Niccolo Machiavelli

I make some proposals regarding which paradoxes Dr. Johnson was referring to in a preface.

Even if political theorists rarely read him, Italian political thinker, Marsilius of Padua, presents one of the most radical theories of the multitude prior to Machiavelli and Spinoza. This article...

In this book, Peter Ahrensdorf explores an overlooked but crucial role that Homer played in the thought of Plato, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche concerning, notably, the relationship between politics, religion, and philosophy; and in their debates about human nature, morality, the proper education for human excellence, and the best way of life. By studying Homer in conjunction with these three political philosophers, Ahrensdorf demonstrates that Homer was himself a philosophical thinker and educator. He presents the full force of Plato's critique of (...) Homer and the paramount significance of Plato's achievement in winning honor for philosophy. Ahrensdorf also makes possible an appreciation of the powerful concerns expressed by Machiavelli and Nietzsche regarding that achievement. By uncovering and bringing to life the rich philosophic conversation among these four foundational thinkers, Ahrensdorf shows that there are many ways of living a philosophic life. His book broadens and deepens our understanding of what a philosopher is. (shrink)

Machiavelli's ideas are as important in our time as in his own. His insights and prescriptions help us make sense of today's political upheavals and natural calamities and reduce them to a working order. The chapters in Machiavelli Then and Now explore Machiavelli's central concerns: statecraft and order, liberty and citizenship, diplomacy and leadership, modes of strategization, the quest for empire - all set against the basic contention between autarchy, oligarchy and democracy. They also address the ethical and behaviourial factors (...) behind political practice, such as force, suasion, ambition, corruption and vigilance in public discourse. The contributors consider the role of language, text and the imagination in Machiavelli, and they also bring the Machiavellian discourse closer to our own times, in relation to Gandhi, Gramsci and Althusser. The book will interest historians, political scientists and students of public policy; philosophers, rhetoricians and literary critics; and no less institution builders, diplomats and, administrators. (shrink)

Who is Lucrezia, the mysterious woman at the center of Machiavelli’s comic play Mandragola? And why is she deemed “fit to govern a kingdom”? This article revisits these questions with attention to Mandragola’s sophisticated, and often irreverent, allusions to Roman source materials. While scholars have long recognized that Mandragola draws on Roman history and drama, its sustained engagement with Lucretian and Ovidian poetry has gone largely unnoticed. In what follows, I trace these allusions and show how Machiavelli uses them to (...) bring into view the fertility of erotic desire. Mandragola is replete with Lucretian phrases and imagery, but a close examination of these references indicates they are made playfully, and even satirically, in the style of Ovid’s Ars amatoria, a didactic elegy on the art of seduction that develops a mixed assessment of Epicurean teachings. Like Ovid, Machiavelli embraces the hedonism that motivates Epicureanism—but without accepting that happiness requires distancing ourselves from illusion. This departure allows both Ovid and Machiavelli to reassess the status of erotic desire. For Lucretius, erotic desire must be handled with extreme caution lest it entangle the mind in ruinous false beliefs and destroy the possibility of theoretical wisdom. Machiavelli, following Ovid, recommends a different course, in which happiness is achieved through the deliberate manipulation of erotic fantasy. For Machiavelli, staging erotic fantasies is an essential part of statecraft. (shrink)

In Machiavelli’s Prince there appears to be a link between Chap.IX on the civil principality and the hope for a unification of Italy by a new prince – a theme presented in the final Exhortation. In both sections, Machiavelli’s unusual lack of historical illustrations suggests the hypothesis that the civil principality and the new prince play a symbolic function. The reading here proposed argues that there is an ideal relation between Machiavelli’s Prince and the Discourses on Livy regarding the opportunity (...) of a regime change from popular principality to Republic. The possibility to switch from one form of government to the other is due to Machiavelli’s idealizations of the civil principality and the new prince. Accordingly, it is argued that Machiavelli’s method follows a strategy of mythologizing realism. In the civil principality the tension between the new prince and his people is not resolved, nor that between the plebs and the nobles. The paper concludes that Machiavelli emphasis on ‘the solitude’ of the prince is what ultimately justifies a transition from the civil principality to the Republic. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the meaning and function of Lycurgus in Machiavelli’s thought. While the exemplarity of the mythical Spartan legislator progressively fades in Machiavelli’s thought in favour of the Roman model, Lycurgus’ reforms are central in Machiavelli’s works on two issues of primary importance: wealth and land distribution. First, I analyse Machiavelli’s use of the ancient sources on both Lycurgus and other Spartan legislators to show how the former builds a selective and strategically balanced reading of the ancient (...) sources to build an image of the latter as a pro-popular ruler and of the subsequent Spartan reformers as followers not only of the mythical legislator generally, but also of his most controversial and popularly oriented attempts to reform property ownership in ancient Sparta. Lycurgus reveals how Machiavelli, far from seeing mixed government as the best form of government, promotes a strongly anti-aristocratic model. Second, I show that in Machiavelli’s thought the Spartan question can largely be seen as a background for his reading of Roman history, particularly its most crucial, conflictual and controversial period – that in which the Gracchi brothers’ attempted to achieve agrarian reform. (shrink)

