Republicanism, Religion, and Machiavelli's Savonarolan Moment

Author(s): Marcia L. Colish

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 597-616
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 Republicanism, Religion,
and Machiavelli's
Savonarolan Moment

Marcia L. Colish

Machiavelli's readers often take at face value his claim that Christianity has
weakened Italy's civic spirit and martial valor, leaving it open to priestcraft and
foreign invasion. Some scholars see this critique of Christianity as an expression
of the irreligious, immoral, neopagan, or scientific Machiavelli, making it the
chief index of his modernity.' One subset within this group treats Machiavelli's

Supporters of these positions include Sydney Anglo, Machiavelli: A Dissection (New

York, 1969), 72-73, 75-76, 85, 109-13, 118, 139-41, 264; Herbert Butterfield, The Statecraft of
Machiavelli (New York, 1967), 15-36, 80-85; Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New
Haven, 1973), ch. 12; Enrico Castelli, "Machiavellismo e cristianesimo," in Umanesimo e
Machiavellismo (Padua, 1949), 8-16; idem, "Umanesimo e Machiavellismo," in ibid., 1-16;
Francisco Javier Conde, El saber politico in Maquiavelo (Madrid, 1948); E. Harris Harbison,
"Machiavelli's Prince and More's Utopia," in Facets of the Renaissance, ed. William H.
Werkmeister (New York, 1963), 43; Hiram Hayden, The Counter-Renaissance (New York,
1950), 148-54; Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton, 1983), 62, 66-68, 204-18, 222,
227-28, 240, 245-55; Emesto Landi, "Machiavelli," in Western Political Philosophers: A Back-
groundBook, ed. and tr. Maurice William Cranston (London, 1964), 3744; Harvey C. Mansfield,
"Necessity in the Beginning of Cities," in The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli's
Philosophy, ed. Anthony Parel (Toronto, 1972), 101, 117, 120-25; idem, "Party and Sect in
Machiavelli's Florentine Histories," in Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought, ed.
Martin Fleischer (New York, 1972), 209-66; idem, Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of
Modern Executive Power (Baltimore, 1993), 121-27, 134; Jacques Maritain, "The End of
Machiavellianism," Review of Politics, 4 (1992), 1-33; Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, Renaissance
and Revolution: The Remaking of European Thought (New York, 1965), 107-11; Friedrich
Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'tat and Its Place in Modern History, tr.
Douglas Scott (New York, 1965), 29-44; Leonardo Olschki, Machiavelli the Scientist (Berke-
ley, 1945), 21, 25, 28; Clifford Orwin, "Machiavelli's Unchristian Charity," American Politi-
cal Science Review, 72 (1978), 1217-28; John Plamenatz, "Machiavelli," in Man and Society
(New York, 1963), I: 8-9, 32-36, 41; Wayne A. Rebhom, Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli's Con-
fidence Men (Ithaca, 1988), 1-3, 17, 42, 98-100, 106-9, 111, 127-33, 145; Gerhard Ritter, The
Corrupting Influence of Power, tr. F. W. Pick (Hadleigh, 1952), 17-43; Quentin Skinner, The
Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, 1978), I: 130-38, 145-48, 167, 183-86;

597

Copyright 1999 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.

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598 Marcia L. Colish

anthropology as a secularized version of Augustine on original sin, absent an

Eden behind it and a redemption before it.2 Another view of Machiavelli on
religion sees him as treating religion, whatever its teachings, functionally, as an
instrument promoting desirable political behavior.3 This is why they regard

Leo Strauss, "Machiavelli and Classical Literature," Review of National Literatures, 1 (1970),
7-25; idem, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Seattle, 1969 [repr. of Glencoe, Ill., 1958 ed.]), passim;
Pasquale Villari, The Life and Times ofNiccolo Machiavelli, tr. Linda Villari (New York, 1968
[repr. of London, 1892 ed.]), I: 233; II: 84, 98-104, 110-13, 126, 228, 541-42, 549; Neal Wood,
"Machiavelli's Concept of Virtt Reconsidered," Political Studies, 15 (1967), 169. The most
recent and most virulent version of the claim that Machiavelli rejected all religions, pagan and
Christian, is Vickie B. Sullivan, Machiavellis Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and
Politics Reformed (De Kalb, Ill., 1996), 3-117, 157-71.
2 The leading proponent is Giuseppe Prezzolini, Cristo e/o Machiavelli: Assagi sopra il
pessimismo cristiano di sant'Agostino e il pessimismo naturalistico di Machiavelli (Milan,
19723), 27-113; idem, Machiavelli, tr. Gioconda Savini (New York, 1967), 3-4, 18-21, 26-27,
30-33, 36; idem, "The Christian Roots of Machiavelli's Moral Pessimism," Review of National
Literatures, 1 (1970), 26-37; see also Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, "The Poetry of Power:
Machiavelli's Literary Vision," ibid., 38-62; Silvia Ruffo Fiore, "Machiavelli and Reinhold
Niebuhr: Politics and Christian Pragmatism," Machiavelli Studies, 1 (1987), 127-36; Michele
Federico Sciacca, "La concezione dell'uomo nel pensiero di Machiavelli," Cultura e scuola,
33-34 (1970), 60-71.
3 Isaiah Berlin, "The Originality of Machiavelli," in Against the Current: Essays in the
History of Ideas (Oxford, 1991), 25-79; Ruben Calderon Bouchet, "Maquiavelo o la politica
sin misi6n religiosa," Ethos, 213 (1974),109-24; Federigo Chabod, Machiavelli and the Re-
naissance, tr. David Moore (London, 1960), 1-2, 17-18, 93-95, 118-20, 180-81, 184, 187-91;
Bruno Di Porto, "II problema religiosa in Machiavelli," in La religione in Machiavelli e
Guicciardini (Rome, 1968), 5-20; Mera J. Flamenhaft, "The Comic Remedy: Machiavelli's
'Mandragola,' " Interpretation, 7 (1978), 42-47; Andreas Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola:
Politische Rationalitdt undpolitische Prophetie (Frankfurt, 1985), 155-60; Giovanni Gentile,
"Religione e virtfi in Machiavelli," in Studi sul rinascimento (Florence, 19362), 133-34; Ber-
nard Guillemain, Machiavel: L'Anthropologie politique (Geneva, 1977), 326-37, 374; J. R.
Hale, Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy (London, 1961), 12-13, 16, 73, 195; Hulliung, Citizen
Machiavelli, 94; Werner Kaegi, "Vom Glauben Machiavellis," in Historische Meditationen
(Zurich, 1942), 89-117; Alikis Kontos, "Success and Knowledge in Machiavelli," in Parel
(ed.), The Political Calculus, 91-93; Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavellis New Modes and Or-
ders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy (Ithaca, 1979), passim, and Taming the Prince, 126-27,
134; Garrett Mattingly, "Changing Attitudes toward the State in the Renaissance," in Werkmeister
(ed.), Facets of the Renaissance, 34, 36; Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, "Hell vs. Hell: From Dante
to Machiavelli," Symposium, 14 (1963), 245-67, and Renaissance and Revolution, 107-11;
Michael McCanles, The Discourse of the Prince (Malibu, 1983), 28, 54-56, 60-63, 90; Leonhard
von Muralt, Machiavellis Staatsgedanke (Basel, 1945), 34-66, 83-97; tmile Namer, Machiavel
(Paris, 1961), 116-27; Luigi Pierone, Niccolo Machiavelli (Bologna, 1971), 30-33, 59-60, 64-
65, 118, 150-53; J. Samuel Preus, "Machiavelli's Functional Analysis of Religion: Content and
Object," JHI, 40 (1979), 171-90 (my thanks to John M. Headley for this reference); Giuliano
Procacci, "La crisi politica italiana in Machiavelli," in Problemi dell'unamesimo, ed. Maria
Bruscia, Ugo Dotti, and Gianfranco Mariani (Rome, 1972), 157-61; David C. Rapoport, "Moses,
Charisma, and Covenant," Western Political Quarterly, 32 (1979), 123-43; Augustin Renaudet,
Machiavel (Paris, 1942), 10, 11, 85-87, 175, 179-85; Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli (New York,
1982), 61-64; Alberto Tenenti, "La religione di Machiavelli," Studi storici, 10 (1969), 709-48;
Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), 336-38, 526, 529;
Neal Wood, "Machiavelli's Humanism of Action," in Parel (ed.), The Political Calculus, 34-
35, 38-39, 47-48, 54.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 599

Machiavelli as original and modem; although Maury D. Feld notes rightly that
Machiavelli is here simply imitating the ancient Roman historians, who all treat
religion in just this way.4 For some proponents of the functionalist interpreta-
tion, it does not preclude Christian belief on Machiavelli's part. For them his
brief is not against Christianity itself but against clericalism, the papacy, and
Christianity as it is currently interpreted.5 Still others recognize Machiavelli's
acceptance of signs and portents, saintly behavior and miracles, and other indi-
ces of God's existence and action in human history. They also note Machiavelli's
praise of biblical leaders seen as divinely inspired and his inclusion of them
among the founders of religions and states who head his list of heroes.6 Going
farther, some scholars argue that Machiavelli was a conventional, if not an ar-
dent or impeccable, Christian, who joined a religious confraternity before which
he preached his Exhortation to Penitence, and the apparent recipient of the last
rites of his church after a deathbed confession.7

