What makes niccolo machiavelli famous

Machiavelli was the first theorist to decisively divorce politics from ethics, and hence to give a certain autonomy to the study of politics. But here is where things start to get complicated.

How so? One of the ironies surrounding Machiavelli is that there has never been anything resembling a Machiavellian school of thought. For all their so-called realism, his political theories have not led to any grand social or political movements, nor has he sponsored any revolutions, nor inspired any new constitutions.

In the history of European or world politics, he is not nearly as important as someone like Rousseau, for instance, who in many ways laid the ideological foundation for the French Revolution, to say nothing of Marx, whose theories led to concrete social and political transformations in many 20th-century societies.

The Prince was not even read by the person to whom it was dedicated, Lorenzo de Medici. If the truth be told, this strange little treatise for which Machiavelli is famous, or infamous, never aided—at least not in any systematic way—anyone in the actual business of governing. The most one can say about The Prince in this regard is that Kissinger and Nixon preferred it as their bedtime reading.

The answer, I think, has to do with the fact that this book is what we call a classic. Its enduring value in my view lies not so much in its political theories as in the way it discloses or articulates a particular way of looking at the world. The Prince shows us what the world looks like when viewed from a strictly demoralized perspective.

And so we ask ourselves, for example, what does human nature look like when looked at from a demoralized or hard-nosed realist point of view? We get an unambivalent answer to that question in chapter 17 of The Prince. In this passage, Machiavelli is addressing the typically Machiavellian question of whether it is better for a prince to be feared or to be loved:. In sum, human beings are wretched creatures, governed only by the law of their own self-interest.

It is better for a prince to be feared than loved, because love is fickle, while fear is constant. Today, Machiavelli is regarded as the "father of modern political theory. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Italian sculptor Donatello is one of the most influential artists of the 15th century in Italy, known for his marble sculpture David, among other popular works. Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the leading architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance and is best known for his work on the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore the Duomo in Florence.

Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance-era. Petrarch was a poet and scholar whose humanist philosophy set the stage for the Renaissance. Yet Machiavelli himself apparently harbored severe doubts about whether human beings were psychologically capable of generating such flexible dispositions within themselves. While The Prince is doubtless the most widely read of his works, the Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy perhaps most honestly expresses Machiavelli's personal political beliefs and commitments, in particular, his republican sympathies.

The Discourses certainly draw upon the same reservoir of language and concepts that flowed into The Prince , but the former treatise leads us to draw conclusions quite different from—many scholars have said contradictory to—the latter. A minimal constitutional order is one in which subjects live securely vivere sicuro , ruled by a strong government which holds in check the aspirations of both nobility and people, but is in turn balanced by other legal and institutional mechanisms.

In a fully constitutional regime, however, the goal of the political order is the freedom of the community vivere libero , created by the active participation of, and contention between, the nobility and the people. As Quentin Skinner , — has argued, liberty forms a value that anchors Machiavelli's political theory and guides his evaluations of the worthiness of different types of regimes.

Only in a republic, for which Machiavelli expresses a distinct preference, may this goal be attained. Machiavelli adopted this position on both pragmatic and principled grounds. Although Machiavelli makes relatively little comment about the French monarchy in The Prince , he devotes a great deal of attention to France in the Discourses. Why would Machiavelli effusively praise let alone even analyze a hereditary monarchy in a work supposedly designed to promote the superiority of republics?

The answer stems from Machiavelli's aim to contrast the best case scenario of a monarchic regime with the institutions and organization of a republic.

Even the most excellent monarchy, in Machiavelli's view, lacks certain salient qualities that are endemic to properly constituted republican government and that make the latter constitution more desirable than the former. Machiavelli asserts that the greatest virtue of the French kingdom and its king is the dedication to law. The explanation for this situation Machiavelli refers to the function of the Parlement.

These laws and orders are maintained by Parlements, notably that of Paris: by it they are renewed any time it acts against a prince of the kingdom or in its sentences condemns the king.

And up to now it has maintained itself by having been a persistent executor against that nobility. Discourses CW , translation revised. These passages of the Discourses seem to suggest that Machiavelli has great admiration for the institutional arrangements that obtain in France.

Specifically, the French king and the nobles, whose power is such that they would be able to oppress the populace, are checked by the laws of the realm which are enforced by the independent authority of the Parlement. Yet such a regime, no matter how well ordered and law-abiding, remains incompatible with vivere libero.

