Module 4

Overview

In this module, you focus on developments north of the Alps, as the culture of the Renaissance spread beyond the boundaries of Italy to influence the broader society and culture of Europe. You study the development of the territorial monarchies of Northern Europe and their state building and how these eventually influenced Renaissance politics. In particular, you learn about Renaissance statecraft, including its analysis by the famous political theorist of the time, Niccolò Machiavelli, in his famous treatise, The Prince.

Module OutcomesBy the end of this module, you will be able to:

Identify the major developments and features of Renaissance politics and statecraft in Italy and the broader European world

Appraise the effect of the political development of the major European monarchical states on the political situation in Italy and the disruption of the Italian state system

Analyze Machiavelli’s The Prince, focusing on its contribution to the development of political thought and theory and its analysis of Renaissance statecraft and diplomacy

Course OutcomesThe course outcomes that will be addressed in this module are:

Course Outcome 1: Critique multiple historical and theoretical viewpoints that provide perspective on the past. (History Program Outcome 2)

Course Outcome 2: Discuss a major theme in ethics, philosophy, religion, or spirituality in the European Renaissance.

Course Outcome 3: Analyze the main events, persons, institutions, trends, and developments that are involved in the history of the Renaissance.

Course Outcome 5: Apply credible sources and/or evidence appropriately for the communication task and context (Gen. Ed. Outcome 1.3)

Please complete the items below, due at the end of this module, unless otherwise stated.

Read the following:

Module Notes: The Northern Monarchies and their Expansion Zophy, Jonathan W. A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Boston:

Pearson. 2009 4th ed., Chapter 8 of the Zophy textbook Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince. Translated by Peter Bondanella, Oxford, GBR :

Oxford, 2005. (eISBN: 9780191516818)

Additional resources (required):

“The End of the Renaissance”, [Video File] [58 min 36 sec] directed by Roger Parsons, produced by Parsons, Roger. Copyright © 1999 BBC Worldwide Ltd. I have this in digits as well if you like.

Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527 . Retrieved from The History Guide, Lectures on Modern European History. October 22, 2013.

Participate in the following discussions:

M4D1: State Building North of the Alps M4D2: Machiavelli and the Successful Ruler

Submit the following:

M4A1 Essay 2: The Prince, Its Purpose and Political Thought

The society and culture of the Italian Renaissance resulted, to a large degree, from the independence that the Italian peninsula enjoyed for much of the 15th century from the political interference of the large monarchical states north of the Alps, and from the development of a general balance of power situation that was negotiated by the major Italian states in the Peace of Lodi of 1454. This situation prevented major conflicts in Italy and allowed for the flourishing of the arts and culture in cities such as Florence and eventually Rome, Venice, and beyond. But, in 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died. In 1494, the French invaded Italy, invited in by the Duke of Milan, who sought an ally against the Republic of Venice. The Medici were overthrown, and with that, their patronage of the arts was lost, as well. Florence became a republic from 1494 to 1512, and Niccolo Machiavelli was a major figure in the Florentine Republic until it was overthrown, in turn, and the Medici returned. The Renaissance was essentially over in Florence by then, but its influence was far from gone and had by then begun to spread north to the rest of Europe.

The political culture of the Italian city-states during the Renaissance gave rise to a unique diversity of political forms, but also revived the study of classical political theory and its application to the contemporary political world. With Niccolò Machiavelli, who was not only a classicist and humanist, but an actual diplomat and political figure in the Florentine Republic, the theory and study of statecraft and state building would reach its highest expression. In fact, Machiavelli is credited as being the first person to use the modern word “state” (stato) for the first time in history. Yet, while he was a republican and an enemy of the Medici, he wrote a complex and problematic guide to princes advocating a shocking amorality in politics that troubles readers even today. But, Machiavelli was aware of political developments north of the Alps, and his worst fears came true as the Northern European monarchies interfered with Italian politics, beginning with the French invasion of 1494.

The culture of the Italian Renaissance, depending on various views, lasted between 50 and100 years during a brief period in Italian history when the Italian peninsula was free from foreign interference in its politics. By the end of the 15th century, though, most scholars would agree that the glory days were over. But, by then, the influences of the Italian Renaissance had begun

to spread to Northern Europe, where the ideas of the Renaissance humanists and artists were reshaped and modified to fit different social, political, and economic realities.

After you have completed your reading, move to the first discussion on state building north of the Alps.

While the Italian city-states avoided major conflict as a result of the Peace of Lodi of 1454, further north in Europe and on the Iberian Peninsula, the larger European monarchical states were engaged in warfare and state building to some degree or another, and often warfare was directly associated with such efforts. These efforts kept them occupied and generally out of Italian political affairs, giving the Italian peninsula the breathing room to develop culturally and otherwise. But, in 1492, the same year Lorenzo the Magnificent died, Ferdinand and Isabella consolidated their power in a final victory over the Moors and united Spain under their rule. Two years later, the French invaded Italy and changed the political situation there for years to come.

After reading and viewing the assigned material, include the following in your initial post:

Compare and assess the efforts that the monarchies of France, Spain, and England made to create strong, centralized states during the 15th century. How does the Holy Roman Empire compare to these states? Which state do you think was most successful during this period and why? Include at least one additional resource other than the textbook in your post. Your post should be about 250 words.

