The Venetian Company

A Meeting With Machiavelli

     A Meeting With Machiavelli, May 1524

      For my first mission with the company I was less than excited to hear I would be given the duty of acting as a guard accompanying one lieutenant Giacomo, who was bringing some documents to Florence.  I should have been grateful for any duty – but I was nineteen and impatient for great things -- or any things -- to happen.  I should also mention that my salary at this time was approximately 2 ducats per month.  Less than a pikeman.  Muzio the accounts officer for the company observed tersely: “You are not yet a soldier.  You have no experience, and so you have not much salary either.  This is the way of it."  And be grateful for it.  One couldn't argue with him.

      Of that trip, there is little to say, except for one matter, which I will come to presently.  We had two pack-mules with the papers and some other items we were taking to Florence.   Our troop on this mission consisted of the lieutenant Giacomo – he came from another city-state, Padua; his family was gentle, but they were impoverished – one soldier Tinculo, and myself.  As for Giacomo, he would inherit nothing, there was an older brother, hence his life as a soldier.

      We passed through much verdant country, and the travel was not onerous.  My major recollection of the journey is that the food was excellent, and for variety in dishes and ingredients, I tell you no one can match the Italians – or if there is some nation where they can, I have yet to visit it.

      On the road Giacomo and I spoke, and he knew I was educated.  He himself was well-read, and told me there would be a “treat” on this journey.

       I thought he was perhaps talking about some woman or even a inn, so I made no special response.

       “You don't understand," he rebuked me.  "On this visit to Firenze, we will go and see the Master Niccolo.”

        I had no idea what he was talking about, but my superior gave me two bundles of papers.  “These are some of the writings of Master Macchiavelli.  He was a secretary in Firenze when the state was a republic.  After Soderini was deposed in 1512, the Medici returned to rule Florence and Macchiavelli lost office.  Later he was tortured and imprisoned – or was it imprisoned and tortured – anyway, he was been out of office ever since.  He is an old man of  55 now, but he gives lectures and writes about politics.  Here are some excerpts of his writing.  See what you think.”

      The first of the works was called “Discourses” and was not the complete text.  The author wrote in Italian, which I had no trouble reading, but put his titles in Latin – that was strange.  As was the habit with writers in our age, Master Macchiavelli included many quotes from the ancient masters, and particularly about the Roman republic up to the time of Caesar.  Overall, he seemed to admire the days of the republic and felt we could install such systems in our city-states in Italy.  Indeed, were we not the heirs of the ancient Romans?  And so forth.  Well, there was not much new in this line of thought, which one also heard all the time in Venice.  After all, the very word “doge”, which was the title of the ruler of the “serene republic”, came from the late Roman word “dux”.   Venice was originally a subordinate part of the Roman state in its Constantinopilatan incarnation, and so forth.

            In the excerpts of the second work, entitled “The Prince”, however, there was something new.  Here instead instead of a praising of the ancient values I seemed to have a reading of politics as we all saw it today, in the many-fractured mosaic of 16th century Italy.  There was no listing of the traditional virtues here – rather almost a repudiation of them.  The prince had to do whatever was necessary to maintain his role in the state, and to maintain the state itself.  It seemed to be a cold-hearted collection of advice.  There was no lack of examples from ancient times, but the emphasis was more pragmatic, less sentimental – there was no appeal to morality, or where there was, it was subdued and secondary.