-Well, thank you, Matthew,
for these very generous words. And thank you all very
much for your presence. It's a great delight to
be back here in York. This is a lecture about Niccolo
Machiavelli and his best known work of political theory,
"The Prince," [ITALIAN]. But I want, first, to say a
word about Machiavelli himself. A Florentine, born 1469. He, first of all,
devoted himself to a life of public service. And it's an important
fact about his biography that he wouldn't have
expected, in his earlier years, to have been the author
of any work of politics. He devoted himself, as I say,
to the service of the Republic. And he was, indeed, second
chancellor of the Florentine Republic from 1498 until the
sudden collapse of the Republic and the return of the Medici
princes to power in 1512. 1512 was a great year of
crises for Machiavelli. He was not only
summarily removed from his position in
the second chancellery. But he became an
object of suspicion to the Medicians, alleged
to have taken part in a plot against the return of the
Medici princes to power. And he was imprisoned
and tortured. He is released from prison
in a general amnesty at the beginning of 1513. But he is ordered to absent
himself from the city. He is in compulsory
exile from the city, living in his farm south of
the city, overlooking it. But he's not permitted
to re-enter that space. And that is the end
of his public career, tremendous division
in his life, 1512. Because from that
time onwards he has no public role,
no political office. And becomes the man of letters,
the philosopher of politics who is known to posterity. Now, settling down early
in 1513 in the countryside in forced leisure,
which he hated, he writes a famous letter to
his friend Vettori-- Francesco Vettori-- in December of 1513. In which he says,
well, how have I been occupying this
enforced leisure? He says, well, I
have just finished writing a little book
which is [SPEAKING LATIN], concerning principalities. And he is referring,
clearly, to the completion of his treaties, "The Prince." Now, if Machiavelli began
writing that little book-- as he implies-- as soon
as he was let out of jail, then he began to write
it exactly 500 years ago to the month. So it's this date, it's
a great anniversary for Machiavelli scholars. The writing of "The
Prince," the beginning of the writing of "The
Prince," exactly 500 years ago in February or March of 1513. So it's that date,
as well as the book, that I want, in a way,
to celebrate as well as to talk about this evening. So now let me turn Machiavelli
to his text, to "The Prince." As I'm sure you know, there's
a pivotal chapter in this book. It's a book of 26 chapters. The last being this formal
rhetorical exhotartio to the Medici, to
restore Italian unity. But the previous
25 chapters being this analysis of how
to gain and hold par. The pivotal chapter,
I think, is chapter 15 in which Machiavelli declares
that his aim in writing the book is to offer practical
advice about statecraft. And his basic aim, he says,
at the end of the book-- this is chapter 24-- to
offer advice to new princes. He's not interested in
established princes. If you've inherited
your principality and you can't hold
onto it, then you're too incompetent to be
worth thinking about. He's only interested
in new princes, who have the
greatest difficulty. And the aspirations,
as he nicely puts it, is to make new princes look
like well established ones. That's the practical
aim of the advice. Now, he discusses rulers
of antiquity and rulers of the present time both
as sources of exemplar. Of course, the idea of operating
with examples, as much as with arguments, a very
typical feature of renaissance rhetorical culture. So as you would expect,
no doubt, all the princes, is all the political leaders
whom he discusses in antiquity and in his own time are men. And that means that the
vocabulary of "The Prince" is quite a heavily
gendered vocabulary and not to be anachronistic,
I'm going to have to follow it. But let's notice at the outset
that not all the rulers whom Machiavelli discusses
were, in fact, men. One whom he mentions
with great admiration both in "The Prince" and
later, in "The Discourses," is a woman, Caterina Sforza. And as we shall see,
everything that he has to say about the
requisite qualities for political leadership
would apply to women rulers as much as to male rulers. Now, there is one indispensable
quality, or rather, set of qualities that any
political leader, man or woman, any political leader
must possess-- according to Machiavelli-- if they are
to succeed in their leadership. And this is the quality which,
in the Italian is called virtu. Now, this word la virtu--
it's the same in the plural, [ITALIAN]-- echoes
throughout the book. It occurs once in Latin. As perhaps you know, of
course, the book is in Italian. But the chapter headings
of this book are in Latin. And chapter six has
the Latin form, virtus. That's the only occurrence of
it in Latin in the whole text. But for those who
like precision, the word virtu-- either in
the singular or the plural-- occurs 60 times in this
extremely short book. So that's an average of
getting on for once per page. It's absolutely
pivotal to the argument of most of the chapters, this
notion of princely virtu. And so corresponding
it, seems to me-- the pivotal task of the
interpreter of this book-- is to understand what he meant
when he used that crucial term. Now, Machiavelli never
supplies a formal definition. And that's not his way. He's not Hobbes as it were. And it's true to
