DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DUKE - UNIVERSITY - PUBLICATIONS Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners FORTUNE AND VIRTUE From a copy of Carolus Bovillus’ Liber de Intellectu, . . . etc., Paris, 1510, owned by E. P. Goldschmidt and Co., 45 Old— The reproduction is reduced in size. The plate illustrates Machiavelli's conception of Fortune and as it appears throughout The Prince, especially in chapter 25. Th right is indicated on, the scroll as Sapientia, but on her seat she ¥ Virtue: such double meaning is quite in harmony with Machiavelli's « Virth. Her seat is four-square, to signify firmness. In her hand she holds | commonly assigned to Prudence; the book of advice to rulers is Speculum regis or the King’s Mirror. Fortune sits on the ball common in allegorical pictures of Fe tun her uncertainty, since it turns hither and thither without reas holds her wheel, on the summit of which is seated the king, the by Fortune; as the wheel turns he must yield his place to tho Her eyes are blindfolded, for she deals with men without seeis From the mouth of the foolish man pictured on the meda comes a scroll with the words: “Fortune, we make you a g you in the heavens” (Juvenal 10.366). From the mouth of the wise r similar scroll inscribed: “Trust in Virtue; Fortune is more fleeting than d Bs we N v = <—/——e SH SPE Wii! LEE, x A 4 3) Y, . = = Sr — x a ey sal mn a = by PhS > PS: _———S! taste: WAAAY \ er - WANA INR N | eRe Wi Teel ANAREN =| lie Hp 7 | is * / \ a Set ANTS Cra 4 = MN LISS ANIA > Sas Ait PQ. ver ! } tH hit i ‘ili \\ > a ya Sy Se f : A\ id, . ya = === i] =) I SEs} - i? aL 0a Pes saacan scone relapse ED TSN Te FORTUNE AND VIRTUE , ay Pee stig ‘ie a nl? 1 of ; https://archive.org/details/machiavellisprin01 gilb Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners The Prince as a Typical Book de Regimine Principum By AuuAn H. GILBERT The king-becoming graces As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude. —Macbeth 4.3. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 1938 A DUKE UNIVERSITY CENTENNIAL PUBLICATION This book, by a member of the faculty of Duke University, is one of a group published in con- nection with the Duke University Centennial, celebrating in 1938-1939 the anniversary of the origins of Trinity College, from which Duke University developed. CopyricHT, 1938, By Duke Universiry Press PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY THE SEEMAN PRINTERY, INC., DURHAM, N. C. PREFACE HE important books of the world should be studied for their universal significance and as ultimately important for that alone. But they may also receive historical considera- tion because they are phenomena in the life of mankind; indeed, their universal meaning is likely not to be altogether plain when their historical position is not clear. By the present work I hope to make Machiavelli somewhat more useful to the present age by show- ing what he meant in his own day. While he has in many ways been admirably studied, no extensive attempt has been made to see whether in The Prince he used the language of other books of ad- vice to rulers circulated in his time. If his work appear as the rep- resentative of a type, it cannot be historically intelligible until its typical qualities are clear, nor can the original contribution of the author be estimated. My attempt is to give something of the atmos- phere in which The Prince was written by means of quotations from treatises having the same purpose as The Prince, books that may be assigned to the genus called the prince or de regimine principum. Many of my quotations may have been accessible to the Florentine secretary, and I do not doubt that some of them came under his eye, yet I do not present them specifically as his sources. Rather they represent the background against which an educated reader anywhere in Europe would have thrown The Prince when it appeared. What words, formulas, or ideas in it were familiar to Machiavelli because he had already met them in works of advice to monarchs circulated in his own city, Naples, Paris, Vienna, Toledo, or London? This hardly can be demonstrated without direct quotations, in whatever language written. Respect for Machiavelli’s patria requires that what is Italian should remain Italian, and regard for the renais- sance demands that Latin shall remain Latin. Indeed, the study is properly an international one. Yet its international character does not forbid but rather welcomes English, for that language has also its works on the governance of princes both earlier and later than Machiavelli, and the English-speaking peoples share in the com- mon heritage. [v] 464833 vi Preface My plan has been to take up The Prince chapter by chapter, attempting to illustrate whatever can be explained from other books on the conduct of rulers by both quotation and comment. The quotations are commonly in chronological order, with some notion of showing the steady presence of the idea in question from the time of Aquinas to the sixteenth century. It may, however, be suggested that many works from Greek and Latin antiquity and from the middle ages were printed and circulated in the renaissance as working manuals; their steady appearance in new editions en- sured the steady absorption of their ideas, even had new works based on them not appeared. To books on the conduct of princes composed after the death of Machiavelli I have given but a subor- dinate place, since I wished to explain him and his work without being involved with Machiavellism. Perhaps my quotations from later works will suggest that the urge to advise princes was so strong as to continue for many years after the death of Niccolo, especially since some of them are from books that seem in no way indebted to The Prince. To secure fuller statement of some ideas undeveloped in The Prince itself, I have used parallels from the other writings of its author, but only as the subject seemed to demand it, without at- tempt to duplicate work such as that of Burd for his edition of The Prince; nor have I repeated unnecessarily citations from Aris- totle and other classical authors. In considering The Prince as one among others rather than as sui generis 1 have been led into various opinions not in accord with some at least of the older views still widely circulated. Re- jection of much of the common tradition is, it appears, a measure of actual study of the writings of the Florentine secretary, if one may judge from such different studies as those of Burd, Tommasini, Ercole, and Chabod. My endeavor has been to get at the truth, without troubling about the novelty or lack of novelty of the va- rious opinions I have come to hold. Some of my conclusions ap- pear in a brief summary on page 2. The bibliography presents the books I have actually employed, with such comments as seemed to be required. The section of it containing works de regimine principum shows, I hope, that I have used most of the highly important representatives of the type and a considerable number of others. It is altogether made up of such books as I have been able to read; others which I should like Preface Vil to have seen I could not find in libraries or secure from second- hand dealers, but I believe my list sufficiently representative for my purpose. My complete record of books which certainly or apparently—judging from such facts as I have obtained about them—are to be assigned to the class is so extensive as to require separate publication. A similar long list, doubtless containing many additional titles, has been made by Dr. Lester K. Born. My own is still growing. I have attempted to make the material in the volume easily ac- cessible. Whatever is pertinent to any chapter of The Prince appears in the section devoted to that chapter; the main headings are briefly indicated in the table of contents. I assume always that the reader has the text of The Prince before him. While treatment by topics rather than according to Machiavelli’s own arrangement might at times have appeared more systematic, his method is of the essence of The Prince and of its type. The effect I desire de- mands that it be kept. When, as sometimes happens, the same topic appears in more than one chapter, cross-references are used, and the material is attached to the most important reference. The index has been prepared with the ambition of making it possible to find easily anything in the volume, whether a topic, 4 significant word, the name of an author, or a passage from one of Machiavelli’s other writings. My obligations to other writers appear in the bibliography and footnotes. Dr. Lester K. Born has assisted me by personal suggestion as well as by his publications. To the authorities of Duke University I owe thanks for the sabbatical leave during which some of my studies were carried on and for appropriations enabling me to obtain essential books for the university library. I wish to thank the officials of the library for their aid in making the books imme- diately accessible. The librarians at Cornell University and other American institutions have also been most helpful. I am also glad to express thanks to the authorities of the Biblioteca Nazionale at Palermo for their kindness in assisting me with the books in their splendid collection. Without the long-continued support of the Research Council of Duke University my work would have been impossible. I wish also to express my gratitude to the Duke Uni- versity Press. £61893 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE SEES Le RR ere pita bad NA AAD as aah co Vv Brief Statement of Some of the Chief Ideas of the Volume.... 2 Introduction: On the History of Books of Advice to Princes; Machiavelli’s Knowledge of the Type..................... 3 Rinne Commentary on’ Phe Prince. oo. 5.060 veo. es dale be 16 The Dedication Whe atithor's, quabhedtions 090) 00. TaN 2, 17 Chapter 1. Quot sint genera principatuum et quibus modis acquirantur (The number of types of principates and the ways in which they may be acquired). TITER Grats OTe 8 1 AMOR ae Aen Oe a am ts RE la 19 Chapter 2. De principatibus hereditariis (Of hereditary prin- cipates). Hereditary contrasted with new rulers............... 20 Chapter 3. De principatibus mixtis (Of mixed principates). Usurpation; foresight; personal rule; benefactors... .. 24 Chapter 4. Cur Darii regnum quod Alexander occupaverat a successoribus suis post Alexandri mortem non defecit (Why the realm of Darius which Alexander had occu- pied did not fall away from his successors after the death of Alexander). The difficulty of the prince in Italy.................. 33 Chapter 5. Quomodo administrandae sunt civitates vel principatus, qui, amtequam occuparentur, suis legibus vivebant (In what way one should administer states or principates that, before they were occupied, lived under their own laws). Republics must yield to the deliverer of Italy......... 34 [ ix ] Table of Contents Chapter 6. De principatibus novis qui armis propriis et vir- tute acquiruntur (Of new principates which are acquired by one’s own arms and ability). The king essential to reform in Italy; the dangers of innovation ©..........0s0<:0,-c4e+-2+ en Chapter 7. De principatibus novis qui alienis armis et for- tuna acquiruntur (Of new principates which are acquired by alien arms and by fortune). Subjects to be corrected; new benefits do not cancel old injuries... .......2...0+-ss:e-+ 5: Chapter 8. De his qui per scelera ad principatum pervenere (Of those who have attained a principate through crime). Initial severity and later benevolence.................. Chapter 9. De principatu civili (Of the rule of a citizen). The rich and the poor.......2..-....:... 20 Chapter 10. Quomodo omnium principatuum vires perpendi debeant (In what manner the forces of all principates should be estimated). The prince not hated is secure............../2aan Chapter 11. De principatibus ecclesiasticis (Of ecclesiastical principates). The unselfish: ruler.....................0. ee Chapter 12. Quot sint genera militiae et de mercenariis militibus (The different kinds of military forces and of mercenary soldiers). The good soldier; good arms mean good laws; the sins of the prigee. ..402c.... +2... +. heen Chapter 13. De militibus auxiliariis, mixtis et propriis (Of auxiliary armies, mixed forces, and those wholly one’s own). The selérelians prince. 055.0 25 ke ose Chapter 14. Quod principem deceat circa militiam (What the prince ought to do in military affairs). In time of peace prepare for war; the prince first of all a soldier; military history... )7pueenas oor 35 51 56 58 62 Table of Contents Chapter 15. De his rebus quibus homines et praesertim prin- cipes laudantur aut vituperantur (Of those things for which men and especially princes are praised or blamed). A new theory for advisers of princes; what is essential (PDN (oe 9 | Ce Paar Dacre emia hal, ATL ECOR Ea pa Chapter 16. De liberalitate et parsimonia (Of liberality and parsimony). True liberality versus prodigality; the reputation and. _the reality of liberality; what befits the monarch. . Chapter 17. De crudelitate et pietate; et an sit melius amari quam timeri, vel e contra (Of cruelty and pity, and whether it is better to be loved than to be feared, or the reverse). Salutary severity and the empty appearance of clem- ency; to be loved and respected; not to be hated; Selb te fri Croan ey A REO REE aoa Or a Chapter 18. Quomodo fides a principibus sit servanda (In what way faith should be kept by princes). The prince must maintain himself; craft and wisdom; the tyrant imitates the prince; the public good is Bate RABEAMEy Wr ieee Se. A BN Chapter 19. De contemptu et odio fugiendo (Of avoiding contempt and hatred). Despair; the tyrant; reputation; offending through fear; the tyrant’s fears; favors from the prince; punishments fron fats: muieisters2 4.2 Chapter 20. An arces et multa alia quae cotidie a principi- bus fiunt utilia an inutilia sint (Whether fortresses and many other devices daily employed by princes are useful or useless). The love of the people is the best fortress; factions are to be put down; the citizens should be armed..... Chapter 21. Quod principem deceat ut egregius habeatur (What a prince must do if he would be thought an ex- traordinary person). Striking deeds; quotable sayings; prosperity for the people; reputation abroad; no ae is without Trike) fete Sek UshNepae tee NU Net reo SITS oe RO a A xi 77 84 118 140) 159 Xil Table of Contents Chapter 22. De his quos a secretis principes habent (Of ~ the confidential ministers employed by princes). The necessity of advice; the good minister should be rewarded; unwise ministers; fidelity............. 179 Chapter 23. Quomodo adulatores sint fugiendi (How to es- cape flatterers). How to get honest advice; celerity.................. 186 Chapter 24. Cur Italiae principes regnum amiserunt (Why the princes of Italy have lost their states). The prince is an example to the people; the good prince keeps the laws but the tyrant breaks them. . 197 Chapter 25. Quantum Fortuna in rebus humanis possit, et quomodo illi sit occurrendum (The power of Fortune in human affairs, and how she may be resisted). All human affairs are uncertain; prudence and forti- tude furnish the best, though incomplete, protec- tion against unfavorable Fortune................ 204 Chapter 26. Exhortatio ad capessendam Italiam in liberta- temque a barbaris vindicandam (An exhortation to take hold of Italy and restore her to liberty from the bar- barians). Only a prince who meets Machiavelli’s requirements can deliver Italy from internal and external foes... 222 Conclusion: The Originality of The Prince.................. 231 Bibliography ©. . 3.0. 06 4e2+09- peace dei + yoo rn 238 Index: 03.04.3004) ae et ae Ce Sali . 249 ILLUSTRATIONS Fortune and Virtue from Carolus Bovillus’ Liber de intellectu, etc. frontispiece A page from Erasmus’ [nstitutio principis christiani facing 29 A page from Niphus’ De regnandi peritia facing 42 A page from Wimpfeling’s Agatharchia facing 89 A page from Budé’s De Linstitution du prince facing 170 | xiii | Machiavelli’s Prizce and Its Forerunners 2. Brier STATEMENT OF SOME OF THE CHIEF IDEAS OF THE VOLUME > Machiavelli’s first interest was the good of the people of Italy (see the index under common good). Machiavelli advised a prince because he believed Italy could be deliv- ered only by a single person, not by a republic (see pages 36 ff., and the index under kingly hand). The work is addressed not to a tyrant but to a good ruler (see the index under tyrant). Though Machiavelli’s prince will be moral when possible, he is under no detailed moral restraint whatever; he has, however, the ultimate obligation to rule well (see pages 77 ff., and the index under morality.) The Prince is designed for the deliverer of Italy and is a unit (see pages 222 ff.). Though manifesting independence of mind, The Prince is not a unique work but a representative—the greatest—of a type familiar to Machiavelli (see pages 5, 80, and passim). INTRODUCTION ON THE HISTORY OF BOOKS OF ADVICE TO PRINCES EAR the dawn of the age of modern parliaments Sir Philip Sidney, through the wise Euarchus, spoke of “the Princes persons” as “in all monarchall governmentes the very knot of the peoples welfare, and light of all their doinges to which they are not onely in conscience, but in necessitie bounde to be loyall,’? and yet earlier Jean-Juvenal des Ursins had written of the king as “l’4me, le principe de la vie, de la chose publique.”” Diminish the contrasts between earlier and modern government as we will, show to the utmost the essentially similar character of men’s hearts and institutions, it still remains that the renaissance monarchs held a central place on the stage that can now hardly be understood. Nor can it be supposed that their central place is to be explained from the mental attitude of their subjects. However necessary it may be to recognize that checks have operated in re- straint of the most absolute monarchs, it is yet true that the per- sonal qualities of mediaeval and renaissance sovereigns could tre- mendously influence the well-being of their subjects. Whether there should be war or peace, religious freedom or persecution, economy or extravagance in managing public funds, prudence or dishonesty in the control of the coinage, encouragement of commerce or hos- tility to it—on all these the individual ruler could exercise a great and perhaps controlling influence. Though in practice his actual power over such matters might be variously reduced, they were still generally admitted to fall within his prerogative and were managed as though by him. The accession of a new monarch was much more important than that of a modern political party be- cause there was no machinery for ridding a country of his ad- ministration. He might occupy the throne in some fashion for half a century in spite of rebellion, as did Henry VI of England; free- * Arcadia, bk. 5, p. 175. 2 “The soul, the source of life of the state.” Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France 4.2.207 (by Ch. Petit-Dutaillis); the quotation is from the first Epistre au roi. Péchenard, Jean-Juvenal des Ursins (p. 276), quotes a similar passage from the Remonstrances, 2d consideration. [3] 4 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners dom from the utmost abuses of kingly power lay only in the mis- eries and uncertainties of warfare. Even a ruler who acted under the stimulus of conscience might cause great misery, as did Philip by his persecutions in the Netherlands, In this condition of the great influence and direct power of the monarch and attention on him as the focus of the activities of government, men properly sought to deal with the problem of government at the centre. What will secure good government? asked every public-spirited man, monarchs as well as nobles, schol- ars, and public officials, Charles V of France or Johannes Frobenius in Basel. The first answer was to decide what the ruler should be and do if he was to preside over an agatharchia, a perfect state. The answer was at hand in every collection of books, such as that formed for Charles V* or later for the young James VI of Scotland.* It was to be found in the volumes on the conduct of princes entitled De regimine principum, De institutione principum, De officio regis, Il principe, or The governal of princes. Between the years 800 and 1700 there were accessible some thousand books and large, easily distinguished, sections of books telling the king how to conduct himself so that he might be “clear in his great office.” The more popular of the early examples, such as that by Egidio Colonna, were often recopied and translated, and after the inven- tion of printing went through various editions, living an active life of three or four centuries as standard manuals. The same may be said in its proportion of those composed in the age of printing, for example, the De regno et regis institutione of Franciscus Patricius. He who would learn how a king should conduct him- self need never have been at a loss for a handbook on the subject. The scholasticism and classicism of the majority of these au- thors, taken together, has hidden their import from the modern world, even from professed students of politics. Our forgetfulness of the relation of ethics and politics, our unfamiliarity with sys- tematic ethics, our assumption that citations from classical authors are merely pedantry, our demand for historical analysis rather than practical advice from students of the renaissance, our concern with economic law rather than human volition, our distance from the personal influence of kings—such things have allowed us to sup- pose that the books of advice to rulers that casually come to our * Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France 4.1.190. “Publications of the Scottish History Society XV (1893), pp- xxxi-lxxv (identical with vol. 1 of the Miscellany of the Society). On the History of Books of Advice to Princes 5 notice were always as lifeless as they now appear. They have been studied for incidental reasons, such as their peculiarities of language, with little thought of their primary reason for being. And that there was an enormous number of such works has, it appears, but recently been recognized, though short lists of titles have appeared in such places as the introduction to Roger Bacon’s edition of the Secretum secretorum by Mr. Robert Steele. The first systematic study of the book of advice to princes appeared in 1928.° In its simplest form, the book of this type is easily recognized be- cause it aims to tell the ruler what sort of person he should be and what personally he should do. It is not necessary to swell the num- ber of treatises de regimine principum with works of general in- formation useful to rulers as educated men, or with treatises on government and its theory, or with pedagogical works on the in- struction of the young children of rulers; the books we have in mind are concerned with the actual king, and with his conduct in office. They were, it is evident, suitable reading for young men who expected to be kings, such as the young Philip the Fair, for whom Egidio Colonna wrote, or the young James VI, who had in his Scottish library several books of the type. But they are on the whole intended for the perusal of men actually on their thrones. So popular were these books, in their various editions, through- out western Europe for centuries that it is difficult to imagine a renaissance library wholly without them. Considering the com- . position of new works and the reprinting of old ones, one may suppose, however, that rather more than the average number of them were to be had in Italy during the lifetime of Machiavelli. Be this as it may, it is incredible that the Florentine secretary had not seen many examples, both of the classical books assigned by his age to the genus and of those composed in the centuries imme- diately preceding his own. Machiavelli’s knowledge of classical writers on public affairs has been much studied, though with some tendency to forget that the sixteenth century looked on the classics as more practical than we are likely to, and with slight considera- tion of the specific problems of The Prince. But there has been little recognition of his reading in later books addressed to princes; * Lester K. Born, The Perfect Prince, in Speculum II (1928), 470. See also his Erasmus on Political Ethics, in Political Science Quarterly XLIII (1928), 520. Dr. Born has now brought together much of his material in The Education of a Christian Prince, by Desiderius Erasmus, translated with an introduction on Erasmus and on ancient and mediaeval political thought, New York, 1936. 6 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Villari mentions Johannes Jovianus Pontanus and Poggio Bracciolini with the purpose of showing that their writings on princes are not Machiavellian. Tommasini, however, is of a different belief, writing of the De principe of Pontanus: “E innegabile, per chiunque lo percorra, che il trattato del Pontano, per quanto diverso dal Principe, a esercitato pur esso grande potenza sulla mente del Ma- chiavelli."? On the De infelicitate principum of Poggio he speaks to the same effect.* Persico, while not asserting that Machiavelli borrowed from the Neapolitan books on the duties of princes, yet says of I doveri del principe by Diomede Carafa: Ci da il Carafa una sintesi viva ed efficace, anticipando i risultati delle indagini del Machiavelli; ma con maggior determinatezza di fatti, che rivelano in lui l’uomo esperto nella materia.® While Persico nowhere speaks of absolute borrowing by Machia- velli, whom he does not avowedly treat, the reader infers that he would have presented the Florentine, like the Neapolitan Tristano Caracciolo in his advice to King Alphonso in 1494, as reflecting “in buona parte, le idee che circolavano allora nel pubblico, delle quali pero erano stati seminatori e propagatori il Carafa e il Pon- tano.”?° Like many writers to princes in his age, Machiavelli mentions no one of his immediate predecessors; his general references include classical works only, though he seems to have his contemporaries quite as much in mind. More than once he plainly refers to works of the sort. In the Discorsi (3.20) he discusses umanita; in addi- tion, he mentions also integrita, carita, castita, and liberalita. To- ward the end he writes: “Vedesi ancora, questa parte quanto la sia desiderata da’ popoli negli uomini grandi, e quanto sia laudata dagli scrittori; e da quegli che descrivano la vita de’ principi, e da quegli che ordinano come ei debbano vivere.”*? “Quegli che ® Niccold Machiavelli 2.16. *“Though the tractate of Pontanus is quite unlike The Prince, no one who goes through it can deny that it nevertheless had great influence on the mind of Machiavelli” (La Vita di Machiavelli 2.114, and n. 1). *Ibid., 112, n. 2. °“Tn his living and powerful synthesis Carafa anticipates the results of Machia- velli’s investigations, but as a man expert in his material the former better delimits the facts” (Gli scrittori politici napoletani, p. 87). “Tn great part the ideas that were then generally circulating and of which Carafa and Pontanus were the disseminators and propagators” (ibid., p. ror). “It can be seen, then, how much the people desire great men to have this trait and how much it is praised by writers, both those who describe the lives of princes and those who give directions for their conduct” (Discorst 3.20, p. 229b). On the History of Books of Advice to Princes 7 ordinano” are the writers de regimine principum;'* Machiavelli assumes his reader is sufficiently familiar with them to know that the virtues he has been considering are among their commonest topics. Some pages farther on Machiavelli discusses still further the virtue of wmanitd, in contrast with durezza: “Quegli che scrivono come uno principe si abbia a governare, si accostano pit a Valerio che a Manlio” (i.e., to humanity rather than to harsh- ness).1® From the word governare in this passage, one may pass to the dedication of The Prince, where is the sentence: “Neé voglio sia reputata presunzione se uno uomo di basso ed infimo stato ardisce discorrere e regolare e’ governi de’ principi.”** The sen- tence implies that the work in hand is one of those telling how a prince ought to govern himself. Words related to governare were widely used in various forms in various languages in this connec- tion. A Middle English translation of the Secretum secretorum was called The Governance of Princes, as a translation of the title De regimine principum applied to that work.’® In the fifteenth chapter of The Prince, which alludes to many moral qualities com- monly discussed in books for princes, Machiavelli writes: “Resta ora a vedere quali debbano essere e’ modi e governi di uno principe con sudditi o con gli amici. E perché io so che molti di questo hanno scritto, dubito, scrivendone ancora io, non essere tenuto prosuntuoso, partendomi massime, nel disputare questa materia, dagli ordini degli altri.”’* The molt of this passage are the va- rious writers on the regimen of princes, those who teach * Gio. Battista Pigna in his I7 principe (Venice, 1561, p. 44), later than Machia- velli but apparently uninfluenced by him, writes: “Quel Principe che io vo formando é tale nella mia mente, che vorrei vederlo un Monarca di tutto questo mondo.”’—‘T have such a mental picture of the prince I am forming that I should like to see him monarch of all the world.” * “Those who write on how a prince should conduct himself lean rather to Valerius than to Manlius” (Discorsi 3.22, p. 233a). “7 do not wish it to be thought presumptuous that a man of lowly and humble station should dare to consider and give rules for the conduct of princes.” 8 Gilbert, Notes on the Influence of the Secretum secretorum, in Speculum Ill (1928), 84. Gower (Confessio Amantis 7.1650) uses “the governance of kinges” to express magestas in suo regimine in the marginal Latin. *5 “Tt remains now to see of what sort ought to be the manners and conduct of a prince in dealing with subjects or with friends. And because I am aware that many have written of this, I am afraid, when I also write of it, that I shall be thought presumptuous because in discussing the matter I depart very widely from the paths followed by the others” (Prince 15, first sentence). In explaining the word governo, Tommaseo’s Dizionario, in the section headed di portamento mor. e soc., quotes part of the following: ‘Fu questo duca, come i 8 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners the vertus whiche are assissed Unto a kinges Regiment.17 While some editors now prefer to call Machiavelli’s work De principatibus, it is traditionally Il principe; indeed, in the Discorst the author himself refers to it as “nostro trattato De Principe.”** This is a conventional title. Pontanus, for example, called his work De principe. Twenty-nine years after the publication of Machia- velli’s book, Gio. Battista Pigna published his J/ principe; if there be anything Machiavellian in this work describing “come debba essere il Principe Heroico,” it is successfully concealed, With a feel- ing for the generic, in his dedication he speaks of the book as “un Principe”; its purpose is “di formare un vero Principe,” who “ha in sua mano il governarsi con prudenza.”!® Machiavelli ap- parently had the same feeling for the generic in regard to his work.”° The title De principatibus also has generic suggestion. For governi suoi dimostrorono, avaro e crudele; nelle udienze difficile, nel rispondere superbo; voleva la servith, non la benivolenza degli uomini; e per questo pid di essere temuto che amato desiderava.”—‘‘As his conduct showed, this duke was avaricious and cruel; hard to speak with, proud in his answers; he wished sub- servience, not good will from men; for this reason he desired to be feared rather than to be loved” (Istorie Fiorentine 2.37, p. 439b). These are the governi of the traditional bad prince. Cf. Prince 10, p. 22b for the governi con li sudditi—conduct with respect to his subjects—recommended by Machiavelli; Prince 7, p. 16b, for the governi he admired in Duke Valentino; Prince 14, p. 30a, for the ways rulers si sono governati in war. ™ Gower, Confessio amantis 7.1718-9. In Villari we read: “E qui allude non tanto agli antichi, quanto agli scrittori del Medio Evo, come Egidio Colonna e Dante Alighieri; agli eruditi del secolo XV, come il Panormita, Poggio, il Pontano ed altri molti, i quali avevano sostenuto che il sovrano deve aver tutte le virti, e ne avevano fatto un ritratto ideale di religione, di modestia, di giustizia e di generosita.’—‘Here Machiavelli alludes not so much to the ancients as to the writers of the middle ages, such as Egidio Colonna and Dante Alighieri, and to the scholars of the fifteenth century, such as Panormita, Poggio, Pontano and many others, who had held that the sovereign ought to have all the virtues, and from them had made an ideal por- trait of religion, modesty, justice, and generosity” (2.143). It is probable, however, that Machiavelli's reference is too specific to include Dante’s De Monarchia. For other possible references to such works see pp. 18, 67, 119, 122, 186, below. 8 Discorsi 3.42, p. 257a. “To form a true prince” who (lib. 1, p. 1). The same generic feeling appears in respect to Dell’ arte della guerra; see Tommasini 2.221-4. Writers on warfare (“coloro che alla guerra hanno data regole”’) think that soldiers should be taken from temperate climates, but this, Machiavelli says, may be impossible; the prince must draw from his own lands, wherever situ- ated (Arte della guerra 1, p. 275a, cf. Discorsi 1.1, p. 58b). The subject is discussed by Egidio Colonna (De regimine 3.3.2) with a reference to the first book of Vegetius. ‘js attempting to govern himself with prudence” On the History of Books of Advice to Princes 9 instance, Philippus Beroaldus (1453-1505) wrote a short work en- titled in the Basel edition of 1513 De optimo statu, but entitled in full De republica, deque optimo statu et principe. He frequently uses the word principatus, meaning form of government.** Or to give an earlier instance, the De regimine principum of Aquinas bears the alternative title De rege et regno. Against this background of many volumes de regimine prin- etipum appears Machiavelli’s opinion that in writing The Prince he was doing something that would be immediately understood because of the number of books already written on the subject; “scrivendone ancora io,”*°—“I too writing on the subject”—he says. To be sure he indicated he would pursue a different method, but it is common for writers of partly conventional works to justify themselves by showing where they have departed from the beaten track. At any rate, a person who will use a new method must know the old one he is superseding; his immersion in the old precedes and conditions his desire to improve it, and in his familiarity he easily uses it to give definition to his better ideas. However revolutionary, such a writer is so deeply impressed by the older works which for years have been forming his mind that his emancipation, little as he may suspect it, is not wholly complete. Even its steps may sometimes be traced, as has been suggested by Tommasini in commenting on Machiavelli’s early and later view of liberality.?* From the court of the Emperor Maximilian he wrote: Che l’Imperadore abbi assai soldati e buoni nessuno ne dubita; ma come li possa tenere insieme, qui sta il dubbio: perché non li tenendo lui se non per forza di danari, e avendone da un canto scarsita per sé stesso, quando non ne sia provveduto da altri (che non si puo sapere); dall’altro sendone troppo liberale si aggiugne difficulta a difficulta; e benché essere liberale sia virtt ne principi, tamen e’ non basta satisfare a mille uomini, quando altri a bisogno di ventimila; ¢ la liberalita non giova dove la non aggiugne.*4 For Machiavelli’s reading in the theory of war see L. Arthur Burd, Le Fonti... nell’ arte della guerra. *E.g., “Est principatus unius quam monarchiam vocant. . . . Tu primus in domo tua efficito principatum popularem.”—“There is a principate of one man which they call a monarchy. . . . You first establish in your own house a pop- ular principate” (pp. 123 verso-124 recto). Machiavelli, however, distinguishes re- publics from principates (Prince 1). 2P. 7, above. *% Vita di Machiavelli 1.418-9. **No one doubts that the Emperor has enough good soldiers; the doubtful thing is how he will be able to hold them together. For he holds them only by 10 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners In its charge of too great liberality this passage contains the germ of one of the ideas that Machiavelli later brought forward against those held as axiomatic by writers on republics and principates who imagine states “che non si sono mai visti né conosciuti essere in vero.”