Pese a que se trata de una de las obras de Machiavelli menos conocidas y estudiadas en la actualidad, el tratado Dell’arte della guerra encontró una rápida difusión en la Europa de su siglo. Publicada en París en 1546, la obra fue analizada críticamente algunas décadas más tarde en la versión definitiva del Discours d’Estat contre Machiavel del jurista calvinista Innocent Gentillet. Sintetizando los argumentos que Gentillet ofreció en este tratado frente al ejército de milicias ciudadanas propuesto por Machiavelli, mostramos (...) su interrelación con las críticas dirigidas por el hugonote al resto de escritos maquiavelianos. Se trata, de acuerdo a nuestra interpretación, de la primera crítica sistemática al pensamiento político y social de Machiavelli. Al mismo tiempo, supone la respuesta virulenta de la Francia nobiliaria al republicanismo neo-romano defendido por el florentino. (shrink)

Nevertheless' comprises essays on Machiavelli and on Pascal. The ambivalent connection between the two parts is embodied by the comma in the subtitle: Machiavelli, Pascal. Is this comma a conjunction or a disjunction? In fact, both. Ginzburg approaches Machiavelli's work from the perspective of casuistry, or case-based ethical reasoning. For as Machiavelli indicated through his repeated use of the adverb nondimanco, there is an exception to every rule. Such a perspective may seem to echo the traditional image of Machiavelli as (...) a cynical, "machiavellian" thinker. But a close analysis of Machiavelli the reader, as well as of the ways in which some of Machiavelli's most perceptive readers read his work, throws a different light on Machiavelli the writer. The same hermeneutic strategy inspires the essays on the Provinciales, Pascal's ferocious attack against Jesuitical casuistry. Casuistry vs anti-casuistry; Machiavelli's secular attitude towards religion vs Pascal's deep religiosity. We are confronted, apparently, with two completely different worlds. But Pascal read Machiavelli, and reflected deeply upon his work. A belated, contemporary echo of this reading can unveil the complex relationship between Machiavelli and Pascal - their divergences as well as their unexpected convergences. (shrink)

In his Epistle to the Pisos, Horace advises aspiring playwrights to use their work to teach and delight,1 a dictum that has resonated down through the ages and has been referred to as the "Horatian platitude."2 In the preface to his comedy Clizia, Niccolò Machiavelli echoes Horace: "Comedies were discovered in order to benefit and to delight the spectators. Truly it is a great benefit to any man, and especially to a youth, to know the avarice of an old man, (...) the passion of a lover, the tricks of a servant, the gluttony of a parasite, the misery of a pauper, the ambition of one who's rich, the flatteries of a whore, the untrustworthiness of all men."3And what of Machiavelli's Mandragola?... (shrink)

Apocalypse, it seems, is everywhere. Preachers with vast followings proclaim the world's end and apocalyptic fears grip even the non-religious amid climate change, pandemics, and threats of nuclear war. But as these ideas pervade popular discourse, grasping their logic remains elusive. Ben Jones argues that we can gain insight into apocalyptic thought through secular thinkers. He starts with a puzzle: Why would secular thinkers draw on Christian apocalyptic beliefs--often dismissed as bizarre--to interpret politics? The apocalyptic tradition proves appealing in part (...) because it theorizes a special relation between crisis and utopia. Apocalyptic thought points to crisis as the vehicle to bring the previously impossible within reach, thus offering apparent resources for navigating challenges in ideal theory, which tries to imagine the best and most just society. By examining apocalyptic thought's appeal and risks, this study arrives at new insights on the limits of ideal theory and utopian hope. (shrink)

Analyzing the multifaceted receptions of Machiavelli from early modernity to the present history of Northeast Asia, this book explores a better East-West dialogue through which Machiavelli's political philosophy can be appropriated properly in Northeast Asian practices. This book will be attractive to scholars in political philosophy, history, political theory, comparative philosophy, and area studies focused on East Asia, as well as scholars working in the field of comparative literature.

