In this essay, I shall discuss issues that Machiavelli took with the Church as an institution and it’s political influence in Florence. Many saw Machiavelli’s work to be anti-Christian because he advocated behaviour which directly contravened certain fundamental principles of biblical morality. However, the context in which he was labelled ought to be considered. In a contemporary, more secular, context, one’s affiliation with Christianity is more flexible than in the Late Middle Ages, so Machiavelli may no longer fit that label.
Machiavelli was given a renaissance humanist education which sparked a fascination for classical learning from ancient Greek and Roman sources. This type of education began in Italy and quickly spread across Europe, becoming customary for young men of the renaissance middle class. It was a movement for the educated elites and involved translating ancient texts into the vernacular, which would ultimately create the seedbed for the Reformation. There was emphasis on philology and comparing different manuscripts to find the most true and uncorrupted text. In The Prince, we see the culmination of Machiavelli’s classical learning and his experience as a diplomat which lead him to produce such an abstract work of modern political philosophy. He acknowledged that The Prince departed significantly from previous works on the subject of political theory, and that what he was writing was revolutionary. It served as a guide for politically ambitious individuals on how to play the game of politics successfully, without consideration for morality, for the betterment of the Florentine state. After the Medici family had been expelled from Florence, having been oligarchic despots that had ruled Florence for several decades, Italy became a battleground for political conflict as several city-states, as well as the papacy, France and the Holy Roman Empire all grappled for control of Italy. This ultimately led to the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France and prompted Machiavelli’s later impassioned pleas for Italian unity which he sought to achieve through writing The Prince – essentially stating that, for good or for ill, this is what works.
In a social context, the clergy were important and highly regarded for their intellect, serving as arbitrators by mediating disputes within their parish. They were privileged and distinguishable by their clothing, but many became immoral in their private lives – fathering illegitimate children which resulted in cases of anticlerical attacks – clergymen were assaulted by disgruntled parishioners and people withheld tithes owed to the clergy.
The Church was almost threatening about the importance of living a virtuous life and many people were terrified by the prospect of purgatory and hell. Since Machiavelli did not share the same fears as other Florentines, he had no affliction to living a life without virtue and was therefore able to recognise some rather suspicious behaviour of the clergy. He wrote that “Pope Alexander VI never did anything but con people” by taking money from parishioners by way of indulgences. The Church was commodifying time spent in purgatory because people believed that by paying, they were performing penance and engaging in reciprocity, when in fact, they were just funding the indulgent lifestyles of the clergy.
Machiavelli was clearly resentful of the Church as an institution because he disapproved of their political influence in Church states. He claims that “Church states are upheld by ancient religious institutions that are so strong and well established as to keep their rulers in power no matter what they do or how they live”. Machiavelli’s goal was to ensure the stability of the Florentine state, but he also recognised that this stability was far off owing to the influence of the Church. While The Prince outlines certain essential traits for a strong leader, many are incompatible with Catholicism. As a result, he is contemptuous of the Church because the stability which he propounds is untenable with an institution with the ability to keep whoever they want to in power so long as they promote the mission of the Christian faith.
State stability requires the support of its citizenry which can be ensured through fear and love. Machiavelli says that “if you have to choose, it is much safer to be feared than loved”, and it appears that the support many Catholics have for the Church are out of fear for the consequences of digress from the lifestyle. Ironically, there is credence in arguing that the Church consolidated it’s power through Machiavellian methods. In the case of Savonarola, the Dominican zealot who came to power in Florence after the expulsion of the Medici family in 1512, he was loved and respected by his subjects before he disobeyed and defied the leadership of the Church. The Florentines saw him to be weak, and having damaged his reputation, they “believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe”. Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Savonarola, branding him as a heretic and schismatic, and called for his execution. This shows how the Florentines’ loyalty was driven more out of fear of the Church than their love for Savonarola, and his execution for undermining the Church’s authority is markedly Machiavellian.