4 Maury D. Feld, "Machiavelli's Militia and Machiavelli's Mercenaries," in The Military,

Militarism, and the Polity: Essays in Honor of Morris Janowitz, ed. Michael Lewis Martin and
Ellen Stem McCrate (New York, 1984), 84-85.
5 Felice Alderisio, Machiavelli: L'Arte dello stato nell'azione e negli scritti (Turin, 1930),
48-50, 105-6, 127-30, 133, 137-40, 171-91, 217-56; R. N. Berki, "Machiavellism: A Philo-
sophical Defense," Ethics, 81 (1971), 107-27; Delio Cantimori, "Niccolo Machiavelli: II po-
litico e lo storico," in Storia della letteratura italiana: II Cinquecento, ed. Natalino Sapegno
(Milan, 19872), 11-16, 20-21, 24, 26-28, 30, 35-36, 48-49, 52 (my thanks to William Connell
for this reference); Adam D. Danel, A Case for Freedom: Machiavellian Humanism (Lanham,
Md., 1997), 237-48; Felix Gilbert, "Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War," in Mak-
ers of Modern Strategyfrom Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, 1986),
26; Eugenio Massa, "Egidio da Viterbo, Machiavelli, Lutero e il pessimismo cristiano," in
Castelli (ed.), Umanesimo e Machiavellismo, 106-14, 118-20; Roberto Ridolfi, Vita di Niccolo
Machia-velli (Florence, 19787), 15-18, 396-98; Silvia Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli (Bos-
ton, 1982), 37, 43-48, 70-72, 87, 89-90; Gennaro Sasso, Niccolo Machiavelli: Storia del suo
pensiero politico (Bologna, 1980), 93-95, 107, 115, 197-205,422-27,429,512-16,600; Tenenti,
"La re-ligione di Machiavelli," 715, 724-28, 730-35, 737-46.
6 Jack D'Amico, "Machiavelli and Memory," Modem Language Quarterly, 50 (1989),
118-20; Sebastian De Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton, 1984), and "Machiavelli's Bibli-
cal Accuracy: A Note of Rectification," Renaissance and Reformation, n.s., 5 (1981), 141-45;
Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 159; John H. Geerken, "Machiavelli Studies since 1969,"
JHI, 37 (1976), 364-68; Timothy J. Lukes, "To Bamboozle with Goodness: The Political Ad-
vantage of Christianity in the Thought of Machiavelli," Renaissance and Reformation, n.s., 8
(1984), 266-71 (my thanks to John M. Headley for this reference); Anthony Parel, "Introduc-
tion: Machiavelli's Method and His Interpeters," in Parel (ed.), The Political Calculus, 5-7;
John Plamenatz, "In Search of Machiavellian Virtu," in ibid., 169-70, 172-73, 175-76, 177; J.
G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Re-
publican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), 170-72, 190-93, 202, 214-15; Russell Price, "The Senses
of Virtu in Machiavelli," European Studies Review, 3 (1973), 316-18; idem, "The Theme of
Gloria in Machiavelli," Renaissance Quarterly, 30 (1977), 589-94, 597-98, 600, 602-5, 610-
15,629-30; Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli, 37,43-48,70-72, 87, 89-90, and " 'Upon Eagles'
Wings': The Sacral Nature of Machiavelli's New Prince," Rivista di studi italiani, 3 (1985), 1-
10; Victor A. Santi, "Religion and Politics in Machiavelli," Machiavelli Studies, 1 (1987), 17-
24; Tenenti, "La religione di Machiavelli," 715, 724-27, 730-39, 746; Trexler, Public Life, 80-
81.
7 Among those commentators who see the Exhortation as hypocritical, frivolous, or ironic

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600 Marcia L. Colish

Can these conflicting assessments of Machiavelli and religion be integrated?

To some extent, yes. Once, that is, we consider a number of issues not always
brought to bear on this question. Machiavelli recognizes that the foreigners who
have overrun Italy and deprived Florence of the republic he had served are as
Christian as the Italians. At home and abroad, their Christianity has not under-
mined their military strength or the civic virtue Machiavelli associates with re-
publics. Within contemporary Florence there were three kinds of republicanism
on offer, for those unhappy with the Medici restoration of 1512. One group
sought to restore the pre-Medici governo stretto constitution dominated by the
ottimati. Their opponents defended governo largo republicanism. Machiavelli
advocated this type of polity, informed by his reading of ancient history and his
assessment of human nature. But another, competing version of governo largo
was put forth by Girolamo Savonarola during the Dominican friar's stormy
career as defacto head of the Florentine state from 1494 to 1498. Savonarola's
republican theory combined a number of ideas that Machiavelli loathed: the
appeal to the Venetian Great Council as a model, the wish to purge Florence of
her sins so that she could serve as the New Jerusalem in the coming apocalypse,
and the notion that governo largo was a means to these religious ends, since the
more broad-based the government, the more readily could it legislate and en-
force moral reform. And, far from self-destructing after the friar's ashes had
been strewn on the Aro, Savonarolan republicanism continued to draw support
from a diverse and substantial group of Florentines. Equally alarming, the agents

are Giovanni Cattani, La vita religiosa nella Esortazione alla penitenza e nella Mandragola de
Niccolo Machiavelli (Faenza, 1973), 7-9, 15-16, 20-23, 26-27; Andrea Ciliotta-Rubeny, "A
Question of Piety: Machiavelli's Treatment of Christianity in the Exhortation to Penitence," in
Piety and Humanity: Essays on Religion and Early Modern Political Philosophy, ed. Douglas
Kries (Lanham, Md., 1997), 11-44; Harvey C. Mansfield, "Strauss's Machiavelli," Political
Theory, 3 (1975), 375; Peter Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism
in the High Renaissance (Princeton, 1998), 281-82. Most others take the work seriously, al-
though there is no consensus on whether Machiavelli delivered the sermon during Lent in 1495
to signify his entry into the Confratemita della Pieta or toward the end of his life; Ronald F. E.
Weissman, "Sacred Eloquence: Humanist Preaching and Lay Piety in Renaissance Florence,"
in Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento, ed.
Timothy Verdon and John Henderson (Syracuse, 1990), 252, 257 thinks that Machiavelli preached
the sermon before a different confraternity, that of the Magi. See Anthony Parel, "Machiavelli
minore," in Parel (ed.), The Political Calculus, 186-208; see also Lukes, "To Bamboozle with
Goodness," 267; Robert M. Adams, intro. to his tr. of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (New
York, 1977), 123-26; Allan Gilbert, intro. to his tr. of An Exhortation to Penitence in Niccolo
Machiavelli, Chief Works and Others (Durham, 1965), I: 170-71; Guillemain, Machiavel, 30;
Paul E. Norton, "Machiavelli's Road to Paradise: The 'Exhortation to Penitence,' "History of
Political Thought, 4 (1983), 31-42; Plamenatz, "In Search of Machiavellian Virtz," 176; J. G. A.
Pocock, "Prophet and Inquisitor, Or, a Church Built on Bayonets Cannot Stand: A Comment on
Mansfield's 'Strauss's Machiavelli,' " Political Theory, 3 (1975), 395; Ridolfi, Vita, 396;
Armando Verdiglione, Niccolo Machiavelli (Azzale, 1994), 55-56. On Machiavelli's alleged
deathbed confession see Giuliano Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell 'etd moderna
(Bari, 1995), 424-31.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 601

of this protracted Savonarolan moment seemed to have preempted Machiavelli's

own anticlerical, antipapal, antioligarchic, and antiMedicean positions, as well
as a theory ofgoverno largo. If we foreground Machiavelli's desire to defend his
own version of republicanism by undermining the Savonarolan alternative and if
we recall that he treats Christianity positively in other contexts, it becomes pos-
sible to read those passages where he criticizes Christianity as practiced in Italy
as texts with an antiSavonarolan subtext. Read this way, they are not incompat-
ible with his acceptance of Christianity as true or as politically constructive
elsewhere. In approaching this topic, we should also remember the longstanding
associations that bound Christianity to politics and warfare.
Addressing this last point first, the claim that Christianity induces pacifism
would have raised eyebrows in Machiavelli's day. For throughout the Middle
Ages religious wars had been fought on the authority of Christian leaders. Just
war theories had proliferated and were expressed in liturgy, theology, popular
preaching, vernacular literature, and visual art. By the central Middle Ages church
leaders had abandoned the effort to mitigate warfare through the Peace of God
and Truce of God. Now, they baptized the sword, canonized military saints,
founded military religious orders, used them to fight the Reconquest and the
Crusades, labeled any war against enemies of the faith, and even enemies of the
papacy, a Crusade, and elaborated indulgence theory to promote participation in
and support of such wars.8 St. Francis and St. Dominic may have interacted
peaceably with heretics or non-Christians; but by the later thirteenth century
mendicants joined other religious orders in preaching the Crusades and in help-
ing participants finance their campaigns.9 This mandate returned with new ur-
gency in the early sixteenth century, with conquistadors recycling Crusade rheto-
ric0l and Pope Leo X calling for a Crusade against the Turks in eastern Europe."
To Europeans who viewed their armies as militiae Christi, Machiavelli's
charge that Christianity had unmanned them and his laying the blame on the
friars must have sounded bizarre. Yet he makes this claim. While he states that
Christianity "shows us the truth and is the true way," he adds that it "makes us
esteem less the honor of the world," causing Christians to shun resolute action

