Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.190.130.50 (talk) at 17:37, 19 May 2008 (→Works). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet, and playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory (The Prince) on the one hand and republicanism (Discourses on Livy) on the other. These two written works, plus his History of Florence commissioned by the Medici family, were published posthumously in 1531. After the ousting and execution of Savonarola, the Great Council elected Machiavelli as the second chancellor of the Republic of Florence in June of 1498.

Life

Machiavelli was born in Florence, the second son of Bernardo di Niccolo Machiavelli, a lawyer, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. His family were believed to be descendants of the old marquesses of Tuscany, and to have included Florence 13 gonfaloniers of justice.

His education left him with a thorough knowledge of the Latin and Italian classics. Machiavelli was born into a tumultuous era, in which Popes were leading armies, and wealthy city-states of Italy were falling one after another into the hands of foreign powers — France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It was a time of constantly shifting alliances, condottieri who changed sides without warning, and governments rising and falling in the space of weeks. Perhaps most significant during this erratic upheaval was the sack of Rome in 1527 by 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 such as Florence and Genoa suffered a similar fate during these years.

Machiavelli, trained as a man with great nobillity and severe rigor from his father, entered governmental service as a clerk and ambassador in 1494; that same year, Florence had restored the republic and expelled the Medici family; rulers of the city for nearly sixty years. Machiavelli was placed as a member of a Council responsible for diplomatic negotiations and military matters. Between 1499 and 1512, he undertook a number of diplomatic missions to the court of Louis XII in France, Ferdinand II of Aragón, and the Papacy in Rome. From 1502 to 1503, he was a witness to the effective statebuilding methods of the soldier/churchman Cesare Borgia, who was at that time enlarging his territories in central Italy through a mixture of audacity, prudence, self-reliance, firmness and, not infrequently, cruelty.

Between 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 and in Il Principe) and much preferred a citizen militia. This philosophy bore fruit when, in 1509, Florence's citizen forces defeated Pisa under Machiavelli's direction. However, in August 1512, the Medici with the help of Pope Julius II used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentine forces at Prato. The Florentine head of state, Piero Soderini, resigned and went into exile, and Florence and the republic was subsequently dissolved. Machiavelli, having played a significant role in the republic's anti-Medici government, was removed from office and in 1513 he was accused of conspiracy and arrested. Although tortured "by the rope" (a practice wherein one's hands were bound behind one's back and connected to a pulley which would lift the victim off the ground, dislocating one's shoulders), he denied his involvement and was eventually released. He retired to his estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina near Florence and began writing the treatises that would ensure his place in the development of political philosophy and conduct.

In a famous letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, he described how he spent his days in exile:

When evening comes, I return home and go to my study. On the threshold I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity reply to me. And 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 himself identified a unifying theme in The Prince and the Discorsi:

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, and the first either does not produce things, or when they are produced, does not maintain them. Force and 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. The Latin sentence on the tomb — TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM — is translated as either 'for so great a name, no praise is adequate' or 'No elegy is equal to such a name'

s

Notes

1. Machiavelli, The Discourses, translated by Walker and Richardson, 10.
2. Machiavelli, The Discourses, translated by Walker and Richardson, 7.
3. Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Nicolò Machiavelli" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
4. Donna, Daniel, in the introduction to the Bantam Classic edition of The Prince, Bantam, 1966
5. The Literary Works of Machiavelli, trans. J.R. Hale. (Oxford: 1961), p. 139.
6. "Words to be Spoken on the Law for Appropriating Money", in Chief Works and Others , trans. Allan H. Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1965), v. III, 1439.

References

• Machiavelli, Niccolò (1531). The Discourses. Translated by Leslie J. Walker, S.J, revisions by Brian Richardson (2003). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-140-44428-9

Further reading

• Baron, Hans (1961). "Machiavelli: the Republican Citizen and Author of The Prince". English Historical Review (76): 217–253.
• Bock, Gisela (1990). Machiavelli and Republicanism. Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Constantine, Peter (2007). The Essential Writings of Machiavelli. New York: Random House Modern Library. {{cite book}}: Check |last= value (help); Text ", editor and translator" ignored (help)*Donaldson, Peter S. (1989). Machiavelli and Mystery of State. Cambridge University Press.
• Everdell, William R. (1983, 2000). The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. University of Chicago Press. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Ingersoll, David E. (December 1968). "The Constant Prince: Private Interests and Public Goals in Machiavelli". Western Political Quarterly (21): 588–596.
• Magee, Brian (2001). The Story of Philosophy. New York: DK Publishing. pp. 72–73.
• Mattingly, Garrett (Autumn 1958). "Machiavelli's Prince: Political Science or Political Satire?". The American Scholar (27): 482–491.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
• Marriott, W.K.. (2008). The Prince. Red and Black Publishers.ISBN 978-0-934941-003

• Najemy, John M. (1996). "Baron's Machiavelli and Renaissance Republicanism". American Historical Review (101, 1): 119–129.
• Parel, Anthony (1972). "Introduction: Machiavelli's Method and His Interpreters". The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli's Philosophy. Toronto. pp. 3–28.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Pocock, J.G. A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton.
• Soll, Jacob (2005). Publishing The Prince: History, Reading and the Birth of Political Criticism. University of Michigan Press.
• Sullivan, Vickie B., ed. (2000). The Comedy and Tragedy of Machiavelli: Essays on the Literary Works. Yale U. Press. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Sullivan, Vickie B. (1996). Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed. Northern Illinois University Press.
• Viroli, Maurizio (2000). Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Whelan, Frederick G. (2004). Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought. Lexington.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Wootton, David, ed. (1994). Selected political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli. Indianapolis: Hackett Pubs. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Dirk Hoeges, Niccolò Machiavelli. Dichter-Poeta. Mit sämtlichen Gedichten, deutsch/italienisch. Con tutte le poesie, tedesco/italiano, Reihe: Dialoghi/Dialogues: Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs, Band 10, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt/M. u.a. 2006, ISBN 3-631-54669-6.

External links

• Machiavelli: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• eMachiavelli.com, works and summaries of Machiavelli
• Works by Machiavelli at Project Gutenberg
• Machiavelli at the Marxists Internet Archive, including some of his works
• Works by Niccolò Machiavelli: text, concordances and frequency list
• Machiavelli on the Net, a Machiavelli webliography with a short introduction.
• Works of Machiavelli: italian and english text
• Podcast of Nigel Warburton on Machiavelli's The Prince part of Philosophy: The Classics podcast series.

Template:Persondata

Template:Link FA

• Early modern philosophers
• 15th century philosophers
• 16th century philosophers
• Political philosophers
• Political theorists
• Italian political theorists
• Italian political writers
• Italian philosophers
• Italian statesmen
• Italian Renaissance writers
• People from Florence
• Italian Roman Catholics
• 1469 births
• 1527 deaths
• Italian Renaissance humanists