niccolò machiavelli philosophy

It is the custom to be shocked … After Pagolo died, he fought under his brother Vitellozzo, and in a very short time, being endowed with wit and a vigorous body and mind, he became the first man in his profession. For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. The decree forbade all books written by certain authors or published by certain printers. The badly employed are those which, notwithstanding they may be few in the commencement, multiply with time rather than decrease. However, this did not stop him being considered one of the world's most important political philosophers. Widely shared power is the most important of these standards: all classes of citizens, from the least to the greatest, must have their fair share of authority. None of the assassins knew who he was." Yet the more I read, the more I questioned this story. After these murders Oliverotto, mounted on horseback, rode up and down the town and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace, so that in fear the people were forced to obey him, and to form a government, of which he made himself the prince. In the footnote to this passage, translator Robert Adams comments that while Petrucci may have used men whom he did not trust to help him rule, no other historians have provided evidence for this conclusion. This arises from the reasons given above; for his ministers, being all slaves and bondmen, can only be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as they cannot carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned. He was at first the republic's foreign minister before becoming the minister of war. But as a leading civil servant in charge of foreign affairs and defence, Machiavelli had been one of the republic’s stoutest defenders. Machiavelli understood what he wrote and expected it to be understood in a certain way. This included all the books published by Machiavelli. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand; and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those which I have related. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art. We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed. Livy was a very patriotic writer and is sometimes guilty of distorting the truth in order to portray Rome's enemies as the aggressors. The Prince, still widely read, in fact the only one of Machiavelli’s books that has ever been widely read, is the basis of his evil reputation; yet of all his books it is the one that affords the least sure clue to the workings of his mind; there are as many theories about the true meaning of The Prince as there are scholars of the subject. The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and the King of France. (55), Machiavelli remained on the Index of Prohibited Books until 1890. His role involved frequent travel to the courts of kings, emperors, popes and generals and he had the "opportunity to observe different personalities and systems; and because he was charged with the delicate task of negotiating with powers far more formidable than Florence itself, he was able to refine his analytic and diplomatic skills to consummate levels." The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France, because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the kingdom, for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite. They were deeply suspicious of his loyalties, dismissed him from his posts, then had him imprisoned and tortured under suspicion of plotting against them. Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. "Greatness comes to cities not through individual benefits but through pursuit of the common good, and there is no doubt that this ideal can only be achieved in republics". Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above respects ought to make himself the head and defender of his less powerful neighbours, and to weaken the more powerful amongst them, taking care that no foreigner as powerful as himself shall, by any accident, get a footing there; for it will always happen that such a one will be introduced by those who are discontented, either through excess of ambition or through fear, as one has seen already. But it can be perfect in the sense that its laws and institutions match the best standards of government that we flawed human animals can hope to live up to. (34), Machiavelli praised the achievements of the republican period of Roman history. His writings are maddeningly and notoriously unsystematic, inconsistent and sometimes self-contradictory. So what can citizens can do to preserve their freedoms? Desiring, therefore, to discuss the nature of the government of Rome, and to ascertain the accidental circumstances which brought it to its perfection, I say, as has been said before by many who have written of Governments, that of these there are three forms, known by the names Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, and that those who give its institutions to a State have recourse to one or other of these three, according as it suits their purpose. Subscribe to our Spartacus Newsletter and keep up to date with the latest articles. Next to these, they have the greatest name who as commanders of armies have added to their own dominions or those of their country. But were they to read history, and turn to profit the lessons of the past, it seems impossible that those living in a republic as private citizens, should not prefer their native city, to play the part of Scipio rather of Cæsar; or that those who by good fortune or merit have risen to be rulers, should not seek rather to resemble Agesilaus, Timoleon, and Dion, than to Nabis, Phalaris and Dionysius; since they would see how the latter are loaded with infamy, while the former have been extolled beyond bounds. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. When the viands and all the other entertainments that are usual in such banquets were finished, Oliverotto artfully began certain grave discourses, speaking of the greatness of Pope Alexander and his son Cesare, and of their enterprises, to which discourse Giovanni and others answered; but he rose at once, saying that such matters ought to be discussed in a more private place, and he betook himself to a chamber, whither Giovanni and the rest of the citizens went in after him. This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the reproach of being miserly. These principalities are liable to danger when they are passing from the civil to the absolute order of government, for such princes either rule personally or through magistrates. These reasons range from a method of gaining the Medici’s trust and obtaining a position within their government, as a warning to the Florentines to look out for tyrants like the Medici, or as a dare to the Medici to rule in such a vicious way that it would cause a rebellion. And because Dante says, “Knowledge doth come of learning well retained, Unfruitful else” (36), Machiavelli made it clear that to achieve glory a state must be free, able to determine its own affairs for the benefit of all in it. He has only to take care that they do not get hold of too much power and too much authority, and then with his own forces, and with their goodwill, he can easily keep down the more powerful of them, so as to remain entirely master in the country. He was tortured In all the years he served Florence his reports and letters of advice were slightly valued, praised for their astuteness and wisdom, and for their literary qualities... Machiavelli's main legacy is his writings, and chiefly his classic of frank and frankly shocking political advice, The Prince, completed in 1513. For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. (Niccolo Machiavelli), "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm An example of this appears in Book X when Machiavelli advises the prince to destroy a newly acquired state, go live there, or let the state stay as it was before. All of these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not any private person. (44), Machiavelli's most important books, The Discourses on Livy (1531) and The Prince (1532) were not published until after his death. For every cynical Machiavellian precept, I found two or three others that clashed with it. Moreover, succeeding thinkers who more obviously qualify as philosophers of the first rank did (and still do) feel compelled to engage with his ideas, either to dispute them or to incorporate his insights into their own teachings. To restrain the Venetians the union of all the others was necessary, as it was for the defence of Ferrara; and to keep down the Pope they made use of the barons of Rome, who, being divided into two factions, Orsini and Colonnesi, had always a pretext for disorder, and, standing with arms in their hands under the eyes of the Pontiff, kept the pontificate weak and powerless. At a young age he became a pupil of a renowned Latin teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione. (58). However, any society is divided between nobles and the people. This man rose from a private station to be Prince of Syracuse, nor did he, either, owe anything to fortune but opportunity; for the Syracusans, being oppressed, chose him for their captain, afterwards he was rewarded by being made their prince. For in the beginning of the world, its inhabitants, being few in number, for a time lived scattered after the fashion of beasts; but afterwards, as they increased and multiplied, gathered themselves into societies, and, the better to protect themselves, began to seek who among them was the strongest and of the highest courage, to whom, making him their head, they tendered obedience. What he achieved cannot be attributed either to fortune or genius.

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