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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Many writers have attempted to describe the intention of The Prince by using the term “scientific.” This description is defensible, and even helpful, provided it is properly understood. The present article is meant to prepare such an understanding.
I. The Prince combines the characteristics of a treatise and a tract for the times.
Let us begin at the beginning. In the Epistle Dedicatory Machiavelli gives three indications of the subject-matter of the book: he has incorporated into it his knowledge of the actions of great men both modern and ancient; he dares to discuss princely government and to give rules for it; he possesses knowledge of the nature of princes. As appears from the Epistle Dedicatory, from the book itself, and from what the author says elsewhere, knowledge of the actions of great men, i.e., historical knowledge, supplies only materials for knowledge of what princely government is, of the characteristics of the various kinds of principalities, of the rules with which one has to comply in order to acquire and preserve princely power, and of the nature of princes.
1 Letter to Vettori, December 10, 1513. Figures in parenthesis hereafter indicate the pages of the edition of Machiavelli's, Opere by Flora, and Cordiè, (Mondadori, Milan, 1949)Google Scholar.
2 Of the 142 chapter headings of The Discourses, 39 contain proper names.
3 Discourses, Bk. III, chs. 1 (p. 234), 19 and 42; cf. Bk II, ch. 20, beginning.
4 Cf. Prince, ch. 15, beginning.
5 Cf. the Epistle Dedicatory of The Prince.
6 We are thus not unprepared to find that the most extraordinary conqueror, Alexander (the Great), is mentioned twice in the heading of the following chapter.
7 Discourses, Bk. I, preface.
8 The tacit emphasis on ancient examples in chapter 9 has a special reason. It draws our attention to the impropriety of discussing in The Prince the most important modern example of “civil principalities” i.e., the rule of the Medici. Machiavelli leaves it at discussing the ancient counterpart: Nabis of Sparta. Cf. ch. 21 (p. 73).
9 Compare also the chief example of ch. 10 (the German cities which are free to the highest degree) with the remark about the Swiss in ch. 12 (the Swiss are armed to the highest degree and free to the highest). This distinction is developed somewhat more fully in Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 19 (pp. 286–287).
10 Ch. 12 (p. 41) and 13 (pp. 43, 44). Cf. the letter to Piero Soderini of Jan. 1512.
11 Ch. 17 (p. 52) and 18 (p. 55). In the only intervening reference to literature—ch. 17 (p. 54)—Machiavelli attacks “the writers,” and no longer merely as he did at the beginning of chapter 15, “many” writers. Incidentally, “many writers” are attacked in The Discourses as early as in the tenth chapter; the break with the tradition becomes explicit in The Discourses proportionately much sooner than in The Prince.
12 Cf. the relation of princes and ministers as it appears in ch. 22 with the relation of Cesare Borgia and his minister as presented in ch. 7 (p. 24).
13 Chs. 20, 22 and 23 contain only modern examples. The explicit emphasis on modern examples in ch. 18 (how princes should keep faith) has a special reason just as had the tacit emphasis on ancient example in ch. 9. Machiavelli draws our attention to the modern form of faithlessness or hypocrisy which strikingly differs from the Roman form (cf. Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 13, end). There is a connection between this thought and the reference to “pious cruelty” in ch. 21. Machiavelli indicates that the argument of ch. 18 requires a special act of daring (p. 56).
14 Ch. 19 is the center not only of the third part but of the whole section of The Prince which follows the discussion of the various kinds of principality, i.e., of that whole section which in the light of the beginning of The Prince comes as a surprise (cf. ch. 1 where the theme “the various kinds of principality” is announced with the beginnings of chs. 12, 15 and 24). Whereas the first, second and fourth parts of The Prince each contain one Latin quotation, the third part contains two of them. Compare the beginning of ch. 6 with the beginnings of chs. 21–23 in the light of the observation made in the text.
15 Ch. 20 (pp. 67–68). The opinion described there as held by “our ancients” is described in Discourses, Bk. III, ch. 27 (p. 403) as a modern opinion held by “the sages of our city sometime ago.”
16 Shortly before, Machiavelli mentions “natural affection” for a prince. He had not used that expression since early in ch. 4. But there he had spoken of the natural affection of the subjects for the French barons, their lords from time immemorial; now he speaks of natural affection for a new prince. The transition is partly effected by what he says in ch. 19 (p. 60) about the hatred, founded in fear, of the French people against the French magnates.