8 See Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1975); also
Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Criti-
cal Re-evaluation (New York, 1960), 101-26, 143-47; H. E. J. Cowdrey, "The Genesis of the
Crusades: The Springs of Western Ideas about Holy War," in The Holy War, ed. Thomas Patrick
Murphy (Columbus, 1976), 9-32; Neal Wood, intro. to his tr. of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of
War (Indianapolis, 1965), xxiv-xxv; and the contributors to "Militia Christi" e crocciata nei
secoli XI-XII (Milan, 1992).
9 Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the
Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1995).
10 Karen Armstrong, Holy War (London, 1988), 340-42; Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise of
Christian Europe (New York, 1965), 101, 128-30.
" Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (New Haven, 1987), 238-42.

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602 Marcia L. Colish

and avenging wrongs in favor of a passivity, sloth, "humility, abjectness, and

contempt for human things" that makes them prey to military defeat and the
dominion of the wicked. All this, he argues, is a misreading of Christianity.12 But
it leads Christians to disdain the lessons of antiquity'3 and it impairs their effi-
cacy in both offensive and defensive war.14 And who is responsible? Machiavelli
says that Francis and Dominic brought the church back to first principles; with-
out them, Christianity "would have disappeared." But the result of this mendi-
cant salvage operation was to make the laity supine and uncritical of nefarious
prelates.'5 While for numerous reasons popes rank high on Machiavelli's list of
corrupt churchmen,'6 his insistence on the critical role of the friars as agents of
demoralization strongly suggests that these texts bear a coded meaning.
Catholics before, during, and after Machiavelli's time have been able to mix
anticlericalism and criticism of the popes with sincere religious belief, and there
is good evidence to suggest that Machiavelli is one of them. He makes straight-
forward references to Christian beliefs as normal and expresses Christian senti-
ments himself. He recognizes that Christianity can have positive as well as nega-
tive effects on politics. Machiavelli recognizes the liberty of the church as a legal
reality, noting, a propos of the Becket affair, that Henry II of England had to
annul policies designed to contravene it.17 For better or worse, ecclesiastical
principalities are a fact of life and they are instituted by higher powers.18 For
Machiavelli, God acts in history and His intervention and providence are forces
to be reckoned with, along with fortune and necessity. This principle applies to
the gentiles as well as to Jews and Christians. God sent great leaders, like Numa
and Scipio Africanus, to the Romans; most recently the hand of God is visible in
the Turkish victory at Mohacs.19 The political interaction between God and man

12 Niccol6 Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di 7Tto Livio 2.2, in Tutte le opere,
ed. Mario Martelli (Florence, 1971), 149-50; tr. Gilbert, in Chief Works, I: 331. When transla-
tions of Machiavelli's works quoted are given, Gilbert's translation will be used unless other-
wise noted.
13 Ibid. 1, pref., Opere, 76.
14 Niccol6 Machiavelli, Arte della guerra, 2, Opere, 332-33.
15 Disc. 3.1, Opere, 196-97; Chief Works, I: 228-29.
16 Ibid. 1.12, 1.27; Istoriefiorentine 1.9, 1.11, 1.14, 1.23, 7.22, 8.11, 8.12-17, Opere, 95-
96, 109-10, 640-41, 641-42, 643, 648-49, 807-8, 825-29.
17 Ist. for. 1.19, Opere, 646.
18 Niccol6 Machiavelli, Rapporto delle cose della Magna, 7 June 1508; II principe 11,
Opere, 67, 70, 261, 273-74. Cantimori, "Niccolo Machiavelli," 18 sees Machiavelli as accept-
ing ecclesiastical principalities so sanctioned as a real, if annoying, fact of life; Sasso, Niccol6
Machiavelli, 186-87 thinks Machiavelli is being sarcastic when he states, in II principe, that
ecclesiastical principalities have superhuman foundations. In citing Machiavelli's letters or
other dated works, I have "normalized" dates, beginning the year on 1 January rather than the
Florentine 25 March.
'9 Disc. 1.11, 2.29-30; Ilprinc. 25; Vita di Castruccio Castracani; Ist.fior. 2.33; Decennale
2, line 6; Dell'ingratitudine line 77; Epistola 313, to Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, 6 October 1526,
Opere, 77, 188-91, 295, 615, 681, 950, 981, 1245, 1457.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 603

is a two-way street. In serving their communities' common good, Machiavelli

states, leaders also serve God; politics offers the greatest opportunity to do so.20
In addition to intervening directly, God manifests His will through signs and
portents; according to Machiavelli, nothing important happens without them.21
These phenomena not only presage coming events but also motivate people, as
did the miracles that persuaded imperial Rome and her Germanic invaders to
accept Christianity.22 God also manifests His power in His saints through their
holy lives. Machiavelli's calendar of saints includes Augustine,23 Boethius,24
Benedict of Nursia,25 early popes before they started encroaching on secular
affairs,26 benefactors of the church like the Holy Roman Emperor Henry I and
his consort,27 Crusade preachers like Peter the Hermit,28 the martyred Thomas
Becket,29 Celestine V, whose holiness can be seen in his rejection of papal hon-
ors,30 and his otherwise unknown compatriot, Annalena Orlandini, who remained
unmarried when she was widowed in 1444, living nun-like at home.31
Machiavelli expresses conventional Christian ideas in a number of his mi-
nor works. In his Tercets on Ambition he refers to God's creation of the universe
and mankind, original sin and the banishment of the primal parents from Eden,
and the Cain and Abel story. Here it is not secularized Augustinianism but the
biblical fall as such that accounts for human wickedness, ambition, and greed.32
In Machiavelli's retread of Apuleius's Golden Ass providence causes the pro-
tagonist to lose his human form; although he does not blame God on that ac-
count and says that he is willing to pass through the gates of Hell to regain it.33
Belfagor features a devil despatched from Hell to earth, there to discover that
marriage is a worse Hell.34 While this theme may be no more than a literary
conceit, Machiavelli's carnival songs present speakers who explain that devils
are fallen angels who now live in Hell and promote vice by tempting sinners,

20 Niccolo Machiavelli, Discursus florentinarum rerum; see also Disc. 2, pref. and the
flattering poems dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici and Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, Opere,
30, 146, 1004.
21 Disc. 1.56, 2.5; II princ. 26; Ist. fior. 1.24, 6.34, 8.36, Opere, 139, 154, 297, 649, 764,
844.
22 Ist. for. 1.5, Opere, 637.
23 Niccolo Machiavelli, Libro delle persecutione d'Africa per Henrico re de' Vandali,
I'anno di Christo 500, et composto per San Victore vescovo d'Utica, Opere, 934-36.
24 Ist. for. 1.4, Opere, 636.
25 Ibid. 1.6, Opere, 638.
26 Ibid. 1.9, Opere, 640.
27 Ibid. 1.13, Opere, 643.
28 Ibid. 1.17, Opere, 645.
29 Ibid. 1.19, Opere, 646.
30 Ibid. 1.25, Opere, 649.
31 Ibid. 6.7, Opere, 770.
32 Niccolo Machiavelli, Della ambizione, lines 16-23, 43-44, 4647, 55-70, Opere, 983-84.
33 Niccolo Machiavelli, L'Asino 3.4, 3.7, 3.118, 8.7-8, Opere, 960, 962, 973.
34 Niccolo Machiavelli, Belfagor, Opere, 919-20.

