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CONSTITUTING FREEDOM
Constituting Freedom
Machiavelli and Florence
FABIO RAIMONDI
Original Edition
L’ordinamento della libertà. Machiavelli e Firenze
(Verona: ombre corte, 2013)
Translated from Italian by

Matthew Armistead
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Aims 1
A Republican Machiavelli 1
Machiavelli and Political Modernity 3
The Contemporary Relevance of Machiavelli 5
The Conceptual Scheme of Machiavellian Discourse 6
1. Corruption and Inequality 9
1.1. The Problem 9
1.2. Two Ways 14
1.3. The Aporia of the Principality 17
1.4. A ‘Well-Ordered Republic’ and the Transmission of Virtue 21
1.5. The Dictatorship: the ‘Kingly Hand’ of the Republic 24
1.6. Free and Servile Beginnings 27
2. Tumults and the Birth of Florence 32
2.1. The Beginning of Florence in Discourses 32
2.2. The Origins and Naming of Florence in the Histories 35
2.3. The Instability of Florence 39
2.4. The Virtue of the Florentines and the Humours 42
2.5. Freedom and Tumults 48
2.6. The Paradigm of Florence 51
3. Political History of the Florentine Institutions 54
3.1. The Struggles Between the Nobles and the Division of the
People (1215–98) 54
3.2. The Struggles Between the Nobles and the Popolo Grasso:
the Duke of Athens and the Ciompi’s Tumult (1298–1353) 62
3.3. The Struggles Between the Popolo Grasso and the Popolo
Minuto: the ‘Humours of the Parts’ (1353–93) 71
3.4. From the Oligarchic Republic (1393–1434) to the Medicean
Principality (1434–92) 80
4. Constituting Freedom 93
4.1. The Republic (1494–1512) 93
4.2. The Return of the Medici 103
4.3. Recapitulation 109
viii Contents
4.4. The Discursus 112
4.5. The Minuta 124
4.6. A Provisional Appraisal 129
Bibliography 138
Index 151
What tumult’s in the heavens?
William Shakespeare, I Henry VI
Populi tumultus libertatis recuperandae saepe occasio fuit
John Milton, Commonplace Book
Acknowledgements
This book represents the first stage of a journey begun many years ago, along
which I have been lucky enough to encounter numerous specialists on
Machiavelli and benefit from the views and advice of many colleagues and
friends. As I reach the end of this first stretch of my analysis of some of the
key issues in Machiavelli’s political thought, I would first like to thank the
members of the Study Group on Political Concepts of the University of Padua,
directed by Professor Giuseppe Duso, with whom I have enjoyed exchanges
illuminated by a genuine passion for research and from whom I have learned a
great deal. I am also grateful to the participants in the Machiavelli seminars
held at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Urbino from 2002 to
2006, under the friendly guidance of Professor Augusto Illuminati.
Of the many people with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss
Machiavelli and related matters in these years, I want to address a special
thanks to: Alessandro Arienzo, Jérémie Barthas, Gianfranco Borrelli, Filippo
Del Lucchese, Alberto Fabris, Fabio Frosini, Marco Geuna, Vittorio Morfino,
Andrea Polegato, Luca Sartorello, Merio Scattola (in memoriam), and Giorgio
Scichilone. More generally, my research also owes much to long discussions
with Giso Amendola, Gennaro Avallone, Andrea Bardin, Luca Basso, Michele
Basso, Adone Brandalise, Maurizio Merlo, Mario Piccinini, Gaetano Rametta,
and Antonino Scalone.
I wish to thank Anna Maria Lazzarino Del Grosso, Gennaro Maria Barbuto,
Maurizio Ricciardi, Domenico Taranto, Stefano Visentin, and the anonymous
readers at Oxford University Press for having the patience to read this text and
for offering me such valuable advice. I would also like to extend my most
heartfelt gratitude to John P. McCormick for the interest he has shown in my
work and, not least, for his availability and kindness. I must, of course, mention
Professor Annibale Elia, director of the Department of Political, Social, and
Communication Sciences of the University of Salerno, who immediately
believed in and supported this translation, together with all my colleagues in
the department. I also thank Matthew Armistead, whose professionalism and
willingness have made the translation project pleasant and profitable, and,
finally, Dominic Byatt and all his colleagues, whose patience created the condi-
tions for the publication of this book.
Last but not least, my loving thanks to Silvia for her wonderful ‘wandering
causes’.
Despite all the help I have received, I would like to stress that the respon-
sibility for the end result is mine alone.
Abbreviations
Machiavelli’s works
AW or Art The Art of War (Dell’arte della guerra)
CWNM The Complete Works of Niccolò Machiavelli
D or Discourses Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio)
DRGF or Discursus Discourse on Remodelling the Government of Florence (Discursus
florentinarum rerum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices)
EN Edizione nazionale delle opere di Niccolò Machiavelli
FH or Histories Florentine Histories (Istorie fiorentine)
L The Letters of Machiavelli: A Selection
LCS Legazioni. Commissarie. Scritti di governo
Let. Lettere
M or Minuta Minuta di provvisione per la Riforma dello Stato di Firenze
MCW Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others
P or Prince The Prince (De principatibus or Il principe)
S or Summary Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca
Notes
Fiorini Notes to Machiavelli, Niccolò. Istorie fiorentine (libri I–III).
V. Fiorini (ed.). Florence: Sansoni, 1962 [anastatic reprint of the
first edition, 1894]
Gaeta Notes to Let.
Inglese/D Notes to Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di
Tito Livio. G. Inglese (ed.). Milan: Rizzoli, 2011
Inglese/P Notes to Machiavelli, Niccolò. Il principe. G. Inglese (ed.).
Turin: Einaudi, 2013
Montevecchi Notes to Machiavelli, Niccolò. Istorie fiorentine e altre opere
storiche e politiche. A. Montevecchi (ed.), in Opere. Turin: Utet,
1971, vol. II
Rinaldi Notes to Machiavelli, Niccolò. De principatibus and Discorsi
sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. R. Rinaldi (ed.), in Opere.
Turin: Utet, 1999, vol. I
Introduction
AIMS
The intention of this book is not to tackle, even if this were possible, all of the
perennial problems of Machiavellian thought. More modestly, it aims to
provide an initial response, in a schematic but hopefully sufficiently articulated
form, to a central question that Machiavelli raised in the Discourses on Livy:
‘in what mode a free state, if there is one, can be maintained in corrupt cities;
or, if there is not, in what mode to order it’.1 I provide an answer to this
question by means of a selective examination of certain aspects of Machia-
velli’s work rather than through an exhaustive study. My effort will, I hope,
help prepare the way for deeper research in the future aimed at exposing the
backbone of Machiavelli’s conceptual path. In assessing the perspectives of the
Prince, the Discourses, and the Histories I will also reflect on the Discursus and
the Minuta, two short writings of 1520–22 that offer valuable insights into
Machiavelli’s major works.
Before beginning the analysis of his texts, however, I believe it is appropriate
to provide some general guidelines on my reading of Machiavelli.
A REPUBLICAN MACHIAVELLI
Contrary to the assumption that Machiavelli was ‘to all intents [a] Medicean’,2
I will affirm the notion of an essentially republican Machiavelli, ‘militant’ not
only ante rem perditas.3
1
D I.18, 49.
2
See, amongst others, Bausi (2005), 179, 311; Martelli (2009), 36, 45; Butters (2010). I am
citing only a few key works from the immense bibliography on Machiavelli, without pretence of
completion.
3
See Guidi (2009) and (2016), in which Machiavelli’s concern with safeguarding the repub-
lican ‘constitution’ (ordinamento) of Florence, even after the return of the Medici, emerges
clearly. The term ‘constitution’ is not used here in the modern sense—see McIlwain (1947)—but
2 Constituting Freedom
For Machiavelli the republic ‘is a specific form of regime’ that coincides with
the opening of the Great Council, ‘experienced personally’ in the period in
which he served as its secretary. It implies both ‘a collective order dependant
on the participation of a large part of the population of a city’, that was a
‘bringer of freedom’, and ‘a business of customs’ (in a political rather than a
moral sense) that called for an examination ‘of the political competence of the
people, aimed at understanding if they could be considered to form a capable
political subject’.4 However, it is not only this: Machiavelli had in mind a new
type of republic, which did not resemble that of the frequently criticized period
of 1494–1512 because it would have to have been built on an idea of a mixture
of different kinds of mixed government (like that of Venice, for example). This
idea will be explained in particular in Chapter 4, Sections 4.4 and 4.6. In the
end, Machiavelli’s republic represents a very specific way of life, typically
Florentine, that is preferable to any other, namely the ‘free and civil way of
life’ (vivere libero e civile), the significance of which will be made clear in what
follows (see in particular, Chapter 1, Section 1.6 and Chapter 4, Section 4.5).
The theory I propose is that working for the Medici (something that
Machiavelli had wanted to do from 1512 and that he eventually achieved
only in 1520) did not mean having to accept their political perspective, and
that Machiavelli was therefore always a republican, even in the Prince (see
Chapter 1, Section 1.3). The presence of the Medici in Florence after their
return in 1512 was impossible to ignore, and the question facing Machiavelli
was therefore how to re-establish the city as a republic despite the fact that
the power of the Medici was set against this. The fact that the Medici were
both an obstacle and an opportunity is not something that Machiavelli kept
hidden, and for him coming to terms with them meant convincing them that
any principality would be unable to survive without transforming itself into
a republic. And if the Medici represented one of the aspects of the problem
that Machiavelli wished to resolve, the solution involved their overthrow, as
emerges clearly in the Discursus and the Minuta (see Chapter 4, Sections
4.4–4.6).
Machiavelli’s undertaking had always been to reform and regenerate Flor-
ence in a republican form after the return of the Medici. Even the scheme
presented in Chapter XXVI of the Prince—that of making Italy a united
political entity—which does not appear again in subsequent Machiavellian
works, must be seen as an attempt to institute, preserve, and perhaps even to
sharing the analogy of how medicine relates to the physical constitution as the sum of the
characteristics (and their relations) that form the body: as a way of life and not in a merely legal
sense. Politically, the reference is to the sum of laws and orders (ordini)—for an initial
reconstruction, see Whitfield (1955)—that, in addition to customs (habits, traditions, language,
religion, etc.), defines the specific way of life of a city. In this sense, ‘corruption’ acts as a
complement to ‘constitution’: see Vasoli (2001), 349, n. 35.
4
Ménissier (2006), 152–8.
Introduction 3
extend to the whole peninsula the republican freedom typical of Florence.5
This freedom was no longer the Florentina libertas of the humanist civitas of
the commune,6 nor the freedom to be found in the French kingdom, among
the Swiss, or in certain German free cities, to say nothing of the kingdoms of
Spain and England, the German Empire, and the Papal State.7
MACHIAVELLI AND P OLITICAL MODERNITY
My reading distances itself from the interpretations which, from the Italian
Risorgimento to Gramsci8 and beyond—one thinks, amongst others, of
Althusser9—have placed Machiavelli’s ideas in both the setting of modern
sovereignty and of the nation state. This formulation is still widespread today
even in the most diligent historiography, and is fraught with dangerous
misinterpretations.10 In fact, the concept of ‘sovereignty’ arose only in the
seventeenth century, by way of the Reason of State and anti-Machiavellianism,
originating from the conception of a political science based on the natural
sciences and in particular on the Galilean method (as we can see in the works
of Hobbes and Spinoza).11 For its part, the concept of the ‘nation state’ only
emerged after the French Revolution.12
5
In contrast to Ardito, according to whom Machiavelli’s political aim is to establish a
‘territorial state’, in other words a state in the modern sense, albeit one that would make use
of premodern republican institutions, in other words a state with both ‘a prince on the outside
and a republic on the inside’: see Ardito (2015), 7–8.
6
See Baron (1966).
7
Here I will discuss freedom as a ‘free and civil way of life’. For an overwiew on the
philosophical analysis of the concept of freedom in Machiavelli, also in relation to liberty, see
Colish (1971).
8 9
See Gramsci (1991). See Althusser (1999), and Raimondi (2011).
10
See, for example, Mansfield (1983); Miglio (2011), 196–213, who interpreted Machiavelli
using Hobbes’s categories.
11
A different approach, which nevertheless intends to distance itself clearly from Machiavelli,
was formulated by Bodin as an attempt to keep together the rank-based structure of society and
an unprecedented ‘concentration of power in the hands of the sovereign’ (Scattola, 1999, 62–3),
who then made the intermediary magistrates participants of his power by investing them with
an ‘imperium legitimum’ (Lazzarino Del Grosso, 2007).
12
I refer the reader to the research conducted by the Study Group on Political Concepts of the
University of Padua, in particular to Duso (1987a) and (1999), from which I distance myself
because I believe that political modernity cannot simply be reduced to the Hobbesian device. The
Hobbesian State (in order to distinguish it from the ‘state’ that Machiavelli discusses, I will
henceforth use the capital S) bases its theoretical and practical support on the ‘pact’ because
through this Hobbes wants to ‘construct ex novo the political form, through the power of reason
endowed with geometric clarity’. The ‘sovereignty’ derived from this is the modern form of
‘power’ that takes control of the ‘monopoly of physical force’, and ‘acts within the law and is
legitimate because it is founded on the will of everyone’. This ‘irresistible’ power, the product of
individuals’ renunciation of their jus in omnia (in other words, their ‘right to resistance’), thus
finds itself unrestricted by the law: Duso (1987b), 7–39. If in Hobbes the pactum unionis is one
I believe instead that Machiavelli should be positioned quite far from any
Hobbesian state-centric perspective13 because he continued to theorize the
survival of Florence as a republic,14 and the realization of this required a new
political and institutional transformation: ‘a path as yet untrodden by any-
one’15 that echoed the De rerum natura transcribed in his youth.16
It does not at all follow from this that Machiavelli was anti-modern or pre-
modern, as many from Foucault17 to Esposito18 have argued. Modernity, in
fact, cannot be reduced either to a device that entails a relationship between
pact and sovereignty or to the nation state; modernity is not monolithic and
sovereignty is not its synecdoche. Insisting that the Hobbesian device repre-
sents all of modernity is a historical fallacy because it is only one of its facets,
albeit perhaps the one which has most asserted itself despite its intrinsic
aporia.19 Prior to the Weberian polytheism of values, modernity—of which
there is only one—was characterized by the infinity of principles. These
principles, whose philosophical matrix is the atomism from which even
Hobbes starts, but to neutralize it,20 enabled the construction of infinite
forms of order (not only political). Such forms were sometimes incompatible
with each other but, in every case, were never reducible to a single principle,
even if—or perhaps because of this—the inclination towards unity was the
dynamic that most defined it.
The modernity of Machiavelli’s thought, thanks in part to the contribution
of Lucretius’s atomism,21 lies in the assertion ‘that not all ultimate values are
necessarily compatible with one another’ and that there is ‘more than one
system of values, with no criterion common to the systems whereby a rational
choice can be made between them’.22 This is a characteristic that drew
criticism from various traditionalists such as Strauss and Arendt.23
Machiavellian thought is modern both in the political sphere and in phil-
osophy. To make a brief early mention, one need only recall that, according to
and the same as the pactum subjectionis, in Machiavelli there is an entirely different thought
process at work, but not one that is necessarily anti-modern.
13 14 15
Ricciardi (1999), 37–8. Frosini (2001–2), 174. D I, preface, 5.
16 17
Lucretius, IV, 1–2, and also I, 928–9. See Foucault (2009).
18
Esposito (2012), 45–58.
19
See Raimondi (2005a). It has certainly not been overlooked that the stylization of mod-
ernity through the silhouette of the Hobbesian logical device does not only indicate a lack of
understanding of the methodology of the sciences, but also feeds the suspicion of a specific
political goal: that of attacking modernity in order to try to destroy it in the name of a
postmodern illusion or of a nostalgia for an imaginary premodern period, which is the perspec-
tive in which a presumed naturalism in the political and social order and in its founding values
is effective.
20
See Bardin (2014).
21
See most recently: Del Lucchese (2002), 50–67; Morfino (2006), 67–110; Rahe (2007);
Brown (2010), 68–87 and (2015); Duvernoy (2010), 121–6; Roecklein (2012).
22
Berlin (1980), 71 and in greater depth, 69–75.
23
See Strauss (1958) and Castaldo (2008), 63–130.
Introduction 5
Machiavelli, ‘politics is not natural for man, despite being indispensable to
him’.24 Moreover, his conception of freedom as effect of the constitution
(ordinamento) implies that it is not ‘a natural or supernatural thing’ but rather
something artificial originating only with and within the ‘city’,25 as a practice
inscribed in the free and civil way of life: the constitution alone is the condition
of freedom.
THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF MACHIAVELLI
The Machiavellian will to re-establish Florence as a republic is part of a specific

