People fear Niccolò Machiavelli, but few love him. Consequently, the term ‘Machiavellian’ describes an individual who callously disregards morality on his quest to amass immense power. Immediately after publication, those who dared read his delightfully wicked masterpiece, The Prince, feared it would pervert the minds and morals of those in power. The vilest members of society thought Machiavelli was even viler than they. The patron saints condemned The Prince’s propagation of sin and murder. By all accounts, in every history book, Niccolò Machiavelli still reigns as a prince of darkness, a great teacher of evil. The smug grin on his famous portrait nearly confirms it. Machiavelli wrote the definitive manual for tyrants and shocked his way into infamy with a smirk upon his face.
Of course, one must realize the word “tyrant” does not appear inside The Prince. In his great adoration for Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli implies the term in his selection of ideal princes. As he writes, “I would not know of any better precepts for a new prince than the example of his actions…” (29). Indeed, this revered leader followed The Prince’s creed to a tee. The son of cunning Pope Alexander VI, Borgia slaughtered his opposition. He intentionally left the Romagna in a cruel leader’s hands, then killed him and displayed his body in the town square (31). Borgia was everything Machiavelli could dream of in an ideal prince. However, it becomes evident that the philosopher never meant the word “prince,” seeing as the term in this text is synonymous with “tyrant.” In Machiavelli’s treatise, these words mean the same, for only a tyrant would execute such heinous acts and receive praise. In this case, “the prince” clearly means “the tyrant.”
Most curiously, however, the model “prince” did not end his career in a way worth emulating. Perhaps in a state of denial, Machiavelli writes, “But if at the death of Alexander [Cesare Borgia] had been healthy, everything would have been easy” (33). At this juncture, one needs to examine this poor alibi for Borgia’s ultimate failure. Without support from the Vatican, Borgia’s military campaigns deteriorated. As Wayne Rebhorn of the University of Texas noted in his introduction to the text, Borgia died. The church took his conquered lands, his legacy ending in colossal disappointment (xxvi). Machiavelli chalks this up to fortune, for the great tyrant or “prince” had done everything else correctly. He had the virtu but lacked the necessary luck and ultimately failed. Borgia was the prime example and a failure. One might wonder why Machiavelli would sing such high praises, going as far as to suggest Lorenzo, a new “prince,” should follow Borgia’s footsteps when his regime did not end in glory. In truth, only in a satire would a tyrant like Cesare Borgia exemplify the ideal prince. When coupled with Machiavelli’s republican background, the faulty advice given within the text, and his blatant parody of Cicero’s On Duties, one starts to view the infamous tyrant’s handbook in a different light. Machiavelli is not a great teacher of evil. In contrast, he stands as one of the first political satirists with his treatise, The Prince.
Republican Background
To begin, Machiavelli spent the best years of his life in Florentine politics. By his twenty-ninth birthday, the alleged prince of darkness became the Head of the Second Chancery, sending him into Florence’s political arena (Rebhorn xv). For fourteen years, Machiavelli worked under the gonfaloniere, serving a city that felt “dearer to him than [his] own soul” (xvii). Here, an analyst might wonder why a man who loved his city would subject it to a tyrant’s rule. As Secretary of War under Piero Soderini, Machiavelli had installed a standing army instead of mercenaries to protect it (xvi). If Machiavelli intended for those in power to interpret his treatise literally, then it would seem implausible for him to have loved Florence or have revolutionized its military. His adoration and former actions suggest a motivation to employ hyperbole to showcase life’s true nature under an authoritarian regime. In doing so, Machiavelli could better draw attention to its failings. This move would also account for the contradictory nature of his arguments and his divorce from tradition. Employing hyperbole worked well when Johnathan Swift later wrote of eating Irish babies in A Modest Proposal, and Machiavelli likely intended the same in his depiction of a tyrant.
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