Machiavelli

Overview

About thirty-five pages, a review essay by Thomas Babington Macaulay, published in the Edinburgh Review in 1827 on a new edition of Machiavelli. Macaulay sets himself a genuinely difficult interpretive problem, explaining how a man of evident patriotism and personal integrity could have written a treatise as coldly amoral as The Prince appeared to be.

His answer is that Italian society in the Renaissance valued cunning over courage, as the northern nations valued courage over cunning, so that Machiavelli’s morality was that of his time rather than a peculiar wickedness. The essay surveys Machiavelli’s comedies, histories and political writings and closes with an appreciation of him as an Italian patriot.

What happens

The interpretive problem. Macaulay opens by setting out the essay’s central interpretive puzzle, explaining how a man widely recognized for evident patriotism and personal integrity could nonetheless have written The Prince, a text whose apparently cold, amoral treatment of political power seemed genuinely difficult to reconcile with his broader reputation.

The cultural relativity argument. Macaulay resolves this puzzle by arguing that Italian society in the Renaissance valued cunning over courage, exactly as the northern nations of Macaulay’s own period valued courage over cunning, relocating Machiavelli’s apparent moral shock from individual character to broader cultural context.

Machiavelli’s morality as historically situated. Building on this cultural argument, Macaulay insists Machiavelli’s morality was that of his own time and place rather than a peculiar personal wickedness distinct from his Renaissance Italian contemporaries, a genuinely bold historicist move for an 1827 essay.

Surveying the comedies. Macaulay extends his essay beyond judgment of The Prince alone to survey Machiavelli’s comedies, considering this less frequently discussed dimension of his literary output as relevant evidence for understanding his broader character and concerns.

Surveying the histories and political writings. Macaulay continues his survey through Machiavelli’s histories and other political writings, building a considerably fuller picture of his intellectual range and civic engagement than judgment of The Prince in isolation could provide.

An appreciation of Machiavelli as patriot. The essay closes with Macaulay’s genuine appreciation of Machiavelli as an Italian patriot, a sympathetic final portrait that shaped how English-language readers would understand Machiavelli for generations following this essay’s original publication.

How to read it

Read Macaulay’s central interpretive move, treating Machiavelli’s apparent amorality as belonging to his historical and cultural moment rather than marking personal wickedness, as a genuinely significant methodological claim about how moral judgment should handle figures from different historical periods and cultural contexts.

Pay close attention to how this cultural relativity argument lets Macaulay rescue Machiavelli’s reputation without needing to defend or soften The Prince’s actual specific content; the defense operates entirely at the level of cultural framework rather than requiring point-by-point argument about the text itself.

Notice how the essay’s broader survey of Machiavelli’s comedies, histories and political writings beyond The Prince builds a considerably fuller picture of his character and concerns than judgment based on a single controversial text alone could provide.

Consider how genuinely bold Macaulay’s historicist argument was for its own 1827 context; treating morality as culturally variable rather than simply invariant across all times and places anticipated later historicist approaches while remaining a considerably less conventional position for an early nineteenth-century essay to take.

Read this essay alongside Machiavelli’s own Prince to test Macaulay’s interpretive argument directly against the actual text it defends; encountering both together lets you evaluate whether the cultural relativity explanation genuinely accounts for what The Prince actually argues, or whether the text still poses interpretive difficulties this essay’s framework does not fully resolve.

Questions it raises

• Does Macaulay’s cultural relativity argument, that Renaissance Italy valued cunning as northern nations valued courage, successfully explain Machiavelli’s apparent amorality, or does this explanation risk excusing genuinely troubling political recommendations by attributing them entirely to cultural context rather than engaging with their actual content?
• How persuasive is the broader historicist premise underlying Macaulay’s argument, that moral judgment should account for a historical figure’s specific cultural moment rather than applying invariant standards across all times and places? Does this premise hold up as a general principle for evaluating historical figures and their writing?
• What does Macaulay’s survey of Machiavelli’s comedies and histories, beyond The Prince alone, actually accomplish for his broader argument? Does this additional evidence genuinely support his sympathetic reading, or does it simply demonstrate range without directly addressing The Prince’s specific troubling content?
• How does this essay’s considerable influence on subsequent English-language understanding of Machiavelli compare to its actual persuasiveness as historical and moral argument? Has Macaulay’s specific interpretive framework held up well against more recent scholarship on Machiavelli and Renaissance political thought?
• Given that Macaulay wrote this essay as a book review for a general educated readership rather than specialized historical scholarship, how does this intended audience and format shape the essay’s argument and evidence compared to a more academic treatment might have required?
• What does Macaulay’s specific choice to rescue Machiavelli’s reputation through cultural context, rather than through close textual defense of The Prince’s actual arguments, suggest about his own broader approach to historical and literary criticism? Does this method reflect a distinctive critical strategy worth recognizing in his other essays?