This article explores the legacy of Aristotle's advice for the preservation of tyrannies found in Politics Book 5, Chapter 11 on the formation of medieval and Renaissance fiscal literature. The tyrant's economic techniques for preserving his regime established commonplaces of fiscal governance in the medieval commentary and mirrors-for-princes tradition. Authors' engagement with the legacy of this passage led to controversial treatments of a ruler's disposition toward the moral virtue of liberality. Machiavelli's intervention over the danger of liberality to the fiscal (...) governance of the state needs to be placed in this longer context. (shrink)

This essay interprets Machiavelli’s famous letter to Francesco Vettori in terms of a play-element that runs across his works. The letter to Vettori is a masterpiece of epistolary form, but beyond its most memorable passage, where Machiavelli recounts his evening in study, it has not received much scholarly attention. Reading the letter in its entirety is to discover Machiavelli’s account of an eclectic political education and the pleasures of playing with others. Machiavelli’s letter speaks to a basic ludicity in his (...) political thinking, in which play is not opposed to the serious, and diverse play forms can be thought together. Hans-George Gadamer’s Truth and Method, Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, and Roger Caillois’s Man, Play, and Games provide resources for reconstructing this play-element in Machiavelli’s thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The Discourse on Florentine Affairs contains a proposal for constitutional reform in which Machiavelli directly addresses Pope Giovanni de’ Medici. With the aim of contributing to the recent radical republican readings of Machiavelli, this paper argues that the best way to understand the Discourse is to read it as an example of Machiavelli’s use of irony. Machiavelli disguises his radical republican ideas in the Discourse with paradoxes, omissions and implausible reforms that, though clearly leaning towards a popular republic, are (...) presented as part of the oligarchic or princely option that was defended by the Medici. His subtle critique of the Medici’s client-based politics, his implicit rejection of the oligarchic mixed regime, his description of the institution of such pro-popular magistrates as the Provosts and the Gonfaloniers of the Companies of the People, make one suspect that Machiavelli is hiding a disguised preference towards a popular, rather than a mixed, republic. (shrink)

The article examines Quentin Skinner's influential interpretation of Machiavelli's views on liberty, and the sharp divergence between his methodological ideas and his actual practice. The paper explores how Skinner's political ideals directed his interpretation against his own methodological precepts, to offer a basis for a ‘revival’ of republican theory. Skinner's reinterpretation of Machiavelli as a theorist of negative liberty is examined, and refuted. The article analyses Skinner's claim about liberty as the key political value for Machiavelli, and demonstrates that liberty (...) is secondary to empire on the list of Machiavelli's priorities. Skinner's vocabulary and efforts to tone down or ignore Machiavelli's more aggressive ideas are closely examined. The analysis offered in the article, it is suggested, has wider implications, showing the difficulty of applying contextualism in practice, by the very founder of this approach in the history of ideas. (shrink)

The author maintains that the subject of the treatise is the specific ideal form of a prince «al tutto nuovo» (of a completely new type) which appears in the sixth chapter. The paper highlights the logical development thanks to which the treatise identifies that form in that chapter, distinguishes it from the existing forms of prince in chapters VII-XI, describes the process of formation of his mind, and culminates the last chapter pointing out the possibility of its realization in history.

Machiavelli is known chiefly for The Prince, but his main considerations on politics are in his most profound and later work Discourses on Livy, the complexity, length and style of which have often discouraged new readers and interpreters of Machiavelli, despite its historical and theoretical importance. For this reason, the Discourses has not been given the attention it deserves. This volume of newly commissioned essays by some of the world's leading experts on Machiavelli overcomes this gap. It is the first (...) collective volume dedicated specifically to this work, ranging over topics such as Machiavelli's republicanism, the relation between liberty and tyranny, the role of religion, his conception of history, his writing style, his view of society as a plural and conflictive body, his suggestion of how a free state should be organized, or his notions of the people and virtù. Contributors include: Jérémie Barthas, Thomas Berns, Alessandro Campi, J. Patrick Coby, Marie Gaille, Marco Geuna, Mark Jurdjevic, Cary J. Nederman, Gabriele Pedullà, Diogo Pires Aurélio, Fabio Raimondi, Andre Santos Campos, Miguel Vatter, and Camila Vergara. (shrink)