say, that he uses the term virtu in a quite
wide variety of contexts. So wide that it's
become quite standard to say-- in the
critical literature, I quote, for
example, Whitfield-- "That he uses the word without
any consistency at all." Now, this first
point I want to make is that I really
don't agree with that. It seems to me that this term--
pivotal to the argument-- is used with
complete consistency. It is applied throughout
this brief book as the name of a set of
qualities which Machiavelli wants to say several
things about. I think I'm going
to turn out to make four closely connected
points here about how this terminology
is, in fact, used. First, la virtu, virtu is said
to be the name of the quality-- or rather, it's always
a set of qualities-- by means of which it is
possible for a political leader at least, in part,
to control, and hence to offset the power of Fortuna. As he calls it, the power
luck-- good luck or ill luck-- in political affairs. I should say-- this I'm sure
you know-- Machiavelli believes that you can never get
rid of the element of luck in political leadership. So as he frequently
implies, show me a successful political
leader and I will show you someone who has been
extremely lucky. I mean, what if John Smith
had not had a heart attack? We would never have
heard of Tony Blair. Wow. I mean, these people
are fortunate. They're successful only
because they're fortunate. But of course, although
that there, therefore, cannot be a science of politics. I mean, that would be
a grotesque mistake, according to Machiavelli. There couldn't be a
science of politics because that would
forget the role of luck in politics which is x
hypothesi incalculable, but of great importance. Nevertheless, he says
it's a great mistake of some ancient
thinkers-- and he cites Plutarch-- to suppose that
in politics everything is luck. For Machiavelli, much
of it is judgment and the relationship
between luck and judgment is, really, one of the
major themes of the book. Now, the quality that
you have to possess if you're going to
be able, in any way, to control the role
of luck, is virtu. And so one of the
oppositions in the book is always between the
virtu and the Fortuna. Fortuna, virtu. That comes out most
explicitly in chapter 24. This concluding chapter on how
the political leaders of Italy have, in his own time, so
commonly lost their states, lost their principalities. And Machiavelli says,
they blame Fortuna. They say that it's been
due to tremendous ill luck. But he says, and I quote--
all these quotations are my own translations, by the way. And my translations are very
literal-- "Where one's defenses are based upon one's own virtu,
the capacity of ill fortune to take away one's
power is limited. So although they blame what
they regard as their ill luck, they ought not to do so." Why not? Because in fact, they're
lacking in virtu. If they had this
quality it would've enabled them to
offset, to control to some degree, ill fortune. Now, there's the first claim. The second is a very
closely associated claim, which is that the
virtu is also the name of the set of qualities
which enable you. This is a very useful,
I think, American idiom which captures very well
what Machiavelli is saying. You can get lucky. It's possible to get lucky. You shouldn't think of Fortuna
as the same as providence. It's not inexorable. It's possible, in certain
ways, to ally with and to control fortune. And if you ask, well, by
what means is it possible? The answer is, again, the virtu. And this is the point
that's brought out in chapter six, which is
in opposition to chapter seven, where the first discusses
how you can seize and hold power by this quality of virtus. And the second
discusses how you can do the same by means of fortune. So now these two quantities
are being put in opposition in the organization of the
first part of the book. Now, in chapter six, Machiavelli
introduces another notion here which is connected with fortune. He says, sometimes--
I'm quoting-- "You may have the good
fortune to encounter the right occaision." The Italian word is occasione. The right-- we would have to
say-- moment of opportunity to act. And he says, if
you're not blessed with having the right
opportunity to act, if you don't have that
kind of fortune-- and that is a
piece of good luck, having occasione, having the
right moment to act-- then you're never going to succeed
as a political leader at all. So to that degree, fortune
is inexorable and present. But what it is to
be a leader of virtu is to seize opportunities. That's the quality that enables
you to seize opportunities. So in chapter six, he
follows this thought out with the discussion of the
leaders, the three leaders, whom he regards as
having had the greatest virtu in the history of
political leadership, Moses, Cyrus, Romulus. Well, Moses, he
says, he cheated. Because God told him what to do. So that really doesn't count. His favorite is Romulus. But of all of them,
he says, and I quote, "If their lives
and actions are examined it will be seen
that they received, from Fortuna, nothing
but occasione," nothing but the right circumstances
in which to act. He agrees, without having
had that particular occasion, their virtu would've been
expended to no effect. But because they had
such great virtu, no opportunity was wasted. And that was what made them
successful political leaders. They grasped the opportunity. And the quality that enabled
them to do so was virtu. Now, that brings me to the
