The Civic Face of Humanism

6

M.J.Huxtable

“I would not have you be afraid or dismayed for this province of Italy, for it seems it was born to revive dead things, as we have seen in its poetry, painting and sculpture.”

THE CIVIC FACE OF HUMANISM

(Machiavelli’s The Prince, 1513 and The Discourses, 1515-1517[1])

Seminar Preparation

How do the design, style, and tone of the Prince compare with the Discourses on Livy? Is it a logical or a rhetorical work?

(Using a. Niccolò Machiavelli. The Prince. Trans and notes by George Bull. Int by Anthony Grafton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961, 1999. And b. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, trans and eds. The Portable Machiavelli. Viking; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.)

1. General

Of Machiavelli’s early opportunity to read Livy’s history of republican Rome:

…he [Bernado – Machiavelli’s father] obtained a prize copy of Livy’s history of republican Rome in return for laboriously compiling for the printer an index of Livy’s place-names. (p. 9 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of the contrasting projects of the Prince and the Discourses:

In The Prince, Machiavelli explained how an absolute ruler could take over and maintain control in a previously republican state. In The Discourses – a work which, in its final form, reflects lectures Machiavelli gave to a circle of nobles and intellectuals in the pleasant gardens of the Rucellai family, a few years after the fall of the republic – he tried to explain how the Romans had successfully created and maintained a state with strong popular elements which existed for centuries. (p.xxvi) Though Machiavelli’s analysis of republican politics was as tough-minded and pragmatic as his handbook for princes, his later work shows a strong preference for popular government, a belief in the general faithfulness and virtue of the people, that seem hard to reconcile with the hard-headed analysis of the fickle, easily deceived crowd that underpinned his instructions for effective princely behaviour.

(Grafton – a. p.xxv-vi)

Of the difficulty, for scholars, of reconciling the two works:

Many scholars have tried, with varying degrees of success, to reconcile the two works, to explain the differences between them by the development of Machiavelli’s thought, or to prove that only one of them reflected his true opinion. However, all such efforts remain indecisive. The nature of Machiavelli’s personal ideals – and the way he himself would have compared or contrasted his two works – remains uncertain. Anyone who wishes to deal with the full development of Machiavelli’s thought must, above all, explain what this loyal servant of the republic meant by his praise of tyranny.

(Grafton – a. p.xxvi)

2. Specific: Machiavelli, History and the Renaissance

Of Machiavelli’s view of the need to address the historical example of Rome:

In the introduction the first book of The Discourses he indignantly describes how the Italians of his day valued a broken piece of sculpture from the past as a model for their own works of art but ignored the more practical benefits of imitating the ancients in their political institutions. [see Appendix A]

(p. 26 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of Machiavelli’s cyclic view of history and assertion of the past as the model for the future:

Unlike post-Enlightenment political theorists, whose works often reflect at least an implicit belief in progress, Machiavelli believes that history progresses not in a forward or unilinear direction but in a circle or a cycle. Since he locates the standard of excellence in the past and asserts that the present must conform to the past rather than striving to surpass it, the only positive direction for political change is back to beginnings – rebirth, regeneration, renewal; in short, a renaissance of past virtues. Thus, the most revolutionary social thinker of the 16th century was, paradoxically, obsesses with returning present practice to an ancient norm.

(p. 26-7 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of Machiavelli’s politics as part of the wider Renaissance:

By turning to the past, Renaissance men could learn from it and might avoid common errors, thereby profiting from the positive examples provided by ancient historians or contemporary observation. Machiavell’s hope, best expressed in The Art of War (VII), is that the artistic and cultural Renaissance, which he believed was directly linked to a rebirth of classical forms, themes and values in the plastic arts and literature, might be extended to the more practical realm of political affairs: “I would not have you be afraid or dismayed for this province of Italy, for it seems it was born to revive dead things, as we have seen in its poetry, painting and sculpture.”

