Niccolo machiavelli short biography. Niccolo Machiavelli Biography 2023-01-05
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Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, statesman, and writer who is best known for his political treatise "The Prince," which was published in 1532. He was born in Florence, Italy in 1469, and was educated in the humanities and law.
Machiavelli began his career in public service as a clerk in the second chancery of the Republic of Florence, where he worked on diplomatic missions and gained valuable experience in the political arena. In 1498, he was appointed as the Secretary of the Second Chancery, a position that gave him access to the inner workings of the government and allowed him to observe firsthand the political struggles and intrigues of the time.
Throughout his career, Machiavelli was a vocal advocate for the autonomy and independence of the city-state of Florence. He believed that the strength and prosperity of a state depended on its ability to defend itself against external threats and to maintain order within its own borders. He was also a firm believer in the use of military force as a means of achieving these goals, and he argued that a ruler who was willing to be ruthless and cunning in the pursuit of power was more likely to succeed than one who was guided by moral scruples.
In 1512, Machiavelli was exiled from Florence and spent the next several years in political limbo. During this time, he wrote "The Prince," which outlined his thoughts on how a ruler should govern and maintain power. The book became an instant classic and remains one of the most influential works of political theory in the Western tradition.
Despite his reputation as a ruthless political strategist, Machiavelli was also a deeply humane and compassionate writer. In his later years, he wrote a number of plays and political treatises that explored themes of justice, virtue, and human nature. He died in 1527, at the age of 58, leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape our understanding of politics and power.
Niccolo Machiavelli Biography
Throughout his corpus, Fortuna is depicted as a primal source of violence especially as directed against humanity and as antithetical to reason. The reference to Cicero one of the few in the Discourses confirms that Machiavelli has in mind here a key feature of classical republicanism: the competence of the people to respond to and support the words of the gifted orator when he speaks truly about the public welfare. There was no power which appeared great enough to unite the whole of Italian peninsula. Virtù is to power politics what conventional virtue is to those thinkers who suppose that moral goodness is sufficient to be a legitimate ruler: it is the touchstone of political success. . Marriage was successful both economically and familiarly.
The Mandrake Root Mandragola , comic play, circa 1516. He can be called the "father of political science", as he was the first to say that politics is an experiential science with which you can understand the past, guide the present and predict the future. However, Florence was a staunch ally of the French, and Pope Julius II was working to drive the French out of Italy. Early Life and Diplomatic Career Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, on May 3, 1469 — a time when Italy was divided into four rival city-states and, thusly, was at the mercy of stronger governments throughout the rest of Europe. His realist views regarding practical politics and leadership gained him a controversial reputation during his time. For just as with individual human beings, it is difficult if not impossible to change their personal characteristics, so institutions in republics do not change with the times … but change very slowly because it is more painful to change them since it is necessary to wait until the whole republic is in a state of upheaval; and for this it is not enough that one man alone should change his own procedure. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.
Rather, salient features of the distinctively Machiavellian approach to politics should be credited to an incongruity between historical circumstance and intellectual possibility. No records determine exactly what further education Machiavelli received however, due to the proficiency and excellence of his publications which portrayed a deep understanding of Italian and Latin literature, it is widely presumed that he attended the University of Florence. After that, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent - Giovanni - returned to his inheritance, liquidated the Republic, and began to break up those who opposed his family. In a fully constitutional regime, however, the goal of the political order is the freedom of the community vivere libero , created by the active participation of, and contention between, the nobility and the people. A state that makes security a priority cannot afford to arm its populace, for fear that the masses will employ their weapons against the nobility or perhaps the crown.
The political situation in Italy was embarrassingly complex and depressing; and Machiavelli as a patriotic Italian could not help being overwhelmingly moved by that. Under the rule of Florence's first gonfalonier ruler for life , Piero Soderini, Machiavelli was promoted to second Chancellor. Discourses Religious views of Machiavelli Machiavelli was deeply critical of the established church and the behaviour of priests, cardinals and popes. The new pope, Julius II, was an inveterate enemy of the entire Borgia clan and soon sent Borgia into exile, where he later died. This study is based on Machiavelli's belief that a ruler is not constrained by traditional ethical norms. Thus, Machiavelli realizes that only preparation to pose an extreme response to the vicissitudes of Fortuna will ensure victory against her.
