Against barbarian rage,
Virtue will take the field; then short the fight;
True to their lineage,
Italian hearts will prove their Roman might.
* * *
i At the same time he was writing The Prince Machiavelli was at work on his other great political tract, The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius. Some of the harshness, or lack of balance, in The Prince can be attributed to this division of subject matter between two books, one of which deals with hereditary, or tyrannical, rule, the other with republics. Machiavelli clearly viewed his two books in some sense as companion pieces, and, while they are not contradictory, the fact that he wrote two such contrasting works raises a host of questions that I discuss later.
ii The dedication to Lorenzo was written after Giuliano’s premature death in 1516, but there is no reason to believe Machiavelli’s feelings had changed significantly in the interim.
iii In his play La Mandragola, the cuckolded husband is described as a man “who sits all day in his study, understands just books, and can’t manage practical affairs” (III, 2, in Chief Works, II, 795). Machiavelli disdained scholars with no real experience of the world.
iv Perhaps the greatest contrast is with his older compatriot Dante Alighieri, who in addition to writing the greatest poem of the Middle Ages, The Divine Comedy, was an important political theorist. In his De Monarchia (“On Monarchy”) he calls for the establishment of a universal empire based on divine law. “[T]he human race, by living in the calm and tranquillity of peace, applies itself most freely and easily to its proper work,” he declares, a vision completely at odds with Machiavelli’s conception of a world of ceaseless struggle for power. (De Monarchia, excerpted in Great Political Thinkers, 252.)
v Strictly speaking, the specula emerges in the Middle Ages, but these works were based on models like Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Isocrates’ To Nicocles. The philosophical framework was provided by works like Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics.
vi More’s Utopia, a fictitious account of a journey to an ideal state, follows many of the conventions and displays many of the attitudes typical of the form.
vii Plato did in fact attempt to put his notions of a philosopher king in practice by serving as an adviser to his former pupil Dionysus of Syracuse. Predictably, his attempts to replicate abstract philosophy on a messy real-world situation ended in disaster.
viii Erasmus, following Aristotle, makes a distinction between monarchy, which he regards as the best form of government, and tyranny, which is the worst. The good king or prince rules on behalf of his people, while the tyrant, the king’s corrupted twin, rules for his own sake. Machiavelli largely ignores this distinction.
ix Aristotle, while not subscribing to the Judeo-Christian conception of an all-powerful and perfect deity, believed that nature was rationally and benevolently ordered.
x Plato, by contrast, believed that change resulted from a profound corruption of the perfect and eternally static universe. “[A]ny change whatever, except from evil, is the most dangerous of all things,” he insisted. (The Laws, VII, quoted in Wolin, “Plato: Political Philosophy Versus Politics,” in Essays in the History of Political Thought, 7.)
xi Renaissance philosophers distinguished between Fortune and Providence. Fortune was random, perhaps even malicious, while Providence unfolded according to God’s plan. Fortune ruled this world, Providence the next. The difficulty came in explaining the relationship between the two.
xii Here he paraphrases a letter of September 1506 where he wrote: “The man who matches his way of doing things with the conditions of the times is successful; the man whose actions are at odds with the times and the patterns of events is unsuccessful” (Machiavelli et al., Machiavelli and His Friends, 135).
xiii Here Machiavelli shows himself to be the temperamental opposite of Aristotle, whose philosophy was based on “the golden mean.” “If we were right when in our Ethics we stated that Virtue is a Mean,” he wrote in The Politics (II, 10), “and that the happy life is life free and unhindered and according to virtue, then the best life must be the middle way, consisting in a mean between two extremes.” As an example of one such mean, Aristotle calls courage the mean between cowardice and rashness. A preference for moderation was antithetical to Machiavelli’s thought.
xiv In other works, like his famous In Praise of Folly, Erasmus seems to come much closer to Machiavelli’s conception of a world steeped in vice and wallowing in corruption, but the Dutch humanist always seems to have more faith in the possibility of ultimate redemption.
