avon

Chapter I and the opening of Chapter II of The Prince:

I: How Many Kinds Of Principalities There Are, And By What Means They Are Acquired

ALL STATES, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities.

Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been long established; or they are new.

The new are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, or they are, as it were, members annexed to the hereditary state of the prince who has acquired them, as was the kingdom of Naples to that of the King of Spain.

Such dominions thus acquired are either accustomed to live under a prince, or to live in freedom; and are acquired either by the arms of the prince himself, or of others, or else by fortune or by ability.

II: Concerning Hereditary Principalities

I WILL leave out all discussion on republics, inasmuch as in another place I have written of them at length, and will address myself only to principalities. In doing so I will keep to the order indicated above, and discuss how such principalities are to be ruled and preserved.

That other place where he discusses republics is, of course, The Discourses. And he's certainly true to his word to the point where he'd have been as well naming one work 'On Principalities' and the other 'On Republics'. There is no essential argument in one work that is contradictory to the contents of the other. In the Discorsi he discusses the numerous conditions under which a princely power might be found or, indeed, necessary - though he clearly states that a republic is preferrable to a principality.

Additionally, according to Sydney Anglo, Machiavelli worked on both tracts at the same time. We know that he wrote Il Principe in 1513 and makes mention of the Discorsi; that he revised Il Principe in 1516 whilst still working on the Discorsi.

Labienus

That's an excellent point, avon.

Von Ranke

Agreed. He has some interesting words on the fate of Savonarola who he possibly witnessed being burned :

"....Who came to grief with his new institutions when the crowd started to lose faith in him, and he had no way of holding fast those who believed or of forcing the incredulous to to believe. Men such as he have considerable difficulty in achieving their ends...."

When I spoke about Niccolo's constant references to fortune what I meant was that was not unusual in medieval literature, the Wheel of Fortune and all that. He however saw no hand of God present in events and this was different as men made there own fortune. Politick Religion at work, the most offensive element of The Prince to his contemporaries.

Von Ranke

If he worked on The Prince and The Discourses at the same time then that would blow my theory that both books were a vehicle for his personal advancement. I almost used the term 'the ends justified the means' for which I would have been rightly crucified. He may have revised The Prince, authors often revise their work but I have seen no evidence that this was before he gifted The Prince to Lorenzo Medici.

avon

The beauty of this whole question is that there are too many unknowns. Your theory ain't blown - just called to question. Personally, I see the two works as being conceived by the same mind and entirely compatable with one and other. But there's no proof, only conjecture.

Context strongly suggests that he revised the work prior to sending it to Lorenzo de' Medici - assuming, of course, he did send it. When originally written in 1513, it was intended for the dedication to be made out to Guiliano de' Medici. Leo X was pope and Guiliano was his backer and, by the time machiavelli had completed the work, Guiliano had left Florence for Rome where he died in 1516. His cousin Lorenzo took over the reigns of Florentine power, so we can reasonably assume that the revisions were in response to the change in circumstances.

Von Ranke

Thanks for not being too hard on me Avon. Though clearly the two treatises are a product of the same mind and assuming that Lorenzo did accept the book It would appear to me that Machiavelli is guilty of looking both ways at the same time. Had The Prince got Niccolo back in favour with the Medici I would argue that The Discourses would never have seen the light of day. A work on the benefits of a Republic would not have went down well with a tyrannical, no matter how enlightened, Prince. All speculation of course but interesting none the less.

Star

Good points made.

It is interesting to note that where Machiavelli saw the need for a "State-beast" (Lauro Martines) such as a strong prince or a oligarchy-republic (like Venice) to combat Italy's foreign inavsions, Guicciardini blamed most of Italy's woes leading up to the Italian Wars on the ambition of princes while trying to keep Venice out.

OP: Yes, I agree with Labienus, he was a sharp political mind and a bit of a bootlicker. But so was Guicciardini (but a papal slipperlicker, so to speak ).

To expand on the points made by others regarding Machiavelli's seemingly double-sided ideals - they do not really contradict eachother in this historical context. According to Martines, Machiavelli's acknowledgement of the need for ruthless power and the command of brute force in times of emergency (reflecting the early Italian Wars) was paramount; it was a virtue. I think I am still addressing the thread OP, though I might be way late in the conversation, and it seems to be settled.

Von Ranke

Not at all I enjoyed your contribution as I have everyones. I partially addressed your points on my last post. What seems to be coming through is that Machiavelli was quite happy to work with a tyrant until breathing space could be afforded to found a Republic. This is Machiavelli's modus operandi, recognise the prevailing circumstances until political circumstances change. A true pragmatist but still a Janus like personality.

avon

Was he looking both ways any more so than any other politically astute person or, for that matter, almost any other person at all? Don't we all do things for multiple reasons? Judging by his career (and the very fact that he survived the Medici return to power), he'd have been perfectly aware of the numerous possible repercussions of publishing anything on politics, but that still doesn't help explain why he wrote any of his works.

Maybe, maybe not. The Discorsi - along with Il Principe and his Florence history - wasn't published until after his death despite being completed around 1517/8. In the intervening years, whilst he failed to achieve a position within the Medici machine, he certainly attained a measure of reprieve: in 1526 he was employed to inspect the fortifications of Florence, and was then sent on a mission to Venice; in early 1527, he was sent on a mission to Lombardy. Whilst I would tend to attribute this employment more to his having written the Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze in which he really 'bootlicked' to Leo X, we might also note that this was despite his having read extracts of the Livy Discourses in the Rucellai gardens thus making the content of the work public (to a limited extent). So again, its a complex picture that we have to work with.

Von Ranke

Thanks Avon. It might be worth pointing out that The Prince had been widely disseminated by 1603 as James V1 had a copy in his library before he headed South. One wonders how far his plantations in Ireland were influenced by Machiavelli.

Here is a copy of his portrait by Santi di Tinto. It shows an intelligent but clearly superior type. A face only a mother could love and nearly as bad as your new avatar Avon.