HUMANITIES: ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE – MUSIC & LITERATURE
HUM2230 – Lec1_Ital_Renais_Music_Lit - power point notes
(2) Renaissance Music – intro:
what we will cover
(3) Music Forms / Terms
Quiz students on each term
Motet – one-movement composition setting a sacred text to polyphonic choral
music – usually with no instrumental accompaniment.
Polyphony – simultaneous singing of several voices
each independent of the others. The Early Renaissance form was multi-melodic –
more lyrical and less chant-like than medieval form, a more sensuous sound.
Plainchant melody – main melody – Dufay changed this from
lowest voice to highest voice to be better heard.
a cappella—meaning “in the chapel manner without
instrumental accompaniment,
Word Painting – the meaning of words is underscored and
emphasized through the music that accompanies them – increasing sense of the
drama of language led composers to use music to enrich the feelings their music
expressed. Aristotle is understood to consider music the highest form of art
and the rhythms of Greek music imitated the rhythms of Greek poetry, for which
it served as a setting.
Secularized – musicians still depended on patronage, but
commissions came from wealthy burghers and aristocrats as well as from church. This
was needed for private audiences, Coronations, weddings, processions, and political
events. Most of the nobility both played an instrument and sang. Many
uneducated people were accomplished musicians. Evening entertainment (no TV or
computers or video games!!). By this time most instruments evolved to look much
like they do today.
Parody Masses – where a popular song of the day was
inserted into a religious liturgical mass. This had to be done carefully, to
not alert the clergy!
Madrigal – vocal chamber music in the polyphonic
style, usually of amorous character and designed for home performance and
entertainment.
Movable type – growth and popularity of music. One
Hundred Songs published in 1501; composers then became more familiar with
each other’s works.
(4) Night view:
Dufay shaped the musical language of the Early Renaissance. Born in
·
The
English had developed pleasing harmonies using a three-note interval. (Middle
Ages – four,five,or eight-note intervals).
Dufay used this in polyphonic and imitative style.
·
Dufay
wrote music in all the popular genres: Latin motets- compositions for multiple
voices; music for ceremonies; songs for pleasure, parody masses.
·
The wide
distribution of his music is all the more impressive considering that he died
several decades before the availability of music printing.
·
None of
his surviving music is specifically instrumental, although instruments were
certainly used for some of his secular music, especially for the lower parts;
all of his sacred music is vocal. Instruments may have been used to reinforce
the voices in actual performance for almost any portion of his output.
1436 – day of dedication for completed Florence Cathedral. Procession led
by Pope, 7 cardinals, 36 bishops, other church officials, civic leaders,
artists. Scholars, musicians. Papal choir – composer Guillaume Dufay
(1400-1474) – performed a motet composed for the occasion.
(5)
In this choral work by Dufay the architecture of Brunelleschi’s dome
finds an exact musical counterpart.
·
Mathematical
proportions and the Renaissance:
·
Architects
designed guided by mathematical ratios and proportions.
·
Painters
used mathematical proportions governed by linear perspective.
·
Composers
wrote music reflecting mathematical ratios between the notes of a melody and in
the intervals between notes sounded together in harmony.
·
Poets
structured poems according to mathematical proportions.
Striking example: Proportions of dome built by Brunelleschi for Florence
Cathedral and Dufay’s motet Il Duomo
·
Note:
modern bar lines did not exist in the 15th century. It is possible, however, to
measure out the rhythmic pulses by their correspondence with the metrical
patterns of the text. This is how this chart was figured out.
·
The
proportional scheme of the dome has to do with Brunelleschi (Dome’s architect)
taking the pre-existing octagonal base of the dome, then describing a square
inside of it – thus he derives the ratios of 6:4:2:3 in constructing the two
shells of the dome.
·
This
double dome arrangement is closely paralleled by the double tenor voices that
constitute the two lower parts of Dufay’s four-part motet.
·
Certain
measurements of the two tenors are the counterpart of the thickness of the two
cupolas (of the Dome) in the proportions of 2:3.
