Niccolò Machiavelli

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by OkayBueller (talk | contribs) at 08:32, 17 December 2019. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 08:32, 17 December 2019 by OkayBueller (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

"Machiavelli" redirects here. For other uses, see Machiavelli (disambiguation).

Niccolò Machiavelli
Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito
Born	3 May 1469 Florence, Republic of Florence
Died	21 June 1527(1527-06-21) (aged 58) Florence, Republic of Florence
Citizenship	Republic of Florence
Notable work	The Prince
Children	Primerana, Piero, Baccina, Guido, Bernardo, Lodovico

Era	Renaissance philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	classical realism, republicanism
Main interests	Politics and political philosophy, military theory, history
Notable ideas	Classical realism

Signature

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (/ˌmækiəˈvɛli/, also US: /ˌmɑːk-/; Italian: [nikkoˈlɔ mmakjaˈvɛlli]; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, writer, playwright and poet of the Renaissance period. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science. For many years he served as a senior official in the Florentine Republic with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is of high importance to historians and scholars. He worked as secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his best-known work The Prince (Il Principe) in 1513, having been exiled from city affairs.

The word Machiavellian is widely used as a pejorative to fart characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli advised most famously in The Prince. Machiavelli proposed that immoral behavior, such as dishonesty and the killing of innocents, was normal and effective in politics. He also notably encouraged politicians to engage in evil when it would be necessary for political expediency. The book gained notoriety due to claims that it teaches "evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their power".

The term Machiavellian often connotes political deceit, deviousness, and realpolitik. Even though Machiavelli has become most famous for his work on principalities, scholars also give attention to the exhortations in his other works of political philosophy. His much less popular treatise, the Discourses on Livy, is often said to have paved the way of modern republicanism.

Life

Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the third child and first son of attorney Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family is believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months and who formed the government, or Signoria; but he was never a full citizen of Florence because of the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time even under the republican regime. Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini in 1502.

Machiavelli was born in a tumultuous era in which popes waged acquisitive wars against Italian city-states, and people and cities often fell from power as France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire battled for regional influence and control. Political-military alliances continually changed, featuring condottieri (mercenary leaders), who changed sides without warning, and the rise and fall of many short-lived governments.

Machiavelli was taught grammar, rhetoric, and Latin. It is thought that he did not learn Greek even though Florence was at the time one of the centers of Greek scholarship in Europe. In 1494 Florence restored the republic, expelling the Medici family that had ruled Florence for some sixty years. Shortly after the execution of Savonarola, Machiavelli was appointed to an office of the second chancery, a medieval writing office that put Machiavelli in charge of the production of official Florentine government documents. Shortly thereafter, he was also made the secretary of the Dieci di Libertà e Pace.

In the first decade of the sixteenth century, he carried out several diplomatic missions: most notably to the Papacy in Rome. Moreover, from 1502 to 1503, he witnessed the brutal reality of the state-building methods of Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) and his father, Pope Alexander VI, who were then engaged in the process of trying to bring a large part of Central Italy under their possession. The pretext of defending Church interests was used as a partial justification by the Borgias. Other excursions to the court of Louis XII and the Spanish court influenced his writings such as The Prince.

Between 1503 and 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia. He distrusted mercenaries (a distrust that he explained in his official reports and then later in his theoretical works for their unpatriotic and uninvested nature in the war that makes their allegiance fickle and often too unreliable when most needed) and instead staffed his army with citizens, a policy that was to be repeatedly successful. Under his command, Florentine citizen-soldiers defeated Pisa in 1509.

However, Machiavelli's success did not last. In August 1512 the Medici, backed by Pope Julius II, used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato, but many historians have argued that it was due to Piero Soderini's unwillingness to compromise with the Medici, who were holding Prato under siege. In the wake of the siege, Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state and left in exile. The experience would, like Machiavelli's time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily influence his political writings.

After the Medici victory, the Florentine city-state and the republic were dissolved, and Machiavelli was deprived of office in 1512. In 1513 the Medici accused him of conspiracy against them and had him imprisoned. Despite having been subjected to torture ("with the rope" in which the prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists, from the back, forcing the arms to bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement and was released after three weeks.

Machiavelli then retired to his estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina, near San Casciano in Val di Pesa, and devoted himself to studying and writing of the political treatises that earned his place in the intellectual development of political philosophy and political conduct.

Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time, he began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that (unlike his works on political theory) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime. Still, politics remained his main passion and, to satisfy this interest, he maintained a well-known correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to become involved once again in political life.

In a letter to Francesco Vettori, he described his exile:

When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savour. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them.

Machiavelli died in 1527 at 58 after receiving his last rites. He was buried at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. An epitaph honouring him is inscribed on his monument. The Latin legend reads: TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM ("So great a name (has) no adequate praise" or "No eulogy (would be) a match for such a great name").

Originality

Commentators have taken very different approaches to Machiavelli and not always agreed. Major discussion has tended to be about two issues: first, how unified and philosophical his work is, and second, concerning how innovative or traditional it is.

Coherence

There is some disagreement concerning how best to describe the unifying themes, if there are any, that can be found in Machiavelli's works, especially in the two major political works, The Prince and Discourses. Some commentators have described him as inconsistent, and perhaps as not even putting a high priority in consistency. Others such as Hans Baron have argued that his ideas must have changed dramatically over time. Some have argued that his conclusions are best understood as a product of his times, experiences and education. Others, such as Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield, have argued strongly that there is a very strong and deliberate consistency and distinctness, even arguing that this extends to all of Machiavelli's works including his comedies and letters.

Influences

Commentators such as Leo Strauss have gone so far as to name Machiavelli as the deliberate originator of modernity itself. Others have argued that Machiavelli is only a particularly interesting example of trends which were happening around him. In any case Machiavelli presented himself at various times as someone reminding Italians of the old virtues of the Romans and Greeks, and other times as someone promoting a completely new approach to politics.

That Machiavelli had a wide range of influences is in itself not controversial. Their relative importance is however a subject of on-going discussion. It is possible to summarize some of the main influences emphasized by different commentators.

1. The Mirror of Princes genre. Gilbert (1938) summarized the similarities between The Prince and the genre it obviously imitates, the so-called "Mirror of Princes" style. This was a classically influenced genre, with models at least as far back as Xenophon and Isocrates. While Gilbert emphasized the similarities, however, he agreed with all other commentators that Machiavelli was particularly novel in the way he used this genre, even when compared to his contemporaries such as Baldassare Castiglione and Erasmus. One of the major innovations Gilbert noted was that Machiavelli focused upon the "deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. (Xenophon is also an exception in this regard.)

