The Renaissance was not only an age of beauty. Italy was a battleground of rival states, foreign armies and ruthless rulers. Out of this turmoil came some of the most influential, and shocking, political writing in history.

Italy divided

Italy in 1494 had no single government. The major powers were the Republic of Venice, governed by a council of noble families under an elected doge; the Duchy of Milan, ruled by the Sforza family; Florence; the Papal States in central Italy, ruled by the pope as a secular prince; and the Kingdom of Naples in the south. Smaller states, such as Mantua and Ferrara, were ruled by princely families. They fought and allied with one another constantly, often using hired mercenary armies led by commanders called condottieri.

In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, claiming the throne of Naples. His invasion began the Italian Wars, which lasted until 1559 and turned Italy into a battlefield for France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Italian states lost much of their independence.

Popes as princes

Renaissance popes were often more like princes than spiritual leaders. Pope Alexander VI, of the Borgia family, pope from 1492 to 1503, openly promoted his children. His son Cesare Borgia used military force, deception and murder to carve out a state in central Italy. Julius II led armies in person. Critics, from Savonarola to Erasmus to Luther, attacked the worldliness and corruption of the papal court.

Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 to 1527) served the restored Florentine republic as a diplomat and official from 1498 to 1512. He traveled to the courts of France, the emperor, the pope and Cesare Borgia, observing how power worked. When the Medici returned in 1512, he lost his post. In 1513 he was accused of conspiracy, imprisoned and tortured by the rope, then released. Retired to his country farm, he wrote The Prince in 1513, dedicating it to a Medici in hope of employment. It was published only in 1532, after his death.

The Prince

The Prince advised rulers how to win and keep power. Its shock lay in its refusal to judge politics by conventional Christian morality. Machiavelli argued that a ruler who always acted virtuously in a world of wicked people would be ruined. A prince must therefore learn how not to be good when necessary. He asked whether it is better to be loved or feared, and answered that it is best to be both, but if one must choose, it is much safer to be feared than loved, though a prince must avoid being hated. A ruler should be like both the fox, to recognize traps, and the lion, to frighten wolves. He praised Cesare Borgia's skill while noting his failure.

The book was condemned by the church and placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. “Machiavellian” came to mean cunning and unscrupulous.

Machiavelli the republican

Many readers are surprised to learn that Machiavelli's longer work, the Discourses on Livy, is a defense of republics. There he argued that free republics, where citizens participate in government and political conflict is channeled by good laws, are more stable and successful than principalities. Scholars still debate how to reconcile his two books. Some see The Prince as practical advice for a desperate moment; others read it as a warning to the people about how princes really behave; still others see a consistent realism about power in both. His central lesson, that politics must be studied as it actually is, not as we wish it were, influenced later political science.

Courtiers

Another influential book, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528, described the ideal courtier: skilled in arms, letters, music and conversation, and able to perform everything with sprezzatura, an effortless grace that hides the effort behind it. It became a guide to manners across Europe.

Women and power

Some women exercised real power. Isabella d'Este (1474 to 1539), marchioness of Mantua, was a major patron of artists, collected antiquities, ran the state during her husband's absences and corresponded with rulers across Italy. Caterina Sforza defended her fortress at Forlì against Cesare Borgia's army in 1499 to 1500. But most women had no formal political role, and humanist education was available mainly to a privileged few.

Worked example: is Machiavelli right?

Consider his claim that it is safer for a ruler to be feared than loved. Test it against evidence and values.

• Machiavelli's reasoning. People are fickle; love depends on them, while fear depends on the ruler's own power.
• Historical cases. Some feared rulers held power for decades; others were overthrown by the hatred they provoked, a danger Machiavelli himself warned against.
• Democracy changes the question. In a constitutional democracy, leaders gain and keep power through elections, law and consent. Fear is a sign of tyranny, not strength.
• The moral question. Even if fear works, should rulers use it? Universal human dignity holds that people are not instruments of a ruler's ambition.

Machiavelli remains valuable because he forces us to look at power honestly. But understanding how power works is different from approving of how it is used. His own preference, in the Discourses, for free republics governed by laws suggests he knew the difference.