Thoughts on Machiavelli

Leo Strauss

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780226777023
• eBook ISBN: 9780226230979
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. "We are in sympathy," he writes, "with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech." This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.

Notes

[In references to Machiavelli texts numbers in parentheses indicate the pages of the Italian edition of Machiavelli’s Opere, edited by F. Flora and C. Cordié (Milan: Arnoldo Mondado, 1949–50).]—EDS.

Introduction

1. Prince chs. 17 (Dido) and 18 (Chiron).

2. Bacon, Essays (Of Atheism).

3. Rights of Man, Part the Second, Introduction.

4. Cf. Henry Adams, The First Administration of Thomas Jefferson, II (New York 1898), 56, 71–73, 254.

Chapter I

1. Prince chs. 1 beginning, 2 beginning and 8 beginning.

2. Discourses I 17, 49, 55 (211), II 2 beginning. Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages of the edition of Machiavelli’s Opere edited by F. Flora and C. Cordié (Arnoldo Mondadori, 1949–50 Milan).

3. In the Discourses there are only 2 chapters of 142 which contain only modern examples (I 27 and 54) whereas in the Prince there are 8 chapters of 26 which contain only modern examples. Conversely there is no chapter in the Prince which contains only ancient examples whereas there are at least 60 chapters in the Discourses which contain only ancient examples.

4. Discourses I pr., 55 (213), II 4 towards the end, 15 end, 33 end.

5. Discourses I pr. Cf., apart from the numerous chapter headings in which both republics and princes are mentioned, especially I 16 (138–139), II 24 (300–301), III 1 towards the end, 3–4.

6. Prince chs. 3, 5, 9 (31), 10 (35), 12, 13 towards the end, 17 (54), 21 (71–72).

7. La Mandragola III 2; Prince ch. 25 (heading and beginning); Discourses I 38 towards the end, 56, II 5, III 1 beginning, 6 (346), 30 (410), 31 (413).

8. Florentine Histories VII 6.

9. Prince chs. 3 (6), 10 (35–36); Discourses I 12, 57, 58, III 8, 36 near the beginning. “Nature” is mentioned in only one chapter heading in the two books, in Discourses III 43, which is the 136th chapter of the book.—At the beginning of the first chapter of the Prince Machiavelli gives a division of “all states, all dominions” into principalities and republics. “All states, all dominions” comprise more than the principalities and republics “of which there exists memory”—ch. 4 (13)—; they include also the imaginary principalities and republics of which he speaks in ch. 15: the proof of their essentially imaginary character is in fact a most important part of the argument of the Prince.

10. Prince chs. 3 (8–9), 7 (20), 25 beginning; Discourses I pr., II pr. (228), 5, III 1 beginning, 43 beginning.

11. Discourses III 35 beginning.

12. E.g., I 40, III 6, 8. Cf. note 5 above.

13. Prince chs. 6 and 13.

14. Cf. Discourses II pr. (230) with I 9.

15. Cf. note 3 above.

16. Discourses I 58 end; Prince ch. 18 toward the end.

17. In the Epistle Dedicatory to the Discourses Machiavelli substitutes “long practice” for “long experience” which he had used in the Epistle Dedicatory to the Prince: Machiavelli’s practice was “republican”; experience could have been acquired by an onlooker. In the Epistle Dedicatory to the Prince Machiavelli merely alludes to his practice: he refers to the many discomforts and perils under which he had acquired his experience.

18. Discourses II 18 (281).—As for “rules” and “general rules,” cf. Prince chs. 3 (11, 13), 9 (33) and 23 towards the end, with Discourses I 9 (119), 18 near the beginning, III 22 (393), Cf. Art of War I (463) and VII (612).

19. Cf. Discourses I 4, 12, 41, II 10, 17, III 3, 4.

20. Discourses I 8 (117), 11 (127), 45 (192), 53 (206), II 5 (247), III 27 (404), 29 end, 30 (410), 43 (436).

21. Discourses I 44 (190), 46 (193), II 16 (271–272), 18 (280).

22. Cf. the letter to Vettori of December 10, 1513 with Prince chs. 6 and 14 (the greatest examples or the most exalted examples are ancient examples). Cf. the reference to “ancients and moderns” in the Epistle Dedicatory to the Prince.

23. Prince ch. 19 end; Discourses I 9 (120), 58 (220). Cf. Florentine Histories III 6.

24. Cf. Prince ch. 2 and the remark about the virtue of the hereditary right of Marcus Aurelius and Corn-modus in ch. 19 with Discourses I 2 (99), 10 (123), 19–20.

25. Cf. Prince ch. 19 and Discourses I 10: see especially in Prince ch. 19 the characteristic phrase Voglio mi basti near the beginning of the discussion of the Roman emperors: Machiavelli draws our attention to the arbitrary character of his selecting these particular emperors.