*° As Tommasini indicates, in his remarks on the Emperor he is already undermining the maxim that the prince ought in all circumstances to be liberal; if this is true of rulers in general, it should be especially true of the Emperor, yet even there Machia- velli doubts it. In coming to see, as a result of his observation of Maximilian, that liberality might be objected to, he developed his theory in the direction of The Prince. With probability Tom- masini imagines that the Italian agents gathered at the court of the Emperor passed some of their time in theoretical discussion of the liberality proper to a prince, considering the prodigality of the King of the Romans, the parsimony of Pope Julius, and the stinginess of the King of Spain. From such contradictions the thought of Machiavelli on liberality may have issued completely shaped to the form it takes in The Prince; to some one who ob- jected that the behavior suitable to a pope or a king of Spain was hardly proper to a Caesar, he may have answered in such words as he was later to write of the ancient Caesar, the proper norm for those who asserted that they had inherited rights to his name: Cesare era uno di quelli che voleva pervenire al principato di faa: ma se, poi che vi fu venuto, fussi sopravvissuto e non si fussi temperato da quelle spese, arebbe destrutto quello imperio.?® Maximilian’s conduct had shown no such change, for Machiavelli saw him as an “uomo gittatore del suo sopra tutti gli altri che a’ nostri tempi o prima sono stati: il che fa che sempre ha bisogno, né somma alcuna é per bastargli in qualunque grado la dint of payment, and yet on one hand he has very little money unless some one (and one cannot imagine who) provides him with it, and on the other hand he joins difficulty to difficulty by being too liberal with it. And though liberality is a virtue in princes, it is not enough to satisfy a thousand men when one has need of twenty thousand; for liberality does no good where it does not reach” (Legazione all’ imperatore, let. 6, VII, 186—Italia, 1813. The text is that given by Tommasini, 1.418, who says that the letter, ostensibly by Vettori, was written by Machiavelli.) For a story illustrating Maximilian’s liberality, see Bandello, Novelle, parte 2, nov. 46. * Prince 15, p. 30b. *° “Caesar was one of those who wished to attain the principate of Rome, but if, when he had attained it, he had survived and had not become more temperate in his expenses, he would have destroyed his empire” (Prince 16, p. 32a). On the History of Books of Advice to Princes II fortuna si trovi.”7 Machiavelli quotes with approval a strong cen- sure of the Emperor’s liberality: “Queste due parti la liberalita, e la facilita che lo fanno laudare a molti, sono quelle che lo ruinano.”** Machiavelli’s own suggestion, however, is merely that the Emperor modify—‘“temperasse”*®—his habits. Such tempering of liberality is on the way toward the miseria or stinginess advised in the six- teenth chapter of The Prince, yet is verbally at least still far from it; its kinship is rather to the avoiding of prodigality by adopting the Aristotelian mean in giving, as the “molti” had for many years been advising; Gower, for example, writes: A king after the reule is holde To modifie and to adresce Hise yiftes upon such largesce That he mesure noght excede: For if a king falle into nede, It causeth ofte sondri thinges Whiche are ungoodly to the kinges (Confessio Amantis 7.2152-8). Machiavelli’s Maximilian surely suffered enough of the “ungoodly” because of his excessive expenditure. Altogether one gains the im- pression that Machiavelli was at the time of his mission to the Emperor not yet ready in discussing the governi of a prince to depart greatly from the ordini of his many predecessors, and that a Prince then attempted would have been more like that of Pon- tanus, for example, than is the composition of 1513. Yet, while the facts of time and place make it probable that Machiavelli had read Pontanus’ work on the prince, I am unable to agree with Tommasini that such reading is undeniable; in- deed, The Prince probably would not have been different if Pon- tanus had never lived. Similarities there are, but they are features common to the type, not the necessary result of contact between the two works. What modern books de regimine principum Ma- chiavelli had certainly read is unknown; apparently he mentions none of them, and internal evidence must be looked upon with suspicion. Such failure to mention recent authors is normal. It 77 + While claims perhaps too extreme have been made for the influence of Isocrates on The Prince, there are surely traces of it, and the probability that Machiavelli knew it is strength- ened by its normal inclusion among important works of advice to monarchs. Of it Franciscus Patricius Senensis (1412-94) writes in his De regno et regis institutione: Supernatarunt tamen duo [libri de regno], et in Italiam emerserunt, iamque ab omnibus leguntur Isocrates, scilicet et Dio Prusensis. . . . Fuit enim Isocrates vir et dicendi et vivendi disciplina peritissimus cuius ex ludo (ut ait oratorum maximus) tanquam ex equo Troiano innumeri principes exiere. . . .8? Hic libros duos ad Nicoclem Cypri Regem reliquit, in quorum altero praecepta regi tradit, in altero autem his qui ab eo reguntur.33 ® Andrés Mendo’s Principe perfecto y ministros ajustados (first ed. in 1657) gives hundreds of marginal notes to authors of all ages. *\In 1514, at Vienna, the translation of To Nicocles by Martinus Phileticus was published under the title of De regno gubernando ad Nicoclem. The translation of Bernardo Giustiniano, under the title of De institutione principis, was first published at Venice in 1492. The copy of the Paris, 1511, edition in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Florence is bound with Poggio Bracciolini’s Dialogus de infelicitate principum. ® Innumeri is now read meri; Cicero, De oratore 2.22.94. “Two books on kingship kept afloat and appeared in Italy; now they are read by every one, to wit, Isocrates and Dio Prusensis. . . . Isocrates was a man thoroughly experienced in the science of speaking and living, from whose school (as the greatest of orators says) as from the Trojan horse innumerable Princes have come forth. . . . He left two books addressed to Nicocles, king of Cyprus, in one of which he gives advice to the king, in the other to his subjects’ (De regno 1.4). Dio Prusensis, i.c. of Prusa (died about 120 A. D.), called Chrysostomus and Cocceianus, wrote in Greek five orations De regno (nos. I, 2, 3, 4, 56), one De On the History of Books of Advice to Princes 13 As might be expected Patricius frequently refers to Isocrates. Eras- mus wrote with the Cyropaedia in mind,** and made a transla- tion of Xenophon’s Hieron, sive Tyrannus, to which Machiavelli refers as De Tyrannide.>° Pontanus says that the Cyrus of Xenophon “omnium . . . regiarum virtutum exemplum fuisse creditum est,” and, citing his liberality, writes to Alphonso of Calabria that he desires the prince especially to imitate him.3* Examples of this use of the Cyropaedia can easily be multiplied.*7 Machiavelli’s refer- ences to it are like those of the others; he read and quoted what everyone interested in the conduct of the prince was familiar with. In considering these and other Greek and Latin writings, it tyrannide (no. 6), and one De regno et tyrannide (no. 62). The first edition of the Greek text appeared in 1476; no copy is extant. The first Latin translation is of 1555. Dio probably did not influence Machiavelli. * Institutio principis Christiani, chap. 3, 592 E. For Xenophon and other sources of Erasmus’ work see Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, translated by Lester K. Born, New York, 1936. ® Discorst 2.2, p. 140a. *° Opera, Basel, 1566, I, 257, 267. * Beroaldus, De optimo statu, in Orationes et opuscula, Basel, 1513, pp. 125 verso, 130 recto. Platina (1421-81), Principis diatuposis, passim. In 1521 gli Heredi di Philippo Giunta published the Italian translation of the Cyropaedia made by Iacopo di Messer Poggio from the Latin of his father, Messer Poggio Bracciolini. In his dedication to Alphonso of Aragon, the father wrote: ‘La hystoria di Xeno- phonte della vita di Cyro . . . contiene in se, e ci dimostra quale debba essere uno principe iusto. . . . Questa [lectione] certo é quella che supera tutte laltre, descrivendosi in questa opera uno Re che habbia 4 essere exemplo di virtu 4 ciascuno, il quale imitassino quegli che reggano, lo stato de subditi sarebbe in migliore con- ditione non é.”’—‘“Xenophon’s account of the life of Cyrus contains within itself and shows us what a true prince ought to be. This kind of reading is certainly superior to every other, since in this work is described a king who can be an example of virtue to every one. If those who rule would imitate it, the state of their subjects would be better than it is.” In 1470, at the court of Burgandy, Vasco Fernandez, Count of Lucena, trans- lated the Cyropaedia after the Latin of Poggio (Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la langue et de la littérature frangaise 2.269). As dauphin, Louis XI provided himself with a translation, according to one of his letters: ‘Nous avons ordonné 4 maistre Jehan de Templo . . . la somme de trente escus d’or, pour avoir par nostre ordonnance pie¢a translaté de latin en francois le livre de Xenophon le philosophe, contenant huit volumes, iceluy avoir fait escripre en parchemin, enluminer et relier, et A nous envoyé en la ville de Geneppe en Brabant, lors nous estant illec.”—‘‘We have decreed for Master Jehan de Templo the sum of thirty escus of gold because according to our command he some time ago translated from Latin into French the book of Xenophon the philosopher, containing eight volumes, and had it _ Written on parchment, illuminated, and bound, and sent it to us in the town of Geneppe in Brabant, where we then were” (Lettres de Louis XI 10.162; because of the mention of Geneppe the editor assigns the date of 1461). For the present worth of the Cyropaedia as “le bréviaire du haut commandement” see General Arthur Boucher, Les lois éternelles de la guerre 1.72; 2.239-49. 14 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners should be remembered that they were not because of their antiquity set apart from sixteenth-century life; the assumption that the classics are of little immediate and practical value and concern only pro- fessional students is a recent one. In the age of Machiavelli the best manual on any subject was assumed to be the classical treatise on the matter. Aristotle, Isocrates, and Xenophon*® were considered those best fitted to give instruction to a prince of the renaissance; most men would have agreed with Charles V in holding that the Politics and the Economics of Aristotle were to a king “trés néces- saires et pour cause.”3® But though the classical influence on Machiavelli and Erasmus is great, it is far from accounting for them; even to use the classics as they did is in the mediaeval spirit; in his twelfth-century De prin- cipis instructione liber Giraldus Cambrensis made full use of all the ancient material available to him. A glance at the very chapter headings used by Erasmus and Machiavelli shows that they were classifying their matter in the mediaeval fashion. Some of the headings used by Vincent of Beauvais, for example, are as follows: Quo iure regna quondam usurpata liceat retinere. Quod [rex] eciam debet alios in sapiencia precellere. Quod debet esse sapiens in amicis et consiliariis et officialibus eligendis. Quod similiter debet esse sapiens in facultatibus dispensandis. Quod eciam in raciociniis precavendis et in bellis exercendis. De detractoribus et adulatoribus qui conversantur in curiis. De adulatoribus ac dectractoribus repellendis.*° Engaged on their works about the same time, Erasmus and Machia- velli, notwithstanding the vast differences between them, yet em- ploy chapter headings of the same type, showing that their inter- ests are in part coincident and expressed in harmony with the same tradition. With the De adulatione vitanda principi of Eras- mus may be compared the Quomodo adulatores sint fugiendi of 8 Prince 6, p. 13a; 14, p. 30a; 16, p. 32a; 26, p. 50a. %° Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France 4.1.190 (by A. Coville). «How crowns that have been usurped may legally be held. That a king should excel all others in wisdom. That a king should be wise in choosing friends, advisers, and officials. That he should likewise be wise in bestowing riches. Likewise in taking in advance precautions about his affairs and in carrying on war. On the detractors and flatterers who live at courts. On repelling flatterers and detractors” (from a rotograph of Merton MS 110, of De morali principis 4nstitutione). Arpad Steiner and Allan H. Gilbert are now preparing an edition of this work. On the History of Books of Advice to Princes 15 Machiavelli; with De vectigalibus et exactionibus, De liberalitate et parsimonia;** with De beneficentia principis, Quod principem decet ut egregius habeatur and De his rebus quibus homines et praesertim principes laudantur aut vituperantur;*? with De ma- gistratibus et officiis, De his quos a secretis principes habent; with De foederibus, Quomodo fides a princtpibus sit servanda; with De bello suscipiendo, several chapters on war.*? Erasmus would prob- ably have appeared to Machiavelli one of those who wrote on imaginary rather than real principalities; the differences in tone are obvious enough, but individual characteristics have not sub- merged typical resemblances.** It is evident, then, that the book entitled The Prince or some- thing of the kind was familiar to the educated men of the sixteenth century and well recognized as a type. Important classical works were its prototypes, yet there were some three centuries of tradi- tion of such writing by modern authors, based on the classics but adapted to their own circumstances; Italy of the fifteenth century had produced in abundance works addressed to the ruler. The superficial appearance of Machiavelli’s production is that of volumes obviously belonging to the type, and his own references to his opuscule make evident that he thought of it as continuing the tradition in form, though departing from many of its ideas and substituting for them new and better conceptions of the conduct proper for the head of a state. It remains to see in what further respects Machiavelli conformed to the general example and what new truths he uttered. “Erasmus quotes the proverb: “Magnum vectigal parsimonia est.”—‘‘Parsimony is a great source of income” (Institutio 4, 594 D). “The general moral application is mediaeval; for example, in the De regimine principum of Egidio Colonna “universa de moribus philosophia continetur’’—“uni- versal philosophy on morals is contained” (ttle-page of the Rome, 1556, edition). ERAsMUS MACHIAVELLI On the prince’s avoidance of flattery In what way flatterers are to be es- caped On taxes and exactions On liberality and parsimony On the good deeds of the prince What a prince should do that he may be held excellent On magistrates and their duties On those things because of which men and especially princes are praised or blamed On those whom princes choose as sec- retaries On treaties In what way faith is kept by princes “Tf there were contact of any sort between Erasmus and Machiavelli, the evidence for it is not apparent in the two works under discussion. RUNNING COMMENTARY ON THE PRINCE ‘ ), YITHOUT a detailed survey, the relation of The Prince to its predecessors, contemporaries, and successors can hardly be understood. Hence the chapters will be taken in order, with comment on matters relating to the tradition of works de regimine principum and parallels from representative examples. In no instance does a quotation imply that the quoted work is the source of a passage in The Prince; while it can hardly be doubted that Niccolé had read a number of the works mentioned, some of the parallels are from earlier writings that he would have been un- likely to see and a few from later authors. The purpose is not to establish indebtedness, but to show to what extent his thought fol- lowed and where it departed from traditional lines. [16] Tue DepicaTIon Various students have seen reason to think that this dedication is modeled in part on the address of Isocrates to Nicocles; if they be right, Machiavelli is here proceeding somewhat as did Erasmus in following one of the chief classical works De regimine princt- pum. Considering what has been said on Isocrates, one can hardly assert that such imitation is impossible; the oration to Nicocles would have been a normal part of Machiavelli’s reading of the classical authors on politics.’ Works on the “governi de’ principi” are commonly dedicated to some particular prince, usually in much more flattering language than Niccolo employs; he suggests that Lorenzo can really be- come greater by taking his advice, while it is more conventionally said that the ruler addressed is quite without need of suggestion; for example, Petrus Bizzarus wrote in the dedication of his De optimo principe to Queen Elizabeth of England: “Tibi vero (Sere- nissima Regina) supervacanea est huiusmodi exhortatio, cum nihil unquam praetermittas quod ad veram ac legitimam gubernationem pertinere animadvertas, adeo ut potius caeteris Regibus ac Prin- cipibus bene regendi quaedam (ut ita dixerim) forma ideaque sis, quam ut aliorum praeceptis et cohortatione indigeas.”* More frankly than is usual in such dedications, Machiavelli asserts his own qual- ifications for the giving of advice. This fits with his feeling that he was a political expert, able to speak on the realities of politics as those hardly could hope to do who had not combined long reading with a life of practical experience. Normally reading alone 1 Tommasini, Vita di Machiavelli 2.110-1, in refutation of the earlier writers, holds that there is no imitation of Isocrates here. He connects the matter, however, with Machiavelli’s knowledge of Greek, a consideration not, I take it (see p. 12, above), in point here. The idea of a present to a king appears in the dedications of Clichtoveus and Budé mentioned just below. *“For you (Most Serene Queen) exhortation of this sort is superfluous, since you never neglect anything which you think pertains to true and legitimate rule, so that you are rather for other kings and princes a kind of form and idea (if I may so express it) of ruling well than in need of the precepts and encouragements of others.” Petrarch gives much praise to Francisco Carrara, in De republica optime ad- ministranda, addressed to him. Erasmus wrote to Charles, in his dedication: “Tuae Celsitudini nihil opus esse cujusquam monitis.’—‘‘Your eminence does not need the admonitions of any one” (Institutio, col. 559). [17] 18 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners is mentioned, as by Machiavelli's contemporary Iodocus Clichtoveus in the dedication of his De regis officio (1519): “Libellum inquam de regis officio ac institutione disserentem: et quid regem agere quidve declinare oporteat ex sacrarum literarum promptuario il- lustriumque virorum sententiis et exemplis edocentem.”* Writing to give his prince expert advice, rather than diversion,t Machiavelli had sound reason to make himself appear as expert as possible, especially since he intended to disagree with the majority. Part of this disagreement and his practical purpose appears in his avoid- ance of the ornaments “con li quali molti sogliono le loro cose descrivere e ornare.”® The “molti” here are presumably other writers of advice to princes, though the phrase may apply to authors in general. A phrase in Clichtoveus’ dedication seems to confirm Machiavelli’s feelings: “Imitatus item et plerosque alios egregios authores: qui de regimine institutioneque principum luculenter et splendide scripserunt.”® Machiavelli might have added that he dif- fered also from most of his predecessors and many of his successors in writing in a vulgar tongue rather than in Latin. *«A little book, I say, treating the duty and training of a king, and from the repository of the sacred scriptures and the wise sayings and examples of famous men teaching what a king ought to do and to avoid.” “Of the purpose of Guillaume Budé in his Institution du prince we read: “Il songe A distraire le roi plus encore qu’a l’instruire” (Louis Delaruelle, Guillaume Budé 1.202). 5 “With which many are accustomed to depict and ornament their things” (Prince, dedication, p. 3b). °“T have also imitated many other excellent authors who have written excellently and splendidly on the training of princes” (De regis officio, dedication). Cf. Petrus Bizzarus, op. cit., dedication: “Sunt, et fuerunt perplures, qui non minus erudite, quam luculenter atque ornate de his quae ad Principis regimen spectant, dis- seruerunt.”—‘“There are and have been many who have written not less learnedly than excellently and splendidly on those things which pertain to the regimen of princes.” Chapter 1 Quot sint genera principatuum et quibus modis acquirantur. (The number of types of principates and the way in which they may be acquired.) The short first chapter is marked as un-Aristotelian by its division of governments into two kinds, republics and_prin- cipates; this is a normal division of Machiavelli’s time, and may be traced historically to Roman history, or in contem- porary affairs to the republic of Venice on the one hand and to the rule by families, such as the Sforza family, on the other.1 By principate Machiavelli obviously means monarchy, regnum. The novelty is his emphasis on the new principate, possibly a Tacitean touch verified in Machiavelli’s own experience; it announces what sort of principate would receive most attention in his work.” *The twofold division is essentially that used by Franciscus Patricius Senensis (1412-94) in his De regno et regis institutione 1.1 and his De institutione reipublicae 1.1, though he is not ignorant of Aristotle. * To Guiseppe Toffanin (Machiavelli e il “Tacitismo,’ Padova, 1921) I leave the discussion of Machiavelli’s relation to Tacitus. | 19] Chapter 2 De principatibus hereditariis. (Of hereditary principates.) Machiavelli explains that he will not deal with republics because he has elsewhere considered them at length, an ob- vious reference to the Discourses on Livy. The shift from the republicanism of the Discorsi to the monarchism of The Prince has sometimes been charged to mere willingness to flatter those who had places to give. But in considering the two forms he was not without precedent; in the first chapter of his De regno et regis institutione Patricius explains that it is not strange he should compose that work after writing De institutione reipub- licae. Many of their fundamental principles, he believes with Plato, are the same; “non igitur hoc mihi vitio dandum erit si utrunque tentavero, quum possim superiores testes et complures etiam alios citare qui identidem quoque factitarunt.”? Discussion of the advantages of hereditary monarchy is not a new thing. Egidio Colonna in the preface of his De regimine prin- cipum indicates that he is to be concerned with the principate that is “perpetua”; what should be the conduct of the ruler whose power will endure not merely for his own lifetime but for that of his family? As Machiavelli sets forth the advantages of the heredi- tary ruler, “il principe naturale,” Egidio writes: Consuetudo est quasi altera natura: propter quod regimina ex con- suetudine efficiuntur quasi naturalia. Populus ergo si per diuturnam 7 Professor Mazzoni holds “che l’opuscolo non é se non una parte di un’opera, o piuttosto della materia per un’opera, cui insiem con esso appartengono i Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio.”—‘‘The little book is as it were part of a work, or rather part of the material for a work to which the Discorsi also pertain” (Tutte le opere di Machiavelli, p. xl). Cf. p. 37, below. My quotations on pp. 6-8 go to show that Machiavelli himself recognized the relationship of the works. In the Discorsi, however, there seems to be very little suitable for The Prince that has not been carried over in a word or a phrase. In the present work I cite passages from the Discorsi only when they advance my argument, without attempting to present parallels merely as such. Doubtless I have sometimes read passages in the shorter work in the light of the exposition in the longer one. 2“Tt should, therefore, not be counted a fault in me if I have attempted both, since I am able to cite witnesses in earlier times and many others as well who have indulged in the same practice.” [ 20 ] Chapter 2 | 21 consuetudinem obedivit patribus, filiis, et filiorum filiis, quasi naturaliter inclinantur ut voluntarie obediant: quare cum omne voluntarium sit minus onerosum et difficile, ut libentius et facilius obediat populus mandatis regis, expedit regiae dignitati per hereditatem succedere.3 This “natural” rule is the easier because the hereditary prince is not forced to offend his people by severe measures in order to maintain himself. The new ruler, however, is inevitably obliged to new-model the state, even though “ non € cosa piu difficile a trattare, né pit dubia a riuscire, né pitt periculosa a maneggiare, che farsi capo a introdurre nuovi ordini; perché lo introduttore ha per nimici tutti quelli che degli ordini vecchi fanno bene.”* He may even have to re- sort to violence and cruelty, such as Machiavelli is to discuss in chap- ter eight. Bu s men to forget these cruelties and the advantages of rheiz older government, and finally they acquiesce in an established power, as did the Spaniards in the Roman domin- ion (Prince 4). According to Machiavelli, Tommaso Soderini made the arguments for heredity his reasons for rejecting the chief power in Florence and urging the continuance of Medicean rule: Se volevono che in Firenze si vivesse unito e in pace, e dalle divisioni di dentro e dalle guerre di fuori securo, era necessario osservare quelli giovani [Lorenzo e Giuliano de’ Medici] e a quella casa la reputazione mantenere; perché gli uomini di fare le cose che sono fare consueti mai non si dolgono: le nuove, come presto si pigliano, cosi ancora presto si lasciano; e sempre fu pit facile mantenere una potenza la quale con la lunghezza del tempo abbia spenta la invidia, che suscitarne una nuova la quale per moltissime cagioni si possa facilmente spegnere.® * “Habit is as it were another nature; hence by custom various kinds of govern- ment are made as it were natural. Therefore if through daily habit the people has obeyed fathers, sons, and the sons of sons, it is as though by nature inclined to voluntary obedience. Hence, since anything voluntary is less onerous and difficult, if the people is to obey freely and easily the commands of the king, it is expedient that successions to the kingly dignity should be hereditary” (De regimine 3.2.5). *«There is nothing more difficult to discuss, more doubtful of success, nor more perilous to manage than to carry out the introduction of new customs, because the introducer has as his enemies all those who profit from the old customs” (Prince, chap. 6, p. 13b). *“If they wished peaceful and united life in Florence, secure from divisions within and from wars without, it was necessary to respect those young men [Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici] and to maintain the. reputation of their house. For men are never pained by doing the things to which they are accustomed, but new things are laid down as quickly as they are taken up; therefore it has always been easier to maintain a power which in the course of time has ceased to inspire envy than to bring to life a new one which for many reasons can easily be destroyed” (Istorte Fiorentine 7.24, p. 580b). 22 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners The same thing was clear to Egidio, who broke from his normal subjection to Aristotle in suggesting that a hereditary ruler has less need for exertion to maintain his power than a new one: Si quis super aliquos de novo principari coepit, quia contra talem principatum facilius insurgitur; ne cives insurgant in principem, et ut magis unanimiter obediant, incutiendi sunt illis timores de extrinsecis periculis imminentibus; sed si regnum diu in statu perstiterit, et dominus ille sit naturalis, ita quod quasi non sit in memoria hominum ex quo ille et antecessores sui obtinuerunt huiusmodi principatum, tanta cautela non magnam utilitatem habere videtur.® And in the fifteenth century Patricius asserted: Optabit igitur rex sobolem ex se genitam similem sibi esse non modo effigie, verum virtute, ac moribus, ut rex non decessisse, sed iunior factus esse videatur. Filius quidem sine periculo regnat, qui optime antecedentis parentis vestigia conterit.? While Patricius’ emphasis is chiefly moral, the last sentence hints at wider application; at least it implies that the hereditary ruler who departs from the track of his predecessor rules with peril. The es- sence of heredity for Machiavelli is in continuance without change; a natural successor who follows an unbeaten path, as did Ferdinand of Aragon according to the twenty-first chapter of The Prince, is to be classed with new princes. Differences between The Prince and its predecessors are partly to be explained by the author’s deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of cus- tom, though aided, as Machiavelli allows in the twenty-fourth chap- ter, by the attraction of novelty. Had he been dealing with a hered- itary monarch who was to limit himself only to his ancestral do- °“Tf any one begins anew to rule over others, he should remember that it is rather easy to rebel against such a principate, and therefore, lest the citizens rise against the prince, and that they may more unanimously obey, he should inspire them with terror of imminent perils of foreign attack. But if the kingdom has been long established and its lord is a natural one, so that no one as it were re- members how he and his predecessors obtained the principate they have, so great caution seems not to have much use” (De regimine 3.2.15). The ultimate source of the idea of inspiring fear is Aristotle’s Politics 5.1308a 25 ff.; the application to hereditary and new rulers is not Aristotelian. 7A ruler will desire the offspring he begets to be like himself not merely in appearance but also in virtue and habits, in order that the king may seem not to have died but to have been made younger. For the son reigns without peril who treads exactly in the footsteps of the parent who preceded him” (De regno 9.22). Chapter 2 23 mains, for whom it would be enough “seguire le vestigie del padre,”® his treatise would have been more conventional. Most of the works de regimine principum are based on settled hereditary rule, with no specific problem of enlarging the kingdom before the ruler. Had Niccolo been considering such conditions, he would have written more in the vein of the others. Castiglione, for ex- ample, differs from his contemporary in his conception of the mon- arch partly because he gives him a much easier problem. But the new ruler who is to form Italy into a new state must have advice suited to the difficulty of his attempt. Moreover, Castiglione and most of the others were generally writing for any ruler, even a weak one; our author, however, started with the assumption of a prince prudent and strong enough to be held equal—when prop- erly advised—to the difficult task before him. To such a man it is hardly necessary to give the elementary instruction required by a young and incapable scion of an established house. *“To walk in the footsteps of his father” (Prince 19, p. 39b). Chapter 3 De principatibus mixtis. (Of mixed principates.) This is the first chapter of a group dealing with the new prince—a subject not much considered by writers on the con- duct of princes. Wycliffe was conscious that kings might desire such a “mixed principate” as Machiavelli writes of, and cau- tioned them: “Cum rex debet per se regnum appetere propter opus meritorium, quod non debet duo regna appetere con- quirendo, nisi forte, pro destruendis dei hostibus, specialem revela- cionem ad illud habuerit.”? Vincent of Beauvais recognized the practical fact of usurpation of kingly power, even as something that might sometimes receive divine approval.2 Though Egidio normally considers the established monarch, the new prince once emerges—as though he were familiar enough in practical life—in the chapter entitled Quae sunt quae salvant dominium regium, et quot oporteat Regem facere ut se in suo principatu conservet.® The “cautela” of waging foreign war is useful for a “principatui in quo quis noviter principari coepit.”* But in writers nearer Machiavelli the new ruler does not appear. The present chapter is characteristic of Machiavelli in recog- nizing that “il tempo si caccia innanzi ogni cosa, e pud condurre seco bene come male, e male come Mp A Ore his eye on Time’s winged chariot, the wise prince will regard not merely present but also future €vents and pee Re them—“quelli con ogni industria obviare.” Foresight will enable him to cure ills *“Though a king should desire a kingdom in and for itself for the sake of a meritorious work, yet he should not desire two kingdoms, and attempt a conquest, unless he has a special revelation commanding him to do it that he may destroy the enemies of God” (De officio regis, cap. 12, p. 262). ? De institutione morali chap. 4, “Quo iure regna quondam usurpata liceat retinere.”—“How kingdoms that have been usurped may lawfully be retained.” ®“What are the things that make secure the rule of kings, and how many things it behooves a king to do to preserve himself in his principate” (3.2.15). *“A principate in which some one has newly begun to govern” (3.2.15). See Pp. 22, above, and 165 ff., below. 