(6) Heinrich Isaac
(click) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, of south
Netherland origin. He is regarded as one of the most significant contemporaries
of Josquin des Prez, and had an especially large influence on the subsequent
development of music in
(click) Music composed by Isaac included masses, motets, songs in French,
German, and Italian, as well as instrumental music. Isaac is held in high
regard for his Choralis Constantinus. It is a huge anthology of over 450
chant-based polyphonic motets for the Proper of the Mass - the portion of the
liturgy which changed on different days, unlike the ordinary, which remained
constant
(click) Under Lorenzo, the arts took on a more courtly character, and the
audiences grew correspondingly smaller and more elite. . . . Lorenzo had the
instincts of a popular ruler and did participate actively in Florentine
festivals by composing new verses for the traditional folk tunes and encouraged
others to do the same.
(click) Popular poetry needed appropriate musical settings. In 1475, Lorenzo chose Heinrich Isaac, a
native of
(click) Isaac was organist (Lorenzo had at least five organs), and choirmaster at the Florence Cathedral and
at
(click) Together with poet Angelo Poliziano, Isaac was teacher of
Lorenzo’s sons – one of whom was to be the music- and art-loving Pope Leo X.
(click) Isaac collaborated with Lorenzo on the songs written for popular
festivals. Thus co-creator of the kinds of secular music that led to the 16th
century madrigal.
(7)
still regarded almost half a century after his death as a figure
comparable to Michelangelo; opinion also held by musicians. (8, 281)
·
Italians
took great pride in the achievements of their own artists, but universally they
acknowledged the supremacy of the northern composers.
·
The
spread of the northern polyphonic art . . . which was dominated by Flemish,
Burgundian, and French musicians – influence spread over the entire Christian
world.
·
Under
Pope Sixtus IV, church music moved from its status as servant of the liturgy to
a position of major importance. Musicians flocked to
. . Led to the establishment of the Capella Sistina [Sistine
Chapel Choir] in 1473. The highest honor was an appointment to the Sistine
Choir – performed on the occasions when the pope himself officiated. Choir
totaled from 16 to 24 singers, except during the time of the musical Pope Leo,
who increased it to 36.
Singers divided into four parts: boy sopranos, male altos, tenors, and
basses. Normally they sang a cappella, not a usual practice for choirs
at that time.
des Prez composed numerous pieces during his service there from
1486-1494.
·
In his
compositions, the stark, barren intervals of Gothic polyphony and all traces of
harshness in the harmonies are eliminated.. . .
·
He
excelled in all Renaissance musical forms. . .he achieved a style of
incomparable beauty, formal clarity, and the pure expression.
·
Josquin’s
Ave Maria. [sample CD? On my samples] four-part motet – treats all four
voices with balanced impartiality –prefers to group them in pairs, in order to
achieve a transparency of texture and purity of sound. Darker sides of his
emotional spectrum can be found in his requiem masses.
(8) Music samples – on my CD
Triumph of Oriana: As Vesta was from Latimos Hill Descending: Thomas
Weelkes
(9) Renaissance Literature –
Petrarch, Castiglione, Machiavelli (intro slide)
(10) Francesco Petrarch: note
dates before ‘start’ of Renaissance (1304-1374) –
Considered the Father of
Humanism. We have been discussion
humanism so much, we need to know more about Petrarch who was the impulse that
started this new way of thinking.
For Petrarch, ancient culture was not merely a source of scientific
information, philosophical knowledge, or rhetorical rules; it was also a
spiritual and intellectual resource for enriching the human experience. . . He
did not invent humanism, but he breathed life into it and was its tireless
advocate. . . . Wanted to revive the eloquence of such Roman writers such as
Cicero and Virgil [from text]
Petrarch was studying to become a lawyer, but he despised the profession
of lawyers. Although the logic of law appealed to him, the dishonest associated
with the profession made his stomach turn. When his father died, Petrarch
abandoned his study of law and turned to the classics. He entered the service
of the church. He then spent most of his life in the service of the Church
under different Cardinals and Bishops. He traveled on many diplomatic missions
across
Many seek an answer to the question, "What did Petrarch do?"
The simple answer is, "Petrarch wrote a letter."
·
Petrarch
spent a great deal of his life in foreign lands and often wrote on how life itself
was a journey, an all to common theme in today's literature, but one which was
not fully explored before Petrarch's time.
·
Petrarch
begins to follow
·
He would
write to kings and queens, he would write to popes and cardinals. He would
write to the ghosts of Cicero and Homer.
