[MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE] QUENTIN SKINNER: Well, thank
you very much for inviting me. It's really a
pleasure to be here. I was just looking up checking
a reference this morning for something that Shakespeare
said about Machiavelli, so what do I do? Google, of course. I could not live my
life without Google. I couldn't begin to
do that, so thank you all very much for existing and
thank you for the invitation. Well, here, we've lost him
now, but that was Machiavelli. And among philosophers,
Machiavelli is unusual. In fact, I can't think of many
other examples in that we've turned him into an
adjective, haven't we, so that you might
say of someone, well, that was rather Machiavellian. I'm not sure that we
always know what we mean. That's what I was looking
up in Shakespeare. He says-- of course, he makes
the infamous Richard say, I could send the murderous
Machiavel to school. So he's murderous. But many different
things are meant by talking about
Machiavellianism, so I thought what
might be useful is if I were to try to do something
which is quite difficult, which is not to ask what
we might mean by this, but what did Machiavelli
mean by it himself? And I'll try to do
that by way of talking. I'll just talk for half an
hour, just rave on at you, and then we can talk
together, I hope, which will be more
interesting I think for you. I'll try to do this by
talking about the book that I think people
most often have in mind when they talk about
Machiavellianism, which is his book, "Il Principe"-- "The Prince"-- completed in
1513, first printed in 1532. And of course not
long after that, it becomes, as it has
remained ever since, an absolutely global text. And even if you write about
him, you become a global text. So just briefly to
boast, this little book is currently available
in 25 languages. And of course, that is
simply the global name. I'll start by saying a word, if
I may, about Machiavelli's life because that's extremely
important in relation to his political philosophy. So he's a Florentine. He's born in 1469,
son of a lawyer. All that's known
about his early life is that he has a good classical
education, which in those days meant learning Latin to
a very high standard. I mean, he's bilingual. He writes in Latin as
well as in English. And often of course, when
he's writing "Legations," he's writing effectively in code
writing in Latin rather than in Italian. They're on the cusp of
Italian, but of course, they've already had Dante
and Petrarch, and so they have a great
literary language to which he very spectacularly
contributes himself. So there is his education. The first that history
hears of Machiavelli is in the year 1498. So France invades Italy in 1490. The Medici, who have been
informal tyrants of Florence for the last 50 years, they
quite soon get thrown out. And the traditional Florentine
Republic is restored. And from nowhere, Machiavelli,
still only in his 20s, becomes the second chancellor
of the Florentine Republic. He has no previous
administrative experience that's known about. Actually, quite
a lot of research has been done on this
because the Archivio di Stato is good in
Florence and you can find out quite a lot
about Machiavelli's entry into the chancery. But it comes from nowhere,
but he is second secretary. And as second secretary, he
ranks as one of the secretaries to the chancellor,
Piero Soderini, who is a friend, in
consequence of which he is sent on a number of
diplomatic missions. And that's what's
important in relation to his political writings. The first is in 1499
to Caterina Sforza. I mention it because it's
important to remind ourselves, especially in a book
that is, I have to say, very heavily gendered and
it's thinking about politics, that in order to be a
prince in Renaissance Italy, you did not have to be a man. And Machiavelli is
extremely impressed and actually rather cross
with Caterina Sforza. She turns out to be a
very difficult person to negotiate with. So that's 1499. And then in 1500, he is sent
for the first of four trips that he makes, long
trips, to the court of Louis XII of France. And on each of
these occasions, he has a number of
audiences with the king. In 1503, he's sent to
cover the papal election. The Borgia pope,
Alexander VI has died, and he is succeeded
by Julius II. Machiavelli meets, of
course, both these people, and he subsequently has several
meetings with Julius II. And then in 1508, the last of
his really important legations, he's sent for six months to the
court of Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor. Now, he's met the pope
on many occasions. He's met the king of
France on many occasions. He's spent several months
talking to the Holy Roman Emperor. This explains a certain
tone about his politics. He's the insider. He knows what's going on. He's met the leaders of
Western Europe of the time. He really has. And they all, of
course, reappear in the pages of "The Prince." Louis XII, typical Frenchman,
doesn't understand statecraft. Julius II, bonkers. Maximilian-- hopeless,
useless emperor, never can decide anything,
doesn't know what he's doing. Nobody knows. Nobody can trust him. So there's a
loftiness, of course, about the resume that he
gives all these people. But my point is simply
he is the insider. And that's a truth
about him, and he wants you to understand it. All right, then, so the
final phase of his life stems from Julius II
with typical impetuosity, trying to get the French out of
Italy, allies with the Spanish. That brings the dreaded
Spanish infantry into Italy and the whole of the
area held by the French, which is roughly the line in the Po
Valley of the great cities, including Milano. And, of course,
Firenze is an ally. They are under enormous threat. And to stop Florence being
sacked, they simply surrender. The republic collapses. The Medici princes are returned. So Machiavelli is out