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604 Marcia L. Colish

even as the blessed souls look down with compassion on the travails of the
living.35 Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Machiavelli notes, is a good work helping
pilgrims win a celestial fatherland.36
Machiavelli's state papers and letters also make conventional reference to
Christianity. Some are doubtless formulaic, as with his expressed hope, in his
report on Cesare Borgia's movements in 1503, that God may grant an outcome
favorable to Florence,37 the opening of his proposal for political reform of 1522
in the names of Jesus and Mary,38 and his salutation to the Signoria in the name
of God in his description of Julius II's installation as pope.39 But in the same
report from Rome he stigmatizes the cruelty of the troops taking Perugia as a
sacrilege against God and man.40 In his letters Machiavelli frequently invokes
and thanks God for his own well-being and that of his addressees; he commends
the souls of the departed to God; he urges acceptance of God's will in comforting
mourners; he requests favors for the love of God; and in general he displays an
unproblematic ease with these standard notions.41
And then there is his Exhortation to Penitence, in which Machiavelli criti-
cizes two types of sinners, those ungrateful to God and those ungrateful to their
neighbors.42 David, the prophet, king, and repentant sinner, illustrates penance
for the first kind of sin; St. Peter's repentence for his denial of Christ exemplifies
penance for the second. Machiavelli's main point is that Christians should do
more than lament their sins. The introspection enabling them to recognize their
faults should lead to action. Penitents should change their outlook and accept

35 Niccolo Machiavelli, De' diavoli assacchiati di cielo, Degli spiriti beati, Opere, 988,
989-90.
36 Ist.fior. 5.34, Opere, 764.
37 Niccolo Machiavelli, Prima legazione alla corte di Roma 63, 28 November 1503, Ope-
re, 550.
38 Niccolo Machiavelli, Minuta di prowisione per la riforma dello stato di Firenze, 1522,
Opere, 20.
39 Prima legazione alla corte di Roma, 69, 1 December 1503, Opere, 557.
40 Ibid.
41 Ep. 2, to Cardinal Giovanni L6pez, 2 December 1497; Ep. 100, to Antonio Tebalducci,
23 September 1505; Ep. 196, to Francesco Vettori, 13 March 1513; Ep. 198, to the same, 18
March 1513; Ep. 200, to the same, 9 April 1513; Ep. 204, to the same, 29 April 1513; Ep. 206,
to Giovanni di Francesco Vemacci, 26 June 1513; Ep. 209, to the same, 4 August 1514; Ep.
226, to the same, 20 April 1514; Ep. 242, to the same, 15 February 1516; Ep. 244, to the same,
8 June 1517; Ep. 246, to Lodovico Alamanni, 17 December 1517; Ep. 247, to Giovanni Vemacci,
5 January 1518; Ep. 250, to the same, 15 April 1520; Ep. 257, to the same, 15 February 1521;
Ep. 267, to Francesco Vettori, 26 December 1521; Ep. 273, to Francesco del Nero, 31 August,
1523; Ep. 287, to Francesco Guicciardini, 17 August 1525; Ep. 291, to the same, after 21
October 1525; Ep. 294, to the same, 3 January 1526; Ep. 299, to the same, 17 May 1526; Ep.
313, to Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, ca. 6 October 1526; Ep. 318, to Guido Machiavelli, 2 March
1527; Ep. 323, to Francesco Vettori, 18 April 1527, Opere, 1009, 1071, 1128, 1129, 1132,
1139, 1141, 1145, 1174, 1193, 1195, 1197, 1201, 1208, 1219, 1223, 1226, 1232, 1245, 1249,
1252.
42 Niccolo Machiavelli, Esortazione alla penitenza, Opere, 932-34.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 605

self-discipline. Machiavelli now brings forward two other models, St. Jerome
and St. Francis, each a byword for ascetic rigor. Since he addresses laymen in
the Exhortation, Machiavelli urges that they should not mortify the flesh liter-
ally. Rather, he stresses self-knowledge, true contrition, and the practice of char-
ity and other social virtues, a non-ascetic message minted in the common coin of
Christian humanist ethics.

For all its conventionality the Exhortation strongly suggests that Christians
should work out their salvation in the forum, not in the cloister or on the
mountaintop. If they do so, Christianity, like other religions, can have a benefi-
cial effect on politics. To be sure, that outcome is neither automatic nor predict-
able, for outcomes depend on circumstances and on whether leaders behave
prudently. Machiavelli makes this point repeatedly by comparing Hannibal and
Scipio Africanus, the former acting with harshness and cruelty and the latter
acting with compassion, chastity, humanity, and religion.43 Both were success-
ful. On balance, Machiavelli thinks that the ancients used religion well, recog-
nizing its utility in promoting esprit de corps and support for the leader's pro-
gram.44 But it is not necessary to return to paganism in order to apply this lesson
of antiquity, for Jewish and Christian leaders also teach what to follow and what
to avoid in the political use of religion.
Machiavelli's most sweeping praise of religion is in the Discourses: "Among
all famous men those are most famous who have been heads and organizers of
religions," and the most "infamous and detestable are those who have been de-
stroyers of religions."45 His roster of great men starts with Moses. Machiavelli
presents Moses as an arch-hero not only because he enforced the law harshly
when necessary and because he had the executive ability to lead the unruly Isra-
elites through the desert but also because he was divinely commissioned.46
Machiavelli likewise praises his successor, Joshua, a general notorious for his
take-no-prisoners policy in the battles through which Israel won the Promised
Land.47 Another Old Testament exemplar is David. In the Prince Machiavelli

43 Disc. 3.20-21, 3.34; Ilprinc. 15, 17; Arte della guerra 4, 6; Ep. 116, to Giovan Battista
Soderini, 13-21 September 1506; Ep. 169, to Piero Soderini, January 1513, Opere, 226-28,
242, 280, 283, 348-49, 376, 1082, 1083, 1111.
44 E.g. Disc. 1.11-12, 1.25, 3.2, 3.33; Arte della guerra 6, Opere, 93-96, 108-9, 147, 240,
373-74.
45 Disc. 1.10, Opere, 91; Chief Works, 1: 220.
46Disc. 1.1, 1.9, 2.8, 3.30; Ilprinc. 6, 26, Opere, 77, 91, 157, 264, 297. See Alison Brown,
"Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Moses: A Changing Model," in Florence and Italy: Renais-
sance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, ed. Peter Denley and Caroline Elam (London,
1988), 64-65; Vivien Gaston, "The Prophet Armed: Machiavelli, Savonarola, and Rosso Fioren-
tino's Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Insti-
tutes, 51 (1988), 221-24; Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli, 48; Tenenti, "La religione di
Machiavelli," 715, 746.
47 Disc. 2.8, Opere, 157.

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606 Marcia L. Colish

describes not the repentant adulterer but the king who defeated his neighbors
using his own troops, sometimes forcibly shifting entire conquered populations,
while on the domestic front he defeated expectations, making the fortunes of his
people depend on his own and ruling with learning and judgment.48
Among Christians, too, religion can promote good arms. Machiavelli states
that the Greeks were defeated by the Turks because the Greeks lacked, among
other things, religion. On the other hand the Christian defenders of Rhodes forced
the Turks to abandon their siege. Throughout the Florentine Histories Machiavelli
presents crusading and the Christian bellicosity it involves as normal and laud-
able.49 Fabrizio Colonna, his spokesman in the Art of War, amplifies the point.
Commenting on the staffing of citizen militias, he proposes the exclusion of
irreligious men; they will make bad soldiers. Religion, he adds, supplies an im-
portant sanction to the oaths men swear when they join the army and its ceremo-
nies promote military discipline.50 When challenged for failing to create the citi-
zen militia he advocates, Colonna gives as a major reason the blasphemous,
licentious, and irreligious nature of the manpower at his disposal: "By what God
or by what saint can I have them take the oath?" he asks; "how can those who
feel contempt for God respect men?"51
Good laws no less than good arms depend on religion. Machiavelli states
this general rule in considering the institutions of the Roman Numa.52 But he
also applies it to Christian politicians. Fear of the Lord is not only the beginning
of wisdom; it also promotes respect for the rule of law.53 Religion helps undercut
that Machiavellian bete noire, factionalism. He cites a speaker addressing the
Florentine Signoria in 1372, who observes that the city does not live free but is
divided into factions. In part the speaker attributes this problem to the fact that
"religion and the fear of God have been extinguished in all men"; hence, oaths
have no force and pledges are broken, civic virtue is abandoned, and corruption
so acute sets in that good laws cannot correct it.54 Most heinous to the speaker
are people who mask their partisan ambitions in pious words while actually
seeking their own and not the common good. A particularly noxious example in
Florentine history is the Duke of Athens, who, intending to make himself prince
of Florence, concealed his true motives by living in the Franciscan friary of Sta.
Croce, faking an appearance of piety and kindness.55

48 Disc. 1.19, 1.26; Ilprinc. 13, Opere, 104, 109, 278.

49 Disc. 3, pref.; Ist.fior. 1.17, 1.21, 6.33, 7.9, 8.20, Opere, 146, 645, 648, 788-89, 799,
831-32.
50 Arte della guerra 1, 4, 6, Opere, 310, 354, 370; also noted by Cantimori, "Niccolo
Machiavelli," 48-49.
51 Ibid., 7, Opere, 388; Chief Works, II: 723.
52 Disc. 1.12, Opere, 95-96.
53 Arte della guerra pref., Opere, 301.
54 Ist.fior. 3.5, Opere, 693; Chief Works, III: 1145-46.
55 Ibid., 2.34, Opere, 681.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 607

