# BOOK SEVEN

BOOK SEVEN



[1] You ought to know that towns and citadels can be strong either by nature or by industry. [2] Those are strong by nature which are surrounded by rivers or by swamps,1 as are Mantua and Ferrara, or which are placed on a cliff or on a steep mountain, like Monaco and Saint Leo.2 For those posted on mountains that are not very difficult to climb are very weak today, on account of3 artilleries and mines. [3] Therefore, most of the time one seeks a plain for building today, so as to make it strong with industry. [4] The first industry is to make the walls twisted and full of turns and recesses. This makes it so that the enemy cannot approach them, since he can easily be wounded not only in front but on the flank.4 [5] If the walls are made high, they are too exposed to the blows of artillery; if they are made low, they are very easy to scale. [6] If you make ditches in front of them so as to make it difficult for ladders, if it ends up that the enemy fills them (which a large army can easily do), the wall is left as prey for the enemy. [7] Therefore, I believe (barring5 as always a better judgment)6 that to want to provide for the one and the other inconvenience, one should make the wall high and with ditches inside and not outside. [8] This is the strongest mode of building that may be used, because you defend against artillery and ladders, and it does not make filling the ditch easy for the enemy. [9] Thus the wall ought to be as tall as the height that seems high [enough] to you, and no less than three-braccia thick, so as to render putting them to ruin more difficult. [10] It ought to have the towers placed at intervals of 200 braccia; the ditch inside ought to be at least 30braccia long and 12 deep. All the earth that is dug to make the ditch is to be thrown toward the city and is to be held up by a wall that starts from the bottom of the ditch and goes high enough above the earth for a man to be covered behind it. This will make the depth of the ditch greater. [11] At the bottom of the ditch, every 200 braccia there needs to be a casemate from which the artillery harms anyone who may descend into it. [12] The heavy artillery that defends the city is placed inside the wall that encloses the ditch. For to defend the front wall, since it is high, nothing other than the small or medium [artillery] can be used conveniently. [13] If the enemy comes to scale you, the height of the first wall easily defends you. [14] If he comes with artillery, he must first beat down the first wall. But having beaten it down, because the nature of all batteries is to make the wall fall toward the part hit, the rubble7of the wall ends up redoubling the depth of the ditch, since [the rubble does] not find a ditch that receives and hides it. So passing further ahead is not possible for you, since [you] find rubble that keeps you back, a ditch that impedes you, and enemy artillery that securely kills you from the wall of the ditch. [15] There is only this remedy for you: to fill the ditch. That is very difficult, both because its capacity is great and through the difficulty there is for you in approaching, since the walls are sinuous and concave. For the reasons mentioned, one can enter among them [only] with difficulty. Then, with equipment8 on, [you] have to climb through a ruin that gives you very great difficulty. So I hold9 a city so ordered [to be] altogether impregnable.



1. See Vegetius IV 1.

2. Monaco refers to the present-day kingdom on the French Riviera. Saint Leo is the fortress by means of which Lorenzo de’ Medici (1492–1519) maintained his control of the duchy of Urbino against attempts to retake it by his more popular predecessor, Francesco Maria della Rovere; cf. AWI9, note 7; D II 10.1.

3. Lit.: with respect to.

4. See Vegetius IV 2.

5. Lit.: save.

6. Parentheses in original here and in sentence 6 above.





BATISTA. [16] If10 besides the ditch inside, a ditch were also made outside, would it not be stronger?

FABRIZIO. [17] It would be, without doubt. But my reasoning is that when one wants to make one ditch only, it is better inside than outside.

BATISTA. [18] Would you want water to be in the ditches, or would you like11 them dry?

FABRIZIO. [19] There are diverse opinions. For ditches full of water guard you from underground mines; ditches without water make filling them more difficult. [20] But having considered everything, I would make them without water because they are more secure. And in winter one has seen the ditches freeze and make easy the storming of a city, as happened to Mirandola, when Pope Julius was campaigning there.12 [21] And to guard myself against mines, I would make them so deep that whoever wanted to go under would find water. [22] I would also build strongholds, as much in the ditches as on the walls and in a similar mode, so that there would be a similar difficulty in storming them. [23] One thing I want much to remind anyone who defends cities is this, that they not make bastions that are outside of and distant from their walls; another, to anyone who makes castles, is this, that he not make any redoubt in them into which whoever is inside can withdraw, having lost the first wall. [24] What makes me give the first counsel is that no one should do a thing by means of which you begin, without remedy, to lose your earlier reputation, the losing of which makes your other orders less esteemed and dismays those who have taken up your defense. And what I say will always happen to you, when outside of town you make bastions that you have to defend. For you will always lose them, since today little things cannot be defended when they are exposed to the furor of artillery. So by losing them they will be the beginning and cause of your ruin. [25] When it rebelled from King Louis of France, Genoa made some bastions upon the hills around it. When they were lost (and they were lost immediately), they made the city be lost as well.13 [26] As to the second counsel, I affirm nothing to be more dangerous for a castle than to have redoubts in it enabling one to withdraw. For the hope that men have in abandoning one place makes it be lost, and that loss makes the whole castle be lost. [27] A fresh example of this is the loss of the castle of Forlì, when the Contessa Caterina14 was defending it against Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, who had led the army of the king of France. [28] The whole fortress was full of places for withdrawing from one to another. For first there was the citadel. From it to the castle, there was a ditch, so that one passed over a drawbridge. The castle was divided into three parts, and every part was divided from the next by ditches and water, and one passed by bridges from one place to the other. [29] Hence the duke battered one of those parts of the castle with artillery and opened part of the wall. Messer Giovanni of Casale,15 who had been posted at that watch, did not think of defending that opening, but abandoned it by withdrawing into the other places. Such that the troops of the duke, having entered that part without opposition, took the whole at once because they became lords of the bridges that went from one member to another. [30] It had been held that this castle could not be stormed, but it was taken through two defects: the one, by having so many redoubts; the other, by each redoubt not being lord of its own bridges. [31] The badly built fortress and the lack of prudence of him who was defending it thus brought shame to the magnanimous enterprise of the Contessa, who had had the spirit to wait for an army that neither the king of Naples16 nor the duke of Milan waited for. [32] And although her efforts did not have a good end, she nonetheless received the honor that her virtue had merited. [33] This was testified to in those times by the many epigrams written17 in her praise. [34] Therefore, if I were to build castles, I would make their walls hardy and the ditches in the mode we have discussed.18 I would make nothing inside them other than houses for living. And I would make those weak and low so that they may not impede the view of all the walls to anyone who might stand in the middle of the piazza, so that the captain might be able to see by eye where he might be able to help, and so that each may understand that having lost the walls and the ditch, the castle would be lost. [35] And therefore if I were to make any redoubt there, I would divide the bridges in such a mode that, by ordering them to come down on their own posts in the middle of the ditch, each part would be lord of the bridges on his own side.



7. Lit.: ruin (throughout sentence 14).

8. Lit.: material, apparently the fascines or other devices used to cross the ditch once it is reached.

9. Lit.: make.

10. Lit.: when.

11. Or: to love or be fond of.





12. In his efforts to oust the French from Italy in 1511, Pope Julius II joined the siege and, aided in part by the frozen ditches, forced the surrender of the fortress of Mirandola, key to the duchy of Ferrara held by Alfonso d’Este who had remained loyal to the French. This action marks the climax of Julius’s reputation as the warrior pope in that he personally and energetically directed papal and Venetian forces against another Christian city, “something unheard of throughout the centuries” (Francesco Guicciardini, History of Italy, trans. Sidney Alexander [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969] , 212; cf. P2.7, 11.47, 13.54.

13. Genoa rebelled in 1506 and was recaptured by Louis XII 1507; cf. P 3.13, 26.104; cf. D I 23, II 21, 24.2, 24.3.

14. Caterina Sforza Riario in 1500.





BATISTA. [36] You have said19 that little things cannot be defended today. It seems to me that I have heard20 the contrary: that the smaller a thing was, the better it was defended.

FABRIZIO. [37] You have not understood well. For today one cannot call that place strong where whoever defends it does not have space to withdraw to new ditches and to new shelters, [both] because the fury of artillery is so much that he who founds himself on the protection21 of one wall and of one shelter alone deceives himself, and because bastions (since one wants them not to pass their ordinary measure, because they would then be towns and castles) are lost immediately because they are not made so that one can withdraw there. [38] It is thus a wise policy to let go of these outside bastions and to fortify the entrances of the towns and cover their gates with ravelins,22 so that one neither enters nor exits the gate in a straight line, and [so that] from the ravelin to the gate there is a ditch with one bridge. [39] The gates are also fortified with portcullises; this is to enable one to put one’s own men inside when they have gone outside to fight and, if it happens that the enemies chase them, to avoid their entering inside mixed up with them. [40] And therefore one finds these [portcullises], which the ancients called cataractae.23 When they are let down, they exclude enemies and save friends. For in such a case one cannot use either the bridges or the gate, since the one and the other is occupied by the throng.



15. Giovanni of Casale was then employed by Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan mentioned in AWVII 31.

16. Alfonso II of Aragon (1448–95).

17. Lit.: made.

18. Lit.: reasoned. The explicit reference would seem to be to the immediately preceding passages, AWVII 4–30; but cf. D II 24.

19. See AWVII 24.

20. Or: understood.

21. Lit.: guard.





BATISTA. [41] I have seen these portcullises of which you speak, made in Germany from beams in the form of an iron grating, and ours, made from planks, are completely solid. [42] I would desire to understand from where this difference arises and which are hardier.

FABRIZIO. [43] I tell you anew that the modes and orders of war in all the world, as compared to those of the ancients, are extinguished. But in Italy, they are altogether lost. And if there is something here a bit more hardy, it is born of the example of the ultramontanes. [44] You are able to have heard, and these others are able to remember, with how much weakness one used to build before King Charles of France passed into Italy in 1494. [45] The merlons were made narrow, a half braccio; the embrasures for crossbows and bombards were made with a small opening outside and a large one inside; and many other defects that I will leave aside so as not to be tedious. For defenses of narrow merlons are easily removed, and embrasures for bombards built in that mode are easily opened. [46] From the French one has now learned to make merlons long and thick, and that even the embrasures for bombards are to be large at the inner part and tighten toward the middle of the wall and then enlarge again toward the outer crust. This makes it so that [only] with trouble can artillery raise the defenses. [47] The French, however, have many other orders like these which, by not having been seen by our [men], have not been considered. [48] Among them is this mode of portcullises made like grating, which is far and away a better mode than ours. For if you have a solid portcullis like ours to shelter a gate, by letting it down you close yourself inside and are not able to offend the enemy through it, such that he can fight you in security with hatchets and with fire. [49] But if it is made like24 a grating, when it is let down, you can defend it through those slats and intervals with lances, crossbows, and any other kind of arms.



22. To cover a gate with a ravelin would be to block direct entry by building a defensive outwork in front of the gate.

23. See Vegetius IV 4; cf. Livy XXVII 28.





BATISTA. [50] I have seen another ultramontane usage in Italy, and this is to make artillery wagons with the spokes of the wheels inclined toward the ends of the axles. [51] I would like to know why they make them so, since it seems to me that straight ones, like those on our wheels, must be stronger.

FABRIZIO. [52] Never believe that the things that depart from the ordinary modes are done by chance; and if you were to believe that they do so to be more beautiful, you would err. For where strength is necessary, one does not take account of beauty, but all [these departures] arise because they [make them] more secure and more hardy than yours. [53] The reason is this: the wagon, when it is laden, either goes evenly, or it leans to the right or to the left side. [54] When it goes evenly, the wheels sustain the weight equally, which, since it is divided equally between them, does not weigh them down much. But while leaning, it ends up having all the weight of the wagon on the wheel toward which it leans. [55] If its spokes are straight, they can easily break. For when the wheel leans, the spokes also end up leaning and not withstanding the weight through their straightness. [56] And thus when the wagon goes evenly and when they have less weight, they end up being stronger; when the wagon goes at an angle25 and they end taking more weight, they are weaker. [57] Exactly the opposite happens with the inclined spokes of the French wagons. For when the wagon, leaning to one side, pushes down on them, through being inclined ordinarily, they then end up being straight and able hardily to withstand all the weight; when the wagon goes evenly and they are inclined, they sustain half of it. [58] But let us go back to our city and castle. [59] For more security for the gates of their towns, and to be able in sieges to put in and take out troops more easily, the French, besides the things said, also used another order of which I have not yet seen any example in Italy. This is that they erect two pillars on the outer edge of a drawbridge, and on each of them they balance abeam, so that half of [each beam] comes over the bridge, and the other half beyond. [60] Then all of the part that ends up outside, they join with joists, which they weave from one beam to the other like a grating, and they attach a chain to the end of the inside part of each beam. [61] When they then want to close the bridge on the outer edge, they slacken the chains and let fall the whole part with grating that closes the bridge as it lowers. And when they want to open it, they draw in the chains, and it ends up being raised. It can be raised so that a man and not a horse may pass under it, and so that a horse and a man may pass; and it can also be closed entirely, because it is lowered and raised like the shelter of a merlon.26 [62] This order is more secure than the portcullis. For [only] with difficulty can it be impeded by the enemy so that it doesn’t fall, since it doesn’t fall in a straight line like a portcullis which can easily be propped open. [63] Hence, those who want to make a city must see to the ordering of all the said things. And then, for at least a mile27 around the walls, one would need28 to allow neither cultivation nor walls; rather, it would be all country in which there would be no thicket or embankment or trees or houses that might impede the view and give aid to the encamped enemy. [64] And note that a town that has ditches outside with embankments higher than the ground is very weak. For they provide shelter to the enemy who assaults you, and they do not impede him in harming you because they can easily be opened and give place to his artillery. [65] But let us pass inside the town. [66] I do not want to lose much time showing you how one must, besides the things said before, have supplies to live on and to fight. For these are things that everyone understands himself, and without them, every other provision is vain. [67] Generally, two things must be done: provide for oneself and take from the enemy the convenience of availing himself of things in your country. [68] Therefore, the straw, the animals, and the grain that you cannot receive within29 must be destroyed. [69] Whoever defends a town should also provide that nothing be done tumultuously and without order, and keep modes so that in every accident everyone knows what he has to do. [70] The mode is this: that the women, the elderly, the children, and the weak stay at home and leave the town free to the young and the hardy; the armed are distributed for defense, some staying on the walls, some at the gates, some at the principal places of the city, so as to remedy those inconveniences that can arise within. Another part is not obligated to any place, but is prepared to give succor to all, as need requires. [71] And things being ordered thus, tumults that disorder you arise with difficulty. [72] I also want to note this in regard to the attack and defense of cities: nothing gives to the enemy as much hope of being able to occupy a town as the knowledge that it is not accustomed to seeing the enemy. For many times cities are lost through fear alone, without any other experience of force. [73] Therefore, when he assaults a similar city, an individual should make all of his displays terrible. [74] On the other side, in that part where the enemy fights, whoever is assaulted should put strong men whom arms rather than opinions frighten. For if the first attempt proves to be vain, the spirit of the besieged grows, and then the enemy is forced to overcome with virtue, and not with reputation, anyone who is inside.30 [75] The instruments with which the ancients used to defend their towns were many, like catapults, mangonels, tiny and thin darts, crossbows, sling-staves, and slings;31 and there were also many with which they assaulted them, like rams, towers, mantelets, screens, penthouses, siege-hooks, and tortoises.32 [76] Instead of these things, today there is artillery, which serves anyone who attacks33 and anyone who defends. Therefore I will not otherwise speak of them. [77] But let us return to our reasoning and come to particular attacks. [78] One should take care that one cannot be taken by hunger and that one not be forced by assault. [79] As to hunger, it was said that one needs to be well supplied with food before the siege comes. [80] But when this is lacking because of the length of the siege, one has sometimes been seen to use some extraordinary mode for being provisioned by friends who would like to save you, especially if a river runs through the middle of the besieged city. The Romans did so while their castle at Casalino was being besieged by Hannibal. Not being able to send them anything else by river, they threw into it a great quantity of nuts, which could not be stopped; carried by the river, they fed the Casalinesi for a longer time.34 [81] Having been besieged, some, so as to show the enemy they have surplus grain and [thus] make him despair of being able to besiege them through hunger, have either thrown bread outside the walls or given a steer grain to eat and then allowed it to be taken so that when [the steer] is killed and found full of grain, it shows what abundance they have.35 [82] On the other side, excellent captains have used various means for starving the enemy. [83] Fabius allowed the Campanians to sow so that they would lack the grain that they sowed.36 [84] Dionysius, being encamped at Reggio, feigned wanting to make an accord with them, and during the proceedings had himself provided with food. Then when he had emptied them of grain, he tightened around them and starved them.37 [85] Alexander the Great, wanting to storm Leucadia, stormed all the castles around it, and allowed their men to take refuge in it. Thus, with a large multitude suddenly coming, he starved it.38 [86] As to assaults, it has been said39 that one ought to guard against the first thrust. Many times the Romans occupied many towns with this, assaulting them at a stroke and from every side and calling it “Aggredi urbem corona.”40Scipio did this when he occupied New Carthage in Spain.41 [87] If that thrust is withstood, you are then overcome with difficulty. [88] If it should happen, however, that the enemy were to enter inside the city by having forced the walls, the townspeople still have some remedy other than abandoning themselves. For many armies have been repelled or killed once they have entered a town. [89] The remedy is that the townspeople maintain themselves in high places and fight them from the houses and towers. [90] Those who have entered cities have contrived to defeat this in two modes: one, by opening the gates of the city and making a way for the townspeople so that they are able to flee in security; the other, by making a proclamation42 that signifies that none but the armed are to be offended and that whoever throws his arms to the ground is to be pardoned.43 [91] This thing has rendered easy the conquest of many cities. [92] Besides this, cities are easily stormed if you come upon them unforeseen. This is done when you are found to be far away with the army so that it is not believed either that you want to attack or that you can do so without being exposed by the distance of the place. [93] Hence it is that if you secretly and promptly assault them, you will almost always succeed in bringing back the victory. [94] I reason unwillingly44 about things that happen in our times. For it would be a burden to reason about myself and my own; I would not know what to say about others. [95] Nonetheless, I cannot to this purpose not adduce the example of Cesare Borgia, called Duke Valentino. Finding himself at Nocera with his own troops, under the color of going to harm Camerino, he turned toward the state of Urbino and occupied in one day and without any trouble a state that another would hardly have occupied with much time and expense.45[96] Those who are besieged must also guard themselves against the deceptions and tricks of the enemy. And therefore the besieged ought not to trust anything that they see the enemy do continually, rather they [should] always believe a deception is beneath it and that it can vary to their harm.46 [97] When besieging a town, Domitius Calvinus made it his custom to circle its walls everyday with a good part of his troops. [98] Hence the townspeople, believing he did so for training, slackened their guard. When Domitius noticed this, he assaulted and stormed them.47 [99] Some captains, understanding that help should be coming to the besieged, have dressed their soldiers in the insignias of those who should be coming. Having been admitted, they occupied the town.48 [100] One night Cimon the Athenian set fire to a temple that was outside the town. The townspeople, going to aid it, thus left the town to the enemy as prey.49 [101] Some have killed those from the besieged castle who went to forage and then dressed their own soldiers in the clothes of the foragers, who then gave them the town.50 [102] Ancient captains have also used various means to despoil the guards of the towns they wanted to seize. [103] Scipio, being in Africa and desiring to occupy some castles in which guards had been placed by the Carthaginians, pretended to want to assault them several times, but then not only to abstain through fear but to distance himself from them. [104] Believing this to be true, Hannibal, so as to be able to oppress him more easily, withdrew all of the guards from [the castles]. Having recognized this, Scipio sent his own captain Massanissa to storm them.51 [105] While making war in Schiavonia against a capitol52 city in that country, in which many troops had been placed as guards, Pyrrhus feigned despairing of being able to storm it. Having turned toward other places, he made it empty itself of guards to help them; and it became easy to overpower.53 [106] Many have poisoned54 the water and diverted rivers so as to take towns, even though it was not successful for you.55 [107] One also easily makes the besieged surrender through frightening them by making known to them that a victory has been had or that new troops are coming to their disadvantage.56 [108] Ancient captains have sought to occupy towns by treachery, corrupting someone inside, but they have used diverse modes. [109] Someone has sent one individual of his who, under the name of fugitive, gets authority and trust with the enemies that he then uses to his benefit. [110] Someone by this route has learned the guards’ mode and, by means of this knowledge, taken the town.57[111] Someone has by some ruse blocked the gate with a wagon or with beams so that it cannot be closed, and in this mode made entering it easy for the enemy.58 [112] Hannibal persuaded one individual to give him a castle of the Romans and to feign to go hunting at night; [he was] to make a show of not being able to go by day for fear of the enemies, and, returning later with his game, to get some of [Hannibal’s] men in with him, and, upon having killed the guard, to give him the gate.59 [113] One also deceives the besieged by making a show of fleeing when they assault you, thereby drawing them out of the town and away from it. Many, among whom was Hannibal, have even allowed their encampments to be taken so as to have the opportunity to put themselves in between [the town and its inhabitants] and take the town fromthem.60 [114] One also deceives them by feigning to leave, as Phormio the Athenian did. Having preyed upon the country of the Chalcidians, he then received their ambassadors, filling their city with security and with good promises under which they, as men lacking caution, were a little later oppressed by Phormio.61 [115] The besieged ought to beware of men among them of whom they have suspicions. But sometimes it is customary to secure oneself against them as much with reward as with punishment. [116] Marcellus, knowing how Lucius Banzio Nolano had turned to favor Hannibal, used so much humanity and liberality toward him that from an enemy he was made very much a friend.62 [117] The besieged must use more diligence on guard when the enemy is far away than when he is near by. And they must guard those places better by which they think they can be hurt less. For many towns have been lost when the enemy assaults them on the side on which they do not believe they can be assaulted. [118] This deception arises from two causes: either through the place being strong and the belief that it is inaccessible, or through art being used by the enemy to assault them on one side with mock noises and on the other quietly and with true assaults. [119] Therefore, the besieged must take this great precaution, and above all at every time, and especially at night, have good guards on the walls, and post not only men but dogs, and have ferocious and ready ones who by smelling have presentiment of the enemy and with their barking uncover him. [120] And not only dogs, but geese, it was found, have saved a city, as happened to the Romans when the French besieged the capitol.63 [121] While Athens was being besieged by Sparta, Alcibiades, so as to see if the guards were being vigilant, ordered that when he raised his lamp at night all the guards should raise theirs, instituting a punishment for anyone who did not obey it.64 [122] Iphicrates the Athenian killed a guard who was sleeping, saying he left him as he had found him.65 [123] Those who are besieged have various modes of sending messages to their friends. So as not to send messages by mouth, they write letters in cipher and hide them in various modes. The ciphers are according to the will of whoever orders them; the mode of hiding them is varied. [124] Someone has written on the inside of a sheath of a sword; others have put letters in unbaked bread, and then baked it and given it as [if it were] his own food to him who carries them. [125] Some have put them in the most secret places of the body. [126] Others have put them in the collar of a dog that is familiar with him who carries them. [127] Some have written ordinary things in a letter and then, between one line and another, written with waters that, when washed and warmed, later re



