Notes about Sexuality and Religion

interview by Johnathan Bi.

That’s the moment when Moses asks his followers, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” And then Moses gave the command that you have cited: put each man his hand on his sword and walk from one gate to the other of the camp and slay everyone, his friends and family members. So Moses ordered a massacre, right?

0. Introduction
Machiavelli said he wanted to go to hell. In hell, you find the most interesting people if you want to reach the promised land. You must be capable of massacring innocent people, lying because my Moses says, “This is the command I received from God.” But nowhere God gives that command. Moses ordered a massacre. Did God punish Moses for what he did? No.

This is not your American happy-go-lucky Christianity. This is a very Machiavellian Christianity. Machiavelli is writing Mandragola in the darkest years of his life. No job, no status, no friends, no prestige, no money. And he writes a great comedy. Oh, that’s something. Can you imagine a comedy written by Hobbes, by Locke, by Hegel? It would be horrible, tedious, lethal, mortal. Machiavelli could do both.

A true Christian is ready to lie, massacre innocents, and break their word to protect his fatherland. The primary teachings of Jesus are not about eternal salvation or confession or purity, but patriotism, liberty, and this-worldly action. This is Machiavelli’s interpretation of Christianity. And my guest today is one of the greatest living Machiavelli scholars, Princeton’s Maurizio Viroli. Professor Viroli is going to show us why Machiavelli’s this-worldly Christianity is not an anomaly, but the dominant form of Christianity in his time. Even more interesting, it is precisely Machiavelli’s Christianity that laid the foundations of the great republican movements of modernity, including the founding of America.

Now, if you find yourselves turned off by the brutality, by the ruthlessness of Machiavelli, then I strongly urge you to watch until the end where Professor Viroli tells us about who he was actually like as a person — principled, compassionate, and even playful. It is a portrait that will both surprise you and make you fall in love with Machiavelli as it has Professor Viroli.

1. Moses the Ruthless Leader
Tell us about Machiavelli’s this-worldly Christianity. Machiavelli has been interpreted by many scholars as being anti-Christian. This is completely wrong. Machiavelli sustained and endorsed and defended a particular interpretation of Christianity that I think it is fair to describe it as republican Christianity; that if you are a true Christian, if you are a true Christian, you must love your fatherland. You must sustain the common liberty of your people for a very simple reason — because if you are a Christian, you want to be subject only to God, not to man.

The central hero of the Old Testament was for him Moses. Of all the political leaders of antiquity, Moses was for him the most important of all. And who was Moses for Machiavelli? A very simple answer: Moses for Machiavelli was the redeemer; was the friend of God. L’ha amato. To be a friend of God means that God was talking to you, that God was answering your question. Only Moses was capable of talking to God and receiving answers from God. And now, God is quite picky at granting his friendship. Why he choose — why God choose Moses as a friend? Because he saw in Moses someone who was exemplifying the utmost value of compassionate love for your fellow human beings.

But what is important is just to clarify what kind of person, what kind of thinker Machiavelli was. It has been repeated for centuries that Machiavelli’s hero was Cesare Borgia, a Spanish adventurer. He was a formidable military commander. He was the master of simulation and deceit, Cesare Borgia. Fine. Machiavelli to a degree praised Cesare Borgia. But Machiavelli’s hero was Moses. What Machiavelli would have wanted to see appear in his own times was another Moses capable of accomplishing what Machiavelli regarded as the most urgent, the most pressing, and the most glorious of all political tasks. That is to say, the liberation of Italy from the barbarians.

Right. I see. And in order to make Christianity align with his ethics, he had to interpret certain parts of the Moses story in a very unorthodox — let’s put it — way. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a story about the worship of the golden calf, right? And Machiavelli interprets this as Moses making up God telling him the commandment. So, Moses made something up that God told him because the Bible didn’t say, “and the Lord told him,” the Bible said Moses said, “the Lord saith unto us,” and then Moses slaughtered a lot of innocent people for no other reason than they were envious of him, that he wouldn’t be able to establish this kind of laws. Right? So, I guess what I’m trying to say is like, this is not your American happy-go-lucky Christianity. This is a very Machiavellian Christianity.

