Key concepts in The Prince
Introduction 1. Effectual truth 2. Positional dynamics 3. The nature of princes, the nature of peoples 4. Il populo e i grandi 5. Religion and the Church 6. Dis/simulation, swerve and cunning 7. Ma perché sono tristi 8. Fortuna and virtù 9. La qualità dei tempi
Introduction
To grasp the purpose of The Prince, written between 1512 and 1513, we should remember that the original title was not written in Italian, like the rest of the book, but in Latin: De Principatibus, i.e. On the Principate. The Italian title under which the work became known, Il Principe, was given to it in 1532 by its first printer1. But this title could be misleading, because the subject of Machiavelli's work is not primarily the office of prince, but the political form of the principate. He makes this clear in Chapter II: "I will leave aside the discussion of republics, because I have discussed them at length on another occasion. I will turn only to the principate, [...] and I will discuss how these principates can be governed and maintained."2 Moving from the singular to the plural, Machiavelli indicates that the principate unfolds in different forms, the specifics of which will be assessed. What unites them is that they have a prince at their head; but a prince is not enough to make a principate, since other functions are necessary to govern and maintain this political form.
Three parts can be identified in the book: from Chapters I to XI, Machiavelli deals with the different institutional forms of the principate; from Chapters XII to XIV, with armies; and from Chapters XV to XXV, with the princely function. The Dedicatory letter and chapter XXVI, which closes the work, play a special role, the former putting the whole work into perspective, the latter giving it a purpose: Machiavelli calls for a prince to unify Italy, which was then divided into many states.
Was he in favour of this political form? Did he think it was the best? Everything would suggest so if we were to only read The Prince. In the passage quoted above, however, Machiavelli refers to another of his works: the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius3 in which he discusses the republic, a political form in which power is exercised not by a prince but by the people or their representatives. It is clear from this book that Machiavelli's sympathies lay with the republic rather than the principate, partly because the republic is based on the freedom of the people, and partly because it is a more stable form of government, since it does not have to fear being destroyed by a single act of cutting off its head. However, his most famous and most widely read work is not the Discourses, but this concise and direct work: The Prince. Why is this so?4
Machiavelli wrote The Prince following the fall of the Republic of Florence, in whose government he participated from 1498 to 1512 as Secretary to the Second Chancellery, the equivalent of a head of diplomacy. It was the experience he gained during these fifteen years that led him to write The Prince. So what can a man who worked in the service of a republic teach us about principates? Why write such a book? Because he had met many princes and negotiated with their governments; because he had closely observed this political form, which he did not want to come back to power... and which nevertheless did, in 1512, under the guise of Lorenzo II de' Medici, aided on this occasion by Pope Julius II, whose bankers were the Medici. If Machiavelli addresses The Prince to a Medici, and if he ends his book with an exhortation to unify Italy under a princely power, it must be seen as an opportunity to return to a job in the service of the city-state, to continue doing what he knows best. It also reflects the fact that, for him, pragmatism takes precedence over ideology. Machiavelli does not believe in perfect government: some governments are better than others, and this is decided more by circumstances than by morality. So it is the form he gave birth to in these circumstances, the way he seized the opportunity, that will interest us here, since that is where the meaning of this work lies.
The reception of the book over the following centuries is exemplary in this respect. It can be divided into three currents. The first two are diametrically opposed: one interprets The Prince as a manual for becoming a tyrant; the second as a lesson given to peoples to guard against tyrants, to get to know them better so as to better survive them5. Should we decide who is right and who is wrong? The existence of these two currents at least offers proof that the book was read by monarchs and dictators as well as republicans and revolutionaries, each finding food for thought in it. Hence, too, the existence of a third current, which consists of not taking an a priori position, in order to bring out the effort of intelligence to which the work bears witness: to understand how the political forces interpret this book, each in its own way, to understand what politics is, this arte dello stato that deals with the common life of human beings through the intermediary of the State.
Through his discussions of political forms, Machiavelli thinks the human being. He shows, gives examples, argues and reasons about us. And we hardly seem certain of what we are, let alone what we want, no matter how many big words we use to make believe otherwise; it is a sign of probity in this respect that he treats the great concepts of tradition in what I would call a quasi-metaphysics. Machiavelli avoids value judgements – that's his realism – he doesn't say that human beings are good by nature or bad by nature, he doesn't say that one political form is a priori better than another. What he does say is that circumstances (la fortuna) and action (la virtù) must be taken into account, judging not according to moral values but according to the result. What happens, once it has happened, takes on the force of necessity, history being always in motion and its end never set.
Machiavelli's book has been much talked about because, as Jean Giono wrote, he "gave the game away of all mankind"6. While everyone likes to know what goes on behind the scenes and the secret workings of power – so as not to be fooled by sleight of hand, but also to know how to play it themselves – everyone fears the man who gives the game away, and hates him, because he tells everyone how to do it. A magician whose tricks were revealed to the public would lose his prestige: therefore, shouldn't we interpret The Prince as an operation to undermine the princely function? The problem is that every human being thinks they are magician... that every individual, even in the privacy of their own head, judges according to his own usefulness and wants to be a prince in their own kingdom.
Why, we asked, is The Prince Machiavelli's most widely read work? Firstly, because of the book's philosophical and literary qualities. Secondly, because it's always an advantage to know the tricks, whatever side of power you're on. Thirdly, because the figure of the prince, whose will is to live and prosper, addresses every human being's struggle with circumstances.
With the fall of the Republic in 1512, Machiavelli lost everything. With The Prince, he rises again and casts his gaze across the crossroads.
1. Effectual truth
Let us begin by quoting at length from chapter XV of The Prince: " Now, it remains to be considered what should be the methods and principles of a prince in dealing with his subjects and allies. Because I know that many have written about this, I am afraid that by writing about it again I shall be considered presumptuous, especially since in discussing this material I depart from the procedures of others. But since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable for me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imagined one [mi è parso più conveniente andare drieto a la verità effetuale de la cosa che alle immaginazione di epsa]. Many writers have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen nor known to exist in reality. For there is such a distance between how one lives and how one ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done achieves his downfall rather than his preservation."
Machiavelli contrasts two ways of approaching the political question. The one from which he departs consists in talking not about things themselves but about the image of things, i.e. the idea we have of them, the idea of what they should be. This normative and idealistic approach is typical of Plato and the Platonic tradition, for whom good politics depends on good laws and good models, which are discovered through dialectical reflection. It is also the approach taken by the numerous works of the Middle Ages known as the mirrors of princes: manuals for rulers, combining Christian doctrine with political precepts inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity. If Machiavelli takes a different path, it is because these cities, which were to be organised according to rational laws and/or moral rules, have always remained projects (= we have never seen them produce the concrete results they promised) and imaginations (= we have never known what we were actually talking about when we spoke of them, a way of saying that the only relevant knowledge comes from what experience teaches us).
Machiavelli proposes a different approach. His intention being "to write something useful for anyone who understands it ", he potentially addresses every human being, rulers and commoners alike, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. To read Machiavelli, all you need is the desire to understand what someone else is saying, by relating it to your own issues and reflecting on it in the light of your own experience. On this point, too, he differs from Plato, for whom philosophy was primarily addressed to philosophers, who had a function in society: thinking rightly should enable them to enact just laws7; and it is by understanding, applying and obeying these laws that the rest of the population can contribute to justice in the city. Machiavelli's intention, therefore, unlike Plato, does not establish a social hierarchy for the ability to understand or to be politically active8.
