Dante, Machiavelli and Rome

Dante, Machiavelli, and Rome
Author(s): Charles T. Davis

Source: Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, No. 106 (1988), pp. 43-60
Published by: Dante Society of America
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Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome*

CHARLES T. DAVIS
has been called the most political of great poets, and it is

not only in the Monarchia and his letters but also in the Divine
Comedythat he lives up to this epithet. Machiavelli is surely the
most political of playwrights, and some critics have tried to prove that
even his plays have political dimensions. Both Dante and Machiavelli
were great scorners of Florence and great admirers of Rome.
Is this enough justification for considering together a pair of Florentines
separated by two centuries? I doubt it. Although we all have every
reason to be interested in these authors separately, the reader may well
wonder why I should be asking that they be considered together. Are
not their attitudes toward history, contemporary politics, and many other
matters diametrically opposed?
Dante was a Christian reformer, and many have maintained that he
was a reformer of so visionary a temper, particularly in his views on the
empire, as to be an anachronism in his own age. There seems to be little
even of the conventional Christian in Machiavelli, and his merciless realism has often led readers to consider him very modern. Dante was a
moralist, evenhandedly quoting Aristotelian, Stoic, and Biblical maxims. Machiavelli was also, in his way, a moralist, but his moralism was
seldom pagan and practically never Christian. It was almost always
uniquely his own. Both had strongly prophetic messages to deliver, but
Dante stood forth firmly as God's prophet, while Machiavelli, with his
bitter jokes and shocking paradoxes, often played the role of the devil's
advocate. Dante thought divine providence, with fortune under its sway,
guided history. Machiavelli usually presented fortune as man's great foe.
Dante put those princes he considered guilty of cruelty and other vices
43
Dante Studies,cvi, 1988
in his Inferno and devised ingenious torments for them. Machiavelli

thought cruelty was sometimes politically necessary: it could be used,
he said, both well and ill, and he exhorted princes to sin mightily when
this was necessary for the survival or welfare of themselves and their
people. Indeed he believed that private vice was often public virtue and
that private virtue was often public vice and led to political disaster.
Dante condemned the blindness and destructiveness of strife within political communities. Machiavelli thought that struggle in a republic might
be beneficial, as in the rivalry between the Roman plebs and patricians,
which, he said, spread virtu through the populace. Such competition,
properly controlled and directed by the government, might unleash
astonishing expansive energies. Dante viewed peace as the proper objective of the ruler; Machiavelli, war. In contemporary politics the remedies of Dante and Machiavelli for the salvation of Italy were exactly
opposite. Dante urged the Italians to invite the emperor Henry vn in;
Machiavelli urged them to throw the emperor Charles v out. While
Dante, grieving over Rome's widowhood, mourned that the emperor's
absence in Germany and the pope's absence in Avignon had estranged
both her husbands, or both her great luminaries or suns, one suspects
that Machiavelli would have been happier if she had never possessed
either. As for their own city, Dante thought that Florence was not submissive enough to the emperor; Machiavelli that she was not warlike
enough in resisting him. Dante thought she could enjoy true liberty
only through yielding to him and obeying his Roman and imperial law.
Machiavelli thought she could remain free only if she relied on her
own forces and fought to maintain her independence with her own
native militia.
These are certainly significant differences, and one might well think
that the two men can only be juxtaposed, not fruitfully compared. Why,
then, compare them? One cannot help, of course, being struck by certain striking similarities in their careers. Both were Florentines who took
an active part in the political life of their city, serving in domestic offices
and as ambassadors. Dante was on a number of important councils and
was a member of the priorate, the supreme magistracy of the city, in
1301. He was ambassador to S. Gimignano in 1300 and may have been
ambassador to the Pope in 1302. Machiavelli became head of the second
chancellery of the city in 1498 and served in this office for over fourteen
years. He went on embassies to the King of France, the Pope, and the
44
Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, Charles t. davis
Emperor.Both men took theirpoliticalfunctionsseriously.Dante advised

openly against supporting a papal war, and after his exile did not hesitate to write public letters advising and reproving not only hostile
Florence but also an emperor on campaign and a group of cardinalsin
conclave. Machiavelli'swhole life was politics, and on embassieshe not
only analyzed the plans of other governments and made recommendations for dealing with them, but he lectured his own government very
vigorously and often rebukedit in the sharpestfashionfor indecisionin
foreign affairs.Certainly neither Dante nor Machiavelli was afraid to
speakhis mind.
When their governmentswere overthrown, both had to face the fact
of political failure,and both had to go into exile, Machiavellionly for a
relatively brief time and on his own country estate near San Casciano,
Dante for life. Neither ever again enjoyed much political influence,
though Dante wrote lettersand undertook embassiesfor Italianprinces,
and Machiavellieventually secureda modest post with the new government of his city. For both, the break with their early careerswas bitter.
Dante, condemned by his native city to be burned alive, sought hospitality at various Italian courts. As for Machiavelli, he was accused,
apparentlyfalsely,of participationin a conspiracyagainstthe new government. He was arrested and interrogated, which involved being
subjectedto six drops of the rope (four were often enough to break a
man), and he was then, for a short time, kept in prison. From therewith
remarkablecoolness he sent a poem (indeed two poems) to the new
head of state, describing,with a kind of black humor, his predicament;
fettered, feeling on his shouldersthe effects of the rope, sitting in fleas
and stench,and hearingthe noise of hammeringon chainsand the chants
for those conspiratorswho (unwept by him) were about to be executed.1
Both Dante and Machiavelli had vivid experience of rejection by the
Florentinepatriathey loved and tried to serve.
After their exile, both resortedto writing as their main employment.
They sharedthe consciousnessof being prophetsin the wilderness.They
condemnedthe present,particularlythe temporalambitionsof the papacy
and its effect on Italy, and they idealized the past, particularlythe past
dominatedby the grandeurand successthat was Rome. They were both
fervent prophetsand brilliantrhetoricianswith a keen senseof the audiences to which they directedtheir works. They wrote so well that their
teachingswere seized on and often distorted by later politicians. They
45
were idealized as foretellers of Italian unity by naive nationalists and

