Machiavelli Sentence Examples

Mahmud's policy was the converse of that recommended by Machiavelli, viz.

Machiavelli immediately became their secretary.

Machiavelli calls luxury, simony and cruelty the three dear friends and handmaids of the same pope.'

Even the comedies of the best authors are too observant of Latin precedents, although some pieces of Machiavelli, Ariosto, Aretino, Cecchi and Gelli are admirable for vivid delineation of contemporary manners.

Then, too late, patriots like Machiavelli perceived the suicidal self-indulgence of the past, which, by substituting mercenary troops for national militias, left the Italians at the absolute discretion.

The local despots of Romagna were dispossessed and an administration was set up, which, if tyrannical and cruel, was at least orderly and strong, and aroused the admiration of Machiavelli.

Davidsohn's Geschichte der Stadt Florenz (Berlin, 1896); P. Villari's Savonarola (English ed., London, 1896) is invaluable for the period during which the friar's personality dominated Florence, and his Machiavelli (English ed., London, 1892) must be also consulted, especially for the development of political theories.

He was, in fact, a victim to those " halfmeasures " which Machiavelli condemns as fatal to success.

Soderini, who was perpetual gonfalonier of Florence, and Machiavelli, the secretary of the Ten, urged on the war.

But now, mainly owing to the efforts of Soderini and Machiavelli, the conquerors showed great magnanimity.

To the defects of Machiavelli's education we may, in part at least, ascribe the peculiar vigour of his style and his speculative originality.

The year of Charles VIII.'s invasion and of the Medici's expulsion from Florence (1494) saw Machiavelli's first entrance into public life.

Early in 1498 Adriani became chancellor of the republic, and Machiavelli received his vacated office with the rank of second chancellor and secretary.

The next fourteen years of Machiavelli's life were fully occupied in the voluminous correspondence of his bureau, in diplomatic missions of varying importance, and in the organization of a Florentine militia.

In 150o Machiavelli travelled into France, to deal with Louis XII.

These embassies were the school in which Machiavelli formed his political opinions, and gathered views regarding the state of Europe and the relative strength of nations.

In 1502 Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini, who bore him several children, with whom, in spite of his own infidelities, he lived on good terms, and who survived him twenty-six years.

Machiavelli became intimately connected XVII.

The year 150z was marked by yet another decisive incident in Machiavelli's life.

The duke was then in Romagna, and it was Machiavelli's duty to wait upon and watch him.

From what remains of Machiavelli's official letters, and from his tract upon the Modo the tenne it duca Valentino per ammazzar Vitellozzo Vitelli, we are able to appreciate the actual relations which existed between the two men, and the growth in Machiavelli's mind of a political ideal based upon his study of the duke's character.

More than once, in letters to his friend Vettori, no less than in the pages of the Principe, Machiavelli afterwards expressed his belief that Cesare Borgia's behaviour in the conquest of provinces, the cementing of a new state out of scattered elements, and the dealing with false friends or doubtful allies, was worthy of all commendation and of scrupulous imitation.

That Machiavelli separated the actual Cesare Borgia, whom he afterwards saw, ruined and contemptible, at Rome, from this radiant creature of his political fancy, is probable.

That the Cesare of history does not exactly match the Duca Valentino of Machiavelli's writings is certain.

Still the fact remains that henceforth Machiavelli cherished the ideal image of the statesman which he had modelled upon Cesare, and called this by the name of Valentino.

On his return to Florence early in January 1503, Machiavelli began to occupy himself with a project which his recent attendance upon Cesare Borgia had strengthened in his mind.

Early in 1503 Machiavelli drew up for Soderini a speech, Discorso sull y provisione del danaro, in which the duty and necessity of liberal expenditure for the protection of the state were expounded upon principles of sound political philosophy.

The choice of Soderini and Machiavelli fell, at this juncture, upon an extremely ineligible person, none other than Don Micheletto, Cesare Borgia's cutthroat and assassin.

It is necessary to insist upon this point, since it serves to illustrate a radical infirmity in Machiavelli's genius.

Meanwhile Italy had been the scene of memorable events, in most of which Machiavelli took some part.

The collapse of the Borgias threw Central Italy into confusion; and Machiavelli had, in 1505, to visit the Baglioni at Perugia and the Petrucci at Siena.

Upon these embassies Machiavelli represented the Florentine dieci in quality of envoy.

