A British academic stumbled across a rare find while combing through historical archives in Florence: an arrest warrant for the famous Italian writer and strategist Niccolò Machiavelli, dated to 1513 and subsequently forgotten.
Michavelli , widely seen as negative , is used to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort ancient described most famously in The Prince.
Machiavelli described immoral behavior, such as dishonesty and killing innocents, as being normal and effective in politics.
He even seemed to endorse it in some situations. The book itself gained notoriety when some readers claimed that the author was teaching evil, and providing “evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their power”., Though many commentators, such as Baruch Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, have argued that Machiavelli was actually a republican, even when writing The Prince, and his writings were an inspiration to Enlightenment proponents of modern democratic political philosophy.
“When I saw it I knew exactly what it was and it was pretty exciting,” said Manchester University professor Stephen Milner in a university press release.
Drawing of the trumpet used by the town crier, left, was fpund together with the proclamation calling for the arrest of Machiavelli Photo: University of Manchester
When the Medici family returned to power in Florence in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in the city’s chancery because of his association with the head of a rival faction.
His name was then linked with a conspiracy to overthrow the Medici. They issued the proclamation found by Prof Milner for his arrest. While breif in words it explains how to attain power and to retain it, he gives also examples to support his ideas of historic campaigns of various historical figures throughout history. By his own words, it departs massively on what should be done by rulers by not proclaiming virtues , but on what is useful in tactics. So it was not only seen as Revolutionary by scholars, but also by the author himself. He is not concerned with morals, but with strategy.
Some scholars say, at the time of writing he gains a shockingly immoral persona in chapter 18 of the book.
Since ancient times, one of the great ideas of Roman politics and still held in esteem at the time, was that a ruler keeps good favor by being of good faith,de fide operandi, in other words by keeping their promises, it is even used today in papal decrees, however; Michavelli disagrees , and states that the nature of men is primarily bad, they most likely will not keep their word and therefore a leader might not concern himself by keeping his.
The book is intriguing, because of the allure of power and it’s feeling of co conspiracy while reading it. Leaders from Napoleon to Stalin, to everyday candidates have it within the libraries and personal reading. Mussolini even wrote his dissertation on it.
Kissinger and Nixon drew from it often. Perhaps during Watergate, Nixon even had in mind what its often mistranslated and attributed to Michavelli, “The ends, justify the means”, what he actually wrote is ” what is accused , is often excused “ and labled as accusata/scusatta.
“On the same day, he was imprisoned, tortured and later released and placed under house arrest outside the city.
His torture included being placed on the rack and stretched to the third rung, still without breaking, and to this day, no evidence of him being in on the conspiracy exists.
It is easy to say that it may still have happened. Michavelli’s biography from the organization age of the stage states
Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence on May 3, 1469 as the son of a legal official. After receiving an education that allowed him to cultivate a good grasp of the Latin and Italian classics he entered government service as a clerk in 1494.
This was at a time of a downfall of the power of the Medici family which had ruled in Florence for some sixty years previously.
When the Florentine Republic was proclaimed in 1498 Machiavelli rose to prominence as secretary of a ten-man council that was entrusted with conducting the diplomatic negotiations and supervising the military operations of the state. From 1499-1512 his duties included many diplomatic missions within the Italian peninsula and to the French, Papal and Habsburg courts.
In the course of his diplomatic missions within Italy he became acquainted with the political tactics of many Italian rulers. In late 1502 and into 1503 Machiavelli became familiar with the effective statebuilding methods of the ecclesiastic and soldier Cesare Borgia, who was at that time engaged in enlarging his holdings in central Italy through a mixture of audacity, prudence, self-reliance, firmness and not infrequent cruelty.
From 1503 to 1506 Machiavelli was charged with a reorganization of the military defense of the republic of Florence. Although mercenary armies, in the form of condottieri bands, were common during this period, Machiavelli greatly distrusted their capacity for loyalty and preferred to rely on the conscription of a soldiery native to the republic. This preference having been largely inspired by the writings of Livy about the citizen armies of ancient Rome.
In August 1512, in association with developments contingent upon the rivalry between Spain and France in their competing involvements in the Italian Peninsula, the Medici regained power in Florence and the republic was dissolved, Machiavelli as a key figure in the former, and presumably anti-Medici, administration was deprived of office in November. In the spring of 1513 he was placed on the torture rack under suspicion of involvement in conspiracy. After his release he retired to his estate at San Casciano near Florence, where he wrote his most important works. Despite his attempts to gain favour with the Medici rulers, he was never restored to a government position.
The Prince
Machiavelli’s most famous work, The Prince, was written in 1513 but only published after his death (1532; trans. 1640) It describes the often crafty, cunning and unscrupulous methods by which a prince can acquire and maintain political power. The work immediately provoked controversy and was soon condemned by Pope Clement VIII.
This study is based on Machiavelli’s belief that a ruler is not constrained by traditional ethical norms. In his view, a prince should be concerned only with power and be bound only by rules that would lead to success in political actions.
During Machiavelli’s life the Italian peninsula was a scene of intense political conflict involving the dominant city – states of Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples, plus the Papacy, France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.
Each city attempted to protect itself by playing the larger powers off against each other. The result was massive political intrigue, blackmail, and violence.
The Prince was written against this backdrop, and in its conclusion Machiavelli issued an impassioned call for Italian unity, and an end to foreign intervention.
In 1810, a letter by Machiavelli was discovered in which he reveals that he wrote The Prince in efforts to endear himself to the ruling Medici family in Florence.
To liberate Italia from the influence of foreign governments, Machiavelli explains that strong indigenous governments are important, even if they are absolutist.
Machiavelli, known as the Prince of Darkness, then wrote The Prince in the hope of regaining the approval of the Medicis.
“But there’s no evidence to suggest they even read it,” said Prof Milner. The actual book has no title and was only given a name the Prince by publishers about 5 yrs after Michavelli’s death.
Machiavelli’s fortunes spiralled downwards and he died in abject poverty 14 years later.
The academic found the document while studying hundreds of town crier proclamations issued between 1470 and 1530.
He also found documents relating to the payment of four horsemen who scoured the streets of the Tuscan city for Machiavelli. Which was a latter title of a documentary discussing American Politics and Economics, and included the popular refrain :
” To understand something , is to be liberated from it”
Florence in 2013 celebrated the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli’s writing of The Prince, a political treatise which argues that the pursuit of power can justify the use of immoral means.
The celebrations included a reconstruction of the events surrounding his arrest and imprisonment. As Michavelli says himself, fortune or luck, is always more powerful than reason.