On April 6th, 1327, . . . Petrarch
sees Laura for the first time. Who Laura really was, and even if she
really existed is a little bit of a mystery, but she is thought to be Laura de
Noves, born in 1310 and married to Hugues II de Sade in 1325.
Falling madly in love with a woman
he may have never even talked to, Petrarch would go on to write hundreds of poems
to her: expressions of a speaker’s love for a woman and his experience of the
joy and pain of love’s complex and shifting emotions. . . . Laura remained
unattainable. . . . Eventually, these
lyrical poems, or sonnets, would get transported around the world and
translated into just about every known language. They inspired others to write
sonnet sequences. . . .most famous – William Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. In the
end, his Song Book contains 366 poems, mostly sonnets to and about the love of
his life which he could never have, Laura.
So great were his writings that royalty treated him, the son of exiled
nobles, like a king, and in a letter to a friend he even goes as far as to say
that he has caused his own plague to spread over
And so ended the middle ages and the start of Humanism in literature.
(11) Baldassare Castiglione
(1478-1529)
Picture: Raphael’s Baldassare Castiglione – ca. 1515, oil on panel,
transferred to canvas.
(click) Castiglione was born near
(click) In 1490 he was sent to
(click) When his father died in 1499 he returned to
In 1524 Clement VII named him papal envoy to the court of Charles V in
(click) Castiglione had begun writing The Courtier by 1513–1514,
and it occupied him for most of the rest of his life.
[Stop here for class discussion on the assigned reading from Book of
the Courtier]
What form / style does
Castiglione use?
The book is a dialogue that follows the classical models of Plato and
Cicero, both in its proposal of an ideal type to be imitated, the perfect
courtier, and in its choice of dialogic form.
Like
In what sense is this
autobiographical?
The book is also autobiographical. The conversations it depicts are set
at the court of Urbino in 1506, and the interlocutors are courtiers and ladies
many of whom Castiglione met during the years he spent there. He remembers them
and those days with nostalgia.
What is a Courtier? An attendant at a sovereign's court.
(derogatory term) One who seeks favor, especially by insincere flattery. Why
do some give this definition after reading the Courtier?
What is the courtier’s principle
profession, or first duty? How to handle
Arms (military)
What is the universal rule
regarding how a courtier should display his skills in any regard?
Without affectation. What does that mean?
What is the book about? Briefly
describe some attributes of Castiglione’s Courtier . . .
Castiglione's courtier appears as a true uomo universale, a
perfect human being, learned, civilized, elegant, well dressed, courageous,
and a good fighter both in battle and in duels. The courtier has to be a man
of many parts, at home in war as well as in peace, a man who will cut a
good figure in an elegant conversation or when courting a lady. But it is
impossible to reduce the courtier to any of his many roles; the feature that
really defines him is none of his individual accomplishments but grazia
('grace'). An essential part of the "grace" or charm that
marks the true courtier is that everything he does should appear natural and
effortless. For this ease and naturalness in appearance and behavior (without
affectation), Castiglione coined the term sprezzatura (‘without
effort’ a certain nonchalance combining self-confidence with understatement and
also spontaneity); this catchword was to become famous, and it remained a key
term in later tracts on the courtier. It was an ideal that deeply influenced
the way nobles in general, even outside the confines of the court, tried to
appear to society.
(12) Castiglione: Book of the
Courtier (published 1528). Over 300
pages (one source – Google Books)
COURT AND COURTIERS. The royal and princely courts of early modern
THE COURTIER AND THE NEW CODE OF CIVILITY
(click) In Book 1 the
assembled courtiers and ladies propose games for their entertainment and decide
upon one in which they will have to "form in words a perfect
courtier." The courtier they envision must be a nobleman, whose
principal profession is arms and who engages and excels in physical
activities, always maintaining his dignity.
He is a connoisseur and a
practitioner of the arts and letters, who exhibits moderation in all he does,
avoids affectation, and performs with grace (grazia) and seemingly
without effort (with sprezzatura). Outward appearance is of the utmost
importance.
Book 1 includes digressions on the current debates regarding the
vernacular language, on the relative importance of arms and of letters for the
courtier, and on the question of the preeminence of painting or sculpture.