Machiavelli had to attend the camp and provide for levies amid his many other occupations.

But at the end of the latter year European affairs of no small moment diverted Machiavelli from these humbler duties.

Though they already had Francesco Vettori at his court, Soderini judged it advisable to send Machiavelli thither in December.

The government on which Machiavelli depended had fallen, never to rise again.

The nove della militia were, however, dissolved; and on the 7th of November 1512 Machiavelli was deprived of his appointments.

Machiavelli had taken no share in that feeble attempt against the Medici, but his name was found upon a memorandum dropped by Boscoli.

Machiavelli now entered upon a period of life to which we owe the great works that have rendered his name immortal.

The uneasiness of Machiavelli's mind in the first years of this retirement is brought before us by his private correspondence.

In retirement at his villa near Percussina, a hamlet of San Casciano, Machiavelli completed the Principe before the end of 1513.

It appears to have grown out of another scarcely less celebrated work, upon which Machiavelli had been engaged before he took the Principe in hand, and which he did not finish until some time afterwards.

The Principe is an offshoot from the main theme of the Discorsi, setting forth Machiavelli's views at large and in detail upon the nature of principalities, the method of cementing them, and the qualities of a successful autocrat.

Machiavelli judged the case of Italy so desperate that salvation could only be expected from the intervention of a powerful despot.

Up to the date of Machiavelli, modern political philosophy had always presupposed an ideal.

It was Machiavelli's intense preoccupation with this problem - what a state is and how to found one in existing circumstances - which caused the many riddles of his speculative writings.

After finishing the Principe, Machiavelli thought of dedicating it to one of the Medicean princes, with the avowed hope that he might thereby regain their favour and find public employment.

Machiavelli therefore was justified in feeling that here was an opportunity for putting his cherished schemes in practice, and that a prince with such alliances might even advance to the grand end of the unification of Italy.

Then Machiavelli turned his thoughts towards Lorenzo, duke of Urbino.

The Medici, as yet at' all events, could not employ Machiavelli, and had not in themselves the stuff to found Italian kingdoms.

They applied to several celebrated politicians, among others to Machiavelli, for advice in the emergency.

The first of these is a methodical treatise, setting forth Machiavelli's views on military matters, digesting his theories respecting the superiority of national troops, the inefficiency of fortresses, the necessity of relying upon infantry in war, and the comparative insignificance of artillery.

We may regard it as a supplement or appendix to the Principe and the Discorsi, since Machiavelli held it for a fundamental axiom that states are powerless unless completely armed in permanence.

The Vita di Castruccio was composed at Lucca, whither Machiavelli had been sent on a mission.

In the same year, 1520, Machiavelli, at the instance of the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, received commission from the officers of the Studio pubblico to write a history of Florence.

In the Historie fiorentine Machiavelli quitted the field of political speculation for that of history.

It is not so much a chronicle of Florentine affairs, from the commencement of modern history to the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, as a critique of that chronicle from the point of view adopted by Machiavelli in his former writing5,.

It would seem that from the date of Machiavelli's discourse to Leo on the government of Florence the Medici had taken him into consideration.

But Machiavelli's public career was virtually closed; and the interest of his biography still centres in his literary work.

If Machiavelli had any moral object when he composed the Mandragola, it was to paint in glaring colours the corruption of Italian society.

Did not Machiavelli leave good habit, as an essential ingredient of character, out of account?

Machiavelli does not seem to have calculated the force of this recoil.

There remains a short piece without title, the Commedia in prosa, which, if it be Machiavelli's, as internal evidence of style sufficiently argues, might be accepted as a study for both the Clizia and the Mandragola.

Of Machiavelli's minor poems, sonnets, capitoli and carnival songs there is not much to say.

That Machiavelli invented it to express the irritation of his own domestic life is a myth without foundation.

The story has a medieval origin, and it was almost simultaneously treated in Italian by Machiavelli, Straparola and Giovanni Brevio.

In the spring of 1526 Machiavelli was employed by Clement VII.

After another visit to Guicciardini in the spring of 1527, Machiavelli was sent by him to Civita Vecchia.

Yet we need not run into the opposite extreme, and try to fancy that Machiavelli, who had professed Paganism in his life, proved himself a believing Christian on his deathbed.

In person Machiavelli was of middle height, black-haired, with rather a small head, very bright eyes and slightly aquiline nose.

