Philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469. Machiavelli loved politics and he is best known for his political "how-to manual," The Prince. It was written in 1513 and published in 1532.
The term "Machiavellian" has come to stand in for the book's central theme - that "the ends justify the means." He based this on his observations of princes who used unsavory, brutish, or deceptive tactics to gain and maintain power.
Machiavelli was somewhat misunderstood. h wasn't so much writing a way to gain power but warning about the ways people were doing so. Humanists called The Prince immoral. The Catholic Church added it to its list of banned books.
In all of Machiavelli's other political works, he supported a republican form of government.
"it is the well-being not of the individuals but of the community which makes the state great, and without question this universal well-being is nowhere secured save in a republic. ... Popular rule is always better than the rule of princes." Discourses on Livy
The later Enlightenment philosophers in the 18th century read The Prince as a satire.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in The Social Contract:
"Machiavelli was a proper man and a good citizen; but, being attached to the court of the Medici, he could not help veiling his love of liberty in the midst of his country's oppression. The choice of his detestable hero, Caesar Borgia, clearly enough shows his hidden aim; and the contradiction between the teaching of The Prince and that of the Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence shows that this profound political thinker has so far been studied only by superficial or corrupt readers."
Machiavelli was also a poet, a novelist, and a dramatist. While he was in exile between 1504 and 1518 he wrote a comic play called La Mandragola about the corruption of the Italian government. The play enjoyed renewed popularity in the latter half of the 20th century and inspired two musicals, two operas, and a film.
The Prince, The Art of War,
The Discourses on Livy,
History of Florence
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