24. Lit.: in the use of.

25. Torto, crookedly or wrongly.





26. Tables of wood, placed horizontally between two merlons, which could be raised and lowered as needed.

27. A Tuscan mile is slightly less than ours.

28. Lit.: would want.

29. Lit.: at home.





30. See Vegetius IV 12.

31. See Vegetius IV 22; cf. IV 8; these English terms follow Milner’s translations of Vegetius’s Latin.

32. See Vegetius IV 13–17; these English terms follow Milner’s translations of Vegetius’s Latin.

33. Offendere, usually translated “harm” or “offend.”

34. In 216 b.c.; see Frontinus III 14.2; cf. Livy XXIII 19.

35. See Frontinus III 15.1 where it is said that when the capitol was besieged by the Gauls in 390 b.c., the Romans threw bread over the walls (cf. Livy V 48), and III 15.5, where the Thracians used sheep for this ruse.

36. Fabius Maximus Cuntator in 215 b.c.; see Frontinus III 4.1; cf. Livy XXIII 46, 48.

37. In 391 b.c.; see Frontinus III 4.3.





38. See Frontinus III 4.5, where it is Alexander I, king of Epirus.

39. Cf. DIII 11.

40. Attacking the city with a crown, i.e., on all sides at once.

41. See Livy XXVI 44–46, where attacking on all sides at once all but fails Scipio until he gains access to a portion of the wall left undefended because it had been deemed unreachable; cf. Polybius X 12–15; D II 32.1.

42. Lit.: sending out a voice.

43. See Vegetius IV 25; Frontinus II 6.9. Neither source mentions the second mode of offering to pardon the unarmed. On the contrary, in the passages cited above for the immediately preceding episode (see AWVII 86, note 41), both Livy and Polybius state and illustrate the Roman policy of slaughtering every living thing (Polybius X 15) or every human adult (Livy XXVI 46) up to the moment that the order to begin pillaging is given.

44. Male volentieri.





45. On June 21, 1502; cf. AW VI 194–95. This passage seems to allude to several significant facts. The ruler of Urbino overthrown by Cesare was a close friend of Fabrizio. The year before, Fabrizio himself had been imprisoned after the fall of Capua, in which he had had a significant role, to French forces accompanied by Cesare. Lorenzo de’ Medici (1492–1519) poured considerable time and expense into occupying Urbino in 1516. Finally, it was shortly after Cesare’s seizure of Urbino that Machiavelli was sent by Florence for an extended stay in Cesare’s court at Imola.

46. Cf. DIII 48.

47. Domitius Calvinus (consul in 53 and 42 b.c.); see Frontinus III 2.1.

48. See Frontinus III 2.4, where the Arcadians are said to use a version of this ruse against the Messenians.

49. See Frontinus III 2.5, where Cimon is said to set fire to a grove in addition to the temple of Diana outside a city in Caria in Asia Minor (ca. 470 b.c.).

50. See Frontinus III 2.9, where Antiochus does this while besieging Suenda in Cappadocia.

51. In 202 b.c.; see Frontinus III 6.1.

52. Capo.





53. Schiavonia roughly corresponds to ancient Illyria and contemporary Slovenia; see Frontinus III 6.3.

54. Lit.: corrupted.

55. See Frontinus III 7, where all stratagems involving the divergence of water ways are successful. For two unsuccessful Florentine attempts, consider Brunelleschi’s efforts to flood Lucca with the waters of the Serchio (FH IV 23) and Machiavelli’s own to divert the Arno in order to cut Pisa off from the sea (Decennale primo vv. 502–4; cf. Roger Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996] , 240–47).

56. Cf. Frontinus III 8.2.

57. Cf. Frontinus III 3.2.

58. See Frontinus III 3.5.

59. In 212 b.c., outside of Tarentum; see Frontinus III 3.6; cf. Livy XXV 8–9; Polybius VIII 24– 29; the traitor or traitors are variously named in these texts.

60. See Frontinus III 10.1–4; the Hannibal mentioned at III 10.3 is not the famous Hannibal of the Second Punic War, but his relative who fought in the First Punic War; cf. Diodorus Siculus XIII 59–62, where the withdrawal of this Hannibal’s troops from their camp near Himera in 409 b.c. is in earnest, not a stratagem.





61. In 432 b.c.; see Frontinus III 11.1.

62. See Frontinus III 16.1; cf. Livy XXIII 15–16.

63. See Livy V 47; cf. Vegetius IV 26: “Marvelous was the watchfulness or good fortune, whereby one bird saved the men destined to send the whole world under the yoke.” Cf. also Ovid, MetamorphosesXI 599: “solicitous dogs, or even more sagacious, a goose.”

64. See Frontinus III 12.1.

65. At Corinth; see Frontinus III 12.2.





veal the letters.66 [128] This mode has been very astutely observed in our times when someone, wanting to signify to friends of his who lived inside a town things to keep secret, and not wanting to trust anyone, sent communications written according to custom and interlined as I said before, and had them suspended from the doors67 of the temples. Recognized by those who recognized them by passwords, they were detached and read.68 [129] This mode is very cautious because whoever carries them can be deceived in this and not run any risk. [130] There are infinite69 other modes that each one can read for himself and find. [131] But one can write to the besieged with more ease than the besieged [can write] to their friends outside. For they cannot send such letters to them except through one who under the shadow of a fugitive goes out of the town, which is a thing doubtful and dangerous when the enemy is at all cautious. [132] But [as to] those who send [messages] inside, he who is sent can go to the camp that besieges under many colors and from there take a convenient opportunity to jump into the town.70 [133] But let’s speak of the present stormings. I say that if it happens that you are attacked in your city, which is not ordered with ditches in the inside part, as we showed a little while ago,71 and you want the enemy not to enter through the breaches in the walls that the artillery makes (for there is no remedy to keep it from making a breach), it is necessary for you while the artillery is battering to put a ditch at least 30-braccia wide inside the wall that is struck, and to throw all that is dug toward the town; this makes an embankment and makes the ditch deeper. And you must hasten this work so that when the wall falls the ditch is dug at least five- or six-braccia [deep]. [134] It is necessary, while it is being dug, to close up this ditch on every side with casemates. And when the wall is so hardy that it gives you time to make the ditch and the casemates, the battered part ends up being stronger than the rest of the city. For such a redoubt ends up having the form that we prescribed for inside ditches. [135] But when the wall is weak and does not give you time, then there is need to show your virtue, and to resist with armed men and with all of your forces. [136] This mode of making repairs was obeyed by the Pisans when you went to encamp there. And they were able to do so because they had very hardy walls that gave them time and sticky soil very fit for raising embankments and making redoubts. [137] If they had lacked this convenience, they would have lost.72[138] Therefore, one always acts prudently by providing beforehand by making ditches all the way around the inside of one’s city, as we explained73 a little while ago.74 For in this case one awaits the enemy in idleness and security, since the redoubts are made. [139] Many times the ancients occupied towns with underground mines in two modes: either they secretly made an underground passage that led into the town and through which they entered (in this mode the Romans took the city of the Veientes); or the mines undermined a wall and made it fall in ruin.75 [140] This last mode is hardier today and makes cities placed high weaker because they can be mined better. Then, putting the powder that lights in an instant in the mines not only ruins a wall, but mountains are opened up and whole fortresses are broken into many pieces. [141] The remedy for this is to build on a plain and to make the ditch that surrounds your city so deep that the enemy cannot dig deeper than it without finding water, which is76 the only enemy of these mines. [142] If, however, you find yourself in a town that you defend on a hill, you cannot remedy this otherwise than to make many deep shafts within your own walls, which are like vents for those mines that the enemy is able to order against you. [143] Another remedy is to make a mine against him once you notice where he is digging. This mode impedes him easily, but is foreseen with difficulty if one is besieged by a cautious enemy. [144] He that is besieged ought above all to take care not to be oppressed in times of rest, as after a battle has been waged, after the guards are changed77 (in the morning at daybreak and in the evening between day and night),78 and, above all, when eating. At that time many towns have been stormed and many armies have been ruined by those inside [cities]. [145] Therefore, with diligence in every respect79 one should be always on guard and in good part armed.80 [146] I do not want to fail to tell you that what makes defending a city or an encampment difficult is having to keep disunited all the forces you have in them. For since the enemy can assail you from any side all together, you must keep every side guarded. He thus assaults you with all of his forces and you defend yourself with part of yours. [147] Also, the besieged can be beaten entirely; he who is outside can only be repelled. Hence, many who have been besieged either in their encampment or in a town have (although inferior in strength) at a stroke gone outside with all of their troops and have overcome the enemy. [148] Marcellus did this at Nola.81 Caesar did it in France when his encampments were being assaulted by a very great number of Frenchmen. Seeing that he could not defend due to having to divide his own forces into several parts and that he could not charge the enemy with force82 by remaining inside his palisades, [Caesar] opened one side of the encampment; and, turning all of his forces to that side, he made such a thrust against them and with so much virtue that he overcame them and won.83 [149] The constancy of the besieged also makes the besiegers despair and be afraid. [150] When Pompey was before Caesar and the Caesarian army was suffering much from hunger, some of its bread was brought to Pompey. Seeing that it was made of grass, he commanded that it not be shown to his army so as not to frighten it, seeing what enemies it had against it.84 [151] In the war against Hannibal, nothing did the Romans so much honor as their constancy. For in any of the most hostile and adverse fortune, they never asked for peace and never made any sign of fear. Indeed, when Hannibal was near to Rome, the fields where they had placed their own encampments were sold at a higher price than they would ordinarily have been sold at other times.85And they stuck so obstinately to their enterprises that when the Romans were besieging Capua at the same time that Rome was being besieged, they did not want to leave off their attacks [on Capua] so as to defend Rome.86 [152] I know that I have told you many things that you must have understood and considered by yourselves. Nonetheless, as I already said today,87 I have done so so as to be able better to show you, by means of these things, the quality of this army, as well as to satisfy those, if there are any of them, who have not had the advantage that you [have had] for understanding them. [153] It seems to me that nothing is left other than to tell you some general rules with which you will be very familiar, which are these:88



66. Cf. Frontinus III 13.

67. Porta, usually translated “gates.”

68. Perhaps an allusion to papal briefs censuring the Dominican friar Savonarola (1452–98). The briefs were circulated by his enemies. Savonarola was excommunicated in 1497; less than a year later his political opponents in Florence had him tried, tortured, hanged, and burned.

69. Lit.: very or most infinite.

70. Cf. Frontinus III 13.

71. See AW VII 6–17.





72. A reference to Florence’s ten-year war to retake Pisa; Machiavelli played a significant role in its recovery and entered the city with the victorious army.

73. Lit.: divided.

74. Cf. AWVII 6–17.

75. See Vegetius IV 24; cf. Livy V 7–22.

76. Lit.: waters, which is.

77. Lit.: made.

78. Parentheses in the original.

79. Lit.: part.

80. See Vegetius IV 27.





[154] That which helps the enemy hurts you, and that which helps you hurts the enemy.

[155] In war, he who is more vigilant in discerning89 the plans of the enemy and endures more trouble in training his army will incur fewer dangers and will be more able to hope for victory.



81. Claudius Marcellus against Hannibal at Nola in 216 b.c.; see Livy XXIII 16.

82. Lit.: impetus.

83. See Caesar, Gallic War III 5, where it is Galba rather than Caesar in “France” in 57 b.c.

84. See Suetonius, Julius Caesar 68, where Pompey comments, “I am fighting wild beasts.”

85. In 211 b.c.; see Frontinus III 18.2; cf. Livy XXVI 11.

86. In 211 b.c.; see Frontinus III 18.3; cf. Livy XXVI 7–8.

87. Presumably AWIII 10, VI 20, 102.

88. For the following rules, cf. Vegetius III 26.

89. Lit.: observing.





[156] Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them [to be] without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.

[157] It is better to beat the enemy with hunger than with iron; in victory by [means of] the latter, fortune can [do] much more than virtue.

[158] No policy is better than that which remains hidden from the enemy until you have executed it.

[159] To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.

[160] Nature produces few hardy men; industry and training makes many.

[161] In war, discipline can [do] more than fury.

[162] When some leave the side of the enemy and come into your service, if they are faithful they will always be great acquisitions for you. For the forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed, even though the name of deserter is suspect to new friends and hateful to old ones.

[163] In ordering for battle, it is better to place many reserves behind the first front than to disperse your soldiers so as to make a greater front.

[164] He who knows how to gauge90 his own forces and those of his enemy is beaten with difficulty.

[165] The virtue of soldiers is more valuable than their number; sometimes the site helps more than virtue.

[166] New and sudden things frighten armies; accustomed and slow things are little esteemed by them. Therefore, you will have your army practice and recognize a new enemy in small fights before you come to battle with him.

[167] He who pursues an enemy in disorder after he is beaten wants nothing other than to change from being victorious to losing.

[168] The one who does not prepare the food supplies necessary for living is beaten without iron.

[169] Whoever trusts more in horse than in infantrymen, or more in infantrymen than in horse, [should] accommodate himself to the site.

[170] In the daytime when you want to see if any spies have come into camp, have each [soldier] go into his own encampment.

[171] Change policy when you become aware that the enemy has foreseen it.



90. Conoscere.





[172] Take counsel from many on the things that you must do; what you later want to do, tell few.

[173] When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment; when they are then led to war, with hope and reward.

[174] Good captains never come to battle if necessity does not constrain them or opportunity does not call them.

[175] Make it that your enemies do not know how you want to order your army for the fight; and in whatever mode you order it, make the first squadrons able to be received by the second and by the third.

[176] In the fight, if you do not want to disorder [things], never use91 a battalion for anything other than that for which you had assigned it.

[177] Sudden accidents are remedied with difficulty, known ones with ease.

[178] Men, iron, money, and bread are the sinew of war; but of these four, the first two are more necessary; for men and iron find money and bread, but bread and money do not find men and iron.

[179] The unarmed rich man is the reward of the poor soldier.

[180] Accustom your own soldiers to disdain delicate living and luxurious clothes.

