Machiavelli

Life and beginnings

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence on May 3, 1469, and died there on June 21, 1527. The family had been prominent since the 13th century. His father, Bernardo, a doctor of laws, was among its poorer members and was barred from office as an insolvent debtor. Little is known of Niccolò’s early schooling. Britannica says he heard Marcello Virgilio Adriani, learned Latin well, probably knew some Greek, and received the humanist education expected of chancery officials. In a letter of 1498 he writes of listening to Girolamo Savonarola. The friar effectively dominated Florence for several years after 1494 and was hanged as a heretic on May 24, 1498. The Prince later uses him as an “unarmed prophet” who must fail. Machiavelli was still impressed by his learning and rhetoric.^[1]

A few days after that execution, at 29, Machiavelli became head of the second chancery, in charge of the republic’s foreign affairs in subject territories. He held the post until 1512 and gained the confidence of Piero Soderini, gonfalonier for life from 1502. He persuaded Soderini to reduce reliance on mercenaries by establishing a militia in 1505, which he then organized. He went to the French court, to Cesare Borgia, to Pope Julius II, to Emperor Maximilian I, and to Pisa. In 14 years he undertook more than 40 missions. On December 31, 1502, he watched Cesare’s vengeance on mutinous captains at Senigallia and wrote a famous account. Those postings are the material of the later books. They are not a set of maxims that can be lifted out of Florentine politics.^[1]

Defining achievements

In 1512 a Spanish army enlisted by Julius II overthrew the republic. The Medici returned. Machiavelli, suspected of conspiracy, was imprisoned, tortured, and exiled in 1513 to his father’s small property at San Casciano. There he wrote The Prince and the Discourses on Livy. Both were published after his death, the Discourses in 1531 and The Prince in 1532. In the dedication of each he says the book contains everything he knows. One is mostly about princes, especially new princes, and is short. The other is a long reasoning about how to preserve republics, offered to two friends who, he says, are not princes but deserve to be. A serious reading has to face both books. One of them is not enough to sentence the author.^[1]

While writing the short book he called it De Principatibus, “Of Principalities.” It circulated in manuscript in the 1510s. The title Il Principe appeared when it was first printed in 1532, five years after his death. Britannica describes it as a guide to acquiring power, creating a state, and keeping it, drawn from history and from his experience as a foreign secretary. The claim that politics has its own rules so shocked readers that “Machiavellian” came to mean cunning, duplicity, or bad faith. That adjective is a later reputation. It is not a title he printed on the 1513 manuscript. The guide says the Church and the Medici were angered, and that his ideas live on in the posthumous Prince as his last word. The posthumous work is not only that book. The Discourses appeared after his death as well, and they discuss republics.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Exile did not end his dealings with the Medici. He dedicated The Prince to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici. In 1520 Cardinal Giulio sent him to a bankruptcy in Lucca, where he wrote the life of Castruccio. That November he was appointed official historian. He criticized both the Medici regime and the republic he had served, and he advised the pope to restore a republic. In June 1525 he presented the Florentine Histories to Giulio, by then Clement VII. In 1526 he was set over the city’s fortifications. In 1527 Rome was sacked and Florence cast off the Medici. He hoped for his old post. Supporters of the free republic distrusted the few favors the Medici had given him. Denied the office, he fell ill and died within a month.^[1]

Legacy and interpretation

The legacy is first the pair of books. One advises a new prince. The other discusses how a republic might be kept. Reducing the author to a sentence about doing anything for power uses the short book’s reputation and drops the long book’s subject. Britannica says every thoughtful treatment has had to face the difference. The guide calls The Prince the ultimate expression of his political philosophy. That is the introduction’s judgment. The documentary record marks both books as containing everything he knew.^{[1] [2] [3]}

He was also not only a philosopher in a study. The chancery work included a militia, fortifications, diplomacy, and later an official history. The letter of December 10, 1513, describes woods in the morning, the inn in the afternoon, and reading at night, and it lightly mentions a little work on princes. The letter puts the writing back into an exile’s day. It is not a permanent diplomatic bonus. The published Rome essay is about an ancient republic and empire, not about Florence in 1513. He was commenting on Livy’s Rome, not on a state he could visit as its envoy.^[1]

A closer look

The guide names the agenda The Spider. When Machiavelli is not at war, each other war changes relationships. The image catches the later reputation for cunning. Britannica explains “Machiavellian” as that later adjective, and it points to the Discourses as the other book the author also said contained everything he knew. A spider does not replace the militia, the forty missions, or the fact that in 1527 neither side fully trusted him.^{[1] [3]}

The other easy confusion is the date of publication. The book was written in 1513 and printed in 1532, five years after the author died. The guide is right that the ideas appear in a posthumous work. Treating 1532 as an official paper issued while he still ran the chancery would stack the office and the manuscript onto one day. Manuscript, dedication, and printing are three different events.^{[1] [2]}

In Civilization VII

The official guide names the ability Il Principe and the agenda The Spider. The ability concerns influence and diplomatic proposals, and it allows levies from city-states that are not his suzerain. Those are game effects. They are not chapters of the 1513 manuscript, and they are not the republican advice of the Discourses. The guide does not list a second persona. This essay treats him as one leader entry. The simplified Chinese guide names the same slots in its own words.^{[3] [4]}

The accessed guide does not identify an edition. The codex publishes the essay with that gap visible. The Rome essay is the ancient republic he used as a comparison, not his employer. No Florence essay is published. The first step back from the game is to put The Prince and the Discourses on the same table again.^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}