In the story that you are referring to — that is to say is Exodus 32:34 — Moses is on the top of the mountain receiving from God the Ten Commandments. When he descends from the mountain, Moses sees his own people worshiping an idol — that is to say, falling back into idolatry. That’s the moment when Moses asks his followers, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” And then Moses gave the command that you have cited: put each man his hand on his sword and walk from one gate to the other of the camp and slay everyone, his friends and family members. So Moses ordered a massacre, right?

Now, did Machiavelli approve or disapprove this story? The moral of this story, he certainly approves. But he reproduces, he cites the Bible correctly, right? It is in the Bible, the idea that if you want to reach the promised land — you meaning the leaders, the prophets of a people — they must be capable of using extraordinary means, right? Such as, as you said, massacring innocents, right? Massacring innocent people, right? Such as, and you are right, lying. Because my Moses says, “This is the command I received from God,” but nowhere God gives that command.

But the point is, right, does God reject Moses after what Moses did? Not for that, right? I see. God remains the friend of Moses and the friend and the supporter of the Jews in their effort to reach the promised land and to emancipate themselves from slavery. What is the point of Machiavelli’s interpretation? He was not a biblical scholar. He was not interested in the true — if such a thing exists — meaning of the Old Testament. He was reading, sat reading according to what he thought it was its senses, namely the teaching that we can derive from the scriptures. And Machiavelli wanted to be able to sustain through the authority of Moses, the friend of God, that if you want to attain such a difficult but noble — but noble, yeah, grand, noble, and generous task like the emancipation of a people from tyranny, from foreign domination, from corruption, you leader must be prepared, right, if necessary to enter in evil as Moses did. So the entire story of Machiavelli being anti-Christian, anti-religious is completely absurd, because Machiavelli was interpreting, right, the Old Testament in his own opinion correctly.

Right. I think what makes this-worldly Christianity like even more this-worldly than what you just described, right, is how Machiavelli treats the idea of worldly glory. Classically, the idea is don’t go for worldly glory, right? Store not your treasures unto earth where thieves steal and moth dust corrupt, but in heaven. And there’s also this classical Christian idea that you don’t want to get the gates of heaven and for the angel to tell you, “No, you already got your rewards.” It’s competing between worldly and eternal glory. That’s not Machiavelli’s reading. Right. So tell us about his relationship with glory and why he thought pursuing worldly glory and ambition was not in tension with eternal glory, let’s say, in Christianity.

You see, to believe that the value of glory was not compatible — indeed was antagonistic — to Christian cultural mentality is a grandiose anachronism, because we always have to consider what kind of Christianity was the Christian mentality and culture in Machiavelli’s own times, right? There are interpretations of Christianity — you’re absolutely right — that treat the pursuit of glory as a pagan vice, something to be rejected. But that was not the interpretation of Christianity within which Machiavelli grew in his own times, in the republican context of Florence. But not only in Florence or in Siena, other republican cities. Those cities, the political elites of those cities, they preached the pursuit of glory day in and day out. They lived for glory.

Glory is — we have to be precise — the bona bono. It is the good fame of the good; it is not just fame. Right? To be glorious is a higher step. You may be famous and unglorious. Right? The Roman emperors with all their cruelties and corruption were famous; indeed they were famous. Very famous. Were they glorious? No. Just consider — give you an example, very simple. Who was the model of a glorious military commander and political leader of antiquity? Caesar. Caesar. Does Machiavelli praise Caesar? No. Caesar, he said, had fame, not glory. What do you need to be glorious? You have to be good. You have to pursue a noble goal such as preserving good political institutions if you have them, founding them if they are not in place. So for Machiavelli, the glory — that glory — is not only the highest goal, right, but it’s a genuine good. Yeah. It’s a genuine and it’s as Christian as it could be, right? Because it has to be a noble and grand goal, right?

It’s a religion of strength and of virtue. That’s the word — you say the right word. I have described Machiavelli’s religious mentality as a religion of virtue in the sense in which Machiavelli explains these concepts in the Discourses on Livy, Book Two, Chapter Two. Our religion — because our, if correctly interpreted, interpreted correctly, I mean according to virtue, not according to idleness — it, our religion, Christianity… Yeah, Christianity, not paganism. Christianity wants us to be strong, yeah, to be able to defend the common good and the fatherland against tyranny. So what is important to understand is that Machiavelli was highlighting and supporting and preaching a Christianity of virtue, right? Not a Christianity that was supportive and that was encouraging idleness, weakness, and corruption. Right. That is the confusion, yeah, between these two ideas of Christianity. One that preached meekness, humility, and detachment, right? Otherworld. Yeah, exactly. And another that was telling you, if you want to be a good Christian, you have to be a good citizen and support the common good. Of these two interpretations of Christianity, Machiavelli supported the second. But he was not — he was great at that — but he was working on a pre-existing tradition.