((p. 27 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

3. Specific: The Prince and The Discourses

Of the differing intentions of the author in writing each:

Although the impact of this work was immediate and unprecedented, its author seems to have intended The Prince for a specific, historically defined situation, one which would be superseded within a decade after its composition. [see the Medici return to power via the 1513 election of Lorenzo il Magnifico to the Papacy – brother to become Arbiter of Florence] This occasional nature sets the work apart from The Discourses – a study Machiavelli considered more important, more comprehensive, and closer to his own republican sympathies – which he apparently interrupted to compose The Prince in a matter of months.

(p. 18 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of ‘Individualism’ as a possible way of linking The Prince and The Discourses:

His reliance upon a single heroic individual whose actions will establish a body politic is not limited to The Prince or its specific historical context, for Machiavelli also believes that great actions by single individuals are required to found republics, create religions and reform corrupt military, political, or religious institutions. This individualism is one of the strongest connections between The Prince and The Discourses, and Machiavelli’s emphasis in the first work upon a single individual, a “new” prince – whether he be Cesare Borgia, a Medici figure, Moses, Romulus, Theseus, or Cyrus – is, therefore, no valid evidence that he advocated an authoritarian form of government.

(p. 23-24 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

How Machiavelli is capable of condoning some autocracies:

For Machiavelli, the state’s internal stability and external independence are of primary concern. He will always prefer a republican form of self-government, but a principality with stability and freedom to act in foreign affairs is always preferable to a weak republic torn apart by internal conflict and endangered by foreign armies. In this case there is no real ideological separation between The Prince and The Discourses (or the other political works).

(p. 24 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of Machiavelli’s classical view that a ‘mixed’ form of government is best:

…Machiavelli moved to refute the traditional claim that republican government was inherently undesirable because of its instability. In The Discourses he presented a view of the cycle of governments – the three good forms of states: principality, aristocracy, and democracy; and their three corrupt counterparts: tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy – which he found in he writings of a number of earlier classical theorists. For him, however, “all the forms of government are defective: the three good ones because of the brevity of their lives, and the three bad ones because of their inherent harmfulness” (Discourses, I.ii. see appendix B). As a result, he aligns himself with the classical theorists advocating a mixed form of government as the most stable.

(p. 29 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

Of the difficulty of moving from the ‘individualism’ of The Prince to the social, civic responsibility entailed by the republicanism of The Discourses:

Its [The Princes’s] individualistic bias, with its concentration upon a single protagonist, the ‘new’ prince, is not abandoned in The Discourses but incorporated into the search for stable institutions. Virtù, the key term of The Prince, is now supplanted in the commentary on Livy by the word ordini, meaning institutions, constitutions, and, in general organisation of various aspects of the state. The man of virtù is still necessary, for only a single man’s actions can found a new republic or principality or reform completely its corrupted ordini (Discourses, I, ix: appendix C). In The Discourses, Machiavelli’s problem becomes how to move from individual virtù to social ordini, how to institutionalize the ability of a government’s creator or founder so that it can defend itself from civic corruption and inevitable destruction.

(p. 33 – b. Bondanella and Musa)

4. Specific: of design, style and tone

As we have seen, The Prince and The Discourses seem to vary greatly in terms of their political philosophy – and yet can be seen to be reconcilable in terms of a principle of ‘individualism’. This happy state of resolution is only possible given that the writer of The Prince accepts The Discourses overall proposition that (1) the ends justify the means (Discourses, IX), whereby, (2) the ‘ends’ are stable and independent government. To this end Machiavelli seems not to mind about ‘form’ of government so much as its ‘success’ on these terms. Different forms have different strengths and weaknesses regarding this end and hence a ‘mixture’ (in line with the ancients) is his best solution. Note also that the individual is an essential ingredient for the instigation of both principality and republic, so the role of the individual, by tending towards the forming of principalities, is not to be thereby criticized. A strong principality is better than a weak republic, etc.