of a job permanently. He goes into retirement
to his farm south of-- I don't know if
any you've seen it. He complains a lot
about it in his letters. But if you go there, I don't
think you would complain. It's absolutely lovely
house in Sant'Andrea. Very good restaurant
there as well. So he is there until
his death in 1527. And the outpouring
of literary works, none of which, of course,
he expected to write-- he was going to go on being a major
civil servant of the republic. But he writes the
"Discorsi" on Livy. He writes the "Art of War,"
which is published in-- I mean printed in 1521. He writes the
"Florentine Histories," which are a huge
work, occupies him the last five years of his life. But the first work that
he writes after he loses his position is "The Prince." And we know a lot about
the writing of "The Prince" because he's in correspondence
with a friend of his, Francesco Vettori, about writing it. So it's a wonderful
letter and recently described as the most famous
letter in the Italian language. He says, I'm living
in this terrible hole, and I'm not in Florence,
but I'm entering the courts of the
ancients and asking them to tell me their wisdom. And I've written a
little book about it. And it's called-- actually,
he says "De Principatibus," but he writes it in Italian. And it's completed
by Christmas of 1513. Now, of course, all these books,
[INAUDIBLE] for princes books. This is a book of
advice to princes. They have dedications. And the usual dedication would
say, well, you're amazing and I'm nothing. Machiavelli's dedication
is extraordinary from a literary point of view
because he says to these Medici princes to whom the
book is dedicated, first to Giuliano who dies in
1516, and then, to Lorenzo, it's rededicated in
1516 when he revises it. He says, look,
you're new princes. You don't know anything. I've been doing
this for many years. I really know what's going
on, so listen up good. I mean, it's an
extraordinary address to a prince in the Renaissance. You don't talk to
them like that. But this is Machiavelli. And then there is a concluding
exhortation to the Medici. He says, look, you
got back into power. And there's a great
metaphorical account of how Italy is bleeding. Italy is wounded. So of course, the metaphor
is Italy needs doctors. Well, he doesn't
have to because he's echoing it, what is the
Italian for doctors? Medici. So he's addressing
the people whom he thinks will be the doctors. So they need advice. What advice do they need? Well, Machiavelli
has two answers, and one is a high-flown
one which brings us into the heart of Renaissance
moral and political ideals, is, what is it to be a prince? It is to seek glory
and, posthumously, fame, because fame is in the hands
of the historians which is why you must be polite to them. But for the moment,
what you're seeking is to do what Machiavelli calls
grande cosi, great things, of such a kind as will give
contentment to the people. They'll be amazed
and pleased, and they will bring you honor and glory. But he says that's
not, of course, the basic thing that you
have to do as a prince. The basic thing is-- and here's
a little phrase that echoes all through the "Principe." You've got to [ITALIAN]. Lo stato, in modern Italian, of
course, just means the state. But it already [INAUDIBLE] for
Machiavelli very, very early instance. In the very first sentence
of the book, he says, all the states--
that's how he begins-- [ITALIAN] All the states exist. And he says they're either
monarchies or republics. So he has the idea
of a state meaning an apparatus of government. But of course, in addressing
a prince, he's also saying, look, you've got to
maintain your state-- i.e., your standing, your status,
your state as a prince, your princely state, as we would
say in an old literary phrase. Because, of course, if you
lose your princely state, you will have lost
your state as well. So the question is--
and notice there's a little piece of French
echoing here, isn't there? The coup d'etat, the blow
against your state or standing as a ruler. How do you avoid that? How do you maintain your state? That's the question. Well, there are two
basic answers, I think, in this book "The Prince." And this is, again, a very
Renaissance apposition. It's an apposition between
two great powers or forces, and one is fortuna. One is fortune. And the other is virtu,
however we translate that. So we begin with fortune. So Machiavelli, of course,
he does not say this, but he's the kind of
political philosopher who thinks the idea of
a science of politics is ridiculous because
politics is actually all about statecraft. It's not about institutions
about which you might have rules
and even predictions and it might begin to
look like a science. But he's saying, no,
this is about leadership and this is a book
about leadership. And so the first thing that
you have to understand, if you're a political leader,
is you need so much luck. You need buona fortuna. And you need luck in
all sorts of ways. First of all, you need
to suit the times. Chapter 25, which is
the chapter on fortuna, says if you don't suit the
times, you're ridiculous. And of course, the figure
of Cervantes is not far off, is it, someone who-- nobody goes around on a horse
rescuing maidens from castles. We don't do that anymore. You're looking silly. So Machiavelli has
this profound sense that you're going to
look silly unless you suit i tempi, the times. And sometimes he seems
to think the times is going to do everything for you. You can be swept
away by the times. But you could be
someone-- he says of Julius II, the pope, look,
this man was actually crazy, but the times were
exactly right for him because he was
utterly impetuous. If he needed to moderate
and think, then, of course, the times would have
