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MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo (1469-1527)
Italian historian, statesman,
and political philosopher, whose amoral, but influential writings
on statecraft have turned his name into a synonym for cunning and
duplicity. Born in Florence on May 3, 1469, Machiavelli entered
government service as a clerk and rose to prominence when the
Florentine Republic was proclaimed in 1498. He was secretary of
the ten-man council that conducted the diplomatic negotiations
and supervised the military operations of the republic, and his
duties included missions to the French king (1504, 1510-11), the
Holy See (1506), and the German emperor (1507-8). In the course
of his diplomatic missions within Italy he became acquainted with
many of the Italian rulers and was able to study their political
tactics, particularly those of the ecclesiastic and soldier
Cesare Borgia, who was at that time engaged in enlarging his
holdings in central Italy. From 1503 to 1506 Machiavelli
reorganized the military defense of the republic of Florence.
Although mercenary armies were common during this period, he
preferred to rely on the conscription of native troops to ensure
a permanent and patriotic defense of the commonwealth. In 1512,
when the Medici, a Florentine family, regained power in Florence
and the republic was dissolved, he was deprived of office and
briefly impris oned for alleged conspiracy against them. After
his release he retired to his estate near Florence, where he
wrote his most important works. Despite his attempts to gain
favor with the Medici rulers, he was never restored to his
prominent government position. When the republic was temporarily
reinstated in 1527, he was suspected by many republicans of
pro-Medici leanings. He died in Florence on June 21 of that year.
The Prince. Throughout his career Machiavelli sought to establish
a state capable of resisting foreign attack. His writings are
concerned with the principles on which such a state is founded,
and with the means by which they can be implemented and
maintained. In his most famous work, The Prince (1532; trans.
1640), he describes the method by which a prince can acquire and
maintain political power. This study, which has often been
regarded as a defense of the despotism and tyranny of such rulers
as Cesare Borgia, is based on Machiavelli's belief that a ruler
is not bound by traditional ethical norms. In his view, a prince
should be concerned only with power and be bound only by rules
that would lead to success in political actions. Machiavelli
believed that these rules could be discovered by deduction from
the political practices of the time, as well as from those of
earlier periods. Other Important Works. Machiavelli's formulation
of the historical principles inherent in Roman government may be
found in his Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius
(1531; trans. 1636), a commentary on the History of Rome by the
Roman historian Livy. In this study Machiavelli departs from
medieval theocratic concepts of history, ascribing historical
events to the demands of human nature and the effects of chance.
Among his other works are Dell'arte della guerra (On the Art of
War, 1521), which describes the advantages of conscripted over
mercenary troops. The Istorie Fiorentine (History of Florence,
1525) interprets the chronicles of the city, in terms of
historical causality. Machiavelli was also the author of the
biography Vita di Castruccio Castracani (Life of Castruccio
Castracani, 1520), a number of poems, and several plays, of which
the best known is Mandragola (the Mandrake, 1524), a biting
satire on the corruption of contemporary Italian society. Many of
his writings anticipated the growth in succeeding periods of
strong nationalistic states. Machiavellianism, as a term, has
been used to describe the principles of power politics, and the
type of person who uses those principles in political or personal
life is frequently described as a Machiavellian.
Information obtained from Infopedia 2.0 Softkey International