third of these four points I'm trying to make about
this concept, which is also brought
out in chapter six. Because, he says, political
leaders with these qualities-- the virtu-- are always able to
seize opportunities, they are, in turn, able-- and now comes
a formula which echoes all through the book-- the
Italian says [ITALIAN]-- to maintain their state. So virtu is the name
of the quality that enables you to
maintain your state. Maintain your state, mantenere
lo stato, what does that mean? Lo stato is, in
Machiavelli, is I think, quite deeply ambiguous. Of course, in modern Italian
lo stato just means the state. And that notion is not
absent in Machiavelli, I've come to think. But fundamentally,
what he means by being able mantenere lo stato, is
to maintain your state i.e. as a ruler, as a
political leader. That's to say,
maintain your standing, your status as a
political leader. What you want to avoid is
what the French, at this time, were already calling
a coup d'etat. That's to say, any
strike against the etat, meaning your etat, your state,
your condition or standing as a ruler. But if you're going to
maintain your position then, obviously, what you've
in fact got to maintain is the jurisdictions
and territories that have been given
into your charge. And that, of course, brings out
the other notion of lo stato. That sounds very like the state. And it's true that
if you're going to maintain your
state, [ITALIAN] stato, you have to maintain the state,
lo stato, the institutions, the jurisdictions of the state. And indeed, the very first
sentence of the whole book uses this notion of
state in-- for the age-- a remarkably abstract way. Because he says, all the
states that, there have been, [ITALIAN], all the
states there have been, have either been
principalities or republics. So notice the notion
of a state is something that could be either a
principality or a republic. So it's a rather abstract notion
of some set of institutions which could take different
constitutional forms. So what Machiavelli
wants to say, is all right, that's your task. You've got to be able
to maintain your state. Avoid a coup d'etat. And the quality that
enables you to do that is this quality, la virtu. So he ends chapter
six by talking about a not-celebrated
prince, but I think, actually, the real
hero of the book. And he's called Hiero. So Machiavelli
would've noticed that. Chapter six ends by
discussing Hiero of Syracuse. And I quote-- "From being
an ordinary private citizen he became the sole
ruler of Syracuse. It is true that he enjoyed
a fine opportunity,"-- occasione-- "but
apart from that, his success owed
nothing to fortuna. But everything to the fact that
he was a man of outstanding virtu. And as a result,
although he found it difficult to
acquire power, he had no trouble in managing,
mantenere lo stato." Why? Because he was about
standing virtu. Now, Machiavelli
notes in chapter 19 that this point--
which is really the core of the book, how
you maintain your state-- could be put another way around. What have you got
to be absolutely sure you don't do if you're
going to avoid a coup d'etat? If you're going to
maintain your state? And he says, there
are two things you must avoid like
a shoal, he says. I mean, the idea
here, of course being you're steering
the ship of state. Don't steer it into the shoals. Now, what are these shoals? There are two things that
must be avoided at all costs. One is being hated. And the other is being despised. And he illustrates the
point in chapter 19 with a brief history of
the late emperors of Rome. Antoninus was hated. So he quite soon lost his state. Pertinax and Alexander
were despised. So they, quite soon,
lost their state. Commodus was hated and despised. So he maintained his state
for a very short time. By contrast, neither
Marcus Aurelius nor Septimius Severus--
Machiavelli's two favorite political
leaders of antiquity-- were ever hated or despised. Although, of course, Severus--
as his name implies-- was very greatly feared. He was feared but not hated. And that is, of course,
part of the trick. And as a result,
both of them managed without any difficulty--
mantenere lo stato-- to maintain their state. And if you ask why
this is so, he says, they both possessed
straordinario virtu, extraordinary virtu. Now, it's true
that Machiavelli-- throughout this book-- is
at least as much concerned with how you can get power
as with how you can manage to maintain it,
mantenere lo stato. And of course, chapters
1 to 11 are largely about getting power as
well as holding onto it. But notice that you can get
power in all sorts of ways. You can get power because
you may inherit it. I mean, it may be
hereditary principality. You could get power
because it may be that you're elected
into this particular kind of principality. For example, the papacy. It's just happened, hasn't it? That's an elected principality. So that's another way
you can come to power. You could also come to
power by mere good fortune. The only way that you
can maintain power, however-- there's just
one way-- is by virtu. Let me turn to the
fourth and final point that I think Machiavelli
wants to understand about this notion of virtu. But to appreciate
this final point, you have to see that we are
in the high renaissance here. We're at the beginning
of the 16th century. And we are in a scale
of political values very foreign to us in a
democratic society. And Machiavelli wants to
say, this goal-- which is the fundamental
goal of princes, being able to
