Machiavelli (1469-1527): The Prince and the History of Florence; Vesalius (1514-1564): Man Revealed in His Exact Anatomy
Presented on: Thursday, December 1, 1983
Presented by: Roger Weir
Italian Renaissance
Presentation 9 of 13
Machiavelli (1469-1527): The Prince and The History of Florence; Vesalius (1514-1564): Man Revealed in His Exact Anatomy
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, December 1, 1983
Transcript:
The date is December the 1st, 1983. This is the ninth lecture in a series of lectures by Roger Weir on the Italian Renaissance. Tonight's lecture is entitled Machiavelli, M-A-C-H-I-A-V-E-L-L-I, who lived 1469 to 1527. Who wrote The Prince and The History of Florence.
For many of you the lecture tonight comes as somewhat of an abrupt change. But for those who took in the two lectures in between you realize some of the vast changes in psychology that happened in Florence in this time. When the pattern of events that we are reviewing occurred earlier in Western history in two remarkably similar play outs. The pattern produced a catastrophic psychological imbalance. And so, it's no surprise or shock that the Western mind and the Western psyche received a twist at this time. Which unfortunately we still inherit today somewhat intact.
In classical Athens under the wise leadership of Pericles, it was recognized that the movement from the tribal ecology of images to the urban Empire had produced a strain upon the human capacities to integrate. And so, the stage of the city of Athens instituted in the spring Linnaean festivals the advent of Greek tragedies. Which closely could have been characterized in our time as a mass psychotherapy for the populace. One was required to go. And you had to pay it was the equivalent of about 10 cents, but you had to pay, and you had to go. They had special guards who went from house to house to roust out the population. And other guards that held long cords that span the streets of Athens and they literally shepherded everyone to the theatre of Dionysius to, en masse, witness the spectacle. And Greek tragedy in each of its cases produced the fracturing of the human psyche before your eyes. And by implication since you had witnessed this and still survived you would have a basic insight into the fact that there was something, which we today would call spiritual, exists above and beyond the psychological reality. However integrated or however not integrated. That you in fact would survive your own psychological death.
When the events repeated themselves and the pattern spun itself out in the Dalek Hall, the decades after the Augustine Principate there was no coherent wisdom in Rome. And in retrospect the great historian Tacitus took it upon himself to write two of the greatest histories that the human mind has ever created. To do for the Roman psyche what Greek tragedy done for the Greek psyche. And Tacitus' history's and panels are a putting back together again of the continuity of the human being. Above and beyond what devastating events happen in temporal focuses. Machiavelli attempted to do the same for the Florentine State. For the Florentine psyche. But he was ill-equipped by education and by temperament and by opportunity to affect the Cure's that Greek tragedy and Roman history had finally brought to at least a large portion of the populace. Machiavelli instead for his efforts has been characterized as the Archdemon of politics. And the English phrase Machiavellian has all the demonic overtones of someone who is the devil's own advisor.
It's unfortunate that Machiavelli has become a scapegoat. It's also of interest in terms of the history of ideas and the sickness and cure of civilizations just how Machiavelli became a scapegoat. You might recall that in Sir James George Frazer is Golden Bough, the great third volume is entitled the scapegoat. That is to say after the death of the psyche, after the fractionating of a sense of wholeness. Whether it was there in fact or not. The first reaction is flight from death. A fleeing from reality. And the counter reaction is to find a scapegoat in this life and put the blame there. And so, Machiavelli instead of curing the civilization became the scapegoat. In a remarkably consistent blatant application of anthropological patterns.
This was the time when the Reformation also occurred. This was the time when the Hermetic tradition, which had been encouraged by Ficino to go underground, actually did go underground. So much so that many persons today have never heard of the Masters who integrated the Hermetic tradition in the early 16th century. We fortunately have resuscitated them somewhat and have done whole lecture series on them. And so, for some of you the names of Solomon Trismosin and the good Abbot Trithemius, John Cullen are familiar. For others some of the secondary figures like Paracelsus and Agrippa, John Dee or at least familiar. But Machiavelli is a real case in point. And the fact that we move ostensibly from Ficino to Machiavelli for many of you in this lecture series can only present a basic question. How does this discontinuity actually happen? How in fact did anyone carry on and carry through?
I tried in the Michelangelo lecture to present a highly religious, in the sense of devotional dedication, highly religious human being who survived the devil call(?). Who had great internal injuries and encouraged you to examine his great painting The Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Not the ceiling but the final wall. And in The Last Judgement Michelangelo's own portrait of his inner self was that of a skeleton-less, fleshless pelt held like some Medusa head trophy by Saint Bartholomew. Looking up to avenge Christ who looked like he was ready to discard Michelangelo like so much trash. It was due to the greatness of Michelangelo's artistic wholeness that he was able to present truthfully this spectacle.