17 Ch. 21 (p. 72). Cf. ch. 3, end.
18 The most unqualified attack in The Prince on ancient writers in general—ch. 17 (p. 54)—occurs within the context of a praise of ancient statesmen or captains. The fourth part of The Prince contains one Latin quotation and the only Italian quotation occurring in the book.
19 Ch. 6 (p. 18) and 11 (p. 36).
20 To “treat” something means to “reason” about it. (Prince, ch. 2 beginning, and ch. 8, beginning.) Machiavelli calls his discourse on the Decemvirate which includes an extensive summary of Livy's account of the Decemvirate and therefore in particular of the actions of the would-be tyrant Appius Claudius, the “above written treatise” (Discourses I 43), whereas he calls his discourse on the liberality of the senate “the above written discourse” (Discourses I 52 beginning). In Discourses1 II 32 (323) trattato means “conspiracy.” He calls Xenophon's Hiero a treatise on tyranny (II 2) while he calls Dante's Monarchia a “discourse” (I 53). In Florentine Histories II 2, he calls the first book of that work nostro trattato universale.
21 Compare also the end of ch. 13 with ch. 25. In the first chapter Machiavelli indicates 13 subjects whose treatment might seem to require thirteen chapters, and he indicates in chapter fifteen, eleven subjects whose treatment might seem to require eleven chapters.
22 Chs. 26 and 4 of The Prince begin with practically the same word.
23 Cf. Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 23 (p. 153).
24 Only at the end of ch. 4 does Machiavelli allude to Italy by mentioning the failure of Pyrrhus, i.e., his failure to keep his conquests in Italy.
25 Ch. 7 (pp. 23–25); cf. Opere, Vol. I, p. 637Google Scholar; consider Machiavelli's statement on the pernicious character of the feudal nobility in Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 55.
26 The term “fatherland” which occurs in chs. 6, 8 and 9, is avoided in ch. 7, the chapter devoted to Cesare Borgia.
27 The subject-matter of ch. 5 is slightly concealed (see the unobtrusive transition from states in general to cities, i.e., republics, near the beginning: volerli … ruinarle) It almost goes without saying that nearly all examples in this chapter are ancient.
When discussing the badness of mercenary armies Machiavelli uses almost exclusively examples which show that mercenary armies have ruined or endangered republics. He thus shows in effect that mercenaries can be eminently good for a leader of mercenary armies, like Sforza who by being armed became a new prince; compare ch. 12 with chs. 7, (p. 21) and 14 (p. 46). These remarks taken together with those about the soldiers of the Roman emperors in ch. 19 and about the impossibility of arming all able bodied Italian subjects in ch. 20 (p. 67) reveal a possibility which deserves attention. In this connection one should also consider what Machiavelli says toward the end of the ninth chapter, immediately after having praised (the tyrant) Nabis of Sparta, about the superiority of absolute principalities, i.e., about the kind of principality which was traditionally called tyranny (Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 25, end), and compare it with the confrontation of the Turkish and the French monarchies in ch. 4 (p. 14).
28 Compare ch. 25 (p. 79) with chs. 18, end, and 21, beginning, as well as Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 12 (p. 130).
29 Compare Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 26 with Prince, chs. 7 (p. 24), 8 (p. 30), 13, end, 17, 21, beginning. Just as Philip became “from a little king prince of Greece” by the use of the most cruel means, Ferdinand of Aragon became “from a weak king the first king of the Christians” by the use of “pious cruelty.”
30 Prince, ch. 3 (pp. 11–13), 7 (pp. 23, 26), 11 (pp. 37–38); cf. Discourses, Bk. III, p. 29. We note in passing that in The Prince, ch. 16 (pp. 50–51), Machiavelli holds up “the present king of France,” “the present king of Spain” and Pope Julius II but not the present Pope, Leo X, who possesses “goodness and infinite other virtues,” (ch. 11, end) as models of prudent stinginess which is the indispensable condition for “doing great things.” Cf. Ranke, , Die Roemischen Paepste, ed. Baethgen, F., Vol. I, p. 273Google Scholar on Leo X's extravagance—Machiavelli tells in The Prince two stories about private conversations which he had had (chs. 3 and 7). According to the first story Machiavelli once told a French cardinal that the French know nothing of politics, for otherwise they would not have permitted the Church to have become so great (through the exploits of Cesare Borgia). The second story deals with what Cesare told Machiavelli on the day on which Pope Julius II was elected, i.e., on which Cesare's hopes were dashed through his insufficient control of the Church: Cesare had in fact committed the same mistake as the French, but he had the excuse that he had no choice.