mantenere los stato-- is not the main
goal of the prince. It's the fundamental one. If you can't manage to hold
onto the apparatus of power, then you're over. There's nothing to say to you. But it isn't the goal you
should be setting yourself. The goal you should
be setting yourself-- and here we have the high
renaissance speaking-- is glory, la gloria. What you have to do as a
prince is to do great things, grandi cose. You've got to do great
things of such a kind as will bring you glory. And so much glory now, that
posthumously you attain fame. Fame is posthumous, which
is why you must always be polite to historians. Because they are in
charge of your fame. But they're not in
charge of your glory. That is what you can aspire to. And so it's the figure of
the virtuoso who gains glory. This figure of glory
that Machiavelli wants you to focus on. Of course, virtuoso
now would just mean someone extremely good at
playing the violin in public, or the piano or
something like that. That would be a virtuouso. But you see the connection. Because when you watch
these people in action, they are amazing, aren't they? And you know, they're
glorious figures. They bring the house down. Now, this discussion of
glory is also very much Machiavelli's theme
in chapter 19, when he discusses Severus
and Marcus Aurelius. Because he says, both were able
not merely to remain in power, but to attain so much glory
that they died venerated by all. OK, there it is. As far as I can see, that's to
understand this pivotal notion in the book, that if you
wish to attain glory, if you wish to
maintain your state, if you wish to overcome
and control fortuna, the answer in every
case, as I say, you need this quality of virtu. So there it is. Well, you might say, well,
that's extremely unhelpful. Because what is this quality
or this set of qualities? We want a list, don't we? I mean, so far I've just given
you the heuristics of it. But you want to know, yeah, but
what is this thing, virtu, le virtu, la virtu, what does it? Right. Now, Machiavelli is writing
his book in a culture and at a time when there was a
considerable literature devoted to exactly that question. And I now want to talk for a
moment about this literature and Machiavelli's
relationship to it. When I say, a literature of
advice book to princes I'm thinking of a number of
Italian texts, Latin texts of the last part of
the 15th century. Giovanni Pontano writes a
book called "De Principe." Bartolome [INAUDIBLE] writes
a book called "De Principe." Francesco Patrizi writes
a book called [INAUDIBLE], concerning the King. So notice that
Machiavelli, "Il Principe," that's gone into the
Italian from the Latin. And that was a very important
moment in Italian literature. The move from Latin to
Italian for a learned treatise like this one is the
move made by Machiavelli. But all these writers,
"De principe," are writing about the quality
that they call virtus. Now, they completely
agree with what is said in the next generation
by Machiavelli, that virtus is the name of the quality the
team that brings you glory. As Pontano says, and I'm
translating-- "virtus alone is the source of glory." But these writers also
want you to have a list. They want you to have a list
of what the quantities are that go to make up the
virtus of the prince. And the account is very clear. And they all agree. There's one fundamental
quality that you have to have. And it is the political virtue. And it is justice. I quote [INAUDIBLE], "A
society will remain firm only if it is
governed with justice. If justice is
neglected it will die. Justice is the foundation of
a prince's perpetual acclaim and glory." To which Pontano
adds, quoting Cicero, "I quote again, the
essential element injustice consists in [ITALIAN]." That's to say,
faith, keeping faith. Meaning keeping your promises. Never breaking your word. "Nothing--" I'm quoting
again-- "is more despicable than failing to keep your word." "The watchword--" and
here he is quoting Cicero again--
"must be [ITALIAN]." Good faith must always be
served, must always be kept. That is actually a maxim of the
Roman law that they're citing. But also, it's to
be found in Cicero. The foundation of justice is
[ITALIAN], keeping your word. [ITALIAN] That must, above all, be upheld. So there's one classical
thought, essentially Ciceronian thought. But their classicism
is broader than that. And as Peter Stacey--
in a major recent book on the classical
origins of renaissance theory of principalities--
brings out we should cite here not
just Cicero, but Seneca. Seneca-- the tutor to
Nero, bad luck, that was-- wrote two treatises of advice
for princes, one of which is called the "De
Beneficiis," in which is talking, essentially,
about the giving and receiving of benefits, and thus, about
the virtue of liberality in princes,
generosity, liberality. And so there is one
of the two of what he calls the princely virtues. The other princely
virtue is the subject of his incomplete treatise
which he addressed to Nero, which is called
"De Clementia," concerning clemency. Now, what liberality
and clemency have in common which makes them,
specifically, princely virtues, notice, is that they
go beyond justice. Being generous or being liberal
is more than being just. Being clement is
more than being just. And of course, princes have
a prerogative of clemency. They can cancel the law
and insert mercy instead. So these are the special
features of princely morality. So you could
summarize by saying, that the standard