been hopeless for him because he couldn't do that. But he suited the times,
and that's why he succeeded. But there's a second way
in which even very great political leaders need luck. And this takes us into
a particular passion of classical and Renaissance
philosophy, the idea of time as not just duration, but also
timeliness in the Greek kairos. Remember it from Ecclesiastes. There is a time for this. There is a time for that. Machiavelli has this
very strongly in mind. There is a time even
for great leaders, and the idea of a
[INAUDIBLE] glorious Milton is always there. You could be a great
leader, but no one has ever heard of you because
the times didn't require it. And he gives the
example of Moses. He says, well, of
course Moses cheated because he had this
great help which nobody else has had in politics,
which is there's this person. He says, come up the mountain. I'll tell you what to do. So Moses has God. But above all, the
Israelites are enslaved. There's no leadership of
them unless they're enslaved. So that was a bit of luck-- not a bit of luck
for the Israelites, but a tremendous piece of
buona fortuna for Moses because he had the chance
to display his great powers and duly did. Thirdly, Machiavelli
doesn't, of course, use this phrase because it's a
piece of modern American slang, but you can get lucky. And it's very
important in politics to know how to get lucky. Notice there's a
distinction, as it always is in Renaissance philosophy,
between fortune and fate. Fortune is a power that is
susceptible of alliance. You can do something. As we would say,
commercializing the idea, you can make your fortune. But that's the underlying idea. Of course, he doesn't
mean make money. He means make glory. That is making your fortune. So you have to know how
to make your fortune. What are the qualities needed? And in his great
chapter on the power of fortune in human
affairs, chapter 25, he has two metaphors. One is highly objectionable,
but I'll have to mention both. The first is la fortuna-- he says it's [ITALIAN]. What is it like? It's [ITALIAN]. It's like a river. So the force of the metaphor
is that's treacherous. He's thinking of the Arno. You go to Florence in June. The Arno is almost
empty of water. You go after the Alps
have melted in March, and it's an absolute
raging torrent. So he's saying,
look, you're going to have to embank
this river, but it's no use waiting for the winter. You've got to embank
it when it's empty. So the whole point is
foresight, prudence. That's how to get lucky. The other, and highly
objectionable to us, metaphor is famously
Machiavelli. [SPEAKING ITALIAN]
Fortune is a woman. That's to say this is
an arena of conquest. You're trying to win. So there's the male-female
principles which do somewhat underlie the text. And there, the point is,
Machiavelli says, be audacious. In his very last
letter, Machiavelli, reflecting on his
own life, says-- and it sort of summarizes
this part of his philosophy-- it's always better to have
done something and repented than not to have
done it and repented. So there's the idea. Go for it. That's how to get lucky. You won't get lucky
unless you go for it. You may not get lucky,
but you may get lucky. That's what it's like. [SPEAKING ITALIAN] OK, so there's fortune. But in opposition to fortune-- and you find this iconography
all over the Renaissance buildings of Florence, don't
you-- is [LATIN],, the Latin, against fortuna. In Italian, virtu. And this is the figure
of the virtuoso. And in a way, we talk about
a virtuoso still, don't we? But we mean-- well,
of course, in general we mean something who can do
something absolutely amazing in public. And that's what Machiavelli
means, of course. That's what a prince
is, is someone who could do amazing things
in public-- that's to say, has this quality. Well, what is the
quality of virtu? It is this quality. It is, with complete
consistency, the name of that
set of qualities which enable you to
deal with misfortunes, to ally with fortune, and to
rise to glory while maintaining your state. It's the name of the
qualities that do that. However, you'll want to say,
yeah, but wait a minute. What are those qualities? What are those qualities? Now, to understand
Machiavelli's "Prince," I think, you have to see that
his answer to that question takes the form of a
commentary on the Roman moral and political philosophy
that he learned at school. And if you think of this
book as a book about Cicero, you won't go far wrong. There are two great
moral philosophers who would have been studied
by Machiavelli in the greatest detail, and the first is
Cicero, and especially the book called the "De Officiis." I mean, it was said movable
type printing in the West is invented in
Germany in the 1440s. And what do they do with it? Well, they print the Bible. But of course, it comes to Italy
only less than a generation later, and what do they do? They print Cicero. So there you have the difference
between Germany and Italy in the Renaissance. And Cicero's book called
"De Officiis," concerning duties, your offices-- what is the duty
of your office-- this, Machiavelli would have
learned his Latin by reading. What does Cicero tell us? He says, well, there
are four virtues, and they're the so-called
cardinal virtues. And they are the cardinal
virtues of antiquity. They are prudence-- that's
to say practical wisdom-- and courage, temperance,
and most important of all, and especially
in politics, justice. So Cicero focuses on justice. Now, justice is the
distinctively human virtue. That's the first thing
he wants you to know. I mean, animals have
courage, of course, and they might even
have temperance. Who knows? But they don't have justice. And so injustice is
unworthy of humankind. And Cicero loves
these metaphors. It's brutal. You're being a brute. It's beastly. You're being a beast. You're not being a man. So notice man, woman,
