The Fault is Not in Our Machiavelli, But in His History
By: Caroline Mahavier
From a young age Machiavelli was exposed to multiple scenes of political violence from conspiracies, powerful and influential leaders, and later, to his own torture. These decisive historical events and people shaped his writings, specifically The Prince, and own moral views, or lack thereof.
On April 26, 1478, when Machiavelli was merely eight years of age, the Pazzi family acted out an unsuccessful plot to overthrow the Medici rulers of Florence. The Pazzis managed to assassinate Giuliano de’ Medici, but Lorenzo Medici escaped wounded and actually strengthened his power because he was now rid of his most dangerous enemies and obviously had the people of Florence’s support. Referred to as “The Pazzi Conspiracy,” this was the most dramatic of all political opposition to the Medici family.
It is hard to say what a young boy would have made out of seeing men running through the streets with swords drawn, dead bodies bleeding out on cobblestones as children cried and wives screamed, and seeing the conspirators hanging from the bridge. However, it must have sparked something within the young scholar – as he went on to carefully speculate the actions of troops and mercenary armies in the wars that followed and even extensively write about the conspiracy in his Florentine Histories, analyzing it in terms of its meaning in his general theory of conspiracies, but more personally as a local event to his childhood hometown.
Two years after Lorenzo’s death in 1492, the Medici were thrown out of Florence and replaced by the religious regime of the Dominican preacher Savonarola. Machiavelli had nothing to do with Savonarola’s powerful religious views, persuasive sermons, and pious lies on which he relied on to maintain power over the people of Florence. Nonetheless, Machiavelli was still considered a follower of Savonarola due to their aligned political beliefs and his respect for Savonarola’s republican reform in Florence. In late 1497 Savonarola was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI and embarked on a war with Pisa. When the war effort failed miserably, poverty, starvation, and even several cases of the plague struck the people of Florence. The people reasoned that a man who claimed to speak to God and keep Florence in His good graces could not have let this happen. And so, they turned against their self-appointed Savonarola.
In 1498, Savonarola was hanged and his supporters all lost their government posts. Upon reflection, Savonarola’s ultimate ruin lay in that he was unarmed. In The Prince Machiavelli wrote that “he was ruined in his new orders as soon as the multitude began not to believe in them, and he had no mode for holding firm those who had believed nor for making unbelievers believe.” (Machiavelli, 24) Savonarola had relied on the good will of the Florentine people, dependent on their consistent and full-hearted belief in what he preached during his sermons and that they would not turn against him and the Lord. This was a fatal flaw in the scrupulous eyes of Machiavelli, who had seen the cruelties people were capable of at an early age and knew humans to be evil and untrustworthy.
Machiavelli speculated that if Savonarola had followed the example of the Medici, who had ruled for decades prior, he would have maintained his religious regime. The Pazzi, after all, were far more influential and powerful than the impoverished people of the Florentine Republic. Machiavelli claims that Lorenzo “the Magnificent” violently murdered the conspirators publically and struck fear into the hearts of both those who respected him and those who opposed him and continued to rule for the most part undisturbed until his death because “the ferocity left the people at once satisfied and stupefied the people.” (Machiavelli, 30) Machiavelli spoke ardently for this cause since at a young age he had been one of the ‘stupefied’ and believing that people would not remain loyal unless they feared the outcome of rebelling.
With Savonarola out of the Florentine political scene, Piero Soderini was elected to serve the Republic as the chief official for the rest of his lifetime – and quickly appointed Machiavelli, who was now twenty nine years of age, as Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic and later secretary of The Ten of War, positions which he maintained for fourteen years. He was set to work at the courts of King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II, and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, all the while studying the differing forms of government and temperament offered to his view. However, no one he met during his travels for work impressed and influenced him more than Cesare Borgia.
Borgia's career was brief, brutal and prolific. Pope Alexander VI, his father, allowed him the prestige and resources of Rome. Within several years, Borgia conquered the Romagna and relegated under his central power its ancient and disparate cities and chiefs. While he was certainly overly cruel and vengeful, Borgia had no problem with allowing standing ministers to maintain their positions. In general, property was not seized and senseless slaughter was not encouraged. Machiavelli asserted that “above all, he must abstain from the property of others, because men forget the death of a father more quickly than the loss of a patrimony” (Machiavelli, 67) to not only emphasize the necessity of not senselessly taking, but show that humans are generally more greedy than loving. This advice was clearly inspired by Machiavelli’s endless admiration of Borgia’s calculated and limited violence.
However, Machiavelli’s years of influential travel and learning were brought to an abrupt halt when his Florentine militia could not hold against The Medici (who had the aid of the Spanish military). Soderini was repudiated in September of 1512, when Cardinal Giovanni de Medici and the Family’s rule was restored. Although Machiavelli soon lost all his government affiliations, he apparently thought he had maintained some sliver of authority – since he wrote a formal plea on behalf of Soderini, whom he had aided to escape on the eve of the Medici return. He also later wrote that “more profit can always be expected from men who were satisfied with the preceding government” (Machiavelli, 79) in The Prince to plead his case to The Medici, hoping they would bring him back into the political spotlight of government work.