period in the history of Florence and Italy whose characteristics are worthy of
special attention.26 In particular, I would like to highlight that Machiavelli’s
decision to side with the ‘people’ (popolo)—in other words all those eligible for
the Great Council—speaks to the struggle of the nascent bourgeoisie against
the nobles and the ‘aristocrats’ (ottimati), the most important and influential
citizens,27 in a context in which the people did not yet include all the
inhabitants of a nation. Machiavelli was immersed in a fight historically
defined by the conflicts among factions inside and outside Florence, and by
its relationship with other Italian cities and the European powers of the time.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that Machiavelli’s political analyses may
contain insights still relevant today, provided that two pitfalls are avoided: 1)
the belief that Machiavellian thought may be of use in rethinking the theory of
the State, as argued by Althusser; 2) the belief that Machiavelli points to an
alternative to the State, as many have imagined.28 On the contrary, Machia-
velli’s proposition preceded the birth of the State and if, by chance, it seems to
offer concepts within which to consider the nature of the State, one must resist
the impulse to consider them suited to the task.
This does not mean that Machiavelli’s ideas have been unable to reach
beyond their own time, but even if they do it is not because he exerted some
prophetic power. Rather his relevance endures because in his attempt to
analyse a situation in its concrete historical reality in terms of politics, he
provides directions, suggestions, and the means for thinking and acting
politically. Machiavelli considered politics juxta propria principia without
making it depend on economics, religion, ethics, or law: spheres whose
existence he did not deny or avoid, but which he considered from an
24 25 26
Ion (2006), 94. Dejardin (2004), 67. See Najemy (2006).
27
The former are defined by wealth and birth, while the latter also by their political weight in
the city: the ‘government of aristocrats (ottimati)’, for example, is that of the ‘Consuls’: Mini
(1593), 120–1 and then that of the ‘Senate’: Mecatti (1755), 608–9.
28
For example, Negri (1999), 37–96.
exclusively and consistently political angle, thus transforming them. With this
caveat, it is possible that Machiavelli still has something to say to all countries
mired in the ford between feudalism and modernity, not by proposing new
models to follow but by demonstrating a political practice, even of thought,
that continues to pose questions.
Today, Machiavelli’s analyses remain much as before, an indispensable
reference point in thinking about politics in the present, even if, taking into
account differences in historical circumstances, one should be very wary of
simplistic attempts to find contemporary relevance. Machiavellian categories
and ideas can be of use in analysing our present-day world because they make
it possible to measure the distance that separates us from the world in which
they were created.
For example, he saw corruption as the inevitable disintegration of public
order and the political organizations that belonged to it, explaining it as a result
of the ‘matter’ of which they are comprised and of the times and the struggles
that run through them and constitute them. The issue of corruption nowadays is
fundamental not only for individual countries or for the European political
project, but also for the entire world order established after the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989. The corruption that principally occupied Machiavelli was
Aristotle’s phthorá29 much more than dishonest and illegal behaviour, even if
the link between the two phenomena should be investigated more deeply.30
The question of how to move from corruption to the re-establishment of the
free and civil way of life is a constant theme during political crises, and is therefore
extremely pertinent in our time. From this point of view, I believe that despite
the fact that he speaks to us of a world that no longer exists, Machiavelli’s ideas
are indispensable to any attempt to begin to consider the steady corruption of
the world in which we currently live and to try to imagine how to revive and
once more make effectual a free and civil way of life. In order for Machiavelli
to be useful, however, we must first understand the concepts that he uses.
THE CONCEPTUAL S CHEME OF MACHIAVELLIAN

DISCOURSE
With this in mind, the present research attempts to retrace the backbone of
reasoning followed by Machiavelli in order to respond to the problem of the
corruption of Florence, a consistent theme in his thinking.31
29
See Aristotle (1955).
30
For an overview of the theme, see Shumer (1979); Breschi (1988); Dejardin (2004).
31
See among the more recent studies: Taranto (2001); Dejardin (2004); Marchand (2006);
Black (2013).
Introduction 7
In order to provide the reader with a map with which to orient him or
herself in the labyrinth of Machiavellian thought, I will summarize here,
chapter by chapter, the analytical path that I have followed.
Chapter 1 sets out the key terms and overall approach to the problem taken
by Machiavelli. The cause of the corruption of a city is its inability to
transform its orders. Only a republic can carry out this operation successfully
because only it has as its goal the regeneration of the free and civil way of life,
while the principality, even the civil principality, inevitably degenerates into
tyranny. The possibility of re-establishing a free state in a corrupt city,
therefore, only exists if it is not already a very corrupt city. If the city were
in such a situation, the people would not be able to restore freedom since the
principality leads to the emergence of the ‘kingly state’ and from thence to
tyranny. Only after having brought virtue back to the city could its citizens
create a well-ordered republic by equipping it with the necessary orders. The
difficulty, for Machiavelli, resides in the fact that Florence, after the return of
the Medici (1512), appeared to be a completely servile city and, therefore, a
very corrupt city. The task is therefore to understand if there remained any
virtue in Florence, and how this manifested itself. In order to tackle it,
Machiavelli examined the beginning of the city, because virtue, being an
expansive force set against corruption, revealed itself above all at the start.
Virtue in fact ‘designate[d] the strength and vigour from which all human
action arose’.32
The subject of the free or servile beginning of Florence is the focus of
Chapter 2, which analyses the path taken by Machiavelli in the Discourses
and the Histories. Despite historical appearances, which showed Florence to be
totally servile and thus condemned to not being free, Machiavelli’s analysis
demonstrates that the city was, in fact, constructed by people who were partly
servile and partly free, and that its virtue expressed itself in the struggles
against fortune, even if it generated political instability. The comparison
between tumults, which made Rome great, and struggles, which characterized
the history of Florence, was used by Machiavelli to distinguish between the
different situations of the two cities and to show that Florence should not
imitate the constitution of Rome but instead create its own way of exploiting
the virtue generated by its own struggles. In order to grasp this, however, it is
necessary to understand the political history of Florence’s institutions.
This past, explored in Chapter 3 focused on the Histories, allows us to
understand the concepts and proposals for the political reform of Florence
that Machiavelli advanced in the Discursus and the Minuta, which were
different to any previous constitution. Analysing the struggles that animated
Florence from 1215 to 1512, Machiavelli revealed how the different
32
Gilbert (1984), 154–5.
constitutions had emerged from these struggles, and as these constitutions