but also man, beast. Very important in the layout
of the metaphoricality of this work. And so there are two
forms of injustice. One is using force
instead of law. And of course, what's
beastly about that is which is the animal you're imitating? The lion. That's the image of pure force. Or even worse and contrary
to justice is fraud. And which is the animal
you're imitating then? The fox. The fox is the symbol
of fraud and guile. Justice, the lion, is
the symbol of strength. Both are brutal, beastly,
not humane, not human. So there's the first thought. The second is encapsulated in
the English proverbial phrase, "Honesty is the best policy." Always be just. Why always be just? Well, in politics-- Cicero really wants to stress
this-- you're on a stage. You are seen by everyone. They can see what's going on. You're always on display. So you've got nowhere to hide. That's the thought. It's public life, and that's
the force of the image. You are in front of an
audience all the time, so you better behave. And if you don't behave,
your sins will find you out. Now, to that thought,
Christian writers, on how to advise princes-- and
I'm thinking of someone like Aquinas' "Education of
the Christian Prince"-- add, yeah, but there's a much
more important reason why you must always
be just, which is that there's a day of judgment. And if you have seriously
sinned as a ruler, that will be declared
at the day of Judgment and you will be penalized. And then you'll be sorry
that you weren't just. So here's the thought. It's always rational
to be moral. So there's Cicero. The other figure I need to
say a word about-- very, very important for the political
theory of the Renaissance-- is Seneca because Seneca writes,
under Nero, two very important moral treatises about politics. And one is called
the "De Beneficiis," on concerning benefits,
which is about non-contractual relations. And here, the fundamental virtue
is not justice, but generosity. The great thing about generosity
is it's better than justice. The second text he writes
is called "De Clementia," concerning mercy. And again, this-- of course,
he's writing under Nero, so he's writing in
praise of monarchy. Monarchs can be clement. Laws can't be clement. Laws have to be just. So clemency, again, it's
better than justice. So you have these two
so-called princely virtues. Now, I want to say now
think of "The Prince" as a commentary on all of that. Now, if you think of it as
a commentary on the four cardinal virtues, Machiavelli,
he doesn't speak up for temperance, does he? But we've seen him speaking up-- because he prefers
impetuosity, I think. But we've seen him speaking
up for prudence in relation to the [ITALIAN],, and courage
in relation to la donna. But what he mainly
concentrates on-- and these are the central
chapters of "The Prince," both politically speaking
and also physically speaking-- chapter
15, 16, 17, 18, 19. It's a book of 26 chapters. The core chapters
are, Machiavelli says, introducing them
in chapter 15, how should a prince behave towards
other princes and his subjects? He always says "his,"
but of course, he will have Caterina in mind-- the prince and their
subjects, as we would say. So he's going to concentrate
on the princely virtues-- liberality and
clemency and justice. So what does he want you
to understand about these? The first thing he
wants you to know is that we live in
corrupt times and we often misunderstand the virtues. And he thinks, in
Renaissance Europe, the virtue of liberality
is misunderstood. People think it means
giving enormous gifts to a small number of people. Machiavelli says,
that's not liberality. That's extravagance. Extravagance is the name
of a vice, not a virtue. So you've misunderstood
the virtue. The other cardinal--
not cardinal virtue. The other princely virtue
which is crucial to Machiavelli in misunderstanding the
virtues is clemency. He says, well, now we
think we're very civilized, and so what we think is
clement is just not punishing. But he says, that's
not clemency. That's being [ITALIAN]. That's being too
easygoing, I suppose, would be the best translation. And at this moment,
amazingly, he mounts an attack on
the most impeccable of the Roman heroes, Scipio. Scipio is famous for his
clemency, you remember. And his clemency was
most celebrated in Spain when his army mutinied. And he forgave the mutiny. No one was punished. So what happened? They mutinied again. So Machiavelli says,
so that wasn't clement. That was just stupid. So we misunderstand the virtues. And underlying this is a
passion in Renaissance culture. Shakespeare is obsessed
by it, that you can always manipulate the terminology
of virtue and vice. So I can say-- well, to take
some of Shakespeare's examples, that was a very cautious act. So someone would say,
well, that wasn't cautious. That was avaricious. Or, well, that was
really courageous. That wasn't courageous. That was just reckless. So the whole of moral
language can begin to look fuzzy in this way. And Machiavelli is saying,
well, we are indeed a victim of that fuzziness. But the main thing he wants
you to think about is justice. And what he wants
you to know-- and I'm going to come to a
close shortly and so I'm going to turn to the
text because I really need to read exactly
what he says-- is it's not that we
misunderstand justice. We misunderstand the role of
justice in political life. Now, here you are. You're a prince. What's your basic task? Remember, it is [ITALIAN],,
to remain in power, not be taken down, and of
course, to use your power to do great things. And hovering, this
enormous [INAUDIBLE] thought, the power
and the glory. You're using power for glory. But then he says, look, wake up. This is an unjust world. If you always behave
justly in an unjust world, you will lose your state. And I want to quote