other propagandists, and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were
regarded as kindred spirits by many Italians and many foreigners.
Are these striking but rather external likenesses sufficient to justify a
comparison of the thought of the two men? Probably not. It can, however, be shown, I think, that the similarities extended also to aspects of
their political messages, and that Machiavelli not only knew some of
Dante's works2 but may have been influenced by them in fundamental
as well as superficial ways.
Machiavelli quotes at least once from Dante's ConvitHo(though he
thinks this quotation comes from the Monarchia)and a number of times
from the Comedy, including all three cantiche. The quotations are evidently from memory, for, though usually very close, they are seldom
exact. At the same time, Machiavelli's reading of Dante was clearly a
continuing thing. In the famous letter of 10 December 1513 to his friend
Francesco Vettori he describes how he passes his day during his exile
and says that every morning, after spending some time supervising the
cutting of his timber, he goes to his aviary with a book in his pocket,
"either Dante or Petrarch, or one of the minor poets, Tibullus, Ovid,
and the like. I read of their amorous passions and their loves, recall
mine, and enjoy myself for a time in this sort of reflection."3 The Vita
Nuova would seem much better adapted for "this sort of reflection"
than the Comedy, but since the former work had not been published by
1513, Machiavelli must, unless he had a manuscript of it, be alluding to
the latter.
Machiavelli also knew Dante's De vulgari eloquentia, if, as his son
maintained, he wrote the famous Dialogo concerning the Florentine language. It is traditionally dated 1514-15 but was probably composed sometime after 1524. There has been some recent, cogent questioning of his
authorship, as well as of the traditional date.4 The author of the work is
very critical of Dante, pointing out that the poet attacked the speech of
Florence but used it, instead of the sort of refined vernacular praised in
the De vulgari eloquentia,for the Comedy, and claiming that Dante even
included in the great poem some most unsuitable, indeed obscene,
Florentine expressions. The author of the Dialogo accounts for this contradiction between theory and practice on the ground of Dante's hatred
for Florence. He says that Dante attacked Florence on every level, including even the language that he himself used, though he was "an excellent
46
Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, charles t. davis
man for genius, learning and judgment except where he had to talk
about his patria" If he could come back to life, he would want to die
again, "since fortune, to make him a liar and to cover up his false calumny with her [Florence's] glory, has continually made her prosperous
and famous throughout the world and brought her at present to a most
happy and tranquil state."5 It seems strange to find the author of the
Mandragolaplaying the prude and deploring allegedly improper expressions in the Comedy, and doubly strange to find Machiavelli eulogizing
the glory and the happy state of Florence, for in general he sadly contrasts the failures of Florence with the successes of Rome, and nowhere
else does he criticize Dante.
Borrowings from the Commediaare found in poems, in letters, and in
the Discourses on Livy. For example, one such use occurs in the famous
letter already referred to about his daily schedule in exile. Machiavelli
describes how after spending the afternoon drinking and gambling in
the local inn he goes home and changes his dusty clothes for courtly
garments and "enters the ancient courts of ancient men" (evidently
through reading the classical historians). Then he writes down what they
tell him "because Dante says that 'it does not produce knowledge when
we hear but do not remember'."6
In two important passages of the Discourses on Livy he also quotes
Dante. Asserting (i, 53) that a people often desires its own ruin through
being deceived by a false image of good, he repeats, as has been
mentioned, Dante's remark in the Convivio that a people will often shout
death to its own life and life to its own death.7 The quotation in Discourses
i, xi, is particularly significant. Discussing the role that the Roman religion played in the state, Machiavelli observes that when a republic lacks
piety its capacity for such feeling must be focused through a charismatic
lawgiver. The right leader will not find this difficult. Did not even the
misguided Savonarola succeed in persuading sophisticated Florence that
he spoke with God? But such a temporary wave of reverence is not
enough to ensure the republic's survival, because the lawgiver will soon
die. He must so legislate that the constitution he establishes will endure,
for his successor will probably be of much less worth than he. As Dante
said, hereditary virtue can not be counted on, for "rarely does human
probity descend [Dante actually says ascend]through the branches."8
Apart from quotations of Dante in Machiavelli, and real or apocryphal discussions of Dante's works, there are also many echoes of the
47
Comedy,both comic and serious,in Machiavelli'spoems. In his Asino, or