initially neutralized the struggles then contributed to generating new ones.
Underlining the defects of the past constitutions of the city, he set out the two
main political coordinates around which he constructed his plans for the
reform of Florence: the tumults and a new idea of mixture.
In Chapter 4, after having briefly explored the presence of the theme of the
constitution in his early political works (ante res perditas), in his correspond-
ence, and in the Art of War (post res perditas), I examine in detail the proposals
for a constitution presented in the Discursus and the Minuta. The salient aspects
that emerge are: a) the strictly republican nature of Machiavelli’s political
proposal; and b) the idea of a constitution based on a new way of conceiving
of the mixture. Against every principality-oligarchy (such as the Medicean
one) and against the (particularly Venetian) model of the mixed government,
Machiavelli proposed a constitution capable of generating equality out of
existing inequalities, because only through equality is it possible to establish a
free and civil way of life that is then capable of regenerating itself continually
through the encounter-clash of the humours.
1
Corruption and Inequality
1.1. THE P ROBLEM
After having posed the question ‘in what mode a free state, if there is one, can
be maintained in corrupt cities; or, if there is not, in what mode to order it’,1
Machiavelli quickly identified a difficulty that seems almost insoluble: how to
maintain ‘a free state’, i.e. a free government, in a corrupt city if it exists, or to
establish one if it does not. Such an endeavour is ‘very difficult [and it is]
almost impossible to give a rule for it because it would be necessary to proceed
according to the degrees of corruption’, to the point that ‘the difficulty, or the
impossibility, of maintaining a republic in corrupt cities or of creating it
anew’2 needs to be emphasized. ‘Free state’ and republican government are
immediately associated and the problem therefore arises only at the collective
level, since the republic as a whole is as much implicated in the process of
corruption as in the daunting reorganization it calls for.
The fact that the ‘state’, which Machiavelli discusses, is ‘in’ the city (which is
no longer the summation of the cives, the civitas, but a more territorially
extended area which also includes the surrounding countryside), makes it
clear that the state and the city are not considered to be the same thing. It is
precisely for this reason that freedom is dependent on their relationship. Just
as ‘in Rome there was the order of the government, or truly of the state [and]
the order of the state was the authority of the people, of the Senate, of the
tribunes, of the consuls; the mode of soliciting and creating the magistrates;
and the mode of making the laws’,3 so here the term ‘state’ is used to indicate
the governmental apparatus of a city, its overall constitution, and the concrete
functioning of both.4 This does not change the fact that in Machiavelli the
term ‘state’ has different meanings, as has been established by the historiog-
raphy,5 even if he never gets close to the Hobbesian concept of ‘sovereignty’
1 2 3
D I.18, 49. D I.18, 49 and 51. D I.18, 49–50.
4
See Gilbert (1984), 176–8.
5
See Hexter (1957); Chabod (1967), 591–661; De Vries (1957), 57–84; Chiappelli (1969),
32–6; Tenenti (1987), 53–97.
whose existence requires a ‘pact’ under which the sovereign becomes absolu-
tus, that is unbound from the laws, and citizens become subjects, and in which
it makes no sense to oppose the will of the sovereign because it is identical to
their own.6 For Machiavelli the state is: the government of a city; a territorially
generic political organization; the exercise, on the part of one or many, of a
political and military supremacy and therefore the sum of the prerogatives or
interests of the governors; a stable aggregate on the territorial, institutional, or
personal level (such as, for example, patrimony, duties, honours, and wealth).
The term ‘free’ will be clarified later on.
Now, let us briefly run over Machiavelli’s reasoning: ‘I shall presuppose’, he
writes, ‘a very corrupt city, [where] neither laws nor orders can be found that
are enough to check (frenare) a universal corruption’.7 In the extreme case of
such a city, laws would not function properly because ‘laws have need of good
customs so as to be observed’, and good customs would be absent because they
‘have need of laws to maintain themselves’.8 Laws and good customs, if taken
in isolation, are incapable of checking corruption. Note the asymmetry:
customs must be good for laws to be observed. Without the belief that a way
of behaving is good because it engenders collective well-being, laws would not
be taken seriously, and laws themselves become good only if they promote
good customs. Despite this, Machiavelli was not a legalist and therefore an
initial problem is that of understanding how good customs are formed,
because a city without laws and thus without good customs, cannot exist
since it would have no ‘form’.9 Thus however corrupt it may be the existence
of a city implies the presence of a minimum of good customs that guarantees a
minimal observance of the law. On the other hand:
besides this, orders and laws made in a republic at its birth, when men are good,
are no longer [suited] to the purpose later, when they have become wicked. If
laws vary according to the accidents in a city, its orders never vary, or rarely;
this makes new laws insufficient because the orders, which remain fixed,
corrupt them.10
All beginnings are characterized by the goodness of the men and consequently
by their orders and laws. It is important to understand that, for Machiavelli,
this goodness is not a moral characteristic, i.e. one connected to the adequacy
of eternal or divine values, but the force connected to the expansiveness of life
that is the hallmark of virtue. Every time the vir inherent in vir-tue is
weakened by the passage of time or by the inability, perhaps human inability,
to reproduce it, corruption breaks out. Good and goodness are here purely
political qualities, expressions of the virtue,11 ‘power of conservation and
6 7 8
See again Duso (1987a). D I.18, 49. D I.18, 49.
9 10 11
P VI, 23. D I.18, 49. Rinaldi, 528, n. 18.
Corruption and Inequality 11
growth’ connected to the will to ‘fight for the fatherland’,12 to die for it, to
battle against fortune and struggle for the good of the republic. It is above a
physical expression, which could not exist without the power of ideas or of
prudence (among other things),13 but whose effect is always expansive.14
The cause of corruption is not the laws, which change according to events,
but the orders, which by not changing prevent the regeneration of virtue. By
not altering the orders, ‘which in corruption were no longer good, the laws
that were renewed were no longer enough to keep men good; but they would
indeed have helped if the orders had been changed together with the innov-
ation in laws’.15 Corruption derives from the immutability of the city’s orders,
which generates the bad customs that prevent laws from keeping men good,
making change useless: ‘a republic’, in fact, ‘has need of new acts […] every
day if one wishes to maintain it free’.16 Thus the primary cause of the
corruption of good customs and, therefore, of good laws, is the inalterability
of the orders. And since the orders are the sum of the institutions that define a
city’s way of living,17 their immutability can be put down to different factors:
to Christianity, to feudalism, or to money, ‘to the political irresponsibility of
the people’,18 or other things. But what stops the orders from being changed?
The Romans granted the consulate to whoever requested it since, at the
beginnings when men were good, those who asked for it were motivated by
virtue or else by a desire to do good for the collective. Rome became corrupted
because the Romans, after having conquered half the world:
became secure in their freedom, as it did not appear to them that they had any
more enemies who ought to give them fear. This security and this weakness of
their enemies made the Roman people no longer regard virtue but favour in
bestowing the consulate, lifting to that rank those who knew better how to
entertain men rather than those who knew better how to conquer enemies.
Afterward, from those who had more favour, they descended to giving it to
those who had more power; so, through the defect in such an order, the good
remained altogether excluded.19
12
Rinaldi, 414, n. 12. For the importance of the argument, see Viroli (1998) and Landon
(2005), despite the fact that I do not share their nationalistic approach.
13
For an overview see Garver (1987).
14
Rinaldi, 113, n. 19 and Polegato (2015), 81–147.
15 16
D I.18, 50. D III.49, 308.
17
If the laws (leggi) are rules that ‘vary according to the accidents’, the term ‘orders’ (ordini)
does not evoke ‘the idea of [modern] constitution’, while De Vries believes that ‘order’ is a
synonym for constitution in the modern sense: De Vries (1957), 9. Modern constitution, in fact,
is unthinkable without Hobbesian sovereignty and indicates the set of permanent institutions
that do not vary according to the accidents.
18
See Taranto (2003), 137; Dejardin (2004), 5–9, 14–21; Marietti (2005), 123; Del Águila-
Chaparro (2006), 226–30; Lupoli (2008), 168; Cadoni (1994), 27.
19
D I.18, 50.
An overblown sense of security ultimately led the Romans to underestimate
virtue, without which safety could not have been obtained, and to become
depraved and corrupt by lowering themselves to assigning important positions
to rhetoricians or, worse, to the powerful, who craved only to dominate. Once
in the hands of the latter, it is extremely difficult for orders to be changed
because doing so is not to the personal advantage of such people, and ‘the
good’ people, if any still remain, are prevented from participating in public life.
In fact: ‘the powerful propose laws, not for the common freedom but for their
own power; and for fear of them nobody can speak against them. So the people
came to be either deceived or forced to decide its own ruin.’20
Without good customs a city inevitably becomes corrupt. Such practices, in
fact, last only if supported by good laws that depend on virtue, which in turn is
linked to the presence of dangers against the city. As the history of Rome
shows, virtue vanishes in the face of too much security. The only way to
preserve virtue, which generates good customs, is to live in a position of
relative but constant danger, dissatisfaction, and insecurity. Too much security
begets vice. In the extreme case, this is certain: any excess of security triggers a
degenerative drift and interrupts the reproduction of good customs that, since
they can be the source of their own corruption, are never entirely good.
If a city is destined to become corrupt, then the goodness of its origins (an
extreme that is part of the presuppositions set out by Machiavelli at the
beginning of this chapter) is purely mythical, invalidating the apparent mor-
alism of Machiavelli’s reasoning. At the beginnings customs are good not
because they possess some sort of purity or moral goodness, but because the
beginnings provoke clashes, even violent ones,21 from which spring virtue.
Thus the answer to the question with which we began, is political or at most
calls for a ‘morality […] social and not individual’, irreducible to all other—
not only Christian—moralities.22 And the answer requires a form of politics
that seeks to survive by encouraging the development of virtue, which is
generated only by accepting exposure to the danger of losing one’s life in an
atomistic perspective in which ‘death is death, an event which must be
considered not in relation to the other, but to itself, in its unsurpassable
absoluteness’.23
Wanting a city ‘to maintain itself free in corruption’ means that ‘new laws’
are not enough because ‘new orders’ are also needed given that the political
‘form’ cannot be the same in a good ‘matter’ (which expands itself thanks
to the struggles) and in a bad one (which is corrupted because of a lack of
struggles). Even the political solution, however, encounters considerable dif-
ficulties. In fact, ‘these orders have to be renewed either all at a stroke, when
they are discovered to be no longer good, or little by little, before they
20 21 22
D I.18, 50–1. Evrigenis (2008), 57. Berlin (1980), 56 and also 58–9, 66.
23
Sasso (1967), 175.
are recognized by everyone’, but ‘both of these two things are almost
impossible’.24
The renewal of the orders of a city is the only way to re-establish good
customs, once these are corrupted. This, however, is ‘almost impossible’ and
it therefore seems that there is no remedy for corruption, even if the ‘almost’
offers a glimmer of hope. Before passing judgement on the bad, let us
examine the reasons for this apparent impossibility. There are two situations
to consider:
[1] If one wishes to renew [the orders] little by little, the cause of it must be
someone prudent who sees this inconvenience from very far away and when it
arises. It is a very easy thing for not one of these [men] ever to emerge in a city,
and if indeed one does emerge, that he never be able to persuade anyone else of
what he himself understands. For men used to living in one mode do not wish to
vary it, and so much the more when they do not look the evil in its face but have
to have it shown to them by conjecture. [2] As to innovating these orders at a
stroke, when everyone knows that they are not good, I say that the uselessness,
which is easily recognized, is difficult to correct. For to do this, it is not enough to
use ordinary terms, since the ordinary modes are bad; but it is necessary to go to
the extraordinary, such as violence and arms, and before everything else become
prince of that city, able to dispose it in one’s own mode. Because the reordering of
a city for a political way of life presupposes a good man, and becoming prince of a
republic by violence presupposes a bad man, one will find that it very rarely
happens that someone good wishes to become prince by bad ways, even though
his end be good, and that someone wicked, having become prince, wishes to work
well, and that it will ever occur to his mind to use well the authority that he has
acquired badly.25
In the first case, it is not only the scarcity of a ‘prudent man’ that makes
renewal almost impossible, but rather the fact that, seeing the dangers before
others do, such a man must convince his fellow citizens to change the orders
before they themselves appreciate the urgency. However, a man who is used to
living in a certain way, and all the more so if the orders are in the hands of
powerful people who use them for their own ends, is reluctant to confront
(and sometimes even to acknowledge) the need for change, however gradual.
The second case is no easier: change brought about ‘at a stroke’ would require
a prince ready and able to use ‘extraordinary’ means, since ‘ordinary’ ones are
mired in corruption. Here begin the problems of the Prince, which I will
discuss in Section 1.3.
Here we encounter a contradiction: if making a city return to the ‘political
way of life’26 requires a ‘good man’, while becoming a prince requires a ‘bad
24 25
D I.18, 51. D I.18, 51 (the bracketed numbering is mine).
26
‘Political way of life’ indicates the general presence of a political organization; ‘civil way of
life’ instead implies the political way of life, but demands a respect for the rules and is connected
man’ capable of employing extraordinary methods, it appears that the situ-
ation calls for a very unusual person, one who is at once good and bad. Despite
being good, he must use bad ways (extraordinary methods) to become a prince
and, once having become such (that is, bad) he must behave like a good man,
renouncing extraordinary methods and making use of ordinary ones to govern
by means of new orders established by violence and arms. This paradox is
followed by another contradiction, because:
if indeed one had to create or maintain one [republic] there, it would be necessary
to turn it more toward a kingly state (stato regio) than toward a popular state, so
that the men who cannot be corrected by the laws because of their insolence
should be checked in some mode by an almost kingly power (potestà quasi regia).
To wish to make them become good by other ways would be either a very cruel
enterprise or altogether impossible.27
To put a republic in order again it is necessary to turn it into a principality and
then, after the prince has at least checked the insolents, turn it back into a
republic. Machiavelli continued to explore this problem, in the form of its
double contradiction, for all his life.
At this point Machiavelli foresees only two possible options. The first is
that of a republic, through which the regeneration of the city is possible
starting with its sanior pars, however small: an approach which assumes that
not all the matter of the city is corrupt. The alternative presupposes that the
corruption is universal and that only a prince, who tends towards a ‘kingly
state’, can try to reform the city. But this way is complicated by the fact that
the eventual result would be a principality rather than a republic and that it
would therefore become necessary to understand if and how a principality
can turn itself into a republic.
1. 2 . TWO WAYS
The Prince and the Discourses are parallel routes, which Machiavelli explores
at the same time. To understand these different perspectives, it is useful to
analyse Discourses I.16–17, in which two eventualities are indicated: 1) that
with expansion (ampliare) (D II.2, 129), while the former is not (D I.6, 23). This makes the ‘civil
way of life’ closer to the ‘free way of life’, which not only implies self-governance, self-
determination, self-sufficiency, and autonomy, but also laws not established to suit the ambitions
of an individual (FH III.5, 110). The ‘civil and free way of life’ is thus opposed to the ‘absolute and
tyrannical’ way of life (D I.9, 30) because, being connected to the ‘common utility’ (D I.16, 45), it
is the enemy of corruption. Tyranny, in fact, makes it impossible for one ‘to grow more in power
(potenza) or riches’, and thus leads to the ‘servile way of life’ (D II.2, 130 and 132).
27
D I.18, 51.
‘a people used to living under a prince maintains its freedom with difficulty, if
by some accident it becomes free’; 2) that ‘having come to freedom, a corrupt
people can with the greatest difficulty maintain itself free’.28
Chapter XVI of Discourses appears to provide a first and partial response to the
option of a principality. For as long as ‘a people’ is commanded by a prince, it is ‘a
brute animal that […] has always been nourished in prison and in servitude’ and
even if then ‘it is left free in a field to its fate, it becomes the prey of the first one
who seeks to re-chain it, not being used to feed itself and not knowing places
where it may have to take refuge’.29 Not being used to governing itself, ‘not
knowing how to reason about either public defence or public offense […] it
quickly returns beneath a yoke […], whenever the matter is corrupt’. Even
where ‘there is more of the good than of the spoiled’, therefore, if the habit of
self-governance and the knowledge this requires are missing it is difficult to live
freely, while it is quite impossible ‘for a people into which corruption has entered
in everything’.30
The solution of a principality and the kingly state, therefore, faces ‘another
difficulty […], which is that the state that becomes free makes partisan [i.e.
tenacious, obstinate] enemies and not partisan friends’. When a regime
changes, for example from a principality to a republic, enemies are made of
those ‘who were prevailing under the tyrannical state, feeding off the riches of
the prince; and when the ability to prevail is taken away from them, they
cannot live content and are forced, each one, to attempt to take up the tyranny
again so as to return to their autonomy’. At the same time the republic:
does not acquire partisan friends […], because a free way of life proffers honours
and rewards through certain honest and determinate causes, and outside these it
neither rewards nor honours anyone; and when one has those honours and those
useful things that it appears to him he merits, he does not confess that he has an
obligation to those who rewarded him. Besides this, the common utility that is
drawn from a free way of life is not recognized by anyone while it is possessed: this
is being able to enjoy one’s things freely, without any suspicion, not fearing for the
honour of wives (donne) and that of children, not to be afraid for oneself. For no
one ever confesses that he has an obligation to one who does not offend him.31
Passing from a principality to a republic means risking, on the one hand,
returning to a ‘tyrannical state’32 and, on the other, incurring ‘ingratitude’.33
There are two ways of obviating such difficulties, namely ‘to kill the sons of
Brutus’, in other words slay all the heirs of those who enjoyed privileged
positions under the previous regime, or else to make friends of one’s en-
emies.34 Machiavelli believes:
28 29 30
D I.18, 44 and 47. D I.16, 44 and also P V, 21. D I.16, 44.
31 32 33
D I.16, 45 and also P III, 8 and VI, 23–4. D I.16, 45. D I.29.
34
D I.16, 45 and III.3–4.
unhappy [are] those princes who have to hold to extraordinary ways to secure
their state, since they have the multitude as enemies. For the one who has the few
as enemies secures himself easily and without many scandals,35 but he who has
the collectivity (l’universale) as enemy never secures himself.36
The only ‘remedy’, therefore, ‘is to seek to make the people friendly to him-
self ’,37 since this is the only way that the prince can consolidate his ‘state’. In
order to achieve this the prince ‘should examine first what the people desires;
and he will always find that it desires two things: one, to be avenged against
those who are the cause that it is servile; the other, to recover its freedom. The
first desire the prince can satisfy entirely, the second in part’. For example,
Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea, ‘cut to pieces all the aristocrats (ottimati), to the
extreme satisfaction of the people (dei popolari)’. The second aspect is more
complicated: ‘since the prince cannot satisfy it, he should examine what causes
are those that make [peoples] desire to be free’, and ‘he will find that a small part
of them desires to be free so as to command, but all the others, who are infinite,
desire freedom so as to live secure’. Both these parts, however, can be satisfied:
the few can be handled ‘either by getting rid of them or by having them share in
so many honours’, while the many can be appeased ‘by making orders and laws
in which universal security is included, together with one’s own [princely]
power (potenza)’.38 The so-called ‘civil principality’39 thus seems to be the
solution to the problem of a city that is not entirely corrupt, because the prince
uses violence against ‘the great’ (i grandi) to allow the people ‘to live secure and
content’.40 We will see later on that even this solution presents certain problems
that make it less dependable than it seems.
Chapter XVII of Discourses instead examines the possibility ‘that a corrupt city
that lives under a prince can never be turned into a free one, even if that prince is
eliminated along with all his line’. Whether corruption begins from the ‘head’ or
‘the head’ is lost ‘when the trunk [is] sound (intero)’, or if, on the other hand,
corruption spreads ‘through the members (membra)’, winning back freedom is
not sufficient, because there would be no way of preventing it returning to its
former debased condition. But even if the ‘head’ and his descendants were
virtuous, after their death the city would revert ‘to its former tyranny’. The
good fortune of Rome was that its ‘kings became corrupt quickly, so that they
were driven out before their corruption passed into the bowels of that city. This
lack of corruption—men having a good end—was the cause that the infinite
tumults in Rome did not hurt and indeed helped the republic’. In conclusion:
35
The term indicates ‘a widespread political-social agitation which precedes true armed
conflicts’ and ‘is a synonym of tumult’, even if the former is often attributed to the ‘private
sphere’ or ‘private interests’ (Rinaldi, 444, n. 40 and 235, n. 110).
36 37 38
D I.16, 45. D I.16, 45. D I.16, 46.
39 40
P IX and the following Section 1.3 in this chapter. D I.16, 46.
where the matter is not corrupt, tumults and other scandals do not hurt; where it
is corrupt, well-ordered laws do not help unless indeed they have been put in
motion by one individual who with an extreme force ensures their observance so
that the matter becomes good. I do not know whether this has ever occurred or
whether it is possible; for it is seen […] that if a city that has fallen into decline
through corruption of matter ever happens to rise, it happens through the virtue
of one man who is alive then, not through the virtue of the collectivity (uni-
versale) that sustains good orders. As soon as such a one is dead, it returns to its
early habit.41
A prince can also be both bad and good, like Epaminondas, and remain so for
all his life without becoming corrupt, but when he dies his virtue will not be
handed down, because personal virtue cannot be inherited. Chapters XVI and
XVII of Book I of the Discourses thus appear to say that for a people to live
freely it has to be accustomed to freedom and not be entirely corrupt. Yet it
also appears to say that the figure of the prince has no influence over this
process, because if he is a quasi-tyrant (Chapter XVI) he leaves his people
(even if they are not corrupt) incapable of being free, while if he is virtuous but
the people are corrupt (Chapter XVII), he cannot transmit to them his virtue
and thus leaves them equally incapable of being free.
Given that even the so-called ‘civil principality’ is not a solution since it
cannot guarantee long-term stability, it should nonetheless be noted that the
principality endows it with a capability that is indispensable even to a republic,
remaining with it not if it frees itself from the principality, but only if it is applied
by giving form—by force if need be—to the matter. Only if this form is good can
the city resist corruption for a certain time, so that in a city not completely
corrupt the one possible road towards the reorganization of freedom is con-
structed by combining at least two dynamics: tumults42 and equality, because
the ‘corruption and slight aptitude for free life that arise from inequality that is
in that city’43 is caused by the presence of ‘gentlemen (gentiluomini)’.44
1 . 3. T H E APORIA O F T H E P R I N C I P A L I T Y
Before examining the republican approach indicated by Machiavelli, however,

