READ THIS: MACHIAVELLI: A Biography By Miles J. Unger
Ages ago, Peachy Deegan took a wonderful class called Perspectives for a year at Boston College, and she was exposed to the great minds of history, including Niccolò Machiavelli. Since then, we have been fascinated with his thought and philosophy, and we knew we would be equally fascinated by his biography. Simon and Schuster has published a winner, and we think you'll love it. In a time where our nation and our economy face adversity, it will be those who can make lemonade out of lemons that succeed, and Niccolò Machiavelli paints a glorious picture of how to do that by his own example. His life story is fascinating, his candor is captivating, and Unger presents it all in a package you'll find classic.
***
In March of the year 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli staggered out of prison. For three weeks, the former Second Chancellor of Florence had lain alone in a filthy cell, his days broken up only by torture sessions. Mere months before, he had traveled the continent, trading words with kings and cardinals, and drinking and feasting at the finest tables in Europe. Now, he was nothing.
On that day, as he stumbled home to his farm and waiting family, he could never have guessed that his greatest successes lay ahead. He could not have suspected that half a millennium later, his name would be known all over the world. And he would likely have been shocked to learn that its mention would conjure up sinister visions of tyranny, intrigue, and wickedness.
Though perhaps he would not be entirely displeased. For biographer and writer Miles J. Unger explains in MACHIAVELLI: A Biography, (Simon & Schuster; June 14, 2011; $28.00), although the author of The Prince was decidedly not the schemer and scoundrel that popular conception depicts him as, he did have a fine, self-deprecating sense of humor, a deep appreciation for the attendant ironies of life, and a keen understanding of human beings’ inability (and unwillingness) to see the truth.
In 1469, Machiavelli was born to a family that was old and well known, but, while not poor, far from wealthy by the standards of the time. These humble origins would influence the way he thought and wrote for all fifty-eight years of his life. “Surprisingly,” Unger writes, “at least for those who regard him as the preeminent exponent of ruthless power politics, Machiavelli’s natural point of view was that of the vulnerable.” An unequivocal realist, Machiavelli knew that although texts on governing virtuously could be found in abundance, leaders who actually abided by such principles could not. And he quickly came to believe that more harm might be done to the common folk by a monarch with an idealized picture of the world, than by one who took action decisively, without adopting half measures.
It is no surprise that one of the West’s great political minds came out of Renaissance Florence. Though even during the relatively controlled reign of Lorenzo de’Medici the city was a volatile place, a republican spirit always pervaded the atmosphere. Citizens studied the ancient Greek and Roman discourses on government, and political participation was the order of the day. (By the time Machiavelli was twenty-five, the Medici clan had been driven from power and replaced with a Great Council that comprised almost half of Florence’s adult males.) Machiavelli’s father, Bernardo, did not share his countrymen’s enthusiasm for civic involvement. But Niccolò, like other young Florentine boys, nonetheless received an education in the classics, and he did inherit from his father a love of literature.
His studies engendered within him a budding humanism and skepticism, which served him well on his first foray into the political realm. At the request of the city’s ambassador to the Vatican, Machiavelli prepared an account of the efforts of a radical Dominican monk, Girolamo Savonarola, who preached outright rebellion against Rome in an Italy that had been shattered by the invasion of the French King Charles VIII four years earlier. “It was in contemplating the wreckage of his native land that his dismal view of human nature was formed,” Unger writes of his subject. And though Savonarola had played a key role in building up the populist spirit that led to the founding of Florence’s new government, his militancy ultimately endangered the city’s safety. When the public tide turned against the once beloved friar, Machiavelli was watching.
It was just one of many lessons that would remain with the young man as he began his career as a civil servant in 1498. Although, as Second Chancellor of a republic whose fortunes were largely dependent on the magnanimity of its neighbors, Machiavelli would never coax great material success out of his bureaucratic position, it afforded him the direct experience with the workings of government that made his point of view so refreshing and relevant. “It is this approach,” writes Unger, “that accounts for much of his originality, and also for much of the outrage his writings have provoked over the centuries, for in casting his unsentimental eye on ‘the actual truth of things,’ he discovers a world far different, and far more savage, than anything imagined by the philosophers who preceded him.”