(click) Book 2 treats the ways and circumstances in which the
ideal courtier might demonstrate his qualities and argues the importance of
decorum and of conversational skills, especially his ability to entertain with
humorous language. Examples are given that constitute a collection of witty
stories and practical jokes.
(click) Book 3 imagines a suitable female companion for the
courtier, who has many of his same qualities and talents, though physical
beauty is more important for her, as is her good reputation.
The virtue of women is both discussed and demonstrated through examples,
ancient and modern, which provide another collection of entertaining stories.
(click) In Book 4 we come to the courtier's raison d'être, his
service to his prince, and after long discussion the topic of conversation
turns to love, a theme introduced in Book 3, and centers on how the courtier,
no longer young, should love.
(raison d'être – reason for being; reason for a thing’s existence)
The theory of Neoplatonic love is proposed, following closely Marsilio
Ficino's Christianizing commentary on Plato's Symposium.
(13): Niccolò Machiavelli: intro
Portrait by Santi di Tito. Statue
at the Uffizi. Peter Withorne’s 1573 translation of the Art of War
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527)
Like Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli was a Polymath. He was an Italian philosopher/writer, He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a
playwright, wrote novels, translated classics . . .
but foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic
Machiavelli was born in a tumultuous era—Popes waged war, and the wealthy
Italian city-states might anytime fall, piecemeal, to foreign powers—
. . . he is considered one of the main founders of modern political
science.[1]
Since the sixteenth century, generations of politicians remain attracted
and repelled by the cynical approach to power posited in The Prince.[3]
Whatever his personal intentions, which are still debated today, his
surname yielded the modern political word Machiavellian—the use of cunning and
deceitful tactics in politics.
He is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince, written in 1513, but not published until
1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. . . . the only work he published in
his lifetime was The Art of War,
about high-military science.
He wrote many discourses on different subjects, in particular, politics.
(14) Machiavelli: Credentials
(click) What made Machiavelli’s writings so relevant to his readers? His
literary style was important. But he also had much experience in high places
from which to draw his political views.
Little is known about his early life, but even a cursory glance at his
literary works reveals that he received an excellent humanist education
(click) In 1494, he entered
Florentine government service as a clerk and as an ambassador;
later that year,
(click) In 1498, after the ouster and execution of Girolamo Savonarola,
the Great Council elected Machiavelli as Secretary to the Second Chancery of
the
·
He was
in a diplomatic council responsible for negotiation and military affairs. He
distrusted mercenaries, and instead commanded a politically invested
citizen-milita
·
Went on diplomatic
missions to the courts of Louis XII in France, Ferdinand II of Aragón, in
·
Moreover,
from 1502 to 1503, he witnessed the effective state-building methods of
soldier-churchman Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), who was then enlarging his central
Italian territories.
(click) yet, in August of 1512, the Medici, helped by Pope Julius II,
used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato; the Florentine
city-state and the Republic were dissolved.
For his significant role in the republic's anti-Medici government,
Niccolò Machiavelli was deposed from office, and, in 1513, was accused of
conspiracy, and arrested. Despite torture "with the rope" (the
prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists, from the back, forcing the arms to
bear the body's weight, thus dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement
and was released; then, retiring to his estate, at Sant'Andrea in Percussina,
near Florence, he wrote the political treatises that earned his intellectual
place in the development of political philosophy and political conduct.
Discuss with class their reading
of The Prince.
Questions:
How is The Prince different from the Book
of the Courtier?
What do you think is
Machiavelli’s purpose for writing The
Prince?
What are qualities that earn
leaders praise? Generosity (vs. miserly); benefactors (vs
grasping); compassionate (vs cruel); faithful (vs. faithless); courageous and
fierce (vs effeminate and cowardly); etc.
What does he say about a Prince
being generous?
Is it better to be loved or to
be feared?
What is the underlying theme of The Prince? (next slide)
(15) Machiavelli: The Prince
(click) The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on
which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of
power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal:
whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure
power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good.
Thus, in direct opposition to a moralistic theory of politics,
Machiavelli says that the only real concern of the political ruler is the
acquisition and maintenance of power (although he talks less about power per
se than about “maintaining the state.”) In this sense, Machiavelli presents
a trenchant criticism of the concept of authority by arguing that the notion of
legitimate rights of rulership adds nothing to the actual possession of power.