Discussing the ability of a monarch to meet the people's wish for liberty, Machiavelli comments that. Discourses CW He concludes that a few individuals want freedom simply in order to command others; these, he believes, are of sufficiently small number that they can either be eradicated or bought off with honors.

Although the king cannot give such liberty to the masses, he can provide the security that they crave:. As for the rest, for whom it is enough to live securely vivere sicuro , they are easily satisfied by making orders and laws that, along with the power of the king, comprehend everyone's security.

And once a prince does this, and the people see that he never breaks such laws, they will shortly begin to live securely vivere sicuro and contentedly Discourses CW The law-abiding character of the French regime ensures security, but that security, while desirable, ought never to be confused with liberty.

This is the limit of monarchic rule: even the best kingdom can do no better than to guarantee to its people tranquil and orderly government. Machiavelli holds that one of the consequences of such vivere sicuro is the disarmament of the people. This all comes from having disarmed his people and having preferred … to enjoy the immediate profit of being able to plunder the people and of avoiding an imaginary rather than a real danger, instead of doing things that would assure them and make their states perpetually happy.

This disorder, if it produces some quiet times, is in time the cause of straitened circumstances, damage and irreparable ruin Discourses CW A state that makes security a priority cannot afford to arm its populace, for fear that the masses will employ their weapons against the nobility or perhaps the crown. Yet at the same time, such a regime is weakened irredeemably, since it must depend upon foreigners to fight on its behalf. In this sense, any government that takes vivere sicuro as its goal generates a passive and impotent populace as an inescapable result.

By definition, such a society can never be free in Machiavelli's sense of vivere libero , and hence is only minimally, rather than completely, political or civil. Confirmation of this interpretation of the limits of monarchy for Machiavelli may be found in his further discussion of the disarmament of the people, and its effects, in The Art of War.

Addressing the question of whether a citizen army is to be preferred to a mercenary one, he insists that the liberty of a state is contingent upon the military preparedness of its subjects. In his view, whatever benefits may accrue to a state by denying a military role to the people are of less importance than the absence of liberty that necessarily accompanies such disarmament.

The problem is not merely that the ruler of a disarmed nation is in thrall to the military prowess of foreigners. Machiavelli is confident that citizens will always fight for their liberty—against internal as well as external oppressors.

Indeed, this is precisely why successive French monarchs have left their people disarmed: they sought to maintain public security and order, which for them meant the elimination of any opportunities for their subjects to wield arms.

The French regime, because it seeks security above all else for the people as well as for their rulers , cannot permit what Machiavelli takes to be a primary means of promoting liberty. The case of disarmament is an illustration of a larger difference between minimally constitutional systems such as France and fully political communities such as the Roman Republic, namely, the status of the classes within the society.

In France, the people are entirely passive and the nobility is largely dependent upon the king, according to Machiavelli's own observations. By contrast, in a fully developed republic such as Rome's, where the actualization of liberty is paramount, both the people and the nobility take an active and sometimes clashing role in self-government McCormick ; Holman The liberty of the whole, for Machiavelli, depends upon the liberty of its component parts.

In his famous discussion of this subject in the Discourses , he remarks,. To me those who condemn the tumults between the Nobles and the Plebs seem to be caviling at the very thing that was the primary cause of Rome's retention of liberty…. And they do not realize that in every republic there are two different dispositions, that of the people and that of the great men, and that all legislation favoring liberty is brought about by their dissension Discourses CW — Machiavelli knows that he is adopting an unusual perspective here, since customarily the blame for the collapse of the Roman Republic has been assigned to warring factions that eventually ripped it apart.

Enmities between the people and the Senate should, therefore, be looked upon as an inconvenience which it is necessary to put up with in order to arrive at the greatness of Rome. Machiavelli thinks that other republican models such as those adopted by Sparta or Venice will produce weaker and less successful political systems, ones that are either stagnant or prone to decay when circumstances change.

Machiavelli evinces particular confidence in the capacity of the people to contribute to the promotion of communal liberty. This is not an arbitrary expression of personal preference on Machiavelli's part. He maintains that the people are more concerned about, and more willing to defend, liberty than either princes or nobles Discourses CW — In turn, when they fear the onset of such oppression, ordinary citizens are more inclined to object and to defend the common liberty.

