Patricide and the Plot of the Prince: Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli's Italy
Author(s): John T. Scott and Vickie B. Sullivan
Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 887-900
Published by: American Political Science Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2082714
Accessed: 07-03-2018 09:50 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to The American Political Science Review
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4 December 1994
PATRICIDE AND THE PLOT OF THE PRINCE:
CESARE BORGIA AND MACHIAVELLI'S ITALY
JOHN T. SCOTT University of Houston
VICKIE B. SULLIVAN Skidmore College
A n understanding of Machiavelli's assessment of Cesare Borgia in The Prince is essential for
interpreting his view of politics, but the ambiguity of that assessment has led to vastly
different conclusions about Machiavelli's political teaching and Cesare's significance. We
approach Machiavelli's ultimate intentions through a consideration of his more immediate concern for
Italy. Machiavelli's great interest in Cesare and his criticism of this potential hero stem from the
historical context of an Italy divided due to the Church. Cesare possessed-yet squandered-an
opportunity to rid Italy of the evils plaguing it by killing his father, Pope Alexander, and by
eliminating the College of Cardinals. Machiavelli's suggested denouement to the plot of The Prince
is an assault on the ecclesiastical power. He invites his reader to contemplate the vulnerability of the
Church and to act where Cesare and others shrank. Machiavelli ultimately counsels us to break our
reliance on God or fortune and thus create the conditions for a reinvigorated civil life.
M achiavelli confronts his readers in The Prince
with an ambiguous portrait of Cesare Borgia.
This ambitious son of Pope Alexander
VI-this ruthless new prince of the Romagna-indisputably
occupies a great deal of Machiavelli's attention
in the work. Indeed, Machiavelli offers Cesare as
an instructive model: "I do not know what better
teaching I could give to a new prince than the
example of his actions" (1985, 27).' Ultimately, however,
Machiavelli's assessment of Cesare's achievement
is mixed. Despite his outstanding virtue , in the
end Cesare failed in his enterprise due to "an extraordinary
and extreme malignity of fortune": surprised
by the death of his father and his own illness, Cesare
made an unfortunate choice in supporting the election
of Julius II, the future warrior pope (pp. 32-33).
The prominent yet uncertain role of Cesare in The
Prince is at the center of debates over Machiavelli's
political theory. More than one reader of The Prince
has been led by the relish with which its author
relates the murderous deeds of the Borgias to conclude
that Cesare is Machiavelli's hero, simply. "Machiavelli
was full of his idol, Duke Valentino," declares
Montesquieu (Spirit of the Laws 29.19). An
actual prince eager to prove his humane credentials,
Frederick of Prussia, indicts Machiavelli by saying
Cesare is "the model on which the author forms his
prince" and his "hero" (1981, 58; see also A. Gilbert
1938, 42). This conclusion requires revision in light of
Machiavelli's own criticism of his exemplar (Sasso
1966, chap. 14). Some interpreters have therefore
argued that Cesare, whatever his shortcomings, is
Machiavelli's idealized "man of virtue ' (Hulliung
1983, 192) or the model for his own method of
statecraft (e.g., Butterfield 1962, 97-98, see also Skinner
1981, 8-12, 33-34). Conversely, others have seen
Machiavelli's attention to Cesare as evidence that The
Prince is a satire. "The choice of his execrable hero is
in itself enough to make manifest his hidden intention,"
Rousseau states, claiming that "The Prince is
the book of republicans" (Social Contract 3.6 and n.;
see also Mattingly 1958, 487-91). Cesare's place in The
Prince thus raises questions about Machiavelli's intentions
in that work and the relationship of his handbook
for princes to his apparently more republican
writings, especially the Discourses.
As political scientists or historians of political
thought, we are ultimately interested in Machiavelli
because of the general bearing of his thought and its
influence, including his status as perhaps the first
truly "modern" political thinker.2 Nonetheless, Machiavelli
did write in the context of sixteenth century
Italy. Just as it is a mistake to read The Prince as
essentially historically bound, so too is it an error to
interpret it without reference to Machiavelli's surroundings
and his more immediate intentions. We
approach Machiavelli's ultimate intentions by concentrating
on his more immediate ones in The Prince:
his concern for an Italy overrun by "barbarians" and
kept divided due to the papacy.
We argue that Machiavelli's concern with the
Church's ruinous influence on Italy is the source of
both his attention to Cesare and his criticism of this
potential hero. Although we differ with Rousseau on
the issue of whether Machiavelli's interest in Cesare
is sincere, we agree with him that the Church is
Machiavelli's target in The Prince: "The court of Rome
has severely forbidden his book. I can well believe it;
it is the court that he most clearly depicts" (Social
Contract 3.6, n.).3 Because Cesare was perfectly situated
to eliminate the power of the Church, he possessed-yet
squandered-an opportunity to rid Italy
of the evils plaguing it and thus to realize the grand
achievement called for in the concluding chapter of
The Prince. By following the development of the plot
of The Prince and its protagonist, we uncover Machiavelli's
advice for remedying Italy's ills. Like his play
887
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
Mandragola (a comedy of conspiracy), The Prince has a
plot.
Unfolding in a chilling drama, Machiavelli's plot
involves the conquest of the ecclesiastical principality
of Rome, a special type of state to which he devotes a
chapter of The Prince. The court of Rome has a
peculiar mode of rule where the pope's authority is
derived from the cardinals and that of the cardinals
from the pope. The complete acquisition of this state
would require the elimination of both the pope and
the College of Cardinals. Machiavelli intimates that
Cesare could have done just that: had Cesare acted
more prudently, "he could have kept anyone from
being pope (poteva tenere che uno non fussi papa)" (p. 33
[Machiavelli 1971, 268]; emphasis added). Cesare,
however, failed to do this. To employ Machiavellian
terminology from a similar context, Cesare was bad,
but he failed because he was not altogether bad (see
Discourses 1.27). Machiavelli approves with studied
coolness the crimes the Duke committed in his ascent
to power. We argue that for Machiavelli, Cesare's
lapse was a sin of omission: he failed to commit a
simultaneous homicide and patricide. Machiavelli's
suggested denouement to the plot of The Prince
represents an assault on the power of the Church and
of Christianity generally. Machiavelli thereby inspires
one to contemplate the vulnerability of an inimical
ecclesiastical power. In countenancing the most extreme
measures to eradicate it, he counsels someone
who possesses both the virtue and the fortune to act
where Cesare and others shrank-whether that person
be the immediate addressee of The Prince,
Lorenzo Medici, the nephew of the pope at that time,
or the ultimate audience that Machiavelli indicates"whoever
understands it" (p. 61).
After briefly discussing the historical context to
which Machiavelli's immediate intentions in The
Prince are a response, we follow the plot of The Prince
through chapter 11, "Of Ecclesiastical Principalities."
Our solution to the puzzle of Machiavelli's use
of Cesare Borgia not only reveals the coherence of a
work many readers find disjointed at first appearance
(e.g., Allen 1960, 452; see also Skinner 1981, 23) and
ascribes a significance to passages usually deemed
insignificant, but also links the darkest, most sinister
Machiavellian intent with his concern for Italy. Finally,
we address how our interpretation speaks to
the vexing problem of the relationship of Machiavelli's
republicanism and patriotism to his role as an
advisor to princes.
THE PRINCE AND MACHIAVELLI'S
ITALY
The historical context in which Machiavelli wrote
undoubtedly influenced his thought, but questions
abound as to the manner in which and the extent to
which it did so. It can be said with certainty that
historical context dictated the way in which he presents
his thought and provided many of the examples
he uses to expound it, notably that of Cesare Borgia.
In order to understand Machiavelli's more immediate
concerns in The Prince and thereby to comprehend
his ultimate teaching, knowledge of Machiavelli's
Italy is essential. Machiavelli is concerned with Italy's
divisions and vulnerability. A number of scholars
have sought to uncover Machiavelli's remedy for
Italy's ills (or at least his native Florence's), sometimes
with attention to how Cesare Borgia's enterprise-the
creation of a large northern Italian state
with the aid of his father, the pope-is in some way
his model for that remedy. The interpretations offered
by these scholars are, however, inadequate
because they are not radical enough. Because they do
not reckon with what Machiavelli indicates is the
pervasive cause of Italy's woes-the papacy and its
policy-these interpretations do not grasp the extremity
of the remedy he prescribes. By examining
these interpretations and then turning to Machiavelli's
treatment of the papacy, we can establish the
magnitude of the problem Machiavelli apprehends
and make more plausible the extreme remedy we
argue he contemplates.
Italy and Machiavelli's Prince
Numerous scholars have approached Machiavelli
from a historical perspective, but in steering clear of
lamentable ignorance of Machiavelli's Italy they have
sometimes underestimated their author. Mary Dietz
has done a great service in her own attempt to solve
the problem of The Prince by reading Machiavelli with
his historical situation in mind while at the same time
redirecting our attention to the deceptiveness of the
theorist of deception. Dietz argues that Machiavelli's
work is itself a work of deception, a trap into which
he intends Lorenzo Medici to fall: "Machiavelli devises
a plot, a series of moves that, if followed, will
lead Lorenzo to disaster" and Florence to a renewed
embrace of its republican institutions (1986, 781).
Dietz's application of Machiavelli's praise of the tactic
of fraud to his own writing is well founded. For
example, in a letter to Guicciardini of 17 May 1521,
quoted by Dietz, Machiavelli declares, "For a long
time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever
believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do
happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies
that it is hard to find" (Machiavelli [1989, 2:973]). No
longer able to play the lion, he adopts the nature of
the fox. Machiavelli is indeed "outspoken, irrepressible,
and fearless," as Hulliung insists (1983, 28), but
his aims in The Prince themselves require subterfuge.