After posting your initial response, choose the initial posts of least two of your classmates who focused on different “successful” states than you chose. Compare and contrast the methods your state and their states used to centralize.

Your initial post is due by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

Machiavelli was a Florentine historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, and humanist. He was also the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Florentine Republic from 1498-1512, responsible for diplomatic and military affairs for the republic. He was also the author of one of the most influential books on politics ever written and often viewed as the father of modern political science. But, for some scholars, he has been viewed as a “teacher of evil” for his dispassionate analysis of the political behavior of his age and his espousal of an amoral political behavior. Yet, his The Prince, although a short book, is a very complex one, and scholars are still trying to understand how a man with republican views could write a book supporting the immoral political behavior that he espouses in his book. Even more astonishing is its dedication to the Medici, who had already had him arrested and tortured before releasing him to the obscurity of his modest country home near Florence.

Based on your reading of The Prince, address the following in your initial post:

Discuss the concepts of evil, fortune, and virtue in Machiavelli’s state. How can a ruler be successful, according to Machiavelli? Include at least one additional resource other than the textbook in your post. Your post should be about 250 words.

After posting your initial response, choose the initial posts of least two of your classmates and express your personal opinion on any part of each post. Reminder: You must express yourself with tact and consideration of others.

Your initial post is due by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

In preparation for your essay, read Machiavelli’s The Prince carefully within the context of the political situation in Italy and north of the Alps. Also, study the additional readings for this module.

In a 4-6 page essay (1000-1500 words), develop your paper using the following as your guide:

What do you think Machiavelli advocates for in his The Prince? While The Prince appears simply a dispassionate study of political behavior, warts and all,

Machiavelli a supporter of republican government and Italian nationalist, also seems to support a particular point of view. What might he had in mind in advocating what he does advocate?

Although The Prince appears a very serious book, it contains some satire as well. What might be construed as satirical in Machiavelli's work?

Evaluate the book to determine Machiavelli’s purpose in writing it, and then convince your reader of your point of view by using direct quotations from the texts, where possible, to support your points.

Finally, address the book’s contribution to the development of political thought and theory and its analysis of Renaissance statecraft and diplomacy.

Support your opinions with properly cited information from your assigned reading and viewing.

Your essay should include:

An introduction, including a thesis sentence A body, in which you develop your topic and support your argument A conclusion highlighting the main points of your essay

We prefer you follow Kate Turabian’s A Manual for Writers for formatting citation and references, but APA is also acceptable. For assistance with formatting your paper in Turabian (Chicago style) or APA style, visit the library’s Citing Sources page:

Writing Help

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READING MATERIAL:Peace of Lodi of 1454

Peace of Lodi,  (April 9, 1454), treaty between Venice and Milan ending the war of succession to the Milanese duchy in favour of Francesco Sforza. It marked the beginning of a 40-year period of relative peace, during which power was balanced among the five states that dominated the Italian peninsula—Venice, Milan, Naples, Florence, and the Papal States.

Venice, faced with a threat to its commercial empire by the Ottoman Turks, was eager for peace in Italy. Sforza, a condottiere (mercenary general) who had been proclaimed duke by the people of Milan, also was eager to end the costly war. By the terms of the peace, Sforza was recognized as ruler of Milan, and Venice regained its considerable holdings in northern Italy, including Brescia and Bergamo. The other belligerents (Milan’s allies—Florence, Mantua, and Genoa—and Venice’s allies—Naples, Savoy, and Montferrat) had no choice but to acquiesce to the peace.

In conjunction with the treaty, a 25-year mutual defensive pact was concluded to maintain existing boundaries, and an Italian League (Lega Italica) was set up. The states of the league promised to defend one another in the event of attack and to support a contingent of soldiers to provide military aid. The league, officially proclaimed by Pope Nicholas V on March 2, 1455, was soon accepted by almost all the Italian states. Although the league was often renewed during the 15th century, the system was not entirely effective in preventing war, and individual states continued to pursue their own interests against others. The league definitely lapsed after the French invasion of the peninsula in 1494.

Lorenzo the Magnificent

Lorenzo de’ Medici, byname Lorenzo the Magnificent, Italian Lorenzo il Magnifico, (born January 1, 1449, Florence [Italy]—died April 9, 1492, Careggi, near Florence), Florentine statesman, ruler, and patron of arts and letters, the most brilliant of the Medici. He ruled Florence with his younger brother, Giuliano (1453–78), from 1469 to 1478 and, after the latter’s assassination, was sole ruler from 1478 to 1492.

Accession to powerUpon the death of his father, Piero de’ Medici, and his own accession to power, Lorenzo immediately let it be known that he intended to follow his father’s and grandfather’s example and “use constitutional methods as much as possible.” In saying this, he was, however, keeping up appearances. In 1471 the popular assemblies lost their financial powers. According to the historian Francesco Guicciardini’s apt definition, Lorenzo’s regime was “that of a benevolent tyrant in a constitutional republic.” It was, moreover, a tyranny tempered by the festivals that Florentines always loved passionately: carnivals, balls, tournaments, weddings, and princely receptions.

