of other political theorists from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. In the Discourses his remit was broader, encompassing governments and states over the widest range. He had affinities with medieval and early Renaissance Italian political writers such as Brunetto Latini, Marsilius, Ptolemy of Lucca, the younger Salutati and Bruni, in positing the absolute superiority of republics over monarchies, but his preferences emerged in an examination of the advantages and disadvantages of a

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broad spectrum of governments – monarchies, constitutional principalities (princi­­­patus civiles), oligarchies, popular republics and even tyrannies (or ‘new principalities’). The wide range of Machia­velli’s political vision is evident from his term for political structures in both The Prince and the Discourses. This is ‘stato’ – most often meaning regime, sometimes dominion, but never ‘state’ in the modern sense of the public embodiment of power or permanent sovereign political bodies such as the empire, a kingdom or a city-state. ‘Stato’ occurs 105 times in the Discourses; ‘politicus’ and its variants, 47 times; ‘bene comune’ and its variants, 16 times. Machiavelli holds that, of all political forms, republics are the best, because they are capable of the most glory and greatness; the common good and patriotism are praised not as moral absolutes, but as par­­ ticularly powerful means that enable republics to realize their potential. ‘Patriotism as Machiavelli understood it is collective selfishness.’6 Neverthe­less, other political forms – such as monarchy or even tyranny – can be serviceable too, albeit not to the same extent as republics. So, in the final ana­­lysis, what Machiavelli’s political thought is concerned with in the Discourses is ‘stato’, not ‘ben comune’ or ‘vivere politico’: there he is examining all forms of political power and their effectiveness. He has shifted the emphasis in political thought from legitimacy and morality to results, and accordingly the term ‘stato’ prevailed in the Discourses over expressions such as ‘politico’ and ‘ben comune’. In the Discourses, Machia­velli’s political vocabulary has intrinsic links to The Prince. Machiavelli’s distinctive political language and certainly his truly original voice emerge with particular force in his treatment of a republic’s survival; looking to results and

Florentine school, Piero Soderini, 17th century, oil on panel.

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effects, and devaluing means or traditional morals, he had no hesitation in advocating the ruthlessness characteristic of The Prince: ‘Whoever acquires a tyranny and fails to kill Brutus, and whoever establishes a republic [stato libero] and fails to kill the sons of Brutus, will survive but briefly’ (iii.iii.4). The amoral politics of republics and tyrannies merge here, as Machiavelli exploits for both purposes the same episode in Roman history. According to Livy, Lucius Junius Brutus was an enemy of the last Roman king, Tarquin the Proud, who had murdered his father; he was able to evade Tarquin’s purge by feigning madness. After the rape of Lucretia by the king’s son, Brutus led the revolt against the last Roman monarch, founding the Roman republic; when his own sons conspired to reinstate the Tarquins, they were tried and condemned before their father, who himself witnessed their execution. This general rule of princely and republican politics, to kill the sons of Brutus, is brought to bear by Machiavelli on the misconceived policies of his former boss, Piero Soderini, who believed that with patience and decency he could overcome the yearning of Brutus’s sons to restore the previous government; but he was deceived . . . He considered . . . that to make a bold attack on his opponents and to vanquish his adversaries, he would have had to assume extraordinary authority . . . [which] would have disturbed the people to such an extent that after his death they would never again have consented to elect a gonfalonier for life . . . But since his actions and policies would be judged by their results . . . he could have convinced everyone that what he had done had been

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for the good of his city . . . Not understanding how to imitate Brutus, he lost his city, his power [stato] and his reputation. (iii.iii.6–13) Machiavelli has no hesitation in applying the morally questionable but, for him, politically sound maxim that the ends justify the means: since Soderini’s actions would be judged by their outcome, he should have had no scruples in selecting the means, whether or not within the law. Soderini failed to recognize that, in politics, ‘decency is not enough’ (iii.xxi.21). Commentators on Machiavelli have long pondered the relationship between The Prince and the Discourses. Fundamental in this debate has been the allegedly pro-monarchical (and even pro-tyrannical) character of the former, in apparent contrast to the pro-republican nature of the latter. How could one mind conceive two such divergent works so near to one another chronologically, or even (if some hypotheses on dat­ing are to be credited) overlapping in their composition? Solutions have included dismissing one or the other text as insincere, insignificant or incomplete; or postulating an intellectual development from monarchism to republicanism; or emphasizing complexity, fluidity and aversion to hard and fast answers, in conformity with a hypothetically rhetorical analysis. It is worthwhile, however, giving the last word to Machiavelli himself. A particularly significant moment occurs in the Discourses when Machiavelli comes to ponder the socio­ logical and geographical context of tyrannies and republics: he maintains that regimes or constitutions are determined by where they are located and what kind of society a given region boasts. In Tuscany, where a feudal nobility, feudal hierarchy

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and feudal jurisdiction are absent, republics – however imperfect – will prevail; in Lombardy, the Romagna, the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples, because of the contrasting social structure and the prevalence of feudal relationships, only monarchies and tyrannies can result: these . . . types of men [that is, feudal nobles] are dominant in the Kingdom of Naples, the lands of Rome [modern-day Lazio], the Romagna and Lombardy. Hence in these territories there has never been established any republic nor any republican way of life [alcuno vivere politico] . . . This thesis is verified by the example of Tuscany, where within a limited territorial expanse there have been three long [established] republics, Florence, Siena and Lucca . . . All this comes about from the absence in that territory of any feudatories with jurisdiction [alcuno signore di castella] and no or very few nobles. (i.lv.19–25) Here Machiavelli himself explains the divergent character of his two greatest political works. The Prince is meant for a new prince about to set up a regime in the Romagna or elsewhere in Italy apart from Tuscany: in such circumstances, republican vocabulary, ideology and ideals are not apposite. In the Discourses, his perspective is wider, embracing all of Italy, including Tuscany: hence that work’s varied vocabulary, subjectmatter and ideology, ranging from monarchy and tyranny to popular and aristocratic republics. Extending his overview wider than Aristotle, who had tended to restrict his discussion in the Politics to the contrasting economic foundations of

Title page of I discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (1584).

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different constitutions, or the Thomist Savonarola, who limited himself to geographical and climatic variations, Machiavelli emerges as a political, sociological, geographical and historical relativist – like Montesquieu – not as a monochromatic champion of any particular political regime.

Machiavelli devoted his youth to vernacular poetry and the classics, but when he entered the chancery his literary interests were put to one side in favour of his administrative, diplomatic and military duties: between 1498 and 1512 he was a man of action, not of letters; his poetic efforts were brief distractions from his demanding public responsibilities. After his sacking in 1512 he found solace in writing. The encouragement of the Rucellai group set him on the road to becoming a major Italian literary figure. Machiavelli now demonstrated that his intellectual genius was not limited to politics. The Ass (L’Asino) is Machiavelli’s longest verse composition. He was at work on the poem in December 1517. According to the first edition’s editor, it was left unfinished; the satirical allusions to living contemporaries could have discouraged its completion. The numerous references to Machiavelli’s mis­­ fortunes place the work between his dismissal from the chancery in 1512 and his appointment by the Medici as Florence’s official historian in 1520. The bitter criticism of the Medici, likened allegorically to untrustworthy ‘medics’ – a frequent wordplay in Medicean panegyrics – suggests a date following the final rejection of The Prince by the younger Lorenzo de’ Medici, and presumably near to the Discourses, a work displaying similar anti-Medicean sentiments.

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The text narrates how the poet, lost in a dark forest, is helped by one of Circe’s handmaids, in charge of attending to various animals who were originally men but were now transformed into beasts by her mistress. The beautiful servant passes an amorous night with the narrator, and subsequently meets a pig who refuses to reassume human form. The poem’s title refers to a work by the Latin writer Apuleius of Madaura (second century ad). The allusion to Apuleius was in line with the neoclassical activities of the Rucellai circle, as were references to Pliny’s Natural History and particularly to Plutarch’s Gryllus, a dialogue between Ulysses and a pig, available in Latin translation by the renowned former Florentine chancellor Leonardo Bruni. Machiavelli, however, took his main inspiration from Dante: the tale opens, as in the Inferno, with the narrator lost in a dark and threatening forest, and then being rescued by a guide (a fusion of Dante’s Virgil and Beatrice) who in their wanderings, as in Dante’s Comedy, points out various contemporary personalities. The poem is a Dantean parody, as is obvious from the transformation of a spiritual paragon such as Beatrice into the figure of a sensual seductress. Among the poem’s familiar themes is fortune’s influence over human beings and particularly Machiavelli himself, whose misfortune it is to inhabit an evil world in adverse times. Man cannot act contrary to his nature. The aristocracy is denigrated. Venice’s excessive mainland expansion is highlighted, as well as its subsequent comeuppance. Florence, represented by a lion (‘marzocco’), is politically inadequate too. In contrast, the virtù of contemporary Germans is applauded (as in The Prince and the Discourses) – content to remain within their traditional

Title page of L’asino (1588).

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borders and reluctant to attempt Italianate over-expansion. Boldness is preferred to hesitation. Contem­porary political leaders are scorned. Love of liberty is lauded. Military and political expansion without adequate foundations is perilous. Florence in particular is accused of misguided imperialism. The ancient Romans are political paragons, subject to a bizarre comparison with animals, in contrast to Machia­velli’s degenerate human contemporaries. The Polybian cycle of regimes reappears. Machiavelli again rejects Christianity, scorning the delusion that divine intervention would remedy political shortcomings. He once more defends political religion, emphasizing the necessity of religious norms to uphold civic well-being. The Ass does not lack for original ideas. For the first time Machiavelli declares that internal factionalism has been the cause of Florence’s ruination. He makes his first specific incursion into constitutional speculation, criticizing rapid rotation of offices and transitory governance, with obvious reference to Florence. In his annotations to Lucretius, Machiavelli had highlighted the former’s view that the gods were heedless of mortal welfare – a doctrine now accorded a central place in The Ass. His emphasis on divine indifference suggests that he had moved beyond anticlericalism and anti-Christianism. Such neo-Lucretianism has been dubbed sixteenth-century proto-atheism,7 and Machiavelli was regarded as an atheist by his contemporary Paolo Giovio. His misanthropy finds full expression here with the outrageous thesis that animals are superior to humans in prudence, fortitude and temperance; they are closer to nature, have superior senses, are born fully clothed and protected. He utterly rejects the Hermetic concept

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of man’s divinity, a thesis cherished by the Florentine neoPlatonists. In The Ass’s conclusion, a pig’s life is preferred to a man’s. Despite such negativism, however, The Ass carries a more optimistic message in comparison with Machiavelli’s other writings following his dismissal from the chancery. In The Prince hope for the future is placed in the hands of a princesaviour while in the Discourses he looks to a leader inspired by the example of classical antiquity. In neither case is a posi­­­ tive outcome guaranteed. But in The Ass Machiavelli declares that a brighter future must come. On the basis of Polybian cyclical theory of history, better times are certain. For five long years from 1512 to 1517 Machiavelli had suffered rejection by the Medici and their courtiers. With his entry now into the Rucellai gardens, he was recognized as a profound thinker and a writer of extraordinary talents; even if lacking appreciation for his diplomatic and administrative expertise, he had now won recognition for his literary prowess. The gloom of The Prince was finally dissipating.

Machiavelli’s appetite for comedy, whetted by his youthful translation of Andria and transcription of Eunuchus, seems to have led to two lost theatrical pieces: a comedy entitled La sporta, modelled on Plautus’s Aulularia, and a neo-Aristophonic comedy called Le maschere, which Machiavelli’s grandson, Giuliano de’ Ricci, refused to copy because it was fragmentary and, under barely dissimulated names, defamed various con­ tem­poraries alive in 1504, when it was set. Machiavelli may also have had a vague idea for a vernacular religious drama

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– a so-called Sacra Rappresentazione – dedicated to a Pisan martyr in the emperor Nero’s reign. But among Machiavelli’s early theatrical projects the most significant was the Commedia in versi, a play rejected as a false attribution in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries but recently proved to be a genuine work by Machiavelli.8 The plot centres on two unhappily married couples in ancient Rome who, in the end, gladly exchange partners. The comedy has been dated to the end of 1512 or beginning of 1513, but an alternative possibility is that it was written no later than September 1518; Machiavelli’s own autograph copy dates from no earlier than 1517. The play’s prologue indicates that Machiavelli was anxious about backbiting. He was particularly worried by linguistic purists, who were currently proposing the three fourteenth-century literary crowns Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio as absolute literary models. Machiavelli was also concerned that he was recognized only among his friends as a poet, given that he was excluded from the list of notable poets at the end of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. A number of themes appearing in Machiavelli’s other writ­ ings are prominent in the Commedia. He indulges his taste for obscenity, conspicuous in his version of Andria as well as in his comic masterpiece Mandragola. Machiavelli’s preference for impetuosity over circumspection is evident. The Commedia’s ostensible setting is ancient Rome but its critique of contemporary Florentine mores cannot be missed. Machiavelli expresses his usual anticlericalism, highlighting churches as venues for assignations or prostitution rather than worship. Characteristically, Machiavelli goes further, giving vent to thinly disguised anti-Christian blasphemy when parodying

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the angel’s greeting to Mary in Luke i:28. As so memorably recommended in The Prince, Machiavelli advocates a cloak of virtue to cover evil. His inclination to self-parody, which would constitute the fundamental premise of his final comedy Clizia, is anticipated in the Commedia’s gibes against figures like himself, with their passion for poetry, history, philosophy, astro­­logy and music. Similar to Nicia in Mandragola, there is one central comic character – the parasite Saturio, shameless for his lechery, gluttony and inebriation. But there are at least two notable features of the Commedia with no specific parallel in Machia­velli’s other writings. One is the ridicule of relatives work­­ing as go-betweens in extramarital sexual encounters. The other is his advocacy of divorce as a remedy for the chronic failure of marriage in contemporary society. Here once more, but in a domestic rather than political or military context, Machiavelli looks to ancient Rome as the paragon for remedy­ ing contemporary deficiencies: yet again, it is found to be superior to modern Christendom. The Commedia falls short of Mandragola’s comic perfection: Saturio is no match for Nicia as a buffoon, and Saturio’s drunken and gluttonous antics do not constitute a devasting social satire, like Mandragola’s exposure of Nicia’s aristocratic imbecility. But the Commedia represents a serious and even profound commentary on contemporary mores, absent from Mandragola’s black comedy; the portrait of Catillo’s jealous psychology and the consequent blazing marital row between him and Virginia are all too realistic. The Commedia lays bare a genuine and profound social problem: the resolution of marital incom­ patibility in a Christian society where divorce did not exist. Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was home

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to innumerable failed marriages, the peaceful resolution of which, as in the Commedia, was a utopian aspiration.

The truly significant fruit of Machiavelli’s study of ancient Roman comedy was Mandragola, universally recognized as a masterpiece, even described by some critics as not just the greatest theatrical work of the Italian Renaissance but the greatest comedy in the Italian language. Its uncomplicated plot turns on a young wife’s inability to have children when married to an old man. A young Florentine, Callimaco Guadagni, hears reports of the beautiful Lucrezia, married to a stupid and pompous aristocratic lawyer, Nicia Calfucci. He decides to seduce her with the help of the wily Ligurio, who suggests Callimaco disguise himself as a medic, proposing to cure the couple’s sterility with a potion made from mandrake root, but warning that the first man to sleep with her after he imbibed it would die – so necessitating the recruitment of a substitute to take the poison. In order to convince Lucrezia to abandon her feminine modesty, her mother Sostrata and her confessor Fra Timoteo are enlisted. Callimaco again disguises himself, this time as an ingenuous youth who is captured and brought to Lucrezia’s bed. After a passionate night, Callimaco, now accepted into the marital home as an intimate friend, becomes Lucrezia’s regular lover, with the prospect of marriage after Nicia’s death. The comedy ends in church with a ritual blessing by Timoteo, praying that Lucrezia would have a son. The dating of Mandragola is controversial and problematic, but it can be suggested that the comedy was written

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between 1515, the year of Machiavelli’s entry into the Rucellai gardens, and the end of 1517. Machiavelli developed the plot of Mandragola from the story of Ludovico and Beatrice in Boccaccio’s Decameron (vii.7). But it is clear that, more than simply adapting for the theatre a vernacular tale (like Iacopo Comedia di Callimaco et di Lucretia (Mandragola), frontispiece with the centaur, after 1518.

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Nardi, his friend from the Rucellai gardens), Machiavelli adopted the most up-to-date modern hybrid technique on the model of contemporary neoclassical commedia erudita (‘erudite comedy’), following Ariosto and Bibbiena (Bernardo Dovizi), who employed the novella as a basis for creating neoTerentian comedy. Mandragola is the most authentic Terentian vernacular comedy of the Italian Renaissance. The prologue rigorously respects the norms prescribed by the late ancient grammarian Aelius Donatus, resulting in a prologus mixtus, where a summary is combined with a eulogy of the work together with the author’s self-defence and counterattack against potential detractors. There is adherence to the traditional unities of time, place and action. The names of two characters are taken from Terence; others offer classical Latin or Greek etymologies; Lucrezia recalls Livy’s famed narrative of the last Roman king. Machiavelli maintains an absolute continuity of action. To preserve unity of place, the action is not transferred to the interior of Nicia’s house. Poliziano, in his lecture course on the Andria at the University of Florence, had underlined Terence’s practice of not overcrowding the stage with more than four actors. Machiavelli infringes this rule only in the final scene, where five characters are on stage. Poliziano had stressed the verisimilitude of Terentian theatre – a feature rigorously followed by Machiavelli: the Florentine topography is real; the theological precepts by which Timoteo justifies Lucrezia’s adultery are typically Dominican, appropriate for his church of Santa Maria Novella; the scholastic medical doctrines professed by Callimaco are in line with contemporary medical theory. A cleric would be obviously extraneous

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to ancient Roman theatre, but even here Machiavelli provides a Terentian touch: Timoteo’s character corresponds to the ruf­­­ fian of antique comedy, in effect selling Lucrezia to Callimaco through the control of her conscience. Poliziano had commented on Terence’s ability to define roles; Machiavelli attains a level of characterization unimaginable in ancient Latin com­ edy: Callimaco becomes a hilarious parody of the tormented Petrarchan lover, while out of Nicia’s mouth flows an uninter­ rupted stream of idiocies and clichés in the form of Florentine street vulgarities. Written presumably at the same time as the rededication of The Prince and composition of the Discourses, it is not surprising to find numerous shared themes. The initial plan of seduction is abandoned as too protracted, thus rejecting the Florentine elite’s favoured benefit of time. Ligurio and Callimaco are the fox and the lion of The Prince (chap. xviii). The power of religion, as in the Discourses, provides the winning strategy. In the modern world, it is hard to find virtù. Machia­ velli’s anti-Florentine sentiments are echoed in Nicia’s denun­ ci­ation of political snobbery. Machiavelli’s aversion to the elite is revealed in the hilarious portrait of Nicia, descended from the ancient Florentine family of Calfucci, cited by Dante. Machiavelli’s coup de théâtre is the portrait of this pompous and idiotic lawyer’s scarcely latent homosexuality when physically examining Callimaco’s suitability to sleep with his wife. As to be expected, Machiavelli displays unrestrained anticlericalism. When Callimaco asks how to achieve Lucrezia’s consent to adultery, Ligurio suggests an approach to her confessor, whose collaboration can be guaranteed by money.

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Clerics are lascivious: Lucrezia refuses to fulfil her vow to attend early masses at Santissima Annunziata owing to un­­ welcome attentions experienced there of a lecherous priest. Timoteo is shamelessly mercenary. Religion in Mandragola is totally commercialized. As elsewhere, Machiavelli shows himself to be antiChristian. Lucrezia is mocked for her overindulgence in prayer. The Catholic obsession with ritual is ridiculed. The Christian notion of rebirth is derided. A universe is suggested without a place for a Christian God, much less for a God without power; nature and fortune are contraposed; advantage and disadvantage are autonomously balanced, without the need for divine intervention. Consenting to her adultery, Lucrezia puts to one side moral and religious scruples. Nature has its own spontaneous will not subject to any order, either moral or religious. Mandragola represents The Prince’s corrupt world on a domestic scale. Amorality is everywhere. Necessity justifies evil. Ligurio has recourse to the Machiavellian theme of ends and means. A foetus condemned to abortion is a piece of meat. The good of the majority justifies the ill treatment of the minority. Women have to be prepared for any action, even if immoral, in order to survive. Lack of success can come from being too good as well as too evil. Like the virtuoso new prince, Callimaco commits himself to follow a path of evil. Mandragola is the blackest of black comedies. It is a work without hero or heroine. Callimaco is the caricature of the romantic lover: he thanks God for the evil actions that the priest will perform on his behalf; after his adultery he claims to be blessed. Dif­ ferent to her ancient Roman namesake, Lucrezia is happy

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to live in an adulterous relationship, absolved by a deviant priest and a corrupt church. Mandragola’s world is a caricature of the Machia­­vellian political world, without virtue or ideals, dominated by primordial instincts: luxury, avarice, pride, procreation. In Mandragola, Machiavelli’s negativism has touched bottom: in the abominable world of The Prince renewal is possible thanks to the new prince’s virtù; in the Discourses, there is trust in Tuscany’s republican traditions, spared the corruption of signorial Italy, as well as hope for a charismatic republican leader inspired by the example of republican Rome; in The Ass there is the positive certainty provided by the Polybian cycle of descent and ascent. In Mandragola there is nothing but evil.

