21 June: Boreham on Niccolo Machiavelli

The Master of Sophistry
We commemorate today the death of one of the most enigmatical and self-contradictory characters in the entire pageant of world-history. In order to attempt to reassess the worth and work of Niccolo Machiavelli we have to grope our way back to a period that stubbornly declines to be judged by the standards with which we are familiar in the Twentieth Century. Machiavelli was born near a hundred years before Shakespeare; and when, at the age of 58, he lifted to his lips the drug that terminated his tangled and colourful career, the spacious days of great Elizabeth had not begun to dawn. Few men of that remote and shadowy age have been more abused than Machiavelli. Historians, essayists, poets, and even novelists have attempted to set the man vividly and convincingly before us. For the most part they have failed, because of their obvious bias. They have divided themselves sharply into two schools—the school that regards Machiavelli as an angel of light and the school that regards him as a devil incarnate. The latter phrase is none too lurid, for, as Hudibras has pointed out, the popular appellation of "Old Nick" is based on Machiavelli's Christian name. One set of writers sees nothing at all that is good in Machiavelli. The other set is blind to anything that is bad in him. In reality, few men deserve such thorough-going condemnation or such unstinted praise. Certainly Machiavelli did not. After more than 400 years we can well afford to throw passion to the winds and, assuming a judicial calm, form a more reasoned judgment than, amid the conflicts and controversies of the past, has proved possible.

Tardy Laurels
Today Italy will abandon itself to a banquet of adulation. The people will acclaim Machiavelli as one of the purest of Italian patriots. And, generally speaking, their pride is wellfounded. Yet, although Machiavelli was an Italian who lived and wrought and died for Italy, the land that he so passionately loved was unconscionably slow in recognising that he had ever said or done anything worthy of gratitude. Machiavelli was buried in the Church of Santa Croce at Florence, but for more than 200 years no stone of any kind marked the spot. And if an English nobleman had not intervened, and done for Machiavelli's memory what his own countrymen had failed to do, the erection of a monument might have been left for another couple of centuries—or even longer! The monument stands near to the tomb of Michelangelo not far from the group of statuary that represents Poetry weeping for Dante. Close by is the grave of Alfieri, the most brilliant of Italian dramatists. Machiavelli is, therefore, in distinguished company. Nowadays tourists from every part of the world visit the famous church in Florence—the nearest approach to a Westminster Abbey that the world contains—and lectures are delivered by officially-appointed guides on the life, the times and the influence of Machiavelli. It is to be hoped that the lecturers are always careful to point out that the noble monument around which their hearers have clustered was the gift, not of a compatriot, but of an Englishman.

Glamour Of The Man
Nobody can make a study of the personality of Machiavelli without being captivated by the man himself. As a youth he exhibited extraordinary charms, and in an age in which Italy set more store on the arts than any of her sister nations he quickly acquired a polish that made him an ornament in the best society. At 25 he was a prominent and powerful figure in the public life of his time. His very appearance was captivating. Slightly above medium height, of well-knit figure, rhythmic and easy movement, dark complexion, black eyes and black hair, with a face that suggested humour, kindness and sagacity, he magnetised both men and women by his engaging graces. A master of many branches of learning he was, pre-eminently a master of men. He studied them, came to understand their freaks and foibles, and acquired the art of bending them to his will. He knew how to make friends and how to outwit enemies. He is often credited with being crafty, deceitful, treacherous. Those who employ such terms in reference to him do not understand them or else they do not understand their man. These words suggest, if they do not directly imply, a selfish and sinister motive. Machiavelli's character bore no such taint. He was, above all else, a patriot. He loved Italy as intensely and as devotedly as Italy has ever been loved, and when we recall the long list of Italian patriots, that is saying a good deal. A man who deserved the ugly names that have so often been hurled at Machiavelli would have sacrificed everything to his lust for power and his thirst for self-aggrandisement. Machiavelli clung to office as long as, by holding office, he could translate his patriotic dreams into concrete realities. And, when the occupation of high official station would no longer enable him to compass the ends that he cherished for his country's glory he was content not only to fall but to endure torture and imprisonment. If, at times, he enunciated doubtful principles and stooped to devious ways; if, occasionally, he ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds; if, when it suited him, he said one thing to a man's face and another behind his back; it must at least be set down to his credit that he was constantly actuated by national rather than by personal considerations.

Contagion Of Crowd
One other extenuating circumstance clamours for recognition. Moral standards are as infectious as the measles. Whether we know it or not, we all do a score of things every day, not because those things are the best things to do, but simply because everybody is doing them. It is as absurd as it is inequitable to judge a man of one age by the standards of another. "Habits of dissimulation and falsehood," as Macaulay points out, "mark a man of our age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by no means follows that a similar judgment would be just in the case of an Italian of the Middle Ages. On the contrary we frequently find those faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, in company with great and good qualities, with generosity, with benevolence with disinterestedness." So was it with Machiavelli we read with a shudder some of the principles that he advocated and turn with disgust from some of the enormities that he perpetrated. Such things are not said and done today, but then Machiavelli is not living today. He lived more than four centuries ago and was, like all men, the victim of the temper of their time. There is much about the man that we should like to forget, but there is much, too, that richly deserves to he remembered. He revealed his inner self in a variety of curious ways. Most men of his stamp, for example, wear their best clothes when exposed to the public gaze, reserving an old suit for the solitude of the library and the desk. Machiavelli had so profound a reverence for the glorious spirits with whom he held high fellowship in his library that he worked on a diametrically opposite principle. "In the evening," he says, "I return to my house and retire to my study. I then take off the rustic garments I have worn during the day, and, having dressed myself in the apparel which I used to wear at court, I mingle in the society of the great men of antiquity. I draw from them the nourishment suited to me, and during the hours passed in this intercourse, I forget all my misfortunes and fear neither poverty nor death." His character is disfigured by ugly blemishes and his writings by contentions that shock our more polite ears and finer susceptibilities. Yet there is something amiable in his personality and something noble in his record, and it is upon these features that we fasten our attention as we mark the anniversary of his passing.

F W Boreham

Image: Niccolo Machiavelli