Then we tried with Botticelli to demonstrate how the fires of art were completely exploded by the crisis of consciousness. And how this exquisite painter of angels and mythological principles of wholeness was silenced permanently the last ten years of his life. And how some of the final images in his work present a bare stick hut within which communion is being given by little boys and old frail men.
We will try next week with the third figure who valiantly tried to rise intellectually above the times. the great intellectual hero Leonardo DaVinci.
But this week we deal with Machiavelli who refused to get out of the fire. Who refused to think of it in cosmic terms like Leonardo. Who refused to accept it in personal terms like Botticelli. And who was incapable of transmuting it artistically like Michelangelo. So, we have someone who is literally burnt alive by the events of the time. He was born in 1469 so that he lived as a youngster in time of great charm, excellence, intelligence. When Lorenzo Il Magnifico passed on in 1492, Machiavelli was still in his 20s but in his late twenties. Had already enjoyed a very fine background. But it was not a background given to him educationally. And this is one of the key points. One of the as Will Durant used to call, one of the lessons of history. Which we must draw, and we must insist upon. That we recognize and that we learn. The lesson is this, we cannot afford to squander human beings by faulty education. It is a task, especially of a republic, for the people to take charge of their educational systems and educate their young. All of them. Because we cannot tell in advance who is going to be the genius. Who's going to be the worthy one. And so, we must educate them all as finely as we can.
Machiavelli was totally ill-educated because his father was poor. And it was a flaw and the educational system of the Renaissance which was centered around the sumptuous tables of the wealthy and not in the public schools. So that Machiavelli grew up being a self-educated individual which accounts for his peculiar style. His style in Italian is patterned upon the blunt introspective style of Tacitus. And occasionally he tries to make an excursion into something more distended but cannot. And so, Mickey
Machiavelli's writings lend themselves to having quotations excerpted, abstracted from the writings because they resound as if they are whole figures in themselves. And so many of the poignant rough-cut gems of psychological penetration lift themselves out of Machiavelli's works and stick into the minds and memories. And the general context which would elucidate them soften them in many ways, explicate them disappears. He did not have the capacity that Tacitus had to run his blunt prose together like links of a chain, so that the whole work has strength. Machiavelli instead produced a number of gems like epithets embedded in a rambling bramble bush of a prose. And so, he's often read for quotations rather than for what he actually wrote. And consequently, many people today think of Machiavelli as the author of The Prince and do not understand that The Prince was an offshoot of The Discourses. Which totally changes the nature of what The Prince is. And they hardly have ever recognized that his classic work is neither The Prince nor The Discourses but his last work The Great History of Florence. Which he wrote for Pope Clement the seventh, who had been Cardinal Giuliano de Medici. So, we have an interesting figure.
Very early then in his life he was ignored. He was let go. So, he grew up intellectually wild. And because the family was poor there was very little that he could actually participate in. There was no art for him. It was just work and access to his father's library. Now the father would have inherited this library from previous generation. The family had been an old family in the Florence area. So, what he found in the library became the models for his education. And he centered on the Roman classics. In particular he was quite fond of the Roman histories and the Roman comedies. The comedies precede the histories by about 200 years. So that the comedies belong to the transition from the Republic to the Empire. And the histories belong to the transition from the Empire to the tyrannies. So, he focused on the two antique literary genres that dealt with transition. From bad conditions to worse in both cases. And we find that towards the end of his life when he will do his writing, he wrote comedies, and he wrote history.
But in between he enjoyed a meteoric career. he had become famous already in his 20s for his incisive ability to communicate complex ideas into short pithy contorted colloquial phrasings. But at the same time as he was making these short dagger stabs of language. He was keeping a cool strategic mind behind all of this which was never flappable. So unflappable that he has been called by all posterity as immoral. But Machiavelli is not immoral. He may be a little Chinese(?) but he's not immoral. But he had this capacity to keep calm inside and keep plotting. Keep the cunning notion of what is actually going on while being able to spar verbally and draw people out. So that Machiavelli was an incredible gold-mining machine for information and reaction.
So, when his friend, a man named Andriani, was elected to a council called the Council of the 10. Which was to oversee interior affairs and to participate in strategic planning for defense. And what we would call state department affairs, diplomacy, negotiation. Andriani chose Machiavelli as his aide-de-camp. And when Andriani became the Chancellor for the Republic of Florence, he brought young Machiavelli at age 29 into his previous position. And so, Machiavelli became the second chancellor, the Vice Chancellor of the Republic of Florence at the age of 29. So that he was raised suddenly to positions of great eminence, power.