[181] This is as much as occurs to me to remind you of generally, and I know that many other things could have been said in all of this reasoning of mine. For instance, how and in how many modes the ancients used to order their lines, how they used to dress, and how in many other things they used to train themselves. And many particulars could have been added that I did not judge necessary to narrate, both because you can see them for yourselves, and also because my intention has not been to show you exactly how the ancient military was made, but how in these times one might order a military that would have more virtue than the one that is used [today]. [182] Hence, concerning ancient things it has not seemed [well] to me to reason beyond92 that which I have judged necessary for such an introduction. [183] I also know that I would have had to enlarge more on the military on horse back and then to reason about naval war,93 because whoever differentiates the military says how there is an army for the sea and for the land, on foot and on horse. [184] Of that for the sea I would not presume to speak, through not having any knowledge of it; rather, I will leave it to be spoken of by the Genoese and Venetians, who with similar studies have in the past done great things. [185] Of horse I also want to say nothing but what I have said before, since, as I said, this part is less corrupt.94 [186] Besides this, having ordered good infantries, which are the sinew of the army, of necessity one ends up making good cavalrymen. [187] I would only remind whoever may order a military in his own country to make two provisions for filling it with horses. One [is] to distribute mares of good breeding throughout his countryside and to accustom his own men to buy up95 colts as you do in this country with calves and mules. The other, so that the dealers might find buyers: I would prohibit anyone who does not keep a horse from being able to keep a mule, such that whoever wants to keep one mount only would be constrained to keep a horse; what is more, whoever does not keep a horse would not be able to dress in fine clothes.96 [188] I understand this order to have been made by a certain prince in our times, and in a very brief time to have brought back to his country a first-rate cavalry. [189] About the other things concerning horses, I submit myself to as much as I said to you today and to what is customary. [190] Would you perhaps also desire to understand what parts a captain ought to have? [191] On that I will satisfy you very briefly, because I would not know how to select another man than him who knows how to do all those things that have been reasoned about by us today. Even these would not be enough, if he did not know how to find them by himself. For without invention no one was ever a great man in his own trade; and if invention brings honor in other things, in this above all it honors you. [192] And one sees every invention, even though weak, celebrated by the writers, as one sees that they praise Alexander the Great, who, so as to decamp more secretly, did not give the sign with a trumpet, but with a hat upon a lance.97[193] He98was also praised for having ordered it that his own soldiers, on joining with the enemy, kneel with the left foot, so as to be better able to withstand their thrust hardily. By having given him victory, this also gave him so much praise that all the statues built in his honor stood in this guise.99 [194] But because it is time to finish this reasoning, I want to return to the purpose, and I will meanwhile flee that punishment to which it is customary to condemn those in this land100 who do not return to it. [195] If you remember well, Cosimo, you said101 to me that you were unable to find out the cause for this: that, on the one hand, I am the exalter of antiquity and blamer of those who in grave things do not imitate it, and, on the other, I have not imitated it in the things of war, where I have exerted myself. To this I responded102 that men who want to do something, must first prepare themselves to know how to do it, so as then to be better able to do103 it when the opportunity permits. [196] Whether I would know how to return the military to ancient modes or not, I want for judges you who have heard me dispute at length on this matter. From this you have been able to recognize how much time I have consumed in these thoughts, and also I believe you can imagine how much desire there is in me to manage them with effect. [197] If I had been able to do this, or if I had ever been given the opportunity, you can conjecture it. [198] Yet so as to make you more certain of this, and for my greater justification, I also want to adduce the causes. And in part I will observe the promises104 to you by demonstrating to you the difficulties and the ease105 that there are at present in such imitations. [199] I say, therefore, that no action that may be done today among men is more easy to return to ancient modes than the military, but only by those who are princes of so large a state that they can put together from their subjects at least 15 to 20 thousand youths. [200] On the other hand, nothing is more difficult than this to those who do not have such a convenience. [201] And so that106 you may better understand this part, you have to know that there are two kinds107 of captains praised. [202] One is those who have done great things with an army ordered by its own natural discipline, as were the greater part of Roman citizens and others who have guided armies. These have had no other trouble than to keep them good and see to guiding them securely. [203] The other is those who not only have had to overcome the enemy, but, before they arrive at that, have been necessitated to make their army good and well ordered. These without doubt merit much more praise than those have merited who have operated virtuously with ancient and good armies. [204] Of these such were Pelopidas and Epaminondas, Tullius108 Hostilius, Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander, Cyrus, king of Persia, and Gracchus the Roman. [205] All of these first had to make the army good, and then fight with it. [206] All of these were able to do this both through their prudence and through having subjects whom they could direct in similar training. [207] Nor would it ever have been possible that any one of them, even though a man full of every excellence, would have been able to do any praiseworthy work in an alien province full of corrupt men not used to any honest obedience. [208] Knowing how to govern an army [already] made is, then, not enough in Italy; rather, it is first necessary to know how to make it and then know how to command it. [209] And of these, it must be those princes who have the convenience to do it through having a large state and many subjects. [210] I, who never commanded nor can command any but foreign armies and men obligated to others and not to me, cannot be among them. [211] Whether or not it is possible for them to introduce any of those things reasoned about by me today, I want to leave to your judgment. [212] When could I make one of the soldiers who practice today carry more arms than they are accustomed to, and, besides the arms, food for two or three days, and a hoe? [213] When could I make him dig and keep him every day for many hours under arms in fake drills, so as later to be able to avail myself of him in true ones? [214] When would they abstain from games, from acts of lasciviousness, from curses, from acts of insolence that they do everyday? [215] When would they be reduced to so much discipline and to so much obedience and reverence that one tree full of apples in the middle of their encampments may be found there and left intact as one reads happened many times in the ancient armies?109 [216] What thing can I promise them, by means of which they might hold me in reverence with love or fear, when, the war having finished, they no longer have anything to connect them to me? [217] With what would I make ashamed those who have been born and raised without shame? [218] Why would those who do not know me have to observe110 me? [219] By what God, or by what saints would I make them swear? [220] By those that they adore, or by those that they curse? [221] I do not know any that they adore, but I know well that they curse them all. [222] How would I believe that they would observe their promises to those whom every hour they disparage? [223] How can they who disparage God revere men? [224] What good form, then, could there be that one could impress on this matter? [225] And if you allege to me that the Swiss and Spaniards are good, I would confess to you that they are by great lengths better than the Italians. But if you would note my reasoning and the mode of proceeding of both, you would see how many things are lacking for them to reach the perfection of the ancients. [226] And the Swiss have been made good by one usage natural to them caused by that which I said111 to you today, these other by a necessity. For being in the military in a foreign province and it seeming to them that they are constrained to die or to win, they have become good through it not seeming to them that they have a place to flee to. [227] But it is a goodness in many parts defective. For in it nothing else is good except that they are accustomed to await the enemy at the point of the pike and the sword. [228] Nor would anyone be fit to teach them that which they lack, and so much less whoever is not of their language. [229] But let us return to the Italians. Through not having had wise princes, they have not taken any good order; and through not having had that necessity that the Spaniards have had, they have not taken any by themselves, such that they remain the scorn of the world. [230] The people are not to blame for it; but their princes are indeed so. They have been punished for it, and for their ignorance they have borne just penalties by ignominiously losing their states, and without any virtuous example. [231] Do you want to see if what I say is true? [232] Consider how many wars there have been in Italy from the passing of King Charles to today. And while wars usually make men bellicose and reputed, these, as much as they have been more grand and fierce, have so much more made the members and their heads lose reputation. [233] This must arise because the accustomed orders were not and are not good; and as to new orders, there is not anyone who has known how to seize them. [234] Never believe that reputation may be rendered by Italian arms, except by the way that I have shown and by means of those who have big states in Italy. For this form can be impressed on simple, coarse men of one’s own, not on malicious, badly cared for foreigners. [235] One will never find any good sculptor who believes [he can] make a beautiful statue from a piece of marble badly blocked out; but from one in the rough [he may] very well [think so]. [236] Before they tasted the blows of the ultramontane wars, our Italian princes used to believe that it was enough for a prince to know how to think of a sharp response in his studies, to write a beautiful letter, to show wit and quickness in his deeds and words, to know how to weave112 a fraud, to be ornamented by gems and gold,113 to sleep and eat with greater splendor than others, to keep many lascivious ones around, to govern subjects avariciously and proudly, to rot in idleness, to give promotions in the military by favor, to despise anyone who may have shown them any praiseworthy way, to want their speeches to be responses of oracles. Nor did these wretches perceive that they were preparing themselves to be the prey of whoever assaulted them. [237] From here then arose in 1494 great terrors, sudden flights, and miraculous losses; and thus three very powerful states114 that were in Italy have been sacked and wasted. [238] But what is worse, those who are left persist in the same error and the same disorder. And they do not consider that those who anciently wanted to keep their states used to do and used to have done all those things that have been reasoned about by me, and that their studies used to prepare their bodies for hardships and their spirits not to fear dangers. [239] From this it arose that Caesar, Alexander, and all those men and excellent princes were the first among combatants, went armed on foot and, if somehow they lost their states, they wanted to lose their lives. Thus did they live and die virtuously. And if in them, or in part of them, one could blame too much ambition to rule, never will one find that one may blame in them any softness or anything that makes men delicate and unwarlike. [240] If these things were read and believed by these princes, it would be impossible that they not change their form of living and their provinces not change their fortune. [241] And because you, at the beginning of this reasoning of ours, complained115 of your militia here, I say to you that, if you had ordered it as I have reasoned above and it had not given a good proof116 of itself, you could complain of it reasonably. But if it is not ordered and trained just as I have said, it can complain of you that you have made an abortion, not a perfect figure. [242] The Venetians also, and the duke of Ferrara,117 began one and did not continue it, which has been through their defect, not that of their men. [243] And I assert to you that whichever of those who today keep states in Italy first enters by this way, he will be lord of this province before anyone else. And it will happen to his state as to the kingdom of the Macedonians. Coming under Philip, who had learned the mode of ordering armies from the Theban Epaminondas—and since the rest of Greece118 was in idleness and attended to the performance of comedies—it became so powerful with this order and these armies that he119 could in a few years occupy all of [Greece], and leave to his son120 such a foundation that he was able to make himself prince of all the world. [244] Hence, he who disparages these thoughts, if he is a prince, disparages his own principality; if he is a citizen, his own city. [245] And I complain against nature, which either should not have made me a knower of this, or should have given me the ability121 to be able to execute it. [246] Nor do I think that now, since I am old, I can have any opportunity for it. And because of this I have been liberal toward you. If 122 the things said by me please you, in due time you, being young and qualified, could help and counsel your princes to their benefit. [247] I do not want you to be afraid or distrustful of this, for this province seems born to resuscitate dead things, as has been seen in poetry, painting, and sculpture. [248] But I am distrustful of how much may be expected from me, as [I am] getting on in years. [249] And truly, if in the past fortune had conceded to me enough for a like enterprise, I believe in a very short time I would have shown to the world how much ancient orders are worth, and without doubt I would have either increased it with glory or lost it without shame.



91. Adoperare.

92. Lit.: other than.

93. Cf. Vegetius IV 31–46 on naval warfare.

94. See AWII 319





95. Fare incette can mean “corner the market on” or simply “deal in.”

96. Droppo, especially in and around Florence, refers to cloth woven of silk and used as work clothes, but also for religious vestments.

97. Source unknown; perhaps an invention of Machiavelli.

98. The manuscripts leave a blank space in which some name other than Alexander’s was perhaps to be added; the first printing ignores the blank space, leaving the impression that Alexander was the subject of this sentence as well as the previous sentence.

99. See notes 97 and 98.

100. Or: town.

101. SeeAWI 36.





102. See AWI 39.

103. Operare.

104. See AWI 44.

105. Plural in Italian.

106. Lit: because.

107. Lit: reasons.

108. Following the reading of Marchand et al., Tullus is misspelled as Tullius.





109. Frontinus IV 3.13.

110. Or: obey.

111. Cf. AWI 98, II 29.





112. Cf. P 2.

113. Cf. pr. 4.

114. The five most powerful Italian states were Florence, Milan, Venice, the “papal states,” and Naples. But it is a matter of speculation as to which, if any, of these Fabrizio refers to here.





115. See AW I 148–56.

116. Lit.: experience.

117. Ercole (Hercules) I of Este (1433–1505) in 1479.

118. Lit.: the other Greece.

119. Or: it, referring back to the kingdom of the Macedonians.

120. Or: to the son.

121. Lit.: faculty.

122. Lit.: when.





the end of the seventh and last book of the art of war

by niccolò machiavegli,

florentine citizen and secretary





FIGURES



Niccolò Machiavegli, Florentine Citizen and Secretary, to the Reader1



[1] I believe it to be necessary, in wanting you readers to understand without difficulty the order of the battalions and armies and encampments as arranged in the narration, to show you the figures of each of them. [2] So it must be explained to you under what signs or characters infantrymen, cavalrymen, and every other individual member are shown.

[3] Know then that this letter





[4] In the first figure is drawn the form of an ordinary battalion2 and in what mode it is doubled along the flank,3 as its ordering was described.



1. Lit.: to him who reads or to whoever reads.

2. See AW II 193–96.

3. See AW II 185–88, 191–92.





[5] In the same figure is shown how with the same order of 80 files (just by changing to the rear the five files of pikes that are in the front) all the pikes are made by doubling to turn to the back; this is done when one marches ahead and fears the enemy to the rear.4

[6] In the second figure is shown how a battalion is ordered that marches ahead and has to fight along the flank, as contained in the treatise.5

[7] In the third figure is shown how a battalion is ordered with two horns, and then with a piazza in the middle, as arranged in the treatise.6

[8] In the fourth figure is shown the form of an army ordered to do battle with the enemy, as arranged in the treatise.7

[9] In the fifth figure is shown the form of a squared army, as contained in the treatise.8

[10] In the sixth figure is shown the form of an army turned from a squared army back into the ordinary form for doing battle, as contained in the text.9

[11] In the seventh figure is shown the form of the encampment, as is discussed10 above.11



4. Cf.AWII226.

5. See AW II 221–22.

6. The top of figure 3 shows the marching order described at AWII 232–36; the bottom left of figure 3 shows the battalion with two horns described at AWII 242–46; the bottom right of figure 3 shows the battalion with a piazza in the middle described at AWII 248–49.

7. See AWIII 50–63.

8. See AWV14–36.

9. See AWV 44–50.

10. Lit.: is reasoned.

11. See AWVI 23–88.





INTERPRETIVE ESSAY



Like The Prince and Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli’s Art of War is a carefully ordered whole. Separation of the intellectual world into discrete academic disciplines, however, has led to partial treatments of this whole. Each discipline has tended to focus on some aspect of the Art of War, underestimating the importance of the rest or even mistaking that part for the whole. An interdisciplinary approach would not dispose of the difficulty, since it would incorrectly assume that some combination of our contemporary disciplines correspond to and exhaust the many aspects of Machiavelli’s works. Under the spell of such partial approaches, the reader is in danger of failing to appreciate the many unexpected gifts that Machiavelli places before him. At the very least, one must resist the temptation to let one’s own field answer in advance the question Machiavelli has left as a riddle: What kind of work is the Art of War? For anyone who seeks to understand this useful and beautiful book, an unwavering determination to answer this question must be matched by an equally steadfast patience not to rush to judgment.

These potential pitfalls notwithstanding, I have reaped much from many fields and offer the following in return. The first part of this essay, on Machiavelli’s solutions to the military problems of his day, will be of most use to those interested in military and Renaissance history, and the last section of this part to students of strategic thought. Especially on my mind as I wrote the bulk of thefirst part were the trenchant and detailed criticisms of Machiavelli’s military writings put forth so thoughtfully by Piero Pieri in Guerra e politica negli scrittori italiani.1 Point-by-point responses to Pieri would have been out of place here, but I implicitly defend Machiavelli against Pieri (as well as others mentioned in this book’s introduction), not by challenging Pieri’s excellent military history, but by challenging him and other critics to pay even closer attention to exactly what Machiavelli said and to take even greater pains to discern what he might have meant. Political scientists and those interested in civil–military relations will likely find the second part of this essay, on the relationship between war and politics, to be the more useful. Those whose interests are literary or philosophical would do well to begin with the last part, which concerns Machiavelli’s overall intention in the Art of War.



1. Piero Pieri, Guerra e politica negli scrittori italiani (Milan: Riccardo Riccardi, 1955).





Machiavelli’s Solutions to the Military Problems of the Early Sixteenth Century

Carl von Clausewitz asserted that Machiavelli was a “very sound judge of military matters,” and treated him as a writer whose insights into the conduct and nature of war possessed permanent value.2 Military writers since Clausewitz’s time have been less generous and—as the following seeks to suggest—less correct than Clausewitz regarding Machiavelli’s military judgment. I first consider his solutions to the relatively ephemeral problems surrounding recent innovations in battlefield tactics, developments in the areas of manpower and organization, and technological changes related to fortifications and sieges. Then I turn to Machiavelli’s treatment of more permanent problems of strategic thought.



The Field of Battle

Controversy abounds as to what caused the dizzying military changes during Machiavelli’s day. Also debated is whether these changes constituted a fullblown military revolution or instead represented a particular moment in a longterm evolution. In considering these questions, it is important to remember that the sense at the time was that tumultuous change was indeed afoot, but not rapid change in a single direction driven by gunpowder technology. On the tactical level especially, each of the battles that occurred on the Italian peninsula, from the battle of Fornovo in 1495 to that of Pavia in 1525, seemed to offer a new lesson to be learned, a new innovation that transformed the ways armies ought to be armed, ordered, led, and used.

In late medieval warfare, heavy cavalry had come to dominate the battlefield. The primary function of these well-armored men on powerful, armored chargers was to overwhelm their enemies by means of shock, crashing into them with the maximum force needed to drive them from the field. To be effective, this particular weapon system—and any weapon system at anytime, for that matter— had to be intelligently combined with the other available weaponry. Heavy cavalry had to be coordinated with heavy infantry and with light cavalry and light infantry and their many ballistic weapons (especially the crossbow), in addition to a variety of small, stationary artillery pieces whose projectiles were for the most part not propelled by gunpowder. As the Middle Ages waned, many factors no doubt contributed to the eventual decline of the dominance of the heavy cavalryman. But from the tactician’s point of view, the most critical development was the advent of heavy infantry that could defend against the onslaught of heavy cavalry and even, in many cases, take the offensive against it. Medieval warfare had seen significant but isolated instances of heavy infantry able to put up considerable resistance to attacking heavy cavalry; but not until the Swiss “came down from the mountains” could heavy infantry consistently challenge heavy cavalry.



2. Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, ed. and trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 281; Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 161.





The secret of the Swiss success consisted in the deployment of tightly packed, massive squares of around twenty-five hundred highly trained and disciplined men. The vast majority of these men carried pikes eighteen feet in length that they had trained with since their youth; a much smaller number placed at the center of the squares still carried the shorter halberds that had once been carried by all. Because of the pikes’ great length, four to six rows of pike points extended in front of the first line of men in whichever direction they chose to face. Like the heavy cavalry they came to displace, their chief function was offensive. They too strove to crush or drive from the field anyone who got in their way. As soon as men in the front ranks fell, those directly behind would step up to take their places, while the halberdiers in the center would fend off any infantry or cavalry that managed to penetrate the square. Although offense was their preferred mode, when assaulted on their flanks by heavy cavalry they were forced to assume a defensive position. Each man would stop and plant the butt of his pike against the inside of one foot with the point facing in the direction of the oncoming enemy, thereby presenting an almost impenetrable wall of pike points. This defensive posture was very effective, but being forced to assume it kept the pikemen from performing their aggressive, offensive function. Because heavy cavalry could, in principle, force pike squares onto the defensive, it retained an important battlefield role, if not the regnant role it enjoyed in the past.

A close descendent of the medieval heavy cavalryman was the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century condottiere, so named for the condotta or contract stipulating the terms of his employment by the political authority that hired him. The word had a less pejorative tone than our “mercenary,” but still clearly resonated with the cold cash exchange at the basis of the condottiere’s military service. These soldiers were less willing than their medieval predecessors to charge either Swiss pikes or the many (often less effective) imitators of the Swiss that had cropped up by the early 1500s. Thus the Swiss square and its offshoots presented two major problems to Italian military theorists and practitioners: how to counter or effectively imitate the Swiss pikes, and how to make effective use of the recently dethroned heavy cavalry arm. The tacticians of Europe, and especially of Italy, were still grappling with these two problems when the other major battlefield innovation of the era, the development of gunpowder technology, began to make itself felt.





