The Perception of Machiavelli in Renaissance-Era Europe
By: Yosef Ibitayo
Machiavellianism. Old Nick. These words have a negative connotation in the modern world, one being the concept of using duplicitous methods in politics and economics, the other a 16th-century nickname for the Devil. How did these terms come about, and why?
Almost immediately after the publication of Il Principe, commonly referred to as The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli was reviled by most of his contemporaries, not the least of which were the Catholic Church, who put The Prince on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559, and the Medici family, to whom The Prince was written as, according to some, political satire. However, while these two political states both despised Machiavelli and his prose that was written, according to Cardinal Reginald Pole, “by Satan’s hand” (O’Rourke), there were still others that admired his work and the connotations that came along with it.
Justus Lipsius, a well-known Dutch philologist and humanist, was perhaps the most well-known defender of The Prince, being so recognized as to have comparisons drawn between him and Machiavelli, a man he admired, a mere seven decades after The Prince was published, and helped form an opposing opinion on The Prince through his work examining it. Lipsius refuted the attacks from the Church and others like Innocent Gentillet, who popularized the diabolical view of Machiavelli with 1576’s Contre-Machiavel, in his 1589 book Politicorum sive civilis doctrinæ libri sex,or Politica, by reshaping the concept of Machiavellian prudenza, or reason of state, into “a viable, Christian, civic version” (Soll, 32), which allowed The Prince to be used by anyone in the future. This “watered-down prudence” (Soll, 32), as Lipsius called it, was a leading policy in intellectual Europe until the latter half of the seventeenth century, and even led to works by numerous Italian political philosophers who were inspired by Lipsius’ stance. Still others, especially individuals in the Italian Enlightenment, extolled Machiavelli as a “ ‘great man’ who, while pretending to reinforce the power of princes, [disclosed] its real nature beyond the pomp and ‘the laurels’ and [showed] to people how it [was] actually founded on blood and tears.” (Giorgini, 633)
At the same time, however, people like the previously-mentioned Gentillet and the ever-present Medicis decried The Prince as causing people to stray from the godly, Christian path, explicitly tying the concept of prudenza to a religious context. The Spanish Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra, in his 1601 Tratado de la Religion y Virtudes que deve tener el Principe Christiano para governar y conserver sus Estados contrarlo que Nicolas Machiavelo y los Politicos deste tiempo enseñan, said that if one did not “ask it of God”(Soll 44), then he would become a “disciple of Machiavelli” (Soll 44) and face alienation from God. Therefore, there existed a polarized view of The Prince and, by extension, Machiavelli, as both amoral and atheistic and virtuous and Christian during the sixteenth century that persists to this very day.
Almost immediately after the publication of Il Principe, commonly referred to as The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli was reviled by most of his contemporaries, not the least of which were the Catholic Church, who put The Prince on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559, and the Medici family, to whom The Prince was written as, according to some, political satire. However, while these two political states both despised Machiavelli and his prose that was written, according to Cardinal Reginald Pole, “by Satan’s hand” (O’Rourke), there were still others that admired his work and the connotations that came along with it.
Justus Lipsius, a well-known Dutch philologist and humanist, was perhaps the most well-known defender of The Prince, being so recognized as to have comparisons drawn between him and Machiavelli, a man he admired, a mere seven decades after The Prince was published, and helped form an opposing opinion on The Prince through his work examining it. Lipsius refuted the attacks from the Church and others like Innocent Gentillet, who popularized the diabolical view of Machiavelli with 1576’s Contre-Machiavel, in his 1589 book Politicorum sive civilis doctrinæ libri sex,or Politica, by reshaping the concept of Machiavellian prudenza, or reason of state, into “a viable, Christian, civic version” (Soll, 32), which allowed The Prince to be used by anyone in the future. This “watered-down prudence” (Soll, 32), as Lipsius called it, was a leading policy in intellectual Europe until the latter half of the seventeenth century, and even led to works by numerous Italian political philosophers who were inspired by Lipsius’ stance. Still others, especially individuals in the Italian Enlightenment, extolled Machiavelli as a “ ‘great man’ who, while pretending to reinforce the power of princes, [disclosed] its real nature beyond the pomp and ‘the laurels’ and [showed] to people how it [was] actually founded on blood and tears.” (Giorgini, 633)
At the same time, however, people like the previously-mentioned Gentillet and the ever-present Medicis decried The Prince as causing people to stray from the godly, Christian path, explicitly tying the concept of prudenza to a religious context. The Spanish Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra, in his 1601 Tratado de la Religion y Virtudes que deve tener el Principe Christiano para governar y conserver sus Estados contrarlo que Nicolas Machiavelo y los Politicos deste tiempo enseñan, said that if one did not “ask it of God”(Soll 44), then he would become a “disciple of Machiavelli” (Soll 44) and face alienation from God. Therefore, there existed a polarized view of The Prince and, by extension, Machiavelli, as both amoral and atheistic and virtuous and Christian during the sixteenth century that persists to this very day.
Works Cited:
Soll, Jacob. "The Reception of The Prince 1513–1700, or Why We Understand Machiavelli the Way We Do." Social Research: An International Quarterly 81.1 (2014): 31-60. Project MUSE. John Hopkins University Press. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. .
Giorgini, Giovanni. "Five Hundred Years of Italian Scholarship on Machiavelli's Prince." The Review of Politics 75.4 (2013): 625-40. Cambridge Journals. Cambridge University Press. Web. 16 May 2015. .
John, O'Rourke. "Machiavelli's The Prince: Still Relevant after All These Years | BU Today | Boston University." BU Today RSS. Boston University, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.
Giorgini, Giovanni. "Five Hundred Years of Italian Scholarship on Machiavelli's Prince." The Review of Politics 75.4 (2013): 625-40. Cambridge Journals. Cambridge University Press. Web. 16 May 2015. .
John, O'Rourke. "Machiavelli's The Prince: Still Relevant after All These Years | BU Today | Boston University." BU Today RSS. Boston University, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.