MACHIAVELLI

Giuseppe Prezzolini

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, N.Y.,1967, 372 pgs., index, sources

Reviewer's Comments:

This is an excellent reference because it is so comprehensive in content, as the table of contents indicates. Many of the chapters are only one or two pages long, but they are summaries of the ideas described. The subject matter is the history of ideas - Machiavelli's ideas and the ideas of his sources and of this later commentators. Machiavelli was a relatively rare historical figure - both an active instigator and conductor of actions in his polity and an influential (albeit) postumously author of significant theories. His very significant impact throughout subsequent history, of course, has been in the acceptance or not of his theories rather than what he did or did not accomplish in his lifetime.

I - The Doctrine

1 The repugnance of Machiavelli's ideas

2 His ideas misinterpreted

3 -Machiavelli, founder of political science

4 - Machiavelli and Galileo

5 - His awareness of being an innovator

6 - The new concept of the state

7 -The state and the individual

8 - The state must combat foreign powers

9 - The state is might and only might

10 - Recourse to evil is necessary in politics

11 - The pessimism of Machiavelli

12 - Virtu in Machiavelli

13 - The most anti-Christian thinker of his time

14 - His intellecturality

15 - Religion at the service of the state

16 - His criticism of the Church of Rome

17 - Modern states have adopted his ideas of religion

18 - His religiosity

19 - The relativity of forms of government

20 - The state as form imposed on the people

21 - The state as an end in itself

22 - The end and the means

23 - The 'one man' or redeemer

24 - The return of the state to first principles

25 - Human nature and education

26 -Necessity and liberity

27 - Liberty

28 - Idleness and action

29 - Fortune

30 - The national state

31 - Love of country above all else

32 - The forms of government

33 - Machiavelli and the Renaissance

34 - Breaking away from the Middle Ages

35 - Motives in history

36 - Machiavelli's politicl formula

37 - His dialectics

II - Machiavelli's Precursors

1 - Plato

2 - The Sophists

3 - Euripides

4 - Thucydides

5 - Aristotle

6 - Polybius

7 - Pluarch

8 - Carneades

9 - The Romans; Cicero

10 - St. Augustine

11 - Dante

12 - The Humanists

III His Work

1 - Report on the Pistola Factions

2 - Method used by Duke Valentine

3 - On Providing Money

4 - On Dealing with the Valdichiana Rebels

5 - Annals of Italy

6 - The Prince

7 - Discources

8 - The Comedies

9 - The Art of War

10 - Life of Castrccio Castracani

11 -Florentine Histories

12 - Reforming the State of Florence

13 - The Golden Ass

14 - Capitoli

15 - Dialogue on Language

16 - The Letters

IV - His Life

1 - First period - Early years - 1469 - 1498

2 - Second period - To his dismissal by the Medici, 1498 - 1512

3 - Third period - To his death, 1512 - 1517

V - His Friends and Conemporaries

1 - Buonaccorzi

2 - Savonarola

3 - Francesco Vettori

4 - Alamanni

5 - Lenardo da Vinci

6 - Fregoso

7 - Francesco Guicciardini

8 - Brucioli and Luigi Guicciardini

9 - Bandello

VI - Machiavellianism

1 - The real life of Machiavelli: Machiavellianism

2 - Universal hatred of Machiavelli; its origin

3 -The first enemy, Cardinal Reginald Pole

4 - Gentillet

5 - Busini

6- The Florentine Historians

7 - Writers and Literati

8 - Giorio

9 - The Plagiarists

10 - The purge and the Tuscans

11 - The Jesuits

12 - Paolo Paruta

13 - Boero, Boccalini, Sarpi and others

14 - The Utopians

Machaivelli and the Philosophers

1 - Francis Bacon

2 - Descartes

3 - Thomas Hobbes

4 - Spinoza

5 - Vanini

6 - Leibnitz

Machiavelli and the 18th Century

1 - Alfieri

2 - Baretti

Machiavelli in France

1 - Corbinelli

2 - Hostility of the French

3 - Monesquieu

4 - The French translators

5 - Richelieu

Machiavelli in England

1 - The diabolic legend

2 Edmund Spenser-

3 - Walter Raleigh

4 - The dramatists

5 - David Hume

6 - Milton

7 - The romantics

8 - The moderns

Machiavelli in Spain

1 - A positive anti-Machiavellianism

2 - Juan de Mariana

3 - The Machiavellists; Barrientos

4 - Setanti

5 - Gracian

-Machiavelli in Germany

1 - Acceptance by the Germans

2 - Lipsius and Schoppe

3 - Conring, Althusius, Christ

4 - Herder

5 - Fichte and Hegel

6 - The historians

7 - The diabolic in politics

Periiodic Rebirth of Machiavelli

1 - Ferrari, Joly and others

2 - G. B. Vico

Machiavelli and the Encyclopedists

1 - Bayle

2 - Voltaire and Frederick II

3 - Diderot

4 - Rousseau

5 - Helvetius, Condillac and others

6 - Galiani

Machiavelli and the Risorgimento

1 - Machiavelli's reduced stature

2 - Cuoco

3 - Leopardi

4 - Balbo

5 - Gioberti

6 - Manzoni

7 - Mazzini

8 - De Santctis

9 - Guiseppe Ferrari

10 - The Romantics

VII Machiavelli, our Contemporary

1 - Machiavelli in the 20th century

2 - Machiavelli in Russia

3 - Machiavelli in America

4 - Machiavelli, our contemporary

-