Early in the sixteenth century—most notably at the battles of Cerignuola in 1503 and Bicocca in 1522—it was discovered that sufficiently protected arquebusiers could do considerable damage to the enormous, and therefore easy to hit, pike formations. The arquebus (pronounced AR-ka-bus) was a handheld, matchlock firearm that was less reliable, less accurate, and of less range than the crossbow, but it had an equal rate of fire and at least as powerful an impact; it also required less training, and, most important, was cheaper to produce than the crossbow. Yet for successful employment of arquebusiers, protection was essential since they could easily be driven from the field by pike squares or cavalry. Thus their effectiveness at Cerignuola was, as it would still be almost twenty years later at Bicocca, completely dependent on the willingness of their targets to charge them while they remained secure behind heavy entrenchments. It was not immediately obvious in what other way such protection could be provided. The early sixteenth century also saw the first decisively effective use of field artillery (as opposed to siege artillery, the effectiveness of which had been shown much earlier). For at the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the Spanish–papal forces (and in particular the heavy cavalry commanded by the Art of War’s chief interlocutor, Fabrizio Colonna) were subjected to such blistering artillery fire that they were driven out of their entrenchments and forced to give battle in a weakened and shaken condition rather than receive battle from behind the security of their embankments. The result was a Spanish–papal loss, displaying field artillery’s ability to play a crucial battlefield role for the first time in its centuries-long existence. Both handheld firearms and field artillery had begun to show their power.

It is very easy to mistakenly assume that the moment these gunpowder weapons appeared on the battlefield everything immediately changed. In fact, the effectiveness of arquebuses took centuries to establish, and another century to be systematically incorporated into battlefield tactics. Arquebuses (and muskets, their heavier and more powerful successors) did not begin to play a significant, independent battlefield role until the second decade of the 1500s. Furthermore, no widespread tactical transformation can accurately be said to have taken place in direct connection to firearms until the middle of that century. Not even by then can it be said that these many elements were put together into anything like a systematic whole. For this feat Europe would have to wait for Maurice of Nassau and, especially, Gustavus Adolphus to come on the scene at the turn of the next century. It was the latter who also found a place on the battlefield for artillery, but only by decreasing its size in order to increase its mobility and by loading it with grape shot (multiple balls the size of musketballs) to make up for its slow rate of fire. Even then its tactical utility was quite limited, and it was useless once the battle had been joined because then it produced as many casualties among friends as among enemies.





Throughout this process of change, good tacticians strove to achieve the optimal combination of the various weapon systems. Shortly after Machiavelli’s day, solutions to the three problems discussed above slowly emerged. The dominance of the pike could only be countered by the combination of cavalry and some type of shot. Since this combination of cavalry and shot could only be countered by its own kind, pike squares needed cavalry and shot on their own side; yet given that shot and cavalry without their own pikemen were vulnerable to enemy pike, they needed their own pikemen. In a word, each element needed the others to carry out its own function successfully. The tactical way of the future was to be found in this effective combination of heavy and light infantry, cavalry, and—when circumstances required or permitted it—artillery. But during Machiavelli’s time, no one had alighted on this exact combination, though all the best theorists and practitioners, including Machiavelli, were groping in that direction. A brief look at Machiavelli’s own analysis of the battle of Ravenna illustrates his firm grasp of the contemporary tactical problems and of the need for a well-balanced coordination of arms in order to solve them. And a summary of the basic characteristics of the army advocated in the Art of War, with reference to the imaginary battle staged in book III, specifies the content of Machiavelli’s solutions.

It is remarkable that Machiavelli should pause to give technical military advice in the midst of his poetic and apparently impassioned conclusion to The Prince, in which Machiavelli echos Julius II’s exhortation to expel the barbarian invaders from the land. The battle he uses to illustrate his advice is that of Ravenna. It will be recalled that without the effective use of field artillery before the battle, the French would have been forced either to storm an extremely difficult Spanish position or to skulk off the field. Instead, the already outmatched Spanish cavalry was seriously weakened by the enemy’s artillery fire and then forced out of its position. The consequent rout of the Spanish cavalry freed the French cavalry to relieve their own heavy infantry, armed like the Swiss, just then losing to the Spanish infantry. Thus the key factors in this battle in their order of occurrence are (1) the devastating and unprecedented use of field artillery at the beginning of the battle as a means of softening up and dislodging a partially fortified enemy whose best chances for victory depended on receiving rather than giving battle; (2) the effectiveness of the Spanish infantry against pikes alla svizzera; and (3) the vulnerability of the Spanish infantry to unmolested heavy cavalry. I focus on the latter two points first.





In the oddly technical digression in the midst of The Prince’s hortatory conclusion, Machiavelli notes that although both Swiss and Spanish infantry are considered terrifying, each has a specific defect: Spanish infantry is vulnerable to French cavalry, while Swiss infantry is vulnerable to Spanish infantry. He continues:



And although a complete experiment of this last has not been seen, yet an indication of it was seen in the battle of Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry confronted the German [infantry] battalions [fighting for the French], who use the same order as the Swiss. There the Spanish, with their agile bodies and aided by their shields, came between and under the Germans’ pikes and attacked them safely without their having any remedy for it; and if it had not been for the cavalry that charged them, they would have worn out all the Germans. (P 26.105)



Thus Machiavelli’s solution to the problem of pikes alla svizzerais heavy infantry like that of the Spanish, armed with swords and shields so as to be able to close with relatively unprotected pikemen whose long pikes were of no use at close quarters. But armaments were not all that was at stake. Machiavelli’s reference to agile bodies is not just an observation about Spanish physiques. A passage from the Art of War indicates that the reference is to the relatively small bodies of approximately four hundred men into which the Spanish were grouped to allow for greater articulation of their formations and therefore greater flexibility than could ever be achieved with massive pike squares: “[I]t is necessary that there be many bodies in an army, and that each body have its own flag and its own guide. For having this, it must have many souls and, as a consequence, many lives” (AW II 275). But because of their vulnerability to cavalry, infantry like the Spanish could live so many lives only with the aid of pikes to repel cavalry. Machiavelli therefore suggested a “third order” that “might not only oppose but also be confident of overcoming” infantries like the Spanish and the Swiss (P 26.104).

Thus was first suggested the scheme fully put forth for the first time in the Art of War. Machiavelli proposed the systematic combination of pikes with shieldmen similar to the ad hoc arrangement developed earlier in the century by “the Great Captain,” Gonzalo de Córdoba. In Machiavelli’s version, a front of twenty pikes a mere five ranks deep is followed by fifteen ranks of shieldmen. Ten such battalions of four hundred each are placed side by side to make the front of the whole army arrayed in battle order. This long, articulated front is then followed by a second line, this time composed of six identically ordered battalions with large spaces in between from side to side. Machiavelli allowed his humanist readers to believe that he was simply copying a battle order of the ancient Romans. In that scheme the front line, with similar large spaces from side to side, would withdraw into the second line when pressed by the enemy, and they together would, if need be, withdraw into a third line of four similarly ordered battalions. But Machiavelli considerably alters this Roman model (which seems actually to have been a parade ground drill rather than an actual battle order) to make it less impracticable. Two innovations are worth noting: first, rather than follow the Roman practice of leaving gaps in the front line—thereby making attractive targets of the battalions’ flanks—Machiavelli places the battalions relatively close together; second, in recognition of the considerable difficulties inherent in any involuntary retreat, Machiavelli replaces the overly precise Roman procedure of having the front line back up so as to incorporate itself into the second with the more general principle that the second line must be able to relieve the first. Machiavelli thus increases the practicality of the Roman order by simplifying it.





For all his attention to detailed orders, Machiavelli shows himself to be strongly attached to precious few, if any. For instance, before offering the very general and flexible principle of always providing a tactical reserve, his Fabrizio emphatically asserts that one should not hold exclusively to the formation described above. Luigi asks, “Would you always use this form of order when you want to do battle?” Fabrizio answers, “Not in any mode. For you have to vary the form of the army according to the quality of the site and the quality and quantity of the enemy” (AW III 172–73). Indeed, greater flexibility than that of any potential enemies was what Machiavelli strove for above all else. Thus his battle lines, while less flexible than the ancient Roman, were more flexible than the pike squares over which he sought the relative advantage. To buy this greater flexibility, Machiavelli was even willing to pay the same price that Maurice and Gustavus Adolphus, men in no small part inspired by Machiavelli, were willing to pay one hundred years later. That price was a certain vulnerability on the flanks. The thin line of pikes and the light infantry deployed along the side of Machiavelli’s army could approximate, but not replicate, the impenetrable wall of pike points presented by a solid square of pikes. Such vulnerability, however, is the necessary consequence of gaining more flexibility by means of linear as opposed to block formations. The Romans’ linear formations had been more vulnerable on their flanks than their Macedonian opponents just as Gustavus Adolphus’s linear formations would prove more vulnerable to pikes ordered like the Swiss. But they and Machiavelli knew that the price was worth the paying, and that it could be lessened by the proper use of light infantry and, especially, cavalry.





The other lesson that Machiavelli gleaned from the battle of Ravenna was the vulnerability of Spanish infantry, the model for his own shieldmen, to heavy cavalry. The thin line of pikemen in front of his shieldmen was part of his solution to this problem, but for a full solution heavy cavalry of its own was indispensable. It is often thought that Machiavelli assigned to cavalry no significant battlefield role. This misunderstanding has arisen from incorrect interpretations of the Art of Warand Discourses on Livy.Fabrizio’s claims about the relative importance and esteem that ought to be accorded to infantry and cavalry have been mistaken for a prohibition against using cavalry in battle. But Fabrizio merely asserts that cavalry is to be esteemed less than infantry because the latter is more useful in battle, not that cavalry is useless in battle. Similarly, claims about the relative value of cavalry’s various functions are mistaken for a derogation of its utility in battle. But Fabrizio says only that cavalry is moreuseful in reconnaissance, harassment of the enemy, and cutting lines of communication and supply than it is in battle (AWII 72–100; cf. D II 18).

It is wrong to take these statements to mean that Fabrizio wishes to exclude cavalry from having a significant role in battle or even to reduce it as much as possible. Moreover, the action of the imaginary battle of book III highlights the importance of heavy cavalry. There we witness the light cavalry charge the enemy’s arquebusiers and neutralize their dangerous fire to the flank, and the heavy cavalry—after having been compelled to take cover amidst their pikemen—repulse and kill many of the enemy’s heavy cavalrymen that are so threatening to their own shieldmen (AW III 81–91). Finally, it should be emphasized that Fabrizio’s statements about infantry and cavalry pertain to the esteem in which each is to be held, not to the specific use to which each should be put. The point is as much political as military, and is made to offset to the excessive dependence on mercenaries on horseback. In The Prince, Machiavelli says that thefirst thing mercenary captains did in order to establish their dominance was take reputation away from infantry and give it to cavalry, that is, to themselves (P 12.53). In an effort to replace these condottieri, Machiavelli’s Fabrizio seeks to institutionalize a restoration of the infantry’s reputation.

It should be noted that in order to attain this accurate understanding of Machiavelli’s position regarding infantry and cavalry, careful attention must be paid to his exact wording. Machiavelli aimed not just for the kind of technical precision reached in those passages. He also chose his words and general rhetoric carefully so as to avoid running afoul of the numerous political obstacles through which he was compelled to navigate in order to gain a hearing in the Florence and Europe of his day. The subject of Machiavelli’s rhetoric is treated at length in the last part of this essay, where I consider Machiavelli’s aim in writing the Art of War. It must also be briefly addressed in this context, however. Throughout almost all of the Art of War,the arguments are presented in the form of a dialogue—that is, in a form resembling, for example, a Shakespearean play. To assume that Fabrizio, the most vocal participant of the dialogue, simply speaks for Machiavelli is similar to assuming that Hamlet’s words reveal Shakespeare’s full understanding. It is true that, unlike Hamlet, the Art of War is a treatise on warfare that seeks to convey technical information. But if it were nothing more than a technical treatise, Machiavelli would not have undertaken the cumbersome business of providing a setting, discussing the attributes of the various characters, and so forth. It so happens that no attribute of the characters is stressed more emphatically than their ages. Indeed, many of Fabrizio’s carefully worded statements are made in response to probing, sometimes pointed questions put to him by the much younger participants in the discussion, all friends of Machiavelli who attended regular intellectual gatherings in the gardens that provide the setting for the Art of War. The case discussed above regarding cavalry illustrates well the primary difference between Fabrizio and the young participants. It is only after persistent questioning by the young men that Fabrizio admits not only that modern cavalry is superior to ancient, but that the ancients whom Fabrizio at first pretends to worship were themselves fatally vulnerable to ancient cavalry, to say nothing of the modern cavalry that owed its superiority to technical innovations such as stirrups and horned saddles. Machiavelli uses the old Fabrizio to appeal to the work’s primary audience, “lovers of ancient actions” (AW pr. 11), while appealing to a wider and younger audience by means of the young men who, Machiavelli emphasizes, are “on fire for” all great things, regardless of whether they are ancient or modern.





Such rhetorical considerations must be kept in mind at every step, but especially when questions arise regarding innovations, including technological innovations. Thus by the end of the dialogue even Fabrizio himself is willing to pay tribute to the spirit of invention: He ends the military part of the work with the assertion that “if invention brings honor in other things, in [war] above all it honors you. And one sees every invention, even though weak, celebrated by the writers” (AW VII 191–92). He then goes on to offer two examples of inventions used by Alexander the Great. But because the examples cannot be corroborated by any ancient source or ruin, it would seem that they are the inventions of Machiavelli’s Fabrizio. We thus see that Fabrizio, like Machiavelli, knows how to make good use of the supposition, planted in his readers by him, of his love of antiquity.

Attention to rhetoric is also important for a proper understanding of Machiavelli’s treatment of another technological innovation, the most significant of his age and perhaps the most significant in the history of warfare: firearms. Much as Cosimo extracted from Fabrizio the admission that modern cavalry was much superior to ancient cavalry and that modern armies must be armed and ordered differently as a result, so the youngest participant in the discussion, Luigi, extracts the concession that the newest technology, the arquebus and small artillery, can indeed inflict such great harm in battle that tactics must be altered in order to neutralize it (AW III 134). Thus Machiavelli again satisfies the lovers of antiquity with the authority of the more restrained and older Fabrizio at the same time that he satisfies the youthful fascination with modern innovation by means of the insistent, if usually polite, questioning of the young men. But Fabrizio goes even further than the above concessions. Without pressure from any of the younger interlocutors, he asserts that the use of the arquebus has become a necessity and insists not just that a portion of already enlisted soldiers be trained in its use, but that all young men, soldiers or not, be so trained. “I would add the arquebus, a new instrument, as you know, and a necessary one. And I would accustom all the youths of my state to these drills” (AWII 125). By making what must be one of the earliest—if not the earliest—prescriptions for universal arquebus training, Fabrizio shows himself to be more than receptive to the innovations of his day.





But Machiavelli is also aware of the limits of his audience’s patience for concessions to modern innovations. This is reflected in Fabrizio’s refusal (AW III 150) to enlarge on the uses of field artillery and his enjoinder to look up Machiavelli’s more thorough treatment of the subject in the Discourses on Livy. There Machiavelli reveals that he knew full well when field artillery is and is not useful. The only circumstance in which it is useless is when both armies are willing to do battle on the open field without delay. For there, as noted earlier, once the armies meet, friend cannot be adequately distinguished from foe. But under other circumstances it can be of decisive importance. When artillery is deeply dug in behind well-prepared field fortifications on high ground, it gives an advantage to a defender who wishes to hold that position without giving battle. If one wishes to draw such an enemy into battle, one must have recourse to a variety of stratagems to cajole the enemy from his position or (in a beautiful illustration of what we could call Machiavelli’s philosophical stance toward the power of necessity) one must open gaps in one’s ranks in the areas at which the artillery is firing, “[f]or this is a general rule: that one has to give way to those things which cannot be withstood” (AW III 160). Far from obstructing the development and use of modern innovations, Machiavelli “gave way to” them and sought to put them to as much use as possible.

The other circumstance in which artillery is very useful brings us back to the battle of Ravenna and to another instance of Machiavelli’s improvements on the ancients. Machiavelli notes that field artillery tends to give the advantage to whoever is on the offensive, moving aggressively from one battle to the next and from one part of any given battlefield to another before the enemy has time to prepare his defenses. Such a modern defender who wishes to maintain an underfortified position is “on account of artillery at a greater disadvantage” than was an ancient defender. For with artillery, the attacker “dislodges you at once and without your having any remedy, and you are forced to go out from your fortresses and come to fight. . . . This happened to the Spanish at the battle of Ravenna.” Machiavelli concludes that the Romans, who even without the advantages of artillery preferred the offensive, “would have had more advantage, and would have made their acquisitions more quickly if there had been [artillery] in those times” (D II 17.3). As he recommends the offensive to his contemporaries, he also indicates that they have a distinct advantage over their predecessors.





It is hard to imagine that a theorist who revealed himself to be open to, and even eager for, military innovations in general, and to training in the arquebus in particular, would not have embraced a particular development that took root while the Art of War was being written, one that was to flower in the following decades. The development was the increased use of arquebusiers to accomplish the task that Fabrizio set for his shieldmen, namely, to combine with pike squares to offer them mutual protection. The very Spaniards whose shieldmen Machiavelli’s Fabrizio imitated were the most successful at incorporating this innovation into the kind of effective combined arms synthesis Machiavelli sought. And there is one passage in particular in the Art of War that suggests that Machiavelli favored this practice in instances in which an individual battalion engaged in an action on its own. He mentions, as though in passing, that the Swiss had a formation “in the mode of a cross” between the arms of which arquebusiers found protection from the enemy (AWII 253–54). If this mode were to prove useful en masse, there is every reason to think that Machiavelli would have been more than willing to replace his shieldmen with arquebusiers, thus achieving the optimal coordination of weapons systems for which he was clearly striving.



Manpower, Organization, and Training

Closely related to the developments in battlefield tactics discussed above were changes in the areas of manpower, organization, and training. The footloose and often predatory mercenary bands of the fifteenth century were being replaced in Machiavelli’s day by a more stable arrangement wherein mercenary captains, with varying numbers of their own men, would hire themselves out to the same state for longer periods of time. And they increasingly began to lead or fight alongside individuals and groups, whether militias or semifeudal lords and vassals, that were part of the state that had hired them. Not until well into the next century did this arrangement begin to be replaced by professional standing armies that drew their soldiers almost entirely from among their own citizens or subjects. Throughout these centuries of transition, most of the leading military commanders in Europe, such as Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus, strove with but limited success to replace mercenaries with native professionals.





During this general period of transformation the peculiarities of each of the major European powers, especially those of Florence, should be noted. The tactical success of the Swiss and the related search for a new combination of weapon systems presented challenges that were met in various ways by the French, Germans, Spanish, and Italians. Among the French, the fear of an armed populace slowed considerably the formation of a substantial heavy infantry, leading them to rely on their heavy cavalry supported by light infantry and light cavalry armed with arquebuses and crossbows and supplemented by pikes in the hands of Swiss or German mercenaries. The Germans and Spanish were moving more rapidly in the direction of state-supported, professional heavy infantry, but were slowed down for financial rather than political reasons. Among the Germans and Spanish, infantry alla svizzera existed in large numbers but were paid by and loyal to quasi-feudal lords; cavalry, drawn as they were from the lesser nobility, were often paid by government ministries. In Italy, all the states but Florence were moving slowly but perhaps more quickly than the non-Italian states in the direction of professional standing armies, with some combination of feudal and hired arms in service to governments of various kinds. The difference between the Italian states and the other major European powers was the implacable antagonisms that existed among them, as well as the relative lack of central power. Among these many Italian powers, Florence alone had no new or old aristocracy with a strong military bent that could serve as heavy cavalry or call on dependents as infantry. Civil strife and the rise to dominance of the trade and banking classes served to extirpate any landed aristocracy bound by long tradition (cf. FH III 1, 10, 12, 13, 18; cf. also FH II 11–13, IV 2, 27, V 4; D I 55). Florence was utterly reliant on and prey to mercenaries, primarily from the papal states (FH I 39). Although many of these soldiers, especially in the upper ranks, were highly skilled, the overall organization and training among the rank and file was very uneven.