Ass, although it contains some serious reminiscences of Dantesque
sententiae,the comic mood predominates.There, he pictureshimself as
lost in a desertedplace, a dark wood, and rescued, not by a Virgil sent
by Beatrice, as Dante was in the Comedy,but by a beautiful lady
employed as a shepherdessby Circe. The shepherdessdoes not reprove
the wanderer for his sins, as Beatrice reproves Dante in the Earthly
Paradise,but says his troubles are not his fault but Fortune's.She then
comforts him by giving him food and wine and taking him to bed. She
plays a Virgilian role as well in showing him the infernalregions peopled by men turned into beastsby Circe, but they turn out to be not so
infernalafterall. Even the pig that the wanderermeets, covered though
he is with mud and filth, would not wish to be a man again. The pig
enjoys his closeness to Nature and is capable of a contentment that
involves no crime and no anxiety. Man, on the other hand, is afflicted,
accordingto the pig, with ambition, licentiousness,and avarice,as well
as the fear of what other members of his species might do to him. It
could only benefit him to become a beast.9
Such quotations and allusionsgive only a partialpicture, I think, of
the links between Dante and Machiavelli.I believe we find affinitieson
a much deeperlevel, that of their views of humannatureand of politics.
Here, too, Machiavelliechoes Dante's language and seemsto reflect his
attitude.The most spectacularexamplesof his use of Dante are perhaps
found not in his prose political works but in his poems, his Capitolior
Chapters,particularly the one dealing with ambition. It reflects very
vividly Machiavelli'sbitternessover the French and Spanishinvasions
that were devastatingItaly in the early part of the sixteenth century.
Just as Dante thought cupidity,or violent desirefor power and wealth,
had poisoned the world, so Machiavellifound the causesof its miseryin
cupidity's constituent parts, ambition and avarice. These two furies,
Machiavellisays, coming on earthwhen Adam and his sons were living
quietly together after the expulsion from Eden, causedCain to murder
his brother."Oh human spirit,"Machiavelliexclaims, "insatiable,arrogant, sly, and variable,and above all else malignant,iniquitous,impetuous, and savage, because through your ambitious will the first violent
death was caused in the world, and the first grass made bloody!"
Machiavellihere seemsto passlightly over the effectsof the sin of Adam
and Eve, perhapsin order to harmonizebetter the Old Testamentmyth
48
Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome,charles t. davis
with the Stoic one of a serene age of innocence destroyed by ambition.

In Biblical and medieval tradition Cain was the natural choice for the
sower of the "evil seed" that Machiavelli asserts is now mature. He says
it flourishes in the world of politics, brings the King of France repeatedly
to wretched Italy, and has broken up the states of the King of Naples,
the Duke of Milan, and Venice. The reason? "Every man hopes to rise
higher by crushing now that one, now this one, than through whatever
virtue of his own. . . To this our natural instinct leads us, through its
own movement and passion, if law or greater force does not restrain
us."10 This quotation reminds one of the sixteenth canto of Dante's
Purgatorio,and of various other outbursts in the Comedy,11where Dante
refers to the cupidity of the Papacy (which repelled Machiavelli as well),
to the cupidity of France, and to the consequently wretched condition
of Italy. Machiavelli's outburst also makes us think of an eloquent passage in Convivo iv, iv, in which Dante speaks of the effects of ambition.
"Then, since the human spirit does not remain quiet within territorial
limits, but always desires glory through acquisition, as we see from experience, disputes and wars naturally arise between kingdom and kingdom." Whether or not there is any direct influence here between Dante
and Machiavelli, there is certainly a basic resemblance in their views of
politics and of man.
This is not to say that Machiavelli necessarily believes, like Dante, in
Adam's primal fault, certainly not to say that Machiavelli and Augustine,
or Machiavelli and Luther, are brothers under the skin. At the same time
Machiavelli lacks pagan as well as Christian piety, despite his admiration
for the way Roman official religion reinforced the state. He is much
more pessimistic about politics and morality than, for example, the
ancient writers he sometimes quotes.12 He is also more pessimistic than
Renaissance thinkers like Castiglione, whose Courtier was for a long
time much more influential than the Prince, and who seems to have been
much attracted by the view that evil was the result of ignorance and
that education could produce virtue. Machiavelli, probably not a Christian, does seem to inherit a Christian pessimism in regard to the state of
unregenerate man (though without expressing any hope for his regeneration and redemption), and he describes man's moral situation and its
political results in terms very similar to those of Dante.
Both Dante and Machiavelli, moreover, think that the major earthly
remedy for man's concupiscence is external restraint in the shape of
49
good laws and institutions. For Machiavelli, however, such restraints