Now what had happened in this time to prepare this. The Medici had family which through its integrity and excellence for several generations - from Giovanni di Bicci de Medici to Cosimo to Piero to Lorenzo the Magnificent - had formed a tremendous tradition. Which had been thrown away by one of the sons of Lorenzo who just squandered the authority the position, the Empire. And was ousted from Florence and with him with the Medici in 1494. And concomitant with that was an invasion of Italy from the French. Who presented a huge monolithic state to the eyes of the fractionated Italian Republic City. France with some huge bear and they were a lot of rams tucked in and of themselves but unable to cope with this massive suave French Empire. And so, when Charles the eighth decided to claim his rights in the kingdom of Naples, he wanted to march through the Florentine Republic to get to his land. This invasion, the corruptions of Medici were seen not as events just happening in terms of history, but they were inflated with religious prophesying by the monk Girolamo Savonarola. So that a religious puritanical wave of increasing terror took over the city of Florence.
And when Savonarola was excommunicated for his travesties by the Pope and the whole city of Florence, the whole Republic of Florence was threatened with mass excommunication. The Florentines rose up and threw out what had been their religious Savior. And decided to take matters into their own hands and created the Florentine Republic. Which was dedicated to keeping the nobles hands off the reins of power. This Republic, this commune of the city of Florence thus came hastily. And after two major events and changes within four years. And it was Andriani and Machiavelli who held the reins of power to try and make this new condition work. So that Machiavelli in his sympathies was totally for a republic. He was totally for the people. But he realized because he was one of the people that unless they were educated that they would be incapable of holding the reins of government. incapable of keeping the Republic together. And so, his only educational model that he had to work with was ancient Rome. So, he took the archetypal pattern of the ancient Roman Republic, 1,500 years before him and tried to transpose it to his own time.
And the key to the Roman Republic as he understood it because his source was the great Roman historian Livy. Livy unlike Tacitus, living before Tacitus, wrote in great sonorous prose. His Latin is referred to as milky - milky Livy - whose history of Rome and antiquity was the wonder of the ancient world. It was maybe a hundred volumes. It was just enormous complete learned. And Livy was, Titus Livy, was the master of the overview. He was the Arnold Toynbee of his age. And what he had chronicled was the way in which Republican Rome had lost its courage because the people had lost their ability to trust each other. And thus, began to trust in laws and military hierarchies rather than each other. And when the public trust eroded far enough there were the dictators to come and take the place of publicly elected officials.
Again, we are missing the sections of Livy today that Chronicle exactly that change. But we have Polybius who filled in who gave a perfect example that the first dictatorial act was by the great savior of Rome and the Catabolic(?) Wars, Scipio Africanus. And when the Senate of Rome tried to indict him on some charge of corruption, he brought the indictment papers into the Senate and stood before them and tore them up in front of them and walked away. Daring them to accost him. This mentality unfortunately was not seen as ego mania by the Florentines or by Machiavelli. It was seen as the thing to do. The pattern by which antiquity had established the stability of the state. And so, this miss learning became very crucial because Machiavelli was literally in control. He was the chief adviser. He was the secretary of state to the Florentine Republic.
So, his key was to reinstate the citizen armies of Old Republic in Rome. Almost all battles in the early Renaissance were fought with mercenary troops and hired generals called condottieri who were brought in. Machiavelli worked for three years on a plan to set up citizen-based armies in the Florentine Republic all over again. And unfortunately, his model for the person to command these troops was someone that he had been sent to be a diplomat with, to interview, to keep track of, none other than the most infamous man of the Renaissance Caesar Borgia.
Caesar Borgias father was the Pope Alexander the sixth. Caesar Borgia, as Machiavelli says, through exceedingly refine cunning and cruelty went incisive action genius was able to begin carving out for himself and now that matter of a few months an empire in north-central Italy. He simply got to his foes before they knew that they were his foes. And he made sure that anyone connected with him was also gotten. So that by the time he would take something over he could just walk in and sit down. Machiavelli spent five months with Caesar Borgia. And the rough patience of the man coupled with the rapidity of how he handled his daily tasks with great dispatch just loomed up in Machiavelli's psyche as the golden man. The ancient Roman, in fact, not just any Roman general but maybe somebody like Julius Caesar must have been like Caesar Borgia.
Machiavelli's ill-formed psyche recorded Caesar Borgia in glowing archetypal terms. And he was sort of just seized by this vision, traumatized. And so, he incorporated the kinds of personal quirks that Caesar Borgia had into his idea of the perfect man to run the state and the citizen armies. So that when he had set up because he had control of events. He set up the levies for individuals from the various cities in the Florentine Republic to send in the soldiers, but he chose it completely unscrupulous man. Very much one of Caesar Borgias lieutenants to take control of the army. The man was completely immoral. completely uncaring. And he thought patriotism was a very cute way for him to make a good living. They would be willing to give him anything to keep him in power and encouraged. And he was willing to take it. And in the hour of Florence's need when Charles the Fifth came in, the Florentine Republican armies weren't able to even budge. Because they had been so decimated psychologically by the fractured infrastructure of the officer levels. That in trembling fear they sent out the message that they could not fight. And so, the gates of Florence were opened down and the city was given away in 1513. That is to say the Republic of Rome, the commune, the people's government was given away in 1513 to the Medici and they came back. Another Lorenzo de Medici. And after 20 years absent the Medici made sure as much as they could - they would - this time stay in power. It is to this Lorenzo de Medici that the print of Machiavelli is dedicated.