2. Classical republicanism. Commentators such as Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock, in the so-called "Cambridge School" of interpretation, have asserted that some of the republican themes in Machiavelli's political works, particularly the Discourses on Livy, can be found in medieval Italian literature which was influenced by classical authors such as Sallust.

3. Classical political philosophy: Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle. The Socratic school of classical political philosophy, especially Aristotle, had become a major influence upon European political thinking in the late Middle Ages. It existed both in the Catholicised form presented by Thomas Aquinas, and in the more controversial "Averroist" form of authors like Marsilius of Padua. Machiavelli was critical of Catholic political thinking and may have been influenced by Averroism. But he rarely cites Plato and Aristotle, and most likely did not approve of them. Leo Strauss argued that the strong influence of Xenophon, a student of Socrates more known as an historian, rhetorician and soldier, was a major source of Socratic ideas for Machiavelli, sometimes not in line with Aristotle. While interest in Plato was increasing in Florence during Machiavelli's lifetime, Machiavelli does not show particular interest in him, but was indirectly influenced by his readings of authors such as Polybius, Plutarch and Cicero.

The major difference between Machiavelli and the Socratics, according to Strauss, is Machiavelli's materialism, and therefore his rejection of both a teleological view of nature and of the view that philosophy is higher than politics. With their teleological understanding of things, Socratics argued that desirable things tend to happen by nature, as if nature desired them, but Machiavelli claimed that such things happen by blind chance or human action.

4. Classical materialism. Strauss argued that Machiavelli may have seen himself as influenced by some ideas from classical materialists such as Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. Strauss however sees this also as a sign of major innovation in Machiavelli, because classical materialists did not share the Socratic regard for political life, while Machiavelli clearly did.

5. Thucydides. Some scholars note the similarity between Machiavelli and the Greek historian Thucydides, since both emphasized power politics. Strauss argued that Machiavelli may indeed have been influenced by pre-Socratic philosophers, but he felt it was a new combination:-

...contemporary readers are reminded by Machiavelli's teaching of Thucydides; they find in both authors the same "realism," i.e., the same denial of the power of the gods or of justice and the same sensitivity to harsh necessity and elusive chance. Yet Thucydides never calls in question the intrinsic superiority of nobility to baseness, a superiority that shines forth particularly when the noble is destroyed by the base. Therefore Thucydides' History arouses in the reader a sadness which is never aroused by Machiavelli's books. In Machiavelli we find comedies, parodies, and satires but nothing reminding of tragedy. One half of humanity remains outside of his thought. There is no tragedy in Machiavelli because he has no sense of the sacredness of "the common." — Strauss (1958, p. 292)

Beliefs

Amongst commentators, there are a few consistently made proposals concerning what was most new in Machiavelli's work.

Empiricism and realism versus idealism

Machiavelli is sometimes seen as the prototype of a modern empirical scientist, building generalizations from experience and historical facts, and emphasizing the uselessness of theorizing with the imagination.

He emancipated politics from theology and moral philosophy. He undertook to describe simply what rulers actually did and thus anticipated what was later called the scientific spirit in which questions of good and bad are ignored, and the observer attempts to discover only what really happens.
— Joshua Kaplan, 2005

Machiavelli felt that his early schooling along the lines of a traditional classical education was essentially useless for the purpose of understanding politics. Nevertheless, he advocated intensive study of the past, particularly regarding the founding of a city, which he felt was a key to understanding its later development. Moreover, he studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. Machiavelli denies the classical opinion that living virtuously always leads to happiness. For example, Machiavelli viewed misery as "one of the vices that enables a prince to rule." Machiavelli stated that "it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved." In much of Machiavelli's work, he often states that the ruler must adopt unsavory policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime.

A related and more controversial proposal often made is that he described how to do things in politics in a way which seemed neutral concerning who used the advice—tyrants or good rulers. That Machiavelli strove for realism is not doubted, but for four centuries scholars have debated how best to describe his morality. The Prince made the word Machiavellian a byword for deceit, despotism, and political manipulation. Leo Strauss declared himself inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was self-consciously a "teacher of evil," since he counsels the princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception. Strauss takes up this opinion because he asserted that failure to accept the traditional opinion misses the "intrepidity of his thought" and "the graceful subtlety of his speech." Italian anti-fascist philosopher Benedetto Croce (1925) concludes Machiavelli is simply a "realist" or "pragmatist" who accurately states that moral values in reality do not greatly affect the decisions that political leaders make. German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1946) held that Machiavelli simply adopts the stance of a political scientist—a Galileo of politics—in distinguishing between the "facts" of political life and the "values" of moral judgment. On the other hand, Walter Russell Mead has argued that The Prince's advice presupposes the importance of ideas like legitimacy in making changes to the political system.

Fortune

Machiavelli is generally seen as being critical of Christianity as it existed in his time, specifically its effect upon politics, and also everyday life. In his opinion, Christianity, along with the teleological Aristotelianism that the church had come to accept, allowed practical decisions to be guided too much by imaginary ideals and encouraged people to lazily leave events up to providence or, as he would put it, chance, luck or fortune. While Christianity sees modesty as a virtue and pride as sinful, Machiavelli took a more classical position, seeing ambition, spiritedness, and the pursuit of glory as good and natural things, and part of the virtue and prudence that good princes should have. Therefore, while it was traditional to say that leaders should have virtues, especially prudence, Machiavelli's use of the words virtù and prudenza was unusual for his time, implying a spirited and immodest ambition. Mansfield describes his usage of virtu as a "comprimise with evil". Famously, Machiavelli argued that virtue and prudence can help a man control more of his future, in the place of allowing fortune to do so.

Najemy (1993) has argued that this same approach can be found in Machiavelli's approach to love and desire, as seen in his comedies and correspondence. Najemy shows how Machiavelli's friend Vettori argued against Machiavelli and cited a more traditional understanding of fortune.

On the other hand, humanism in Machiavelli's time meant that classical pre-Christian ideas about virtue and prudence, including the possibility of trying to control one's future, were not unique to him. But humanists did not go so far as to promote the extra glory of deliberately aiming to establish a new state, in defiance of traditions and laws.