The Prince purports to
reflect the self-conscious political realism of an author who is fully aware—on
the basis of direct experience with the Florentine government—that goodness and
right are not sufficient to win and maintain political office.
(click) Machiavelli thus seeks to learn and teach the rules of political
power. For Machiavelli, power characteristically defines political activity,
and hence it is necessary for any successful ruler to know how power is to be
used. Only by means of the proper application of power, Machiavelli believes,
can individuals be brought to obey and will the ruler be able to maintain the
state in safety and security.
(click) Machiavelli acknowledges that good laws and good arms constitute
the dual foundations of a well-ordered political system. But he immediately
adds that since coercion creates legality, he will concentrate his attention on
force. He says, “Since there cannot be good laws without good arms, I will not
consider laws but speak of arms” (Machiavelli 1965, 47).
In other words, the legitimacy of law rests entirely upon the threat of
coercive force; authority is impossible for Machiavelli as a right apart from
the power to enforce it. Consequently, Machiavelli is led to conclude that fear
is always preferable to affection in subjects, just as violence and deception
are superior to legality in effectively controlling them. . . . ; people obey
only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of
life or of privileges.
Concept: MAD – mutually assured distruction –
policy during the cold war: MAD is a
product of the 1950s’
. . . in the rough-and-tumble of political conflict those who prefer
power to authority are more likely to succeed. Without exception the authority
of states and their laws will never be acknowledged when they are not supported
by a show of power which renders obedience inescapable.
[another example – putting signs up along our southern border – Dangerous
area – stay away– not effective without show of force]
(click) The term that best captures Machiavelli's vision of the
requirements of power politics is virtù. While the Italian word would
normally be translated into English as “virtue,” and would ordinarily convey
the conventional connotation of moral goodness, Machiavelli obviously means
something very different when he refers to the virtù of the prince. In
particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtù to refer to the
range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to acquire
in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things,” the two
standard markers of power for him.
This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the
conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli expects
princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires,
of behaving in a completely evil fashion. For the circumstances of political
rule are such that moral viciousness can never be excluded from the realm of
possible actions in which the prince may have to engage. . . .
Hence, the prince just like the general needs to be in possession of virtù,
that is, to know which strategies and techniques are appropriate to what
particular circumstances. Thus, virtù winds up being closely connected
to Machiavelli's notion of the power. The ruler of virtù is bound to be
competent in the application of power; to possess virtù is indeed to
have mastered all the rules connected with the effective application of power. Virtù
is to power politics what conventional virtue is to those thinkers who suppose
that moral goodness is sufficient to be a legitimate ruler: it is the
touchstone of political success.
(16) Machiavelli: Discourses
(click) Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17), known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of
Livy's enthusiasm for the republic is evident . . . During the Middle
Ages interest in Livy fell off. . . .
The Renaissance was a time of intense revival. .
(click) The Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy
comprises the early history of
(click) While The Prince is doubtless the most widely read of his
works,
the Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy perhaps most
honestly expresses Machiavelli's personal political beliefs and commitments, in
particular, his republican sympathies.
(click) A minimal constitutional order is one in which subjects live
securely (vivere sicuro), ruled by a strong government which
holds in check the aspirations of both nobility and people, but is in turn
balanced by other legal and institutional mechanisms.
In a fully constitutional regime, however, the goal of the political
order is the freedom of the community (vivere libero), created by
the active participation of both the nobility and the people. . . . liberty forms a value that anchors
Machiavelli's political theory and guides his evaluations of the worthiness of
different types of regimes. Only in a republic, for which Machiavelli expresses
a distinct preference, may this goal be attained.
During his career as a secretary and diplomat in the Florentine republic,
Machiavelli came to acquire vast experience of the inner workings of French
government, which became his model for the “secure” (but not free) kind of
government. . . he devotes a great deal of attention to
. . . Machiavelli's aim was to
contrast the best case scenario of a monarchic regime with the institutions and
organization of a republic. Even the most excellent monarchy, in Machiavelli's
view, lacks certain salient qualities that are endemic to properly constituted
republican government and that make the latter constitution more desirable than
the former.
Machiavelli asserts that the greatest virtue of the French kingdom and
its king is the dedication to law.