2. Fatherland Over Soul
And I want to ask you about this tradition. And by the way, for our audience, we are going to critique and examine whether this is a valid interpretation of Christianity, but the biggest thing that your book rescued for me was that there was, whether it’s valid or not, an intellectual history of people who genuinely believe that this was a completely proper and authentic interpretation of Christianity. For example, one of the people you cited in the book mentioned that because we have eternal life later on, that means we can pursue our projects in this world with more vigor, right? And so that kind of turns the idea that if there’s a next life, we don’t have to care about this one kind of on its head. So tell us about this republican tradition of Christianity that you described and, most specifically, like where is the textual biblical reading coming from? Right? Because I can find a lot of passages of Jesus telling you to be meek and the rich shall not enter heaven. But where are they getting this kind of very this-worldly patriotic Christianity from?

Yeah. In the churches of Florence. As simple as that. In the homilies and the rituals of the churches, they were focusing on a very simple idea: Patria more than your soul. Was this anti-Christian? Oh, from a theological point of view, possibly. But as Machiavelli explains in the Florentine Histories, since the 14th century in Florence, this idea that you should love your fatherland — meaning the common good, meaning the common liberty of your country — more than your soul, was repeated over and over in Christian rituals.

The story begins in the 14th century when the Republic of Florence was engaged in a truly mortal political and military confrontation with the Pope. And as you probably know, one of the most terrible weapons that the popes had available was excommunication. So the pope of the time launched the excommunication against the Florentine governors, and those magistrates responded, “We love our fatherland more than our soul.” So all of them got excommunicated. Oh yes. But when they were saying that we love our fatherland more than our soul, what they meant was that they were true Christians. Why? Because if you are a Christian, what kind of value should you pursue in your life? Caritas, the compassionate love of the fellow citizens and the common good. So if you are defending the common good, the common liberty of your fatherland, are you a good Christian or are you a bad Christian?

God did want us to be free or unfree? God wants us to be free from the scriptures. And therefore, those who sustain liberty are the true Christians.

What is difficult about that seems to be constraining charity, right, which has been reinterpreted into a kind of patriotism to be circumscribed to your nation. And I remember in your book people have read Jesus as weeping for Jerusalem and it uses that as textual evidence. See, like Jesus was a patriot. But clearly the overwhelming kind of sentiment is to love mankind, right? That’s the proper object of charity.

Yeah, this is absolutely right. In Machiavelli, there is no such a thing as the idea of love of humanity in general. There is no such a thing as universalism within the republican tradition of political thought. You have to wait some, like some three centuries, until another Italian, Giuseppe Mazzini, explained that your love should encompass not only your fellow competitor but humanity, right, in general. But that’s not Machiavelli, right? That wasn’t the air he was breathing. No, it was not. For Machiavelli, let’s say the boundaries of your compassionate love, of your commitment and your devotions are the boundaries of your nation. And what nation was he talking? He was talking of Florence, right?

Let me give you a quote from your book:

“Machiavelli knew well that in order to serve the fatherland, to found states, and to redeem peoples, it is often necessary to act ‘contrary to religion.’ This is the Moses example. Break one’s word, perpetuate cruelty, lie and dissemble. His answer to this problem is that God forgives and gives his friendship even to those founders of states, redeemers of peoples, and rulers who are obliged to be bad in order to achieve their goals. There’s consequently no need to choose between God and the world.”

So therefore, to love one’s fatherland over one’s soul is not saying, “I will go against what God wants me to do — the soul — in order to protect my fatherland.” It’s saying, “I will go protect the fatherland even if it appears I am going contrary to what God seems to say perceived by perhaps a weaker, lazy interpretation of Christianity.” Right? Like it’s saying that at the end of the day, the final thing that God wants us to do is patriotism to protect our fatherland, right?

Definitely. He explicitly says that if you enter in evil — so if you have to cheat, if you have to lie, if you have to perpetuate cruelty in order to save the liberty of your fatherland — he explicitly says the person, the prince who would do this would have some remedy with God. What does it mean to have a remedy with God? It means that God would understand.