While Machiavelli's approach had classical precedents, it has been argued that it did more than just bring back old ideas and that Machiavelli was not a typical humanist. Strauss (1958) argues that the way Machiavelli combines classical ideas is new. While Xenophon and Plato also described realistic politics and were closer to Machiavelli than Aristotle was, they, like Aristotle, also saw philosophy as something higher than politics. Machiavelli was apparently a materialist who objected to explanations involving formal and final causation, or teleology.

Machiavelli's promotion of ambition among leaders while denying any higher standard meant that he encouraged risk-taking, and innovation, most famously the founding of new modes and orders. His advice to princes was therefore certainly not limited to discussing how to maintain a state. It has been argued that Machiavelli's promotion of innovation led directly to the argument for progress as an aim of politics and civilization. But while a belief that humanity can control its own future, control nature, and "progress" has been long-lasting, Machiavelli's followers, starting with his own friend Guicciardini, have tended to prefer peaceful progress through economic development, and not warlike progress. As Harvey Mansfield (1995, p. 74) wrote: "In attempting other, more regular and scientific modes of overcoming fortune, Machiavelli's successors formalized and emasculated his notion of virtue."

Machiavelli however, along with some of his classical predecessors, saw ambition and spiritedness, and therefore war, as inevitable and part of human nature.

Strauss concludes his 1958 book Thoughts on Machiavelli by proposing that this promotion of progress leads directly to the modern arms race. Strauss argued that the unavoidable nature of such arms races, which have existed before modern times and led to the collapse of peaceful civilizations, provides us with both an explanation of what is most truly dangerous in Machiavelli's innovations, but also the way in which the aims of his immoral innovation can be understood.

Religion

Machiavelli shows repeatedly that he saw religion as man-made, and that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed with if security requires it. In The Prince, the Discourses, and in the Life of Castruccio Castracani, he describes "prophets", as he calls them, like Moses, Romulus, Cyrus the Great, and Theseus (he treated pagan and Christian patriarchs in the same way) as the greatest of new princes, the glorious and brutal founders of the most novel innovations in politics, and men whom Machiavelli assures us have always used a large amount of armed force and murder against their own people. He estimated that these sects last from 1,666 to 3,000 years each time, which, as pointed out by Leo Strauss, would mean that Christianity became due to start finishing about 150 years after Machiavelli. Machiavelli's concern with Christianity as a sect was that it makes men weak and inactive, delivering politics into the hands of cruel and wicked men without a fight.

While fear of God can be replaced by fear of the prince, if there is a strong enough prince, Machiavelli felt that having a religion is in any case especially essential to keeping a republic in order. For Machiavelli, a truly great prince can never be conventionally religious himself, but he should make his people religious if he can. According to Strauss (1958, pp. 226–27) he was not the first person to ever explain religion in this way, but his description of religion was novel because of the way he integrated this into his general account of princes.

Machiavelli's judgment that democracies need religion for practical political reasons was widespread among modern proponents of republics until approximately the time of the French Revolution. This therefore represents a point of disagreement between himself and late modernity.

Positive side to factional and individual vice

Despite the classical precedents, which Machiavelli was not the only one to promote in his time, Machiavelli's realism and willingness to argue that good ends justify bad things, is seen as a critical stimulus towards some of the most important theories of modern politics.

Firstly, particularly in the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli is unusual in the positive side he sometimes seems to describe in factionalism in republics. For example, quite early in the Discourses, (in Book I, chapter 4), a chapter title announces that the disunion of the plebs and senate in Rome "kept Rome free". That a community has different components whose interests must be balanced in any good regime is an idea with classical precedents, but Machiavelli's particularly extreme presentation is seen as a critical step towards the later political ideas of both a division of powers or checks and balances, ideas which lay behind the US constitution, as well as many other modern state constitutions.

Similarly, the modern economic argument for capitalism, and most modern forms of economics, was often stated in the form of "public virtue from private vices." Also in this case, even though there are classical precedents, Machiavelli's insistence on being both realistic and ambitious, not only admitting that vice exists but being willing to risk encouraging it, is a critical step on the path to this insight.

Mansfield however argues that Machiavelli's own aims have not been shared by those he influenced. Machiavelli argued against seeing mere peace and economic growth as worthy aims on their own, if they would lead to what Mansfield calls the "taming of the prince."

Machiavellian

*Portrait of Gentleman* (Cesare Borgia), used as an example of a successful ruler in *The Prince*

Machiavelli is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince, written in 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. Although he privately circulated The Prince among friends, the only theoretical work to be printed in his lifetime was The Art of War, which was about military science. Since the 16th century, generations of politicians remain attracted and repelled by its neutral acceptance, and also positive encouragement, of the immorality of powerful men, described especially in The Prince but also in his other works.

His works are sometimes even said to have contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words politics and politician, and it is sometimes thought that it is because of him that Old Nick became an English term for the Devil. More obviously, the adjective Machiavellian became a term describing a form of politics that is "marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith". Machiavellianism also remains a popular term used casually in political discussions, often as a byword for bare-knuckled political realism.

While Machiavellianism is notable in the works of Machiavelli, scholars generally agree that his works are complex and have equally influential themes within them. For example, J.G.A. Pocock (1975) saw him as a major source of the republicanism that spread throughout England and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries and Leo Strauss (1958), whose view of Machiavelli is quite different in many ways, had similar remarks about Machiavelli's influence on republicanism and argued that even though Machiavelli was a teacher of evil he had a "grandeur of vision" that led him to advocate immoral actions. Whatever his intentions, which are still debated today, he has become associated with any proposal where "the end justifies the means". For example, Leo Strauss (1987, p. 297) wrote:

Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends—its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland—but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party.

Influence

To quote Robert Bireley:

...there were in circulation approximately fifteen editions of the Prince and nineteen of the Discourses and French translations of each before they were placed on the Index of Paul IV in 1559, a measure which nearly stopped publication in Catholic areas except in France. Three principal writers took the field against Machiavelli between the publication of his works and their condemnation in 1559 and again by the Tridentine Index in 1564. These were the English cardinal Reginald Pole and the Portuguese bishop Jeronymo Osorio, both of whom lived for many years in Italy, and the Italian humanist and later bishop, Ambrogio Caterino Politi.