5“Time gets ahead of everything, and is able to take along with it good as well as evil, and evil as well as good” (Prince 3, p. 8b). [ 24 ] Chapter 3 25 of the state that if neglected will grow beyond the power of med- icine. The success of Cosimo de’ Medici—who exemplified for Machiavelli many qualities of the prudent ruler—was in part at- tributable to this foresight: “Sendo prudentissimo, cognosceva i mali discosto, e percid era a tempo o a non gli lasciare crescere, 0 a prepararsi in modo che, cresciuti, non lo offendessero.”” This was’ high praise, as a later reference to the subject makes plain: La poca prudenzia degli uomini comincia una cosa, che, per sapere allora di buono, non si accorge del veleno che vi é sotto: come io dissi, di sopra, delle febbre etiche. Pertanto colui che in uno principato non conosce e’ mali quando nascono, non é veramente savio; e questo é dato a pochi.8 The prudent Duke Valentino overwent this precept when he con- sidered “che potessi nascere, morendo el padre”; yet even he had been unable to imagine all the possible circumstances.1° On the contrary the Duke of Athens—as a typical foolish ruler—though he ® This is one of the many sentiments taken from The Prince by Francis Quarles. He renders it: “It is more excellent in a Prince, to have a provident eye for the preventing future mischiefes, then to have a potent arme for the suppressing of present evills: Mischiefes in a State are like Hectique fevers in a body naturall; In the beginning, hard to be knowne, but easily to be cured: but being let alone a while, more easy to be knowne, but harder to be cured” (Observations Concerning Princes and States 57). Except for slight verbal differences, the same thing is found in his Enchyridion 1.52. "Being very prudent, he knew evils afar off, and therefore he was in time either to keep them from increasing or to prepare himself in such a manner that when they had increased they did not annoy him” (Istorie Fiorentine 7.5, p. 565b). Other passages that exemplify or inculcate foresight, some of them mentioned by Burd, are Discorsi 1.32, p. 100b; 33, p. 101a; 51, p. 121b; 3.18, p. 227a; 49, p. 262a. In one instance Cosimo failed; though he foresaw that the Pazzi would be dangerous to the Medici and acted to forestall the danger, his measures proved ineffective (Istorie Fiorentine 8.2, p. 591a). See also p. 52, below. Piero Soderini also possessed prudence enough to foresee a danger to the state, but failed in the policy he adopted to avert it (Discorsi 3.3, p. 197b). ® “The slight prudence of men commences a thing which, because it presents at first the appearance of good, does not reveal the poison beneath the surface, as I said above about the hectic fever. “Therefore he who in a principate does not recognize evils when they are con- cealed is not truly wise; and this power is given to few” (Prince 13, p. 28b). The last clause here and the similar one in chapter 3, page 8a (“‘il che non é dato se non a uno prudente”) come from the Politics 5.1308a 34; cf. also, for the be- ginning of an evil, Politics 5.1303b 27-31. Machiavelli refers to a prudent rather than a foresighted man perhaps because foresight or providentia was part of pru- dence; see, for instance, Egidio 1.2.8; Aquinas considered it the principal part of prudence (Summa Theologica 2.2.49.6, ad 1), though he refused to identify the two. °“What could happen if his father died.” » Prince 7, p. 17b. 26 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners feared the hatred gathering against him, had no capacity to pro- vide against it. When in desperation he attempted remedies, they , were “tardi e fuori di tempo, perché erano forzate e senza grado,”™* In his demand for foresight, Machiavelli is in harmony with the tradition. Petrarch, for example, wrote in his De republica optime administranda: Verum optimus ac providentissimus princeps, non quid delectaret, sed quid prodesset attendit. Haec nimirum cura frumentaria, tam principum propria est, ut eam malis quoque et inertibus fuisse comperiam, ex quo, quanta bonis esse debeat, pronum sit advertere. . . . Consilium est tamen, ut in prosperis quoque paratus sit animus ad adversa, et velut e specula, non quid est tantum, sed quid esse possit vigili cogitatione prospiciat, ne qua eum inopina mutatio rerum turbet.1? In the next century Patricius devoted to providentia a chapter of his De regno et regis institutione: Chilo Lacedaemonius dicebat futurorum providentiam prudenti viro quadam ratione animi occurrere pro virtute quam in se habet, ut ostenderet tantum cuique prudentiae esse, quantum virtutis in se fuerit. . . . Optime quidem fabulati sunt veteres poetae, qui dicunt primam filiarum summi Dei providentiam extitisse. . . . Haec quidem virtus in regibus, imperatoribus, ducibus, principibus, magnisque viris maxima esse videtur, et adeo admiranda, ut quasi divinos eos putemus, qui hoc providentiae munere praediti sunt.18 “Tardy and out of season, because they were forced and ungracious” (Istorie Fiorentine 2.37, p. 439a); cf. Discorsi 1.32, 51, and especially Prince 8, last sentence. * “But the prince who is most excellent and foresighted observes not what may please but what may profit. Indeed this care about the grain supply is so proper to princes that I find it has been exercised even by the evil and slothful; from that it is easy to conclude how much attention the good should give it. . . . It is prudence, then, that in prosperity the mind should be prepared for adverse things, and as though in a mirror not merely should see what is, but by wakeful cogitation should foresee what can be, that in no way an unexpected change of circumstances may disturb him” (Opera, Basel, 1554, 1.427). See Arpad Steiner, Petrarch’s Optimus Princeps, in The Romanic Review XXV (1934), 99-111. The Secretum secretorum has a section De regis providencia contra famem fu- turam (cap. 17, p. 55, in Opera Rogeri Baconi, Oxford, 1920, Vol. V) and also one De regis providencia (cap. 10, p. 48). Egidio discusses foresight under prudence, saying, for example: ““Decet [regem] habere providentiam futurorum: quia homines providentes futura bona, excogitant vias, per quas faciliter illa adipisci valeant.” —“TIt is well for the king to be able to foresee future events, since men who foresee future good things think out ways by which they may be able easily to obtain them” (1.2.8). It also appears under prudentia in the De principe of Nifo (Firenze, 1521). 4% “Chilo the Lacedaemonian was accustomed to say that foresight of future events was presented to the prudent man by reason of a certain faculty of mind in proportion to the virtue he had in himself, in order that he might show that each man had as much prudence as he had virtue. . . . Certain ancient poets have Chapter 3 27 The foresight of this chapter is partly that enabling a prudent ruler to understand what particular conditions in his state portend. It is also the foresight which requires the prince to prepare for pos- sible misfortune of any sort, perhaps quite unpredictable by the wisest man but certain to come because of the variable nature of the world. This general preparation requires from the ruler inces- sant industry, the opposite of the zgnavia of the Italian princes who foolishly believed prosperity would be indefinitely prolonged."* Presentation of the good ruler as a hard-working man was usual, as may be inferred from the words of Leon Batista Alberti: Affermava essere veramente cosa difficilissima il reggere uno Imperio a coloro poi che se lo hanno acquistato. Conciosia che quando tu sarai arrivato a quel grado, che ei ti bisogni, che ei dependa dalla sola cura tua, e dalla tua diligentia, la quiete, e la tranquillita di molti, e che ella si mantenga, qual cosa si puo trovare nella vita, che sia piu difficile, o piu faticosa? Aggiugneva a questo che tutte le facende publiche, erano totalmente difficili, e piene di impedimenti, nelle quali se tu ti vorrai affaticare solo senza compagno, tu non sarai bastante a poterlo fare, e se tu ti vorrai servire di altri in metterle ad effetto, incorrerai in infiniti accidenti, e pericoli: e il non ne tener conto, oltre a che saria cosa vergognosa, e da dapochi, ridunderia ancora in tua calamita, e rovina.15 Even the medical metaphor, frequent in Machiavelli,1® of the fabled excellently who say that Foresight came into being as the first of the daughters of the most high God. . . . This virtue appears greatest in kings, em- perors, dukes, princes, and great men, and is to be admired to such an extent that we may judge them as though divine who are distinguished by this gift of foresight” (6.12). “Prince 24, p. 47b; cf. also 14, pp. 29a, 30b; Arte della guerra 2, p. 302b; 7.366b. * “He affirmed that certainly it is a very difficult thing for those who have ac- quired a state to rule it. For since you will have come to such a condition that the quiet and tranquility of many, and the permanence of their tranquility, is your responsibility and depends on your care alone, what thing can be found in life which is more difficult or more fatiguing? He added to this that all matters of public business are very difficult and full of impediments, and if you wish to labor in them alone without company you will not be sufficient to accomplish it, and if you wish to make use of others in putting them into practice you will run into an infinity of accidents and perils; and if you do not take account of it, besides that that would be a shameful thing, and conduct worthy of worthless persons, the result will be your calamity and ruin” (Del principe 2, p. 42, line 11). On the tribula- tions (“molti affanni’”) of the ruler see also pp. 81, 94, 101, 228, below. * Tommasini (Vita di Machiavelli 2.39) refers to various parts of Machiavelli’s work; I have indicated the passages that he seems to have especially in mind. Prince 6, p. 13a: “La virtu dello animo loro si sarebbe spenta.”—‘“The virtue of the soul would be exhausted.” Prince 7, p. 16a: “Purgare gli animi,’—‘“to purge 28 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners prince as the physician of an ailing state, is still more prevalent among his predecessors than is suggested by Tommasini, who re- fers to a passage in the De regimine principum of Egidio Colonna.'* Beroaldus, for example, writes at some length on the prince as physi- cian of the state: Malos si a malicia revocare non potest per indulgentiam, poena coerceat per saeveritatem: sic secreti sint a bonis mali. . . . Faciat quod medicus qui interdum urit, secat, abscindit in corpore membrum quod insanabile est ne pars integra contagione serpente pariter corrumpatur: iuxta illud castatissimum: Immedicabile vulnus ense recidendum est, ne pars sincera trahatur. Consimiliter princeps aliquando secet, amputetque de corpore civitatis membra putrida: hoc est cives sceleratos, perfidiosos, turbatores publici commodi; et molitores rerum novarum exterminet, tollatque de medio. Medici officium est, ut dicebat Asclepiades: et a Cornelio Celso repetitum est, ut cito, ut tuto, ut iucunde curet: tamen quandoque austeriore medicina uti cogitur: ad vim morbi gravioris retundendam profligandamque. Itidem principis officium est ut molliter, ut delicate, ut indulgenter subditos foveat, curet, tueatur. Nonnunquam tamen curatione mordaci et austerula utetur. Causticaque adhibebit ad edomandos duriores civium morbos et omnia molliora malagmata recusantes.18 the souls.” Prince 7, p. 17b: “Rimedio,’"—‘“remedy.” Discorsi 1.1 passim, on virta and the effects of climate. Discorsi 2.5, p. 1474, on purgations. Discorsi 2.30, p. 189a, the heart. Diéscorsi 3.1, p. 193, a saying of doctors of medicine. Cf. also Discorsi 3.49, p. 261ab, on the physician and the diseases of the state. Tommasini refers also to the continuation of the De regimine principum (4.23) of Aquinas, for the organic theory of the state. In the same work (1.2) Aquinas himself com- pares the prince to a physician. For the subject in earlier times see, e.g., Cicero, Epistles to Atticus 2.1.7; Seneca, De clementia 1.9.6; 1.17. malic Bethe Caio be %% “Tf he is not able to bring back the sick from their malady with indulgence, he should coerce their pains with severity; thus the evil may be separated from the good. . . . He should proceed like the physician who sometimes burns, cuts, and takes away a member of the body which is incurable lest the sound part be equally corrupted by creeping infection, according to that most holy saying: An incurable wound is to be cut away with the sword lest the healthy part be affected. The prince in like manner sometimes should cut and amputate from the body of the state diseased parts; that is, citizens who are wicked, perfidious, and disturbers of the public good, and he should exterminate those who attempt innovation and remove them from the midst of the state. It is the function of the physician, as Asclepiades said and Cornelius Celsus repeats, to cure quickly, safely, and pleasantly, yet he is sometimes forced to use a more severe remedy to restrain and conquer the force of a more dangerous disease. So it is the duty of a prince to be gentle, deli- cate, and indulgent in nourishing, curing, and protecting his subjects. Yet he some- times uses a means of cure that is biting and rather harsh. He will apply caustics to eat away the infections of the citizens that are most dangerous and that refuse Priceps me dicus reip, Priceps fii Sia ps reip. Magiftrac® pure creadi Q fi pure creaturma giltracus INSTITVTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI fe dignii eft agit, fi magiftratus fuas obeune parteis,fi ple bes ité bonis Icgibus,& integris magiftratib? obrempat. Acubi fua negocidi agit priceps,& magiftrac? nihil aliud & copilat populd,ubi plebcs no obrempat honeftis legi- bus, fed principi ac magiftratibus utca q res tulerit adulay tur, ibicurpiffima qucedamn rer confufio fir oporter. Primum ac fumma principis ftudium oposter effe, ut Goptime mereatur de republica. Acné alia re melius po- teft mereri,g@ fi curet,ut magiftrat? & officia uiris integer rimis ac public cOmodi f{tudiofiflimis comittantur. Princeps qd aliud eft G& medicus reipublice ¢ Ar medir co no fatiseft, fi miniftros habear peritos,nifi fit ipfe periy tiffimnus ac uigilantiflimus. Ita principi non fuffiat, fima- giftratus habeat probos,nifi fit ipfe probiflimus , per qué ili & deliguntur & emendantur. Veanimi ptes né o€s pinde ualét, fed queda impant, alia parent,& tf corpus tanta paret. Ita princeps fumma reip.pars, plurima fapere,& ab oibus craflis affectib? alic niffima efle oportet.Ad hic pxime accedét magiftrat9,q partim parét,partim impant, parét pricipi, impant plebi. Ergo praxcipue rcipublice felicitas in hoc fita eft, ut pu recreetur magiftratus,& pure mandentur officia. Deinde fit atio male gefti muneris,quemadmoda antiquis erat actio a a Ea Poftremo ftatuatur in hos fcueriffi ma animaduerfio, ficonuicti fuerint. Pure creabunt magiftratus,fi princeps cos afcifcar, nd q plurimo emant,né qui improbiffime ambiant,non 7 cognarione coiunctiores, no qui ad illius mores aut affe- dtus cupiditatefg; maxime fint accémodi, fed q moribus finc integerrimis,& ad fuctioné madati maeris aptiflimi. Sig. Pr verso from the copy of Erasmus’ [nstitutio Principis Christiant, Basel, 1516, in the library of Duke University. Chapter 3 29 Machiavelli’s contemporary Erasmus inquired: “Princeps quid aliud est quam Medicus Reipublicae?”?® Developing his theory of the personal oversight of the ruler in his remark that by residing in a conquered province the con- queror can keep the people from being despoiled by officials, Ma- chiavelli touches on a matter he might be expected. to deal with at some length, since it is primary in his theory that a prince who would establish himself cannot have oppressed subjects. Perhaps it is because, in his emphasis on personal rule, he assumes that there will be no independent officials; unlike Alberti, quoted just above, he believes that the prudent monarch will be adequate to manage affairs himself. The ministers Machiavelli later considers are es- sentially advisers rather than administrators. Such a deputy as Remirro de Orco is exceptional, chosen for a carefully considered purpose and carrying on unpleasant duties which might make the ruler himself unpopular.?° A prince, however, is likely to be judged from the acts of his deputies unless he restrains them, as Borgia did and as the Emperor Maximinus did not.?1 Niccolo’s passing re- mark on restraining greedy officials would have been easily caught by his contemporaries because it was one of the subjects often writ- ten on by advisers of kings. The Speculum regis of Simon Islip is almost wholly devoted to oppression of the people by the officers of the king. Nor was there less interest in the matter among Ma- chiavelli’s contemporaries. Erasmus, in his chapter entitled De magistratibus et officiis, wrote as follows: Primum ac summum Principis studium oportet esse, ut quam optime mereatur de Republica: at non alia re melius potest mereri, quam si curet ut magistratus et officia viris integerrimis ac publici commodi studiosissimis committantur. .. . Prudenter admonet in Politicis Aristoteles, super omnia cavendum esse, ne ex magistratibus lucra proveniant iis, qui ea gerunt: alioqui geminum incommodum hinc sequi. Nam primum hac ratione fieri, ut avarissimus quisque et corruptissimus ambiat, imo occupet et invadat magistratum, et populus duplici discrucietur molestia, tum quod ab honoribus excluditur, tum quod lucro privatur.?? all pleasanter remedies” (De optimo statu, folio 128). For an example from Patricius see p. 139, note, below, and for one from Erasmus see p. 40. *® “What is the prince other than the physician of the state?” (Imstitutio, cap. 7, col. 601). See pp, 156 ff., below. * Prince 19, p. 40a. = «The first and greatest ambition of the prince should be to deserve as well as possible of the state, and by nothing can he obtain greater merit than by taking care 30 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Clichtoveus, like Gower, told the old story of Cambyses, who flayed an unjust judge and used his skin as a seat for his successors that they might take warning.?3 At the end of this third chapter Machiavelli gives “a general rule”: “Chi é cagione che uno diventi potente, rovina; perché quella potenzia é causata da colui o con industria o con forza, e luna e laltra di queste due é sospetta a chi é diventato potente.”** In his note on the passage Burd (p. 200) explains it from Aristotle’s Politics 1315 a: It is a precaution which is taken by all monarchs not to make one person great; but if one, then two or more should be raised, that they may look sharply after one another. If after all some one has to be made great, he should not be a man of bold spirit; for such dispositions are ever most inclined to strike. Aristotelian advice to Lorenzo de’ Medici against allowing Iacopo Pazzi (with his family) to grow great is found in [storie Fiorentine 8.2, p. 591a. This, with the account in the Discorsi*® of conspiracies by men who have become so great that they lack nothing but offi- cial authority—‘“se non il regno”—suggests Machiavelli's knowledge of this bit of Aristotelian precept. But the immediate circumstances of this chapter are somewhat different. The author is dealing not with a subject made great by a ruler, but with foreign affairs in which one potentate owes his posi- tion to another. It is true that Machiavelli did not hesitate to apply the same general principle to both internal and external affairs.*® that the magistracies and public offices are committed to men of firm integrity and thoroughly desirous of the public good... . “Aristotle prudently advises in the Politics that it should above all be avoided that money should come from the magistracies to those who are entrusted with them; otherwise a twofold abuse will result. For first it will come about that for this reason every man who is very avaricious and corrupt will strive for, nay will seize and usurp a magistracy, and the people will be tortured with double pain, being both excluded from honors and deprived of money” (Institutio 7.601-602). Cf. in Nifo’s Libellus de principe the chapter entitled Quod optimi principes bonis ac iustis ministris uti debeant—That the best princes should employ good and just ministers. * Clichtoveus, De regis officio, cap. 13, p. 49; Gower, Confessio Amantis 7.2889 ff. See also the quotation from Erasmus on p. 40, below. * “Fe who is the cause that a man becomes powerful ruins himself; for he causes that power either through industry or through force, and both of these are objects of suspicion to him who has become powerful” (Prince 3, p. 10a). * 3.6, p. 202a. Cf. the quotation from Egidio on p. 173, below. *E.g., pp. 48, 136, 147, 175, below. Chapter 3 31 Yet here he is not dealing with the making great of one single person and is quite against the elevation of two. The words “acresciuto in Italia potenzia a uno potente”®* are to be paired with “messo in quella uno forestiere potentissimo,”*® as is indicated by the later sentence: “La grandezza, in Italia, di quella [la Chiesa] e di Spagna é stata causata da Francia, e la ruina sua causata da loro.”?® Two have been made great and both have contributed to ruin. In the general rule (chi € cagione che uno etc.) uno may be interpreted in the sense of alcuno, anyone,®° rather than as a nu- meral. One ruler who makes another powerful is likely to be ruined because the recipient of favors fears that the industry and force of his patron will be turned against him; suspicion is inevitable when power rests “semplicemente in sulla volunta e fortuna di chi lo ha concesso loro, che sono dua cose volubilissime e instabili”;?+ fear- ing a change in the will or fortune of his patron, the creature en- deavors to secure himself from his creator without regard for grati- tude. That a weak state is a normal and potential enemy of a power- ful one that it suspects of designs on it is elsewhere asserted by Ma- chiavelli: “Ogni citta, ogni stato, debbe reputare inimici tutti coloro che possono sperare di poterle occupare el suo, e da chi lei non si puo difendere. Né fu mai né signoria né republica ‘savia che volessi tenere lo stato suo a discrezione d’altri, o che, tenendolo, gliene paressi aver securo.”*? With respect rather to an able minister than another prince as the cause of greatness, we read in the Capitolo dell’ Ingratitudine: “Power in Italy accumulated in the hands of one powerful man” (Prince 3, p- 9b). *8 “Placed in that a very powerful foreigner” (Prince 3, p. gb). In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machia- velli was not himself an innovator. With an Aristotelian basis Egidio discussed the matter in a chapter entitled Quod quantum possibile est, sunt leges patriae observandae, et quod cavendum assuescere innovare leges.‘® Holding that bad laws should be ex- tirpated, he concludes: “Decet ergo reges et principes observare bonas consuetudines principatus et regni, et non innovare patrias leges, nisi fuerint rectae rationi contrariae.”** Like most of his opin- ions, this gained currency. Leon Batista Alberti gave innovation a place in a brief account of the office of the prince: % “From the other side one can consider (on the supposition that the condition of the state is such that if it is not reformed ruin will certainly ensue, and that because of the corruptions of the city or division of the citizens there is no remedy except in force) that it is better to provide for the public safety in some extraordinary manner than to let it go to ruin. The laws themselves, if they were able to speak, would consent in these circumstances to be violated once in order to derive from this violence their permanent preservation. All such laws are accustomed in every’ prohibition to make exception of cases of necessity. And surely he cannot be said to keep the laws who in order not to break them lets them go to min, nor can he be called a lover of liberty who, that it may not be violated, permits it to be lost. All the acts of men, good or bad, are named according to their ends; there- fore a force which is employed with the purpose of removing force cannot be called anything other than a good and permissible force” (Delle buone leggi e della forza, Opere inedite 10.380). ** “That as much as is possible the laws of one’s country are to be kept, and that a ruler should avoid forming the habit of making new laws” (De regimine 3.2.31). “Therefore it is fitting for kings and princes to observe the good usages of a principate or a kingdom, and not to make anew the laws of their lands, unless the old laws are contrary to right reason” (ibid.). a) 40 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Astengasi dallo innovare delle cose, se gia la molta necessita di mantenere la degnita dell’ imperio, non lo forzasse 4 questo, o che non se gli offerisse una certissima speranza di accrescere la gloria.18 However different in temperament, Erasmus would have seen much truth in Machiavelli’s opinion that “non é cosa pil difficile a trattare, né pil dubia a riuscire, né pil periculosa a maneggiare, che farsi capo a introdurre nuovi ordini,”’® though at the same time he would have agreed that innovation is sometimes imperative: Ut in morbis non sunt tentanda nova remedia, si veteribus succurri malo possit: ita non sunt condendae novae leges, si veteres ministrent aliquid, quo malis Reipublicae medearis. Leges inutiles si sine magno malo non queant abrogari, paulatim sunt antiquandae, aut certe corrigendae. Nam ut periculosum est temere novare leges, ita mecesse est ut curationem pro corporum ratione, sic leges ad praesentem Reipublicae statum accommodare; quaedam salubri- ter instituta, salubrius abrogantur. Multae leges recte quidem sunt institutae, sed eas officiorum pravitas ad pessimos usus detorsit.2° Nihil autem perniciosius bona lege, ad malas res deflexa. Ab his igitur tollendis aut emendandis, non oportet Principem fisci jactura deterreri. Nec enim compendium est, quod sit cum honesti dispendio conjunctum, maxime cum sint ejus generis, ut plausibilis etiam sit earum abrogatio. Neque vero sibi blandiatur, si leges hujusmodi compluribus in locis invaluerunt, ac diutina jam consuetudine inveteratae sunt. Nec enim hominum numero constat honesti natura, et hoc diligentius est tollendum, quo magis inveteravit malum.?? *“He should abstain from making things over, unless strong necessity for maintaining the dignity of his rule forces him to it, or unless it offers him a sure hope of increasing his glory” (Del principe 4.119, line 25). Cf. Prince 26, p. 5ob: “Veruna cosa fa tanto onore a uno uomo che di nuovo surga, quanto fa le nuove legge e li nuovi ordini trovati da lui.”—“Nothing brings so much honor to a man who rises to new power as do the new laws and new ordinances that he devises.” “There is nothing more difficult to treat, nor more doubtful in its issue, nor more perilous to manage than to succeed in introducing new laws’ (Prince 6, p- 13b). See p. 29, above. ™ “As in diseases new remedies are not to be experimented with if it is possible to help the trouble with old ones, so new laws are not to be established if the old ones furnish anything with which you may medicate the ills of the state. “If useless laws cannot be abolished without much trouble, they are little by little to be allowed to fall into disuse or at least are to be corrected. For as it is dan- gerous to make new laws rashly, it is yet necessary to adapt the laws to the present condition of the state, as it is to fit the treatment of a disease to human bodies; laws which it was praiseworthy to establish it may be more praiseworthy to abolish. “There are many laws which were rightly enacted, but which the wickedness of officials twists to the worst uses. Nothing is worse than a good law twisted to evil Chapter 6 41 One part of the chapter is conventional enough, that on the im- itation of the famous. Beroaldus, for instance, says he will pro- ceed by example—‘“per exempla maximorum principum decur- rentes”;?? he refers to Alexander, Antonius [sic] Pius, Augustus, and Trajan. Petrarch writes to Francesco Carrara: “Quoniam te non nisi bonis et illustribus comparatum velim, hos imitare obsecro, atque horum exempla complectere, qui rebus ac verbis, claram laudem iustitiae meruerunt.”*? He gives as examples Antoninus Pius, Constantine, and others. Here, as frequently, Machiavelli touches on the relation of vir- tue and fortune to the success of princes. Beroaldus had already accepted the success of the Romans as resulting from virtue and fortune, for “virtus -et fortuna _plaerumque alioquin dissidentes mutuo sNaderaize “nexu convenerunt.”?4 This was necessary to the prosperity of the republic, because “virtus enim sine fortuna manc est et mutila.”?° purposes. The prince, therefore, should not be deterred from canceling or emending these by a diminution in revenue, for that is no saving that is linked with loss of honor, especially when the laws in question are of such a sort that their abrogation is worthy of applause. Nor should the ruler be allured into keeping laws of this kind, even if they have come into use in many places and grown old in long-established custom. For the nature of the honorable is not determined by numbers, and in proportion as an evil becomes more venerable it is the more diligently to be removed” (Erasmus, [nstitutio principis 6.599 B-C). See also ibid. 3.592 B, where the margin gives “Novitas omnis periculosa.’”” This is translated by Spenser’s “All change is perillous, and all chaunce unsound” (Faerie Queene 5.2.36), and “All Innovation is perilous” (View of the Present State of Ireland, p. 649, Globe ed.). = De optimo statu, folio 125 recto. * Although I should not wish you to be compared except with good and il- lustrious men, I beseech you to imitate and wholly follow the example of those who by deeds and words show that they deserve high praise for their justice’ (De republica optime administranda, p. 427). Cf. p. 75, below. -- *«NVirtue and fortune came together in the mutual connection of concord, though usually they act differently by dissenting” (De optimo statu, folio 133 verso). 5 “Virtue without fortune is incomplete and defective” (ibid.). Chapter 7 De principatibus novis qui alienis armis et fortuna acquiruntur. (Of new principates which are acquired by alien arms and by fortune.) This characteristic chapter shows Machiavelli’s independence of the usual advisers of the prince; he illustrates from his own experi- ence and shows the importance to the new ruler of prudence, capac- ity, and courage. While perhaps making his hero Caesar too great, he is willing to admit a defect even in his prudence. Above all, he recognizes the limits of human forethought; even a magnified Caesar is not complete master of human affairs, but must yield to Fortune at her worst—“una estraordinaria ed estrema malignita di fortuna.”? Though he is Machiavelli’s model prince, he is in some respects also the good prince of most writers de regimine principum. His people love and respect-him, he is approachable, magnanimous, and liberal. Apparently these qualities are here accepted by Machia- velli as showing the good ruler, however much he later modifies his approval of them{On the other hand he exemplifies qualities ree ay praised by the advisers of princes, as in the use of ra One of the methods of Valentino, elsewhere approved in The Prince, was that of gaining friends by honoring men of impor- tance—“di condotte e di governi.”* Long before, Egidio, following Aristotle, had recommended the politic use of the same method: Secundum praeservans politiam et regnum regium, est bene uti iis qui sunt in regno, introducendo eos ad aliquos principatus, honorando eos, et non iniuriando eis. Nam ut innuit Philosophus in politicis bene uti civibus non solum praeservat politiam rectam, sed etiam principatus ex hoc durabilior redditur, dato quod in ipso sit aliquid obliquitatis admixtum.® "See Gaetano Mosca, Saggi di storia della scienza politica 1.10, pp. 67 ff. For Remirro de Orco, see p. 156, below. ? Prince 7, p. 15a. * Chaps. 9, 21. “Prince 7, p. 5b. ®“A second preservative of the government and rule of kings is to treat well those who are in the kingdom, putting them in places of authority, honoring them, and not doing injury to them. For as the Philosopher says in the Politics, proper treatment of the citizens not merely preserves a political organization of the best form, but a principate, even though it have some admixture of imperfection, is made more durable by it” (De regimine 3.2.15). [ 42] Quotnodo noui Principatus, quifortunaacquirontne conferuentur. Cap. VIIs Viuero fortuna folum fauente ex privatis Reges euadunt,facile quidem rol!uniur.rcpente vero T= unt-Nam ludens fortuna aliquibus plerunginiit- um facile,finem vero pet diicilem facit, euenit autem hociis plerung-qui gratissautpracio.aurfauore, principatum acci- piunt,uelutiin Graciaa Romanis ducibusin Ionia,atq Hel- lefponto nonnulli ciues Principatum acceperunt.R ona eti- am uiri humiles,& privatia militam turba nonnunquam cor ruptione,.atqfauore imperatores creati funt,poftmodum bre ui tempore fublati,necab ratione quidem ; nam cum priuafe vixerint.bene regere nec poffint,nec fciunt. Nthil enim dif- ficiliusCut Diocletianus jee folebat)g bene ii perare, nec minor Cut Ouidiuis ) uirtus eft sartatueriG noua comparare cafus ineftillic. Hicerit artis opus,difficultatem uero augets quia hi.qui eos crearunt,fideles plerang non habent-Prater eain natura operibus cernimus,ut qua celeriter crefcunt, ce leriter pereant. Vande & prouerbium eft nimium feftinatanon eife diuturna. Hisigitur,qui fortuna fauente ad imperium ad polant.ut fe feruétshoc unum remedium eft Cutuirtutem for tunz fociam quo ad pofiunt ) adhibeant-Sic enim agendos difficulratessquz poftca fuccedunt.facillime fuperabunte. Sta- bilicouero his artibus imperio, que fibi obftare uidebunturs deleant-Milites.quimutabiles erant,deponante Proprios au~ tem creent.Cateraq ea ratione difponant.qua regno fecuri~ tas -Ciuium vero tranquillitas comparetur. Huius rei teftes funt Francifcus Sfortiasac Cafar Borgia zille quidem fortuna fauente, Mediolanenfium. Hic uero patris fortuna urgente multortn principatu potitur. Verum Francifcus fuauirtutes ata; prudentia fe fecurauit. Borgiauero patris fortuna reflates repnam amific.Canfa autem eft Nam Fracifcus uirturem ata pradentiam cum fortuna coniunxit. Borgia uero crudelitates atqs {celera. Sig. Cv verso from the copy of Augustinus Niphus’ De regnand: peritia, Naples, 1523, in the library of Duke University (slightly enlarged). Chapter 7 43 In condemning the bad government of the princes of the Romagna, Machiavelli charges that they had not “corrected”® their subjects, in contrast with the admirable conduct of Caesar who when he obtained power exchanged “con nuovi modi gli ordini antiqui.”’ To this correcting of subjects Machiavelli elsewhere re- fers, going so far as to assert: “Gli uomini non possono e non debbono essere fedeli servi di quello signore da el quale e’ non possono essere né difesi né corretti.”* Correction here represents the administration of justice often linked with defense as one of the chief duties of the ruler.? As in the instance of the ambitious and oppressive nobles mentioned in Prince 19, p. 37a, anyone restrained by the laws from improper conduct or punished for it is said to be corrected. Sometimes the word hardly means more than organize; for example, in speaking of the common people in revolt, Machia- velli declares: “Una moltitudine cosi concitata, volendo fuggire questi pericoli, ha subito a fare infra s¢ medesima uno capo che la corregga, tenghila unita e pensi alla sua difesa.”?° It may be applied to the salutary effect of laws which act on rulers as a “freno che gli puo corregere.”!! The tyrant is the ruler not corrected by law.?? Princes, like ordinary men, are made good by the laws. As Beroaldus puts it, “lex . . . vitiorum emendatrix.”’* When the correcting and restraining power of the laws is inadequate, the power of a single ruler is needed: “Quegli uomini i quali dalle leggi, per la loro insolenzia, non possono essere corretti, fussero da una podesta quasi regia in qualche modo frenati.”** Apparently the Italy of ° Prince 7.16a. “ as follows: “Cura imminet regi . . . ut suis legibus et praeceptis, poenis et praemiis homines sibi subjectos ab iniquitate coerceat, et ad opera virtuosa inducat, exemplum a Deo accipiens, qui hominibus legem dedit, observantibus quidem mercedem, trans- gredientibus poenas retribuens.”** But it must not be supposed that Aquinas lost sight of the practical function of the king, even though less willing than Machiavelli to think that the ruler should have in mind the good citizen, rather than the good man as such. “That the prince should be subject to the laws and by his example and the probity of his life influence his subjects toward virtue’ (cap. 5). ™ Arcadia 4, fourth eclogues. * “To bridle a universal corruption” (Discorsi 1.18, p. 86b). Frenare in this sense equals corregere; see p. 43, note, and Discorst 1.18, quoted on p. 43. See pp. 35 ff., above. “To correct what is grown to excess” (De regimine principum 1.15). * quemlibetq p {va digniz tate remuneret, Omnia vero faciat : adiunda hilaré affabilitate:& comi quadam dulcedine fermonis ac iucunda vultus placabilitate.In hocimitare Patrem tua Philipp& benigniffima & fuauiflimé Principem Wihil enim adeo cociliat animos hominé:nthiladco, beniuolenciam omnium captat:nihil adeo prompta fubditorum obedienciam parit: ficut placabilitas ferz monis:& fuauis affabilitas.Id lulius Cefar:id Alex der expertus eft, In hofpites eciam dapfilis & larga manus Principem decet;que itidé virtusaPatre tuo Philippo non eftaliena, De manfuatudine, Princeps manfuetus fit: paciens:l6ganimis fiuemag nanimus:non mox verbo aut facto cuiufpiamaccené datur ad iram: ad animi perturbacionem : ad vindi# te appetitum:ad furorem focmineum , Sic enim raz cio & mentis acies nubilatur : fanitas corporis lediz tur; vita breuiatur: facies benigna deformat :magna¢ nimitas pditur: muliebris pufillanimitas induit:rectit iudicié {ubuertit;et facinusnondg ab irato cOmuttit; Sig. av recto from the copy of Jacobus Wimpfeling’s Agatharchia, Strassburg, 1498, in the Duke University Library (enlarged). Chapter 16 89 turies, he had not read it, he can hardly have escaped indirect in- fluence.’