Machiavelli and the Italy of the Renaissance by JR Hale

JR Hale’s Machiavelli And Renaissance Italy was originally part of a Teach Yourself History series, published by Penguin Books in the 1960s. A 21st century reader will be impressed first and foremost by the size of the book, as it appears short, and by its laudable goal of opening specialized knowledge to a wider audience. The same reader, however, will also be surprised, because this is not a small sketch to expand an icon into a mere outline. On the contrary, this text treats its subject admirably and in some detail. In the end, it is quite a long read due to the intensity of the book and the level of detail presented. However, the image he paints of his subject will seem doubly surprising to anyone who can associate Niccolo Machiavelli with The Prince alone.

JRHale’s book is first a biography and then a story. In the end, we have a complete portrait of Machiavelli, who turns out to be a rather complex conservative, somewhat vulnerable, but also self-assured. He is best known for a fierce policy treatise, which presents a recipe that many others have analyzed and some have tried to follow, believing it provides a recipe for success. However, the politician Machiavelli was only partially successful in the pursuit of his own career and spent much of his life outcast by the highest and most powerful, often frantically trying to get ahead through whatever cracks might lead back. inside the power structure. However, the creative or academic side of Niccolo Machiavelli’s genius seems to be largely unknown to modern audiences, but Hale’s book treats all of Machiavelli’s accomplishments admirably.

Machiavelli was a historian. In fact, he was commissioned to write a history of Florence. He was also something of a linguist, a bit pedantic in the area, to tell the truth. Like all those guys, he was right sometimes. What is less noticeable at our distance in time is that he was also a poet and playwright, some of his stage works being well known by contemporary audiences, as they received numerous performances.

But it is the political controversy that is The Prince for which we know Niccolo Machiavelli. He wrote the play after analyzing the habits, accomplishments, and tactics of one Cesare Borgia, with whom he served during the prince’s most successful times. Now Cesare did not stand out for his negotiating skills. In fact, he was a man of action. Usually he was willing to fight, in fact, whenever the opportunity arose. To him, it seems like a quick war had the same kind of space in his life as his next meal. Machiavelli’s own account of a conversation with Cesare relates that: “(Lucca) was a rich city, and a good mouthful for a gourmand.” Then, commenting on Cesare’s methods, Machiavelli records that a certain Messer Ramiro had been cut in two and left in the Plaza de Cesena so that everyone could see the work. His death “was the pleasure of the prince, showing us that he can make and unmake men according to their merits.” So Cesare ate cities for sandwiches and half people for dessert. It must be said that it was moderately successful for a time, so it is not surprising that Machiavelli incorporates its policies and practices as a prescriptive method in his own manual on the art of government.

But the methods never transferred easily. To survive, he tells us, states need money, since states are only respected if they have armies. Similarly, political power, it seems, can only increase through wealth and the ability to buy strength. And it was money that finally left Machiavelli when paid employment as a diplomat was reduced to zero. The Medici did not trust him, even though his own role had always been that of a pen dealer, a kind of statesman, a civil servant. And so, when work in politics dried up, he turned his hand back to history.

Not, of course, that she had ever been separated from him. Machiavelli lived in a time of princes and emperors. Two of the latter invaded the Italian peninsula from the north during his lifetime, one French and the other a variety of Habsburgs. The Medici came and went and came back again. The popes did the same, but not with the same identity, since they came from different families, or even with the same goals, except the advancement of the family interests they represented. In Machiavelli’s time, popes behaved like the emperors that they are, and any war was evidently just, as long as there were benefits to be made. And just to underscore the fact that times have hardly changed, Machiavelli saw a religious fundamentalist capture the popular imagination through a puritan message, only to be destroyed by that very popular imagination as he moved forward. At the beginning of the 16th century, it seems that guilt-fueled austerity had only a temporary cache.

JR Hale’s book is therefore a glowing reminder that within every icon there is a story, and that the story is populated by real people, characters who drive events and create the future. These real people sometimes remain as icons, fixed in their own time, but capable of being transferred to anyone else to meet the needs of those who need their support. If only those iconic figures had known that at the time, then they might have behaved differently. When icons are reduced to mere people again, however, they once again become interesting, whole, and attractive individuals, and this is what we discovered through Hale’s book on Niccolo Machiavelli.

And if we feel that Machiavelli has nothing to say about today’s politics, then let us reflect on these words of his: “For some time I have never said what I believe, nor do I believe what I say, and if it turns out that I speak the truth, I will. I wrap myself in so many lies that it is difficult to get there ”.