A lovely little essay on Niccolo Machiavelli and his love for his native city of Florence:
The tradition of political realism has a reputation for being pessimistic—that is, for seeing and expecting the worst from the world, its individuals, and its states. Yet, despite all his realism, Niccolò Machiavelli was a romantic about his city. He famously said in a letter to his friend, diplomat Francesco Vettori, “I love my city more than my own soul.”
In 1512, the Medici retook Florence from Piero Soderini, and removed Machiavelli from his diplomatic position. The following year, they accused him of conspiring against them and tortured him for three weeks. After this, Machiavelli retired to his family home in Sant’Andrea, and never ceased to lament his “great and continued malignity of fortune” of not being able to contribute to his city’s administration.
Exiled from praxis, Machiavelli theorised about politics. He wrote two historical works—Discourses on Livy and Florentine Histories—to speak to the ways in which he thought that the Italy of his day should aspire to the glory of ancient Rome and the ways in which it failed to do so. He never rejected his being a modern man, and he did not believe that Renaissance Italy could imitate ancient Rome in all respects. However, he pushed his fellow citizens to take inspiration from it and to consider carefully that they share something with their past: it’s not “as if heaven, sun, elements, and men had varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity.”
In what you may rightly suspect to be closely related news, Castalia Library has announced the April-May-June book for the History subscription.