Such an active role for the people, while necessary for the maintenance of vital public liberty, is fundamentally antithetical to the hierarchical structure of subordination-and-rule on which monarchic vivere sicuro rests.

The preconditions of vivere libero simply do not favor the security that is the aim of constitutional monarchy. Machiavelli clearly views speech as the method most appropriate to the resolution of conflict in the republican public sphere; throughout the Discourses , debate is elevated as the best means for the people to determine the wisest course of action and the most qualified leaders.

The tradition of classical rhetoric, with which he was evidently familiar, directly associated public speaking with contention: the proper application of speech in the realms of forensic and deliberative genres of rhetoric is an adversarial setting, with each speaker seeking to convince his audience of the validity of his own position and the unworthiness of his opponents'.

This theme was taken up, in turn, by late medieval Italian practitioners and theorists of rhetoric, who emphasized that the subject matter of the art was lite conflict. Thus, Machiavelli's insistence upon contention as a prerequisite of liberty also reflects his rhetorical predilections Viroli By contrast, monarchic regimes—even the most secure constitutional monarchies such as France—exclude or limit public discourse, thereby placing themselves at a distinct disadvantage.

It is far easier to convince a single ruler to undertake a disastrous or ill-conceived course of action than a multitude of people. This connects to the claim in the Discourses that the popular elements within the community form the best safeguard of civic liberty as well as the most reliable source of decision-making about the public good. Machiavelli's praise for the role of the people in securing the republic is supported by his confidence in the generally illuminating effects of public speech upon the citizen body.

Near the beginning of the first Discourses , he notes that some may object to the extensive freedom enjoyed by the Roman people to assemble, to protest, and to veto laws and policies. But he responds that the Romans were able to. At times when ordinary Roman citizens wrongly supposed that a law or institution was designed to oppress them, they could be persuaded that their beliefs are mistaken … [through] the remedy of assemblies, in which some man of influence gets up and makes a speech showing them how they are deceiving themselves.

And as Tully says, the people, although they may be ignorant, can grasp the truth, and yield easily when told what is true by a trustworthy man Discourses CW Among the topics that Machiavelli discusses are the famous battle of Anghiari FH 5. Books 7 and 8 principally concern the rise of the Medici—in particular Cosimo; his son, Piero the Gouty; and his son in turn, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Cosimo also loved classical learning to such an extent that he brought John Argyropoulos and Marsilio Ficino to Florence.

Additionally, Cosimo left a strong foundation for his descendants FH 7. Piero is highlighted mainly for lacking the foresight and prudence of his father; for fomenting popular resentment; and for being unable to resist the ambition of the great.

Lorenzo is noted for his youth F 7. The Histories end with the death of Lorenzo. The Histories has received renewed attention in recent years, and scholars have increasingly seen it as not merely historical but also philosophical—in other words, as complementary to The Prince and the Discourses.

Every single work is not listed; instead, emphasis has been placed upon those that seem to have philosophical resonance.

In the early s, he wrote several reports and speeches. They are notable for their topics and for the way in which they contain precursors to important claims in later works, such as The Prince. Among other things, Machiavelli wrote on how Duke Valentino killed Vitellozzo Vitelli compare P 7 ; on how Florence tried to suppress the factions in Pistoia compare P 17 ; and how to deal with the rebels of Valdichiana.

The most obvious changes are found in the final part, where Machiavelli attributes to Castruccio many sayings that are in fact almost exclusively drawn from the Lives of Diogenes Laertius. Also around , Machiavelli wrote the Discourse on Florentine Affairs.

Recent work has suggested the proximity in content between this work and the Florentine Histories. Also of interest is On the Natures of Florentine Men , which is an autograph manuscript which Machiavelli may have intended as a ninth book of the Florentine Histories. Toward the end of his tenure in the Florentine government, Machiavelli wrote two poems in terza rima called I Decennali. The first seems to date from and concerns the history of Italy from to It is the only work that Machiavelli published while in office.

The second seems to date from around and concerns the history of Italy from to Among other things, they are precursors to concerns found in the Florentine Histories. In general, between and , Machiavelli turned more consciously toward art. Mandragola was probably written between and ; was first published in ; and was first performed in While original, it hearkens to the ancient world especially in how its characters are named e. It is by far the most famous of the three and indeed is one of the most famous plays of the Renaissance.