31 Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 12. Cf. the letter to Vettori of April 26, 1513. In Florentine Histories, Bk. I, ch. 23. Machiavelli alludes to the possibility that the papacy might become hereditary. Could he have played with the thought that a new Cesare Borgia might redeem Italy after having himself become Pope and the founder of a papal dynasty?
32 Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 27; Opere, Vol. I, p. 638Google Scholar.
33 Machiavelli prepares for the silence about Romulus in ch. 26 in the following manner: in ch. 6 he enumerates the four heroic founders three times and in the final enumeration Romulus is relegated to the end. Cf. Florentine Histories, Bk. VI, ch. 29.
34 Prince, ch. 1, 6 (pp. 17–19), 8 (pp. 29–30), 14 (p. 48), 19 (p. 66), 20 (p. 67), and 24 (p. 77); cf. Art of War, Bk. VII (pp. 616–617).
35 Cf. Prince, ch. 22.
36 Ch. 7 (pp. 21–22).
37 Letter to [Ricciardo Bechi] March 8, 1497.
38 The shift in Prince, ch. 26, from Lorenzo to his family can be understood to some extent from the point of view indicated in the text. As for the unreliability of promises stemming from passion, cf. Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 31; for the popularity of grand hopes and valiant promises, cf. Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 53.
39 This is not to deny the fact that the miracles attested to by Machiavelli are without example insofar as their sequence differs from the sequence of the Mosaic miracles.
40 Prince, ch. 3 (p. 13), 12 (pp. 39, 41), 18 (pp. 56–57) and 25 (pp. 80–81); cf. Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 27. One can express the progress of the argument in the last part of The Prince as follows: 1) everything depends on virtue (ch. 24); 2) very much depends on chance but chance can be kept down by the right kind of man (ch. 25); 3) chance has done the most difficult part of the work required for liberating Italy, and only the rest needs to be done by means of virtue (ch. 26).
41 The seven real defeats must be taken together with the four invented miracles if one wants to grasp Machiavelli's intimations.
42 Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 30, end.
43 In the “highest” part of The Prince Machiavelli speaks of “us Florentines” (chs. 15 and 20), while in the other parts of the book he speaks of “us Italians” (chs. 2, 12, 13 and 24).
44 Prince, chs. 9 (p. 32), 18 (p. 57), 19 (pp. 58–59), 20 (pp. 68–69) and 23 (pp. 76–77). In each of the two chapters, 20 and 21, Machiavelli gives five rules to princes; the fourth rule in chapter 20 concerns the employment of men who were suspect at the beginning of the reign of a new prince; in the fourth rule given in ch. 21 the prince is urged to honor those who are excellent in any art.
45 Discourses, Bk. III, ch. 2, end, and ch. 35 (pp. 422–423).
46 Compare Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 30 (p. 163) with 29 (pp. 160–161).
47 Apart from the Epistle Dedicatory and ch. 26 where Machiavelli, speaking of Lorenzo to Lorenzo uses the plural of reverence, he uses the second person plural only in connection with verbs like “seeing,” “finding,” “considering,” and “understanding.” There are, I believe, 11 cases of the latter kind in The Prince, while in The Discourses, if I remember well, there are only two, Bk. I, ch. 58 (p. 221), and Bk. II, ch. 30 (p. 317); in The Discourses which are addressed to potential princes, the need to distinguish between doers and thinkers does not arise to the same extent as in The Prince. In the chapter of The Prince on flatterers—ch. 23 (p. 75)—Machiavelli uses Thou when speaking of the prince to the prince, while he uses the third person when speaking of the prudent prince: he is not a flatterer. Ch. 3 (pp. 10–11) beautifully illustrates how Machiavelli the teacher works together with his readers in examining certain things as well as how his contribution differs from that of his readers.
48 Prince, ch. 18 (p. 55) and 19 (p. 62).
49 Swift's Houyhnhnms, being reasonable horses, are centaurs if a centaur is a being which combines the perfection of a horse with the perfection of a man. In order to understand what the recommendation to imitate these beast-men means in Gulliver's Travels one would have to start from the facts that the relation between Lilliput and Brobdingnag imitates the relation between the moderns and the ancients, and that the same relation is imitated again on a different plane in the last two parts of the work.