can only work within a particular state. He does not share Dante's hope
of a universal remedy, a peace imposed by a universal ruler. In the political jungle, Machiavelli thinks, one can only try to be a predator, like
France, rather than a victim, like Italy. He explains this view in the
capitoloon ambition:
But if you wish to know the reasonwhy one people commandsand the other
weeps [cf, InfernoVII,82], while everywhere the sovereign is Ambition;
why Francecontinues as victor; on the other hand why all Italy is shattered
by a stormy sea of troubles;
and why upon these lands has come the afflictionof that wicked seed which
Ambition and Avaricebring to fruit,
I say that if with Ambition arejoined a valiant heart, a well-armed vigor,
then for himself a man seldom fearsevil.
When through her own naturea country lives unbridled,and then, by accident, is organizedand establishedunder good laws,
Ambition uses against foreign peoples that violence which neither the law
nor the king permitsher to use at home
(wherefore home-born trouble almost always ceases);yet she is sure to keep
disturbingthe sheepfoldsof others, wherever that violence of hers has planted
its banner.
In an opposite way, that land is servile, exposed to every harm, to every
injury,in which the people are ambitiousand cowardly.13
Similar sentiments are also expressed in the Prince and the Discourses;
for example in Discourses i, xxxvii, Machiavelli says that if men do not
have to fight from necessity, they will fight from ambition, "which is so
strong in human breasts that however high they climb it never leaves
them." Machiavelli is not complacent about this human condition; the
old legend of him as cold-blooded Nick the schemer could not be wider
of the mark. It is true that for him political exigency overrules all else.
Certain of his aphorisms are famous for their brutality, sometimes intensified by his bitter wit. For example, the founder of a city should act
alone, and so Romulus [the Roman Cain] was right to kill his brother.14
A new ruler should get rid of all likely enemies as soon as he comes to
power, for danger will be removed at one fell swoop and then the Prince
can rule mildly and the memory of his initial cruelty will fade.15 It is
better to spare an enemy's property than his life, for his sons will forgive
the loss of a father sooner than that of an inheritance.16 A conquered
50
Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome,Charles t. davis
city should either be coddled or destroyed.17 A prince should try to be

both feared and loved, but it is better to be feared, as long as the fear
does not turn to hate.18 Machiavelli tells with evident relish of seeing
the corpse of the harsh administrator used by Cesare Borgia to pacify
the Romagna left in two pieces in the public square by his master in
order to placate the people.19 In his poem on ambition, however,
Machiavelli portrays in harrowing detail and apparently with genuine
pity the consequences of ambitious war. "Wherever you turn your eyes,"
he says, "you see the earth filled with tears and blood, and the air with
screams, sobs, and sighs."20But since this is the universal situation, one
must make the best of it, and through courage and decision try to see to
it that the screams and sighs are not one's own. Even so, Fortune (which
Machiavelli here and in the capitolo of that name seems to equate with
ambition, or rather with that inevitable uncertainty of human affairs
arising from the welter of competing ambitions) can only about half
the time be expected to be susceptible to an individual's courage,
energy, and capacity for quick and appropriate decision, in other words
his virtu.
When virtu takes center stage, consideration of many traditional virtues tends to fade away. Machiavelli, for example, speaks little of such
favorite Dantesque objects of eulogy as justice and poverty. In the
Allocuzione fatta ad un magistratehe does, it is true, quote what he calls
Dante's "golden verses" about that imperial paragon Trajan and his salvation through being surpassingly just.21 And Machiavelli, like Dante,
applauds Roman republican scorn of money,22 with which he seems, at
least in part, to have agreed. He also eulogizes some of the Roman heroes
also praised by Dante for their devotion to the common good. In general, however, even in the Discourses on Livy, it is Roman virtu, or skill
and energy in implementing that universal if regrettable human instinct
called ambition, that is most often admired. Ambition is natural: "The
desire to acquire is truly a very natural and normal thing, and when
men who can acquire do so, they will always be praised or [at least] not
blamed, but when they cannot and still want to at all costs, this is the
error and the blame."23The instrument of successful ambition, Machiavelli observes, must often be force. It would be wrong to say that he
idealizes force; he simply regards it as frequently necessary, and he admires
those who employ it with vigor and intelligent timeliness, as did ancient
Romans and some modern princes like Cesare Borgia.
51
The approaches to Roman history of Dante and Machiavelli are thus