Although Dietz suspects something sinister, she
identifies the wrong plot. To begin with, the scope of
her investigation is too limited. Granting even that it
was Machiavelli's intention to mislead the Medici to
their downfall, a reconstituted Florentine republic
would still have been vulnerable to the dealings of its
neighbors. The republic for which Machiavelli had
served as a loyal envoy had, after all, fallen in 1512 as
a result of the French defeat at the hands of the Holy
League, led by Pope Julius II. The viability of the
888
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
republic was therefore dependent not only on the
organization of Florence but also on that of Italy. Our
consideration of The Prince reveals that Machiavelli
had precisely this problem in mind. Moreover, Dietz
takes no account of Machiavelli's offer of Cesare
Borgia as a model to be imitated. Surely looking into
this mirror of princes would not reveal the vulnerable
prince that Dietz suggests would result from Machiavelli's
advice.
Attempts have been made to untangle the puzzle
of The Prince with reference to its Italian context and
the model of Cesare Borgia. Most notably, Hans
Baron argues that Machiavelli wrote his plea in the
concluding chapter of The Prince to "redeem" Italy in
reaction to "a unique occasion" that offered itself to
the Medici through their simultaneous hold on Florence
and the papacy. Baron suggests that the request
is made for the Medici to expel the barbarians
"by founding, in accord with the rules established in
the book, a strong new state modeled on the one built
a decade earlier by Cesare Borgia as a power nucleus
on the borders of north and central Italy-a historic
enterprise which only misfortune had prevented
from becoming the starting point for Italy's liberation"
(1991, 85). Whitfield makes a similar argument
and concludes that Cesare Borgia "represents the
only historical parallel, the proof of how much one
can build upon the favour of a pope" (1969, 28; see
also Whitfield 1965, 62-64).
Baron and Whitfield mistake the occasion that
Cesare's example reveals. The client state that Alexander
VI was carving out through Cesare was an
insufficient remedy for the illness diagnosed by Machiavelli.
First, because of the brevity of the average
pope's reign and the alternating creation of pontiffs
from competing factions-points Machiavelli emphasizes
in The Prince with reference to Cesare (pp. 32,
46)-any alliance of the papacy and a northern buffer
state was certain to be ephemeral. As the head of the
papal forces, Giuliano Medici was in the same position
as Cesare, but he would be at the mercy of his
uncle's successor in the same way that Cesare relied
on the bad faith of his father's successor. Second,
Baron and Whitfield do not take account of Machiavelli's
argument for the ruinous effect of the papacy
and his indictment of Christianity itself. Baron does
recognize this second problem, but his solution is to
read the chapters in the Discourses that indict Christianity
as later interpolations, just as he seeks to
resolve the question of the relationship of the fervent
patriotism of chapter 26 of The Prince to the cold
technique of the rest of the work by ascribing to the
last chapter a separate and later composition (1991,
101-2; see Baron 1954). Like Baron and Whitfield,
Strauss attends to Machiavelli's concern for Italy and
seems to assume that he had in mind the creation of
a northern Italian state (1958, 80-81). Strauss does
recognize the problem of the Church and Christianity
more generally for Machiavelli, although he does not
combine the two concerns in the way we suggest.
Machiavelli ultimately does not urge Giuliano or
Lorenzo Medici, in league with Pope Leo, to imitate
Cesare Borgia in the manner Baron or Whitfield
suggest. We shall show that Machiavelli's concern
with the Church in connection with Italy's woes is
present from the beginning of The Prince and unifies
its development.
Machiavelli's Treatment of the Papacy
The most important aspect of the historical context of
The Prince for understanding Machiavelli's more immediate
intentions in The Prince (as well as his ultimate
aims) is his view of the influence of the Church
on Italy and the problem of Christianity more generally.
In The Prince, Machiavelli writes that Italy has
been "subjected to barbarous cruelties and insults" of
the French and Spanish armies and the mercenary
forces of the Swiss and Germans (pp. 102, 104-5). In
the Discourses, as well as in the Florentine Histories, he
blames the papacy for the political division of Italy,
the very problem he laments at the end of The Prince:
The Church has kept and still keeps this region divided.
... The reason why Italy is not in that same condition
and why she too does not have one republic or one
prince to govern her is the Church alone; because,
though she has dwelt there and possessed temporal
power, she has not been so strong or of such ability that
she could grasp sole authority [occupare la tirannide] in
Italy and make herself ruler of the country. Yet on the
other hand she has not been so weak that, when she
feared to lose dominion over her temporal possessions,
she could not summon a powerful man to defend her
against anyone who in Italy had become too powerful.
(1.12 [Machiavelli, 1971, 96]; see also Florentine Histories
1.9)
Machiavelli discusses the temporal power of the
Church in The Prince at several points. He explains
that Louis XII of France erred "by giving aid to Pope
Alexander so that the pope might seize the Romagna"
and by failing to realize that he was thus
"making the Church great by adding so much temporal
greatness to the spiritual one that gives it so
much authority" (p. 14). Later in the same work,
Machiavelli observes of the Church that "before Alexander,
the Italian powers, and not only those that
are called powers but every baron and lord, even the
least, held her in low esteem in temporal affairs" (p.
45). Alexander increased the temporal power of the
Church through his son, Cesare. Machiavelli might
appear to commend such a strategy when he points
to the powerful pontificate found by the Medician
pope, Leo X, the uncle of the immediate addressee of
The Prince (pp. 47, 102; but cf. Discourses 2.22).
Machiavelli nevertheless reveals that even a strong
Church cannot be the solution to Italy's problems
because of its reliance on mercenary arms. He makes
this point in The Prince immediately following his
treatment of ecclesiastical principalities, stating that
"the present ruin of Italy is caused by nothing other
than its having relied for a period of many years on
mercenary arms.... And he who said that our sins
were the cause [of the French invasion of Italy] spoke
the truth. But the sins were surely not those he
889
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
believed, but the one I have told of" (p. 49).5 The
Church is primarily responsible for this condition:
"Since Italy had almost fallen into the hands of the
Church and a few republics, and since the priests and
the other citizens did not have knowledge of arms,
they began to hire foreigners" (p. 52). Citizens can be
armed, and Machiavelli dedicated himself to that end
in Florence and throughout his writings, but the
clergy is always unarmed and at the mercy of others
(see p. 81).
Machiavelli expands on the Christian clergy in
connection with the political corruption of the
moderns in his Discourses. When he refers to those
who administer to the pope as a "court" (1.12), he
establishes that the members of the clergy constitute
a type of noble class. Later in the same work he
speaks of a type of gentleman (gentiluomo) particularly
inimical to "any political life," those "who
without working [oziosi] live in luxury on the returns
from their landed possessions," and points his reference
when he lists the Papal States (Terra di Roma) as
one place where such gentlemen can be found in
abundance.6 He ominously reports that the Germans
kill these gentlemen when they find them (1.55
[Machiavelli 1971, 138]). Machiavelli challenges anyone
who may disagree with his analysis of the responsibility
of the "Roman court" for Italy's ills to
send this court to Switzerland. He concludes in
advance of the experiment that such largess on the
part of the Italians would in a very short time create
similar disorders even among the Swiss, who, of all
modern peoples, live in a manner most akin to the
ancients (1.12). Christianity has disarmed a noble
class, thereby rendering it useless to life by making it
dependent on other arms.
In the Discourses, Machiavelli states that "we Italians"
have as "our first debt to the Church and to the
priests that we have become without religion and
wicked" (1.12, see also 1.27). Some readers have
argued that this passage is informed by Machiavelli's
firm foundation in the Christian faith and concern
that the clergy be reformed (e.g., Grazia 1989, 89-90;
cf. Parel 1992, 62). Nevertheless, Machiavelli indicts
not just the Church for Italy's woes but Christianity
for the ills of modern states generally. The Christian
religion "has made the world weak and turned it over
as prey to wicked men, who can in security control it,
since the generality of men, in order to go to Heaven,
think more about enduring their injuries than about
avenging them" (Discourses 2.2). Machiavelli holds
out as his utmost standard the exaltation of his
earthly homeland (see Machiavelli to Vettori, 16 April
1527 [1989, 3:1010]). A Christianity reformed to his
specifications would cease to be recognizably Christian
(see Berlin 1980, esp. 46-50; Hulliung 1983, 67).
Machiavelli's view of Christianity itself strengthens
his indictment of the papacy and precludes a strong
Church from being the remedy for Italy's condition.
Machiavelli's discussion in the Discourses of the
effects of Christianity refers to "modern" peoples
generally. He indicates the pervasive influence of
Christianity on modern times in The Prince when he
relates his conversation with Rouen: "For when the
cardinal of Rouen said to me that the Italians do not
understand war, I replied to him that the French do
not understand the state, because if they understood
they would not have let the Church come to such
greatness" (pp. 15-16). Louis's fault was his faith:
(1) the "faith" Louis might be said to have owed
Alexander "for dissolving his marriage and for the
[cardinal's] hat of Rouen," faith Machiavelli explicitly
urges Louis to break by referring the reader to his
discussion of faith later in the work (pp. 15-16 and
chap. 18, esp. p. 70); and (2) his faith more generally,
which Machiavelli implies we should break. The
power of Christianity over the modern mind is pervasive,
and Machiavelli must make us see the religion
as both inimical and vulnerable if we are to break our
faith with it and adopt his "new orders" (see pp.
23-24, 61).
Healthy politics in Italy and modern times more
generally would require as a first step the destruction
of the power of the Church, if not its total elimination.