Two years later, Machiavelli would be thrown into a world where his piercing insight would help decide Florence’s very fate, when he journeyed as one of two envoys to the court of the new French king, Louis XII. He and his fellow ambassador hoped to convince their patron to restrain another of his charges, Cesare Borgia, known as Valentino—the son of Pope Alexander VI and a skilled general whose thirst for territory made him a perpetual threat to Florentine independence.
It was Valentino who would serve as the model for the titular prince of Machiavelli’s most famous work. A bold and forceful leader, Borgia did not stall or vacillate—the chief techniques in Florence’s own political arsenal. It was Valentino’s charisma and especially his willingness to risk much in pursuit of his goals that captivated Machiavelli; they stood in stark contrast to Florentine leaders’ propensity for craven temporization, which often cost the city as much as taking action would have, as the mercenaries or supposed allies who came to defend Florence frequently ended up refusing to fight, or holding it hostage themselves.
Borgia also taught Machiavelli that a talent for lying was a potent weapon for a leader, and it was the philosopher’s recognition of this fact that led to his image as a proponent of injustice. “But, in fact, Machiavelli himself was the least Machiavellian of men,” Unger writes. “What has tarnished his reputation is not any dishonesty on his part but excessive candor. Everyone knows that politicians often employ deception, that in fact they could hardly function without resorting from time to time to prevarications, half-truths, and outright lies. Few, however, are so open about this particular tool of statecraft as the Second Chancellor of Florence, whose reputation as an evil man is due in large part to admitting what everyone knows to be true.”
Machiavelli brushed elbows with his city’s greatest sons, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who were members of the same social class as he and similarly compelled to subordinate their intellects to a ruling class that could not fully appreciate artistic genius. His work with Leonardo to divert the Arno River by means of a great feat of engineering, and thus reconquer the city of Pisa by forcing drought upon it, ultimately came to naught. But Machiavelli would eventually win back the defiant territory for Florence and its leader, the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini, at the head of a citizen militia of his own creation, in 1509.
The grand triumph was not a lasting one, sadly. In 1512, Cardinal Giovanni de’Medici and his brother Giuliano besieged their former home at the head of a Spanish army, and thanks to the Florentine government’s hubris, routed its militia and returned to power. The Second Chancellor attempted to make himself useful to his new masters—a true patriot, Unger notes, his interest was in serving Florence no matter who led it—but he was soon kicked out of office. “Dismissed, deprived, and totally removed,” Machiavelli was arrested a few months later, when his name appeared on a list of anti-Medici conspirators with whom he was almost certainly not associated.
It was after his release from prison that he produced his finest works. Though he and his wife, Marietta, got along well enough, Machiavelli was unsuited to the existence of a country squire, and yearned for the revelry and ribaldry, and most of all, the intellectual stimulation provided by city life. Ten miles outside the city, with only the local peasants and his books to keep him company, he wrote The Prince—first dedicated to Giuliano de’Medici, later to Giuliano’s nephew Lorenzo, after the older man died—in the hope of winning reemployment. The slender volume would not get him his job back, but would secure his reputation as a defender of inequity. But the author would probably be most surprised by the fact that it became his best-known work, after he had devoted so much more of his time to the much longer Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, in whose pages he makes a strong case for republicanism.
In spite of his diverse body of work—including poems, histories, and plays like La Mandragola, the finest comedy to come from the Italian Renaissance—Machiavelli’s popular image as a villain would be cemented just years after his death in 1527. He was one of the first writers whose books were banned by the pope, in 1559, and not long after that, he would be condemned by Protestants as well. That the outcry over his writings was so furious—and that they survived it—is simply evidence of his talent as a writer and of the resonant truth of what he said. As Unger puts it, “It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Machiavelli on the development of modern political thought, even though few of his successors openly acknowledged the debt.” A rich portrait that captures the many facets of a remarkable life, MACHIAVELLI is a masterfully researched, elegantly written testament to one of Western civilization’s sharpest and most misunderstood minds, one that should put that debt to rights.
# # #
Praise for Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’Medici
by Miles J. Unger
“Highly absorbing … a wonderful feast for lovers of Renaissance history and art.”
— The Boston Globe
“Dazzling … Unger mines a rich lode of sources.”