The key here is utility: I understand because I have a motivation to understand, an interest, so my understanding is necessarily linked to my experience and my position in the social body. This approach is echoed in the Dedicatory letter, where Machiavelli writes that he learned everything from "a long experience in modern affairs", i.e. from his years in the service of the Republic of Florence, and from "a continuous study of antiquity", i.e. from reading the texts of historians, statesmen and philosophers of the past, which enabled him to find points of comparison and concepts for understanding political action. Machiavelli does not propose a doctrine or recipes, but a method, i.e. a way of proceeding.
What is this method? It consists of "search after the effectual truth of the matter", in other words, grasping the effects of the actions undertaken and drawing lessons from them that can be used to guide future actions. At a first level, Machiavelli's philosophy is therefore knowledge through effects: effectual truth is that which is followed by effects and which can be understood through its effects. It is through the effects it produces that we can understand the action as appropriate or inappropriate to the goal to be achieved, the only truth that counts in politics being that which leads to concrete results. From here, we can move on to a second level, which consists in understanding effectual truth as the intellective deployment of nature in the act9, which is inseparable from the effects produced by the preceding circumstantial totality. In the specific case of political action, uncovering effectual truth means knowing the rules for acquiring and preserving the political set of relationships, whatever this set may be; in the case of a principate, the political relationships that constitute it (cf. point 3 below).
It is interesting to note the debate surrounding the expression "andare drieto". One very common translation renders it as "going straight to", finding confirmation in Machiavelli's direct style10. However, it is possible to understand the expression more as "search after", "following", or even as "in the wake of" (as in “inthe wake of a ship”)11. Events happen (e.g. a prince takes a decision, changes a law, a people revolts, an invasion takes place, etc.) and it is by positioning oneself in the wake of such events that we can best grasp their content and scope, measuring their direct and indirect consequences12. Machiavelli would thus emphasise that what we are able to understand about an event is determined by two things: our position in the situation, and our ability to link what has happened to our personal experience and to human experience in the broadest sense.
This, in any case, is Machiavelli's method. It requires the person who applies it to be in the midst of, in the action, taking part in it (and not outside the action, in the external position of observer, moral judge or theorist). As we shall see, knowledge through effects is only possible if the subject who forms it is exposed to the effects of what he is seeking to know, and it gains in relevance insofar as it resonates with other knowledges of the same kind, is confronted in action, putting its effectiveness to the test of reality.
2. Positional dynamics
Let's go back to the beginning of the book. In the Dedicatory letter to Lorenzo II de' Medici, Machiavelli sets up a locutionary strategy that I will call positional dynamics. Where does he place himself, where is he, as author, as person? Is he in a position of servitude to the prince, when he calls him "Your Magnificence", or is he in the position of the master who teaches, the man of experience who challenges the young prince? He remains elusive as he passes through each of the squares on the chessboard, and from each, banking on the ambiguity of meaning, brings his interlocutor to the place he himself occupied the moment before.
This dynamic is illustrated by the painter's allegory: "For just as those who paint landscapes place themselves in a low position on the plain in order to consider the nature of the mountains and the heights, and place themselves high on top of mountains in order to study the plains, in like manner, to know the nature of the people well one must be a prince, and to know the nature of princes well one must be of the people." Note in passing that it is not just a question of knowing but of knowing well [a conoscere bene], i.e. knowing with a view to a goal that is none other than political utility.
The allegory of the painter will give us a better understanding of the method of effectual truth. To paint a mountain well, the painter must place himself where the mountain will have the greatest effect on him, i.e. on the plain, the plain as it identifies itself as a plain because it is dominated by the mountain; if, on the other hand, he wants to paint the plain, the painter will have to place himself on the mountain, in order to see the whole plain open up before him, and grasp the extent to which the mountain depends on the plain in order to exist as a mountain. It is therefore a question of applying knowledge through effects, knowledge that is necessarily conditioned by the position of the subject. A particular mountain will not show the same face depending on whether you stand to the north or east of its slopes, will not produce the same shadow on the landscape depending on its size and the season, and so on. Similarly, a given plain will look different if viewed from the plain itself, where visibility is limited, or from a hill, a mountain, a plane, a satellite, etc. The subject's position, his point of view, is both the source and the limit of the knowledge he can form of the world around him.
The method of effectual truth is therefore a perspectivist method, as we already found traces of in Alberti's theory13 when he calls the frame of the painting "an open window through which to look at the story"), and which we will see developed in other ways, for example in Leibniz (his monadology), Nietzsche (the will to truth understood as the will to power) or again in Donna Haraway (situated knowledge). What is special about Machiavelli is the vis-à-vis: from the outset there are at least two subjects, the plain and the mountain, the people and the prince. These two subjects look at each other, so that the ability of one to know is conditioned by that of the other.
Moving from the allegory to the real situation, Machiavelli concludes that only princes can know the nature of peoples, and only peoples can know the nature of princes. Heteronomy is a necessary condition of knowledge (you have to be different from the prince to know the prince), but this exteriority must also be affected by what it wants to know (you have to be part of the people governed by the prince to know the prince). Machiavelli uses indefinite articles here to ensure a rise in generality, but this should not obscure the fact that, according to his method, only a knowledge of the particular is possible: only the prince of this people can know the nature of this people, and vice versa.
"Useful to anyone who understands it", this knowledge is therefore necessarily ambiguous, as it can be used in both senses. The same thing will be true in two different senses depending on whether it is used by the people or by the prince; and these two senses will be mutually enriched as they move from one position to the other. To use the terms of the allegory, we could say that you can only know the plain well if you know it from the mountain, but you need to be able to listen to someone living on the plain in order to understand how the way the mountain faces the plain conditions the knowledge that the mountain can have of the plain. Machiavelli's method is therefore consistent with his invitation to the prince who reads it to choose him, a man of the people, as his advisor: as a man of the people, he is a useful advisor precisely because he enables this dynamic interplay of views, where knowledge through effects unfolds its full potential. To have as advisors only people accustomed to positions of leadership (whether political or economic) would be to deprive yourself of the knowledge produced by otherness.
This is all the more true given that each prince, and each people, have changing natures: so much so that our knowledge of them must be constantly updated and re-evaluated as circumstances and events dictate. There is always a tension between the usefulness for some and the usefulness for others, and therefore also between the knowledge that each can form of it.
3. The nature of princes, the nature of peoples
What is a prince? In Machiavelli, the term is not limited to royal bloodlines, nobility, dynasty, monarchy or aristocracy, but refers to any person or group of people in a position of leadership. This extension allows us to read The Prince with reference to a president, company director, commander of a crew or armed forces, charismatic or religious leader, or a government made up of several people. Conceptually, the prince is the dominant position, i.e. the one in which the strongest power to act is manifested within a given social body.
From such a definition, we also understand that any ruler effectively ceases to be a prince from the moment another part of the social body becomes the holder of the greatest power to act: the ruler may well have a crown on his head, but if he does not have the greatest power to act he is no longer truly a prince. Conversely, Lorenzo de' Medici, for example, is said to have been the de facto prince of Florence ("de facto", not "de jure"), meaning that although he had no title of nobility to claim, nor was he elected, he occupied the position of prince in Florence between 1469 and 1492, thanks to the power of his family, his resources, his influence and his own qualities. The effects of this were clear for all to see.
