Machiavelli and Humanism

ROBERT DODSON

REPUBLICAN AND LIBERTY IN THE WESTERN WORLD: AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERSHIP AND RULE SEEN IN THE WORK OF NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

How far is Machiavelli and advocate of a republic and republicanism?

INTRODUCTION The History of Republics and Republicanism has been interpreted in numerous ways leading to the ambiguity seen in the modern world of what a republic really stands for and what are its principles. The same can also be said about Niccolo Machiavelli. His work The Prince has been interpreted in many different fashions since its publication in 1532 and has led to Machiavelli’s name being used as a synonym for evil. The Discourses on Livy however have shown that Machiavelli’s republican ideals can produce a positive and industrious form of government. The argument put forward that Machiavelli’s Discourse are synonymous with Thomas More’s Utopia is how the effectiveness of these republican ideals was on the citizens of Florence. The main structure of this essay revolves around the idea that the Discourses is an ideal form of government whereas The Prince is a piece of political action, which will be discussed in such context in section IV, that acts upon the actual realities of primarily Florentine life and the Italian state system. This essay will contain five sections which deal with a vast array of issues crucial to understanding the political mind-set of Machiavelli. It is important to understand Machiavelli’s perception of theorists such as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero as his interpretation of their thought is what lays the foundations for his own, classical republican style. The idea of Civic Humanism in relation to Classical Republicanism will be shown through the changing political sphere of Machiavelli’s Florence and how he adapted certain strands of this to form Civic Humanism.
Section I of this essay examines how political liberties and freedom are exploited, constrained on one hand, and on the other

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