quite different in emphasis, one emphasizing providence, the other ambition. On the importance of force, however, they are in basic accord.
Both respect its verdict in history. It is true that Dante's respect for it is
not so explicit as Machiavelli's. How could it be, since Dante in the
Monarchicrenounced the view (probably encountered by him in Augustine's City of God) which he says he himself, "understanding only superficially," once shared: that the Roman imperiumwas obtained "only by
the violence of arms"?24His contemporary, the Augustinian theologian
Engelbert of Admont, who wrote a treatise De ortuetprogressuetfine . . .
imperii Romani, tried to meet the problem in a Ciceronian fashion by
attributing many of those conquests to causes other than aggression, calling them the result of defensive wars, submissions gained through diplomacy, and bequests from friendly rulers.25Dante does repeat in Monarchic
ii, v, Cicero's affirmation in the De officiis about the establishment of a
Roman patrocinium,or benevolent guardianship, over the world, His main
concern, however, seems to be to legitimize (perhaps the proper word is
"sacralize") the conquests providentially, picturing the Romans as a chosen people whose trumphs were willed by God.26 Unlike the many medieval writers who said that such rule had been transferred from people to
people, from the Assyrians to the Persians to the Greeks and, finally, to
the Romans, Dante declares that only the Romans were able to seize the
crown of imperium,which means world dominion. In the second book
of the Monarchic, Dante sets out several reasons for believing that the
conquests leading to that domination over the world were just.
In the first place, he says, they were just because of the hereditary
nobility of the Roman people, drawn from ancestors in all parts of the
earth. Second, they were just because Roman history was marked by
miracles, indicating the special approval of God. Third, they were just
because they fulfilled the principal end of law, being motivated not by
cupidinous lust for domination but by zeal for the common good. Fourth
they were just because the Romans were ideally suited for the task of
ruling. Fifth, they were just because the Romans alone of all peoples had
won the race to rule the whole world, a clear proof of God's favor. Sixth,
they were just because whatever is acquired by duel is acquired by right,
and the Romans submitted themselves to God's judgment through duels
with the other leading powers of the world. Since they won every duel,
their conquests must have been ordained by God. Seventh, they were
52
just because Christ approved them through his birth under Augustus
and his death under Tiberius, whose universal jurisdiction made the
penalty imposed on Christ the legitimate means of our redemption.
In this medley of arguments, the third and the sixth seem to suggest
some concern with secular legality. Dante says that whoever wills the
good of the respublicawills the end of right. Since the Romans repressed
greed in favor of universal peace and liberty, they sacrificed their own
advantage for the good of the human race. Their unselfish intentions can
be inferred from their historical actions and can be confirmed by Cicero's
testimony. Dante quotes from De officiisn, 8, where Cicero said that so long
as the Romans were beneficent and not oppressive, and so long as they
waged war only to protect their allies or their empire, then the end of
wars was usually marked by clemency, and the Senate was a refuge for
kings, peoples, and nations, and allies were loyally protected; therefore
the Romans could be said to have established not so much an imperiumas
a patrociniumover the world. Cicero, however, immediately followed
this assertion by saying that their beneficence was beginning to fade
even before Sulla's time, and that since his triumph it had been abandoned altogether. No oppression of allies could seem evil since atrocities
were being committed against citizens as well. Destroyed by such crimes
the res publica no longer existed. Dante omits this passage, appending
instead a catalogue of Roman republican heroes who sacrificed themselves
for their country. Dante says nothing about their treatment of allies and
replaces the point of Cicero's argument with a collection of patriotic
exemplacelebrating individuals. Although Dante ends his discussion with
a neat syllogism affirming that he has proved that the Roman people
proceeded dejure in acquiring their imperium,it is obvious that he is not
much interested in the language of logic, but rather of demonstrative (not
even of deliberative) rhetoric, in this case commemorative eulogy. The
link between his heroes and the exercise of Roman patrociniumis unclear.
Dante's sixth argument is more original and probably more important for understanding his political views. It attempts to show that the
means (wars) by which the Romans triumphed were legal in themselves
independently of their result, not merely justified by their end (the common good). For this purpose Dante seems to invoke the legal device of
trial by battle, a widely used medieval judicial process, but one on the
way to obsolescence, already discredited to a considerable extent by
clerical and juristic criticisms. He transforms it and makes it the symbol
53
and justification of a historicalprocess. His duel is not the same as the

medievalordeal of trialby battle between individuals,supervisedby the
temporaland spiritualauthorities:it is a duel of peoples, supervisedby
God. The notion behind it is similarto that behind the ordeal, but with
a very significantdifference:the ordeal was a legal institution to which
at least one of the opponents had to submit whether he wanted to or
not; it was believed that God would condemn the guilty to defeat and
reward the innocent with victory. Dante's war-duels, however, had to
be enteredinto freely; he assertsthat battlescan be duels only if, afterall
other remedieshave been tried, they are undertakenby free consent of
the participatingopponents and if these opponents are moved neither
by hate nor love but solely by "zealfor justice."Therefore God'sjudgment is invoked, but insteadof concern with guilt or innocence there is
only eagernesson both sidesto elicit his verdict and so to know his will.
It is interesting that Dante believes that the nature of such a duel was
clearly understoodby "gentiles"like the Greek general Pyrrhusas well
as by that chosen people the Romans. Did not Pyrrhus, Dante asked,
refuse the gold the Romans offered for their prisoners and then free
them anyway?Pyrrhussaid,"Letus gamble for our lives with the sword
and not with gold; let us test through virtue what Fortune brings and
whether Hera wants you or me to rule."
Dante found this quotation from Ennius in chapter 12 of the first
book of Cicero'sDe officiis.There Cicero had devoted considerablespace
to considerationsabout just grounds and motivations for war andjust
treatmentof the vanquished.Like Machiavelli,who also used this work,
and unlike Engelbert of Admont, Dante did not seem much interested
in such rules, or in the collective ideal of humanjustice they implied.
For him right was equivalent to God's will, and Dante seems to have
thought that on the historical level God's will was revealed primarily
throughmilitaryvictory. LikeMachiavelli,he was much concernedwith
the interplaybetween Fortune (which he usually identified with providence) and virtue, here used by him in a "Machiavellian"sense to signify force and valor certified by success. (Cicero defined virtue in De
officiisii, 5, in quite differentterms.) For Dante, the result of this interplay between fortune and virtue was not uncertain, as it was for
Machiavelli;Dante'sGod gave extra virtue to the people he had already
selected to be the instrumentof his will and the object of his rewards.
Dante said that opponents in a duel must be moved by zeal for justice,
54
but this had little to do with observing impartialprinciples of law. It

