Niccolo machiavelli the prince biography childhood

A single conclusion concerning the author's motive has not been drawn, though patterns of conjecture have certainly appeared within Machiavelli's critical heritage. Lord Macaulay, in emphasizing the writer's republican zeal and those privations he suffered in its behalf, has contended that it is "inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny," and that "the peculiar immorality which has rendered The Prince unpopular According to Harold J.

Laski, The Prince "is a text-book for the house of Medici set out in the terms their own history would make them appreciate and, so set out, that its author might hope for their realization of his insight into the business of government. Macaulay has affirmed that the "judicious and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself in his luminous, manly, and polished language.

Without looking for Italian prose he found it. For sheer volume and intensity, studies of The Prince have far exceeded those directed at Machiavelli's Discourses, though the latter work has been acknowledged an essential companion piece to the former. All of the author's subsequent studies treating history, political science, and military theory stem from this voluminous dissertation containing the most original thought of Machiavelli.

Less flamboyant than The Prince and narrower in its margin for interpretation, the Discourses contains Machiavelli's undisguised admiration for ancient governmental forms, and his most eloquent, thoroughly explicated republicanism. Commentators have noted the presence of a gravity and skillful rhetoric that at times punctuate The Prince but are in full evidence only in that work's final chapter, a memorable exhortation to the Medicis to resist foreign tyranny.

The Discourses also presents that methodical extrapolation of political theory from historical documentation which is intermittent in The Prince. Max Lerner has observed that "if The Prince is great because it gives us the grammar of power for a government, The Discourses are great because they give us the philosophy of organic unity not in a government but in a state, and the conditions under which alone a culture can survive.

For Machiavelli regarded comedy exactly as he conceived history: an interplay of forces leading unavoidably to a given result. Machiavelli's Mandragola, his only work in the comedic genre, clearly reflected this parallel. De Sanctis has remarked that "under the frivolous surface [of Mandragola ] are hidden the profoundest complexities of the inner life, and the action is propelled by spiritual forces as inevitable as fate.

It is enough to know the characters to guess the end. Masquerading as a doctor, Callimaco advises Nicia to administer a potion of mandrake to Lucrezia to render her fertile, but also warns that the drug will have fatal implications for the first man to have intercourse with her. He slyly suggests to Nicio that a dupe be found for this purpose.

Persuaded by her confessor, a knavish cleric, to comply with her husband's wishes, the virtuous Lucrezia at last allows Callimaco into her bed, where he has no difficulty convincing her to accept him as her lover on a more permanent basis. Tales of this sort" replete with transparent devices, mistaken identities, and cynical, often anticlerical overtones" were already commonplace throughout Europe by the Middle Ages, though critics have remarked that Machiavelli lent freshness to even this hackneyed material.

Sydney Anglo has commended his "clear, crisp repartee" and ability "to nudge our ribs at improprieties and double-meanings," despite characterization that is "rudimentary, haphazard, and inconsistent, with even protagonists going through their motions like automata. A decided influence on the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Sir Francis Bacon and on the thought of such modern political theorists as Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, and Robert Michels, Machiavelli has been called the founder of empirical political science, primarily on the strength of the Discourses and The Prince.

Taken in historical perspective, it is understandable that The Prince should have dwarfed Machiavelli's other works. Machiavelli's Prince: A New Reading. Retrieved 16 April See Kennington Chapter 4. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 19 March James Martin New York: Routledge, Stalin: A Biography , p.

Retrieved 17 October Machiavellian rhetoric: From the counter-reformation to Milton. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 31 December Lexico Dictionaries. Archived from the original on 16 May Player FM. Retrieved 12 May Also see Black , pp. Sources [ edit ]. Further reading [ edit ]. Biographies [ edit ]. Baron, Hans April The English Historical Review.

Black, Robert. Machiavelli: From Radical to Reactionary. London: Reaktion Books Burd, L. I, ch. Six Historians , pp. Machiavelli , in Past Masters series. ISBN pbk. Skinner, Quentin. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction 2d ed. Unger, Miles J. Political thought [ edit ]. Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny 2 vol , highly influential, deep study of civic humanism republicanism ; pp.