Where is Machiavelli found? Is it tenable as a position? Oh, of course, theologians could reject this. But Machiavelli, like I said, had strong references and basis in the intellectual tradition of Florence in which, like I have explained earlier on, the idea that is very simple: You must assume that God is intelligent. Isn’t it? Can you assume that God is not intelligent? This is blasphemy. Now God wants us to love our fatherland. All right? God wants us to live in freedom. Then you do what it takes to remain free or to conquer freedom. You do anything that is necessary. Right? There is no other way. There is no other way but entering in evil. God must be intelligent. And pardon again: Did God blame or punish Moses for what he did? No. Right. Right. God stayed with Moses until the very end.

This is why you call it republican Christianity, because the final telos of Christianity becomes patriotism and living in liberty, building a republic. And I find this so fascinating because in a thinker like Dante, you see him, I think, giving more of a pass to politicians, to great kings, because they’re more likely to do evil in their spots. Machiavelli is offering something much stronger than Dante. He’s giving them a license, right? It’s not just your punishment will be lesser. It’s like, no, you have a license to kill or something like that.

Not that you have a license. It’s like the key word in Machiavelli’s argument is necessita. Necessity. Necessity. Right. You enter in evil when there is no other way available. Right. I see. But then you enter reluctantly. Machiavelli doesn’t praise at all those political leaders, the captains, the emperors who were victorious, right, who were capable of preserving their power at the cost of endless and unnecessary cruelties.

Let’s consider the Discourses on Livy, the chapter in which Machiavelli speaks of Philip the Macedonian — Alexander’s dad. Well, Philip the Macedonian was capable of preserving and expanding his empire at the cost of enormous brutalities such as massacring people, forced immigrations. Machiavelli is saying moving peoples as if they’re cattle from one land to another. But he succeeded in preserving power. Did Machiavelli approve this or disapprove? No. He said a prince should rather decide to renounce his power if the cost is that. Right. I see.

3. Republican Hero Or Teacher of Evil
Throughout history, there have been many kinds of this-worldly Christianity. Right? I think about the Christianity of Constantine. I think about the Christianity of the Crusades, of the conquest of the Americas. How is the Florentine republican this-worldly Christianity different from those kinds of this-worldly Christianity?

I would like to respond to your question by stressing not only the differences between this-worldly Christianities, but the analogies. As I arrived in the United States, I read an important book from Professor J.G.A. Pocock. The title was The Machiavellian Moment. He was describing how the ideas of Machiavelli and Guicciardini and the Florentine republicans — but above all, Machiavelli — beginning as early as the 17th century, traveled in books, of course, translated from Florence to the United States and contributed to form the mentality of American republicanism.

But before that, the works of Machiavelli were discussed and widely read in the Dutch countries by the founders of the Dutch Republic. The idea of Machiavelli as a teacher of liberty inspired the ideas and the practices of the English commonwealthmen of the 17th century — Algernon Sidney, for instance, and above all, James Harrington, whose book The Commonwealth of Oceana opens with a grandiose eulogy of Machiavelli as the thinker who explained that if you want to really follow God’s teaching, you have to sustain liberty.

So, Machiavelli’s fortune is rather, I would say, contradictory. In the 17th centuries in Italy, he was — and later on he was — blamed as being a teacher of evil. Teacher of evil. And that is an idea that also emerged in America in 1958. This is the idea. And the theorist who made famous the idea that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil was Professor Leo Strauss from the University of Chicago in his book Thoughts on Machiavelli.

But this is only Strauss’s idea, because everywhere — everywhere except within few intellectual and religious circles of the Counter-Reformation — Machiavelli became famous, especially in the 18th century, especially in the works of the Encyclopédie, especially in the books of the Italian patriots. He became a theorist and the teacher of liberty.

Let me give you a simple fact, please. Because in history, there are small traces, some small episodes, that are more revealing than hundreds of books. As you probably know, Italy became free in 1860 when the Italian troops entered in Rome and put an end to the temporal power of the popes. A very noble, dignified, and prestigious patriot, a great historian of Italian literature, Professor Francesco De Sanctis, great patriot of Italian liberty, wrote in his diary and then published this comment: They hear the bells of Rome chanting joyously. Italianis in Roma. The Italians are in Rome. Italy after so many centuries is united. And you know how he handed his comment? Sia gloria a Machiavelli. Let be glory to Machiavelli. Why? Why of all the possible thinkers and poets and writers, he thought that the liberation of Italy was the triumph of Machiavelli?

