Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:05:13.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Machiavelli's Art of War: A Reconsideration*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Marcia L. Colish
Marcia L. Colish*
Affiliation:
Oberlin College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Machiavelli's Art of War contains an unexplored and unexplained paradox: the dialogue's chief interlocutor is Fabrizio Colonna, a condottiere in the employ of Ferdinand of Aragon, who played a critical role in the Spanish conquest of northern Italy and in the collapse of the Florentine republic led by Piero Soderini, in which Machiavelli worked as a civil servant. Yet, Machiavelli chooses Fabrizio to defend the superiority of the citizen militia, which he associates with republican civic virtue, over mercenary troops. This paradox has remained unaccounted for because literary scholars have ignored the historical background underlying the text's assorted political subtexts, while historians have ignored the nature of Quattrocento dialogue, as a literary genre, in contextualizing the work. Once these historical and literary dimensions of the Art of War are brought together, it can be seen why Fabrizio Colonna would have been perceived, by Machiavelli and his audience, as the ideal representative of a military position which he espoused neither in theory or in practice.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , Winter 1998 , pp. 1151 - 1168
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper was first presented at the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association meeting in Banff, Alberta, 15 May 1997.

References

Albertini, Rudolf von. Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica. Trans. Cesare Crisofolini. Turin, 1970.Google Scholar
Anglo, Sydney. Machiavelli: A Dissection. New York, 1969.Google Scholar
Arciniegas, German. “Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Guido Antonio Vespucci: Totalitarian and Democrat Five Hundred Years Ago.” Political Science Quarterly 69 (1954): 184–201.Google Scholar
Barbut, Marc. “En marge d'une lecture de Machiavel: Le ‘art de la guerre.'” Annates 25 (1970): 567-73.Google Scholar
Bertelli, Sergio. “Machiavelli and Soderini.” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 1–16.Google Scholar
Brown, Alison. “Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Moses: A Changing Model.” In Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubenstein, ed. Peter Denley and Caroline Elam, 57-72. London, 1988.Google Scholar
Brucker, Gene. “Savonarola and Florence: The Intolerable Burden.” In Studies on the Italian Renaissance in Memory of Arnolfo B. Ferruolo, ed. Gian Paolo Biasin et al., 119-30. Naples, 1985.Google Scholar
Burd, L. Arthur. “Le fonte letterarie di Machiavelli nell’ Arte della guerra.'” Atti della reale Accademia dei lincei (Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 5), 4.1 (1897): 187–261.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter. “The Renaissance Dialogue.” Renaissance Studies 3 (1989): 1–12.Google Scholar
Butters, H. C.. Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence. 1512-1519. Oxford, 1985.Google Scholar
Chiapelli, Fredi. “Machiavelli segretario.” In Machiavelli nel V” centenario della nascita, 45-60. Bologna, 1973.Google Scholar
Cochrane, Eric. Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527-1800: A History of Florence and Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes. Chicago, 1973.Google Scholar
Connell, William J. “The Republican Tradition In and Out of Florence.” In Girolamo Savonarola: Piety, Prophesy, and Politics in Renaissance Florence, ed. Donald Weinstein and Valerie A. Hotchkiss, 95-105. Dallas, 1994.Google Scholar
Consorti, Aida. Il cardenale Pompeo Colonna su documenti inediti. Rome, 1902.Google Scholar
Cooper, Roslyn Pesman. “Machiavelli, Francesco Soderini and Don Michelotto.” Nuova rivista storica 66 (1982): 342-57.Google Scholar
Cox, Virginia. The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in Its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo. Cambridge, 1992.Google Scholar
Dionisotti, Carlo. Machiavellerie. Turin, 1980.Google Scholar