Machiavelli does consider the possibility of the
murder of a pope and the destruction of the "Roman
court." In the Discourses he reports that when Pope
Julius II undertook to expel the tyrants who had
seized the land of the Church, he entered Perugia to
remove Giovampagolo Baglioni. Machiavelli first
comments on the rashness of Julius (see 1985, 100-
101), who entered the city entirely unarmed while his
enemy maintained troops there. But the tyrant Baglioni
receives Machiavelli's harshest criticism. Baglioni's
"cowardice" permitted the unarmed pope to
leave Perugia with his prey. Machiavelli complains:
"All the sagacious [prudenti] men with the Pope . . .
could not reckon whence it came that [Baglioni] did
not, to his everlasting fame, at one stroke [ad un
tratto] put down his enemy and enrich himself with
booty, since with the Pope were all the cardinals with
all their precious things." Machiavelli is indeed
shocked at Baglioni's uncharacteristic omission of a
sin from conscience: "So Giovampagolo, who did not
mind being incestuous and an open parricide, could
not or, to put it better, did not dare, when he had a
perfect opportunity [occasione] for it, do a deed for
which everybody would have admired his courage
and for which he would have left an everlasting
remembrance [perpetua fama] of himself.... And he
would have done a thing the greatness of which
would have transcended every infamy, every peril
that could have resulted from it" (Discourses 1.27
[Machiavelli 1971, 109-10]; see also Machiavelli 1985,
54).7
The greatness of the reward that would accrue
from this terrible deed-the deed from which even
Baglioni shrunk-suggests the significance of the
elimination of the papacy for Machiavelli. Yet his
characterization of Baglioni's potential reward does
not appear to accord with an earlier remark in the
Discourses. Whereas "heads and organizers [ordinatore]
of religions" are "most famous" (laudati) of all
human beings, "those men are infamous and detestable
who have been destroyers of religions, squan-
890
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
derers of kingdoms and republics, enemies of virtue"
(1.10 [Machiavelli 1971, 91]). Baglioni's "cowardice"
would be indictable, but surely the murderer of a
pope and his entourage would seem to merit "eternal
infamy" rather than "perpetual fame"-unless, of
course, the act not only destroys but also founds.
Machiavelli suggests just this conclusion in his Florentine
Histories when he relates Stefano Porcari's
ambition: animated by a desire for glory, the Roman
Porcari "judged he could do nothing else than to try
to see if he could take his fatherland from the hands
of prelates and restore it to its ancient way of life,
hoping by this, should he succeed, to be called the
new founder and second father of [Rome]" (6.29).
Porcari's "mode" entailed killing the pope and calling
the disaffected people to arms against the Church.
Porcari failed in his conspiracy (see Discourses 3.6),
and Machiavelli comments, "The intentions of this
man could be praised by anyone, but his judgment
will always be blamed by everyone because such
undertakings, if there is some shadow of glory in
thinking of them, have almost always very certain
loss in their execution" (Florentine Histories 6.29).
Machiavelli blames only Porcari's failure to acquire,
not his aim. "Machiavelli more than hinted that the
time had come for a political takeover of the church,"
Hulliung comments; "Where Stefano Porcari and
Cesare Borgia had failed, others could succeed"
(1983, 217). Hulliung thus intimates the solution,
although he fails to indicate the means to that end as
it comes to light in The Prince.
The person who removes the religious blight from
Italy would provide the possibility for the growth of
healthier political institutions. As Machiavelli repeatedly
emphasizes in many contexts, the very act of
founding or reforming requires horrifying deeds.
Most prominently, Machiavelli's first example of a
prince by virtue, Moses, had to commit terrible acts
and, even if Machiavelli only implies it, eliminate a
former religion (Discourses 2.5, 3.30; see, esp., Exodus
32:27-28). Machiavelli's other instances of the greatest
exemplars are similarly guilty. Romulus, for example,
committed fratricide and consented to the
death of his colleague, Titus Tatius. Romulus must be
forgiven, however, because his object was to found
un vivere civile (Discourses 1.9 [Machiavelli 1971, 90];
see also 1.18, 3.1).8 Cruelties "well used" are necessary
to establish political order and vibrancy. Perhaps
if Baglioni had had a similar end in view, his deed of
papacide, like that of Romulus's fratricide (or Theseus'
possible patricide),9 would have earned him
fame rather than infamy. Borgia had the same opportunity
as did Baglioni and Porcari; if he had seized it,
Machiavelli would certainly rank him beside Romulus
and the others as "one of the most excellent of
princes."
THE PLOT OF THE PRINCE
Machiavelli discusses his greatest exemplars-new
princes who acquire through their "own arms and
virtue"-in chapter 6 of The Prince. Those who acquire
through "others' arms and fortune"-the
theme of chapter 7-pale in comparison. Yet Machiavelli
offers these princes, notably Cesare Borgia, as
examples to be imitated. Unlike the wholly or partially
mythical exemplars of chapter 6, Cesare was of
flesh and blood. Hulliung suggests that Cesare is "an
abstraction Machiavelli created by taking elements
from both Greek and Roman thought and compounding
them into a creation all his own" (1983, 192). We
insist upon the historical Cesare as the key to grasping
Machiavelli's more immediate intentions in The
Prince. Through Cesare's example Machiavelli instructs
a prince not only not to rely on the arms and
fortune of others but also how to solve Italy's political
problem.
As we have shown, the politics of Italy in particular
and of modern times in general was decisively affected
by the Church. In order to understand Machiavelli's
remedy for Italy, one has to read The Prince
from the very beginning with the discussion of ecclesiastical
principalities in chapter 11 in mind. Wolin is
therefore incorrect when he states that "Machiavelli
contended that ecclesiastical governments were irrelevant
to the proper concerns of the new science" he
was developing and that they were "not politic
enough to warrant the attention of political thought"
(1960, 198-9). The chapter on ecclesiastical principalities
does indeed appear to be almost an afterthought,
since the ecclesiastical state of Rome does not fit into
Machiavelli's initial categorization at the outset of The
Prince and is not included there. This appearance is
not inadvertent, however, and the anomalous position
of that discussion is actually the culmination of
an argument that develops in the previous chapters.
We shall now make the plot of The Prince manifest.
The Conquest of Italy
Chapter 1 of The Prince begins with what Machiavelli
claims is an exhaustive enumeration of different sorts
of states, which can be categorized generally as
republics or principalities. In chapter 2, after setting
aside "reasonings on republics because I have reasoned
on them at length another time" (presumably
in the Discourses), Machiavelli commences with a
discussion of hereditary principalities. Hereditary
states do not occupy Machiavelli for long since, he
claims, "if such a prince is of ordinary industry, he
will always maintain himself in his state unless there
is an extraordinary and excessive force which deprives
him of it." His example of such a prince, the
duke of Ferrara (actually two dukes), already alerts us
to the existence of the papacy, for according to
Machiavelli, this duke did not succumb to the attack
of either Venice (a republic) or Pope Julius II (pp.
6-7). This prince or these princes actually did lose
their state, however, and were fortunate to be restored
by others. Although Machiavelli follows tradition
by calling hereditary princes "natural" in this
context, there is perhaps something more "natural"
about new princes who acquire states, because, as
891
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
Machiavelli informs us, the desire to acquire is a
"very natural and ordinary thing" in a world marked
more by change than by stability (pp. 14-15; cf.
Florentine Histories 5.1; see also Pocock 1975, 158;
Strauss 1958, 57).
Machiavelli turns in chapter 3 to the epochal event
that changed the landscape of Italian politics-the
invasion of Italy by the French in 1494 and again in
1499. Although the chapter is entitled "Of Mixed
Principalities," it is actually an account of Louis XII's
failure, through his 1499 invasion, to create a mixed
state by adding much of Italy to his own kingdom.
Machiavelli offers Louis advice on how he could have
succeeded-or rather, since Louis was dead, he counsels
anyone who would conquer Italy. He offers the
same advice in his Discourses (1.23), hardly an act of
simple patriotism. Mansfield suggests an explanation:
"Much as he loved Florence and Italy, he is not
fundamentally a city or national patriot. He is a
patriot on behalf of humanity, seeking to protect men
against outside forces, consequently a patriot of the
home of human beings, the earth" (1981, 303). While
Mansfield's explanation is ultimately in accord with
our own, it does not account for Machiavelli's more
immediate intentions as revealed in this context.
Butterfield embraces the opposite extreme, seeing
Machiavelli's advice to Louis as nothing more than a
compendium of maxims of statecraft (1962, 30-31,
60). Machiavelli's concern with the historical dilemma
confronting Italy is in fact the unstated theme animating
chapters 3 and 4 of The Prince.
Louis entered France with the aid of the Venetians
and, most importantly, with the collusion of Pope
Alexander. Machiavelli thus reminds us of the reason
Italy was subject to such divisions and invasions-the
papacy. He speaks of the division of Italy in the
chapter on ecclesiastical principalities, although he
does not there reveal the cause of the division:
"Before Charles, king of France, came into Italy, this
province was under the dominion of the pope, the
Venetians, the king of Naples, the duke of Milan, and
the Florentines" (pp. 45-46). As noted, chapter 3 is
purportedly on "mixed" principalities but is actually
about Louis's failure to conquer Italy. Italy is similar
to France, where "Burgundy, Brittany, Gascony, and
Normandy" have "been with France for so long a
time" (p. 9).1o Like France, Italy itself is a "mixed" or
"disparate" province (see p. 11). Despite this similarity,
Italy would appear to differ from France in one
important respect, namely, the residence of the pope
(at least after the end of the "captivity" of Avignon).
If chapter 3 contains Machiavelli's advice on how to
acquire a mixed province like France or Italy, he
expands his plan of conquest with implicit reference
to the papacy in the next chapter.