now because what I want to show you is that
this, which is almost the most central claim that he wishes to
make, is laid out as a parody-- I think satire-- on Cicero. "Everyone knows
how praiseworthy it is for rulers to keep their
promises and live uprightly. Nevertheless"-- his favorite
phrase, [ITALIAN],, no rules. I mean, there's
always an exception. "Nevertheless, experience
shows that in our time, the rulers who have
done [ITALIAN]"--"-- who have done great things-- "have held the
keeping of their word and the maintenance of
justice of little account. I say there are two
ways of contending. One is by law, but
the other is by force. The first, it's true,
is appropriate for men, and the second for beasts." Notice all the Ciceronian story. "But the former is
insufficient, so the prince must have recourse to the latter. So a ruler must know how
to imitate beasts as well as employing manly methods. Since a ruler must know
how to act like a beast, he better know which to imitate. And I say he should imitate
both the lion and the fox. A prudent ruler, therefore,
is not going to keep his word, and nor should he when that
will endanger his stato. This advice would not be
good if men were good, but they are not and will not
keep their promises to you. So you should not necessarily
keep your promises to them. It is those who are
best able to imitate the fox who succeed best." So the basic Machiavellian
rule is very simple. It's at the heart of the book. And I'm going to quote
at the very beginning where he lays it
out when he says, I'm now turning to how princes
should behave, chapter 15. "There is such a great
distance between how we live and how we ought to live
that anyone who sets aside what is done for
what ought to be done learns more quickly
what will ruin him than maintain his state. A man who wishes to make
a profession of doing good in all things will be
ruined amongst the many who are not good. Hence, if a ruler
wishes [ITALIAN],, he must learn
[ITALIAN],"," the Italian. He says, you must
learn to be not good, to act contrary to justice. So there's the
fundamental claim. However, there are two
supplementary Machiavellian rules. One is you must only act
like this if it's necessary. This is not advice
to a mafia boss. This is advice in extremis. That's to say, where it is
indispensable to preserving your state, you must be willing
to act against the dictates of justice, not otherwise. Secondly-- and of
course, this is where Machiavelli's notoriety arises-- you've got to seem to be good. That's very important. You can't always
act well, but you must make absolutely
sure it looks all right. And let me quote where
he says that exactly. "A ruler, then, need not
possess the princely virtues, but he must seem to. Indeed, I shall be so bold as
to say that having and always cultivating them is harmful,
but seeming to have them is indispensable. You must seem merciful. You must seem trustworthy. You must seem upright. But if it becomes
necessary to refrain, you must be prepared to
act in the opposite way." But notice "if it is necessary." Otherwise, you must always seem. Well, there, in brief, is the
story except that, of course, there are, as we
saw, going to be classical objections to that,
and Christian objections. The classical
objection, you remember, is it's always
rational to be honest. I mean, honesty is
the best policy. It's rational to behave
justly because you are onstage as a leader. People are going to
see everything you do. They'll soon find you out. What did Machiavelli
say about that? Well, he says-- I'm going to quote again. He says this is extremely naive. "In these days and
in these matters, men judge more by their
eyes than by their hands. Everyone is capable
of seeing you, but few really touches you. Everyone can see what
you appear to be. No one much has
direct experience of how you really are. And those will not
dare to challenge the popular perception. With regard to all actions but
especially those of rulers, men pay attention
to the outcome." They're not really going to ask,
is this an honest presidente? They're going to ask,
how is the economy doing? "If a ruler
contrives, therefore, to conquer and
preserve his state, he will always be
judged honorable and be praised by everyone." So he's saying, don't
be naive about that. Politics is about outcomes. But remember the
Christian objection. The final and most important one
is there's a day of judgment. You got it all wrong. If you act like this now,
that's going to be disclosed. You're going to be
punished eternally. Don't do it. So what does Machiavelli
say about that? Nothing. [LAUGHS] And that silence,
at the time, would have been the most amazing
thing about the book. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]
Thank you very much. Any questions? AUDIENCE: Thank you
very much, Quentin. You mentioned the concept
of shame and the idea that you may have to
do shameful things, but you should present
yourself as not having done those shameful things. Obviously, we live
in a world where you might argue politicians
are doing things that would previously have
been embarrassing to them and it's been put
on to public stage. We know when they are
being hypocritical. We know when they
have done something in their personal life
that's embarrassing. And yet, to some extent, they
are living with their sins and maintaining their position. Would that have
surprised Machiavelli? Would it have-- QUENTIN SKINNER: Yes. Well, he's quite
cynical about this. That's a very good
point to raise, and he doesn't have
a subtle answer to it because he thinks that most
of this classical moralism is quite naive and
that it's actually because it's not
really true that you're on the public stage. Here's the point. Cicero is writing about
republican politics. You're in a
representative assembly or you're meeting the people. Everything is indeed in public. But he's saying,