Dionisotti, Carlo. “Machiavelli, Man of Letters.” Trans. Olivia Holmes. In Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn, 17-51. Ithaca, 1993.Google Scholar
Erlanger, Rachel. The Unarmed Prophet: Savonarola in Florence. New York, 1988.Google Scholar
Feld, Maury D. “Machiavellis Militia and Machiavellis Mercenaries.” In The Military, Militarism, and the Polity: Essays in Honor of Morris Janowitz, ed. Michael Lewis Martin and Ellen Stern McCrate, 79-92. New York, 1984.Google Scholar
Gil, Christiane. Machiavel, fonctionnaire florentin. Paris, 1993.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Allan H. “Machiavelli on Fire Weapons.” Italica 23 (1946): 275-86.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. “Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study of the Origin of Modern Political Thought.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 12 (1949): 101-31.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. “Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War.” In Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret, 11–31. Princeton, 1986.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Felix. “Machiavellis ‘Istorie fiorentine': An Essay in Interpretation.” In Essays on Machiavelli, ed. Myron P. Gilmore, 75-99. Florence, 1972.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509. In Opere, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi. Bari, 1931.Google Scholar
Guillemain, Bernard. Machiavel: L'anthropologie politique. Geneva, 1972.Google Scholar
Hale, J.R. “International Relations in the West: Diplomacy and War.” In New Cambridge Modern History, ed. G.R. Potter, 1:259-91. Cambridge, 1957.Google Scholar
Hale, J.R. Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy. London, 1961.Google Scholar
Hirzel, Rudolf. Der Dialog: Ein literarhistorisches Versuch. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1895.Google Scholar
Loewe, K.J.E. Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy: The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453-1524). Cambridge, 1993.Google Scholar
Kraft, Joseph. “Truth and Poetry in Machiavelli.” Journal of Modern History 13 (1951): 109-21.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Art of War. Trans. Neal Wood. Indianapolis, 1965.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Chief Works and Others. 3 vols. Trans. Allan Gilbert. Durham, 1965.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo. Tutte le opere, ed. Mario Martelli. Florence, 1971.Google Scholar
Mallett, Michael. Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy. Totowa, NJ, 1974.Google Scholar
Mallett, Michael. “Preparations for War in Florence and Venice in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century.” In Florence and Venice: Comparisons and Relations, ed. Sergio Bertelli et al., 1:149-64. Florence, 1979.Google Scholar
Mallett, Michael. “The Art of War.” In Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady, 535-61. Leiden, 1994.Google Scholar
Mallett, Michael. “The Theory and Practice of Warfare in Machiavelli's Republic.” In Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, 173-80. Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey C. Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy. Ithaca, 1974.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey C. Machiavelli's Virtue. Chicago, 1996.Google Scholar
Marsh, David. The Quattrocento Dialogue: Classical Tradition and Humanist Innovation. Cambridge, MA, 1980.Google Scholar
Massa, Eugenio. “Egidio da Viterbo, Machiavelli, Lutero e il pessimismo cristiano.” In Umanesimo e Machiavellismo, ed. Enrico Castelli. 75-123. Padua, 1949.Google Scholar
Najemy, John M. Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513. Princeton, 1993.Google Scholar
Najemy, John M. “Machiavelli and the Medici: The Lessons of History.” Renaissance Quarterly 35 (1982): 551-76.Google Scholar
Oman, Charles. A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. New York, 1979 [reprint of London, 1937 ed.].Google Scholar
Pampaloni, Guido. “II movimento piagnone secondo la lista del 1497.” In Essays on Machiavelli, ed. Myron P, Gilmore, 337-47. Florence, 1972.Google Scholar
