8 - The theory and practice of warfare in Machiavelli's republic

Summary

‘E principali fondamenti che abbino tutti li stati, cosi nuovi, come vecchi e misti, sono le buone leggi e le buone armi. E perchè non può essere buone leggi dove non sono buone armi, e dove sono buone armi conviene sieno buone leggi, io lascerò indrieto el ragionare delle leggi e parlerò delle armi.’ By starting with so well-known a quotation, for which I apologise, I want to emphasise two initial points. Machiavelli's reputation as a writer on military matters is not dependent on the Arte della Guerra or even on the collection of shorter pieces on war; it lies at the heart of his whole thinking and depends on Il Principe and the Discorsi as much as on the more specific works. One has, in fact, to draw a distinction between his practical ideas, both on past warfare, which fill the Storie Florentine, and on future possibilities, as in the Arte della Guerra, and the conceptual ideas on the role of war in politics and state-building which are much more widely diffused throughout his writing.

Federico Chabod when he wrote of Machiavelli that ‘he who was in his political thought a man of the Renaissance, became a man of the thirteenth century when he turned to military matters’ was thinking essentially of the practical side, as was Piero Pieri when he concentrated on Machiavelli as an organiser of militia and a proponent of a new infantry.