How do we know a prince? As we have said, every prince is necessarily a prince of a people, because his power exists only insofar as it is exercised over a people. As a member of the people, we can get to know the prince through the effects his power has on us. First, these effects can be seen in the acceptance or rejection that a people shows towards him. Machiavelli uses a number of affects (love, fear and hatred) to assess the bond between a group and its ruler. Second, the effects produced by a prince can be seen in the way in which his decisions impact on the lives of a people: a people will feel them and interpret them either as for the better (improved living conditions and a feeling of freedom) or as for the worse (deterioration in living conditions and a feeling of oppression). In the case of a political leader – or, more broadly, a government – such decisions typically manifest themselves in the creation or repeal of laws, taxes, subsidies, administrative rules, etc.; they also manifest themselves in the creation or repeal of laws, taxes, subsidies, administrative rules, etc.; they also manifest themselves in external relations, diplomacy, geopolitical and trade relations, and open or latent conflicts with other powers, all of which have a direct and indirect impact on the lives of the people in the short, medium and long term.
What is a people? Just as it has been said that a prince is only a prince as long as he has the greatest power to act within a given social body, a people is only a people as long as its members recognise themselves as belonging to the same community. Once again, we need to think in terms of effectual truth: a people is a group of people who produce certain effects on each other that hold them together. So it's not a question of numbers, but of a way of life, and intersubjectivity.
In the opening chapters of The Prince, Machiavelli focuses on three elements: language, customs and institutions. These are all ways of living that, carried on through time, produce the identity of a people, that is to say, the inter-recognition of its members as belonging to the same effectual community: they speak the same language or languages, they share the same everyday life, they evolve within the same social canvas. Whether we actively participate in it or suffer its effects, a group of human beings constitutes a people as long as they are caught up in the same story.
In addition to language, customs and institutions, let's talk briefly about place, city or country. The desire to protect, develop and embellish the place where they live and the way they live there is what makes a people. And while existing in a place is a necessary condition for human life, there can be no people if that existence is not continued through time. In his Florentine Histories (1525), Machiavelli depicts the social movements that have shaken the city of Florence over the centuries: the different guilds of merchants, craftsmen and bankers, each with their own interests; the alliances and conflicts between the great families, and with neighbouring cities such as Siena, Prato, Pistoia and Milan. We hear the author's pride in his city and his love of freedom. All this, which makes up the history of Florence, helps us to understand that a people never exists a priori or once and for all. They develop. If a prince wants to be able to govern them, the knowledge he can acquire of them as an effectual community is of the utmost importance.
4. Il populo e i grandi
To understand the complexity of the relationship between the prince and the people, particularly during the Renaissance but not only, two additional elements need to be taken into account: the division of the social body between the people and the greats, and the role played by religion.
People brought together in a social body are never equal de facto (they can be equal de jure, i.e. equal in rights/before the law, at least in theory), because each person is born with different abilities, into a different family, etc. This inequality of each human life is reinforced by certain social norms, whether it be the right of inheritance, laws relating to property, or the distribution of power between men and women, citizens and foreigners, etc. It is something Machiavelli addresses when he uses the metaphor of the body to describe society.
Let us return briefly to this idea. In chapter III, Machiavelli writes that when new states are added to an old state, the prince must ensure that "they will become one body with the old principality" ("diventa con loro il principato antiquo tutto uno corpo"). The expression "one [whole] body" clearly indicates the idea of integration, which Machiavelli believed should be achieved organically, by doing away with the previous prince and his lineage, so that the new head would be better accepted, and without immediately changing the laws and taxes, so that the change of head could take place under stable conditions. If, on the other hand, an acquired state "presents dissimilarities" in language, customs and institutions, he recommends that the prince either go and live there, in order to have the new head recognised (through love and fear), or send colonies there that will act as "shackles" on that state. Finally, it is necessary, he writes, either to annihilate or to flatter, so as not to have to fear vengeance on the one hand, and on the other to get members of this State on one's side (dignitaries, merchants, corporations, populations, etc.). Let's synthetise by saying that blood is the key element here: it has to be spilled well, but it also has to be circulated well, “well” here being relative to the prince's aim (to govern and maintain). Don't spill blood for nothing; if you must kill, do it in a decisive manner; hinder the flow of blood so that it doesn't feed certain organs that you want to eliminate; let it circulate so that it continues to feed the social body; redirect it into the new institutions that you want to put in place. As we will see later, the anatomical metaphor of blood flow also corresponds to the geographical metaphor of rivers used by Machiavelli in chapter XXV to talk about Fortune.
Is everything in politics a matter of flows? The flow of emotions (love, fear, dread), the flow of blood spilt/shackled/oriented, the flow of supplies between the città and its contado, the flow of money between the prince and the bankers, the flow of goods, the flow of soldiers, the flow of knowledge too.
This is the understanding that emerges from chapter IX, when Machiavelli discusses the way in which the social body is divided between two humours that he calls "the people" and "the greats". To introduce his thoughts on the civil principality, he uses this metaphor to show how a state can be maintained whose prince is brought to power by the people (in the broadest sense of the word), and within the people by either of these two humours.
The term "humour" refers to the medical theory of Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician of the 5th century BC. According to this theory, the human body is in good health when the four humours that make it up coexist in balance. Any minor imbalance will cause a 'mood swing', and any major imbalance will pose a threat to health. So when Machiavelli speaks of two humours, the Renaissance reader immediately understands that it must be a question of balancing the humours in question, since any imbalance could prove fatal.
The term "great" ("i grandi") refers to people with a certain amount of power, whether that power comes from titles of nobility, land or resources, or from the people they have under their command. The term "people" ("il populo") – not to be confused with the people as a whole social body – refers to those who exercise power only over themselves, within their families and in their work.
This distinction is reminiscent of the one made by Marx three centuries later, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, although these concepts are not superimposable (as for the feudal mode of production that dominated the Renaissance, it is not suitable for grasping this configuration in which the power of money takes a definite advantage). The advent of capitalism, as described by Marx, signals a change in the distribution of power within society: in capitalism, the government is systematically on the side of the greats (the bourgeois, owners of the means of production), and works with them to alienate and exploit the people. This was not necessarily the case in Machiavelli's time, for whom the government of a civil principality could come from either the people or the great. Machiavelli's vision therefore includes that of Marx, by understanding capitalism as a historically determined possibility in which the social body would be unbalanced in favour of the great. On the other hand, since Machiavelli did not engage in a systematic analysis of the relations of production, his theory of humours cannot lead to the Marxian notion of class.
Machiavelli distinguishes between these two humours by the desire that defines them: "the people do not wish to be commanded or oppressed by the greats" and "the greats do desire to command and oppress the people". The formula is terse. If the greats wish to command and oppress the people, it is because therein lies the source and proof of their power; as for the people, if they do not wish to be oppressed or commanded, it is because they wish to live as they please. In this situation, it is up to the government to maintain a dynamic balance between these two humours, insofar as it recognises that both are necessary to the social body. Machiavelli's aim here is not prescriptive, but rather an observation: in a society, those who have more power than others tend to want to command and oppress the latter; this must be taken into account, as must the desire of the people to want to live without being oppressed or commanded.
An organisation is therefore needed to balance these humours and make them serve the government and continuation of the state. Machiavelli sets out three possible outputs: the principate (when a prince, drawn either from the people or from the greats, is at the head of the state), liberty (i.e. the republican state where the different humours participate together in government) and licence (which is equivalent to an absence of social order and, therefore, means the right of the strongest). However this classification remains theoretical, since a social body is never a perfectly homogeneous whole and the tensions that make it up necessarily evolve over time.
5. Religion and the Church
The second element that needs to be taken into account to grasp the complexity of the relationship between prince and people is both political and apolitical, hence the difficulty: it is religion.
Here we are mainly talking about the Christian religion, although Machiavelli's reasoning can be applied to other religions, and even to non-religious beliefs. It should also be remembered that it was not until the Enlightenment in Europe that we began to speak of a separation of State and Church14; and, moreover, that while such a separation may be formalized at the political level, it is never fully formalized at the social and symbolic levels.