xv One of Machiavelli’s contemporaries, the mathematician Gerolamo Cardano, was also grappling with the unnerving fact that the future seemed unpredictable. A compulsive gambler, Cardano was the first man to systematically investigate the laws of probability. His Book on Games of Chance, like The Prince, seeks to discover a deeper order within apparent chaos. Cardano and Machiavelli found different ways to make sense of a world stripped of the comforting illusion of divine providence.
xvi The same idea is expressed in Shakespeare’s famous lines: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god” (Hamlet, II, ii).
xvii The precise meaning of the word virtù in Machiavelli’s writing is one of the most difficult and controversial issues for both translators and scholars. At times he appears to use it inconsistently—as with the case of the tyrant Agathocles whom he seems to describe, in alternate paragraphs (see Il Principe, VIII), as both devoid of virtù and an exemplar of the same—and at others merely in his own idiosyncratic way, deliberately contrasting it with the traditional Christian notion of virtue. My own sense of Machiavelli’s meaning is that he uses the term in a way that transforms it from a passive quality, a feature of one’s character, to an active quality, one that is manifest in action. “Prowess,” the ability to impose one’s will on the world, often comes closest to the mark, though “boldness” or “virility,” a word that shares the same root connoting manliness, are also reasonable variations. As always, Machiavelli is concerned with the result of an idea, not its abstract nature. Virtuous behavior that leads to bad outcomes cannot be condoned, nor should deeds normally described as evil be condemned when they promote the general welfare. Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that while Machiavelli seemed to be clear himself on what he meant, he often employed the term in the usual sense so that he could make a sharper contrast with his own views.
For an interesting discussion of these vexed issues, see Harvey C. Mansfield’s Machiavelli’s Virtue, particularly Chapter 1. The topic has also been adressed by J. H. Whitfield in Machiavelli, especially Chapter 6, “The Anatomy of Virtue,” by Leo Strauss in his influential Thoughts on Machiavelli, and by Friedrich Meinecke in his Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’Etat and Its Place in Modern History.
xviii Thomas Hobbes echoes this notion: “The desires and other passions of men, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them: which, till laws be made they cannot know; nor can any law be made, till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it” (Leviathan, XIII, 83, quoted in Rauch, The Political Animal, p. 46).
xix In an era before social safety nets and sophisticated economic theory, the cycle of boom and bust was far more painful than it is now. Florentines still recalled with horror the collapse of the great banking firms of the Bardi and Peruzzi in the mid-fourteenth century, a calamity almost as great as the Black Death that followed.
xx See Discourses, III, 9. Even Machiavelli’s preference for democracy is practical rather than idealistic, since republics, being more broadly based, can more easily withstand the vicissitudes of Fortune.
xxi The Christian notion of man’s wickedness, derived from original sin, was a departure from the mainstream of Greek thought, particularly
as expressed in the philosophy of Aristotle, whose views were essentially optimistic. “The function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle” (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 10998a, quoted in Bluhm, “Immanent Good: Aristotle’s Quest for the Best Regime,” in Essays in the History of Political Thought, p. 63). Aquinas revived Aristotle’s rationalistic philosophy in a Christian context. “Now the divine law,” he wrote, “which is founded on grace, does not abolish human law, which derives from natural reason” (quoted in A. P. D’Entrèves, “Thomas Aquinas,” in Essays in the History of Political Thought, 100).
xxii Even John Locke, a philosopher with a greater faith in man’s capacity for reasoned behavior, shared Machiavelli’s opinion: “if [human appetites] were left to their full swing, they would carry men to the overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exhorbitant desires” (Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, 3, p. 34).
xxiii Machiavelli’s views were echoed by many of the American Founding Fathers, including Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who wrote: “the mass of men are neither wise nor good, and virtue . . . can only be drawn to a point and executed by . . . a strong government ably administered” (John Jay letter to George Washington, June 27, 1786).
