Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, also known as Il principe, is a short treatise for Renaissance leaders on how to acquire and maintain political power (Kuiper, “The Prince”). It is a reflection of his political experience, a collection of advice Machiavelli had learned over the course of his political career. This essay will first explain and analyze the key ideas of The Prince and Machiavelli’s method of expression before putting the book in the larger context of the Renaissance and its contemporary cultural movements.
In The Prince, Machiavelli separates his ideas into four sections: between chapters I to XI, he describes types of principalities and how they should be governed; between chapters XII to XIV, he provides military advice for …show more content…
Although he advises princes to seem like they behave ethically (57), his advice for the reality of things is very different. His controversial perspective is exemplified in a passage where he lauds Cesare Borgia’s tactics in the conquest of Romagna. Cesare found the region in a state of anarchy, so he “placed there [...] Remirro de Oro, a cruel, efficient man, to whom he entrusted the fullest powers” (24). However, Remirro was too cruel so Cesare had him killed and “one morning, [he] was found cut in two pieces on the piazza at Cesena” (24). Only then, Machiavelli states, the people of Romagna were at peace and swayed to be under Cesare’s control. As a counterpoint to Cesare, Machiavelli brings up the case of Savonarola. He believes Savonarola was a nice ruler who did not resort to cruelty, which resulted in him “ruined with his new order of things [and] immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe” (20). In summary, “cruelty is used well [...] when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects” (30). To Machiavelli, the use of cruelty is necessary to be a good politician who brings virtue to the
In The Prince, Machiavelli separates his ideas into four sections: between chapters I to XI, he describes types of principalities and how they should be governed; between chapters XII to XIV, he provides military advice for …show more content…
Although he advises princes to seem like they behave ethically (57), his advice for the reality of things is very different. His controversial perspective is exemplified in a passage where he lauds Cesare Borgia’s tactics in the conquest of Romagna. Cesare found the region in a state of anarchy, so he “placed there [...] Remirro de Oro, a cruel, efficient man, to whom he entrusted the fullest powers” (24). However, Remirro was too cruel so Cesare had him killed and “one morning, [he] was found cut in two pieces on the piazza at Cesena” (24). Only then, Machiavelli states, the people of Romagna were at peace and swayed to be under Cesare’s control. As a counterpoint to Cesare, Machiavelli brings up the case of Savonarola. He believes Savonarola was a nice ruler who did not resort to cruelty, which resulted in him “ruined with his new order of things [and] immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe” (20). In summary, “cruelty is used well [...] when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects” (30). To Machiavelli, the use of cruelty is necessary to be a good politician who brings virtue to the