® It is probable also that Machiavelli had read the remarks on foolish liberality in Cicero’s De officits (1.14, etc.), though in view of the material on the subject accessible to him, it is hardly necessary to say with Burd that “it is almost beyond doubt that Machiavelli used” them,’® if use means employment of one source to the exclusion of others. As one of the qualities of the good man, the virtue of liberality was continually urged on kings, who should excel all men in virtue, even to the extent of presenting an image of the Trinity, as Vin- cent of Beauvais has it.'7 Egidio has no doubt that the virtues, liberality among them, are to be urged on kings; the only question is “quomodo decet reges et principes tales virtutes habere” (1.2.1),18 for it was possible, as appears in Machiavelli’s contemporary Nifo, to hold that the king should possess the virtues, and yet that his ex- ercise of them was not like that of ordinary men.1 But liberality was especially a kingly virtue, a. ‘the name of skarste is unconvenient to a kyng, and yville bicometh to his royalle maieste,”®° while his good name requires the praise of liberality: Next after trouthe the secounde, In Policie as it is founde, Which serveth to the worldes fame In worschipe of a kinges name, Largesse it is, whos privilegge Ther mai non Avarice abregge.?! In spite of all that was said on proper measure in giving,”® the weight of exhortation was on the side of free-handedness. Beroaldus well exhibits this: Ante omnia princeps si vult laudari probarique, perinde ac optimus principum, sit munificus ac liberalis. Nam ut inquit epigrammaticus poeta. Nulla ducis virtus dulcior esse potest. . . . Pacatus in Pane- gyrico ait: Et rei et famae consulit munificus imperator. Lucratur enim %In his De vita et regimine principum, Dionysius Carthusianus (1394-1471) often refers to the Secretum secretorum. © Burd’s edition of Il principe, chap. 16, p. 286. De morali principis institutione, chap. 10. *“Tn what way it is proper for kings and princes to have such virtues” (De regimine 1.2.1). % De principe, caps. 2, 34. ® Three Prose Versions of the Secreta Secretorum, p. 8 ™ Gower, Confessio Amantis 7.1985-90. Cf. Hoccleve, De reg. pr., stanzas 584-5. * Giraldus Cambrensis, De princtpis instructione, 1.8; “modus in dando.” go Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners gloriam, quum det pecuniam reversuram. Quicquid enim in cives manat a principe, redundat in principem. . . . Augustus de seipso scripsit haec. Liberalitas mea me ad coelum evehet. Sicut autem nulla virtus amabilior est liberalitate: ita nullum plane vitium odiosius tetriusque est avaricia in principibus et rempublicam gubernantibus. Habere enim quaestui rempublicam (ut inquit verissime M. Tullius) non modo turpe est, sed sceleratum etiam ac nepharium.?3 Idem non minus vere quam eleganter tradit amorem multitudinis commoveri ipsa fama et opinione liberalitatis. Avidius Cassius dicere solebat avaritiam in imperatore esse acerbissimum malum. Eia habeat bonus princeps in ore promptum, et in pectore conditum verbum_ illud Traiani: qui fiscum principis scitissime lyenem vocabat: Nam ut lyene crescente reliqui artus et membra tabescunt: ita fisco principis turgente civitatis corpus una cum membris languescit et intermoritur.2* . . . Non queo mihi temperare, quin hoc in loco commemorem documentum saluberrimum Cyri Persarum regis: quod memorat Xenophon in Paedia: quod sine dubio dignissimum est memoratu. Scribit enim luculentus ille scriptor Cyrum inter caeteros fuisse beneficum ac liberale: adeo ut dictitaret se thesauros habere divitiarum amicos: quos dona- tionibus divites opulentosque efficiebat. [The story of Cyrus’ proof to Croesus of the value of liberality is told.]?° . . . Nonne principes quum talia aut audiunt aut legunt, ad liberalitatem exercendam inflammantur? quae subditos reddit devotos, fideles, obnoxios, qua immortales efficiun- tur: quae denique tanti momenti est; ut possit princeps obtentu lib- eralitatis obumbrare crimina tantum non enormia, et hac una laude pensare.?® % Cicero, De officits 2.77. * With this reference to the fiscus of the king, compare Machiavelli's assertion that the foolishly liberal ruler will be obliged at last “essere fiscale.” Cf. the quota- tion from Erasmus, p. 40, above. > Compare Machiavelli's reference to the liberality of the Cyrus of Xenophon (Prince 14, p. 30a). “Above all things if the prince wishes to be praised and approved of as the best of princes, he should be munificent and liberal. For, as the epigrammatist says, no virtue of the leader can be more pleasing. . . . Pacatus says in his Panegyric: The munificent emperor has regard for both practical matters and his fame. For he gains glory when he gives money that will return to him, for whatever flows among the citizens from the prince returns to the prince. . . . Augustus wrote of himself as follows: My liberality raises me to heaven. And just as no virtue is more lovely than liberality, so evidently no vice is more hateful and blacker than avarice in princes and heads of a state. To hold a state for advantage (as M. Tullius truly says) is not merely base but also wicked and impious. The same writer not less truly than elegantly asserts that the love of the multitude is ex- cited by the very fame and reputation of liberality. Avidius Cassius was accus- tomed to say that avarice was the most repulsive of vices in an emperor. Assuredly the good prince should “have at the tip of his tongue and fixed in his breast that saying of Trajan, who wisely called the tax gatherer of the prince his spleen, for when the spleen increases, the limbs and other members languish; likewise when the tax-gatherer of the prince grows rich the body of the state along with the members Chapter 16 gi With this agrees Patricius: “Concludamus igitur maximam in regibus principibusque virtutem esse magnificentiam. A qua quicunque abest, vix quippiam dignum laude agere potest, et in avaritiae crimen facile incurrit, detrectatoribusque obnoxius red- ditur.”?* In the same chapter he explains that the virtue of mag- nificence is suitable for kings and princes only, because the indi- vidual can hardly attain even liberality, which is concerned with small and private things, while magnificence concerns great and public things.28 The resources of the ruler permit magnifi- cence, for In as mochil as a welle also, At the whiche many folk hir water fecche, Nedith to han the larger mouth; right so The largesse of a kyng moot ferther strecche, If he of his estat any thing recche, Than other mennes; for hir impotence Strecchith naght so fer as his influence.?® On the basis of the fourth book of Aristotle’s Ethics, Egidio went so far as to entitle a chapter Quod Reges et Principes quodammodo impossibile est esse prodigos, et quod maxime detestabile est eos esse avaros, et quod potissime decet eos liberales esse. Part of the chapter is as follows: Philosophus [Ethica 4] ait Tyrannos non esse prodigos, quia non videntur posse superabundare multitudine possessiones, dationis, et ex- grows weak and decays. . . . Nor can I refrain from here alluding to the exceedingly wholesome advice of Cyrus king of Persia, related by Xenophon in the Cyropaedia, for it is without doubt most worthy to be remembered. That trustworthy author writes that Cyrus among other things was helpful and liberal, so much so that he said his friends, whom he made rich and prosperous by his gifts, were his storehouses of riches. . . . Will not princes when they hear or read such narratives be inflamed to the exercise of liberality? Liberality is the virtue that renders subjects devoted, faithful, obedient, and that makes princes immortal; finally it is of such impor- tance that with the veil of liberality a prince can conceal any crimes short of the greatest, and with the reputation of liberality outweigh them” (De optimo statu 129 verso-130 recto). 77“We may therefore conclude that magnificence is the greatest virtue of kings and princes, for one who lacks it can scarcely get praise for anything worthy he does and easily runs into the fault of avarice and becomes liable to detraction” (De regno 7.11). *Pontanus (De magnificentia 1) adds: “Liberalis utilis esse aliis, et commodus magis studet, cum magnifici plura saepe ad aliorum voluptates faciant, ut cum ludos ac munera in theatris edunt, et publicas venationes in arena exhibent.”—“The liberal man endeavors to be useful and in a high degree obliging to others, while magnifi- cent men do more things for the pleasures of others, as when they present plays and spectacles in the theatres and exhibit public combats with wild animals in the arena.” *° Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, stanza 665. g2 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners pensis. Quicunque enim tot habet, et tanta recipit, quod dationes et expensae multitudinem possessionum superare non possint, quodam- modo prodigus esse non potest. Reges igitur et Principes quia multi- tudine possessionum superabundant, non solum+non possunt esse prodigi, sed vix possunt attingere ut sint liberales. . . . Reges enim et Principes vix possunt deviare a liberalitate in dando plus, quia magni- tudo expensarum vix potest excedere multitudinem reddituum.3® Here Egidio passes directly from Aristotle’s views on the tyrant to his own opinion of what is fitting for a good king. Burd remarks that “Machiavelli’s originality consists in his having taken the tradi- tional view of the Greek tyrant [derived from Aristotle], and modi- fied it so that it may become the ideal of a new prince.” He is referring to the tyrant as presented at length in the fifth book of the Politics. The present instance anticipates the method employed by Machiavelli. Considering the immense circulation of Egidio’s work, we may suppose that whatever he did had often been noticed; hence that Machiavelli’s adaptation to his prince of advice for a tyrant would not have been wholly new and strange. Such was the influence of Aristotle and Egidio that in spite of the practical financial difficulties of European monarchs, Pontanus echoes them in saying that in princes liberality “modum non potest excedere.”’? The writers de regimine principum pretty well agree with Clichtoveus, who entitled a chapter of his De regis officio as follows: Quod liberalitas et magnificentia in splendore honestorum | sumptuum consistens magnopere principem decet. va Machiavelli has the_courage d_ declare that he prince is wiser to get the reputation of parsimony than to ruin *° “That in a way it is impossible for kings and princes to be prodigal, and that it is especially detestable for them to be avaricious, and that it is exceedingly ap- propriate for them to be liberal.” “The Philosopher [Ethics 4] says that tyrants cannot be prodigal, since in alienating property and paying out money they appear unable to exceed their vast riches. For he who has so much and receives so great an income that his gifts and expenses cannot surpass his enormous possessions is unable to be prodigal. Kings and princes, therefore, on account of the greatness of their possessions, not merely cannot be prodigal, but can hardly attain liberality. . . . Kings and princes are hardly able to deviate from liberality by excessive giving, since the magnitude of their expenses is hardly able to exceed the multitude of their receipts” (De regimine 1.2.18). In my rendering I follow the Italian translation of 1288, reprinted at Florence in 1858; I suspect it indicates the correct Latin text. For further discussion of new prince and tyrant, see pp. 127 ff., below. "In his edition of The Prince, p. 289. | ™ De principe, p. 267. * “That liberality and magnificence consisting in the splendor of honorable ex- penses is very proper for a prince” (chap. 20). Chapter 16 93 Pignself in_attempting to gain that of Mberalty. Cutting through Aristotelian verbiage about tempered liberality, such as he himself recommended for Maximilian, he says plainly what he means.** The prince is unlikely to have such resources that he can afford the expenditure necessary to get him the name of liberal. Let him not be swayed by the flatterers who tell him what is consistent with his dignity. Tutius et est male audire, quam male pugnare. Par- simony is less dangerous than poverty. To be sure Machiavelli seems to attempt some adaptation to the current view. Though a prince who follows his advice may at the beginning be reproached as miserly, as time goes on he will be held more generous—‘“‘sempre pit liberale.”#° His subjects will see that without burdening them he is able to defend his state and carry on his various projects. In fact he will be generous to the many from whom he takes nothing away and miserly only to the few to whom he gives nothing. This qualification, though perhaps founded on observation, has a basis in Aristotle’s presentation of liberality in Ethics 2, for Aristotle made it part of liberality to re- frain from the improper taking of valuables;#® the subjects of Ma- chiavelli’s financially cautious prince will come to see that the subordinate but genuine part of liberality involved in abstinence from their goods is exemplified by their ruler} This is affirmed by Vettori in a passage at once Aristotelian and Machiavellian: Giudico che non si debbe attribuire questo vizio [d’avarizia] a un Principe il quale non grava i sudditi suoi di esazioni estraordinarie; non fa accusare oggi questo domani quello, per estorquere da loro le pecunie ingiustamente; non lascia che li ministri suoi succino le sustanze de’ poveri, per spogliarli poi di quelle, quando sono fatti ricchi; e pit presto si astiene dal donare a servitori, buffoni, cinedi, ed uomini di simil qualita. Ed uno Principe che vive in questo modo, io non avaro ma liberale chiamerei.37 The two friends agree that the good king is not avaricious, in that he is not rapacious, does not “per rapina desidera di avere,”?® as it is * Prince 16, end. * Prince 16, p. 31b. *For Egidio’s presentation of this see p. 86, above. *“T judge that one should not attribute the vice of avarice to a prince who does not burden his subjects with unusually heavy exactions; who does not have an accusation made today against this one, tomorrow against that one, in order to extort money from them unjustly; who does not allow his ministers to suck up the patrimony of the poor, in order to despoil them of it when they have become rich; and who still more abstains from gifts to servants, buffoons, catamites and men of like sort. Now a prince who lives in this way I should call not avaricious but liberal” (Sommario, p. 316). For unworthy favorites, cf. Erasmus, Institutio 5, par. 2. *° Prince 15, p. 31a. 94 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners put in The Prince. A rapacious prince, as Poggio explained, de- serves the name of tyrant: Est enim impossibile regem fieri avarum. Rex enim ille dicitur, qui est speculator ac procurator publici commodi, cui est cordi utilitas subditorum, qui quaecunque agit refert ad eorum quibus praeest com- moditatem: Hic autem avarus esse nulla ratione potest. Quod si secus fecerit, non rex, sed tyrannus dicendus est, cuius est proprium vacare privato emolumento. Hoc enim differt rex a tyranno, quod alter eorum quos regit commodis invigilat, alter suis intentus est.39 Commynes was even more extreme on the subject of rapacity, holding that a good king levies taxes only with the consent of the taxpayers: “Y a-il roy ne seigneur sur terre qui ayt povoir, oultre son dommaine, de mectre ung denier sur ses subgectz sans octroy et consentement de ceulx qui le doyvent payer, sinon par tyrannie et violence?’”*° This sixteenth chapter of The Prince is, then, not merely advice to a monarch who would maintain himself, but also dissuasion from the conduct of the tyrant written in the spirit of the concluding chapter of the work with the hope for good govern- ment in Italy.** On the side of liberality as giving, Dionysius Carthusianus may be held to have anticipated Machiavelli when he wrote of rulers: “Veruntamen esse non debent tam liberales, quin competentem habeant provisionem pro defensione patriae suae, et pro certis oneribus, quae eis incumbunt.”** But a ruler who followed such advice would still find himself struggling—for the most part in vain —for the reputation of liberality, with constant worrying attempts to cut down demands and enlarge inadequate resources. The Florentine secretary understood that liberality of this kind would * “Tt is impossible for a king to become avaricious. For that one is called a king who looks after and brings about the public advantage, who has at heart the ad- vantage of his subjects, and who relates whatever he does to the advantage of those whom he stands over, but by no reckoning is he able to be avaricious; for if he has done otherwise he is to be called a tyrant and not a king, who is dis- tinguished by freedom from private emolument. For in this the king differs from the tyrant, namely that he thinks of the advantage of those whom he rules, while the tyrant is intent on his own advantage” (Historia disceptativa de avaritia, pp. 21-22). Cf. p. 137, note 79, below. “Ts there a king or lord on earth who has power to lay on his subjects a penny of taxation beyond what belongs to him, without a grant and the consent of those who ought to pay, except by tyranny and violence?” (Mémoires 5.19, II, 217). “ See tyrant in the index. “Certainly they should not be so liberal that they do not have adequate pro- vision for the defence of their country and for the fixed obligations that rest on them” (De vita et regimine principum 1.31). The work was composed before 1471. Chapter 16 95 normally involve such care in financial matters as to amount to stinginess, and honestly said so. Behind this honesty of speech lies a perception of the truth that could change the attitude of a ruler from hopeless and unavailing effort to calm acceptance of an un- pleasant reputation coupled with funds adequate for his needs. There had been hints even of this clarity before 1500. Giraldus Cambrensis admitted in his De principis instructione that par- cimonia was a virtue, though he hastened to add: “praestantior tamen largitas et laudabilior”’**—a largitas, however, which pre- serves proper measure, such as, he says, Cicero had recommended in De officiis.“* In his formal work Dei doveri del principe Diomede Carafa gave the normal advice on steering properly between avarice and “lo inconveniente de mendicare et vivere ad mal termine” which results from prodigality.*° Though admitting that generosity befits princes,*® he has little enthusiasm for it, but much for ad- vising financial care, for many good results come from proper spend- ing—‘“lo spendere mesurato.” Princes are advised to lay up money for emergencies,** and told that proper care of their normal in- comes will enable them to avoid turning “fiscali”** and oppressing their subjects, who will be willing to contribute to a ruler whose expenditure is obviously wise. Sound financial policy observes the maxim: “Chy compera et spende ad quello non have debisognio, li bisognara poy vendere quello ei necessario.”*® The example of such conduct will stimulate subjects to thrift. Carafa’s ideal ruler is as careful in financial matters as Machiavelli would have wished, but is not directly advised to be content with a reputation for stinginess. In a memorial to Frederick of Aragon, about to under- take a journey to France that might involve much temptation to lavish expenditure, he goes much farther: “Defecto ei la avaritia et defecto ei la prodigalita quali molti la usano per non sapere admaystrare [sic]. Ma ei men male la avaricia” perché “resta la “<7 iberality is more admirable and more praiseworthy” (1.8, p. 29). “ De officiis 1.14. In Patricius’ De regno 6.25, parcitas or parsimonia is a virtue, but not enthusiastically advised. *“°“The inconvenience of begging and living at extremities” (Doveri del principe, pp. 283-5). *’See pt. 1 of the Latin translation of the same work, entitled De regentis et boni principis officiis, in Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, p. 649. “" Ibid., pts. 1 and 3. “8 Machiavelli’s word in The Prince, chap. 16, p. 31b. Quoting the passage from The Prince, Tommaseo’s Dictionary defines it to mean “chi é minuziosamente tenace nell’ imporre pesi e nella loro esazione,’—“one minutely tenacious in im- posing burdens and in the exaction of them.” “He who spends his money in the purchase of what he does not need will have to sell what is necessary to him” (Doveri del principe, p. 284). 96 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners utilita ad casa, che non [si] va mendicando robbe de altrui.”5° This is almost completely Machiavellian. It is not hard to believe that the Florentine had seen or heard such an opinion presented and defended. Machiavelli's contemporary Erasmus does not plainly advise the prince to be stingy, though he does quote the proverb, “Magnum vectigal parsimonia est,”°! and indicates that the prince should trim his expenses to fit his income. He weakens the usual exhortation to liberality by discussing it as a heading under the virtue of beneficentia, which may take other forms than ordinary liberality. Though proper giving is commendable, “nec tamen temere col- locanda est Principis liberalitas.”°* In matters pertaining to his person the prince will be more frugal and sparing than in public affairs, and while any of his subjects are in need will avoid travel and other causes of heavy expense; in matters of state, however, he — will make a splendid appearance “si quae populi causam agant.”®* The qualification is characteristic of the position of the Dutch scholar. To extensive liberality he is opposed: Falluntur et hi qui largitionibus, epulis, prava indulgentia sibi multi- tudinis animos conciliant. Et paratur hisce rebus nonnulla popularis gratia potius quam benevolentia, verum ea neque vera, neque duratura. Alitur interea mala populi cupiditas, quae posteaquam, ut fit, in im- mensum increvit, jam nihil satis esse putat: et tumultuatur, nisi per omnia cupiditatibus responsum fuerit: atqui istud est corrumpere tuos, non conciliare.54 Merit exhibited by the prince is the only basis for genuine and last- ing love. Erasmus agrees with Machiavelli that liberality is bad “Avarice is a defect in him and prodigality is a defect in him; many fall into these because they do not understand administration. But avarice is a lesser evil be- cause its usefulness remains at home, if it does not go begging the property of others” (Persico, Diomede Carafa, p. 164). *!“Parsimony is a great source of income” (Institutio 4, 594D). It is found in Cicero, Paradoxa Stotcorum 6.3.49). = “The liberality of the prince is not to be rashly employed” (Institutio 5, 595 A). © 6 Debating the ‘same matter under the head of De thyrannide et crudelitate cavenda, in 1498, Jacobus Wimpheling decided: “Sic subditorum odium et insidias effugiet, atque se talem exhibebit quod et amari dignus sit a suo populo et timeri. Et si enim utrumque horum necessarium est, quod timeatur et ametur, multo tamen On those who immoderately disturb the kingdom and the state, princes may exercise the most carefully-devised cruelties’” (De regimine 3.2.36). * Nay more, as the Philosopher says in the seventh book of the Politics, in order that kings and rulers may be more feared and that they may more vigorously execute justice, they should punish more rigorously and conduct themselves with more severity against their friends, if they should seriously offend, than against others” (De regimine, 3.2.36). © Cf. Discorst 3.5, p. 199a: “Egli é molto pit facile essere amato dai buoni che dai cattivi.”—‘It is much easier to be loved by the good than by the evil.” *@ “Since the citizens and those who live in a kingdom, if they act correctly and observe the laws and mandates of the king because they love what is right and have a high regard for the common good and the king, are better and more virtuous than if they did this from fear of a penalty and lest they should be punished, it is proper that kings and princes should desire to be loved by their people, and that the people should act correctly from love of the good, rather than that the rulers be feared by the people and the subjects refrain from evil actions through fear of pun- ishment. For both of the two are necessary, to be feared and to be loved. For not all are so good and perfect that from mere love of what is upright and of the common good, and from affection for the legislator, whose function it is to regard the common good, they cease from doing evil. Therefore it is necessary to lead some toward good and restrain them from evil by fear of punishment. Yet one should prefer to be loved rather than feared” (ibid. 3.2.36). "ay 110 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners magis ut ametur quam timeatur conari Principem decet.”°? The op- posite conclusion drawn by Machiavelli is in harmony with the purpose of his work. Asking what will enable a ruler to continue as ruler in all imaginable circumstances, he answers that fear will be more effective than love.°* The conclusion of Egidio depends on his desire that the ruler—here thought of as secure—shall make his people morally better; for this love is a better instrument than fear. But even then love is workable only for the good among his sub- jects; the wicked must be controlled by fear. Egidio would admit that such subjects as Machiavelli describes in this chapter, “ingrati, volubili, simulatori,” etc.,°® would not respond to kindness; since men are generally such, for’ Machiavelli, fear must be the general reliance of the prince who is to control a real rather than an imagi- nary dominion. The heart of Machiavelli’s contention is to be found not so much in his choice of love or fear, as in his insistence that the se- | curity of the ruler should be in his own hands, “fondarsi in su quello che é suo,”®° and not in that of others; for this higher reason successful leaders can be cited on either side, as Scipio and Han- nibal, and Valerius and Manlius; their final reliance was ex- traordinary ability—“una virtu istraordinaria.”** From the virtue of the ruler may spring a quality between fear and love, namely rev- _erence or veneration. As though to carry out Machiavelli’s advice suggested by the conspiracy against Galeazzo the Duke of Milan, Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici “fassi in somma e amare e reverire, piuttosto che temere.”®* On the other hand, this reverence can be = “Thus a prince may escape the hatred and plots of his subjects and show him- self such that he is worthy to be loved and feared by his people. And if both of the two, that is to be feared and to be loved, are necessary, it is much more fitting that the prince should strive to be loved than to be feared” (Agatharchia, sig. a5 verso). Prince 17, p. 33a. *°“Tngrate, shifty, hypocritical” (ibid.). © “On what is in his own control” (Prince 17, p. 34a). “ Discorsi 3.21, p. 231b; cf. “una virtd eccessiva” (ibid, 3.22, p. 233a). ®2 Tn short, he made himself loved and revered rather than feared’’ (to Vettori, Aug., 1513, Lettere Familiari 27, p. 112). Tommasini speaks of the passage as an important and perhaps not disinterested character-sketch of Lorenzo (Vita di Machia- velli 2.76, n. 5). From Galeazzo’s own experience Machiavelli concludes: “Imparino . 1 principi a . . . farsi in modo reverire ed amare, che niuno speri potere, amazzandogli, salvarsi."—‘Princes should learn to conduct themselves in such a way that no one who assassinates them can hope to escape”’ (Istorie Fiorentine 7.34, p. 589b). Cf. Prince 6, p. 14a: “essere in venerazione’’; Prince 19, p. 36a: “eccellente e reverito da’ suoi’; and of Marcus: “‘molte virti che lo facevano venerando” (p. 38a); Istorie Fior. 7.5, p. 564b, of Cosimo: “la cui reverenza.” The “benivolenzia ee Chapter 17 III combined with fear: “Papa Giulio non si curd mai di essere odiato, pure che fusse temuto e riverito, e con quello suo timore messe sotto- sopra il mondo, e condusse la Chiesa dove ella ¢.”6* The cruel Hannibal, we read in this chapter, was both terrible and venerable. Something of the sort is perhaps implied when in praise of Duke Valentino it is said that he made himself “seguire e reverire da’ soldati.”** In his government of the Romagna he gained the repu- tation of cruelty,*° and when his soldiers against his desire at- tempted to sack Sinigaglia, “il duca con la morte di molti represse la insolenzia loro.*** Apparently reverence is related to “le amicizie che si acquistano . . . con grandezza e nobilta di animo”®* though Machiavelli is not to be held for exactly scientific uses of words. Another aspect of the self-dependence of the good ruler has appeared in his belief that it is necessary to convince the citizens that they have need of the state;®* they then will be faithful, with a fidelity similar to the love which Egidio thought a strong ruler would inspire in his subjects. A similar opinion is expressed by Guicciardini, whether derived from Machiavelli, representing a current opinion, or however arrived at: Non €é la pit labile cosa che la memoria de’ beneficii ricevuti: perd fate pit fondamento in su quegli che sono condizionati in modo che non vi possino mancare, che in su coloro quali avete beneficati; perché spesso © non se ne ricordano, o presuppongono e beneficii minori che non sono, o reputano che siano fatti quasi per obligo.®® populare” of Prince 19, p. 36b, as a protection against conspiracy, seems to repre- sent love and reverence. Reverence is opposed to contempt in Prince 23, p. 46a. In Discorsi 1.10, p. 75b, it is associated with glory as the reward of the prince; cf. p. 228, below. = The Aristotelian Egidio took over the same matter, writing a chapter with the title Quot et quae sunt illa quae debet operari verus Rex, et quod eadem simulat se facere Tyrannus,>* in which, for example, we read: Bona communia et iura regni debet [bonus rex] maxime custodire et observare. Quod tyranni licet se facere simulant, non tamen faciunt, immo bona aliorum rapiunt, et iura regni non observant. Tertio decet Regem, et Principem non ostendere se nimis terribilem et severum, nec decet se nimis familiarem exhibere, sed apparere debet persona gravius et reverenda, quod congrue sine virtute fieri non potest: ideo verus Rex vere virtuosus existit: tyrannus autem non est, sed esse se simulat. .. . Decet veros reges bene se habere circa divina. Populus enim (ut recitat Philosophus) omnino est subjectus Regi quem credit esse deicolam, et habere amicum Deum: existimat enim talem semper iuste agere, et nihil iniquum exercere. . . . Verus ergo Rex secundum veritatem bene se habet erga divina; tyrannus vero non talis est, sed simulat se talem esse.37 *“ where we read: Lo esercito de’ Volsci, del quale era capo Vezio Messio, si trovd, ad un tratto, rinchiuso intra gli steccati suoi, occupati dai Romani, e I’altro esercito romano; e veggendo come gli bisognava o morire o farsi la via con il ferro, disse a’ suoi soldati queste parole: “Ite mecum; non murus nec vallum, armati armatis obstant; virtute pares, quae ultimum ac maximum telum est, necessitate superiores estis.” Si che questa necessita s ch; da Tito Livio “ulti ie é chiamata da Tito Livio “ultimum ac maximum telum. Patricius admitted this as a possible opinion, but denied its normal validity : Non defuere etiam qui existimant desperationem aliquando ex exiguis fortes viros reddere, quod et Virgilius sentire videtur, quum ait. Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem | Aeneid 2.354]. Nota est etiam sen- tentia illa qua dicitur. Necessitas efficacior est omni arte, quae non modo usitata praesidia, sed etiam nova, et inaudita adhibet. . . . Atqui verius si recte inspicimus, iudicandum est, desperationem saepius furorem suum in seipsam convertere, quam in hostem. Quot enim duces, im- peratores, atque illustrissimos viros legimus desperatis rebus sibiipsis * “How a prudent captain should give his own soldiers every sort of necessity for fighting and remove every kind of necessity from those of the enemy" (Discorsi 3.12, title). ed 7™The army of the Volsci, of which Vectius Messius was leader, found itself of a sudden shut in between its fortifications, occupied by the Romans, and the other Roman army. Seeing that it was necessary either to die or to gain life with steel, Vectius addressed his soldiers in these words: ‘Come with me; there is no wall or ditch in your way, men with weapons are opposed to you who also have weapons; you are equal in courage and superior in necessity, the last and most dangerous weapon.’ So this necessity is called by Titus Livius ‘the last and most dangerous weapon’” (Discorsi 3.12, pp. 220b-2214). Toward the end of his life Machiavelli still held this opinion: “Con questa tramontana conviene che voi ancora navighiate, e risolvendosi alla guerra, tagliare tutte le pratiche della pace, e in modo, che i Collegati venghino innanzi senza rispetto alcuno, perché qui non bisogna pit claudicare, ma farla all’ impazzata: e spesso la disperazione truova de’ rimedi che la elezione non ha saputi trovare.”—‘“In this tempest it is still necessary for you to mind the helm, and if you have determined on war you must instantly abandon the deeds of peace, and in such a way that your allies may set to work without any hesitation, because now it is necessary not to waver any more but to go it like mad; and often desperation finds some remedies which choice has not been clever enough to discover” (to Vettori, April 16, 1527, Lett. familiari 73, p. 245). Chapter 19 143 mortem intulisse? qui si diutius vitam produxissent, seque meliori fato reservassent, ulti injurias adversam fortunam superassent.® The last sentence is in accord with Machiavelli’s opinion that even in desperate circumstances men should not give up the struggle: “Debbono, bene, non si abbandonare mai; perché, non sappiendo il fine suo, e andando quella per vie traverse ed incognite, hanno sempre a sperare, e sperando non si abbandonare, in qualunque fortuna ed in qualunque travaglio si truovino.”® Even those who follow this advice, however, are rendered formidable by conditions in which, even though they make no effort, death is so nearly certain that they can dare the utmost risks without increasing their danger.*° Such a man is akin to the assassin spoken of in this chapter who, being without fear of death, can hardly be guarded against." The prudent ruler will obviously use measures that if possible will content all his subjects, at least that will not awaken the active hate of desperation; “gli uomini si hanno o accarezzare o assicurarsi di loro; e non li ridurre mai in termine che gli abbiano a pensare che bisogni loro o morire o far morire altrui.”’* In the spirit of Machiavelli is the saying of Guicciardini: Grande differenzia é da avere e sudditi malcontenti a avergli disperati. E! malcontento se bene desidera di nuocerti, non si mette leggiermente ®“There are not lacking those who think despair sometimes makes strong men out of feeble ones, as Virgil seems to suppose when he says: ‘One means of security to the conquered is to hope for no security.’ Well-known also is that maxim that says: Necessity is more powerful than every art, and brings into use not merely customary means of security but also new and unheard-of ones. But if we get a truer view of the matter, we shall conclude that despair more often turns its fury on itself than on the enemy. Of how many generals, rulers, and famous men do we read who in desperate circumstances inflicted death upon themselves! Yet if they had prolonged their lives and reserved themselves for a better fate, by avenging their injuries they would have overcome adverse fortune” (De regno 7.6). °“Tndeed they should never abandon themselves, because, since they do not know the end of Fortune and she walks by confused and unknown paths, they should ever hope, and, since they hope, should not abandon themselves, no matter what fortune or hardship they find themselves in” (Discorsi 2.29, p. 187b). Cf. p- 217, below. 7° Sidney writes of two of his heroes in desperate circumstances: “When they were with swordes in handes, not turning backs one to the other (for there they knew was no place of defence) but making that a preservation in not hoping to be pre- served, and now acknowledging themselves subject to death, meaning onely to do honour to their princely birth, they flew amongst them all (for all were enimies) and had quickly either with flight or death, left none upon the scaffolde to annoy them” (Arcadia 2.8.8, p. 200). ™ Prince 19, p. 39b. * See Discorsi 1.10, p. 74b-75a; Istorie Fiorentine 7.33-4. In Discorsi 3.6, p. 201a, Machiavelli quotes from Juvenal: Ad generum Cereris sine caede et vulnere pauci Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tiranni.— To the son-in-law of Ceres few kings descend without slaughter and wounds, and few tyrants die a dry death (Satires 10, 112-3). This is twice found in Giraldus’ treatment of the tyrant (chaps. 16 and 17). On tyrannicide see Ercole, Tractatus de tyranno von Coluccio Salutati, pp. 135 ff.; John Dickinson, Kingship in the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, in Speculum 1 (1926), 329 ff.; Tommasini, Vita di Machiavelli 2.160. Chapter 19 147 were fearless of death because of their anger.2* But his virtuous prince, since he is not a tyrant because he rules for the common good, need fear hatred only in exceptional cases; his greatest danger would come when the difficulties of his position forced him to adopt some of the stern measures associated with tyranny. In normal times the ruler can rely on the belief that “gli uomini, quando sono governati bene, non cercono né vogliono altra liberta.”