Peterman, Larry. “Gravity and Piety: Machiavelli's Modern Turn.” Review of Politics 52 (1990): 189–214.Google Scholar
Petrucci, F. “Colonna, Fabrizio.” In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 27:288-93. Rome, 1982.Google Scholar
Pieri, Piero. Il Rinascimento e la crisi militari italiana. Turin, 1952.Google Scholar
Pierone, Luigi. Niccolb Machiavelli. Bologna, 1971.Google Scholar
Plamenatz, John. “Machiavelli.” In Man and Society. 1:1–44. New York, 1963.Google Scholar
Polizzotto, Lorenzo. “Prophesy, Politics and History in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy.” In Florence and Italy: Studies in Honour ofNicolai Rubinstein, ed. Peter Denley and Caroline Elam, 107-17. London, 1988.Google Scholar
Polizzotto, Lorenzo. The Elect Nation: The Savonarolean Movement in Florence, 1494-1545. Oxford, 1994.Google Scholar
Raimondi, Ezio. “Machiavelli and the Rhetoric of the Warrior.” Modern Language Notes 92 (1977): 1–16.Google Scholar
Renaudet, Augustin. Machiavel. Paris, 1942.Google Scholar
Ridolfi, Roberto. The Life of Girolamo Savonarola. Trans. Cecil Grayson. London, 1959.Google Scholar
Ridolfi, Roberto. Vita di Niccolb Machiavelli. 7th rev. ed. Florence, 1978.Google Scholar
Roeder, Ralph. The Man of the Renaissance. Four Lawgivers: Savonarola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Aretino. New York, 1933.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Nicolai. “Machiavelli and the Florentine Republican Experience.” In Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, 3–16. Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Ruffo Fiore, Silvia. Niccolb Machiavelli. Boston, 1974.Google Scholar
Sarolli, Gian Roberto. “The Unpublished Machiavelli.” Review of National Literatures 1 (1970): 78–92.Google Scholar
Sasso, Gennaro. Niccolb Machiavelli: Storia del suo pensiero politico. Rev. ed. Bologna, 1980.Google Scholar
Savonarola, Girolamo. Del reggimento deglistati. Pisa, 1818.Google Scholar
Schnitzer, Giuseppi. Savonarola. 2 vols. Trans. Ernesto Rutili. Milan, 1931.Google Scholar
Shaw, Cristine. “The Roman Barons and the French Descent into Italy.” In The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-95: Antecedents and Effects, ed. David Abulafia. 250-61. London, 1995.Google Scholar
Silvano, Giovanni. “Early Sixteenth-Century Florentine Republicanism.” In Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, 41–70. Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Spademan, Barbara. “Politics on the Warpath: Machiavelli's Art of War” In Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn, 179-94. Ithaca, 1993.Google Scholar
Stephens, J. N.. The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512-1530. Oxford, 1983.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. “Machiavelli and Classical Literature.” Review of National Literatures 1 (1970): 7–25.Google Scholar
Verrier, Fredérique. “Machiavelli e Fabrizio Colonna nel'Arte delta querra: II polemologio sdoppiato.” In Niccolb Machiavelli: Politico storico letterato, ed. Jean-Jacques Marchand, 175-87. Rome, 1996.Google Scholar
Villari, Pasquale. The Life and Times of Niccolb Machiavelli. 2 vols. Trans. Linda Villari. Reprint of London, 1892 ed. New York, 1968.Google Scholar
Vismara, Luigi. “II pensiero militare di Niccolb Machiavelli.” Rivista militare 25 (1969): 1439–50.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Donald. “Explaining God's Acts to His People: Savonarola's Spiritual Legacy to the Sixteenth Century.” In Humanity and Divinity in the Renaissance and Reformation: Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus, ed. John W O'Malley, Thomas M. Izbicki, and Gerald Christianson, 205-25. Leiden, 1993.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Donald. “Machiavelli and Savonarola.” In Studies on Machiavelli, ed. Myron P. Gilmore, 253-64. Florence, 1972.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Donald. Savonarola and Florence: Prophesy and Patriotism in the Renaissance. Princeton, 1970.Google Scholar
Whitfield, J. H.. Discourses on Machiavelli. Cambridge, 1969.Google Scholar
Wiethoff, William E. “The Martial ‘Virtue’ of Rhetoric in Machiavelli's Art of War” Quarterly Journal of Speech 64 (1978): 304-12.Google Scholar