Während eines zweimonatigen Aufenthalts in der Schweiz im Sommer 1836, hat Tocqueville einige kurze Aufzeichnungen zu Machiavelli gemacht, dessen Gesamtwerk er in einer in den Jahren 1823–1826 erschienenen zwölfbändigen französischen Übersetzung besaß – in seiner Bibliothek hatte er auch eine dreibändige italienische Ausgabe. Die Begegnung mit Machiavelli in der Schweiz mag zwar, wie Richter es formuliert, kurz gewesen sein, aber sie war nachhaltig, und man kann nicht nur Kimpell zustimmen, die in Machiavellis Schriften Lösungen für die Tocquevillesche Problematiken zu finden (...) glaubt, sondern man kann auch mit Mansfield und Winthrop von einem Tocquevilleschen Machiavellismus sprechen. Auf jeden Fall geht es Tocqueville ebenso wie Machiavelli um die, wie Zuckert sie nennt, »effective truth«, um die Welt, wie sie wirklich ist, und nicht, wie man sie sich ideal vorstellt. (shrink)

The purpose of this succinct work is to present N. Machiavelli's classic republican view from his proposition of an inevitable paradox, the founding of an expansionist republic, difficult to govern, or the founding of a stable, but small and weak republic. Such a paradox, according to Machiavelli, should direct and condition all the constitutive devices of the republic when choosing what will be its destiny as a political body. The model of republic preferred by the Florentine will be the expansionist (...) model of Rome, leading him to assume all the devices that gave this republic its power. From this presentation of the Machiavellian proposition, we will analyse the assimilation of republican thought in England from the Elizabethan period, as well as the political-social scenario that exists there. This itinerary will allow us to understand, in general, why classical republicanism was received on English soil from the perspective of establishing a mixed, stable government, thus favouring the spread of the Venice myth as a serene republic and delaying the use, even that mitigated, of the republican presuppositions expressed in the Machiavellian work that directed towards a Roman model. (shrink)

While most scholars who have discussed the letters of Elisabeth and Descartes exchanged in 1646 on the subject of the Prince focused on Descartes, whether he was Machiavellian or not, I shall deal here more in depth with the position of Elisabeth. I shall address then four main points: the so-called “methodological” question raised by Descartes about the Prince and quickly dismissed by Elisabeth; the issue of political realism, that is one of the great themes of Machiavelli’s thought; the problem (...) of the “good man,” namely whether and how the natural law can bind in a “wicked” world; Elisabeth’s focus on the passions against Descartes’s political and providential mereology. Finally, I shall try to draw some more general conclusions as regards the place of Elisabeth in the broader context of seventeenth century political philosophy, especially in regard to Hobbes. (shrink)

Original scholarly essays by leading philosophers, which bring to life Machiavelli’s lengthiest and most challenging work.

Vprašanje kontinuitete med etiko in politiko je civilni živec renesančnega humanizma v historični ontogenezi, ki se začne s Salutatijem, razvija s Ficinom in sklepa z Machiavellijem. Tragično sirensko petje človeškega bivanja vseskozi zapeljuje, a nikdar ne preglasi vzgornih upov k praksi usmerjene človeškosti, ki spekulacijo uresničuje skozi dejavnost, kontemplacijo udejanja skozi politiko, sveto izpričuje skozi posvetnost. Humanistična duhovna in filozofska prenova ciceronskega nauka o dobrem delovanju na pragu modernosti nemirno, pa vendar srečno pripelje antropološko vexata quaestio skozi Scilo in Karibdo (...) družbene etike, nihajoče med jajcem in jabolkom Salutatijevega voluntarističnega optimizma, Ficinovega novoplatonizma in Machiavellijevega antropološkega pesimizma, med zemljo, nebom in breznom. Civilni humanizem še danes budi in bodri vse, ki se v somraku človeškosti še trudijo služiti kvalificiranemu življenju. (shrink)

Machiavelli’s historical writings, notably the Discourses on Livy and the Florentine Histories, continued the tradition of the humanist historical enterprise. They were informed by th...