Sticking to the method of effectual truth, Machiavelli does not say a word on the value of the Christian religion in itself. What interests him is understanding the effects that religion can have on the conduct of the State. To understand what follows, we will differentiate between religion, as a set of beliefs and practices, and the Church, as an institution led by a pope and a clergy whose authority and organisation produce decisive effects. This authority is both spiritual (dictating the morality that each believer must apply "according to their conscience"), and temporal (ecclesiastical or state laws, inspired by morality and that each believer/citizen must obey).
In Machiavelli's time, the situation was highly unusual. The election of Alexander Borgia, who became pope under the name of Alexander VI in 1492, set things alight, for his private life and ambitions ran so blatantly counter to Christian morality (he had children, was greedy for power, etc.). This led to a new split in Italy between pro- and anti-papists, which manifested itself in Florence through the growing spiritual authority of a reforming Dominican monk, Savonarola, who led a theocratic republic there from 1494 to 1498, when he was burnt alive in Piazza della Signoria. His death had been demanded by Alexander VI after Savonarola had refused to recognise his authority: under the threat that he would unleash his armies on Florence, the Pope put pressure on the Florentines to execute the monk and, after many twists and turns, was given satisfaction. In 1498, Florence returned to the fold of the Church of Rome, without losing the spirit of rebellion that had prevailed there for four years. The Republic of Florence was born in 1498, and lasted until the Medici returned to power in 1512, supported by another pope, Julius II. And a few years later, Giovanni de' Medici became Pope under the name of Leo X...
Why is Florence such an important stake in the political game of the Church? Because of its geographical location and because, for centuries, it was an important centre of Christianity. Think of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, whose dome – an architectural prowess – was completed in 1436 under the direction of Brunelleschi. Think of the many convents and religious institutions that contributed to the social life of the city, as well as its intellectual effervescence. Think of the Ecumenical Council held in Florence in 1439, which aimed to unify the Byzantine Church and the Church of Rome. Add to this that, if a people is constituted through its language, its customs and its institutions, the Christian religion can well be said to be all three at once. Hence the need for every prince to take this into account, whether he is a believer or not.
How does Machiavelli approach the question? Let's take the example of a prince's "divine right" to rule – when, crowned by a pope, a prince could claim to rule in the name of God – starting not from the legitimacy or otherwise of such a right, but from its effects. How can such a right be effective? It can only be effective if belief in its legitimacy is assured: if a people believes neither in God nor in the authority of the pope, divine right is worthless; if they believe in both, it is worth a great deal, because the effect of adherence engendered by belief will confer undeniable symbolic authority to the prince. It is in this sense that we should understand the reference in chapter XI to the antiquity of religious institutions: they are so much a part of the population's way of life that they exert a strong structuring effect on society as a whole. The prince can rely on this effect, and can hardly go against it.
Machiavelli's vision of religion is therefore pragmatic: if a people is religious, it must be taken into account, and even exploited, since it is part of the realm of what can produce effects. As for the Church of Rome, prudence invites us to refer to it – while distancing ourselves from religious belief – as a type of state, which he calls an ecclesiastical principality. Machiavelli was also critical of Rome, believing that the Church's thirst for power had prevented the Italian principalities from uniting. But he was also critical of the principalities, who were guilty of allowing the Church to gain power without trying to contain its ambitions. It was precisely because the Church of Rome had authority not only over its own states but also over religion that it had to be dealt with diligently. As the death of Savonarola showed, its hold extended beyond physical borders, as a result of its moral and symbolic power.
6. Dis/simulation, swerve and cunning
Knowledge through effects teaches action by effects. The appearance of an action produces an effect, which may, depending on the case, be preferable to the effect of the action actually carried out. As we have seen, one of Machiavelli's original features was that he thought of the exercise of political power in terms of effects rather than normative models. He draws all the consequences from this when he considers that models can be integrated into political strategies without being defined as goals, but used as means, under certain conditions.
Machiavelli once again distances himself from the humanism of his time by reclassifying ideal ends as means that can be used both in ideological discourse and in social organisation. Take the example of religion we have just been discussing. If a prince manages to appear to be a good believer, the people, if they are believers, will feel more inclined to follow him, to listen to him and to obey him; but the prince doesn't need to be a good believer for that, he just needs to be believed to be one (the effect of appearance being performative only on condition that the appearance is seen to be the thing itself, which might be true or false). We would say that such a manoeuvre is dishonest, since such a prince will lie about himself; but Machiavelli then asks: which is better, between a lying prince who manages the state efficiently without being a good believer, and an honest prince who leads the state to its ruin by the very fact that he is a good believer and applies his religion to the letter? This is where the famous sentence of chapter XV comes in: "Therefore, it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain himself to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity."
The difficulty is twofold: on the one hand, Machiavelli invites the prince to swerve from normative models when necessary, because, being on certain points unrealistic, applying these models to the letter would generate harmful effects for the government and the maintenance of the state; on the other, in a society that maintains certain beliefs in normative models, the prince can gain much by appearing to embody the positive qualities (the "virtues") and departing from the negative qualities (the "vices") of such models, in order to ensure social cohesion and justify his ruling position. It is no less a lie, but one that is justified because it serves political utility, conditioned by necessity; it is no less a lie, but one whose moral charge is neutralised because it is measured against the political effects it can produce.
Effectual politics thus brings us to the question of cunning, which consists in operating by relying on the beliefs of others (literally, it is a question of acting on the brains, "con l'astuzia aggirare e cervelli delli uomini", ch. XVIII, in other words turning heads). If trickery, akin to lying, is condemned by morality, it is only effective when it succeeds in making people believe that it is not what it is.
We could go further and ask: is morality, as Nietzsche would suggest, merely a form of instinctive cunning, a particularly specialised cunning? Or is cunning, as the Christian religion would suggest, the path taken by spirits seduced by Evil? It doesn't matter to Machiavelli: cunning can be effective, and those who refuse to use cunning risk falling into the traps of their adversaries on the one hand, and losing a crucial advantage on the other, thereby damaging the state. It is therefore necessary to learn to dispense with normative models so that our adversaries do not use them against us, and so that we can use theirs against them if necessary.
In chapter XVIII, after demonstrating the usefulness of knowing how to be as cunning as a fox, Machiavelli writes: "But it is necessary to know how to colour over this nature effectively, and to be a great pretender and dissembler [bisogna essere grandi simulatori e dissimulatori]. Men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their immediate needs that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived." Machiavelli then goes on to cite the example of Pope Alexander VI, who is said to have done nothing all his life but deceive ("ingannare"). Now let's look at the expression he has just used: “pretender and dissembler" translates the Italian “simulatori e dissimulatori”, probably taken, significantly, from the Roman writer Sallustus15. What does it mean to simulate? To produce an impression similar to what you want to appear. And to dissimulate? On the contrary, to produce an impression that is dissimilar to what you are. The two necessarily go hand in hand: if you want to appear for what you are not, we must at the same time conceal what you are.
Machiavelli did not invent this game of hide and show, which belongs to a political tradition geared towards action, and from ancient practices relating in particular to hunting and war: it is the art of camouflage. Humans have always been amazed by the ability of certain animals, insects and plants to take on the appearance of elements of their natural environment in order to disappear from the eyes of their predators, or conversely to gain a decisive advantage over their prey. Human beings do no different when they seek to "blend in with the crowd", or conversely to "stand out". The hunt is no longer literal, but represented by these coded behaviours within the natural environment that is life in society.