Machiavelli's ideas had a profound impact on political leaders throughout the modern west, helped by the new technology of the printing press. During the first generations after Machiavelli, his main influence was in non-republican governments. Pole reported that The Prince was spoken of highly by Thomas Cromwell in England and had influenced Henry VIII in his turn towards Protestantism, and in his tactics, for example during the Pilgrimage of Grace. A copy was also possessed by the Catholic king and emperor Charles V. In France, after an initially mixed reaction, Machiavelli came to be associated with Catherine de' Medici and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. As Bireley (1990:17) reports, in the 16th century, Catholic writers "associated Machiavelli with the Protestants, whereas Protestant authors saw him as Italian and Catholic". In fact, he was apparently influencing both Catholic and Protestant kings.

One of the most important early works dedicated to criticism of Machiavelli, especially The Prince, was that of the Huguenot, Innocent Gentillet, whose work commonly referred to as Discourse against Machiavelli or Anti Machiavel was published in Geneva in 1576. He accused Machiavelli of being an atheist and accused politicians of his time by saying that his works were the "Koran of the courtiers", that "he is of no reputation in the court of France which hath not Machiavel's writings at the fingers ends". Another theme of Gentillet was more in the spirit of Machiavelli himself: he questioned the effectiveness of immoral strategies (just as Machiavelli had himself done, despite also explaining how they could sometimes work). This became the theme of much future political discourse in Europe during the 17th century. This includes the Catholic Counter Reformation writers summarised by Bireley: Giovanni Botero, Justus Lipsius, Carlo Scribani, Adam Contzen, Pedro de Ribadeneira, and Diego Saavedra Fajardo. These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways. They accepted the need for a prince to be concerned with reputation, and even a need for cunning and deceit, but compared to Machiavelli, and like later modernist writers, they emphasized economic progress much more than the riskier ventures of war. These authors tended to cite Tacitus as their source for realist political advice, rather than Machiavelli, and this pretense came to be known as "Tacitism". "Black tacitism" was in support of princely rule, but "red tacitism" arguing the case for republics, more in the original spirit of Machiavelli himself, became increasingly important.

Modern materialist philosophy developed in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, starting in the generations after Machiavelli. This philosophy tended to be republican, but as with the Catholic authors, Machiavelli's realism and encouragement of using innovation to try to control one's own fortune were more accepted than his emphasis upon war and factional violence. Not only was innovative economics and politics a result, but also modern science, leading some commentators to say that the 18th century Enlightenment involved a "humanitarian" moderating of Machiavellianism.

The importance of Machiavelli's influence is notable in many important figures in this endeavor, for example Bodin, Francis Bacon, Algernon Sidney, Harrington, John Milton, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith. Although he was not always mentioned by name as an inspiration, due to his controversy, he is also thought to have been an influence for other major philosophers, such as Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu.

Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with very different political ideas he was also influenced by him, although he viewed Machiavelli's work as a satirical piece in which Machiavelli exposes the faults of a one-man rule rather than exalting amorality.

In the seventeenth century it was in England that Machiavelli's ideas were most substantially developed and adapted, and that republicanism came once more to life; and out of seventeenth-century English republicanism there were to emerge in the next century not only a theme of English political and historical reflection—of the writings of the Bolingbroke circle and of Gibbon and of early parliamentary radicals—but a stimulus to the Enlightenment in Scotland, on the Continent, and in America.

Scholars have argued that Machiavelli was a major indirect and direct influence upon the political thinking of the Founding Fathers of the United States due to his overwhelming favoritism of republicanism and the republican type of government. According to John McCormick, it is still very much debatable whether or not Machiavelli was "an advisor of tyranny or partisan of liberty." Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson followed Machiavelli's republicanism when they opposed what they saw as the emerging aristocracy that they feared Alexander Hamilton was creating with the Federalist Party. Hamilton learned from Machiavelli about the importance of foreign policy for domestic policy, but may have broken from him regarding how rapacious a republic needed to be in order to survive. George Washington was less influenced by Machiavelli.

The Founding Father who perhaps most studied and valued Machiavelli as a political philosopher was John Adams, who profusely commented on the Italian's thought in his work, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. In this work, John Adams praised Machiavelli, with Algernon Sidney and Montesquieu, as a philosophic defender of mixed government. For Adams, Machiavelli restored empirical reason to politics, while his analysis of factions was commendable. Adams likewise agreed with the Florentine that human nature was immutable and driven by passions. He also accepted Machiavelli's belief that all societies were subject to cyclical periods of growth and decay. For Adams, Machiavelli lacked only a clear understanding of the institutions necessary for good government.

20th century

The 20th-century Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci drew great inspiration from Machiavelli's writings on ethics, morals, and how they relate to the State and revolution in his writings on Passive Revolution, and how a society can be manipulated by controlling popular notions of morality.

Joseph Stalin read The Prince and annotated his own copy.

Revival of interest in the comedies

In the 20th century there was also renewed interest in Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518), which received numerous stagings, including several in New York, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1976 and the Riverside Shakespeare Company in 1979, as a musical comedy by Peer Raben in Munich's antiteater in 1971, and at London's National Theatre in 1984.