classical humanist view current in
Machiavelli's society is that there are three
princely virtues. And that they are justice
and generosity and clemency. Now, if we turn back to what
I call the pivot of the book, chapter 15, what we
see is that Machiavelli is engaging with exactly
this tradition of thought. And he says, and I'm
quoting chapter 15-- "I am well aware that
many people have written about this subject of
princely virtu already." Clear reference to exactly
the literature I just cited. And he goes on, "I fear,"--
he doesn't, of course, mean that at all-- "I fear that
I may be thought presumptuous. For what I have to say,
departs from the precepts offered by these other
writers on this subject." And then the Italian
says, [ITALIAN]. It departs massively
from what these idiot-- these people--
have been saying. And then he proceeds. It's a famous sequence of
chapters from chapter 15. The next chapter,
chapter 16, is called [ITALIAN], concerning
liberality. The next chapter after
that is called [ITALIAN], concerning cruelty and clemency. And then chapter
18 is on [ITALIAN], the keeping of your word,
the foundation of justice. So having introduced
the idea that he's going to depart massively
from what is normally said, he alerts you to the literature
that he's talking about by singling out these
three particular qualities. So the question is what
is this massive departure? Because that's to get inside the
structure of the book I would submit and to understand
the title of this lecture, How Machiavellian
was Machiavelli? We need to focus
on these chapters. Well, I think, myself,
that these chapters could be said to have a
kind of essential answer to that question. Which is that all the elements
of princely virtue-- as commonly understood in classical
and Renaissance humanism-- are treated by Machiavelli
purely instrumentally. By which I mean, that the
fundamental argument, I think, is that here are these
qualities and you should follow them insofar as they're
helpful to your basic task. Which you remember is
mantenere lo stato. And you should not
follow them if they get in the way of that task. So for Machiavelli, the key
question in political morality is always framed
consequentially. So he's not really interested
in the idea of a virtue. That's to say, a quality
that's absolutely forbids you to do
certain things. For him there is
no such quality. Because the
consequentialism is such that in respect of any given
action, you must always ask, will this action, which is
liberal or which is clement, or which is just, help
me to maintain my state? If it will, do it. If it won't, don't. And so the princely
judgment-- and this is what virtu is-- is
judging when that is right. Now, that's, then, applied
to each of these virtues. And first, as I
said, to the virtue of liberality, the
topic of chapter 16. I quote-- and this is
how the chapter begins-- "It is very good to
be held to be liberal. But remember your basic
task, mantenere lo stato. And then, for
Machiavelli, the problem is-- I quote again--
"Practicing liberality can lead to your being hated
by those whom you will have to tax heavily in
order to sustain your reputation as a
man of liberality." but don't forget what
happens if you're hated. You'll soon lose your state. There's no exceptions to that. So Machiavelli's advice
here, in chapter 16, is-- I quote-- "A prudent
prince will, therefore, not mind being called miserly. Such miserliness is a vice. But it is one of those vices
that enable a prince to rule." What about the second
princely virtue, clemency? He starts, again, by
affirming even more strongly than in speaking
of liberality, I quote-- "Every
prince ought to want to be considered to be
merciful and not cruel. But remember your basic
task, mantenere lo stato." And he adds, "Once you see that,
you will recognize clemency can be badly used. [ITALIAN] It can be badly used. He gives the example
of Cesare Borgia. I quote-- who was
"harsh and cruel. But his harshness and cruelty
reformed his principality. It was due to his cruel
measures that he succeeded in unifying the Romania,
uniting it, bringing it loyalty, bringing at peace. Only by cruelty did he
manage mantenere lo stato." What, finally, about chapter
18 on the fundamental virtue of the prince,
[ITALIAN], is justice? Now, here I think he wants to
make the same point even more forcibly. Which is, of course, keeping
your word is a great virtue. But as he says, always
keeping your word, you will find-- and a very
simple form in the Italian, he says, that it'll [ITALIAN]. It'll turn against you if you
always keep your promises. So the question is always, will
the keeping of this promise endanger or help to
maintain the state? If it'll endanger
it, don't keep it. If it will help, then keep it. And this advice, that you should
take a completely instrumental view of the virtue
of justice, he says, is confirmed by experience. I quote the chapter. "Experience
shows that in our times, [ITALIAN], those
princes who have done great things,
grandi cose, are those who have held the
keeping of their word to be of no significance." And the great example,
he says, is the Pope. He would have no idea what it
was like to keep his promise, but has been very successful. I hope the conclave
will keep that in mind. So the basic doctrine is
very economically summarized in the title of chapter 18. Now, the title of
chapter 18-- is it possible to recapture how
shocking this title would have been at the time? Remember [ITALIAN]. That's the watchword