Another example: we know how architects position themselves in favour of buildings that blend into the environment or, on the contrary, stand out from it. Another example: artists and scientists worked together to create the camouflage outfits used by the military to deploy their forces without the enemy's knowledge (and to learn how to outwit the enemy's camouflage, you need to know how to use it yourself). What effect are you trying to produce? This is an essential question in all the arts, and particularly in the applied arts.
Moreover, there is a link here – in this way of understanding humans as using the same ruses found elsewhere in nature – with the figure of the painter discussed earlier. The painter's trick is [1. simulation] to make one thing (his painting) look like another (the landscape he’s painting), and [2. concealment] to make all the painter's work (the observation, the reflection, the choice of colours, the brushstrokes, the mistakes and the retouching) look like something it isn't (in the end, the painting presents itself to the viewer as a self-evident totality). The stake is in the transformation that leads the materials of the painting to become the materiality of the landscape... and this is probably what is meant by the verb "to colour", which Machiavelli uses on several occasions. An aesthetic dimension of politics, dis/simulation is therefore a technique in the sense in which the Greeks understood it: at once a "tool" and an "art", a means and an end, in the sense that while it serves a higher end (the aim is not to produce an effect, but to govern and maintain the State), it is also an end in itself (the aim is to produce an appearance followed by an effect, i.e. in which people will believe).
The problem of the projected image is also reminiscent of Plato's allegory of the cave: for Plato, the "cunning" ones are the sophists (the professional rhetoricians) who shake the statuettes (and language) in order to cast shadows on the walls of the cave. The philosophers, on the other hand, seek to emerge from the cave and free themselves from the shadows of falsehood. Machiavelli says it all: you have to be able to understand things for yourself, in order to know what kind of shadows to cast and what effects to produce. Knowing which shadows to cast is the work of prudence, a notion that expresses the need for knowledge through effects, for a reason turned towards practice. This is where the work of cunning ("astuzia") comes into play, the know-how of making and projecting shadows.
So if a prince needs to learn to use this art, it is not only to represent his own person, "his virtues and vices", but also and above all to colour his actions as a prince, and in this respect the art of dis/simulation is as necessary to the government of a principality as it is to the government of a republic, since the "colouring" of political decisions and actions plays a role precisely because what is at stake is the government of a people. Actions and decisions are wrapped up in discourse relating to values and aspirations, and in so doing are inscribed in a way of doing politics ("to govern" means to lead in a certain way, in a certain direction) and of projecting forward in time ("to maintain" means to envisage the situation in the long term). The matrix of this political language is always the same: the language, customs and institutions through which a people forms an effectual community. So much so that the only way to understand the art of politics is to understand ourselves in its movement: in fact, everyone speaks, everyone has customs and everyone aspires to a certain social order, so that politics is a field in which everything is always already "coloured", produced and perceived through a certain perspective ; something that can also be said of nature.
Cunning thus takes us back to the positional dynamics we analysed with the allegory of the painter. In practical terms, this means that any ruse must be adapted to the individuals it is intended to ensnare, bearing in mind that "Men in general judge more by their eyes than their hands: everyone can see, but few can feel. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few touch upon what you are, and those few do not dare to contradict the opinion of the many who have the majesty of the state to defend them." (ch. XVIII). We understand that dis/simulation, working on a big number of people, can certainly fail on a small number of individuals (who would see the deception for what it is), without affecting the success of a government in "turning minds" to its advantage. There will therefore be a critical threshold to be reached in every dis/simulation, at which point the “touch” escapes from the hands of the majority, and the realm of the visible is conquered. But what is the visible if not the domain of normative ideas? And what is “touch” if not knowledge through effects? For Machiavelli, human beings – especially in groups – allow themselves to be seduced by ideas that appear simple and obvious, ideas that bring people together, but ideas that reality constantly overflows in complexity and diversity.
Let us conclude this reflection by asking the following question: can we do without cunning, can we do without the art of dis/simulation, and speak the truth everywhere? We know that this would be the position of Kant, for example, whose categorical imperative allows for no exceptions. We also know how sensitive this issue is, in the age of mass propaganda and marketing, and the stranglehold that industry and governments have on Big Data. What has been called statistic governance (cf. Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Alain Supiot) is constantly producing dis/simulations that adapt to each individual, trapping them in a network of stimuli that capture their attention at all times. In this context, the desire to free oneself from pretense and emerge from the cave is akin to the desire of the people not to be oppressed or controlled by the great. But on both sides, the matrix of political language remains the same, and everyone uses it to their own ends. The objective truth so dear to Kant is nowhere to be found as an absolute, but everywhere as an effect.
7. Ma perché sono tristi
The analyses we have carried out so far have shown Machiavelli to be a thinker of reality, knowable through its effects; a pragmatic thinker, whose contribution to political philosophy owes much to the distance he deems necessary to adopt towards normative models; a thinker of nature, finally, in that he does not hesitate to use animal metaphors to speak of political action; and a materialist thinker who evaluates beliefs, popular and religious, according to their concrete results. We will now turn to his anthropology, and then to the operative concepts of the virtù and fortuna.
What about human beings? Machiavelli may give the impression of being a pessimist, for example when he writes in chapter XV: "And I know that everyone will admit it would be a very praiseworthy thing to find in a prince those qualities mentioned above that are held to be good. But since it is neither possible to have them nor to observe them all completely, because the human condition does not permit it, a prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the infamy of those vices that would take the state away from him, and be on guard against those vices that will not take it from him, whenever possible. But if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices." Just as he invited us to make good use of our swerving from normative models, he invites us not to idealise human nature, considering it impossible for a person to possess every positive quality. Rather than pessimism, we should speak of realism, which is also prophylactic in that it should prevent us from being deceived by a prince who claims to possess all the positive qualities (inevitably a liar, since this is impossible, and a bad liar since he believes he can make us believe something impossible). Machiavelli is simply repeating the famous Greek and Latin inscriptions inviting us to get to know ourselves, the meaning of which relates to the finiteness of human life: the gods may be eternal and perfect, human beings are not.
But he doesn't stop there. In chapter XVII, he writes: "For one can generally say this about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, and greedy for gain. While you work for their benefit they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons, as I said above, when the need to do so is far away. But when it draws nearer to you, they turn away. The prince who relies entirely upon their words comes to ruin, finding himself stripped naked of other preparations." Here his position seems distinctly pessimistic, insofar as humans are said not to possess the positive qualities that morality generally recognises as important: gratitude, honour, honesty, courage, moderation. These positive qualities are derived from the normative models used in education as well as in social life, where they serve as a measure of our actions. Machiavelli not only does not idealise human beings, but sees them as beings who, if they were not educated and did not experience social pressure, would innocently remain distant from the positive qualities that society promotes for its own good. Every human being, insofar as he or she is part of a society, will learn to apply these qualities, but they are not ready-made: they depend on acculturation based on usefulness.
Which brings us to the other essential point in the above quotation: human beings change according to the living conditions they encounter. To a prince who can dispense abundance, they are ready to give much; but when a prince is in need, they shy away. They follow their own interests on every occasion, which reminds us of the way in which Machiavelli said he wanted to propose a method that would be "useful to anyone who understands it": he knew that his little book would be used in a thousand and one ways. Whether you read it because you belong to the people and want to defend yourself against the greats, or whether you read it because you want to learn how to command and oppress the people, every reader dreams of being the prince, if not of a kingdom, a political party or a company, at least of themselves.