The road along which other European powers were creeping in the direction of well-disciplined, professional standing armies was simply closed to Florence. It was completely dependent on mercenaries for lack of any native group or class with any substantial military expertise or tradition. The middle way of attaching mercenaries and militias to feudal or aristocratic natives was not a possibility for Florence. Likewise, it is easy for us to forget that our alternative of a professional army in the service of an impersonal “state” was even less possible: the very notion—let alone the actual existence—of an impersonal state in whose name a professional armed force could serve would not be born till the time of Thomas Hobbes.





Thus the practical danger confronting Florence was that it would prolong a dependency on mercenary and foreign forces that had become militarily and financially crippling. To form an army from scratch, the only place to turn was to the citizens of Florence and her subjects and allies in the towns and countryside throughout Tuscany, much as Machiavelli himself had done while serving republican Florence. Given the enormity and necessity of this task and the inertia of the mercenary system, which all deplored but few knew how to escape, it made sense to push the deprecation of mercenaries to its rhetorical limit, while at the same time praising the only available alternative of a citizen soldiery in the only available terms, namely, those provided by the old and faltering—but still hallowed—tradition of Florentine “civic humanism.” The dream nurtured by the civic humanists of resurrecting the even older golden days of the Florentine citizen soldiery had been at or near the core of this intellectual movement for over a hundred years. Machiavelli was thus faced with a very difficult but potentially fruitful rhetorical situation. The best allies Machiavelli had in his efforts to convince Florence to arm herself were part of a humanist tradition that looked to the ancients with the devotion that Machiavelli is (incorrectly) assumed to have shared. An obvious way to convince Florence was to adopt the language and conventions of the group most likely to give him an initial hearing, and then ease at least some of them into the realization that when it came down to practice they would have to part with some of their more cherished beliefs—or better yet, first ease them into the advantages of the practice, and let the limitations of their old beliefs come to light on their own.

But if the Florentines were persuaded to accept a new militia, could it ever possess the complex but cohesive hierarchy needed to support a modern army? Part of the answer lay in who would serve—in our terminology—as officers and NCOs. Regarding officers we can only speculate, since Machiavelli left few clues. Fabrizio states that captains are to be rotated from region to region on an annual basis and cannot serve in their home region. It therefore seems to be implied that these captains would constitute a de facto officer corps. On the move from year to year, they could have no occupation separate from their military responsibilities. Based on the actual militia Machiavelli formed while Florentine secretary, we might speculate that this corps would at first be made up of mercenaries. But it seems likely that the hope was to replace mercenaries with Tuscan natives paid by Florence. More specifically, it is clear from the Purpose of the Militia of 1506 that if Florentines themselves were to take part, they would insist on positions of authority. Therefore, the officer corps would most likely be made up of politically powerful Florentines. To say so openly would have been to play with political dynamite, for it is precisely the thought of arms in the hands of their fellow citizens that incensed most Florentines. But such an arrangement would seem to follow from the premise of a group of rotating officers. Contrary to Fabrizio’s insistence in book I that no well-ordered state would allow its citizens or subjects to be employed as full-time soldiers, a professional officer corps of some kind seems to be embedded in Fabrizio’s army. And it is not as though members of such a corps would have no model elsewhere in the dialogue. For Fabrizio himself constitutes such an ambiguous case. He is his king’s advisor in peacetime, and his captain in time of war. At the end of the dialogue we learn that what he regards as his most important peacetime advice concerns how to prepare for war. Thus it may well be that these rotating captains would have an equally murky status in times of peace so as to be able to maintain their positions as rotating captains.





Regarding NCOs, matters are much clearer. Fabrizio places great emphasis on the importance of what he calls decurions and constables. Their primary functions are to keep small groups of men in their battle orders and to act as examples (AWII 266–82). Fabrizio takes steps to ensure that the best men will end up in positions of authority, such as instituting a system of rivalry for promotion at all levels and establishing criteria on the basis of which men suited to lead could be chosen during training. It would seem that all the elements are in place for the well-articulated hierarchical structure necessary to support a large, welltrained army.

And well trained it is. Large parts of the second, third, and fifth books are devoted, respectively, to training men individually and at the battalion level, training them for battle at the brigade and army levels, and training them for being on the march in enemy territory at the brigade and army levels. Although in the earlier, more political parts of the work, Fabrizio minimizes the frequency of the training required, he later says that one must train the whole army “as many times as one can” (AWIII 199), again suggesting that rhetorical considerations keep him from admitting how very much preparations for war could end up dominating peacetime life. Be that as it may, one of the keys to the army’s success is the order that comes only from disciplined training. Fabrizio asserts that it is not enough to have toughened up and trained one’s men individually:





[T]here is also the need for them to learn to be in their orders, to obey the signals by sound and at the words of the captain. . . . For without this discipline, observed and practiced with utmost care [and] diligence, never was an army good. And without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity. (AWII 140–41)



It is clear that Machiavelli takes himself to be conveying a timeless truth regarding military excellence. But he also asserts that in a period of comparatively lax military discipline and training, good discipline would nearly guarantee success: “[A] disciplined army is nothing other than an army that is well practiced in these orders; and it would not be possible that whoever used similar discipline would ever, in these times, be beaten.” Recruited, well organized, and well trained, Machiavelli’s army would seem to be up to the task.



Fortifications and Sieges

In 1494, the bold invasion of Italy by King Charles VIII of France demonstrated conclusively that the fortification systems that had dominated European strategy for nearly a millennium were no match for modern artillery and the new massive siege trains that made its deployment possible. The rising tide of large offensive operations that engulfed Italy over the next decade was at last stemmed by 1527 and had all but receded by midcentury. The counterforce that slowed and finally put a stop to this decided shift toward the strategic and operational offensive was the development of fortifications capable of resisting both powerful artillery fire and, perhaps more important, attempts to take fortresses by storm. The keys to resisting the power of modern artillery fire lay in the modification of fortress walls. It was found that by decreasing their height, increasing their thickness, and changing their composition, walls could hold at bay a well-armed and wellsupplied attacker for many months and in some cases for years. The key to resisting attempts to storm fortresses lay in two design modifications that denied attackers any area near the walls that was free from the defenders’ fire and in which the attackers might securely amass themselves for an attempt on the walls.

The first modification involved what came to be called angled bastions, or trace italienne. These bastions replaced the high, circular or square towers projecting above the already high medieval walls. The walls of the new bastions were slightly sloped toward the bottom and were no higher than the fortress walls, thereby allowing the defenders to fire directly down on attackers at the base of the walls without having to expose themselves by hanging far over the edge of the walls. But more important was the replacement of the square or circular shape with one that, when viewed from above, resembles an arrowhead laying flat on the ground. The neck of the bastion (like the very beginning of the shaft coming from the arrowhead) connects it to the fortress wall. Imagine a fortress in the shape of a pentagon that has one such bastion projecting outward from each of its five angles. If the sides of the bastions are built at just the right angle, an artillery piece placed in the neck of one bastion can direct its line of fire right along the straight side of the neighboring bastion. At the same time, the other side of that bastion can be completely covered by the fire coming from an artillery piece placed in the neck of a bastion on the opposite side; and so on all the way around the pentagon. If instead of these straight-sided, arrow-shaped bastions there were old-fashioned circular bastions, the line of fire coming from another bastion could cover only one point along the whole curve of the bastion, leaving all the other spots along the curve free for attackers to gather themselves in safety.





The second modification involved improving internal and external ditches. In addition to increasing, in effect, the height of walls without also making them less stable, an external ditch provided protection for defenders to await the attacking enemy. If beyond the ditch the ground was made to slop gently away from the ditch until completely flat, then the well-protected defender had an open field of fire that provided the attacker no place to hide. Internal ditches presented yet another obstacle to an attacker that has opened a breach in the wall. On the opposite side of the ditch from the place where the breach is expected, defenders could erect a new fortified line so that when the attackers stepped into the breach they found themselves forced to descend into a ditch into which the defenders could rain down all types of fire.

As one finds in book VII of the Art of War, Fabrizio lays out all of the principles, and many of the specific features, of modern fortress design just then being developed but not yet fully put into practice. Not until Machiavelli’s report on his above-mentioned visit to the walls of Florence in 1526 does he add all of the details of the angled bastions that would continue to protect fortresses until well into the Napoleonic era. But even by 1521, Machiavelli had laid all of the foundations. For Fabrizio asserts that fortress walls should be much lower and thicker than their predecessors in order to increase their resistance to artillery, should be filled with recesses and turns to create fields of fire into which to draw the attacking infantry, should have towers approximately every four hundred feet apart to provide artillery fire, and should, if possible, have ditches on the inside and the outside, but certainly on the inside so as to provide the advantages of the “double pisan rampart.” In addition to these and other engineering innovations, Machiavelli supplies details regarding logistics for a long siege, and regales us with a feast of tricks for deceiving the enemy, destroying his morale while maintaining one’s own, and sending messages from and delivering them to the besieged.





Strategy, “Culture,” and the Commander’s Character

The Art of War seems to contain flatly contradictory statements on strategy. For example, Fabrizio says that the entire purpose of an army is to present battle to the enemy on the open field, but later asserts that a captain must never present battle unless he is forced to do so. On the question of whether one ought to seek victory with military force or by means of starving the enemy into submission, Fabrizio offers the “general rule” that “men and iron” (the use of force) are more necessary than “money and bread” (food and the means to get it) because “men and iron find money and bread, but bread and money do not find men and iron.” Elsewhere, however, he assures his listeners that to seek victory by starvation “is more secure and more certain” than doing so by force. To explain these and many similar contradictory statements, interpreters have advanced the usual explanations, including varied dates of composition and outright confusion on Machiavelli’s part. But in this case, and not only in this case, an adequate explanation is contained within the work itself.

In the first item in each pair of contradictory statements cited above, students of strategic thought will recognize essential elements of Clausewitzean doctrine. Without denying the significance of other aspects of war, Clausewitz, the great nineteenth-century Prussian theorist of war, stresses the need to destroy the enemy’s military forces (the principle of destruction), the importance of concentrating one’s forces, the unreliability of intelligence reports, the difficulty of attaining surprise, and the ideal of victory by means of the decisive battle. The list of Fabrizio’s Clausewitzean sayings is long, but perhaps the most telling concerns what Clausewitz called the principle of continuity, the need to pursue the enemy with the utmost vigor without slackening the pace for even a moment. In accordance with this principle Fabrizio says:



[O]ne must follow up the victory with utmost speed and in this case imitate Caesar and not Hannibal, who, by staying put after he had beaten the Romans at Cannae, lost the empire of Rome. The former never paused after a victory, but followed the beaten enemy with greater impetus and fury than [when] he had assaulted it in its entirety. (AW IV 74–75)



The principle of continuity and the Clausewitzean approach to war suffuse the Art of War.





In each pair of contradictory statements above, the second item is an instance of an altogether different strategic doctrine, one often associated with Sun Tzu. The Chinese sage emphasizes the importance of avoiding harm, the utility of evasive maneuvers, the necessity of obtaining accurate intelligence, deception as an excellent means for attaining surprise, and the ideal of a bloodless victory. Fabrizio’s Sun Tzuian sayings are as numerous as his Clausewitzean ones. Two stand out: “it is more important for one to guard against being hit than it is important to hit the enemy” and whoever “pursues an enemy in disorder after he is beaten wants nothing other than to change from being victorious to losing” (AW III 111, VII 167). Securing the absolute minimum risk of harm to oneself far outweighs striving to inflict the greatest harm possible on the enemy. But it is in the area of deception that Fabrizio is most like Sun Tzu and least like Clausewitz. Clausewitz deeply distrusted intelligence reports. He thought they further thickened the fog of war and tended to divert the general from the most pressing task of destroying the enemy by the most direct and simple route. Fabrizio, by contrast, coaches his listeners on every trick: how to handle double agents, pass secret messages, lull opponents with repetitive habits to be broken at just the right moment, goad the enemy into dispersing his forces, manage passwords, and so forth. And he is just as intent on not being deceived by the enemy as he is on deceiving him. The importance of deception and military intelligence is best revealed in his desire to “provide perfect knowledge (scienza)” of how to avoid ambushes. The cornerstone of this science is that you must “never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak [or] the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him” (AW V 108, 116; cf. D III 18, 48). Fabrizio might well have agreed with Sun Tzu when the latter went so far as to define war itself as the art of deception.

The presence of these two opposed understandings raises a question that is just as relevant to current divides within contemporary strategic thought as it is to the heart of Machiavelli’s own thinking. It is whether there exist “strategic cultures” that provide the vocabularies and conceptual frameworks that both make possible and limit the content of any strategic theory. The most common version of the question asks whether there are specifically “Eastern” and “Western” ways of war. A negative answer to this question would seem to be provided by virtue of the fact that Machiavelli shares ideas essential to these two putatively opposed strategic cultures. Machiavelli seems to agree with the cultural relativists in that he thinks there are indeed two fundamentally opposed ways of war. But he departs from them in indicating that some combination of the two is possible and necessary.





Machiavelli casts the entire question in terms of Europe versus Asia. After patiently listening to Fabrizio extol the ability of the ancient Roman infantry to withstand and even beat cavalry, Cosimo finally suggests to Fabrizio that perhaps cavalry is now superior to infantry due to the saddles, stirrups, and armor of modern heavy cavalry. Even after Fabrizio explains the position considered above regarding the relative esteem in which cavalry and infantry ought to be held in light of the perniciousness of mercenaries, Cosimo persists. This time he is less polite in that he pointedly contradicts Fabrizio’s previous claim that Rome had conquered the whole world. Cosimo raises two “doubts,” one of which is that “the Parthians used nothing other than cavalrymen in war, and yet they divided the world with the Romans” (AWII 80). Fabrizio, reticent to “give reasons for what is customary in Asia,” nonetheless responds with the following sweeping admission:



[T]he Parthians’ military was entirely contrary to that of the Romans, because the Parthians all soldiered on horseback, and in fighting they proceeded confused and dispersed. It was an unstable mode of fighting and was full of uncertainty. The Romans were, it can be said, almost all on foot and fought together, tight and solid. One or the other alternately won according to whether the site was wide or tight. For in the latter the Romans were superior; in the former, the Parthians, [who] were able to make a great showing with that military thanks to the region they had to defend. (AWII 83–84)



The Asian and European ways of war are “altogether contrary,” and each prevails on a particular type of terrain. In itself, this is no assertion of two diametrically opposed “cultures.” But it begins to resemble one given Fabrizio’s refusal to give reasons for things Asian, his apparent derogation of their “altogether contrary” way of war as confused, dispersed, unstable, and uncertain, and his apparent praise of the Romans’ way of war as firmly planted on the ground, tight, solid, and ordered—in a word, a way of war for which one cangive straightforward reasons.

This whole speech might be taken as a fit of Eurocentrism if not for three facts. First, the whole interchange is elaborately staged by Machiavelli. Readers are meant to observe and reflect on this confrontation between what one might be tempted to call incipient modern Western rationalism and an “exoticized” East against which the modern West defines itself. Second, Fabrizio admits that under the right circumstances, the West is not the best. The apparent derogation of the Eastern way of war as unstable and uncertain yields to the fuller understanding that its very instability leads to certain victory under the right circumstances. Indeed, the Parthians would seem to be the more careful rational calculators by virtue of the fact that their hit-and-run approach affords maximum gains at minimum cost. The kind of warfare for which Fabrizio is more willing to give reasons is not necessarily but only circumstantially superior. Finally, Fabrizio’s willingness to accord cavalry the status of “the second foundation” after infantry can now be seen as a significant incorporation of Asia within the West. Indeed, the primary role he assigns to cavalry (harassment and cutting lines of supply) and his subsequent use of it for surprise and maneuver all accord well with what contemporary theorists call the Eastern way of war. If this passage is an expression of Eurocentricism, it is self-conscious, deliberate, and “revisionist.” Specifically, it would seem that Machiavelli judges the ancient version of Western warfare to have been especially vulnerable to the Eastern way of war; he seeks to guard against this vulnerability by combining East and West.





The difficulty as well as the necessity of this combination becomes apparent when one recognizes that the opposition between these two approaches devolves on the opposition between two different dispositions to the sway of chance in war and in human life more generally: boldness versus caution. The Parthians seek the maximum gain at the minimum cost by always keeping a safe distance from their powerful adversary while raining down destruction on him. Similarly, Fabrizio prizes military intelligence, the attempt to reduce one’s risk to a minimum by means of deception and superior knowledge. The common denominator is caution, the disposition to act only when the risk of failure is low and the chance of success is high. The contrary disposition to take major risks is exemplified by the Romans. Their armies sought to close with the enemy as rapidly as possible and bring to bear the maximum amount of force in shortest amount of time. In the worst case, as against the Parthians, the Romans followed the principle of continuity all the way to their own destruction, such that the maximum risk resulted in the maximum loss. In the best case, the Romans followed the same principle from one victory to another, keeping the enemy always on his heels and reeling from loss to loss.

Would Fabrizio, the professed advocate of all things Roman, always choose the commander with a bold rather than a cautious disposition? The way to Machiavelli’s political answer to this question is provided by a mundane observation charged with more than mundane implications: sometimes it is better to be bold, at others it is better to be cautious. The cautious commander who carefully feels his way along, preferring to find his enemy’s weak spots and avoid his strengths, who seeks by maneuver and deception to catch his enemy with his forces dispersed rather than attack him straight on, is better in certain circumstances. In other circumstances, the bold commander who goes for the jugular is required. A political expedient for handling this situation is provided by the republican form of government itself. Since a republic (as opposed to a principality with a single prince) can produce “infinite most virtuous princes” or captains (D I 20), it can choose whichever type of commander the particular circumstances call for. When Hannibal threatens to destroy the Roman army on Italian soil, the cautious Fabius Maximus Cunctator is required; when it is time boldly to bring the war home to Hannibal’s Carthage, Fabius must be pushed to the side and Scipio Africanus brought to the fore. Rome’s constitution allows it to choose at will among such diverse types. Although prudent individuals (who have their own natural dispositions with which to contend) are required to pick a captain who most accords with the times, considerable military flexibility is gained by what can be called constitutional means.





The trouble is that it is difficult to gauge which type “the times” call for. If the Romans’ failures in Asia highlight the defects of the bold, Western approach, Machiavelli’s own times highlight the defects of the cautious, Eastern approach. The proper imitation of Fabius is the perfect test for whether one has a proper orientation to fortune. For the moderns (that is, Christian Europeans, Italians in particular, and Florentines especially) believe they imitate Fabius by sending their captains into the field and forbidding them to do battle. In effect, however, they thereby entrust their arms and their captains to another, which is to say to fortune, because the enemy can then do battle when he sees fit rather than when it is best for their army. But Fabius can also be imitated well. For, as Fabrizio claims, “you can very well do with art what happened to Fabius Maximus by chance” (AW IV 129). The wider context of this passage indicates that what is at stake is how to balance prudently the demands of necessity and the scope of chance. Do not seek to evade the pinch of necessity, but submit to it willingly so that you might make use of your submission; and when necessity demands that you either trust fortune or try her, always do the latter, for you might come out ahead, while to do the former is to entrust yourself to your enemy.