Machiavelli had enjoyed office for something on 15 years. He had been involved in diplomacy ranging from France several times to Germany. He actually helped defer a massive invasion that Maximilian the first was planning. Everybody would like to get into Italy. You see they had treasures and they had tradition. And after all, world conquerors, including Charlemagne, had had Italy. So, all the Charles's and all the Louis's and all the Maximilians wanted to have their moment of triumph.
The jewel really wasn't Florence it was after all the jewel that had been there since history had begun, Rome. The city of Rome. Which had been slowly resuscitated and rebuilt. And was acquiring again the feeling of empire because one of the factions, political factions of that time was the papacy. And the papacy had its own armies. And the papacy was interested in reinstating itself. So that you had the people in their republics. You had the nobles or the princes as Machiavelli says. You had the foreign kings and emperors. And you had the papacy. So, you had a free-for-all. Everybody wanted what everybody else had. And only on thinking it over was Rome finally decided to be the grand prize. And we'll see what happens to Rome right at the end of Machiavelli's life.
In fact, this entire story has a peculiar edge to it, a peculiar overtone. And we have to go outside of Machiavelli to one of his compatriots for an interesting view. We go to briefly to the life of Benvenuto Cellini. Cellini says at the beginning of his book he says, "All men of whatsoever quality they be who have done anything of excellence. Or which may properly resemble excellence. Ought if they are persons of truth and honesty to describe their life with their own hand." So, he gives us in his life on the second page. He decides that since he is born into this wonderful time, in this wonderful city of Florence he will acquaint us with the foundations of Florence. And it turns out that Florence according to him was founded by Julius Caesar. And that Julius Caesar had among his captains a man of highest rank and valor, who was called Fiorino of Cellino. Well, that's interesting. And they get Florence finally from Fiorino but what do they get from Cellino. Well, we get Benvenuto Cellini of course. So that Cellini is saying I am particularly great because I go back to the very beginnings. I go back to the root of this whole place. So, we're counting on noble families I certainly represent the best there is.
This kind of self-aggrandizement was wholesale at this time. It was flowing in the streets. And when the Republic had been in, from 1498 to 1513. In those 15 years the power of an individual was emphasized again and again. But when in an individual like the second Lorenzo de Medici got into power, it seemed that there was too much to do. And one really couldn't decide just what one could do.
The perfect portrait of this psychological condition at this time is by a contemporary of all these people Albrecht Durer. Who did a wonderful engraving called Melancholia One. Where the angel is sitting amidst all the emblems and paraphernalia of man's triumphal intellectual capacity to do almost anything he wished. Our milieri spheres and pyramids and astral labs. The angel is sitting there staring with a wild madness of ennui. Not knowing just what to do. So that this condition was rampant.
And with the return of the Medici, Machiavelli very carefully wished to slide away from the Republic into trying to educate the Medici. But he was seen as somebody who was too dangerous. He was for a while allowed to go to the old family estate outside of Florence. But then he was implicated in February the following year and a plot his name had been seen on the sheet of paper, so he was put in prison. and because he would not confess immediately, he was placed on the rack. Where people usually were very glad to confess. But Machiavelli did not confess. He had nothing to confess. Fortunately for him a new pope came in in March and freed him. The new pope was Leo the tenth who also was a Medici. Another son of Lorenzo. And he decided that Machiavelli after all belonged in Florence. Was a part of the cityscape. And began sending him off on little diplomatic missions.
Machiavelli never actually returned back to his position of power. He was returned back a little bit to have a small peripheral place. But generally, he was encouraged to stay on the family farm. And it was there for eight years that he labored them to write the book that would bring him back into the public eye. Bringing him back into a position as a man of action. And so, he had written for a number of years a volume called The Discourses on the first ten books of Titus Livy. And The Discourse is one of the great classics of Western thought.
In The Discourses he attempts to describe what Republics are. What is needed in terms of a population to support the entity of a republic. To allow it to come into being, to sustain it. And in the process of writing the discourses he constantly came up against the fact that opposite of a republic, where the people rule, is a condition of tyranny where some dictator ruled, some prince. And so, The Prince was written as an offshoot, as a spur of The Discourses. To illuminate the poignancy of The Discourses and the reason why Machiavelli had supported Republic's all his life.
So that the popular view of him as being a whispering sidekick to tyrants is totally wrong and completely opposite from the condition. This is what happens - a scapegoat phenomenon. We're turned inside out so that the inner qualities are taken out of their living fluidity and frozen into a mask of partiality. And then this is pointed to as being the worst of all possible things. This is the scapegoat phenomena. It happens again and again.
