Machiavelli in Context | Discourses: A Principality or a Republic? (Lecture 16)

Lecture 16: After contrasting a virtuous republic with a city without virtue, Machiavelli writes about his beliefs in signs and prophecies, a reminder to us that Machiavelli is both a man of his time and a “modern man.”

In the last sections of his first discourse on Livy, Machiavelli makes the strong case for the superiority of a republican form of government. The people are more stable than princes, and although princes are better than the people in establishing republics, the people are superior to princes in maintaining them. He even criticizes what Livy seems to have said about the fickleness of crowds, pointing out that the great historian of Rome was referring only to an uncontrolled multitude. It is in these direct comparisons of princes and the people that Machiavelli’s deeply held republicanism is powerfully demonstrated.

Recommended Readings:
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse I, chapters 55–60.