was only zeal to uncover God'swill through the clashof valorousrivals,
both having what Machiavelli would call virtu.But the result of the
clashes they engaged in was predetermined.Because God willed the
triumph of the Romans, they were bound to be the victors in all their
duels, and all their wars were necessarilyjust.27
This conception is nowhere to be found in De officiis,though it may
have had some distantconnection with the distinctionthat Cicero made
there (i, 12) between the savagery of wars for survival and the more
civilized nature of wars for glory. At first sight more similar,but actually even more alien to Dante, are the medieval Christianadaptationsof
ancient ideas of a just war. His duel is totally different from the Old
concept that God commandedhis people to wage
Testament-crusading
certainwars againstcertainunbelievers,the Amalekites,for example, or
the Moslems. It is different as well from Augustine's view that wars
may be won by eitherthe comparativelyjust or the wicked, but defeatis
always a punishment for sin. It must also be distinguished from the
primitive view, put forward in the very influentialpseudo-Augustinian
work Gravidepugna(fifth century) that God favors those whose causeis
just, and punishesthose whose causeis not, for Dante is talking about a
particularkind of war entered into in a voluntary and upright fashion
by both sides to discover God's will.
No doubt more important in the forming of Dante's theory was his
reading of the Aeneid'saccount of the war between the Trojansand the
Latins,where Virgil, in spite of the fact that the Trojansare destinedby
divine fate to prevail, treats the Latins sympathetically.Dante reflects
this attitude in Infernoi, 106-108,where he has Virgil speak of warriors
on both sidesas dying for "umileItalia"and in Monarchian, ix, where he
quotes Virgil and Livy as affirmingthat the duels between Aeneas and
Turnus, and between the champions of the Romans and the Albans,
were designed to determinethe will of God.
As for medieval parallelsto Dante's idea, the most obvious ones are
found in the many medieval historicaland literarysourcesthat describe
battlesallegedly arrangedwith the consent of both sidesin order to find
a way out of an impasseby appealingto God'sjudgment. Kurt-Georg
Cram provides an interesting examination of this topic in his book
des Krieges im deutschenMittelalter, and
JudiciumBelli, Zum Rechtscharakter
says that such appeals are characteristicof the early and high middle
55
ages, when God was really thought to make such decisions (for example, in accountsof the battle of Fontenoy in 841, when warringbrothers
were supposedto have sought God'sjudgment). Cram maintains,however, that in the later middle ages, primarilyas a resultof French,Dutch
and Brabantineinfluence,there was a secularizing,firstliteraryand then
actual, of this concept of war as a duel. Now not God but Fortune or
Mars was thought to rule over it. There was also a strong tendency
among Germanwritersto justify imperialauthoritysimply by appealing
to the right of conquest. Cram regardsDante's theory, "thispowerful
romanticsynthesisof war, duel, and God'sjust judgment," as an anachronism harking back to earliermedieval times.28
This verdict may be too hasty. It is true that Dante takes a Virgilian
view of the Romans'successas due to God's specialprovidence, to their
divine election to achieve the braviumof empire, but for him that providence is revealed in the success itself, and does not show, at least in
regardto particularconflicts, the greaterobjectivejustice of the Roman
position. Both the Romansand their enemiesare supposedto have "zeal
for justice." This means that they want to settle an otherwise insoluble
question by finding out what the verdict of God, or of what Ennius
calls Fortune or Hera, may be on the success of their arms. It seems
evident that Dante, in expounding his grand design of history, is here
using, in additionto the historicalideasof Virgil, and also of Enniusand
Cicero, theories derived from contemporarychivalric usage. He is not
seriouslyinterested,as earliermedieval participantsin indiciabelliwere
supposedto have been, in the justice of a particularcausein a particular
battle or campaign.In effect, Dante equatesjustice with worldly success,
which he regardsin turn as the unveiling of God's providentialplan.
That Dante was aware that this sanctificationof success (strangely
differentfrom his glorificationof the unsuccessfulemperorHenry vn in
Paradisoxxx) might seem somewhat scandalousis indicatedby his insistence on rigorous, but ultimately irrelevant,requirementsfor the validity of his "duels."Since the motives of both sides are the same, they
cancel each other out. Although he made a strenuouseffort to turn the
conquests of the Romans into legal appealsto God'sjudgment, he evidently thought that it was the conquests themselvesthat revealed that
judgment. His pleasurein meditatingon such conquestsis nowhere better demonstratedthan in Paradisovi with its vivid description of the
swift and devastatingdescentsof the imperialeagle againstits enemies.
56
Dante, like Machiavelli,was an admirerof quick and decisive action, as

is shown by his letter to the emperor-electHenry vn urging him not to
spend more time reducing cities in the Po valley but to move swiftly
south and strikeat the heart of the evil rebellion againsthim, at Dante's
own city of Florence, which the poet did not hesitateto threatenwith
the most completedevastationand ruin.29Moreover,it shouldbe remembered that the Monarchiais not a mirror of princes listing the personal
virtues that the emperorshould possess.The only reasonDante gives as
to why his universalemperorwill not be motivatedby cupidityis that he
alreadyhas authorityover everything, and so can want nothing more.30
There are thus a numberof reasonsfor believing that Dante, as well as
Machiavelli,was convinced of the importanceof force in politicalaffairs,
even though he tried to some extent to disguiseit. It is odd that he could
not sympathizewith the lively consciousnessof that exigency possessed
by his own city (Machiavelliwould say that Florencelaterunfortunately
lost that sense), but then Dante thought Rome and the emperor were
the only rightful exercisersof sovereign power and authority.
The lesson that successlegitimatedrule was taught even more clearly
by Machiavelli.He, unlikeDante, had no squeamishnessabout acknowledging the political role of force. Although sometimeshis descriptions
of the dealingsof Fortunewith Rome seem to hint at the old providential view of the Roman conquests, he did not invoke God's will or
Rome'ssenseof duty toward mankind,or dwell very much on the pious
commonplacesof ancient authorsabout the altruisticjustice of Roman
rule. He did not try to sanctify the savage give-and-take of battles
between Rome and other nations. His Romans might sometimes seek
the common good at home, but in foreign affairsthey were as selfserving as everyone else. When Machiavellientered their ancient courts
by reading their historians,he did not take on faith traditionalverdicts
about the motivations of Roman actions. Insteadhe used the evidence
provided by those actions to question the Romans about their purposes
and methods. He also tried to analyze,at least in a rudimentaryway, the
functioning of their governmental institutions. From this scrutiny
emerged a picture of a people that imposed its will on other peoples
through an astute mixture of force and fraud and of terror and clemency. In regard to Roman government Machiavelli proposed a very
interestingthesis, saying that the political arrangementsof the Romans
were uniquely good because they provided not only space for internal
57
ambitionsand rivalriesbut also the meansby which theserivalriescould