In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism 2 vols. Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. New York: The Viking Press. Machiavelli and Republicanism. Chabod, Federico Salmon, eds. Kelley , Rochester: University of Rochester Press, — Donskis, Leonidas, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Fischer, Markus Autumn Translated by Sonnino, Paul.

Machiavelli: Cynic, Patriot, or Political Scientist? Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Machiavelli's Virtue , pp. Mansfield, Harvey C. Parel, A. Spring Ruggiero, Guido. Scott, John T. The American Political Science Review. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, v. Press Sullivan, Vickie B. Thompson, C. Also in Rahe Whelan, Frederick G.

Wight, Gabriele; Porter, Brian eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Italian studies [ edit ]. Barbuto, Marcelo , "Questa oblivione delle cose. Connell, William J. Giuseppe Leone, "Silone e Machiavelli. Una scuola Martelli, Mario c , "Machiavelli e Savonarola: valutazione politica e valutazione religiosa", Girolamo Savonarola. Martelli, Mario a , Machiavelli e gli storici antichi, osservazioni su alcuni luoghi dei discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio , Quaderni di Filologia e critica, 13, Salerno Editrice, Roma.

Martelli, Mario c , "Machiavelli e Savonarola", Savonarola. Democrazia, tirannide, profezia , a cura di G. Garfagnini, Florencia, Sismel-Edizioni del Galluzo, pp. Malato ed. Il primo Cinquecento, Salerno Editrice, Roma, pp. Sasso, Gennaro , Machiavelli: storia del suo pensiero politico , II vol. Editions [ edit ]. Collections Gilbert, Allan H.

Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, 3 vol. The Portable Machiavelli Penman, Bruce. Martin's, ISBN Translated by William J. Edited by W. Translated by Luigi Ricci. Translated by Robert M. Adams Norton Critical Edition, 2nd ed. Translated and Edited by Stephen J. Introduction, Notes and other critical apparatus by J. The Prince ed.

The Prince, edition tr by W. Salerno Editrice, Roma. Walker 2 vol The Discourses. Translated by Leslie J. Walker, S. J, revisions by Brian Richardson London: Penguin Books. Da Capo press edition, , with introduction by Neal Wood. Translation by Laura F. Banfield and Harvey Mansfield, Jr. Correspondence Epistolario privado. Translated and edited by James B.

Whilst it is idle to protest against the world-wide and evil signification of his name, it may be pointed out that the harsh construction of his doctrine which this sinister reputation implies was unknown to his own day, and that the researches of recent times have enabled us to interpret him more reasonably. Machiavelli was undoubtedly a man of great observation, acuteness, and industry; noting with appreciative eye whatever passed before him, and with his supreme literary gift turning it to account in his enforced retirement from affairs.

He does not present himself, nor is he depicted by his contemporaries, as a type of that rare combination, the successful statesman and author, for he appears to have been only moderately prosperous in his several embassies and political employments. He was misled by Catherina Sforza, ignored by Louis XII, overawed by Cesare Borgia; several of his embassies were quite barren of results; his attempts to fortify Florence failed, and the soldiery that he raised astonished everybody by their cowardice.

And it is on the literary side of his character, and there alone, that we find no weakness and no failure. Its historical incidents and personages become interesting by reason of the uses which Machiavelli makes of them to illustrate his theories of government and conduct. Men are still the dupes of their simplicity and greed, as they were in the days of Alexander VI.

The cloak of religion still conceals the vices which Machiavelli laid bare in the character of Ferdinand of Aragon. Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be--and are ruined. In politics there are no perfectly safe courses; prudence consists in choosing the least dangerous ones. Then --to pass to a higher plane--Machiavelli reiterates that, although crimes may win an empire, they do not win glory.

Niccolo machiavelli the prince biography childhood

Necessary wars are just wars, and the arms of a nation are hallowed when it has no other resource but to fight. Machiavelli always refused to write either of men or of governments otherwise than as he found them, and he writes with such skill and insight that his work is of abiding value. Machiavelli was no facile phrasemonger; the conditions under which he wrote obliged him to weigh every word; his themes were lofty, his substance grave, his manner nobly plain and serious.

I have tried to preserve the pithy brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute fidelity to the sense. Noam Chomsky. Erasmus of Rotterdam. John Locke. Francis Bacon. Auguste Comte. Charles-Louis de Secondat. John Dewey.