Niccol Machiavelli

Niccol Machiavelli (3 May 1469 21 June 1527), or more formally Niccol

di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, was an Italian Renaissance historian,
politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer. He has often been
called the founder of modern political science.He was for many years a
senior official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic
and military affairs. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry.
His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was
secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to
1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his most renowned
work The Prince (Il Principe) in 1513.

"Machiavellianism" is a widely used negative term to characterize

unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described most famously in
The Prince. Machiavelli described immoral behavior, such as dishonesty
and killing innocents, as being normal and effective in politics. He even
seemed to endorse it in some situations. The book itself gained notoriety
when some readers claimed that the author was teaching evil, and
providing "evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their
power." The term "Machiavellian" is often associated with political deceit,
deviousness, and realpolitik. On the other hand, many commentators,
such as Baruch Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, have
argued that Machiavelli was actually a republican, even when writing The
Prince, and his writings were an inspiration to Enlightenment proponents
of modern democratic political philosophy. In one place for example he
noted his admiration for the selfless Roman dictator Cincinnatus.

Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the third child and first son of
attorney Bernardo di Niccol Machiavelli and his wife, Bartolomea di
Stefano Nelli.[9] The Machiavelli family is believed to be descended from
the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine
Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens
selected by drawing lots every two months and who formed the
government, or Signoria; but he was never a full citizen of Florence
because of the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time even under the
republican regime. Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini in 1502.

Machiavelli was born in a tumultuous era in which popes waged acquisitive

wars against Italian city-states, and people and cities often fell from power

as France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and Switzerland battled for
regional influence and control. Political-military alliances continually
changed, featuring condottieri (mercenary leaders), who changed sides
without warning, and the rise and fall of many short-lived governments.

Machiavelli was taught grammar, rhetoric, and Latin. It is thought that he

did not learn Greek even though Florence was at the time one of the
centers of Greek scholarship in Europe. In 1494 Florence restored the
republic, expelling the Medici family that had ruled Florence for some sixty
years. Shortly after the execution of Savonarola, Machiavelli was
appointed to an office of the second chancery, a medieval writing office
that put Machiavelli in charge of the production of official Florentine
government documents. Shortly thereafter, he was also made the
secretary of the Dieci di Libert e Pace.

In the first decade of the sixteenth century, he carried out several

diplomatic missions: most notably to the Papacy in Rome. Moreover, from
1502 to 1503, he witnessed the brutal reality of the state-building
methods of Cesare Borgia (14751507) and his father, Pope Alexander VI,
who were then engaged in the process of trying to bring a large part of
Central Italy under their possession. The pretext of defending Church
interests was used as a partial justification by the Borgias. Other
excursions to the court of Louis XII and the Spanish court influenced his
writings such as The Prince.

Between 1503 and 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine
militia. He distrusted mercenaries (a distrust that he explained in his
official reports and then later in his theoretical works for their unpatriotic
and uninvested nature in war that makes their allegiance fickle and often
too unreliable when most needed) and instead staffed his army with
citizens, a policy that was to be repeatedly successful. Under his
command, Florentine citizen-soldiers defeated Pisa in 1509.

However, Machiavelli's success did not last. In August 1512 the Medici,
backed by Pope Julius II used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at
Prato, but many historians have argued that it was due to Piero Soderini's
unwillingness to compromise with the Medici, who were holding Prato
under siege. In the wake of the siege, Soderini resigned as Florentine head

of state and left in exile. The experience would, like Machiavelli's time in
foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily influence his political writings.
After the Medici victory, the Florentine city-state and the republic were
dissolved, and Machiavelli was deprived of office in 1512. In 1513 the
Medici accused him of conspiracy against them and had him imprisoned.
Despite having been subjected to torture ("with the rope" in which the
prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists, from the back, forcing the arms
to bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied
involvement and was released after three weeks.

Machiavelli then retired to his estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina, near

San Casciano in Val di Pesa, and devoted himself to studying and writing of
the political treatises that earned his place in the intellectual development
of political philosophy and political conduct.

Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political

matters, after a time, he began to participate in intellectual groups in
Florence and wrote several plays that (unlike his works on political theory)
were both popular and widely known in his lifetime. Still, politics remained
his main passion and, to satisfy this interest, he maintained a well-known
correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to
become involved once again in political life.