What are The Discourses? Very long book from Machiavelli. It's more than twice as The Prince. And he writes in the first book, and incidentally even though The Prince is dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici, The Discourses are not. He writes, "Although the envious nature of men so prompt to blame and so slow to praise, makes the discovery and introduction of any new principles and systems as dangerous almost as the exploration of unknown seas."
Please turn your cassette now and we will commence on the other side after a brief pause.
"And so slow to praise makes the discovery and introduction of any new principles and systems as dangerous almost as the exploration of unknown seas and continents. Yet animated by that desire which in tells me to do what may prove for the common benefit of all. I have resolved to open a new road which has not yet been followed by anyone. And may prove difficult entire troublesome. But may also bring me some reward in the approbation of those who will kindly appreciate my efforts."
Notice the exploring quality to his writing. A new route. It's like a new route to the Indies. A new route to China. He's going to navigate on the Seas of history. And he's going to try to bring back a little bit of the excellence of antiquity in a new way. So, he goes back and describes Rome. He describes its origins.
And then in chapter five of The Discourses he upped the ante. He becomes serious. He rises above history. And Machiavelli is not known for his factual history. You don't go to Machiavelli to read the, the facts and the right orders. He rises above history.
END OF SIDE 1
"Dangerous almost as the exploration of unknown seas and continents. Yet animated by that desire which impels me to do what may prove for the common benefit of all. I have resolved to open a new route which has not yet been followed by anyone. And may prove difficult entire troublesome but may also bring me some reward in the approbation of those who will kindly appreciate my efforts." Notice the exploring quality to his writing. A new route. It's like a new route to the Indies. A new route to China. He's going to navigate on the Seas of history. And he's going to try to bring back a little bit of the excellence of antiquity in a new way.
So, he goes back and describes Rome. He describes its origins. Then in chapter five of The Discourses he upped the ante. He becomes serious. He rises above history. And Machiavelli is not known for his factual history. You don't go to Machiavelli to read the facts and the right orders. He rises above history into a new mode which has since been labeled the philosophy of history.
And Machiavelli is actually one of the earliest philosophers of history. That is to say that what controls behind the scenes are ideas which move like phantoms through the populations of people that act out the scenarios. And that in order for us to make sense of the Phantoms we have to see these large shapes of ideas moving phantamously behind events. And that in order to do that the inner person must be extremely quiet. Because only the inner person can resonate with these large transpersonal forms. But in order to prompt the action one has in a particular mode, the individual mode, one has to goad people into action. One has to prime events into happening. And only by needling the external world can you rustle up the actual truth of the situation and appreciate it from the inside. So, you have to use a pitchfork and a calm interior mind to see what is really going on, otherwise, men will do few. Because men dupe themselves all the time. And not even knowing they dupe themselves they will do nothing, can do nothing to keep from duping you.
And so, the two qualities of Machiavelli's personality actually do go hand-in-hand. And are part and parcel of an intelligent highly ingenious strategy of life. You keep the external hopper cooking, and you keep the internal assessment completely indifferent. So that you can pick up any indications no matter where they're leading to.
What is the prime motivating activity to Machiavelli in chapter 5 of The Discourses. He asks, "To whom can the guardianship of Liberty be more safely confided to the nobles or to the people? And which of the two have most caused for creating disturbances? Those who wish to acquire are those who desire to conserve." And so, we asked one of the watershed questions of history which we still ask, supposedly, in our own time in this country even. To whom should the decision-making capacities belong? To a representational elite or to the populace? Should they belong to those who have power or to those who have the responsibilities of life?
Machiavelli records here that in the ancient world apparently one of the longest-lived republics was ancient Sparta. That lasted for 800 years without a break, without a falter. Because of the incredible discipline of the people to bring themselves individually into play on every issue. And that representatives of the people only came forth for very short durations of time and then receded back into the general background. So that the entire population was brought into play continuously. It so he writes in here he says, "To come back now to the question as to which men are most dangerous in a republic those who wish to acquire power or those who fear to lose that which they possess?" He goes to Roman conditions and draws this conclusion, "That I will say that one should always confide any deposit to those who have least desire of violating it. and doubtless if we consider the objects of the nobles and of the people. We must see that the first have a great desire to dominate. Whilst the latter have only the wish not to be dominated. And consequently, a greater desire to live in the enjoyment of Liberty. So that when people are entrusted with the care of any privilege or liberty, being less disposed to encroach upon it they will of necessity take better care of it. And being unable to take it away themselves will prevent others from doing so." So that Machiavelli actually, not the devil's advocate, the people's advocate.
