MACHIAVELLI AS HUMANIST:

Machiavelli was a Florentine humanist, was employed as a diplomat by the Florentine Republic until 1512 when the Medici were restored. Unlike humanists working for the Pope in Rome, Machiavelli was hostile to the Papacy, which he saw as the major cause of Italian political fragmentation and weakness. Also it is important that his true allegiance was to the republican form of government, and he expresses this preference in The Discourses on Livy.

When he wrote The Prince on the other hand he was trying to get a job with the Medici, and so aimed his advice at the new ruler of Florence, Lorenzo Duke of Urbino (grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Letter from Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori

This letter describes Machiavelli’s life after his exile from Florence by the Medici. “Bad luck” refers to his arrest and torture on suspicion of having plotted against the recently restored Medici family. He was released, but never again had political employment like that during the Republic of 1494-1512. Instead he spent his days with the uncultured local villagers, and his evenings with the ancients, especially Livy. His writings such as The Prince and The Discourses were all done in this period. Francesco Vettori was a friend and well-placed ambassador in Rome, from whom Machiavelli sought assistance in his search for employment. Their correspondence produced some remarkable letters, of which this one is the most famous.

10 December 1513 Magnificent Ambassador, Francesco Vettori

I am living on my farm, and since I had my last bad luck, I have not spent twenty days, putting them all together, in Florence. I have until now been snaring thrushes with my own hands. I got up before day, prepared birdlime, went out with a bundle of cages on my back, so that I looked like Geta when he was returning from the harbor with Amphitryon's books. I caught at least two thrushes and at most six. And so I did all September. Then this pastime, pitiful and strange as it is, gave out, to my displeasure. And of what sort my life is, I shall tell you.

I get up in the morning with the sun and go into a grove I am having cut down, where I remain two hours to look over the work of the past day and kill some time with the cutters, who have always some bad-luck story ready, about either themselves or their neighbors. And as to this grove I could tell you a thousand fine things that have happened to me, in dealing with Frosino da Panzano and others who wanted some of this firewood. …Leaving the grove, I go to a spring, and then to my aviary. I have a book in my pocket, either Dante or Petrarch, or one of the lesser poets, such as Tibullus, Ovid, and the like. I read of their tender passions and their loves, remember mine, enjoy myself a while in that sort of dreaming. Then I move along the road to the inn; I speak with those who pass, ask news of their villages, learn various things, and note the various tastes and different fancies of men. In the course of these things comes the hour for dinner, where with my family I eat such food as this poor farm of mine and my tiny property allow. Having eaten, I go back to the inn; there is the host, usually a butcher, a miller, two furnace tenders. With these I sink into vulgarity for the whole day, playing at cricca and at trich-trach, and then these games bring on a thousand disputes and countless insults with offensive words, and usually we are fighting over a penny, and nevertheless we are heard shouting as far as San Casciano. So, involved in these trifles, I keep my brain from growing moldy, and satisfy the malice of this fate of mine, being glad to have her drive me along this road, to see if she will be ashamed of it.

On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day's clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and re-clothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them.

And because Dante says it does not produce knowledge when we hear but do not remember, I have noted everything in their conversation which has profited me, and have composed a little work On Principalities (The Prince), where I go as deeply as I can into considerations on this subject, debating what a princedom is, of what kinds they are, how they are gained, how they are kept, why they are lost. And if ever you can find any of my fantasies pleasing, this one should not displease you; and by a prince, and especially by a new prince, it ought to be welcomed. Hence I am dedicating it to His Magnificence Giuliano. Filippo Casavecchia has seen it; he can give you some account in part of the thing in itself and of the discussions I have had with him, though I am still enlarging and revising it.