be kept in properbounds. Competition between the patriciansand plebs
diffusedvirtuwidely through the populace. For a long time the government was able to keep this competition political, not military,and channel the energy it generatedinto external,not internal,wars. In Florence,
on the other hand, aristocratswere excluded from the government and
so their virtuwas lost to the state. Florence was divided, but not by a
naturalcompetition between patriciansand plebs taking place under a
strong and balancedgovernment. She was laceratedby the strugglesof
artificiallycreatedfactions.The resultwas a republicwith the aspiration
to rule an empire, but without the necessaryvitality.
The instability of its constitution produced insecurity in its foreign
policies. Whereas the leaders of republican Rome possessed the same
characteristicsthat Machiavelli wanted to inculcate in his prince and
took decisionswith speed and energy as well as prudence, Florence, he
thought, always wanted to delay committing itself, not realizing that
time could work againstas well as for it. Therefore Fortune,who like a
woman prefersyouth, impetuosity, and decision, smiled on Rome but
not on Florence.31
Both our authors seem to be obsessed with ancient Rome and the
noble past. Actually, however, they are obsessedwith modern Florence
and Italy, and with finding remedies for the problems of a tormented
present. The remedies they propose are not the same, but both recognize the significanceof force in politics.Machiavelligives the Florentines
the identical advice that Dante gives the emperor,urging them to imitate theirRomanpredecessorsthrough more prompt and decisiveaction.
Dante's Romans manifest their divine election by their single-minded
and successfulpursuitof power. Machiavelli'sRomansdemonstratetheir
mastery of Fortune by the same means, exhibiting the same kind of
virtu.Both Machiavelli and Dante contrast this Roman virtuwith contemporaryItaliandecadence,and connect such decadencewith ecclesiasticalavariceand interference.Though their prescriptionsfor survival
are very different,and their underlyingphilosophiesdiverge in obvious
ways, their views on the moral and political situation of Italy and on
man'sambitiousnature are more similarthan one might think.
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana
58
NOTES
* An earlier and briefer version of this
paper was given as an Andrew W. Mellon lecture at
Tulane University in the autumn of 1987 and was printed privately by the Tulane Graduate
School in 1988.
1. Machiavelli, A Giulianodi Lorenzode}Medici,in Tuttele opere,ed. Mario Martelli (Firenze:
Sansoni, 1971), pp. 1003-1004.
2. See Cecil Grayson, "Machiavelli and Dante," in Renaissance.Studies in Honor of Hans
Baron,ed. Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 361-384.
3. Machiavelli, Opere,ed. cit., p. 1159. Machiavelli quotes Par. v, 41-42, in this same letter,
and Par. vi, 134-135, and Purg. xx, 86, in letters to Guicciardini of 19 and 21 December 1325.
He quotes Purg. x, 73-93, in the Allocuzionefatta ad un magistrato,Opere,ed. cit., pp. 36-37, and
Purg. vii, 121-122, in Discorsi I, xi. He quotes Inf. IV, 16-18, in a letter of 9 April 1513 to
Francesco Vettori, and Inf. xxxm, 80, in the prologue to the Mandragola.He misattributes a
quotation from ConvivioI, xi, to the Monarchiain DiscoursesI, liii. There are also many echoes
from the Comedyin his poems.
4. First by Grayson, art. cit. For the subsequent controversy see S. Bertelli, "Egemonia
linguistica come egemonia culturale e politica nella Firenze cosmiana,"Bibliothequed'Humanisme
et Renaissance,xxxvm (1976), 249-283, esp. 282-283; Ornella Castellani Polidori, Niccold
Machiavellie il "Dialogointornoalia nostralinguan(Firenze: Olschki, 1978); Mario Martelli, Una
giardafiorentina:il "Dialogodella lingua"attribuitoa NiccoldMachiavelli(Roma: Salerno Editore,
1978); Cecil Grayson, "Questione aperta:Ancora sul Dialogo intornoalia nostralingua^ in Studi
e problemidi criticatestualexxix (1979), 113-124; Carlo Dionisotti, "Machiavelli e la lingua
fiorentina,"in Machiavellerie
(Torino:Einaudi, 1980), pp. 267-364; Cecil Grayson, "PerVincenzo
Oreadini (e altri)," in Studi e problemidi criticatestuale,xxxm (1986), pp. 13-26.
5. Discorsoo dialogointornoalia nostralingua,Opere,ed. cit., p. 925.
6. Opere,ed. cit., p. 1160, quoting Par, v, 41-42.
7. DiscoursesI, xi, liii, quoting Convivio I, xi.
8. DiscoursesI, XI, quoting Purg.vn, 121-122.On Machiavelliand Savonarola(and their admiration for Moses, the model of a lawgiver-politician for both) see Alison Brown, "Savonarola,
Machiavelli and Moses," in FlorenceandItaly.RenaissanceStudiesin HonourofNicolai Rubinstein,
ed. P. Denley and C. Elam (London: Committee for Medieval Studies, Westfield College,
University of London, 1988), pp. 57-72.
9. UAsino, Opere,ed. cit., pp. 954-976.
10. DeWAmbizione,Opere, ed. cit., pp. 984-985. The last clause of the quotation reads, "se
legge o maggior forza non ci aflfrena."Cf. Purg. xvi, 79: "maggior forza" and Purg. xvi, 94:
"Onde convenne legge per fren porre." Gennaro Sasso in his fundamental NiccoldMachiavelli,
new ed. (Bologna: II Mulino, 1980), p. 403, says that Machiavelli believes that men must
break the laws of ethics to survive not because "man is, in himself, wicked and corrupt, but
because this is his historical condition." But if Machiavelli believes that man has always (or at
least since Cain) been infected by the evil seed and followed his own natural ambition, it seems
evident that his nature has created his historical condition (la fortune,c'estles autres),and that
Sasso'sdistinction is artificial.
n. See, for example, Purg. xx and Par. xxvn.
12. This point has been made forcefully by, among others, Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 35-41. For a learned discussion and somewhat
different view of this subject see Marcia L. Colish, "Cicero's De Ojficiis and Machiavelli's
in Sixteenth-Century
Prince,1*
Journal, IX (1978), 81-93.
59