What conditions of intrigue have often obtained and especially in the history of ideas do they obtain, that so profound was Machiavelli's criticisms and practical assessments of the power base of politics. And the only way to disengage this power base was to put it into the hands of the people. Who being unable to master it by representation would have to continually pass it around themselves to handle it and guard it. This was too powerful an idea for its time. And so, Machiavelli was painted in scapegoat colors to prevent this idea from obtaining. But it still made its way and as we will see because there were some individuals who understood what he had to say.
Later on in The Discourses, and I'll just go in I want to give you about eight chapter headings in the middle of The Discourses to give you the tone of what he is talking about. Chapter 16, "A people that has been accustomed to live under a prince preserves its liberties with difficulty. If by accident it has become free." Chapter 17, "A corrupt people that becomes free can with greatest difficult maintain its Liberty." In other words the liberty of the people requires for there to be a wholesomeness among the population as a whole. So that this actually means that the individual must be cared for. Must be educated. Must be given some responsibilities in life. It's a Republican populist viewpoint. This is from Machiavelli. This is the true Machiavelli. Chapter 18 "How a corrupt state, a free government, may be maintained assuming that one exists there already and how it could be introduced if none had previously existed. So how in a corrupt state can we count a free government." He says there is a way. There is a way. He writes, "I believe it will not be a mess to consider whether in a state that has become corrupt. A free government that has existed there can be maintained."
Now he's writing this in a condition of recent exile outside of Florence. He had been in power for 15 years. the nobility, the Medici had come back into power. They had imprisoned him. They had racked him. They finally by some grace let him go, let him go back to his countryside. And so, he's writing this. And these discourses are actually on Livy who had chronicled the rise of the Roman Empire from the Republic. So that someone could understand in this great tapestry of events that the perspective of an individual life has to be augmented by the overseeing internally of the understanding of the patterns of history. And that without this philosophy of history man individually and as a populist in this world do not have a chance against a power-based machine. they stand no chance whatsoever.
So, who needs a philosophy of history? Not the noble. Not the Princes. Not the cliques who are in power. Their philosophy of history is that we're in and you're out. The philosophy of history is needed in a republic for the people. Now how to reintroduce this? He says, "Upon the subject I must say that either one of them would be exceedingly difficult. And although it is impossible to give any definite rules for such a case as will be necessary to proceed according to different degrees of corruption." Because he's always analytical. So, Machiavelli grinds very fine. What about this case? What about this case? how come if this is different how's that? He's incisive.
But he writes, "Yet it is as well to reason upon all subjects I will not leave this problem without discussing it. I will suppose a state to be corrupt to the last degree so as to present the subject in its most difficult aspect. There being no laws nor institutions that suffice to check a general corruption."
And when he got to this point of The Discourses, he realized that this condition had in fact obtained many times in human history. So, this is a problem for him. how in a state of total corruption then does the condition change in order come back into society? And if it comes back into society, if man has already made this journey back how does it disengage then and unravel again and go back into chaos? Near Machiavelli's educational limit came into play. Because the only image that he could think of. The only way in which his mind could piece this together was to think that there must be a great circularity to history. That the circularity must happen again and again and again. And it fit in with his personality. Yes, the only quiet is at the center of the circle but on the changing ever-changing rim of events, one thing is always leading to another. And what goes up must come down. And what goes down so far can only come back up. And so, history must be dominated by a circularity by a cycle of somewhat regularity. And the best bit of philosophy of history could do would be to disclose to man the great patterning of the circles of history playing fantastically through his life. And that intelligence would be able to compute where one was on this great circle and to live in accordance with it. And if there were times of great order to become a person of order and at times of disorder to withdraw.
This becomes extremely formative later on when the Renaissance, the high Renaissance of Machiavelli and Michelangelo and Leonardo goes north. We find **(unsure of name)** deciding to stay inside nothing he could do. The whole continent was it worth or just an of study and read. Just one of those periods of history, no one's gonna get along.
Then he says chapter 33, "When an evil has sprung up within a state or come upon it from without it is safer to temporize with it rather than to attack it violently." Because there are these opposites. Because of these polarities. Because circularity encourages polarity, you don't want to attack the problem ever because it'll turn into its opposite. And you'll be just as trapped with its opposite. And all of your tactics are here and then all of a sudden, you've got to go here. So, he says, the wise thing to do is to temporize it. To gradually take its impact in and change it gradually as you go along. Which takes intelligence and diplomacy and strategy. Well, this is what the cold war is then isn't it to temporize an intolerable nightmare for 40 years.
Then in the middle of the discourses three brief chapters, "How easily men may be corrupted." He says, "I've been there. I know how easy it is. I know how easy it is. What you can offer them. What you cannot offer them. How easily men may be corrupted." And then and that's a very short paragraph. "Those only who combat for their own glory are good and loyal soldiers." It's the only people who will really fight when the going is tough our young men who live there. Who have ideas of glory in their minds. They're the only ones who will actually stick it out and do it. Then, "A multitude without a chief is useless and it is not well to threaten before having the power to act." Very interesting.