?> Against perils from open warfare a prince makes fundamentally the same preparations as against dangers from within, namely that he should have the reputatio : on i resale ge —_— syoi.”?® A_monar. can gain this reputation _is presumabl man_of virtz, both in qualities of mind and-in the military prepara tions also included under_uirti.?" If provided with good arms, he will have good friends, that is faithful allies, among neighboring princes, for monarchs, Machiavelli held, are kept to their agreements by arms.”® Such friends will not lend encouragement: and aid to the enemies of a prince among his own subjects, as seems implied in the words: “Sempre staranno ferme le cose di drento, quando stieno ferme quelle di fuora” or “quando le cose di fuora non mu- ovino”;?® there can hardly be a powerful movement against a prince without support from some other potentate. On the other hand, “non mancano mai a’ populi, preso che gli hanno I’armi, forestieri che li soccorrino,”*° but from such foreigners _a prince revered by his people is safe. It is always true that an excellent prince, strong in allies and internal resources, is attacked “con difficulta.”34 Among earlier writers this topic seems to have been discussed in Machiavellian fashion only by Diomede Carafa. He deals with the danger to a ruler of exiles who try to secure foreign aid, and with alliance as affected by military preparation, asserting that good * Politics 5.10, 131243 II, 1315a 25-31. «When they are governed well, men do not seek for or wish other liberty” (Discorsi 3.5, p. 199b). *°“Of ability and reverenced by his subjects” (Prince 19, p. 36a). For reverence “= see the index. * Prince 13, last paragraph, p. 29a. See p. 68, above. * Parola sopra la provisione del danaio, p. 790a. See p. 68, above. *®«Things within a country always stand secure when external relations are secure” or “when external things are not in commotion” (Prince 19, p. 36a). “When the people have taken arms, they never lack foreigners to aid them” (Prince 20, p. 43a). “ Egidio, it is true, did say that the king needed to prepare for war partly “impedire omnes seditiones civium.*® And with respect to the nobles rather than the people the topic is touched ™ “Cause fear in anyone who wishes to introduce dangerous novelties and fasten the prince to his friends” (J doveri del principe, p. 271, quoted from Persico, Gli scrittori politici napoletani, p. 80). Persico calls attention to the parallel with Machia- velli, who uses, he remarks, almost the same words. S“Tt can easily be seen what a difference there is between these two kinds of arms, when one sees what a difference there was in the reputation of the Duke when he had the French alone or when he had the Orsini and Vitelli and on the other hand when he was left with his own soldiers and in personal command. It will be found that his reputation always increased, and that he was never adequately esteemed except when every one saw that he was complete possessor of his own arms” (Prince 13, p. 28a). “ Prince 20, p. 43a; see p. 159, below. ® Machiavelli thought it easier to get the love of the good than of the wicked (Prince 3, p. 7a; Discorsi 3.5, p. 199a). For the fatherly prince see Erasmus, Institutio 1.574 E; 2.586 E. ® "To impede all the insurrections of the citizens” (De regimine 3.3.1). CE. p. 160, n. 5, below. Chapter 19 149 on by Commynes. His master was accused of being fearful, but the minister only partly admitted this, showing that various am- bitious men who had presumed on it had been ruined, for Louis XI “congnoissoit bien s'il estoit temps de craindre ou non,” and con- ducted himself accordingly.** In discussing the fears of the ruler and giving examples of em- perors attacked by subjects who feared them, Machiavelli appar- ently has in mind the principle stated in chapter seven: “Gli uomini offendono o per paura o per odio.”?* The attack on the ruler be- cause of fear had been observed by Aristotle, who said: “Fear is another motive which . . . has caused conspiracies as well in monarchies as in more popular forms of government.?® There is also a passage in the De Clementia of Seneca, a work widely circulated before Machiavelli’s time: Tantum enim necesse est timeat, quantum timeri voluit, et manus omnium observet et eo quoque tempore, quo non captatur, peti se iudicet nullumque momentum inmune a metu habeat: hanc aliquis agere vitam sustinet, cum liceat innoxium aliis, ob hoc securum salutare potentiae ius laetis omnibus tractare? errat enim, si quis existimat tutum esse ibi regem, ubi nihil a rege tutum, sed securitas securitate mutua paciscenda est.*° % «Knew well whether it was time to fear or not” (Mémoires 3.12). Cf. ibid. Neb 3-3: = “Men do injury either through fear or through hate” (Prince 7, p. 17b). See fear in the index. * Politics 1311b 37. For part of Egidio’s comment on this see p. 198, above. There is also an earlier passage (Politics 5, 1302b) in which Aristotle speaks on the subject; the comment on it of St. Thomas may be compared with the ideas of Machiavelli: “Dicit quod propter timorem faciunt seditiones. Quando enim aliqui fecerunt injurias timentes quod puniantur et vindicta fiat de eis, movent seditionem, ut per seditionem motam possint evadere, ut non puniantur. Similiter si aliqui sint passuri injusta, vel timeant se passuros propter aliquam causam, antequam patiantur volentes praevenire, movent seditionem et turbant rempublicam, antequam sustineant injurias; sicut contigit fieri in Rhodo insula. Divites enim convenerunt contra populum, timentes sententias, quae debebant dari contra eos, et turbaverunt rem- publicam.”—“‘He says that they engage in civil discords because of fear. For when some men have done injuries they fear that they may be punished and vengeance taken for what they have done, and therefore they stir up rebellion that through the rebellion they may be able to escape punishment. Likewise if some men are about to suffer some injustice or fear that they are going to suffer for some reason, they wish to ward off damage in advance, and therefore stir up rebellion and disturb the state before they are injured, as it came about in the island of Rhodes. For the rich men united against the people, because they feared the sentences which were going to be given against them, and upset the state” (Comment on the Politics, liber 5, lectio 2). Cf. Discorsi 1.45, p. 116a. “For it is necessary that he should fear in the same measure as he has wished to be feared, and that he should watch the hands of all, and that in times when 150 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners Hoccleve, for example, alludes to it as follows: And Senek also seith as touchyng this, The sogett hateth whom he hath in drede; And hate is hard, if it his venym schede (Regement 4807-9). Seneca had dealt with the subject in his tragedies also, as was known to Clichtoveus: Et hoc ipso rex a tyranno longe dissidet, quod hic timeri velit: cum minime ametur, sed implacabili habeatur odio, neque ipse itidem timoris est vacuus: sed omnia etiam tuta et secura habet suspecta, ut praeclare ait Seneca in Oedipo. Qui sceptra duro saevus imperio regit: Timet timentes, metus in authorem redit. Idem alio in loco. Necesse est ut multos timeat, quem multi timent.*? no one lies in wait for him he should think that he is searched for and should have no moment immune from fear. Can anyone endure to lead this life, when it is pos- sible for him without harm to others, and therefore secure, to exercise the salutary rights of power for the happiness of all. For he is in error who thinks that a king is happy in a country where nothing is safe from the king, for security must be bartered for mutual security” (De clementia 1.19). ““Tn this the king is very different from the tyrant, for the latter desires to be feared, because he is not at all loved but is held in implacable hatred; nor is he himself without fear on his side but is suspicious of all safe and secure things, as Seneca admirably puts it in the Oedipus: The savage king who rules with heavy sway fears those who fear him, and dread returns on its author [705-6]. The same author says in another place: ‘It is necessary that he should fear many whom many fear’ [De Ira 2.11]” (De regis officio 11). Other similar passages are quoted from Seneca on the same page. Cf. Claudian, De IV cons. Honor. 290-1: Qui terret, plus ipse timet. Sors ista tyrannis Convenit.— Who frightens others is more in fear himself. That lot befits tyrants. This is quoted by John of Salisbury, Policraticus 8.813b. Cf. also the pseudo- Sallustian speech Ad Caesarem senem de re publica ordinanda 3: “Equidem ego cuncta imperia crudelia magis acerba quam diuturna arbitror, neque quemquam multis metuendum esse, quin ad eum ex multis formido reccidat; eam vitam bellum aeternum et anceps gerere, quoniam neque adversus neque ab tergo aut lateribus tutus sis, semper in periculo aut metu agites."—“I judge the cruelties of rulers more bitter than lasting, for no one is feared by the many without terror returning upon him from the many; such a life produces eternal and doubtful war, for you may be safe neither in front, nor behind, nor on your sides; you move always in peril or fear.” Cf. also Cicero, De officiis 2.7, where he quotes from Ennius: “Quem metuunt, oderunt: quem quisque odit, periisse expetit.”—“Whom they fear, they hate: him whom anyone hates he wishes to be undone.” Chapter 19 I51 To Louis XI this appeared worth bringing to the attention of his son, who received the advice: Au monde n’a plus seure chose a deffendre les choses, que estre aymé: et n’est chose plus espoventable que de estre craint, car chascun hayt ce qu'il craint. Qui vieult estre craint, il est de necessité qu'il craigne celui ou ceulx de qui il vieult estre craint, autrement il est en peril.4? The fears of the tyrant, with the implication that they are of his own making, are developed by Pontanus, who quotes from Juvenal the passage later used by Machiavelli,** and asserts that cruelty cannot protect a ruler.** In his De infelicitate principum, Poggio takes an extreme view, representing princes as normally in a state of fear that they will be murdered or overthrown: “Cum in- ferioribus nulla eis esse potest amicitia. Nam timeri a suis quam diligi principes malunt. Sed quem metuunt, et oderunt, veteri sententia.”*° If Poggio’s picture of the prince is realistic, Machia- velli was quite right in thinking the ruler must take every pre- caution to deliver himself from the results of the hatred and fear of his subjects. While the humanist was probably influenced by his classical reading, he need not be considered as wholly without appreciation of the verita effettuale in the Italian courts of his day. Machiavelli differs from him not so much in stating the difficulties of the ruler as in accepting, with his own modifications, the normal belief that the wise prince need not fear, while Poggio gives no hope. In Machiavelli’s day Nifo wrote in his De principe: “timorem odium sequitur.”** As though to illustrate the principle of timet timentes, Machiavelli wrote of the mutual fears of the Duke of Athens and his subjects: “A che si aggiugneva il timore, veggendo le spesse morti e le continue taglie con le quali impoveriva e ““There is not in the world a more certain way to defend one’s state than to be loved; and there is nothing more horrible than to be feared, for every man hates those whom he fears. “Tf a man wishes to be feared, it is necessary that he fear that one or those by whom he wishes to be feared; otherwise he is in peril” (Le roster des guerres, chap. 4). “See p. 146, note 23, above. * See pp. 98 ff., above. “Princes can have no friendship with inferiors for they prefer to be feared rather than loved by their subjects. But according to the old saying, they hate whom they fear” (De infelicitate principum, p. 407). “ “Fate follows fear” (De principe, chap. 9). This work, known in full as Libellus de his quae ab optimis principibus agenda sunt, shows no trace of the in- fluence of Machiavelli, though the same writer’s De regnandi peritia is commonly called a plagiary of The Prince. See Tommaso Persico, Git scrittori politici napoletani, PP- 147-75- 152 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners consumava la citta. I quali sdegni e paure erano dal duca cognos- ciute e temute.”*7 Not knowing, in his fears, how to take precau- tions, the duke was overthrown by the people who feared and hated him. As to conspiracies, and hatred and contempt, it is proper to say with Burd that the treatment in chapter nineteen “in its main fea- tures follows throughout the eighth [i.e., the fifth] book of the Politics.”*® Machiavelli makes one direct reference to Aristotle’s account of the causes “della rovina de’ tiranni.”*® Presumably no one would doubt that before he wrote the Prince the author had read a Latin translation of the Politics, if it were not for passages in his correspondence with Vettori. The latter suggested that he should read “bene la Politica’”®® on the subject of divided states, and Machiavelli answered: “Né so quello si dica Aristotile delle repubbliche divulse.”®* Villari disposes of the opinion that if Ma- chiavelli had been acquainted with the Politics he would have known that the subject of a scattered state is not discussed there, saying that he might have forgotten. The admission of ignorance may mean some other sort of incomplete knowledge, such as would have come from a work explaining part of the Politics, of the kind that, it may be, is quoted in the letters dealing with hatred and contempt written in 1514.°° Or is Machiavelli merely answer- ing politely a mistaken suggestion of his friend? Or is the denial of knowledge a rhetorical part of his attack on authority and as- sertion of the value of experience? Of his knowledge of Aristotle in some way or other Tommasini is so certain that he asserts that this chapter of The Prince in its method perfectly corresponds with the pertinent parts of Politics 5, though he also observes that none of the examples given by Aristotle are employed.** It is hardly likely that Machiavelli’s first knowledge of Aristotle’s account of “To this was joined fear, because of the frequent executions and continual taxes with which he impoverished and devoured the city. This hatred and these fears were known and feared by the duke” (Istorie Fiorentine 2.36, p. 436b). CE. ibid. 8.34, p. 618b; see p. 141, above. Toffanin (Machiavelli e il Tacitismo, p. 62) thinks Machiavelli has in mind the wiser conduct of Nero in moving against senators he had offended; he refers to Annals 15; I have not identified the passage. “Burd, edition of I/ principe, pp. 310-1. “Of the ruin of tyrants” (Discorsi 3.26, p. 237b). “The Politics well” (letter of Aug. 20, 1513, in Machiavelli, Lettere familiari, ‘a rite know what Aristotle says of scattered states” (to Vettori, Aug. 26, 1513, Lett. familiari 26, p. 107). ®P. 145, above. ® Vita di Machiavelli 2.192, n. 2. Chapter 19 153 conspiracies, and therefore the idea of this chapter of The Prince, is subsequent to Vettori’s letter. Secondhand contact with Aris- | totelian thought could hardly be escaped, and lack of access to. the Latin Politics in sixteenth-century Florence is improbable.** In the treatment of contempt Aristotle is not followed in details. Sardanapalus, a stock example of the disprized ruler, is not men- tioned, and drunkenness is not discussed.°> ‘In his brief treatment of what brings contempt Erasmus includes it.° Platina writes on the subject: Facile enim contemnuntur, qui nihil virtutis, nihil animi, nihil ner- vorum habent, quique nec sibi nec alteri prosunt, ut dicitur, contra vero in admiratione omnium sunt, qui anteire caeteros virtute putantur, atque iis vitiis carere quibus alii non facile possunt obsistere. Hos admirantur populi, hos amant, hos colunt ut Deos, fieri enim non potest, ut eum contemnam, quem video eniti, curare, ut omnes quam _beatissime vivant.>? Machiavelli is somewhat less elementary and more intellectual in his conception of contempt than are the Aristotelians; the qual- ities that bring contempt are “essere tenuto vario, leggieri, ef- feminato, pusillanime, irresoluto,’ and it may be avoided by “grandezza, animosita, gravita, fortezza.”°* The immediate applica- tion of these qualities as the antidotes of contempt is not Aris- totelian, though suggested by other remarks of Aristotle on the suc- cessful ruler. Even after The Prince the narrow tradition—based on the Politics—persisted. In 1565 Bizzari wrote: Contemptus potissimum provenit, si voluptati, luxui, ac intemperantiae dedatur, ex quo etiam fit, ut nascatur odium si quid crudele interseratur, Ibid. 2.24-5. For Sardanapalus see, for example, Aristotle, Politics 5, 1312a; Egidio, De regimine 1.2.16; 3.2.13 (he develops Aristotle’s account from Justin); Dante, Paradiso 15.107; Gower, Confessio Amantis 7.4314; Patricius, De regno 4.3; Bizzarus, De optimo principe, p. 10. % Institutio 3.591 C. “For they are easily contemned who have nothing of virtue, nothing of spirit, nothing of vigor, and who are of no avail either to themselves or to others, as it is put; but on the contrary those who are thought to exceed others in virtue and to lack those vices which others cannot easily resist are admired by every one. The peo- ple admire them, love them, revere them as gods, for it cannot be that I should despise a man whom I see exerting himself and taking precautions that all may ae as happily as possible” (Principis diatuposis 1.12). “To be held variable, light, effeminate, poor-spirited, irresolute,’ and it may be avoided by “greatness, courage, gravity, fortitude” (Prince 19, pp. 35b-36a). In his description of the foolish princes of Italy (Arte della guerra 7, pp. 366b- 367a), Machiavelli puts more emphasis on softness. 154 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners si frequentioribus conviviis et lusibus oblectetur, si stultis ac histrionibus faveat, si stupidi sint et amentes, si etiam sint molles ac effeminati, ut olim Sardanapalus, qui ob id Regnum amisit. Auctoritas vero integritate, prudentia, continentia, sobrietate, et diligentia comparatur. His itaque virtutibus praeditum esse decet quicunque a suis aestimari, et auctoritate cupit praecellere.5® _-. Another Aristotelian detail is that the prince should gain pop- ular favor or “benevolence” and avoid hatred by giving favors in 6 ai and leaving punishments to his officers.°° In commenting on the Politics (1315a) Aquinas had paraphrased Aristotle as fol- lows: “Ad benivolentiam®! majorem honores debent distribui per ipsum, sed supplicia debent infligi per alios principes et judicia.”® In Erasmus’ translation of Xenophon’s Hiero, a work known to Machiavelli as De tyrannide,® it is said: Attamen functiones mihi videntur, aliae prorsus in odium adducere, aliae rursus cum gratia benevolentiaque peragi. Itaque docere quae sunt optima, et eos qui ea pulcherrime praestant, laudibus et honoribus adficere, haec quidem functio cum benevolentia conjuncta est. Caeterum qui secus quam oportet agit quidpiam, hunc convitiis afficere, cogere, mulctam dicere punireque, nam et haec facere necessitas est, cum odio malevolentiaque conjuncta sunt. Censeo itaque viro Principi sic agen- Contempt most easily arises if he is given to pleasure, luxury, and intem- perance; contempt may give birth to hatred if some cruelty is intermixed, if he is entertained by too frequent banquets and shows, if he favors base men and actors, if he is stupid and foolish, if he is soft and effeminate, as once Sardanapalus was, who because of it lost his kingdom. But authority is kept by integrity, prudence, continence, sobriety, and diligence. He who seeks to be esteemed by his subjects and to possess great authority must be furnished with these virtues” (De optimo principe, p- 10, recto). © This advice was later adopted by Frachetta, Prencipe 1.1, p. 7; Mariana writes: “Si aliquid negandum est, si severitate vindicanda peccata, per alios faciat.”—"“If anything is to be denied, if a fault is to be punished severely, let others do it” (De rege et regis institutione 3.13). ™ Cf. “benivolenzia popolare” in this chapter of The Prince, p. 36b, and see p. 161, below. In his Institutio (3, 589 E) Erasmus writes: ‘‘Benevolentiam stultissime quidam incantamentis et anulis magicis sibi conciliare nituntur, cum nullum sit incantamentum efficacius ipsa virtute, qua nihil esse potest amabilius, et ut ipsa vere bonum est et immortalis, ita veram et immortalem comparat homini benevolen- tiam.”—‘They are very foolish to attempt to gain popular good will by enchant- ments and magic rings, since no enchantment can be more efficacious than virtue itself, than which nothing can be more amiable; and as virtue is truly good and immortal, so it furnishes a man good and immortal good will.” ©«That the prince may have greater popular affection, honors should be dis- tributed by the prince himself, but punishments should be inflicted by other princes and by bodies of judges” (Commentary on the Politics, liber 5, lectio 12). ® Discorsi 2.2, p. 140a. Chapter 19 155 dum, ut si quid egeat coactione, hoc aliis exsequendum deleget: caeterum quum praemia reddenda sunt his qui rem bene gesserunt, id per se ipsum faciat. . . . Ita fit protinus, ut in his quod gratiosum est, per Principem sit factum: quod vero contra, per alios.§+ Clichtoveus also deals with the subject: Aristoteles tamen libro quinto de natura animalium author est, quod ii [reges apum] aculeum quidem habent: sed eo non utuntur, quocirca eos carere aculeo nonnulli existimant. Sed guid aliud eo ipso natura insinuat: nisi reges rerumque publicarum rectores, etsi potentes sunt, eos tamen saevitia uti non oportere; sed clementes potius esse, nec arma nisi per ministros (ubi ius postulat) exercere?® * n declared that it is not { lfear him, he must needs fear them and take against them such precautions as the building of strong places. Yet, as is asserted with_repetition, the prudent monarch _ will ber that “la migliore fortezza che sia, € non essere odiato dal populo.”* This is Niccold’s modification to suit his belief of a conventional statement, made by Diomede Carafa as follows: “Nulla tamen castella, nullosque muros magis inexpugnabiles fore tibi persuadeo, quam populorum animos, ut antea dixi, tibi conciliatos habere; et subditorum omnium benevolentiam.”® About the same statement is found in Isocrates and in the De clementia of Seneca, a work early familiar to advisers of princes.’ It finds expression also in an- other classical work highly esteemed by renaissance writers de regimine principum: Ille tamen, quibus sibi parietibus et muris salutem suam tueri videbatur, dolum secum et insidias et ultorem scelerum deum inclusit. Dimovit perfregitque custodias poena angustosque per aditus et obstructos, non °“E necessario [che il Principe fortifichi i suoi luoghi], accioche egli sia rispettato dalli stranieri, e da suoi, e venendo il bisogno possa difendersi da nimici, e castigare i popoli senza sospetto di rebellione.”—“It is necessary that the prince fortify his towns in order that he may be respected by strangers and by his own citizens, and that in time of need he may be able to defend himself from enemies and to punish his people without fear of rebellion” (J/ principe 2, p. 40 verso). See also Egidio’s opinion on the value of military preparations, p. 148, above. * Prince 10, 17, 19. See p. 113, above. *See p. 148, above. asi hire best fortress that can be is not to be hated by the people” (Prince 20, . 43a). °“T assure you that no castles, no walls will be more nearly impregnable than the defence which consists in having the spirits of your people friendly to you, and to have all your subjects wish you well” (De princtpis officiis 1, p. 652). Both Isocrates (Ad Nicoclem 21) and Seneca (De clementia 1.19) are quoted by Saavedra (Idea de un principe, Empresa 38) in a section that seems otherwise to have been influenced by Machiavelli. Of the earlier writers, Giraldus often refers to De clementia, though without mentioning this passage, and Hoccleve (De regimine 3375) takes something from the same chapter. Gilbert of Tournai (Eruditio regum 3-1) quotes with a slight shift in wording. Pontanus has the spirit of it: “Amorem inermem quidem incedere, dormire tamen loricatum.”—“Love walks unarmed and sleeps in armor” (De principe, p. 267), For the idea in Beroaldus see p. 113, above. Chapter 20 161 secus ac per apertas fores et invitantia limina, inrupit; longeque tunc illi divinitas sua, longe arcana illa cubilia saevique secessus, in quos timore et superbia et odio hominum agebatur. Quanto nunc tutior, quanto securior eadem domus, postquam erus non crudelitatis sed amoris excubiis, non solitudine et claustris sed civium celebritate de- fenditur! Ecquid ergo discimus experimento fidissimam esse custodiam principis ipsius innocentiam? Haec arx inaccessa, hoc inexpugnabile munimentum, munimento non egere. Frustra se terrore succinxerit qui septus caritate non fuerit: armis enim arma inritantur.14 Nor did the formula disappear with Machiavelli. In 1568, for example, Viperanus wrote: “Hominem vero homini benevolentiae fides, et probitatis opinio charum facit. Non arce, non stipatoribus, non satellitibus indiget, non venena, non dolos, non gladios for- midat, quem civium benevolentia** custodit.”?* “ «The cruel prince, by means of the bulwarks and walls by which he seems to secure his safety, shuts up with himself craft and plots and the god who revenges impious acts. Vengeance removes and bursts through the guards and rushes through narrow and obstructed approaches as through open doors and welcoming portals. Then his divinity is of no avail, there is no help in those secret hiding places and wild recesses into which he is driven by fear and pride and the hate of men. How much safer, how much more secure is the same house when its lord is defended by guards not of cruelty but of love, not by solitude and fortress walls but by a con- course of citizens! Is it necessary then to show by proof that to harm no one is the most faithful guardian of the prince? The unassailable fortress, the impregnable castle is to have no need for protection. In vain he encircles himself with terror who is not surrounded with love, for arms are roused up by arms” (C, Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Panegyricus [Trajani] 49). Verbal similarities suggest this as the source of the passage quoted from Beroaldus on p. 113, above. Poggio suggests the Panegyric as a work de institutione principum in his Epistolarum liber, epist. Bornio suo Bonien. iurisconsulto, Opera 348-9. For fifteenth-century manuscripts of the Panegyricus see C. Plini Caecili Secundi Epis- tolarum libri novem, recen. Mauritius Schuster, Lipsiae, 1933, p. xiii; also Rheznisches Museum fiir Philologie, n. folge, 80.404. Agapetus writes on the prince as guarded by love and by his liberality toward the poor in his De officio regis, ad lustinianum Caesarem (p. 95, section 58) which circulated in the sixteenth century. Clichtoveus in his discussion of the matter finds support in Sallust’s Jugurtha and in Terence, but without specific reference (De regis officio, cap. 16, p. 56 verso). A modern instance appears in the following on Queen Victoria: ‘‘At a period when the lives of the continental rulers were in great peril from revolutionists and assassins, the queen on both her fiftieth anniversary and her jubilee rode in an open carriage through many miles of London streets, with millions of spectators on either side pressing closely upon the procession, and there was never a thought that she was in the slightest danger. She was fearless herself, but she had on the triple armor of the overmastering love and veneration of the whole people” (Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories, p. 275). ™ Cf. Machiavelli’s benivolenzia (Prince 19, p. 36b) as apparently a synonym of his 7on essere odiato (Prince 20, p. 43a); see pp. 154, 160, above. “Faith in a man’s good will and belief in his probity makes him dear to an- other man. He does not need a castle, guards, and attendants, he does not dread 162 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners This situation is typical of Niccolé’s procedure; he holds to the traditional except at the points where the tradition seems to him not to touch the verity of things, or, as we now might put it, where his own theories are not involved. But of abandonment of the tradi- tional for innovation’s sake there is none; here, as normally, the traditional and the new intermingle. One of the obvious qualities of this twentieth chapter is what may be called its un-Machiavellism—in the ordinary employment of the word—in attitude to parties in the state. No finesse of trickery in setting parties against each other is allowed to the ruler who will have a lasting dominion, for the only foundation he can esteem as good is the united support of his people. In quiet times clever “in- dustrie” in making divisions may avail something, but even then they argue the weakness of the ruler unable to hold his state by dint of solid ability—“con forza e con virtt.”** So important is the united state that the wise ruler will make it his business “constringere i cittadini ad amare l’uno I’altro, a vivere sanza sétte, a stimare meno il privato che il publico.”*° Who does this plants trees in the shade of which he can live in felicity. Such a position is in harmony with Machiavelli’s advice that the new prince exer- cise all necessary severity at the beginning of his rule. So important is it that parties be rooted out of the state that means which appear inhumane may be employed—as they were by the virtuous Romans and by Duke Valentino**—without hesitation. This advice against exciting divisions flows from the writer’s love for the common good; “da’ partigiani nascono le parti nelle cittadi; dalle parti la rovina di quelle.”** In this matter part of Aristotle’s advice to the tyrant is utterly rejected. On the basis of a short passage in Politics 5 (1313b) Egidio wrote: Volunt enim tyranni turbare amicos cum amicis, populum cum insigni- bus, insignes cum seipsis. Vident autem quod quandiu cives discordant Poisons, stratagems, or swords when the good will of the ciitizens protects him” (De rege 17, p. 88). ** Discorsi 3.27, p. 239a. 15“To force the citizens to love one another, to live without factions, to esti- mate their private affairs as less important than those of the state” (Arte della guerra I, p. 269a). **For the Romans see Discorst 3.27, p. 237b; 1.7, pp. 69-70. For Valentino, Prince 7, p. 16a; 17, p. 32b; the letter to Vettori of Jan. 31, 1514, Lett. familiari 41, . 176. a “From partisans spring parties in the state; from parties the ruin of the state” (Discorsi 1.7, p. 69b). Om factions and unity see also Discorsi 1.55, p. 126b; 2.25, p. 181b; Istorie Fiorentine 7.1 passim. Chapter 20 163 a civibus, et divites a divitibus: tamdiu non potest aeque de facili eius potentiae resisti: nam tunc quaelibet partium timens alteram, neutra insurgit contra tyrannum. Verus autem Rex econtrario non procurat turbationem existentium in regno, sed pacem et concordiam: aliter enim non esset verus Rex, quia non intenderet commune bonum... . Decima cautela tyrannica, est quod postquam procuravit divisiones et partes in regno, cum una parte affligit aliam ut clavum clavo retundat. Rex autem econtrario non procurat divisiones et partes in regno, sed si quae ibi existunt, eas amovere desiderat.18 Patricius likewise believed that discord would overthrow the state: Hac animi perturbatione [discordia] quicunque civis laborat, inutilis est reipublicae, et in hominum coetu importunus habetur. Dissidet siquidem ab aliis, nemini cedit, omnemque humanam societatem dirimit, Principum aulas perturbat, Seditionibus, ac partibus omnia inficit; hinc conspirationes, coniurationesque oriuntur; hinc caedes, direptiones, veneficia, et pestes illae teterrimae, quae status omnes publicos, privatosque labefactare solent. Crispi quidem Salustii sententia pro oraculo habenda est, quum ait: Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia autem maximae dilabuntur. Per hanc interitum omnibus hu- manis societatibus parari scribit Xenophon.!9- As might be expected, Erasmus declared: Tyrannus gaudet inter cives factiones ac dissidia serere, et simultates forte fortuna obortas, diligenter alit ac provehit, atque his rebus ad suae Tyrannidis communitionem abutitur. At hoc unicum Regi studium * “Tyrants wish to annoy friends with their friends, the people with men of rank, and those of rank with each other. For they see that when citizens are at variance with citizens and rich men with rich men, then correspondingly their power cannot easily be resisted, for since either party fears the other neither one rises against the tyrant. But on the contrary the true king does not procure disturbance among those living in his kingdom, but peace and concord; otherwise he would not be a true king, since he would not have in view the common good. . . . The tenth device of the tyrant is that after he has brought about divisions and parties in the kingdom, he annoys one party with another that he may blunt nail with nail. But the king on the contrary does not bring, about divisions and parties in the kingdom, but if there are any he desires to get rid of them” (De regimine 3.2.10). Cf. the quotation from Figliucci, p. 165, below. #°“Tf a citizen has his mind perturbed by discord, he is useless to the state and is held dangerous in the society of men. If he disagrees with others he yields to no one, he breaks up all human society, causes disturbance in the courts of princes, in- fects everything with seditions and factions; thence arise conspiracies and plots, thence come murders, plunderings, poisonings, and those terrible plagues that overthrow all public and private establishments. Indeed the saying of Crispus Salustius should be considered as an oracle, for he said: ‘Little things through concord grow great, but great things dwindle away through discord.’ Xenophon says that through discord overthrow is prepared for all human organizations” (De regno 4.10). 164 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners est, civium concordiam alere, et si quid ortum fuerit dissensionis, con- tinuo rem inter eos componere, nimirum, qui intelligat hance esse gravissimam rerum publicarum pestem.?° Even the “tiranno virtuoso” of a city once free, if he increases his dominions, has no choice between the united and the divided realm: Non puo ancora le citta che esso acquista, sottometterle o farle tribu- tarie a quella citta di che egli é tiranno: perché il farla potente non fa per lui; ma per lui fa tenere lo stato disgiunto, e che ciascuna terra e clascuna provincia riconosca lui.*1 In this matter, it seems, Niccol6 would have admitted that the other writers de regimine principum had not missed the realities of public life. The disarming of subjects is also a method of the Aristotelian tyrant rejected—for most conditions—by Machiavelli, chiefly for reasons given in his earlier treatment of mercenaries.*? It still re- mained for him the method of the tyrant, not of the true prince: “Ottaviano, prima, e poi Tiberio, pensando pit alla potenza propria che all’utile publico, cominciarono a disarmare il popolo romano per poterlo pit: facilmente comandare.”** As we have seen, this thought for himself rather than for the public is the distinguishing mark of the tyrant.** ”“The tyrant delights in sowing factions and dissensions among his citizens, and rivalries that fortune happens to bring about he diligently nourishes and pro- motes, and these things he abuses for the strengthening of his tyranny. But it is the one effort of the king to nourish concord among the citizens and if any dissension should spring up, steadily to compose it among them, as one who knows that it is surely the worst disease of states” (Institutio 1, 572 B-C). ™ “Nor can he subordinate or make tributary to the city of which he is tyrant the cities he acquires, because to make it powerful is not to his advantage; but it is to his advantage to keep the state disunited and to have each city and each province recognize him” (Discorsi 2.2, p. 140a). = Prince 12, p. 25b; 13, pp. 27b, 29a. In the Ghirbizzi scritti in Raugia al Soderino, p. 879a, Machiavelli writes, apparently with approval: “Lorenzo de’ Medici disarméd il popolo per tenere Firenze."”