look, that's not how it is in modern politics. You're actually
living in a palace. You've got guards. You've got a big
security services. You're out of sight. And this actually allows
him a further thought, which is the absurdity
for Machiavelli of the classical idea of
decorum in public life, and especially sexual decorum. And he says, well, I don't see
why we're worrying about this. This is not going to cause
you to lose your state. You're living in
this enormous palace. You're paying these people. If they start to tell on
you, you'll fire them. They know that. They won't. You don't have to
worry about that. And so there's this idea that
the politics of modernity is not the politics
of the republic. It's the politics
of the closed space. It's presidential politics. It's absolutist politics. And then your worries
just don't arise. It's naive to think they do. Of course, in republics,
it's different, but he's writing for monarchies. Yes? AUDIENCE: Thanks. AUDIENCE: Oh. SPEAKER: Oh, hang on. AUDIENCE: You go first. AUDIENCE: You started off
by quoting Shakespeare and obviously making
him real in our time. How did his name
persist over centuries? QUENTIN SKINNER: Machiavelli's? AUDIENCE: Yes. QUENTIN SKINNER: Well, yes,
it's an interesting development. When this book is
first printed, there's no difficulty about printing it. And it's printed first in
Rome and then in Florence. And then it begins to be
printed all over Europe. It's not until the papacy panics
in the Counter-Reformation and sets up an index
of prohibited books. The very first person
to appear on the index of prohibited books for
"Opera omnia," everything he ever wrote, is
prohibited was Machiavelli. And so in a way, it's
the papacy who invents the murderous Machiavelli. And then he appears as a figure
on the Elizabethan stage. If we're talking about
the English language case, Shakespeare is
very aware of him, but he's aware of the
sort of Machiavelli who Marlowe puts on the stage. And the figure of
Iago, of someone who seems to be motiveless
in his malignity, has sometimes been thought
of as Machiavellian. But what it's come to mean
by then is simply having no morality at all, wheres
I'm trying to say, look, this is someone who is a
classical moralist critical of certain naivetés
of classical moralism. And so he is a
profound moralist. It's just that it's not
a morality that gels with Christian morality at all. On the contrary, it's really
an anti-Christian morality. So there's the
early modern story. And then Machiavelli
is rediscovered. Machiavelli, I haven't
had time to talk about. You'll have to
invite me back, which is why he gets a gigantic tomb
in the 18th century in Santa Croce and is widely
worshipped in [INAUDIBLE],, is the Machiavelli who wrote
the "Discorsi" in which he says, look, you can either live freely
or you can live under a prince. Now, he says that in the first
sentence of "The Prince," but he doesn't go into it. He says, I'm
writing for princes. But he is a republican. He is a profound believer
in self-government. And it's not exactly
democracy because, of course, it's going to be the
enfranchised, a small subset of the total population. But they will enact
laws for themselves. And that ideal of
self-government in a republic as
the proper model then turns Machiavelli
into a hero, first of all, in the 17th century in
the English Revolution where all the republicans
read Machiavelli-- so Milton and
Harrington and Sidney and all the heroes of English
Republicanism, Machiavelli is the hero. Absolutely the same in
the American Revolution. It's Machiavelli's "Discorsi"
which, amongst others, is the founding text for
the American Revolution because he is the
person who says, if you're subject in any way
to a monarchical power which is arbitrary, you are a slave. That's what slavery is. It's being subject to
somebody else's will. And that's the beginning
of the "Discorsi." He's saying, if you
live under a ruler, you're subject to their
will, but that's slavery. Slavery is being subject
to someone's will. You must only be subject
to your own will. But how can you be subject only
to your own will in politics? Well, by governing yourself. So it's a story about
democracy, or at least about republicanism, a
radical republicanism. So that became
extremely important in the English Revolution and
in the American Revolution. And then, of course,
the 19th century story is one of the [INAUDIBLE]. I mean, get rid
of the Austrians. Get rid of the monarchy. Set up a modern republic. And so [INAUDIBLE] and
others make a hero out of Machiavelli's "Principe"
as the person who sees what it would be to have
a sovereign state which was, nonetheless, a
self-governing state. So it's a complex story. But I mean, the irony is I think
that the murderous Machiavelli is an invention of the papacy. Of course, Machiavelli detested
and despised the papacy. And he says, at one amazing
moment in the "Discorsi," writing in 1516, this
institution is so corrupt that I cannot but imagine that some
enormous cataclysm is about to hit it. And of course, he's
out by only 10 months. Luther. AUDIENCE: OK. Thank you so much. You were talking
in the beginning about how he was starting
to write the book and that he dedicated
it to the Medici. And you've just been saying
how the perception changed over time and so on. But how is it perceived
at the time for the people he was writing it for? QUENTIN SKINNER:
Yeah, very good. AUDIENCE: Was there
any sort of reaction of the Medici, maybe even to
how he dedicated it to them or how they were
perceiving this at the time or of other leaders? QUENTIN SKINNER:
Very good question. And from Machiavelli's
perspective, it's a bitterly
disappointing answer. He writes the book
as a book of advice. It's almost a job application. He's been very, very senior