And then the chapter 47, "Although men are apt to deceive themselves in general matters, yet they rarely do so in particulars." So, we can get led astray when we think of strategies. But in particulars especially for looking out for ourselves were very unlikely to make mistakes. And so, a republic, a people have to concern themselves with the mechanics of daily life. The intriguing million details all the time. And not get swayed away into generalities. That the in generalities of the ambiguous crutches that lead them away from having confidence in themselves and each other.
Public affairs, chapter 55, "Public affairs are easily managed in the city where the body of the people is not corrupt. And where equality exists. There is no principality can be established nor can a republic be established where there is no equality." There has to be this interchangeability, which is what equality is. It's like an equation. A equals B, it can substitute for B. So that the things the Republic has to have this view that the other man is as important as you are can be taught.
Chapter 56, "The occurrence of important events in any city or country is generally preceded by signs and portents. Or by men who predict them." That is to say because he believes sincerely that there were great circles. Patterns of history that repeated themselves. there were talented religious individuals, spiritual theorists, who knew what was going to happen because it always happened that way. And they would look with their inner superior insight over the arc of events happening now, beyond the horizon of time and see what was actually going to happen. Not on the speculative way but in a very real way because that pattern was transcendental as we would say today. It actually exists in the future. The future doesn't exist. the pattern exists. And therefore, and that manifestation comes into being in time-space it fills out the circular form that's already there. Perceptible to the religious mind.
So, Machiavelli, interestingly enough, in the discourses leads us not only to the Republic but to the perception that religious nature is at the core of the health of the Republic.
Chapter 57, and I have just two more and then we're going to take a break. "The people as a body are courageous but individually, they are cowardly and feeble. Very often an individual", he says, "takes himself realistically as feeble. He knows he can't do very much. But the people together become very capable." The only problem is that the mob psychology is always possible. Therefore, there has to be conscientiousness integrating the people. He says, "For whilst on the one hand the loose mob without any leader is most formidable. Yet on the other hand is also most cowardly and feeble. And even if they are armed, they will be easily subdued if you can only shelter yourself against their first fury. For when their spirits are cooled down a little and they see they have all to return to their homes, they begin to mistrust themselves. And to think of their individual safety either by flight or submission."
People are wiser and more constant than princes. Almost in the middle of The Discourses he writes, "Titus Livius as well as other historians affirm that nothing is more uncertain and inconstant than the multitude for the peers from what he relates to the actions of men. That in many instances the multitude after having condemned a man to death bitterly lamented it and most earnestly wish him back. I say then that individual men and especially Prince's may be charged with the same defects of which writers accused the people. For whoever is not controlled by laws will commit the same errors as an unbridled multitude. This may easily be verified. And so, he's changing this. He's saying if it's the princes.
Then he says, "Therefore the character of the people is not to be blamed any more than that of princes. For both alike are liable to error when they are without any control. Besides the examples already given I could adduce numerous others from amongst the Roman empires and emperors and other tyrants and princes. Who have displayed as much in constancy and recklessness as any populace ever did. Contrary to the general opinion there then which maintains that the people when they govern are inconsistent, unstable, and ungrateful. I conclude and affirm that these defects are not more natural to the people than they are to princes. To charge the people and princes equally with them may be the truth. But to accept princes from them would be a great mistake. For a people that governs is and is well regulated by laws will be stable, prudent, and grateful. As much so and even more, according to my opinion, than a Prince although he be esteemed wise. And on the other hand, a prince free from the restraints of law will be more ungrateful and inconstant.
Finally, he says, "To sum up this matter, I say that both governments of princes and of the people have lasted a long time, but both required to be regulated by law. For a prince who knows no other control but his own will is like a madman. And a people that can do as it pleases will hardly be wise." So, he says the only hope for the future is for us to put our trust then and to Republic's based on people. And if we cannot do this to at least require that the princes be held in check by laws which are made by the people.
The Discourses of course rarely looked at anymore. The prince itself is singled out. But the most important of Machiavelli's works we'll get to after the break. The History of Florence which was written for Pope Clement VII. And was finished just before the sack of Rome in 1527 when Charles the fifth took the whole city apart in front of Machiavelli's eyes. Machiavelli heartbroken died a month later. And it's interesting that the two great historians of Italy were both present, [Francesco] Guicciardini and Machiavelli when they saw the city of Rome just taken apart.
And of course, for those who were there Saturday you realize that one great trance of Michelangelo was that he went back and redesigned Saint Peter's in the center Rome. A Florentine who had great civic pride because they had a Cathedral in the center of their city, which had brought the city back up into greatness. And one of Michelangelo's greatnesses was to put a Cathedral in the center of ruined Rome. Saying we don't have to wait thousand years again. We'll do it in a few years.
Well, we'll come to the all that after our break. I'll be selling cassettes on the street corner.