Any illusion of influence on the Medici vanished four months after his dismissal from the government. A nascent, or maybe wildly exaggerated, anti-Medici conspiracy led by Pierto Boscoli came to light. Like Machiavelli, Boscoli was a republican – and he had written a list of fellow republican travelers who were probable to join his cause, which included the name of Niccolo Machiavelli. While it is possible this was just the idle ramblings of disaffected republicans, the Medici were not taking any chances after their generation of exile – so they did as Machiavelli would later advise in The Prince, and both swiftly and violently shut down the conspiracy by publicly beheading Boscoli, and his co-conspirator Capponi, and imprisoning all the people on this list.
In 16th Century Italy, torture was legal as part of the investigation of a crime. A popular method of torture at the time, which was also utilized in the case Savonarola, was strappado. The prisoner’s wrists are tautly tied by a rope which is thrown over a pulley or beam, and pulled up – only to be dropped repeatedly and stopped before hitting the ground each time. This can cause tears and dislocations, and is excruciatingly painful. So when Machiavelli was arrested, he knew exactly what he was getting into.
After approximately a month behind bars without a confession of any kind despite the intensive torture, Machiavelli was released thanks to an amnesty granted upon Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici’s election to the papacy as Leo X, the first Medici pope. Machiavelli, now worn and weary, made his way home to write The Prince, a not-so-humble offering to the Most Illustrious Lorenzo, hoping to regain a government position. In The Prince he wrote that "fear is held by a dread of punishment that never abandons you,” a reference to what he had suffered through. This line alone sums up all the tortures of his life up to when he was exiled and wrote The Prince. Machiavelli was constantly subject to political strife, overpowering leaders, and his own traumatic, and wrongful, punishment which haunted him throughout his years of writing.
On April 26, 1478, when Machiavelli was merely eight years of age, the Pazzi family acted out an unsuccessful plot to overthrow the Medici rulers of Florence. The Pazzis managed to assassinate Giuliano de’ Medici, but Lorenzo Medici escaped wounded and actually strengthened his power because he was now rid of his most dangerous enemies and obviously had the people of Florence’s support. Referred to as “The Pazzi Conspiracy,” this was the most dramatic of all political opposition to the Medici family.
It is hard to say what a young boy would have made out of seeing men running through the streets with swords drawn, dead bodies bleeding out on cobblestones as children cried and wives screamed, and seeing the conspirators hanging from the bridge. However, it must have sparked something within the young scholar – as he went on to carefully speculate the actions of troops and mercenary armies in the wars that followed and even extensively write about the conspiracy in his Florentine Histories, analyzing it in terms of its meaning in his general theory of conspiracies, but more personally as a local event to his childhood hometown.
Two years after Lorenzo’s death in 1492, the Medici were thrown out of Florence and replaced by the religious regime of the Dominican preacher Savonarola. Machiavelli had nothing to do with Savonarola’s powerful religious views, persuasive sermons, and pious lies on which he relied on to maintain power over the people of Florence. Nonetheless, Machiavelli was still considered a follower of Savonarola due to their aligned political beliefs and his respect for Savonarola’s republican reform in Florence. In late 1497 Savonarola was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI and embarked on a war with Pisa. When the war effort failed miserably, poverty, starvation, and even several cases of the plague struck the people of Florence. The people reasoned that a man who claimed to speak to God and keep Florence in His good graces could not have let this happen. And so, they turned against their self-appointed Savonarola.
In 1498, Savonarola was hanged and his supporters all lost their government posts. Upon reflection, Savonarola’s ultimate ruin lay in that he was unarmed. In The Prince Machiavelli wrote that “he was ruined in his new orders as soon as the multitude began not to believe in them, and he had no mode for holding firm those who had believed nor for making unbelievers believe.” (Machiavelli, 24) Savonarola had relied on the good will of the Florentine people, dependent on their consistent and full-hearted belief in what he preached during his sermons and that they would not turn against him and the Lord. This was a fatal flaw in the scrupulous eyes of Machiavelli, who had seen the cruelties people were capable of at an early age and knew humans to be evil and untrustworthy.
Machiavelli speculated that if Savonarola had followed the example of the Medici, who had ruled for decades prior, he would have maintained his religious regime. The Pazzi, after all, were far more influential and powerful than the impoverished people of the Florentine Republic. Machiavelli claims that Lorenzo “the Magnificent” violently murdered the conspirators publically and struck fear into the hearts of both those who respected him and those who opposed him and continued to rule for the most part undisturbed until his death because “the ferocity left the people at once satisfied and stupefied the people.” (Machiavelli, 30) Machiavelli spoke ardently for this cause since at a young age he had been one of the ‘stupefied’ and believing that people would not remain loyal unless they feared the outcome of rebelling.