The Pazzi conspiracyThe Pazzi conspiracy in 1478 came as a rude shock to a carefree city. The Pazzi bank, in the course of a treacherous war in which the adversaries did not scruple to use the most devious methods, had taken the business affairs of the papacy away from the Medici. Sixtus IV, his nephew Riario, and Francesco Salviati, the archbishop of Pisa, supported the Pazzi and in the end formed a conspiracy with them. They decided to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano in the cathedral during Easter mass on April 26, while the archbishop was to take over the signoria (the council of government). Giuliano was indeed killed in front of the altar, but Lorenzo succeeded in taking refuge in a sacristy. The archbishop clumsily accosted the Medici gonfalonier, a harsh and suspicious man who immediately had him hanged from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio wearing his episcopal robes. The crowd stood by the Medici, seized the conspirators, and tore them limb from limb. Sixtus IV, forgetting the murder in the cathedral—in which two priests had taken part—refused to consider anything else than the hanging of a prelate and threatened Florence with interdiction unless it handed over Lorenzo to him. The city and its clergy rejected the proposal. The situation was all the more critical because Ferdinand I, king of Naples, was supporting the papacy. Florence’s ruler could count on nothing more than very limited aid from Milan and the encouragement of the king of France. Lorenzo thereupon went, alone, to Naples. In his situation it required unusual audacity to present himself before one of the cruelest rulers of the century. But Lorenzo’s boldness was crowned with success. Ferdinand, disconcerted, perhaps intimidated, yielded and concluded a peace; and Sixtus IV, now isolated, could only comply with it.

“Magnificent” ruler and patron of the artsLorenzo emerged from the conflict with greatly increased prestige. From then on he was considered the Wise, “the needle on the Italian scales.” He did not take advantage of his position by imitating the Sforza and making himself a duke. He contented himself with creating a Council of Seventy that he hoped would be even more manageable than the old Cento (Hundred). This amazed Europe, for he had all the attributes of a true sovereign. His new villa, at Poggio a Caiano, had all the majesty of a royal residence.

Thus, step by step, the Medici were approaching the status that they continued to refuse. Lorenzo married an Orsini, of the high Roman nobility. His daughter Maddalena was married to a son of Pope Innocent VIII (born before his father’s entry into religious orders), and his eldest son, Piero, married another Orsini. When his son Giovanni was 13, Lorenzo obtained a cardinal’s hat for him from Innocent VIII. To be sure, Lorenzo remained a simple citizen, and yet he was called “the Magnificent.” In Italy during this period, this was a title of commonplace obsequiousness used in addressing the great; but it was Lorenzo who raised it to its current high stature.

The Granger Collection, New YorkThe Granger Collection, New York

There was, however, one difference between Lorenzo and titled kings, who are able to live in pomp and ceremony even when their treasury is empty. Lorenzo could not do so, and the stream of florins that fed his munificence was becoming less abundant. This was partially his own fault for, with the Medici, the aptitude for business diminished as the thirst for power increased. In addition, economic conditions were deteriorating. New competitors were appearing in Europe, and the branches in London, Bruges, and Lyon became insolvent. But the recurrent accusation that the Medici bank was kept solvent at the expense of the public treasury is not borne out by the facts. The movement of funds between the Medici bank and the treasury of the signoria was the equivalent of that occurring between private and public banks in modern states.

The family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources. He himself contributed more than anyone to the flowering of Florentine genius during the second half of the 15th century. He continued collecting ancient texts, and in his villas in Careggi, Fiesole, and Poggio a Caiano he assembled what is called the Platonic Academy but was more like a circle of good friends: his teacher Marsilio Ficino, the humanist Pico della Mirandola, and the man who was always closest to his heart, Politian (Angelo Poliziano), the poet, who had saved his life on the day of the Pazzi conspiracy. Lorenzo’s reputation did not rest on lavish hospitality alone. He was also respected as a poet of great talent. His preference for the Tuscan dialect over Latin was remarkable for this time. Equally rare was his custom of treating artists with “the affectionate and warm-hearted familiarity that allows a protégé to stand erect at the side of his protector, as man to man.” The artists under his protection included Giuliano da Sangallo, Botticelli, Verrocchio, and Verrocchio’s pupil Leonardo da Vinci. Toward the end of his life, Lorenzo opened a school of sculpture in his garden of San Marco. There a 15-year-old pupil attracted his attention and was brought up in the palace like a son of the family; it was Michelangelo.

Decline and deathOn the recommendation of Pico della Mirandola, Lorenzo permitted the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola to preach at San Marco in 1490. He mounted the pulpit on August 1 and launched an unceasing deluge of denunciations of the Medici, the papacy, and the whole of Christianity. The Florentines, who had grown weary of festivities, listened to his appeals for asceticism and to his terrifying prophecies, among which was the imminent death of the “tyrant.” But it was easy for him to be thus prophetic, for Lorenzo’s health had been declining for three years, and the secret had not been well kept. From his deathbed he sent for Savonarola, who, according to a doubtful tradition, called upon him to “give Florence back her freedom” and, in the face of the dying man’s silence, refused to grant him absolution. Lorenzo’s obsequies were simple, as he had requested; but the presence of the entire population of Florence, sincerely moved by his premature death—he was 43—took on the character of a plebiscite. He was buried in San Lorenzo, where the grandiose tomb that his son Giovanni, who later became Pope Leo X, had planned was never executed. His tombstone passes almost unnoticed at the side of the monuments erected by Michelangelo to Giuliano, one of his sons, and to his grandson Lorenzo, both very insignificant persons.