Fabrizio sums up the way that boldness and caution are combined in the very structure of his army:



[Y]ou must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak [or] the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him. And in this you have to use two diverse means, for you have to fear him in thought and in order, but with words and with other extrinsic demonstrations, show that you despise him. For this last mode makes your soldiers hope more to have victory; the other one makes you more cautious and less apt to be deceived. (AWV116–17)





Bold in word, deed, and reputation; cautious in thought and order. A bewildering mixture is demanded. Knowledge of how and when to mix them is the key.



War and Politics

In the chapter of The Prince in which Machiavelli goes “more deeply” into the character of mercenary arms and discusses their “origin and progress,” he argues that they gained such prominence in Italy as a result of the popes’ efforts to make the Church a temporal power (P 12.52). When Italy rebelled against the Holy Roman Empire, the Church gained a toehold in cities by siding with the people. But since the priests did not have knowledge of arms, the Church was compelled to hire foreigners. Nor could the priests acquire military knowledge and at the same time retain their authority with the people (P 12.52–53). For just as “arms did not fit [the pope] as a man of religion” (FHI39.50), neither could his vicars take them up.

These condottieri were not brought forth and honored from among a populace that feared for its life and property; instead, they were hired by a power whose state was essentially spiritual and only incidentally temporal. They faced other such captains, for virtually all on the other side were brought forth in the same manner or in reaction to the same power:



Since they depended on war, they had made a sort of bond and understanding together and had reduced war to an art in which they would temporize so that most of the times both one side and the other of those who were waging war would lose; and in the end, they reduced it to such vileness that any mediocre captain in whom only a shadow of ancient virtue had been reborn would have despised them, to the astonishment of all Italy, which, because of its lack of prudence, honored them. (FH I 39.50)



Once the practice of warfare falls entirely into the hands of such mercenaries, there is no pressing motive for any prince to make his own subjects or fellow citizens into soldiers. For those condottieri that might come against him are repelled well enough by others of their kind. This arrangement might be tolerable for all concerned were it not for the “ultramontane” troops that prey with impunity on an Italy so armed. For the same popes who hire condottieri bring these outside forces into Italy for the same reasons they hire the condottieri. Finally, even if one city or region decided to arm itself and seek to “dominate the others” (FHV 1.186), the popes would still have tremendous power, especially among the people whom they tend to favor, to foster internal divisions within such a city. If a prince of a region large enough to challenge the pope wished to turn his subjects or fellow citizens into soldiers, he would have to contend with a pope who can threaten the “ultimate ruin” and “last misery” and promise infinite rewards with which such a prince could never compete by means of his own merely temporal punishments and rewards.





It is often supposed that Machiavelli agreed with the civic humanists of his day who sought to transform the men of Tuscany into citizens-soldiers selflessly dedicated to the “common good,” by which they meant the good of a particular, temporal city. The claim that soldiers must be or become so dedicated to the common good might seem to be bolstered by some of Machiavelli’s more famous remarks, especially his resounding condemnation of mercenaries. After listing the many qualities that make mercenaries useless, Machiavelli writes, “The cause of this is that they have no love nor cause to keep them in the field other than a small stipend, which is not sufficient to make them want to die for you” (P 13.48–49). From this it might be inferred that the object of a prince is to get his soldiers to “want to die for” him, and that the object for a republican captain is to get the soldiers under his command to want to die for the city or for the sake of the common good. Moreover, since deaths occur on the winning as well as on the losing side, we tend to assume that men willingly give their lives, and we praise them for so doing. In our own popular understanding a good soldier is willing “to lay down his life” for his country. But to state an obvious point, it is killing, being able to kill, and seeming to be able to kill rather than dying that bring victory to the army and glory to the captain. The question raised by the above quoted passage from The Prince is not how to get men to want to die for their prince, city, or country, but how to “keep them in the field” so that they can and will “fight well” for their captain (D III 12).

The political question of what constitutes good citizens thus becomes the military question of how to keep men in the field and make them fight well. In the language of the Art of War, the question is about how a captain can make his soldiers obstinate in battle. We will discover that the captain’s goal is to prevent his soldiers from ever being in a situation in which each must choose between saving his own life or property, and serving the common good (or his country or prince), and that Machiavelli’s Fabrizio is not averse in principle to a standing professional army. One begins to suspect that Fabrizio is quietly sending anyone who might be persuaded of his prescriptions down a path that has less, and perhaps nothing at all, in common with a civic humanist dedication to the common good, and more in common with a coercive and centralized (if not impersonal) state, regardless of whether that state is a principality or republic.





Professionalism

The first subject Fabrizio treats as he sets out to form his army is what we would call recruiting or conscription, called by Fabrizio “selection.” This part of the dialogue has three main sections, which are rather short and are divided by two explicitly identified long digressions, on the desirability of a militia “similar” to the one Machiavelli himself had established while he was Florentine secretary (AW I 148–90, 220–61). In the first two of these main sections Fabrizio establishes that the will of the political authority, not the will of the men themselves, must be the determinative factor in the selection. The “prince,” as this authority is later called by him with indifference as to whether it be a republican captain or an actual monarch, will chose the men; they will not choose to serve him. Thus even with the very first step, a top-down relationship is established.

Although Fabrizio usually keeps up the front that he is opposed to a professional army, he tips his hand by making a reference that would have been jarring to the contemporary readers of the dialogue and that should leap out at readers of the Discourses on Livy and The Prince—one that demonstrates his freedom from moralism or any ultimate adherence to civic humanism. Toward the end of his second digression, Fabrizio stops to give ex post facto advice to a number of Roman emperors, including the notorious Septimius Severus. He says that if an emperor such as Severus had rotated captains from region to region, keeping them from gaining the exclusive loyalty of their soldiers, he could have both protected himself from tumultuous captains while he lived and have accorded the Senate sufficient authority after he died to choose his successor, thus allowing the Senate to manage the volatile passions and politics endemic to a state with a professional army (AW I 89). In the Discourses on Livy, similar to but not as extreme as the Art of War in its deference to humanistic sensibilities, Severus is openly called a criminal (D I 10.4). But in the sole reference to him in the Art of War,there is not even a hint of blame. From The Prince,we can see why he would be considered a criminal by any civic humanist: he came to rule the empire by “persuading his army, of which he was captain” to march on Rome so as to have the current emperor put to death and to terrify the Senate into electing him as the new emperor. What is more, in The PrinceSeverus is therepresentative of the most extreme possibility offered in that work: a prince who must, that is, can, ignore the desires and even incur the hatred not just of the great but of the people by satisfying the deeply entrenched professional military (P19.78–20.83). To give opened-handed advice to such a man, and to do so in the midst of a discussion of how to keep captains from overthrowing their rulers is most jarring indeed.

Machiavelli’s Fabrizio is not at all squeamish about recognizing the possibility of the military and political effectiveness of a permanent and professional military establishment. Indeed, the real point of this whole discussion of recruitment is about establishing a framework within which control and obedience can be secured by means of first giving in to, and then managing, soldiers’ and captains’ passions, rather than trying to overcome them in the name of thecommon good or the fatherland. Just before he gives advice to Severus, Fabrizio makes the case that well-ordered men, whether armed or unarmed, will obey the laws. It might reasonably be thought that Fabrizio is presuming moral goodness on the part of these armed men. But just as being poorly ordered denotes having armed men who have “heads” over them that incite them to rebellion, so being well ordered denotes having heads who keep them under strict control. Orders are bad or absent when these heads derive their “reputation” or authority from the men they lead; whereas when they have their own reputation or authority from the political authority, they have less motive to drum up partisan support by means of encouraging factious disputes. And when they are rotated regularly they have no opportunity to do so. As the example of Severus and theother emperors to which Fabrizio then turns makes clear, this entire line of reasoning applies just as well to permanent professional soldiers as to parttime citizen soldiers. Thus the problem is not professionalism as such, but captains who are and are perceived to be independent of the political authority of whatever type.





Discipline

Perhaps the single most important aspect of Fabrizio’s army is its discipline. Lest “discipline” be mistaken for a mere corollary of patriotism or selfless dedication to the common good, it is important to recognize the psychological ambivalence of the new recruit before going on to consider the subtle and often coercive management of the soldiers’ passions. Early in book I Fabrizio describes the psychological state of a new recruit. At the basis of the soldier’s military service is an ambivalence of will brought about by, on the one hand, his aversion to present pain and, on the other hand, his fear of the prince’s disdain. While discussing the problem of the intransigence of soldiers who are forced against their will into military service and the intractability of those, on the other hand, who are eager to go to war because they are good for nothing else, Fabrizio says:



[Y]ou have to understand that the men who are inducted into the military by commandment of the prince have to come to it neither altogether forced nor altogether willingly. . . . [O]ne should take a middle way where there is neither complete force nor complete willingness; rather, they must be drawn through the respect that they have for the prince, where they fear his disdain more than present pain. And it will always happen that it is force mixed with willingness, so that such a discontent as to have bad effects will not be able to arise from it. (AW I 166–67)





Their spirits being thus “suspended” and not of any determinate character (cf. P21.88), they are more fit to be molded by the captain’s form, since they are neither bent on nor repulsed by any particular course of action.

Fabrizio places next to no reliance on the natural or patriotic spirit of the soldiers. Rather, the industry and art of the captain produce a fighting spirit by means of imposing orders on the soldiers. Fabrizio says, “And without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.” Later he says “a spirited army is not made so by having spirited men in it but by having wellordered orders” (AWII 141, 167). Those in the front line of attack should know from where their help will come, while those behind know where and when to help—and, in a spirit of rivalry, the latter hope to do so. Furthermore, Fabrizio warns that an army organized into one rigid body is rendered susceptible to one devastating blow, and is therefore subject to one fortune. “It is necessary that there be many bodies in an army, and that each body have its own flag and its own guide. For having this, it must have many souls and, as a consequence, many lives.” Fabrizio then observes how important music is in maintaining this many-souled unity, and launches into a stirring discussion of how the ancients used music to inflame or firm up their soldiers’ spirits. “It would be necessary to find all of these modes again,” he says in summation, but immediately adds, “and if this were difficult, one would at least not want to leave behind those that teach the soldier to obey” (AW II 275, 281). In the end, the captain’s concern is not with those modes that inspire or firm up patriotic or other kinds of spiritedness, but instead with those that make soldiers more receptive and obedient to his command.

Up to this point it can seem that all there is to soldiering well comes from the order imposed on the soldiery. But the most pressing necessities of the captain’s soldiers, the fear of death and the desire for individual profit, emanate from the soldiers themselves with great force and can be manipulated to great effect by the captain.



Obstinate Defense of One’s Own Body and One’s Own Property

To unite the soldiers’ passion for self-preservation with the captain’s aim of victory is the most pressing need, hence the first goal, of the captain. Fabrizio says that some captains have constrained their soldiers





to fight by necessity, taking away from them every hope of saving themselves, outside of winning. That is the most hardy and the best provision that one, wanting to make his own soldiery obstinate, can make. That obstinacy is increased by confidence and by the love of the captain or of the country. (AW IV 148)



After briefly explaining these latter means, Fabrizio returns to the primary necessity: “Necessities can be many, but the one that is strongest is that which constrains you to win or to die” (AW IV 152). This principle is later confirmed by examples from both the attacker’s and the defender’s perspectives (AW VI 223, VII 27–28).

Given Machiavelli’s apparent hatred of mercenaries, it perhaps comes as a surprise to discover that property or individual profit turns out to be “no less a ground” for rendering soldiers obstinate than their desire for self preservation. Nor is this property to be associated with the idyllic farm, plow, and ox that any decent man would defend, or with wealth earned by means of one’s civilian occupation. The spoils of war are what motivates Fabrizio’s soldiers:



[Y]ou must, above everything, take this precaution in wanting to make your soldiery obstinate in the fight: do not permit them to send any of their property home or to put it in some place until the war has ended, so that they understand that if in fleeing they save their lives, they do not save their possessions, the love of which is no less a ground for rendering men obstinate in defense. (AW IV 134)



Not only are the individual soldiers kept from desertion by this management of property, but the whole army itself is so motivated. Fabrizio says that whereas in the present times even the victor loses money and belongings, “anciently . . . the winner of wars got rich” because the ancients did not leave the spoils to “the discretion of [individual] soldiers” but “order[ed] it that all the spoils belong[ed] to the public, and that the public then dispens[ed] it as seemed [best]” (AWV 95–98).

These last passages could be mistaken for evidence of a civic humanist’s prizing of the common good over the good of the individual. But it is the efficacy of the procedure for dispensing spoils that Fabrizio prizes so highly. It is this dispensation, based on the love of individual property, that is shown to be responsible for the maintenance of the very orders discussed above. Spoils were used



to give the ordinary pay to the soldiers, to help the wounded and the sick, and for the other needs of the army. The consul was very able, and often did, use it to yield spoils to the soldiers. But this concession did not make disorder. For having beaten the army, all the spoils were put in the middle and distributed by head, according to the qualities of each. This mode made the soldiers attend to winning and not to robbing. And the Roman legions used to conquer the enemy and not follow him, because they never departed from their orders. (AWV 99–100)





Therefore, both regular pay and rewards for extraordinary performance comes from the spoils of victory, thereby uniting the soldier’s love of property with his desire for victory. Furthermore, the love of property not only motivates the army as a whole, keeps men in the army and well ordered in the field, but, if managed well, can even be used to make men fight well in the midst of battle.



The ancients considered another thing well: they wanted each soldier to deposit a third of the money that they gave him next to the one who carried the flag of his battalion, who never reconsigned it to him unless the war was finished. . . because they knew that their belongings were next to the flag, they were forced to take more care of it and defend it with more obstinacy (AWV 104–5)



Finally, Fabrizio notes how individuals who received rewards for their success in battle display them to their friends and relatives with solemnity and pomp, thereby emphasizing that the outward esteem of public wealth and deprecation of private wealth lead in practice to considerable private wealth. Men bring their spoils home.



Punishment and Reward

Even properly managed orders are not enough. The laws for their observance must be fortified, and the “fortification must be harsh and hard, and the executor very hard.” Fabrizio supplies a list of rules governing both camp life and combat. He states that individuals who broke those rules should be punished, adding that among the Romans when a whole cohort was to blame the terrifying mode of decimation was used so that “if each did not feel it, each nonetheless feared it.” But because one wishes “that men fear and hope at one stroke,” Fabrizio also lists those deeds that are rewarded. In addition to the “glory and the fame” received from the others, soldiers who performed such deeds received the gifts mentioned before, which they paraded among their friends and relatives (AW VI 114–15). Just as in fighting, so also in general discipline, the fear of death and punishment and the hope of reward are nearly all in all.





The harsh discipline and other means of motivating the soldiers of Fabrizio’s army would indicate that he was not counting on patriotic dedication. He would seem instead to be prescribing means for the almost perfect control of the soldiers, a control that would be at times be brutal, at other times subtle, and occasionally both. For even or especially the harshest measures have their subtle side, as in the Roman practice of “decimation” recommended by Fabrizio. The means for superiors to exert this kind of control and manipulation would require far more authority than any Florentine captain or commissioner had ever been able to exert. One must thus inquire who would ultimately command the obedience of these soldiers. A consideration of this question shows that the Art of War reaches beyond offering prescriptions for Florence to touch the very nerve of civil–military relations.



What Makes an Excellent Captain Obey?

If it is primarily the captain who makes the common soldiers obey, who or what makes him obey? If his control of his soldiers brings him success in battle, he can become an enormous problem to the political authorities. For as his success gains him reputation with his soldiers, the political magistrates of his republic or his prince come to fear him more than he fears them. Here the captain faces a grave danger—or a great opportunity. Machiavelli treats this problem thoroughly in the Discourses on Livy and The Prince, but in the Art of War he, or his Fabrizio, all but covers it up. Thus one might well conclude that Machiavelli thinks that all we need is a few good men in order to solve the thorny problem of the relationship between civil and military orders and authorities. That is, it seems that nothing stands between the successful captain and his seizure of political authority but the moral goodness of the captain. Good and able men, such as Scipio and Marcellus, are celebrated while men who are merely able, such as Caesar and Pompey, seem to be disparaged. More than in Machiavelli’s other works, glory and honor are presented as being free from every taint of the low necessities of fear and profit as well as ambition (cf. AWI 58, II 29, VII 239 for the three instances of “ambition” in the work). One might be led to think, and to a large degree it seems we are meant to think, that in the Art of War honor and glory are the highest goods, the crown atop the head of moral goodness. But even here, Machiavelli plays his game of bait and switch.

To see this game clearly, it helps to look from the vantage point provided by the Discourses on Livy and The Prince. Although there are numerous indications in the Discoursesthat captains obey because they are morally good, another view is developed early on. Toward the end of his discussion of ingratitude (which in fact is about the problem posed by the captain’s success), Machiavelli says one ought to





follow the same modes the Roman republic followed so as to be less ungrateful than the others. This arose from the modes of its government. For since the whole city—both the nobles and the ignobles—was put to work in war, so many virtuous men emerged in every age, decorated from various victories, that the people did not have cause to fear any one of them, since they were very many and guarded one another. (D I 30.2, emphasis added)



Rome kept its captains good through “the modes of its government” founded on the fear a captain had of the many once-and-future captains who guarded him. Machiavelli does not so much as imply that moral goodness or a sense of obligation to the common good keeps the captain in check. Because the others know he is afraid, they do not suspect him of seeking to rob them of their security or wealth; because they do not suspect him, he does not suffer or fear ingratitude at the hands of his fellow citizens.

But what exactly happens when the magistrates come to fear the successful captain more than he fears them? Of necessity the authorities are ungrateful in that they have to punish rather than reward the successful captain by taking away his reputation and authority for fear that he will seize the state.3 When he foresees this necessity, what should the captain do? Should he patiently suffer the ingratitude of the city? Machiavelli is ruthless in his advice to the successful captain in a principality: he must seize the necessarily ungrateful prince’s state. There are, in fact, two options in addition to this one. One option is not to win such reputation in the first place by being less successful. Not surprisingly, this option is never suggested.4 The other is to be so cautious as not to inspire suspicion or envy after having gained great reputation. In the case of a captain in a principality, Machiavelli openly reveals that this option is impossible. When it comes to a successful captain in a republic, he brings one to the very brink of recognizing that the captain must do what he must in order to protect himself from the ingratitude suffered by Scipio and Camillus (see D I 29; cf. D III 22, 23) and preemptively avenged by Caesar. Caesar is not Scipio’s moral inferior because he did what he had to do given the corruption in Rome in his day; indeed, he is his superior in prudence because he did what he had to in order to keep from suffering Rome’s ingratitude (D I 29–30; cf. D I 10, 17, 29, 37 II 6 III 22–25).



3. Cf. Machiavelli, Dell’Ingratitudine, in Tutte le opere, ed. Mario Martelli (Firenze: Sansoni, 1992), 980–83, esp. lines 116–24, 146–54; on the vital importance of gratitude or morality for politics, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics V 6–7; Xenophon, Education of Cyrus I ii 6.

