Machiavelli's Prince: Background and Formation

The name of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), to the public at large, still lies in the shadow of moralistic condemnation. The anti-Machiavellian propaganda of the Counter-Reformation concentrated on the principles of political craftsmanship, developed in the Prince, as its target; and, apart from a narrower circle of historians, Machiavelli has ever since remained the author of the famous work, while the morality of his advice to rulers has remained the great issue of evaluation. It is hardly necessary to say that such preoccupations with moralistic propaganda cannot form the basis for a critical analysis of Machiavelli's ideas. All we can retain from the caricature is the consciousness that something extraordinary has occurred, a severe break with the traditions of treating political questions, the consciousness that with the author of the Prince we are on the threshold of a new, “modern” era. Even this element of the caricature, however, needs qualification. The furious concentration on the evil book has created the illusion that its author was a solitary figure, something like a moral freak. That, of course, is not so. There is nothing solitary or enigmatic about Machiavelli. His ideas, like everybody's, have a solid pre-history stretching over generations; and they were shared in his time by others. Historically unique, however, is the genius of Machiavelli as well as the strange disposition of circumstances directing his genius toward the crystallization of die ideas of die age in the symbol of die Prince who, through fortuna and virtù, will be the savior and restorer of Italy.