Lorenzo the Magnificent died at the very moment when a new historical era was beginning. Six months later Christopher Columbus was to reach the New World. And two years later the foolish Italian expedition of the French king Charles VIII was to plunge the peninsula into a half century of warfare and strife.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli, (born May 3, 1469, Florence, Italy—died June 21, 1527, Florence), Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.

Early life and political careerFrom the 13th century onward, Machiavelli’s family was wealthy and prominent, holding on occasion Florence’s most important offices. His father, Bernardo, a doctor of laws, was nevertheless among the family’s poorest members. Barred from public office in Florence as an insolvent debtor, Bernardo lived frugally, administering his small landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with earnings from the restricted and almost clandestine exercise of his profession.

Bernardo kept a library in which Niccolò must have read, but little is known of Niccolò’s education and early life in Florence, at that time a thriving centre of philosophy and a brilliant showcase of the arts. He attended lectures by Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who chaired the Studio Fiorentino. He learned Latin well and probably knew some Greek, and he seems to have acquired the typical humanist education that was expected of officials of the Florentine Chancery.

In a letter to a friend in 1498, Machiavelli writes of listening to the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98), a Dominican friar who moved to Florence in 1482 and in the 1490s attracted a party of popular supporters with his thinly veiled accusations against the government, the clergy, and the pope. Although Savonarola, who effectively ruled Florence for several years after 1494, was featured in The Prince (1513) as an example of an “unarmed prophet” who must fail, Machiavelli was impressed with his learning and rhetorical skill. On May 24, 1498, Savonarola was hanged as a heretic and his body burned in the public square. Several days later, emerging from obscurity at the age of 29, Machiavelli became head of the second chancery (cancelleria), a post that placed him in charge of the republic’s foreign affairs in subject territories. How so young a man could be entrusted with so high an office remains a mystery, particularly because Machiavelli apparently never served an apprenticeship in the chancery. He held the post until 1512, having gained the confidence of Piero Soderini (1452–1522), the gonfalonier (chief magistrate) for life in Florence from 1502.

During his tenure at the second chancery, Machiavelli persuaded Soderini to reduce the city’s reliance on mercenary forces by establishing a militia (1505), which Machiavelli subsequently organized. He also undertook diplomatic and military missions to the court of France; to Cesare Borgia (1475/76–1507), the son of Pope Alexander VI (reigned 1492–1503); to Pope Julius II

(reigned 1503–13), Alexander’s successor; to the court of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (reigned 1493–1519); and to Pisa (1509 and 1511).

In 1503, one year after his missions to Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli wrote a short work, Del modo di trattare i sudditi della Val di Chiana ribellati (On the Way to Deal with the Rebel Subjects of the Valdichiana). Anticipating his later Discourses on Livy, a commentary on the ancient Roman historian, in this work he contrasts the errors of Florence with the wisdom of the Romans and declares that in dealing with rebellious peoples one must either benefit them or eliminate them. Machiavelli also was a witness to the bloody vengeance taken by Cesare on his mutinous captains at the town of Sinigaglia (December 31, 1502), of which he wrote a famous account. In much of his early writings, Machiavelli argues that “one should not offend a prince and later put faith in him.”

In 1503 Machiavelli was sent to Rome for the duration of the conclave that elected Pope Julius II, an enemy of the Borgias, whose election Cesare had unwisely aided. Machiavelli watched Cesare’s decline and, in a poem (First Decennale), celebrated his imprisonment, a burden that “he deserved as a rebel against Christ.” Altogether, Machiavelli embarked on more than 40 diplomatic missions during his 14 years at the chancery.

In 1512 the Florentine republic was overthrown and the gonfalonier deposed by a Spanish army that Julius II had enlisted into his Holy League. The Medici family returned to rule Florence, and Machiavelli, suspected of conspiracy, was imprisoned, tortured, and sent into exile in 1513 to his father’s small property in San Casciano, just south of Florence. There he wrote his two major works, The Prince and Discourses on Livy, both of which were published after his death. He dedicated The Prince to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici (1492–1519), ruler of Florence from 1513 and grandson of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92). When, on Lorenzo’s death, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici (1478–1534) came to govern Florence, Machiavelli was presented to the cardinal by Lorenzo Strozzi (1488–1538), scion of one of Florence’s wealthiest families, to whom he dedicated the dialogue The Art of War (1521; Dell’arte della guerra).

Machiavelli was first employed in 1520 by the cardinal to resolve a case of bankruptcy in Lucca, where he took the occasion to write a sketch of its government and to compose his The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520; La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca). Later that year the cardinal agreed to have Machiavelli elected official historian of the republic, a post to which he was appointed in November 1520 with a salary of 57 gold florins a year, later increased to 100. In the meantime, he was commissioned by the Medici pope Leo X (reigned 1513–21) to write a discourse on the organization of the government of Florence. Machiavelli criticized both the Medici regime and the succeeding republic he had served and boldly advised the pope to restore the republic, replacing the unstable mixture of republic and principality then prevailing. Shortly thereafter, in May 1521, he was sent for two weeks to the Franciscan chapter at Carpi, where he improved his ability to “reason about silence.” Machiavelli faced a dilemma about how to tell the truth about the rise of the Medici in Florence without offending his Medici patron.