These laws and orders are maintained by Parliaments, notably that of
(click) As for the rest, for whom it is enough to live securely (vivere
sicuro), they are easily satisfied by making orders and laws that, along
with the power of the king, comprehend everyone's security. And once a prince
does this, and the people see that he never breaks such laws, they will shortly
begin to live securely (vivere sicuro) and contentedly. . . .
This is the limit of monarchic rule: even the best kingdom can do no better
than to guarantee to its people tranquil and orderly government.
(click) Machiavelli holds that one of the consequences of such vivere
sicuro is the disarmament of the people. He comments that regardless of
“how great his kingdom is,” the king of
This all comes from having disarmed his people and having preferred … A
state that makes security a priority cannot afford to arm its populace, for
fear that the masses will employ their weapons against the nobility (or perhaps
the crown). Yet at the same time, such a regime is weakened irredeemably, since
it must depend upon foreigners to fight on its behalf.
(click) In this sense, any government that takes vivere sicuro
as its goal generates a passive and impotent populace as a inescapable result.
By definition, such a society can never be free in Machiavelli's sense of vivere
libero, and hence is only minimally, rather than completely, political
or civil.
(17) Machiavelli: INFLUENCE – American politics
(click) Machiavelli was in many respects not an innovator. His largest
political work seeks to bring back a rebirth of the
The Founding Fathers
of the United States read Machiavelli closely. In his Defence of the
Constitutions of Government of the United States, John Adams praised Machiavelli . . . as a philosophic
defender of mixed government. For
Scholars have argued that James Madison followed Machiavelli's
republicanism when he (and Jefferson) set up the Democratic-Republican Party in
the 1790s to oppose what they saw as the emerging aristocracy that they feared
Alexander Hamilton was creating with the Federalist Party. Conservative
historians likewise conclude that Thomas Jefferson's republicanism was
"deeply in debt" to Machiavelli, whom he praised.
[discussion: It was not The Prince they were reading. Look at the
Philosophy behind Machiavelli’s Discourses. In reviving the old
literature of Livy, Machiavelli did not come up with a ‘new’ type of
government. Rather, he was questioning ‘how should we be governed?’ ‘what is
the purpose of government?’ - - - to merely make The People be and feel secure?
Or, also, to be and feel FREE.
(click) What is Machiavelli's “place” in the history of Western ideas?
The body of literature debating this question, especially in connection with The
Prince and Discourses, has grown to truly staggering proportions.
(click) For example, [two recent scholars, in late twentieth
century] have traced the diffusion of
Machiavelli's republican thought throughout the so-called Atlantic world and,
specifically, into the ideas that guided the framers of the American
constitution. . . .
Yet few firm conclusions have
emerged within scholarship. . . scholars
to make equally convincing cases for contradictory claims about his fundamental
stance . . .
(click) The most extreme versions of this reading find Machiavelli to be
a “teacher of evil,” . . . on the grounds that he counsels leaders to avoid the
common values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people
in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception.
A more moderate school of thought, views Machiavelli as simply a
“realist” or a “pragmatist” advocating the suspension of commonplace ethics in
matters of politics. Moral values have no place in the sorts of decisions that
political leaders must make, and it is a category error of the gravest sort to
think otherwise.
(click) Weaker still is the claim . . . that Machiavelli simply adopts
the stance of a scientist—a kind of “Galileo of politics”—in distinguishing
between the “facts” of political life and the “values” of moral judgment. Thus,
Machiavelli lays claim to the mantle of the founder of “modern” political
science, in contrast with Aristotle's classical value-laden vision of a
political science of virtue.
(click) In direct contrast, some of Machiavelli's readers have found no
taint of immoralism in his thought whatsoever. Jean-Jacques Rousseau long ago
held that the real lesson of The Prince is to teach the people the truth
about how princes behave and thus to expose, rather than celebrate, the
immorality at the core of one-man rule. In other words, The Prince is a satire.
Some scholars. . . have pronounced Machiavelli the supreme satirist,
pointing out the foibles of princes and their advisors. The fact that
Machiavelli later wrote biting popular stage comedies is cited as evidence in
support of his strong satirical bent. . . . that we should understand his
remarks as sharply humorous commentary on public affairs.