for the prince, the watchword for the prince. The title of chapter 18 of
Machiavelli's Prince [ITALIAN], how far, [ITALIAN]. How far should you
keep your promises? So what's an order, [ITALIAN]? Good faith must always be kept
is turned into a question. [ITALIAN], how often? How far? That's, for Machiavelli,
the question. And that would
have seemed-- as it did-- almost an unbelievable
moment of political wickedness. Now, the second thing
that Machiavelli wants to say about [ITALIAN]
is whether if people really care about [ITALIAN]. And how was it that Pope
Alexander VI never kept his promises but
was so successful? Well, he says, because he
was brilliant at dissembling. And that's what you
must become as a prince. And hence, the famous
image of the fox. People will gravely
object if they conceive that you're someone who doesn't
care about promise keeping. So must minimize the extent
to which they can see that. Otherwise you're a fool. And of course, the
figure of the fool, who thinks that it's
in line with reason not keep your promises, who
occurs in Hobbes' Leviathan, is clearly the figure
of Machiavelli. So don't be a fool, he's saying. You must dissemble as
much as you possibly can. And that leads to the summary
of Machiavelli's argument. And I'll read it. "It must be understood
that a ruler, and especially a new ruler,
cannot always act in ways that are considered good,
are held to be good." [ITALIAN] "Because in order,
mantenere lo stato, he is often forced to act
contrary to good faith, contrary to humanity,
contrary to clemency, contrary to liberality. He should not depart from the
good when that is possible. But he must know how
to enter into evil ways when that is
necessary, [ITALIAN]." Now, the revolutionary claim
is that's the virtuoso prince. That's all a part of
the virtu of the prince. And so you end
with the thought-- not that I'm going to
end with this thought. Because I've come to think
this is a crude analysis of Machiavelli. But fundamentally,
the thought is that the prince must be
someone willing to do evil that good shall come of it. That is, as it were, the
basic message of the book. Now, I think that
that sort of is the basic message of the book. Or rather, I think
that that is definitely what he wants to say about
the virtue of justice. But if we turn to the other
two crucial princely virtues, liberality and
clemency, I've come to be much less clear
that that is, actually, what he wants to say. So hence, the
title of this talk, How Machiavellian
was Machiavelli? In respect to justice,
the traditional picture of Machiavelli, namely,
he is the person who tells you to do evil that
good may come of it if you think that that's
the right judgment. That, I think,
that goes through. That is the argument
about justice. But I don't think that is the
argument about either clemency or liberality. I think it's a far more
rhetorical argument. And I think it has very
deep classical roots. And it gives us a somewhat
different Machiavelli. And I would like to end with it. What I think
Machiavelli, basically, wants to say about the other
two princely virtues is that if the following of
what are held to be examples of liberality and clemency
have the effect of ruining you, of your losing you
your state, then how can they be the
name of the virtues? Because notice, he said,
that the quality of virtu is the quality that
causality brings about success in
maintaining your state. But you've just said
well, it doesn't. But notice what's
underlying this is a phrase that
we would still use. These are the
qualities, by virtue of which you're able
to maintain your state. So there's a question
mark against the idea that it makes any
sense to say, that was an act of great liberality. But unfortunately, it didn't
help you to maintain the state. Do we really understand
these virtues? Is what Machiavelli
is, I think, saying. So there's something deeply
rhetorical going on here. And what exactly is it? Well, the ultimate
classical source for what I've come
to think is going on in this part of
Machiavelli's text is one of the great
moralists of antiquity according to the
Renaissance, Thucydides. We think of Thucydides
as a historian. And of course, he
writes the history of the Peloponnesian War. But he was thought of as
one of the great realists moralists of antiquity. And there is a
crucial passage which resonates through
the Renaissance from Thucydides' history,
which is the discussion in book three of when civil war broke
out in one of the city-states. That's to say, Corcya. Now, I'm not saying that
Machiavelli knew this text, although it's very striking. One of the great physiological
achievements of the High Renaissance was the first
ever Latin translation of Thucydides directed
from the Greek into Latin, made by Lorenzo Valla in 1452,
but printed as early as 1483 and widely available in print
in Italy in the generation just before
Machiavelli is writing. He may not have read the book. But this particular discussion
was very widely known. So what does Thucydides
say in this famous passage? In talking about it I'll
use Valla's translation, which I shall, in
turn, translate. Just to avoid any anachronisms. What Machiavelli says, is that
when the Civil War breaks out, the very first casualty
is moral language. Because people will try
to seize moral language for their partisan purposes. And I now quote the
Valla translation. "As soon as war
breaks out, people will begin to excuse
merely reckless behavior by re-describing it as courage."