One commonality between Florentine citizens was their almost universal investment in their strict faith, irrespective of social status. Therefore, if the church felt threatened by Machiavelli’s rhetoric, it would be easy for them to turn the public against him and for him to be labelled as anti-Christian. It is not explicitly stated that Machiavelli was opposed to Christianity, but he clearly disagreed with some of the fundamental principles central to Christianity, such as the importance of carrying out a lifestyle aligned with biblical morality. However, he is conscious of how highly regarded virtue is and that it’s value ought not to be ignored. He therefore recommends that a prince should maintain the appearance of being virtuous, with virtue itself a phenomenon not requiring of consideration so long as there exists a benevolent aspiration. He encourages a prince to be “a great liar and deceiver”, noting that “he should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless, and devout”, but “if he needs to be the opposite, he [must] how”. It is the church’s belief that Machiavelli’s rejection of these principles are enough to brandish him as an enemy of the church and a threat to their influence. The feature of his manuscript which was so polarising to his audience was that he undermined the importance of virtue, and therefore encouraged behaviour which was simply unthinkable to many Christian readers. He held the critical belief that the virtue people show is not rewarded, rather they are only punished for when they fall even slightly short of the standard expected of them.
Perhaps to a modern audience, where our society is far more secular and religious doctrine has less influence on who we are and what we can do, Machiavelli’s amoralist attitude would be less anti-Christian because Christian morality is held to a less high standard. However, in sixteenth century Florence, the papacy had vast influence in the governing of the state, able to ban books and with the existence of canon law. Canon Law was of considerable importance in both the public and private lives of Catholics, ensuring they lived the lifestyle expected by the Church. Therefore, Machiavelli’s rejection of the belief that “your sin would find you out” would have shocked the largely Christian audience – in essence, Machiavelli asserted that Christian perception of sin and morality was skewed and akin to childlike superstition. It could be argued Machiavelli was simply ahead of his time, with The Prince serving as a suitable guideline for surviving and thriving in the world of modern politics, but incompatible in an inflexible and conservative sixteenth century Florence. When The Prince reached England, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury and principal leader of the Church of England, vehemently condemned Machiavelli as “the enemy of the human race”. Pole denounced Machiavelli as being “in league with the devil” and that The Prince was “written by the finger of Satan”.
Whether or not what Machiavelli was advocating was moral, his manuscript stated which political moves worked, leaving open to interpretation whether he was a good or bad person. His mere insinuation that it could be justified to behave without virtue, meant that he was demonised in his era, remaining an iconic villain even today – hence why the term ‘Machiavellian’ is used as a pejorative. In Florence, people were concerned by how their post-baptismal sins would cause them suffering after death in purgatory before they could reach heaven. It was the belief that baptism served to erase the effects of sin inherited by all humans from the original sin of Adam and Eve. People must perform penances in order to reconcile with their post-baptismal sins, and since mortality is an ever-present phenomenon due to the abundance of disease, many were acutely conscious of imminent death and routinely performed penances to secure salvation. In penance, people atone for their sins which are absolved by a priest, on behalf of God, in order to accrue a spiritual credit to minimise time spent in purgatory – if they are not absolved then they cannot enter heaven because their souls are imperfect and heaven is a place of perfection. Virtue was clearly of paramount importance to the Florentine laity, especially since “popular ideas about purgatory have been prone to extreme mythological excess, imagining all kinds of horrors on the path of purgation”, and therefore minimising time spent there was important. As people are always trying to live virtuous lives, Machiavelli’s rejection of this would have been shocking. The post-humous journey for Christians is a fundamental part of the religion as a whole, and therefore for Machiavelli to undermine all of this, it could justify the claim that his worldview was non-Christian since he clearly did not share in the views of other Catholics.
The Church and it’s followers strongly advocate for this dangerous fallacy of, ‘you’re either with us, or against us’ and there can be no neutral in-between. Consequently, while the initial reaction to The Prince was indifferent, as it gained traction and word spread, the manuscript began to face strong criticism and was labelled as immoral, evil and wicked, and Machiavelli himself was demonised. Perhaps some members of the church recognised that his criticisms of the Church’s corruption were valid, many of their actions, such as debauchery, were clearly at odds with the strict behaviour they demanded of their followers which explains why his work was banned. This, however, would side with the argument that Machiavelli was anti-clerical. His primary concern being ensuring the stability of the Florentine state and unifying Italy – but if the clergy are to run amok within the government, then Florence will remain vulnerable to the whims of other European powers. Machiavelli’s concerns were clearly justified because, in 1527, only a month before his death, Rome was sacked by Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire because of the diplomatic mistakes of Medici Pope, Clement VII.
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