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Machiavelli: Florentine Republic
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While Machiavelli was born into an aristocratic Florentine family, his family's social standing was not matched by financial wealth. Although the events of his childhood remain shrouded in mystery, he was most likely aware of the political events occurring in his native city during his upbringing.
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Machiavelli's emphasis on liberty as the basis of a republic may be said to originate from Livy as well as the definition of a republic. Not only was Livy incompetent in political science, he was ... an idealist; a romantic. [19] Livy plays up the concept of liberty constantly. This Roman historian and big patriot is in every spot talking about liberty. (The idea of liberty seems to have overshadowed all else.[20])
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Among the most widely-read of the Renaissance thinkers was Niccolò Machiavelli, a Florentine politician who retired from public service to write at length on the skill required for successfully running the state. Impatient with abstract reflections on the way things "ought" to be, Machiavelli focussed on the way things are, illustrating his own intensely practical convictions with frequent examples from the historical record. Although he shared with other humanists a profound pessimism about human nature, Machiavelli ... argued that the social benefits of stability and security can be achieved even in the face of moral corruption.
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The Mandragola, the finest comedy of the Italian Renaissance, is not unrelated to Machiavelli's political writings in its comic indictment of contemporary Florentine society. In a well-knit intrigue the simpleton Nicia contributes to his own cuckolding. Nicia's beautiful and virtuous wife, Lucrezia (so named by the author with an eye to Roman history), is corrupted by those who should be her closest protectors: her mother, her husband, and her unscrupulous confessor, Fra Timoteo, all pawns in the skillful hands of the manipulator Ligurio.
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Machiavelli is constantly talking about "liberty". His thought is summarized as "Liberty is the single most important aspect of a republic, and it mandates the rest of the republic’s aspects." (Olive) Liberty is the all-encompassing idea and highest virtue of a society.
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