—‘“Lorenzo de’ Medici disarmed the people in order to hold Florence.” * “First Octavian and then Tiberius, thinking more of their own power than of the good of the public, commenced to disarm the Roman people in order to be able more easily to rule them” (Arte della guerra 1, p. 272b). In Discorsi 2.30, p. 188b, rulers are said to have caused disarmament “di potere saccheggiare i popoli,” —‘‘in order to plunder the people.” * P. 137, above. See tyrant in the index. Chapter 21 Quod principem deceat ut egregius habeatur. (What a prince must do if he would be thought an extraordinary person.) In the first paragraph of the present chapter Ferdinand is repre- sented as keeping the minds of his subjects “sospesi e ammirati . . . e occupati”? by foreign wars. The suggestion that subjects are to be kept occupied is made in Aristotle’s discussion of the tyrant in the Politics (5, 1313ab), and appears in Figliucci as follows: Si dee ancora studiare e ingegnar il tiranno di concitare e suscitare guerre e contese, e discordie; cosi tra li sudditi come con altri populi, accioche cosi sempre sia il populo occupato, e non habbia ozio da pensare male alcuno contra il tiranno, anzi sempre ritrovandosi in pericolo habbia bisogno del Principe che lo difenda.? Such conduct appears as normal for the tyrant in the Spanish Las Siete Partidas.2 Carafa advises the prince to occupy the minds of his subjects with festal days, as does Niccolo at the end of this chapter; because “dum hoc ludo erunt occupati vanis cogitationibus, levioribusque, aut seditiosis negotiis non inquietabuntur.”* The idea that the prince should strike his subjects with wonder as well as occupy their minds does not, so far as I know, appear in works de regimine principum before Machiavelli. While the pre- ceding writers wished their prince to be successful in war, their religious background hardly permitted them to present conquest as a means of acquiring reputation” Even Machiavelli himself seems opposed to wars for reputation,‘ though he would not have prohibited conquests to his true prince) Indeed, to amplify the state by foreign wars may become a necessity of national life: “E *“Tn suspense and wonder . . . and occupied” (Prince 21, p. 43). ?“The tyrant should also give thought and effort to stirring up and exciting wars and struggles and discords, both among his subjects and with other peoples, so that the people may ever be occupied and may not have leisure to think any evil against the tyrant, but rather, always feeling that they are in peril, may have need of the prince to defend them” (De Ja politica, folios 186 verso-187). * Segunda Partida, titulo 1, ley 10. Cf. pp. 22, 24, 134, above. ““While they are occupied with this sport they are not disquieted with vain or rather light thoughts or with seditious activities” (De principis officiis 1, p. 653). [ 165 ] 166 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners impossibile che ad una republica riesca lo stare quieta, e godersi la sua liberta e gli pochi confini: perché, se lei non molestera altrui, sara molestata ella; e dallo essere molestata le nascera la voglia e la necessita dello acquistare.”> Such wars, however, are to be ap- proved only when necessitated, for Machiavelli approved the senti- ment of Livy: “Justum est bellum quibus necessarium.”® Conquest may be to the advantage of the conquered state, as appeared in the Romagna after Duke Valentino’s occupation.” The conquests of a tyrant, however, are of no value to his original state, but only to himself: “E se la sorte facesse che vi surgesse uno tiranno virtuoso, il quale per animo e per virtt d’arme ampliasse il dominio suo, non ne risulterebbe alcuna utilita a quella republica, ma a lui proprio.”® Were Ferdinand’s conquests of this type? Though admitting that he possessed astuteness, Machiavelli denied him the virtues of wis- dom and prudence—“sapere o prudenzia.”® He had not, Niccold wrote to Vettori, made his country rich or his army well organized: “Io ho inteso di buono luogo, che chi é in Spagna scrive quivi non essere danari né ordine da averne, e che I’esercito suo era solum di comandati, i quali ancora cominciavono a non lo ubbidire.”4° He had also given an example of cruelty to his subjects, “cacciando e spogliando, el suo regno, de’ Marrani.”’? His wars, moreover, as is also explained to Vettori,* were not made with the right end in view but only to get himself reputation. This was not a proper mo- tive, as Gower knew: °*Tt is impossible that a republic will succeed in remaining quiet and enjoying its liberty and its narrow confines, because if it does not molest some other state, it will be molested, and from being molested will spring the wish and the necessity of acquisition” (Discorsi 2.19, p. 169b). Cf. Discorsi 1.6, p. 67b, and see Ercole, La politica di Machiavelli, p. 278. °“A war is just for those to whom it is necessary” (Prince 26, p. 50ab, quoted from Livy 9.1.10). Cf. Discorsi 3.12, p. 220b; Istorie Fiorentine 5.8, p. 505a. See also p- 224, below. "Prince 7, p. 16a; Discorsi 3.29, p. 240. See also pp. 223-5, below. ®“And if chance should bring about that there should arise a virtuous tyrant, who through his spirit and his ability in arms would increase his domains, no good would come from it to that republic but to himself alone” (Discorsi 2.2, p. 140). ° Letter to Vettori—dated April 29, 1513, by Tommasini, Vita di Machiavelli 2.86 —Lettere familiari 20, p. 76. See astuzia in the index. 707 have learned from a good source that letters from Spain say there is no money there or means of getting it, and that Ferdinand’s army is made up only of officers, and that even they were beginning not to obey him” (ibid., p. 78). “Hunting down the Moors and driving them out of his kingdom” (Prince 21, p- 43b). * Lettere familiari 20, p. 82. Chapter 21 167 King Salomon in special Seith, as ther is a time of pes, So is a time natheles Of werre, in which a Prince algate Schal for the comun riht debate And for his oghne worschipe eke. Bot it behoveth noght to seke Only the werre for worschipe, Bot to the riht of his lordschipe, Which he is holde to defende, Mote every worthi Prince entende.!3 Yet the wars of Ferdinand were necessary if he was to produce on the minds of men the effects described in The Prince, in order to hold his new states. As we have seen, such plea of necessity could be made by a true prince who employed certain devices of the Aristotelian tyrant. But in spite of recognition of the success of Ferdinand, Machiavelli never attributes to the Catholic king good government, but only the reverse, and does not allow him that prudence and wisdom from which good government springs. To lack these qualities is, in Niccold’s opinion, to be on the way to tyranny.’* The necessity of Ferdinand is, then, possibly that of the tyrant rather than of the good prince. Such an opinion would fit with one by Guicciardini, who, though calling Ferdinand “pru- dentissimo” and “savio,”*® yet wrote: Una delle maggiore fortune che possino avere gli uomini é avere oc- casione di potere mostrare, che a quelle cose che loro fanno per interesse proprio, siano stati mossi per causa di pubblico bene. Questa fece gloriose le imprese del Re Cattolico; le quali fatte sempre per sicurta o grandezza sua, parvono spesso fatte o per augumento della fede cristiana, o per difesa della Chiesa.1® * Confessio Amantis 7.3594-3604. For the end of war see p. 225, below. “See p. 136, above. In later times Frachetta wrote: “Il Prencipe non é da chiamar Prencipe senza la prudenza. . . . Di vero non puo esser ne’ Tiranni vera prudenza.”—“A prince should not be called a prince unless he has prudence. . . . Indeed in a tyrant there cannot be true prudence’ (Seminario, Discorso 12. Cf. p. 120, above). * “Most prudent” and “knowing” (Ricordi 77, 273). 7®“One of the best pieces of good fortune that men can have is to be able to show that they are moved by reason of the public benefit to deeds which they do for their personal advantage. Such good fortune made glorious the deeds of the Catholic King, for though’ his acts were always for his own security or greatness, they fre- quently appeared to be intended either for the augmentation of the Christian faith or for the defense of the Church” (Ricordi 142). Cf. the advice on appearing religious in Prince 18, p. 35a. Elsewhere Guicciardini 168 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Personal ambition rather than devotion to the public good is the mark of the tyrant.’7 In the second paragraph of this twenty-first chapter the “rari esempli” which have just been considered in foreign affairs are . urged for internal matters. As it is said of the prince in the Discorsi, { “Nessuna cosa gli fa tanto stimare, quanto dare di sé rari esempli con qualche fatto o detto rado, conforme al bene comune, il quale mostri il signore o magnanimo o liberale o giusto, e che sia tale che si riduca come in proverbio intra i suoi suggetti.”"* The same concern with the common good is implied in The Prince, for the ruler is evidently to perform his spectacular actions in giving proper rewards and punishments. The_striking deed or saying is also subject to the condition that the ruler in all he does should obtain for himself “fama di uomo grande e d’ingegno eccellente.”4? On these dramatic examples of his power to act is based the reputation that enables a ruler to keep his position even though he has not ( gained the love of his people! |_. The gaining of reputation by striking deeds or sayings has not, cit. sBpears, been uiged an male felons Machiagellts ean ‘however, been recognized that a ruler might live for posterity at at least through his proverbial sayings, which perhaps Machiavelli especially indicates by his word ingegno. It had been observed also that the pithy remark was often of a political cast. Plutarch’s Apophthegms were widely circulated in the fifteenth century. Eras- mus, as he tells us in the preface, modeled after them the Apophthegmata lepideque dicta principum, philosophorum, ae di- versi generis hominum which he addressed to the young prince writes of Ferdinand: “Copri quasi tutte le sue cupidita sotto colore di onesto zelo della religione, e di santa intenzione al bene commune.”—“He covered most of his cupidity beneath the color of honest zeal for religion and holy intention to further the common good” (Istoria 12.19, p. 383). ™ See tyrant in the index. 38Nothing makes him so much esteemed as striking illustrations of his capacity through some unusual deed or saying, in harmony with the common good, which shows that the ruler is magnanimous or liberal or just, or which is of such a sort that it becomes_proverbial among his subjects” (Discorsi 3.34, p. 248a). See also ibid., 3.1, p. 195a. Compare the plan attributed to a duke by James Shirley: Then some rare Invention to execute the traitor, So as he may be half a year in dying, Will make us famed for justice (The Traitor, I, ii). ( “The reputation of a a great man, of excellent ability” (Prince 21, p. 44a). Cf. everus as described in Prince 19, p. 38b; see p. 145, below. Chapter 21 169 William of Cleve. They contain, he says, matter “de Republica administranda, deque bello gerendo.”?° Certain of them are at- tributed to Alphonso of Aragon, as for example: “Interrogatus quos e civibus haberet carissimos, Qui magis, inquit, pro me metuunt, quam me. Sentit, illos esse ex animo amicos, qui Principem magis amant quam timent.”*! A larger collection of the sayings of this famous prince is that of Panormita entitled De dictis et factis Alphonsi regis memorabilibus. On this Aeneas Sylvius wrote a commentary. In pursuance of his view that the able prince says such striking things as are there recorded, Machiavelli attributes to Castruccio Castracani a considerable number.?2 Cosimo de’ Medici also said things worthy to be recorded, but some of them, by appearing opposed to religion and the common ‘geod, lowered rather than raised his reputation.”* Advice that will aid the ruler to hold a high reputation among his people is common enough i in works de regimine principum,** ; and sometimes the imagination of the people is considered. In the early Secretum secretorum the king is advised to appear once a year in a grand spectacle calculated to strengthen his hold on the peo- ple; “hoc igitur modo principaliter publicatur et accrescit fama regis in secreto et in aperto. ”25 At this time he is also, to borrow the words of Machiavelli, “dare di sé esemplo di umanita e dv : munificenzia.”2* In the preceding chapter of the Secretum se- cretorum is advice so to act that “dignitas regis decoretur, potencia non ledatur, et debita reverencia tribuatur.”?7 Machiavelli desires *° “On administering the state, and on carrying on war.” 7!“"When he was asked what citizens he held dearest, he answered: ‘Those who fear not me but for me.’ He understood that they were friends in their hearts who loved the prince rather than feared him” (Erasmus, Apophthegmata, bk. 8, Alphon- sus Aragonum Rex, no. 11, col. 378 D). ™ Castruccio Castracani, pp. 761 ff. (the last pages). * Cf. pp. 130-1, above. **In a note on chapter twenty-one Burd (p. 340) quotes from Tacitus (An. 4.40). and also from Mariana on fame. But Mariana is concerned with the true fame that comes from the absolute goodness of the king: “El mas honesto fruto de las virtudes verdaderas.’—“The most honorable effect of the genuine virtues” (De rege 2.13). , Such a ruler, he thinks, will not be guided by the opinion of the vulgar. Machiavelli,’ however, is interested in popular effect; his ruler is to be in the mouths ‘of all as an ee in question. “So then this is the chief way in which the fame of the king is spread about / and increases in secret and openly” (pt. 1, chap. 12). *°“To make himself an example of humanity and munificence” (Prince 21, p. 45a). ay 7 “The dignity of the king is raised, his power is not decreased, and proper rev- erence is paid to him” (pt. 1, chap. 11). 4 170 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners y also that the king should be careful never to lose “la maesta della dignita sua.”** His union of dignity and complaisance is that of Egidio, who, after advising the ruler to be “amicabilis,” adds: “Quia nimia familiaritas contemptum parit, Reges et Principes, ut in reverentia habeantur, et ne dignitas regia vilescat, maturius se habere debent, quam alii.”*® Patricius also has some thought of an imaginative effect on subjects: “Anaxagoras clazomenius quum Periclem Atheniensem instrueret, dicebat magnificentiam, et animi graviorem quandam elationem, ad popularem potentiam capessen- dam plurimum valere.”$° Pontanus felt that much could be done to increase the effect of majesty, though nature was also contrib- utory: Maxime autem opinionem tum subiectorum, tum caeterorum hominum conciliabit ea, quae nunc a quibusdam etiam non indoctis viris, quamvis parum proprie maiestas vocatur. Sed non sit mihi de verbo controversia, vulgus in hoc sequar, in quo veniam mihi dari a te postulo. Est autem ea principum propria, comparaturque arte, et diligentia multa, habetque ortum a natura. Primum igitur oportet teipsum ut cognoscas, intelli- gasque te gerere principis personam, quod intelligens in omnibus tum dictis, tum factis gravitatem servabis, atque constantiam. Cumque omnis tum consultatio, tum actio sit de consiliis capiendis, aut de rebus publicis aut privatis, in capiendis consiliis oportet multa audire, plurima circum- spicere, causas singulorum, quae dicuntur, exquirere: non statim as- sentiri, mec semper etiam palam improbare oculis, nutuque multa declarare, multa etiam pensitantem animo, vultu prae te ferre, sententias aliorum ita examinare, ut mentes dicentium videare velle introspicere, quod ipse sentias, aut non statim, aut solum paucis aperire, in dicendo cautum et brevem esse: pro rerum tamen qualitate, parce repraehendere, rarenter, et non nisi maxima ex causa obiurgare, laudare cum gravitate, _iracundiam cohibere, tamquam maiestatis inimicam, in nullo ita efferri, ut quod agunt, lineam transeas. Ex his igitur, atque aliis, quae natura, tempus, res, et ars docuerit, de quibus nulla certa praecepta tradi possent, nasceretur admiratio quaedam, sine qua maiestas esse nullo modo potest.3? ig majesty of his dignity” (Prince 21, p. 45a). “Since too much familiarity breeds contempt, kings and princes, that they may be held in reverence and that the kingly dignity may not grow cheap, should hold themselves more decorously than others” (De regimine 1.2.28). * “Anaxagoras of Clazomene, when he gave instruction to Pericles the Athenian, said that magnificence and a certain rather grave elevation of mind were of the greatest value in getting hold of popular power” (De regno 7.11). “But especially the good opinion of subjects as well as of other men is con- ciliated by that quality which now certain learned men, though with little fitness, call majesty. But that I may not raise controversy over a word, I follow the crowd DV PORN GE. 155 L’ Autheur traicte,combien eft chofe neceflaire aux Prin ces, de retenirleur Maielté, & d’en vier roufiours. Alle- guant plufieurs exemples des Rommains, qui,par icelle, ont acquis grande eftime & reputation, auec honneur immortel, GOEL ACE GX a VIDE DICn OVE MATE: y, (te Fut produicte & procreée de Chaos,auec les ele- ments : & quelle feift la difcretion des ordres, & | des dignites tant celeftielles, comme elementaires. Maiefté,file Et que {ans fon ordonnance, les chofes inferieures " de Chaos a euflent porte reuerence aux fuperieures: mais euf lent voulu cccuper le lieu d’icelles. Er dict, que creinéte & reuerence font afsifes au Ciel, ou eft le do- micii¢ des Dicux, a 'entour de Maiefté, qui la maintenoit en fon creinteer Throfne. Et que a la femblance & mutation delle,toutsles Celeftes fe eres conforment, pour fe faire plus venerables. Hisense Ces chofes bien confyderées, doibuent donner le coeur aux Roys, & aux grands Monarcques,qui viennent 4 domination par fuccefsion legitime, & par ottroy de Prouidence diuine,a conferuer leur Maiefté en fon entier, & aufly celle de leurs Royaulmes, & Monarchies. Pour : laquelle conferuation ( comme dict Valere le grand ) n'eft point tant sails requis a vn Prince,de donner grande terreur au peuple,& deluy mon- Princes. ftrer gens armés a lentour de luy, oueftre monté en vn hault fiege Royal: comme illuy eft meftier d’entretenir fon eftime & fa reputa- tion, par compofition de mceurs, & contenance pleine dauthorité. Car Maiefte eft reueftue d’vn manteau d’admiration,tiffu de grandes vertuz, & dhonnefteté de cceur, dont les fignes euidents font en fon maintien, en fon regime, & en touts fes actes. Valere recite plufieurs exemples fur ce me{me propos,dont l’vn eft de Scipion A fricain, lequel eftant en fon exil, a Linterne, cu il fe re- tita,comme courroucé contre le peuple de Romme,entendit que aul- Exemplet. cuns Capitaines pillards venotent en fa maifon, pour le voler: qut e- ftoit yne maifon fituée aux champs. Au moyen de quoy, Scipion de- libera de fe fortifier a ’encontre de leur entreprin{e qu'il foupgonnoit. Laquelle chofe venue ala congnoiffance des Capitaines: ilz feifrent retirer leurs gens, & laiffairent touts accouftremens de guerre: & puis From the copy of Guillaume Budé’s De Linstitution du Prince, Paris, 1547, in the Duke University Library. The facsimile is smaller than the original. Chapter 21 171 This passage is in various respects Machiavellian, in addition to the basic similarity in the idea that the reputation for ingegno and the appearance of maesta can prudently be built up. In_the Daprer ¢ on’ aygiding contempt—the reverse of acquiring reputation—Machia- eee the meet appeat hard to deceives os Pontanus thinks he should seem to desire to read the minds of those he deals with. And inthe ame paige Machiavelli counsels agsinwt ap / pearing variable, as Pontanus recommends constancy. The earlier writer, too, in remarking that some things cannot be satisfactorily taught in precepts, but that time and conditions must be con- sulted, touches a favorite theme of the Florentine secretary. In advising the prince to encourage his people to add to the prosperity of the country,?* Niccolo opposes another part of Aris- totle’s plan for the tyrant, who was to keep his people poor and in subjection; the true king, as Egidio and all the others knew, wished his people to have such riches as were consistent with the common good.3* Machiavelli advised the prince to rely on individ- ual initiative, while Petrarch recommended great public works, such as the draining of marshes, in the attempt to bring prosperity.3* Diomede Carafa writes at length and with feeling on the en- couragement of trade and industry, starting with the declaration: “La vera industria del bon Signore é bene administrare sue intrate iuste, e le industrie far fare ad soi subditi et aiutarencili, ché, in this, in which I beg that you will pardon me. But this is a quality proper to princes which may be acquired by art and great diligence and has its origin in nature. It is first proper therefore that you should recognize and understand that you bear the character of a prince; knowing this, you will preserve gravity and constancy in all your sayings and your acts. Since every consultation and every action relates to taking counsel or to public or private affairs, in taking advice it is proper to hear many things, to examine as many as possible, and to enquire into the causes of single things that are said, not to assent immediately, nor ever openly to disapprove a thing by your expression, to indicate many things with a nod, and weighing many things in your mind, to indicate by your countenance that you so examine the opinions of others that you seem to wish to look into the minds of the speakers, but what you think yourself not to make known immediately or only to a few, and to be cautious and brief in speaking. As for the quality of your words, to blame little and seldom, and to reproach only for a very important reason, to praise with gravity, to bridle anger as hostile to majesty, in nothing to be so moved that, as they say, you step over the line. From these and other things then, which nature, the time, the circumstances, and art teach, and about which no certain precepts can be given, there springs a certain admiration without which majesty can by no means subsist” (De principe 271-2). = Prince 19, p. 36a. * Prince 21, last paragraph. * De regimine 3.2.8. * De republica, p. 426. 172 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners come ho dicto, le industrie fanno arricchire li subditi quando le fanno lloro,.”?® Men who benefit the country are to be rewarded by Machia- velli’s prince, as Petrarch, for example, had advised the pension- ing of the learned.** Such rewards would represent the true lib- erality—giving to the right persons—of the older writers.** Platina felt that honors, mentioned by Machiavelli, were more desirable than more material rewards, as encouragement of merit.** That rewards should go to those who merited them by public service was also the opinion of Erasmus, who in speaking of liberality, continues: “Intelligat Respublica iis potissimum expositam Prin- cipis benignitatem, qui publicis commodis quam maxime consulant. Virtuti praemium sit, non affectui.”4° The rewards to those who attempt “ampliare la sua citta o il suo stato”** that is, to make it richer, are possibly connected with the munificence which the ruler is to show at the feasts of the “arte”; in any case they do not trans- gress Machiavelli’s earlier advice against the attempt to gain a repu- tation for liberality. If the Aristotelian tyrant is to keep his sub- jects poor, he will not give rewards and honors to those who add to prosperity; indeed, Machiavelli held that he could not: “E se la sorte facesse che vi surgesse uno tiranno virtuoso, ...e’ non pud onorare nessuno di quegli cittadini che siano valenti e buoni, che egli tiranneggia, non volendo avere ad avere sospetto di loro.”*? This tyrant is completely Aristotelian; so far is he from raising men “The true industry of the good prince is to administer well his just income and to have his subjects carry on their occupations and to aid them in them, be- cause, as I have said, occupations make their subjects grow rich when they carry them on” (I dovert dei principi, p. 287). * Machiavelli, Prince 21, last paragraph. Petrarch, De republica, p. 433. Cosimo de’ Medici did this (Istorie Fiorentine 7.6, p. 567a). * See pp. 87-8, above. ® Principis diatuposis 2.11. Machiavelli approved the Roman triumphs (Discorsi 3.28, pp. 239-40). “The state should realize that the goodness of the prince is especially bestowed on those who most consult the public advantage. There should be a reward for virtue, not for affection” (Institutio 5.595 A). Possibly from the Hiero of Xenophon, which Erasmus translated and Machiavelli knew; see p. 13, above. “““To make greater his city and his state’ (Prince 21, p. 45a). Cf. “ampliato né di dominio né di ricchezza’—‘increased neither in dominion nor in riches” (Discorsi 2.2, p. 139b). See also the quotation from the same chapter on p. 166, above. “Tf fate should bring about that there should arise a virtuous tyrant . . . he is not able to honor any of those citizens who are courageous and good, whom he is tyrant over, since he does not wish to be obliged to have suspicion of them” (Discorsi 2.2, p. 140a). Cf. pp. 30 ff., above. Chapter 21 173 of ability by honor and reward that he destroys them; as Egidio put the thought of Aristotle: Prima cautela tyrannica, est excellentes perimere. Cum enim tyrannus non diligat nisi bonum proprium, excellentes et nobiles existentes in regno non valentes hoc pati, insurgunt contra ipsum: tyrannus autem ex quo talem se esse cognoscit, non cogitat nisi quomodo possit excel- lentes perimere. . . . Verus autem Rex econverso intendens commune bonum, et cognoscens se diligi ab ipsis qui sunt in regno, excellentes, et nobiles . . . per quos bonus status regni conservari potest, non perimit, sed salvat.#8 In this instance again Machiavelli’s prince is not to follow the policy of the tyrant, but of the ruler who is concerned with the common good. From such encouragement of productive activity the ruler had his return. Diomede Carafa had already written to Eleanor of Ara- gon on the subject of amplifying or augmenting the city: Po omne uno pensare como havira da durare dicto stato, che o vero omne persona da bene pensara de andare il altro loco, o vero pensara mutare signore, El perche se dice: la bona Signoria fa augmentare la terra et stato, E la trista le destruy et annichila che si lo vicino male non se po comportare, como duncha se comportara lo Signore quale te po levare lo tuo et impresonare? Si che lo male signore se fuge da lo paese naturale in paese stranio como omne di se vede.*4 Xenophon had long before said in the Hiero, as Erasmus trans- lated it: “Auge Rempublicam, sic enim tibi ipsi potentiam ad- junges.”#° “The first thing the tyrant should give attention to is to repress the excellent. For since the tyrant cares only for his own good, the excellent and noble who live in the kingdom, since they do not wish to allow this, rise against him; and the tyrant from the moment he realizes himself to be one thinks only of the manner in which he may be able to repress the excellent. . . . But the true king, on the contrary, who is intent on the common good and knows that he is loved by those in his kingdom, does not repress the excellent and noble, by whom the happy state of the realm can be preserved, but cherishes them” (De regimine 3.2.10). ““Every one is able to reflect on the probable duration of that state when every person of property will think of going elsewhere or of changing his lord. The reason for it is that good rule makes the city and state increase, and bad rule destroys and ruins them. If it is difficult to bear the ills that are near at hand, how is it possible to bear the lord who is able to take your property away and become master of it? Hence the bad lord flees from his natural country into a strange land, as every one sees for himself” (J doveri dei prinicipi, pp. 285-6). ““Tncrease the state, for thus you add power to yourself’ (653 A). At the end of the Rosier des guerres of Louis XI are given “troys choses qui font le roy regner et estre riche et avoir renommée et benediction perpetuelle.” 174 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Discussion of relations with other princes such as is found in this chapter occurs in other works de regimine principum of Ma- chiavelli’s time; for example, in his Jnstitutio Erasmus writes a chapter De foederibus and another De principum affinitatibus.*® In works of a considerably earlier date there is little on dealings with foreigners. Among the more immediate predecessors of Nic- colo, Diomede Carafa is distinguished by the space he gives to al- liances with other sovereigns. He discusses, for instance, the relative advantages of having allies near at hand and remote.*? “It should be observed that the gratitude which a ruler can to some extent rely on for security is the gratitude not of his own subjects, but of a foreign prince who has been assisted.*® For this reason some of Machiavelli’s other discussions of ingratitude do not furnish exact parallels, but only general illustration.4® Ingrati- tude, as he was well aware, was regarded with much detestation.5® Campanus, who wrote three books De ingratitudine fugienda, re- marks of it in his De regendo magistratu: “Quo vitio nihil _detestabilius.”®! Here, as commonly, Machiavelli is reckoning on probabilities; it is wiser to rely on the gratitude of a prince who has been effectively helped than to be equally at his mercy after having refused help; moreover, the victor may not be so thoroughly victor that he can afford to disregard justice and ruin allies whose further aid he may need. Machiavelli is Writing in the light of three characteristic principles mentioned in this chapter: the first, that a timid middle course is dangerous; the second, that present ease should not be preferred to future prosperity; the third, that in the lack of a perfect course of procedure it is necessary to choose the \one offering least inconvenience. In this instance the prince would wish not to be dependent on the discretion of either of two con- —‘three things which make the king reign and be rich and have fame and perpetual good reputation.” One of these is “‘garder et augmenter la chose publicque de son royaulme.”"—‘‘to watch over and augment the public property of his realm.” In his “Instructions au dauphin” he also speaks of having ‘‘augmentée” his realm (Or- donnances, t. XIX, pp. 56-60, from Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, Charles VII, Louis XI, in Lavisse, Histoire de France 4.2.418). See also P. Champion, Louis XI 2.344. “ On treaties and On the alliances of princes. “ Doveri dei principi, pp. 270 ff. “ Prince 21, p. 44b. “Burd neglects this distinction in his note on the passage (pp. 342-3). © Ingratitude of the sort here mentioned by Machiavelli would apparently be a mortal sin (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. 2.2.107). If, however, a prince has entered into an alliance for his own benefit, the obligation to him of the ally is lessened (ibid. art. 3). Cf. pp. 158, above, 182, below. 5. “No vice is more detestable than this.” Chapter 21 175 tending powers,°* but if that is inavoidable, he had best act with decision in securing friendship and bringing about the victory of an ally who at the worst may think it politic to appear grateful. If Machiavelli took from the Aristotelians the avoidance of the hatred and contempt of subjects, he apparently made for himself its application to foreign affairs; in one of his letters he treats the reputation of a prince abroad under this head: Non € cosa pil necessaria a un principe che governarsi in modo con li sudditi, e con gli amici e vicini, che non diventi 0 odioso, o contennendo, e se pure egli ha a lasciare l’uno di questi duoi, non stimi l’odio, ma guardisi dal disprezzo.5? . . . Ed io vi dico che chi sta neutrale conviene che sia odiato da chi perde, e disprezzato da chi vince; e come di uno si comincia a non tener conto, e stimato inutile amico, e non formidabile inimico, si pud temere che gli sia fatta ogni ingiuria, e disegnato sopra di lui ogni ruina; né mancano mai al vincitore le iustificazioni, perché, avendo |i suoi stati mescolati, ¢ forzato ricevere ne’ porti ora questo, ora quello, riceverli in casa, sovvenirli di alloggiamento, di vettovaglie: e sempre ognuno pensera di essere ingannato, e occorreranno infinite cose che causeranno infinite querele; e quando bene nel maneggiare la guerra non ne nascesse alcuna, che é impossibile, ne nasce doppo la vittoria, perché li minori potenti, e che hanno paura di te, subito corrono sotto il vincitore, e danno a quello occasione d’offenderti; e chi dicessi: —Egli é il vero, e’ ci potrebbe essere tolto questo, e mantenutoci quello— rispondo, che egli é¢ meglio perdere ogni cosa virtuosamente, che parte vituperosamente, né si pud perdere la parte che il tutto non triemi.>4 “3 On self-sufficiency see pp. 110 ff., above; Prince 7, p. 17a; 13, pp. 27b, 28b; 24, end. Perhaps Machiavelli’s phrase “lo stare a discrezione di altri’ (p. 44b) was a formula. At least Giovan Giorgio Trissino uses it (with the article before discrezione) in his Poetica (Divisione 5, p. 106), composed by 1529, writing that “it is a fearful thing to stand at the discretion of others.” e = For the missing part of the quotation see p. 111, above. “Nothing is more needful to a prince than to govern himself in such a way with his subjects and with his friends and neighbors that he may not become either odious or contemptible, and if he has to let one of these two go, he should not think about hatred but protect himself from being despised. . . . And I say to you that he who remains neutral must needs be hated by the one who loses and contemned by the victor; and as one who begins to be thought of little account and esteemed a use- less friend and not a formidable enemy, he can fear that every injury will be done to him and every sort of ruin designed for him. Nor will the conqueror lack justifica- tion, for the neutral prince, having his affairs in a mixed condition, is forced to receive within his gates now this one, now that one, to take them into his house, and to supply them with lodging and with victuals. Each one who is received will think he is being deceived and an infinite number of things will occur that will cause infinite complaints. And even though in managing war nothing of the sort arises, which is impossible, it will arise after the victory, because the lesser rulers and those oo Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners This makes clear the importance in foreign affairs of a reputation — for courage and capacity; in The Prince—in spite of the topic of the chapter—the value of reputation is neglected for the discussion of the varying conditions of alliance. The prince who will main- tain his state should guard himself against hatred by other rulers, but their contempt is still more dangerous, because it means for him Ie ic of reputation and for them facility in working against him.** A bit of Machiavellian philosophy appears in the statement that no perfectly secure decision can be made, for in avoiding one in- convenience the prince encounters another; prudence consists in the recognition of the various inconveniences and the choice of the least damaging one.°® This is frequently stated by our author, as in one of his letters to Vettori: “Quando uno é forzato a pigliare uno de’ duoi partiti, debbe, intra I’altre cose, considerare dove la trista fortuna di qualunque di quelli ti pud ridurre, e sempre debbe pigliare quella parte, quando l’altre cose fussero pari, che abbia il fine suo, quando fusse tristo, meno acerbo.”