Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Machiavelli and Antichrist: prophetic typology in Reginald Pole's De Unitate and Apologia ad Carolum Quintum
- 2 Bishop Gardiner, Machiavellian
- 3 John Wolfe, Machiavelli, and the republican arcana in sixteenth-century England
- 4 Machiavelli and the arcana imperii
- 5 Gabriel Naudé: magic and Machiavelli
- 6 Biblical Machiavellism: Louis Machon's Apologie pour Machiavel
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Machiavelli and Antichrist: prophetic typology in Reginald Pole's De Unitate and Apologia ad Carolum Quintum
- 2 Bishop Gardiner, Machiavellian
- 3 John Wolfe, Machiavelli, and the republican arcana in sixteenth-century England
- 4 Machiavelli and the arcana imperii
- 5 Gabriel Naudé: magic and Machiavelli
- 6 Biblical Machiavellism: Louis Machon's Apologie pour Machiavel
- Index
Summary
Perhaps the most notorious passage in Machiavelli's Il Principe comes in Chapter 18, where the duplicity of the fox and the violence of the lion are set as models for political conduct, and where the author writes that, though a prince should conduct himself in accordance with the moral virtues when he can, “if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.” These words have often been taken as a sign of Machiavelli's decisive break with the past, with biblical and classical traditions according to which the office of a prince was an inescapably moral one. Yet, in making these recommendations, Machiavelli was attempting to place his own teachings in an ancient tradition of secret political instruction. The legend of Achilles and Chiron the Centaur is his text:
It must be understood that there are two ways of fighting, one with laws and the other with arms. The first is the way of men, the second is the style of beasts, but since very often the first does not suffice it is necessary to turn to the second. Therefore a prince must know how to play the beast as well as the man. This lesson was taught by the ancient writers who related that Achilles and many other princes were brought up by Chiron the Centaur, who took them under his discipline. The clear significance of this half-man and half-beast preceptorship is that a prince must know how to use either of these two natures and that one without the other has no enduring strength. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Machiavelli and Mystery of State , pp. vii - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989