[INAUDIBLE] will be called fortitudo. "And they will begin to
excuse slackness and slowness to act by calling them instances
of honorable cautiousness. And they will begin to
re-describe and even to excuse mere ill temper
and rage by calling them instances of true manliness." Now, Thucydides says, the
opposite can also happen. I quote once more, "As soon as
conflict broke out in Corcyra, not only were evil acts
excused as instances of virtue, but good actions
were denigrated. So modesty came to be
re-described and condemned as nothing more than cowardess. And careful and
prudent deliberation came to be dismissed as
mere lack of decisiveness." Now, Thucydides is
writing as a moralist. He is saying, that's what
happens under civil war. Moral language corrupts. It's seized by factions. But in later generations, that
very powerful moral passage is picked upon by
the rhetoricians. We don't know how early. But the earliest rhetorician
who picks this up is the greatest in the
history of rhetoric, namely, Aristotle in Book One
off his "Art of Rhetoric." Now, again, I'm not saying
Machiavelli knew this text. But I should add that it
was translated in Florence, in the 1470's by George
of Trebizon into Latin. Machiavelli is
bilingual in Latin. The text is very freely
available in Florence at the time. So he may well
have known it too. So what happens when Aristotle
picks up Thucydides-- he gives all the same examples--
is instead of saying, look, this is a terrible thing
that happens morally in circumstances in a civil war. He says, no, here's a good
rhetorical trick you can try. You can try re-describing
recklessness as courage. So instead of this being
presented in moralistic terms, it's presented in
rhetorical terms. He's saying, this is something
you could try at home. Now, he gives examples
of how the virtues could be denigrated. He gives Thucydides examples. But he's much more
interested-- as a rhetorician is bound to be-- in
how you can manipulate moral language in
order to excuse vices. And he not only Thucydides'
example, which is-- I'm quoting George of Trebizon
now-- "mere ferocity being re-described and indeed
commended as courage." The [INAUDIBLE],
is called fortus. But then Aristotle
adds lots of examples, so far as we know
they're his own. Of course, they may have come
from some earlier rhetorician. But in the history
of rhetoric, we know these as
Aristotle's examples of how you could
excuse the vices. He says, hmm, you could try
re-describing completely simple-minded person
as very good natured. You could try re-describing a
completely cold and emotionless person as particularly
calm and gentle. You could try
re-describing someone who is almost always
furious as remarkably frank. You could try
describing someone who is appallingly arrogant
as remarkably dignified. You could try
describing someone who is invariably extravagant
as extremely generous. These all Aristotle's examples. And they flow into the
rhetorical tradition. They're picked up
by the greatest of the Roman
rhetoricians, Quintilian, who gives it a name,
paradiastole, excusing vices by re-describing them by
the names of the neighboring virtues. And the examples
that Quintilian gives are simply translations
of Aristotle's examples. And that understanding of
what paradiastole is, namely, excusing vices, the
act of excusing vices by re-describing
them as virtues then goes into the later
rhetorical tradition, the medieval tradition
in particular. Because Isidore picks this
up in his encyclopedia, quoting Quintilian
word for word. And then in the Renaissance,
the new revival of rhetoric in the Renaissance. People had mentioned earlier,
for example, de figuris. They simply repeat
Quintilian all over again. So there's one strand
that comes down in the history of
rhetorics of that kind. However, however, however,
there is another strand. And that goes back to the
original Thucydidean position. But if you think about it,
you can adapt that to rhetoric as well. And the claim is that the
rhetorical trick is not re-describing the
vices as virtues. But pointing out that
that's what people are doing, because that's
what Thucydides is doing. He's pointing out that in
circumstances of the Civil War, vices get re-described
as virtues. So there's a rhetorical
tradition which says, look, that's what
paradiastole is. It's not the act
of re-description. It's pointing out that
this act of re-description is going on, that we're living
in stupendously corrupt times, that the virtues and the
vices have all got muddled up. And in the Roman
tradition, there are a number of texts in which
that rival understanding of how to think about
paradiastole is picked up. Rutilius Lupus, but above
all, the most important text from Roman antiquity and in
the Renaissance picks it up. And that is the anonymous
"Rhetorica ad Herennium." Now, this is a quite
unpretending text. But it was the way that
you learned rhetoric at school and at university
in the Italian Renaissance. And, indeed, in the
English Renaissance. You learned it, first of all,
at school in the sixth form. As it was already
called the sixth form in any grammar school. It was also called the
rhetoric school class, that the sixth form
was the rhetoric class. Why? Because you studied rhetoric. What did you study? The ad Herennium. You have to think of a culture
that knew this text by heart. And Machiavelli certainly
learned his rhetoric from it. And Virginia Cox, in
a classic article, showed how the structuring
of the whole discussion of the [ITALIAN] and the
[ITALIAN] in Machiavelli is taken directly
from the ad Herennium. So he knows this text. And this is the text which
says, the rhetorical trick is not re-describing the
vices as the virtues. It's pointing out
that that's going on. And that that's the
forensic thing to do. And that shows you that your
opponent is a corrupted person. Now what I want
to end by noting, is that this is what is going
on in these famous chapters of Machiavelli's, chapter
16 and chapter 17. So let me turn back to them
and just finish at this point. Chapter 16, de Liberalitate--
"It's desirable"-- Machiavelli begins. I've quoted him
