At nightfall I return home and seek my writing room; and divesting myself on its threshold of my rustic garments, stained with mud and mire, I assume courtly attire; and thus suitably clothed, I enter within the ancient courts of ancient men, by whom, being cordially welcomed, I am fed with the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born, and am not ashamed to hold discourse with them and inquire the motives of their actions; and these men in their humanity reply to me; and for the space of four hours I feel no weariness, remember no trouble, no longer fear poverty, no longer dread death; my whole being is absorbed in them. And since Dante says that there could be no science without retaining that which is heard, I have recorded that which I have acquired from the conversation of these worthies, and have composed a pamphlet De principatibus, in which I plunge as deeply as I can into cogitations upon this subject, discussing the nature of princedom, of how many species it consists, how these are to be acquired, how they are maintained, why they are lost; and if you ever cared for any of my scribbles, this one ought not to displease you. And it should be especially welcome to a new prince; for which reason I dedicate it to his Magnificence, Giuliano…. (December 10, 1513)76
Probably Machiavelli has here simplified the story. Apparently he began by writing his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, completing his commentary on only the first three books. He dedicated these Discorsi to Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai, saying: “I send you the worthiest gift I have to offer, inasmuch as it comprises all that I have learned from long experience and continuous study.” He remarks that classic literature and law and medicine have been revived to enlighten modern writing and practice; he proposes likewise to resuscitate classic principles of government, and apply them to contemporary politics. He does not derive his political philosophy from history, but selects from history incidents supporting the conclusions to which he has been led by his own experience and thought. He takes his examples almost entirely from Livy, sometimes in his haste basing arguments on legends, and occasionally helping himself to morsels from Polybius.
As he proceeded with the Discourses, he perceived that they would be too long, and too long delayed in their completion, to serve as a practical gift to one of the ruling Medici. Therefore he interrupted the work to write a summary that would embody his conclusions; this would have a better chance of being read, and of bringing a fair return in the friendship of the powerful family that now (1513) ruled half of Italy. So he composed Il principe (as he came to entitle the book) in a few months of that year. He planned to dedicate it to Giuliano de’ Medici, then ruling Florence; but Giuliano died (1516) before Machiavelli could make up his mind to send the book to him; so he rededicated it, and sent it, to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, who made no acknowledgment of it. It circulated in manuscript, and was surreptitiously copied; it was not printed till 1532, five years after the author’s death. Thereafter it was among the most frequently reprinted books in any language.
To his own description of himself we can add only the anonymous portrait of him in the Uffizi Gallery. It shows a slender figure with pale face, hollow cheeks, sharp dark eyes, thin lips tightly closed; obviously a man of thought rather than of action, and of keen intelligence rather than of amiable will. He could not be a good diplomat because he was too visibly subtle, nor a good statesman because he was too intense, grasping ideas fanatically as in the portrait he tightly clasps the gloves that affirm his semigenteel rank. This man who so often wrote like a cynic, whose lips so often curled into sarcasm, who plumed himself on such perfect mendacity that he could make people think he lied when he spoke the truth,77 was in his heart of hearts a flaming patriot, who made the salus populi the suprema lex, and subordinated all morality to the unification and redemption of Italy.
There were many unlikable qualities in him. When Borgia was up he idealized him; when Borgia was down he followed the crowd and denounced the broken Caesar as a criminal and “a rebel against Christ.”78 When the Medici were out he condemned them eloquently; when they were in he licked their boots for a post. He not only visited brothels before and after marriage, but sent his friends detailed descriptions of his adventures there.79 Several of his letters are so coarse that not even his most voluminous and admiring biographer has dared to publish them. Nearing fifty, Machiavelli writes: “Cupid’s nets still enthrall me. Bad roads cannot exhaust my patience, nor dark nights daunt my courage…. My whole mind is bent on love, for which I give Venus thanks.”80 These things are forgivable, for man was not made for monogamy; but less pardonable, though quite in harmony with the custom of the times, is the complete absence, from all of Machiavelli’s considerable surviving correspondence, of any word of tenderness—of any word—about his wife.
Meanwhile he turned his able pen to divers forms of composition, and rivaled the masters in each. In a treatise on the art of war (L’arte della guerra, 1520) he announced to states and generals, from his ivory tower, the laws of military power and success. A nation that has lost the martial virtues is doomed. An army requires not gold but men; “gold alone will not procure good soldiers, but good soldiers will always procure gold”;81 gold will flow to the strong nation, but strength departs from the rich nation, for wealth makes for ease and decay. Consequently an army must be kept busy; a little war now and then will keep the martial muscles and apparatus in trim. Cavalry is beautiful, except when faced with sturdy pikes; the infantry must ever be regarded as the very nerve and foundation of an army.82 Mercenary armies are the shame and sloth and ruin of Italy; each state should have a citizen militia, constituted of men who would be fighting for their own country, their own lands.
Trying his hand at fiction, Machiavelli wrote one of Italy’s most popular novelle, Belfagor arcidiavolo, bursting with satiric wit on the institution of marriage. Turning to drama, he composed the outstanding comedy of the Italian Renaissance stage, Mandragola. The prologue struck a new note, making a novel curtsey to critics:
Should anyone seek to cow the author by evil-speaking, I warn you that he, too, knows how to speak evil, and indeed excels in the art; and that he has no respect for anyone in Italy, though he bows and scrapes to those better dressed than himself.83
The play is an astounding revelation of Renaissance morals. The scene is laid in Florence. Callimaco, hearing an acquaintance praise the beauty of Lucrezia, wife of Nicias, decides—though he has never seen her—that he must seduce her if only to be able to sleep in peace. He is disturbed to learn that Lucrezia is as famous for her modesty as for her beauty; but he takes hope on being told that Nicias frets over her failure to conceive. He bribes a friend to introduce him to Nicias as a physician. He professes to have a potion that will make any woman fertile; but, alas, the first man who lies with her after she has taken it will soon afterward die. He offers to undertake this mortal adventure, and Nicias, with the traditional kindness of characters to their authors, consents to be replaced. But Lucrezia is obstinately virtuous; she hesitates to commit both adultery and murder in one night. All is not lost; her mother, lusting for progeny, bribes a friar to advise her in the confessional to go through with the plan. Lucrezia yields, drinks, lies with Callimaco, and becomes pregnant. The story ends with everybody happy: the friar purifies Lucrezia, Nicias rejoices in his vicarious parentage, and Callimaco can sleep. The play is excellent in structure, brilliant in dialogue, powerful in satire. What startles us is not the seductive theme, long hackneyed in classical comedy, nor even the merely physical interpretation of love, but the turn of the plot upon the readiness of a friar to counsel adultery for twenty-five ducats, and the fact that in 1520 the play was produced with great success before Leo X in Rome. The Pope was so pleased with it that he asked Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici to give Machiavelli some employment as a writer. Giulio suggested a history of Florence, and offered 300 ducats ($3,750?).