Because at the end of The Prince, right, Machiavelli says unification of Italy… Right. Exactly. Right. I see.

4. Is Christianity Uniquely Compatible with Liberty?
It’s fascinating how political liberty and republicanism came out of this Judeo-Christian tradition and not, let’s say, the Islamic tradition or the Hindu tradition or the Buddhist tradition. Do you think there’s something theologically special about the Christian tradition that gave birth to this kind of liberty, or was it simply a joining of, let’s say, the thought from coming from Athens? Or do you think there’s something special theologically?

There is no question whatsoever that in Christianity there is this powerful idea that we are under God, that we should praise God, we should obey God’s law, we should worship God and follow Christ’s teaching, which means that we should not be subject to the arbitrary will of temporal authority. Yeah. Any — because the will of God cannot be arbitrary at all. Therefore, there is in the Christian tradition a formidable message of liberation. The fact that Christianity has been interpreted, used to sustain themselves… at the time there was this idea that Christianity and liberty go together. After all, God must be happy to be worshiped and thanked and loved by free persons, not loved and worshiped by persons who are forced to worship him. Right.

I guess pushing back on this claim that there’s something perhaps theologically unique about Christianity that makes it compatible with liberty. Number one, as you say, Christianity was fine with empire. You know, it coexisted very well and parts of its theology, like the Great Chain of Being, right, coexisted quite well for millennia before giving birth to this republican tradition. And the second one is, you know, you might think like something like Islam, which means “submission,” is clearly that’s against liberty. But from political philosophy, many political philosophers tell us that the way to be free is to in some sense submit — whether that’s Kant submitting to the categorical imperative or it’s Rousseau in the infamous line, right? “I will force them to be free.” There’s this idea that it’s proper obeying that is what true freedom is. And so I guess what I’m trying to push back here a bit is, I don’t disagree. There is an element of Christianity that makes it prone to give birth to liberty. But I wonder how unique and how central it is.

How unique, how central, how relevant is an interesting question. But that it existed in the context of Florence? That’s a historical fact. It’s a fact, right? Of course, there were other interpretations of this. Just to give you an example that is even more supportive of your comment: You know that Italy between 1922 and 1943 was under a fascist regime. Now the fascist regime in its mentality, the fascist ideology in its origins, was as anti-Christian as one can be. All the fascist ideologies despised the central value of compassion. For them, compassion was a feeling of weakness. Right. Absolutely.

But then the fascist ideologies, since 1929, they became extremely supportive not only of the power of the pope but also of those figures within the Christian tradition — the medieval theologians, the medieval crusader leaders. So there is, and has been, an interpretation of Christianity as a religion that not only supports but encourages domination, right? That encourages exclusion and subjugating and dominating peoples and minorities. There is no doubt about it. But what I am rescuing is that there is this other tradition. There is another tradition. Right. I see. And that is the tradition like really belongs squarely to Machiavelli.

5. Is Machiavelli’s Christianity a Plausible Interpretation?
Yeah, and when you try to interpret Christianity as a religion of virtue instead of idleness, especially when we talk about the need for extraordinary action of leaders, right, for political liberty, that’s a lot more easy, I think, in the Old Testament. Oh yes. Moses, right, David and Goliath.

But in the New Testament, I’m curious like this tradition — how do they reconcile the clear, evident, and to me overwhelming kind of religion of idleness, right? Whether it’s “the meek shall inherit the earth,” whether it’s “harder for the rich man to enter heaven,” whether it’s the Beatitudes, “turn the other cheek,” like “store not your wealth in this life” — like, what do they do with this, right? Because even if you can draw out a religion of virtue, again, easier from the Old Testament, what do you do with the overwhelming recommendations of Jesus of a religion of like idleness?

Yeah. That’s a problem that you should address to a Christian theologian, right? I am a simple historian of political ideas. But what did the Florentines? How did they reconcile this? Oh, they did it very easily. They did it very easily because they were insisting that the message of the Old Testament and the message of the New Testament are perfectly compatible. Right. There was no revolution of ideas or… Yeah.