— The Seattle Times
# # #
About the Author
MILES J. UNGER, a contributing writer to The New York Times and former managing editor of Art New England, is the author of Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’Medici. He lives in Massachusetts.
About the Book
MACHIAVELLI: A Biography
By Miles J. Unger
Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: June 14, 2011
Price: $28.00
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5628-2
In March of the year 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli staggered out of prison. For three weeks, the former Second Chancellor of Florence had lain alone in a filthy cell, his days broken up only by torture sessions. Mere months before, he had traveled the continent, trading words with kings and cardinals, and drinking and feasting at the finest tables in Europe. Now, he was nothing.
On that day, as he stumbled home to his farm and waiting family, he could never have guessed that his greatest successes lay ahead. He could not have suspected that half a millennium later, his name would be known all over the world. And he would likely have been shocked to learn that its mention would conjure up sinister visions of tyranny, intrigue, and wickedness.
Though perhaps he would not be entirely displeased. For biographer and writer Miles J. Unger explains in MACHIAVELLI: A Biography, (Simon & Schuster; June 14, 2011; $28.00), although the author of The Prince was decidedly not the schemer and scoundrel that popular conception depicts him as, he did have a fine, self-deprecating sense of humor, a deep appreciation for the attendant ironies of life, and a keen understanding of human beings’ inability (and unwillingness) to see the truth.
In 1469, Machiavelli was born to a family that was old and well known, but, while not poor, far from wealthy by the standards of the time. These humble origins would influence the way he thought and wrote for all fifty-eight years of his life. “Surprisingly,” Unger writes, “at least for those who regard him as the preeminent exponent of ruthless power politics, Machiavelli’s natural point of view was that of the vulnerable.” An unequivocal realist, Machiavelli knew that although texts on governing virtuously could be found in abundance, leaders who actually abided by such principles could not. And he quickly came to believe that more harm might be done to the common folk by a monarch with an idealized picture of the world, than by one who took action decisively, without adopting half measures.
It is no surprise that one of the West’s great political minds came out of Renaissance Florence. Though even during the relatively controlled reign of Lorenzo de’Medici the city was a volatile place, a republican spirit always pervaded the atmosphere. Citizens studied the ancient Greek and Roman discourses on government, and political participation was the order of the day. (By the time Machiavelli was twenty-five, the Medici clan had been driven from power and replaced with a Great Council that comprised almost half of Florence’s adult males.) Machiavelli’s father, Bernardo, did not share his countrymen’s enthusiasm for civic involvement. But Niccolò, like other young Florentine boys, nonetheless received an education in the classics, and he did inherit from his father a love of literature.
His studies engendered within him a budding humanism and skepticism, which served him well on his first foray into the political realm. At the request of the city’s ambassador to the Vatican, Machiavelli prepared an account of the efforts of a radical Dominican monk, Girolamo Savonarola, who preached outright rebellion against Rome in an Italy that had been shattered by the invasion of the French King Charles VIII four years earlier. “It was in contemplating the wreckage of his native land that his dismal view of human nature was formed,” Unger writes of his subject. And though Savonarola had played a key role in building up the populist spirit that led to the founding of Florence’s new government, his militancy ultimately endangered the city’s safety. When the public tide turned against the once beloved friar, Machiavelli was watching.
It was just one of many lessons that would remain with the young man as he began his career as a civil servant in 1498. Although, as Second Chancellor of a republic whose fortunes were largely dependent on the magnanimity of its neighbors, Machiavelli would never coax great material success out of his bureaucratic position, it afforded him the direct experience with the workings of government that made his point of view so refreshing and relevant. “It is this approach,” writes Unger, “that accounts for much of his originality, and also for much of the outrage his writings have provoked over the centuries, for in casting his unsentimental eye on ‘the actual truth of things,’ he discovers a world far different, and far more savage, than anything imagined by the philosophers who preceded him.”
Two years later, Machiavelli would be thrown into a world where his piercing insight would help decide Florence’s very fate, when he journeyed as one of two envoys to the court of the new French king, Louis XII. He and his fellow ambassador hoped to convince their patron to restrain another of his charges, Cesare Borgia, known as Valentino—the son of Pope Alexander VI and a skilled general whose thirst for territory made him a perpetual threat to Florentine independence.