4. Contrast Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra III i.





Similarly, in The Prince, Machiavelli educates the careful reader’s expectation that a captain who seizes a state by overthrowing a republican government and who commits other immoral acts deserves blame. In his treatment of Agathocles, he first establishes an opposition between an excellent captain and an excellent man, allowing the reader to infer that the former is inferior to the latter. He then blurs and finally erases the very principles on which the distinction rests. In brief, first it is said that Agathocles, a man of uncommon “virtue of body and spirit,” is undeniably a “most excellent captain” but nonetheless cannot be “celebrated among the most excellent men” because of his crimes and his “savage cruelty and inhumanity” (P 8.35). For Agathocles had, among other things, seized the principate from a republican government by using his military command to butcher the leading citizens. Agathocles’s conspicuous lack of moral virtue seems to preclude the possibility that he could gain glory as an excellent man. But Machiavelli then proceeds to excuse Agathocles’s cruelty, well-used cruelty in general, inhumanity, and, finally, criminality. For in the same chapter, Agathocles is offered as an example of cruelty “well used” and Machiavelli expatiates on the benefits of all forms of well-used cruelty (P 8.37–38). Still later in The Prince, Hannibal, a most excellent man, is likewise characterized as having practiced inhuman cruelty (P17.67–68; cf. DIII 19–21). Finally, as to Agathocles’s crimes preventing him from being considered an excellent man, the example of Severus the criminal tyrant shows that one can acquire glory despite and by means of one’s crimes (P 19.78–79). The distinction between the excellent captain and the excellent man does not hold up.

Tutored by these examples from The Princeand the Discourses on Livy,we are able to see that there are many indications within the Art of War that obedience to political authorities is merely a contingent good and that the possibility of thecaptain’s seizing a state is on Fabrizio’s mind. The opposition in The Prince between an excellent captain and an excellent man corresponds to the distinction in the Art of War between an able man who acquires only fame and an able and good man who acquires glory. To see this, consider again what Fabrizio says in book I:



I say that Pompey and Caesar, and almost all those captains who were in Rome after the last Carthaginian war, acquired fame as able, not as good, men; those who had lived before them acquired glory as able and good. This arose because these men did not take the practice of war as their art, and those that I named first used it as their art. And while that republic lived immaculately, never did any great citizen presume by means of such a practice to take advantage of the peace by breaking the laws, despoiling the provinces, usurping and tyrannizing the fatherland and taking advantage in every mode. (AW I 65–67)





Fabrizio does not indicate any agreement with the one or the other kind of praise. He merely points to the limits that one would need to observe—or alter—to seek one or the other type of praise. What is more, we are left to wonder how all the able men before one particular point in time were also good while all such men after that time were not good. But as we have already seen, it was fear under the watchful gaze of their peers (DI 30), rather than moral goodness, that kept the captains of the republic “good.” Fabrizio is careful not to preclude this possibility. Likewise, when he mentions Caesar toward the end of the dialogue he speaks with a care reminiscent of the Agathocles passage from The Prince. He says of Caesar and Alexander:



[I]f in them, or in part of them, one couldblame too much ambition to rule, never will one find that one may blame in them any softness or anything that makes men delicate and unwarlike. If these things were read and believed by these princes, it would be impossible that they not change their form of living and their provinces not change their fortune. (AWVII 239–40, emphasis added)



Not only does he make the three italicized hedges of his previous apparent blame of Caesar, but he offers Caesar along with Alexander the Great as prime examples for contemporary imitation. Finally, the distinction between fame and glory (on the basis of which the praise of Caesar and Pompey was distinguished from that of Scipio and Marcellus) is ignored in the crucial context of rewards for success in battle (AW VI 115; cf. D II pr. 1). Taken together, especially in the light of the Discourses and The Prince, these points complicate Fabrizio’s assessment of the “bad” captains and the basis on which it was made.

As to modern examples, Fabrizio refers three times to Machiavelli’s favorite mercenary captain, Francesco Sforza, who seized the state of his prince. Sforza is said to have entered into “an honorable wickedness” (AWI 62). The patina of opprobrium fails to cover the admiration implicit in Fabrizio’s favorable comparison of Sforza to other mercenary captains who failed to seize a state. But a more—if not the most—important modern example is Fabrizio himself. While openly admitting that the only way to put his counsel into practice is to be a prince, Fabrizio’s excuse for not becoming one is not, as one would expect, that a morally good man would never think of such a thing. Instead, he points to the logistical obstacles to gaining the loyalty of the troops under his command, citing the facts that the troops are foreign and obligated to another and that he does not even speak their language. In other words, he might be willing to take the step of seizing his king’s state if he could take the first step of retaining his troop’s obedience. Second, he says that because of his age he doubts he will have the occasion to do what he so dearly desires. Again he leaves open the possibility that if the obstacle of old age could be overcome, the steps necessary for seizing a state might be taken. Later, while still in the flush of his victory in an imaginary battle staged for his interlocutors, he reveals how much he is pining for the chance to do in fact what he now, as a mere captain, can do only in speech. And last, while speaking of himself at the head of a tired army in need of refreshment, he refers to its leader as “prince” (AWVII 210, VII 246, III 98, V 83). These points lead one to question his excuse for not having put into practice the military transformation he has outlined.





Fabrizio seeks to defend himself against the accusation that he both blames the moderns for not imitating the ancients and fails to do so himself. In his defense (or his excuse, as he calls it), he asserts one must prepare for such enterprises with the utmost industriousness so that when the opportune moment arises, one can spring into action; at the same time, he indicates that such preparations should be made with the utmost caution so as to go undetected (AW I 39–40). Thus in his eagerness to acquit himself of the charge of negligence or hypocrisy, Fabrizio all but admits that he has been lying in wait for his “opportunity.” When pressed a bit by Cosimo, who has not yet figured out, or is acting as though he has not yet figured out, that “the opportunity” here refers to is becoming a prince, Fabrizio says,



[B]ecause I know that you can doubt whether or not this opportunity has come, I want to discourse at length, if you want to listen to me with patience, on what preparations are necessary to make before, what opportunity must arise, what difficulty impedes so that preparations do not help and so that the opportunity does not come, and how this thing is, though the terms seem contrary, at once very difficult and very easy to do. (AW I 44)



As stated earlier, Fabrizio openly admits that the only way to put his counsel into practice is to be a prince. Not being a prince is the primary “difficulty” that impedes him. The need for a prince’s authority also comes to the surface in the discussion of the mode of selecting the troops, considered above. Finally, at the conclusion of the dialogue Fabrizio makes plain what he has been getting at all along: that the “preparations” referred to in the passage just quoted are his reflections revealed in the foregoing military prescriptions, the “opportunity” he sought or awaited was to be a prince, and the primary “difficulty” that prevented his introduction of his military reforms was the lack of a principality (AW VII 240–41).





For a prince, the only way to forestall this incursion of war into politics is to preempt it by being, rather than seeking to control, the successful captain. The expanding republic, too, can forestall it by channeling it outward, but cannot prevent it altogether, for the great military successes of an expanding republic will of necessity lead to the rise of Caesars (DIII 24). The Art of Warpoints in the direction of a path more fully charted in the Discourses.



Machiavelli’s Aim

The preface and the beginning of the first book of the Art of War are the only parts of the work in which Machiavelli speaks in his own voice. They reveal the particular aim of the work and indicate how that aim fits into his entire enterprise as carried out in The Prince and Discourses on Livy.

In the preface, Machiavelli states a problem, the dissimilarity or disharmony of the civilian and military lives, and offers a solution, the reformation of the present military in accordance with ancient modes and past virtue. One might infer that all is well among those leading civilian lives, and that greater unity will be brought about by making the military life more like civilian lives. This inference is correct insofar as the most basic practical reform suggested in the work is to replace mercenary soldiers with soldiers that are citizens or subjects. But in the preface itself Machiavelli does not state this practical side of the problem or its solution; he even leaves unclear the reason why the disunity of the two lives is a problem at all.

A closer look indicates that a fundamental intellectual or spiritual reformation must take place before or in conjunction with the military’s reformation more obviously called for in the preface and in the work as a whole. To understand his preface, it is essential to recognize that Machiavelli treats the opinions aboutthe military and civilian lives more than the character of those lives themselves. More specifically, the coherence of his argument in the preface ultimately depends on a strangely unexplained assertion that nonmilitary men hold “sinister opinions” that cause them to flee from and to hate military men.

Machiavelli begins by stating an opinion that “many have held and hold”— namely, how very little the military and civilian lives fit together and how dissimilar they are. The flight of military men from the ways of civilians is an instance of this opinion in action. Young men who aspire to successful careers as soldiers do not believe they can be violent, manly, and frightening if they live as civilians do. They therefore change from the civilian to the military way of life, altering everything from the way they dress to the words they speak. Machiavelli concludes this long sentence with the perplexing assertion that this situation makes “very true” the opinion about the dissimilarity of the two lives. But what aspect of “this” situation makes the opinion true? What causes the dissimilarity between the two lives? It could be inferred that it is the aspiring soldiers’ action that causes the dissimilarity. But it must be recalled that they take their action in the first place because of their belief or opinion that the two lives are dissimilar. The questions therefore arise: Is the aspiring soldier correct about the disharmony of the two ways of life? If so, what is its cause?





Machiavelli goes on to assert that the two lives—military and civilian—were united in ancient times, without saying exactly in what the unity consisted or what is desirable about it. Such unity was called for by the recognition of the “necessity” for defense. He says that if in some “other order” the ancients used every diligence “to keep men faithful, peaceful, and full of the fear of God, in the military it was redoubled” (AWpr. 5). No other order received more care than the military. At the moment that Machiavelli raises the question of some “other order” than the military, he asks—not only rhetorically—what man ought to be more faithful, more a lover of peace, and more fearful of God than a soldier. Machiavelli leaves the reader to answer the question. In Machiavelli’s time, what man and what order were expected to be more full of faith, more lovers of peace, and more God-fearing than any other man or order, including the military man and his order? The answer is the priest and the priesthood. The moderns, we are led to infer, separate the military order from the religious order and, I conjecture, subordinate the former to the latter. The ancients did neither. It maybe that the unity of the civilian and military lives in antiquity was dependent on the subordination of the religious life to the military. However this may be, Machiavelli quietly but clearly holds up the priesthood and the military as parallel objects of inquiry.5 But where does such an inquiry fit into Machiavelli’s more general analysis of politics?

Much of Machiavelli’s analysis of politics revolves around his understanding of the “two humors,” that of the people, who wish only to enjoy their security and comfort, and that of the great, who seek to dominate the people (P 9.39; D I 5.2). But the question as to which humor priests belong, and as to which soldiers belong, does not arise until one of these two orders has more strength or authority than the people or the great. What happens then is explained by Machiavelli in The Prince, where he discusses the case of the soldiers in a principality. When the soldiers constitute a deeply entrenched and sufficiently strong “humor” or “third difficulty” or “extraordinary force,” as Machiavelli variously calls them there, they immediately become the force to watch (P 19.76, 77). For the prince can and must satisfy them at the expense of the people and the great. The phrase “extraordinary force” is also used in the Florentine Histories;but here it is applied to the Church and its ministers, who are said to keep Italy in vileness. Thus the priest and the warrior, the unarmed and the armed, are left to vie with one another for this position of the third force.6 In “these times,” given the reigning belief, the priests would appear to have secured this position for themselves and to have reduced soldiers to the status of hirelings who, by a pact made among them, fight nonwars (FHV1; I 39).



5. Cf. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 184.





In the preface to the Art of War, Machiavelli asserts that recognition of the necessity for defense leads, in a way he does not spell out, to the recognition of the necessity for the unity of the civilian and military lives. He asserts that this unity was brought about in ancient times by lawgivers and military trainers. But given that these two types merely represent a particular instance of civilian and military orders—albeit at a high level—the origin of their accord in antiquity remains obscure. Perhaps one of these orders was clearly subordinate to the other. Or perhaps there was a still higher or more comprehensive order, such as that provided by poetry (mentioned by Machiavelli at the beginning of book I), that ensured the unity of lawgivers and military trainers by imparting shared opinions about the most important things. In any case, the combined activity of lawgivers and military trainers instilled in civilian men an esteem for soldiers sorely lacking in “these times.” Through the corruption of military orders and their separation from ancient modes, “these sinister opinions regarding them have arisen that make [men] hate the military and flee association with those who practice it.” Whereas at the beginning of the preface Machiavelli draws the reader’s attention to the opinions of aspiring soldiers that lead to their antipathy to civilian life, now he draws attention to the civilians’ opinions that lead to their antipathy to the military and its soldiers. To whose “sinister opinions” does Machiavelli refer? They are distinct from the civilians’ hatred for the military, for this hatred is itself the result of the sinister opinions. Nor can he mean the already-mentioned opinions of the aspiring soldiers, for their opinions are about civilian life and its inadequacy for getting them what they desire. Nor, yet again, can it be that he is implicitly criticizing the aspiring soldiers’ desires, for they are explicitly endorsed or implicitly accepted later in the work—not to mention in his other works.



6. For pertinent instances of this rivalry, see Decennale primo, in Tutte le opere, 943; also Francesco Guicciardini, History of Italy, trans. Sidney Alexander (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 139; cf. Machiavelli, The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca, in Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, vol. 2, trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 535; cf. also “Fabrizio Colonna,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 27 (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1982), 288–89.





Of course there were many influential opinions current in Florence, Italy, and Europe during Machiavelli’s time to which he might have been referring. But the only other use in the Art of War of the suggestive phrase “sinister opinion,” along with its sole use in the Discourses on Livy,pinpoint Christianity as the source of the sinister opinions and limn the nature and scope of Machiavelli’s aim in writing the Art of War.7 The second of the two uses of “sinister opinion” in the Art of War occurs in book IV. In response to a question concerning the manner in which deserting soldiers can be induced by means of speech to fight, Fabrizio asserts:



To persuade or dissuade a few of a thing is very easy. For if words are not enough, you can then use authority or force. But the difficulty is in removing from the multitude a sinister opinion that is also contrary either to the common good or to your opinion. There one can use only words that are heard by all, wishing to persuade all of them together. (AW IV 137)



The context suggests that the same issue is at stake as in its first use in the preface: how to make deserting soldiers fight. It is remarkable that Fabrizio—and perhaps even Machiavelli—seems to think that it is possible to do so with mere words (cf. D II 15.1; FH III 27).8 The task Machiavelli sets for himself begins to come into focus: to replace the current sinister opinion of “the multitude” with an entirely new opinion that accords with the common good.

Words that can be spoken to the multitude are explicitly distinguished from the authority and force that can be used with a few, and implicitly distinguished from the words that can be spoken to a few. What about the multitude makes it unwilling or unable to hear certain words, and which words does it hear? It may seem that Fabrizio is merely echoing the claim of ancient political philosophers that the multitude can never be philosophic,9 but here the emphasis is on how words can effect a change in the multitude’s opinion to bring it into accord with some other opinion, not on how to make the multitude philosophic or lead it to seek to replace its opinions with knowledge. While suggesting that his innovation would be for the common good, Machiavelli’s Fabrizio would seem to occupy neither the position of Machiavelli’s predecessors, who held that the many could never be philosophic, nor that of his successors, who would maintain that Enlightenment of the multitude is a reasonable goal.



7. Cf. AW VI 207; Marsilius of Padua’s use of “opinio perversa,” Defender of the PeaceI 1.3.

8. Cf. Xenophon, Education of Cyrus III 49–55.

9. See Plato, Republic 493a.





A parallel passage in the Discourses clarifies why Machiavelli thought it so difficult to change the multitude’s opinion:



I do not know if I shall take upon myself a hard task full of so much difficulty that it may suit me either to abandon it with shame or continue it with disapproval, since I wish to defend a thing that, as I said, has been accused by all the writers. But however it may be, I do not judge nor shall I ever judge it to be a defect to defend any opinion with reasons, without wishing to use either authority or force for it. (D I 58)



The opinion he is preparing himself to defend regards the constancy of the multitude. The distinguishing characteristic of a people or a multitude is that it “is seen to begin to hold a thing in horror and to stay with that opinion for many centuries” (D I 58.3). This tendency to hold things in horror for long periods of time makes the people the keeper of morality, but it also makes them very difficult to persuade. If one seeks to change something that conflicts with that morality, one must walk softly. If one seeks to change that morality itself, one does well to depute others to do the walking (DII pr. 3.). Once the multitude has an opinion, it holds on to it regardless of whether that opinion is for its own good, for the common good, or in accord with the opinion of the wisest men.

But what specific aspect of public opinion does Machiavelli seek to change? A look at the only use of “sinister opinion” in the Discourses points us in the direction of an answer. That use is closely connected to the passage in book IV of the Art of War just summarized. The clue to the connection between these two passages lies in the prominent status accorded Manlius Capitolinus in the Discourses.

In Discourses on Livy, Manlius is said to sow “various sinister opinions within” the plebs (D I 8 1). Machiavelli discusses only one of these opinions, in which Manlius falsely claims that there is a treasure belonging to the plebs that has been usurped by private citizens. “These words were able to do very much among the plebs.” But the Senate crushed Manlius’s influence with the plebs by the prudent use of its well-established order of accusations in which Manlius was forced to verify publicly his claim to private knowledge of the alleged treasure. Later in the Discourses we find that once the people had condemned Manlius to death, they greatly desired his return to life (D III 8). It is at a signal moment that Machiavelli recounts this instance of the people’s fervent desire for the resurrection of a man who promised great but unverifiable rewards to his faithful followers. That moment is at the beginning of the very passage discussed above in which Machiavelli makes the case that the people tend to hold to opinions for centuries at a time. Who else sowed the unverifiable opinion, held “for many centuries” by the people yearning for his return, that there was wealth laid up in an inaccessible place to be enjoyed by those among the humble people who sided with him and his ministers against the great? Belief in the story and promise of the Gospels is the “sinister opinion” that Machiavelli seeks to eliminate and replace. Its elimination would be required to stop the headlong flight of soldiers, who are both too afraid and not afraid enough because of the promises and threats of prelates. Only once it is removed can the priests, the well dug in “third force,” be dislodged from their entrenchments.





The Corruption of the West

Toward the end of book II of the Art of War is an account of the “clash of civilizations” as well as one of the most outspoken criticisms of Christianity in Machiavelli’s corpus—albeit from the mouth of his captain, Fabrizio. Cosimo says to Fabrizio, “I would like to understand from you . . . from where so much vileness and so much disorder and so much neglect of” proper military training come from (AW II 283). Fabrizio responds at length, stating that excellent captains arise when there are many rulers or empires striking fear of servitude and death into one another with the result that each state is forced to honor those who excel in war. But Christianity undermines that honor by taking from men that fear. Fabrizio says that “today’s mode of living, on account of the Christian religion, does not impose that necessity to defend oneself that there was in antiquity.” In antiquity the conquered were killed or subjected to miserable slavery, and the towns, whose goods where taken and inhabitants dispersed, were razed “so those overcome in war suffered every last misery.” Fabrizio indicates that Christian mercy is near the root of the problem because none of these horrors is visited upon the conquered, “so that the greatest evil that is feared is a ransom.” Because they do not “fear an ultimate ruin,” men “do not want to submit themselves to military orders and to struggle along beneath them so as to flee those dangers they little fear” (AWII 305–9). And by speaking once more in the same passage of men “buying themselves back with ransoms,” Fabrizio brings to mind the belief that Christ performs the greatest act of mercy by offering himself as the ransom that frees the many who believe in him from death.10 Earthly death is no longer the “last misery” or “the ultimate ruin.” Christianity keeps the world in weakness by robbing men of a salutary, earthly fear.