And on this note, maybe we’ll come back later. I have no evidence whatsoever from Machiavelli’s writings and what he did in his life that he did not believe that his God was the true Christian God. I want to push you a bit on the personal point, right? Because Machiavelli in his personal life, he was a very standup politician, right? Very honorable. But he frequented prostitutes, right? Had affairs, didn’t seem to be too bothered. He had a famous dream where he was told, right, all the pagans — Plato, Plutarch — they go to hell, they just discuss politics; and then he sees these beggars and they go to heaven and he says, “I’d rather go into hell and talk with them.” In his writings, he doesn’t seem to care that much about the salvation of his soul or eternal life. He hates religious practices and rituals. He perhaps believes in a cyclical and not linear kind of Christian history. So that also doesn’t scream “believer” in my view.

Like when you say he was Christian, like what did he believe in? Did he at least believe that Christ was resurrected and went to heaven, joined the Father? Right?

It’s a long, it’s a complex question that you are asking. Let me point to a few facts. He himself admitted after — seriously, but certainly he was not lying — that he was not going to mass, that he, or rarely. That’s from the point of view of a strict Christian view is not acceptable; you have to go to mass. Also he admits that he did not take confession. That’s another fact. He was extremely severe. He was excruciating and he was condemning the vices of monks and priests and popes. That de facto may stand in favor of the idea that he was not Christian at all. He also made fun of hell. You are absolutely right in narrating the story of his dream. It’s an apocryphal story, namely it’s been narrated by others. But it appears that Machiavelli, upon when he was about to pass away, said he wanted to go to hell. Why? Because as he has alluded in various works, he was convinced — this is said — that in hell you find the most interesting people: Plato, Plutarch, on and the great captains and the lawgivers.

Yeah. This said, all these facts amount, they reinforce my opinion that Machiavelli was not, let’s call him, a conventional Christian churchgoer, a pious man. But Machiavelli probably around 1525 — that is to say around the end of his life, because he passed away in 1527 — he wrote an “Exhortation to Penitence.”

Did you know that? But it is not only he wrote it, we have the text written by his own hand.

So, this very ferocious anti-Christian and anti-religious man belonged to a confraternity of believers getting together in churches in the evening to read the scriptures. And what were they — how they were reading the scripture? In turn, one of them was opening the ceremony by reading and commenting upon the scriptures, and Machiavelli was assigned to deliver a lecture on penitence, Exhortatio ad penitentiam, in which he praised the value — the redeeming value — of repenting. And what is interesting about that text is that Machiavelli was citing exactly the important points of the scriptures, which means that he knew them very well. And that text — it is an exhortation to repent — ends with a celebration of the Christian value of caritas. Now, someone who does that can seriously be considered anti-Christian?

Host: What does that mean when he says he’s a Christian believer? Does he believe in the Father? Does he believe in an afterlife? He believes in Jesus died and resurrected?

Professor Viroli: Of course. Of course. He calls Christ the founder of our religion. I see. And he definitely believes — he believes in the existence of the Father. He believes in the afterlife. But what he believed — that the best way to attain the afterlife, eternal salvation, is not by simply reciting prayers and confess, is serving the common good. That was — he was no less a Christian for this reason.

But then I want to go back to the first part of your question because it’s really fascinating. You started your comment by saying that he had lovers, isn’t it? That’s what you said. Yes. So he was an unfaithful husband. That’s what you mean. Well, that is definitely true. But I never said that Machiavelli was following all the principles of the Christian religion as it was taught and practiced in his own times. No doubt about it. But in Machiavelli’s time, the marriage was an agreement between the chiefs of families, fathers and fathers. The religious component was minimal, if at all. The ritual simply consisted in the fact that the bride was going to live in the house of the husband.