The subject of conquest continues in the apparently
anomalous chapter 4, whose announced subject is,
"Why the Kingdom of Darius Which Alexander
Seized Did Not Rebel from His Successors after
Alexander's Death." The conquest of Darius' kingdom
was maintained because it was governed in a
particular ."mode," namely, by one prince whose
ministers owe their power to him rather than by a
prince surrounded by barons with hereditary privileges
and their own subjects. Machiavelli states that
"principalities of which memory remains" have been
governed through one of these two modes. He presents
a contemporary parallel to Darius' kingdom
through the government of the Turk and contrasts it
with that of the king of France. He explains: "Whoever
considers the one and other of these states will
find difficulty in acquiring the state of the Turk, but
should it be conquered, great ease in holding it. So
inversely, you will find in some respects more ease in
seizing the state of France, but great difficulty in
holding it" (pp. 17-18). Machiavelli advises one how
to acquire both the state of France and that of the
Turk. We have already seen that he considers Italy to
be like France, so his remarks on the conquest of
France would apply to Italy as well, with the notable
exception of the papacy.
The papacy, in turn, is similar to the government of
the Turk. Machiavelli has already furnished us with
the information necessary to categorize the papacy
when he remarked in the previous chapter that one
reason Louis kept faith with the Pontiff was that Pope
Alexander had undertaken to elevate one of Louis's
ministers to cardinal (p. 15). The pope makes his own
ministers, who therefore have no independent source
of rule, just like the ministers of the Turk. The result
of this comparison would be heartening to anyone
contemplating an attack on the papacy: like the
dominion of the Turk, this ecclesiastical principality is
difficult to conquer but easy to hold after the initial
assault. Machiavelli comments that once the Turk has
been defeated, "one has only to fear the blood line of
the prince" (p. 18). This statement, however, points
to the manner in which the papacy must be distinguished
from the Turk's state and Darius' kingdom of
old: the papacy does not have a (recognized) blood
line. The pope's authority derives from election.
Later in The Prince, Machiavelli states that the sultan's
state shares this feature with "the Christian pontificate"
(p. 82). (Further, in this context, Machiavelli
groups the Turk and the Sultan because of their
dependence on their armies rather than on the people,
a feature that the Christian pontificate shares in
its dependence on mercenary arms.) The Christian
pontificate is similar to the states of both the Turk and
the Sultan.
Now in the case of Pope Alexander, Cesare Borgia
himself represented the blood line, and so the pontificate
under Alexander was more similar to the
government of the Turk. Because his father ruled
from the Vatican, however, Cesare was not the
apparent heir to his father's rule. Indeed, this very
circumstance would necessitate that Cesare, the natural
son of the pope, conquer his father's principality
in order to rule it. Burckhardt, for example, detects in
Cesare's actions a plan to succeed his father as pope
and to secularize the lands of the Church (1958,
129-30). Machiavelli draws our attention to the peculiar
situation of the pope and his son at the very end
of chapter 3, when he is relating a discussion with
892
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
Rouen that took place "when Valentino (for so Cesare
Borgia, son of Pope Alexander, was called by the
people) was occupying Romagna" (p. 16). Immediately
after making this remark about Alexander and
Cesare, Machiavelli turns in chapter 4 to Alexander
the Great and his successors, causing us to think of
the possible successor of a different Alexander from
the one mentioned (twice) in the title of chapter 411
Alexander the Great seized the kingdom of Darius,
and his successors held it; Alexander Borgia attained
the papacy, but his successor never gained possession
of it.
Machiavelli provided a plan in chapters 3 and 4 of
The Prince to conquer the whole of Italy, both the part
resembling France and that resembling the sultan and
the Turk. Cesare was more successful in conquering
the part of Italy akin to France-eliminating the
nobles and thus gaining the people to himself, "since
they had begun to taste well-being" (p. 29), 12 an
accomplishment to which Machiavelli appears to refer
at the end of chapter 3 when he relates that Cesare
was called Valentino by the people. (Actually, he was
Duke Valentino, or Valentinois, as a vassal to the
French king.) However, he did not succeed in acquiring
his father's principality, a task that would have
required overcoming those features of the papacy
that make it similar to the Sultan and Turk's states.
Cesare had the rare opportunity to accomplish the
deed Machiavelli suggests, but he failed because he
did not grasp the character of his father's realm or the
deeds necessary to acquire it.
Finally, in chapter 5, Machiavelli offers advice on
how to administer "cities or principalities" that lived
under their own laws: "In truth there is no secure
mode to possess them other than to ruin them"-or,
he adds, to live in them (pp.- 20-21). Such is the
course Cesare would have had to take with Florence
or any other republic in Italy, although we shall take
up the relationship between princes and republics at
greater length later. Machiavelli's plan for the conquest
of Italy is complete by the end of chapter 5.
Virtue and Fortune, Crime and Opportunity
The play between virtue and fortune animates The
Prince as a whole, and it is in chapters 6 and 7 of the
work that the contrast comes to life. Speaking of
"principalities that are altogether new in prince and
in state," Machiavelli alerts us in chapter 6 that he
will speak of "the greatest examples." He exhorts "a
prudent man" to imitate such examples "so that if his
own virtue does not reach that far, it is at least in the
odor of it." Although the greatest examples have
relied on their own virtue and arms, fortune or
opportunity is also needed. Machiavelli writes of his
great examples that "their excellent virtue enabled
the opportunity to be recognized," but maintenance
of the acquisition requires virtue above all. Among
such princes, Machiavelli avers that "the most excellent
are Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the
like" (pp. 21-23). As the founder of both a religion
and a state, a combination Machiavelli esteems most
highly (see Discourses 1.10), Moses is perhaps the
most excellent of princes. Machiavelli initially claims
to be reluctant to speak of Moses-just as he later
states that "it would be the office of a presumptuous
and foolhardy man to discourse" on ecclesiastical
principalities (p. 45)-before proceeding to do just
that. "And although one should not reason about
Moses, as he was a mere executor of things that had
been ordered for him by God, nonetheless he should
be admired if only for that grace which made him
deserving of speaking with God"-who, Machiavelli
laconically remarks, was "so great a teacher" (pp.
22-23). What God taught Moses is unclear, but what
Machiavelli seems to admire about Moses is his
having relied on his own arms. He contrasts Moses to
Savonarola, who also claimed to speak with God but
was an "unarmed" prophet and therefore unsuccessful
(p. 24). In order to understand Moses' accomplishment,
as well as the power of the ecclesiastical
dominion of Rome (a dominion founded by Jesus, a
successful unarmed prophet, thus requiring us to
amend Machiavelli's estimation of such prophets [see
Berlin 1980, 64]), Machiavelli indicates that we must
transcend our usual pieties and look at the "effectual
truth of the thing."
Machiavelli provides, with chapter 7, "Of New
Principalities That Are Acquired by Others' Arms and
Fortune," the antistrophe to his discussion of princes
who acquired through their own virtue and arms.
Cesare Borgia serves as his primary example. "Those
who become princes from private individual solely by
fortune become so with little trouble," Machiavelli
begins the chapter, "but maintain themselves with
much" (p. 25). We see then that new principalities
acquired by fortune are like France, which is easy to
enter but difficult to hold, and, as we might expect,
those acquired by virtue are like the Turk: those "who
become princes by the paths of virtue, acquire their
principality with difficulty but hold it with ease" (p.
23). We are reminded at the outset of the chapter
concerned with Cesare Borgia of the discussion in
chapter 4 of how Alexander's successors succeeded in
holding the state he acquired.13 Machiavelli briefly
adduces Francesco Sforza as an example of a prince
who acquired "with a great virtue of his own" but
passes straightaway to Duke Valentino, so-called "by
the vulgar" (thus reminding us of chapter 3). Machiavelli
introduces Cesare by saying that he "acquired
his state through the fortune of his father and lost it
through the same, notwithstanding the fact that he
made use of every deed and did all those things that
should be done by a prudent and virtuous man to put
his roots in the states that the arms and fortune of
others had given him." Machiavelli claims, "I do not
know what better teaching I could give to a new
prince than the example of his actions" (pp. 26-27).
Cesare is presented as an example but not one of the
greatest kind. Again we are faced with the question
of what "deed" Cesare omitted or what he could
have done to raise himself to Machiavelli's highest
rank.
Cesare's career flourished under the sponsorship
893
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
of his father, who "decided to make his son the duke
great." By facilitating the entry of the French into
Italy, Alexander upset the existing "orders" and
created the "disorder" necessary for his undertaking.
Cesare thus acquired the Romagna, which served as
the base for his subsequent acquisitions. Machiavelli
praises in particular the Duke's decision "to depend
no longer on the arms and fortune of others," thus
dispensing with "auxiliary arms" (the French) and
then mercenary ones (the Orsini) in favor of his own
(pp. 27-28, see also p. 55). In this connection Machiavelli
praises Cesare's turn to deceit to eliminate
those on whom he had formerly depended and
savors the Duke's elimination of these "heads" at
Sinigaglia, the action that also "gained all those
peoples to himself since they had begun to taste
well-being." 14 He points to this action as "deserving
of notice and of being imitated by others" and admires
in particular the manner in which Cesare
brought order to the Romagna through his minister,
"Messer Remirro de Orco, a cruel and ready man, to
whom he gave the fullest power." After Remirro
succeeded in reducing the province to peace "with
the very greatest reputation for himself," Machiavelli
claims that Cesare judged that such excessive authority
might become "hateful," and "in order to gain
[the people] entirely to himself, he wished to show
that if any cruelty had been committed, this had not
come from him but from the harsh nature of his
minister." Cesare therefore had Remirro killed in
such a way that "the ferocity of this spectacle,"
Machiavelli comments, "left the people at once satisfied
and stupefied" (pp. 28-30). Cesare was thus able
to avoid being hated while retaining the people's love
and fear, in accordance with Machiavelli's advice in
chapter 19 of The Prince.
