The Medici & Machiavelli

     


       The prince has philosophies that he uses to be a good ruler. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 around the time of the overthrow of the Republic, which forced Machiavelli into exile. He wrote The Prince because of the overthrow, and the exile. Patronage is when a wealthy family supports a artist, sculptor or other people. We learned about what patronage was in a video we watched in class The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. We also read an article in class about Niccolo Machiavelli, and played a game to find out who we were most like from the Medici family, which all helped us to learn more about the topic. The Medici family was a family that owned a small bank with loyal clients. When one of their loyal clients became the pope, the Medici family became wealthy and well known. The Medici family was an example of patronage, they supported an artist with the name of Brunelleschi. 

I chose the last excerpt in The Prince. The main idea was that, in order to be respected, you  need to be feared more than loved. That way people will not take advantage of you. If it was possible to have both, that was even better. Normally you could only choose one. People respond better to someone they fear than to someone they love. The reason for this is, if you fear somebody you are going to show more respect for them because you're scared or because you don't know how they are going to react in some situations. Also if someone is feared by you, you're not going to be taken advantage of. Since being feared is better than being loved a prince would most likely choose to be feared. This way more people will respect them as a prince, and his decisions. He won't be taken advantage of either. Being feared is not the same as being hated. The prince says in his letter "Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because being feared whilst he is not hated," He is trying to say that by being feared he is avoiding being hated. If he does not win the love he won't be hated. 

Throughout all of Machiavelli's ideas about leadership, I don't agree with all of them. Especially the first excerpt. I don't think war and discipline should be the main focus of a prince. Although I agree with the second and third excerpts which state that sometimes a prince needs to be wrong in order to be right, and that you want to be feared more than loved. I don't agree with the first idea about war and discipline being the main focus of a prince, because there are more important things to focus on when you have so many peoples lives in your hands. War and discipline should be a topic to think about, but it shouldn't in my opinion be the topic to worry about the most. I agree that sometimes a prince can be wrong in order to be right sometimes. It might be the only way way to keep the respect they need to maintain a good reputation. Being feared more than loved can also be good. No one will have the guts to take advantage of you, and people will respect you and your decisions as a prince. I do think some leaders of today do use this philosophy because they make sense in terms of being in control of their country. They have to have some philosophies that they use to be a great ruler. Some of Machiavelli's ideas make sense when they are thinking about what they need to do to be a good prince.