Machiavelli’s Revolutionary Classical Education

Examples of the classical education movement include: the Association of Classical Christian Schools [classicalchristi​an.​org]; Great Hearts Academies [greatheartsameri​ca.​org]; Hillsdale College’s K-12 Classical Education program, including the Barney Charter School Initiative [k12.​hillsdale.​edu]; the Classical Education Graduate Program at the University of Dallas [udallas.​edu/​classicaled]; the CiRCE Institute [www.​circeinstitute.​org]; and the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education [catholicliberale​ducation.​org].

The best examples are Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), and “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” Review of National Literatures 1, no. 1 (Spring 1970); Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979); and Rasoul Namazi, “Machiavelli’s Critique of Classical Philosophy and His Case for the Political Life,” Perspectives on Political Science 50, no. 3 (2021).

Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968), VI.496d.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 297.

Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), I.pref. All quotations of Discourses are from this edition, and references include book, chapter, and as applicable, the section numbers available in this edition. Parenthetical citations in the body of the text not otherwise indicated are to this work; where this work is explicitly indicated, it is by the abbreviation “DL.”

Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 276–280; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 333n59.

Machiavelli’s clearest references to the cycle of regimes are Discourses II.pref and Florentine Histories, V.1. Quotations of this latter text are from Florentine Histories, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), abbreviated in parenthetical citations as “FH.” There is apparent disagreement between Mansfield and Christopher Lynch on this question. While they agree that Machiavelli thinks the cycle of regimes has stalled, Lynch argues that Machiavelli’s purpose is to restart the stalled cycle through teaching youth the spiritual art of war, while Mansfield argues that Machiavelli hopes to coopt Christianity’s universal claims in order to break the cycle and bring about a “perpetual republic”: Machiavelli, Art of War, trans. Christopher Lynch (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003) [abbreviated as “AW”], 221, 224–226; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 113–114, 121, 274–276, 280. Mansfield, at New Modes and Orders, 38–39, commenting upon Discourses I.2, makes the important distinction between the cycle of regimes, whereby each city is considered by itself, its internal movement dependent on “domestic policy,” and the cycle of civilization, which affects and brings all cities together into descent through cataclysm. Machiavelli in effect combines these two in his concern for “foreign policy,” which ought to be the concern of domestic politics, including, presumably, education and instruction in the art of war both physical and spiritual. In this way, Lynch and Mansfield can be understood to be in agreement. On this question in the contemporary context, see Michael Anton, “‘Founding Philosophy’: Michael Anton Responds,” New Criterion, June 13, 2018, https://​newcriterion.​com/​blogs/​dispatch/​founding-philosophy-michael-anton-responds.

Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 11; Thoughts, 45, 48; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 269. Cf. The Prince, XIV, 60. Quotations and page references from this latter text are from Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), abbreviated as “P.”

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 141–142; “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 23–24.

Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 25; Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 297.

Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 8.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 50, 77; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 43–46.

The Prince, XXV; Leo Paul de Alvarez, The Machiavellian Enterprise (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1999), 127–130.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 173, 297; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, xi, 4, 211.

The Prince, IX, 39; de Alvarez, Machiavellian Enterprise, 45.

Discourses, III.39; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 210–211, 267–269.

Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 211–213; Lynch, 224.

Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 268–274.

Indications of the importance of this art to education and regime are found in Art of War, I.51, 66, 68, 85, 92–93, 106, and 108. See Lynch, 224–226. This essay will focus, however, on the direct references to education in the Discourses.

This preface is taken from a text written in Machiavelli’s own hand, which has “religion” instead of “education.” See Mansfield and Tarcov, Discourses, 6n6; Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, vol. 1, 191n2; and Cecil H. Clough, “Father Walker’s Presentation and Translation of Machiavelli’s Discourses in Perspective,” in The Discourses of Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. 1, trans. Leslie J. Walker (Routledge, 1991), reprint ed., xv–xxiv, esp. xxiv–xxix.

Namazi, 7.

Thus Machiavelli’s project is not simply a rejection of the philosophic and an embrace of the political life, as Namazi argues. It is more proper to say that he restores the connection between liberal education and politics, and thus reinvigorates the competition between philosophy and politics as the capstone or consequence of liberal education. Insofar as he sides with statesmanship rather than refined leisure, it is as the fruit of that education.

Gilbert, vol. 2, p. 789. See also Florentine Histories, VII.34, p. 315: “…he said these words in Latin, for he was lettered” (disse queste parole in lingua latina, perché litterato era).

Letter no. 211, 2 June 1526, in Gilbert, vol. 2, p. 1001. For a similar usage of educazione, see The Art of War, I.205. This is the only instance of educazione in this text.

One Stefano, a priest employed to teach Latin to one of the conspirator’s daughters, also participated.

Cf. Namazi, 3.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 319, 343.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 318–319.

See also III.27.2, where Machiavelli writes that “the weakness of men at present” is “caused by their weak education and their slight knowledge of things….” This could indicate that Machiavelli considers weak education and knowledge of things to be distinct causes of human weakness, but it’s more likely that the slight knowledge is the effect of weak education.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 430.

See Discourses, I.2 with Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 38–41.

Cf. Namazi, 7.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 72.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 97.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 428.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” lines 13–14.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 72.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 86–87.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 297.

Given what follows, does this mean that the present religion only apparently takes away freedom, and thus that its teaching against freedom does not inspire vengeance with the requisite vehemence?

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 196.

Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 197.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 175.

Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 86.

The Prince, Dedicatory Letter; and Discourses, I, preface.

Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 211, 268–269; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 35, 102, 172; Discourses, III.39; Prince, XIV.