official in the republic. He wants back into power. He's had-- I don't
know if any of you've seen his offices in the
Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. I mean, they're
very spectacular. He's very important. And they're well worth seeing. So he's out of all that. This is his passport back. And so he first tries it on
Giuliano, but he dies in 1516. And then it's going to
be presented to Lorenzo, but Vettori won't do it. Vettori, who is
back in the regime and is important and
is a very close friend, just won't talk to him about it. He says, well, I've
read your book, and then he won't say
anything about it. He's horrified. And so it's never
presented, and he dies without it being printed. It's not quite clear how
it comes to be printed except that his wife,
who is much younger, outlives him by 25
years, and she will have had all the manuscripts. And then it is put into
print almost immediately. And of course, it's a sensation
straight away, of course. But it never does the job
that he hoped it would do. AUDIENCE: Thanks, Quentin. Does Machiavelli specifically
talk about trust? You framed something similar
around being honorable, but does he explicitly explore
the concept of trust itself? QUENTIN SKINNER: Yes,
that's a good question. He does in as much
as he thinks-- and he says at one
point-- he's not a great political psychologist. But he says at one point
in "The Prince," look, everything I say is predicated
on the assumption that people are not to be trusted and
that you cannot expect trust. And he's often
thinking of treaties. A treaty will be kept,
especially by the French, if and only if it suits
the French to keep it. Otherwise, it won't be kept. And that's the hard
truth about politics. So trust, of course,
in Latin, [LATIN],, is, in the classical
tradition, held to be the foundation of justice. And of course, the watchword of
the law is [SPEAKING LATIN]---- good faith. Trust must always be kept. And you could, therefore, say-- and it wouldn't be
much of a stretch-- that this is a book about
how that's really not going to work. That really is
not going to work. And I think another
extraordinary shocking moment in the book is one that we
can't readily recapture, is in the book, although
it's written in Italian, the chapter headings
are in Latin. And chapter 18 in
the Latin takes up this question, which
is Cicero's phrase but, of course, it's
almost a proverb. [SPEAKING LATIN],, trust, good
faith, keeping your promises, must always be kept. And Machiavelli's
chapter heading is "Quo modo fides
sit servando." How far should we
keep our faith? If you're reading that, I
mean, no wonder the book's an immediate sensation. You can't believe
that chapter heading. What do you mean
how far should I? But that, for him,
is the whole point. But of course, he's not
a theorist of trust. And here, later writings
on the science of politics and especially, I
think, Hobbs probably has him in mind in
"Leviathan" when he introduces the figure of the fool. And the fool is the person
who says, in his heart, there is no justice. I'm now quoting Hobbs. And he says, look, this person
cannot be allowed into any corporation, into any
civil association at all, because what this person has
just proclaimed is that they will tell you they're going
to meet you for lunch at 1:00, but you've got no reason
to think they will. But this is someone you
can't contract with. But if you can't
contract with him, you can't have any
social relations at all. So that view of
Machiavelli's became, of course, an extremely
polemical one. And the natural law
tradition is there to say, actually, that's really a
huge mistake about politics. And the question of whether
it is or it isn't, of course, we continue to debate. AUDIENCE: Thank you so much
for coming and for sharing your thoughts with us. It's very interesting. My question is we're living
through a very interesting time politically everywhere-- Latin America, Europe, the US. And I just wonder, if
Machiavelli was alive, what would he be thinking
about the leaders we have, some of the more exciting or
interesting world leaders? What would he be-- I don't know-- saying to people
close to him, for example? QUENTIN SKINNER: Yes. Well, he is a fierce moralist. And his morality is,
however, completely consequential always. So he doesn't think that
there are inherent goods. He thinks that you have
to judge whether something was politically good
by the consequences. He never says the end
justifies the means, but he does, at one
point in the "Discorsi," say ends can excuse means. So he's talking about
Romulus and the founding of Rome and the fact that
he killed his brother when they disagreed. And that's fratricide. So he says, the
deed accuses him, but the outcome, which was the
founding of Rome which rose to rule the world, excuses him. So he's a complete
consequentialist. He's also someone who has a
passion for not seeming naive. So he likes not to be shocked. And indeed, he's very
reluctant to feel shocked. That just seems to be a
feature of his personality. So I don't think he would
be shocked by our politics. I don't he'd be surprised
by our politics, but he would definitely
think they're extraordinarily corrupt because the
foundation of corruption is putting your
interests, sectional or personal or
party or corporate, above the public interest. That's what corruption
means in Machiavelli. Because unless you put
the public interest first, there will be no success
of running a civil society. That has to be run in
an uncorrupt fashion. And that's really
the central doctrine of the "Discorsi" in talking
about democratic politics, which is what he is
talking about there, is how easy it is
to corrupt people. And that's why he's a
great enemy of the rich. He says the rich will
always bribe you. And that's what the Medici did. They found out who was