®* The theme also appears in the writings of Guicciardini, as for example: Sarebbe da desiderare el potere fare o condurre le cose sue a punto, cioé in modo che fussino sanza uno minimo disordine o scrupolo; ma é difficile el fare questo; in modo che é errore lo occuparsi troppo in limbiccarle, perché spesso le occasione fuggono, mentre che tu perdi tempo a condurre quello a punto; e anche quando credi averlo trovato e fermo, ti accorgi spesso non essere niente perché la natura delle cose del mondo é in modo, che é quasi impossibile trovarne alcuna che in ogni parte non vi sia qualche disordine e inconveniente; bisogna resolversi a tdrle come sono e pigliare per buono quello che ha in sé manco male.58 who are afraid of you run at once to the protection of the conqueror and give him occasion to injure you. If any one says, ‘Neutrality is the best policy; this can be taken away from us and that kept,’ I answer it is better to lose everything virtuously than part shamefully, and part cannot be lost without the whole hanging in the bal- ance” (to Vettori, Dec. 20, 1514, Lettere familiari 38, pp. 162-3). S Discorsi 2.9, p. 151b. Cf. pp. 104-5, above. Prince 21, p. 45a. “When a person is forced to accept one of two plans, he should, among other things,“consider where an unsuccesful issue of either of them may bring him, and always choose/hat plan, when other things are equal, whose end, if bad, may be less unpleasant’/(Dec. 20, 1514, Lett. familiari 37, pp. 161-2). Burd (pp. 344-5) cites a passages such as Discorsi 1.6, p. 67b, and a fragment given by Tommasini (1.661, note 4); from Guicciardini he gives Storia d'Italia 12.4. Guicciardini deals concretely with the subject in his Discorsi Politict 12 and 15. For his use of Machia- velli's words “‘partiti securi”—“plans that cannot fail” (Prince 21, p. 45a)—see pp. 212, 216, below. Str would be desirable to be able to carry out or conduct one’s affairs with completeness, that is in such a way that they are done without the least disorder or Chapter 21 177 It is not necessary to suppose Guicciardini derived the thought from Machiavelli; it may have been fairly well known in their circles. At any rate, we read in Diomede Carafa that in his earlier time it was a proverbial saying: “Idcirco dici consuevit: appellandum esse sapientem; non qui bonum a malo secernat; sed qui propositis duobus bonis, utilius; rursusque, qui de duobus incommodis minus eligere noverit.”°? chiavelli’s exhortation to employ public spectacles and festivi- ties®° is anticipated by Beroaldus, who writes: Decet principem imprimis esse magnificum. Est autem magnificus, ut docet Aristoteles in quarto ethicorum: Is qui in publica facit impensas velut in spectaculis: in epulo: in aedificiis. Hinc Plinius in Traiani laudem. At quam magnificus inquit in publicum es. Hinc porticus: inde delubra occulta celeritate properantur.®? The quality of magnificence is not the same as munificence, but the two are connected; Patricius mentions munificence in his chap- ter on magnificence, in which he tells of the spectacles exhibited by Caesar. Magnificence appears especially in public spectacles, and is important “in amicis comparandis.”®? Machiavelli advises munifi- cence on public occasions prett much for the gaining of friends. Erasmus, usually cautious about expenses, is willing to have his prince spend money in public sports.°* (Niccold had no doubt that difficulty, but it is difficult to do that, so difficult that it is an error to busy oneself too much in puzzling over it, because often occasions pass by while you lose time in bringing something to an absolute conclusion, and when you believe you have it worked out and solid, you often learn that it is not at all so, because the nature of the things of the world is such that it is just about impossible to find anything which does not have in every part of it some disorders and inconveniences. It is necessary to make up your mind to take them as they are and to accept as good that which has in itself the least evil” (Ricordi 126). Therefore it is commonly said that the appellation of wise man should be given not to him who discerns good from evil, but to him who when two good things are put before him knows how to choose the more useful, and again who knows how to select the less of two disadvantages” (De principis officiis 1, p. 648). © Prince 21, p. 458. = “First of all it befits the prince to be magnificent. And, as Aristotle teaches in the fourth of the Ethics, he is magnificent who goes co expense for the public, as in providing spectacles, feasts, and buildings. Thence Pliny says in praise of Trajan: ‘How magnificent you are for the public. As a result, porticoes and secret shrines are prepared with great swiftness’” (De optimo statu, folio 128 verso). The quotation is from C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Panegyricus 51. See p. 198, below, and the index under Pliny. =“Tn gaining friends” (De regno 7.11). The edition I follow (Prato, 1531), and the Italian translation of Venice, 1553, attribute friends to magnificence; the Latin edition of Strassburg, 1594, attributes them to munificence. % Institutio 10, 606 E. 178 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners . reputation could be acquired “con giuochi e doni_publici,”** though, ss we have seen, he fit thar Theciity was Ria ruinous to the giver. When taken in isolation, however, this exhortation to -munificence and humanity is conventional in its character.®* “ “With games and gifts to the public” (Istorie Fiorentine 7.1, p. 562a). Cf. ibid. 7.12, p. 571a. For prudent liberality see p. 54, above. ® As a parallel with Machiavelli's “raunarsi con loro”—‘to mingle with them” (Prince 21, p. 45a), Burd (p. 346) quotes from Tacitus: “Augustus . . . civile rebatur misceri voluptatibus vulgi.”"—‘“Augustus thought it courteous to mix in the pleasures of the vulgar” (Annales 1.54). Pliny, praising Trajan for his expendi- ture on the circus, continues: “Tum quod aequatus plebis ac principis locus; siquidem per omne spatium una facies, omnia continua et paria, nec magis proprius spectanti Caesari suggestus quam propria quae spectet. Licebit ergo civibus tuis te invicem contueri: dabitur non cubiculum principis sed ipsum principem cernere, in publico, in populo sedentem.”—“Then too the seats of prince and people have been put on a level; and indeed if through all the space there is one form and all things are con- tinuous and equal, Caesar as he looks on is as far from having a high seat for him- self alone as he is from being the only one to see the performance. It will be possible for the citizens to see you as well as for you to see them; there will be opportunity to see not the private box of the prince but the prince himself sitting among the people in public” (Panegyricus 51). Chapter 22 De his quos a secretis principes habent. (Of the confidential ministers employed by princes.) In this chapter Machiavelli deals with a subject important to monarchs from the time of Rehoboam and his two sets of advisers. Commynes writes of normal events in his day: “Le prince tumbe en telle indignation envers Nostre Seigneur, qu'il fuyt les conseilz des saiges et en eslieve de tous neufz, mal saiges, mal raisonnables, flateurs, qui luy complaisent 4 ce qu'il dit.”? With such possibilities in mind, Vincent of Beauvais wrote a chapter showing that the king “debet esse sapiens in amicis, consiliariis, officialibus eligen- dis.” Fidelity, prudence, and fitness for the special matter in hand are some of the qualities a ruler should look for. The writer of the Secretum secretorum would judge a minister much as would Machiavelli when asking whether the minister thinks “pit a sé che a te”:* Temptabis eciam bajulos tuos in donis et muneribus faciendis. Quem ergo illorum videris conari et intendere super hiis ultra modum, nullum bonum speres in eo. Et ille bajulus qui anelat pecunie acquirende, et ad thesauros observandos, non confidas in eo, quia ejus servicium est propter aurum, et dimittit pecuniam currere cum sensibus hominum, et est profunditas sine fundo, et non est in eo terminus sive finis, quia quanto magis crescit pecunia crescit intencio acquirendi et sollicitudo.® *Used by Clichtoveus (De regis officio 6, f. 24 verso) to show that the king should associate with prudent men and not ignorant and pleasure-seeking youths. *“The prince so falls into the displeasure of our Lord that he gives up the counsels of the wise and takes advice only from new advisers, unwise, unreasonable, and flatterers, who say what is acceptable to him” (Mémoires 5.19, p. 228). *“Ought to be wise in choosing his friends, counsellors, and officials” (De morali principis institutione 12). “More of himself than of you” (Prince 22, p. 45b). *“You will also test your counsellors by making gifts and presents. Then if you see one of them striving for them and setting his heart on them beyond measure, you may hope nothing good from him. And if a counsellor strives to acquire wealth and to give attention to treasure, do not confide in him, for he serves for the sake of gold, and lets money equal the feelings of men, and is a pit without a bottom, and there is no terminus or end in him, since in proportion as his money increases his intention and eagerness for acquiring it increases’ (Secretum secretorum 3.12, p- 140). [179 ] 180 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Machiavelli’s belief that a ruler may be judged from the capacity of his ministers is the point of a story in Gower’s Confessio Amantis (7.3994-7): Sire king, if that it were so, Of wisdom in thin oghne mod That thou thiselven were good, Thi conseil scholde noght be badde. In this twenty-second chapter Machiavelli takes for granted the principle of the Secretum secretorum that “nichil sine consilio faciendum est,”® and that “nec altitudo tui status in temetipso impediat quin semper agreges tuo consilio consilium alienum”;* in the twenty-third chapter he says: “Uno principe . . . debbe consigliarsi sempre,”* and in J] demonio che prese moglie the prin- ciple is fully presented; calling a council for the purpose “di avere sopra questo caso con tutti gl’infernali principi maturo esamine e pigliarne di poi quel partito che fussi giudicato migliore,”® Pluto speaks as follows: Ancora che io, dilettissimi miei, per celeste disposizione e fatale sorte al tutto inrevocabile possegga questo regno, e che per questo io non possa essere obligato ad alcuno iudicio o celeste o mondano, nondimeno, perché gli é maggiore prudenza, di quelli che possono pit, sottomettersi pit alle leggi e pil stimare l’altrui iudizio: ho deliberato essere con- sigliato da voi come, in uno caso il quale potrebbe seguire con qualche infamia del nostro imperio, io mi debba governare.1° The tyrannical devil adopts the policy of the true prince, for there is no comedy in keeping laws and taking advice. With a failure to get sufficient advice Commynes connects one of the serious errors of Louis XI: Toutesfois le sens de nostre roy estoit si grand que moy ne autres, qui fussent en la compaignie, n’eussions sceii veoir cler en ses affaires comme *“Nothing should be done without taking advice” (ibid. 3.9, p. 136). 7“The height of your position should not keep you from always adding the plan of some one else to your own” (ibid. 3.11, p. 139). *“A prince should always take counsel” (Prince 23, p. 46b). °“To make a mature examination of the circumstances with all the princes of hell and as a result to arrive at the plan that should be thought best” (p. 765a). © “Though I possess this realm, my beloved subjects, through divine disposal and the lot of fate, which is im every way irrevocable, and therefore I am not obliged to defer to any judgment either celestial or worldly, nevertheless, because it is the part of prudence for those who possess much to submit themselves to the laws and put high value on the judgment of others, I have determined to be advised by you how I should conduct myself in an affair from which some infamy can result for our dominion” (p. 765ab). Chapter 22 181 luy-mesmes faisoit: car, sans nulle doubte, c’estoit ung des plus saiges princes et des plus subtilz qui ayt regné en son temps. Mais en ces grandz matiéres, Dieu dispose les cueurs des rois et des grandz princes, lesquelz il tient en sa main, 4 prendre les voyes selon les oeuvres qu’il veult conduyre. . . . Je diz ces choses au long pour monstrer que, au commencement que on veult entreprendre une si grand chose, que on la doit bien consulter et debattre, affin de povoir choisir le meilleur party; et, par especial, soy recommander a Dieu et luy prier qu'il luy plaise adresser le meilleur chemin; car de 1a vient tout: et se voyt par escript et par experience.!! Je n’entendz point blasmer nostre roy pour dire qu'il eust failly en ceste matiére, car, par adventure, autres qui scavoient et congnoissoient plus que moy seroient et estoient lors de l’advis qu’il estoit, combien que riens n’y fut debattu, ne 1a ny ailleurs, touchant ladicte matiére.!? The Duke of Burgundy met his death because of his refusal of “saige conseil.”?? Louis was gifted with that ability to choose his servants which distinguishes the prudent ruler of Machiavelli.‘ Je ne veulx point dire que tous les princes se servent de gens mal condicionnéz, mais bien la pluspart de ceulx que j’ay congneii n’en ont pas tousjours esté desgarnyz. En temps de nécessité ay-je bien veii que les aucuns saiges se sont bien sceii servir des plus apparens et les cercher sans y riens plaindre. Et, entre tous les princes dont j’ay eu la congnoissance, |’a le mieulx sceii faire le roy nostre maistre et plus honnorer et estimer les gens de bien et de valleur.15 * Cf. in the dedication of The Prince: “Una lunga esperienzia delle cose moderne e una continua lezione delle antique.’—‘‘A long experience in recent affairs and a continual reading of ancient history.” “The intelligence of our king was so great that neither I nor others who were in his company would have had the power to see so clearly in his affairs as he could himself, for without any doubt he was one of the wisest and most subtle princes who reigned in his day. But in these great affairs God disposes the hearts of kings and great princes, whom he holds in his hand, to take their ways according to the actions that he wishes to carry on... . “I speak of these things at length to show that at the beginning when one wishes to undertake so great an affair one ought certainly to consult and discuss, in order to be able to select the best plan, and especially he should commend himself to God and pray to Him that it may please Him to point out the best road, for everything comes from that and can be seen from both literature and experience. I do not at all intend to blame our king by saying that he was faulty in this matter, for, perchance, others who know and understand better than I do will be and were then of the opinion that he held, but rather I blame him that there was no debate, there or elsewhere, on the said matter” (Mémoires 5.13, pp. 171-2). *® Ibid. 5.8, p. 150. “4 Prince 22, p. 45b. * Egidio follows Aristotle’s treatment of fortune, *For Machiavelli's general view of Fortune, see Ercole, La politica, pp. 5 ff. ? Confessio Amantis 7.3172-3.- ® 4.1996 ff.; 9.3239-302, and passim. Had Machiavelli seen the original of Lydgate’s work, the De casibus virorum illustrium of Boccaccio? “See the illustrations in Patch, Fortuna, and the frontispiece of the present volume. ® “Since fortune aids and exalts the bold, for whom more than for the great and fortunate is spirit and audacity fitung?” (De principis instructione 1.14). Cf. Prince 25, p. 49b: “Meglio essere impetuoso.”—“Better to be impetuous.” Cf. p- 222, n. 2, below. [ 204 ] Chapter 25 205 as does Patricius.* Beroaldus in De optimo statu touches on the famous debate concerning the influence of Fortune on the rise of the Roman power. But though the goddess is not forgotten, the number of references is smaller than might be expected. For this there are good reasons. “Quoniam fortuna principum in edito et praelustri sita est loco,”? their Fortune is likely to be discussed with relation to overthrow rather than rise; Lydgate, for instance, com- paratively seldom speaks of the rise of Fortune’s wheel.$ But the conventional writer de regimine principum is advising a ruler in the full current of affairs, not one likely to fall; his ideal is the Utopian one of the happy father of a loving family. So far as he is among those who were accused by Machiavelli of presenting only imaginary states, serious reverse of fortune is not his con- cern. Or if he belongs to the highly moral school, his theory is that the good prince, docile to the advice he offers, will live in sanctified prosperity. The flattering adviser will avoid any sug- gestion that his virtuous patron may be overthrown; Boccaccio did not dedicate De casibus to a prince. To be sure there were writers who realized that kings could be overthrown as punishment for their wickedness, as Lydgate and his originals so completely did. Such overthrow, however, is the work of Providence or the divine vengeance; Fortune as the avenger is subject to God and rational in her punishment of evil. But such a Fortune ceases to be Fortune, for mutability is of the essence of that goddess. If she is endowed with rationality, it is Oltre la difension de’ senni umani: .. . occulto, come in erba |’ angue.® But Lydgate, in his confusion, gives her intelligibility. Sometimes, indeed, he quite forgets her and attributes the overthrow of the wicked directly to God.’° ®Egidio, De regimine 3.2.16; Patricius, De regno 7.10; see also 1.12. ™*Since the Fortune of princes is seated in a lofty and magnificent spot’ (Pon- tanus, De principe, p. 270). 8 Falls of Princes 4.2640-2968; 5.2341-2403. °“Beyond the power of defence against it by human thoughts: . . . hidden like a snake in the grass” (Inferno 7.81-4). Falls of Princes 9.1057. Commynes was unwilling to employ Fortune in polit- ical explanation: “Il fault bien dire que ceste tromperesse Fortune l’avoit bien regardé de son mauvais visaige. Mais, pour mieulx dire, il fault respondre que telz grandz mistéres ne viennent point de Fortune et que Fortune n’est riens, fors seullement une fiction poetique et qu'il failloit que Dieu l’eust habandonné. . . . Il est yraysemblable et chose certaine qu’il estoit eslongné de la grace de Dieu de 206 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Machiavelli believed himself quite unlike the writers alluded . to. He did not set out to illustrate the righteous vengeance of © God on the immoral, flattery was not his main business, and above all he did not hold a Utopian view, rather considering that in the | verita effettuale there is no stability in human affairs, for Fortune is unpredictable and Le sue permutazion non hanno triegue.14 As a result, Fortune pervades The Prince as she does no other similar work. She is ever present; few of the chapters are without references to Fortune or associated matters such as occasion, chance, time as the “mother of many mutations,”’* or the variable things of the world. This dotting of the pages with references to muta- bility shows the author’s preoccupation in his advice to the ruler; the work is, as it were, an exhortation to be ready against the un- - certainty of the future. This is a world of flux and reflux; times of © prosperity must be looked on not as normal but as opportunities in which the wise man will prepare for the deluge; no man knows the time of change; when it comes there is reasonable hope of | survival only for him who is well prepared. The circumspect ruler, however, can do much to protect himself. Diomede Carafa is per- haps nearest Machiavelli in his sense of the uncertainty of the ruler’s position. If the prince has leisure from domestic difficulties, he should look abroad to determine which rulers might in case of need be the best allies. “Propter incertos temporum casus”!* ex- pert generals and money for military purposes should always be ready. All the finances should be so administered, that the prince will be ready for sudden and unexpected events.** But even the writers most conscious of the uncertainty of the ruler’s state are se estre mis ennemy de ces troys princes et n’avoir ung seul amy qui l’eust osé loger une nuyct. Et autre Fortune n’y avoit mis la main que Dieu.”—“It is certainly. necessary to say that this deceiver Fortune had looked on him with her unfavorable countenance. But to put it better, one must say that such great mys- teries do not come from Fortune at all, and that Fortune is nothing except a poetic fiction, and that it must needs be that God had abandoned him. . . . It seems to be and is a certain thing that he was separated from the grace of God when he was made an enemy of these three princes and did not have a single friend who dared to give him one night's lodging. No other Fortune than God had laid hand on him” (Mémoires 4.12, II, 86, on the ruin of the Count of Saint-Pol). * “Her permutations offer no truces’’ (Inferno 7.88). * Sidney, Arcadia 3.4, p. 373- “Because of the uncertainties that appear as time passes” (De principis Officiis, pt. 1, p. 652). *Tbid., pt. 3, beginning, p. 657. Chapter 25 207 much less concerned with it than is Machiavelli, who advises not the secure but o insecure ruler. Fortune’s sway, may fail, the mind~of-man is not aaa to her power. According to Patricius, Hannibal was conquered by un- favorable Fortune, who shows her power more in war than any- where re else,” yet he did not yield, but “virtutem animi erigens,”’® went on with his plans. By his example “monemur fortunae virtu- tem neutiquam cedere.”1" Still he finished his career as a suicide, wholly deserted by Fortune. The courageous attitude was ap- proved by Machiavelli, as he shows in a chapter of the Discorsi * Cf. Lorenzo il slag San Giovanni e Paolo, p. 85, where an outgoing general, uncertain of his return, says: “Fortuna nella guerra poter suole.”—‘Fortune is usually very strong in war.” Patricius, De regno 7.3, attributes to Caesar the words: “Fortuna, quae in rebus bellicis semper plurimum potest.”—“Fortune, which in matters of warfare is ever exceedingly influential.” He applies it to the defeat of the skilful Hannibal at Zama. Caesar’s words are: “Fortuna, quae plurimum potest cum in reliquis rebus tum praecipue in bello” (De bello civili 3.68). Polybius says substantially the same thing (2.4.5). Fortune is still real to writers on military affairs. For example, Admiral Mahan writes of a naval engagement: “The loss of the head sails, and all that followed, is part of the fortune of war; of that unforeseeable, which great leaders admit may derange even the surest calculations. It is not, therefore, to be complained of, but it is nevertheless to receive due account in the scales of praise and blame; for the man who will run no risks of accidents accomplishes nothing” (Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, 2.141). Many such passages are to be found in his military writings. Of a mediaeval campaign Captain Nickerson writes: “This very reasonable plan failed through inaccurate timing and through Philip’s combination of good judgment and good luck” (Spaulding, Nickerson, and Wright, Warfare, p- 348). In dealing with another mediaeval battle, the same writer attributes some- thing to the aid of “good fortune” (Oman’s Muret, in Speculum 6 [1931], 552). General Napier writes: “It can never be too often repeated that war, however adorned by splendid strokes of skill, is commonly a series of errors and accidents” (Peninsular War, bk. 12, chap. 5). Again and again he refers to Fortune by name (e.g., 14.6; 16.4, 7; 18.4). For other instances, including one from General Luden- dorff, see Eugene S. McCartney, Warfare by Land and Sea, pp. 161-2, and Archibald F. Becke, “Waterloo Campaign,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 23.418. Guicciardini wrote with prophetic vision as well as historical truth when he as- serted: “Quanto la fortuna possi nelle cose della guerra, . . . ne sono pieni tutti e libri, e testimonio infinite esperienze.”—“‘All the books are full of the power for- tune has in the affairs of war and many experiences testify to it’ (Discors: politic 13, Pp. 343). In such matters the theory of warfare has not advanced beyond renaissance standards; knowledge of it, indeed, seems less generally disseminated than in the time of Machiavelli. *®“Arousing the force of his spirit” (De regno 7.3). “ “We are warned that virtue should never yield to fortune” (ibid.). 208 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners entitled Le republiche forti e gli uomini eccellenti ritengono in ogni fortuna il medesimo animo e la loro medesima dignita."* Another type of defense is to stop in the mid-career of prosperity and refuse to tempt Fortune by further efforts. This, with its neces- sity for careful calculation of circumstances, smacks of Machia- velli’s theory of proper adjustment to conditions.’® It was the view of Budé who writes: Les hommes prudents ne s’abandonnent du tout 4 icelle Fortune. Mais ilz se retirent de bonne heure, quand ilz veoient, qu’ilz ont assés _esprouué les cas fortuits, ou quand ilz sentent, que le vent de prosperité & aspiration celestielle ne les veult fauoriser plus auant, & aussy quand ilz se doubtent, que celle puissance, qui les a esleués sur les aultres & sublimés, se lasse de les soustenir, & plus porter. Car aussy bien s'ilz n’y mettent ordre, & qu’ilz n’asseurent leur pied sur le degré de suffsance, auquel ilz veoient, qu’ilz se pourront maintenir & asseoir leurs garnisons de Prouidence: ilz tumbent & decheoient en grande ruine, sans qu’ilz y scaichent mettre ordre, ou prouision conuenable: & silz ne peuuent euiter un dangereux reculement, & honteux trebuche- ment du lieu, auquel ilz sont montés ou grauiz.?° Augustus Caesar, he says, paused in the expansion of the Roman Empire. The same sentiment is that of Costantino in the San Giovanni e Paolo of Lorenzo il Magnifico: Vittoriosa la spada rimetto, per non far pid della fortuna pruova, ché non sta troppo ferma in un concetto.19 As apparently a well-known sentiment, Machiavelli uses it in a humorous passage. One of the speakers in the Art of War com- 18 “Strong states and praise-worthy men retain the same frame of mind and the same dignity no matter what their fortune” (3.31). ® Prince 25, p. 4gb. » “Prudent men do not entirely abandon themselves to Fortune. But they retire early, when they see that they have made sufficient tests of good luck, or when they perceive that the wind of prosperity and the breath of heaven does not wish to favor them more, and also when they suspect that the power which has raised them above others and put them in a high place gives up sustaining them and carrying them on. For if they do not attend carefully to it and make sure their feet on that rung of the ladder of satisfaction on which they see that they are | able to maintain themselves and to make sure what they have received from Provi- dence, they fall and tumble down in grand ruin, unless they know how to make suitable arrangements and provision, and unless they are able to escape a dangerous set-back and a shameful fall from the place to which they have mounted or climbed” (De V'institution du prince, chap. 33, p- 140). “7 put up my victorious sword in order to make no further test of Fortune, for she does not long stand fixed in one opinion” (p. ror). Chapter 25 209 pares himself to a dictator: “Poiché sotto limperio mio si é vinto una giornata si onorevolmente, io penso che sia bene che io non tenti pit la fortuna, sappiendo quanto quella é varia e instabile. E pero io disidero deporre la dittatura.”*° Machiavelli’s serious view is not very different; the belief that a ruler could pause when he would rests on the assumption that he has full control of affairs. For Niccolo security of quiet, if it is possible, can be found only in retirement from the principate. : A relative security against Fortune is possible to the prudent man who foresees specific evils and takes measures against them, or who makes general preparation fitting to the conditions. As Patricius says, “Sicut optimus gubernator plagas omnes coeli circumspicit, ut ad omnem vim ventorum semper paratus sit, sic princeps se munit contra adversa omnia.””! In the military or semi-military affairs where Fortune is especially important, rather more than in merely civil affairs, the value of such preparation is clear. The ruler who has prepared his town for a long siege can, if he remains cour- ageous, hope to retain it “perché le cose del mondo sono si varie, che egli € quasi impossibile che uno potessi con gli eserciti stare uno anno ozioso a campeggiarlo.”?? A ruler who has carefully studied military affairs can as it were by industry lay up a store of capital which will enable him to resist Fortune when the change comes. As he leads his army he will seldom encounter an accident for which he will not have the remedy.?* In these parts of The Prince the author is concerned chiefly with defensive war. In offense the same preparation would enable the advantages furnished by Fortune to be siezed on. In the terri- tory of the Samnites the experienced Publius Decius saw the hill left open by the mentally blind defenders and “impigre”** oc- cupied it. Fortune gave the occasion and his experience fitted him to grasp it. As Fabrizio, the chief speaker in the work Dell’ arte della guerra, said, ™ “Since under my generalship a battle has been so honorably won, I think it will be well that I shall not tempt Fortune further, since I know how variable and unstable she is. Therefore I wish to lay down the dictatorship” (Arte della guerra, lib. 4, first sentence). Cf. Discorsi 1.26, p. g4b. “As the good pilot surveys all quarters of the sky that he may be prepared against all the violence of the winds, so the prince fortifies himself against all ad- verse circumstances” (De regno 6.11). “Because the things of the world are so various that it is almost impossible that any one will be able with his armies to remain in one place a year to besiege him” (Prince 10, pp. 22b-23a). * Prince 14, p. 30a. * Discorsi 3.39, p. 254b. On military promptness, see pp. 193 ff., above. 210 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners Gli uomini che vogliono fare una cosa, deono prima con ogni industria prepararsi, per essere, venendo l’occasione, apparecchiati a sodisfare a quello che si hanno presupposto di operare. E perché, quando le preparazioni sono fatte cautamente, elle non si conoscono, non si pud accusare alcuno d’alcuna negligenza, se prima non é scoperto dalla occasione; nella quale poi, non operando, si vede o che non si é preparato tanto che basti, o che non vi ha in alcuna parte pensato,?5 Thorough preparation enables a leader not merely to give an ac- | ceptable excuse for failure, but also in some measure “signoreggiare” \Fortuna,?® “perché le cose previse offendono meno.”2? The cap- tain who guards against ambush in a region favorable to his enemy will give the hostile forces few opportunities to avail themselves of the aid of Fortune. Or when in battle a sufficient reserve is pro- vided, Fortune is unlikely to favor the enemy: Il maggiore disordine che facciano coloro che ordinano uno escercito alla giornata, é dargli solo una fronte e obligarlo a uno impeto e una fortuna. II che nasce dallo avere perduto il modo che tenevano gli antichi a ricevere |’una schiera nell’ altra; perché, sanza questo modo, non si puo né sovvenire a’ primi, né difendergli, né succedere nella zuffa in loro scambio; il che da’ Romani era ottimamente osservato. [He then explains that they used three lines that could be brought successively into action.] Questo modo di rifarsi tre volte é quasi impossibile a superare, perché bisogna che tre volte la fortuna ti abbandoni e che il nimico abbia tanta virtt che tre volte ti vinca.?§ * “Men who wish to accomplish some action ought first of all to prepare them- selves with great diligence, so that when the occasion comes they may be ready to carry out what they have planned to do. And because when preparations are made cautiously they are not known, no one can be accused of negligence if his prepara- tion is not revealed before the suitable occasion. But if he fails to act when it does come, it is apparent that he has not made enough preparation or that he has not thought about it at all” (Arte della guerra 1, p. 269ab). *8“To be master of Fortune” (ibid. 2, p. 302b). 7 “Because things foreseen do less damage” (ibid. 5, p. 335a). *%“The greatest violation of the correct principles for drawing up an army in order of battle is to give it a single line and limit it to one charge and one fortune. This rises from the loss of the ancient method of receiving one part of the army within another, for without this method the second cannot come to the aid of the first soldiers, nor defend them, nor go into the combat in their places; this was admirably attended to by the Romans. . . . This mode of renewing the combat three times it is scarcely possible to overcome, because it is necessary that fortune should abandon you three times and that the enemy should have so much power as to conquer you three times” (Arte della guerra 3, p. 304ab). Wellington’s cavalry tactics were not dissimilar: “A reserve must always be kept, to improve a success, or to cover an unsuccessful charge. . . . Normally a cavalry force should form in three lines. . . . The second line should be 400 or 500 yards from the first, the reserve a similar distance from the second line. Chapter 25 211 If Fortune does favor the enemy three times, there is no further defense; the wisest tactician, wholly abandoned by Fortune, will surely be ruined. The defense against Fortune by foresight and careful prepara- tion is not to be confused with over-caution. In fact, as the end of chapter twenty-five says, action and even violent action consti- tutes a defense against Fortune; for, as is written in the Adagia of Erasmus: Cicero, Tuscul. Quaest. lib. 2. Fortes enim non modo fortuna adjuvat, ut est in veteri proverbio, sed multo magis ratio. . . . Admonet adagium fortiter periclitandam esse fortunam. Nam his plerunque res prospere cedere. Propterea quod id genus hominibus fortuna quasi faveat, infensa iis, qui nihil audent experiri, sed veluti cochleae perpetuo latent intra testas.29 Vigorous action is to be preferred to the laziness—1gnavia—*® that says: “Non fussi da insudare molto nelle cose, ma lasciarsi governare alla sorte.” To be sure there are times when one should adopt a policy of “temporeggiando per essere a tempo a potere pigliare la buona fortuna, quando la venissi,’*? but this is only to get the right time for decisive action, according to the advice that Machia- velli late in life sent to Guicciardini: “Voi sapete quante occasioni si sono perdute, non perdete questa né confidate pit nello starvi, rimettendovi alla fortuna e al tempo, perché col tempo non vengono sempre quelle medesime cose, né la fortuna € sempre quella med- . . . This is found not too great a distance to prevent the rear lines from im- proving an advantage gained by the front line, nor too little to prevent a de- feated front line from passing between the intervals of its supports” (C. W. C. Oman, Wellington’s Army, p. 111). Wellington’s plan, “evolved from his Peninsular experience,” from the verita effettuale, is intended to guard against bad fortune and improve the opportunities of favoring fortune. Ne * “Cicero, Tuscul. Quaest. bk. 2. For not merely does fortune aid the strong, as it is put in the old saying, but reason does still more. . . . This saying advises that fortune is to be tried with vigor; to men who do this, things often go pros- perously. The reason is that fortune seems to favor men of this kind, but is hostile to those who do not dare to risk anything, but like snails always lie hidden in their shells” (1.2.45, col. 88 C). See Tuscul. Disput. 2.11. °° Prince 24, p. 47b. Bs “One should not sweat much over things, but turn over the control of them to fate” (Prince 25, p. 48a). =“Temporizing in order to be able at the right time to lay hold of favoring Fortune when she comes up” (letter to Giovanni Vernacci, Feb. 15, 1515, Lett. familiari 44, p. 180). 212 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners esima.”* He who will in this way “on Occasion’s forelock watch- ful wait”** must live in a state of mental alertness and be ready for prompt and decisive action, if he is to approach the ideal pre- sented by Machiavelli under the figure of the wheels of Fortune: Sarebbe un sempre felice e beato, Che potessi saltar di rota in rota.35 Since Fortune is unlikely to be overcome by the lazy, though she may at times favor them, our author could have her habits in mind when he wrote to Vettori: “Io credo, credetti, e crederrd sempre che sia vero quello che dice il Boccaccio: che egli é meglio fare e pentirsi, che non fare e pentirsi.”** Such doing, to be sure, is that of the man who has foreseen the tempest and, unlike the Italian princes who have lost their realms, need not flee helplessly before it; he has taken to heart the principle that “quelle difese solamente sono buone, sono certe, sono durabili, che dependono da te proprio e dalla virth tua.”