Nicolás Maquiavelo is one of history’s most controversial political philosophers. His writings on the accretion and retention of power have shocked readers for over 500 years, but they continue to be mandatory reading for students of politics and business today.
Maquiavelo cut his teeth during the chaotic political scene of Renaissance Italy before putting quill to parchment to challenge the prevailing views on leadership and the morally-constrained exercise of power. This article will examine the life and times of Maquiavelo that led to the development of his radical beliefs as well as the key themes underpinning his controversial works.
The Lawless Politics of Renaissance Italy
To fully appreciate the backdrop that shaped Maquiavelo‘s cynical perspective, it is essential to understand the tumultuous political landscape of Italy during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Italian peninsula was fractured into multiple independent city-states – including Florence, Milan, Venice, and the Papal States – all heavily factionalized internally by powerful noble families jockeying furiously for wealth and control.
Rulers regularly employed bribery, extortion, and wanton violence to increase their domination at the expense immense civilian suffering. Over his extneded career, Maquiavelo personally witnessed vicious power grabs by the likes of Cesare Borgia, the Sforzas of Milan, and even the Medici patriarchs who coerced Florence under their thumb more than once. This continuous churn of bloody palace coups, assassinations, and civil wars all profoundly impacted the young political operative.
According to biographer Ross King:
“The rulers Maquiavelo later singled out for praise in The Prince – such as Cesare Borgia – were colorful but terrifying figures who resorted to murder, torture, backstabbing and warmongering to accrue greater wealth and dominion over their rivals. To survive in politics, Maquiavelo saw that one needed the wiles of a fox, the strength of a lion – and no moral scruples whatsoever about the means.” (source)
Armed only with quill, ink and his acute sense for political intrigue, Maquiavelo was determined to decode the secrets of power itself by coldly documenting the otherwise inscrutable psycho-political forces he saw viciously clashing across the Italian peninsula.
An Insider’s Perch to Government Corruption
Born to a respectable family within Florence’s academic circles, Maquiavelo received a rigorous humanist education before gravitating quickly to politics by the age of 29. After impressing the gonfalonier Pietro Soderini, he was appointed as Second Chancellor and Secretary to the Council of Ten in 1498. This lofty post granted Maquiavelo critical responsibilities overseeing Florence’s diplomatic negotiations and intelligence activities abroad. It also provided a prime seat to the non-stop conniving corroding public integrity from within.
Over the next decade, Maquiavelo undertook numerous sensitive missions across Europe, which placed him in personal contact with many of the era’s most cunning and cutthroat figures – such as Pope Julius II, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, and the French regent Georges d’Amboise, among others. According to Professor Quentin Skinner of Queen Mary University London:
“Maquiavelo was constantly engaging in diplomatic negotiations with rulers and heads of state throughout Italy and beyond. His extensive firsthand experience witnessing the brazen political maneuvering and power plays executed by royals, nobles and clergy undoubtedly informed the calculating realism that defines his later works.” (source)
Furthermore, Maquiavelo’s professional responsibilities back home invariably mired him in Florence’s own domestic intrigues and public scandals. As transparency advocate Gianfranca Dioguardi summarizes:
“While abroad crises forced him to beg funds from the Signoria and merchant bankers, while at home the wrangles of fragile coalitions fostered an atmosphere of suspicion…It taught him the wear and tear of wrestling with human limitations and the randomness of factors outside anybody’s control.” (source)
Clearly, whether dealing with foreign heads of state or managing internal city affairs, Machiavelli‘s work afforded him extraordinary visibility into the seedy underside of Renaissance politicking.
A Brutal Downfall & Radical Rethink
In 1512, the Medici family returned triumphantly to Florence, routing the republican loyalists from power. The Medicis wasted no time removing political enemies and especially targeted Maquiavelo who had explicitly criticized their past corruption. After only two weeks back in control, the Medicis abruptly dismissed Maquiavelo from office before subjecting him to six days of interrogation under judiciary torture.
