Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli

Statesman and Political Philosopher

1469 - 1527

No enterprise is more likely to succeed

than one concealed from the enemy

until it is ripe for execution.

Ð'--Machiavelli from The Art of War

I was born on May 3, 1469 in Florence, Italy. I was a political philosopher and diplomat during the Renaissance, and I'm most famous for my political treatise, The Prince (1513), that has become a cornerstone of modern political philosophy.

My life was very interesting. I lived a nondescript childhood in Florence, and mine main political experience in my youth was watching Savanarola from afar. Soon after Savanarola was executed, I entered the Florentine government as a secretary. My position quickly rose, however, and was soon engaging in diplomatic missions. I met many of the important politicians of the day, such as the Pope and the King of France, but none had more impact on me than a prince of the Papal States, Cesare Borgia. Borgia was a cunning, cruel man, very much like the one portrayed in The Prince. I did not truly like Borgia's policies, but I thought that with a ruler like Borgia the Florentines could unite Italy, which was my goal throughout life. Unfortunately for myself, I was dismissed from office when the Medici came to rule Florence and the Republic was overthrown. The lack of a job forced me to switch to writing about politics instead of being active. My diplomatic missions were my last official government positions.

When I lost my office, desperately I wanted to return to politics. I tried to gain the favor of the Medici by writing a book of what I thought were the Medici's goals and dedicating it to them. And so The Prince was written for that purpose. Unfortunately, the Medici didn't agree with what the book said, so I was out of a job. But when the public saw the book, they were outraged. The people wondered how cruel a man could be to think evil thoughts like the ones in The Prince, and this would come back to haunt me when I was alive and dead. However, if the people wanted to know what my self really stood for, they should have read my "Discourses on Livy", which explains my full political philosophy. But not enough people had and have, and so the legacy of The Prince continues to define my person to the general public.

In The Prince, I offered a monarchical ruler advice designed to keep that ruler in power. I recommended policies that would discourage mass political activism, and channel subjects' energies into private pursuits. I wanted to persuade the monarch that he could best preserve his power by the judicious use of violence, by respecting private property and the traditions of his subjects, and by promoting material prosperity. I held that political life cannot be governed by a single set of moral or religious absolutes, and that the monarch may sometimes be excused for performing acts of violence and deception that would be ethically indefensible in private life.

During the Renaissance Italy was a scene of intense political conflict involving the dominant city-states of Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples, plus the Papacy, France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. Each city attempted to protect itself by playing the larger powers off against each other. The result was massive political intrigue, blackmail, and violence. The Prince was written against this backdrop, and in my conclusion call for Italian unity, and an end to foreign intervention.

My other major work, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (1513-21), was mainly concerned with "republics," defined as states controlled by a politically active citizenry. In "Discourses" I emphasized that for a republic to survive, it needed to foster a spirit of patriotism and civic virtue among its citizens. I argued that a republic would be strengthened by the conflicts generated through open political participation and debate.

It is a common misconception that I faked my own death. Actually it is a strategy I wrote about in my book, Art of War (1521). A prince could fake his own death and then plot behind the scenes against his enemies. In "Art of War," I combine Roman military theories with the revolutionary idea that war and politics form a kind of functional unity, with war serving as an instrument of politics.

My Dell'arte della guerra (The Art of War) (1520) explains in detail effective procedures for the acquisition, maintenance, and use of a military force. Even in my most leisurely reflections on the political process, I often wrote in a similar vein. The Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio (Discourses on Livy) (1531) review the history of the Roman republic, with greater emphasis on the role of fortune and a clear admiration for republican government. Here, too, however, my conception of the proper application of morality to practical political life is one that judges the skill of all participants in terms of the efficacy with which they achieve noble ends. Whatever the form of government, I held, only the success and glory really matters.

Partly of my pragmatic view of the relationship between ethics and politics, I have been widely misinterpreted. The adjective "Machiavellian" has become a pejorative used to describe a politician who manipulates others in an opportunistic and deceptive way.

If the French and English writers of the Renaissance period are to be believed, Machiavellianism represented the greatest single source of atheism in Western Europe.

For poets, scholars and pamphleteers I'm alike, the arch-atheist, the devil who had taught men to use religion for their own ends, who had corrupted France and brought about St. Bartholomew's Day [1572, when 3,000 Huguenots were massacred in Paris], who had taught simple Englishmen to be atheists and who, unless my works were put down or effectively combated, would be the ruin of Christendom.

My name Niccolo ['Old Nick'] at that time became and has ever since remained a synonym for the devil. Roger Ascham attacked my influence in England in the 'Schoolmaster' and Gentillet speaking of my influence in France bemoaned and deplored, 'the misery and calamity of the time wherein we are, which is so infected with Atheists, and contemners of God and all Religion, that even they which have no religion, are best esteemed, and called in the court language' People of service', because being fraughted with all impietie and Atheisme,