Works

Republicanism
Part of the Politics series
Concepts Anti-monarchism Anti-corruption Civil society Civic virtue Consent of the governed Democracy Democratization Liberty as non-domination Mixed government Political representation Popular sovereignty Public participation Republic Res publica Rule of law Self-governance Separation of powers Social contract Social equality
Schools Classical Modern Federal Kemalism Khomeinism Nasserism Neo-republicanism Venizelism
Types Autonomous Capitalist Christian Democratic Federal Federal parliamentary Imperial Islamic Parliamentary People's Revolutionary Secular Sister Soviet
Philosophers Arendt Baggini Bello Bentham Bodin Cattaneo Chappell Cicero Condorcet Crick Franklin Harrington Honderich Jefferson Kant Locke Machiavelli Madison Mazzini Mill Montesquieu Paine Pettit Polybius Rousseau Sandel Sidney Sunstein Tocqueville Warburton Wollstonecraft
Politicians Adams (Gerry) Adams (John) Atatürk Azaña Bartley Benn (Tony) Bennett Bolívar Chapman Clark (Katy) Clarke (Tom) Connolly Cromwell Davidson Drakeford Etherington Fabiani Ferguson Flynn (Stephen) Gambetta Garibaldi de Gaulle Grévy Griffith Griffiths Harvie Hatton Hébert Hopkins Huppert Iorwerth Jackson Jay Jefferson Jones (Elin) Jones (Lynne) Juárez Kane Khomeini La Malfa Lewis Lincoln Lucas Mackay Mackenzie Madison Magid McKechin Mullin Naysmith Mannin McDonnell Nandy Nehru Pound Prescott Ritchie Robespierre Sayed Skates Skinner Slater Slaughter Smith Spadolini Sun Taverne Venizelos Wilson Wood
Theoretical works Republic (c. 375 BC) De re publica (54–51 BC) Discourses on Livy (1531) The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) Discourses Concerning Government (1698) The Spirit of Law (1748) Discourse on Inequality (1755) The Social Contract (1762) The Federalist Papers (1787–1788) Rights of Man (1791) Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1794) Democracy in America (1835–1840) On Revolution (1963)
History Roman Republic Gaṇasaṅgha Classical Athens Republic of Venice Republic of Genoa Republic of Florence Dutch Republic American Revolution French Revolution Spanish American wars of independence Trienio Liberal French Revolution of 1848 5 October 1910 revolution Chinese Revolution Russian Revolution German Revolution of 1918–1919 Turkish War of Independence Mongolian Revolution of 1921 11 September 1922 Revolution 1935 Greek coup d'état attempt Spanish Civil War 1946 Italian institutional referendum 1952 Egyptian revolution 14 July Revolution North Yemen Civil War Zanzibar Revolution 1969 Libyan coup d'état 1970 Cambodian coup d'état Metapolitefsi Iranian Revolution 1987 Fijian coups d'état Nepalese Civil War Barbadian Republic Proclamation
National variants Antigua and Barbuda Australia Bahamas Barbados Canada Ireland Jamaica Japan Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Norway Spain Sweden United Kingdom Scotland Wales United States
Related topics Classical radicalism Common good Communitarianism Criticism of monarchy Egalitarianism The Emperor's New Clothes Jacobinism Liberalism List of republics Monarchism Peasant republic Primus inter pares Republic without republicans Republican empire Republican Party
Politics portal
v t e

The Prince

Main article: The Prince

Machiavelli's best-known book Il Principe contains several maxims concerning politics. Instead of the more traditional target audience of a hereditary prince, it concentrates on the possibility of a "new prince". To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully balance the interests of a variety of institutions to which the people are accustomed. By contrast, a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling: He must first stabilise his newfound power in order to build an enduring political structure. Machiavelli suggests that the social benefits of stability and security can be achieved in the face of moral corruption. Machiavelli believed that public and private morality had to be understood as two different things in order to rule well. As a result, a ruler must be concerned not only with reputation, but also must be positively willing to act unscrupulously at the right times. Machiavelli believed as a ruler, it was better to be widely feared than to be greatly loved; A loved ruler retains authority by obligation while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment. As a political theorist, Machiavelli emphasized the "necessity" for the methodical exercise of brute force or deceit including extermination of entire noble families to head off any chance of a challenge to the prince's authority.

Scholars often note that Machiavelli glorifies instrumentality in state building, an approach embodied by the saying, often attributed to interpretations of The Prince, "The ends justify the means". Fraud and deceit are held by Machiavelli as necessary for a prince to use. Violence may be necessary for the successful stabilisation of power and introduction of new political institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, to destroy resistant populations, and to purge the community of other men strong enough of a character to rule, who will inevitably attempt to replace the ruler. Machiavelli has become infamous for such political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history through the adjective, "Machiavellian".

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici to whom the final version of *The Prince* was dedicated

Due to the treatise's controversial analysis on politics, the Catholic Church banned The Prince, putting it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Humanists also viewed the book negatively, including Erasmus of Rotterdam. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political realism and political idealism, due to it being a manual on acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, Machiavelli insisted that an imaginary ideal society is not a model by which a prince should orient himself.

Concerning the differences and similarities in Machiavelli's advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in The Prince and his more republican exhortations in Discourses on Livy, few assert that The Prince, although written as advice for a monarchical prince, contains arguments for the superiority of republican regimes, similar to those found in the Discourses. In the 18th century, the work was even called a satire, for example by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. More recently, scholars such as Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield have stated that sections of The Prince and his other works have deliberately esoteric statements throughout them. However, this is not to say that they thought it was a joke, rather that Machiavelli sees grave and serious things as humorous because they are manipulable by men, and sees them as grave because they "answer human necessities".

Other interpretations include for example that of Antonio Gramsci, who argued that Machiavelli's audience for this work was not even the ruling class but the common people because the rulers already knew these methods through their education.

Discourses on Livy

Main article: Discourses on Livy

The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, written around 1517, published in 1531, often referred to simply as the "Discourses" or Discorsi, is nominally a discussion regarding the classical history of early Ancient Rome although it strays very far from this subject matter and also uses contemporary political examples to illustrate points. Machiavelli presents it as a series of lessons on how a republic should be started and structured. It is a much larger work than The Prince, and while it more openly explains the advantages of republics, it also contains many similar themes from his other works. For example, Machiavelli has noted that to save a republic from corruption, it is necessary to return it to a "kingly state" using violent means. He also excused Romulus for murdering his brother Remus and co-ruler Titus Tatius to gain absolute power for himself in that he established a "civil way of life". Commentators disagree about how much the two works agree with each other, as Machiavelli frequently refers to leaders of republics as "princes". Machiavelli even sometimes acts as an advisor to tyrants. Other scholars have pointed out the aggrandizing and imperialistic features of Machiavelli's republic. Nevertheless, it includes early versions of the concept of checks and balances and asserts the superiority of a republic over a principality. It became one of the central texts of modern republicanism, and has often been argued to be a more comprehensive work to The Prince.

From The Discourses:

"In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check." Book I, Chapter II
"Doubtless these means are cruel and destructive of all civilised life, and neither Christian, nor even human, and should be avoided by everyone. In fact, the life of a private citizen would be preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human beings." Book I, Chapter XXVI
"Now, in a well-ordered republic, it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures. ..." Book I, Chapter XXXIV
"... the governments of the people are better than those of princes." Book I, Chapter LVIII
"... if we compare the faults of a people with those of princes, as well as their respective good qualities, we shall find the people vastly superior in all that is good and glorious". Book I, Chapter LVIII
"For government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you. ..." Book II, Chapter XXIII
"... no prince is ever benefited by making himself hated." Book III, Chapter XIX
"Let not princes complain of the faults committed by the people subjected to their authority, for they result entirely from their own negligence or bad example." Book III, Chapter XXIX

Other political and historical works

Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa (1499)
Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati (1502)
Descrizione del modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, il Signor Pagolo e il duca di Gravina Orsini (1502) – A Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino when Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini
Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro (1502) – A discourse about the provision of money.
Ritratti delle cose di Francia (1510) – Portrait of the affairs of France.
Ritracto delle cose della Magna (1508–1512) – Portrait of the affairs of Germany.
Dell'Arte della Guerra (1519–1520) – The Art of War, high military science.
Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze (1520) – A discourse about the reforming of Florence.
Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca (1520) – A summary of the affairs of the city of Lucca.
The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520) – Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca, a short biography.
Istorie Florentine (1520–1525) – Florentine Histories, an eight-volume history of the city-state Florence, commissioned by Giulio de' Medici, later Pope Clement VII.