It contains many typical Machiavellian themes, the most notable of which are conspiracy and the use of religion as a mask for immoral purposes.

It was probably written in the early s. In recent years, scholars have increasingly treated all three of these plays with seriousness and indeed as philosophical works in their own right. In addition to I Decannali , Machiavelli wrote other poems. I Capitoli contains tercets which are dedicated to friends and which treat the topics of ingratitude, fortune, ambition, and opportunity with virtue being notably absent. The Ideal Ruler is in the form of a pastoral.

Between and , Machiavelli wrote several sonnets and at least one serenade. There are some other miscellaneous writings with philosophical import, most of which survive in autograph copies and which have undetermined dates of composition.

Machiavelli wrote a Dialogue on Language in which he discourses with Dante on various linguistic concerns, including style and philology. Articles for a Pleasure Company is a satire on high society and especially religious confraternities.

Belfagor is a short story that portrays, among other things, Satan as a wise and just prince. An Exhortation to Penitence unsurprisingly concerns the topic of penitence; the sincerity of this exhortation, however, remains a scholarly question. The Legations date from the period that Machiavelli worked for the Florentine government The personal letters date from to Particularly notable among the personal letters are the September letter to Giovanbattista Soderini, the so-called Ghiribizzi al Soderini Musings to Soderini ; and the 10 December letter to Francesco Vettori, wherein Machiavelli first mentions The Prince.

Machiavelli insists upon the novelty of his enterprise in several places e. As a result, some interpreters have gone so far as to call him the inaugurator of modern philosophy. But all philosophers are to some degree in conversation with their predecessors, even or perhaps especially those who seek to disagree fundamentally with what has been thought before.

Thus, even with a figure as purportedly novel as Machiavelli, it is worth pondering historical and philosophical influences. Although Machiavelli studied ancient humanists, he does not often cite them as authorities. But Cicero is never named in The Prince although Machiavelli does allude to him via the images of the fox and the lion in P and is named only three times in the Discourses D 1. Other classical thinkers in the humanist tradition receive similar treatment. Juvenal is quoted three times D 2.

This trend tends to hold true for later thinkers, as well. One may see this relative paucity of references as suggestive that Machiavelli did not have humanist concerns. But it is possible to understand his thought as having a generally humanist tenor. Though they did treat problems in philosophy, they were primarily concerned with eloquence.

The revival of Greek learning in the Italian Renaissance did not change this concern and in fact even amplified it. New translations were made of ancient works, including Greek poetry and oratory, and rigorous and in some ways newfound philological concerns were infused with a sense of grace and nuance not always to be found in translations conducted upon the model of medieval calques.

A notable example is Coluccio Salutati, who otherwise bore a resemblance to medieval rhetoricians such as Petrus de Vineis but who believed, unlike the medievals, that the best way to achieve eloquence was to imitate ancient style as concertedly as possible.

But what exactly is this imprint? What exactly is Machiavellian eloquence? Fellow philosophers have differed in their opinions. Finally, increasing attention has been paid to other rhetorical devices, such as when Machiavelli speaks in his own voice; when he uses paradox, irony, and hyperbole; when he modifies historical examples for his own purposes; when he appears as a character in his narrative; and so forth.

And some scholars have gone so far as to say that The Prince is not a treatise compare D 2. In short, it is increasingly a scholarly trend to claim that one must pay attention not only to what Machiavelli says but how he says it. One reason for this lacuna might be that Plato is never mentioned in The Prince and is mentioned only once in the Discourses D 3. What exactly is meant here, however? There are few, if any, doctrines that all Platonists have held, as Plato himself did not insist upon the dogmatic character of either his writings or his oral teaching.

To which specific variety of Platonism was Machiavelli exposed? Plethon visited Florence in and due to the Council of Florence, the seventeenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church Plethon himself opposed the unification of the Greek and Latin Churches.

Ficino became a priest in , and Lorenzo later made him canon of the Duomo so that he would be free to focus upon his true love: philosophy. Like Plethon, Ficino believed that Plato was part of an ancient tradition of wisdom and interpreted Plato through Neoplatonic successors, especially Proclus, Dionysius the Areopagite, and St.

