I share in these pages some of the analyses, interpretations and pedagogical works I carried out on the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, in particular The Prince, between spring 2020 and summer 2024.
A sentence from Nietzsche had spurred me on: "But how could the German language – even in the prose of a Lessing – imitate Machiavelli’s tempo – Machiavelli who, in his Principe, lets us breathe the fine, dry air of Florence? He cannot help presenting the most serious concerns in a boisterous allegrissimo, and is, perhaps, not without a malicious, artistic sense for the contrast he is risking: thoughts that are long, hard, tough, and dangerous, and a galloping tempo and the very best and most mischievous mood." (Beyond Good and Evil, The free spirit, §28, trans. by Horstmann & Norman)
It was my political involvement in the years 2015-2019 that then led me to this study: what rationality should be adopted in such a context? What does activism face when it comes up against the forces of the State? How can we distinguish between the intentions of some and the realities of others? How can we understand the inertia of systems and how can we transform them?
Finally, my interest was motivated by a family tradition of sorts: my maternal grandmother, born in Pistoia, was, like many Italians, passionate about the Renaissance and the Divina Commedia. At the time of the rise of Fascism, her father, who worked for the national railways, had been "transferred" to Venice in one of those government manoeuvres designed to break up the nuclei of Communist groups. The family's inclination towards Gramsci rather than Mussolini is no secret.
During the years 2020-2023, I worked on and taught The Prince, read and reread the Florentine's works, along with biographies and commentaries. I learnt Italian, travelled to Florence and so on. At the end of 2023, I decided to write down what had remained notes and audio recordings until then. And to make accessible the documents that have been invaluable to me in the course of my research.
My intention being, in the wake of Machiavelli, "to write something useful to those who hear it" (ch. XV), I propose a reading of The Prince that aims above all to create intelligibility.
In Histories, you will find some elements of context necessary to any situated knowledge; in Concepts, a synthetic explanation of the method developed by Machiavelli; in Replies, a series of open discussions with my students, with writers on political philosophy and with the zeitgeist; and finally in Sources, texts by Machiavelli, but also on and around his work, a small portable library, articles, podcasts, videos, etc.
My thanks go to the students who studied with me over the years, first-rate accomplices who have learned about political philosophy by reading The Prince. My desire in teaching it has been to be able to prepare their minds for issues that I think we urgently need to confront. A world that in many ways is becoming harder, harsher and crueller by the day. A world that must not be left in the hands of the “great” predators and that will not survive a policy of status quo.
Lausanne, the 11th of August 2024.
PS. For those of you who would prefer to have a document to annotate, you can download the entire site in pdf format here.
Machiavellian Studies © 2024 by Mathias Clivaz is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.