we must acknowledge the limits of the principality solution, since ‘new
41
D I.17, 47–8.
42
A tumult is a collective encounter or clash, a coming together of forces that marks the
beginning of every form of life. It is in itself good, in the non-moral sense, because it expands life
beyond itself, even through destruction: it is the ‘ceaseless combat (aeterno certamine)’ (Lucretius,
II, 119–20), the space in which the virtue of men manifests itself, and where they put their lives at
risk for it. It should also be kept in mind that in the Discourses tumults belong to the people and not
to ‘the great’, because only the former are moved by the salutary humour not to be dominated.
43 44
D I.17, 48–9. D I.55, 111–12.
principalities that are acquired by others’ arms and fortune’45 as well as those
obtained ‘through crimes’46 are both incapable of resolving the problem
formulated in Discourses I.18 due to their instability and unreliability. But
why are the ‘altogether new’ principalities that ‘are acquired through one’s
own arms and virtue’47 also unfit for the purpose?
The main difficulty is the fact that the latter are difficult to acquire because
of the ‘new orders and modes that they [the princes] are forced to introduce so
as to found their state and their security’. Even if a prince can introduce to the
republic, ‘either all at stroke […] or little by little’, new orders that will
guarantee its freedom, he must be aware that ‘nothing is more difficult to
handle, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage’.48 The
reason, as also shown in Discourses I.18, is that:
the introducer has all those who benefit from the old orders as enemies, and he
has lukewarm defenders in all those who might benefit from the new orders. This
lukewarmness arises partly from fear of adversaries who have the laws on their
side and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not truly believe in new
things unless they come to have a firm experience of them. Consequently,
whenever those who are enemies have opportunity to attack, they do so with
partisan zeal, and the others defend lukewarmly so that one is in peril (si
periclita)49 along with them.50
The solution to this weakness can be derived only from the fact that ‘these
innovators stand by themselves [and do not] depend on others’ or rather on
the arms of others, since they can use their own arms ‘to use force’ or rather to
introduce new orders by force of arms. But they will remain ‘powerful, secure,
honoured, and happy’ only if they use ‘virtue’ to overcome the difficulties and
dangers that they will encounter ‘along the path’.51
These princes, referred to as ‘armed prophets’,52 do not completely meet
Machiavelli’s requisites, for two reasons. Firstly, anyone who becomes the
prince after having introduced new orders remains in the principality form
and does not complete the shift to the republic form. Secondly, such a prince
governs by force and personal virtue and not with laws: his state is founded on
personal qualities that will die with him, since they cannot be handed down to
the next generation. This fact explains the inadequacy of new orders imposed
by violence alone, as the examples of Agathocles and Liverotto da Fermo
show.53 Thus, while the type of prince described in Chapter VI of the Prince
has some interesting attributes, his profile is insufficient to solve the problem
set out in Discourses I.18.
45 46 47 48
P VII. P VIII. P VI, 21. P VI, 23.
49
‘Periclitare’ means being in danger, but here, like in other parts of Machiavelli, it means ‘to
be ruined’.
50 51 52 53
P VI, 23–4. P VI, 24–5. P VI, 24. P VIII.
Chapter IX of the Prince takes a step forward because it discusses an
‘altogether new’ principality that is obtained by ‘a private citizen […] not
through crime or other intolerable violence but with the support of his fellow
citizens’. In fact, to obtain such a principality ‘neither all virtue nor all fortune’
(the classification of P I, 3–4 is called into question) are required, ‘but rather a
fortunate astuteness’54 is needed, a successful combination and mixture of
virtue and fortune.
The interest in this political form is attributable to the word ‘civil’ which
refers to the ‘respect for the fundamental norms that protect the associated life
and common good […], and thus is applicable without discrimination to
republican or noble regimes’55 and also to the fact that ‘one ascends to this
principality either with the support of the people or with the support of the
great’.56 Leaving aside for the moment the question of the humours, of which
I will speak further on, at this point it is appropriate to pause to consider the
relationship with the people, since Machiavelli states that:
1) ‘he who comes to the principality with the aid of the great maintains
himself with more difficulty than one who becomes prince with the aid
of the people’;
2) ‘one who becomes prince through the support of the people should keep
them […] to him (deve […] mantenerselo)’;
3) ‘one who becomes prince against the people with the support of the great
must before everything else seek to gain the people to himself [because]
for a prince it is necessary to have the people friendly; otherwise he has
no remedy in adversity’.57
As he had stated in the Discourses, the important thing for any prince wishing
to create a stable state is to ‘make the people friendly to himself ’.58 The civil
principality would thus appear to correspond, at least in this regard, and in
contrast to other principalities, to the demands set out in Chapters XVI–XVIII
of the Discourses. And yet this is not so for at least three reasons.
Firstly, the support of the people and of the great does not necessarily imply
their virtue, a word that appears only once in Chapter IX of the Prince, albeit
with reference to the prince and not to the ‘matter’, and is entirely absent from
Chapter X, which is a kind of appendix to Chapter IX. We do not know if a
civil principality can also exist in a fully or partly corrupt matter, but we
54 55
P IX, 38–9. Rinaldi, 206, n. 1.
56
P IX, 39. The principality, therefore, is civil owing to the ‘way’ in which it is obtained and
not because of its political ‘substance’: see Frosini (2005). Nevertheless, it remains true that the
‘civil principality’, taken as a whole, is ‘a paradoxical, not to say contradictory association of a de
facto personal power and of civil institutions, in theory the only ones licensed to govern the city’,
which renders it highly unstable: Larivaille (1996), 103.
57 58
P IX, 39–41. D I.16, 45.
suppose that it can because the prince must be at least a little virtuous if he
wants to achieve a ‘fortunate astuteness’, and, therefore, is presumably able to
instil that quality in the ‘matter’.
Secondly, the recourse to violence appears to be limited to the ‘protection
[…] in many modes’ of the people from the threat of the great59 by a prince
who knows how to be bad and good according to eventualities and require-
ments.60 This appears to be confirmed in the statement that a prince ‘needs
to have a spirit disposed to change as the winds of fortune and variations of
things command him, and […] not depart from good, when possible, but
know how to enter into evil, when forced by necessity’.61 This virtuous
behaviour depends on the ability of the prince to do the right thing at the
right time, to seize the kairos. This is a desirable endowment but certainly
not guaranteed. And yet the real problem of these ‘wise’ princes is another
problem.62
Thirdly, these principalities in reality ‘customarily run into peril (pericli-
tare) when they are about to ascend from a civil order to an absolute one’,63 in
other words when they must move:
from the civil regime, based on the favour of the citizens and more specifically for
the people […] to the absolute regime, in which the power of the prince is not
limited and at the same time supported by a precise social force, but finds in itself
its own legitimacy (in this sense all the hereditary principalities discussed in
Chapter II [of the Prince] are absolutist from their very foundation).64
The point, therefore, is the duration, which is to say the possibility of handing
down hereditarily the new orders and good customs that such a prince, ‘a man
full of heart’ who does not ‘get frightened in adversity’, has founded.65
The danger lies in the fact that ‘these princes either command by themselves
or by means of magistrates. In the latter case their position is weaker and more
dangerous’, because they depend completely on the whim of the magistrate,
‘who, especially in adverse times, can take away his state with great ease’ or can
abandon or refuse to obey them. The prince of a civil principality, therefore, in
59 60
P IX, 40. D I.18, 51.
61
P XVIII, 70, which refers back to XV, 61 and also to D I.26, 62.
62 63
P IX, 42. P IX, 41–2.
64
Rinaldi, 217–18, n. 126. The people, as we shall see, are not homogenous in Machiavelli—
see Inglese (2006), 90 and Visentin (2013) and (2015)—nor does there ‘exist a sole people in the
abstract’: Pedullà (2011), 339. After 1494, for example, it coincides with the sum of the ‘citizens’,
those who, in Florence, could take public duties if they paid their taxes or if ‘beneficiati’: ‘all those
whose names, or whose father’s or grandfather’s names, drawn for the three most prestigious
executive boards (the Signoria, the Twelve Good Men, and the Sixteen Gonfalonieri) whether
they had received the office or not’: Gilbert (1984), 17 and n. 14; Albertini (1970), 9; Varotti
(1998), 48–9 and n. 54, 350, n. 43. It should nevertheless be kept in mind that, at times, ‘the
people’ does not necessarily refer to a historical situation, because it is composed, for example, ‘of
the virtuous citizen of a free republic’: Del Águila-Chaparro (2006), 221.
65
P IX, 41.
order to be certain that he has control of the state, has ‘to seize absolute
authority’ and rely neither on any magistracy66 nor on ‘the popular humour’.67
In addition to the problem of heritability there is the issue of the necessary
evolution towards the ‘absolute authority’ that a civil principality must achieve
if it wishes to remain stable and secure: the need ‘to ascend’68 clashes with the
initial support of the people and with the possibility that such a principality
can be turned into a republic. Indeed, ‘an absolute authority corrupts the
matter in a very short time and makes friends and partisans for itself ’.69 The
civil principality, therefore, is not the solution to the problem of freedom in
corrupt republics,70 because in a republic an ‘absolute authority’ is harmful, as
the example of the Decemvirate shows.71
From the point of view of the Discourses, the Prince seems to be proof of
the inability of any form of principality to resolve the problem of Florence
(and perhaps of Italy) through the institution of a republic. However, when
removed from this context and treated as a stand-alone work, it can also be seen
as a means of requesting a post from the Medici,72 used to brand Machiavelli
as a master of tyrants and totalitarianisms, or other such nonsense.73 For all
that, the Prince is a key text for any understanding of modern but not State-
centric politics and can perhaps even be rehabilitated from a collective view-
point,74 as an instrument with which to make a response to the question with
which we began. But to understand if and how this might be practicable we
must first reach the end of a long path that I will try to outline in the course of
the following discussion.
1 . 4. A ‘W E L L -O R D E R E D RE P UB LI C’ AND THE
TRANSMISSION OF VIRTUE
Not by chance, the problem of heritability is addressed in Chapters XIX

and XX in Book I of the Discourses, once it is established that the road
66 67 68
P IX, 42. Rinaldi, 219–20, n. 136. P IX, 42.
69 70
D I.35, 77. Baron (1961); Marietti (2005), 76–85.
71 72
D I.40, 86. L 142–4 to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513.
73
The Prince, in fact, can be read from a republican perspective, albeit without stretching
towards the hypothesis that it was written as a trap designed to lead the Medici towards disaster by
flattering them—see Dietz (1986) and Langton-Dietz (1987)—or believing that it was only a way to
reveal the tricks of the prince to the people: see Baron (1961). While Machiavelli’s philosophy does
contain a certain level of deceit (even in the Discursus, for example, adulation plays an important
role), I do not believe that the issue is to understand whether he was a supporter of the Medici or if
one needs to recognize the Secretary’s intention to manipulate them. Perhaps, as an alternative, one
could theorize that the Prince was the way in which Machiavelli attempted to probe the possibility
of turning Florence (and perhaps all of Italy) back into a republic by attempting to persuade the
Medici, but that it met with a negative response.
74
Visentin (2013), 288–92.
which leads from the civil principality to the absolute principality rather than
the republic was not barred. How, then, can virtue be transmitted, if indeed
this is at all possible?
Rome, in its monarchical period, ‘chanced upon very great fortune’ because
Romulus was ‘fierce and bellicose’, Numa Pompilius ‘quiet and religious’, and
Tullus Hostilius ‘more a lover of war than of peace’. The virtue of a great
prince can be enough to support a ‘weak prince’ who succeeds him, but since
the expansiveness of his virtue does not last indefinitely, there is a need to turn,
as in the ‘kingdom […] of France’, to ‘orders’ that preserve it.75 Here there is a
first important shift: from the virtue of individuals to orders, even if France
nevertheless remains a kingdom. What Machiavelli wants to point out, how-
ever, is that Rome, like the monarchy of Israel or of Turkey (coincidentally the
monarchies of the other two monotheisms), was lucky and this was the sole
reason why virtue was able to establish itself through a line of kings. No
doctrine of the divine right of kings or of hereditary blood lines, but fortune
alone blessed this realm for a certain period. Monarchical Rome, like the later
imperial Rome, could therefore not serve as a model for Florence.
But it was a different matter for republican Rome since ‘the highest
command (imperio) was brought to the consuls, who came to that command
not by inheritance or by deception or by violent ambition but by free votes,
and were always most excellent men’, for which reason Romans enjoyed
‘their virtue and their fortune’ and the city was able to reach ‘its ultimate
greatness’.76
The most important point of this short chapter,77 however, is that if ‘two
virtuous princes in succession are sufficient to acquire the world’, as Philip II
of Macedon and Alexander the Great demonstrated, ‘a republic [has to] do so
much more, as through the mode of electing it has not only two in succession
but infinite most virtuous princes who are successors to one another’.78 Thus
free votes provide the means to transmit virtue: not by way of blood or law (the
immortal body of the king), but by a combination of chance and choice. And
seeing that a republic has many citizens and can choose from a large number
of them, its likelihood of having a virtuous state is greater than those of a
monarchy, kingdom, or principality, however civil.
The passage seems to have been influenced by the naivety manifested in the
mythologizing of the consuls. This, however, is not the end of Machiavelli’s
reasoning, since he immediately clarifies: ‘this virtuous succession will always
75
D I.19, 52–3.
76
D I.20, 54. Machiavelli rejects the doctrine of the ‘king’s two bodies’: see Kantorowicz
(1997). Chance and the elections transmit virtue, because they make it possible to capture its
birth. There is no legal or religious form that can guarantee the heredity of virtue. Only political
action through specific orders is capable of doing so.
77 78
D I.20. D I.20, 54.
exist in every well-ordered republic.’79 Once again the decisive factor is not
delegated to the individual, but to the constitution and its operation. Machia-
velli had in point of fact already explained how in Rome even the consular
institute had been corrupted on account of the inordinate security won by the
Romans through the subjugation of Africa, Asia, and Greece.80 In conclusion,
virtue is transmitted only in an apparently contradictory way: through free
votes and a proper functioning of the constitution, the former not being
enough.81
Accordingly, it is necessary to understand what the phrase ‘well-ordered
republic’ actually means and what relationship it has, if any, with solving the
problem of the ‘free state’ in a corrupt city. The compound ‘well-ordered’
appears several times in the way that concerns us in the Discourses, whereas in
the Prince Machiavelli limits himself to affirming that the ‘well-ordered states
and wise princes have thought out with all diligence how not to make the great
desperate and how to satisfy the people and keep them content’.82
The most notable feature of a ‘well-ordered city’ is that in it ‘faults are never
paid for with merits’83 and that in fact the ‘well-ordered republics institute
rewards and punishments for their citizens and never counterbalance one with
the other’. This means:
that no well-ordered republic ever cancels the demerits with the merits of its
citizens; but, having ordered rewards for a good work and punishments for a bad
one, and having rewarded one for having worked well, if that same one later
works badly, it punishes him without any regard for his good works. When these
orders are well observed, a city lives free for a long time; otherwise it will always
come to ruin soon. For if a citizen has done some outstanding work for the city,
and on top of the reputation that this thing brings him, he has an audacity and
confidence that he can do some work that is not good without fearing punish-
ment, in a short time he will become so insolent that any civility (civilità) will be
dissolved. If one wishes the punishment for malevolent works to be kept up, it is
indeed necessary to observe the giving of rewards for good ones […]. Although a
republic may be poor and able to give little, it should not abstain from that little;
for every small gift given to anyone, in recompense for a good however great, will
always be esteemed by him who receives it as honourable and very great.84
The constitution of a republic depends on the effectiveness of its orders,
among which, apart from those of tumults and equality, there is also justice,
which implies the existence of magistrates. This existence is incompatible with
a principality because ‘when the people order magistrates, it should make
them so that they have to have some hesitation about becoming criminals’.85
79 80 81 82
D I.20, 54. D I.18, 50–1. D I.35. P XIX, 74.
83 84
D I.22, 56. D I.24, 59 and also I.29–32, and III.28.
85
D I.40, 89 (translation modified; hereafter t.m.).
If a republic errs in the administering of prizes and punishments, it falls into
tyranny86 or corruption.87
Before going on to examine the functioning of these orders and their
relationships (see Chapters 2 and 3), it should be pointed out that ‘well-
ordered’ is a compound that also appears in the Discourses, where Machiavelli
argues that the ‘well-ordered republics have to keep the public rich and their
citizens poor’.88 It is an important theme because:
enriching the treasury at the expense of private individuals means not distribut-
ing to the richest citizens the fruits of conquest and in fact taking away the wealth
already concentrated in the hands of those who had accumulated it: a problem
that is much more delicate because the owners of riches (patricians or great men)
play a role […] in the political dialectic […]. Thus gaining a form of [equality] by
distributing the fruits of conquest in the most just way […] was only possible, as
Machiavelli had already written in [Discourses] I.17, by using the greatest extra-
ordinary means, with the risk of shifting the republican constitution towards an
authoritarian and tyrannical system.89
This was not the reason why Machiavelli ceased to look for a way to distribute
wealth in the most just way. Equity, as opposed to abstract equality, is essential
for the existence of a republic, but he wanted to find a way that would not lead
to tyranny, as had often happened in the history of Florence (see Chapter 3).
1.5. THE DICTATORSHIP: THE ‘ KINGLY HAND’

OF THE REPUBLIC
The Discourses confirms the answer given in the Prince to the opening
question. Anyone who wants ‘to reform a state in a city’90 in such a way as
to make it acceptable to those who live in it ‘is under the necessity of retaining
at least the shadow of its ancient modes’, and this is also relevant to whoever
wishes ‘to order a political way of life by the way either of republic or of
kingdom’. The rule, however, applies only to a city that is not completely
corrupt and certainly not to one that is very corrupt, where a new prince,
having to ‘make everything new’, inevitably proceeds towards ‘an absolute
power (potestà), which is called tyranny’,91 because he is required:
86 87
D I.29, 66. D III.1, 210–11.
88
D I.37, 79. Interesting observations on this theme can be found in McCormick (2013).
89
Rinaldi, 609, n. 31.
90
Here it is clear that, if there is a state within the city, the term ‘state’ does not refer to the
Hobbesian State that we have in mind when using the word.
91
D I.25, 60–1.
not to leave anything untouched in that province, so that there is no rank, no
order, no state,92 no wealth there that he who holds it does not know it as from
you […]. These modes are very cruel, and enemies to every way of life, not only
Christian but human; and any man whatever should flee them and wish to live in
private rather than as king with so much ruin to men.93
A totally corrupt city cannot go back to being free with a prince, not even an
altogether new one, because the type of politics that a civil principality leads it
towards will of necessity be tyranny.
In this way, Machiavelli restates the aporia in which he is moving: on the
one hand, returning a partially or totally corrupt republic to freedom requires
a ‘kingly hand’,94 which, however, degenerates into tyranny. On the other,
when faced with ‘a wicked prince’ there is no ‘remedy other than steel’.95 The
undertaking, therefore, is either impossible or one must find a way to make the
‘kingly state’ compatible with the republican constitution. Romans and Vene-
tians ‘turned to creating the dictator—that is, to giving power (potestà) to one
man who could decide without any consultation and execute his decisions
without any appeal’.96
In response to those who objected that the dictatorship was the reason for
Rome’s degeneration into tyranny, citing the case of Julius Caesar (towards
whom the Secretary’s judgement was scathing),97 Machiavelli made three
observations:
1) dictatorship was a magistracy provided for by the Roman constitution,
granted ‘according to public orders, and not by his own authority’ (in
complete contrast, then, to the current meaning of the term), because
‘magistrates that are made and authorities that are given through
extraordinary ways, not those that come through ordinary ways, hurt
republics’;98
2) ‘the dictator was appointed for a time, and not perpetually’, for the sole
purpose of solving a problem and ‘he could not do anything that might
diminish the state’;
3) during the exercise of his duties, the dictator remained, in relation to
anything that did not concern the reason for his appointment, under the
control of the public authorities.99
Dictatorship was the republican constitution’s institutionalized equivalent of
the kingly state and existed because the republic, having ‘a slow motion’, was
92
Here in the sense of political ‘status’ and, therefore, one might even say ‘authority’ (Rinaldi,
566, n. 12).
93 94 95
D I.26, 61–2. D I.55, 112. D I.58, 119.
96
D I.33, 71 and I.34. On the relevance of this magistracy, see Geuna (2017).
97 98
See D I.10, 31–3 and I.37, 80. D I.34, 74 and also I.40, 89.
99
D I.34, 74 and I.35.
not always timely in confronting dangers.100 In this sense, the dictatorship
may be called a ‘republican principality’.101 In any event, dictatorship should
absolutely not be confused with tyranny, which is not a magistracy.
In consequence, another order was seen to be necessary for the restoration
of freedom to a corrupt republic: dictatorship, which alongside tumults,
equality, justice, free votes, and the good organization and functioning of
orders—up to this point the form taken by the constitution of freedom—
made up the fundamental combination of the apparatus required for the
government of a republic.102
The Decemvirate, for example, despite being freely elected, gave rise to
disaster.103 Thus, just as important as free votes, were ‘the modes of giving
authority and the time for which it is given’. This was because ‘if a free
authority is given for a long time—calling a long time one year or more—it
will always be dangerous and will have either good or bad effects according as
those to whom it is given are bad or good’.104 For Machiavelli, it is not only the
virtue of individuals that generates a ‘well-ordered republic’: there is also a
constant need for a well-ordered impersonal political apparatus—the consti-
tution105—geared towards establishing the orders that it must then always
reproduce because ‘a republic will never be perfect unless it has provided for
everything with its laws and has established a remedy for every accident and
given the mode to govern it’.106 Dictatorship led to better outcomes than the
Decemvirate because in the case of the former ‘guards were posted who made
them [the dictators] unable to use their authority badly’, while in the latter ‘it
happened all the contrary’. Ergo authority must be granted by the people ‘in
the proper circumstances and for the proper times’.107
Machiavelli’s realism, which is the counterpart of his imagination, in no
way idealizes the people108 or the nobles, the princes or the kings. Indeed, it
spells out that a ‘perfect republic’ is very hard to bring about.109
If, in fact, one set out to re-establish the ‘civil and free life’ in a city corrupt
in part or completely by turning to dictatorship, one would run into an
obvious difficulty given that dictatorship is a republican magistracy and
therefore requires that the city in question must already be a republic. For
without a ‘guard’110 the dictator could easily be seduced by ‘absolute power’,
unless of course he was a saint, a rare phenomenon among human beings. It is
clear, on the other hand, that the dictator has functions other than this. Would
a partly or entirely corrupt city in the end still have the ability to perceive the
danger and turn to such a magistracy to avoid or correct it?
100 101 102