The duke's strategy failed; but, as Machiavelli notes, other Christians, both
Florentine and foreign, have succeeded in using Christianity to advance their
political agendas. Piero de' Medici, wishing to deflect attention from his ambi-
tions, staged an elaborate religious festival, a distraction that worked, if tempo-
rarily.56 Machiavelli states, in words he ascribes to Pope Clement VII, that the
transalpine invasions have placed "Christian princes everywhere" in Italy." Al-
though they are mercenaries, he warmly praises the Germans and Swiss for their
combination of Christianity, military prowess, and civic virtue. He gives them
his highest accolade: in their urban republics they are "liberissimi," resembling
more closely than any current populations the uncorrupted Roman republic.5s
The foreign invader to whom Machiavelli pays the most attention is Ferdinand
of Aragon. He portrays Ferdinand as a successful conquerer and new prince
who used religion effectively against the Muslims, Moriscos, and Marranos in
Spain, completing the Reconquest, expelling non-Christians, crippling the power
of the nobles, invading North Africa under the "cloak of religion," and in short
winning great repute as the "foremost among Christian rulers."59 It is true that
Machiavelli is insensitive to Ferdinand's wider objectives in Spain and over-

56 Ibid. 7.12, Opere, 800-801.

57 Niccolo Machiavelli, Epigrammi 2: "principi cristian pertutto," Opere, 1005: Chief Works,
III: 1463.

58 Rapporto delle cose della Magna, 17 June 1508; Disc. 1.12, 1.55, 2.4, 2.8, 2.12, 2.16,
2.19; Ilprinc. 10, 12, 13; Arte della guerra 1, 2; Ep. 211, to Francesco Vettori, 10 August 1513,
Opere, 65-67, 69, 70, 96, 137, 152, 153, 158, 162, 167-68, 174-75, 273 ("liberissimi"), 275
("armatissimi e liberissimi"), 308, 318, 319, 322, 1147-48. On this theme the leading study is
Ernst Waldner, "Machiavelli und die virtu der Schweitzer," Schweitzer Beitrdge zur allgemeinen
Geschichte, 2 (1944), 69-128. See also Alderisio, Machiavelli, 57-59, 60-61, 134, 149; Anglo,
Machiavelli, 109-10, 141-42, 144, 147-48, 202, 204; Thomas A. Brady, Turning Swiss: Cities
and Empire, 1450-1550 (Cambridge, 1985), 17-22; Butterfield, Statecraft, 87-88; Delio
Cantimori, "Machiavelli e la religione," Belfagor, 21 (1966), 634; idem, "Niccol6 Machiavelli,"
14-16; Elena Fasano Guarini, "Machiavelli and the Crisis of the Italian Republics," in
Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli (Cam-
bridge, 1990), 23-29; Hale, Machiavelli, 107-8; Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 69-79,
232-59; John M. Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-
Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 (Princeton, 1993), 160-61; Plamenatz, "In Search of Machiavel-
lian Virtt," 169-70; idem, Man and Society, I: 29; Price, "Senses of Virtu," 342-43; Sasso,
Niccolo Machiavelli, 267-73; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 69, 181-82; Tenenti, "La
religione di Machiavelli," 725, 732; Villari, Life and Times of Niccolo Machiavelli, II: 328-29;
Bernard Wicht, "Les Suisses comme rev6lateur du projet machiav6lien de milice," in Niccolo
Machiavelli: Politico storico letterario, ed. Jean-Jacques Marchand (Rome, 1996), 235-45.
59 Il princ. 21, Opere, 291. See German Arciniegas, "Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Guido
Antonio Vespucci: Totalitarian and Democrat Five Hundred Years Ago," Political Science Quar-
terly, 69 (1954), 199; Luis Diez de Corral, "Fernando el catolico y la compositi6n de 'El
principe,' " Politeia, 5 (1976), 241-52; McCanles, Discourse of II principe, 93-95; Najemy,
Between Friends, 131-35, 138; Namer, Machiavel, 116-27; Russell Price, "The Theme of Gloria,"
597, 615; Adriano Prosperi, "La religione, il popolo, le elites: Incontri italo-spagnoli della
Controriforma," Annuario dell'Istituto storico italiano per l'etd moderna e contemporanea,
29-30 (1977-78), 499-529; Rebhorn, Foxes and Lions, 89, 111; Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli,
46; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 186-92.

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608 Marcia L. Colish

seas60 and his enthusiasm dims when he confronts Ferdinand's wily diplomacy
in Italy.61 But Ferdinand is not an exception who proves the rule.62 For another
recent prince also appealed to his people's religious sensibilities with great suc-
cess: "In the time of our fathers," Machiavelli notes, "Charles VII, king of France,
in the war he made against the English, said that he took counsel with a girl sent
by God, who was called everywhere the Maid of France. And this was the cause
of his victory."63 In Joan of Arc, Machiavelli has found a modem prophet armed
indeed.

Given this evidence showing that Machiavelli thought that Christianity, if

properly used, could promote desirable political and military goals, the anti-
Savonarolism of the passages in which he criticizes Christianity emerges even
more clearly when we consider three other topics needing further comment: the
continuing influence of Savonarola after his death; the way the friar blended
governo largo republicanism with Aristotelianism, apocalypticism, and asceti-
cism; and Machiavelli's frequent direct and indirect criticism of Savonarolism
throughout his career.
The continuation of Savonarola's movement is mentioned specifically by
Machiavelli, who indicates that it drew support from a leading member of the
Soderini family.64 Recent scholarship has shown that thefrateschi party was
large and broad-based and that it wielded considerable influence in Florentine
politics up until the creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.65 Other prominent

60 This point is documented by Marina Marietti, "La figure de Ferdinand le Catholique

dans l'oeuvre de Machiavel: Naissance et d6clin d'un mythe politique," in Presence et influ-
ence de 'Espagne dans la culture italienne de la Renaissance, ed. Andre Rochon (Paris, 1978),
9-54; Ram6n Menendez Pidal, "The Catholic Kings according to Machiavelli and Castiglione,"
tr. Francis M. L6pez-Morillas, in Spain in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Roger Highfield (New
York, 1972), 405-17.
61 Disc. 1.29, 2.12, 3.40; IIprinc. 18, 21; Ep. 204, to Francesco Vettori, 29 April 1513; Ep.
205, to the same, 20 June 1513; Ep. 214, to the same, 26 August 1513, Opere, 111, 162, 249,
283, 291, 1138, 1140, 1155.
62 That claim is incorrectly made by Sullivan, Machiavelli a Three Romes, 42-45, who also
fails to distinguish between Machiavelli's opinions about Ferdinand's actions in Italy as op-
posed to those in Spain.
63 Arte della guerra 4, Opere, 354; Chief Works, II: 661-62. This passage has also been
noted by Cantimori, "Niccolo Machiavelli," 48-49.
64 Disc. 1.54, Opere, 136.
65 The most important contribution is that of Lorenzo Polizzotto, "Prophesy, Politics and
History in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Admonitory Letter of Francesco D'Antonio
de' Ricci," in Denley and Elam (ed.), Florence and Italy, 107-17 and especially idem, The
Elect Nation: The Savonarolean Movement in Florence, 1494-1545 (Oxford, 1994). See also
Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica, tr.
Cesare Cristofolini (Turin, 1970), 71, 84-85, 103, 107; Sergio Bertelli, "Machiavelli and So-
derini," Renaissance Quarterly, 28 (1975), 10; Gene Brucker, "Savonarola and Florence: The
Intolerable Burden," in Studies in the Italian Renaissance in Memory of Arnolfo B. Ferruolo,
ed. Gian Paolo Biasin et al. (Naples, 1985), 119-30; H. C. Butters, Governors and Governed in
Early Sixteenth-Century Florence, 1502-1519 (Oxford, 1985), 63-66, 69, 106-7, 147, 167-68,

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 609

families signed on, including the Bonsi, Lenzi, Salviati, Ridolfi, Gualderotti,
and Vettori, as did many leaders of the major guilds. The observant Dominicans
at S. Marco and their many Florentine auditors kept the flag aloft. Thinkers like
Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola lent intellectual prestige to the movement
and energized it with several laudatory biographies of Savonarola in the 1520s.
Along with his own works, which enjoyed a wide readership, the successive
military calamities suffered by Italy during this period provided grist for the mill
of thefrateschi, appearing as they did to confirm Savonarola's direst predic-
tions.