(click) Alternatively, another theory suggests that Machiavelli's agenda
was driven by a desire to “trap” the prince by offering carefully crafted
advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken
seriously and followed.
. . . Machiavelli in his Discourses
seems to adhere to a genuinely republican position. But how are we to square
this with his statements in The Prince?
It is tempting to dismiss The Prince as an inauthentic expression
of Machiavelli's “real” views and preferences, written over a short period in order
to prove his political value to the returned Medici masters of
[my thought] The fact that (according to one source) Mussolini kept The
Prince on his bedside table, and that some of our founding fathers were
influenced by ideas about a republic espoused by Maciavelli, tells you that
there are extreme differences between the two literary works: The Prince
and the Discourses.
-end of presentation –
Excerpt from Book 1 – The Courtier - assigned reading: only a
few pages:
•
Sport
& recreation important: not too small nor too big: well built.
•
Good at
all physical exercises befitting a warrior. Handle all weapons. Be prepared in
case of duels!
•
Conflict
management: seize advantage: show courage and prudence. Enter into
‘engagements’ only when honor demands it. . . . Don’t be cowardly
•
Know all
about horses; horsemanship – surpass everyone ‘just a little’ in everything.
(Riding, jousting, running bulls, casting spears & darts, etc.)
•
Above
all: accompany every act with grace & fine judgment.
•
(other
voice) Some are born with God-given gift of gracefulness. How does one acquire
this if not born with it? You, Castiglione, are obliged (by singora Emilia) to
teach us
•
Courtier:
constant effort to imitate / exactly reproduce his master. Observe different
courtiers – judge which are the best to guide for various things.
•
Universal
rule: steer away from affectation at all costs: seem to always act
natural, uncontrived, effortless. Things done ‘simply and not labored’ show
excellence of the artist/performer.
•
To labor
over what you are doing; shows – extreme lack of grace – discounts everything
•
Most
important thing: conceal (the art): else reputation is ruined
•
Most
agreeable: a warrior who is modest vs. one who boasts, threatens, swears. One
who performs so well, with nonchalance: others consider the skills greater than
they actually are – that one could perform even better (if only he took greater
pains to do so)
•
Grace in
speech: travelers talk in other languages to show how much they know: a
detestable vice.
•
Using
outmoded ways of speaking (old Tuscan words): tedious on listener; not natural
or graceful – in speaking nor in writing
•
It is
right to take more pains with written ‘speech’ – they will last longer; should
be polished and correct – but not different from spoken words.
•
The
finest speech resembles the finest writing.
•
(other
voice challenges) If written speech uses more subtle words/language- reader
will have to pay more attention, will reflect more, will enjoy the skill and
message of the author, happy in his accomplishment. Therefore, it is right to
use the ancient Tuscan words. They have been proven over time: they possess the
grace and dignity which great age imparts (like with buildings, statues,
pictures – all that endures).
•
Stress
on contemporary usage – seems highly dangerous and wrong. Also, current
practices varies a great deal (city to city)
•
The
guide, in the case of written words, should be Petrarch or Boccaccio
Machiavelli The Prince: THE
VERY SQUASHED VERSION
States are either Republics or Principalities, either old or new. Now, old
hereditary states are easy to rule, but to take and hold a new state is
difficult, unless you supervise it personally. Old monarchies can be taken, as
Alexander took and held Darius' state, by exterminating the royal family. But
states accustomed to freedom must be crushed. It is possible to rise to be
prince, by following the example of those who saw their opportunities, and
being well-armed. To firmly hold a new state, you must destroy all resistance,
using cruelty swiftly and firmly, but benefits should be given
little-by-little. The prince must court the approval of the people, and will
only be secure when he can raise his own army to defend against all comers.
Mercenaries, and other's armies, cannot be relied on. A prince must study war,
read history and know his land. He must appear to be good, but know how to be
evil. He should not fear to be thought mean, for liberality is ruin, nor should
he worry to be thought cruel, for fear is the one thing he can control. He
should be willing to use guile and deceit if needed. He may not be loved, but a
prince who is not hated is secure. Fortresses are of little use. A prince must
be resolute and clearly follow one path or another. He should encourage art and
craft, use only capable servants, and keep them under control. He must avoid
flatterers.