D I.34, 74–5. Barbuto (2007), 104. D I.34, 75.
103 104 105
D I.35, 76 and I.40. D I.35, 76. DRGF 114–15 and Lefort (2012), 236.
106 107 108
D I.34, 75. D I.35, 76–7. D I.37 and I.53.
109 110
D I.2, 14 and I.49, 234. D I.35, 77 and I.40, 89.
In the case of an entirely corrupt city, there would be no possible transition
from a principality to a republic and it would be necessary instead to recon-
stitute the republic having abolished the principality. But since it is important
that the ‘kingly state’ also exists in a republic, in the form of a dictatorship, this
magistracy must already be one of the orders in place when the republic is
created in order to be used whenever necessary. If the city is not totally
corrupt, as in the case of Rome, then—following Livy—Machiavelli notes
that it was ‘the Roman people [who recovered] its freedom’111 after the
Decemvirate had established a tyranny. Livy’s account was more complex112
because it was the plebians, armed and on the streets (tumult), who imposed
the restoration of its tribunes, ‘munimentum libertati’,113 the guard of free-
dom. This was an event that, one presumes, could occur only in a republic that
was corrupt only to a certain extent and consequently still retained some
desire for freedom. A prince could, at most, establish a civil principality, the
degeneration of which has already been described.
1.6. FREE AN D S ERV ILE BEGINNINGS
At this point, the problem that emerges in Machiavelli’s reasoning is that of

the origin of a city, since ‘if those cities that have had a free beginning, such as
Rome, have difficulty in finding laws that will maintain them, those that have
had one immediately servile have almost an impossibility’.114 How, then, can
we resolve the problem of Florence, whose beginning was not free from the
outset?115 The ‘almost’, which disappears a few lines further on, leaves open a
space for political intervention, albeit a complicated one, and allows Machia-
velli to show that in its early days Florence was not completely enslaved (see
Chapters 2 and 3), bearing in mind the uncertainty symbolized by the ‘almost’
and the fact that Florence changed thanks to an ‘opportunity (occasione)’,
without, ever becoming a true republic.116
Only a republic that is born free can face up to the question posed in
Discourses I.18 with any hope of success. What is, then, so important about
birth, origin, or beginning that it becomes decisive? The issue is twofold: on
the one hand, one must take in the significance and importance of free
beginning (see Chapter 2) while on the other, since ‘new necessities in man-
aging [a]city were always discovered’, compelling one ‘to create new orders’,117
we must understand that if it is impossible to foresee everything right from the
beginning, it is at the same time often necessary to go back to the beginning to
create new orders.
111 112 113

D I.46, 95. See Livy (1939), III.50–5. Livy (1939), III.37, 122–3.
114 115 116 117
D I.49, 100. Inglese/D, 269, n. 1. D I.49, 100. D I.49, 100.
A good beginning is such because it enables one to prepare for whatever
may come, providing the right tools to deal with every eventuality that may
arise in the course of time. Moreover, a good beginning is dynamic rather than
static: it continues into the long term, overcoming the obstacles presented by
fortune.118 In Rome, for example, ‘that what an orderer (ordinatore) had not
done, chance did’119 and this, albeit in different ways, also happened in
Venice120 and Sparta.121 Chance, therefore, is an essential component of a
good beginning and reveals that every beginning is itself plural, composed of
various forces.
The successful construction of a ‘well-ordered republic’ is a fruit of virtue,
which manifests itself in knowing how to see, confront, and make use for the
benefit of the ‘common good (bene comune)’, of which I will speak later,
the opportunities offered by fortune. The capacity of foresight is ascribable
to the fact that:
in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same humours,
and there always have been. So it is an easy thing for whoever examines past
things diligently to foresee future things in every republic and to take the
remedies for them that were used by the ancients, or, if they do not find any
that were used, to think up new ones through the similarity of accidents.122
It is therefore a matter of being ready to recognize new circumstances, which
cannot be traced back to examples from the ancient world and, together, to
devise appropriate solutions. One might say that it is a matter of predicting
everything, even the possibility of not predicting everything, which is really the
one possible prediction, seeing that predicting the unpredictable is obviously a
nonsense. A beginning is good, in other words, if by it the republic is set up in
such a way that it can use its orders to confront even those things that could
not be foreseen, because, by starting from and respecting its beginnings, it can
update its orders in response to the ‘accidents’ that can occur.123 In Rome,
which was ‘ordered by itself and by so many prudent men, [and] every day
new causes emerged for which it had to make new orders in favour of a free
way of life’, orders were issued that were capable of reordering the city,
something that did not and does not occur in ‘other cities that have a more
disordered beginning’.124 In Rome, therefore, it was not a single legislator, but
most legislators who reordered the city, and chance also made an invaluable
contribution.
The fact that the renewal of a republic or a ‘sect’ may coincide with a return
to ‘their beginnings (princìpi)’,125 is justified by the idea that goodness, as
mentioned earlier, is not a moral quality, but instead is the expansive force
118 119 120 121

D III.1, 209. D I.2, 14. D I.6, 20. D I.2, 10.
122 123 124 125
D I.39, 83–4. D III.1, 209. D I.49, 101. D III.1, 209.
inherent in everything that is born, grows, and tends to last.126 The beginning
is always good not because what it starts is good, but because in all beginnings
there is a force that produces change. Not by chance, Book II of the Discourses
deals with certain choices that ‘the Roman people made pertaining to the
increase (augumento) of its empire’ and ‘always increasing (in augumento)
toward the best’,127 especially in relation to military organization given that
expansion was considered by Machiavelli to be primarily, though not exclu-
sively, territorial. This makes the phrase ‘imperialist republicanism’ to describe
his position only partly accurate,128 ‘for since a city that lives free has two ends:
one to acquire, the other to maintain itself free’.129 The increase, in fact, is the
antidote to corruption, even if only up to a certain point,130 because the
military aspect generates a virtue that is strictly political and which manifests
itself, in particular, in the ability to produce new orders in the face of new
needs, as we can see in the case of the ‘censors, which were one of those
provisions that helped keep Rome free for the time that it lived in freedom’.131
Machiavelli maintains that this inventive, innovative, and expansive cap-
acity is a prerogative—but not an automatic one—only of ‘those cities that
have had their beginning free and that have been corrected (retto) by them-
selves’.132 The difference between ‘free beginning’ and ‘servile beginning’
underpins all Machiavelli’s reasoning, and must therefore be examined
carefully.
‘Free beginning’ means ‘without depending on anyone’133 and coincides
with the ‘free way of life’, recognizable from the fact that ‘cities have never
expanded (ampliato) either in dominion or in riches if they have not been in
freedom’:
all towns (terre) and provinces that live freely in every part […] make very great
profits (progressi) […] larger peoples are seen there, because marriages (connubi)
are freer and more desirable to men since each willingly procreates those children
he believes he can nourish. He does not fear that his patrimony will be taken
away, and he knows not only that they are born free and not slaves, but that they
can, through their virtue, become princes. Riches are seen to multiply there in
larger number, both those that come from agriculture and those that come from
the arts. For each willingly multiplies that thing and seeks to acquire those goods
he believes he can enjoy once acquired. From which it arises that men in rivalry
126 127
P XV, 62. D II, preface, 125, and 123.
128
Pedullà (2011), 397–402; then see Kersting (2006), 136; Hörnqvist (2004); Kennedy (2005).
129
D I.29, 66.
130
There are two main sides to expanding (ampliare): one makes it possible to vent humours
outside the city, thereby avoiding a loss of virtue that in this way is regenerated. Since, however,
there is no way to expand indefinitely—here is the other side—expanding brings with it the seeds
of corruption, because ‘the period of command [and] the personal authority of the condottieri
[…] made […] available, for the factions at war, recognized and powerful leaders’: Inglese (2006),
133–4.
131 132 133
D I.49, 100. D I.49, 100. D I.1, 9.
think of private and public advantages, and both the one and the other come to
grow marvellously. The contrary of all these things occurs in those countries that
live servilely; and the more they decline from the accustomed good, the harder is
their servitude.134
The freedom present in the beginning must, however, be preserved and
supported by a complex institutional apparatus—the constitution—whose
function is to reproduce it repeatedly. Understanding its operation requires
a long digression on the history of Florence.
First, however, it is worth summarizing what has emerged up to now: to
establish a free state in an entirely or partly corrupt city, or to maintain it if it
already exists, one must establish a virtuous relationship between good laws
and good customs. Since the customs must change according to the times, it is
important to defeat corruption, which is produced by time itself135 though
mainly by inequality.136 While imposing conservation, inequality hinders the
renewal of the orders and engenders the loss of virtue, since it tends to inhibit
the struggle for freedom, identified with the civil and free way of life of a
republic and, specifically, that of Florence. This way of life does not only
imply self-governance, self-determination, self-sufficiency, autonomy, and
laws established for the common good rather than to gratify the ambitions
of someone, but also the impulse to expand, and thus to increase.137 In order
to renew the constitution, it becomes necessary to regenerate equality. The two
ways explored by Machiavelli—the principality and the republic—present
different problems, although the first is more dangerous than the second,
which is the more difficult in that it has to mix different political and
institutional dynamics: the tumults,138 equality, justice, free votes, the good
functioning of the constitution, the dictatorship and, finally, the increase. Only
by mixing these practices in an open constitution—which can regenerate by
134 135
D II.2, 129–33. D III.1, 209.
136 137
Sasso (1967), 114–15 and 124. D II.4.
138
Tumults are one of the practices through which the return to the beginnings, the antidote
to corruption, is brought about—Illuminati-Rispoli (2011), 50—and form part of the ‘intrinsic
accidents’ owed to the malfunctioning of certain ‘orders’; the growing rarity of ‘executions’, for
example, gave ‘more space to men to corrupt themselves’, generating ‘greater danger and more
tumult’ (D III.1, 210, and also Inglese/D, 578, n. 23). Vatter has proposed a reading of the return
to the beginnings as a revolutionary event—(2000), 10 and all of part 3—because it emerges as a
‘repetition’ of the founding dynamic, which is not ‘form’ and which is always ‘plural’, involving
also chance: Vatter (2000), 51, 68, 88. Returning to the beginnings would thus entail breaking
with the past and thus regenerating history, which always and only (re)starts when a new period
is born, from which one can look back. This is a reading that risks a teleological use of the
paradigm of the French Revolution, rather than considering that in an atomistic logic there are
always ruptures and new beginnings and never palingenesis. Tumults are not revolutionary,
because ‘they do not go so far as the point of overturning the starting social order’: Illuminati-
Rispoli (2011), 55.
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Bomba, the gun burst and laid Casson on his back, while the
wounded anaconda retreated. Bomba had dragged his injured
companion to their cabin and nursed him back to physical health. But
Casson’s head had been injured by the explosion, and from that time
on he was half-demented, though harmless. The lessons ceased
abruptly, and Bomba became the provider and protector of the little
family of two.
Thrown thus early on his own resources, Bomba had developed into
a remarkable physical specimen of boyhood, daring, strong, and
versed in all the craft of the jungle. He was surrounded by daily
perils, to which a weaker nature would have succumbed. Serpents
and wild beasts sought his life. But against them he matched his own
courage and cunning, and had so far survived.
He knew comparatively nothing of the outside world. The jungle filled
his whole horizon. But he knew that he was different from the natives
of that region. Tugging at his heart was the knowledge that he was
white, and he was possessed with a great desire to come in contact
with his own people, to learn of their ways and dwell among them.
He knew that he was out of place where he was. The call of the
blood was strong within him. He had a great longing to know of his
parentage. He had questioned Casson repeatedly on this point, and
the old man had striven in vain to tell him. But his memory had failed
at the critical moment, and all that he could do was to mention the
names “Bartow” and “Laura,” which Bomba concluded must refer to
his parents.
How Bomba met two white rubber hunters, Gillis and Dorn, and won
their gratitude by saving their lives when their camp was attacked at
night by jaguars; how he trapped the cooanaradi when it pursued
him; how he drove off the vultures when they assailed his friends the
monkeys; how the latter came to his aid when the cabin was
besieged by the headhunters—these adventures are told in the first
book of this series, entitled: “Bomba the Jungle Boy; or, The Old
Naturalist’s Secret.”
Although Casson could not himself remember the facts about
Bomba’s parentage, he told him that he could learn all he wanted to
know from Jojasta, the medicine man of the Moving Mountain. It was
a long journey that Bomba had in prospect to reach Jojasta, but the
urge to go was so strong that the lad determined to attempt it. After
beating off another attack of the headhunters, Bomba took Casson
down the river and delivered him to the care of Pipina, an old squaw
for whom he had done many favors, and set out to find Jojasta.
From the very start his journey was beset with dangers from man
and beast, flood and earthquake. He was instrumental in delivering
from the power of the savages a Mrs. Parkhurst, whom he always
referred to in his mind as “the woman with the golden hair.” Later he
found her son, Frank, and in their joint adventures the boys grew
strongly attached to each other, and Frank’s stories of the wonders
of civilization intensified Bomba’s longings to see those things for
himself.
How Bomba was swallowed up in an earthquake and hurled into a
subterranean cavern that promised to become a living tomb; by what
a marvelous combination of nerve and good fortune he reached the
open air and sunlight; how he finally found Jojasta after the latter had
been fatally hurt by the fall of his temple; the partial but not sufficient
information he received from the dying man regarding his parents;
the obstacles he surmounted and the perils he escaped are told in
the preceding volume of this series, entitled: “Bomba the Jungle Boy
at the Moving Mountain; or, The Mystery of the Caves of Fire.”
And now to return to Bomba, as he fights his life-and-death battle
with the snake amid the branches and foliage of the fallen tree, not
daring to make a sound lest he betray his hiding place to the
savages who were hunting for him only a short distance away.
Beneath the scaly skin of the jaracara there was tremendous
muscular power, and this was made more available when the reptile
secured a purchase by wrapping its long body about the boy’s leg.
It squirmed and writhed and twisted, seeking to sink its fangs into the
hands that held it. Its jaws, slavering with poison, were never more
than a few inches from the boy’s flesh. If Bomba’s hands should slip
from that slimy throat ever so little, his doom would be sealed.
The snake knew this and redoubled its exertions. But Bomba knew it
too, and held on with desperation, sinking his powerful fingers
deeper and deeper into the reptile’s throat.
If he could only hold on a little longer!
For time was on his side. The snake, deprived of breath by that
choking grasp, must eventually succumb. Its only chance lay in the
possibility of Bomba’s hands slipping or his nerve failing.
But his hands did not slip nor did his nerve fail.
Gradually the struggles of the snake grew weaker. A glaze began to
steal over the horrid eyes. The grip of its body about the boy’s leg
slowly relaxed. Then at last the reptile straightened out and its head
hung limp.
Bomba still retained his grip for another minute or two to make
assurance doubly sure. Then, when no doubt remained, he threw the
reptile to the ground and with one stroke of his machete cut off its
head.
Only then did he sink down on the ground, panting and exhausted.
The tax had been a tremendous one, not only on his muscles but
also on his nerves. He had seldom been brought more closely face
to face with death.
But he had conquered, and a tingle of exultation ran through his
veins. He cast a glance of disgust at the grinning head of his dead
foe, and then turned his attention to the human enemies without.
The struggle had been carried on in such silence that it had not
attracted their attention. They were still at some distance, beating the
bushes for their prey and uttering exclamations of disappointment
and chagrin.
It was too much to hope, however, that sooner or later their attention
would not be drawn toward the tree, and Bomba held himself
prepared for that eventuality.
He wiped his knife on the foliage and restored it to his belt. Then,
with his revolver held ready for action, he crouched low in the hollow
and waited.
He could hear the savages coming nearer and nearer. The crackling
of the bushes and their guttural conversation became more distinct.
Then the branches of the tree were pushed aside and a ray of light
shot through!
CHAPTER III
IN THE NICK OF TIME
Bomba caught a glimpse of half a dozen brawny forms and brutal

faces and dropped at once into the hollow so that he was wholly
concealed.
A pang stabbed his heart as he noted the number of his enemies.
Against so many he could not hope to conquer, if it came to a fight.
He might bring down one or two, possibly three, but the others would
overcome him.
But his stout heart refused to quail. He had the advantage of
position. He could see them outlined against the light more readily
than they could discover him in the darkness. He could at least have
the satisfaction of selling his life dearly.
Several of the savages crowded in among the foliage, pushing the
branches and leaves aside so that light could penetrate.
But the light was dim, though strong enough to show the outline of
the giant trunk. To the peering eyes of the savages, it seemed to be
lying flat on the ground, and they failed to discern the hollow
underneath. As far as they could see there was no one hiding there.
“Not here,” grunted one of them, already weary with previous effort in
searching the bushes.
Bomba’s heart leaped at this indication of giving up the search. But it
sank again when a voice that had authority in it said:
“Go in farther. Make sure.”
Grumblingly the men obeyed, and Bomba could hear them coming
nearer. He tightened his hold on the revolver.
Suddenly there was a shriek of fright, and one of the savages
jumped a foot into the air. Then he made a break for the open,
shouting:
“Snake! Snake!”
His comrades followed, rushing with frantic, headlong haste into the
clearing.
In a flash, Bomba, the jungle boy, comprehended what had
happened. The intruder had stepped on the soft, yielding body of the
dead serpent and had jumped to the conclusion that it was alive.
Naturally, he had not waited to investigate, but had leaped out of the
reach of the supposedly deadly fangs.
Now he stood outside the mass of branches and was jabbering
excitedly as he told of his narrow escape.
The examination of that particular mass of branches stopped then
and there. The men were reasonably certain, anyway, that their
hoped-for victim was not there, and they were perfectly content to
leave the snake in undisturbed possession.
Bomba could hear them moving farther and farther off until at last the
sound of their footsteps and voices died away in the distance.
He could scarcely believe in his good fortune. He had steeled
himself for the conflict that seemed almost inevitable and from which
he had not expected to emerge alive.
The coming of the snake, which had filled him with horror, had really
proved a blessing. Living, it had tried to kill him. Dead, it had helped
to save him.
Bomba lay in the hollow perfectly still for some time, fearing that his
enemies might return. But when an hour had passed without any
sound to alarm him, he ventured cautiously to creep toward the edge
of the pile of branches and look about.
His keen eyes scanned the jungle in every direction, but could
discern no trace of his enemies. He had known from the sound of
their retreating footsteps that they were not between him and his
goal. They had gone in the direction that he had already traversed.
That special group, at least, would now be in the rear of him instead
of in front.
This conclusion was confirmed when Doto dropped down from a
tree, where his sharp eyes had noted all that had happened, and
rubbed up against Bomba, chattering his delight.
“They have gone then, Doto?” asked Bomba, as he slung his bow
over his shoulder. “They are far away?”
The monkey chattered an affirmative and pointed back of them.
“It is well,” said Bomba. “I must go fast now to reach Casson. You
saved Bomba’s life, Doto. If you had not pulled him down the arrow
would have found him. Doto is good, and Bomba will not forget.”
A gratified look came into the monkey’s eyes. He wanted to go along
with Bomba, but the latter did not think it best.
“You stay here, Doto,” he said, as he gently released his arm from
the monkey’s hold. “Bomba will soon see you again.”
Then, as the affectionate animal seemed a little crestfallen, the boy
added:
“But you can keep watch, and if you see the men with black hearts
coming after Bomba, you must come and tell him. You can go faster
through the trees than they can through the jungle.”
Doto seemed to understand, and with a last pat of his paw shinned
up the nearest tree. Bomba knew that he had left behind him a
vigilant and faithful sentinel.
A glance at the sun told the boy that it was already afternoon, and
that he must hasten if he were to reach the cabin of Pipina before
the shadows of night closed about him.
So he started off at a rapid pace, employing all his woodsmanship to
avoid obstacles and steer as straight a course as possible. For a part
of the way there were woodland trails, and then he made good time.
When he could, which was often, he jumped over the thickets
instead of hacking his way through them, leaping into the air as
lightly as a deer and landing softly on the other side.
Before long he was on familiar ground, and knew that he was
reaching the cabin where he and Casson had lived for so many
years. It had been burned during the last foray of the headhunters,
and was now uninhabitable. But all that Bomba had ever known of
home was bound up in it.
So a certain melancholy pleasure warmed his heart as he came out
into the clearing and looked at the part of the smoke-blackened wall
that remained standing. Without being conscious of it, tears stood in
his eyes, and he vowed that he would rebuild when the headhunters
should have removed their dreaded presence from the jungle.
But he had no time now to indulge in reflections. A hasty search of
the river bank revealed his canoe in the tree-hung inlet where he had
hidden it.
He untied it, sent it with a push into the middle of the stream, and
began paddling down the river.
It was a long journey, but his powerful arms sent the canoe whizzing
along at a great pace. The current was with him, and he knew that,
barring accidents, he would reach the hut of Pipina before dark.
But “accidents,” he had come to learn, were almost daily
occurrences in the jungle, and he did not abate a jot of his vigilance,
his keen eyes keeping on the lookout everywhere—at the water for
snags or alligators, at either shore for animal or human enemies, on
the trees that overhung the stream for lurking anacondas.
But though always on the alert, his subconscious mind was busy
with thoughts of his recent journey and of that which was to come.
Would the latter be more satisfactory than the former? Would
Sobrinini complete the story regarding the mystery of his parentage
that Jojasta had left so incomplete?
Who was Sobrinini? What did she know? And even if she did know,
what would she tell?
Did Casson know her? Would the mention of her name unlock the
door of his memory, that door that he had tried so desperately but
fruitlessly to open?
But here Bomba’s questioning stopped as the thought came to him
that perhaps there would be no Casson to tell him anything. The old
naturalist had been so weak and frail when he had left him! His hold
on life had been so slender! Perhaps the thread had already
snapped.
The thought was an agonizing one to Bomba, and spurred him to
such efforts that the paddle swept in a wide semicircle as he
propelled his slight craft through the water.
At such a rate of speed did he travel that long before he had
expected he found himself in the vicinity of his goal.
When he realized that Pipina’s cabin lay beyond a turn of the river
just ahead, Bomba slackened speed. His habitual caution, bred of
long years in the jungle, asserted itself. He wanted to inspect the
cabin before approaching it.
So, despite his impatience, he rested from his paddling and let the
craft drift with the current until he rounded the bend.
What he saw then made him dip his paddle deep and send the
canoe in frantic haste toward the shore.
Before the door of the cabin crouched a huge puma, preparing for a
spring through the doorway!
CHAPTER IV
A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE
At sight of the crouching brute, Bomba shouted with all his might.
The beast turned at the shout, fangs bared and eyes flashing with
rage, to meet the newcomer. Then, with its tail lashing its flanks, it
advanced toward the river bank.
At the same moment a roar came from within the cabin. And with the
roar was blended the scream of a woman in mortal terror.
As the canoe approached the bank, Bomba fitted an arrow to his
string, drew it to the head and let it go.
The haste with which he shot and the motion of the boat disturbed
his aim, so that it just grazed the animal’s head, inflicting a slight
flesh wound, but no mortal injury.
But the pain inflamed the puma’s rage, and as the canoe had now
come within a few feet of the bank, it prepared to spring.
But just as it was about to launch itself into the air a second arrow
from Bomba’s bow struck fair to its heart.
With a fearful howl the beast rolled over and over for a moment, then
straightened out and lay still.
With scarcely a second glance at his dead adversary, Bomba leaped
on the bank and started to run toward the cabin.
The hut consisted of two rooms, a larger one in the front and a much
smaller one in the rear. A flimsy door with one rope hinge broken
connected the two.
In the swift glance he sent inside as he reached the outer doorway,
Bomba saw no trace of human occupants.
What he did see was a puma, larger than the one he had slain
outside, clawing at the inner door between the two rooms and at
times hurling its huge body against the door. It was a dilapidated
door at the best, and would long since have yielded to the beast’s
attack had it not been for some barriers placed against it on the other
side.
Bomba took in the situation in an instant. Pipina had seen the beasts
approaching and, taking Casson with her, had retreated to the inner
room, shut the door, and piled against it whatever furniture she could
gather in her frantic haste.
But that it was pitifully inadequate was apparent at a glance. Already
there were breaks in the door that the puma was trying to enlarge
with its claws so that it could push its body through. From the other
side of the door came the frantic screams of Pipina, seeing death so
near at hand.
In a flash Bomba fitted an arrow to his bow and let it go. It struck the
puma in the shoulder, inflicting a serious wound but not enough to
cripple it.
With a roar of rage the brute turned to meet its new enemy. With one
spring it was at the door.
The movement had been so lightning fast that Bomba had no time to
shoot again. His only salvation lay in flight.
Turning, he ran like a deer toward the river bank, hoping to regain
his canoe and push out into the stream. But even as he did so he felt
that it was hopeless. He was fleet, but the puma was fleeter. Before
he could reach the water it would be upon him.
Just then he saw out of the corner of his eye a third puma coming
with giant bounds into the clearing. Then indeed he gave himself up
for lost.
He drew his knife, determined to die fighting. That he was about to
die he had no doubt.
But just as he felt the hot breath of his pursuer on his neck there was
a terrific snarling behind him and the impact of huge bodies.
He glanced behind him and his flight suddenly halted.
The two great pumas were locked in deadly combat, clawing and
biting, rolling over and over as each sought to get a grip on the
other’s throat.
It was a battle of Titans, and Bomba looked on with amazement that
was transformed into an expression of delight as he recognized the
last comer.
“Polulu!” he exclaimed. “Good Polulu! He has come to Bomba’s
help.”
He circled about the combatants, seeking to get in a thrust with his
knife that might decide the battle in favor of the friendly puma. But
the fight was so fast and furious that he was as likely to wound one
as the other.
But Polulu needed no help. His weight and courage finally told.
Before long he succeeded in getting the throat hold he was seeking,
and then the end was only a matter of a few moments.
But it had been a terrible fight, and after Polulu had risen from the
body of his dead adversary he was hardly able to move. He
staggered away a few paces, and then lay down panting and
exhausted.
Bomba let him rest awhile, and then went up to him and caressed
the great, shaggy head.
“Polulu is a good friend,” he said gratefully. “It is not the first time he
has saved Bomba’s life. There is no one in the jungle as big and
strong as Polulu.”
The puma tried to purr, and licked the hand that fondled him.
Their strange friendship was of long standing. It dated from the time
when Bomba had come across the puma trapped by a tree in the
jungle, that had fallen upon the animal and broken its leg. The boy of
the jungle had been stirred to pity at the creature’s distress. He had
released him from the weight that held him, bound up the broken leg,
and brought him food and drink.
By the time Polulu, as Bomba named the puma, had fully recovered,
a strong attachment had grown up between the oddly assorted pair.
Their paths often crossed in the forest, and more than once the great
beast had saved Bomba from serious danger. Now, once more, he
had come to the rescue when the lad was at the last extremity.
Leaving the animal to lick its wounds, Bomba hastened to the hut. Its
inmates had no inkling of what had happened except that for some
mysterious reason the attacks upon the door had ceased. The
screams of the woman had given place to moaning.
“Pipina! Casson!” shouted Bomba. “It is Bomba calling. The pumas
are dead. Open the door.”
Again there came a scream, but this time it was one of delight. There
was a hurried removal of the barriers on the other side of the door,
and then the old squaw came rushing out and threw her arms about
Bomba’s neck, crying and laughing in the same breath.
Behind her came Cody Casson, his steps slow and uncertain,
looking so frail that it seemed as though a zephyr would have blown
him away, but with an affectionate welcome in his faded eyes.
But he was still alive, and at that moment nothing else mattered.
Dear Casson! Good old Casson! There were tears in Bomba’s eyes
as he rushed forward and folded the old man in his embrace.
The two were roused by a shriek from Pipina, who had gone to the
doorway and now came rushing back in terror.
“There is another puma there!” she cried. “He is bigger that the
others! Quick! Let us get behind the door again.”
Bomba spoke to her soothingly and with a smile.
“He is not like the others,” he said. “He is Bomba’s friend. I killed one
puma but he killed the other. I will bring him here, and you will see.”
But Pipina, despite Bomba’s assurances, had no desire for an
introduction to the giant puma, and shook her head decidedly, the
while she muttered prayers to her gods.
So Bomba had to be content with bringing out a haunch of meat and
sitting beside Polulu and talking to him, while the latter munched
away contentedly. Then the great beast rose, stretched himself,
rubbed his head against Bomba’s hand, and departed again for his
haunts in the jungle.
They had a great feast that night, for Pipina displayed all her skill in
making a fitting celebration of the wanderer’s return.
Bomba was almost famished, and ate greedily while Pipina beamed
with smiles at his tribute to her cooking. The lad was glad to see also
that Casson had a better appetite than he had had when Bomba had
left him. It was evident that Pipina had taken good care of him.
But though the old naturalist had improved physically, there was no
change for the better in his mental condition. Bomba studied him
during the meal and grieved to see that his mind was still weak and
wandering. Would that closed door in his mind never open?
When the meal was finished and Pipina was busy with clearing away
the food that was left and performing her simple household tasks,
Bomba sat down beside Casson and told the story of his journey.
Casson listened, holding Bomba’s brown hand affectionately in his
weak, worn one, happy beyond words to have the boy back again
with him. But it was with difficulty that the old man kept the thread of
the story. At times he would interpose vague, irrelevant questions
that showed how hard it was for him to understand.
“I saw Jojasta,” said Bomba, “but it was too late. He was dying. A
pillar of the temple fell on him. And then the earth opened and
swallowed him.”
“Jojasta? Jojasta?” repeated Casson, in a puzzled way. “Oh, yes, he
was the medicine man of the Moving Mountain. But why did you
want to see Jojasta?”
“Don’t you remember?” asked Bomba. “You told me that if I saw him
he could tell me about my father and mother.”
“Father and mother,” murmured Casson, and lapsed into silence,
during which he seemed to be cudgeling his poor, disordered brain
to make it yield up its secrets.
“He thought I was Bartow when he saw me,” went on Bomba.
At the name the old man brightened.
“Bartow!” he exclaimed. “I have heard that name.”
“Is he my father?” asked Bomba eagerly.
Casson tried desperately to remember.
“I—I don’t know,” he said at last piteously.
Bomba’s heart sank, but he tried again.
“I asked him about Laura, too,” he went on, watching Casson
narrowly.
“Laura, dear sweet Laura,” murmured the old man with emotion,
tears coming to his eyes.
“Who is she? Where is she? Oh, tell me, Casson!” Bomba begged,
with all his heart in his voice.
“She is—she is—oh, why is it that I cannot remember?” exclaimed
Casson in desperation.
“Jojasta knew. Jojasta could have told you,” the old man went on
after a pause. “But you say that he is dead.”
“He is dead,” replied Bomba. “But before he died he told me that
Sobrinini——”
Then came a startling interruption.
CHAPTER V
TERRIBLE JAWS
At the mention of Sobrinini’s name Cody Casson sprang to his feet,