We finally understand it all in Chapter XVIII, when Machiavelli writes that "In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no tribunal to which to appeal, one must consider the final result." The final result – i.e. what is produced, the result of an action – is more important to human beings than the means used, because the most important thing for a human being is to stay alive. If, at the end of a relentless struggle, a particular person finally pulls through, we will first acknowledge the fact that he or she has done so, and then go on to criticise the means used. And if, at the end of a bitter struggle, such and such a government finally prevails, then there will always be a majority of people to line up behind it, because the majority seeks above all one thing: its own utility, that is to say first and foremost its survival.
Consequently, it is in difficult moments, when life is in danger, that human nature is revealed, and not in moments when survival is assured, since then the game of appearances seems to gain autonomy and detach itself from necessity. When our lives are threatened (literally or figuratively), the art of dis/simulation (re)becomes a natural necessity. Normative models (re)become means, and our 'imperfection' then takes on its full meaning, since it is precisely what makes us beings of movement, change and invention.
Machiavelli understands the human world as a continuation of nature; in his view, nature is made up of relationships of force and cunning; and the art of governing, which must act according to necessity, must therefore act as if the survival of the state were at stake every hour. "If men were all good, this precept would not be good. But since men are a wicked lot and will not keep their promises to you, you likewise need not keep yours to them." Once again, for Machiavelli, it is a question of prudence: considering survival as the primary condition of all politics should ensure that we do not make mistakes in our assessment of dangers and our response to them.
The expression "but since men are a wicked lot" translates the Italian "ma perché sono tristi", and there is some debate about the translation. The Italian spoken in Florence in 1512 does not understand the word "tristi" in the sense in which we understand "wickedness": wanting to do harm intentionally. "Tristi" actually refers to the idea of falling. Human beings are beings who fall: they are born, yes, but we all know the result; from the moment we are conceived, life may well rise, but death is no less certain. Two comparisons could be made: the first with the fall of Adam and Eve in the Bible, but we know Machiavelli's distrust of religion. The second, with the book he had copied in its entirety in his youth, Lucretius' De rerum natura. The author's conception of matter, close to that of Aristotle, indicates "the fall in a straight line that carries the atoms through the void" (Book II). This would seem to be a cosmological conception from which Machiavelli's anthropology derives.
So human beings are not evil or bad in a moral sense. They are captives of the movement of atoms, of the life that leads us through all sorts of circumstances over which we have no control. The error in interpreting Machiavellian anthropology would then be to think of his description of human nature in moral terms, when it is thought of in terms of effect: humans, because they are so determined and fragile, do everything they can to stay alive. That's what we see. Which is not to say that they won't join forces or form alliances, or that they aren't capable of love or benevolence; but simply that they must always face the precipice, and that it is in this face-to-face encounter that their value is ultimately determined.
8. Fortuna and virtù
Humans are part of nature and its interlocking cycles, like the planetary spheres in the physics of Aristotle and Ptolemy. If in their vision the Earth was at the centre of the solar system, we can understand by analogy how the individual and human societies are affected by what Machiavelli calls "fortuna": we are affected by the world that changes around us.
Fortuna is thus a concept of becoming: "everything flows" said Heraclitus. More precisely, fortuna is a concept of the movement of nature: as in the wheel that she spins ceaselessly, blindfolded, in common Renaissance representations of this goddess from the Greek and Roman pantheon. But to conceive of this movement as cyclical is also to understand it as a possible object of experience, insofar as recurrences are produced. This raises two questions: how can we anticipate these trends, and how can we position ourselves in facing them?
But first let's take a step backwards. The first aspect in which fortune presents itself to us is that of the unpredictability of events, pure becoming. Machiavelli writes in chapter XXV: "I compare her [fortuna] to one of those destructive rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and buildings, raising the earth from one spot and dropping it onto another. Everyone flees before it; everyone yields to its impetus, unable to oppose it in any way." Everything that is beyond human control. But fortune is yet more than a personification of the unforeseen, it is the unforeseen squared, an unforeseen event that is linked to another unforeseen event and so on, thus taking on a life of its own, an autonomous life. Events unfold in ways that seem to us to respond to a certain logic, but which we cannot account for, at least not entirely.
It is only in the way it affects us that things are crystal clear. When Machiavelli loses his position as secretary and is then suspected of plotting against the Medici and suffers torture, he describes "a great and continuous malignity of Fortune" (Dedicatory letter). When Cesare Borgia lost his hand on the death of his father, it was bad fortune again (ch. VII), and in neither case can the agents be held entirely responsible: there are times when events get the better of us. But insofar as events affect us, they become circumstances for us: they surround us and situate us. Fortune imposes itself on us, and all that remains is to apply the Stoic recipe, establishing the distinction between what depends on us and what does not16, in order to bind ourselves once again to events that do not depend on us and make them our own, naming them "fortune".
This subjective appropriation ensures the agent's agency, which Machiavelli calls virtù. It's not an obvious word for us today, since it's caught up in echoes that either bring it closer to "virtue", i.e. the positive moral qualities that morals and religions ascribe to human beings, their actions and intentions; or to its Latin origin, "vir", which means man, in the masculine form. In Machiavelli's mind, virtù is indeed masculine, which is not to say that it is the sole preserve of men. The most famous example in his writings is Caterina Sforza, whom Machiavelli fabulated into raising her skirt on the walls of Imola17. Here is a woman figure undoubtedly brimming with virtù. Virtù is therefore not relative to gender or social class, because it is not a quality: it is a measure of the intensity of a being's face-to-face encounter with the nature of things. Fortuna and virtù: the two concepts are thus interdependent. If fortune is not someone's fortune, it is not fortune; it is simply the course of events, the infinite fall of matter, as Lucretius would have said, neither positive, nor negative, nor neutral.
It follows that fortune is not favourable or unfavourable in itself, but only for the person to whom it appears as such. Similarly, in the subsequent course of events, the misfortune or happiness of one person will have repercussions for many others, each of which will be favourable or unfavourable in its own way. We could say that fortune is potential for action in the making, it is the dynamic of all the roads and stories, which sometimes form avenues, sometimes steep paths, sometimes crossroads, sometimes dead ends. For while in its concrete aspect fortune determines a situation and possibly a point of leverage ("the opportunity" or “occasion”), it is also a formidable imaginary power, determining how the narrative can give rise to the possible.
Machiavelli was immersed in the culture of the Florentine Renaissance, he read Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca, he met princes, kings and cardinals: so he knew just how much more convincing a good story could be than the surest syllogisms. Agree with me, what happened to me, say it was really bad luck – which presupposes a certain shared experience and is a sign of a community to come – and immediately you're on my side; and that's the side of the loser, of course, but a loser all the more ready to get back on the horse because there was no fault, no sin, no weakness, just a combination of events. Conversely, tell someone that they've had luck on their side, that fortune has smiled upon them, and you'll see everyone rush to celebrate and perhaps dip a few toes in that smiling river. Because without doubt, like all invisible things, fortune is contagious.
Fortune thus produces a form of equality: in the face of things that do not depend on us, we are equal, not only because we do not decide them, but also because fortune takes precedence over all inequalities, starting with birth and wealth, which lead some individuals to rule over others. The richest businessman can lose everything on a bad investment, the most powerful king can die of food poisoning, while on the other hand, because he is in a certain place at a certain time, anyone can suddenly become rich, powerful, happy, and so on. Nevertheless, Fortune is not anarchy. For while on the one hand it undermines and relativises the position of princes, on the other it does not intervene to establish equality (it is not Providence). It is insofar as it is the order of things that do not depend on us that it makes us all equal; but as regards to those things that do depend on us, it remains silent. In fact, when we have no one to convince of our good story, when we tell it only to ourselves, fortune will never prove us wrong and we will always be able to believe ourselves linked to it by a singular and privileged bond, in good fortune or in bad. Machiavelli, the poet and playwright, knows this well: our power of fabulation makes us the equal of God.
