Machiavelli and Erasmus

Humanism in Italy and beyond

Machiavelli 1469 to 1527• The Prince is Machiavelli’s most famous work;

his own relationship to it was ambiguous. • Discourses on Livy explores the features

contributing to the success or failure of a republic, while in the Prince takes the same approach to a principality.

• Machiavelli is himself both an extension of the civic humanist tradition and, perhaps, evidence of its obsolescence.

• Career in service to a republican government in Florence. His goal was a strong, secure state able to retain its independence. His instincts were republican, but he judges the success of both a principate and a republic according good government.

• A powerful family, the Medici, controlled Florentine politics from 1434 until 1494.

• Mid-century, five major powers dominated Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples (including Sicily). Medici policy: keep peace with Naples and Milan in an alliance against Venice and the Papacy.

• Charles VIII of France launched his invasion of Italy in 1494, which proved to be undoing of Piero de Medici.

Machiavelli and Florence• Medici thrown out and a popular

government was brought in led by the Dominican friar Savonarola.

• Savonarola was excommunicated and then burned at the stake as a heretic in 1498.

• The regime which followed restored the organization of the old republic. Machiavelli put in charge of the ministry of defence.

• 1512 the Spanish came in, the republic fell, and the Medici family were returned to power under Spanish sponsorship. Machiavelli was exiled and even briefly tortured as an enemy of the regime. He wrote the Prince shortly thereafter, ostensibly as a handbook for the rulers.

• The dedication of this book to a member of the Medici family has been the source of much comment.

• Yet it may be the case that Machiavelli most concerned over the future security of Florence, in the face of the threat from the much larger states across the Alps.

Questions1. Does Machiavelli appear to believe that we can alter

ourselves, or that our nature is set? What role does fortune play in our lives?

2. Upon w hat sources does he draw for his examples? How important is the ancient world in his discussion?

3. How does Machiavelli regard being feminine? What model of masculinity does he seem to promote?

4. To what extent would you define Machiavelli as a humanist?5. Does the Prince provide evidence of a secular outlook? How

does he think a prince should behave, and why? Whom does he hold up as a model? What about the church--how does he talk about it? Compare this source with Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles or Catherine of Siena's Dialogue

6. To judge from the Prince, how did the popes of Machiavelli's time see themselves--as leaders of Christendom, or as Italian territorial princes? How do their concerns as described here compare to or contrast with those of earlier popes such as Gregory VII or Innocent III?

Erasmus (1467-1536)

• Why do you think Erasmus is called a humanist? Does he have a strong command of classical culture? Does his letter to Pope Leo suggest a sense of historical distance from the ancient past?

• Why might he be called a "Christian humanist"? What ancient text concerns him most?