Machiavelli’s gift for prose narration is given full scope in the so-called Letter about the Plague (Epistola della peste).9 Like the Commedia in versi, it was denied a genuine attribution in the late nineteenth and throughout the entire twentieth century until recently when it was proven to be an authentic Machiavellian creation. During a devastating outbreak of plague in 1523, Machiavelli’s close friend Lorenzo Strozzi aban­­doned Florence for his country house. Machiavelli, apparently remaining in Florence at least for a time, had the idea of sending Lorenzo a narrative account of Florence as ravaged by plague, modelled on the introduction to Boccaccio’s Decameron. Following the latter’s account of the plague of 1348, Machia­velli begins his grim narrative: bodies everywhere, business interrupted, the administration of justice halted, personal and family relations broken off. His itinerary starts near the Mercato Vecchio (today Piazza della Repubblica), continuing to the Mercato Nuovo

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(New Market) and then to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (identified with its ancient name of Santa Reparata), where he sees only three priests, one of whom is taking confessions with his hands and feet tied, to prevent so-called canonical temptations (such as touching the penitents); he also sees three men interrupting their devotions to ogle at three old women. He hastens to Piazza della Signoria: it is 1 May, when normally there would be festivities celebrating the arrival of spring, but instead he sees only crosses, biers, stretchers carrying the dead and gravediggers. Proceeding to Piazza Santa Croce, he observes a large troupe of dancing gravediggers clamorously singing ‘Welcome to the plague’ instead of the customary ‘Welcome to May.’ Entering the church, he notices a young woman prostrate from the loss of her lover, for whose embraces she had abandoned her own family; having roused her from a state of near death and persuaded her that, if she repents and mends her ways in the future, she will regain her good name, he leads her back to her own dwelling. Having returned home for midday refreshment and rest, the narrator sets out again for the church of Santo Spirito, where the few remaining friars, lacking the means of sustenance, hurl blasphemies and curses at heaven to such an extent that, more afraid of divine punishment than of the plague itself, the narrator rushes out. Now he goes by way of Via Maggio to the Ponte Santa Trinita, on which he sees no sign of May Day festivities but rather, stretched out, a corpse that no one dares approach. Entering the church of Santa Trinita he asks a well-born man why he has remained in the city; in reply he says that he cannot bear to lose sight of a woman now there at prayer. The man declares that his love

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for her will protect him from the pestilence – a remedy that the narrator rejects, on the grounds that love is a sickness more pernicious than the plague itself. Having left the church, the narrator walks towards the church of Santa Maria Novella, encountering on the way the eccentric cleric Alesso Strozzi. The two enter the basilica to find not the desolation of the other churches, but gentlefolk, oblivious to the plague, engaged in amorous assignations. After his companion’s departure, the narrator notices a beautiful young woman, dressed in mourning and seated on the steps leading to the main chapel. Having been described at length, and recounting her lover’s death, she welcomes the narrator’s approaches. The new companions, having spurned the advances of a lecherous friar and leaving the church together, make their way to her house, where she is left by the narrator, not before arranging an assignation the following day. Fixated by his new amorous interest, the narrator abandons his planned visit to the church of San Lorenzo and returns home to work on a new comedy that he is preparing. The Letter about the Plague is Machiavelli’s most ornate piece of prose writing: poetic words replace ordinary prose vocabulary. Exclamations characteristic of high-flown rhetoric are encountered. Rhetorical repetitions are present. Rhetorical questions are put. The highpoint of the Letter’s rhetoric is the detailed portrait, from head to hands, of the narrator’s new infatuation. The elaborate rhetorical style is unique in Machia­velli’s prose output, differing from the telegraphic prose of The Prince and the straightforward exposition characteristic of the Discourses on Livy; even the rhetorical speeches in the Florentine Histories have little in common with the poetic

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prose of the Letter about the Plague; the folksy storytelling of Belfagor is far removed from the lofty, quasi-poetic rhetoric of the Letter. Critics may have not recognized the usual Machiavelli here, because the alternation between comedy and tragedy constitutes an elaborate parody of Boccaccio. What is truly Machiavellian is the Letter about the Plague’s irony. The squares and markets of Florence normally resound with commercial talk, but now all that is heard are miserable and sad exchanges. It is May Day, but the only festivities are the grotesque songs and dances of the gravediggers in Piazza Santa Croce. Only as the result of death can the narrator find love in the bereaved young widow in Santa Maria Novella. The bizarre and lecherous Fra Alesso Strozzi was removed from the convent of Santa Maria Novella ‘for his good conduct’. Typical is Machiavelli’s anticlericalism: the narrator visits the principal churches in all four quarters of the city but finds not sincere devotion and worship, but amorous assignations, lust, imprecations and blasphemy. It is the narrator – a layman – not the clergy who consoles and helps the two bereaved women in Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella. The narrator comes close to Machiavellian blasphemy and anti-Christian sentiments when he mocks the biblical rising of Lazarus. Fact or fiction? It is hard to believe that Machiavelli imag­ ined all the specific incidents recounted in the Letter about the Plague. But in 1523 Machiavelli had been married to Marietta Corsini for more than twenty years, and yet he portrays the narrator as a bachelor. When he returns home again at the end of his peregrinations, he refers to his forthcoming assignation with the beautiful young widow whom he now refers

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to as his desired spouse and looks forward to their wedding. What is now undeniable is that Machiavelli was the sender and Lorenzo Strozzi the addressee of the Letter about the Plague.

belfagor, Machiavelli’s only prose novella, is divided into three narrative sequences. In the first, Pluto, king of the underworld, summons a council to decide what to do about the persistent laments from the damned that their fate was due to marriage. The archdevil Belfagor is assigned to investigate, ascending to the upper world, assuming human form and taking a wife for ten years. In the second sequence Belfagor, having adopted the identity of a rich Castilian merchant, goes to live in Florence, taking a bride from a prominent noble fam­­ily. His wife soon reveals her insolent, arrogant and des­ potic temperament. Belfagor, impoverished by his wife’s maniacal spending, by enormous dowries for her sisters and by ruinous schemes involving her brothers, rapidly exhausts the enormous capital of 100,000 ducats provided by Pluto and flees the city. In the final sequence Belfagor, per­­secuted by his voracious creditors, seeks refuge with a peasant, Gianmatteo del Brica, whom he promises to enrich if he can be saved from his enemies. According to this deal, Gianmatteo poses as an exorcist, curing women possessed by Belfagor and pocketing huge sums from their relatives. After two exorcisms that enrich Gianmatteo by 500 florins and 50,000 ducats respectively, Belfagor considers his debt paid, intimating to Gianmatteo that his help should no longer be sought. Forced to go to Paris for the attempted cure of the king of France’s daughter and threatened with hanging in case of failure, Gianmatteo leads

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Belfagor to believe that his wife is about to arrive from Florence. Belfagor, fearing the matrimonial yoke more than Pluto’s wrath for not respecting their agreement to reside in the upper world for ten years, returns terrified to the underworld; in contrast Gianmatteo, having cured the king’s daughter, returns home rich and happy. Unlike Mandragola, Belfagor is not an original creation. It was long suspected that Giovanni Brevio, a Venetian priest born in the second half of the fifteenth century and dying after 1545, had plagiarized Belfagor; recently it has been shown that Brevio and Machiavelli shared a common source, a now lost Florentine tale going back to the second half of the fifteenth century – itself a reworking of a French vernacular poem by Jehan Le Fèvre, in turn a translation and adaptation of a still older Latin text by the cleric Mathieu de Boulogne. Machiavelli could have been attracted by this tale’s Dantean features. As in the Inferno, Machiavelli paints a vivid picture of Hell on Earth. Belfagor offers a negative image of Florence as a commercial hub, chosen by Belfagor as his residence because of its notoriety for usury. For both Dante and Machia­velli, Florence is a city dominated by money and vice. But Machiavelli turns Dante’s world upside down, transforming earthly life into Hell and man into the true Devil. Like The Prince, the Discourses, The Ass and Mandragola, an entirely negative depiction of humanity emerges. Similar to Mandragola, Hell is a place suited for gentlemen (‘uomini da bene’). The contrast between Hell and Earth comes into sharp focus with regard to law and government. Pluto’s realm is an absolute monarchy, and yet its sovereign chooses to govern according to law, consulting

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the inferno’s elite in order to avoid the shameful infamy of injustice. In contrast, the rulers of the upper world act without respect for law or justice. Gianmatteo is forced by the Florentine Signoria to exorcize the king of France’s daughter and is arbitrarily threatened with hanging if he fails. The environment of Belfagor is the corrupt world of The Prince, where injustice, force, deception and fraud prevail. The humblest Florentine is shown to be more astute than even an archdevil. The recent redating of Belfagor to 1524 reveals a link with Machiavelli’s suggestions for the reform of the Florentine constitution submitted to the Medici in the 1520s, when he looks forward to a potentially despotic Medici regime transformed into a constitutional monarchy, with power shared between the ruling family and a series of reformed magistracies and councils. The Medici would thus have progressed towards an enlightened despotism like Pluto’s, who chose to govern according to law in preference to unbridled absolutism. Although Belfagor was Machiavelli’s only contribution to the novella genre, it is often still considered a masterpiece. Such critical favour needs to be reconsidered in view of the tale’s limited originality. Nevertheless, Machiavelli’s narrative gifts stand out, especially in comparison to Brevio’s feeble account. Machiavelli paid great attention to observing human fallibility, psychology and emotional tensions. Machiavelli had a real talent for narrative, as shown by a number of his letters, particularly his celebrated description of an encounter with a prostitute who is revealed to be a miserable and ugly old hag. Another late composition demonstrating Machiavelli’s narrative talents was Serenata, a poem of 264 verses, in which

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Machiavelli adapts a story within a story from Ovid’s Meta­ morphoses (xiv.623–771). A forest nymph, Pomona, devoted entirely to rustic life and indifferent to love, is courted unsuccessfully by a satyr, Vertunno, who tells her the moralizing tale of the beautiful and cruel Anassarete and Ifi, a charming youth. The girl was insensible to the advances of her suitor, who hanged himself in front of her house. The funeral procession passed under the windows of Anassarete, who, having hardly caught sight of her suitor’s face, was immediately transformed into stone. On hearing this story, Pomona casts aside her frigidity and abandons herself to Vertunno’s love. Machiavelli joins this story to another recounting his own appeal for the love of an unnamed woman, so fashioning a third narrative. Serenata is Machiavelli’s most extensive neoclassical poem, diverging from the two Decennali, the three Capitoli and The Ass, which retain strong ties to the Tuscan ver­­­ nac­ular tradition – a tendency in line with Machiavelli’s renewed humanism, evident in the Discourses and in his neoclassical theatrical output. With regard to dating, the poem’s neoclassicism points to a time after his entry into the Rucellai gardens. The reference to unrequited love suggests an origin preceding the consummation of his affair with Barbera Salutati, an event that appears to have occurred at the beginning of February 1524. ‘On Occasion’ (‘Dell’occasione’) is a brief neoclassical poem of 22 verses. The text is a liberal adaptation of an epigram by the late fourth-century Latin poet Ausonius. Machia­­velli’s translation is dedicated to Filippo de’ Nerli, his companion in the Rucellai gardens. There is no certainty with regard to dating, although some critics point to brevity as an indication

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of maturity, in contrast to the prolixity of his early verse. The dedication to Nerli might suggest a later dating as well, given that their friendship, insofar as suggested by their corres­ pondence, did not begin before 1517. In any event, the nature of the work and its sources place it doubtless in the period of Machiavelli’s revived humanism, corresponding to the interests cultivated in the Rucellai gardens. The poem’s subject – ‘seize the occasion’ – recalls a central theme of The Prince and the Discourses. Machiavelli’s verses summarize Ausonius’ extended text, reducing the exchanges from fourteen to four, now between the poet and Occasion and eliminating the interlocutor Penitence: the result is increased dramatic intensity and a more forceful moral message.

The discourse about our language (Discorso intorno alla nostra lingua) is Machiavelli’s contribution to the sixteenthcentury debate on the status and nature of the vernacular as a literary language. In 1529, Giorgio Trissino published a trans­­­ ation of Dante’s On Vernacular Eloquence (De vulgari eloquentia), a Latin treatise arguing for a literary vernacular not Floren­­tine but curialis, common to all Italian courts. Although Machiavelli did not know the text, still unpublished in his lifetime, he had enough notion of its contents to react bitterly and furiously to Dante’s lack of patriotism, opening the brief treatise with the affirmation that greater loyalty is owed to country than to parents. Machiavelli distinguishes between Dante the poet, whom he revered, quoted and imitated, and Dante the statesman, whom he brands a traitor to his homeland. The crux of the issue was whether Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio wrote

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in Florentine, Tuscan or Italian. Maintaining that the Italian literary language was in fact Florentine, Machiavelli assumes the task of persuading Dante himself that he actually wrote in Florentine. For this purpose Machia­velli fashions an imaginary dialogue between himself and Dante, comparing Dante’s own verse with a quintessential Floren­­tine poetic text, Luigi Pulci’s Morgante. In the end Dante has to admit his own error and recognize that in fact he wrote in Florentine. No literary work by Machiavelli has been more controver­ sial than the Discourse. Even its attribution has been doubted on the grounds that Machiavelli repeatedly and admiringly cites Dante as an authority and a model; it has been suggested that the Discourse shares numerous themes with the linguistic debate raging in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, when Dante was the object of furious attacks. Nevertheless, the Discourse’s authenticity has been vigorously defended. Particu­ larly significant has been the evidence of Machiavelli’s grandson, Giuliano de’ Ricci, recalling Machiavelli’s son Bernardo, who remembered his father’s discussing the question and who on numerous occasions had seen him carrying the text. Equally controversial has been the Discourse’s dating. The only indication in the actual text is that it was written at harvest time in an unspecified year. It was once generally accepted that the Discourse was written at some point between 1514 and 1516, but more recently it has been convincingly argued that the Discourse can be related to discussions on the topic initiated about 1524, with the result that the Discourse would have been written in September–October 1524. The cultural context of the Discourse belongs to the 1520s, when there was growing disquiet in Florence at challenges,

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especially from north Italy, to Florentine linguistic primacy. Such pre-eminence had been the heritage of the three fourteenth-century crowns – Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio – reinforced by the paramountcy of the vernacular achieved in Florence under Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the early sixteenth century, however, non-Tuscans such as Ariosto (Ferrara), Bembo (Venice) or Sannazaro (Naples) were recog­nized as threatening rivals. It is understandable that a reply was needed from a particularly prominent practitioner of the Florentine language – not only the author of a hit such as Mandragola or of a publication in high demand such as The Art of War but the official historian of the city itself. Besides its value as a source for the linguistic ideas of Machiavelli and his contemporaries in the 1520s, the Discourse further demonstrates his humanist commitment. Although the Discourse has the form of a letter to an anonymous friend, it assumes in fact the structure of a neoclassical oration in the deliberative mode, where a proposal is either supported or opposed. The Discourse is pervaded by a concept of linguistic purity, in this case Florentine, the incarnation of the most authentic form of the vernacular, now requiring defence against barbarous corruption at the hands of practitioners of a more general courtly Italian language – a notion widely diffused in classical and humanist theories of Latinity. The Discourse makes significant use of a wide variety of classical and humanist sources by Cicero, Quintilian, Donatus, Plato, Cristoforo Landino and even the recently published grammar treatise of the vernacular by Giovan Francesco Fortunio. The Discourse offers further proof of Machiavelli’s commitment to classicizing literary forms in the Italian vernacular.

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More­over, given its attention to the genre of comedy, the Discourse points directly to Machiavelli’s final literary endeavour, the comedy Clizia, in whose preface themes from the Discourse are encountered.

Although mandragola can be dated no later than the end of 1517 or the beginning of 1518, it seems that Machiavelli waited a couple of years before releasing the text. The first known Florentine performance, occurring at the beginning of spring 1520, persuaded Leo x to arrange a repeat staging in Rome soon afterwards. The comedy was an immediate suc­­ cess: another Florentine performance between 1524 and 1525 was preceded, in 1522, by two Venetian stagings, the first of which had to be suspended after the fourth act as a result of the theatre’s overcrowding. Two further Venetian performances took place in February 1526, when Mandragola was preferred to a rival staging of Plautus’s Menaechmi in the vernacular – branded as lifeless in comparison to Machiavelli’s comedy; a further performance, planned for Faenza during that year’s carnival, was cancelled. The first edition of Mandragola was almost contemporaneous with the earliest stagings; issued without the printer’s name or publication date, it is generally thought to have been released while Machiavelli was alive – with the anonymous printer seeking to capitalize on the comedy’s success. Mandragola’s triumphant reception offered an incentive for Clizia, Machiavelli’s final theatrical work. In the mid-1520s Machiavelli frequented the gardens, just outside the city gate of San Frediano, owned by Iacopo Falconetti, a rich

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Floren­tine producer of bricks and mortar, known because of his business as Il Fornaciaio, who at the time was living in exile from Florence as a result of a political offence. Here Machia­velli met a young singer, Barbera Salutati, with whom he fell in love. He dedicated two madrigals to her, one re­­ counting a separation followed by a reconciliation, the other expressing an old man’s anxiety lest such youthful beauty would demand a younger lover. At the beginning of 1525, when Falconetti’s ban was lifted, he decided to arrange a party in his gardens: Mandragola had recently been staged in a Flor­ entine pri­­vate house, and Falconetti turned to Machiavelli for another theatrical spectacle. Infatuated with Barbera, Machiavelli decided on the theme of an old man’s love: Clizia, his final significant literary work, was staged at Falconetti’s villa on 13 January 1525. Barbera sang the intermezzi written by Machiavelli to music provided by the famous French composer Philippe Verdelot, then resident in Florence as the cathedral’s chapel master. These poems set to music marked a turning point in music history as the first polyphonic madrigals intended for theatrical performance. Clizia has a typical comic plot centred on love, disguise and impersonation. Young Cleandro and his seventy-year-old father are both in love with Clizia, a beautiful eighteen-yearold orphan resident for a dozen years in their house, where she was placed by the French soldier Beltramo at the beginning of the Italian Wars. Nicomaco resolves to marry her to his servant Pirro in order to have his way with her in secret, but the scheme is discovered by Sofronia, Nicomaco’s wife, who instead wants her wedded to their farm manager, Eustachio. The squabble is to be resolved by lot, which goes

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in favour of Pirro and Nicomaco. Sofronia then arranges a practical joke: the servant Siro, dressed as Clizia, awaits, in the marital bed, Nicomaco, who falls into the trap. The follow­ing day Nicomaco relates his misadventure to his neighbour Damone, who advises confiding everything to Sofronia; Nicomaco, having foresworn further transgression, is forgiven. The comedy concludes with the unexpected arrival of Clizia’s real father, the rich Neapolitan nobleman Ramondo, who gives Cleandro his daughter’s hand. Clizia follows the neoclassical direction taken by Machia­ velli under the influence of the Rucellai gardens set. The conventions of Roman comedy are respected: for example, unity of time, place and action, and no more than four characters simultaneously on stage. Donatus’s recommendations for the prologue are observed. Realistic characters are fashioned. Classical sources are exploited: Ovid’s Amores and especially Plautus’s Casina, which Machiavelli virtually translated in Acts iii and iv. But Clizia is a modern work, not just a recycled antique comedy: Machiavelli’s prefers Florence to Casina’s ancient Athens out of consideration for the spectators, who would be unable to recognize Athenian topography. It is far from an updated version of Plautus. For example, Machiavelli reduces the role of secondary characters – unlike Casina – in favour of two protagonists, Nicomaco and Sofronia, the only figures whose personalities are developed. As usual, Machiavelli echoes the themes of his previous writings: fortune the friend of youth; mankind’s universal bad faith; history’s repetition. But most important is the example of his previous theatrical success, Mandragola: the recurrence of

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the name Sostrata; the Florentine setting; characters drawn from city’s nobility; close chronological proximity of settings (1506 – Clizia; 1504 – Mandragola). Hence the possibility of a witty reference to the latter’s plot: the ‘miraculous’ pregnancy of Lucrezia by the sterile Nicia facilitated by the ‘saintly’ Fra Timoteo. But at the final count Clizia emerges as a distinct creation. In the prologue Machiavelli puts aside the type of comedy, such as Mandragola, in which humour springs from absurdity, insult and injury, in favour of characters in love and accidents arising from love. The occasional reference to Florence’s de­­ based morals pales in comparison to Mandragola’s biting satire. Significant here is Machiavelli’s declared choice of fic­titious family names, unlike Mandragola, where the Calfucci and Guadagni are genuine elite lineages. In contrast to Mandragola’s devastating anticlericalism, Clizia’s references to routine and insincere piety seem mild. Corrupt human nature is occas­ ion­­ally remarked on, but not all characters are egocentric. In Mandragola Lucrezia’s mother Sostrata organizes the adultery for the personal benefit of her daughter, whereas in Clizia Sofronia’s stratagems aim for a return to respectable family life. In Clizia immorality is defeated whereas in Mandragola adultery is triumphant and permanent. In Clizia a realistic family drama replaces Mandragola’s caustic social and religious censure. Although Clizia’s plot hinges on improbable comic expedients, nevertheless the domestic context in which a formerly self-possessed paterfamilias is transformed into a degenerate libertine constitutes a genuine social dilemma. Clizia represents a documentary on a day in the life of a Florentine bourgeois. In contrast to Mandragola,

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where vice triumphs, Clizia has a moral purpose: Nicomaco’s humiliation demonstrates the consequences of immorality; his offence is punished and the plot is resolved with a return to the moral and social order. Clizia is an autobiographical comedy: Nicomaco combines the initial syllables of Machiavelli’s Christian and family names. It represents Machiavelli’s own desperation when confronted with his declining masculine vigour and sexual appeal, as he himself confessed in his poem ‘To Barbera’. Clizia possesses a genuine humanity, totally lacking in Mandragola: it is possible to feel genuine sympathy for Nicomaco, unlike the idiotic and ridiculous Nicia. Clizia was a hit both immediately and in performances years later. But Mandragola is the more successful comedy: Clizia lacks its biting satire and hilarious characterizations. Mandragola’s plot is resolved through the internal logic of the personalities and situation; Clizia’s depends on chance and the fortuitous arrival of Ramondo. Enterprise and boldness are frustrated in Clizia but triumphant in Mandragola. Machiavelli’s final dramatic effort is pervaded by an unsatisfying fatalism. Machia­velli recognized Clizia’s shortcomings, impeding its circulation himself despite requests to the contrary. In Clizia Machiavelli distanced himself from the amoral, antisocial, antireligious, egocentric tendencies of his earlier writings in favour of more conventional values. He confessed it to be the work of a thoroughly upright man. By the beginning of 1525 he was not only reconciled with the Medici rulers of Florence but had become one of their principal agents and advisers. In his most important works Machiavelli had written as an embittered outcast, but now he spoke with

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the voice of the Establishment. On a personal level he was show­­ing his age: evidently he was not insensible to the natural tendency whereby youthful radicalism is sublimated with advancing years.

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he dialogue The Art of War (Dell’arte della guerra), set in 1516, was probably written at the end of 1519 or early 1520. Like the Discourses on Livy, the dialogue grew out of conversations in the Rucellai gardens. Published by the Florentine Giunti firm on 16 August 1521, it was Machiavelli’s only work to appear in print with the author’s involvement in its publication. The Art of War is divided into seven books. In the first, Machia­velli criticizes mercenary armies in comparison with indigenous troops, a force which should be recruited from rural and not civic inhabitants. The second prefers sword and shield to pike, and infantry to cavalry. The third treats battle formation, minimizing the use of artillery. The fourth analyses famous battles, emphasizing the captain’s role and his oratorical skill. The fifth deals with the army in attack or on the march. The sixth is concerned with lodging, discipline and pun­­­ish­ ment of troops. The last treats fortresses and assault tech­­nique, stressing surprise and deception. The work ends on a melancholy note, highlighting Italy’s weakness and fragmentation which had led to the Italian Wars and foreign invasions. Writing to the dedicatee, Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, who evidently provided him with monetary support during his Diagram showing recommended troop formation from Libro della arte della guerra (1521).

