Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction

Further Reading

Bibliography

Silvia Ruffo Fiore, Niccolò Machiavelli: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism and Scholarship (New York, 1990) covers the previous half-century of studies. For an analysis of my own approach see Roberta Talamo, ‘Quentin Skinner interprete di Machiavelli’, Croce Via 3 (1997), pp. 80–101.

Biography

The standard work remains Roberto Ridolfi, The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Cecil Grayson (1963). Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton, 1989) is an unusual intellectual biography. John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513–1515 (Princeton, 1993) concentrates on the period in which The Prince was written. For the most up-to-date account see Maurizio Viroli, Il sorriso de Niccolò: Storia di Machiavelli (Rome, 1998).

The Political Context

For the period of Machiavelli’s youth see Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici 1434–1494 (Oxford, 1966). On the 1490s see Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence (Princeton, 1963). On Machiavelli’s political and diplomatic career see the section ‘Machiavelli and the Republican Experience’ — essays by Nicolai Rubinstein, Elena Fasano Guarini, Giovanni Silvano, Robert Black, and John M. Najemy — in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1–117. On the vicissitudes of the Florentine republic during Machiavelli’s adult life see Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato (Turin, 1970), H. C. Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence, 1502–1519 (Oxford, 1985), and J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–1530 (Oxford, 1983).

The Intellectual Context

The essays collected in P. O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, 2 vols (New York, 1961–65) remain indispensable. For the fullest survey of the intellectual life of the period see The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles Schmitt, Eckhard Kessler, Quentin Skinner, and Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1988). For the classic account of ‘civic humanism’ see Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (revised edn, Princeton, 1966). See also Donald J. Wilcox, The Development of Florentine Humanist Historiography in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1969) and Peter Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance (Princeton, 1998). For surveys of the political theory of the period see Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1978) and The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, ed. J. H. Burns and Mark Goldie (Cambridge, 1991).

General Studies of Machiavelli’s Political Thought

The fullest outline is Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli I. Il pensiero politico (Bologna, 1980). A classic work is Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Italy (revised edn, New York, 1984). Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton, 1983) stresses Machiavelli’s subversion of classical humanism. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, Ill., 1958) views him as ‘a teacher of evil’. The place of religion in Machiavelli’s thought has been valuably reappraised in a symposium — with contributions by John H. Geerken, Marcia L. Colish, Cary J. Nederman, Benedetto Fontana, and John M. Najemy — in the Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), pp. 579–681. See also Anthony J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (New Haven, 1992).

Machiavelli’s Political Vocabulary

J. H. Whitfield, ‘On Machiavelli’s Use of Ordini’ in Discourses on Machiavelli (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 141–62. J. H. Hexter, ‘Il Principe and lo stato’ in The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation (London, 1973), pp. 150–78. Russell Price, ‘The Senses of Virtú in Machiavelli’ in European Studies Review 4 (1973), pp. 315–45. Russell Price, ‘The Theme of Gloria in Machiavelli’ in Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977), pp. 588–631. Victor A. Santi, La ‘Gloria’ nel pensiero di Machiavelli (Ravenna, 1979). Quentin Skinner, ‘Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty’ in Politics, 18 (1983), pp. 3–15. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (Berkeley, Cal., 1984). Russell Price, ‘Self-Love, “Egoism” and Ambizione in Machiavelli’s Thought’ in History of Political Thought 9 (1988), pp. 237–61. Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago, 1996).

Machiavelli’s Rhetoric

This has recently become a major focus of research. For pioneering studies see Nancy S. Struever, The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, 1970) and Brian Richardson, ‘Notes on Machiavelli’s Sources and his Treatment of the Rhetorical Tradition’, Italian Studies 26 (1971), pp. 24–48. The first part of Victoria Kahn, Machiavellian Rhetoric from the Counter-Reformation to Milton (Princeton, 1994) considers the rhetoric of Machiavelli’s Prince and Discourses. Quentin Skinner, ‘Thomas Hobbes: Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality’ in Proceedings of the British Academy 76, pp. 1–61, highlights Machiavelli’s use of rhetorical redescription. Virginia Cox, ‘Machiavelli and the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Deliberative Rhetoric in The Prince’ in Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997) connects Machiavelli’s vocabulary directly to the Roman ars rhetorica. Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli (Oxford, 1998) lays particular emphasis on the rhetorical character of Machiavelli’s thought.

Studies of The Prince

Hans Baron, ‘Machiavelli: The Republican Citizen and the Author of The Prince’ in The English Historical Review 76 (1961), pp. 217–53. Felix Gilbert, ‘The Humanist Concept of the Prince and The Prince of Machiavelli’ in History: Choice and Commitment (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), pp. 91–114. Marcia Colish, ‘Cicero’s De Officiis and Machiavelli’s Prince’ in Sixteenth Century Journal 9 (1978), pp. 81–94. J. Jackson Barlow, ‘The Fox and the Lion: Machiavelli Replies to Cicero’ in History of Political Thought 20 (1999), pp. 627–45.

Studies of the Discourses

For a classic reading of the text and its context see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), Part II, ‘The Republic and its Fortune’, pp. 81–330. On the broader setting of Machiavelli’s republicanism see Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics, 1250–1600 (Cambridge, 1992). Harvey Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Ithaca, 1979) offers a chapter-by-chapter commentary. More specialized studies include Felix Gilbert, ‘The Composition and Structure of Machiavelli’s Discorsi’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 115–33; Felix Gilbert, ‘Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study on the Origin of Modern Political Thought’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 215–46; Quentin Skinner, ‘Machiavelli’s Discorsi and the Pre-humanist Origins of Republican Ideas’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Bock, Skinner, and Viroli, pp. 121–41.

Studies of The History of Florence

The fullest analysis is Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli II. La storiografia (Bologna, 1993). The following detailed studies are of particular importance: Felix Gilbert, ‘Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine: An Essay in Interpretation’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 135–53; John M. Najemy ‘Arti and Ordini in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine’ in Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore ed. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus, 2 vols (Florence, 1978), pp. 161–91; Carlo Dionisotti, ‘Machiavelli storico’ in Machiavellerie (Turin, 1980), pp. 365–409 and Gisela Bock, ‘Civil Discord in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Bock, Skinner and Viroli 1990, pp. 181–201.