Precepts of Power

Author: Niccolò Machiavelli

 

Context: Niccolò Machiavelli was a Florentine citizen who lived from (1469-1527). He devoted his life to public service. Machiavelli despised the self-imposed autocracy of the Medici family, and favored a more republican form of government. Under Girolamo Savonarola, the Florentine citizens overthrew Medici power. However, Savonarola established a theocracy in the wake of the Medici rule. The people established a true republic after Savonarola’s fall from power in 1498. Machiavelli took a role in this new government, and became the Florentine ambassador to France. Here, Machiavelli learned vital information about power that would come to play a role in his later writings. The Florentine Republic was successful until a Spanish mercenary army defeated the Florentine trained militia in 1512. The Medici’s reacquired power and subsequently tortured and jailed Machiavelli for some time. Machiavelli eventually retired to the countryside, where he wrote The Prince in order to win back the Medici’s favor. The Prince is a handbook of power, and what it takes to acquire, preserve, and lose power. In the Prince, Machiavelli, unfolds callously honest truths about human nature and the means needed to retain power. When it was published, the book’s ideas horrified the gentry and common citizen alike. Nonetheless, Machiavelli’s work is a cornerstone in the methods for power struggle of the Western world, as Adolf Hitler and members of our republican government have used it.

 

Summary: Throughout the course of his advice, Machiavelli distances himself from traditional precepts of morality/god/good and chooses, in turn, to solely examine success/effectiveness. He debates whether a prince should use fear or love to remain in power. Machiavelli chooses fear, and highlights it effectiveness through several examples of human weakness. Machiavelli also gives his opinion of human nature in that humans will only further their own ends. He also discusses the differences between appearance and action, and that a good ruler will appear for the people, but will really promote his own means.

 

Quote: “Let a prince therefore act to seize and to maintain the state; his methods will always be judged honorable and will be praised by all; for ordinary people are always deceived by appearances and by the outcome of a thing; and in the world there is nothing but ordinary people…”