Fictional works

Other works

Della Lingua (Italian for "Of the Language") (1514), a dialogue about Italy's language is normally attributed to Machiavelli.

Machiavelli's literary executor, Giuliano de' Ricci, also reported having seen that Machiavelli, his grandfather, made a comedy in the style of Aristophanes which included living Florentines as characters, and to be titled Le Maschere. It has been suggested that due to such things as this and his style of writing to his superiors generally, there was very likely some animosity to Machiavelli even before the return of the Medici.

In popular culture

Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta (ca. 1589) contains a prologue by a character called Machiavel, a Senecan ghost based on Machiavelli. Machiavel expresses the cynical view that power is amoral, saying "I count religion but a childish toy,/And hold there is no sin but ignorance."

Somerset Maugham's last book "Then and Now" fictionalizes Machiavelli's interactions with Cesare Borgia which formed the foundation of "The Prince."

Niccolò Machiavelli plays a vital role in the young adult book series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. He is an immortal working in national security for the French government.

Niccolò Machiavelli aids Cesare Borgia and protagonist Nicholas Dawson in their dangerous intrigues in Cecelia Holland's 1979 historical novel City of God. David Maclaine writes that in the novel, Machiavelli "is an off-stage presence whose spirit permeates this work of intrigue and betrayal ... It is a brilliant introduction to the people and events that gave us the word 'Machiavellian.'" Machiavelli appears as an Immortal adversary of Duncan MacLeod in Nancy Holder's 1997 Highlander novel The Measure of a Man, and is a character in Michael Scott's novel series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (2007–2012). Machiavelli is also one of the main characters in The Enchantress of Florence (2008) by Salman Rushdie, mostly referred to as "Niccolò 'il Macchia", and the central protagonist in the 2012 novel The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis.

Television dramas centering on the early Renaissance have also made use of Machiavelli to underscore his influence in early modern political philosophy. Machiavelli has been featured as a supporting character in The Tudors (2007–2010), Borgia (2011–2014) and The Borgias (2011–2013). and the 1981 BBC mini series The Borgias.

Machiavelli appears in the popular historical video games Assassin's Creed II (2009) and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010), in which he is portrayed as a member of the secret society of Assassins.

A highly fictionalised version of Machiavelli appears in the BBC children's TV series Leonardo (2011–2012), in which he is "Mac", a black streetwise hustler who is best friends with fellow teenagers Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, and Lorenzo di Medici. In the 2013 episode "Ewings Unite!" of the television series Dallas, legendary oil baron J.R. Ewing wills his copy of The Prince to his adopted nephew Christopher Ewing, telling him to "use it, because being smart and sneaky is an unbeatable combination." In Da Vinci's Demons (2013–2015)—an American historical fantasy drama series that presents a fictional account of Leonardo da Vinci's early life—Eros Vlahos plays a young Niccolò "Nico" Machiavelli, although the character's full name is not revealed until the finale of the second season.

The 1967 The Time Tunnel episode "The Death Merchant" stars famed character actor Malachi Throne as Niccolò Machiavelli, who has been time-displaced to the Battle of Gettysburg. The character's personality and behaviour seem to portray Cesare Borgia rather than Machiavelli himself, suggesting that the writers may have confused the two.

Machiavelli is played by Damian Lewis in the 2013 BBC radio play The Prince written by Jonathan Myerson. Together with his defence attorney Lucrezia Borgia (Helen McCrory), he presents examples from history to the devil to support his political theories and appeal his sentence in Hell.

The historical novel The City of Man (2009) by author Michael Harrington fully portrays the complex personalities of the two main characters—Girolamo Savonarola and a formative Niccolò Machiavelli—in opposition during the turbulent last decade of 15th century Florence. The portrayal of Machiavelli draws from his later writings and observations of the chaotic events of his youth before rising from obscurity to be appointed as Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic at the age of twenty-nine, only one month after Savonarola's execution. Major characters include Lorenzo de' Medici, his son Piero, Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), Cesare Borgia (model for The Prince), Piero and Tommaso Soderini, Il Cronaca and the diarist, Luca Landucci.

The American rapper Tupac Shakur read Machiavelli while in prison and became greatly influenced by his work. Upon his release from prison, Tupac honored Machiavelli in 1996 by changing his own rap name from 2Pac to Makaveli.

In the 1993 crime drama A Bronx Tale, local mob boss Sonny tells his young protege Calogero that while he was doing a 10-year sentence in jail, he passed the time and stayed out of trouble by reading Machiavelli, whom he describes as "a famous writer from 500 years ago"—and then tells him how Machiavelli's philosophy, including his famous advice about how it is preferable for a leader to be feared rather than loved if he cannot be both—have made him a successful mob boss.