He tends to appeal to experience and example in the place of rigorous logical analysis. The couple had five children, and besides, Niccolò was still kind to various beauties abroad. Discourses CW 422, translation revised These passages of the Discourses seem to suggest that Machiavelli has great admiration for the institutional arrangements that obtain in France. Callimaco falls in love with Lucrezia and manages to trick Nicia into giving his full approval for their love affair. It is particularly useful in clarifying the manner in which Machiavelli employs the concepts of fortuna and virtù. Paul Rahe 2008 argues for a similar set of influences, but with an intellectual substance and significance different than Pocock. The ruler of virtù is bound to be competent in the application of power; to possess virtù is indeed to have mastered all the rules connected with the effective application of power.
Machiavelli appears to have kept more than one mistress during his extensive travels, a practice that would not have been unusual in his time. But when Pope Alexander Borgia died in 1503, Father Cesare lost his finances and Niccolò was forced to return to Florence. Discourses CW 317 The contrast Machiavelli draws is stark. He is thereby set into the context of the scientific revolution more generally. Although there has been much debate about whether Machiavelli was truly a friend of princes and tyrants or of republics, and hence whether we should dismiss one or another facet of his writing as ancillary or peripheral, the questions seems irresolvable. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973. Biography Relatively little is known for certain about Machiavelli's early life in comparison with many important figures of the Italian Renaissance the following section draws on Capponi 2010; Vivanti 2013; Celenza 2015 He was born 3 May 1469 in Florence and at a young age became a pupil of a renowned Latin teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione.
Concomitantly, a Machiavellian perspective directly attacks the notion of any grounding for authority independent of the sheer possession of power. Several hours later, the charred remains of the three men were tossed into the Arno River. Let me introduce myself: I'm a little boy from Vietnam. Art of War Dell'Arte della guerra , treatise on military strategy, 1519 to 20. Each city attempted to protect itself by playing the larger powers off against each other. On February 23, 1513, moreover, Machiavelli was falsely accused of being part of a conspiracy to reestablish the republic and put to torture on the rack. Various versions of this thesis have been disseminated more recently.
But at the time, it was not the only thought of Niccolo Machiavelli. Unlike The Prince, the Discourses was authored over a long period of time commencing perhaps in 1514 or 1515 and completed in 1518 or 1519, although again only published posthumously in 1531. Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others. As evidence of its popularity, it went through seven Italian editions in the next twenty years. Written at the end of 1513 and perhaps early 1514 , but only formally published posthumously in 1532, The Prince was composed in great haste by an author who was, among other things, seeking to regain his status in Florentine political affairs.
Niccolò Machiavelli (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Since, however, he was born in a republic where there were diverse citizens with diverse dispositions, it came about that, just as it had a Fabius, who was the best man to keep the war going when circumstances required it, so later it had a Scipio at a time suited to its victorious consummation Discourses CW 452. Machiavelli thus seems to adhere to a genuinely republican position. Bernardo, a tax lawyer and petty landowner of modest means, was a man of pronounced scholarly proclivities with a genuine passion for Roman literature. After the first flush of the Carthaginian general's victories in Italy, the circumstances of the Roman required a circumspect and cautious leader who would not commit the legions to aggressive military action for which they were not prepared. In other words, the legitimacy of law rests entirely upon the threat of coercive force; authority is impossible for Machiavelli as a right apart from the power to enforce it.
In 1512, the Florentine Republic fell as the Medici — with aid from Pope Julius II and Spanish troops retook the city. For the next fourteen years, Machiavelli engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity on behalf of Florence, traveling to the major centers of Italy as well as to the royal court of France and to the imperial curia of Maximilian. His adversary in this struggle was the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia, whose reign as Alexander VI is generally conceded to represent the moral nadir in the history of the Papacy during the Renaissance. In late 1502 and into 1503 Machiavelli became familiar with the effective statebuilding methods of the ecclesiastic and soldier Cesare Borgia, who was at that time engaged in enlarging his holdings in central Italy through a mixture of audacity, prudence, self-reliance, firmness and not infrequent cruelty. From 1521 to 1525, Machiavelli was employed as a historiographer. Translated by Cecil Grayson. This is not an arbitrary expression of personal preference on Machiavelli's part.
