Though Machiavelli was disappointed by the Cardinal’s cowardly retreat, he was not prepared to sever the ties it had taken him so long to establish. The Cardinal continued to hold him in high regard, and even employed him on a couple of minor missions that brought back faint memories of the glory days when Machiavelli had consulted with emperors and kings. In May 1520, he was sent to the ancient Tuscan capital of Lucca on government business. Though the issues at stake were trivial and involved financial matters that were of little interest to him—he was representing a group of rich Florentine creditors in a bankruptcy case—at least he was back in action again. In any case the work does not seem to have been too taxing since he had time in these months away from home to compose a brief “Summary of the affairs of the city of Lucca” and a more substantial Life of Castruccio Castracani, the medieval tyrant of that city. Though a minor work, dashed off in the course of a few months and based on secondary material, his friends of the Orti, to whom it was dedicated, “all decided it was a good thing, and well written.”
In fact the Life of Castruccio Castracani appears merely to have been a trial run for a more ambitious work that was now being promoted by Machiavelli’s friends. Looking for a way to help his impecunious friend, Zanobi Buondelmonti had approached the Cardinal with a proposal that he hire the former Second Chancellor to write an official history of Florence, a prestigious commission that would not only place him in the company of such men as former chancellors Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini, but also provide him with much needed cash. It seems likely that the project was already under discussion when Machiavelli departed for Lucca and that he submitted the Life of Castruccio to the Cardinal as a sample of what he could achieve in the genre.
The work must have pleased the Cardinal because in November he offered Machiavelli the commission. Machiavelli himself wrote up a sample contract: “He is to be hired for ___ years at a salary of ___ per year with the condition that he must be, and is to be, held to write the annals or else the history of the things done by the state and city of Florence, from whatever time may seem to him most appropriate, and in whatever language—either Latin or Tuscan—may seem best to him.”
Before sitting down to write in earnest, Machiavelli was employed on another small errand on behalf of the republic. In May 1521 he was chosen to represent the Franciscan Brothers of Florence at the general meeting of the order being held in the provincial town of Carpi in the Romagna. As a diplomatic junket it was hardly more consequential than his mission to Lucca the previous year, but after years in the wilderness even these small signs that he was back in favor were welcome. When he arrived at Carpi, located some seventy-five miles north of Florence on the far side of the Apennines, Machiavelli was instructed to conduct the negotiations on behalf of the Franciscan monasteries of Florence that were seeking independence from the Tuscan chapter.xv It was a peculiar mission for a man who had so little religious feeling that many of his friends believed he was a secret atheist. Adding to the irony, he was also tasked by the Wool Guild (which was responsible for overseeing the Cathedral of Florence) with recruiting the popular preacher Fra Rovaio to deliver the Lenten sermons at the Duomo. When Machiavelli explained the nature of his mission, his friend Francesco Guicciardini joked: “It was certainly good judgment on the part of our reverend consuls of the Wool Guild to have entrusted you with the duty of selecting a preacher, not otherwise than if the task had been given to Pachierotto, while he was alive, or to Ser Sano [two well-known pederasts] to find a beautiful and graceful wife for a friend. I believe you will serve them according to the expectations they have of you.”
The main interest of this trip to what Machiavelli derisively called “the republic of clogs” (a reference to the Franciscans’ humble attire) is the correspondence it generated between the two greatest political thinkers of the age. Guicciardini, fourteen years younger than Machiavelli, was a haughty aristocrat whose disdain for human nature in general was combined with a snobbish contempt for the common people in particular. While both men favored republican government, Guicciardini believed Machiavelli placed far too much faith in the wisdom of the people. “To speak of the people is to speak of madmen, for the people is a monster full of confusion and error,” Guicciardini insisted.