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enforced leisure, Machiavelli aims, so he declares, to satisfy the lovers of antiquity, in keeping with the preferences of the Rucellai gardens set, who included Lorenzo Strozzi. Accord­ ingly, Machiavelli conforms to the model of the Ciceronian dialogue, depicting a realistic setting for the conversations, in which actual contemporary speakers are represented as participants. Another Ciceronian feature is the attribution to speakers of views that are opposite to their known opinions: thus the principal interlocutor Fabrizio Colonna, a renowned condottiero, is depicted as condemning mercenaries and praising indigenous armies. Despite the Ciceronian aura of verisimilitude, the dialogue does not record actual discussions. Colonna acts as Machia­ velli’s alter ego: Machiavelli had a reputation for citing the Romans at every turn, and thus Colonna is made to refer to ‘my Romans’; Battista Della Palla, another interlocutor, gives voice to Machiavelli’s particular experiences in his German legation. The Art of War reiterates themes from Machiavelli’s earlier writings: the perilous state of Italian arms; corrupt military practices in Italy; ineffectual Italian leadership in war. But new topics come up too: for example, warfare must not be entrusted to professional soldiers, likely to prolong con­­­flicts unnecessarily. The contrasting military practices of antiquity and the present are placed in a historical-geographical context wider than in his early writings. Military virtue depends on a multiplicity of states: many valiant men arise from many powers, but from a few, only a handful. Fear and competition give birth to military prowess. In modern Europe and Italy – both militarily deficient – there are few states and even fewer rulers.

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The principal strands of Machiavelli’s political thought remain unchanged. The aim of political and military life is glory and honour. But now there is a self-justificatory note. Machiavelli defends his militia against detractors. The sack of Prato in 1512 is no reason to reject the militia: one defeat is no measure of the militia’s valour; its strategic use must be improved, not vilified. The fears that a civic militia would lead to tyranny – frequently voiced by aristocrats under the Soderini republic – are rejected: Rome was free four hundred years, Sparta eight hundred, and both armed their citizens; countless unarmed states have remained free fewer than forty years. A city lacking native arms has two enemies to fear: its mercenary captain and the overambitious citizen. The example of Rome remains supreme, even superior to the modern Germans or Swiss. Venice again provides a negative paradigm. More positive, as usual, is Cesare Borgia’s example. Religion is again cited as vital for preserving troops’ morale. Machiavelli once more disdains riches: wars are won by men, not gold. Seize the occasion. If the lessons of antiquity were read and believed, contemporaries would change their ways and their countries would be more fortunate. If The Art of War seems repetitive, its different mode of publication needs to be considered. In Machiavelli’s lifetime The Prince and the Discourses circulated only in manuscript, their contents and message remaining confined to a limited circle of readers. With The Art of War, Machiavelli was potentially reaching an unlimited readership. So it was reasonable for him to reiterate and refine hitherto provisional conclusions. The Prince and the Discourses were written in a casual style, befitting manuscript circulation. Such an informal style was

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absent in The Art of War – revised not only by Machiavelli himself but by Giunti’s editors. The text is easier to read than The Prince and the Discourses, but also lacks their spontaneity, as well as their immediate impact. A singular feature of The Art of War is its conventional morality. Machiavelli now defends the common good, law, justice, peace, good faith, fear of God, prayers for divine aid and patriotism. Fabrizio Colonna wants modern armies to honour the virtues, not to despise poverty, to uphold military discipline, to encourage mutual love among citizens, to shun factionalism, to place public above private good. Machiavelli seems not only to repudiate The Prince’s amorality, with its advocacy of bad faith and its relative disdain for the public good, but to reject the impiety of The Ass, where he treated prayers to secure divine intervention with irony. There are sev­­eral explanations for this new conventionality. The Prince, the Discourses, The Ass and Mandragola were circulated in manuscript, a medium which encouraged deviance from traditional norms; The Art of War was written for the press, a mode that fostered caution and circumspection. The Art of War shows early signs of Machiavelli’s reconciliation with the Establish­ ment: in his works from the earlier 1510s he had written as a rejected and infuriated cast-off; now he was the idol of the Florentine aristocracy assembled in the Rucellai gardens. Accordingly he was beginning to undergo a process of reconciliation with traditional values. As for the Medici, The Art of War was more ambiguous than the explicitly anti-Medicean Discourses. On the one hand, this new text preserved republican sympathies and included a condemnation of Florence as utterly corrupt under Lorenzo

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the Magnificent. The central figure was Fabrizio Colonna, whose family were openly hostile to the Medici and the Orsini. On the other hand, the work presents Fabrizio as visiting Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino; moreover, it was dedicated to Lorenzo Strozzi, the intimate counsellor of Duke Lorenzo and brother of Filippo Strozzi, the husband of Lorenzo’s sister, Clarice di Piero de’ Medici. The Art of War, completed after the death of Duke Lorenzo on 4 May 1519, reflected a thaw in relations between the Medici and exrepublicans such as Machiavelli, completed at a time when Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was sent to Florence to mediate with the opposition who had perceived Lorenzo’s regime as autocratic. Nevertheless, The Art of War shares with the Discourses a marked anti-Christian slant. In the Discourses Machiavelli had condemned Christianity for teaching men to be submissive and weak, unlike ancient paganism; now he accuses Christianity of having suppressed the instinct of self-defence. Under the influence of Christian mercy, the fear of ultimate misery has been removed. Christianity’s compassionate ethos has permeated warfare. In antiquity, soldiers feared death and so fought bravely to survive; now, with the hope of eternal life, death is demoted to a secondary evil and soldiers have less inducement for bravery. Despite Machiavelli’s preference for the Roman model, however, The Art of War offers a new perspective on military theory and practice and not just a simplistic panegyric of ancient usages. Machiavelli takes account of technological progress, proposing a series of far-sighted reforms, including numerous modern innovations such as heavy cavalry, firearms

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and fortification. Heavy artillery was all but useless on the field but was essential in siege warfare, especially for offence, as well as for defence as part of an overall system of fortification. To remedy the vulnerability of infantry to attack by heavy cavalry – as occurred at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512 – Machiavelli proposes positioning at the front not only pikes but heavy cavalry: modern cavalry is superior to its ancient counterpart while ancient infantry was vulnerable to cavalry. He recognizes the important innovation represented by the arquebus, recommending its training for all young soldiers – a proposal constituting an early, if not the earliest, advocacy of portable firearms instruction. He anticipates the principles and specifications of modern fortress construction. Machia­velli was particularly impressed by the Swiss infantry, who, carrying pikes as long as 6 metres and drawn up in square formations of several thousand, had been able to resist heavy cavalry, making an iron wall that could penetrate enemy lines, and so tipping the tactical balance in engagements; square formations called for rigorous collective discipline but individual soldiers thus deployed did not require specialist weapon training, so rendering feasible the transformation of peasants into combatants (as Machiavelli put into practice in his Florentine militia). Machiavelli’s views on warfare represent the culmination of one side in a long-running dispute among humanists. His lifelong advocacy of indigenous arms and censure of mercenaries – a campaign which reached its climax in The Art of War – has been dismissed as unoriginal, with the suggestion that he was simply reiterating a humanist commonplace. How­­ever, many humanists not only accepted the use of mercenaries

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but heaped praise on Italian condottieri. There were, however, numerous humanist critics of the mercenary system. So Machia­­­velli’s critique of contemporary Italian military practice amounted to one standpoint in a contentious debate.

In the spring of 1518 Machiavelli was sent to Genoa by a group of Florentines to recover credits from a bankrupt merchant. Ostensibly similar was a journey to Lucca from July to September 1520, but now he went with the support of the Florentine government: the Lucchese mission was all but official, enjoying the support of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici; Machiavelli had now established positive relations with the Medici regime in Florence and Rome. Machiavelli’s rehabilitation began with the death of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino. Leo x had never been happy with the latter’s autocratic tendencies, and Cardinal Giulio, sent to Florence as Lorenzo’s replacement, had rapidly adopted a more inclusive political style, reaching out to republican sympathizers such as Machiavelli. Early in 1520, Machiavelli was accompanied by Lorenzo Strozzi, perhaps together with Francesco Vettori, to meet Cardinal Giulio at the Medici palace in Florence. Exactly what happened then is unknown, but the result for Machiavelli was positive vis-à-vis the Medici. In April 1520 his friend from the Rucellai gardens, Battista Della Palla, let him know that the pope would ask Cardinal Giulio to commission a piece of writing or something else from Machiavelli. The extent to which Machiavelli regarded the Lucchese mission as a renewal of his previous diplomatic career is

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evident from his preparation of a written report on the political and institutional structure of the city. The ‘Summary of the Affairs of the City of Lucca’ has points in common with the report he had drawn up in March 1502 after a mission to Pistoia; Machiavelli made similar written reports on France and Germany after his legations there in 1508 and 1511. By 1520, however, he had worked up considerable momentum as a man of letters, and so it is not surprising that he used his leisure time in Lucca for writing. The result was a short biography of the Lucchese ruler from the early fourteenth century, Castruccio Castracani (1281–1328). Machiavelli recounts the dramatic rise of Castruccio to Lucchese lordship, to the leader­ship of the Ghibelline faction in Tuscany, to an alliance with the Visconti rulers of Milan, to his repeated victories over Guelph Florence, to his conquest of other towns such as Pistoia, to his investiture as duke of Lucca by Emperor Louis iv and finally to his unexpected death at the height of power. Battista Della Palla had mentioned a literary project to be sponsored by the Medici, which eventually took shape as a his­­tory. His Life of Castruccio Castracani now served as a test piece. On the basis of this sample, Machiavelli’s friends in the Rucellai gardens encouraged his efforts as a historian. Subsequent generations have expressed dismay that The Life of Castruccio turns out to be a romantic fantasy: Machiavelli’s account coincides only rarely with historical fact. Machiavelli invents the story of a young Castruccio abandoned, found by the Castracani family and finally adopted by the Guinigi fam­ ily. In fact, Castruccio was the legitimate descendant of the Antelminelli, another Lucchese family. Machiavelli deprives Castruccio of his wife and nine children, asserting that he

Title page of Il principe . . . La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca . . . (1532).

Title page of Il principe . . . La vita di Castruccio Castracani . . . (Florence, 1532).

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remained a bachelor and named as his heirs fictitious members of the Guinigi family. He telescoped and altered the chronology of several battles. Given Machiavelli’s intention to present this work as an exemplar of historical writing to his friends from the Rucellai gardens, if not to the Medici themselves, it might seem puzzling that he failed to obey Cicero’s teaching that the first law of history was to shun falsehood.

Title page of Il Principe . . . La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca . . . (c. 1640, with a false attrib. to 1550).

La Vita di Castruccio Castracani, 16th century, manuscript page, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence.

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In fact, Machiavelli’s imaginary material follows a clear pattern. Humanist historiography was subject to literary and rhetorical conventions. Orations by leaders before engagements and at the point of death, exaggerated numbers of deaths in battle, emphasis on strategy and tactics, attention to the extraordinary birth and adolescence of protagonists, inclusion of commonplaces such as the first to mount and the last to dismount – these were typical features of classical and humanist historical writing. Machiavelli’s transformation of the narrative into an exemplar of humanist historiography is confirmed by The Life of Castruccio’s rhetorical style, far removed from the anti-humanist immediacy of The Prince, but prized by his friends from the Rucellai gardens. Such manipulations of historical truth will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with humanist historiography, a genre in which truth, as derived from rhetorical norms, did not imply absolute adherence to fact so much as probability or verisimilitude. Like an advocate in court, the historian’s task was to present the appearance of fact, not to follow his sources scrupulously. The previously known essentials of Castruccio’s biography lacked the constituent elements of a classical hero in the manner of Sallust or Plutarch and so Machiavelli’s job was to create a plausible modern version of an ancient warrior king’s life. This is what Machiavelli’s friends from the Rucellai gardens, as well as the Medici, would have expected. According to Cicero, history was life’s guide (‘historia . . . magistra vitae’), and so humanist historiography had to carry a message. Once more Machiavelli complied, but in his own way: he did not stuff his work with moral lessons in the manner

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of Livy but rather with his own brand of political wisdom. Castruccio represented the new prince par excellence, thoroughly versed in the craft of deception, cruelty, courage and impetuosity, just as The Prince had recommended. Nevertheless, similar to Cesare Borgia, Castruccio was struck down by adverse fortune at the summit of his power and success. The Prince’s lesson was to seize the occasion, a teaching that Castruccio, on the point of death, imparted to his fictitious ward Paolo Guinigi: governing a small dominion such as Lucca, the ruler had to lower his sights, avoiding war and relying on peace and diplomacy: only thus would it be possible to hand on a legacy to his successors. Here Machiavelli creates a historical myth: Paolo Guinigi was not Castruccio’s ward, and could not hand down a stable Lucchese regime to his Guinigi successors. The fact that before 1400 the Guinigi family did not rule Lucca bothered Machiavelli not a jot. All this, of course, was Machiavelli’s joke: well-known chronicles would have familiarized his readers with the true facts about Lucca and Castruccio. With his Life of Castruccio Machiavelli showed that he was more than up to the task of writing humanist history, but at the same time he ridiculed the entire operation. He demonstrated to his friends and to the Medici that he was not just a literary hack, about to provide yet another mediocre humanist history.

In the early 1520s Machiavelli wrote a series of short pieces on political institutions, the first of which, written on the occasion of his Lucchese mission and known as the ‘Summary of the Affairs of the City of Lucca’, described that

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city’s constitution. There is no explicit evidence of an external request or commission, but Machiavelli seems to have had one or more Florentine readers in mind. The text would have had interest for the Rucellai circle, especially for indi­ vid­uals previously associated with the republican government pre­ceding the Medici restoration in 1512: in the ‘Summary’ Florence is mentioned only in republican terms, without reference to the contemporary regime. In view of discussions on politics then current in the Rucellai gardens, it is hard to believe that Machiavelli would have kept his reflections on the Lucchese constitution and on their implications for Florence to himself. Machiavelli begins with Lucca’s three main magistracies: the Signoria, the Council of Thirty-Six and the General Council. The Signoria acts as the initiator in government. The Thirty-Six advise the Signoria, together with ad hoc consultative groups. The Signoria and the Thirty-Six administer a complicated electoral system to fill civic offices. The heart of government is the General Council, which legislates, makes treaties, exiles and orders capital punishments; it is the court of final appeal, acting as a police magistracy as well. The pros and cons of Lucca’s government make up the core of the analysis. Lucca deserves praise for maintaining its independence in the face of a powerful nearby enemy such as Florence, but, in comparison to ancient Rome and contemporary Venice, Lucca is judged inferior. The executive of all three is deprived of jurisdiction over the citizenry, clearly in order to avoid tyranny, but the Lucchese Signoria is singled out for lacking majesty, defined here as social status. In Lucca the supreme element elects, the aristocratic advises and the

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democratic executes, whereas the opposite system is found in Rome and Venice. Machiavelli’s purpose in providing a detailed analysis of the Lucchese constitution is revealed when he asserts that, although government in Lucca is not disastrous, nevertheless it is unsuitable for imitation. The object is to give his opinion on constitutional change with Florence in mind, albeit tacitly. He points to Lucca’s three-quarter majority voting (compared with Florence’s two-thirds); to Lucca’s ad hoc consultations (like Florence’s pratiche); to lack of jurisdiction by Lucca’s Signoria (in contrast to Florence’s); to the want of majesty by the Lucchese Signoria (different from Florence). Although the implication of his comparisons of Lucca with Venice and ancient Rome could not be clearer, nevertheless Machiavelli refrains from mentioning Florence explicitly in the main discussion. The question remains whether Machia­velli had the Medici in his sights as potential readers of the ‘Lucchese Summary’. The Soderini republic was a delicate issue for both him and them, but it seems that he was looking to possible reform of the Florentine constitution which could be effected only by the Medici.

Explicit proposals for Florentine reform ensued before long. To court the opposition after the death of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, Cardinal Giulio invited noted republicans, including Machiavelli, to propose reform projects. So came about the Discourse on Florentine Affairs after the Death of the Younger Lorenzo de’ Medici. The text, dedicated to Leo x, is datable between the beginning of November 1520 and the start of February the following year. The Discourse could be one of the ‘other things’

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mentioned when Machiavelli was commissioned to write the Florentine Histories on 8 November 1520. The Discourse consists of four main sections. The first concerns the Florentine constitution, hitherto precarious according to Machiavelli: it was neither a true principate, with the dominant figure’s policies requiring popular approval, nor a true republic, unable to satisfy the aspirations of various social classes. As proof, Machiavelli examines successive Floren­­tine regimes from 1393 to 1512. From 1393 to 1434 the city was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy, weakened by an unreliable electoral system, by factionalism, by excessive power in the Signoria’s hands and by failure to give a role to the middle classes (‘il popolo’); the regime lasted forty years only because the wars against Milan kept the city united. The suc­ ceeding Medici regime from 1434 to 1494 endured only because the Medici enjoyed popular favour and because it had two great leaders, Cosimo il Vecchio and Lorenzo the Magnificent; its fundamental weakness – that the leader’s policies required legislative approval – led to frequent disturbances until its final collapse at the start of the Italian Wars. The succeeding popular constitution from 1494 to 1512 did not constitute a true republic because, depending on the abilities of the life Gonfalonier of Justice, it was liable to end in tyranny as a result of his ambition, or to collapse owing to his weakness. All these regimes neglected the common good in favour of factional interests; discontented groups were ubiquitous, always seeking political change. Writing to the pope and to Cardinal Giulio, both directly involved in the present regime, Machiavelli, for obvious reasons, backed away from analysing the period 1512 to 1519,

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with the excuse that it was fresh in everyone’s mind. With the death of Duke Lorenzo, it was now necessary to find new methods of rule. In the second section, Machiavelli focuses on other proposals for reform. One is that the Medici system in the fifteenth century should be continued. Machiavelli dismisses this scheme out of hand: everything had changed since the previous century. The middle classes, particularly enamoured of the popular republican constitution, were no longer friends but enemies of the regime. Florence’s own arms were adequate in the 1400s; now the city had become inextricably involved in the power struggle between France and Spain, and the citizens were not accustomed to the heavy tax burden needed to fund the increased military contingent. The early Medici had advanced as ostensibly private Florentines enjoying amicable relations with the remainder of the citizenry; now, as international celebrities, they had lost familiarity and favour with all segments of the population. Florence had always preferred a public leader to a private, unofficial ruler. Foreign alliances did not favour the status quo, as shown by recent events in Milan and Naples. All hybrid governments are unstable: a republic or a principate can degenerate only towards its opposite, but a mixed regime has two directions of change: either republican or princely. Recently there had been a proposal to institute a monarchical form of government in Florence. The Medici were now so powerful that Lorenzo the Magnificent’s covert monarchy was inadequate; it was necessary to create a princely court in Florence. The old-guard aristocrats were unlikely to organize an open rebellion, while the younger nobles could

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look forward to military, administrative, diplomatic or financial careers via the hypothetical court. Machiavelli replies, using the very argument he had articulated in the Discourses on Livy. A principate was appropriate in Milan, where, on the basis of a hierarchical society, great inequality existed and royal authority was needed to suppress the nobility. But in Florence, with its largely egalitarian society, a principate was inconceivable; an essential bulwark would be a feudal armed nobility to reinforce the monarchy, but such a revolution in social structure would be difficult, inhuman and unworthy. The third section of the Discourse is devoted to Machiavelli’s proposal for a true republic in Florence. He understands that Leo x would be favourable but had held back because he wanted to guarantee the safety of his own supporters. Machia­velli reassures the pope that under his proposed constitution not only would papal authority be enhanced and Medici supporters defended, but the middle classes would be satisfied as well. Machiavelli’s particular concern is social: although Florence lacks legal classes, it was necessary to satisfy three different groups: the first, the middle and the last. The first had to be gratified with majesty (here meaning high social status) – impossible at present because the highest magistracies rarely went to important citizens. Therefore all the existing top offices needed to be abolished and replaced by 65 eminent citizens appointed for life and granted majesty. Head of the Sixty-Five would be the Gonfalonier of Justice, in office for two or three years. The remaining 64 would be divided into two groups of 32. All the current executive powers would be exercised in alternate years by one or the other group of

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32, together with the Gonfalonier of Justice. The 32 not then in power would act as counsellors. The entire group of 65 would be called the Signoria. The middle citizens would be satisfied by the creation of a Council of Two Hundred, with life membership, replacing all the existing legislative councils. The third social group – the middle classes – would be pacified by reopening the chamber where the republican Great Council had met. There a thousand citizens, or at least six hundred, would now make up the Great Council, which would elect all the city’s magistracies, with exception of the SixtyFive, the Two Hundred and the Otto di Balìa (Eight of War). The middle classes would be compensated for their lost fundamental role in government by enhanced prerogatives granted to the Sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies, who had represented the popular voice in the previous constitution because they were elected by local civic districts. In rotation, each member of the Sixteen, called the Proposer, would take part in the meetings of the new Signoria; although lacking voting rights, the Proposer could refer any measure to the entire Thirty-Two. Likewise two Proposers would participate in the assembly of the Thirty-Two and could refer any measure to the Two Hundred, whose meetings would include six of the Sixteen Gonfaloniers, empowered to refer any measure to the Great Council, which was itself unable to meet without the presence of at least twelve Gonfaloniers; at such a meeting of the Great Council the Gonfaloniers could vote like the other members. Finally, Machiavelli proposes a system of judicial appeals to be referred to a tribunal of thirty citizens, drawn by lot from the Two Hundred and the Sixty-Five

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together – a measure meant to be attractive to the middle classes by offering greater anonymity to tribunal members when punishing overmighty aristocrats. Machiavelli stresses that such a structure would constitute a republic, while preserving monarchical features as long as the pope and the cardinal were alive. The temporary mainten­ ance of Medicean authority would be achieved principally through control of elections. The pope would be enabled to choose the first Signoria and Two Hundred. He could appoint the Otto di Guardia (‘Eight of Ward’, the police magistracy) and two commissioners to oversee the militia. For the Great Council he could name eight Accoppiatori (‘Election Officials’) empowered to choose anyone they wished for a given office. He could choose the Sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies, and he and Cardinal Giulio would control the right of appeal to the Thirty. Appointments to vacancies in the Sixty-Five and in the Two Hundred would be left to the Great Council or to the pope himself. The fourth section is a peroration directed to the pope, beseeching him to enact the proposed reforms. The greatest human achievement is reform of a republic or a kingdom. As a reformer Leo x would surpass the accomplishments of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Cosimo, the founder of the Medici regime. Failure would unleash violence and revolution, with many lives lost – a consequence that would lead a compassionate man such as the pope to die of grief. The Discourse has features in common with Machiavelli’s recent writings. A critique of the existing highest magistracies is shared with the Lucchese ‘Summary’. A fundamental link between social structure and constitution echoes the

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analysis in the Discourses on Livy (i.lv), where Machiavelli also affirms that the greatest glory a ruler can achieve is to reform a con­sti­tu­tion (i.x). The priority accorded in the Discourses to the Roman example can be linked to the enhanced role of the Sixteen Gonfaloniers in the Discourse, arguably recalling the Roman tribunes. An aspect apparently different from The Prince and the Discourses on Livy is the Discourse’s conventional political and moral language. Machiavelli now writes continually of the common good, of a pious and good political leader, of the need to avoid base actions. There is no doubt that Machiavelli wants to create a positive image for political leaders in a position to carry out his reforms, and, as the highest ranking ecclesiastics, to demonstrate that they are inspired by the loftiest possible motives. Such language recalls the close of Chapter xi of The Prince, where Leo x is seen as consolidating the secular achievements of his predecessors through his beneficence and virtue. There is also a possible echo of the more conventional morality evinced in his recent Art of War, where Machiavelli demonstrated his reconciliation with the Florentine Establishment. Nevertheless, the true emphasis of the Discourse is placed on concrete political reforms, aimed to satisfy all Florence’s social classes while at the same time guaranteeing Medicean power and security there.