Some scholars believe that Machiavelli critiques both Plato and Renaissance Platonism in such passages. Aristotle is never mentioned in The Prince and is mentioned only once in the Discourses in the context of a discussion of tyranny D 3. This has led some scholars to claim that Machiavelli makes a clean and deliberate break with Aristotelian philosophy.

As with the question concerning Plato, the question of whether Aristotle influenced Machiavelli would seem to depend at least in part on the Aristotelianism to which he was exposed.

Scholars once viewed the Renaissance as the rise of humanism and the rediscovery of Platonism, on the one hand; and the decline of the prevailing Aristotelianism of the medieval period, on the other. Italian scholastic philosophy was its own animal. Italy was exposed to more Byzantine influences than any other Western country. Furthermore, unlike a country such as France, Italy also had its own tradition of culture and inquiry that reached back to classical Rome.

It is simply not the case that Italian Aristotelianism was displaced by humanism or Platonism. Indeed, perhaps from the late 13th century, and certainly by the late 14th, there was a healthy tradition of Italian Aristotelianism that stretched far into the 17th century. The main difference between the Aristotelian scholastics and their humanist rivals was one of subject matter.

Whereas the humanists were rhetoricians who focused primarily on grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, the scholastics were philosophers who focused upon logic and natural philosophy. And the Eudemian Ethics was translated for the first time. It seems likely that Machiavelli did not agree fully with the Aristotelian position on political philosophy.

Recent work has explored this final candidate in particular. Xenophon is mentioned only once in The Prince P However, he is mentioned seven times in the Discourses D 2. This kind and gentle vision of Cyrus was not shared universally by Renaissance Italians. At least two of these virtues are mentioned in later chapters of The Prince. Nonetheless, humanity is also one of the five qualities that Machiavelli explicitly highlights as a useful thing to appear to have P 18; see also FH 2.

Thus, Machiavelli may have learned from Xenophon that it is important for rulers and especially founders to appear to be something that they are not. This might hold true whether they are actual rulers e.

He says that he will leave out what is imagined and will instead discuss what is true. It is worth noting that Scipio, who imitates Cyrus, is criticized for excessive mercy or piety; P It also raises the question as to whether Machiavelli writes in a manner similar to Xenophon D 3. However, the text was not widely read in the Middle Ages and did not obtain prominence until centuries later, when it was rediscovered in by Poggio Bracciolini.

It seems to have entered broader circulation in the s or s, and it was first printed in These two works, along with other snippets of Epicurean philosophy already known from Seneca and Cicero, inspired many thinkers—such as Ficino and Alberti—to ponder the return of these ideas. Adriani deployed Lucretius in his Florentine lectures on poetry and rhetoric between and Lucretius also seems to have been a direct influence on Machiavelli himself.

Although Machiavelli never mentions Lucretius by name, he did hand-copy the entirety of De rerum natura drawing largely from the print edition.

He omits the descriptive capitula—not original to Lucretius but common in many manuscripts—that subdivide the six books of the text into smaller sections. He also adds approximately twenty marginal annotations of his own, almost all of which are concentrated in Book 2. Recent work has noted that it is precisely this section of the text that received the least attention from other Renaissance annotators, many of whom focused instead upon Epicurean views on love, virtue, and vice.

Among other possible connections are P 25 and 26; and D 1. Machiavelli does not seem to have agreed with the classical Epicurean position that one should withdraw from public life e. But what might Machiavelli have learned from Lucretius? One possible answer concerns the soul. Machiavelli never treats the topic of the soul substantively, and he never uses the word at all in either The Prince or the Discourses he apparently even went so far as to delete anima from a draft of the first preface to the Discourses.

For Lucretius, the soul is material, perishable, and made up of two parts: animus , which is located in the chest, and anima , which is spread throughout the body. But each part, like all things in the cosmos, is composed only of atoms, invisibly small particles of matter that are constantly in motion. From time to time, these atoms conglomerate into macroscopic masses.

Human beings are such entities. But when they perish, there is no longer any power to hold the atoms of the soul together, so those atoms disperse like all others eventually do. A second possible aspect of Lucretian influence concerns the eternity of the cosmos, on the one hand, and the constant motion of the world, on the other.