The remarkable popularity of Savonarola's works in the early sixteenth cen-

tury can be explained by his simultaneous appeal to native Florentine traditions
and to more general concerns, from millenarianism to the cry for church reform
to a conception of civil society rooted in Thomistic Aristotelianism, all com-
bined in his particular rationale for governo largo.6 Savonarola sees man as a
political animal, able to attain his natural ends in civil society by the use of

179-81, 186, 194, 204, 263; Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527-1800: A
History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (Chicago, 1973), 3, 4, 5,
7-8, 61, 134-35, 136-37; Carlo Dionisotti, "Machiavelli, Man of Letters," in Machiavelli and
the Discourse of Literature, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn (Ithaca, 1993), 21;
Erlanger, Unarmed Prophet, 299; Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 111-15; Guillemain,
Machiavel, 29-30; Guido Pampaloni, "II movimento piagnone secondo la lista del 1497," in
Essays on Machiavelli, ed. Myron Gilmore (Florence, 1972), 337-47; Roberto Ridolfi, The Life
of Girolamo Savonarola, tr. Cecil Grayson (London, 1959), 288-304; idem, Vita, 397, 602;
Sasso, Niccolo Machiavelli, 76-77, 78, 613, 615; Giuseppe Schnitzer, Girolamo Savonarola,
tr. Emesto Rutili (Milan, 1931), II: 22-23, 24, 26, 70, 155-57, 427-56, 463-94; Pasquale Villari,
Life and Times ofGirolamo Savonarola, tr. Linda Villari (New York, 1969 [repr. of 1888 ed.]),
II: 71-86; Donald Weinstein, "Explaining God's Acts to His People: Savonarola's Spiritual
Legacy to the Sixteenth Century," in Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation:
Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus, ed. John W. O'Malley, Thomas Izbicki, and Gerald
Christianson (Leiden, 1993), 205-25; idem, Savonarola and Florence: Prophesy and Patrio-
tism in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1970), 321-73.
6 Girolamo Savonarola, Trattato del governo, in Del reggimento degli stati (Pisa, 1818),
5-8, 9, 10-19, 21-45, 49-50, 52-65. The most important analyses of Savonarola's message are
Donald Weinstein, "The Myth of Florence," in Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in
Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (Evanston, 1968), 15-44 and idem, Savonarola
and Florence, 27-66, 139, 289-316. See also Albertini, Firenze, 14-19, 62 n. 2; Butters, Gover-
nors, 22-26; Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 50-53, 65-81, 87-102, 107-8; Felix Gilbert,
Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (New York,
19842), 55-58, 60-65, 68-74, 78-104, 116-22, 144-52, 156-200; Guillemain, Machiavel, 35-40;
J. A. G. Pocock, "Custom and Grace, Form and Matter: An Approach to Machiavelli's Concept
of Innovation," in Fleischer (ed.), Machiavelli, 162-64, 171-72; idem, The Machiavellian Mo-
ment, 99, 105-13; Ridolfi, Life of Girolamo Savonarola, 20, 22-24, 26-27, 32-35, 38-41, 44,
48-49, 51, 77-83, 92-93, 107, 134, 154-55, 160-61, 168, 184, 217-19, 278-79, 282; Roeder,
Man of the Renaissance, 57-87, 104-5; Schnitzer, Savonarola, I: 97, 105, 106-16, 123-33, 165-
94, 217-59, 265-318, 380-82, 437-59; II: 31-33, 199-200, 319-33; Villari, Life and Times of
Girolamo Savonarola, I: 93-108, 111-45, 173-89, 263-66, 306-24; II: 16-20, 26-29, 45-46, 50-
70, 124-28, 135-204, 224-71, 285-97.

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610 Marcia L. Colish

reason, which all possess. Political life ministers to man's supernatural as well
as natural ends, bringing him to heavenly felicity if governments enforce divine
worship and upright morality. For Savonarola, the rule of princes and ottimati
must be rejected in favor of a polity in which all have political rights. For all
possess reason and all have the natural and supernatural ends which govern-
ments exist to serve. Direct democracy being impractical, he opts for a represen-
tative great council based on that of Venice. Although this polity is a reasonable
one, given Savonarola's initial premises, he states that it is also commanded by
God and that it operates under direct divine guidance, given the prophetic inspi-
ration God grants to Florence's leaders.
Savonarola often stated that he received prophetic inspiration, enabling him
to foresee the future, especially the sufferings that Florence must endure before
the end of the saeculum. That the end of the world was imminent was believed
widely, fueled by Joachite and para-Joachite apocalypticism, mainstream scho-
lastic exegesis of the Book of Revelation, the yearning for an "angel pope" who
would reform the church,67 and the self-understanding of explorers like Christo-
pher Columbus, who saw in the Spanish mission to the New World the evange-
lization of the nations that must precede the last days.68 Early Protestants held
similar views, whether they were magisterial reformers like Martin Luther or

67 Good overviews are provided by Robert E. Lerner, "Millenialism," in Dictionary of the

Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer (New York, 1987), VIII: 384-88, and "Millenialism," in The
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. Bernard McGinn (New York, 1998), II: 326-60. For par-
ticular varieties of millenarianism, see Andre Chastel, "L'Antechrist a la Renaissance," in
Cristianesimo e ragion di stato: L'Umanesimo e il demoniaco nell'arte, ed. Enrico Castelli
(Rome, 1953), 177-86; Norman Cohn, The Pursuit ofthe Millenium: Revolutionary Millenarians
and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (London, 19703), 14, 108-27, 271-83; Philip D.
Krey, "Nicholas of Lyra: Apocalyptic Commentator, Historian, and Critic," Franciscan Studies,
52 (1992), 53-89; Raoul Manselli, "Eta dello Spirito e profetismo tra quattrocento e cinquecento,"
in Atti del II congresso internazionale di studi gioachimiti (S. Giovanni in Fiore, 1986), 244-
50; Bernard McGinn, "Angel Pope and Papal Antichrist," Church History, 47 (1978), 155-73,
and" 'Pastor angelicus': Apocalyptic Myth and Political Hope in the Fourteenth Century," in
Apocalypticism in the Western Tradition (Aldershot, 1994), 221-51; Nelson H. Minnich, "Con-
cepts of Reform Proposed at the Fifth Lateran Council," in The Fifth Lateran Council (1512-
1517) (London, 1993), 163-254; Ottavia Niccoli, Prophesy and People in Renaissance Italy, tr.
Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton, 1990); Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic
Future (London, 1976), ch. 2, 4-5, and (ed.), Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period
(Oxford, 1992); The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke et
al. (Leuven, 1988); Cesare Vasoli, "Profezie e profeti nella vita religiosa e politica fiorentina,"
in Magia, astrologia e religione nel Rinascimento (Wrocaw, 1974), 16-29.
68 Christopher Columbus, The Libro de las profecias, ed. and tr. Delno C. West and August
King (Gainesville, Fla., 1991), 101-259. West's intro., 5-65, and bibliography, 263-69, provide
the best guide to Columbus's millenarianism and to the literature of the subject. See also
Valerie I. J. Flint, The Imaginative World of Christopher Columbus (Princeton, 1992), xii-xiii,
150-81, 192-214; Manselli, "Eta dello Spirito," 245-46; Adriano Prosperi, "New Heaven and
New Earth: Prophesy and Propaganda at the Time of the Discovery and Conquest of the Ameri-
cas," in Reeves (ed.), Prophetic Rome, 279-303; Pauline Moffat Watts, "Prophesy and Discov-
ery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus's 'Enterprise of the Indes,' "American
Historical Review, 90 (1985), 73-102.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 611

members of the Radical Reformation.69 A well trained theologian, Savonarola

knew that Antichrist would reign before the end of time. The divine inspiration
the friar claimed led him to identify the Antichrist; he was none other than Pope
Alexander VI. Among his many sins, Alexander excommunicated Savonarola in
1497 and sought to silence him. But in 1498 Savonarola preached his usual
course of Lenten sermons. He took as his text the Book of Exodus. In his homi-
lies he equates Alexander with Pharoah as well as Antichrist, depicting himself
as the new Moses leading Florence, the new Israel, out of slavery. Savonarola's
moral legislation, his civic institutions, and his disobedience of the pope are now
transmogrified and exalted by his identification of himself with the prophet of
the covenant, who communed with God and brought Israel the Ten Command-
ments.70 In these final sermons Savonarola gave Machiavelli the cue for his
consideration of armed and unarmed prophets.
Machiavelli's first recorded reference to Savonarola is a letter to Riccardo
Becchi of 9 March 1498, reporting on the sermon preached the first Sunday of
Lent. In it he notes Savonarola's self-presentation as Moses. He also states that
the change of the sermon's delivery site from Sta. Reparata to S. Marco and its
timing so as to coincide with Signoria elections were designed to strengthen
Savonarola's party, giving the friar greater support in the face of an expected
summons to Rome. At first Savonarola spoke only to unite his party. When he
learned that the Signoria was not going to denounce him to the pope, he changed
his tune, shifting to an attack on Alexander. "Thus, according to my judgment,"
Machiavelli concludes, "he keeps on working with the time and making his lies
plausible."71 Machiavelli clearly regards Savonarola as a fraud, a hypocrite,
and a demagogue.
There are scholars who think that Machiavelli was fascinated as well as
repelled by Savonarola,72 that his early opposition to the friar later softened,73