But as a man and a politician, he knows that the domain of things that depend on us, which is properly the domain of virtù, is not given once and for all. Virtù can grow and shrink, it is a muscle, it is exercised, and it is exercised in the essential tension that brings it into conflict with fortune. Once again, there can be no virtù without a face-to-face encounter with fortuna, which can only take place through action. Machiavelli says as much when he insists that the prince should use his own weapons, not mercenaries or the armies of other states. In Chapter XIII, he writes: "If one looks for the first signs of the downfall of the Roman Empire it will be found to have begun with the hiring of the Goths as mercenaries. From that beginning the armed forces of the Roman Empire began to be weakened, and all the virtue [virtù] taken away from it was given over to the Goths." A transfer took place: the Roman soldiers stopped practising war, while the Goths practised more and more. In contact with the fortunes they encountered during their campaigns, they acquired experience and exercised that muscle which is only useful in making the most of both favourable and unfavourable circumstances (and can't the same thing be said of education, of the family environment in which we grow up, which prepares us, in a thousand different ways, to make our circumstances our own, or on the contrary to suffer them? Does this passage from Machiavelli not foreshadow the social reproduction envisaged by Bourdieu, and its effect on the psychological positioning of individuals in relation to themselves and society?) To exercise one's virtù is to be prepared to be decisive, is to be empowered. It means riding the destructive rivers, cautious if possible, in the face of the fishtails of fate that can occur at any moment.
This is why Machiavelli is still wary of the "image of things" and of government as it "ought to be" (ch. XV), preferring the effectual truth: because it is easy to get caught in the trap of one's own story, and because once the path has been mapped out, once the habit has been set, it is difficult to change course, and instead of getting out of the rut one slips into it to one's ruin, convinced that at the end of the tunnel is the light promised by poets, like Dante, and by philosophers, like Plato, who believe that reality can take the form of our desire for justice.
How does Machiavelli tell us to deal with fortune? Let us quote at length from chapter XXV: "I am not unaware that many have held, and do still hold, the opinion that the affairs of this world are controlled by Fortune and by God, that men cannot control them with their prudence, and that, on the contrary, men can have no remedy whatsoever for them. For this reason, they might judge that it is useless to lose much sweat over such matters, and let them be controlled by fate. This opinion has been held all the more in our own times because of the enormous upheavals that have been observed and are being observed every day– events beyond human conjecture. When I have thought about it, sometimes I am inclined to a certain degree towards their opinion. Nevertheless, in order not to wipe out our free will, I consider it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves the control of the other half, or almost that, to us.” This stance against fatalism echoes many others, from Maimonides' attack on astrology to Voltaire's attack on Leibniz’s best possible world. As usual, Machiavelli does not theorise free will. His philosophical stance is geared towards action: insofar as something depends on us, it is up to us to practise it, in order to increase, if possible, the area where our virtù can reach. Machiavelli's use of the term makes it clear that he is not issuing a peremptory judgement, but proposing an approach that could be described as performative: we don't know exactly how much of our actions fortune controls, but in order "not to wipe out our free will", it is better for us to think that fortune is in control of only half of them, and that we can therefore rise to the occasion and meet them on an equal footing. Half, "or almost that", “o quasi” says the Italian: an extraordinarily offhand sentence which shows that what really matters is not so much a dispute about the exact proportion of our power to act in relation to fortune, but the intensity with which we exercise that power.
This applies to the government of the State and of armies, just as it applies to the attitude of the prince towards his subjects, allies and enemies, just as it applies to the way in which each and every one of us is the agent of our own story. Once the game has been played, the situation will be assessed in terms of effectual truth: "In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no tribunal to which to appeal, one must consider the final result." (ch. XVIII) But in the meantime, in the interstice opened up by the action, as long as the outcome has not been decided, we will stick to this formula: we have at least a 50% chance of winning, which on the one hand is encouraging and on the other encourages caution. However, even if we make careful and decisive use of the cards in our hand, some days it will be 10/90, other days 75/25, since fortune is variable.
Machiavelli, in a passage from chapter XXV famous for its misogyny, compares fortune to a woman: "la donna è mobile", as we might say in the famous aria from Verdi's opera Rigoletto. He wrote: "I certainly believe this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down. It is clear that she more often allows herself to be won over by impetuous men than by those who proceed coldly. And so, like a woman, Fortune is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity." A male virtù is matched by a female fortuna, according to the old virilist cliché that makes nature a feminine, changeable entity that man must subdue in order to “shape” it. Here, although these notions can be deconstructed, the Machiavellian man of action belongs to the patriarchal paradigm.
Speaking of Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus "and other similar" male heroic figures, Machiavelli writes in Chapter VI: "In examining their deeds and their lives, one can see that they received nothing from Fortune except opportunity, which gave them the material they could mould into whatever form they liked. Without that opportunity the strength of their spirit would have been exhausted, and without that strength, their opportunity would have come in vain." Apart from the logical error – since in the absence of an agent there can be no occasion – it is clear from this passage how the sexual metaphor reduces the female part to the passivity of "matter". At times Machiavelli makes fortune a mere provider of opportunity, at other times he makes it the figure of a destructive nature that stops at nothing. It is this ambiguity that we will now discuss, in conclusion of this chapter.
In the case of the “heroes of civilisation” we have just mentioned, the dynamics – real or imagined – show the agent as the victor over fortune, insofar as his virtù dominates the power struggle. But in the case of the "long and continuous malignity of fortune" that Machiavelli evokes at the end of his Dedicatory letter, it is fortune that has conquered, and the defeated man who asks for mercy by submitting to the prince. By submitting, he reverses the dynamic by becoming passive himself, mixing with fortune and presenting himself to the prince as a possible opportunity to be seized.
Machiavelli undoubtedly understood the lesson of fortune, in the sense that throughout this letter, as throughout the book, he constantly changes his position. Variable, then.
It’s the dynamics that really matters: “Without a doubt, princes become great when they overcome difficulties and obstacles imposed upon them. And therefore, Fortune – especially when she wishes to increase the reputation of a new prince, who has a greater need to acquire reputation than a hereditary prince does – creates enemies for him, and has them undertake enterprises against him so that he will have the chance to overcome them and to climb higher up the ladder his enemies have brought him. Thus, many people judge that a wise prince must cunningly foster some hostile action, whenever he has the opportunity, so that in repressing it his greatness will emerge all the more." (ch. XX) This is an astonishing personification of fortune, to which Machiavelli lends an intention here, that of "wishing to increase their reputation", as if, among its tendencies and currents, fortune were developing a sensitivity that enabled it to foresee who could strengthen such a dynamic through the exercise of its virtù. The image that comes to mind is once again that of a power struggle, but one that is also, as the end of chapter XVIII suggests, an erotic struggle. Is Fortuna Machiavelli's Beatrice? He places at the heart of the world's movement a power whose existence enables us to see any event – favourable or unfavourable – as an opportunity to grow. To turn the whole world into a potential opportunity is, we might conclude, the virtù of the mind. And wisdom: to choose your opportunities wisely.
9. La qualità dei tempi
In chapter XXV, Machiavelli recounts how Pope Julius II gained everything because fortune, at the time, favoured the impetuous attitude that was his. But "if times that required proceeding with caution had arrived, his ruin would have followed, for he would never have deviated from those methods to which his nature inclined him." In the rut of his temperament, he would not have been able to change, to mix with fortune to reinvent himself in the face of its reversals." I therefore conclude that, since Fortune varies and men remain obstinate in their ways, men prosper when the two are in harmony [concordano insieme] and fail to prosper when they are not in accord." When in doubt, as we have seen, for Machiavelli it is better to be spirited than circumspect, but this is a poor substitute, since what concludes a situation is the quality of an encounter, between the nature of an agent and the nature of the times shaped by fortune. For the author of The Prince, then, there is no recipe, and it is better to look at what he does rather than at what he says.