10. Cf. Mark 10:45.





Yet Christianity is only the proximate cause of Rome’s corruption and its eventual inability to produce excellent captains. Roman corruption came about as an inevitable result of its military success. The extinction of the fear of strong neighbors resulting from Rome’s success in war is therefore the ultimate cause behind the proximate cause that has “rendered the world weak” (D II 2.2).

Machiavelli thus suggests that, to end its corruption, the West must return to (or approximate) a situation in which a multitude of republics and principalities vie with one another, such that each is motivated by an essentially secular fear to reward virtue and the captains who best display it. How very much this dispensation would differ from that in which quasi wars are fought by mercenaries and brokered by priests. How similar in appearance but opposed in effect to the “renaissance” sought by those humanists who longed for many republics filled with selfless love of the “common” good. For an incorrupt West would be founded on a self-love fueled from below by bodily fear and from above by the desire for martial glory. But how could such an incorrupt West be brought into being? The only alternative would seem to be the spiritual or intellectual elimination of Christianity itself. But what evidence is there that Machiavelli aimed this high? To answer this question, we must first appreciate how for Machiavelli Catholic Christianity resembles Asia, for it is against the East that Fabrizio leads his army.

“Asia” functions as thestandard of corruption: “from which it arose that virtuous men came to be as few in Europe as in Asia.” So few virtuous men arose in Asia because “that province was altogether under one kingdom in which, through its greatness, since it was idle most of the time, it could not give birth to excellent men,” whereas Europe, before its corruption, was made up of “several kingdoms and infinite republics.” Thus “many valiant men [sprang] up” there (AWII 283 ff). But this does not mean that Asian princes or tyrants did not have soldiers. On the contrary, each Asian king was surrounded by soldiers while his people remained unarmed. Indeed, when Fabrizio gives advice to the criminal tyrant Severus as to how to make his tyranny more enduring, it is the Assyrian king whom he offers as a model. The Assyrian king not only had a disarmed people (as did Severus, thanks to the work begun by Octavius and Tiberius [AW I 87]), but always rotated his captains from region to region so that they would be more attached to him than the soldiers would be to them. If Severus were to be more Asiatic in this respect, he would thereby give more authority to the Senate when the time came to elect his successor. The people would be no less despised and the soldiers no less satisfied if Severus would have made the proper adjustments. But in doing so, he would have created an elective, almost constitutional framework for tyranny.

In contrast to the aggressive coexistence he sought to foster, Machiavelli saw a sick and corrupt Italy whose illness was the product of a multiplicity of temporal states infected by a single pervasive spiritual state. It was therefore the presence of Asiatic unity in the midst of Western multiplicity that had kept the West in vileness for so long. But that combination may also have provided the pattern by which Machiavelli formed both temporal and spiritual armies of his own.





In the early pages of book I of the Art of War, Machiavelli announces a project of civilizational reform to be carried out (or “executed,” he would say) posthumously in his Discourses and The Prince. First, in the Art of War Machiavelli draws attention to how writing helps one overcome the obstacles fortune places in one’s way. Next, the broadest subjects of the work are shown to be how to introduce reforms in an age of corruption and what the character of those reforms should be. Finally, Machiavelli indicates that he himself is engaged in such a project of reform and sketches the nature of that project. Machiavelli performs these tasks by establishing parallels between his own activity and situation and those of the only other characters developed in these early pages: Cosimo, Bernardo (Cosimo’s grandfather), and Fabrizio.



Machiavelli and Cosimo: Writing

The parallel between Machiavelli and Cosimo shows that Machiavelli sought to overcome or elude fortune by means of writing. In the preface, Machiavelli presents himself as one who decided to write about war despite his inexperience as a warrior. In his eulogy to Cosimo immediately after the preface, Machiavelli presents Cosimo as one who decided to write about love despite his inexperience as a lover. In the preface he presents himself as one who writes so as not to pass his idle times in vain. In the eulogy, he presents Cosimo as a writer in exactly the same way and in similar words. Finally, in the preface Machiavelli opposes the deeds of others to the words he wrote, which he then submitted to the judgment of Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi. In the eulogy, Machiavelli contrasts the deeds that Cosimo never performed to the words that Cosimo wrote, and says that by means of the latter we can judge Cosimo’s worth.11 Just as one can do deliberately or by art what happened by chance to Fabius Maximus (AWIV 129), so can one do by design what happened to Cosimo by chance. By leaving writings behind to be interpreted after his death, Machiavelli can elude intentionally the fortune that Cosimo eluded by the same means but by chance. The striking parallel between Cosimo and Machiavelli suggests that Machiavelli intended to give fortune the slip by means of his posthumous writings, just as Cosimo did by means of his. But how? And to what end?



11. Cf. letter to Francesco Vettori, April 16, 1527.





Bernardo and Fabrizio: Ancient Models for Reform

The parallel between Bernardo and Fabrizio indicates how one ought to introduce reforms as well as the nature of the reforms needed in their corrupt times. Both Bernardo and Fabrizio are accused of having failed to institute reforms that their respective defenders claim they each dearly desired. Each had wished to do so in accordance with ancient models. Thus they are both ardent but failed reformers who looked to antiquity for guidance.

Fabrizio himself is the accuser of Bernardo. After being seated by Bernardo’s grandson Cosimo in the “most secret and shady part” of his garden, Fabrizio seems puzzled by his surroundings, and especially by the trees that cast the shade in which at least some of those present sit. Cosimo satisfies Fabrizio’s evident perplexity by telling him that some of the trees were “more celebrated by the ancients than by the common usage today.” Machiavelli then informs us that Cosimo tells Fabrizio the names of the ancient trees and of how his grandfather had “exerted himself in so much cultivation of them.” Fabrizio responds, “I was thinking that what you say might be so; and this place and this study were making me remember some princes of the Kingdom who delight in these ancient growths (culture) and shades” (AWI 15). The “kingdom” is the customary way of referring to the kingdom of Naples, where Fabrizio is the lord of several towns and cities, most notably Tagliacozzo. The court of the kingdom of Naples (especially under Alfonso I [1442–58] but also under his successors) had been well known for its attention to humanist studies. Thus the conversation that is about to take place would occur under the cool cover of antiquity as cultivated by contemporary humanists.

But after pausing to reflect a moment, and then expressing his belief that he will not offend anyone with what will soon be characterized as his accusation of Cosimo’s grandfather, Fabrizio continues:



How much better they would have done, may it be said with everyone’s leave, to seek to be like the ancients in the strong and harsh things, not in the delicate and soft ones, and in those that they did under the sun, not in the shade, and to take up the modes of the true and perfect antiquity, not the false and corrupt one. (AWI 17)



Before he makes the last distinction between the true and perfect and the false and corrupt antiquities, it seems that Fabrizio is suggesting that Bernardo should have looked to “the ancients” in general as his model, separating their choiceworthy elements and leaving behind the rest, for example, separating their strong things from their delicate things and choosing the former. But once the last distinction is made it is clear that there are two different antiquities, and that a reformer might therefore safely take all the things of the true and perfect one, leaving behind those of the false and corrupt one. Bernardo, it seems, chose the wrong antiquity.





But which antiquity is the right one? Fabrizio adds, “[F]or after these studies pleased my Romans, my fatherland went to ruin” (AW I 17). Thus the Romans, at least for a time, were the true and perfect antiquity. Seeking to be like them would therefore be the proper course. Or would it? For Fabrizio introduces his chosen Romans hand in hand with their corruption and ruin. A passage in the Florentine Histories elucidates the ruin of Rome. At the very center of that work (FHV 1.185), Machiavelli discusses the natural cycle of the order and disorder of worldly things. Order leads naturally to disorder, and disorder in turn to order. The means by which provinces come, and by which the Romans especially came, “to ruin” were “letters” and the “leisure” so necessary to “philosophers” whom youths, and “the Roman youth” in particular, seem so willing to “follow” with “admiration.” Ordinarily, once a province comes to ruin by these means, order again arises because men have “become wise from their afflictions.” Just as philosophers and their letters are the means to corruption, disorder, and ruin, so captains and their arms lead back to order. Thus “letters come after arms” and “captains arise before philosophers” (FHV 1.185). But in the case of Italy, something extraordinary happened to prevent captains who would restore order from arising. It was Christianity that kept Italy in weakness after Roman arms defeated all opponents and with them their own fear. Here in the Florentine Histories, Christianity is obliquely referred to with the phrase “an extraordinary force.”

For Machiavelli, Catholic Christianity is like philosophy, and a branch of Athenian philosophy in particular, in that it arose on the heels of the order imposed in part by military might. In this respect it seems to be philosophy writ large, because it arises out of the same source as philosophy and it leads to the prolongation and expansion of the political–military results of philosophy. But it is also unlike philosophy; for instead of eventually giving rise to harsh wars and the excellent captains who in turn restore order and “dominate the others,” it gave rise to neither peace nor war.



For one cannot affirm it to be peace where principalities frequently attack one another with arms; yet they cannot be called wars in which men are not killed, cities are not sacked, principalities are not destroyed, for these wars came to such weakness that they were begun without fear, carried on without danger, and ended without loss. So that virtue which in other provinces used to be eliminated in a long peace was eliminated by the vileness in the provinces of Italy. (FHV 1.186)





The ordinary way that virtue “used to be” eliminated has itself been eliminated, and not just in Italy, by the extraordinary force of Christianity. The very breaking or stopping of the cycle is itself a remarkable occurrence, and in itself not something entirely bad. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that it has been broken by a belief or opinion that is universal in its claims and potentially in its dissemination. Now that there is a sphere of universal opinion, perhaps that universal opinion can be replaced by another that encourages at the same time that it manages the passions at the root of the particularity of the many republics and principalities. This takes us beyond the Art of War. But Fabrizio’s words in this instance, as in others, prepare the way for Machiavelli’s own later words. In this case, Fabrizio hints at the need for improving on Rome even as he introduces Rome as his model.

The actual Rome of the past contains within itself certain corruption. An element of the Greek past represents the chief deceit by means of which that corruption is accomplished. This Roman–Greek cycle is played out in the parallel between Bernardo and Fabrizio as they trade accusations and excuses through Cosimo. Bernardo’s preference for an overly harsh antiquity plays into the hands of the current corruption by aiming too high. Cosimo claims that although Bernardo loved the ancient “harshness of life” praised by Fabrizio, he recognized that its imitation by him or his children would result in their being “defamed and vilified.” To deny the body for the sake of wisdom as the Greek philosopher did, to brutalize children into simulating courage by making them love life less as the Spartans did, or to restrain one’s desire for wealth like the most morally austere of Romans (AW I 25–27)—to enjoin men to imitate any or all of these practices is to aim too high even to get a hearing in such corrupt times, and perhaps too high at any time if one would avoid the Greek and Roman cycle as suggested above. That Cosimo allows wisdom, courage, and moderation into the picture only as maniacal wisdom, bestial courage, and coerced restraint indicates Machiavelli’s critique of Greek philosophy, as does the absence of justice in this vignette of the classical virtues. They have had their chance, and we have seen what that chance has brought the world to; if yet another version of them were given another chance, we can reason that it would do so again. Besides, virtue for its own sake does not sell well in times such as those in which Bernardo and Fabrizio find themselves.

Instead of Bernardo’s harsh modes, Fabrizio offers “more human modes.” He would like to introduce modes “similar” to those of the Roman republic:





To honor and reward the virtues, not to despise poverty, to esteem the modes and orders of military discipline, to constrain the citizens to love one another, to live without sects, to esteem the private less than the public, and other similar things that could easily accompany our times. (AWI 33)



As stated, they sound like little more (or less) than “civic humanist” ideals. But Fabrizio does not claim that these are the best modes, only that they are better than the rarefied studies that the humanists fall back on in lieu of Bernardo’s harsher modes. He says too that these modes, like Bernardo’s, are useful not so much in themselves as for the shadow they cast: “Whoever orders that thing plants trees under the shade of which one resides more happy and more glad than under this” shadow cast by the effete humanists beneath which they sit. He suggests, then, that his humanistic modes serve the purpose of providing cover for something else.

The shadow cast by these modes conceals the full character of Fabrizio’s army. “To esteem the modes and orders of military discipline” could be and was suggested by the “civic” humanist Bruni as well as by Machiavelli in both the Discourses on Livy and The Prince. But the type of the military discipline in Fabrizio’s army in no way resembles that which Bruni advised, in that it consists of a kind of coercive or subtle manipulation of the passions that is antithetical to the spirit of dedication to the common good advanced by the civic humanists.12 Likewise, in Fabrizio’s army the private is indeed esteemed less than the public, but only in an instrumental sense: all the soldiers stay in their common orders so that they can more securely seize the spoils that later each enjoys individually. The way in which these modes are more human or humane than Bernardo’s can be seen by the work’s only statement on “humanity.” Much later in the dialogue Batista says to Fabrizio, “Your humanity is so much that it has us follow our desires without being afraid of being held presumptuous, since you freely offer us what we would be ashamed to ask of you” (AW VI 233). Human beings want things for which they are ashamed to ask. It would be inhuman to deny them what they want, what they must want. Fabrizio’s proposals allow and even encourage us to “follow our desires.”

Fabrizio claims that it is not difficult to persuade men of common talent of these modes. It is at this moment that Cosimo narrows the focus of the discussion to more strictly military matters, saying that he will leave to some unspecified “these” the judgment as to whether such persuasion is as easy as Fabrizio claims (AWI 35). We are left to wonder for the remainder of the dialogue whether such persuasion is easy, difficult, or impossible. If Fabrizio represents Machiavelli himself, then we can conclude that Machiavelli intended that we judge the ease, difficulty, and possibility of his enterprise as well.



12. Leonardo Bruni, De militia, in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts, ed. and trans. Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins, and David Thompson (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987), 130, 144.





Fabrizio and Machiavelli: Mercenary Captains as Teachers of the Young

The parallel between Fabrizio and Machiavelli leads us to see that the principal feature of Machiavelli’s reform is the education of the young. This parallel is first hinted at near the beginning of the Art of War: just as Fabrizio would reject the ancient modes that few or none would praise, follow, or imitate (in that order) and seeks other ancient models, so Machiavelli approvingly notes how in antiquity soldiers were “praised by other men and followed and imitated with utmost attention” (AWpr. 8, emphasis added). More tellingly, Fabrizio’s words about himself and his activity at the end of the work clearly allude to Machiavelli and his own activity as described at the end of the preface to that book of the Discourses on Livy devoted to foreign affairs and war. The dialogue ends with Fabrizio giving advice to his interlocutors whose youth has been emphasized from the beginning of the dialogue (AWI 4, I 6, I 11, I 47, III 5, IV 2, VII 246–49; cf. I 86, I 225). Here he rails against nature and fortune for giving him the knowledge but not the ability to reform his corrupt age. Likewise, in the Discourses on Livy,Machiavelli observes:



Human appetites are insatiable, for since from nature they have the ability and the wish to desire all things and from fortune the ability to achieve few of them, there continually results from this a discontent in human minds and disgust with the things they possess. This makes them blame the present times, praise the past, and desire the future, even if they are not moved to do this by any reasonable cause. (D II pr. 3)



Machiavelli goes on to wonder whether he is being unreasonable in praising the times of ancient Rome while blaming his own times. He concludes that it is not unreasonable to do so because the virtue of the ancient and the vice of the present times are obvious to everyone. In reaching this conclusion, however, Machiavelli presents himself, just as Fabrizio did, as one moved by nature to be a reformer of his day but lacking the capability to do so because of fortune:



I will be spirited in saying manifestly that which I may understand of the former and of the latter times so that the spirits of youths who may read these writings of mine can flee the latter and prepare themselves to imitate the former at whatever time fortune may give them opportunity. For it is the duty of a good man to teach others the good that you could not work because of the malignity of the time and of fortune, so that when many are capable of it, someone of them more loved of heaven maybe able to work it. (D II pr. 3)





The chapter in the Discourses on Livy that immediately precedes the preface just quoted, the last one of the first book, ends with words about the “very young” (DI 60). In it Machiavelli discusses the connection between virtue and the hope for the reward of glory, and the necessity of feeding this hope in the young if one chooses, as did Rome (DI 6), to arm the plebs. It is a necessity that “the prudence of the old,” that is, Aristotelian prudence,13 be foregone in favor of the multitude’s election of an outstanding youth to be their captain (D I 60). Machiavelli places his hope in the youthful hope for glory that is achieved by winning the multitude to opinions and orders that accord with those taught by Machiavelli in the Discourses on Livyand The Prince.The youthful desire for glory is as much a necessity for the success of Machiavelli’s enterprise as it is for the young themselves. But just as Fabrizio obscures this necessary and therefore unexalted character of glory, so Machiavelli gives countless examples of great actions by great men to inspire youths to action even while he teaches some of them that necessity rules. Like the excellent captain whose spirit (spirito) is present even and especially in his absence (D III 31.4), Machiavelli seeks to control the youth of the coming ages.

Machiavelli announces the advent of a spiritual army that is both the necessary condition for the flourishing of his temporal armies and the means by which the breaking of the natural cycle of order and disorder discussed above can be turned to the common benefit of each.

In the passage on this natural cycle in the Florentine Histories in which letters (that is, philosophy or its variant, Christianity) are said to be the means by which ordered cities come to ruin, Machiavelli also says, “The strength of wellarmed spirits cannot be corrupted by a more honorable leisure than that of letters, nor can leisure enter into well-instituted cities with a greater and more dangerous deceit (inganno) than this one” (FHV 1.185). In the Art of War, Fabrizio says that “one bears more and greater dangers than in doing battle” when one marches against the unseen but always feared enemy because of the many ways one can be ambushed by some “deceit (inganno)” (AWV 118, 114–15). Fabrizio wishes to provide “perfect knowledge of this exercise” of guarding against such deceits (AWV 108). Here, in a key passage for understanding Machiavelli’s art of writing, he advises that in the presence of such an army “you have to fear him in thought and in order, but with words and with other extrinsic demonstrations, show that you despise him. For this last mode makes your soldiers hope more to have victory; the other one makes you more cautious and less apt to be deceived”(AW V 117). The bold words for which Machiavelli is famous and with which he shows that he despised Christianity are but “extrinsic demonstrations” to give his soldiers hope of victory over this unseen enemy. In his own thoughts, however, he had high esteem for this greatest deceit and danger. But to know his thought, one must make one’s way from his bold pronouncements to consider his cautious manner of proceeding and especially his “order.”



13. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI viii 5–8.





Only the organizing principle of this order can be mentioned here. Near the point in book II at which Cosimo confronts Fabrizio with the manifest superiority (in certain circumstances) of the Asian way of war, Fabrizio alters the proposed order of topics to be discussed with the result that the entire remainder of the work is reordered in light of the distinction between two kinds of warfare: that against an enemy one sees before one and that against an unseen but always feared enemy (AW II 165, V 1; cf. I 114–17, II 160–73, and pages xliii–xliv above). The Art of War, then, was meant by Machiavelli not only as a treatise on fighting physical armies but also as a guide for battling the unseen but always feared God whose religion and Church have kept the West in ruin. Should He be revered and feared as a believer reveres and fears Him, or esteemed and feared as Machiavelli esteems and fears Him, that is, as the deceit always ready to turn military– political order into disordered weakness. Whatever may be the correct answer to this most pressing question, Machiavelli was well prepared indeed to wage a war of indefinite duration against His orders.