After the death of Pope Leo X in 1521, Cardinal Giulio, Florence’s sole master, was inclined to reform the city’s government and sought out the advice of Machiavelli, who replied with the proposal he had made to Leo X. In 1523, following the death of Pope Adrian VI, the cardinal

became Pope Clement VII, and Machiavelli worked with renewed enthusiasm on an official history of Florence. In June 1525 he presented his Florentine Histories (Istorie Fiorentine) to the pope, receiving in return a gift of 120 ducats. In April 1526 Machiavelli was made chancellor of the Procuratori delle Mura to superintend Florence’s fortifications. At this time the pope had formed a Holy League at Cognac against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (reigned 1519–56), and Machiavelli went with the army to join his friend Francesco Guicciardini (1482–1540), the pope’s lieutenant, with whom he remained until the sack of Rome by the emperor’s forces brought the war to an end in May 1527. Now that Florence had cast off the Medici, Machiavelli hoped to be restored to his old post at the chancery. But the few favours that the Medici had doled out to him caused the supporters of the free republic to look upon him with suspicion. Denied the post, he fell ill and died within a month.

WritingsIn office Machiavelli wrote a number of short political discourses and poems (the Decennali) on Florentine history. It was while he was out of office and in exile, however, that the “Florentine Secretary,” as Machiavelli came to be called, wrote the works of political philosophy for which he is remembered. In his most noted letter (December 10, 1513), he described one of his days—in the morning walking in the woods, in the afternoon drinking and gambling with friends at the inn, and in the evening reading and reflecting in his study, where, he says, “I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for.” In the same letter, Machiavelli remarks that he has just composed a little work on princes—a “whimsy”—and thus lightly introduces arguably the most famous book on politics ever written, the work that was to give the name Machiavellian to the teaching of worldly success through scheming deceit.

About the same time that Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513), he was also writing a very different book, Discourses on Livy (or, more precisely, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy [Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio]). Both books were first published only after Machiavelli’s death, the Discourses on Livy in 1531 and The Prince in 1532. They are distinguished from his other works by the fact that in the dedicatory letter to each he says that it contains everything he knows. The dedication of the Discourses on Livy presents the work to two of Machiavelli’s friends, who he says are not princes but deserve to be, and criticizes the sort of begging letter he appears to have written in dedicating The Prince. The two works differ also in substance and manner. Whereas The Prince is mostly concerned with princes—particularly new princes—and is short, easy to read, and, according to many, dangerously wicked, the Discourses on Livy is a “reasoning” that is long, difficult, and full of advice on how to preserve republics. Every thoughtful treatment of Machiavelli has had to come to terms with the differences between his two most important works.

The Prince I have The Prince in digital if you like

The first and most persistent view of Machiavelli is that of a teacher of evil. The German-born American philosopher Leo Strauss (1899–1973) begins his interpretation from this point. The Prince is in the tradition of the “Mirror for Princes”—i.e., books of advice that enabled princes to see themselves as though reflected in a mirror—which began with the Cyropaedia by the

Greek historian Xenophon (431–350 bc) and continued into the Middle Ages. Prior to Machiavelli, works in this genre advised princes to adopt the best prince as their model, but Machiavelli’s version recommends that a prince go to the “effectual truth” of things and forgo the standard of “what should be done” lest he bring about his ruin. To maintain himself a prince must learn how not to be good and use or not use this knowledge “according to necessity.” An observer would see such a prince as guided by necessity, and from this standpoint Machiavelli can be interpreted as the founder of modern political science, a discipline based on the actual state of the world as opposed to how the world might be in utopias such as the Republic of Plato (428/27–348/47 bc) or the City of God of Saint Augustine (354–430). This second, amoral interpretation can be found in works by the German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862–1954) and the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945). The amoral interpretation fastens on Machiavelli’s frequent resort to “necessity” in order to excuse actions that might otherwise be condemned as immoral. But Machiavelli also advises the use of prudence in particular circumstances, and, though he sometimes offers rules or remedies for princes to adopt, he does not seek to establish exact or universal laws of politics in the manner of modern political science.

Machiavelli divides principalities into those that are acquired and those that are inherited. In general, he argues that the more difficult it is to acquire control over a state, the easier it is to hold on to it. The reason for this is that the fear of a new prince is stronger than the love for a hereditary prince; hence, the new prince, who relies on “a dread of punishment that never forsakes you,” will succeed, but a prince who expects his subjects to keep their promises of support will be disappointed. The prince will find that “each wants to die for him when death is at a distance,” but, when the prince needs his subjects, they generally decline to serve as promised. Thus, every prince, whether new or old, must look upon himself as a new prince and learn to rely on “one’s own arms,” both literally in raising one’s own army and metaphorically in not relying on the goodwill of others.