xxiv This might seem at first to be a contradiction, but it is in keeping with his belief that life is unpredictable. Political systems must be flexible, able to adapt to changing circumstances. This is the hallmark of mixed societies that have evolved through the creative clash among the classes. This theme is more fully developed in The Discourses, especially I, iv.
xxv Belief in man’s inherent rationality is the basis for Aristotle’s entire ethical and political system. “[A]ll associations aim at some good,” he begins his Politics, “that one which is supreme and embraces all others will have also as its aim the supreme good. That is the association we call the State, and that type of association we call political” (I, I). It is hard to imagine a less Machiavellian statement than this.
xxvi Machiavelli offers a variation on this notion in La Mandragola: “[M]any times one comes to harm by being too accommodating and too good, as well as by being too bad” (La Mandragola, IV, 6, in Chief Works, II, 810).
xxvii “I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death” (Hobbes, Leviathan, XI, 64).
xxviii In fact Machiavelli never abandoned his Florentine bias. As the final chapter of The Prince amply demonstrates, he envisioned Florence as the capital of a newly unified Italian state. This happy outcome was far easier to envision now that a Florentine sat on the papal throne. After the reunification of Italy in the nineteenth century, Florence did serve briefly as the capital. If Machiavelli’s parochial Italian nationalism would not bear fruit for centuries, it was enormously influential in the wider context of sixteenth-century Europe, which saw the consolidation and expansion of the great nation-states of France, Spain, and England. By discarding the universalism of medieval philosophy in favor of a world-view that accepted as natural the violent clash of competing states, Machiavelli developed a working political science suitable for kings and diplomats.
xxix It is a startling coincidence that The Prince and Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) were written within a few years of each other. If More’s book is the culmination of a long tradition of imagining the ideal state that began with Plato, Machiavelli’s announces the birth of modern political science.
xxx Universal government was a more realistic prospect in the Middle Ages when the Holy Roman Emperor was the most powerful monarch in Europe. Dante’s De Monarchia is a passionate plea for the restoration of peace under the aegis of the heir of Caesar and Augustus.
xxxi Machiavelli often uses the word animo, meaning spirit (as in a spirited horse) but rarely, if ever, anima, meaning soul.
xxxii In fact this had happened with his First Decennale, which was printed in an unauthorized edition in Pistoia (see letter no. 110 in Machiavelli et al., Machiavelli and His Friends, p. 121).
xxxiii Ironically, the conversations that Castiglione invents in his book are set in the palace of the Duke of Urbino, the same palace where Machiavelli first encountered Cesare Borgia and where he developed his lifelong fascination with the ruthless man of destiny.
xxxiv Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo are famous for two things: it was to these two mediocrities that Machiavelli dedicated The Prince. They are also the residents of Michelangelo’s magnificent Medici Tombs in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence.
XI
VITA CONTEMPLATIVA
“[F]or the common benefit of all, I have decided to follow a path that has not yet been explored by anyone.”
—MACHIAVELLI, DISCOURSES, “PREFACE”
MACHIAVELLI WAS SINGULARLY UNSUITED TO THE life of the country squire. Tending to his modest estate felt like an unpleasant chore and he was bored without the stimulating conversation he was used to. His circumstances, he complained, were “sordid and ignominious,” and he railed against the malice of fate that had brought him to such a pass. Writing to Vettori, who was currently enjoying the fleshpots of Rome, he offered an account of a typical day, knowing what a sorry contrast his rustic diversions made by comparison:
I have been living in the country, and, following these latest broils, I have not spent a total of twenty days in Florence. Recently I have been catching thrushes with my own hands. I’d get up before dawn, prepare the birdlime, and set out with a bundle of birdcages on my back so that I looked like Geta when he came back from the harbor with Amphitryon’s books.i I would catch at least two thrushes, six at most. And so I passed all of September. But even this amusement, strange and lowly as it was, dwindled, much to my regret.