In his writings Machiavelli combines cynicism with passion; Guicciardini has no better opinion of human nature but his habitual attitude is one of ironic detachment. Guicciardini’s cautious approach actually makes him the better historian. His History of Florence and History of Italy are more accurate than Machiavelli’s treatment of the same subjects because he eschews grand pronouncements in favor of a straightforward narration of the facts. While Machiavelli likes to use one small fact as the foundation for vast theoretical structures, Guicciardini doubts that it is possible to draw any firm conclusions from the welter of conflicting data. It is an error, he says, “to wish to speak of the affairs of the world in general terms and according to fixed rules; since nearly all admit of exceptions.” After reading what he considered a particularly fanciful passage in The Discourses, Guicciardini remarked dryly that many things are “easier to describe in books and in the imagination of mankind, than to carry into practical effect.”
The two were drawn together by mutual respect and by their shared patriotism. Each watched with dismay as foreign armies marched across Italy, preparing to hurl themselves at each other in a final desperate bid for supremacy on the peninsula. “The Italians are not strong enough for resistance,” Guicciardini despaired, “and capitulation will bring about our enslavement.”
On the way to Carpi, Machiavelli stopped in nearby Modena, where his friend had been installed by Pope Leo as governor of Mantua and Reggio, and the two spent many hours discussing the dismal state of Italian affairs and drowning their sorrows in lively conversation lubricated by plenty of fine wine and hearty food. Reluctantly proceeding to the dusty village where the Franciscans had congregated, Machiavelli filled up the dull hours by writing to his recent host, and Guicciardini, his duties as governor apparently not overly taxing, responded in kind.
The exchange of letters from the weeks Machiavelli spent in Carpi have a feeling of whistling past the graveyard as the two men put aside for a moment their dismay at the current political situation to indulge in childish pranks and off-color humor. As Machiavelli admitted to Vettori, he used laughter to hide his tears, and the storm clouds gathering on the horizon gave a slightly frantic quality to their fun. To one of Guicciardini’s facetious letters Machiavelli replied:
Magnificent Lord Francesescus Guicciardinis . . . most exalted and most honorable. I was on the toilet when your messenger arrived, turning over in my mind the absurdities of this world, and trying to figure out just what kind of a preacher I would choose for Florence. He should be one after my own heart, because I am going to be as stubborn about this as I am about my other ideas. And because I have never let my republic down when I could help her out, if not by my actions then with my words, I don’t intend to disappoint her now. I know that I am at odds with the opinions of my compatriots, in this as in many other things. They would like a preacher to teach them the way to Paradise, and I’d like to find one who would teach them the way to go to the Devil’s lair . . . . [B]ecause I believe that the following would be the true way to Paradise—learn the way to Hell in order to flee from it. Seeing, in any case, how many are taken in by a fraud who hides under the cloak of religion, one can easily imagine how much faith there would be in a good man who walked in truth, and not in lies, treading in the muddy footsteps of Saint Francis.
Who but Machiavelli could conjure such a scene? Bodily functions and philosophy, heaven and hell, low comedy and high purpose, all are lumped together in a single hilarious image. He is being mischievous certainly, but as always he uses humor to make a serious point. We have no choice, he seems to be saying, but to chart a course through the infernal regions since this is the world we live in. What is The Prince if not a practical guide to navigating t
his blighted landscape? Machiavelli’s most helpful roadmap does not actually show us the way to heaven, but merely points out the deepest potholes along the road.
Not the least of the absurdities the two men had to contemplate was Machiavelli’s pathetically reduced circumstances, so out of keeping with his abilities and in such stark contrast to his former life. Guicciardini commiserated. “My dearest Machiavelli,” he wrote from the comfort of his own official lodgings: “When I read your title as ambassador to the Republic and of friars and recall all those kings, dukes, and princes, with whom you have negotiated in the past, I am reminded of Lysander who, after so many victories and trophies, was given the task of distributing meat to the same soldiers he had once so gloriously commanded.”