69 For apocalypticism in Luther, see Manselli, "Eta dello Spirito," 246-50; Heiko A.
Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil, tr. Eileen Walliser-Schwartzbut (New Ha-
ven, 1989), 12, 66, 70-71, 162, 183, 186, 229, 278, 296-97, with additional literature cited 350
nn. 76-80; for the Radicals, see Cohn, Pursuit of the Millenium, ch. 11-13; Manselli, "EtA dello
Spirito," 246-50; Reeves, Joachim ofFiore, ch. 5; George H. Williams, The Radical Reforma-
tion (Kirksville, Mo., 19923), 127, 133, 162, 167, 264, 267, 342-44, 390-91, 401-2, 409-10,
447-48, 562, 622-23, 705 n. 60, 805, 881-82, 858-59, 1112, 1303-5.
70 Girolamo Savonarola, Predighe sopra l'Esodo, ed. Giorgio Ricci (2 vols; Rome, 1955-
56). This text consists of twenty-three sermons preached between 11 February and 18 March
1498. The express linking of Pope Alexander VI with Antichrist is found at II: 13, sermon of 8
March 1498.
71 Ep. 3, to Riccardo Becchi, 9 March 1498, Opere, 1010-12; the quotation is at 1012;
Chief Works, II: 889.
72 Maurice Cranston, "Savonarola and Machiavelli: A Dialogue on the State," in Political
Dialogues (New York, 1968), 3-21; Plamenatz, Man and Society, I: 11, 34; Donald Weinstein,
"Machiavelli and Savonarola," Gilmore (ed.), Studies on Machiavelli, 253-69.
73 Brown, "Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Moses," 57-72; Feld, "Machiavelli's Militia,"
88-90; Massa, "Egidio da Viterbo," 108; Larry Peterman, "Gravity and Piety: Machiavelli's
Modem Turn," Review of Politics, 52 (1990), 192-93; Villari, Life and Times of Girolamo

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612 Marcia L. Colish

that he was influenced positively by Savonarola, or that he shared Savonarola's

apocalyptic outlook at some points.74 But, with most commentators, we find that
the hostility displayed in the Becchi letter was a constant in Machiavelli's
thought.75 This position can be documented in Machiavelli's writings from 1498
to the 1520s. Machiavelli does not always mention Savonarola's name; nor does
he limit himself to attacking Savonarola by criticizing Dominicans. Other friars,
including Franciscans, other preachers, and secular leaders who govern badly or
who misapply Christianity are all means of prosecuting his anti-Savonarolean
brief. Thus, in a letter to Francesco Vettori of 19 December 1513, Machiavelli
describes a Franciscan preaching in Sta. Croce as purveying the same kind of
fraud and false prophesy that he ascribes to Savonarola, and depicts his gullible
audience in unflattering terms: "In this city of ours, which is a magnet for all the
imposters of the world, there is a brother of Saint Francis who ... claims to be a
prophet."76 In 1521 Machiavelli was asked by the Florentine government to go
to Carpi to audition a Franciscan candidate for the role of Lenten preacher.
Reporting his impressions to Francesco Guicciardini, he describes this friar ironi-
cally as a speaker who expects to be received as the angel pope, reflecting
Machiavelli's awareness and dislike of that idea.77 Machiavelli imagines the sort
of preacher he would seek for Florence. Unlike people who want one who can
show them the road to Heaven, he would prefer one who can show them the road
to Hell, a man prudent and blameless, "crazier than Ponzo, more crafty than Fra
Girolamo, and more of a hypocrite than Frate Alberto" (Decameron 4.27). For
such a crafty hypocrite truly instructs his flock by embodying what to avoid.78

Savonarola, I: 300; J. H. Whitfield, "Savonarola and the Purpose of the Prince," in Discourses
on Machiavelli (Cambridge, 1969), 87-110.
74 Geerken, "Machiavelli Studies," 354, 365; Felix Gilbert, "Machiavelli's 'Istorie
fiorentine': An Essay in Interpretation," in Gilmore (ed.), Essays on Machiavelli, 98; Godman,
From Poliziano to Machiavelli, 269-70, 281, 291, 300; John M. Najemy, "Machiavelli and the
Medici: The Lessons of Florentine History," Renaissance Quarterly, 35 (1982), 553; Ruffo
Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli, 9.
75 Scholars who focus primarily on the Becchi letter include Alderisio, Machiavelli, 10-18;
Bertelli, "Machiavelli and Soderini," 5; Carlo Dionisotti, "Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, e don
Michelotto," in Machiavellerie (Turin, 1980), 16-18; Luigi Firpo, "Machiavelli politico," in
Machiavelli nel V? centenario della nascita (Bologna, 1973), 124-26; Gaston, "The Prophet
Armed," 222-24; Guillemain, Machiavel, 16; Hale, Machiavelli, 31-32, 133; Francesco Saverio
Mirri, Saggi di varia letteratura (Florence, 1974), 30; Namer, Machiavel, 39-40; Pierone,
Niccolo Machiavelli, 126; Renaudet, Machiavel, 42-45, 178-80; Sasso, Niccolo Machiavelli,
13-15, 16, 18-29, 32. Cantimori, "Niccol6 Machiavelli," agrees, 12, 21-22, 34, adding, 55, that
the frateschi in turn disliked and distrusted Machiavelli.
76 Ep. 217, to Francesco Vettori, 19 December 1513, Opere, 1160; Chief Works, II: 933.
77 Ep. 264, to Francesco Guicciardini, 18 May 1521, Opere, 1205-6.
78 Ep. 261, to Francesco Guicciardini, 15 May 1521, Opere, 1203-4; the passage quoted is
at 1204; Chief Works, II: 972. Ponzo was a contemporary Franciscan who preached against
Savonarola.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 613

Elsewhere Machiavelli itemizes his disagreements with Savonarola, some-

times connecting them with personal grievances as well as his larger political
concerns. On the personal side, opposition to Savonarola was a family tradition
that Machiavelli inherited from his father.79 His own first election to public of-
fice in 1498 was made possible by the defeat of a Savonarolan contender for the
post of second secretary and Machiavelli was later unseated for a time by an-
other of the friar's partisans.80 Also, Machiavelli had several homosexual friends,
which bothered him not at all. He regards Savonarola's effort to stamp out ho-
mosexuality as a ridiculous intrusion into the private lives of people like these
friends.81

But Machiavelli has more basic objections to Savonarolism. In his eyes, the
friar's leadership of Florence between 1494 and 1498 was illegitimate. His re-
public was the wrong kind of republic; its priorities were inverted; and its poli-
cies were misguided. Savonarola's government was responsible for its own lack
of credibility and its ultimate failure to defend itself. Harvey C. Mansfield may
well be right in observing that Machiavelli's omission of Savonarola's rise to
power at the end of the Florentine Histories is deliberate, a silent reference to
his influence as one of the calamities that befell Florence after 1492.82 In any
case Machiavelli states in this work that Florence has never been a free republic.
Whenever groups of citizens have been authorized by public vote to reform the
government, they have abused their trust, organizing polities that served parti-
san interests, not the common good. Further, lodging authority in a foreigner is
a fundamental error. As Machiavelli remarks in his first Decennale, the most
distressing event in Florentine history in 1494, which plunged the city into a new
round of factionalism, was the emergence of the figure whose sect then gained
power: "I speak of that great Savonarola."83 The friar's role in Florentine poli-
tics was an anomaly. As a foreigner and a cleric he could not legally hold public
office. Through his supporters he none the less controlled the government, ma-
nipulating it for partisan ends with his fraudulent demagogery.84 Thus the evils
of factionalism and the wrong kind of governo largo are merged in this misbe-

79 Sergio Bertelli, "Noterelle Machiavelliane II: Ancora su Lucrezio e Machiavelli," Rivista

storica italiana, 76 (1964), 774-92.
80 Robert Black, "Machiavelli, Servant of the Florentine Republic," in Bock, Skinner, and
Viroli (ed.), Machiavelli and Republicanism, 84-85; Sasso, Niccol6 Machiavelli, 32-40.
81 Ep. 221, to Francesco Vettori, 4 February 1514; Ep. 223, to the same, 25 February 1514,
Opere, 1167-68, 1170-71; noted by Najemy, Between Friends, 111.
82 Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavellis Virtue (Chicago, 1996), 146-48; idem, "Party and
Sect," 223-26.
83 Decennale 1, line 154, Opere, 943; Chief Works, III: 1448. See also Disc. 1.49, Opere,
131; Cantimori, "Niccolo Machiavelli," 12 also notes that Machiavelli criticizes Savonarola as
a promoter of factionalism.
84 Disc. 1.11, Decennale 1, lines 460-61, Opere, 94-95, 948; the latter passage yokes
Savonarola with the hated popes Alexander VI and Julius II.

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614 Marcia L. Colish

gotten regime.85 For equally repulsive to Machiavelli is the Venetian model to

which Savonarola appealed. Among his criticisms of Venice, Machiavelli lists
not only her unreliability as an ally, her fomenting of factions in other cities, and
her infuriatingly successful use of mercenary troops.86 He also castigates a con-
stitution that makes the nobles, not the people, the guardians of liberty.87 Any
defense ofgoverno largo that uses the Venetian polity as a model thus rests on a
basic self-contradiction.