For Machiavelli, the modest stone house at Sant’ Andrea in Percussina, just off the road that led from Florence to Siena, was like Elba to Napoleon, a place of exile where he could think of nothing but plotting his return to public life. In between trips to the local tavern where he gambled and quarreled with the locals, he vented his feelings in letters to friends and consoled himself by writing on the only subject that mattered to him.
Machiavelli never intended to become a full-time intellectual. A career as a writer was far inferior to, and much less satisfying than, active participation in civic life. He had always been a voracious reader, not only of history but also of the ancient and modern poets. Now, literature and love were among the few pleasures left to him, as he tells Vettori: “Leaving the woods, I go to a spring, and then to one of the spots where I hang my bird nets. In my arm I carry a book: Dante, Petrarch, or one of those minor poets like Tibullus, Ovid. I read of their amorous passions and their loves and recall my own, and lose myself for a while in these happy thoughts.”
The writer’s life was not entirely new to Machiavelli. Even before he lost his job he occasionally tried his hand at poetry, though even here it was not so much an escape from politics as an alternate route to understanding the subject that interested him most.ii In a period of enforced idleness these pursuits took up more of his time and occupied a greater part of his imaginative life. “[T]o live as a malcontent,” he wrote in “On Ingratitude or Envy,” “would give me more sorrow and more vexation, if it were not that still the sweet strings of my harp, giving forth soft airs, make the Muses not deaf to my singing.”
For Machiavelli the company of the Muses was at best a mixed blessing. Throwing himself into his art may have helped soften the blow of his disgrace, but he never lost his taste for the high-stakes drama of politics. In fact he hoped to use his considerable literary gifts to save himself from the literary life. His very identity hung in the balance, since in republican Florence participation in politics defined one’s standing as a citizen. To be, as his father had been, excluded from this world was to be only half a man.
Exchanging the vita activa for the vita contemplativa involved more than
the replacement of one lifestyle with another: each represented an alternative mode of being for the thoughtful man, and their contrasting merits had formed a staple of philosophical argument since at least the time of ancient Greece. A classic paean to the vita contemplativa comes from the Roman poet Horace, who depicts the pleasures of the simple life in “Otium” (Repose):
He lives happily on a little, on whose frugal table shines the ancestral salt-dish, and whose soft slumbers are not carried away by fear or sordid greed.
Why do we strive so hard in our brief lives for great possessions? Why do we change our country for climes warmed by a different sun? What exile from his fatherland ever escaped himself as well?
How different Machiavelli’s attitude toward the “frugal table”! How quickly would he abandon his rustic retreat for a chance to match wits once again with courtiers and kings. For Machiavelli there is no question which life is more fulfilling or more fit for an intelligent and capable man. Ironically, he makes his most passionate case for the vita activa even as circumstances forced him to adopt a way of life more in keeping with its opposite. As he puttered about his farm in Sant’ Andrea, his mind remained fully engaged in the life of the city. He pressed friends for any information they could give him about the goings-on abroad, and followed intently the debates in the Palazzo della Signoria. Whenever he was in the city he eagerly participated in those gatherings on the Ponte Vecchio or Old Market where men congregated to discuss the latest diplomatic imbroglio or rumor of war. In a town filled with amateur politicians, he was known about town as a feisty and opinionated debater who pursued a line of inquiry or teased out a thesis until his listeners were exhausted. One can detect a faint echo of those long-into-the-night arguments in his letters with Francesco Vettori. In these back-and-forth exchanges, which often went on for page after page of densely packed script, the retired civil servant seems to delve more deeply into the intricacies of foreign policy than the diplomat. “According to your letter of the 21st,” Machiavelli writes, “you would like to know what I think has prompted Spain to make this truce with France,” offering in following paragraphs such a tightly woven analysis of the geopolitical situation that Vettori is forced to admit, “you were right and I was mistaken.”
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