TLast of 2 parts

O make sense of Machiavelli’s political philosophy it is essential to understand the historical context of his times.

An important theme in understanding the history of European politics from the time of the Roman Empire to Adolf Hitler, including the time of Machiavelli, is the irresistibility of empire. Most of it has to do with the white man’s sense of aggrandizement, which persists until the present. But another important side also is the question of security. For many centuries, it was largely impossible for a European political unit to remain detached from the volatile politics of the continent.

Everyone with enough strength in Europe had ambition.

Centuries after the decline of the Roman Empire, the Italians of Machiavelli’s time found themselves divided into numerous smaller (city-) states. Without the muscle to slug it out with the larger European powers, the Italian city-states wanted to avoid getting involved in the politics of Europe. However, that was quite impossible because of geography; the Mediterranean beckoned. Machiavelli’s Florence, for example, was an important commercial link to the Islamic Ottoman Empire in the so-called “Near East.” Its love-hate relationship with the Muslims across the Mediterranean had been a constant in European history and politics for nearly a millennium by this time.

Another irresistible pull factor for European powers toward Italy was the tantalizing allure of the papacy. Ever since the decay of the Roman Empire, the other European powers had influenced the election and survival, if you will, of the pope. In fact, the pope during Machiavelli’s formative years was Rodrigo de Borgia (Borja), whose family traced its roots to Valencia, and had ties to the Spanish monarchs.

Pope Alexander 6th rewarded the support of Catholic Spain by issuing the massively controversial Papal Bull Inter Caetera in 1493, essentially dividing the “discovery” of new territories in the world between Madrid and Lisbon (Portugal) for the Catholic Church, after Christopher Columbus’s groundbreaking expedition the year before. Incidentally, Florence’s Lorenzo the Magnificent also died in 1492, plunging the city-state into chaos.

The role of Charles 8th of France in unbalancing Italian politics was already mentioned in part 1. Relative peace had reigned in Italy for about four decades following the establishment of the Holy League in 1454 after the Treaty of Lodi put an end to the Lombardy Wars. However, with the intervention of Charles 8th and the defection of Florence’s Piero the Unfortunate in 1494, the Italian Wars broke out.

The main protagonists in the Italian Wars were the superpowers France (under the House of Valois) and Spain (under the Hapsburgs), with the papacy, the Italian city-states and principalities as allies on both sides.

As mentioned in Part 1, Machiavelli’s diplomatic career began in this context. He served as a Florentine diplomat sent to negotiate with Catherine Sforza of Forli in 1499. According to one source, Machiavelli drew from the conduct and fate of Sforza the moral that “it is far better to earn the confidence of the people than to rely on fortresses.” Public support is more vital than military strength.

Finally, Machiavelli studied the machinations of Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Rodrigo (Pope Alexander 6th). Originally encouraged by his father to follow in his footsteps after being made a cardinal upon Rodrigo’s election as pope, Cesare resigned from the cardinalate after the death of his brother. Afterwards, Cesare, with the support of his father, carved a state for himself by exploiting the chaos that engulfed Italy. As the prince of his newly established or controlled state, Cesare did whatever it took to eliminate his enemies, consolidate and maintain power. According to Hugo Albert Rennert: “Machiavelli tells us what princes do, not what they ought to do. When Machiavelli takes Caesar Borgia as a model, he in no wise extols him as a hero, but merely as a prince who was capable of attaining the end in view. The life of the State was the primary object. It must be maintained. And Machiavelli has laid down the principles, based upon his study and wide experience, by which this may be accomplished.”

Machiavelli does not encourage politicians to behave immorally. He simply narrated the lengths princes went through to acquire and maintain power. Historically, the circumstances of Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries created opportunities and dilemmas for the prince. Internal strife and external threats, particularly from more powerful forces, obligate the prince to be especially cunning and ruthless in order to survive the turbulence of politics and international relations.

As they say, do not hate the players, hate the game. Machiavelli did not invent the game. He did not even play it. He simply observed what the best players did to accomplish their objective as politicians given a set of specific circumstances characterized by malevolence and chaos.