Most galling to the former Second Chancellor was that the provincial villagers of Carpi had concluded he was a man of no account and were treating him accordingly. Machiavelli was used to being treated as Sir Nihil by kings and emperors, but to be snubbed by men with straw in their hair and manure on their boots was more than he could bear. Writing to Guicciardini he cooked up a ruse to confound the bumpkins who had decided they could save a few ducats by scrimping on his food and lodging. At Machiavelli’s prompting Guicciardini sent off a series of important-looking dispatches under official seal, each carried by messenger accompanied by an entourage of armed guards. Machiavelli heightened the effect by hinting that he was at the moment involved in deep negotiations with the Emperor and the King of France. He described to Guicciardini the scene as these simple villagers found themselves caught up in great affairs of state:
I must tell you that when the crossbowman arrived with your letter and, bowing to the ground, declared that he had been sent expressly to me and in all haste, everyone snapped to attention and created such an uproar that everything was upset, and I was grilled for any news . . . . Soon, they were all standing around with their mouths open and their hats in their hands. I am surrounded as I write, and the more I write the more I am marveled at and seen as one inspired. And I, to make them gape some more, sometimes lift my pen and puff out my cheeks, which just starts them drooling.
Soon Machiavelli was receiving invitations to dine at the homes of the leading citizens, where his hosts would lay for him rustic feast on their finest silver and apologize for the simple fare. He took full advantage of the situation, “gobbl[ing] up,” he told Guicciardini, “enough for six dogs and three wolves,” and counting up the money he was saving by not having to provide his own meals.
Though the farce enlivened an otherwise thankless mission, Machiavelli was glad to put the walls of Carpi behind him. He was back in Florence by early June. Awaiting him on his arrival were the first proofs of The Art of War, just coming off the presses of the printer Filippo di Giunta. This was the one book of Machiavelli’s to be published in his lifetime and he was justifiably proud of the accomplishment. Dedicated to Lorenzo Strozzi, his friend from the Rucellai gardens who had introduced him to Cardinal Giulio, The Art of War rehashes many of the themes he had already laid out in The Prince and The Discourses, proclaiming the superiority of republics to principalities and, as always, the superiority of the citizen militia to mercenary armies. This remains Machiavelli’s great obsession: to discourage Italians from employing soldiers-for-hire, rediscover the martial valor of their ancestors, and, with patriotic fire in their eyes, drive the barbarians from their midst.
But for all his passion on the subject, The Art of War has held up less well than his other major works. Despite his years organizing and provisioning the citizen militias of Florence, Machiavelli was not a professional military man, and many of his prescriptions are impractical or counterproductive. His disdain for artillery and for military engineering, as well as his preference for infantry over cavalry, derive from his study of Roman history but have little to do with the realities of Renaissance warfare, where cannon and musket were changing the dynamics of battle.
Ultimately, The Art of War is significant less for its discussions of tactics or strategy than for Machiavelli’s insight that the way a society chooses to wage war profoundly shapes its internal structure. Mercenary armies are the scourge of well-ordered polities because “a good man could not make war his only profession, and . . . no wise prince or governor of a commonwealth would allow any of his citizens to do it.” By contrast, armies made up of citizen soldiers, mustered for a brief period at a moment of crisis, are the sinews of a vital organism, fueled by patriotic ardor and unified in a common purpose. When Rome conquered the world she accomplished this with “common soldiers [who] laid down their arms with much more pleasure than they had taken them up,” and by “commanders . . . contenting themselves with the honor of a triumph [who] returned with eagerness to their former manner of living.”
Machiavelli received from Cardinal Giulio the contract to write a history of his native city in November 1521. He was given a two-year stipend from the University of Florence to complete the work, at the rate of 100 fiorini di studio,xvi slightly more than half the salary he earned as the Second Chancellor and Secretary to the Ten. While the money certainly came in handy, just as important for Machiavelli was the opportunity to apply the ideas he had developed in his earlier works to the history of his native land. The commission would prove particularly delicate since his patron’s family had played such a crucial and controversial role in the history of the city he was chronicling. His strategy, as he explained to Guicciardini, was to avoid giving offense while still telling the truth as he saw it. It was the same high-wire act he had already practiced in his “Treatise on the Reform of the Government of Florence,” and one that, for the most part, he carried out nimbly.