Machiavelli relates the Duke's deeds admiringly,
but when he comes to Cesare's plans to maintain his
acquisitions, the account becomes critical. Cesare's
ultimate failure was that despite his resolve, he never
dispensed with his reliance on the fortune of others.
Machiavelli notes that Cesare had foremost to fear
"that a new successor in the Church might not be
friendly to him and might seek to take away what
Alexander had given him" and speaks of the four
"modes" in which Cesare sought to secure himself
against this: eliminating the blood lines of those he
had despoiled, winning over the gentlemen in Rome
to keep the pope in check, making "the College of
Cardinals as much his as he could," and acquiring
sufficient "empire before the pope died that he could
resist a first attack on his own." He almost succeeded
in these plans, according to Machiavelli, and then
"would no longer have depended on the fortune and
force of someone else, but on his own power and
virtue." His fatal mistake was that he used his influence
in the College of Cardinals to make Julius II
pope (pp. 30-32). Machiavelli's discussion reveals
generally that Cesare erred by continuing to rely on
his alliance with the Church. He relates in his legations
that Cesare supported Julius, despite the injuries
he had done him, because of Julius' assurance
that he would appoint him as papal general, continuing
the relationship with the papacy that he enjoyed
under his father (1989, 1:155; see Guicciardini 1969,
174-6). Cesare kept faith with Julius, but according to
Machiavelli, Cesare not only again relied upon the
fortune of others but deceived himself (p. 33; see
Discourses 3.4).
What should Cesare have done? Machiavelli indicates
a more promising strategy in his relation of
Cesare's failure. First, Machiavelli states of Cesare
that "if he could not make pope whomever he
wanted, at least it would not be someone he did not
want" (p. 32). Initially, it appears that Machiavelli
indicts him merely for his choice, but his restatement
of Cesare's position a page later reveals another
dimension: "One could only indict him in the creation
of Julius as pontiff, in which he made a bad
choice; for, as was said, . . . he could have kept
anyone from being pope" (p. 33). Sasso notices that
this is not what Machiavelli had said initially and
concludes that the difference between the statements
lies in the second's emphasis on the poor use Borgia
actually made of his influence (1966, 147). Sasso is
correct in characterizing the second as more negative;
however, as we have argued, it also reveals what, in
Machiavelli's view, Cesare should have done. Machiavelli
says that Cesare could have kept anyone from
being pope. This sentence can obviously be interpreted
to mean that he could have kept any one
candidate from being pope, but on another reading it
signifies that Cesare could have ended the papacy
altogether.
Machiavelli continues to reveal his plot in chapters
8 and 9, which parallel chapters 6 and 7, respectively.
Chapter 8 concerns those who have attained a principality
through "crimes," although Machiavelli
equivocates on whether these "crimes" are actually
acts of virtue. For instance, his first example in the
chapter is Agathocles of Sicily, about whom Machiavelli
says that "whoever might consider the actions
and virtue of this man will see nothing or little that
can be attributed to fortune," much like the greatest
examples of chapter 6. Having spoken of Agathocles'
virtue, Machiavelli retracts his attribution-"Yet one
cannot call it virtue to kill one's citizens, betray one's
friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without
religion; these modes can enable one to acquire
empire, but not glory"-only to grant it again: "For,
if one considers the virtue of Agathocles .. .." (p. 35;
emphasis added). Machiavelli later distinguishes
what are "called" virtues and what virtue actually
requires, with particular emphasis on keeping faith
(pp. 61-62 and chap. 18, esp. 70-71).
Numerous scholars have taken Machiavelli's temporary
refusal to call Agathocles virtuous to be his
final opinion and have thus palliated or obscured the
full force of the revolution he proposes in morality
(see Pitkin 1984, 60-61; Skinner 1978, 1:137-38; see
also Tarcov 1982, esp. 705-7). Machiavelli neither
divorces politics from morality (as suggested by, e.g.
Chabod 1964; esp. 243-55; Croce 1945, 250-56; Figgis
1960, 94-121) nor embraces half-heartedly or com-
894
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
pletely a political morality in tension with an unrejected
Christian morality (as suggested by Berlin
1980), nor proposes an "economy of violence" (as
suggested by Wolin 1960, chap. 7; see also Orwin 1978,
1225). His ultimate objection to Agathocles would
appear to be to what he calls "his savage cruelty and
inhumanity," his failure to employ necessarily violent
means toward ultimately humane ends (p. 35).
There are "cruelties badly used or well used," Machiavelli
comments later on concerning Agathocles:
"Those can be called well used," (if it is permissible to
speak well of evil) that are done at a stroke [a uno
tratto], out of the necessity to secure oneself" and are
"turned to as much utility for the subjects as one can"
(pp. 37-38 [Machiavelli 1971, 270]). He later praises
Cesare for such cruelty as was actually "merciful"
(p. 65). Machiavelli does indeed speak well of "evil."
He announces at the beginning of his discussion of
virtues, "I depart from the orders of others" (p. 61),
and his departure entails a wholesale revision in
the concept of virtue (see, esp., Orwin 1978; see also
F. Gilbert 1977, chap. 2). When we appreciate the
magnitude of his project, we are in a position to take
seriously the claim that the "crimes" of Agathocles
and others may potentially be acts of virtue.
Machiavelli's other primary example in his chapter
on those who attain a principality through crimes is
Liverotto (or Oliverotto) da Fermo, and it is Liverotto
who serves as a partial pattern for what Machiavelli
implies Cesare ought to have done. Machiavelli begins
his account of Liverotto's history by calling
attention to the parallel he will establish between
Liverotto and his "father" on the one hand and
Cesare and Alexander on the other: "In our times,
during the reign of Alexander VI, Liverotto da Fermo,
having been left a fatherless child some years before,
was brought up by a maternal uncle of his" (p. 35).
Machiavelli specifies that the events he relates here
took place during Alexander's reign even though
most of the modem events recounted in The Prince
take place during that same time without his calling
attention to the fact. After becoming an accomplished
condottiero, Liverotto returned to Fermo and there "he
held a most solemn banquet to which he invited
Giovanni Fogliani," his uncle, "and all the first men
of Fermo." Seemingly recalling his description of
Cesare's conspiracy at Sinigaglia, Machiavelli relates,
"Liverotto, with cunning, opened serious discussions,
speaking of the greatness of Pope Alexander
and of Cesare Borgia, his son, and of their undertakings."
Again, our attention is drawn to the parallel.
Adjourning to a more secret place, Liverotto had his
uncle and the others killed and then seized power in
the city. Machiavelli at first calls this act a "homicide,"
but later speaks of "the parricide he committed,"
and he does so when relating how Liverotto
was strangled one year after his crime by Cesare at
Sinigaglia (pp. 35-37; see also Guicciardini 1970, 234).
Machiavelli forces us to compare Liverotto and Cesare
and thereby suggests that Cesare should have
seized his patrimony through patricide (see also
Pitkin 1984, 60-63).
Papacide and the College of Cardinals
In Cesare's case, however, Liverotto's example alone
could not suffice. Patricide would result only in the
election of a new pope. The cardinals must also be
eliminated at the time of his father's death. The
cardinals comprise a sort of nobility surrounding the
pope. Machiavelli takes up the question of how to
deal with the nobility in chapter 9 of The Prince, "Of
the Civil Principality." Just as chapter 8 on crimes is
parallel to chapter 5 on virtue, so Machiavelli indicates
at the outset of chapter 9 that it is parallel to
chapter 7 on fortune: in a civil principality, "neither
all virtue nor all fortune is necessary to attain it, but
rather a fortunate astuteness." The chief lesson of
this chapter is that in every city there are two "diverse
humors," the "great" and the people: "A
prince can never secure himself against a hostile
people, as they are too many; against the great, he
can secure himself, as they are few." Similarly, "one
cannot satisfy the great with decency and without
injury to others, but one can satisfy the people" (p.
39). Machiavelli thus concludes that "when a prince
who founds on the people knows how to command
and is a man full of heart . .. and with his spirit and
his orders keeps the generality of people inspired, he
will never find himself deceived by them and he will
see he has laid his foundations well" (p. 41). Machiavelli
has already noted several times that Cesare was
founding himself on the people and opines that "his
foundations were good" (p. 32). One way to deal
with nobles is to destroy them. For example, in the
Discourses Machiavelli relates how Clearchus, "finding
himself between the arrogance of the aristocrats,
whom he could in no way satisfy or control, and the
rage of the citizens," took a suitable opportunity to
solve his problem "at one blow"(a un tratto): "He cut
to pieces all the aristocrats-to the utter satisfaction of
the people" (1.16 [Machiavelli 1971, 100]; see also
Langton 1987, 1280). Cesare was accomplished at
eliminating the great, as Machiavelli's macabre admiration
of his exploits at Sinigaglia shows. What Cesare
needed to do was to eliminate another group of
"heads," the cardinals. Machiavelli does not, of
course, specify that the destruction of the clerical
aristocracy would, in this way, result in a more stable
rule for a prince. Nevertheless, it appears justified to
speculate that the destruction of a class of people
"who without working [oziosi] live in luxury on the
returns from their landed possessions" would satisfy
the people (Discourses 1.55 [Machiavelli 1971, 138]).f5
The elimination of the cardinals was the only way
that Cesare could maintain his rule.