When Leo X unexpectedly died on 1 December 1521, no action had yet been taken towards Florentine reform. Following the election of the Netherlander Adrian vi to the papacy, the Medici’s position in Florence was weakened;

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according to one contemporary source, Cardinal Giulio realized that three-quarters of the city was hostile to him and his regime. So projects for reform continued to be tabled. One actually referred to Machiavelli’s Discourse, which, however, was dismissed as being eccentric and alien to Florence. Machiavelli may have taken note of such objections: further reform schemes proposed by him were now more conventional. First was a draft, the so-called ‘Memorandum on the Reform of the Constitution of Florence’, of which only 224 words are extant. He declares that all republicans in Florence are agreed on the need for a long-term Gonfalonier of Justice and a Great Council. The gonfalonier should be chosen by a mixture of sortition, appointment and election by the Great Council, or directly in the first instance by Cardinal Giulio. Further details are lacking, but there is no indication of the radical restructuring evident in the Discourse. Nevertheless, Machiavelli was clearly thinking along republican lines, and, as in the Discourse, the role envisaged for the Medici was temporary. There then followed the so-called ‘Draft of a Law for the Reform of the Florentine Constitution in the Year 1522’, datable to the early months of 1522. It is hard to comprehend why Machiavelli would have drawn up such a document without a direct invitation from Cardinal Giulio. As such, however, it can only with difficulty be regarded as representing Machiavelli’s thinking alone. The ‘Draft’ is preserved in Machiavelli’s autograph copy, together with his own abundant corrections and revisions: it has thereby been possible to reconstruct an earlier version of the final document. At first Machiavelli tended to favour the middle classes and the Great

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Council, whose remit it would be to elect an annual Senate. The second version is more aristocratic: the Senate would be made up mainly by the current Medicean Council of Seventy (a highly restricted oligarchic body instituted originally by Lorenzo the Magnificent at the height of his power), Sebastiano del Piombo, Pope Clement vii, c. 1531, oil on slate.

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with complete control over finances and taxation; the Senators would hold office for life and vacancies would be filled through election by the Senate itself. The Gonfalonier of Justice would hold office for three years, enjoying the powers wielded by Giovambattista Ridolfi, who had replaced Piero Soderini in 1512. The Medici’s prerogatives would be temporary and limited. The ‘Draft’ in its revised form represents a republican constitution with more restricted powers for the Medici than envisaged in either the ‘Memorandum’ or the Discourse – a feature possibly reflecting Cardinal Giulio’s increasing insecurity during the early months of 1522. Nevertheless, the reduced powers of the Medici and the enhanced prerogatives of the aristocracy in the ‘Draft’ may not reflect Machiavelli’s own thinking, given that the document may have been the product of discussions within Cardinal Giulio’s circle. In the end, all such reform proposals were overtaken by events. In May 1522 a conspiracy against Cardinal Giulio was discovered involving many of Machiavelli’s friends from the Rucellai gardens. Machiavelli himself remained clear of suspicion, but all talk of reform was halted, at least temporarily. In the spring of 1523 Tuscany was ravaged by plague, and the following September Pope Adrian vi died. After an acri­mon­­ ious conclave Cardinal Giulio was elected on 19 November, becoming Pope Clement vii. In view of his unavoid­able absence in Rome, opinions were sought on the future government of Florence. Four members of the large Florentine delegation sent to swear obedience to the new pope – all of whom were intimately connected with Machiavelli – suggested the implicitly republican solution of leaving Florence to its own devices. But the majority of the Florentine delegates

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favoured a continuance of the Medici regime, recommending the dispatch of two young family mem­­bers – Alessandro (b. 1512) and Ippolito (b. 1511) – illegit­imate sons respectively of the late Lorenzo, duke of Urbino and the late Giuliano, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Alessandro was rumoured to be actually Pope Clement vii’s son), under the guardianship of Silvio Passerini, the cardinal of Cortona. After a winter of indecision, the pope sent Passerini to Florence in May 1524, but such hesitations could have encouraged the like of Machiavelli not to rule out a republican future for Florence under Medicean auspices.

Machiavelli returned from Lucca in early September 1520 to negotiate his contract to write the Florentine Histories. The actual patron was Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, the formal commission coming from the University of Florence, which he headed as archbishop of Florence. The contract was agreed on 8 November 1520 with an annual salary of 57 florins – just under half of what he had received as second chancellor. Initially his salary was approved for two years, but subsequently it was renewed for life. A few months later he was offered two possible jobs under the aegis of his former boss, Piero Soderini: as chancellor either of Ragusa (today Dubrov­ nik), then an independent city-state, or of the condottiero Prospero Colonna, for whom his pay would have been more than four times what he was receiving from Florence’s university. According to Soderini, ‘writing histories for florins’ was demeaning, but Machiavelli thought otherwise. As Florence’s official historian, he was put on the same level as

Historie . . . cittadino, et segretario fiorentino . . . (1532), title page with dedication to Pope Clement vii.

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previous eminent humanist chancellors – Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini and Bartolomeo Scala – who had composed histories of the city. Even more important for Machiavelli would have been the terms of his appointment, commissioned as he was ‘to compose Florentine annals and chronicles and to do other things’. He had already resumed diplomatic activity in his recent semi-official mission to Lucca, and here was the unmistakable prospect of re-entering the arena of Florentine foreign affairs, closed to him since 1512. The first book of the Histories gives a brief account of events in Italy from the decline of the Roman Empire until 1434. The second narrates the history of Florence from its beginnings to the opening of the War of the Eight Saints against the papacy in 1375. The third ends with the death of King Ladislas of Naples in 1414. The fourth goes up to 1434. The fifth arrives at Florence’s victory over Milan at Anghiari in 1440. The sixth covers the years until the Peace of Lodi, which inaugurated the league of the major Italian powers in 1454. The seventh continues up to the assassination of the duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, in 1476. The eighth concludes the work ending with the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492. According to Machiavelli, Cardinal Giulio had asked him to be objective, particularly about his Medici predecessors. Machiavelli had never been reluctant to disclose his frank opinions, even to the Medici. Although the Florentine Histories circulated only in manuscript during his lifetime, the project was well known in Florence. As an official history carrying a public salary, the work’s manuscript publication was different from The Prince, the initial dissemination of which was limited

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to a restricted group of friends and acquaintances, or from the Discourses, a text that appears to have been read, during Machiavelli’s lifetime, only by his intimate friend, Francesco Guicciardini. In such circumstances Machiavelli had to be cautious. His disciple Donato Giannotti revealed Machiavelli’s dilemma: when it came to recounting the Medici regime’s vicissitudes during the fifteenth century, so he told Giannotti, he reported the bare facts accurately, but not what lay behind them; for their interpretation it was necessary to heed the words spoken by their enemies. Machiavelli had originally intended to begin his history in 1434, the year when the Medici took power in Florence; the earlier period, at first sight, had already been adequately covered by Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini, two previous Florentine chancellor-historians. But when he came to look more closely at their works, so he continued, he found their treatment of foreign affairs satisfactory, but their account of domestic events lacking: he came to the conclusion that they feared offending the contemporary descendants of earlier protagonists in Florence’s history. Such a pairing of Bruni and Poggio has puzzled past and present critics: although Poggio had hardly touched on internal Florentine history, Bruni had in fact devoted considerable attention to domestic affairs. Bruni’s aim had been to emulate ancient Roman historians; his principal model, Livy, had avoided names and factional labels – so possibly rendering his narrative, in Machiavelli’s eyes, excessively generic. Whatever his motives, Machiavelli in the end decided to cover the same chronological ground as Bruni, beginning his narrative with Florence’s foundation in Roman antiquity.

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It has long been wondered whether Machiavelli intended to go beyond 1492 with his Florentine Histories. He has been thought, by some, fortunate to have escaped unscathed from the manuscript publication of so much provocative material. Nevertheless, he declared his intention to carry on the project at least to 1494 and even up to contemporary pontificate of Clement vii. Machiavelli had been thinking about writing a history of Florence since his chancery days. Numerous historical fragments, notes and sketches by him have survived, occasionally actually used in the Florentine Histories but more often relating to the period after 1492, including, arguably, such well-known texts as the Remarks on the Raising of Money, the Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino to Kill Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo and Others and On the Method of Dealing with the Rebels of the Val di Chiana. The Florentine Histories remained a project in the making. After the presentation to Clement vii, he told Guicciardini he was beginning to write again, contemplating the causes of the Italian Wars, and according to Giannotti he remained keen on the enterprise. Notwithstanding his fears of offending the Medici, the Florentine Histories were enthusiastically received in Rome. Despite his preoccupation with foreign affairs, Clement vii was impatient to see the book. At the end of May 1525 Machia­velli went to Rome for the presentation; in June the pope authorized an additional payment to him of 120 ducats. At the end of October his annual earnings as official historian were raised to 100 ducats – the equivalent of his former salary as second chancellor. Machiavelli’s rehabilitation in Florence and Rome was complete at last.

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Aiming to emulate the Florentine histories of Bruni and Poggio, Machiavelli wanted his work to conform to the norms of humanist historiography. The text includes many features of ancient Roman historiography: long orations, both in direct and indirect discourse; elaborate accounts of battles; geographical descriptions; lengthy portraits of leading personalities. Similar to Sallust and Livy, there are complex argumentative prefaces: here Machiavelli outdoes his ancient models, inserting a preface not only to the work as a whole but to each of the succeeding seven books, possibly following the example of another chancellor-historian, Bartolomeo Scala, who had provided prefaces to each of the four books of his Florentine history. Particularly indicative is the style of the Florentine Histories, which, following Sallust’s and Livy’s paradigm, abounds in the ‘fulsome clauses’ explicitly forsworn in The Prince. In line with the conventions of humanist historiography, Machiavelli paid little attention to factual accuracy. Such defects have been repeatedly highlighted, starting in the later sixteenth century. A striking example of Machiavelli’s in­­ difference to historical veracity is his claim that Italian wars in the fifteenth century were bloodless. According to him, at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440 only one soldier was killed, but research has shown that there were about nine hundred fatalities. Similarly he maintained that at the Battle of Moli­ nella in 1467 there were no deaths, oblivious to the evidence of contemporary chroniclers, who testified that for days after the conflict the whole country stank of decomposing corpses lying in trenches: in fact the losses ran to about six hundred.

Title page of Historie fiorentine (1532).

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Like previous civic humanist historians, Machiavelli’s critical approach was limited to the question of Florence’s origins, refuting not only Giovanni Villani’s legendary account but Leonardo Bruni’s theories. Instead Machiavelli followed the up-to-date investigations of Poliziano, making use as well of the recently discovered Annals by Tacitus, first published in 1515, in his effort to prove his preconceived theory of Florence’s servile, not free, origins. Otherwise Machiavelli conformed to the typical humanist practice of following one main source for his narrative, making little effort to collate the accounts he found in early chronicles and histories. As the city’s official historian he could have gained access to the rich archival material preserved in Florence, but instead he limited himself to printed sources, easily transported to his country house at Sant’Andrea in Percussina. In line with usual humanist practice, Machiavelli did not hesitate to indulge his imagination, especially in the numerous speeches, for example the words he put into the mouth of Lorenzo the Magnificent after the Pazzi conspiracy, which bear no relation to the résumé of the oration that Lorenzo actually delivered, as recorded and preserved in the Florentine archives. The narratives were the same. Here too he was guided by humanist practices, emphasizing for example human motivations: thus he coloured the account of Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti’s murder in 1216, an event which traditionally gave rise to the GuelphGhibelline conflict; similarly in the episode treating the duke of Athens’s regime in 1343 he included psychological analyses that were not found in his sources. Fundamental for the humanists and for Machiavelli was the idea of verisimilitude or probability. According to Cicero,

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history was domain of the orator or rhetorician. In classical rhetorical theory truth did not mean rigorous adherence to the truth or to the sources. What counted was verisimilitude: for an advocate in court – whose practices determined the norms of classical rhetoric – what mattered was not absolute truth but what seemed convincing. Humanist historians had no reservations about embroidering their narratives – indeed they felt it to be their duty – with fanciful material that possessed the semblance of truth. Hence Machiavelli’s distortion of the number of fatalities in fifteenth-century battles. He did not assume the mantle of the armchair military pundit. No other contemporary historian could have vaunted his prolonged and profound involvement in military operations. But Machiavelli could not have missed Livy’s inordinately exaggerated numbers of deaths in combat. In view of his wish to highlight the contrast between ancient military virtue and modern decadence, Machiavelli did not show the slightest hesitation in minimizing the fatalities in recent battles. He was aware that, different to the campaigns in the Italian Wars, previous engagements in the fifteenth century were relatively bloodless, and so he turned to the rhetorical technique of hyperbole – approved by humanist theories of historiography – to support his thesis. According to Cicero, histories were rhetorical works carry­ ing a message. It was the capacity to teach that rendered history, in Cicero words, ‘life’s tutor’. For Machiavelli, history’s message was more important than accuracy. For an ancient historian such as Livy or his humanist imitators, it was usually a question of moral lessons. But at times humanists extended history’s remit from ethics to politics, as was the case in

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Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories. So it was to be expected that the themes of Machiavelli’s political masterpieces would reappear in his account of Florence’s past vicissitudes: the cor­rupt political world; evil human nature; decadent modern times; the primacy of glory; amorality; the historical cycle; political religion; anticlericalism; critique of the papacy; atheism or Lucretian proto-atheism; condemnation of mercenaries; anti-monarchism; anti-elitism; populism; republicanism; liberty. But Machiavelli would not have been Machiavelli if he had not raised the political mission at times inherent in humanist historiography to a higher level of specificity and candour. Here Machiavelli succeeded in balancing his history’s public character with a particular message to Clement vii as Florence’s potential reformer. It would have been imprudent to subject the pope’s ancestors to opprobrium by labelling the fifteenth-century Medici as tyrants, and so Machiavelli hid their defects by using pro-Medicean sources and by eliminating overt criticism (unlike Guicciardini in his un­ published Florentine History, a work which Machiavelli used abun­dantly in his own Florentine Histories). But even a superficial reading of Machiavelli’s words – the minimum that, in view of the work’s positive reception in Rome, could have been anticipated from Clement vii – would have dismissed any doubt that Machia­velli regarded the first Medici regime as an unsuitable model for Florence in the 1520s. In the Florentine Histories, the implicit criticism of the fifteenth-century Medici begins with Cosimo the Elder: on his deathbed his father Giovanni di Bicci warned him against unbridled ambition. After the latter’s demise, Cosimo’s thirst for power was immediately apparent. Underhanded schemes

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were attributed to his cousin Averardo de’ Medici, although Cosimo would himself have approved all the Medici party’s manoeuvres. The spokesman for Machiavelli’s critique of Cosimo, as indicated in Giannotti’s letter, was his enemy Niccolò Da Uzzano, who pointed to bribery and misuse of private and public money – all stratagems leading to a princely regime: Cosimo was the buyer and the Florentine citizenry were the sellers. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, defeated by the Medici in 1434, became Niccolò’s successor as critic of Medicean tyranny: exhorting the duke of Milan to take up arms and repatriate the Florentine rebels, he paints a vivid picture of Florence’s weakness – its riches and industries crushed under Cosimo’s tyranny. A further strategy for a veiled critique of Cosimo’s regime was to compare him to an eminent citizen such as Neri di Gino Capponi, who, according to Machiavelli, abstained from all manner of ambition and cunning. The regime of Cosimo’s son, Piero, was upbraided by its opponents, who wanted the city to be ruled by its magistrates, not by elitist cabals. Piero was particularly censured for refusing to entertain a Florentine marriage for his son Lorenzo. Together with his henchmen, Piero began to don the cloak of tyranny. Machiavelli even has Piero denounce his own regime – and implicitly himself – for its spoliation, corruption, injustice, oppression, insolence, violence and avarice. Piero’s son, Lorenzo the Magnificent, was the object of similar indirect criticism. As a consequence of the failed Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, Lorenzo’s paranoia led to fear, fear to insecurity, insecurity to injury; he was an implicit example of how, having survived a fatal plot, a ruler could turn from good to bad. Giuliano, Lorenzo’s younger brother murdered in the Pazzi

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conspiracy, frequently, according to Machiavelli, warned him lest, by wanting too much, he would lose everything. The sixteenth-century Medici were thus implicitly warned by Machiavelli not to cross the line and attempt to seize absolute power. Words spoken by an anonymous citizen to the duke of Athens in 1343 could have served as a tacit admonition to the Medici: Florence has always been a free city; for the Flor­­entines, liberty means everything; no amount of force will suffice to keep such a city enslaved; foreign arms will never be enough; internal supporters, having exploited the tyrant to crush their enemies, will dispense with him and make themselves rulers; in the end, the entire city will turn against the tyrant. Rather than impose absolute power, Clement vii is advised by Machiavelli to reform Florence along the lines recommended in the Discourse on Florentine Affairs: Florence has arrived at a point where a wise legislator could reorder the government in whatever way appropriate. In May 1525, when Machiavelli delivered his Florentine Histories to Clement vii, the voice of republican reform was in the air. A chronicler reported that the pope had ordered the reopening of the Great Council, only to be blocked by Silvio Passerini, the Medicean regent in Florence, as well as by other Medici allies. Having rejected the status quo – the fifteenth-century Medici system whereby Florence was neither a monarchy nor a republic – as well as the absolutist alternative, Machiavelli’s advice was for Clement vii to adopt a republican solution. Machiavelli considered Florence a badly organized republic, whose only chance rested with a capable leader (that is, Clement vii) in a position to reform the city’s constitution.

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Neither The Prince nor the Discourses was linked to a specific reform plan for Florence. The former was addressed to Giuliano and then Lorenzo de’ Medici not as potential princes of Florence but as new rulers of domains within the Papal States on the model of Cesare Borgia; the latter was neither directed to the Medici nor explicitly concerned with Florence but rather held up ancient Rome as a standard by which to judge modern politics. The negative conclusions about modern Italy in these works reflect Machiavelli’s disillusion during his long period of exclusion from public affairs beginning in late 1512. The context of the Florentine Histories was different: Machiavelli now had the ear of Clement vii and accordingly was speaking as a potential reformer. As a consequence the work was more explicitly idealistic than either The Prince or the Discourses: Machiavelli was now telling the pope what kind of republic Florence ought to be. In The Prince the selfish interests of a new prince were paramount: there was little room for the public good. In the Florentine Histories, by contrast, the traditional values of the Italian city-states, including the ‘common weal’ (‘ben comune’), took centre stage. In the Discourses, Machiavelli had put forward the startlingly original thesis that civic discord was the foundation of Roman liberty, but in the Florentine Histories the traditional leitmotiv of republican political thought returned, with the repeated assertion that unity was beneficial, dissension injurious. Particularly strident now was Machiavelli’s condemnation of faction – another traditional theme of communal civic thought and indeed of all political reflection until the late eighteenth century. Machiavelli told Clement vii that their native city had always been divided

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(adding, as an ironically flattering qualification, until the advent of the Medici regime): it was damaging, he stressed, for a republic or a kingdom to change a ruler or a government, not through any extrinsic constraint but only as a result of civic discord. Attempting to offer Clement vii the image of an ideal republic, Machiavelli took the logical step of reversing the political amorality that would make The Prince the subject of such unprecedented controversy. In The Prince he had asserted it was better for a ruler to be feared than loved, but now he condemns the duke of Athens for exactly the opposite reason. The admonition in The Prince that a ruler cannot always keep his word is now rescinded, Machiavelli rebuking opportunists who are honest only so long as it serves their self-interest. The Prince’s amorality now becomes a criminal leader’s creed in the rebellion of 1378; condemning him, Machiavelli overturns The Prince’s notorious code: ‘Such instigations inflamed emotions already overheated with evil’ (iii.13.22). In Chapter xv of The Prince Machiavelli had voiced an infamous warning: ‘a man who professes goodness in every which way will necessarily come to ruin among so many men who are not good’ (xv.5), but in the Florentine Histories Benedetto Alberti, the enemy of the oligarchic regime established in 1382, comes to grief because he is too good among so many who are wicked. The moral norm is overturned because Alberti is singled out as a model of virtue, not as a casualty of political innocence. In The Prince, Machiavelli had championed the political cloak (or to use the contemporary cliché, spin-doctoring): naked power had to be wrapped in the trappings of piety and .