While not a startlingly original work like The Prince or The Discourses, nor a literary masterpiece like La Mandragola, the Florentine Histories is solid analytical history, built around the dominant motif of the city’s endless factional violence. In The Discourses Machiavelli had praised the Romans for their ability to turn civil strife into constructive law, but he viewed the tumultuous history of Florence with a more critical eye. The Roman Republic had used the tension between the classes to forge a new consensus, but the history of Machiavelli’s own city was a dismal spectacle of carnage accompanied by no redeeming social evolution. “For the enmities between the people and the nobles at the beginning of Rome that were resolved by disputing were resolved by Florence by fighting,” he explains. “Those in Rome ended in law, those in Florence with the exile and death of many citizens; those in Rome always increased military virtue, those in Florence eliminated it altogether.”
After laying out this sorry history in gruesome detail, he proceeds to chronicle the rise of the Medici party in the first half of the fifteenth century. Though he admits that the Medici, beginning with Cosimo and continuing with his grandson Lorenzo, systematically dismantled the city’s democratic institutions, he portrays this process as a reasonable response to the chaos that preceded it. In effect, the citizens were willing to purchase peace at the price of losing some of their ancient liberties. Machiavelli originally intended to bring his history up to the current moment but he tactfully concluded in 1492 with the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, happily relieving himself of the difficult task of finding something constructive to say about Giulio’s cousin, Piero, and the other younger and less impressive members of the family.
• • •
These were relatively happy years for Machiavelli. His sense of isolation lifted with his acceptance into the charmed circle of the Rucellai gardens, bringing him much needed camaraderie and also winning him friends in high places. He was not where he most wanted to be, in the very heart of the action, but at least he was treated with respect, even reverence, by men whose company he enjoyed and who stimulated his ideas. With the success of his comedies he had fame, if not fortune, and a series of passionate love affairs absorbed him when more scholarly pursuits temporarily lost their allure. Even the house at Sant’ Andrea seemed less a prison than a refuge where he coul
d work on his history undisturbed but for the pleasant commotion stirred up by young children.
But there were signs the calm would not last. The optimism that had accompanied Giulio de’ Medici’s arrival in Florence had turned in certain circles into sullen resentment as promised reforms never materialized. Among the most disillusioned were members of the Orti Oricellari, long a bastion of pro-Medici sentiment, and among these the most vehement critics of the regime included Machiavelli’s close friends Zanobi Buondelmonti and Luigi Alamanni.
The extent to which Machiavelli himself participated in the whispered conversations is unclear. He was certainly aware that a new dark mood had overtaken the once idyllic—and largely apolitical—gatherings, but he lacked the ideological fire of his younger companions. In any case Machiavelli was never a man of action, particularly when it involved conspiracy against the duly elected authorities. While he certainly shared his friends’ aspirations, he remained skeptical of anything that involved potential violence.
Influence, in fact, flowed in the other direction. Buondelmonti, Alamanni, and the other denizens of the Orti had been inspired by the writings of the older man, particularly The Discourses, which laid out a convincing case for the superiority of republican government. Once reviled in that aristocratic milieu as the toady of a government with populist leanings, in retrospect the architect of the victory over Pisa seemed an almost heroic figure.
The transformation of the Orti Oricellari from a pro-Medici bastion to a nursery of anti-Medici sedition was typical of the twists and turns of Florentine politics. For the moment there was no danger that inchoate feelings of disenchantment would lead to open resistance. As long as a Medici sat on the papal throne, the alliance between Rome and the reggimento in Florence was simply too strong, and the profits accruing to Florentine merchants from increased business too attractive, for the ancient yearning for liberty to congeal into concrete action. All that changed on December 1, 1521, with the unexpected death of Pope Leo following a brief illness. Though only forty-five at the time of his death, the Medici Pope had worn out his welcome and his body through dissipated living. Worse still, he had never met the high expectations that accompanied his election, devoting his energies to aggrandizing his family rather than bolstering the moral reputation of the Church or the prosperity of his native city. Though an intelligent and cultivated man, he was negligent in tending to his spiritual duties and equally negligent when it came to rallying the Italian people to resist the foreign invaders. It was during his reign that Christianity was torn asunder by Luther and his followers—disgusted by the worldly excess they saw in the Vatican—and while the final enslavement of the peninsula did not take place in his lifetime, his corrupt and vacillating policy made such an outcome all but inevitable.
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