sitting on all the committees and they went round and
said, how about a big loan? And of course, the
bank went bankrupt because they did this so much. But they corrupted an
entire political community. And we still say, don't we,
bribery and corruption, bribery being the example of it. So he's a great foe of that. And he would think
that issuing manifestos before a general election
where you have no fiscal means to produce the results of your
promises, that just is corrupt. And that is completely
untrustworthy because you're telling
people things which you know you're not going to do. So he would not be
surprised, but he would be very shocked by us. And he'd be right. [LAUGHTER] AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. My question is to
perhaps try to understand what is it that happened to
Machiavelli during his life that he was so bold in the way
he wrote and so extraordinary, even. Not only back in the
day, but also, we still are moved and
shocked, to an extent, about the way he writes. QUENTIN SKINNER: Yes,
isn't it interesting? I'm not a psychologist,
and I can't say that there is a
biography of him that plumbs these depths very well. It's understandable
that he should have been a passionate republican. He served the republic. He believed in self-government. He wanted it restored. And so he is, in that way,
a strong anti-Medician. And he suffers an
appalling misfortune at the collapse of
the republic in 1512 when he's mistakenly
supposed to have been part of an anti-Medician
conspiracy and he's imprisoned and he's horribly tortured. That must have marked
the rest of his life. I mean must have
injured him seriously, but also, it just must have
marked him psychologically. But I think that the
psychology of someone who is, amongst other
things, a satirist-- I mean, in a way,
what I presented to you with this morning was
a satire on Cicero, wasn't it? The lion and the fox. He picks up all the phraseology
and he turns the whole thing upside down in the name of
the fact that this is naive and this is unrealistic
and this is not politics. So he's someone who's passionate
about politics and about a kind of political realism, and he's
passionate about a republic. But of course, he's living
in an age of princes, so he's a disillusioned person. So I think of him as
disillusioned and melancholy and satirical. There's some very great
fictional portrayal of him by George Eliot in "Romola." I don't know if
you know that book. It's not one of her
greatest novels. But Machiavelli appears quite
prominently, fictionalized, in "Romola." And it's an absolutely
brilliant portrait of him. And in it, they meet
in a barbershop, and they're always
talking about politics. And every time he
speaks, it's an epigram. And then someone
says to him, well, you're just completely cynical. And George Eliot makes
Machiavelli say, and I quote exactly, "My philosophy
is for anyone who can see beyond their own nose." That's all it is. But if you're
self-interested, that is not seeing beyond your
nose, so it's a big demand. AUDIENCE: Yeah, thank you very
much for educating me today, certainly reminding me of having
read that book too long ago. But if I may just
end with a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek
comment-- in today's day, it's already been
raised slightly. But how would he have seen the
Brexit conversation, and what would he have
interpreted from that? QUENTIN SKINNER: Yes. AUDIENCE: And would
you care to guess which way he would have leaned? QUENTIN SKINNER:
Well, he does not have a constitutional
theory in "The Prince." There are two great works
of politics by Machiavelli-- 1513, "Il Principe," and then
a much larger work written between 1515 and
1518, the "Discorsi," which are "Discourses on Livy." That's to say the
history of Rome. That's to say the
celebration of the republic. And there, he says
self-government requires a republic and it
requires a particular kind of constitution. And he says, look, the
only way that you can manage it is to divide power. You'll always have the
popolo, and you'll always have the grandi. So it's a class politics. The grandi are the rich, the
mercantile rich and, of course, the landed rich. And then there's the popolo. So he says, all right,
they're both going to have to have an assembly. And he's thinking of Rome. There's a senate for
the grandi, and there's a tribune to the people. But he thinks, no, you should
have a [ITALIAN],, which is why, in the great
republics of Italy, especially in Florence
and in Venice, above all, you come upon these
gigantic rooms. Why? Well, because that's the popolo. It's got to be able to assemble. It's going to debate
war and peace. It's going to debate taxation. Thousands of people
will be present. They're going to raise
their hands or not. And that's self-government. So Machiavelli says, all
right, but they're never going to agree. The grandi will have
one view and the popolo will have another. Right, law must be only
what they both agree to. Don't try for a law where
half of them don't agree. That's never going to work. So he says it's a
paradox of politics-- that if you want liberty,
you need conflict because you need
Conflict of the Orders. But the Conflict of the
Orders that produces liberty is that neither
gets its own way. So the laws are a
series of compromises. And he says, otherwise,
it's not going to work. And why is that? Because you'll get very
big minorities and they're pissed off. And very big minorities
are always pissed off. Then that's very dangerous-- all true, by the way. SPEAKER: Brilliant. I think we're [INAUDIBLE]. QUENTIN SKINNER: These
are good questions. [LAUGHTER] AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. AUDIENCE: Yeah. SPEAKER: Fantastic. Well, thank you
very much, Quentin. QUENTIN SKINNER: No,
thank you [INAUDIBLE].. Thanks very much. [APPLAUSE]