Machiavelli ponders the question of the eternity of the world D 2. He at times claims that the world has always remained the same D 1. He also at times claims that worldly things are in motion P 10 and FH 5. As recent work has shown, reading Lucretius in the Renaissance was a dangerous game. In , the Fifth Lateran Council condemned those who believed that the soul was mortal; those who believed in the unity of the intellect; and those who believed in the eternity of the world.

It also made belief in the afterlife mandatory. There is no comprehensive monograph on Machiavelli and Savonarola. While there has been some interesting recent work, particularly with respect to Florentine institutions, the connection between the two thinkers remains a profitable area of research.

Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar who came to Florence in and who effectively ruled the city from to from the pulpits of San Marco and Santa Reparata.

He was renowned for his oratorical ability, his endorsement of austerity, and his concomitant condemnation of excess and luxury. As a result, Florence would hang and then burn Savonarola with two others at the stake, going so far as to toss his ashes in the Arno afterward so that no relics of him could be kept. In the Discourses , Machiavelli is more expansive and explicit in his treatment of the friar.

Machiavelli conspicuously omits any explicit mention of Savonarola in the Florentine Histories. While it is true that Machiavelli does use bugie only in a negative context in the Discourses D 1. But, again, nuances and context may be important. Machiavelli does indeed implicate two other friars: Ponzo for insanity and Alberto for hypocrisy.

To what extent the Bible influenced Machiavelli remains an important question. He laments that histories are no longer properly read or understood D 1. Furthermore, he explicitly speaks of reading the Bible in this careful manner again sensatamente ; D 3. Recent work has explored what it might have meant for Machiavelli to read the Bible in this way.

Additionally, recent work has explored the extent to which Machiavelli engaged with the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Machiavelli, however, uses the passage to refer to David.

Elsewhere in the Discourses , Machiavelli attributes virtue to David and says that he was undoubtedly a man very excellent in arms, learning, and judgment D 1. Machiavelli offers a gloss of the story of David and Goliath which differs in numerous and substantive ways from the Biblical account see I Samuel , He is mentioned at least five times in The Prince P 6 [4x] and 26 and at least five times in the Discourses D 1.

Chapter 6 of The Prince is famous for its distinction between armed and unarmed prophets. However, recent work has noted that it does in fact follow exactly the order of Psalms Machiavelli speaks at least twice of the prophet Mohammed FH 1. He discusses various Muslim princes—most importantly Saladin FH 1. The main aim of this article is to help readers find a foothold in the primary literature.

A second, related aim is to help readers do so in the secondary literature. It has followed the practice of many recent Machiavelli scholars—for whom it is not uncommon, especially in English, to say that the views on Machiavelli can be divided into a handful of camps.

Many of the differences between these camps appear to reduce to the question of how to fit The Prince and the Discourses together. Five are outlined below, although some scholars would of course put that number either higher or lower.

Readers who are interested in understanding the warp and woof of the scholarship in greater detail are encouraged to consult the recent and more fine-grained accounts of Catherine Zuckert , John T.

Scott , and Erica Benner The first camp takes The Prince to be a satirical or ironic work. The 16th century Italian jurist Alberico Gentili was one of the first interpreters to take up the position that The Prince is a satire on ruling. Rousseau and Spinoza in their own respective ways also seemed to hold this interpretation. Members of this camp typically argue that Machiavelli is a republican of various sorts and place special emphasis upon his rhetoric.

The most notable recent member of this camp is Erica Benner a, b, , and , who argues that The Prince is thoroughly ironic and that Machiavelli presents a shocking moral teaching in order to subvert it. However, members of this camp do not typically argue that The Prince is satirical or ironic. They do typically argue that The Prince presents a different teaching than does the Discourses ; and that, as an earlier work, The Prince is not as comprehensive or mature of a writing as the Discourses.

The most notable member of this camp is Quentin Skinner , , and Pocock and , Hans Baron and , and David Wootton could be reasonably placed in this camp. Maurizio Viroli , , , , and could also be reasonably placed here, though he puts additional emphasis on The Prince. In other words, members of this camp typically claim that Machiavelli presents the same teaching or vision in each book but from different starting points.

However, members of this camp do not typically argue that The Prince and Discourses begin from different starting points. The most notable member of this camp is Leo Strauss Harvey C.

Mansfield , , , and , Catherine Zuckert and , John T. Scott , , and , Vickie Sullivan , , and , Nathan Tarcov , , a, b, , , , , and , and Clifford Orwin and could be reasonably placed here. The fifth camp is hermeneutically beholden to Hegel, which seems at first glance to be an anachronistic approach.

