Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli (3 May, 1469-21 June, 1527) was an Italian thinker and writer most well known for his work The Prince. Machiavelli's name has been used for centuries to describe the use or approval of unscrupulous political action, despite the fact that he was well respected as an honourable man, who was the victim of corruption, political deceit and violence throughout his political career in Florence. His concept of civic virtue became a central element of republicanism, which strongly influenced the development of European and American political thought.

Biography

His father was a Florentine lawyer, who came from an old and noble family. His mother was also well educated and it is likely that Machiavelli received a good education in literature, philosophy, Latin and Law. From the age of 20-29 he worked in Rome, employed in the banking business. A few years after the death of his employer, he succeeded in becoming administrative secretary to the governing council of Florence and held the post until the Spanish overthrew the Republic fourteen years later. Since he had being on many diplomatic missions for the Republic and because he was a source of advice for its leaders, the Spanish saw him as a possible conspirator against their occupation. Machiavelli was dismissed from his post, tortured and released from imprisonment shortly afterwards. He then retired from public life to his modest family property for the next six years in an effort to provide for his wife and children.

By 1518 Machiavelli was giving public lectures of his written work, particularly the The Discourses and The Art of War, the latter of which was to be one of his only important books to be published in his lifetime. The Discourses, The History of Florence and The Prince were published posthumously. In the last period of his life he received an annual grant from the Pope to write his history of Florence and to improve the defenses of the city. However, in 1527 the army of the Holy Roman Empire sacked Rome and the Pope was taken prisoner. At the same time the Papal government of Florence was overthrown and once again became a Republic. Although known as a committed Republican, he found it hard to gain back the favour of the Republicans because of his active collaboration with the last government.

Shortly after the coup Machiavelli became ill with a stomach complaint and died, leaving his family in poverty. Although he had being disappointed in not being able to play a more active role in the political life of the city, the commentaries and analyses he produced ensured a long lasting legacy.

The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius is Machiavelli's fullest discussion on his views on the practice of politics and government, and on the theories that should guide that practice. It was written in the same period as his more well known work, The Prince (1513-1519 approx.) The latter is a brief handbook on for the use of rulers, the former is an extended commentary on the first ten of thirty five books that remain of Livy's History of Rome, making him an important Classical scholar in addition to his contributions to Political philosophy.

The Art of War is considered to be the first major work on modern military thought. In seven volumes it examines military strategy and the relationship between war and politics.

Contributions to Political Philosophy

Machiavelli was in many respects not an innovator. His largest political work seeks to bring back a rebirth of the Ancient Roman Republic; its values, virtues and principles the ultimate guiding authority of his political vision. Machiavelli is essentially a restorer of something old and forgotten. The republicanism he focused on, especially the theme of civic virtue, became one of the dominant political themes of the modern world, and was a central part of the foundation of American political values.

Machiavelli studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. To an extent he admits that the old tradition was true - men are obliged to live virtuously as according to Aristotles Virtue Ethics principle. However, he denies that living virtuously necessarily leads to happiness. Machiavelli viewed misery as one of the vices that enables a prince to rule Machiavelli states boldly in The Prince, The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. In much of Machiavelli's work, it seems that the ruler must adopt unsavoury policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime.

Najemy (1996) examines Hans Baron's ambivalent portrayal of Machiavelli. He argues that Baron tended to see Machiavelli simultaneously as the cynical debunker and the faithful heir of civic humanism. By the mid-1950s, Baron had come to consider civic humanism and Florentine republicanism as early chapters of a much longer history of European political liberty, a story in which Machiavelli and his generation played a crucial role. This conclusion led Baron to modify his earlier negative view of Machiavelli. He tried to bring the Florentine theorist under the umbrella of civic humanism by underscoring the radical differences between The Prince and the Discourses and thus revealing the fundamentally republican character of the Discourses. However, Baron's inability to come to terms with Machiavelli's harsh criticism of early 15th-century commentators such as Leonardo Bruni ultimately prevented him from fully reconciling Machiavelli with civic humanism.

Pocock (1981) Traces the Machiavellian belief in and emphasis upon Greco-Roman ideals of unspecialized civic virtue and liberty from 15th-century Florence through 17th-century England and Scotland to 18th-century America. Thinkers who shared these ideals tended to believe that the function of property was to maintain an individual's independence as a precondition of his virtue. Consequently, in the last two times and places mentioned above, they were disposed to attack the new commercial and financial regime that was beginning to develop