Biographical and Historical Background
Niccolò Machiavelli was born on May 3, 1469, in
Florence, Italy, and passed his childhood peacefully, receiving
the humanistic education customary for young men of the Renaissance
middle class. He also spent two years studying business mathematics,
then worked for the next seven years in Rome for a Florentine banker. After
returning to Florence in 1494, he witnessed
the expulsion of the Medici family, oligarchic despots who had ruled
Florence for decades, and the rise of Girolamo Savanorola, a Dominican
religious zealot who took control of the region shortly thereafter.
Italy at that time became the scene of intense political
conflict. The city-states of Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples
fought for control of Italy, as did the papacy, France, Spain, and
the Holy Roman Empire. Each of these powers attempted to pursue
a strategy of playing the other powers off of one other, but they
also engaged in less honorable practices such as blackmail and violence. The
same year that Machiavelli returned to Florence, Italy was invaded
by Charles VIII of France—the first of several French invasions
that would occur during Machiavelli’s lifetime. These events influenced
Machiavelli’s attitudes toward government, forming the backdrop
for his later impassioned pleas for Italian unity.
Because Savanorola criticized the leadership of the Church,
Pope Alexander VI cut his reign short by excommunicating him in 1497. The
next year, at the age of twenty-nine, Machiavelli entered the Florentine
government as head of the Second Chancery and secretary to the Council
of Ten for War. In his role as chancellor, he was sent to France
on a diplomatic mission in 1500. He met regularly with
Pope Alexander and the recently crowned King Louis XII. In exchange
for a marriage annulment, Louis helped the pope establish his son,
Cesare Borgia, as the duke of Romagna. The intrigues of these three
men would influence Machiavelli’s political thought, but it was
Borgia who would do the most to shape Machiavelli’s opinions about
leadership. Borgia was a cunning, cruel, and vicious politician,
and many people despised him. Nevertheless, Machiavelli believed
Borgia had the traits necessary for any leader who would seek to
unify Italy.
In 1500, Machiavelli married Marietta
di Lodovico Corsini, with whom he had six children. Three years
later, Pope Alexander VI became sick with malaria and died. Alexander
VI’s successor died after less than a month in office, and Julius
II, an enemy of Borgia’s, was elected. Julius II later banished
Borgia to Spain, where he died in 1506.
Meanwhile, Machiavelli helped raise and train a Florentine
civil militia in order to reduce Florence’s dependence on mercenaries. Later
that year, he served as Florentine diplomat to Pope Julius, whose
conduct as the “warrior pope” he observed firsthand. In 1512,
the Medici family regained control of Florence, and Machiavelli
was dismissed from office. A year later he was wrongly accused of
participating in a conspiracy to restore the republic, held in jail for
three weeks, and tortured on the rack. He left Florence for the quiet
town of Sant’Andrea and decided to pursue a career in writing. In 1513 he
began writing his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus
Livius, a book that focused on states controlled by a politically active
citizenry. It was not finished until 1521,
mainly because he interrupted his work on Discourses to
write The Prince.
Machiavelli desperately wanted to return to politics.
One of his goals in writing The Prince was to win
the favor of Lorenzo de’ Medici, then-governor of Florence and the
person to whom the book is dedicated; Machiavelli hoped to land
an advisory position within the Florentine government. But Medici
received the book indifferently, and Machiavelli did not receive
an invitation to serve as an official. The public’s reaction to The
Prince was also indifferent at first. But slowly, as word
spread, the book began to be criticized as immoral, evil, and wicked.
Besides the Discourses, Machiavelli
went on to write The Art of War and a comedic play, The
Mandrake. After Lorenzo’s premature death in 1519,
his successor, Giulio, gave Machiavelli a commission to write The
Florentine History as well as a few small diplomatic jobs.
Machiavelli also wrote The Life of Castruccio Castracani in 1520 and Clizia, a
comedic play. In 1526, Giulio de’ Medici
(now Pope Clement VII), at Machiavelli’s urging, created a commission
to examine Florence’s fortifications and placed Machiavelli on it.
In 1527, the diplomatic errors
of the Medici pope resulted in the sack of Rome by Charles V’s mercenaries.
The Florentines expelled their Medici ruler, and Machiavelli tried
to retake the office he had left so before. But his reputation got
in the way of his ambitions. He was now too closely associated with
the Medicis, and the republic rejected him. Soon, Machiavelli’s
health began to fail him, and he died several months later, on June 21,
1527.
Philosophical Context
[A]nyone compelled to choose will find
greater security in being feared than in being loved.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The most revolutionary aspect of The Prince is
its separation of politics and ethics. Classical political theory
traditionally linked political law with a higher, moral law. In
contrast, Machiavelli argues that political action must always be
considered in light of its practical consequences rather than some
lofty ideal.
Another striking feature of The Prince is
that it is far less theoretical than the literature on political
theory that preceded it. Many earlier thinkers had constructed hypothetical
notions of ideal or natural states, but Machiavelli treated historical
evidence pragmatically to ground The Prince in
real situations. The book is dedicated to the current ruler of Florence,
and it is readily apparent that Machiavelli intends for his advice
to be taken seriously by the powerful men of his time. It is a practical
guide for a ruler rather than an abstract treatise of philosophy.
Machiavelli’s book also distinguishes itself on the subject
of free will. Medieval and Renaissance thinkers often looked to
religion or ancient authors for explanations of plagues, famines,
invasions, and other calamities; they considered the actual prevention
of such disasters to be beyond the scope of human power. In The
Prince, when Machiavelli argues that people have the ability
to shield themselves against misfortune, he expresses an extraordinary
confidence in the power of human self-determination and affirms
his belief in free will as opposed to divine destiny.
Since they were first published, Machiavelli’s ideas have
been oversimplified and vilified. His political thought is usually—and unfairly—defined
solely in terms of The Prince. The adjective “Machiavellian”
is used to mean “manipulative,” “deceptive,” or “ruthless.” But
Machiavelli’s Discourses, a work considerably longer
and more developed than The Prince, expounds republican themes
of patriotism, civic virtue, and open political participation.
