Machiavelli - THE FACTS

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527 ) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, & romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance & a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory (The Prince) on the one hand & republicanism (Discourses on Livy) on the other.
Machiavelli was born in San Casciano in Val di Pesa village near of the city-state of Florence, Italy, in the year 1469. Education left him with a thorough knowledge of the Latin & Italian classics.

Statue at the Uffizi.Machiavelli was born into a tumultuous era, in which Popes were leading armies & wealthy city-states of Italy were falling one after another into the hands of foreign powers -- France, Spain & the Holy Roman Empire. It was a time of constantly shifting alliances, condottieri who changed sides without warning, & governments rising & falling in the space of a few weeks. Perhaps most significantly during this erratic upheaval was the sack of Rome in 1527 at the hands of rampaging soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, the first time that Rome had been sacked by a Germanic army in nearly twelve centuries. Rich cities like Florence & Genoa suffered a similar fate in the same years. Machiavelli did not live to see the sack of Florence, but steeped as he was in the Byzantine politics of the age, it is no wonder that he turned his intelligence to analyzing the military & political events surrounding him & his world. He died in Florence in 1527. He entered government service as a clerk in 1494; that same year, Florence expelled the Medici family, who had ruled the city for nearly sixty years, & restored the republic. Machiavelli was named as a member of the Council responsible for diplomatic negotiations & military matters. From 1499 to 1512, he was sent on a number of diplomatic missions to the court of Louis XII in France, Ferdinand II of Aragón, & the Papacy in Rome. From 1502 to 1503, he was a witness to the effective statebuilding methods of the soldier/churchman Cesare Borgia, an immensely capable general & statesman who was at that time engaged in enlarging his territories in central Italy through a mixture of audacity, prudence, self-reliance, firmness & , not infrequently, cruelty.
From 1503 to 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia including the defense of the city. He distrusted mercenaries (a philosophy expounded at length in the Discorsi) & much preferred a citizen militia.
In August 1512, following a tangled series of battles, treaties, & alliances, the Medici with the help of Pope Julius II regained power in Florence & the republic was dissolved. Machiavelli, having played a significant role in the republic's anti-Medici government, was removed from office & in 1513 he was accused of conspiracy & arrested. Although tortured on the rack he denied his involvement & was eventually released. He retired to his estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina near Florence & began writing the treatises that would ensure his place in the development of political philosophy.
In a famous letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, Machiavelli described how he spent his days in exile: When evening comes, I return home [from work & from the local tavern] & go to my study. On the threshold I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty workday clothes, & put on the robes of court & palace, & in this graver dress I enter the courts of the ancients & am welcomed by them, & there I taste the food that alone is mine, & for which I was born. & there I make bold to speak to them & ask the motives of their actions, & they, in their humanity reply to me. & for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world.

Machiavelli's cenotaph in the Santa Croce Church in Florence.Much has been made of the notion of two Machiavellis: one of The Prince, one of the Discorsi. But Machiavelli himself cut through the alleged confusion when he identified a unifying theme: All cities that ever at any time have been ruled by an absolute prince, by aristocrats or by the people, have had for their protection force combined with prudence, because the latter is not enough alone, & the first either does not produce things, or when they are produced, does not maintain them. Force & prudence, then, are the might of all the governments that ever have been or will be in the world. Machiavelli died in San Casciano, a few miles outside of Florence, in 1527. His resting place is unknown; however a cenotaph in his honor was placed at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence.
Machiavelli's best known work is The Prince , in which he describes the arts by which a Prince (a ruler) can retain control of his realm. He focuses primarily on what he calls the principe nuovo or "new prince", under the assumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task since the people are accustomed to him. All a hereditary prince needs to do is carefully maintain the institutions that the people are used to; a new prince has a much more difficult task since he must stabilize his newfound power & build a structure that will endure. This task requires the Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do things of an evil nature in order to achieve the greater good.
The Prince is different from other books about creating & controlling principalities because it doesn't tell the reader what an ideal prince or principality is. Machiavelli explains through examples which princes are the most successful in obtaining & maintaining power. He draws his examples from personal observations made while he was on diplomatic missions for Florence & from his readings in ancient history. His writing has the mark of the Renaissance upon it because he sprinkles his text with Latin phrases & many examples are drawn from Classical sources.
A careless reading of The Prince could easily lead one to believe that its central argument is "the ends justify the means" - which is a teleological philosophical view ("telos" is Greek for ends) - that any evil action can be justified if it is done for a good purpose. This is a limited interpretation, however, because Machiavelli placed a number of restrictions on evil actions. First, he specified that the only acceptable end was the stabilization & health of the state; individual power for its own sake is not an acceptable end & does not justify evil actions. Second, Machiavelli does not dispense entirely with morality nor advocate wholesale selfishness or degeneracy. Instead he clearly lays out his definition of, for example, the criteria for acceptable cruel actions (it must be swift, effective, & short-lived). Notwithstanding the mitigating themes in The Prince, the Catholic Church put the work in its Index Librorum Prohibitorum & it was viewed in a negative light by many Humanists such as Erasmus.
The primary contribution of "The Prince" to the history of political thought is its fundamental break between realism & idealism. While Machiavelli emphasized the need for morality, the sole motivation of the prince ought to be the use of good & evil solely as instrumental means rather than ends in themselves. A wise prince is one who properly exercises this proper balance.
Pragmatism is a guiding thread through which Machiavelli bases his philosophy. The Prince should be read strictly as a guidebook on getting to & preserving power. In contrast with Plato & Aristotle, the ideal society is not the aim. In fact, Machiavelli emphasizes the need for the exercise of brute power where necessary & rewards, patron-clientalism etc. to preserve the status quo.