50 Compare Prince, ch. 14, end, with Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 13.
51 Machiavelli does not even suggest that Cesare Borgia, the model, was animated by patriotism or concerned with the common good. It is true that he contrasts Cesare with the criminal Agathocles by not calling Cesare a criminal. But if one looks at the actions of the two men, the contrast vanishes: in describing Agathocles as a criminal, he provisionally adopts the traditional judgment on that man, whereas there does not yet exist a traditional judgment on Cesare. The traditional condemnation of Agathocles was partly based on the fact that he had risen to princely power from “a base and abject condition.” Machiavelli refers to a similar consideration when explaining the failure of Maximinus—Prince, ch. 19 (pp. 64–65)—but it is irrelevant for his own judgment as can be seen from Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 13, to say nothing of the Epistle Dedicatory to The Prince, where he describes himself as “a man of low and base state.” The main reason why Machiavelli has to speak of a criminal ruler was that he was compelled to indicate that he was questioning the traditional distinction between the criminal and the non-criminal as far as founders are concerned. He presents Agathocles then as the classical example of the criminal ruler, as a breaker of all divine and human laws, a murderer and a traitor, and a man without faith, mercy or religion; Agathocles possessed indeed greatness of mind; while being a most excellent captain, he cannot be counted among the most excellent men; his actions could acquire for him empire but not glory; he benefited indeed his subjects, or rather the common people, but he did this of course entirely for selfish reasons. In the sequel Machiavelli retracts everything he had said in connection with Agathocles about the difference between an able criminal ruler and an able non-criminal ruler. The first step is the praise of Nabis whom he calls a prince in The Prince, while he calls him in The Discourses a tyrant; Nabis' policy was fundamentally the same as that of Agathocles. Compare Prince, ch. 9 (p. 33) and ch. 19 (p. 58) with Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 10 (p. 122) and ch. 40 (p. 187). The second step is the questioning of the difference between “most excellent captain” and “most excellent man”: good arms are the necessary and sufficient condition of good laws, and Agathocles had good arms; the excellent man most emphatically praised, Cyrus, is not said to have possessed faith, mercy and religion, but he is distinguished by greatness of mind, i.e., by a quality which Agathocles also possessed. One reason why Agathocles cannot be counted among the most excellent men, is his savage cruelty and inhumanity; but Hannibal who is likewise characterized by inhuman cruelty is a most excellent man. Compare Prince, ch. 12 (pp. 38–39), ch. 14 (pp. 47–48), ch. 17 (p. 54), ch. 26 (p. 81) with Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 18 (p. 280) and Bk. III, ch. 21, end. The last step is to show that glory can be acquired by crime or in spite of crime. This is shown most clearly by Prince, ch. 18 towards the end, and by the case of Severus to say nothing of Machiavelli's observations regarding Giovampagolo Baglioni in Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 27.
52 Prince, ch. 6 (p. 18), ch. 8 (pp. 27, 29, 30), ch. 9 (pp. 31, 33), ch. 26 (p. 84).
53 Prince, ch. 26 (p. 83); Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 4, toward the end, and Bk. III, ch. 43; Art of War, at the end; compare Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 1, end, with Livy, Bk. I, ch. 34.12–ch. 35.12. Also Livy, Bk. V, ch. 15. Cf. note 43 above.
54 Cf. Art of War, Bk. II (p. 489).
55 Cf. Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 53.
56 Prince, ch. 5; Discourses, Bk. II, ch. 2 (pp. 239–240). In the preceding chapter of The Discourses (p. 234) there occurs one of the few references to The Prince; it is to the third chapter, i.e., to the section which deals with conquest.
57 Prince, ch. 21 (pp. 71–73).
58 Prince, ch. 12 (pp. 38–39) and ch. 19 (p. 58); Discourses, Bk. I, ch. 4 (p. 103); Opere, Vol. II, p. 473Google Scholar.
59 Prince, ch. 3 (p. 6), ch. 6 (p. 19), ch. 9 (pp. 31, 32), ch. 10 (pp. 35–36), ch. 17 (p. 53), ch. 18 (p. 57), ch. 23 (p. 75), ch. 24 (p. 78); Discourses, Bk. I, chs. 57 and 58 (pp. 217–219). In The Prince, chs. 7 (p. 22) and 8 (p. 28) he applies expressions to Cesare Borgia and to Agathocles which he had applied to himself in the Epistle Dedicatory.
60 Cf. Discourses, Epistle Dedicatory, and the letter to Vettori of Dec. 10, 1513.
61 The 11 pairs of opposite moral qualities mentioned in ch. 15 and the 11 rules of conduct discussed in chs. 20 to 21 prove on examination to be 10. Compare Hobbes's rewriting of the decalogue in Leviathan, ch. 30.
62 Jordan, W. K., Men of Substance (Chicago, 1942), p. 82Google Scholar.
63 Compare Discourses, Bk. III, ch. 35, beginning, with Prince, ch. 6 (p. 19).
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