In a series of poignant vignettes, a preeminent historian makes a compelling case for Machiavelli as an unjustly maligned figure with valuable political insights that resonate as strongly today as they did in his time. Whenever a tempestuous period in history begins, Machiavelli is summoned, because he is known as one for philosophizing in dark times. In fact, since his death in 1527, we have never ceased to read him to pull ourselves out of torpors. But what do we really (...) know about this man apart from the term invented by his detractors to refer to that political evil, Machiavellianism? It was Machiavelli's luck to be disappointed by every statesman he encountered throughout his life--that was why he had to write The Prince. If the book endeavors to dissociate political action from common morality, the question still remains today, not why, but for whom Machiavelli wrote. For princes, or for those who want to resist them? Is the art of governing to take power or to keep it? And what is "the people?" Can they govern themselves? Beyond cynical advice for the powerful, Machiavelli meditates profoundly on the idea of popular sovereignty, because the people know best who oppresses them. With verve and a delightful erudition, Patrick Boucheron sheds light on the life and works of this unclassifiable visionary, illustrating how we can continue to use him as a guide in times of crisis. (shrink)

In a series of poignant vignettes, a preeminent historian makes a compelling case for Machiavelli as an unjustly maligned figure with valuable political insights that resonate as strongly today as they did in his time. Whenever a tempestuous period in history begins, Machiavelli is summoned, because he is known as one for philosophizing in dark times. In fact, since his death in 1527, we have never ceased to read him to pull ourselves out of torpors. But what do we really (...) know about this man apart from the term invented by his detractors to refer to that political evil, Machiavellianism? It was Machiavelli's luck to be disappointed by every statesman he encountered throughout his life--that was why he had to write The Prince. If the book endeavors to dissociate political action from common morality, the question still remains today, not why, but for whom Machiavelli wrote. For princes, or for those who want to resist them? Is the art of governing to take power or to keep it? And what is "the people?" Can they govern themselves? Beyond cynical advice for the powerful, Machiavelli meditates profoundly on the idea of popular sovereignty, because the people know best who oppresses them. With verve and a delightful erudition, Patrick Boucheron sheds light on the life and works of this unclassifiable visionary, illustrating how we can continue to use him as a guide in times of crisis. (shrink)

Profonda magia è un percorso a ritroso nella filosofia naturale e politica di Giordano Bruno, che ricostruisce la nozione di vincolo dagli ultimi scritti magici ai dialoghi italiani e alle prime opere latine. L’esigenza che muove la ricerca è quella di rintracciare nell’esperienza intellettuale e biografica del Nolano quale sia e come si costituisca la relazione tra filosofia naturale e politica. L’autore indaga se la riflessione politica possa essere slegata dallo studio della natura, o se trovi piuttosto la sua origine (...) e il suo sviluppo nel cuore stesso della physis. Per compiere quest’operazione egli isola e analizza quale sia la funzione che la nozione di vincolo assume tra la riflessione filosofico naturalistica e politico-antropologica. Ne risulta una ridefinizione della magia che è profonda non perché tesa verso il prodigioso, l’occulto e il soprannaturale, ma perché è la natura stessa, forza vincolante che lega e riconduce i suoi molteplici volti alla sua infinita unità. (shrink)

'A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and place. A monumental achievement.' - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors. 'A notorious fiend', 'generally odious', 'he seems hideous, and so he is.' Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he (...) not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures and personal dramas? Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought. He also reveals the world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, from the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai gardens, where he would begin work on some of his last great works. As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee's gripping and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli's world - and his work - more completely than ever before. (shrink)

Die in diesem Buch vorgestellten Theorien der Herrschaft zielen auf die Sozialbeziehungen und deren Legitimität. Sie beginnen mit Niccolo Machiavelli, in dessen Denken der Staat eine ähnlich zentrale Position einnimmt wie in den Vertragstheorien des neuzeitlichen Naturrechts von Thomas Hobbes und Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Von Bedeutung wird dabei die politische Machbarkeit der staatlichen Institutionen, die Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels, aber auch Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno kritisch hinterfragen. Zuvor haben Max Weber und Robert Michels den charismatischen beziehungsweise den faschistischen (...) Führerstaat mit Nachdruck propagiert. Insgesamt eine von der kritischen Politischen Philosophie her motivierte Ideengeschichte. (shrink)