As the son of the pope on whom his father's
ambitions were focused, Cesare had enviable access
to the College of Cardinals. Indeed, Guicciardini
reports that Alexander's death resulted from an accidental
poisoning at a dinner that he and Cesare
hosted for a number of cardinals. Alexander "had
arranged a large garden party, at which he planned to
poison a few cardinals so that he could then sell their
offices and their benefices." Cesare and Alexander
895
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
arrived early and asked for some wine to relieve their
thirst. They were served the poisoned wine inadvertently:
"That this is true is attested by the fact that he
died either the same night or the next day; and by the
fact the Valentino and a few others who were there
fell into a long and critical illness, with signs of
poisoning" (Guicciardini 1970, 240-41; see also idem
1969, 165-6).16
Machiavelli attributes Cesare's downfall to "an
extraordinary and extreme malignity of fortune." He
relates that Cesare himself told him on the day that
Julius II was created "that he had thought about what
might happen when his father was dying, and had
found a remedy for everything, except that he never
thought that at this death he himself would also be on
the point of dying" (pp. 27, 32). As it stands, Machiavelli's
report of Cesare's comment is simply misleading
(see Mattingly 1958, 488). He in fact lived another
three years and died in battle! Furthermore, after the
college's first choice as pope, Pius III, died only a
month after his election, Cesare was vigorous enough
to exert his influence with the Spanish cardinals to
assure Julius's ascendancy (Machiavelli, 1989, 1:143,
149; see also Guicciardini 1970, 245).17 According to
Machiavelli's analysis, for Cesare to succeed he had
to exert independence not only from his father but
from the Church. Machiavelli appears to acknowledge
the impossibility of Cesare's coexistence with a
new pope: "He could not make a pope to suit
himself" (p. 33). The lamentation that Machiavelli
ascribes to Cesare appears to be his own analysis,
rather than that of the historical Cesare, for in his
legations, written contemporaneously with these
events, Machiavelli characterizes the Duke as incapable,
at the time of Julius' ascension, of the astuteness
required for this insight (1989, 1:146). Only because
Cesare had tied his fortune to that of his father can he
be said to be "on the point of dying" at that time.
Cesare deceived himself not only about Julius' faith
but also about himself. Ultimately, like Baglioni,
Cesare is to be censured because he lacked the insight
to capitalize on his criminal character and thus to
become truly great.
The Prince constitutes an assault on the power of
the Church and of Christianity generally. The Church
of Machiavelli's time did appear "secure and prosperous;"
and indeed, he notes that it is upheld "by
superior causes" and claims that "it would be the
office of a presumptuous and foolhardy man to
discourse on them" before doing just that (p. 45).
Machiavelli's departure from the orders of others
requires overcoming "the incredulity of men, who do
not truly believe in new things unless they come to
have a firm experience of them" (pp. 23-24). In
tempting his readers to unravel the plot featuring
Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli induces them to acquire
the knowledge that the ecclesiastical power is vulnerable
as well as inimical. The plot of The Prince, then,
is itself the inspiration to wage the necessary assault
on that power.
WHAT MACHIAVELLI RENDERS
UNTO CESARE
Machiavelli's criticism of Cesare Borgia's reliance on
the fortune of others is related to his treatment of
fortune and virtue more generally. If Guicciardini can
celebrate the downfall of the Borgias by acknowledging
the ultimate "justice and power of God, whose
boundless might cannot be contained within the
narrow limits of the present" (1969, 166), Machiavelli's
interest lies elsewhere. He opposes the opinion
that "worldly things are so governed by fortune and
by God, that men cannot correct them with their
prudence" (p. 98). Machiavelli's ultimate intention is
to manage-if not to conquer-fortune through the
power of virtue. Christianity has made the world
weak, Machiavelli claims (Discourses 2.2). His project
requires reasserting human autonomy by cutting a
chain of instrumentality that is seen by Christian eyes
to stretch from God through earthly powers to all
people.
The case of Cesare Borgia presents both the power
of the chain of dependence Machiavelli would break
and the possibility of doing so. Cesare himself gave
his minister, Remirro, "the fullest power" to pacify
the Romagna.18 When Remirro became dangerous
Cesare had him eliminated, leaving him "one morning
in the piazza at Cesena in two pieces, with a piece
of wood and a bloody knife beside him" (pp. 29-30;
see Machiavelli 1989, 1:141-42). In recounting this
harrowing tale, Machiavelli imparts a lesson regarding
instrumentality. Cesare did well in this instance
by manipulating his minister. Machiavelli makes it
clear that Remirro's deeds in fact belonged to Cesare.
However, later we find that according to Machiavelli's
analysis, Cesare is not the master manipulator but
is himself manipulated. Just as Remirro's deeds belonged
to Cesare, ultimately Cesare's deeds belonged
to his father. Later Machiavelli clarifies Cesare's position
when delineating Alexander's deeds: "With
Duke Valentino as his instrument and with the invasion
of the French as the opportunity, he did all the
things I discussed above in the actions of the duke"
(p. 46). Alexander, not Cesare, is the actor.
Machiavelli's analysis does not end there, however,
for it is revealed that Alexander too was an
instrument: "Though his intent might not have been
to make the Church great, but rather the duke,
nonetheless what he did redounded to the greatness
of the Church. After his death, the duke being
eliminated, the Church fell heir to his labors" (pp.
46-47). As Pocock recognizes, Cesare's power "remains
wholly dependent on papal and curial politics
and Machiavelli was unable to assert convincingly
that it does not" (1975, 174). However, according to
our interpretation, Machiavelli did not want to establish
Cesare's independence from the Church, because
Cesare's failure in this regard provides the very basis
of Machiavelli's dissatisfaction with Cesare's actions.
Machiavelli's chain of instrumentality does not end
with the terrestrial Church. Machiavelli claims that
896
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
ecclesiastical principalities "subsist by superior causes"
and "are exalted and maintained by God" (p. 45).
Ultimately, then, God stands at the head of this chain
of instrumentality. Cesare finds himself near the
bottom of a rather considerable chain of instruments,
and as a result he ends in a position no better than
that of his own minister. As Machiavelli writes in his
first Decennale, "When Alexander was slain by
Heaven [ciel], the state of his Duke of Valence was
broken and divided into many pieces" (1989, 3:1455
[Machiavelli 1971, 948]). The debate over the relative
power of the temporal and spiritual powers that so
occupied his immediate predecessors was certainly
pernicious, as Machiavelli makes clear in his account
of the tumult in Florence due to the struggle between
the Guelfs and Ghibellines (see Florentine Histories,
esp. bks. 2-3). For Machiavelli, however, this debate
is ultimately strictly secondary in importance. The
positions of both the spiritual and the secular powers,
as well as those who would mediate them, all ultimately
founded themselves on a theory that power is
derived from God (see Gierke 1987, esp. 7-20, 30-32).
As long as one is forced to render unto Caesar what
is Caesar's and to God what is God's, human beings
cannot enjoy a true civil life. Machiavelli ushers in
modern politics by suggesting that a new prince
break the chain of instrumentality through his own
arms and virtue. Cesare Borgia had the opportunity
to do just that, and Machiavelli offers him as an
example to one who would not omit the necessary
acts. Fortune must be broken on virtue's wheel.
MACHIAVELLI'S POLITICAL VISION
After Machiavelli divulges the last crucial elements of
his plot in chapter 11 of The Prince, the theme of Italy
emerges in the succeeding chapter when he informs
us that the Church has disarmed the country and
made it weak. Italy's fate depends on the plunderous
whims of others. The Prince concludes with the stirring
exhortation for the redemption of Italy from its
humiliation at the hands of foreigners: "Left as if
lifeless, she awaits whoever it can be that will heal
her . . . of her sores that have festered now for a long
time. One may see how she prays God to send her
someone to redeem her from these barbarous cruelties
and insults" (p. 102). In the Discourses, Machiavelli
argues that it is the Church that "keeps this region
divided" and adds that "truly no region is ever
united or happy if all of it is not under the sway of
one republic or one prince, as happened to France
and to Spain" (1.12). We have seen that the same line
of reasoning informs his considerations in The Prince.
The redemption of Italy requires its unification and
therefore the destruction of the Church.
So great do some commentators find the disjunction
between the impassioned patriotic plea of chapter
26 and the analytic ruthlessness of the treatise's
previous chapters that they conclude that the last
chapter is not in fact a part of the original work (e.g.,
Baron 1991). Others note this disparity but claim that
this apparent gulf must be bridged: his overt immorality
must be read in light of his patriotism. Now,
having unraveled its plot, we see precisely what
Machiavelli's patriotism must serve to forgive (see
Strauss 1958, 81): the rectification of Cesare's errors
would require the commission of unspeakable crimes.
If the theme of the ruinous effects of the Church on
temporal affairs unites The Prince and the Discourses,
what are we to make of the more general and intractable
problem of Machiavelli's declared preference for
republics on the one hand and his willingness to
advise princes on the other? Viroli, for example,
presses the division between the two works to the
point where he denies that The Prince is even about
politics: "Princely rule, be it hereditary or newly
founded, cannot in any sense be equated with the
civitas, and the art of preserving princely rule does
not coincide with the art of instituting or preserving a
vivere politico;" in The Prince, he claims, Machiavelli
"was not writing about politics as he understood the
term" (1990, 161). This position is simply too extreme.
For example, in his work supposedly on
republics, Machiavelli confirms that Romulus-a single
man and a king-established a vivere civile ("civil
life," Discourses 1.9). Machiavelli does not limit the
term vivere civile to republics, for Romulus introduced
kingship, not republican government, to Rome. A
vivere politico can occur "by way of republic or by
kingdom" (1.25 [Machiavelli 1971, 109]; see 1.55).
Machiavelli thus does not preclude the possibility of a
political life emerging from a state with a single head.
Indeed, many scholars have paid heed to Machiavelli's
claim that it is necessary to be alone to found a
republic (e.g., Wolin 1960, 231-32).
