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Unit 5: Niccolo Machiavelli

Italy was divided into a number of small principalities and five large states: Milan, Venice, Florence, Notes
the Papal Domain and Naples. Of these, Florence was the most cultured city, the seat of the Italian
Renaissance, producing some eminent and renowned figures. It was the first modern state in the
world.
Though culturally vibrant and creative, Italy remained politically divided, weak, and a prey to the
imperial ambitions of the French, German and Spanish. Most of the Italian states were ruled by an
oligarchy or an individual tyrant. All of them were unable or unwilling to unite the entire peninsula.
The Florentine Republic reflected severe factional conflicts and institutional breakdown. It was a
period of heated constitutional experimentation, accelerated by Savonarola who expelled the Medici
and destroyed their wonders and wealth.
Italians could not reconcile to the fact that an age of heightened cultural creativity and scientific
discoveries coincided with loss of political liberty, leading to foreign domination. Italian society,
“intellectually brilliant and artistically creative, more emancipated than many in Europe ... was a
prey to the worst political corruption and moral degradation”. It produced some great minds and
intellects of that period, like Alexander Botticelli (1444–1510), Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519),
Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Santi Raphael (1483–1520). Its galaxy of artists made
Renaissance Italy comparable to Athens of the fifth century BC. However, while Athens flourished
politically, with a vibrant participatory democracy, in Italy there was a political vacuum. The old,
feudal order had begun to collapse and disintegrate, but the new age, marked by the emergence
of the territorial nation state as a sovereign legal-political entity was still in its embryonic form.
Writing at a time of political chaos and moral confusion, Italian unification became the chief
objective for Machiavelli, who could see “clearly the direction that political evolution was taking
throughout Europe. No man knew better than he the archaism of the institutions that were being
displaced or accepted more readily the part that naked force was playing in the process. Yet no
one in that age appreciated more highly the inchoate sense of national unity on which this force
was obscurely based”. Machiavelli’s attachment was to his country Italy, and not to a state as an
abstract entity. He desired to redeem Italy from servitude and misery. Like Dante, he dreamt of a
united, regenerated and glorious Italy. In order to achieve this, any means were justified, for the
purpose was the defence and preservation of the state and its people. Considerations of justice or
injustice, humanity or cruelty, glory or shame were immaterial in light of protecting the life and
liberty of the country.
Freedom of the country and the common good remained the core themes of Machiavelli’s writings.
A perfect state was one which promoted the common good, namely the observance of laws,
honouring women, keeping public offices open to all citizens on grounds of virtue, maintaining a
moderate degree of social equality, and protecting industry, wealth and property. The freedom of
a country had to be safeguarded with the help of war and expansion. War was a horror, but not
worse than military defeat and subjugation. Machiavelli was the precursor of Hegel in making a
realistic appraisal of war in understanding reality.
5.3 Machiavelli’s Political Theory

Machiavelli saw stable political authority and order as necessary for social cohesion and moral
regeneration. It was for this reason that he stressed the need for a unified polity, and a republican
and free government committed to the liberty of its people. His new way of looking at political
behaviour was significantly influenced by Leonardo, a personal friend with whose writings he
was familiar. Incidentally, Leonardo was an architect of Borgia, the hero of the Prince. Machiavelli
understood the realities of politics, “its lust for power, its admiration of success, its carefreeness of
means, its rejection of medieval bonds, its frank pragmatism, its conviction that national unity
makes for national strength. Neither his cynicism nor his praise of craftiness is sufficient to conceal
the idealist in him”. He cherished republican liberty, but was aware of the danger tyranny posed,

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