This letter, invaluable to the student of Machiavelli's works, is prejudicial to his reputation. It was written only ten months after he had been imprisoned and tortured by the Medici, just thirteen months after the republic he had served so long had been enslaved by the princes before whom he was now cringing. It is true that Machiavelli was not wealthy; his habits of prodigality made his fortune insufficient for his needs.[1] It is true that he could ill bear the enforced idleness of country life, after being engaged for fifteen years in the most important concerns of the Florentine Republic. But neither his poverty, which, after all, was but comparative, nor his inactivity, for which he found relief in study, justifies the tone of the conclusion to this letter. When we read it, we cannot help remembering the language of another exile, who while he tells us—another exile, who while he tells us— Come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com' è duro calle Lo scendere e 'l salir per l' altrui scale
—can yet refuse the advances of his factious city thus: 'If Florence cannot be entered honorably, I will never set foot within her walls. And what? Shall I not be able from any angle whatsoever of the earth to gaze upon the sun and stars? shall I not beneath whatever region of the heavens have power to meditate the sweetest truths, unless I make myself ignoble first, nay ignominious, in the face of Florence and her people? Nor will bread, I warrant, fail me!' If Machiavelli, who in this very letter to Vettori quoted Dante, had remembered these words, they ought to have fallen like drops of molten lead upon his soul. But such was the debasement of the century that probably he would have only shrugged his shoulders and sighed, 'Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.'
[1] See familiar letter, June 10, 1514.
In some respects Dante, Machiavelli, and Michael Angelo Buonarroti may be said to have been the three greatest intellects produced by Florence. Dante in exile and in opposition, would hold no sort of traffic with her citizens. Michael Angelo, after the siege, worked at the Medici tombs for Pope Clement, as a makepeace offering for the fortification of Samminiato; while Machiavelli entreats to be put to roll a stone by these Signori Medici, if only he may so escape from poverty and dullness. Michael Angelo, we must remember, owed a debt of gratitude as an artist to the Medici for his education in the gardens of Lorenzo. Moreover, the quatrain which he wrote for his statue of the Night justifies us in regarding that chapel as the cenotaph designed by him for murdered Liberty. Machiavelli owed nothing to the Medici, who had disgraced and tortured him, and whom he had opposed in all his public action during fifteen years. Yet what was the gift with which he came before them as a suppliant, crawling to the footstool of their throne? A treatise De Principatibus; in other words, the celebrated Principe; which, misread it as Machiavelli's apologists may choose to do, or explain it as the rational historian is bound to do, yet carries venom in its pages. Remembering the circumstances under which it was composed, we are in a condition to estimate the proud humility and prostrate pride of the dedication. 'Niccolo Machiavelli to the Magnificent Lorenzo, son of Piero de' Medici:' so runs the title. 'Desiring to present myself to your Magnificence with some proof of my devotion, I have not found among my various furniture aught that I prize more than the knowledge of the actions of great men acquired by me through a long experience of modern affairs and a continual study of ancient. These I have long and diligently revolved and examined in my mind, and have now compressed into a little book which I send to your Magnificence. And though I judge this work unworthy of your presence, yet I am confident that your humanity will cause you to value it when you consider that I could not make you a greater gift than this of enabling you in a few hours to understand what I have learned through perils and discomforts in a lengthy course of years.' 'If your Magnificence will deign, from the summit of your height, some time to turn your eyes to my low place, you will know how unjustly I am forced to endure the great and continued malice of fortune.' The work so dedicated was sent in MS. for the Magnificent's private perusal. It was not published until 1532, by order of Clement VII., after the death of Machiavelli.
I intend to reserve the Principe, considered as the supreme expression of Italian political science, for a separate study; and after the introduction to Macaulay's Essay on Machiavelli, I need hardly enter in detail into a discussion of the various theories respecting the intention of this treatise.[1] Yet this is the proper place for explaining my view about Machiavelli's writings in relation to his biography, and for attempting to connect them into such unity as a mind so strictly logical as his may have designed.
[1] Macaulay's essay is, of course, brilliant and comprehensive. I do not agree with his theory of the Italian despot, as I have explained on p. 127 of this volume. Sometimes, too, he indulges in rhetoric that is merely sentimental, as when he says about the dedication of the Florentine History to Clement: 'The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the bread which is more bitter than every other food, the stairs which are more painful than every other ascent, had not broken the spirit of Machiavelli. The most corrupting post in a corrupting profession had not depraved the generous heart of Clement.' The sentence I have printed in italics may perhaps tell the truth about the Church and Popes in general; but the panegyric of Clement is preposterous. Macaulay must have been laughing in his sleeve.
With regard to the circumstances under which the Prince was composed, enough has been already said. Machiavelli's selfish purpose in putting it forth seems to my mind apparent. He wanted employment: he despaired of the republic: he strove to furnish the princes in power with a convincing proof of his capacity for great affairs. Yet it must not on this account be concluded that the Principe was merely a cheap bid for office. On the contrary, it contained the most mature and the most splendid of Machiavelli's thoughts, accumulated through his long years of public service; and, strange as it may seem, it embodied the dream of a philosophical patriot for the restitution of liberty to Italy. Florence, indeed, was lost. 'These Signori Medici' were in power. But could not even they be employed to purge the sacred soil of Italy from the Barbarians?
If we can pretend to sound the depths of Machiavelli's mind at this distance of time, we may conjecture that he had come to believe the free cities too corrupt for independence. The only chance Italy had of holding her own against the great powers of Europe was by union under a prince. At the same time the Utopia of this union, with which he closes the Principe, could only be realized by such a combination as would either neutralize the power of the Church, or else gain the Pope for an ally by motives of interest. Now at the period of the dedication of the Principe to Lorenzo de' Medici, Leo X. was striving to found a principality in the states of the Church.[1] In 1516 he created his nephew Duke of Urbino, and it was thought that this was but a prelude to still further greatness. Florence in combination with Rome might do much for Italy. Leo meanwhile was still young, and his participation in the most ambitious schemes was to be expected. Thus the moment was propitious for suggesting to Lorenzo that he should put himself at the head of an Italian kingdom, which, by its union beneath the strong will of a single prince, might suffice to cope with nations more potent in numbers and in arms.[2] The Principe was therefore dedicated in good faith to the Medici, and the note on which it closes was not false. Machiavelli hoped that what Cesare Borgia had but just failed in accomplishing, Lorenzo de' Medici, with the assistance of a younger Pope than Alexander, a firmer basis to his princedom in Florence, and a grasp upon the states of the Church made sure by the policy of Julius II., might effect. Whether so good a judge of character as Machiavelli expected really much from Lorenzo