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probity. In that work (as well as in the Discourses), he regarded morality, like religion, as a cloak to be exploited to promote or to vindicate the ruler or the regime; morality and religion were key tools that regularly had to be subverted for selfish ends. He had rejected conventional morality as not only idealistic but dangerous; the only place left for traditional ethics was as an artifice, or, in his words, a cloak to protect and disguise the necessarily unscrupulous prince. The contemporary individual best demonstrating the merits of the cloak for Machiavelli was Ferdinand of Aragon, who ‘preaches nothing but peace and sincerity’ (xviii.19) and who, ‘exploiting religion, turned to a “pious” act of cruelty, despoiling and driving out the Moors from his kingdom . . . Under the same cloak he assaulted Africa’ (xxi.5–6). In the Florentine Histories, by contrast, Lorenzo the Magnificent, speaking in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy, disparages the political cloak: ‘when they inflict injuries, the powerful always cover these over with some kind of less dishonest taint’ (viii.10.27). In The Prince Machiavelli had praised Francesco Sforza as a model new prince, but in the Florentine Histories Francesco is vilified as tyrant, condemned, above all, for the deceit and bad faith that Machiavelli had recommended so outrageously in The Prince. In the Florentine Histories Machiavelli strode forth as a writer for the occasion par excellence. Now that he was Florence’s official historian and, as such, the pope’s counsellor, he no longer had to don the cloak of evil as putative adviser to tyrants – euphemistically called ‘new princes’ – as he had done so egregiously in The Prince. His aim was to convince Clement vii that there was no future for Florence except as a republic of

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virtue. Thus Machiavelli, towards the end of his life, appears yet again as the voice of the Florentine Establishment. In the Florentine Histories he even proffered a type of reconciliation with the traditional nobility, so vehemently censured in both The Prince and the Discourses. In those works Machiavelli had articulated a distinctly populist and anti-aristocratic position. In Chapter ix of The Prince, his advice was to cast aside any preference for the aristocrats and instead to favour the people. A principality without a legally established prince (a civic principate), Machiavelli argues, is less stable if supported by the nobles than by the people. In the former case, the prince can­not rule effectively because of competition from nobles who think they are his equals: he cannot satisfy them without harming others. If he rules with the favour of the people, however, he stands alone and will be obeyed; the people are easily satisfied, because they want only protection from the nobles. Throughout The Prince Machiavelli places great emphasis on retaining the support of the people. In contrast, Florentine aristocrats were castigated there for their pusillanimous failure to act decisively, relying instead on the so-called ‘benefit of time’, that is, the hope that a problem will vanish if left untackled. Machiavelli reiterated this critique of the ‘wise aristocrats’ in the Discourses. The people are better guardians of liberty than the nobles. A prince needs to win over the people in preference to the nobles. Nobles are the main cause of sedition in republics. The overriding ambition of the nobles will bring a city to its knees. Venice limited its political class to the indigenous aristocracy, with the result that it was famously stable but lacked the military power provided by a large virtuoso populace, and so was unable to protect its mainland possessions.

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Machiavelli defines the aristocrats as enemies of republican life and equality. Such a feudal nobility is synonymous with corruption and is the antithesis of a republican constitution. In the Discourse on Florentine Affairs, however, he gave the nobles a leading role in his proposed constitution, conscious that they were too powerful to be marginalized in a future republic. In the Florentine Histories, he continued to condemn the egotism and factionalism of the popular elite who came to power at the end of the thirteenth century with institution of the priorate, reproving the people as well as the elite for displacing the ancient aristocracy. For Machiavelli, the fourteenth century ended with the effective death throes of the commune as dominated by a selfish popular oligarchy. But in the Florentine Histories he now found good words to say about the traditional feudal nobility who had been excluded from power by the Ordinances of Justice in 1293 – the only class, he stressed, who excelled in warfare but were absent in Florence over the coming centuries. In the Florentine Histories Machiavelli demonstrates a more critical attitude to the people, whom he had championed in The Prince and the Discourses: ‘The desires of the Florentine people were injurious and unjust’ (iii.1.5). Florence would be better placed with a body politic in which the nobility as well as the people were fully represented – a stance far removed from the populism of The Prince and the Discourses. In his last great political and historical work, Machiavelli becomes the voice of the status quo and of compromise: in his ideal Florence there was room for the Medici (at least until the death of the pope, of course lacking direct legitimate heirs), for the people and for the aristocracy – in other words, a mixed constitution.

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At the end of Machiavelli’s life, the Florentine Histories represent a final stage in a movement towards the consti­ tutional conservatism embodied in the theory of a mixed constitution. This form of government had found favour in earlier Flor­entine political thought, especially from supporters of aristocratic government, conscious that behind the facade of the mixed constitution par excellence – Venice – lay in fact an oligarchic regime. Machiavelli had rejected such a con­sti­ tution in both the Discourses and The Prince, works that were pervaded by anti-Venetian sentiments. The mixed consti­ tution, mentioned superficially in Discourses i.ii, was quickly set aside in Discourses i.vi, where Machiavelli jettisoned the Venetian model. A first sign of less anti-aristocratic and proVenetian sympathies can be detected in The Art of War: ‘if the Venetians had been as wise in military organization as they were in all other institutions, they would have created a new world monarchy’ (i.178). Proposing Venice and Rome as models of equal merit in the Lucchese ‘Summary’ was a further step in the same direction, and the form of government expounded in the Discourses on Florentine Affairs was, in effect, a mixed constitution. In the end, Machiavelli could not have been further from the anti-aristocratic and anti-Venetian sentiments of The Prince and the Discourses, when in the Florentine Histories he called Venice ‘a republic that, for its constitution and power, ought to be celebrated over and above every other Italian principate’ (i.28.10). At the end of his life, Machiavelli was moving towards a political conservatism that recalls the greatest Florentine champion of the mixed constitution, Machiavelli’s intimate friend and admirer of Venice, Francesco Guicciardini.

Giuliano Bugiardini, Francesco Guicciardini, c. 1538–40, oil on panel.

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During the 1520s Machiavelli’s life took a new turn as a result of his intense friendship with the eminent statesman and diplomat, Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), a member of an important Florentine aristocratic family. Before this time there had been contacts between the two, but Guicciar­dini had regarded Machiavelli with suspicion during the Soderini years. At the beginning of 1516 Guicciardini drew on some passages from The Prince, and there was growing intellectual sympathy between them beginning in 1519–20, when Machiavelli was writing The Art of War; subsequently Guicciardini gave Machiavelli free access to his unpublished Florentine History (1508–9). From the start of the 1520s, relations between the two became warmer: the first letters of their surviving correspondence, dating from May 1521, have a relaxed tone and are filled with the ironic touches that char­­ acterize Machiavelli’s exchanges with his most intimate friends. Soon a close personal bond developed. There was a chasm between their social and civic positions: Guicciardini was a plutocrat and a leading Florentine politician and international statesman; Machiavelli, excluded from civic office-holding, was an unemployed and impoverished former civil servant. There is even evidence that Machiavelli acted as Guicciardini’s secretary. Nevertheless, Guicciardini told Machiavelli to drop all formalities in his letters. In the end Machiavelli declared, ‘I love messer Francesco Guicciardini.’1 At first, their exchange was facetious: Guicciardini ridiculed Machiavelli’s irreverence, his passion for constitutional theorizing, his extreme and unconventional tendencies – an opinion widely shared at the time. On a more serious note, Guicciardini sympathized with Machiavelli’s reduced status

Carlo Portelli (attrib.), Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, 1565–70, oil on panel.

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when dispatched to negotiate with friars in Carpi in place of the high-profile diplomatic missions he had undertaken in his chancery years. Guicciardini was thereby inspired to launch into what for him was a favourite theme: history’s repetition albeit with changed names and circumstances and the resulting need for interpretation by a prudent historian. Machiavelli continued to resort to irony: he would apply the rules and organization of the Carpi brotherhood to the Florentine history he was then writing, ‘particularly in comparisons, because when I have to discuss silence, I’ll be able to say, “They were quieter than the brothers when eating.”’2 The growing political, military and diplomatic crisis following the French defeat at Pavia in 1525 and the return to large-scale hostilities among the Italian and ultramontane powers inevitably led Machiavelli and Guicciardini to adopt a more serious tone and approach. Alluding to his achievements not only as a diplomat but as a writer, Guicciardini wrote to Machiavelli, ‘You who have read and composed so many histories and have seen so much of the world.’3 Once again numerous favoured themes of Machiavelli’s writings reappear: history’s repetition; denunciation of Italy’s present rulers; preference for audacity over circumspection; power of fate and providence; glory or honour as the aim of politics; irrationality of politics; denial that money was the sinews of war; populism; need for a new prince-redeemer (now Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, a distant relative of Clement vii); necessity of seizing the occasion; liberation of Italy from the barbarians. Also in his last years Machiavelli launched a noteworthy correspondence with Bartolomeo Cavalcanti (1503–1562),

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who later became a prominent republican and anti-Medicean. In their exchange Machiavelli repeated an aphorism from the Discourses (‘it is not a wise policy to risk all one’s fortunes without committing all one’s forces’4), and reiterated the theme of war’s irrationality. As for Vettori, there are no surviving letters with Machia­ velli between 1515 and 1523; afterwards their exchanges lack the intensity that marked the period between 1513 and 1515. Nevertheless some of their late letters include discussions of politics and diplomacy comparable to the exchanges between Machiavelli and Guicciardini; in the end, however, it was the correspondence with Guicciardini that emerges as particularly striking at the close of Machiavelli’s life. In fact, Guicciardini did not agree with much of Machiavelli’s political thought, as became clear first from the former’s Dialogue on the Government of Florence (1521–4) and then even more sharply in his Considerations on the Discourses of Machiavelli, written after the latter’s death. Nonetheless, powerful intellectual tensions such as these do not emerge from their correspondence, where most of the political ideas came from Machiavelli – without a refutation ventured by Guicciardini. Consequently the exchanges between them – albeit lively and significant – do not attain the intellectual depth reached by the profound dialogue in the earlier letters between Machiavelli and Vettori.

The favour that Machiavelli now enjoyed with the Medici led to an increasing series of diplomatic, political and military missions until the fall of the regime in May 1527, a month

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before his own death. First was the legation to Carpi to gain the consent for detaching the Franciscans in Florence from the rest of the Tuscan congregation of Observant Minorites. A secondary commission was to find a Lenten preacher for the Florentine Cathedral. The mission gave rise to irony and practical jokes between Machiavelli and Guicciardini at the expense of the Order. After Carpi, Machiavelli put aside diplomatic activity to concentrate on the Florentine Histories, but in October 1522 he briefly returned to diplomacy, albeit at third hand. Raffaello Girolami disclosed to Machiavelli that he was about to set off for Spain as Florentine ambassador to the court of Emperor Charles v. For this, his first embassy, he sought the advice of the experienced Machiavelli, who wrote for him a brief tract known as the ‘Memorandum to Raffaello Girolami When Departing to the Emperor’: it is a great honour to go abroad in service of your country; acquire a positive reputation, especially for liberality; avoid the appearance of hypocrisy, although occasionally deceit is necessary; identify the key figures at court, their personalities and aspirations; behave like others, if necessary gambling or banqueting; ensure you have plenty of information to reciprocate; abstain from expressing your own opinions directly, attributing your views to this or that prudent and anonymous figure – an expedient repeatedly adopted by Machiavelli himself in his reports back to Florence when on foreign missions. In May 1525 Machiavelli was offered the job of secretary to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, about to depart for Spain as papal legate. Machiavelli was on good terms with Cardinal Giovanni, who was among the first to receive a copy of

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The Art of War, as well as with his father, Iacopo Salviati, a veteran Florentine statesman, who wrote to his son, ‘For a secretary and for someone to give you advice, I prefer Niccolò Machia­velli to anyone else.’5 In the end, the pope vetoed the appointment. No explicit reason was given, but it would not seem due to renewed suspicion of Machiavelli, who was at that very time in receipt of an additional payment from the pope for his Florentine Histories. Before returning to Florence from Rome, moreover, Machiavelli was given an important diplomatic mission from the pope to Francesco Guicciardini in North Italy. The mission entrusted to Machiavelli by the pope took shape in June 1525, when he was still in Rome following the presentation of the Florentine Histories. It the wake of the Battle of Pavia (1525), Clement vii was short of soldiers and money. Machiavelli had the answer: recruit a native militia by arming the population of the Romagna. He persuaded the pope and his advisers, among whom Iacopo Salviati lent his positive support, to be sent to Guicciardini, governor of the region, armed with a papal brief to confer with the latter on ‘a question of great importance’. In mid-June Machiavelli arrived at Faenza, where Guicciardini was then resident. The latter was sceptical, declaring that if Machiavelli’s idea was a ‘remedy for the present dangers’, it was too late. Guicci­a­­rdini proceeded to list objections: factionalism was too deep rooted in the region; the population lacked loyalty to the pope and his governors; the local communes were impoverished and un­­able to sustain financial burdens. When the pope was apprised of Guicciardini’s objections, he began to have second thoughts. Both Machiavelli and Guicciardini awaited a

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verdict, which never came. Machiavelli returned to Florence at the end of July 1525, and the project came to nothing.6 Soon Machiavelli was again on the road, reaching Venice in August 1525, sent by the Florentine wool guild to protest against the sequestration of a ship transporting Florentine merchants from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to Ancona. Machiavelli was accredited to the apostolic nuncio and the French ambassador, with whom he held talks on undisclosed topics. The papal nuncio complained that Machiavelli was presented to him but then disappeared. This fact has led to questions about what Machiavelli was actually up to on this, his only visit to Venice, lasting a good three weeks. His friend, Filippo de’ Nerli, related the merchants’ complaints that, at their expense, he was involved in literary business: possibly a reference to a future Venetian production of Mandragola. He also alluded, facetiously, to Machiavelli’s gambling winnings of two or three thousand ducats – but such an exaggerated sum points to teasing. In mid-1526 Machiavelli’s diplomatic activity intensified. In May, France, the papacy, Venice, Milan and Florence formed the League of Cognac to drive the Habsburgs from North Italy. Success was variable: Lodi fell to the League, but Milan was taken by the Spanish. Machiavelli arrived at the League’s camp in mid-July; his mission was to advise on the reorganization of papal and Florentine forces, but he achieved little: he blamed corruption, but he was criticized for his theoretical approach. His practical limitations as a military organizer are suggested by a famous anecdote narrated by the contemporary story-teller Matteo Bandello. Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, then in service to the French king, challenged Machiavelli to

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array three thousand infantrymen according to the schemes set out in The Art of War. He shouted orders for two hours, but without success. As Machiavelli and the soldiers continued to bake in the hot sun, Giovanni, eager for lunch, took charge. In the wink of an eye, he put the troops in order. As the campaign against Milan stalled, the League’s forces laid siege to Cremona, which held out for all of August. Guicciardini sent Machiavelli to report: he found the League’s commanders determined to persist. Machiavelli compiled a set of brief instructions on the besieging forces’ organization that have come to be known as the ‘Military Dispositions for the Assault on Cremona’. Finally, on 23 September 1526, the city capitulated. But the League’s plans were disrupted by events in Rome. Clement vii, persuaded to make a truce with the Colonna (the inveterate enemies of the Orsini, connected by marriage to the Medici), disarmed the city, but the Spanish forces seized the occasion to strike at the heart of Rome, sacking the apostolic palace and St Peter’s. The pope was forced to sign a truce, one condition of which was the withdrawal of the League’s forces from Lombardy. In early October, Guicciardini and Machiavelli were obliged, unwillingly, to return to Piacenza. Machiavelli now joined the League’s Florentine contingent, dispatched to protect the pope and punish the Colonna. He stopped briefly to see his friend Filippo de’ Nerli, papal governor of the city, but when he arrived in Florence in early November, he was too late to rejoin the Florentine contingent making for Rome. Machiavelli did not remain in Florence for long. At the end of November 1526, he was sent to see Guicciardini, then

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in Modena, by the Florentine government, terrified at the prospect of the Habsburg army, having secured Lombardy, turning south towards Florence. If the city could not be protected by the League, the Florentines would accept surrender on the least disadvantageous terms. Guicciardini’s view was that the League potentially had sufficient forces to block the Habsburg advance, but the Venetians and the French were protecting their own possessions, and so the hopes of an advance towards the south were slight. The death from battle wounds of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere on 30 November was a further blow; moreover the duke of Ferrara, hitherto a non-participant, at this point decided to join the Habsburg forces. Guicciardini now moved towards Parma, where the hostilities were intensifying, while Machiavelli returned to Florence. Having spent two months at home, Machiavelli was on the move again at the beginning of February 1527. While the League’s army remained immobile, Habsburg forces crossed the Po. In reply the League’s contingents descended to Brisi­ghella, just north of the Apennines and at the gateway to Florentine territory. Machiavelli’s mission again was to im­­ plore the League for troops to protect Florence. It was now agreed that if the League’s forces, passing through Bologna, made for Tuscany, first the Venetian contingent, followed by the French, would enter Florentine domains. The League’s armies, together with Machiavelli, remained at a standstill in Bologna, impeded by snow and lack of provisions. Mean­ while in Rome the pope made a truce with the Habsburgs, which their commander proceeded to ignore. At the end of March, while the League’s forces prepared to leave Bologna in anticipation of the Habsburg army, Machiavelli rushed to

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Imola to organize quarters for the League’s troops. At the beginning of April Machiavelli was with Guicciardini in Forlì, in despair following the peace made at Rome – which was not being observed in Lombardy. On 18 April, Machiavelli was together with Guicciardini at Brisighella, where they had word that the League’s forces were finally on the move southward. Four days later Machiavelli was again in Florence. Then between 25 and 28 April he was sent as commissioner to the papal army south of Florence at Figline. At this point the Habsburg commander decided to bypass Florence and move directly towards Rome. The League’s forces followed in pursuit, succeeded a day later by the papal army. Machiavelli was dispatched in advance to secure lodgings for the troops. On 4 May the Habsburg troops reached Rome, where they executed the infamous sack of the city, while Clement vii ignominiously sought refuge in the Castel Sant’Angelo. When news reached Florence, the Medici regime toppled. On 16 May the Great Council was restored; the following day the Medici princes, Ippolito and Alessandro, together with the regent, the cardinal of Cortona, went into exile. Meanwhile Machiavelli continued to collaborate with Guicciardini as representative of the fallen regime. Guicciardini provided Machia­­velli with an official letter to the Florentine government. Machiavelli then proceeded to Civitavecchia, where he met the Genoese galley fleet. On 22 May he wrote the last dis­­patch of his diplomatic life to the Florentine government, who were informed that he would be leaving on the next day or the day after for Livorno, whence he made his return to Florence.

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After November 1512 Machiavelli exercised no public duties in Florence for the following eight years. Nevertheless, he seems to have acted privately once for another individual about to assume civic office. One of the Gonfaloniers of the Companies (the second consultative college in Florentine government) was obliged to make a protestatio de iustitia, that is a brief oration in praise of justice. Machiavelli made his con­­ tribution here with the so-called Allocution to a Magistrate, datable on orthographical grounds to 1519–20. Given that he never served as a Gonfalonier of the Companies, his piece must have been prepared for another Florentine, chosen to carry out this traditional obligation. Primitive men, he wrote, were good and cohabited with the gods, who, when corruption spread, returned to heaven. The last to leave Earth was justice, in whose absence peace also abandoned the human race, with the result that kingdoms and republics were brought to ruin. Justice never returned to the entire Earth but only occasionally to some cities. The ancient Greeks and Romans were favoured by this fortunate contingency but so, from time to time, were the Florentines, a circumstance leading to unity, power and equality. The Florentine magistrates whom Machia­­velli was addressing were therefore urged not to favour their friends and relations but to execute justice impartially. If justice returned to reside in Florence, the city and its dominions would be rendered glorious and immortal. Once more Machiavelli assumed the role of writer for the occasion: the values upheld were far removed from The Prince, where justice is mentioned only once, as well as the Discourses, which refer to justice a mere four times. With the allusion to equality, the speech is consonant with the teachings of Cicero, who

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defined justice as giving every man his due; similarly Ciceronian is the end of justice, posited here as glory. Cicero had affirmed that justice was always opportune, but in the Discourses Machiavelli had stated that justice needed to be put aside at times in pursuit of the common good. At the end of summer 1525, while he was in Venice, Machia­velli was told by his friend Nerli that he had been made eligible for public office in Florence by the election officials (the Accoppiatori, appointed to keep communal magistracies under the regime’s strict control) – a further proof of his favour in Medici eyes. In April 1526, with the city under threat from Habsburg armies, Machiavelli was asked by the pope to renew and improve Florence’s defences together with the celebrated military engineer Pietro Navarra – a project leading to Machiavelli’s tract ‘Report of a Visit Made to Fortify Florence’, which recommended reducing, reinforc­­ing and rearming the existing fortifications. The ‘Report’ was quickly sent to Rome, where Clement vii was so impressed that he summoned Machiavelli to the city for nearly three weeks. There Machiavelli convinced the pope to create a new magistracy, the Five Procurators of the Walls of Florence, the necessary legislation being drafted by Machia­velli himself, who was appointed their chancellor. Thus he once more became a chancellor, even if not to one of the city’s principal magistracies. In such turbulent times, his renewed and intensified diplomatic activity left him little time for chancery duties, which he carried out only in May and June 1526 and January 1527. In one of these periods he wrote a brief note on the fortification of the hill of San Miniato (‘Distribution of New Units at San Miniato’). This

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question unleashed a heated debate with Clement vii, but in the end Machiavelli got his way, although the pope lost interest in the project, so that, when the threat of attack became real in spring 1527, Florence was left unprepared. The military crisis erupted for the first time at the end of April 1527, when the cardinal of Cortona and Ippolito de’ Medici left Florence to meet the duke of Urbino, the League’s captain; a rumour arose that the Medici had quit the city, leading to an abortive coup (the so-called Friday Tumult). The Palace of the Signoria was rapidly invaded by antiMedicean demonstrators, demanding the Medici’s condem­­ nation as rebels and the republican constitution’s restoration. Machiavelli happened to be out of the city then, as he was when the regime fell definitively on 16 and 17 May. There is no contemporary evidence of his sentiments on the occasion. Most biographers have given credence to a letter by Giovan Battista Busini, written more than twenty years after Machiavelli’s death. Busini, a notoriously malicious gossip, had little sympathy with Machiavelli and was doubtless affected by the rising wave of anti-Machiavellism. According to him, Machiavelli’s companion on his final return to Florence heard his repeated sighs after learning of the city’s liberation and now regretting his involvement with Clement vii. Arriv­­ing in Florence, continued Busini, he made a great effort to return to his former position as secretary to the Dieci di Balìa, receiving strong backing from his friends Zanobi Buondel­monti and Luigi Alamanni, who both had returned to the city from exile; nevertheless the current incum­­bent was reconfirmed. According to Busini, Machiavelli’s appointment was opposed by several key figures in the new

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regime; the middle classes (the ‘universale’) hated him for The Prince; according to the rich The Prince taught the Medici duke how to deprive them of their property; for the poor it was a lesson on how to take away their liberty; for the Savona­rolans he was a heretic; honest men thought he was a knave; the wicked were jealous that he outshone them in evil. Zanobi and Luigi, as grateful recipients, failed to see his faults. In old age he turned to gluttony. He died afflicted by pain, especially having seen his former job taken by the far inferior Donato Giannotti. Busini’s account, however, is filled with errors, im­­probabi­l­i­­­­­ties and anachronisms. In 1527 The Prince was still unpublished, known only to a restricted circle of friends: as such it could hardly have been known at all social levels. In that year, there was no duke of Florence. Machiavelli’s surviving correspondence from the 1520s shows he was liked and admired by Mediceans and anti-Mediceans alike. Buon­del­­­monti and Alamanni were his benefactors, not vice versa. All portraits show Machiavelli to be a slight figure, not a fat glutton. Giannotti became secretary to the Dieci on 23 September 1527, three months after Machiavelli’s death. The image of Machiavelli suffering in silence is hardly credible, given that his letters between 1513 and 1520 were filled with constant remonstrations about his miserable personal circumstances. There is no positive evidence of Machiavelli’s emotions in the last month of his life, but, if speculation is wanted, it is improbable that Machiavelli – having become a first-rank Medicean – could have hoped for a job from the restored republican government. His anxieties would have been for his four children (with one of whom he carried on an unaccustomed correspondence in April 1527),

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and for Florence itself, which he said he loved either more than Christ (or, according to another guess about the illegible text, his soul) – at that point defenceless, deprived of Medici protection and facing a recently victorious and hostile Habsburg army.