It's not for lack of trying. Isn't there a way of determining this qualità dei tempi, the quality of the times? We said it when we introduced the notion of fortune: nature is cyclical, fortune is cyclical. Machiavelli's resources for understanding fortune are first the works of historians (Livy, Polybius, Thucydides): similar situations can arise again and again, with the same effects. Then there are the works of philosophers, such as Plato, who discusses the cyclical succession of political systems in Book VIII of The Republic, and the Stoics, who speculate on the return of all things to their principle. Lastly, there is astrology, a science that enjoyed great success during the Renaissance because – like statistics today – it allows us to anticipate future times, the question of its accuracy being irrelevant. Here astrology is a good illustration of Machiavellian thinking in that it combines two types of analysis: the first focuses on the tendencies inherent in an individual, the second on the tendencies inherent in the future of the world and of communities. Popes and kings, bankers and artists all had their personal astrologers close at hand, at a time when Christianity was in crisis and the wisdoms of the past were resurfacing. Machiavelli, for example, called on an astrologer to determine the best day and time for the army of the Republic of Florence to enter the reconquered city of Pisa18.
In his Tetrabiblos, Claudius Ptolemy wrote about astrology what we might be tempted to put into Machiavelli's mouth about fortune: "the stars incline, but do not determine". Fortune is certainly not destiny: destiny is of necessity, whereas fortune, in principle, allows room for manoeuvre. Fortune is not God: God is the sanction of effectual truth, whereas fortune is the playmate of the willing man. Fortune is not immutable, but changeable. In the movement of the wheel and in the movement of the stars, it produces times whose quality demands that we be impetuous, other times whose quality demands that we be circumspect, and a hundred other qualities that call for a hundred other attitudes on the part of the agent. Once again, whatever the reality of such projections, they serve first and foremost to storicise the action, to give it a ground from which to launch out, a slope on which to take off.
In the never-ending dialogue between virtù and fortune, three "times" finally stand out. First, there is the time of peace, during which we must work to build dykes in anticipation of the destructive rivers, and exercise ourselves to produce that "orderly virtue [ordinata virtù]" (ch. XXV) that will enable us to resist them. Then there's the time for action, when everything comes together feverishly, when an intense struggle begins that gives birth to fortune at the whim of the opponent's virtù, when all the prudence you are capable of will be weighed in the balance, and when you can be the virtuoso of your own virtù. Finally, the time of the aftermath, the time of results, when a new reality has emerged, a new quality of time, with which human beings, willy-nilly, will try to find a new 'agreement'.
Notes
1. A Roman publisher, Antonio Blado. Read the article by Raffaele Ruggiero, Les premières phases de la transmission du Prince de Machiavel.↑
2. All quotations from The Prince are taken from the translation by Peter Bondanella, Oxford World Classics, 2005.↑
3. Which he began writing at the same time as The Prince and finished in 1517.↑
4. This is not a necessary historical progression, since while Italy was unified in 1861 in the form of a monarchy, and then transformed into a republic in 1946, the republic of ancient Rome underwent the opposite fate, becoming an empire. Indeed, we might be tempted to draw a parallel with the evolution of Machiavelli's thought, who began by urging the unification of Italy in the form of a principate, then, in 1517, argued decisively in favour of a republic. Rather, we need to take up this question again, starting from the notion of qualità dei tempi: different times, different situations, call for different forms of government, those that are capable of "governing and maintaining" a society as a whole.↑
5. "In the 18th century, Diderot favoured the first solution: Machiavelli teaches the powerful "a detestable kind of politics that can be summed up in two words, the art of tyrannising". But Rousseau replied in The Social Contract: "This man teaches tyrants nothing; they know only too well what they have to do, but he instructs the people in what they have to fear." " Patrick Boucheron, Un été avec Machiavelli, ed. des Equateurs, 2017, pp. 54-55.↑
6. In his Preface to Toutes les lettres de Machiavelli, t.1, Gallimard, Paris, 1955, p. XI.↑
7. Cf. the functional tripartition of the ideal city in The Republic, headed by the philosopher-kings.↑
8. Machiavelli does not, however, believe that everyone can understand him, since in Chapter XXII, addressing the question of the choice of ministers, he makes a distinction between three types of intelligence: " There are three kinds of intelligence: one understands on its own; the second discerns what others understand; and the third neither understands by itself nor through others. The first kind is most excellent, the second is excellent, and the third is useless."↑
9. In this respect, Machiavelli is an heir to Lucretius, and perhaps to Dante's Monarchy.↑
10. As Machiavelli wrote in the Dedicatory letter: " I have neither decorated nor filled this work with elaborate sentences, with rich and magnificent words, or with any other form of rhetorical or unnecessary ornamentation that many writers normally use in describing and enriching their subject-matter, for I wished that nothing should set my work apart or make it pleasing except the variety of its material and the gravity of its contents." ↑
11. See under "drieto" in Il Terentio latino, commentato in lingua toscana, e ridotto alla sua vera latinità, by Giovanni Fabrini, Venezia, 1594.↑
12. This way of understanding the expression "andare drieto" can be linked to the notion of event, "evento", developed in chapter XVIII. There, an event is defined as something that has happened, something that has taken place: it can no longer be undone. In fact, only human beings who have lived through an event will consider it to be an event, in the strongest sense of the term, because they will have lived through its direct consequences and the way in which, among themselves, they will have talked about it and positioned themselves in relation to what happened.↑
13. In De Pictura, written in 1435.↑
14. Dante, in his De Monarchia, sketches out such a separation, which may well have influenced Machiavelli.↑
15. In Catilinarian conspiracy (43 AEC), describing the eponymous politician's attempt to seize power in the Roman Republic, Sallustus describes Catilina in Chapter 5 as "subdolus, varius, cujuslibet rei simulator ac dissimulator". Translation: "a bold, cunning mind, rich in resources, capable of feigning and dissimulating everything". It is interesting to note that Machiavelli, in this chapter, moves further away from the Christian normative model the closer he comes to the Roman tradition (between Sallustus and Cicero). Need we recall Machiavelli's preference for republican government? But even such a government would have to be capable of cunning, on a par with those master foxes Catalina and Cesare Borgia.↑
16. In addition to the Stoic influence, we can also refer to this famous passage from Lucretius. After mentioning the fall of atoms and the clinamen, he concludes: "We must therefore grant atoms the same property, and recognise that there exists in them, in addition to shocks and gravity, another motive cause, from which we derive the power of the will, since, as we see, nothing can come into being from nothing". (On Nature, Book II).↑
17. On the different versions of this story written by Machiavelli, see the article by Julia L. HairstonSkirting the issue, Machiavelli’s Caterina Sforza, 2000.↑
18. For more on this subject, see Anthony J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos, Yale University Press, 1992. "In his 1509 campaign against Pisa, Machiavelli himself was advised by his friend Lattanzio Tedaldi as to the punto to take possession of the city. "Thursday being the day to take possession of Pisa, under no circumstances should the Florentines enter the city before 12.30. A little after 13.00 would be the most propitious for us. If Thursday is not suitable, Friday will be the next best, again after 13.00, but not before 12.30; and the same applies to Saturday, if Friday is not suitable. And if it is not suitable to keep either to the day or to the hour, take a suitable time in nomine Domini." " (p. 17) If astrology doesn't work, we appeal to God!↑