Dietz is skeptical about whether this princely rule,
or "heroic politics," will "somehow 'give way' to
mass politics" (1986, 780-81). She neglects considerations
that would, while affirming her understanding
of Machiavelli's pessimistic view of human nature,
nonetheless lead to another conclusion. Even from
the Discourses it is unclear that Machiavelli desires the
emergence of "mass politics," as such. Although he
favors the Roman republic, which expanded effectively
because it allowed the plebeians a voice in the
regime, Machiavelli is quite careful not to expunge
princely or heroic rule from his depiction of this
exemplary republic. For example, he includes among
the benefits of a free way of life the knowledge that
one's children "by means of their abilities . . . can
become princes [principi]" (Discourses 2.2 [Machiavelli
1971, 150]). Not only does he insist upon calling the
leading men of the Roman republic "princes," but he
shows how the devious maneuverings of these leading
men kept the mass of citizens from exercising
control in the regime (1.47-48, 3.11). Moreover, he
shows how a regime can overcome the problem
endemic and dangerous to republics, that of slowness
to act (1.59, 3.6), by infusing itself with the resoluteness,
even the despotic character, of princely regimes
(3.1). Machiavelli does not consider princes and republics
to be completely separate or even contradictory
in nature.
897
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
The deed of founding a republic need not be as
altruistic an act as Dietz suggests. Machiavelli holds
out the promise of fame to the one willing to undertake
the travails of such a founding (1.9). The vigor of
such a republic serves to exalt the memory of its
original legislator. Machiavelli suggests that founding-and
refounding-harnesses the tyrannical impulses
of leading men. Further, the reflection that a
founder of a free way of life must arrogate all authority
to himself is far from unusual in political thought.
Rousseau, whose credentials as a republican or democratic
theorist are, to say the least, less assailable
than those of Machiavelli, follows his Florentine
predecessor in regarding the lone legislator as essential
for the foundation of a free state. Like Machiavelli,
the Citizen of Geneva holds out fame as the
reward for legislators.
The notion informing much scholarship that Machiavelli's
treatments of republics and of princes are
analytically wholly distinct is simply incorrect and
has placed unnecessary obstacles in the way of ascertaining
Machiavelli's political vision. Machiavelli calls
on a prince with both the virtue and fortune to
remedy Italy's ills and thus to provide the conditions
necessary for a reinvigorated political life in Italy and
modern times more generally. Our interpretation of
Machiavelli's more immediate intentions in The Prince
is therefore also a first step needed for a consideration
of his ultimate intentions.
If one needs one's own arms and virtue to establish
a new principality, Machiavelli laments his fortune
and his lack of arms. Yet armed with his pen he may
address a virtuous prince who also possesses the
opportunity and arms, whether an actual prince or
those who deserve to be princes. Machiavelli is an
"unarmed prophet" who unabashedly announces in
The Prince, as well as in the Discourses, that he departs
from the modes and orders of others (1985, 61;
Discourses 1, pref.; see 1.55). The Prince contains his
demand that someone with the virtue and fortune
pick up the sword and do what Machiavelli is unable
to complete (see Discourses, 2, pref.). He counsels
another through his words to perform the deeds he
cannot. Machiavelli will become a great teacher for
the one who acts as his instrument, but in a fashion
that will not derogate from the fame of that truly
virtuous prince. Moses is Machiavelli's most outstanding
example of a prince who founds a state and
orders a religion through his own virtue. Moses'
accomplishment required that he seize the opportunity
to display his virtue, and Machiavelli explains,
"He who reads the Bible intelligently [sensatamente]
sees that if Moses was to put his laws and regulations
[ordini] into effect, he was forced to kill countless men
who, moved by nothing else than envy, were opposed
to his plans" (Discourses 3.30 [Machiavelli 1971,
237]). Whoever reads Machiavelli's Prince in a similar
manner and understands it will see that he too must
arrange the deaths of a very great number of men. If
their deaths will mean a reformation of political life,
then we concur with Rousseau that The Prince is a
work intended for "republicans."
Notes
We would like to thank Eduardo Velasquez, Roger D.
Masters, Paul A. Rahe, and Joseph Alulis for their comments
and suggestions.
1. We shall cite The Prince (1985) by page, and the Discourses
on the First Decade of Titus Livius (1989) and the Florentine
Histories (1988) by book and chapter. Where we cite the
Italian, references are to Machiavelli 1971. All references in
the text are to The Prince unless otherwise noted.
2. For a review of the literature on Machiavelli, see Berlin
1980, 25-39; Cochrane 1961; Geerken 1976. On Machiavelli's
modernity, see, e.g., Figgis 1960, chap. 3; Mansfield 1981;
Wolin 1960, chap. 7. For dissents, see A. Gilbert 1938; Parel
1992; Skinner 1978, 1:113-90; idem 1990).
3. Rousseau claims that Machiavelli's "hidden intention" is
revealed by the contrast between the "maxims" of The Prince
and those of his republican writings and says that "this
profound political theorist has had only superficial or corrupt
readers until now." Rousseau claims that Machiavelli was
forced "to disguise his love of freedom" (Social Contract 3.6,
n.). McKenzie examines Rousseau's rehabilitation of Machiavelli
and concludes that he "found a way of coming to terms
with The Prince but not with Machiavelli's republican theory
. . without first extracting those teeth which threatened to
rend the fabric of his own republican theory" (1982, 226-28).
McKenzie's analysis is helpful, but he at least underestimates
the similarity of Rousseau's legislator to Machiavelli's prince.
Rousseau cites Machiavelli in his chapter on the legislator in
the Social Contract (2.7), and his examples of legislators here
and elsewhere are the same individuals Machiavelli cites as
princes by their own virtue in chapter 6 of The Prince. The
kinship of Rousseau's legislator to Machiavelli's prince also
brings our interpretation of Machiavelli closer to Rousseau's.
4. Felix Gilbert follows Meinecke in arguing that The Prince
was composed in stages, the first stage being the first 11
chapters, the "little treatise" Machiavelli announces in the
famous letter to Francesco Vettori (F. Gilbert 1977, 112-14; see
Machiavelli 1989, 2:929). Whatever the merit of Gilbert's
thesis, it at least suggests the coherence of the first half of the
work and the need to read it with the discussion of the papacy
in chapter 11 in mind. In contrast, Skinner (1981) does not
discuss chapter 11 in his interpretation of The Prince.
5. Machiavelli appears to refer to Savonarola as the one
who blamed Italy's invasion on its "sins," but he may also
have Petrarch in mind. The Prince ends with the conclusion to
Petrarch's patriotic poem "Italia Mia" but does not include
Petrarch's lament over the divisions of Italy (divisions Machiavelli
attributes primarily to the Church): "It is on account of
our own sins, and not a natural thing that the slow northerners
should conquer us in intellect" (Petrarch 1976, 260-61).
6. This application of Machiavelli's vituperation to the
clergy is not intended to derogate from his obvious disgust for
gentlemen conventionally understood (see Discourses 3.29;
Florentine Histories 1.39).
7. Machiavelli is astonished that Baglioni, who possesses
the heart of a criminal, could not commit this deed. As
evidence of this criminality Machiavelli adduces the claims
that Baglioni committed incest with his sister and killed his
cousins and nephews in order to rule (Discourses 1.27). Machiavelli's
characterization of Baglioni shares a striking kinship
with the historical Cesare Borgia. Guicciardini reports
that it was believed that Cesare had had an incestuous affair
with his sister, Lucrezia (1970, 197). Burckhardt relates that in
order to have his father's territorial ambitions redound solely
to him, Cesare murdered his brother, brother-in-law, and
other relations (1958, 129).
8. Machiavelli's account of Romulus' founding of Rome
departs from that of Augustine, who views his fratricide as an
indictment of politics in a fallen world (De civitate Dei 15.5, see
also 3.6; cf. Livy, De urbe condita 1.6). In addition, Machiavelli
appears to exaggerate Romulus' crimes in comparison to Livy.
Whereas Livy says merely that Romulus declined to go to war
with those responsible for his colleague's death (1.14), Machi-
898
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Political Science Review Vol. 88, No. 4
avelli declares that Romulus was "a party to the death of Titus
Tatius" (Discourses 1.9). Perhaps this emphasis derives from
Machiavelli's recognition of the magnitude of the crime that is
necessary to found a new Rome.
9. Although Machiavelli speaks in The Prince of the "dispersal"
of the Athenians as the occasion for Theseus to show
his virtue (p. 23), it was in fact upon his return from killing the
Minotaur that Theseus actually seized the occasion: he failed
to raise a white flag (as promised to herald his safe return),
and his father, King Aegeus, leapt to his death. Plutarch
relates the story in his Life of Theseus, Machiavelli's source, and
says of Theseus that "after the death of his father Aegeus,
forming in his mind a great and wonderful design, he
gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica into one town,
and made them one people of one city, whereas before they
lived dispersed" (n.d., 13-15, 48). Pitkin claims that "the
Founder saves and protects, rather than slays, his father,"
discussing in this context the actual or potential parricides we
mention as well: Baglioni, Liverotto da Fermo, and Cesare
(1984, 60-63; see also Strauss 1958, 258).
10. Actually, several of these provinces had been added to
the kingdom only quite recently. Modern scholars have
tended to overstate Machiavelli's view of France when they
claim that he found there a model for Italy, for France was not
yet a fully unified realm, much less a nation-state (see
Rubinstein 1990, 24-28; Skinner 1981, 6-7). The process of
France's consolidation, which necessitated control over previously
independent "barons," is described by Machiavelli in
his Ritratti delle cose della francia (1971, 56). Brittany, for
example, was acquired only in 1491, when Louis XII obtained
an annulment from his first wife to marry Anne of Brittany,
who carried the dukedom as her dowry. The annulment was
granted by Pope Alexander and delivered by Cesare, who in
payment obtained the duchy of the Valentinois and the hand
of Charlotte d'Albret, the king's niece (Machiavelli 1985, 15,
27-28; see Guicciardini 1970, 150). A similar arrangement was
not forthcoming for Henry VIII of England not long thereafter.