In the carnival song ‘Of the Blessed Spirits’, Machiavelli bemoans the current escalating conflict and calls for peace. Blessed spirits have been sent by God to bear witness to his wrath because, unless the new pope intercedes, His realm is destined to vanish little by little. Italy is so disastrously drained by the thirst for war that the way has been made for its foes, and particularly for the Turks. Christians must take up arms against the cruel enemy, allowing the Golden Age to be restored. A low-key allusion to the new pontiff (‘if the new pope does not find a remedy’) would be inappropriate for Clement vii, Machiavelli’s new patron, but is consonant with the election on 9 January 1522 of the Flemish pope Adrian vi. At that time war had been renewed between the French and the Habsburgs, and the Turks had taken Belgrade the previous August, sowing terror throughout Europe. Thus the most convincing dating of ‘Of the Blessed Spirits’ would be at carnival time 1522. The early 1520s saw intense literary activity by Machiavelli, but after the completion of Clizia his productivity dwindled and the last two years of his life witnessed only rare literary endeavours. The story of his chancellorship recurred: writing was always a substitute for action. In his final years he composed brief songs to be set to music and inserted as intermezzi

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in Mandragola. Machiavelli had already written intermezzi for Clizia, and when in autumn 1525 Guicciardini proposed a staging of Mandragola in Faenza, Machiavelli again wanted to involve Barbera Salutati, who offered to come with her troupe of singers. Guicciardini proposed 26 December, but queried the original prologue, which, according to the actors, would not have been understood because of its numerous allusions to contemporary Florence, so that they had taken upon themselves to supply a substitute. Guicciardini did not want the prologue to be watered down and so proposed a revision by Machiavelli suited to the witless audience. At the beginning of January 1526 Machiavelli was ready, writing to Guicciardini that five new songs had been composed as intermezzi to be sung between the acts. This claim was ex­­ ag­ger­­­­ated: the intermezzi for the first and third act were recycled from Clizia; altogether new were a song to replace the prologue and two further intermezzi after the second and fourth acts. The music for the fourth act’s intermezzo, composed by Philippe Verdelot, is extant; he presumably set the other two intermezzi to music that has not survived. The original melancholy prologue was replaced by a carefree preface, suitable for the hilarious atmosphere of carnival. The mood of the two new songs composed as intermezzi for the second and fourth acts was equally upbeat. The melan­ choly tone befitting his years of unemployment has van­­­ ished, now replaced by the fervour of autumnal love with the prospect of active involvement in Florence’s political and diplomatic life. Machiavelli’s final literary offering was a second epigram (the first having been the famous verses on Piero Soderini,

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probably a fictitiously posthumous epitaph, composed before its subject’s death). Argus was a mythical figure endowed with a hundred eyes that were never all closed: when fifty were asleep, the others remained awake. The French monarch Francis i had been imprisoned by Charles v at Pavia in February 1525, but the treaty of Madrid, concluded on 14 January 1526, had secured his release, which took place the following February. On 3 January 1526 Machiavelli had written to Guicciardini, declaring that Francis i should never be released by Charles v, because while he was in captivity the latter’s enemies were weakened. When Machiavelli learnt that Charles v had agreed to liberate Francis i, he was stupe­fied: ‘all the reasons that can be alleged’, he wrote to Guicciardini, ‘will never save him from being a fool.’7 The epigram – making the same point – is datable to the time when news of Francis i’s release reached Machiavelli. It was fitting for Machiavelli to end his writing career on a typically sardonic note.

At the end of his life, Machiavelli was considered an exceptional dramatist, a literary figure of national repute, an esteemed military strategist and a notable poet. He had established a circle of important friends and had won the confidence of Pope Clement vii. His letters were regarded as the voices of oracles. The black years after his dismissal from the chancery were now in the past. Machiavelli had suffered from digestive problems since the summer of 1525. He began taking laxative pills, passing the recipe on to Guicciardini. In mid-June 1527 he fell ill. Giovio, Busini and Varchi related that his condition declined

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irreversibly. According to modern writers and physicians, he was suffering from chronic appendicitis or a gastric ulcer; some have speculated that his pills were damaging to his liver; according to others, they were harmless. Whatever the cause of his illness, it seems that death was due to acute peritonitis, in the wake of a ruptured appendix or a perforated ulcer. At his deathbed a circle of friends gathered, perhaps including Zanobi Buondelmonti, Luigi Alamanni, Filippo Strozzi, Iacopo Nardi and his brother-in-law Francesco Del Nero, a frequent correspondent. Machiavelli died on 21 June 1527 and was buried the next day in Santa Croce, where his father Bernardo was interred. Did Machiavelli die a Christian? According to a conjectur­ able letter by his thirteen-year-old son Piero to his brotherin-law Francesco Nelli, he met death enjoying the comforts of the sacraments. But in 1969 two scholars demonstrated that the letter was an eighteenth-century forgery. Even if Machiavelli, for whatever reason, made a confession at the point of death, there remains the fact that his writings and his thought pointed in a decidedly anti-Christian direction, veering towards atheism – a position, even if overtly concealed, was far from unknown in Renaissance Florence. A convincing image of Machiavelli’s religious sentiments – or lack thereof – is disclosed by his satirical ‘Articles for a Pleasure Company’, uncertain in date, but later than 1504, when Michelangelo’s David, alluded to in the text, was first displayed in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria. Machiavelli’s piece is an outrageous parody of the statutes governing the many Florentine confraternities. Here Machiavelli strides forth as unbelieving, irreverent and irreligious to the core.

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Was Machiavelli’s celebrated and impious dream at the point of death authentic? According to the French Jesuit Étienne Binet, writing in 1629, Machiavelli . . . had the following vision shortly before yielding up his spirit. He saw a group of poor folk, like ruffians, who were dressed in tatters, famished, wearing disguises, all in disorder, and few in number. It was said to him that these were the persons in Heaven of whom it is written, ‘Blessed are the poor, since theirs is the kingdom of Heaven’. When they had retired, there followed an untold number of persons full of gravity and majesty. They appeared to resemble a Senate, where the most serious affairs of state are treated. He saw among them Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus and others of this eminence. He asked who these most venerable gentlemen were. It was said to him that they were the damned and that they were souls rejected by Heaven. ‘The wisdom of the world is in enmity with God.’ He then was asked to which of the groups he wanted to belong. He replied that he would like much more to be in Hell with those great spirits, to discuss affairs of state with them, than to be with those verminous scoundrels he had been shown. And with that he died, and he went on to see how affairs of state were progressing in the next world.8 The earliest version of this dream appears in a letter dating from 1544 by Anton Francesco Doni. Its fame suggests that it derived from something extraordinary, possibly Machia­vellian. It echoes both Mandragola and The Life of

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Castruccio Castracani. Machiavelli, at the point of death, was probably meditating according to a mental scheme that he had developed while writing. Machiavelli died an irreligious radical, without regrets over the life he had led.

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achiavelli’s contemporaries neither acknowledged nor realized his conservatism in old age. Guicciar­ dini regarded him as an unrepentant extremist, while the Italian philosopher Agostino Nifo (c. 1469/70–1538) rewrote The Prince, purging its immorality and recasting it as a piece of neo-Ciceronian apologetics. For nearly all the innumerable political, literary, philosophical and historical analysts following in his wake, he was the Machiavelli of his middle years, the outrageous, impious, radical and revolutionary author of The Prince, the Discourses and Mandragola. A mere handful of recent critics have drawn attention to the reactionary drift of his later output.1 In his disillusioned middle years (1513–19), Machiavelli was a secular, amoral yet visionary cynic, for whom the ideal in politics was historical immortality to be achieved through glory. His political philosophy was a medi­ cine that proved too bitter for subsequent critics – and indeed for him himself – to swallow. The simplest way to deal with Machiavelli has been refusal to down the pill and instead condemn him as an apostle of evil. In 1523 Agostino Nifo referred to Machiavelli’s ‘poisonous teachings’. In 1539 the English Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–1558) condemned the ‘immoral cunning’ of The Prince,

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which was written by ‘Satan’s hand’. In 1577 the Huguenot lawyer Innocent Gentillet (1535–1588) portrayed Machiavelli as a ‘teacher of atheism and vice’ – ‘Satan’s response to the Reform­­­ation’. In 1605 the Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) ‘described Machiavelli’ as a ‘heretic’. In Henry vi, Part iii, Shakespeare, speaking through the voice of Richard iii, pointed to ‘the murdrous Machiavel’. The Unknown artist, Agostino Nifo, 18th century, oil on canvas.

Sebastiano del Piombo, Cardinal Reginald Pole, c. 1540s, oil on canvas.

Deliberation of the Congregazione dell’Indice regarding the condemnation of Niccolò Machiavelli’s works, 1559.

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king of Prussia, Frederick the Great (1712–1786), declared that ‘Machiavelli corrupts Politics, and undertakes to des­ troy the precepts of healthy Morals.’ The English prime minister William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) attacked the ‘Machia­vel­lism’ of ‘the revolutionary French people’. In 1836 the French diplomat, political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) denounced Machiavelli for in­­difference ‘to distinctions between just and unjust’. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) saw Marx as ‘[Machiavelli’s] most notable successor’, the ‘Machiavelli of the labour movement’. In 1924 the German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954) wrote that ‘Machiavelli plunged a sword into the body politic of the West’; in 1946 he stressed the contin­ uity between Machia­velli and the First and Second World Wars: Machiavelli had ‘spread a poison’ leading ‘in the most horrible way’ to the Third Reich. The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) at the same time agreed that Machiavelli had laid the foundations of Nazism. In 1958 the German-American political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899– 1973) launched ‘a violent dia­­tribe against Machiavelli, the “teacher of evil”’, who had laid the corner-stone of ‘nihilism’. The French philosopher Raymond Aron (1905–1983), writing between 1938 and 1940, presented Machiavelli ‘as the precursor of totalitarianism’. In 1942 the French philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) challenged Machiavelli’s autonomy of politics, declaring that poli­tics’ ‘ultimate aim’ should instead be the ‘common good of [the] individual man’, inseparable ‘from ethics’. ‘In 1963 the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) castigated Machiavelli

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as ‘“the spiritual father of [the] revolution” continued by Robespierre and Lenin’. Alternatively critics have corrupted Machiavelli’s message, seeing him as an apostle of good government and/or republicanism. In 1582 the Italian-English jurist Alberico Gentili (1552–1608) asserted that Machiavelli’s purpose was not ‘to instruct the tyrant, but by revealing [the tyrant’s] secret counsels to strip him bare, and expose him to the suffering nations’. Machiavelli taught the English publisher John Wolfe (1548–1601), so he declared in 1584, ‘the difference between a prince and a tyrant, between government by many good men and gov­­ernment by’ the wicked ‘few’, and ‘between a well-regulated commonwealth and a confused and licentious multitude’. In 1612–13 the Italian satirist Trajano Boccalini (1556–1613) ‘suggested’ Machiavelli’s ‘depiction of princely rule could [act as] a weapon against it’, transforming his ‘revelations of the secrets of princely rule into a subversive critique of tyrants’. In 1656 English political theorist James Harrington (1611–1677) ‘defended the Machiavellian armed citizen as a model for England’, while another Commonwealth man, the English politician Henry Neville (1620–1694), writing in 1680, championed Machiavelli’s ‘affection to Democratical Govern­ ment’ and justified The Prince as ‘both a Satyr against “tyrants”, and a true Character of them’. In 1670 the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) asserted that ‘Machiavelli was “favorable to liberty” and that The Prince could be read as an implicit defense of republicanism’, showing ‘how cautious a free multitude should be of entrusting its welfare absolutely to one man’. In 1683 the French historian and political analyst Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye (1634–1706) saw

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in Machiavelli ‘a Tacitean critic of princely power . . . recognized in his lifetime as a defender of the Florentine republic’. In The Social Contract (1762) the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) presented Machiavelli as ‘a covert repub­lican who “under the pretence of instructing kings taught important lessons to the people”’. In 1782 the Florentine publisher Gaetano Cambiagi (c. 1721–1795) ‘confirmed . . . that Machiavelli was a republican’ while ‘republicanism was still subversive’. In 1787 the American statesman John Adams (1735–1826) portrayed Machiavelli as the writer ‘most favor­ able to a popular government’. For the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), ‘the plan of the French Revolution was writ large in the books . . . of Machiavelli.’ In 1815 the Swiss-French political thinker Benjamin Constant (1777–1830) praised Machiavelli for having ‘written in favor of equality, and acted or spoken on behalf of the descendants of the oppressed and against the descendants of the oppressors’. In 1849 the Italian philosopher Giuseppe Ferrari (1811– 1876) asserted that ‘Machiavelli . . . deserved to be considered the prophet of future revolutions.’ In 1958 the American his­­ torian Garrett Mattingly (1900–1962) revived an old interpretation, arguing that The Prince ‘was a political satire, written to expose and ridicule despotism, rather than as a cynical manual for [its encouragement]’. In 1972 the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) discovered ‘a pluralism of values in Machiavelli that he considered consonant with the spirit of political liberalism’. In the 1960s and ’70s the German-American historian Hans Baron (1900–1988) and John Pocock saw The Prince as a self-serving effort of a would-be placeman, superseded by the Discourses’ more mature and

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sincere republicanism. Machiavelli’s persistent republicanism and ethical conservatism have continued to be a theme in recent readings by Gennaro Sasso, John McCormick, Erica Benner, Mark Jurdjevic and Hilary Gatti – to name but a few. Another strategy intended to render Machiavelli’s message more palatable has been to deny his idealism, con­ verting him into a political technocrat. In 1553 the French physician and translator of The Prince Guillaume Cappel (1530–1586) ‘compared [Machiavelli] to a doctor who . . . [had to pres­cribe] strong medicine to cure a diseased body’. In 1589, the Flemish philo­sopher Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) ‘advocated a Machiavellian “mixed prudence,” that is prudence tempered with considerations of expedience on the grounds of political necessity’. In 1605 the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1606) wrote, ‘the form of writing which of all others is fittest for this variable argument of negotiation and occasions is that which Machiavel chose wisely and aptly for government; namely, discourses upon histories or examples.’ Writing in 1640 the English translator of The Prince Edward Dacres declared that ‘mee thinks the judicious peruser [of The Prince] may honestly make use of it in the actions of his life, with advantage.’ This approach is summed up by Ernst Cassirer: The Prince is neither a moral nor an immoral book; it is simply a technical book. In a technical book we do not seek rules of ethical conduct, of good and evil . . . Machiavelli studied political actions in the same way as a chemist studies chemical reactions. Assuredly a chemist who prepares in his laboratory a strong poison is not responsible for its effects . . . Machiavelli’s Prince

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contains many dangerous and poisonous things, but he looks at them with the coolness and indifference of a scientist. He gives his political prescriptions. Yet another tack has been to substitute the interpreter’s ideals for Machiavelli’s own. In August 1514 Machiavelli wrote to Francesco Vettori, ‘as for . . . the Italians uniting, you make me laugh,’2 and yet for the German philosophers Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), the Italian literary critic Francesco De Sanctis (1817–1883) and the Italian historians Pasquale Villari (1827– 1917) and Oreste Tommasini (1844–1919), Machiavelli was an Italian nationalist avant la lettre, comparable, according to the British his­­torian Sir Richard Lodge (1855–1936), writing in 1930, to Cavour. Although for Machiavelli ‘stato’ meant normally regime or dominion, not ‘the state’ in modern terms,3 neverthe­less Hegel saw Machiavelli as significant ‘in the revo­ lutionary project of materializing the very concept of the state’. For the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844– 1900), Machiavelli anticipated the ‘Übermensch’: ‘no philosopher will be in any doubt as to the type of perfection in politics: that is Machiavellianism. But Machiavellianism, pure, without admixture, crude, fresh, with all its force, with all its pungency, is superhuman divine transcendental, it will never be achieved by man, at most approximated.’ The German historian and political commentator Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896) stripped Machiavelli of idealism, seeing his state ‘as mere force, violence, and power’; for him, as well as for Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954), Machiavelli’s legacy was pure power politics,

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Realpolitik, devoid not only of morals but of ideals. The German social revolutionary Karl Marx (1818–1883) appreciated ‘the maturity of [Machiavelli’s] concept of society . . . divided into classes’. Although Machiavelli explicitly dis­avowed conspiracy and revolution (Discourses iii.vi), never­ theless, in his Prison Notebooks (1931–4), the Italian Marxist Stamped envelopes, each with a different bust of Niccolò Machiavelli and postmarked 3 May 1969, the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli’s birth.

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philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) emphasized the ‘essentially revolutionary meaning’ of Machiavelli’s ‘reflections’, seeing Machiavelli’s peasant militia as anticipating the French Revolution’s ‘people in arms’: Any formation of a national-popular collective will is impossible, unless the great mass of peasant farmers bursts simultaneously into political life. That was Machia­ velli’s intention through the reform of the militia, and it was achieved by the Jacobins in the French Revolution. That Machiavelli understood it reveals a precocious Jacobinism that is the (more or less fertile) germ of his conception of national revolution. The links between Machiavelli, Robespierre and Jacobinism have continued to be a theme in neo-Marxist readings, for example by Jérémie Barthas. Less radical but equally distorting has been the attempt to minimize Machiavelli’s originality, seeing him not as an innovator but simply as a reviver of antiquity. Overlooking his devaluation of the common good, in contrast to classical poli­­­ tical theory’s preoccupation with the state’s welfare, Isaiah Berlin has maintained that Machiavelli did not separate politics from morality but instead distinguished two moral systems – Christian and pagan, favouring the latter.4 Machiavelli’s youth­ ful copying of On the Nature of Things has led Alison Brown to see Lucretius’ atheism and materialism as a fundamental and continuing element of his thought,5 despite the paucity of philologically verifiable parallels in the texts. Gabriele Pedullà has maintained that Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities

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were a principal source for Machiavelli’s Discourses.6 Dionysius became widely available as a source for Roman history after the publication of Lampugnino Birago’s Latin translation in 1480, but, like Brown, Pedullà is unable to give specific verbatim or rigorously philological parallels.An important aspect of Machiavelli’s revisionist treatment of conflict was his assertion of the moderation of Roman tumults from the Tarquins to the Gracchi. In 2011 Pedullà traced Machiavelli’s thesis back to Dionysius of Halicarnassus – a possibility already indicated as early as 1924 and repeated in 1950, 1984 and 2001. More­ over, the pacific nature of Roman tumults appears in Livy, Plutarch and Appian and so there is little reason to think that Machiavelli was indebted here to Dionysius alone. There are few interpreters of Machiavelli who have been willing to recognize, on the one hand, the radicalism of his middle years and, on the other, to acknowledge that he backtracked in his fifties. At worst, he has been demonized; more sympathetic readers have been content to sanitize, banalize, trivialize or normalize the masterpieces of his middle years.7 Machiavelli – in his intellectual prime – was a dissident for all times, a fact that has not always been valued, appreciated or acknowledged.

chronology

c. 1426 1430 1434 1454–8 1458 1460 1464 1466 1469

1474 1478

1483 1492 1494

1495

Machiavelli’s father, Bernardo, is born Machiavelli’s grandfather, Niccolò di Buoninsegna, dies Cosimo de’ Medici takes power in Florence Medici regime is challenged by an anti-oligarchic movement Machiavelli’s cousin, Girolamo Machiavelli, is arrested for associating with the popular opposition to Medici rule Girolamo Machiavelli dies in a Florentine prison Cosimo de’ Medici dies and is succeeded by his son Piero Piero de’ Medici defeats a challenge from former Medici allies Niccolò Machiavelli is born. Piero de’ Medici dies, succeeded by his son Lorenzo, popularly known as Lorenzo the Magnificent Francesco Vettori is born The Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici regime fails. Lorenzo the Magnificent survives, but his younger brother Giuliano is killed Francesco Guicciardini is born Lorenzo the Magnificent dies, succeeded by his eldest son, Piero. Rodrigo Borgia is elected Pope Alexander vi French invasion of Italy under Charles viii. Pisa declares its independence from Florence. The Medici are expelled from Florence. The Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola enters the political fray. The Florentine Great Council is established The French leave Italy

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1498

Chronology

Savonarola turns against Alexander vi and is executed for heresy Machiavelli copies Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things (De 1498 or earlier: rerum natura) and translates his first version of Terence’s Andria. Machiavelli is elected Florentine second chancellor and then Secretary to the Ten of War 1499 Second French invasion of Italy under Louis xii, taking Milan Milan is regained by Duke Ludovico Sforza (‘Il Moro’), 1500 soon to be retaken by the French; Ludovico is taken prisoner, ultimately to die in French captivity. Bernardo Machiavelli dies Machiavelli marries Marietta Corsini 1501 Arezzo rebels from Florence but is regained within 1502 three months. Machiavelli is sent as Florentine legate to Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander vi, assisting the Florentine ambassador, Francesco Soderini. Piero Soderini is elected Florentine Gonfalonier of Justice for life. Machiavelli writes the Pastoral Tercets: Now that in the Shade beneath this Laurel Tree (Capitolo pastorale. Poscia che a l’ombra), directed to Giuliano de’ Medici, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s youngest son. Machiavelli is present when Cesare Borgia’s lieutenants who had conspired against him are killed 1503 Alexander vi dies, and after the short pontificate of Pius iii, Giuliano della Rovere is elected Pope Julius ii. Spain defeats France in southern Italy, taking control of the Kingdom of Naples. Piero de’ Medici dies in exile. Machiavelli, then in Rome, witnesses Julius ii’s triumph over Cesare Borgia Machiavelli dedicates the First Decade (Decennale primo) 1504 to Alamanno Salviati Machiavelli’s proposal for a native Florentine militia is 1505 supported by Francesco and Piero Soderini but is widely opposed by the Florentine aristocracy 1506 Machiavelli’s First Decade is printed, but without the dedication to Salviati. Machiavelli witnesses Julius ii’s fearless entry into Perugia, writing the ‘Musings’

