Politics and the Italian Renaissance

 

 

Niccolo Machiavelli

 The Prince   1513

Renaissance Italy was not unified

®  Italy did not create effective political institutions

®  Italian politics became a stage where individuals might exhibit their virtu

®  Machiavelli dreamed of the day when the citizens of Italy would behave like early Romans-fighting in citizen armies for patriotic causes.

The Prince 1513

®   He produced the first purely secular writing on politics.

®   He emancipated politics from moral philosophy and theology

®   His writing was amoral- he simply sought to describe what effective politicians did.

®   Credited with the phrase “the end justifies the means”

®   In the Prince Machiavelli produced a handbook of statecraft which he hoped Italy might find useful.

Prince cont.

®  Effective rulers and governments act only in their political interests

®  They keep faith or break it, are merciful or ruthless, peaceable or aggressive according to their own political needs.

®  Machiavelli was prepared to say such behavior was wrong, it was however how successful rulers behaved.

Italian High Renaissance 1500-1527

®  Took place largely in Rome

®  Renaissance Popes Julius II and Leo X

®  Patrons of Arts

®  Tomb of Julius II, Sistine Chapel, St. Peters church

®  Ends with the sacking of Rome by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1527

High Renaissance Artist: Titian
1485-1576