Having taken over the leadership of Florence, Savonarola then, in Machia-

velli's view, abused his influence. Attempting to rule with Paternosters, he relied
on prayer, fasting, alsmgiving, the burning of vanities, and the monitering of
other people's sex lives. At the same time this government ignored action.
Machiavelli attacks its policy as passive, indecisive, and lazy.88 A signal index
of Savonarola's wrongheadedness was his inversion of what Machiavelli deems
the correct relationship between religion and politics. Instead of using religion to
foster civic virtue, political vitality, and expansion, Savonarola used politics to

85 Good accounts that stress this concatenation of reasons for Machiavelli's opposition to
Savonarola include Anglo, Machiavelli, 14, 199-202, William J. Connell, "The Republican
Tradition In and Out of Florence," in Girolamo Savonarola: Piety, Prophesy, and Politics in
Renaissance Florence, ed. Donald Weinstein and Valerie R. Hotchkiss (Dallas, 1994), 95;
Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 17-18; Guillemain, Machiavel, 16-27; Mansfield, New Modes
and Orders, 159; Najemy, Between Friends, 72; Nicolai Rubinstein, "Machiavelli and Florentine
Republican Experience," in Bock, Skinner, and Viroli (ed.), Machiavelli and Republicanism,
3-16; Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli, 6-9; Sasso, Niccolo Machiavelli, 32-40, 113-15, 122-
23, 138, 156, 201, 392, 430-31; Giovanni Silvano, "Early Sixteenth-Century Florentine Repub-
licanism," in Bock, Skinner, and Viroli (ed.), Machiavelli and Republicanism, 41-70; J. N.
Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512-1530 (Oxford, 1983), 35-43, 78-79. Schol-
ars placing the emphasis on Machiavelli's view of Savonarola as a manipulative hypocrite
include Erlanger, Unarmed Prophet, 296-98; Namer, Machiavel, 38-40; Giampiero Nistico,
Machiavelli: La ricerca dell'uomo (Reggio Calabria, 1975), 21-23; Rebhom, Foxes and Lions,
1-3, 89, 111; Roeder, Man of the Renaissance, 108-9; Schnitzer, Savonarola, II: 157; Strauss,
Thoughts on Machiavelli, 109-10, 112-13, 205-11; Tenenti, "La religione di Machiavelli,"
715, 746.
86 Disc. 3.31; Ilprinc. 3, 7, 11, 12, 20; Arte della guerra 1, 7; Ist.fior. 1.28, 1.29, 1.39, 2.1,
2.33, 4.15, 5.4, 6.21, 6.22, 6.25-26; Ep. 214, to Francesco Vettori, 26 August, 1513, Opere,
238-39, 261, 266, 274, 276, 311, 389, 652-53, 657-58, 659, 680, 723-24, 741, 779-80, 782-83,
1155-57.

87 Disc. 1.5, 1.6, 1.35, 1.36, Opere, 83-84, 86, 118. In these passages Machiavelli com-
pares Venice with Sparta, contrasted unfavorably with the Roman republic. See Innocenzo
Cervelli, Machiavelli e la crisi dello stato veneziano (Naples, 1974), the fullest study; Gennaro
Sasso, "Machiavelli e Venezia," in Machiavelli e gli antichi e altri studi (Milan, 1988), 3: 3-
46, the best short study; and Felix Gilbert, "The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political
Thought" in Rubinstein (ed.), Florentine Studies, 475-84, 488; Mansfield, New Modes and
Orders, 46-56; Skinner, Foundations, I: 171-80; Giuseppe Toffanin, Machiavelli e il "Tacitismo ":
La "politica storica" al tempo della controriforma (Naples, 19722), 16-22, 24-34, 38-58.
88 Arte della guerra, 7, L'Asino, 5.94-127, Opere, 388, 967. The first citation points a
contrast with the example of Joan of Arc mentioned in Book 4 of the Arte della guerra. Com-
mentators noting this point include Namer, Machiavel, 38-40; Villari, Life and limes of Niccolo
Machiavelli, I: 233; II: 228, 541-42, 549.

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Machiavelli and Religion: A Reappraisal 615

serve religious ends. Popular religious events abounded in the Savonarolan re-
public. But they were the wrong kind; they did not promote social solidarity or
political edification. They can be compared with the rantings of the hermits
depicted in Machiavelli's carnival song, who live in the mountains and descend
on the city annually to frighten the people with millenarian prophesies that he
rejects as "vain rumors."89 In failing to provide the right kind of civic religion,
Savonarola also failed to provide two other necessities of free republics, good
laws and good arms. Aside from legislating inappropriate policies, Savonarola's
government enacted a law giving defendants in political cases the right of appeal
against an adverse judgment of the magistrates. Soon thereafter a case arose that
fell under this rule. The law of appeal was never enforced, nor did Savonarola
ever refer to this breach of legal procedure or condemn those responsible for it.90
Finally, Savonarola's government lacked good arms. His military unprepared-
ness left Florence the victim of revolts in the contado and foreign invaders. In a
pointed allusion to Savonarola, Machiavelli notes that the man who told Flo-
rence that the French invasion was aflagellum inflicted as punishment for her
sins spoke the truth. But Machiavelli has a different conception of what those
sins were: not vanity, not luxury, not unchastity, but lack of good arms.9'
It is worth noting, in conclusion, that his ascription of the most abysmal
political mistakes to Savonarolan government and his concern that it remained a
live option were not unique to Machiavelli. Francesco Guicciardini's mature
judgment offers much the same assessment. He too regards Savonarola as a
hypocrite and demagogue who persuaded influential Florentines, "whether by

89 Niccolo Machiavelli, I romiti, Opere, 991; Chief Works, 2: 881. Cantimori, "Niccol6
Machiavelli," 34, also reads this passage as a critique of Savonarola. See Erlanger, Unarmed
Prophet, 296-98; Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 157; Ridolfi, Vita, 15-17; Ruffo Fiore,
Niccolo Machiavelli, 6-9; Tenenti, "La religione di Machiavelli," 715, 746; Trexler, Public
Life, 336-38, 526-29. On Machiavelli's appeal to millenarian language in the last chapter of I
principe, this tactic has been seen, correctly, as an ironic and antiSavonarolan rhetorical ploy
by Sasso, Niccolo Machiavelli, 400-402; Patricia Zupan, "Machiavelli and Savonarola Revis-
ited: The Closing Chapter of Ilprincipe," Machiavelli Studies, 1 (1987), 43-64; Zupan adroitly
characterizes Machiavelli here as a "Savonarolean ventriloquist," 53, coopting the friar's lan-
guage for his own ends.
90 Disc. 1.45, Opere, 127: "Essendo Firenze dopo al 94, stata riordinata nello stato suo con
lo aiuto di frate Girolamo Savonarola,... ed avendo, intra li altre costituzioni per assicurare i
cittadini, fatto fare una legge, che si appellare al Popolo dalle sentenze che, per casi di stato, gli
Otto e la Signoria dessono;... occorse che, poco dopo la confermazione d'essa, furono condannati
a morte dalla Signoria ... cinque cittadini, e volendo quegli appellare, non furono lasciati, e non
fu osservata la legge." Scholars noting Machiavelli's criticism of Savonarola on this point
include Cassirer, Myth of the State, ch. 12; Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 146; Nistico,
Machiavelli, 71; Rebhom, Foxes and Lions, 127; Ridolfi, Vita, 15-17; Roeder, Man of the
Renaissance, 108-9; Ruffo Fiore, Niccolo Machiavelli, 6-9; Russo, Machiavelli, 1-10, 201-10;
Verdiglione, Niccolo Machiavelli, 35-36, 55-56, 120.
91 II princ. 12, Opere, 275. Scholars noting this Machiavellian critique of Savonarola
include Fuhr, Machiavelli und Savonarola, 122; Roeder, Man of the Renaissance, 135-209;
Silvano, "Early Sixteenth-Century Florentine Republicanism," 56-60.

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616 Marcia L. Colish

divine virtue or by his skill," to establish a popular government "alla viniziana."92

He also sees the reforms made under the cloak of false prophetic claims as
merely advancing partisan interests. He likewise objects to the enacting of the
law of appeal that was not enforced.93 And Guicciardini includes a roll-call of
the parts of the contado that were lost thanks to Savonarola's military weakness:
Montepulciano, Fivizzano and other cities in Lunigiara, and Pisa.94 Although he
stands on the governo stretto side of the republican divide, Guicciardini none the
less reinforces Machiavelli's analysis of what went wrong between 1494 and
1498 and what is likely to go wrong iffrateschi hold sway. The real possibility
that this might occur kept the analysis fresh for Guicciardini no less than
Machiavelli. Given this situation, the passages in which Machiavelli criticizes
Christianity sound less jarring and less inconsistent with what he says elsewhere
than they seem initially. They emerge less as support for the "Old Nick"
Machiavelli than as evidence for Machiavelli the ironist, seeking to discredit a
detested figure and movement that competed with his own advocacy of Chris-
tianity well used and well integrated with the civic and military institutions that
promote free and broadly participatory republics.

Oberlin College.

92 Francesco Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509, ed. Aulo Greco (Novara,
1970), 160: "o per virti divina o per sua arte," "uno govero popolare alla viniziana." My
translation.
93 Ibid., 162, 177-82, 214-15, 217-18. Guicciardini revisits the issue of the non-enforce-
ment of the law of appeal in Storia d'Italia, bk. 3, chap. 15, ed. Costantino Panigoda (Bari,
1929), I: 297.
94 Storiefior., 162-63.

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