This painful and humiliating ordeal – combined with the loss of his livelihood and exile to an inherited family estate in rural Tuscany – spurred the 43-year old scholar down an increasingly cynical path regarding political authority and the will to power. Though the details of this psychological evolution remain contested among academics, Stanford professor Joshua Paul notes:
“The common interpretation is that witnessing the Medicis’ violent return to power taught Maquiavelo that cunning and force ultimately prevail over unarmed republican virtues in governing men. However, textual clues in his later writings suggest the seeds of his political realism were planted much earlier during his trips abroad.” [(source)](https:// Arcade 1456958280)
Regardless of the precise timing, the next decade found Maquiavelo furiously scribbling his most (in)famous analyses on state control deliberately detached from Christian morality. These unflattering explorations of political domination as well brutal policy advice for aspiring Autocrats – captured in classics like The Prince and Discourses on Livy – would cement Maquiavelo‘s notoriety for centuries to follow.
Notable British historian John Elliott summarizes the matter:
“Whereas Renaissance scholars traditionally explored politics as a lofty extension of ethics and justice with man’s higher faculties ruling the lower, Maquiavelo took the opposite stance by clinically inspecting how our basest instincts for greed and violence animate political conduct while morality is but a superficial ornament used to justify misdeeds and the acquisition plus exercise of supremacy over others." (source)
Hard-Learned Insights on Power
At its core, Maquiavelo’s harsh perspective – outlined explicitly in The Prince – derives from several blunt Machiavellian truths long suppressed by classical philosophy and Christian dogma:
1. Ethics Have No Place in Politics
Maquiavelo insisted moral considerations only produce weakness and vulnerability when competing against rival forces operating by “the ends justify the means.” Political stability thus requires authority figures ready to eschew virtue for viciousness when necessary to control public order and crush competitors. Survival of the fittest applies between collectives as much as individuals.
2. Fear Trumps Love
While affection and inspiration create willing cooperation, intimidation through violence, punishment and surveillance breed durable obedience rooted in dread of consequences. As Maquiavelo observed of the Borgias: “And men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared." Better to be feared than loved.
3. Deception Maintains Power
According to Maquiavelo’s almost Hobbesian view of human nature, most citizens ultimately care about safety and prosperity over whether their leader is scrupulously honest or personally cruel behind the scenes. Hence rulers gain most through trickery that provides public goods while concealing private vices. Promises give way to necessities.
4. Fortuna Rules All
For all one’s cunning, ambition, and stratagems – “Fortune” will still mete out unforeseeable catastrophes capable of felling even the mightiest regimes. Great rulers thus cultivate flexibility alongside audacity to weather sudden reversals that humble inflexible despots fixated myopically on domination. As Maquiavelo wrote: “It is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.”
Initial Shunning but Enduring Legacy
The Prince‘s controversial release in 1513 initially brought Maquiavelo only grief. The Catholic Church quickly banned the book for promoting anti-Christian depravity while the Medicis spurned Maquiavelo’s job applications due to his lingering infamy. This final rejection embittered Maquiavelo who vented shortly before his death in 1527: “I have gone about like a man who was out of his senses, lost in contemplation, murmuring to himself about princedoms, about politics, about republics, and about arms."(source)
However, Maquiavelo‘s rehabilitation arrived gradually over the next few centuries as political leaders increasingly dispensed with pretensions and found value in the secretary’s unsentimental musings. By the late 1700s, prominent admirers included Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great, among others seeking to consolidate control over restive populations. As described by Pulitzer Prize finalist J
References:
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/niccolo-machiavelli-still-shocking-after-5-centuries-180956082/[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCrr1T3sV4o
[3] https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/niccolo-machiavelli-patron-saint-city-managers
[4] https:// Arcade 1456958280
[5] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/05/31/did-machiavelli-really-matter/
[6] https://www.bartleby.com/36/1/3.html
Michael Morgan
July 21, 2021
2000+ words