The new prince relies on his own virtue, but, if virtue is to enable him to acquire a state, it must have a new meaning distinct from the New Testament virtue of seeking peace. Machiavelli’s notion of virtù requires the prince to be concerned foremost with the art of war and to seek not merely security but also glory, for glory is included in necessity. Virtù for Machiavelli is virtue not for its own sake but rather for the sake of the reputation it enables princes to acquire. Liberality, for example, does not aid a prince, because the recipients may not be grateful, and lavish displays necessitate taxing of the prince’s subjects, who will despise him for it. Thus, a prince should not be concerned if he is held to be stingy, as this vice enables him to rule. Similarly, a prince should not care about being held cruel as long as the cruelty is “well used.” Machiavelli sometimes uses virtù in the traditional sense too, as in a famous passage on Agathocles (361–289 bc), the self-styled king of Sicily, whom Machiavelli describes as a “most excellent captain” but one who came to power by criminal means. Of Agathocles, Machiavelli writes that “one cannot call it virtue to kill one’s citizens, betray one’s friends, to be without faith, without mercy and without religion.” Yet in the very next sentence he speaks of “the virtue of Agathocles,” who did all these things. Virtue, according to Machiavelli, aims to reduce the power of fortune over human affairs because fortune keeps men from relying on themselves. At first Machiavelli admits that fortune rules half of men’s lives, but then, in an infamous metaphor, he compares fortune to a woman who lets herself be won more by the impetuous and the young, “who command her with more audacity,” than by those who proceed cautiously. Machiavelli

cannot simply dismiss or replace the traditional notion of moral virtue, which gets its strength from the religious beliefs of ordinary people. His own virtue of mastery coexists with traditional moral virtue yet also makes use of it. A prince who possesses the virtue of mastery can command fortune and manage people to a degree never before thought possible.

In the last chapter of The Prince, Machiavelli writes a passionate “exhortation to seize Italy and to free her from the barbarians”—apparently France and Spain, which had been overrunning the disunited peninsula. He calls for a redeemer, mentioning the miracles that occurred as Moses led the Israelites to the promised land, and closes with a quotation from a patriotic poem by Petrarch (1304–74). The final chapter has led many to a third interpretation of Machiavelli as a patriot rather than as a disinterested scientist.

The Discourses on Livy

Like The Prince, the Discourses on Livy admits of various interpretations. One view, elaborated separately in works by the political theorists J.G.A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner in the 1970s, stresses the work’s republicanism and locates Machiavelli in a republican tradition that starts with Aristotle (384–322 bc) and continues through the organization of the medieval city-states, the renewal of classical political philosophy in Renaissance humanism, and the establishment of the contemporary American republic. This interpretation focuses on Machiavelli’s various pro-republican remarks, such as his statement that the multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince and his emphasis in the Discourses on Livy on the republican virtue of self-sacrifice as a way of combating corruption. Yet Machiavelli’s republicanism does not rest on the usual republican premise that power is safer in the hands of many than it is in the hands of one. To the contrary, he asserts that, to found or reform a republic, it is necessary to “be alone.” Any ordering must depend on a single mind; thus, Romulus “deserves excuse” for killing Remus, his brother and partner in the founding of Rome, because it was for the common good. This statement is as close as Machiavelli ever came to saying “the end justifies the means,” a phrase closely associated with interpretations of The Prince.

Republics need the kind of leaders that Machiavelli describes in The Prince. These “princes in a republic” cannot govern in accordance with justice, because those who get what they deserve from them do not feel any obligation. Nor do those who are left alone feel grateful. Thus, a prince in a republic will have no “partisan friends” unless he learns “to kill the sons of Brutus,” using violence to make examples of enemies of the republic and, not incidentally, of himself. To reform a corrupt state presupposes a good man, but to become a prince presupposes a bad man. Good men, Machiavelli claims, will almost never get power, and bad men will almost never use power for a good end. Yet, since republics become corrupt when the people lose the fear that compels them to obey, the people must be led back to their original virtue by sensational executions reminding them of punishment and reviving their fear. The apparent solution to the problem is to let bad men gain glory through actions that have a good outcome, if not a good motive.

In the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli favours the deeds of the ancients above their philosophy; he reproaches his contemporaries for consulting ancient jurists for political wisdom rather than looking to the actual history of Rome. He argues that the factional tumults of the Roman

republic, which were condemned by many ancient writers, actually made Rome free and great. Moreover, although Machiavelli was a product of the Renaissance—and is often portrayed as its leading exponent (e.g., by 19th-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt)—he also criticized it, particularly for the humanism it derived from Plato, Aristotle, and the Roman orator Cicero (106–43 bc). He called for “new modes and orders” and compared himself to the explorers of unknown lands in his time. His emphasis on the effectual truth led him to seek the hidden springs of politics in fraud and conspiracy, examples of which he discussed with apparent relish. It is notable that, in both The Prince and the Discourses on Livy, the longest chapters are on conspiracy.

Throughout his two chief works, Machiavelli sees politics as defined by the difference between the ancients and the moderns: the ancients are strong, the moderns weak. The moderns are weak because they have been formed by Christianity, and, in three places in the Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli boldly and impudently criticizes the Roman Catholic church and Christianity itself. For Machiavelli the church is the cause of Italy’s disunity; the clergy is dishonest and leads people to believe “that it is evil to say evil of evil”; and Christianity glorifies suffering and makes the world effeminate. But Machiavelli leaves it unclear whether he prefers atheism, paganism, or a reformed Christianity, writing later, in a letter dated April 16, 1527 (only two months before his death): “I love my fatherland more than my soul.”