With Savonarola out of the Florentine political scene, Piero Soderini was elected to serve the Republic as the chief official for the rest of his lifetime – and quickly appointed Machiavelli, who was now twenty nine years of age, as Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic and later secretary of The Ten of War, positions which he maintained for fourteen years. He was set to work at the courts of King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II, and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, all the while studying the differing forms of government and temperament offered to his view. However, no one he met during his travels for work impressed and influenced him more than Cesare Borgia.
Borgia's career was brief, brutal and prolific. Pope Alexander VI, his father, allowed him the prestige and resources of Rome. Within several years, Borgia conquered the Romagna and relegated under his central power its ancient and disparate cities and chiefs. While he was certainly overly cruel and vengeful, Borgia had no problem with allowing standing ministers to maintain their positions. In general, property was not seized and senseless slaughter was not encouraged. Machiavelli asserted that “above all, he must abstain from the property of others, because men forget the death of a father more quickly than the loss of a patrimony” (Machiavelli, 67) to not only emphasize the necessity of not senselessly taking, but show that humans are generally more greedy than loving. This advice was clearly inspired by Machiavelli’s endless admiration of Borgia’s calculated and limited violence.
However, Machiavelli’s years of influential travel and learning were brought to an abrupt halt when his Florentine militia could not hold against The Medici (who had the aid of the Spanish military). Soderini was repudiated in September of 1512, when Cardinal Giovanni de Medici and the Family’s rule was restored. Although Machiavelli soon lost all his government affiliations, he apparently thought he had maintained some sliver of authority – since he wrote a formal plea on behalf of Soderini, whom he had aided to escape on the eve of the Medici return. He also later wrote that “more profit can always be expected from men who were satisfied with the preceding government” (Machiavelli, 79) in The Prince to plead his case to The Medici, hoping they would bring him back into the political spotlight of government work.
Any illusion of influence on the Medici vanished four months after his dismissal from the government. A nascent, or maybe wildly exaggerated, anti-Medici conspiracy led by Pierto Boscoli came to light. Like Machiavelli, Boscoli was a republican – and he had written a list of fellow republican travelers who were probable to join his cause, which included the name of Niccolo Machiavelli. While it is possible this was just the idle ramblings of disaffected republicans, the Medici were not taking any chances after their generation of exile – so they did as Machiavelli would later advise in The Prince, and both swiftly and violently shut down the conspiracy by publicly beheading Boscoli, and his co-conspirator Capponi, and imprisoning all the people on this list.
In 16th Century Italy, torture was legal as part of the investigation of a crime. A popular method of torture at the time, which was also utilized in the case Savonarola, was strappado. The prisoner’s wrists are tautly tied by a rope which is thrown over a pulley or beam, and pulled up – only to be dropped repeatedly and stopped before hitting the ground each time. This can cause tears and dislocations, and is excruciatingly painful. So when Machiavelli was arrested, he knew exactly what he was getting into.
After approximately a month behind bars without a confession of any kind despite the intensive torture, Machiavelli was released thanks to an amnesty granted upon Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici’s election to the papacy as Leo X, the first Medici pope. Machiavelli, now worn and weary, made his way home to write The Prince, a not-so-humble offering to the Most Illustrious Lorenzo, hoping to regain a government position. In The Prince he wrote that "fear is held by a dread of punishment that never abandons you,” a reference to what he had suffered through. This line alone sums up all the tortures of his life up to when he was exiled and wrote The Prince. Machiavelli was constantly subject to political strife, overpowering leaders, and his own traumatic, and wrongful, punishment which haunted him throughout his years of writing.
Works Cited:
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. London: Harper, 2011. Print.
"Pazzi Conspiracy | Italian History." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 09 May 2015.
Whitfield, J.H. "Savonarola and the Purpose of "The Prince"" The Modern Language Review. 1st ed. Vol. 44. N.p.: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1949. 44-59. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3716532>.
Bertelli, Sergio. "Machiavelli and Soderini." Renaissance Quarterly. 1st ed. Vol. 28. N.p.: U of Chicago, 1975. 1-16. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2860418>.
"Cesare Borgia." New World Encyclopedia. The New World Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cesare_Borgia>.
"Pazzi Conspiracy | Italian History." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 09 May 2015.
Whitfield, J.H. "Savonarola and the Purpose of "The Prince"" The Modern Language Review. 1st ed. Vol. 44. N.p.: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1949. 44-59. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3716532>.
Bertelli, Sergio. "Machiavelli and Soderini." Renaissance Quarterly. 1st ed. Vol. 28. N.p.: U of Chicago, 1975. 1-16. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2860418>.
"Cesare Borgia." New World Encyclopedia. The New World Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 09 May 2015. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cesare_Borgia>.