“Gli umori delle parti”: Humoral Dynamics and Democratic Potential in the Florentine Histories

In this essay I consider the potential of Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories to contribute to the enrichment of contemporary democratic theory. In opposition to both of the major groups of current interpreters of this text—those who see it as representative of a conservative turn in Machiavelli’s thought grounded in a newfound skepticism regarding popular political competencies, and those who see it as merely a re-presentation of the republican commitments of the Discourses on Livy—I argue that it reveals to us a unique political potentiality, but one that is essential for the construction of an internally consistent Machiavellian theory of democracy. Specifically, through disclosing the historicity and contingency of the humors of the parts of the city, the Histories suggests the possibility of concretely actualizing a condition of social equality, thus overcoming the main democratic deficit of the Discourses—the perpetuation of inequality, as represented in the preservation of the existence of a class with a desire to oppress.

The Ravages of Christianity

This chapter argues that Niccolò Machiavelli finds that Christianity exerts a type of tyrannical rule over human beings, one that deprives them of their honor, dignity, and power. It is this domination from which Machiavelli endeavors to liberate them. Despite his early and forthright repudiation of the Christian understanding of history in the name of the imitation of pagan politics, Machiavelli infuses his additional explicit criticisms of the religion in the Discourses on Livy with a measure of ambiguity. Both when he offers his most stinging condemnation of the Church's role as spoiler in Italian politics and when he censures Christianity as such, he tempers his criticism by appealing from the Christianity of the vilely corrupt prelates to a purer version of the religion. The chapter examines these statements as well as additional discussions in which Christianity is less explicitly the subject.

Machiavelli's Principio: Political Renewal and Innovation in the Discourses on Livy

Although Machiavelli argues that “return to first principles” is a necessary and perhaps even sufficient condition for counteracting political corruption, few scholars have engaged in a sustained textual analysis of Discourses III.1, the chapter in which he outlines the meaning of this enigmatic concept. Reassessing Machiavelli's exempla in this chapter will reveal that return to first principles consists in the revival of the ethos of innovation and public-spiritedness that accompanies every successful political founding. This process of renewal entails reviving the psychological forces that initially guide human beings to establish new political orders, including fear of violent death and longing for glory. Existing interpretations of D III.1 have tended to emphasize renewal through fear-invoking punishment, neglecting Machiavelli's examples of renewal through exemplary acts of civic virtue. A careful analysis of instruments and agents of return to first principles will illustrate how both spectacular punishment and virtuous acts of self-sacrifice converge to counteract corruption and foster political innovation.

Book Reviews

Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspects Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist Politics, by John McCormick. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 288 pp.Machiavelli in Tumult. The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism, by Gabriele Pedullà. Translated by Patricia Gaborik and Richard Nybakken. Revised and updated by the author. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xix + 284 pp.Machiavelli and the Orders of Violence, by Yves Winter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 230 pp.

The Praises of Modernity: Hume and Machiavelli on Founders, Factions, and Faiths

Machiavelli's influence on David Hume's political thought is a subject of growing scholarly attention. I analyze Hume's “Of Parties in General” to show that the introduction to this essay is a critical appropriation of Machiavelli'sDiscourses on Livy. I argue that Hume's appropriation of Machiavelli provides a meaningful frame to an essay in which Hume will consciously build upon one of Machiavelli's most controversial teachings, that good political founding is hampered by the effects of Christianity on political thinking. My analysis contributes to our understanding of Machiavelli's influence on Hume by showing Machiavelli's imprint much beyond where it is usually the subject of debate, in Hume's political science.

Introduction

In the introduction, the aims of the book and its general approach are specified. Firstly, the book aims to provide an initial response, in a schematic but hopefully sufficiently articulated form, to a central question that Machiavelli raised in the Discourses on Livy: ‘In what mode a free state, if there is one, can be maintained in corrupt cities; or, if there is not, in what mode to order it.’ Secondly, the introduction takes into account the republican and anti-Medicean key used to read Machiavelli’s works. Thirdly, Machiavelli’s modernity and how it contrasts with the idea that modernity is politically State-centric are highlighted. Finally, the possible actuality of the Machiavellian discourse is specified, and a brief map of the book as a guide to the reader is given.