11. Machiavelli seems to play on the fact that the names of
the pope and his son replicate those of these great historical
figures; hence, Cesare is both "Cesare" and "Caesar" in the
scholarly literature. For example, in The Prince, in a context
that clearly applies to Julius Caesar, Machiavelli claims that e
Cesare era uno di quelli che voleva pervenire al principato di Roma
(p. 64 [Machiavelli 1971, 281]). The original Italian, removed
from its immediate context, might apply to either Borgia or
Julius. Further, if Caesar aspired to a "principate," Cesare
attempted to acquire an "empire" (imperio) before the pope
died (p. 31 [Machiavelli 1971, 268]). Gentillet notes the possible
ambiguity of this last citation and says of Cesare: "Either
Ceasar [Cesar] or nothing: as though to say that he esteemed
nothing less than being lord as was Julius Caesar [Cesar]"
(1968, 340). See Florentine Histories: "Men too, once Caesars
[Cesari] and Pompeys, have become Peters, Johns, and Matthews"
(1.5 [Machiavelli 1971, 637]).
12. In the Discourses, Machiavelli notes that "Pope Alexander
VI destroyed the lords who ruled" the Romagna, thus
eliminating "the most wicked ways of living" (3.29). Here the
author ascribes Cesare's actions to his father, a conclusion he
also draws in The Prince in a passage we shall discuss.
13. Should we have missed his initial reference, Machiavelli
appears to reenforce it immediately when he likens new
princes who acquire by fortune to those who "were made
princes by Darius" (p. 26)-though this Darius is not the
Darius of chapter 4, as noted by Mansfield in his edition
(Machiavelli 1985, 26).
14. For the details of Cesare's deception, see Machiavelli's
"Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino in
Killing Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Others"
(1989, 1:163-69).
15. At one point in the Discourses, Machiavelli says that the
number of great in any state never exceeds 40 or 50. Because
the number is so low, a prince can kill them or honor them
according to their standing and thereby satisfy them for the
most part (1.16). Why does Machiavelli place such a definite
number on a class that surely varies according to the size of
the state? At least one body of nobles did satisfy this amount
in Machiavelli's time-the College of Cardinals. Although the
number of cardinals was set at 24 by the Councils of Constance
(1418) and Basle (1436) (Catholic Encyclopedia s.v. "cardinal"),
at least Popes Alexander and Julius disregarded the
limit and raised money by selling addition cardinals' hats or
sometimes by killing existing cardinals and selling their positions
(Machiavelli 1985, 47; see Guicciardini 1970, 241). In
1503, 38 cardinals-the vast majority of them-convened to
elect Pius III and then Julius II a month later (idem 1969, 170;
idem 1970, 243).
16. The editor disputes this account and states that Alexander
seems to have died of a malarial fever (Guicciardini
1970, 240). Frederick of Prussia accepts the account derived
from Guicciardini, commenting of Alexander's death: "This is
the prudence, wisdom, ability, and virtue that Machiavelli
never tires of praising" (1981, 62). Burckhardt also accepts the
account (1958, 128, 132). Whatever the validity of Guicciardini's
account, Alexander and Cesare were widely known to
have poisoned a great number of people, including cardinals.
More importantly, Machiavelli appears to have been Guicciardini's
source about Alexander and Cesare, since he repeats in
his History of Italy (1969, 166) what Machiavelli relates in The
Prince regarding Cesare's statement that he himself was
"dying" at the same time as his father (p. 32), so that
Machiavelli very likely accepted that Alexander had been
accidentally poisoned.
17. Burckhardt seems to have been misled by Machiavelli's
remark: "And what might not Cesare have achieved if, at the
moment when his father died, he had not himself been laid
upon a sick-bed! What a conclave would that have been, in
which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his
election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously
reduced by poison-and this at a time when there was no
French army at hand! In pursuing such an hypothesis the
imagination loses itself in an abyss" (1958, 133).
18. Mansfield notes in his edition of Machiavelli's Prince
(1985, 29) that Machiavelli's use of the term pienissima potesta
in this context recalls the papal claim of plenitude potestatis.
References
Allen, John William. [1928] 1960. A History of Political Thought
in the Sixteenth Century. Reprint. New York: Barnes & Noble.
Baron, Hans. 1954. "The Concept of Nationalism in Machiavelli's
Prince." Studies in the Renaissance 1:38-48.
Baron, Hans, 1991. "The Principe and the Puzzle of the Date of
Chapter 26." Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
21:83-102.
Berlin, Isaiah. 1980. "The Originality of Machiavelli." In
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry
Hardy. New York: Viking.
Burckhardt, Jacob. 1958. The Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy. Trans. S. G. C. Middlemore. New York: Harper & Row.
Butterfield, Herbert. 1962. The Statecraft of Machiavelli. New
York: Collier.
Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913. 15 vols. New York: Encyclopedia
Press.
Chabod, Federico. 1964. "Il segretario fiorentino." In Scritti su
Machiavelli, 4th ed. Torino: Giulio Einaudi.
Cochrane, Eric. 1961. "Machiavelli: 1940-1960." Journal of
Modern History 33:113-36.
Croce, Benedetto. 1945. Etica e Politica. 3d ed. Bari: G. Laterza
e Figli.
Dietz, Mary G. 1986. "Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and
the Politics of Deception." American Political Science Review
80:777-99.
Figgis, John Neville. [1907] 1960. Political Thought from Gerson
to Grotius, 1414-1625. Reprint. New York: Harper & Row.
Frederick of Prussia. 1981. The Refutation of Machiavelli's
"Prince"; or, Anti-Machiavel. Trans. Paul Sonnino. Athens:
Ohio University Press.
899
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Patricide in The Prince December 1994
Geerken, John H. 1976. "Machiavelli Studies since 1969."
Journal of the History of Ideas 37:351-68.
Gentillet, Innocent. 1968. Anti-Machiavel. Ed. C. Edward
Rath6. Geneve: Libraire Droz.
Gierke, Otto von. [1900] 1987. Political Theories of the Middle
Age. Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gilbert, Allan H. 1938. Machiavelli's "Prince" and Its Forerunners.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Gilbert, Felix. 1977. History: Choice and Commitment. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Grazia, Sebastian de. 1989. Machiavelli in- Hell. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1969. The History of Italy. Trans.
Sidney Alexander. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1970. The History of Florence. Trans.
Mario Domandi. New York: Harper & Row.
Hulliung, Mark. 1983. Citizen Machiavelli. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Langton, John. 1987. "Machiavelli's Paradox: Trapping or
Teaching the Prince." American Political Science Review 81:
1277-83.
Machiavelli, Niccol6. 1971. Tutte le opere. Florence: Sansoni.
Machiavelli, Niccol6. 1985. The Prince. Trans. Harvey C.
Mansfield, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Machiavelli, Niccol6. 1988. Florentine Histories. Trans. Laura F.
Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Machiavelli, Niccol6. 1989. The Chief Works and Others. Trans.
Allan Gilbert. 3 vols. Durham: Duke University Press.
McKenzie, Lionel A. 1982. "Rousseau's Debate with Machiavelli
in the Social Contract." Journal of the History of Ideas
43:209-28.
Mansfield, Harvey C., Jr. 1981. "Machiavelli's Political Science."
American Political Science Review 75:293-305.
Mattingly, Garrett. 1958. "Machiavelli's Prince: Political Science
or Political Satire?" American Scholar 27:482-91.
Montesquieu, Charles Louis Secondat, Baron de. 1989. The
Spirit of the Laws. Ed. and trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia
Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Orwin, Clifford. 1978. "Machiavelli's Unchristian Charity."
American Political Science Review 72:1217-28.
Parel, Anthony J. 1992. The Machiavellian Cosmos. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Petrarch, Francesco. 1976. Petrarch's Lyric Poems: The Rime
Sparse and Other Lyrics. Ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. 1984. Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and
Politics in the Thought of Niccolb Machiavelli. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Plutarch. N.d. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
Trans. John Dryden and Arthur Hugh Clough. New York:
Modern Library.
Pocock, J. G. A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine
Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1978. On the Social Contract with
Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy. Ed. Roger D. Masters.
Trans. Judith R. Masters. New York: St. Martin's.
Rubenstein, Nicolai. 1990. "Machiavelli and Florentine Republican
Experience." In Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed.
Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Sasso, Gennaro. 1966. Machiavelli e Cesare Borgia: Storia di un
giudizio. Rome: Ateneo.
Skinner, Quentin. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political
Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skinner, Quentin. 1981. Machiavelli. New York: Hill & Wang.
Skinner, Quentin. 1990. "Machiavelli's Discorsi and the Prehumanist
Origins of Republican Ideas." In Machiavelli and
Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio
Viroli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strauss, Leo. 1958. Thoughts on Machiavelli. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Tarcov, Nathan. 1982. "Quentin Skinner's Method and Machiavelli's
Prince." Ethics 92:692-709.
Viroli, Maurizio. 1990. "Machiavelli and the Republican Idea
of Politics." In Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela
Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Whitfield, John Humphreys. [1947] 1965. Machiavelli. Reprint.
New York: Russell & Russell.
Whitfield, John Humphreys. 1969. Discourses on Machiavelli.
Cambridge: Heffer & Sons.
Wolin, Sheldon S. 1960. Politics and Vision: Continuity and
Innovation in Western Political Thought. Boston: Little, Brown.
John T. Scott is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Houston,
Houston, TX 77204-3474.
Vickie B. Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Government, Skidmore College, Saratoga
Springs, NY 12866-1632.
900
This content downloaded from 147.251.101.160 on Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:51 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms