Even though we did not have time to cover Niccolo Machiavelli in class he played a very key role in the study of humanities during the Renaissance. He lived in Florence and was highly educated, he studied Roman law, Latin, and Italian Literature. He used his education to better his community. He volunteered in his community, worked as a clerk in the government, was appointed chancellor of the Second Chancery, and was a secretary to the Council of Ten. Eventually Machiavelli retires in the year of 1513 after a change in power in Florence to the Medici. Machiavelli lost his job, and as Jonathan W. Zophy casually states in our textbook, "After a period of torture and imprisonment, he was allowed to retire to a small farm outside Florence as a gesture of good will..." This doesn't sound like a retirement party I would want.
Although the life of Machiavelli is interesting, the most intriguing thing about him to me is his philosophy on politics. Machiavelli wrote more than one book but in his The Prince he writes a "how to" guide for a how a prince should behave in all aspects of his life. This is where Machiavelli's lions and foxes comes from, he states that a prince should be like a lion in order to be strong and scare his enemies as well as smart like a fox to elude his enemies traps (Zophy. 81). This a very different thought on political theory compared to previous philosophers. But Machiavelli's new thoughts on power and the control of a states subjects are what make him such an interesting thinker/humanist of the Renaissance. 
Yes, Machiavelli represents the new way of thinking politics in the new period of despotism and emerging states over communes. You can see in an age of patronage why he might have written this book. Who was it dedicated to, and when was it written?
ReplyDeleteIt was published in 1531 and dedicated to Lorenzo Medici the nephew of Giovanni Medici who was Pope Leo X.
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