Niccolò
Machiavelli and "The Prince"
In the late medieval period and the early Renaissance,
Italy was in a bad situation. The country was being invaded
by powerful foreign nation states such as France and Spain.
In Rome, the corrupt Alexander Borgia won the Papal election
through bribery, and he rapidly appropriated the church's
wealth for his own family's benefit. In Florence, the once-powerful
Medici family, patron of the arts and civic projects, was
in decline, rapidly losing and gaining power in alternate
decades. Parts of Italy became Republics such as Genoa, but
other cities like Venice fell to dictators. There was no hereditary
monarchy to rule the country and no centralized government
existed. Each Italian city was like a little nation unto itself,
ruled by oligarchic families who viciously eliminated business
competitors in a manner that would make the modern Mafia turn
pale. Italy was literally tearing itself apart, and it couldn't
unify itself or defend the peninsula against aggressors. It
was a bad time to be an Italian.
Niccolò Machiavelli was born into this
unstable time of shifting fortunes in the year 1469. He served
in a number of minor government positions, and was banished
or imprisoned at various points of his career. One of his
most notable positions was serving as a sort of political
advisor to the Borgia family. The head of the family, Alexander
Borgia, was Pope; the eldest son was Cesare Borgia, a bloodthirsty
young warlord; the younger daughter Lucrezia was rumored to
have poisoned her way through several husbands in order to
stuff the Borgia coffers with golden inheritances. The name
"Borgia" was synonymous with betrayal, murder, and
powermongering.
Machiavelli, disillusioned with the ineffectual
bickering and infighting among the Italian cities, saw the
effectiveness of the Borgia family members in seizing and
maintaining their power. He formulated his own theory of effective
government in a treatise known as "The Prince,"
and he based his ideal "Prince" on Cesare Borgia's
life. He famously asserted that good rulers sometimes have
to learn "not to be good," they have to be willing
to set aside ethical concerns of justice, honesty, and kindness
in order to maintain the stability of the state. The idea
was shocking to contemporaries, who had inherited medieval
ideas about divine kingship, in which the king was appointed
by God for the express purpose of serving as a sort of celestial
deputy on earth, upholding law and justice. In popular medieval
belief, the king was thought to be a "primate,"
an avatar of human virtue with innate authority over lesser
beings in the cosmological hierarchy. In contrast, Machiavelli
argued that the most successful kings were not the ones who
acted according to dictates of law, or justice, or conscience,
but those willing to do whatever was necessary to preserve
their own power--and thus indirectly preserve the order of
the state. His title, "The Prince," in fact, is
a subtle mockery of the idea that rulers should be noble in
their character. The implication of his title is that the
idealized Prince Charming is a mere fairy tale. Machiavelli
was excommunicated for espousing his views, but his arguments
had a profound effect on Renaissance attitudes toward government.
In literature such as Renaissance drama, the "machiavelle,"
or machiavellian villain, became a moustache-twirling stereotypical
villain--the bad guy who appears to be good in front of all
his companions in order to betray them all the more effectively.
"Machiavellian" became a by-word for treachery,
sneakiness, ambition, and ruthlessness.
The following snippet may not be historically
accurate. It first appears in German propaganda nearly a hundred
years after Machiavelli lived, and it purports to be an account
of Machiavelli's advice to Cesare Borgia in quelling a rebellion
lead by the Duchess of Sforza. All we can be certain about
from contemporary records is that Caterina Sforza did rebel,
and that Cesare Borgia did succeed in capturing her and re-conquering
the district. However, though this passage is apocryphal in
origin, it does capture the essence of Machiavellian politics,
and adequately reflects the way his contemporaries viewed
"The Prince." The duke of Sforza had just died,
and rebels in the Compagna of Italy rose up against the Borgia
rulers under the widowed duchess, Caterina Sforza. The rebel
forces fought for three months of bloody fighting, laying
waste to the countryside. The crops stood unharvested, rotting
on the stem. Common people starved, and entire villages burned
down during the ruinous warfare. Cesare Borgia asked Machiavelli
what to do. Machiavelli supposedly advised him thus,
"My Prince, I advise you to treat with Caterina
Sforza under a white flag. Her troops are too strongly encrenellated
in the fortress, and it will take months to root the rebels
out. For everyday we fight, more of your loyal troops are
slaughtered, more of your good citizens have property damaged
or destroyed, and the crops go unharvested and children
starve. The battle must be ended. Therefore my advice is
this. Treat with Caterina Sforza under a white flag and
under the pretense of peace. Then seize her and take her
captive. Once she is captive, strip her of her fine garments
and place in her in an iron cage to parade her in front
of the rebel troops, and rape her before their eyes before
you kill her. The enemy forces will know their leader is
captured and humiliated, and the magnitude of this deed
will so horrify them that in they will flee from battle
and fear and never raise arms against your might again."
Cesare Borgia supposedly did so. The war soon ended. For
Machiavelli, the end always justifies the means. Among his
most famous dictates are that "it is better to be feared
than loved" and that "the appearance of virtue"
is more important than virtue itself. He also advocates that
preparations for war should be the foremost occupation of
a leader, and that constant, preemptive action is necessary
to prevent others from seizing control. For downloadable excerpts
of "The Prince" in RTF format, click
here. For the complete text available online, go to http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/machiavelli.html.