already saying this-- "to be held to be generous. However"-- he goes on, I quote--
"if you practice generosity in the way that will enable
you to sustain among men of the present time, the
name of being a generous man, what you will, in fact, find it
is necessary to do is to emit no element of extravagance,
[ITALIAN]," the Italian says, "and to such an extent
that you will, in the end, consume the entirety
of your resources. So Machiavelli is
saying, what passes in our society of the
present time-- [ITALIAN], as he says-- as the
virtue of liberality is, in fact, the
vice of extravagance, which is being excused. That's what Machiavelli
is pointing out. People go around talking
about princes as liberal. But actually, they're
describing extravagance. What about the
next chapter, when we come to the
virtue of clemency? Well, again, Machiavelli
says, actually, what I have to point
out is that when people get praised for
clemency in [ITALIAN], in our times, what
is being praised is actually not a
virtue but a vice. And he gives two examples. I quote-- "The
Florentines, in order to avoid being
called cruel, refused to intervene to stop an uprising
in Pistoia with the result that the whole
town was destroyed. But while the Florentines
congratulated themselves on their clemency, they
gave a wrong description of their behavior. This was not clemency. This was being [ITALIAN]. This was over indulgence. They could've killed the
ringleaders and saved the town. Instead of which, they left the
ringleaders and the entire town was killed. How is that clemency? These are corrupt people. That's not clemency. That is just overindulgence. The second example
is, again, it's very hard to recapture this. This would've been unbelievably
shocking in Machiavelli's time. The second example
is Scipio, one all the most revered heroes
of the Roman Republic. And revered, above
all, for his clemency. Machiavelli says, he
wasn't clement at all. He was living in a society
in which what he did was corruptly called clemency. But it wasn't actually clemency. Two examples are given. One is he forgave a mutiny. There was promptly
another mutiny. So a large number of
people were killed who didn't have to be killed. So how is that clement? He says, that's not clement. That's [ITALIAN]. Again, that's just
over indulgence. He should've known what
military discipline required. And then there wouldn't
have been a second mutiny. Second example he gives,
one of Scipio's [INAUDIBLE] allowed a city in
Calabria to be destroyed. Scipio, to avoid a
reputation for cruelty, refused to punish
anyone involved in destroying the city. How is that clemency? Machiavelli says,
that's not clement. And what he says, is that
is an example of [ITALIAN]. That's just someone
who is completely lax. They don't care. And that is the
celebrated Scipio. He's not clement. He's lax. He's overindulgent. People don't understand
the true virtue. So we live in a corrupted
society in which people think that what is, in fact,
extravagance, is liberality. Now, he says,
consider Louis XII. Everyone says, well,
what a terrible man. He was extremely parsimonious. Machiavelli says,
and I quote, "Yes, as a result of
that parsimony, he was able to fight all wars
without ever raising taxes. I call that generous. Because it led to no rapacious
demands upon the people. And that enabled him
to maintain his state." Now the paradox is resolved. This is true virtu. Because it does help
you mantenere lo stato. But you have to understand what
the true virtue of liberality is. Second example, Cesare
Borgia, he was called cruel. But his methods brought peace,
stability, good fortune, and prosperity to the Romania. It enabled him-- that's to
say-- to maintain his state. So Machiavelli wants to
say, his behavior which was cruel at the outset, had
all these further consequences which meant that it was
far more merciful behavior than the behavior of
the Florentines who, to avoid a reputation
for cruelty, allowed destruction instead. Now, here I draw to a close. But what I've been trying to
say, in these closing minutes, is these closing minutes
is that Machiavelli's view about the virtues, the
political virtues is, I think, more complicated
than has often been allowed. Certainly, he treats
them all instrumentally. The question is
always will acting in a way that is
held to be virtuous help you to maintain your state? Now, in the case of justice, he
says, well, sometimes it will. And sometimes it won't. And in fact, not only sometimes. But the Italian says,
often, [ITALIAN], you will have to avoid
the virtue of justice. But when he turns to the
other two princely virtues, it seems to me that the
argument is rather different. He says, of course you must
only follow those virtues if you think that
they will conduce to the maintenance
of your state. But he thinks that true
liberality always will, and that true
clemency always will. It's just that we live in a
corrupt society, in which what is called clemency
is, in fact, just being overindulgent
and facile and lax. And what is called liberality
is just sumptuousity and display and extravagance. These are not virtues that
will maintain your state. Because they're
not virtues at all. The truly understood
virtues-- if you get around this re-description
that everyone is going in for--
will always help you to maintain your state. So how Machiavellian
was Machiavelli? Entirely, I think, in the
traditional picture in relation to the virtue of justice. But much more
complicatedly in relation to the other two virtues. He still an instrumentalist. He's still a complete
consequentialist. He thinks that you
should follow them if and only if they will
maintain your state. But he thinks, rightly
understood, they always will. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]
This is a great lecture. I was curious why he never took that step back, which seems typical of discussions of Machiavelli, to where the author's motivations are considered. How we read Machiavelli can depend a lot upon whether we take the advice in The Prince to be honest, cynical, satirical, etc.
Read the r/HistoryofIdeas interview with Quentin Skinner, or read the comic book Machiavelli biography.