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(‘Ghiribizi’) to Giovambattista Soderini. Machiavelli’s proposal for a native Florentine militia is approved. He writes the poem On Fortune (Di fortuna) Machiavelli is appointed chancellor of the Nine, the 1507 board created to supervise the native Florentine militia. Machiavelli’s nomination as legate to Emperor Maximilian i is blocked at first, but later he is sent to assist the ambassador to the imperial court, Francesco Vettori. He writes the poem On Ingratitude (Dell’ingratitudine) 1508 Julius ii establishes League of Cambrai against Venice 1509 Venice is defeated by the League, losing all its mainland territories. Pisa surrenders to Florence, Machiavelli being widely credited with the success. He writes the poem On Ambition (Dell’ambizione) 1510 Julius ii turns against France 1511 Julius ii forms the Holy League against France France defeats the Holy League at the Battle of Ravenna, 1512 but the French, attacked by the Swiss, have to withdraw from Italy. The League sends a Spanish army into Tuscany, sacking Prato. Piero Soderini, threatened by Florentine radical aristocrats, is driven from office, going into exile. A new constitution favouring the Florentine aristocrats is approved, but the Medici return to Florence, staging a coup, dismantling the republican constitution and restoring the previous Medici regime, temporarily in the hands of Giuliano de’ Medici. Machiavelli writes the ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’ (‘Ai palleschi’). He sends the ‘Letter to a Noblewoman’ (‘A una gentildonna’) to Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua. Machiavelli is dismissed from all his offices. Between 1512 and 1518: he writes the Comedy in Verse (Commedia in Versi) Machiavelli is imprisoned and tortured for allegedly 1513 joining an anti-Medici conspiracy. Julius ii dies and is succeeded by Giovanni de’ Medici, taking the name Leo x. Machiavelli is released from prison, now living mainly in his country property at Sant’Andrea in

229

Chronology

Percussina. His intense correspondence with Francesco Vettori begins. Giuliano de’ Medici goes to Rome, succeeded as Medici supremo in Florence by Lorenzo, the deceased Piero de’ Medici’s son. Machiavelli writes much of The Prince (Il principe), intended for dedication to Giuliano de’ Medici 1514 Machiavelli finishes The Prince. The Florentine militia is reconstituted, but no longer administered by Machiavelli. He writes half of the Second Decade (Decennale secondo), which is left unfinished 1515 Louis xii dies, succeeded by Francis i, who invades Italy, defeating the Swiss in the Battle of Marignano and re-establishing French rule in Milan. The first correspondence with Vettori ends. Machiavelli joins the discussions in the gardens of the Rucellai family in Florence, beginning to compose the Discourses on the First Decade of Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio). Machiavelli rededicates The Prince to Lorenzo de’ Medici, making a number of small changes to the text. No earlier than 1515: he begins writing Mandragola 1516 Ferdinand ii, king of Spain, dies. Giuliano de’ Medici dies. Lorenzo de’ Medici becomes duke of Urbino Machiavelli begins writing the long poem The Ass (L’asino). 1517 No later than 1517: he completes Mandragola Machiavelli abandons The Ass 1518 Lorenzo de’ Medici dies. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici 1519 becomes Florentine supremo. Machiavelli finishes the Discourses on Livy. He begins The Art of War (Dell’arte della guerra) Machiavelli finishes The Art of War. While on a semi-official 1520 mission to Lucca, he writes The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca). After returning to Florence from Lucca, he writes the ‘Summary of the Affairs of Lucca’ (‘Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca’). He receives the commission, via Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, to write the official history of Florence. Between 1520 and 1521, he writes the Discourse on Florentine

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Affairs after the Death of the Younger Lorenzo de’ Medici (Discursus florentinarum rerum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices) Machiavelli is sent on an official mission to the 1521 Franciscan general chapter in Carpi. He begins an intense correspondence with Francesco Guicciardini, governor of papal territories in North Italy. The Art of War is printed in Florence. Imperial forces take Milan from the French. Leo x dies 1522 Adrian of Utrecht is elected Pope Adrian vi. An antiMedici conspiracy, involving members of the Rucellai gardens circle, fails; Machiavelli is not implicated. Florentine reform is put on hold Agostino Nifo writes On the Skill of Ruling (De regnandi peritia), 1523 based on Machiavelli’s Prince. Giulio de’ Medici is elected Pope Clement vii. Machiavelli sends the Letter about the Plague (Epistola della peste) to Lorenzo Strozzi. 1523–4 Machiavelli writes the poem Serenade (Serenata) The French reconquer Milan. Machiavelli writes the 1524 novella Belfagor. He composes the Discourse on Our Language (Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua). Machiavelli’s liaison with the singer Barbera Salutati is consummated 1525 Machiavelli’s comedy Clizia is staged in Florence. Imperial forces defeat the French at Pavia, imprisoning Francis i and regaining Milan. Machiavelli presents the Florentine Histories (Istorie fiorentine) to Clement vii. Machiavelli begins work again as a Florentine diplomat and military expert 1526 Francis i is released from captivity. The League of Cognac is formed against Emperor Charles v. Machiavelli is appointed chancellor of a new magistracy charged with supervising Florence’s walls and fortifications. Machiavelli continues to work as a Florentine diplomat and military consultant, mainly assisting Guicciardini in North Italy Imperial forces invade Tuscany, threatening Florence. 1527 The imperial army bypasses Florence, marching on Rome. Imperial forces sack Rome, effectively imprisoning Clement vii. The Florentine Medici regime falls, followed by the restoration of the republic, including a revived

231

Chronology

Great Council. Machiavelli dies A ten-month siege of Florence by the imperial army begins. The Art of War is reprinted Florence surrenders to imperial forces 1530 1530–32 The formal transformation of the Florentine republic into a Medici duchy takes place 1531 Machiavelli’s Discourses are first printed 1532 Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories and The Prince are first printed 1539 Francesco Vettori dies Francesco Guicciardini dies 1540 1559 Machiavelli’s writings are placed on the Index of Prohibited Books 1529

references

1 Humanist, Poet, Civil Servant, 1469–1512 1 Niccolò Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. Franco Gaeta (Turin, 1984), p. 363; James Atkinson and David Sices, trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996), p. 222. 2 Bartolomeo Scala, De legibus et iudiciis dialogus, in Humanistic and Political Writings, ed. Alison Brown (Tempe, az, 1997), pp. 338–64: p. 347; Bartolomeo Scala, ‘Dialogue on Laws and Legal Judgements’, in Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, ed. Jill Kraye, trans. David Marsh (Cambridge, 1997), vol. ii, pp. 173–99: p. 181. 3 Lauro Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, nj, 1968), p. 28. 4 Scala, De legibus, p. 359; Scala, ‘Laws’, p. 190. 5 Lettere, p. 365; Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 229. 6 On the social context of Machiavelli’s and Giuliano’s youthful homosexual relationship, see Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1996). 7 Niccolò Machiavelli, Scritti in poesia e in prosa, ed. A. Corsaro, P. Cosentino, E. Cutinelli-Rèndina, F. Grazzini and N. Marcelli (Rome, 2012), p. 270. 8 Josephine Jungić, Giuliano de’ Medici: Machiavelli’s Prince in Life and Art (Montreal, 2018), pp. 75–80. 9 John Najemy has convincingly suggested that Piero Soderini, not Alamanno Salviati, was credited by Machiavelli when, as a member of the Signoria in the summer of 1502, he brought an end to the rebellion by Florence’s subject city Arezzo. See his ‘Machiavelli and Arezzo’, in Renaissance Politics and Culture: Essays in Honour of Robert

233

References

Black, ed. Jonathan Davies and John Monfasani (Leiden 2021), pp. 107–38: pp. 133–7. 10 Brian Richardson, ‘The Scribal Publication of Machiavelli’s Works: “copisti per passione”, “copisti a prezzo”’, in Caro Vitto: Essays in Memory of Vittore Branca, ed. J. Kraye and L. Lepschy, in collaboration with N. Jones, The Italianist, 27 (2007), special supplement 2, pp. 174–87: p. 175.

2 The Aspiring Medici Courtier, 1512–16

1 Niccolò Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. Franco Gaeta (Turin, 1984), p. 367; James Atkinson and David Sices, trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996), p. 225 (adapted). 2 Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina, ed. G. Milanesi, 3 vols (Florence, 1857–8), vol. i, p. 200. 3 Lettere, p. 393. 4 Ibid., p. 403; Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 249. 5 Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State, 1100–1322 (Princeton, nj, 1964), p. 248. 6 Francesco Vettori, Scritti storici e politici, ed. Enrico Niccolini (Bari, 1972), pp. 277–8. 7 De regimine principum 3.2.6, cited by Allan Gilbert, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ and Its Forerunners: ‘The Prince’ as a Typical Book de Regimine Principum (New York, 1938), p. 60. 8 De avaritia, cited in Gilbert, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’, p. 94.

3 Republican, Critic of Christianity and Man of Letters, 1515 and Beyond 1 See John Monfasani, ‘Machiavelli, Polybius, and Janus Lascaris: The Hexter Thesis Revisited’, Italian Studies, 71 (2016), pp. 39–48. 2 Cited in Hans Baron, ‘The Principe and the Puzzle of the Date of the Discorsi’, Bibliothèque d’humanisme et Renaissance, 18 (1956), pp. 405–28: p. 420. 3 Cited ibid. p. 421. 4 Cited in Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000), p. 75.

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5 Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘The History of the Word Politicus in EarlyModern Europe’, in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, ed. A. Pagden (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 41–56: p. 45. 6 Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago, il, 1958), p. 11. 7 Ada Palmer, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance (Cambridge, ma, 2014), pp. 24–5. 8 Commedia in versi da restituire a Niccolò Machiavelli. Edizione critica secondo il ms. Banco Rari 29, ed. Pasquale Stoppelli (Rome, 2018). 9 Niccolò Machiavelli, Epistola della peste. Edizione critica secondo il ms. Banco Rari 29, ed. Pasquale Stoppelli (Rome, 2019).

4 The Emerging Conservative, 1519–27 1 Niccolò Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. Franco Gaeta (Turin, 1984), p. 629; James Atkinson and David Sices, trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996), p. 416. 2 Lettere, p. 529; Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 342. 3 Lettere, p. 552; Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 360. 4 Lettere, p. 617; Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 405. 5 Roberto Ridolfi, Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli, 7th edn (Florence, 1978), p. 330; Ridolfi, The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Cecil Grayson (London, 1963), p. 212. 6 Ridolfi, Vita, pp. 331–5; Lettere, pp. 544–7; Machiavelli and His Friends, pp. 356–7. 7 Lettere, p. 578. 8 Translation (adapted) from The Prince, ed. and trans. William Connell (Boston, ma, 2005), pp. 163–4.

5 Machiavelli’s Legacy 1 Conveniently listed by John P. McCormick, Reading Machiavelli (Princeton, nj, 2018), pp. 228–9, but on this book, see my review in Renaissance Quarterly, 73 (2020), pp. 281–2. Unless otherwise indicated, references in this chapter are to Victoria Kahn, ‘Machiavelli’s Afterlife and Reputation to the Eighteenth Century’, in The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, ed. John Najemy (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 239–55; Jérémie Barthas, ‘Machiavelli in

235







References

Political Thought from the Age of Revolutions to the Present’, ibid., pp. 256–73; and De Lamar Jensen, Machiavelli: Cynic, Patriot, or Political Scientist (Boston, ma, 1960). 2 Niccolò Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. Franco Gaeta (Turin, 1984), p. 403; James Atkinson and David Sices, trans., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996), p. 249. See also p. 76 in this volume. 3 See p. 79 in this volume. 4 Berlin, Isaiah, ‘The Originality of Machiavelli’, in Studies on Machiavelli, ed. Myron Gilmore (Florence, 1972), pp. 149–206: pp. 178–9. 5 Alison Brown, The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, ma, 2010). 6 Gabriele Pedullà, Machiavelli in Tumult: The ‘Discourses on Livy’ and the Origins of Political Conflictualism (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 181–219. 7 See Robert Black, Machiavelli (London, 2013), pp. xix–xxiii.

further reading

Anglo, Sydney, Machiavelli – The First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility and Irrelevance (Oxford, 2005) Atkinson, James, and David Sices, Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (DeKalb, il, 1996) Baron, Hans, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, 2 vols (Princeton, nj, 1988) Berlin, Isaiah, ‘The Originality of Machiavelli’, in Studies on Machiavelli, ed. Myron Gilmore (Florence, 1972), pp. 149–206 Black, Robert, Studies in Renaissance Humanism and Politics: Florence and Arezzo (Farnham, Surrey, 2011) (Variorum Collected Studies Series cs 969) —, Machiavelli (London, 2013) —, and John E. Law, eds, The Medici: Citizens and Masters (Florence, 2015) Bock, Gisela, Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli, eds, Machiavelli and Republicanism (Cambridge, 1990) Brown, Alison, The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, ma, 2010) Butters, Humfrey, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence (Oxford, 1985) Connell, William, ed. and trans., Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince (Boston, ma, 2005) Denley, Peter, and Caroline Elam, eds, Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein (London, 1988) Devonshire Jones, Rosemary, Francesco Vettori: Florentine Citizen and Medici Servant (London, 1972) Giardini, Nicola, and Martin McLaughlin, eds, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’: Traditions, Text and Translations (Rome, 2017)

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Further Reading

Gilbert, Allan, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ and Its Forerunners: ‘The Prince’ as a Typical Book de Regimine Principum (New York, 1938) Gilbert, Felix, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in SixteenthCentury Florence (Princeton, nj, 1965) —, History: Choice and Commitment (Cambridge, ma, 1977) Gilmore, Myron, ed., Studies on Machiavelli (Florence, 1972) Guicciardini, Francesco, Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman, ed. and trans. M. Domandi (New York, 1965) —, Selected Writings, ed. Cecil Grayson, trans. Margaret Grayson (Oxford, 1965) —, The History of Florence, ed. and trans. Mario Domandi (New York, 1970) —, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. and trans. Alison Brown (Cambridge, 1994) Hale, John R., Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy (London, 1960) —, ed. and trans., The Literary Works of Machiavelli (London, 1961) Hankins, James, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, ma, 2019) Hexter, Jack H., The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation: More, Machiavelli, and Seyssel (New York, 1973) Hulliung, Mark, Citizen Machiavelli (Abingdon, 2017) (first published in Princeton, nj, 1983; republished with a new introduction in New Brunswick, nj, 2015) Jungić, Josephine, Giuliano de’ Medici: Machiavelli’s Prince in Life and Art (Montreal, 2018) Kraye, Jill, ed., Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, vol. ii: Political Philosophy (Cambridge, 1997) Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols (Durham, nc, 1958) Monfasani, John, ‘Machiavelli, Polybius, and Janus Lascaris: The Hexter Thesis Revisited’, Italian Studies, 71 (2016), pp. 39–48 Najemy, John, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli–Vettori Letters of 1513–1515 (Princeton, nj, 1993) —, A History of Florence, 1200–1575 (Oxford, 2006) —, ‘Machiavelli and Arezzo’, in Renaissance Politics and Culture: Essays in Honour of Robert Black, ed. Jonathan Davies and John Monfasani (Leiden, 2021), pp. 107–38 —, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli (Cambridge, 2010)

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Palmer, Ada, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance (Cambridge, ma, 2014) Pedullà, Gabriele, Machiavelli in Tumult: The ‘Discourses on Livy’ and the Origins of Political Conflictualism (Cambridge, 2018) Richardson, Brian, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1999) —, Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2009) Rocke, Michael, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1996) Rubinstein, Nicolai, Studies in Italian History in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, vol. iii: Humanists, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, ed. Giovanni Ciappelli (Rome, 2012) Scala, Bartolomeo, Essays and Dialogues, trans. Renée Neu Watkins, Introduction by Alison Brown (Cambridge, ma, 2008) Skinner, Quentin, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2000) Stephens, John, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–1530 (Oxford, 1983) Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago, il, 1958) Tusiani, Joseph, trans., Lust and Liberty: The Poems of Machiavelli (New York, 1963) Viroli, Maurizio, From Politics to Reason of State (Cambridge, 1992)

photo acknowledgements

The author and publishers wish to express their thanks to the sources below of illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it. Some locations of artworks are also given below, in the interest of brevity: Accademia di belle arti G. Carrara, Bergamo: p. 75; Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio, Vatican City: p. 216; Archivio di Stato, Florence: p. 57; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City: pp. 26 (ms Ross.884, fol. 101v), 78 (ms Barb.lat.5093, fol. 3r); Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence: p. 160 (ms Plut.44.40, fol. 1r); Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence: p. 94 (Autografi Palatini, Carte Machiavelli i/74); Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: p. 158; Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence: pp. 45, 52, 56, 60; Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock.com: pp. 64, 67; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles: p. 172; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna: p. 41; Minnea­ polis Institute of Arts, mn: p. 194; Musée Condé, Chantilly: p. 71; Musei Vaticani, Vatican City: p. 66; National Gallery, London: pp. 32, 33; Palazzo Vecchio, Florence: pp. 12–13; private collections: pp. 91, 114, 214; Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ii 2022: pp. 61, 70; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: p. 215; Villa I Tatti, Florence: p. 44; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, ct: p. 192. blu-news.org, the copyright holder of the image on p. 8 (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence), and Dennis Jarvis, the copyright holder of the image on p. 55, have published them online under conditions imposed by a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Licence. Francesco Bini (Sailko), the copyright holder of the image on p. 18, has published it online under conditions imposed by a Creative Commons Attribution

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3.0 Unported Licence. Folger Shakespeare Library, the copyright holder of the images on pp. 118 and 157, has published them online under conditions imposed by a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. Readers are free to: share – copy and redistrib­ ­ute the material in any medium or format; adapt – remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. Under the following terms: attribution – you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use; share alike – if you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same licence as the original.

index of works

Italian title • Title in English translation (Date) Page reference in this book

‘Ai palleschi’ • ‘Memorandum to the Mediceans’ (1–7 November 1512) 51, 53–4, 56, 228 Allocuzione ad un magistrato • Allocution to a Magistrate (1519–20) 122, 203 ‘Di amanti e donne disperati’ • ‘Desperate Lovers and Ladies’ (1514) 50, 93 Dell’ambizione • On Ambition (1509) 48–9, 138, 228 ‘Amor, i’ sento l’alma’ • ‘Love, I Feel My Soul’ (1524–6) 143 Andria (prima versione) • Andria (first version) (Before 19 June 1498) 28–9, 123–4, 227 Dell’arte della guerra • The Art of War (1519–20) 141, 148–55, 170, 191, 193, 197–8, 200, 229–31 L’Asino  • The Ass (1517–18) 25, 119–23, 121, 131, 136, 138, 152, 229 Favola • Belfagor   (1524) 50, 93, 134–7, 230

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‘Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere’ • ‘Articles for a Pleasure Company’ (After 1504) 210 ‘Capitolo pastorale. Poscia che a l’ombra’ • ‘Pastoral Tercets: Now That in the Shade Beneath This Laurel Tree’ (1502) 46–7, 227 ‘De’ ciurmadori’ • ‘By the Snake Charmers’ (1509) 50 Clizia  • Clizia (1525) 125, 142–6, 207–8, 230 Clizia, ‘Intermedi’ • ‘Intermezzi’ (1525) 143, 208 Commedia in versi • Comedy in Verse (Begun 1512 (end)–1513 (beginning); finished no later than September 1518) 124–6, 228 ‘Costoro vissuti sono un mese: a messer Bernardo’ •  ‘They Have Lived More Than a Month: To Messer Bernardo’ (Before 19 June 1498) 30 Decennale primo • First Decade (1504, slightly revised 1506) 46–8, 74, 93, 138, 227 Decennale secondo • Second Decade (1514) 93, 138, 229 ‘Descrizione del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, il signor Pagolo e il duca di Gravina Orsini’  • ‘Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino to Kill Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo and Others’ (1514–17) 42, 178

243

Index of Works

‘De’ diavoli iscacciati di cielo’ • ‘By the Devils Driven Out of Heaven’ (1502) 50 Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio  • Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy (1515–19) 25, 41, 43, 45, 48–9, 71–3, 77, 94, 94–119, 118, 120, 123, 129, 131, 133, 136, 138–9, 149, 151, 153, 167, 170, 177, 186, 188–91, 196, 203–4, 213, 219, 222, 224, 229, 231 Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua • Discourse on Our Language (September–October 1524) 139–42, 230 ‘Discursus de pace inter imperatorem et regem’ • ‘Discourse on Peace Between the Emperor and the King of France’ (Early 1501) 43 Discursus florentinarum rerum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices  •  Discourse on Florentine Affairs After the Death of the Younger Lorenzo de’ Medici (6 November 1520–22 February 1521)  88, 164, 171, 173, 185, 190–91, 229–30 ‘Disposizioni militari per l’assalto di Cremona’ • ‘Military Dispositions for the Assault on Cremona’ (September 1526) 200 ‘Distribuzione de’ nuovi ripari a Sanminiato’ • ‘Distribution of the New Units at San Miniato’ (January 1527) 204 ‘Epigramma i’ (on Piero Soderini) • ‘Epigram i’ (1513–22) 208–9 ‘Epigramma ii’ (Argo) • ‘Epigram ii’ (Argus) (March 1525) 208–9 Epistola della peste  • Letter About the Plague (1523) 131–5, 230

machiavelli

244

Di fortuna  • On Fortune (September 1506) 45, 48–9, 84, 138, 228 ‘A una gentildonna’ • ‘Letter to a Noblewoman’ (After 16 September and before 7 November 1512) 53–4, 228 ‘Ghiribizi scripti in Perugia al Soderino’ • ‘Musings Written in Perugia to Soderini’ (13–18 September 1506) 43, 45, 48–9, 84, 228 ‘Ghiribizzi d’ordinanza’ • ‘Speculations on Conscription’ (Shortly before July 1515) 90 ‘Io ho, Giuliano, in gamba un paio di geti’ • ‘Giuliano, I Have Jesses on My Legs’ (23 February – before 11 March 1513) 58 Dell’ingratitudine • On Ingratitude (1507, second half ) 48–50, 138, 228 ‘In questa notte, pregando le muse’ • ‘Last Night, Beseeching the Muses’ (23 February–before 11 March 1513) 58 ‘Io spero, e lo sperar cresce ‘l tormento’ • ‘I Hope, and Hope Increases the Torment’ (Before 9 November 1494) 30 ‘Io vi mando, Giuliano, alquanti tordi’ • ‘I Send You, Giuliano, Some Thrushes’ (Autumn 1512) 58 Istorie fiorentine • Florentine Histories (1520–25) 42, 165, 174–91, 175, 180, 197–8, 229–31