his weakness temporarily banished, and began to dance around the
room, singing in a cracked, treble voice “la, la, la!” over and over
again. Not until he was exhausted did he cease his gyrations and
sink quivering into his chair.
Bomba watched the sudden transformation with consternation and
alarm. What did this strange outbreak mean?
But he forebore to question until Casson ceased trembling and
became once more like his customary self. Then the boy leaned
toward the old man and said gently:
“I was talking about Sobrinini.” Again the old man started, but did not
rise. Bomba went on:
“Jojasta told me to go to Sobrinini, she of the Pilati tribe beyond the
Giant Cataract, to find out about my father and mother.”
“Yes, Nini ought to know,” muttered Casson. “She ought to know.”
“Who is Sobrinini and why should she know?” asked Bomba.
But Casson did not answer. He sat, muttering incoherently, and
seemed so tired from his recent excitement that Bomba was afraid to
press the matter further.
So he tried to calm the old man’s agitation and a little while later
assisted him into his hammock where he almost immediately fell
asleep.
Bomba himself got into his own hammock and tried to sleep. But
although he was dead tired, he found himself for a long time unable
to close his eyes.
He tossed restlessly about, his mind in a tumult of unanswered
questions. Why was it that Casson had betrayed such intense
excitement at the mention of Sobrinini’s name? Why had he referred
to her as Nini? That sounded to Bomba like a pet name, implying
long acquaintance and familiarity. Why did he indulge in that wild
fantastic dance and singing?
One thing was reasonably certain. It was hopeless to count much on
Casson. The disjointed words that his questioning had brought from
the old man could not be pieced together so as to give him any
reliable information.
So he must go to Sobrinini, must face all the dangers that would
inevitably await him in that long journey to the Giant Cataract. The
thought of abandoning his quest did not even occur to him. The urge
to find out about his parentage was, if possible, stronger than it had
been before. No difficulties could daunt or deter him.
With his determination firmly fixed in his mind, he fell at last into an
uneasy slumber.
He found plenty of work awaiting him when he woke in the morning.
In the first place, he had to replace the door that had been so nearly
shattered by the puma, so that Casson and Pipina could have better
protection, if exposed to similar dangers in the future.
He spent much time and labor on this, and when a stout door was at
last completed, together with a heavy bar that could be dropped into
place, he felt much easier in his mind.
Then there was the problem of provisioning the cabin during his
coming absence. Though Casson and Pipina had had plenty while
he was gone, their stock was now greatly depleted and needed
replenishing. So he planned to spend several days in the jungle in
order to bring them home plenty of meat. This would be cured by
Pipina and would keep indefinitely.
It was bright and early one morning that he bade Casson and the
woman farewell and set out for his hunting trip in the jungle.
So far as he could learn, the headhunters had left that district. He
hoped they would stay away a long time, preferably forever.
He had not gone far before Kiki and Woowoo, the friendly parrots,
fluttered from the trees and dropped one on each shoulder. A little
later Doto joined him together with other monkeys, so that he was
soon the center of a group of birds and animals, all competing for a
word or a pat of the hand.
He talked to them, and they chattered back. Then he took out his
harmonica and played for them, to their great delight. So much did
the lonely boy enjoy converse with those who loved him that it was
with reluctance he finally sent them away, so that he could go on
with his hunting.
Two hours passed without anything coming in range of his weapons
save small creatures that he disdained to notice. He was after larger
game, preferably a tapir, a creature as large as a calf, whose meat
was succulent and nourishing. A single one of these would furnish
meat enough for a month.
So he turned his steps toward a large river where he knew these
animals were likely to be found.
For a long time he had no luck. The sun reached its zenith and
dropped down toward the western sky. There were plenty of tracks,
but it was mid-afternoon before he caught a glimpse of what he
sought.
Then, coming out from a fringe of trees not far from the river’s edge,
he saw a large tapir browsing on the bank.
It offered an easy target, and Bomba fitted an arrow to his bow. But
unfortunately the wind was blowing toward the tapir and carried
Bomba’s scent with it.
The animal looked up, saw Bomba, and without an instant’s
hesitation plunged into the river.
Ordinarily that would have ended Bomba’s chances, for the tapir can
swim for a long distance under water. His game, therefore, could
easily have got beyond bowshot before it would have been
compelled to come to the surface for air.
The boy gave an exclamation of vexation, which was checked,
however, as his eyes, ranging up and down the river bank, caught
sight of a canoe drawn up among some sedge grass near the shore.
No doubt it belonged to a native who had left it there while he made
a trip into the jungle.
Bomba ran to it, untied it, seized the paddle, and pushed out into the
stream, following as nearly as he could guess the direction that the
tapir had taken.
But a stern chase is a long chase, as Bomba soon found. When the
tapir did come to the surface, it was a long way from where Bomba
imagined it would be, and before he had come within range of it the
beast had gone under again.
But Bomba’s second guess proved a better one, and the next time
the tapir came to the surface the boy was within ten feet of it.
Bomba dropped his paddle and seized his weapon. The bow
twanged.
The arrow penetrated to the heart of the animal, and it died almost
without a struggle.
Seizing a rope that lay in the bottom of the canoe, Bomba made a
noose and threw it around the head and shoulders of the tapir,
securing it before it could sink. Then he tied the other end of the rope
to the canoe, and set out for the shore, towing his quarry behind him.
It was an arduous task, for the tapir weighed several hundred
pounds, and Bomba made slow progress through the water. But his
heart was exultant, for he had bagged his game. His day had not
been fruitless.
His progress was checked suddenly, so suddenly that he was thrown
on his back on the bottom of the canoe.
He scrambled to his feet and looked back, thinking that the body of
the tapir might have caught on a snag. At what he saw his heart
almost stopped beating.
It was no snag that had checked the progress of the canoe.
A monster alligator, the cayman of the Amazon region, was tugging
at the tapir, from which it had already torn a piece of the flank.
Then, as Bomba looked, the water was broken in several places by
the horrid snouts and hideous jaws of other caymen, that had
smelled the blood of the tapir and were hastening to have their share
of the feast.
Bomba’s first feeling was that of chagrin at losing his prey. But this
gave way at once to an overpowering sense of his own danger.
Those great jaws tearing at the tapir were sure to upset the canoe.
He must cut the rope.
He drew his machete, sprang to the stern, and commenced to hack
madly at the rope. Before he could cut through a single strand, there
was a terrific jerk, the canoe turned over, and Bomba was thrown
into the river.
By this time the river was swarming with alligators!

Constituting Freedom Machiavelli and Florence Fabio Raimondi Full Chapter

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Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and

Florence Fabio Raimondi

Translated from Italian by

MACHIAVELLI AND P OLITICAL MODERNITY

THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF MACHIAVELLI

The Machiavellian will to re-establish Florence as a republic is part of a speciﬁc

THE CONCEPTUAL S CHEME OF MACHIAVELLIAN

constitutions had emerged from these struggles, and as these constitutions

Corruption and Inequality

1.1. THE P ROBLEM

Before examining the republican approach indicated by Machiavelli, however,

Not by chance, the problem of heritability is addressed in Chapters XIX

1.5. THE DICTATORSHIP: THE ‘ KINGLY HAND’

100 101 102

1.6. FREE AN D S ERV ILE BEGINNINGS

At this point, the problem that emerges in Machiavelli’s reasoning is that of

111 112 113

118 119 120 121

Bomba caught a glimpse of half a dozen brawny forms and brutal

At the mention of Sobrinini’s name Cody Casson sprang to his feet,

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