Machiavelli, Niccolò

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an Italian political theorist, philosopher, and diplomat, whose life and works have acquired for him a reputation as a master in the dark arts of deceit and manipulation. His writings were wide-ranging, addressing many of the concerns of the Renaissance, and encompassed history, poetry, and drama. But it is as a foundational writer in modern political science that he is most renowned. The best-known and most influential of his works is a treatise titled The Prince (published posthumously in 1532, although notorious in manuscript form for 20 years before then). Largely as a result of this book, commentators and critics began to adopt the adjective Machiavellian, which has become a byword for the description of plotting, scheming, double-dealing, and subterfuge—usually in a political context. Whether this reputation is fair, however, given the subtlety of Machiavelli's numerous works and their wide-ranging content, has been the subject of much revisionist speculation, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Machiavelli believed that—if possible—citizens should have a role in deciding their own form of government, and his writings taken as a whole suggest various modes of governance as appropriate to differing political climates. He took his own civic and official responsibilities seriously, and served the Florentine Republic for 14 years in a number of roles, including chief of the Florentine militia and superintendent of its defence forces.

Throughout this period he was a supporter of the Borgias, a powerful dynastic clan, and historic enemies of the Medici, celebrated Renaissance patrons of art. In 1512 the Medici family returned to power in Florence and Venice and undertook a program of revenge against their foes, the Borgias among them. Machiavelli, suspected of plotting against the Medici, was imprisoned and subjected to torture. Following his release, he was excluded from public life and retired to his farm outside Florence, where he wrote his most influential works, The Prince and The Discourses on Livy. Machiavelli's exclusion from the exhilarating turbulence of political life led to loneliness and dejection, although he was able thereby to gain the perspective on concepts of authority and power that informed his writings with the enduring relevance they retain today.

Much of Machiavelli's reputation (if not notoriety) rests on the statements about power that he makes in The Prince. His preoccupation is with how to achieve and then maintain authority, considered a good end in itself, and his ideas are couched in the form of advice to a hypothetical “new prince;” that is, one who is striving for authority through political planning rather than [Page 632]inheritance or entitlement. In this context he became famous for promoting the concept that “the ends justify the means.” The suggestion is that a leader can and must do whatever is necessary, by any means possible, in order to lead. This has consequences that caused outrage during Machiavelli's lifetime and which have continued to be problematic ever since.

For example, many of the decisions a prince would have to make, following Machiavelli's recommendations, are in contradiction to received standards of ethics and morality: indeed, in certain situations a prince would be obligated to act immorally. Machiavelli sanctions this behavior so long as stability and order are upheld. The ideal leader, for him, must construct an identity, or persona, guaranteed to command respect. According to The Prince, there will be cases in which a leader should strive to be feared, and this may entail tyrannous or cruel behavior. In other cases, however, it may better suit a leader to show mercy and compassion.

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