References

Najemy, John M. (2010). The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli. Cambridge University Press. p. 259.
"Niccolo Machiavelli - Italian statesman and writer".
"Niccolò Machiavelli".
"Niccolò Machiavelli". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
Smith, Gregory B. (2008). Between Eternities: On the Tradition of Political Philosophy, Past, Present, and Future. Lexington Books. p. 65. ISBN 9780739120774.
Whelan, Frederick G. (2004). Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought. Lexington Books. p. 29. ISBN 9780739106310.
Strauss is most notable for this description. (15 October 1988). What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies. University of Chicago Press. p. 41. ISBN 9780226777139.
Najemy, John M. (15 January 2019). Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513-1515. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691656649.
"Niccolo Machiavelli | Biography, Books, Philosophy, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
Cassirer, Ernst (1946). The Myth of the State. Yale University Press. pp. 141–145. ISBN 9780300000368.
For example, The Prince chap. 15, and The Discourses Book I, chapter 9
Strauss, Leo; Cropsey, Joseph (15 June 2012). History of Political Philosophy. University of Chicago Press. p. 297. ISBN 9780226924717.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
Mansfield, Harvey C. (25 February 1998). Machiavelli's Virtue. University of Chicago Press. p. 178. ISBN 9780226503721.
Giorgini, Giovanni (2013). "Five Hundred Years of Italian Scholarship on Machiavelli's Prince". Review of Politics. 75 (4): 625–40. doi:10.1017/S0034670513000624.
Harvey Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov, "Introduction to the Discourses". In their translation of the Discourses on Livy
de Grazia (1989)
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Niccolò Machiavelli" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Guarini (1999:21)
Maurizio Viroli, Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli (2000), ch 1
Ridolfi, Roberto (17 June 2013). The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli. Routledge. p. 28. ISBN 9781135026615.
"Niccolo Machiavelli | Biography, Books, Philosophy, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
This point is made especially in The Prince, Chap XII
Viroli, Maurizio (9 January 2002). Niccolo's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli. Macmillan. p. 105. ISBN 9780374528003.
Skinner, Quentin (12 October 2000). Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford. p. 36. ISBN 9780191540349.
Donno, Daniel, in the introduction to the Bantam Classic edition of The Prince (1966)
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1996), Machiavelli and his friends: Their personal correspondence, Northern Illinois University Press. Translated and edited by James B. Atkinson and David Sices.
Joshua Kaplan, "Political Theory: The Classic Texts and their Continuing Relevance," The Modern Scholar (14 lectures in the series; lecture #7 / disc 4), 2005
"Even such men as Malatesta and Machiavelli, after spending their lives in estrangement from the Church, sought on their death-beds her assistance and consolations. Both made good confessions and received the Holy Viaticum." - Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes, Vol. 5, p. 137,
^ Fischer (2000)
Mansfield, Harvey C. (25 February 1998). Machiavelli's Virtue. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226503721.
Skinner, Quentin (30 November 1978). The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 1, The Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521293372.
Pocock, J. G. A. (20 September 2016). The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400883516.
^ Strauss (1958)
Paul Anthony Rahe, Against throne and altar: Machiavelli and political theory under the English Republic (2008) p. 282
Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relations (2000) p. 68
^ Joshua Kaplan (2005). "Political Theory: The Classic Texts and their Continuing Relevance". The Modern Scholar. 14 lectures in the series; (lectures #7) – see disc 4
Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy (1987) p. 300
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chap 17
Strauss, Leo (4 July 2014). Thoughts on Machiavelli. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226230979.
Leo Strauss. Leo Strauss "Thoughts On Machiavelli". p. 9.
Carritt, e f (1949). Benedetto Croce My Philosophy.
Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State, (1946) p. 136, online
"When Isms go to War | StratBlog". web.archive.org. 29 October 2013. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (27 February 2009). Discourses on Livy. University of Chicago Press. p. 131. ISBN 9780226500331.
Mansfield, Harvey (1998) Machiavelli's Virtue, page 233
Machiavelli, Niccolò (27 February 2009). Discourses on Livy, Book 1, Chapter 11-15. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226500331.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (15 May 2010). The Prince: Second Edition. University of Chicago Press. pp. 69–71. ISBN 9780226500508.
Especially in the Discourses III.30, but also The Prince Chap.VI
Strauss (1987, p. 314)
See for example Strauss (1958, p. 206).
Strauss (1958, p. 231)
Mansfield (1993)
Bireley (1990, p. 241)
Fischer (2000, p. 94)
"Definition of MACHIAVELLIAN". merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
Rahe, Paul A. (14 November 2005). Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy. Cambridge University Press. pp. xxxvi. ISBN 978-1-139-44833-8.
"Definition of Machiavellianism". Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
Bireley, Robert (1990), The Counter Reformation Prince, p. 14
Bireley (1990:15)
Haitsma Mulier (1999:248) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFHaitsma_Mulier1999 (help)
While Bireley focuses on writers in the Catholic countries, Haitsma Mulier (1999) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFHaitsma_Mulier1999 (help) makes the same observation, writing with more of a focus upon the Protestant Netherlands.
The first English edition was A Discourse upon the meanes of wel governing and maintaining in good peace, a Kingdome, or other principalitie, translated by Simon Patericke.
Bireley (1990:17)
Bireley (1990:18)
Bireley (1990:223–30)
Kennington (2004), Rahe (2006)
Bireley (1990:17): "Jean Bodin's first comments, found in his Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, published in 1566, were positive."
Bacon wrote: "We are much beholden to Machiavelli and other writers of that class who openly and unfeignedly declare or describe what men do, and not what they ought to do." "II.21.9", Of the Advancement of Learning. See Kennington (2004) Chapter 4.
Rahe (2006) chapter 6.
Worden (1999) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFWorden1999 (help)
"Spinoza's Political Philosophy". Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |encyclopedia= ignored (help)
Danford "Getting Our Bearings: Machiavelli and Hume" in Rahe (2006).
Schaefer (1990)
Kennington (2004), chapter 11.
Barnes Smith "The Philosophy of Liberty: Locke's Machiavellian Teaching" in Rahe (2006).
Carrese "The Machiavellian Spirit of Montesquieu's Liberal Republic" in Rahe (2006). Shklar "Montesquieu and the new republicanism" in Bock (1999) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFBock1999 (help).
Worden (1999) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFWorden1999 (help)
John P. McCormick, Machiavellian democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011) p. 23
Rahe (2006)
Walling "Was Alexander Hamilton a Machiavellian Statesman?" in Rahe (2006).
Harper (2004) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFHarper2004 (help)
Spalding "The American Prince? George Washington's Anti-Machiavellian moment" in Rahe (2006)
^ Thompson (1995)
Marcia Landy, "Culture and Politics in the work of Antonio Gramsci," 167–88, in Antonio Gramsci: Intellectuals, Culture, and the Party, ed. James Martin (New York: Routledge, 2002).
Stalin: A Biography By Robert Service, p.10
Review by Jann Racquoi, Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan, 14 March 1979.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1532). The Prince. Italy. pp. 120–21.
Machiavelli The Prince, Chapter III
Machiavelli's Virtue
The Prince, Chapter XVIII, "In What Mode Should Faith Be Kept By Princes"
The Prince. especially Chapters 3, 5 and 8
Discourse on Political Economy: opening pages.
Berlin, Isaiah. "The Originality of Machiavelli" (PDF). Retrieved 18 October 2012.
This point made most notably by Strauss (1958).
Mansfield, Harvey C. (25 February 1998). Machiavelli's Virtue. University of Chicago Press. pp. 228–229. ISBN 9780226503721.
Mansfield, Harvey C. (15 April 2001). Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226503707.
"Discourses on Livy: Book 1, Chapter 18". www.constitution.org. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (27 February 2009). Discourses on Livy: Book One, Chapter 9. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226500331.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (27 February 2009). Discourses on Livy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226500331.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (27 February 2009). Discourses on Livy: Book One, Chapter 16. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226500331.
Rahe, Paul A. (14 November 2005). Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy. Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781139448338.
Hulliung, Mark (5 July 2017). Citizen Machiavelli. Routledge. ISBN 9781351528481.
Pocock (1975, pp. 183–219)
The Modern Library, New York, 1950, translated by Christian E. Detmold.
"First-time Machiavelli translation debuts at Yale". yaledailynews.com.
Godman (1998, p. 240). Also see Black (1999, pp. 97–98)
Students' Academy (12 November 2014). Literature Help: The Jew of Malta. Lulu.com. p. 5. ISBN 9781312671249.
"Jew of Malta, The by MARLOWE, Christopher". Player FM. 2016. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
Yelegaonkar, Dr. Shirkant (2009). Western Thinker's in Political Science. Lulu.com. p. 130. ISBN 9781329082779.
Knickerbocker, Joan L. (15 March 2017). Literature for Young Adults: Books (and More) for Contemporary Readers. Routledge. p. 355. ISBN 9781351813020.
^ Maclaine, David. "City of God by Cecelia Holland". Historicalnovels.info. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
"The Tudors Season 1 Episode 2 – Simply Henry". The Anne Boleyn Files. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
Smith, Lucinda (25 July 2017). "An epic for our times: How Game of Thrones reached highbrow status". Prospect. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
Ashurst, Sam (20 July 2017). "The 7 most wildly inaccurate historical dramas on TV". Digital Spy. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
Yelegaonkar, Dr. Shrikant (2009). Western Thinker's in Political Science. Lulu.com. p. 131. ISBN 9781329082779.
Leonardo BBC
Jonathan Jones (16 April 2013). "Da Vinci's Demons: the new TV show that totally reinvents Leonardo's life". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
"BBC Radio 4 – Saturday Drama, The Prince". BBC.
Briceño, Norberto. "28 Things You Didn't Know About Tupac Shakur". Buzzfeed. Retrieved 4 October 2015.

