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Often appears with: political legitimacy and consent · diplomacy and embassies · strategy and the aims of war · siege and fortification · savona concession · revolution and the fall of states · pope julius ii · pope alexander vi · philopoemen · oppression and rebellion · neglecting military training · military discipline and training
Usually: censure (3) · argument (2) · narrative (2) · detachment (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · betrayal (1) · injustice endured (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · the fall of the great (1) · exhortation (1)
“States that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature which are born and grow rapidly, cannot leave their foundations and correspondencies fixed in such a way that the first storm will not overthrow them.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince · insight
“A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline;” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince · precept
He contrasts Francesco Sforza’s able rise and stable rule in Milan with Cesare Borgia’s unstable state gained through Alexander VI, stressing that later foundations determine durability despite measures taken.
a new prince than the example of his actions; and if his dispositions were of no avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme malignity of fortune. Alexander the Sixth, in wishing to aggrandize the duke, his son, had many immediate and prospective difficulties. Firstly, he did not see his way to make him master of any state that was not a state of the Church; and if he was willing to rob the Chur…
Machiavelli argues that a prince’s primary study should be the art of war, since neglect leads to loss, and he supports this with examples of Francesco Sforza and Philopoemen.
THAT WHICH CONCERNS A PRINCE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ART OF WAR A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is…
Machiavelli begins Book I, Chapter II by connecting Florence’s condition to wider Italian politics: Louis XI’s troubles force him to grant Savona and enable Francesco Sforza to become lord of Genoa.
and, though he was constantly expending money in building churches, and in charitable purposes, he sometimes complained to his friends that he had never been able to lay out so much in the service of God as to find the balance in his own favor, intimating that all he had done or could do, was still unequal to what the Almighty had done for him. He was of middle stature, olive complexion, and venerable aspect; not lea…
Montaigne recounts two political episodes where royal diplomacy uses falsehood: Francis I counters Francesco Taverna’s case, and an English ambassador’s inconsistent claim leads to his near execution.
And how much less sociable is false speaking than silence? King Francis I. vaunted that he had by this means nonplussed Francesco Taverna, ambassador of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, a man very famous for his science in talking in those days. This gentleman had been sent to excuse his master to his Majesty about a thing of very great consequence, which was this: the King, still to maintain some intelligence with…
He extends the case against using fortresses to restrain subjects, claiming they increase oppression, fail in war (attacked by foreign and domestic enemies), and cites Francesco Sforza’s Milan fortress as harmful to his heirs.
of the invention of artillery, against the fury of which, as I have shown already, a petty fortress which affords no room for retreat behind fresh works, cannot be defended. But to go deeper into the matter, I say, either you are a prince seeking by means of these fortresses to hold the people of your city in check; or you are a prince, or it may be a republic, desirous to control some city which you have gained in …