Machiavelli in Context | Who Is Machiavelli? Why Does He Matter? (Lecture 1)

24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture
Taught by William R. Cook
State University of New York at Geneseo
Ph.D., Cornell University

Mentioning the name Niccolò Machiavelli can unleash a powerful response, even among people who have never read a word of his writings. Our language even has a word—Machiavellian—that encapsulates the images those responses conjure up:

- An indistinct figure quietly making his way through the darkest corridors of power, hatching plots to play one rival against another
- A cold-blooded political liar, ready to justify any duplicity undertaken in the name of a noble end that will ultimately justify the most malignant means
- A coolly practical leader—amoral at best—willing to do whatever is necessary in a world governed not by ideas of right or wrong, but by solutions dictated by realpolitik.
- But does the Machiavelli most of us think we know bear any resemblance to the Machiavelli who lived, pondered, and wrote?

According to Professor William R. Cook, a reading of Machiavelli that considers only those qualities that we today call "Machiavellian" is incomplete, and Machiavelli himself "certainly would not recognize" such sinister interpretations or caricatures of his writings and beliefs. Indeed, The Prince—on the pages of which so much of this image was built—was not even published in his lifetime. In the 24 lectures that make up Machiavelli in Context, Professor Cook offers the opportunity to meet an extraordinarily thoughtful and sincere student of history and its lessons, and to learn that there is far more to him than can be gleaned from any reading of The Prince, no matter how thorough.

Although The Prince is the work by which most of us think we know Machiavelli, and although some have indeed called it the first and most important book of political science ever written, it was not, according to Professor Cook, either Machiavelli's most important work or the one most representative of his beliefs. Those distinctions belong, instead, to his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, a longer work started at about the same time and which would, like The Prince, not be published until well after his death.

"Everyone who has seriously studied the works of Machiavelli agrees that he believed in the superiority of a republican form of government, defined as a mixed constitution with elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

"Once we recover the context of the writing of The Prince, and analyze it along with the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, it will be clear how The Prince can be read as a book designed to guide leaders in the creation—for Machiavelli, restoration—of republican government in Italy. To present a complete and well-rounded picture of Machiavelli's ideas on how human societies should be organized and governed, Professor Cook sets aside much of Machiavelli's written output—which included the political work The Art of War, a biography, many letters, and even some plays—to focus on The Prince, the Discourses, and, more briefly, his Florentine Histories.

Lecture 1: In addressing the main concerns of the entire course, I will begin by approaching the lecture title questions in two ways. First, I will briefly place Machiavelli in the context of the history of Western political thought. Second, I will address the question of the “real” Machiavelli. Although many see Machiavelli as responsible for justifying tyrannical and underhanded rule, others regard him as one of the greatest and most important theorists to argue for the superiority of a republican government. I will also address Machiavelli’s modernity. He strikes most people as one of the founders of modern thought and has even been referred to as “the first modern man.” I will introduce this idea here, but to address it thoroughly, we will need to examine the world of Renaissance Italy, as well as Machiavelli’s writings.

Recommended Readings:
Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli, chapter 5, pp. 148–174.