Machiavelli, Niccolò

Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527), a Florentine dramatist and political theorist. After holding office in the restored Florentine republic and discharging various missions abroad, he was exiled on suspicion of conspiracy against the Medici, but was subsequently restored to some degree of favour. He turned his experience to advantage in his writings, which include Arte della guerra (The Art of War, written 1517–20, English trans. 1560–2) and a history of Florence (Storie Fiorentine, 1520–5, trans. 1595). His comedy Mandragola, probably written in 1518, is a powerful satire. His best-known work was Il Principe (The Prince, written in 1513, pub. 1532), a treatise on statecraft by an acute observer of the contemporary political scene with an idealistic vision of an Italian saviour who should expel all foreign usurpers. He teaches that the lessons of the past (of Roman history in particular) should be applied to the present, and that the acquisition and effective use of power may necessitate unethical methods not in themselves desirable. The first public translation was that of Edward Dacres in 1640. Il Principe influenced the policy of Thomas Cromwell, Cecil, and Leicester. It was appreciated critically by F. Bacon; exploited intelligently by Marlowe; used guardedly in the Maxims of State attributed to Ralegh, and published posthumously in 1658 as The Cabinet-Council.

In Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Machiavellian villains and anti-heroes abound, appearing in many guises, as pandar, atheist, poisoner, politician, miser, and revenger, and the name of Machiavelli himself is frequently invoked: for example by Gloucester, who resolved in 3 Henry VI ‘to set the murtherous Machiavel to school’ (iii, ii. 193), by Flamineo in The White Devil, who rejoices in ‘the rare trickes of a Machivillian’ (V. iii. 193), and in the prologue to The Jew of Malta by the spirit of Machiavelli himself. There is a sketch of his character in G. Eliot's Romola. The New Machiavelli (1911) is a novel by H. G. Wells.