Bust of Machiavelli in the Palazzo Vecchio.Machiavelli's assumption, that human nature is fundamentally flawed, is also reflected in the need for brute force to attain practical ends. Complete trust & faith in one's subjects is not sustainable.
The term "Machiavellian" was adopted by some of Machiavelli's contemporaries, often used in the introductions of political tracts of the sixteenth century that offered more 'just' reasons of state, most notably those of Jean Bodin & Giovanni Botero. The pejorative term Machiavellian as it is used today (or anti-Machiavellism as it was used from the sixteenth century) is thus a misnomer, as it describes one who deceives & manipulates others for gain; whether the gain is personal or not is of no relevance, only that any actions taken are only important insofar as they affect the results. It fails to include some of the more moderating themes found in Machiavelli's works & the name is now associated with the extreme viewpoint.

If The Prince was Machiavelli's textbook on a monarchy, his Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy (which comprise the early history of Rome) is a paean to the republic. The Discorsi is a series of lessons on how a republic should be started, structured, including the concept of checks & balances, the strength of a tripartite structure, & the superiority of a republic over a principality. Its lessons are as relevant today as they were six centuries ago & clear applications of his practical political philosophy can be found in the governments of many democracies today.
Consider, for example, the following citations from The Discourses:
"In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, & the power of the people, then these three powers will watch & keep each other reciprocally in check." Book I, Chapter II
"Doubtless these means [of attaining power] are cruel & destructive of all civilized life, & neither Christian nor even human, & should be avoided by every one. 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 II, Chapter XXXXVVIII
"Now in a well-ordered republic it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures...." Book I, Chapter XXXIIVV
"...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 & glorious." Book II, Chapter LVIIIIIII
"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
(SOURCE: The Modern Library, New York, 1950, translated by Christian E. Detmold)
Another way of thinking about the two books is that The Prince was written hastily, in an attempt to secure a job with the new Medici rulers, whereas The Discourses is Machiavelli's serious political tract. In this the two books might reasonably be compared to two of Karl Marx's works: the Communist Manifesto was written in a hurry to provide direction in the 1848 uprisings, while Das Kapital is Marx's real political thesis.
Machiavelli also wrote plays (Clizia, Mandragola), poetry (Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, Canti carnascialeschi) & novels (Belfagor arcidiavolo) as well as translating classical works.
Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa (1499)
Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati (1502)
Del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nell' ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, etc. (Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino when Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, & the Duke di Gravina Orsini, 1502)
Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro (1502)
Decennale primo (1506, poem in terza rima)
Ritratti delle cose dell'Alemagna (1508-1512)
Decennale secondo (1509)
Ritratti delle cose di Francia (1510)
Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Discourses on Livy - 3 vols., 1512-1517)
Il Principe (The Prince, 1513)
Andria (1517, comedy translated from Terence)
Mandragola (The Mandrake - 1518, prose comedy in five acts, with prologue in verse)
Della lingua (1514, dialogue)
Clizia (1525, comedy in prose)
Belfagor arcidiavolo (1515, novel)
Asino d'oro (The Golden Ass - 1517, poem in terza rima, a new version of the classic work by Apuleius)
Dell'arte della guerra (The Art of War, 1519-1520)
Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze (1520)
Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca (1520)
Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca (The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca, 1520)
Istorie fiorentine (Florentine Histories - 8 books, 1520-1525, commissioned by Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici who went on to become Pope Clement VII).
Frammenti storici (1525)