It was Valentino who would serve as the model for the titular prince of Machiavelli’s most famous work. A bold and forceful leader, Borgia did not stall or vacillate—the chief techniques in Florence’s own political arsenal. It was Valentino’s charisma and especially his willingness to risk much in pursuit of his goals that captivated Machiavelli; they stood in stark contrast to Florentine leaders’ propensity for craven temporization, which often cost the city as much as taking action would have, as the mercenaries or supposed allies who came to defend Florence frequently ended up refusing to fight, or holding it hostage themselves.
Borgia also taught Machiavelli that a talent for lying was a potent weapon for a leader, and it was the philosopher’s recognition of this fact that led to his image as a proponent of injustice. “But, in fact, Machiavelli himself was the least Machiavellian of men,” Unger writes. “What has tarnished his reputation is not any dishonesty on his part but excessive candor. Everyone knows that politicians often employ deception, that in fact they could hardly function without resorting from time to time to prevarications, half-truths, and outright lies. Few, however, are so open about this particular tool of statecraft as the Second Chancellor of Florence, whose reputation as an evil man is due in large part to admitting what everyone knows to be true.”
Machiavelli brushed elbows with his city’s greatest sons, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who were members of the same social class as he and similarly compelled to subordinate their intellects to a ruling class that could not fully appreciate artistic genius. His work with Leonardo to divert the Arno River by means of a great feat of engineering, and thus reconquer the city of Pisa by forcing drought upon it, ultimately came to naught. But Machiavelli would eventually win back the defiant territory for Florence and its leader, the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini, at the head of a citizen militia of his own creation, in 1509.
The grand triumph was not a lasting one, sadly. In 1512, Cardinal Giovanni de’Medici and his brother Giuliano besieged their former home at the head of a Spanish army, and thanks to the Florentine government’s hubris, routed its militia and returned to power. The Second Chancellor attempted to make himself useful to his new masters—a true patriot, Unger notes, his interest was in serving Florence no matter who led it—but he was soon kicked out of office. “Dismissed, deprived, and totally removed,” Machiavelli was arrested a few months later, when his name appeared on a list of anti-Medici conspirators with whom he was almost certainly not associated.
It was after his release from prison that he produced his finest works. Though he and his wife, Marietta, got along well enough, Machiavelli was unsuited to the existence of a country squire, and yearned for the revelry and ribaldry, and most of all, the intellectual stimulation provided by city life. Ten miles outside the city, with only the local peasants and his books to keep him company, he wrote The Prince—first dedicated to Giuliano de’Medici, later to Giuliano’s nephew Lorenzo, after the older man died—in the hope of winning reemployment. The slender volume would not get him his job back, but would secure his reputation as a defender of inequity. But the author would probably be most surprised by the fact that it became his best-known work, after he had devoted so much more of his time to the much longer Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, in whose pages he makes a strong case for republicanism.
In spite of his diverse body of work—including poems, histories, and plays like La Mandragola, the finest comedy to come from the Italian Renaissance—Machiavelli’s popular image as a villain would be cemented just years after his death in 1527. He was one of the first writers whose books were banned by the pope, in 1559, and not long after that, he would be condemned by Protestants as well. That the outcry over his writings was so furious—and that they survived it—is simply evidence of his talent as a writer and of the resonant truth of what he said. As Unger puts it, “It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Machiavelli on the development of modern political thought, even though few of his successors openly acknowledged the debt.” A rich portrait that captures the many facets of a remarkable life, MACHIAVELLI is a masterfully researched, elegantly written testament to one of Western civilization’s sharpest and most misunderstood minds, one that should put that debt to rights.
# # #
Praise for Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’Medici
by Miles J. Unger
“Highly absorbing … a wonderful feast for lovers of Renaissance history and art.”
— The Boston Globe
“Dazzling … Unger mines a rich lode of sources.”
— The Seattle Times
# # #
About the Author
MILES J. UNGER, a contributing writer to The New York Times and former managing editor of Art New England, is the author of Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’Medici. He lives in Massachusetts.
About the Book
MACHIAVELLI: A Biography
By Miles J. Unger
Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: June 14, 2011
Price: $28.00
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5628-2