She was no doctrinMaria aire, and consistently acted on the principle once laid Ther down by Machiavelli, that while changing the substance, the prince should be careful to preserve the form of old institutions.

He was a disciple, not of Machiavelli, but of Rousseau; and his scattered dominions, divided by innumerable divergences of racial and class prejudice, and enncumbered with traditional institutions to which the people clung with passionate conservatism, he regarded as so much vacant territory on which to build up his ideal state.

The elevation and the isolation of his position fostered a detachment from ordinary virtues and compassion, and he was a remorseless incarnation of Machiavelli's Prince.

And the contemporaries of Machiavelli soon learned to take the fullest advantage of this liberty to pursue their.

Like Machiavelli, but on a lower level, Guicciardini was willing to "roll stones," or to do any dirty work for masters whom, in the depth of his soul, he detested and despised.

If one single treatise of that century should be chosen to represent the spirit of the Italian people in the last phase of the Renaissance, the historian might hesitate between the Principe of Machiavelli and the Ricordi politici of Guicciardini.

It remains the most solid monument of the Italian reason in the 16th century, the final triumph of that Florentine school of philosophical historians which included Machiavelli, Segni, Pitti, Nardi, Varchi, Francesco Vettori and Donato Giannotti.

It has raised his reputation as a political philosopher into the first rank, where he now disputes the place of intellectual supremacy with his friend Machiavelli; but it has coloured our moral judgment of his character and conduct with darker dyes.

From the stores of valuable materials contained in those ten volumes, it will be enough here to cite (1) the Ricordi politici, already noticed, consisting of about 400 aphorisms on political and social topics; (2) the observations on Machiavelli's Discorsi, which bring into remarkable relief the views of Italy's two great theorists on statecraft in the 16th century, and show that Guicciardini regarded Machiavelli somewhat as an amiable visionary or political enthusiast; (3) the Storia Fiorentina, an early work of the author, distinguished by its animation of style, brilliancy of portraiture, and liberality of judgment; and (4) the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, also in all probability an early work, in which the various forms of government suited to an Italian commonwealth are discussed with infinite subtlety, contrasted, and illustrated from the vicissitudes of Florence up to the year 1 494.

Taken in combination with Machiavelli's treatises, the Opere inedite furnish a comprehensive body of Italian political philosophy anterior to the date of Fra Paolo Sarpi.

The same critical and philosophic spirit working on the materials of history produced a new science, the honours of which belong to Machiavelli.

Nevertheless, a department had been added to the intellectual empire of mankind, in which fellow-workers, like Guicciardini at Florence, and subsequently Sarpi at Venice, were not slow to follow the path traced by Machiavelli.

This is apparent to all students of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, the profoundest analysts of their age, the bitterest satirists of its vices, but themselves infected with its incapacity for moral goodness.

The great theorist of these conquistadores was Machiavelli.

Among those who remained Catholic should be mentioned Guillaume, the translator of Machiavelli.

Undeterred, Macmillan re-read a life of Machiavelli, and turned his attention to Nigeria and its newly discovered oil fields.

Machiavelli conceived the strongest admiration for Cesare's combination of audacity with diplomatic prudence, for his adroit use of cruelty and fraud, for his self-reliance, avoidance of half-measures, employment of native troops, and firm administration in conquered provinces.

From the foregoing criticism it will be perceived that all the questions whether Machiavelli meant to corrupt or to instruct the world, to fortify the hands of tyrants or to lead them to their ruin, are now obsolete.

Machiavelli, meanwhile, was reading his Discorsi to a select audience in the Rucellai gardens, fanning that republican enthusiasm which never lay long dormant among the Florentines.

Machiavelli had formed for himself a prose style, equalled by no one but by Guicciardini in his minor works, which was far removed from the emptiness of the latinizing humanists and the trivialities of the Italian purists.

The new duke of Urbino was the Lorenzo de' Medici to whom Machiavelli addressed The Prince.

Machiavelli taught him the need of speed, decision and unity of command, in war.

Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length.

Whether as a result of his fear of the rivalry of Jem, or of his personal character, Bayezid showed little of the aggressive spirit of his warlike predecessors; and Machiavelli said that another such sultan would cause Turkey to cease being a menace to Europe.

Niccolo MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527), Italian statesman and writer, was born at Florence on the 3rd of May 1469.

Between this date and the last month of 1506 Machiavelli laboured at his favourite scheme, working out memorials on the subject for his office, and suggesting the outlines of a new military organization.