Tracing Machiavelli

Machiavelli was born in Florence which was a republic and city state. He lived and worked in Florence at the height of the Renaissance.

He looked at the Ancient or classical writings (those of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) and introduced what we call modernity today.

His ambition was to do for political theory what his contemporaries Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo did for the arts (painting and sculpture).

(Statue of Machiavelli in Uffizi: Image Credit)

I have mentioned in class that Machiavelli lived during a vibrant time of tumultuous change and political upheaval.

He grew up under the rule of the powerful Medici family and saw them deposed by a Christian Dominican friar called Savonarola.

The friar tired to press Christian values in Florence but his rule was short lived and he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI and executed May 23, 1498.

A republic was re-established and Machiavelli held a kind of diplomatic post (the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria) for 14 years (1498-1512) until the Medici family returned to power toppling the republic once again.

Lorenzo Medici fired Machiavelli and forced him into exile after a period of imprisonment. Lorenzo Medici is said to have thought that Machiavelli had plotted against his family. (Lorenzo Medici: Image Credit)

Machiavelli then went and lived on a small farm he owned and it is here where he wrote The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, The Art of War, and many letters on politics to friends and associates.

By 1519 Machiavelli won some measure of favour and the Medici family even asked him to write a history of Florence.

The Medici were, however, again deposed in 1527 and Machiavelli was left unemployed and without much political influence as he was now distrusted by the republican government because of his tied to the Medici family.

I guess there is some irony in this twist of fate.

Machiavelli died in Florence on June 21, 1527. He, however, lived long enough to witness Rome falling to a rather hapless Spanish infantry.

His writings gained notoriety in the latter part of the 16th century. For some, his works were considered to be too dangerous for common consumption and they were banned by the church in 1564.

For our purposes, we are focusing on The Prince and its teachings. We begin by making the assertion that Machiavelli is the founder of the modern state.

This assertion is juxtaposed with the manner in which he reoriented the focus on what the nature of political rule, and by implication, its leaders should do to rule.

Machiavelli rejected the idealistic/normative assertions on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

We have studied in some detail the emphasis of these classical writers and find them to focus on virtues that draw on philosophic purity and morality.

Socrates, you may remember, sought a leadership made up of philosophers who debated the esoteric content of politics and leadership.

Plato and Aristotle spend an inordinate amount of time on the nature of justice and the ideals that underpin just rule and just rulers.

Machiavelli is the most prominent thinker in the western tradition to break with the normative political discourse of the classical thinkers we have studied.

He imposes an abrupt kind of politics that can be defined as being skeptical and even obsessed with things deviant and evil.

He calls on us to consider politics as an all-out struggle for power. This struggle is real and cannot be avoided or made nicer with appeals to our ethics and morality.

This is what the term Realpolik seeks to describe.

We turn our attention to Realpolik and its amoral politics.