The Florentine Histories

Machiavelli’s longest work—commissioned by Pope Leo X in 1520, presented to Pope Clement VII in 1525, and first published in 1532—is a history of Florence from its origin to the death of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici in 1492. Adopting the approach of humanist historians before him, Machiavelli used the plural “histories,” dividing his account into “books” with nonhistorical introductions and invented speeches presented as if they were actual reports. His history, moreover, takes place in a nonhistorical context—a contest between virtue and fortune. The theme of the Florentine Histories is the city’s remarkable party division, which, unlike the divisions in ancient Rome, kept the city weak and corrupt. Like the Discourses on Livy, the Florentine Histories contains (less bold) criticism of the church and popes and revealing portraits of leading characters, especially of the Medici (the book is organized around the return of Cosimo de’ Medici [1389–1464] to Florence in 1434 after his exile). It also features an exaggeratedly “Machiavellian” oration by a plebeian leader, apparently Michele di Lando, who was head of the 1378 Revolt of the Ciompi (“wool carders”), a rebellion of Florence’s lower classes that resulted in the formation of the city’s most democratic (albeit short-lived) government. Although not a modern historian, Machiavelli, with his emphasis on “diverse effects,” exhibits some of the modern historian’s devotion to facts.

The Art of War and other writings

The Art of War (1521), one of only a few works of Machiavelli to be published during his lifetime, is a dialogue set in the Orti Oricellari, a garden in Florence where humanists gathered to discuss philosophy and politics. The principal speaker is Fabrizio Colonna, a professional condottiere and Machiavelli’s authority on the art of war. He urges, contrary to the literary humanists, that the ancients be imitated in “strong and harsh things, not delicate and soft”—i.e.,

in war. Fabrizio, though a mercenary himself, inveighs against the use of mercenaries in modern times and presents the Roman army as his model of military excellence. The dialogue was later praised by the Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) and has achieved a prominent place in the history of writings on war.

Among Machiavelli’s lesser writings, two deserve mention: The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520) and The Mandrake (1518; La Mandragola). The former is a sketch of Castruccio Castracani (1281–1328), the Ghibelline ruler of Lucca (a city near Florence), who is presented as the greatest man of postclassical times. It concludes with a list of witty remarks attributed to Castruccio but actually taken from ancient philosophers, providing a rare glimpse of Machiavelli’s view of them. The Mandrake, the best known of Machiavelli’s three plays, was probably composed in 1518. In it a foolish old jurist, Messer Nicia, allows himself to be cuckolded by a young man, Callimaco, in order to produce a son he cannot beget himself. His wife, Lucrezia, is persuaded to comply—despite her virtue—by a crooked priest, and the conspiracy is facilitated by a procurer. Since at the end of the play everyone gets what he wants, the lesson is that immoral actions such as adultery can bring happiness—out of evil can come good.

AssessmentMachiavelli’s influence on later times must be divided into what was transmitted under his own name and what was known through the works of others but not acknowledged as Machiavelli’s. Since his own name was infamous, there is little of the former kind. “Machiavellian” has never been an epithet of praise; indeed, one of the villains of the play Henry VI, by William Shakespeare, claims to surpass “murtherous Machevil.” For moral lessons like the one described above and for attacks on the church, Machiavelli’s works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“Index of Forbidden Books”) when it was first drawn up in 1564. Nonetheless, his works were read by all the modern philosophers, though only a few of them were brave enough to defend him: the English lawyer and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) discussed Machiavelli in his The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall (1625), noting his boldness; the English political philosopher James Harrington (1611–77), in his The Common-wealth of Oceana (1656), speaks admiringly of Machiavelli as the “prince of politicians” and the disciple of ancient prudence; the Dutch-Jewish philosopher Benedict de Spinoza (1632–77) defended Machiavelli’s good intentions in teaching tyrants how to gain power, claiming in his Political Treatise (1677) that Machiavelli was a republican; likewise, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) asserted in his Social Contract (1762) that Machiavelli was, despite appearances, “an honest man and a good citizen” and The Prince “the book of republicans.” The contemporary republican interpretation of Machiavelli, less mindful of his evil reputation, presents him as a communitarian alternative to self-interested liberalism.

More powerful, however, was Machiavelli’s underground influence on thinkers who avoided using his name. One may suspect that some used his doctrines even while joining in attacks on him. One such scholar, for example, was the Italian philosopher Giovanni Botero (1540–1617), who was among the first to establish the idea of a moral exemption for the state. Authors taking a similar approach developed, for safety’s sake, the practice of quoting passages from the Roman

historian Tacitus (ad 56–120)—thus becoming known as “Tacitists”—when they might just as well have cited Machiavelli.

But the greater, more fundamental claim of Machiavelli’s influence, made especially by Burckhardt and Strauss, is as the founder of modernity. Machiavelli himself despised the moderns of his day as weak, but he also held forth the possibility of a “perpetual republic” that would remedy the weakness of the moderns and correct the errors of the Romans and so establish a political order no longer subject to the vicissitudes of fortune. There is no modern science in Machiavelli, but the Baconian idea of the conquest of nature and fortune in the interest of humanity is fully present. So too are modern notions of irreversible progress, of secularism, and of obtaining public good through private interest. Whether Machiavelli could have had so grand an ambition remains controversial, but all agree on his greatness—his novelty, the penetration of his mind, and the grace of his style.

