Please tell me the idea that 'pic related is satire' is a stupid fucking meme that nobody actually takes seriously.
>>8122553
Read Isaiah Berlin's essay about Machiavelli. This is only one of the possible interpretations.
>>8122553
read david wootton's introduction/essay on the prince, it's in the hackett translation and it's great
tbqh Machiaelli has a Pepe-like expression in this portrait
>>8122553
There are some satirical elements but in the end The Prince is pretty representative of Machiavelli's general outlook. He was a Republican, but mostly because he believed a well constructed Republic was more durable than the petty tyranny offered by the dukes and monarchs of his time.
I find that most of the "prince is just satire!" memers are either people who've never read other works and just blindly accept that on the word of some professor who probably never read his art of war which he personally considered to be his magnum opus. There are parts that are obviously sarcasm but the focus on power politics is consistent with even what he talks about in the discourses (his second most read work).
>>8122553
http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/flor-mach-mattingly.htm
>The notion that The Prince is what it pretends to be, a scientific manual for tyrants, has to contend not only against Machiavelli's life but against his writings, as, of course, everyone who wants to use The Prince as a centerpiece in an exposition of Machiavelli's political thought has recognized.... The standard explanation has been that in the corrupt conditions of sixteenth-century Italy only a prince could create a strong state capable of expansion. The trouble with this is that it was chiefly because they widened their boundaries that Machiavelli preferred republics. In the Discorsi he wrote, "We know by experience that states have never signally increased either in territory or in riches except under a free government. The cause is not far to seek, since it is the well-being not of the individuals but of the community which makes the state great, and without question this universal well-being is nowhere secured save in a republic.... Popular rule is always better than the rule of princes." This is not just a casual remark. It is the main theme of the Discorsi and the basic assumption of all but one of Machiavelli's writings, as it was the basic assumption of his political career.
1. Machiavelli hated Borgia for personal and national slights throughout his life
2. The "virtues" ascribed to Borgia are not virtues per se
3. Machiavelli was first and foremost a republican
>>8122831
https://books.google.nl/books?id=auchqTYv9WoC&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=david+wootton+the+prince+introduction&source=bl&ots=3wBmfczsXu&sig=dFFEfds3uUBzKHA6wc8phmIT-aY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0aKw147NAhWMBsAKHf6_Bd4Q6AEINjAF#v=onepage&q=david%20wootton%20the%20prince%20introduction&f=false
>>8122865
This.
When reading the Prince I recommend reading Discourses on Livy, either before or after, and you should be able to see the commonalities and differences in what he sets out and draw your own conclusions.
>>8122823
Great read, thanks for the recc.
" Political Satire" is what the Liberal Democrat says when confused, as when a man he admires disagrees with him.
See The Republic, The Prince, The Tempest etc.
Death of the Author much, dumbshits?
What Machiavelli intended is irrelevant.