13. I quote from Allan Gilbert'stranslation,Machiavelli, The Chief WorksandOthers(Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965), Vol. II, pp. 736-737. It should be noted that the contrast
between successfully and unsuccessfully ambitious lands contains Machiavelli'sjudgment on
France and Italy.
14. Discourses,l, ix.
15. The Prince,c. viii.
16. Ibid., c. xviii.
17. Ibid., c. v; Discoursesn, xxiii.
18. The Prince,c. xvii.
19. Ibid., c. vii.
20. DelVAmbizione,Opere,ed. cit., p. 986.
21. Allocuzione,Opere,ed. cit., pp. 36-37.
22. Discourses11. xxx.
23. The Prince, c. iii.
24. Monarchia 11, i.
25. Engelbert of Admont, Liber de ortu, progressu et fine regnorum et precipue regni seu imperii
Romani, in Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum et antiquorum scriptorum ecclesiasticorum, ed. M. de
La Bigne (Lyons, 1677) Vol. xxv, pp. 362-378. On the subject of how Cicero's (and St.
Augustine's) ideas about the just war were developed in the middle ages see Frederick Russell,
TheJust Warin the MiddleAges, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
26. Convivoiv, v.
27. Monarchian, ix. The footnotes to this chapter in the edition of G. Vinay (Firenze:Sansoni,
1950), pp. 166-177 are particularly helpful. The quotation from Ennius is in Cicero, De offidis
I, xii, 38.
28. In the seriesBeiheftezumArchivfUrKulturgeschichte.
Heft 5. Munster/Kdln: Bahlau, 1955,
esp. pp. 87-108.
29. See EpistolaeVIand vn, ed. and trans,by Paget Toynbee (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920).
EpistolaeVIcontains the same figure of the imperial eagle descending on its enemies as Paradiso
vi. In this letter Dante uses it to prophesy a future destruction of Florence that never materialized. It is interesting that Machiavelli in the capitolo,Di Fortuna,Opere,ed. cit. pp. 976-979, esp.
979, uses the same figure for Fortune, which he pictures as falling like an eagle on its prey.
30. Monarchia I, ix.
31. The Prince,c. iii, xxv; DiscoursesI, ii-v, xxxviii, xlix; II, xxiii, xxx; and the Istoriefiorentine,
esp. Proemio and hi, i (Opere,ed. cit., pp. 632-633, 690-691).
6o

Dante, Machiavelli and Rome

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Dante, Machiavelli, and Rome

Author(s): Charles T. Davis

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome*

has been called the most political of great poets, and it is

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

in his Inferno and devised ingenious torments for them. Machiavelli

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, Charles t. davis

Emperor.Both men took theirpoliticalfunctionsseriously.Dante advised

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

were idealized as foretellers of Italian unity by naive nationalists and

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, charles t. davis

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

Comedy,both comic and serious,in Machiavelli'spoems. In his Asino, or

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome,charles t. davis

with the Stoic one of a serene age of innocence destroyed by ambition.

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

good laws and institutions. For Machiavelli, however, such restraints

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome,Charles t. davis

city should either be coddled or destroyed.17 A prince should try to be

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

The approaches to Roman history of Dante and Machiavelli are thus

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, Charles t. davis

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

and justification of a historicalprocess. His duel is not the same as the

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, Charles t. davis

but this had little to do with observing impartialprinciples of law. It

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, charles t. davis

Dante, like Machiavelli,was an admirerof quick and decisive action, as

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

ambitionsand rivalriesbut also the meansby which theserivalriescould

Dante, Machiavelli,and Rome, charles t. davis

Dante Studies,cvi, 1988

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