External links

"Machiavelli, Niccolò" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 233–237.
Niccolò Machiavelli | Biography | Encyclopedia Britannica
Machiavelli, Niccolò- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Macchiavelli" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. 1921. p. 53.
Niccolò Machiavelli, History.com
Who was Niccolò Machiavelli? Mises Institute
William R. Everdell's article "From State to Free-State: The Meaning of the Word Republic from Jean Bodin to John Adams" with extensive discussion of Machiavelli
full text books from the Liberty Fund, a conservative think tank
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
Works by Niccolò Machiavelli at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Niccolò Machiavelli at the Internet Archive
Works by Niccolò Machiavelli at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Machiavelli at the Marxists Internet Archive, including some of his works
Works by Niccolò Machiavelli: text, concordances and frequency list
Short biography of Niccolo Machiavelli
Works of Machiavelli: Italian and English text
Machiavelli on the Online Library Of Liberty
Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli's Prince and Discourses
Machiavelli and the Italian City on the BBC's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg; with Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge; Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London; Lisa Jardine, Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London
University of Adelaide's full texts of Machiavelli's works

v t e Niccolò Machiavelli
As a dramatist Timeline
Historical and political works	Discourse on Pisa On the Method of Dealing with the Rebellious Peoples of Valdichiana The Description Discourse about the Provision of Money Report on the state of Germany Discourse on Reforming the Government of Florence Life of Castruccio Castracani Florentine Histories The Art of War The Prince Discourses on Livy
Imaginative works	The Second Decade Andria The Mandrake Clizia Belfagor arcidiavolo The Golden Ass
Concepts	Realpolitik Virtù Political realism Republicanism
Category:Works by Niccolò Machiavelli

Social philosophy

Concepts

Schools

Philosophers

Ancient	Augustine Cicero Confucius Lactantius Laozi Mencius Mozi Origen Philo Plato Polybius Tertullian Thucydides Xunzi
Medieval	Alpharabius Aquinas Avempace Bruni Dante Gelasius Ibn Khaldun Maimonides Muhammad Photios Plethon Ibn Tufayl
Early modern	Calvin Erasmus Guicciardini Locke Luther Milton Montaigne Müntzer
18th and 19th centuries	Arnold Bentham Bonald Burke Carlyle Comte Condorcet Emerson Engels Fichte Fourier Franklin Hegel Helvétius Herder Hume Jefferson Kant Kierkegaard Le Bon Le Play Marx Mill Nietzsche Owen Renan Rousseau Royce Ruskin Smith Spencer de Staël Stirner Taine Thoreau Tocqueville Vico Vivekananda Voltaire
20th and 21st centuries	Adorno Agamben Arendt Aron Badiou Baudrillard Bauman Benoist Berlin Butler Camus de Beauvoir Debord Deleuze Dewey Du Bois Durkheim Eco Evola Foucault Fromm Gandhi Gehlen Gentile Gramsci Guénon Habermas Han Heidegger Hoppe Irigaray Kirk Kołakowski Kropotkin Land Lasch MacIntyre Marcuse Maritain Negri Niebuhr Nussbaum Oakeshott Ortega Pareto Polanyi Radhakrishnan Röpke Santayana Scruton Shariati Simmel Skinner Sombart Sowell Spengler Taylor Voegelin Walzer Weber Weil Zinn Žižek

Works

De Officiis (44 BC)
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Democracy in America (1835–1840)
Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
The Second Sex (1949)
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The Society of the Spectacle (1967)
The History of Sexuality (1976)
The Culture of Narcissism (1979)
A Conflict of Visions (1987)
The Closing of the American Mind (1987)
Gender Trouble (1990)
The Malaise of Modernity (1991)
Intellectuals and Society (2010)

Misplaced Pages

Life

Originality

Coherence

Influences

Beliefs

Empiricism and realism versus idealism

Fortune

Religion

Positive side to factional and individual vice

Machiavellian

Influence

20th century

Revival of interest in the comedies

Works

The Prince

Discourses on Livy

Other political and historical works

Fictional works

Other works

In popular culture

See also

References

Further reading

Biographies

Political thought

Italian studies

Editions

External links