The most notable member of this camp is Claude Lefort []. Miguel Vatter , , and could be reasonably placed here and additionally deserves mention for his familiarity with the secondary literature in Spanish an unusual achievement for Machiavelli scholars who write in English. Below are listed some of the more well-known works in the scholarship, as well as some that the author has found profitable but which are perhaps not as well-known.

They are arranged as much as possible in accordance with the outline of this article. It goes without saying that there are many important books that are not mentioned. Some examples include Benner a , Celenza , Black and , Atkinson , Skinner , Viroli , , and , de Grazia , and Ridolfi Vivanti offers an intellectual biography.

Other good places to begin are Nederman , Viroli , Mansfield , , and , Skinner and , Prezzolini , Voegelin , and Foster Johnston, Urbinati, and Vergara and Fuller are recent, excellent collections. Lefort and Strauss are daunting and difficult but also well worth the attempt. Skinner , Benner , and Mansfield discuss virtue. Spackman and Pitkin discuss fortune, particularly with respect to the image of fortune as a woman.

Biasiori and Marcocci is a recent collection concerning Machiavelli and Islam. Nederman examines free will. Blanchard discusses sight and touch. Regarding various other political themes, including republicanism, see McCormick , Slade , Barthas , Rahe , , and , Patapan , Sullivan and , Forde and , Bock , Hulliung , Skinner , and Pocock Palmer , and de Alvarez On deception, see Dietz and Langton and Dietz Mansfield and Walker are the two notable commentaries.

Anyone who wants to learn more about the intellectual context of the Italian Renaissance should begin with the many writings of Kristeller e. See also Hankins , Cassirer [] , and Burke Regarding humanist educational treatises, see Kallendorf Regarding Ficino, see the I Tatti series edited by James Hankins especially , , , and Regarding Xenophon, see Nadon and Newell Regarding Lucretius, see A.

Palmer , Brown a and b , and Rahe The most comprehensive recent treatment of Savonarola can be found in Jurdjevic Those interested in the Italian scholarship should begin with the seminal work of Sasso , , and Lastly, Ruffo-Fiore has compiled an annotated bibliography of Machiavelli scholarship from to The Youth Machiavelli was born on May 3, , to a somewhat distinguished family.

The Official Not long after Savonarola was put to death, Machiavelli was appointed to serve under Adriani as head of the Second Chancery. The Philosopher In late , Machiavelli was accused of participating in an anti-Medici conspiracy. Machiavelli died on June 21, His body is buried in the Florentine basilica of Santa Croce. Philosophical Themes If to be a philosopher means to inquire without any fear of boundaries, Machiavelli is the epitome of a philosopher. Politics: The Humors Machiavelli is most famous as a political philosopher.

Politics: Republicanism Some scholars claim that Machiavelli is the last ancient political philosopher because he understands the merciless exposure of political life. Discourses on Livy There is reason to suspect that Machiavelli had begun writing the Discourses as early as ; for instance, there seems to be a reference in The Prince to another, lengthier work on republics P 2. Art of War The Art of War is the only significant prose work published by Machiavelli during his lifetime and his only attempt at writing a dialogue in the humanist tradition.

Possible Philosophical Influences on Machiavelli Machiavelli insists upon the novelty of his enterprise in several places e.

Renaissance Humanism Although Machiavelli studied ancient humanists, he does not often cite them as authorities. Renaissance Aristotelianism Aristotle is never mentioned in The Prince and is mentioned only once in the Discourses in the context of a discussion of tyranny D 3. Xenophon Xenophon is mentioned only once in The Prince P Savonarola There is no comprehensive monograph on Machiavelli and Savonarola.

Contemporary Interpretations The main aim of this article is to help readers find a foothold in the primary literature. References and Further Reading Below are listed some of the more well-known works in the scholarship, as well as some that the author has found profitable but which are perhaps not as well-known.

The Art of War , ed. Christopher Lynch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Rome: Salerno Editrice, The Chief Works and Others. Three volumes, trans. Allan Gilbert. Durham: Duke University Press, [].

Clizia , trans. Daniel T. Long Grove: Waveland Press, The Comedies of Machiavelli , ed.