*7 In a letter of advice for Pope Clement, Guic- ciardini concretely represents the conclusion of his school of Italian thought on vigorous action and its implications: Non concorro gia con voi nella opinione che mi accennate per la vostra, e me |’avete scritto etiam per altre, che noi di nostra natura non siamo per muoverci, se non a partiti piani e bene sicuri ec.; perché io ho Nostro Signore per prudente, né credo che si abbi appropriato tanto il nome di Clemente, che si sia dimenticato che il naturale suo é Iulio, e che non si ricordi che oggi di il pontificato ha pit riputazione dalle qualita della persona sua, che da quella che gli dia per sé stesso il nome della Sedia Apostolica; e perd che da lui si ricerca e espetta molto pit che da ogni altro pontefice, e mancando a questa espettazione farebbe grandissimo male agli altri, ma maggiore a sé con eterno carico, Né dico questo perché io desiderassi i partiti precipitosi, i quali non lauderd mai se non per necessita; ma non manco biasimerei chi avessi deliberato non si volere muovere se non a partiti sicuri e vinti; anzi quando fussi “You know how many occasions have been lost. Do not lose this one or trust too much in keeping quiet, giving yourself over to fortune and time, because the same things do not always come with time nor is fortune always the same” (letter of May 17, 1526, Lett. familiari 65, p. 232). : “Milton, Paradise Regained 3.173. Cf. Machiavelli's Capitolo dell’ Occasione 10. | “He would be ever happy and blissful who was able to leap from wheel to wheel” (Capitolo di Fortuna 116-7). J *“T believe, always have believed, and always will believe that Boccaccio was right when he said that it is better to act and repent than not to act and repent” (to Vettori, Feb. 25, 1513, Lett. familiari 32, p. 141). 4 * “Only those defences are good, certain, and durable that depend on yourself and your own virtue’’ (Prince 24, p. 47b). Chapter 25 213 necessitato a uno de’ dua, forse reputerei minore errore il primo; perché la fortuna fa qualche volta a chi la tenta miracoli, ma molto pit: rade volte a chi non si muove. Credo in effetto che si ruinera sperando ed espettando: chi espettera che la natura per sé medesima lo liberi da si gravi accidenti, e anche chi volesse accelerare di rompere il collo, trovera facilmente il modo; peré lauderei chi si deliberassi, venendo occasione, che avessi speranza saltem pari al pericolo, pigliarla.3§ This is like the opinion of Niccolo as expressed in this chapter on Fortune, in that on the reputation of the prince,*® and throughout his writings. Though a prudent captain will endeavor to secure himself against misfortune by fighting only when he has the advantage of position, numbers, and the like,*® on the other hand he will some- times, throwing himself on the support of Fortune, dare the risks of combat against superior foes: La necessita nasce quando tu vegga, non combattendo, dovere in ogni modo perdere; come é: che sia per mancarti danari e, per questo, lo eser- cito tuo si abbia in ogni modo a risolvere; che sia per assaltarti la fame; che il nimico aspetti de ingrossare di nuova gente. In questi casi sempre si dee combattere, ancora con tuo disavvantaggio, perch’egli € assai me- glio tentare la fortuna dov’ ella ti possa favorire, che, non la tentando, vedere la tua certa rovina. Ed € cosi grave peccato, in questo caso, in uno capitano il non combattere, come é d’avere avuta occasione di vincere e *«T do not agree with you in the opinion you indicate to me as yours and have written to me by others, that we naturally should not be inclined to move, except according to plans that are clear and certain; for I esteem our master as a prudent man, nor do I think he has so taken to himself the name of Clement that he has forgotten his earlier one was Julius and that it must not be every day re- called that the pontificate has more reputation from his personal qualities than is given it by the name of the apostolic seat in and for itself, and therefore that from him is sought and expected much more than from any other pontif, and that if he did not fulfil this expectation he would do great evil to others, but still more to himself, with eternal discredit. I do not say this because I desire hasty plans, which I would praise only in case of necessity; but nonetheless I should blame anyone who had decided not to consent to move except according to secure and certain plans. Indeed if it were necessary to use one of the two procedures, perhaps I should think the first the lesser error, because Fortune sometimes does miracles for him who tempts her, but much more rarely for him who does not make any move. I truly believe that he who waits until nature herself liberates him from a difficult situation can be ruined by hoping and waiting, and that he who wishes to hasten on to break his neck will easily find a way to do it. Therefore I should praise him who would decide, when there comes an occasion which offers hope at least equal to its peril, to take it’ (to Sigismondo Santo, May 28, 1525, Opere inedite 8.247-8). * Prince 21, p. 45a. * Also a principle of modern warfare. Admiral Mahan approves and justifies from Napoleon the saying of Nelson: “Only numbers can annihilate” (Nelson, p. 688). 214 Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners non la avere o conosciuta per ignoranza o lasciata per vilta.41 I vantaggi qualche volta te gli da il nimico e qualche volta la tua prudenza. Molti, nel passare i fiumi, sono stati rotti da uno loro nimico accorto.*2 Our author is here making a special application of the principle that sometimes there can be no secure plan, and that the lesser evil must be embraced as a good;** with it he has joined the belief that Fortune favors the bold. To these proverbial ideas he has given clarity of his own. The material was also familiar in earlier writers on the art of war.** Egidio Colonna, following Vegetius, advised a leader to plan carefully “priusquam pugna publica committatur: melius est enim pugnam non committere, quam absque debita praevisione fortunae et casui se exponere.”*® In all respects he should endeavor to surpass his enemy, yet Egidio gives directions for combatting a large force with a small one. A good general will be alert for opportunity, as to attack his enemy when cross- ing a river; if the enemy expect reinforcements “vel non est bellan- dum, vel acceleranda est pugna.’*® All the elements must be “ For an opportunity lost to Venice through incompetence see Arte della guerra 4, p. 325b. Cf. a letter to Guicciardini of Nov. 5, 1526, Lett. familiari 69, p. 238: “Gli Spagnuoli hanno potuto qualche volta farci di gran natte, e non lo hanno saputo fare; noi abbiamo potuto vincere, e non abbiamo saputo.”—“The Spaniards have some times been able to play us some clever tricks and have not known how to do it; we have been able to conquer and have not known how.” “Necessity arises when you see that if you do not fight there is every probability that you will lose, as when you lack money and for this reason your army is cer- tain to go to pieces, or when you are out of provisions, or the enemy expects to be reinforced by new soldiers. In these cases it is always necessary to fight, even at a disadvantage, because it is much better to tempt Fortune when she is able to favor you than without tempting her to see your certain ruin. And it is as grave a fault, in that case, for a captain not to fight, as it is to have had occasion for victory and not to have known it because of ignorance or lost it through baseness. Advantages are sometimes given to you by the enemy and sometimes by your own prudence. Many when passing rivers have been routed by a watchful enemy” (Arte della guerra 4, p. 324a). To the same effect is Discorsi 2.10, p. 153a. This section is in harmony with modern opinion. Admiral Mahan often refers to the inevitable risks of war and makes proper taking of risk the mark of the great leader (Armaments and Arbitra- tion 214, Nelson 227, Farragut 144). A decision of Nelson’s to fight at a disadvan- tage is praised; secondarily to his decision Nelson was also looking for a good op- portunity (Nelson 665). The brave Decatur is not praised for avoiding bloodshed when battle offered a possible opportunity of serving his country (War of 1812, 2. 403). *% Prince 21, P- 45a; see p. 176, above. “Burd, Le fonti . .. nell’ Arte della guerra. ““Before engaging in general actions; for it is better not to join battle than without proper pre-consideration to expose oneself to fortune and chance” (De regimine 3.3.9). ““Combat must either be given up or joined immediately” (ibid.). a Chapter 25 215 taken into account, including audacity of spirit as well as externals, yet “forte enim nunquam contingeret omnes conditiones praefatas concurrere ex una parte: ubi tamen plures et meliores conditiones concurrunt, est pars potior ad bellandum.”*7 Though Egidio sees that a leader cannot hope for all the advantages and must take some risk, he is far from rising to Machiavelli’s conception that it is censurable to avoid combat, though without meliores conditiones, when inaction is dangerous. It is not difficult to suppose that Machiavelli would have desired his captain to risk doubtful battle for political as well as strictly military reasons; something of the sort is implied in his assertion that a prince had better lose with his own forces than win with those of others,*® or his praise of Philip of Macedon for carrying , on war against the Romans in spite of his weakness;*® the wise prince will defend himself, trust something to Fortune, lose glori- ously, rather than show lack of enterprise—ignavia or vilta.°° IE - he will have the reputation necessary to success, he must estab- lish himself as one not too timid “con le arme in mano correre la fortuna sua.”°! This is illustrated by the career of Pope Julius; being in a situation where nothing could be gained without risk, he hazarded vigorous action and succeeded. A timid or over-cau- tious man, seeking a sure plan and an unexceptionable decision, would have attained nothing.** Guicciardini is equally clear in this matter: La fortuna volentieri favorisce chi si arrischia. Le istorie sono piene di infiniti esempli di persone che da estremi casi si sono liberati con la animosita e con lo entrare francamente ne’ pericoli, de’ quali non debbe spaventare chi é in caso di necessita; né é temerita el pigliargli sanza vedere le cose troppo misurate; perché ne’ casi difficillimi non si pud avere la sicurta, né si pud una infermita di tanto pericolo cacciare sanza usare rimedi pericolosi; anzi la troppa prudenzia é imprudenzia nelle difficulta, e in fatto merita di essere chiamato prudente cosi colui che, “Perhaps it will never happen that all the aforesaid conditions will meet at one time, but when many and the more important of them come together, the better plan is to fight” (ibid.). “8 Prince 13, pp. 27b-28a. * Prince 24, p. 47b. °° Prince 24, p. 47b; Discorsi 3.10, p. 217b; 31, p. 244a; 37, p. 252b. See p. 68, above. In his Discorsi politici 14, p. 195, Guicciardini speaks with feeling on show- ing “nelle estremita la sua virtu, la sua generosita.”—“In extremities his virtue, his nobility of feeling.” "With sword in hand to put his fortune to the test” (Prince 21, p. 44a; see pp. 175 ff., above. = Tbid., p. 45a. 216 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners quando la natura delle cose lo ricerca, sa rimettersi in qualche parte alla potesta della fortuna, come chi sa eleggere e partiti sicuri quando la sicurita si puo avere.°% So far as Machiavelli in his treatment of the proper taking of risks improved on his predecessors, the reason is to be found in his observation of the particular and his power for combination of various elements in a principle of conduct. The similarities between him and other renaissance theorists on the one hand and recent writers on the art of war on the other suggest that sixteenth century con- cepts of Fortune as applied to the theory of warfare are founded on the verita effettuale of human nature and earthly conditions, such as those of topography.°* Evidently Machiavelli would not have been wholly satisfied with the internal victory over Fortune, commendable as is the virtue it requires. Like Pontanus,°® he held the ancient doctrine that felicity demanded material as well as spiritual goods. But he is clearer than Pontanus in asserting that these external goods are not under the control of Fortune alone but are also subject to the human will.®* Man can be in part the maker of his own destiny as absolutely as can Fortune. To be sure man’s power is limited; as Patricius remarked, “Nemo enim inveniri potest, qui in rebus _dubiis fortunam suam in consilio habeat; nec etiam quum de alienis deliberat futurum eventum divinare potest.”°? Fortune is in con- trol of half or perhaps more than half of man’s affairs, but the «Fortune is glad to favor him who takes risks. Histories abound with ex- amples of persons who have been freed from desperate conditions by spirit and frank entrance into perils, which should not be feared by a man pressed by neces- sity. Nor is it temerity to enter into perils without measuring them carefully, for in difficult matters there can be no assurance, nor can so perilous a disease be cured without perilous remedies. On the contrary, when one is in difficulty too much prudence is imprudence, and in fact he who, when the state of affairs demands it, knows how in some fashion to give himself over to the power of fortune, deserves to be called prudent just as much as does the man who knows how to choose re- liable plans when he is in security” (Discorsi politici 14, p. 196). Much the same thing is said in Guicciardini’s letter to Cesare Colombo, Dec. 24, 1525, Opere inedite 8.373; cf. also Ricordi 311. Remitting oneself to fortune here implies courageous taking of risks; in one passage from Machiavelli (p. 211, above) it implies sloth—ignavia. Cf. also pp. 176, note, and 214, above. See the footnotes on pp. 192 ff., 207 ff. ® De Fortuna 1.24: Quantum bona Fortuna conferat ad felicitatem. ® Prince 25, p. 48a. ™ “No one can be found who in uncertain things can have Fortune among his advisers; not even when he deliberates on the affairs of other men is he able to divine what will come to pass” (De regno 7.10). Chapter 25 217 remainder can be mastered by the prudent, volent, and laborious || \ man. Nor is the power of Fortune complete in certain instances and | in others unexercised. Fortune is ever at work and man always may be. Duke Valentino could not have averted the death of his father or his own illness, but he could have provided against ' evil consequences from the first if Fortune had not used also the weapon of the second—perhaps an instance in which Fortune showed herself arbiter of more than half. Yet the evils of the second could have been abated had the duke been more prudent with respect to the election of the next pope. At the very worst there is left to man some opportunity for choice; under the con- trol of Fortune the order of things will present no completely secure opportunity for action, but man still has opportunity for prudence in attaining “conoscere le qualita degli inconvenienti e pigliare il meno tristo per buono.”°? Thus at any and every mo- ment man has opportunity to exercise his own will to modify the course of events. Because of the mutability of Fortune and the complete uncertainity of the future, the virtuous man never has reason to acknowledge himself beyond hope.*® Fortune also at times concurs with the plans of men, as in the instance of Julius I]. “Gli uomini possono secondare la for- tuna”;®° in fact Pontanus, in a chapter entitled Fortunam et pru- dentiam interdum convenire,®' wrote: Quanquam autem et dictum, et abunde probatum est, prudentiam rationemque fortunae prorsus adversari, nihilominus hac in parte, hocque in ipso munere videntur sibi quodammodo subblandiri. Namque ut prudentia ipsa rationis rectae praesidio et dirigit, et ducit ad finem incepta hominum, negotiaque suscepta: sic idem illud molitur ac prae- stat bona fortuna, impetusque ipse naturalis. I]lud tamen interest, quod prudentia actiones dirigit et consilio susceptas, et ratione temperatas: fortuna vero secus, quippe quas ab impetu susceptas, ductu suo et perficit, et gubernat.®? *°“°To know the qualities of inconveniences and take the least objectionable one as a good thing” (Prince 21, p. 45a). °° Compare p. 143, above. © Men are able to aid fortune” (Discorsi 2.29, p. 187b). ® “Fortune and Prudence sometimes unite” (De fortuna 2.8). ©«“Though it is said and abundantly established that prudence and reason are utterly opposed to fortune, none the less in this place and in this very matter they seem to aid one another. For as prudence by the help of right reason directs and brings to an end what has been begun by men and the business they have under- taken, so good fortune and natural impetus itself labors for and aids the same end. But there is this difference, that prudence directs actions that are undertaken after 218 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners In order to produce this agreement, a man must be prudent enough “variare co’ tempi”;®* if he can do this, he will ever have good fortune, but of most men as of Pope Julius it must be said: Se fossero venuti altri tempi che avessono ricerco altro consiglio, di necessita rovinava; perché non arebbe mutato né modo né ordine nel maneggiarsi. E che noi non ci possiamo mutare, ne sono cagioni due cose: l’una, che noi non ci possiamo opporre a quello a che c’inclina la natura; l’altra, che, avendo uno con uno modo di procedere prosperato assai, non é possibile persuadergli che possa fare bene a procedere altrimenti: donde ne nasce che in uno uomo la fortuna varia, perche ella varia i tempi, ed elli non varia i modi.** This suggests the possibility of being born fortunate, of which Pontanus wrote in his chapter entitled Fortunatos infortunatosque a natura esse institutos,®> where we read: Quas ob res si natura quaedam irrationalis est fortuna, naturae huic ut adscribatur, necesse est, utque natura ab ipsa fortunati hi, illi vero in- fortunati et dicantur et sint. Qua in re illud etiam necesse est usuvenire ut hi quam illi natura ab ipsa magis minusve instituti sint ad fortunae fructus colligendos. . . . Videmus enim quosdam ita genitos, insti- tutosque a natura, qualis Cato fuit is, qui cognomen habuit ab Utica, ut nullius eos suasio, nulla vis, impotentiaque, nullus etiam terror a proposito suo, suaque ab electione detorqueat: quos nesciam an fortu- natos iudicem, etiam cum bene illis successerit, quando pertinaciae id, certisque eorum ac firmis propositis videatur prorsus adscribendum. Contra haec alios, qui ab incepto itinere et facile et statim dimoveantur, ac relicta ratione, prudentioribusque, admonitionibus atque consiliis, viam ingrediantur aliam, alienis minime vestigiis inhaerentes, ut qui vagi, palantesque ferantur. Qua e re, quod ita sors ferat, naturalis ille impetus praesidio illis est, ac favori, quod scilicet ratione relicta impetum sint secuti, ut videatur similitudo ipsa naturae simul eos conciliare, appareantque propter hanc conditionem, ab ipsa etiam natura fortunati: consideration and tempered by reason, but fortune, quite otherwise, by its assistance makes perfect and governs what is undertaken impetuously” (ibid.). ©«“To vary with the times” (Discorsi 3.9, title). “Tf there had come other times that demanded another plan, of necessity he would have gone to ruin, because he would not have changed his manner or rules for conducting himself. And there are two reasons why we are not able to change ourselves; one is that we cannot oppose that to which nature inclines us; the other is that it is not possible to persuade a man that he would do better by acting other- wise; thence it comes about that the fortune of a man varies because times change but his habits do not change” (Discorsi 3.9, p. 215a). Cf. the quotation from Alberti, p- 131, above. ©“The fortunate and the unfortunate are determined by nature’ (De fortuna 2.12). Chapter 25 219 et quantum a ratione diversi ferantur, ac devii, tantum et fortasse amplius concilientur fortunae. Et qui, qua ratio vires extendit suas, parum ipsi prudentes videantur, parumque consulti, sint tamen ad fortunae promerendum favorem maxime appositi, et tanquam af- fabrefacti, naturalem ob levitatem, consimilesque impulsus.®® This suggests the remark in The Prince on the good fortune of Julius II, who, having adopted an imprudent plan, yet succeeded “fuora di ogni opinione e sua e d’altri.”®7 The Machiavellian For- tune evidently has affinity with that of Pontanus. The Florentine’s originality consists partly in his insistence on the power of For- tune in affairs of state and in his integration of his theory with practical advice to the ruler. Machiavelli’s concept of Fortune is of the essence of his theory of life and affairs. His world is not one ruled according to the in- telligible decrees of a benevolent providence, but one in which man’s well-being depends on his own efforts in a baffling medium. He emphasizes Fortune as do none of the other writers de regimine principum because of his desire to go to the veritd effettuale of things, that he may write something genuinely useful to his readers. Seeing a world in flux, he cannot in honesty do anything other than advise men how to attain their ends in such a world. The first end of the prince is to maintain his state; if he will do this, he “Therefore if fortune is a sort of irrational nature, as it is said, it is necessary that by nature itself some are said to be and are fortunate, others are unfortunate. Accordingly it necessarily happens that the fortunate and the unfortunate are by nature herself more or less designated for gathering the fruit of fortune... . For we see certain ones so born and so formed by nature, as was Cato who had his surname from Utica, that the persuasion of no one, no force, no lack of power, even no terror can turn them aside from their determination and their choice. I do not know whether I should judge such men fortunate even when they are successful, since their success should certainly be ascribed to their sure and well- founded plans. On the opposite side we see others who are easily and immediately turned from the path on which they have set out and who, abandoning reason and more prudent admonitions and counsels, go another way, not at all following the steps of others, like those who go about uncertain and wandering. On account of this, since chance permits it to be so, their natural impetuousness is a protection and help to them, because, abandoning reason, they have followed their impulse; for this reason the very resemblance seems to unite them with nature, and at the same time for this reason they appear to be made fortunate by nature herself, and in proportion as they depart far from reason and wander about, they are perhaps the more closely united with fortune. And those who, where reason extends her sway, appear not very prudent and not very judicious, may yet be wholly fitted to obtain the favor of fortune, and as though ingeniously suited for it on account of their natural levity and their like impulses” (De fortuna 2.13). * “Beyond every expectation, both his own and that of others” (Prince 13, p- 27b). 220 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners must in the turning of Fortune’s wheels be able “saltar di rota in rata,"08 This theory of the instability of human society leads to the quality of Machiavelli’s exhortations. To be liberal today may win friends; tomorrow liberality may be “stracciata e rotta”®® and usury and fraud may be powerful and rich. Nothing remains fixed and permanently calculable. Hence the inadequacy of the counsel of Budé for avoiding misfortune by ceasing to move in any direc- tion." Machiavelli might advise a ruler to restrict or enlarge his ambition, and might give precepts suited to different sorts of state, but security cannot be attained by mere limitation. Pause or retro- grade movement may bring destruction, and safety rather than ruin may be found in expansion. Let the ruler shake off the old advice adapted to an unreal and static world and from the les- sons of history and experience come to understand what Fortune is and does: Costei spesso gli buon sotto i pié tiene, GI improbi innalza; e se mai ti promette Cosa veruna, mai te la mantiene. E sottosopra e regni e stati mette, Secondo ch’a lei pare, e’ giusti priva Del bene che agli ingiusti larga dette. Questa incostante dea e mobil diva GI’ indegni spesso sopra un seggio pone, Dove chi degno n’é, mai non arriva. Costei il tempo a suo modo dispone; Questa ci esalta, questa ci disface, Senza pieta, senza legge o ragione.71 Whether Machiavelli was right or wrong in his interpretation of man’s condition is not to be decided here. We need only ob- serve that his whole body of advice is founded on a world in which uncertainty prevails. Such a theory is in part the result of his own temperament, as are most theories of human affairs. Other writers *° “To leap from wheel to wheel” (Capitolo di Fortuna 117). © “Broken and routed” (ibid. 90). ™P. 208, above. ™ “Fortune often keeps good men under her feet and exalts the wicked; and if she ever promises you anything she never keeps her promise. She turns upside down kingdoms and states just as she likes and deprives the just of the goods that she freely gives to the unjust. This inconstant goddess and variable divinity often puts the unworthy in a seat the worthy man never attains. She arranges the time for things as she will; she exalts us, she undoes us without pity, without law or reason” (Capitolo di Fortuna 28-39). Chapter 25 221 saw the ultimate verity in another sort of world, in which, for example, a ruler should under all circumstances keep faith, as part of his adherence to a fixed norm of conduct essential to welfare here and hereafter. Machiavelli has been inexorably honest in presenting the results of his own philosophy, in which the felicity of the prince is dependent on prudence and strength in a turmoil of irrationality. Chapter 26 Exhortatio ad capessendam Italiam in libertatemque a barbaris vindicandam. (An exhortation to take hold of Italy and restore her to liberty from the barbarians.) This last chapter presents the specific problem in the mind of the author—that of free Italy. Yet occupation with some specific condition is not out of harmony with the practice of writers de regimine principum. Hoccleve, for instance, gives half his work to his personal affairs, and may almost be said to have written to encourage the king to display liberality and other princely qualities that would lead him to pay the poet’s pension. Giraldus Cam- brensis wrote because of the wickedness of the kings of his day. The second and third parts of his work constitute a bitter attack on Henry II, and the first part is a norm of princely conduct with which the wickedness of the king may be contrasted. Both Gilbert of Tournai and Vincent of Beauvais wrote because of the special interest of King Louis IX in the subject, and seemingly with his preferences in mind. Egidio Colonna in writing for his pupil Philip the Fair modified his Aristotelianism with reference to the French monarchy. Erasmus, addressing Prince Charles, used the chapter entitled de bello suscipiendo, which normally would have dealt with military affairs, to attack all war and praise peace—one of his own favorite ideas. Nor is this last chapter of The Prince, as an exhortation, to be looked on as not an original and necessary part of the work. Burd briefly shows the incorrectness of this super- ficial view.? To chapter twenty-four it offers a contrast; if the princes of Italy have lost their states, the new prince trained by Machiavelli need not do so; the failure of the old princes has resulted from their sluggishness—“ignavia”—strikingly shown in a “defetto quanto alle armi”? which the virtuous and well-trained new prince will 1 Burd’s edition of The Prince, chap. 26, pp. 365-6. On the unity of The Prince see Chabod, Sulla composizione de “Il Principe” di Niccold Machiavelli. 2“Tnadequacy with respect to arms” (Prince 24, p. 47b). Cf. Seneca, Medea 159: “Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit.’’—“Fortune fears the bold, but bears hard on the slothful.” [ 222 ] Chapter 26 223 avoid. The first paragraph of chapter twenty-four, however, show- ing the glory of the new prince who gives his country good laws, good arms, and good examples, is almost an antecedent part of chapter twenty-six, in which also appears the glory of the prince. Chapter twenty-five, following from its immediate predecessor in order to show the extent to which Fortune, blamed by dispos- sessed rulers, is properly responsible, leads up also to the last, where we read that The Prince is set forth at this time—‘“al presente”— because the author, having considered the matter, has concluded: “Io non so qual mai tempo fussi pil atto a questo.”* Moreover Fortune now favors the house of the Medici, which has also the virtue seldom joined with Fortune, but necessary to a successful issue.” Even in a world of flux and uncertainty largely controlled by the fickle goddess, there is at the moment every probability | that a virtuous prince can establish in Italy a permanent govern- ment. Without consideration of the power of Fortune, Niccolo could not properly have affirmed that the hour for Italy’s salva- tion had come. Of “tutte le cose di sopra discorse”*® a number of others reappear in this chapter. Military affairs receive their emphasis under the expected heads: the prince as captain in person and citizen armies with all the laws they imply. It is also repeated that weakness of the leaders is what ruins the armies, with the implication that good examples are needed. There also appear matters less evident in preceding chapters. While warfare has been often mentioned, its justice or injustice has not been discussed, though something was implied in the account of Ferdinand the Catholic in chapter twenty-one. In earlier chapters the gaining of a principality by military conquest is repeatedly spoken of, with little suggestion of approval or disapproval; it ap- pears chiefly as a scientific fact which the political writer must take into consideration. In chapter three it is recognized as natural: “FE cosa veramente molto naturale e ordinaria desiderare di acquis- tare; e sempre, quando gli uomini lo fanno che possono, saranno laudati o non biasimati; ma quando non possono e vogliono farlo in ogni modo, qui é lo errore e il biasimo.”” This refers to complete *«T do not know what time has ever been better suited to this” (Prince 26, p- 49b). ° Discorsi 1.10, p. 75a. ® “All the things dealt with above” (Prince 26, p. 49b). ™*Tt is surely a thing very natural and ordinary to wish to acquire things, and when men do it who can they will always be praised and not blamed; but when 224 Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners conquest from which good government can follow; any other sort is frowned on by Machiavelli. Yet a ruler is advised to fight rather than “lasciare seguire uno disordine per fuggire una guerra.”® Under such circumstances war may be looked on as a necessity. In the present chapter, however, the establishment of a new princi- pate by military power is made a pious duty; never in history had there been more just occasion for war. Machiavelli here echoes the sentiment he assigns to Rinaldo degli Albizzi: “Sono solamente quelle guerre giuste, che sono necessarie; e quelle armi sono pietose, dove non é alcuna speranza fuora di quelle. Io non so quale neces- sita sia maggiore che la nostra, o quale pieta possa superare quella che tragga la patria sua di serviti.”® But though the conflict neces- sary to Italian liberty would be chiefly against the “barbaro do- minio”!® of foreign invaders, it is difficult to assert that Machia- velli’s plan would not also have involved assaults on Italian princes and even on free cities if they stood in the way of the deliverers or seemed likely to offer footholds to further invaders; the powerful foreigner must be in every way excluded.** sTo some extent, then, the champion of liberty is a conqueror. Yet the prince by right of the sword is not of necessity a tyrant; on the contrary, Cas- tiglione, though deploring the lust of some princes “dominare ai suoi vicini,’?* yet writes: Perd debbon i principi far i populi bellicosi non per cupidita di dom- inare, ma per poter difendere sé stessi e li medesimi populi da chi volesse ridurli in servitt, ovver fargli ingiuria in parte alcuna; ovver per discacciar i tiranni, e governar bene quei populi che fussero mal trattati; ovvero per ridurre in serviti quelli che fussero tali da natura, che meritassero esser fatti servi, con intenzione di governargli bene e dar loro l’ozio e ’l riposo e la pace.13 they are not able to and all the same wish to do it, here is their error and a reason for blaming them” (Prince 3, p. gab). &“To allow damage to result for the sake of escaping a war’ (ibid., p. 9b). °“Only those wars are just that are necessary, and those arms are piously taken up aside from which there is no hope. I do not know what necessity can be greater than ours, or what picty can be greater than that which delivers one’s fatherland out of slavery” (Istorie Fiorentine 5.8, p. 505a). * “Barbarian dominion” (Prince 26, p. 51b). 1 Prince 3, p. 7b. % “To rule over their neighbors” (JI cortegiano 4.27, p. 382). * “Therefore princes should make their people warlike not because of a desire to rule over other states, but in order to be able to defend themselves and their own people from any one who wishes to reduce them to servitude or to injure them in Chapter 26 225 This is not far from the position of Machiavelli in his last chapter; even in the earlier ones, though conquest is prominent, the first function of arms is the preservation of the state. Such wars St. Thomas had in mind when he declared that “ili qui juste bella gerunt, pacem intendunt,”** and that if war is just, “requiritur uti sit intentio bellantium recta; qua scilicet intendi- tur vel ut bonum promoveatur, vel ut malum vitetur.”1° Though a friend of peace, Clichtoveus was willing to allow such wars: Nunquam tamen ineatur bellum: nisi ut demum compositis rebus quiete tranquilleque vivatur: quod et Cicero in officiis factundum monet. Suscipienda quidem (inquit) sunt bella ob hanc causam: ut sine iniuria in pace vivatur. Et rursum. Bellum autem ita suscipiatur: ut nichil aliud quam pax quaesita videatur. At vero ante omnia necessarium est: quod suscipitur bellum iustum esse et ex legitima causa initum: aut ad reprimendam malorum audaciam grassantium depopula- tionibus in regnum aut ad tuendam regionem atque rempublicam ab iis qui opprimere eam tentant.1¢ As an Italian patriot, Machiavelli found such a view of just war- fare quite satisfactory. Nor is his present attitude a negation of his earlier chapters. Even a savior of Italy would have to walk in a difficult path and adopt at times methods superficially like those employed by tyrants. some way, or in order to drive away tyrants and to govern well those peoples who were badly treated, or to reduce to servitude those who are slaves by nature and who deserve to be made slaves, with the intention of governing them well and giving them quiet and rest and peace” (ibid.). * Lorenzo the Magnificent has Julian the Apostate declare that “rappresentano il tutto i signor veri”;°° for all his labors the emperor obtains no material reward: L’onore ha sol di tal fatica frutto; l’onor, che fa ogn’ altra cosa vile, ch’ é ben gran premio al core alto e gentile.37 Such was the common opinion, with emphasis on the earthly or heavenly quality of the fame in proportion to the piety of the writer. Often, too, this emphasis on the king’s reward of honor was, as by Machiavelli, put late in the work; Niphus, for instance, devotes to the subject the last three chapters of his De principe libellus. Niccolo emerges, then, in agreement with the writers of other works of advice to rulers, who desire to benefit the people by secur- ing good government. The new method that he announced was not calculated to produce for the people a result unlike that desired by his predecessors. On the contrary, his objection to the works de regimine principum that he had read is based on the means they advocate for the attainment of the end. The theoretical writers had failed because it was impossible for any state to be made happy by a ruler who followed their precepts; the felicity of the people re- quired a ruler in contact with the verita effettuale, who without hesitation on ethical grounds will adopt any procedure likely to assure the well-being of his country. The proper methods for avoid- ing tyranny and carrying on in the real world a government for the good of the people as a whole Machiavelli believed that he set forth in The Prince. *