Harvey Mansfield

Additional ReadingRoberto Ridolfi, The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. from Italian (1963), is the most authoritative biography of Machiavelli. A useful, compact biography is Maurizio Viroli, Niccolò’s Smile (2000; originally published in Italian, 1998). Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958, reissued 1984), argues that Machiavelli was the founder of modernity. Historical biographies of Machiavelli that draw connections between major works and events in his life include Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, new ed., 2 vol. (1993); and Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vol. (1978, reissued 1998). An analysis taking the perspective that Machiavelli was an unorthodox Christian is Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (1989, reissued 1996). Claude Lefort, Le Travail de l’oeuvre: Machiavel (1972, reissued 1986), is an exhaustive philosophical interpretation of Machiavelli’s works.

Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (1996), a collection of essays, argues that Machiavelli was a prince himself, governing other princes while teaching them. J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975), identifies Machiavelli as the principal figure in the republican tradition.

Harvey Mansfield

Italian Renaissance

Renaissance (Italian)from Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations

A profound intellectual and cultural efflorescence, as well as a political and diplomatic revolution away from the res publica Christiana toward the modern, secular state, which began in Italy but influenced all Europe and then all the world. It can be traced as far back as the life work of Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), among others in the high Middle Ages, but it reached its

vital and brilliant peak in the late fifteenth century. Some consider it to have spread beyond Italy, lasting through the life of René Descartes (1596–1650). The Renaissance is closely identified with events in Venice and Florence and other northern Italian polities, but in fact it affected most of the peninsula before spreading over the Alps to influence all of Europe and to shape the character of the modern age. Culturally, it was distinguished by a revival of classical learning—in particular in the natural sciences, but also in theological criticism and moral philosophy—inspired in part by lost or newly translated texts acquired through Muslim middlemen in great centers of Islamic scholarship such as Sicily, Granada, and Seville. Its profound impact on cultural life arose from a new, secularist celebration of humanism, empiricism, and rationalism, which would find full flower in the Enlightenment. It is justly famous, although historically less important, for its extraordinary advances in the fine arts and literature. Commercially, it marked a dramatic expansion of commerce by credit, in which the Medici political and banking family of Florence played a central role as the single most important financial institution in Europe from its founding in 1397 to its end in 1494, the year after the French invasion of Italy.

The most direct and world-changing influences of the Renaissance concerned diplomacy, international law, and war: Italian thinkers changed political perceptions forever, while Italian diplomats and soldiers fanned out into Europe, especially after the French invasion of 1493, selling new services such as resident diplomacy and refined espionage to powerful foreign monarchs. And Europeans flocked to Italy to study in the new “Italian school” of war and diplomacy, as well as the new Italian style in painting, poetry, and sculpture. The Renaissance witnessed the “golden age” of the Italian peninsular system of independent city-states, whose unique political patterns were later copied and helped supplant more general feudal relations in Western Europe. And it helped overturn the old sense of universal community in Christendom in favor of more narrow definitions of political loyalty to individual secular states, and to the lusty exercise of power by the new “princes” who governed their exciting, and often also illicit, relations. It was these city states which first explicitly formulated the idea of the balance of power, around the middle of the fifteenth century, as a description and then as a theoretical justification for the equilibrium which developed in fact among the five larger Italian powers (Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples, and the Papal States). The machinations and wolf-like relations of this insulated subsystem, isolated by Alpine borders and the distant preoccupations of the Great Powers during most of the fifteenth century, gave rise to the central ideas of Machiavellian ethical and political theory, including a revival of interest in constitutional republics.

The new, permanent diplomacy of the Italian Renaissance took clear form roughly between 1420 and 1493. It would become the model for all subsequent diplomacy, first in Europe and then globally. When the movement passed north of the Alps it reinforced a shift in power already underway from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic states: from Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire to England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. In sum, the Renaissance marked the transition from the ancient and feudal eras to modern times, not just for Europe but through the subsequent expansion and global dominance of Europe in the age of imperialism, for the entire world. In addition, its rational curiosity and impulse toward change in economics, politics, religion, and technology echo familiarly to modern hearing down to the present day.

Humanists

Humanistsfrom Chambers Dictionary of World History

Those scholars who, from the 14c onwards, worked to recover the pure language of the classical past, removing the glosses and errors generated in the centuries which separated the new era from the ancient world (‘the medium aevum’ and hence ‘Middle Ages’). The early humanists tended to find their ideal in the works of Cicero, but by the mid-15c there was a new interest in Greek learning, especially in the works of Plato. The application of humanist techniques to the text of the Bible by scholars such as Lorenzo Valla prepared the way for ‘Christian humanists’, most significantly Erasmus, who urged reform of the Church according to the principles of the Scriptures, an approach which links the Renaissance to the Reformation. In sum, the Italian Renaissance gave people who were not clerics a new sense of their creative powers. Moreover, the specific developments in the visual arts and humanism identified above all with perspective and with a more refined sense of history, gave Europeans a new sense of space and time at precisely the moment when Europe was beginning to make its impact on the rest of the globe in the age of the great oceanic discoveries.

Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd 2005