245

Index of Works

‘Istruzione d’uno che vada imbasciadore in qualche luogo’ • ‘Memorandum to Raffaello Girolami’ (October 1522) 197 Mandragola • The Mandrake Root (1515–17)  124–31, 127, 136, 141–3, 145–6, 152, 199, 208, 211, 213, 229 Mandragola, ‘Intermedi’ • ‘Intermezzi’ (October 1525–3 January 1526) 207–8 New intermezzi following second and fourth acts (January 1526) 208 New prologue in verse (January 1526) 208 Le maschere (commedia perduta) • The Masks (lost comedy) (undatable; set in 1504) 123 ‘La minuta di questi ricordi del M[achiavelli] al Cardinale de’ Medici’ • ‘Memorandum to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici’ (29 September–7 November 1512) 54 ‘Minuta di provvisione per la riforma dello stato di Firenze l’anno 1522’ • ‘Draft of a Law for the Reform of the Florentine Constitution in the Year 1522’ (early 1522, before May) 171–3 ‘Minuta di provvisione per l’istituzione o dei Cinque Procuratori delle Mura della città di Firenze’ • ‘Draft of a Law for the Institution of the Five Procurators of the Walls of the City of Florence’ (April–6 May 1526) 204 ‘Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichana ribellati’ • ‘On the Method of Dealing with the Rebels of the Val di Chiana (1515–19)’ 43, 178 ‘Nasconde quel con che nuoce ogni fera’ • ‘Every Beast Hides that which It Injures’ (Before 9 November 1494) 30

machiavelli

246

‘Dell’occasione’ • ‘On Occasion’ (Date unknown, but probably after 1517 or even later)  138–9 ‘Parole da dirle sopra la provisione del danaio’ • ‘Remarks on the Raising of Money’ (After 1503) 42–3, 178 De principatibus, Il principe • The Prince (1513–May 1514, revised between late September 1515 and January 1516) 9, 19, 25, 41–2, 45, 47–9, 51, 62–93, 95, 98–103, 106–8, 112–13, 116–17, 120, 123, 125, 129–31, 133, 136–7, 139, 151, 157, 158, 159, 161–2, 170, 176, 179, 186–91, 193, 203, 206, 213, 218–20, 229–31 ‘Rapporto di cose della Magna’ • ‘Report on German Affairs’ (June 1508) 43, 156 ‘De rebus pistoriensibus’ • ‘On Pistoian Affairs’ (March 1502) 156 ‘Relazione di una visita fatta per fortificare Firenze’ • ‘Relation of a Visit Made to Fortify Florence’ (5 April 1526) 204 ‘Ricordo al Cardinale Giulio sulla riforma dello stato di Firenze’ •  ‘Memorandum to Cardinal Giulio on the Reform of the Florentine Constitution’ (Early 1522) 171, 173 Ritratto delle cose di Francia • Portrait of French Affairs (1511) 43, 75, 156 Ritratto delle cose della Magna • Portrait of German Affairs (After 1514) 43 ‘De’ romiti’ • ’The Hermits’ (1514)  50, 93

247

Index of Works

‘S’a la mia immensa voglia’ • ‘If to my Immense Desire’ (1524–6) 143, 146 ‘Se avessi l’arco e le ale’ • ‘If I Had Bow and Wings’ (Before 9 November 1494) 30 ‘Se sanza a voi pensar sol un momento’ • ‘If I Could Remain Without Thinking of You for a Moment’ (Before 9 November 1494) 30 Serenata • Serenade (1523–4) 137–8, 230 ‘Silenzio. Udite et udirete’ (on San Torpé) • ‘Silence: You Hear and You Will Hear’ (May 1512) 123–4 ‘Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca’ • ‘Summary of the Affairs of Lucca’ (September 1520) 156, 162–4, 169, 191, 229 ‘Degli spiriti beati’ • ‘Of the Blessed Spirits’ (February–March 1522) 50, 207 La sporta (commedia perduta) • The Pot (lost comedy) (Undatable) 123 ‘Di uomini che vendono le pine’ • ‘Of Men Who Sell Pinecones’ (No later than 1508) 50 La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca • The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (Summer 1520) 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161–2, 211–12, 229

general index

nb: Except for illustrations and some explanations, references to Niccolò di messer Bernardo Machiavelli and to Florence are not listed. Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations Adriani, Marcello Virgilio 24–5, 28 Alamanni, Luigi 205–6, 210 Albergaccio, Sant’Andrea in Percussina 18, 18–19 Albizzi, Rinaldo degli 184 Alexander vi, pope 31, 64–6, 66, 226–7 Alighieri, Dante 67, 77, 95, 112, 120, 124, 129, 136, 139–41 Divine Comedy 120 Inferno 120, 136 De vulgari eloquentia 139 Amboise, Georges d’, cardinalbishop of Rouen 74 amorality/immorality 9, 41, 65, 81–3, 88, 98–9, 113, 115–16, 130, 145–6, 152, 161, 183, 187–8, 213, 217, 220, 222–3 anti-Christianism 9, 22, 34, 93, 109–11, 122, 124–5, 130, 134, 146, 153, 207, 210–13 anticlericalism 34, 93, 122, 124, 129, 134, 145, 183 antiquity/ancients 10, 20–21, 27–8, 42, 49, 62, 67, 72, 79, 81, 84, 89, 96, 99–103,

109–10, 112, 122–6, 128–30, 144, 150–51, 153–4, 161, 163–4, 177, 179, 182, 186, 203, 223 Ariosto, Ludovico 124, 141 Orlando furioso 124 aristocracy/nobility/elite/ upper class/oligarchy/ lords/the rich/gentleman/ noblewoman/gentlefolk/ well-born 10, 12–14, 16, 24, 29, 38–9, 47, 51, 53–4, 75, 87, 96, 101, 103, 105, 107, 116–17, 120, 125–6, 129, 132–3, 135–7, 152, 165–7, 169, 173, 184, 187, 189–91, 193, 206, 227–8 Aristotle 62, 80, 109, 112, 117 Politics 62, 80, 117 atheism 9, 122, 183, 210, 214, 223 audacity/bravado/bravery/ boldness/decisiveness 43, 48, 63, 84, 98, 101, 115, 122, 124, 146, 153, 162

249

Becchi, Ricciardo 31, 48 Boccaccio, Giovanni 29, 124, 131, 134, 140–41 Decameron 131 Borgia, Cesare, duke of Valentinois 40, 46–8, 62, 65, 74, 80, 84, 90, 151, 162, 186, 227 Bracciolini, Poggio see Poggio Bracciolini Bruni, Leonardo 112, 120, 176–7, 179, 181 Historiarum florentini populi libri xii (History of the Florentine People) 179 Bugiardini, Giuliano, Francesco Guicciardini 192 Buonaccorsi, Biagio 30 Buonarotti, Michelangelo 9, 64, 67, 210 David 210 Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, duke of Nemours 64 Tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino 67 Buondelmonti, Zanobi 97–9, 205–6, 210 Busini, Giovan Battista 205, 209 Castracani, Castruccio 156, 162 Charles v, Holy Roman Emperor 197, 209, 230 Charles viii, king of France 56, 226 Cicero 24, 27, 72, 80–82, 85, 88, 112, 141, 150, 159. 161, 181–2, 203–4

General Index

De officiis (On Moral Duties) 24, 72, 85 De oratore (On the Orator) 24 Clement vii, pope 39, 42, 58–60, 73, 89, 153, 155, 164–5, 171, 172, 173–4, 175, 176, 178, 183, 185, 185–8, 195, 198, 200, 202, 204–5, 209, 229–30 cloak of religion/virtue 34, 81, 83, 106, 125, 184, 187–8 Colonna, Fabrizio 150, 152–3 Colonna family 200 Congregazione dell’Indice (1559) 216 conspiracy/plot 17, 40, 58, 96, 173, 181, 184–5, 188, 222, 227–8, 230 common good/public good/ben comune/good government 80–81, 85, 112–13, 116, 130, 152, 165, 170, 186, 204, 217–18, 223 concord/unity 48, 76, 96, 108, 165, 186, 203 Corsini, Marietta (Niccolò Machiavelli’s wife) 134, 227 corruption/degeneracy 31, 86, 98, 101, 103–5, 107, 109, 130–31, 141, 145, 150, 152, 183–4, 190, 199, 203, 217–18 Dante see Alighieri, Dante deceit/deception/lies/bad faith/ duplicity 9, 34, 85, 98, 137, 144–5, 149, 152, 162, 188, 197 dell’Altissimo, Cristofano, Niccolò Machiavelli 52

machiavelli

Dionysius of Halicarnassus 103, 223–4 Roman Antiquities 223–4 d’Este, Isabella, duchess of Ferrara 50, 53, 228 disunity/discord/dissention/ faction/division/party/ parties/partisan/tumult 14, 31, 34–5, 37–8, 48, 51, 96, 103–4, 107, 109, 122, 152, 156, 165, 177, 186–7, 190, 198, 224 Donatus, Aelius 128, 141, 144 Dürer, Albrecht, Emperor Maximilian i 41 ends/means 41, 88, 98, 115–16, 130 Ferdinand v, king of Spain (Ferdinand ii, king of Aragon) 61, 63, 69, 74, 83, 106, 188, 229 Folchi, Giovanni 57–8 fortune/fortunate 41, 43, 45, 48, 62, 84, 98, 100, 120, 144, 151, 162, 203 France/French 36, 40, 43, 59–60, 62–3, 69–70, 72, 74–6, 85, 89, 108, 112, 135–6, 156, 166, 195, 199, 201, 207, 209, 217, 219, 223, 226–30 Francis i, king of France 200, 209, 229–30 Germany/Holy Roman Empire or Emperor/Swiss 36, 40, 43, 63, 75–6, 89, 108, 120, 150– 51, 154, 156, 197, 228–30

250

Giannotti, Donato 177–8, 184, 206 Giles of Rome (Egidio Romano, Egidio Colonna) 80, 99 De regimine principum (On the Government of Rulers) 80, 99 Giovio, Paolo 122, 209 glory/greatness/honour 79–80, 83–5, 98, 106, 109–11, 113, 151, 183, 195, 203, 213 Gostanza (mother of Bernardo Machiavelli) 15 Granacci, Francesco, Entry of Charles viii into Florence 56 Guicciardini, Francesco 24, 42, 86, 88, 96, 104, 177–8, 183, 191, 192, 193, 195–8, 200–202, 208–9, 226, 230–31 Considerazioni intorno ai Discorsi del Machiavelli (Considerations on Machiavelli’s ‘Discorsi’) 196 Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze (Dialogue on the Government of Florence) 196 Storie fiorentine (Florentine Histories) 183 Guinigi family 156, 159, 162 Habsburg family 199, 201–2, 204, 207 harmony with nature/with the times 48, 84, 86 hate/hatred 41, 53–4, 85, 206 human nature wicked/bad/evil/ egocentric 43, 45, 48–9, 77,

251

80, 98, 131, 136–7, 144–6, 183, 187 humanism 11, 20–1, 24–5, 27–9, 37, 72, 80–84, 88–9, 95, 99, 102, 138–9, 141, 154–5, 161–2, 176, 179, 181–3 illegitimacy/bastardy 15, 17, 22–3, 30 Julius ii, pope 40, 43, 45, 59, 74, 227–8 Julius Caesar 46, 102 Lascaris, Janus 102 Leo x, pope 30, 39, 54, 56, 58–9, 64–5, 68, 85, 89, 142, 155, 164, 167, 169–70, 228, 230 liberty/freedom 45, 101, 103–4, 109, 122, 151, 181, 183, 185–6, 189, 206, 218 Livy 21, 49, 71, 72, 98, 101–2, 115, 128, 162, 177, 179, 182, 224 History of Rome 21, 49, 72, 101 Louis xii, king of France 40, 69–70, 70, 72, 227, 229 Lucretius 25, 122, 183, 223, 227 De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) 25, 26, 43, 45, 103, 223, 227 De rerum natura autograph transcription by Niccolò Machiavelli 26 Machiavelli, Bernardo di Niccolò (Niccolò Machiavelli’s father) 15–25, 49–50, 210, 226–7

General Index

Machiavelli, Girolamo di Agnolo (Bernardo Machiavelli’s cousin) 16–18, 30, 226 Machiavelli, Niccolò, illustrations of him and of his works Arte della guerra (first edition, 1521) 148 L’Asino (title page, 1588 edition) 121 Bust (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence) 8 Discourses on Livy (autograph manuscript) 94 Discourses on Livy (1584 edition, title page) 118 Istorie fiorentine (1532 edition, title page) 175 Istorie fiorentine (1532 edition, title page) 180 Mandragola (title page, first edition, after 1518) 127 Il principe (manuscript) 78 Il principe, La Vita di Castruccio Castracani . . . (title page, 1532 edition) 157 Il principe, La Vita di Castruccio Castracani . . . (title page, 1532 edition) 158 Il principe, La Vita di Castruccio Castracani . . . (title page, c. 1640, with false attribution to 1550) 159 stamped envelopes with his image (1969) 222 La Vita di Castruccio Castracani (manuscript, 16th century) 160

machiavelli

Machiavelli, Niccolò, legacy as apostle of evil 213–18 Agostino Nifo 213 Alexis de Tocqueville, 217 Benedetto Croce 217 Friedrich Meinecke 217 Hannah Arendt 217–18 Innocent Gentillet 214 Leo Strauss 217 Reginald Pole, cardinal 213–14 William Shakespeare 214 Machiavelli, Niccolò, legacy as apostle of good government and republicanism 218–20 Baruch Spinoza 218 Gennaro Sasso 220 Hans Baron 219 Isaiah Berlin 219 James Harrington 218 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 219 John Pocock 219–20 Maximilien de Robespiearre 219 Trajano Boccalini 218 Machiavelli, Niccolò, legacy as harbinger of interpreters’ own ideals 221–3 Antonio Gramsci 222–3 Francesco De Sanctis 221 Friedrich Nietzsche 221 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 221 Johann Gottfried Herder 221 Karl Marx 222 Machiavelli, Niccolò, legacy as technocrat 220–21

252

Ernst Cassirer 220–21 Francis Bacon 220 Justus Lipsius 220 Machiavelli, Niccolò, legacy as unoriginal reviver of antiquity 223–4 Isaiah Berlin 223 Alison Brown 223 Gabriele Pedullà 223–4 Machiavelli, Niccolò di Buoninsegna (Niccolò Machiavelli’s grandfather) 14, 226 Maître à la Ratière (attrib.), Battle of Marignano 71 Maximilian i, Holy Roman Emperor 40, 228 Medici, Cosimo di Giovanni di Bicci, ‘Il vecchio’ (‘The elder’) 14, 54, 101–2, 165, 169,183–4, 226 Medici, Giovanni di Giovanni, dalle Bande Nere 194, 195, 199–201 Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo see Leo x Medici, Giuliano di Lorenzo, duke of Nemours 30, 39, 46–7, 53, 58–9, 63–5, 69, 73, 89–90, 92, 96, 99, 174, 186, 227–9 Medici, Giulio see Clement vii Medici, Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo, ‘The Magnificent’ 14, 30, 35, 37, 57, 141, 152–3, 165–6, 169, 172, 176, 181, 184, 186, 188, 226

253

Medici, Lorenzo di Piero di Lorenzo, duke of Urbino 46, 63, 65, 67, 69, 73–4, 90–92, 96, 99, 119, 153, 155, 164, 166, 174, 229 Medici, Piero di Cosimo di Giovanni 14, 54, 184, 226 Medici, Piero di Lorenzo di Piero 14, 37, 226–7, 229 Medici family 14, 16–17, 22, 30, 35, 38–9, 51, 53–4, 56–9, 63–5, 68, 79, 87–90, 92–3, 96, 100–101, 119, 123, 137, 146, 152–3, 155, 161–4, 166–7, 169–71, 174, 176–7, 183–7, 190, 200, 204–7, 226, 228, 230–31 Melone, Altobello, Portrait of a Gentleman (Cesare Borgia) 75 mercenaries/auxiliaries 41, 63, 77, 86–7, 89, 101, 149–51, 154–5, 183 Michelangelo see Buonarotti, Michelangelo militia/indigenous troops 36, 40, 47, 56, 63, 68, 73, 90, 149, 151, 154, 169, 198, 223, 227–9 money/riches/wealth 104, 129, 136, 178, 184, 195, 198 Nardi, Iacopo 24, 97, 127–8, 210 nature 49, 64, 84, 86, 120, 122, 130 Nerli, Filippo de’ 97, 138–9, 199–200, 204 new prince/tyrant/tyranny/ absolutism/principate/

General Index

prince/principality/despot/ autocracy 14, 21, 31, 41, 64–5, 67, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79–80, 83, 88, 90, 100–102, 105, 107, 112–13, 115–17, 123, 130, 137, 151, 153, 155, 162–3, 165, 167, 183–6, 189, 195, 218–19 Nifo, Agostino 213–14, 214, 230 De regno peritia (On the Skill of Ruling) 230 Numa Pompilius, legendary king of Rome 106, 112 Orsini family 153, 200 Ovid 67, 138, 144 Amores 144 Metamorphoses 138 Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (formerly Palazzo della Signoria or dei Priori) 55 Palla, Battista, Della 150, 155–6 Passerini, Silvio, cardinal-bishop of Cortona 174, 185, 202, 205 Pazzi family 181, 184, 188, 226 Petrarch, Francesco 67, 95, 124, 129, 139, 141 Plato 72, 141, 211 Plautus 123, 142, 144 Aulularia 123 Casina 144 Menaechmi 142 Pliny the Elder 20, 120 Natural History 20, 120 Plutarch 120, 161, 211, 224 Gryllus 120

machiavelli

Poggio Bracciolini 80, 176–7, 179 Historia Florentini populi 179 Pole, Reginald, cardinal 213, 215 politico/politicum/politicus/civile/civilis/ civiltà 80, 111, 113, 117, 217 Poliziano, Angelo 28, 128–9, 181 Polybius 72, 102–3, 122–3, 131 The Histories 102–3 popolo/middle class/democracy/ the people/popular/plebs/ populist/anti-aristocratic/ multitude 13, 16, 22, 31, 47, 49, 51, 53–4, 68, 87, 101, 113, 115, 117, 165–7, 169, 171, 183, 189– 90, 195, 206, 218–19, 226 Portelli, Carlo (attrib.), Giovanni delle Bande Nere 194 Raphael Pope Julius i 45 Pope Leo x 60 Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino 91 religion/political religion/ religious cloak/secularized religion 9, 22, 34, 48, 77, 83, 93, 102, 106–11, 122, 129–30, 145–6, 151, 183, 188, 210, 212 republicanism/republic/ democracy 9–10, 12, 14, 21–3, 31, 35, 37, 47–8, 51, 53–4, 64–5, 68, 71–2, 88, 96, 99–106, 110–13, 115–17, 131, 152, 163–7, 169, 173–4, 183, 185–7, 189–90, 196, 205–6, 218–20

254

Riccardi, Riccardo 91–2 Ricci, Giuliano de’ (Niccolò Machiavelli’s grandson) 123, 140 Ridolfi, Giovambattista 39, 173 Romulus, legendary king of Rome 112 Rosselli, Franceso (attrib.), ‘Veduta della catena’ (chain map) 12–13 Rovere, Giuliano, Della see Julius ii Rucellai, Bernardo 95 Rucellai, Cosimo 96–9, 152 Rucellai family 95–6, 102 Rucellai gardens/circle/group/set 95–7, 119–20, 123, 128, 147–8, 138–9, 144, 149–50, 152, 155–6, 161, 163, 173, 229–30 Sallust 103–4, 161 Salutati, Barbera 138, 143, 146, 208, 230 Salviati, Alamanno 47, 227 Salviati, Iacopo 38, 198 Savonarola, Girolamo 31, 32, 34–5, 48, 79, 112, 119, 226–7 Execution 33 Scala, Bartolomeo 21, 176, 179 Dialogus de legibus et iudiciis (Dialogue on Laws and Legal Judgements) 21 Historia Florentinorum 176, 179 Sebastiano del Piombo 172 Pope Clement vii 172 Cardinal Reginald Pole 215

255

Seneca the Younger 72, 211 Septimus Severus, Roman emperor 85 Sforza, Francesco, duke of Milan 69–70, 184, 188 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, duke of Milan 176 Sforza, Ludovico (il Moro), duke of Milan 70, 227 Sforza, Massimiliano, duke of Milan 70 Sforza family 69, 71 Signorelli, Luca, Vitellozzo Vitelli 44 Soderini, Francesco, cardinalbishop of Volterra 37–8, 59, 227 Soderini, Giovambattista 43, 228 Soderini, Piero 37–40, 47–51, 53, 56–7, 59, 95–6, 114, 114–16, 151, 164, 173–4, 193, 227–8 stato/regime/dominion/power/ constitution 12, 14, 16–17, 21–3, 30, 35–9, 47, 50–51, 54, 57–9, 62, 64, 74–5, 79–80, 85–8, 95–6, 100–101, 107, 111–13, 115–17, 119, 137, 122, 137, 150, 156, 163–74, 177, 181, 183–5, 187–8, 190–91, 193, 195–6, 202–6, 219, 221, 226, 228, 230 Strozzi, Filippo di Filippo 24, 153, 210 Strozzi, Lorenzo di Filippo 131, 135, 149–50, 153, 155, 230 Tacitus 181, 211, 219 Annals 181

General Index

Tarquins family 115, 224 Tarquin the Proud, legendary king of Rome 115 Terence 24, 28–9 128–9, 227 Andria 28–9, 123–4, 128, 227 Euchuchus 24, 123 Trissino, Giorgio 139 tyranny see new prince Uzzano, Niccolò Da 184 Valori, Francesco 31, 34 Valori, Niccolò 58 Varchi, Benedetto 65, 209 Venice/Venetian/Venetians 39, 49, 62–3, 89, 93, 101, 120, 141, 151, 163–4, 189, 191 Verdelot, Philippe 143, 208 Vettori, Francesco 40, 42, 53, 56, 59–60, 62–3, 65, 67, 72, 74–6, 79, 86, 88–9, 155, 196, 221, 226, 228–9, 231 Vettori, Paolo 39, 58–9, 86, 89–90 virtù/virtuoso/valiance/manliness/ virility 81–4, 98, 103–4, 106, 109, 120, 129–31, 150, 189 virtue/virtues 65, 68, 72, 81–3, 125, 131, 152, 170, 187, 189 Walter of Brienne, duke of Athens 181, 185, 187 warrant for the arrest of Niccolò Machiavelli (1513) 57