26. Cf. Nabis in Prince ch. 9 and Discourses I 10, 40; Petrucci in Prince ch. 20 and Discourses III 6; Caesar in Prince ch. 16 and Discourses I 10, 37; King David in Prince ch. 13 and Discourses I 25–26. As for Agathocles, cf. Prince ch. 8 with Justinus XXII 1. In describing Agathocles and Liverotto in the Prince (ch. 8), Machiavelli tacitly describes them in the way in which Aristotle explicitly describes tyrants: Machiavelli only tacitly describes them as tyrants.

27. Discourses I 40, III 6, 8.

28. Cf. especially Prince ch. 26 beginning, with the parallel in Discourses III 34 (420).

29. Prince chs. 8, 9, 19; Discourses III 6 (345); Justinus XXIII 2.—In the first chapter of the Prince he mentions as examples only Milan and Naples; in ch. 23 Milan and Naples prove to be the outstanding examples of principalities lost in Machiavelli’s time.

30. Cf. Prince ch. 19 (59–60) where Machiavelli speaks of a conspiracy which happened “within the memory of our fathers” with Discourses III 6 (343) where he speaks of the conspiracy of the Pazzi which took place “in our times.” Cf. likewise the praise in the Prince, loc. cit., of the French kingdom with the blame of all modern monarchies in the Art of War I (458–459).

31. Prince ch. 5 end; Discourses III 6 (345, 351–352); Florentine Histories VII 33.

32. Prince chs. 6 (19) and 18; Discourses III 35 beginning; Florentine Histories VI 17. Cf. Prince ch. 3 (a remark made by Machiavelli to a French Cardinal) and ch. 7 (a remark made by Cesare Borgia to Machiavelli) with Discourses II 16 (a remark made only in Machiavelli’s presence).

33. Discourses II 10. Machiavelli could have quoted an explicit statement of Livy (IX 40. 6) in support of his opinion about money. If someone would object that this statement is made, not by Livy, but by a Livian character, I would refer him to Discourses III 12 toward the end, where Machiavelli ascribes to Livy an expression used by a Livian character.

34. In ch. 7 of the Prince Cesare Borgia had come to sight as the model of a new prince; in ch. 11 he is revealed to have been a mere tool of Pope Alexander VI, his father (cf. Discourses III 29).

35. Florentine Histories V 1: letters and philosophy belong to “decent leisure.” This “decent leisure” whose beneficiaries while giving occasion to persecution, abhor persecution, seems to be the pagan counterpart of the “ambitious leisure” characteristic, according to Machiavelli, of “many Christian countries and states” (Discourses I pr.).

36. Consider in this connection the similar phrasing of the charge against Caesar in Discourses I 10 (124) and of the charge against the Church in I 12 (130): the “obligations” which Italy has against Caesar and against the Church.

37. Discourses II pr. (227), 23 (298), III 2.

38. Discourses I pr., II 2 (238), III 35 (421–422); Prince ch. 6 (19).

39. Discourses II 29: “Fortuna sometimes blinds the minds of men”; the expression used in III 48 “the desire to conquer blinds the minds of men” might by itself remind the reader of II 29 where Machiavelli gives a contradictory explanation of the same event as in III 48. (III 48 is the 52nd chapter of the series of chapters which begins after II 29).

40. Letter to Vettori of April 29, 1513 (beginning). Cf. Art of War V (564–565) and VII (606–607).

41. Letter to Guicciardini of May 17, 1521. Cf. Discourses II 13 end with III 40–42.

42. Machiavelli indicates the difficulty by saying in I 28: “he then, who will consider as much as has been said,” (i.e., he who disregards, among other things, the Decemvirate) will agree with Machiavelli’s explanation.

43. Discourses I 2 (100) and 5 (105–106).—In Discourses I 20 Machiavelli says that since the Roman consuls owed their office to free votes, “they were always most excellent men.” This is again a temporary overstatement of the goodness of the Roman republic; it is tacitly contradicted later on (cf. I 24 end, 50, 53, III 17, to say nothing of I 35 beginning).—Cf. the first sentence of III 40.

44. Discourses I 18 (143), 20, 25–26, 58 (217), II pr. (228).

45. Cf. note 19 above.

46. Cf. letter to Vettori of January 13, 1514 with Florentine Histories VIII 36.

47. Nietzsche, Froehliche Wissenschaft, aph. 1.

48. These remarks are, of course, quite insufficient for the full interpretation of Discourses III 18. Since we do not intend to give a full interpretation of this chapter or of any other chapter (for considering the interdependence of all chapters, this could only be done in a commentary consisting of many volumes), we merely note that the parallelism of the four examples (twice an ancient example is followed by a modern example) conceals the fact that the fourth example is in a class by itself, sin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• I. The Twofold Character of Machiavelli’s Teaching
• II. Machiavelli’s Intention: The Prince
• III. Machiavelli’s Intention: The Discourses
• IV. Machiavelli’s Teaching
• Notes
• Index