As regards design, style and tone, there are again differences and similarities. Similar are the works’ forms: – chapters in the vernacular with explanatory headings in Latin, with a dedicatory letter. The Prince is of course a much shorter work and has a line of ‘argument’ that runs from the practicalities of statecraft to individual psychology and behaviour, before running into the wall of Fortune and the part it plays in the life of a man of virtù and the governance of a state. The Discourses runs in parallel with Livy’s history to make its points, but does not follow it slavishly. Written in three books (I = Home affairs, II = Foreign Affairs, III = Prolonging the life of the state) it covers more ground than does The Prince. It also is littered with classical and contemporary examples, but overall, given its lack of brevity, lacks the pithiness of The Prince (if not its morally ambiguous tone – The Discourses are not amoral, but the morality assumes a view of time wherein the moment is subservient to a meta-vision of ‘the life of the state’).

5. Of intended audience (and its effect on design, style and tone)

The dedicatory letter (appendix D) reveals that The Prince was aimed at the newly ensconced prince (Lorenzo de’ Medici), and from a man in political exile seeking to find favour with the new authority of the land. It is easy to see the problematic ideas in The Prince in terms of this relationship – i.e., that Machiavelli is being obsequious and implying that ‘might makes right’ in order to placate a potential tyrant’s conscience (in Machiavelli’s favour). As such, the writing of the work could be seen to be an attempt to fit a window of opportunity (see Musa). Thereby Machiavelli picks and chooses from his deeper ideas those that might best serve the purpose of flattery – even if they include his own warnings against flattery! (see The Prince, XXIII, appendix E)

In the dedication for The Discourses, however, we hear from a different Machiavelli – scorning flattery and pretending to real friendship, independent of favours and the quid pro quo world of politics and writing for those who actually want to hear his ideas (Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai). Perhaps the more liberal, ‘pleb-liking’ tone that pervades the work (making it ultimately a more satisfying read, if not the more exciting) is a result of both deeper thought and being aimed at an audience of peers rather than superiors?

6. Specific: Of rhetoric and logic in The Discourses

…I have neither decorated nor filled this work with fancy sentences, with rich and magnificent words, or with any other form of rhetorical or unnecessary ornamentation which many writers normally use in describing and enriching their subject matter; for I wished that nothing should set my work apart or make it pleasing accept the variety of its material and the seriousness of its contents…

(p. 78 – b. Machiavelli, The Prince, dedication)

Notwithstanding Machiavelli’s view of his work (above), in both works Machiavelli seeks to persuade his audience by using ancient and recent past examples: in The Prince, of the functioning of government and a Prince’s means to achieve durable power, in The Discourses of the ability of a republic [on the model of the ancients] to be as stable a form as other forms of government. In both works he uses the classical and Biblical past as a benchmark of validity upon which to base his overall assumptions about human values in relation to politics – to which he adds those parts of Christian doctrine (e.g., fallen man) that support his views, and his interpretations of recent political events as ‘evidence’. (Note that he is flexible in a relativistic sense – he is even able to acknowledge that the past is not always ‘right’ or ‘better’, despite the thrust of his position re republics [see II, Intro.]) Ultimately, his reasoning rests upon the independent validity of rational thought, as distinct from any ‘innate’ values of an absolute morality. Hence his ‘values’ (virtù, stability, independence, and those slight moral preferences for some ‘means’ to ends and aversion top others, e.g., to not be unnecessarily violent in maintaining power, etc.), can seem contrived and unsatisfactory.

At the same time he is somewhat ‘logical’ in the sense that he follows a course of derivation for his ideas utilizing a sense of ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’ (he would give us politics as it is, not as an unreal ideal – see The Prince, XV) and rational (Aristotelian sense) in that he attempts to move from particulars to universals. In my view, in The Prince, he relies more upon rhetorical persuasion and precedent to make his fundamental points than in The Discourses, but at no point in either is his ‘logic’ entirely free from rhetoric.

A Case in Point: