ALMA MATER STUDIORUM · UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies Second Cycle Degree Programme in European Literary Cultures, Linguistics Curriculum Italian Studies NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI ON EXTREME SITUATIONS AND THE VIRTÙ OF POLITICS Final Dissertation in ITALIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT Supervisor: Prof. Antonio Del Vecchio Co – supervisor: Prof. Angelo Maria Mangini Presented by: Pham Thi Quynh Chi Session III Academic year 2020/2021 INDEX INTRODUCTION 4 CHAPTER 1: MACHIAVELLI, A LIFE AT THE EXTREME 6 1. Machiavelli’s life with full of extreme situations 6 2.
The permanent mutation of things 19 CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTS AND PROBLEMS 30 1. Virtù and Fortuna 30 2.3 Relationship of virtù and fortuna 35 3. Rules and exceptions 38 4. Conflict and order 46 CHAPTER 3: MACHIAVELLI’S EXTREME THOUGHTS 55 1.
The Discourses: a collection of philosophical political understandings 56 2.2 The evil side of human nature 59 2.3 Machiavelli’s rework for an effectual history 62 3. The Florentine Histories: Machiavelli’s patriotic duties 65 3.1 The original of two political factions in Florence 66 3.2 Corso Donati, a remarkable man 70 3.3 How Florentines dealt with the evil side of human nature 73 4. Belfagor and Mandragola, Machiavellian demonic conventionality.2 Mandragola 79 CONCLUSION 84 BIOGRAPHY 87 INTRODUCTION There is much research, study, approach, and novels about Machiavelli, his works, and his political radical thinking. This thesis seeks to interpret Machiavelli’s understandings considering extreme situations to put them in the concepts of Machiavelli’s philosophy.
We are going to pass through Machiavelli’s works: The Prince, The Discourses, The Florentine Histories, Art of War, Mandragola, Belfagor, and Machiavelli’s letters. The core of Machiavelli’s political reflections is, in fact, based on his personal experiences, particularly during his childhood with family, his distinctive education, his short public career, and his plain time after the Medici’s political return. He went through historic moments of the unbalance of Italy, the corruptive period of his native Florence, and consequently, many unrelated extreme events in his personal life. It leads him to the observation of the world as a tap of mutable unrelated motions that increasingly fall.
Chapter 1 will provide elements and facts about Machiavelli so that readers could collect a bunch of ornaments for Machiavelli’s profile and background. The Prince initially impressed readers with the Machiavellian concept of virtù – fortuna. Specific historical events and figures in Italy and in Roman Empire were recalled for explaining the political couple virtù – fortuna. It leads to the curiosity of how to approach Machiavelli’s political understandings better in the advanced term of state and regime.
Machiavellian virtù was put into the task of constructing and maintaining orders to resist the state from the corruptive fatal conflict that was drawn by fortuna. A series of Machiavelli’s works approved this doctrine such as The Discourses, Art of War, or The Florentine Histories. Machiavelli’s political understandings turn to puzzle and ambiguous because there are many philosophical overlaps written in his works that questioned his standing point of thinking. Scholars, in effect, found that his ultimate in composing his works was to salvage Florence’s present political situation and, as his self-interest, to hope for a return in a public career.
In the second chapter, we will investigate the ideas which Machiavelli has understood his reality through the three Machiavelli problematic concepts: virtù – fortuna, rules – exceptions, and order – conflict. Perhaps, approaching Machiavellian thinking through his works means reading and interpreting individually certain parts and chapters in his works. The selections of certain parts and chapters could be a personal taste by the reworking technique of Machiavelli in historical events. Chapter 3 of this thesis will work on certain parts such as chapter 4 and chapter 37 book I, chapter 8 book III of The Discourses, the entire book IV of The Florentine Histories, and the two literary works Belfagor and Mandragola concentrated on marriage and demonic aspect.
The most conflictual Machiavellian concepts such as tumults, political trivial losses, Machiavellian rhetoric reinterpretation of history, the evil side of human nature will be discussed. They will enlighten Machiavelli’s reflection that politics is a field of ambiguity and improvise events that cannot be hidden, avoided, or eliminated. So, extreme actions, or in Machiavellian words, virtuous actions are often required because of this. CHAPTER 1: MACHIAVELLI, A LIFE AT THE EXTREME 1.
Machiavelli’s life with full of extreme situations A Florentine, born on 3rd May 1469 devoted his life to public service in his early life. After his 7th birthday, his father sent him to Master Matteo for scholastic education and the learning of Latin. At the age of 12, Machiavelli went to the Master Paolo Giovio da Ronciglione. Then Virgilio Andirani, secretary of the first Chancellor is not only his mentor but also his teacher.1 Here, Machiavelli was educated to the method of imitating the most excellent figure of classic style.2 After that, Machiavelli was sent to the University of Florence for further education, and he ranked the top excellent student of classical education.
These three pathways of education in Machiavelli’s early life, from the learning of Latin through the method of imitating classical excellences to the classical education, set a firm basement in Machiavelli of the Antiquity’s patterns. Thus, the three fragile inputs of life are his three thresholds to observe political life during his official career. It could be said that language, imitation, and classical excellence learning are the motives why Machiavelli sees the world, humans, and nature in politics in an extreme and exceptive manner. This explained the reason why Machiavelli received the government’s term of office suddenly in the summer of 1498, at the age of 29.
The Florence’s head was continuously formed and corrupted. After the death of Lorenzo de Medici in 1942 3, Pietro de’ Medici was exiled in 1942 because he could not lead the government. He, the son of Lorenzo, was hereticated the throne but behaved tyrannically and handed over the army forces to the King of France, for the restoration 1 F. Del Lucchese, The political philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli, Edinburg, Edinburg University press, 2005, p.15: “Paolo Giovio suggests that Adriani had been not only Machiavelli’s mentor but also his teacher.
Adriani thus represents the link between Machiavelli and the humanist world and culture” 2 Q. Skinner, Machiavelli, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999, p. Rosa, Machiavelli e l’Italia, Torino, Einaudi, 2019, p.35: “sto parlando del periodo che va dalla morte di Lorenzo il Magnifico (8 aprile 1492), o forse, piu’ esattamente, dalla discesa di Carlo VIII, re di Francia, in Italia (settembre 1494 – luglio 1495) alla duplice incoronazione di Carlo V (re d’Italia e imperatore) da parte del pontefice Clemente VII (febbraio 1530)” of the Republic in return. 4 Italy’s problems were too small compared to the maps of Europe with Spain, Germany, and France.
The death of Lorenzo in 1492 broke the Italian balance for forty years. With the boost by being twice in a delegation to the king Charles VIII, Girolamo Savonarola ruled over Florence from 1494 to 1498, the year in which Machiavelli was appointed as the secretary of the Chancellor. 5 The relationship between Machiavelli and Savonarola is tightened by the development of time. The regime of Savonarola ended up a few days before Machiavelli’s office assumption as the Chancellor.
Savonarola however worked for his idealism since the youth of Machiavelli. Girolamo Savonarola influenced the masses of Florence citizens which included Machiavelli. “The young Machiavelli himself often listened to these sermons, which undeniably had a strong influence on him, especially in terms of the political role of religion, and of a clear understanding of the influence that a prophetic stance could have on the people” 6. He contributed to the Florentine government’s spirits for decades because of his charisma.
His intention was to approach the citizens’ union delivering the idealism but was fail under the unwavering Soderini group of the best one.7 Machiavelli goes against Savonarola’s governo largo 8 with the 4 C. Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli, I tempi della politica, Roma, Donzelli, 2008, p.8: “Erano passata appena quattro anni dacche Pietro, il figlio di Lorenza il Magnifico, dopo sessant’anni di potere dei Medici, era stato cacciato nel 1494 per il suo comportamento ‘tirannico’ e per avere consegnato al re di Francia alcune fortezze, così che il governo repubblicano era stato restaurato.” 5 John M Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575, Blackwell Publication, 2008, pp.379: “During the 1494 crisis due to the passage of Charles VIII through Florence, and the threat of an open conflict with the powerful French army, Savonarola played a primary role of meditation, taking part twice in a delegation to the king” 6 F. Del Lucchese, The political philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli, cit. Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli, I tempi della politica, cit.10: “la sua tendenza a conseguire l’unione fra i cittadini si manifesta fin dai primi anni della sua attività politica, ad esempio nel tentativo, allora fallito, di avvicinare al gonfaloniere Pier Soderini il maggiore esponente del gruppo degli ottimati, Alamanno Salviati.9: “l’atteggiamento di Machiavelli verso il frate domenicano è stato generalmente visto come decisamente ostile, anzi nel secolo XIX, i due personaggi furono contrapposti a rappresentare emblematicamente l’uno il perdurare del Medioevo, l’altro la nuova età del Rinascimento, o come pure venne detto, l’età della fede e l’età della scienza.
Per questo giudizio ci si basò soprattutto sulla lettera che, pochi mesi prima della caduta di Savonarola, Machiavelli scrisse a Ricciardo Becchi, ambasciatore fiorentino a Roma, che gli aveva chiesto notizie ‘de le cose di qua circa al frate’”. Aristotelian theory which gained partisans’ power and several intellectuals at the time 9. In the end, Savonarola was condemned the death on 23 May 1498 by Pope Alessandro VI and the Consiglio maggiore oversaw his position.10 Instead of being inspired by Savonarola’s regime of the Platonic King in a non-conflictual political kingdom, Machiavelli went against it but was inspired by the prophetic manner that Savonarola grounded his political influence. The way he depicted and selected the set of characteristics of the ideal prince, or the winner, is full of divine and mythical illustrations.
11 At the time in Florence, there was a war with Pisa. Internal conflicts were frequent in Italy, and this conflictual period of Florence and Pisa was not viewed as any noticeable event in Italian history. It was however affected the tasks of a Florentine Chancellor which was carried by the young Machiavelli two days after the corruption of Savonarola’s regime. What is the role of a Chancellor and what did Machiavelli literally do during his term of office as a Chancellor? From the complicated situation of Florence at the time, Cancelleria fiorentina works as an administrator in the modern-day.
Despite an ordinary title in our modern world, this position however was important in the contemporary time because a Cancelleria must be able to be awake of the tumult, gli umori, among the people and to know which relations exist between political organs and territories. Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli, I tempi della politica, cit.10: “Non sappiamo se Machiavelli avesse già maturato l’idea, poi sviluppata nei Discorsi, che le lotte interne di una città possono essere vantaggiose per la vita politica se alla fine si ricompongono, creando nuovi riordinamenti e nuove leggi”.8: “condannato a morte, il 23 maggio 1498, in ossequio alla scomunica fulminata da papa Alessandro VI, fu impiccato a arso in piazza della Signoria. […] il Consiglio maggiore, che ne era l’organo principale, rimasse in carica. Rosa, Machiavelli e l’Italia, cit.74: “[Machiavelli] Aggiunge subito dopo che di Mose non si deve ‘ragionare’ ispirato e tutelato dalla superiore volontà divina… il condottiero vincitore, il fondatore di stati, che risponda a tali caratteristiche, ha piu’ del divino che dell’umano, ovvero, piu’ esattamente, è in grado di sforzare l’umano oltre i limiti che normalmente gli sono consentiti” 12 C.
Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli, I tempi della politica, p.24: “Ci rendiamo conto, altresì, come quell’amministrazione vada modificandosi agli inizi dell’età moderna.