See how effusive can I make it. A personality like Machiavelli turns to comedy because the poignancy that he experiences is so great that he cannot permit himself what he considers the luxury of mysticism. And so, he slides into comedy. The same characteristics of personality we will see next year when they do a series called Eldorado. It happened to the personality of Cervantes. And Machiavelli wrote comedies. And they were in the mode of Aristophanes. That is to say they are of raw humor coupled with enormous psychological insight. the old saying in Greece was that the gods wish to hide the secrets of life and so they put it in the soul of Aristophanes because no one would think of looking for it there.
Several of Machiavelli's are
Aristophanic comedies are lost. But two survive and one in particular survived in a very fine English translation. I could not find my copy. But it appears as a template in the library of liberal arts. And it's called Mandragora or The Mandrake. and the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica characterizes the Mandragora as the lightest and most powerful play in the Italian language. The plot is both improbable and unpleasing. But literary criticism is merged in admiration of the wit, the humor, the vivacity. The satire of a piece which brings before us the old life of Florence in a succession of brilliant scenes. If Machiavelli have had any moral object when he composed the Mandragora it was to paint in glaring colors the corruption of Italian society. It shows how a bold and plausible adventurer aided by the profligacy of a parasite, the avarice and hypocrisy of a confessor and a mother's complacent familiarity with vice, achieve the triumph of making a gold husband bring his own unwilling but to yielding wife to shame. The whole comedy is a study of stupidity and baseness acted upon by roguery. About the power with which this picture of domestic and morality is presented there can be no question. But the perusal of the piece obliges us to ask ourselves whether the author's radical conception of human nature was not false. Well, this is 1911.
Actually, as we have seen the Italian genius for presenting frescoes of cosmic order by sequencing these scenes goes back to Dante. It goes back to Boccaccio in the Decameron. And you can review the lectures on the tapes and get this in detail. It goes back to Giotto's arena Chapel. It goes on to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The arrangement has vignettes in an order was particular to the genius of the Italian Renaissance and became the key to the Renaissance. And when the Renaissance flowed north individuals who understood the possibilities of a cosmographical mirror for man in the invisible patterning, the arrangement of these vignettes. We have the great Renaissance with a share of Northern Europe. What are Shakespeare's plays, but the curious arrangement of scene held together by some overpowering order. What is Don Quixote, but a series of improbable episodes held together by an enormous insight into human nature. The structure is invisible in the Renaissance order of the world. It is only the manifestations that are visible. and one would be a fool to think that life and liberty were just matters of the moment. But one would also be a fool to think that one could see any more than the events of the moment. Therefore, one must go to an inner experience to put them together. And if you think you can put it together in an outer sense-based way, why what can one say to such a person. The very use of language forbids it. Because word by word, syllable by syllable, it's all nonsense. It's only the syntax of agreed-upon meaning of insightful understanding that permits the sounds to arrange themselves, the words to arrange themselves, into an order.
And so, the Mandragora is actually very great work of art. A very, very fine work of art. But Machiavelli more than a writer of comedy was a historian. He's a great philosopher of history. Very much concerned with the freedom of individual man. And that political form called the Republic by which he can be encouraged to live and be honest to himself and his neighbors. But in order to have those conditions in one's own time one has to understand history. One has to understand the path. And so, for his last great patron Cardinal Giuliano de Medici, who moved from Florence into the papacy. There was a short interregnum. There was a pope elected after Leo the tenth died who lasted just for a few years, Pius the third. And then Clement the seventh came in. It was for him that Machiavelli wrote his great history at Florence.
And in The History of Florence Machiavelli takes us to the origins of Rome. And takes us up to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Because to him this shows the great circularity of history in two great revolutions. And that this was all that one needed in order to be able to see from then on, the pattern for what man stops fooling himself that some mystical zodiac controls himself. And realizes, as Machiavelli would say, that the zodiac runs through human nature. That it's in the creature. It's in the bones. It's in the spirit. And projects itself out that we get the Renaissance formulations that the world is a stage and man as an actor upon it. but the lines, the plot is given to him not before he is born in a predestined way. Although that's the way in which the Protestant Reformation read into Machiavelli's great circularity of history. But for Machiavelli the great penetration was that at anywhere along the line a man of genius may stepped out of the pattern and understanding the pattern bring a new condition back into play and resuscitate the conditions of his time. The tendency is for circularity. But curiously enough in Machiavelli there's the implication, the insight, that perhaps if man were whole, he could free himself from this condition.
And thus, we will see next week a man who tried to free himself from history. Tried to muscle his way by extraordinary intelligence out of the very form of history. And become a hero of civilization. One of those heroes like Hercules who having produced the 12 labors had gone through the cycle of thresholds. the 12 thresholds that keep man back like zodiacal signs. We find a man was trying to be Hercules of history. His name was Leonardo. Well, we'll see him next week and I'll try not to be so long-winded. Thank you very much.
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