What kind of husband was he? He was completely disloyal. He had so many lovers. Nonetheless, we have one letter — unfortunately only one letter — from his wife, Marietta Corsini. If you read that letter, it is a letter — Machiavelli was for long periods of time away from home in diplomatic missions and for other reasons. Well, it is visible — it is clear from that letter — that even if he was disloyal, and surely Marietta his wife knew about it because we have comments from common friends that report to Machiavelli that Marietta Corsini, his wife, was mad at him, probably because she heard of his affairs. Yeah, of affairs. I cannot enter in the details of his affairs because I’m speaking to a respectable audience and they are quite spicy. But in another occasion, maybe over dinner after the camera turns off… the camera… I can maybe I can say something. But even if he was not a perfect husband, he Was a caring husband. And uh from that letter, Marietta was lamenting — what? — that he was not at home long enough. She was missing him. And let us also consider another interesting detail. What kind of father was Machiavelli? Ah, Machiavelli was a caring and affectionate father. By the end of Machiavelli’s life, Machiavelli is working day and night in the military camps of the league that Guicciardini and Machiavelli tried to put together to stop the invasion of German pikemen — the Lanzichenecchi — who in fact completed the sack of Rome in May 1527.

In that middle — in the middle of these kind of anxieties — Machiavelli wrote beautiful letters to his son Guido, and you know the subject of these letters? It’s the — it’s the mule. Exactly. Right. This young Guido was appealing to his father to give him the permission to save the poor mule that turned crazy and instead of killing him, as it was the practice in rural Tuscany, to let him free. And in his reply to Guido, Machiavelli says: “Liberty will cure the poor mule from his insanity.” The entire letter is so affectionate, so compassionate — not only for the feelings of his son, but of the poor beast. Well, these are aspects of Machiavelli’s personality that to me, right, compassion, right? It’s a Christian compassion. That’s the key. If I — if I were younger and I had more energies, I would write the book Oressio: Machiavelli’s Compassion.

Host: I see. Um, the last question I want to ask you about uh Machiavelli’s Christianity has to do with this quote from your book: “Many respected political writers have claimed that he, Machiavelli, was an atheist. But is there a sentence or even a single line of text in which Machiavelli states or even hints that God does not exist?” So your claim, I believe this is Discourses 2.2, is that Machiavelli says, “No, no, it’s the interpretation of our religion that has made it corrupt, not Christianity itself.”

But here’s the perhaps Straussian objection, which is: in that time you can’t come out and just say, “Oh, God does not exist. Oh, I’m an atheist.” And so the — the most you could do is to critique it in this way. And so my question for you is: let — let — let’s assume Machiavelli was a true atheist. Would he have written anything differently? Like wouldn’t he still be forced to write the way that he does because of the Straussian forces?

6. Challenging the Straussian Reading
Professor Viroli: Strauss’s arguments to me um sounds hypothetical. That is to say, he assumes that in — in Machiavelli’s times an atheist would have — would have been compelled for various reasons to hide his atheist beliefs. I responded to this claim with the consideration that some scholars made the observation that in those days, in Machiavelli’s time, people were not that strict about examining the beliefs of others.

Host: So, um, so you’re saying it would be fine if he came out and said, “I’m an atheist.”

Professor Viroli: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I don’t see… and it wouldn’t harm his political future. Not in the least. No one would have questioned or would have objected to Machiavelli’s position if he had said it openly. And there — there are peers of his that have openly said… I — I don’t remember them now, but they were persons and scholars who openly denied the existence of God.

No, what I want to remark is again to consider what kind of person Machiavelli was. Machiavelli in his own life put in writing ideas that were more outrageous than the persuasion — than declaring that you didn’t believe, right?

Host: So you’re — you’re saying if he’s happy to say those things, surely he wouldn’t be happy to say if he really didn’t believe.

Professor Viroli: He — he — he was famous for being flamboyant, right? For being provocateur, provocative. And he was famous for emphasizing his own vices rather than his own virtues. His nickname — we are in Florence — was il Machia. Machia is someone who likes to be playful, irreverent. There are so many examples. Around 1514, he has a long correspondence with Francesco Vettori who at the time was the ambassador of the Florentine Republic in Rome. Well, Vettori is in Rome and in his house uh he receives some Florentine friends. One of them is Filippo Casavecchia. Filippo Casavecchia is a homosexual, and he also received another — his name is Giuliano Brancacci. Giuliano is a womanizer.

So, Filippo wants boys in the house. Giuliano, he wants women. So, they quarreling, disputes, and Vettori gets tired and say, “I’m tired of you both.” So, no more boys, no more girls. So, he says, “I received nobody except for a very learned but boring philologist.” And writes that to Machiavelli. Machiavelli responds very with these words: “Ambassador, dear ambassador, you’re going to become sick. How can you possibly stay in a house where there are neither girls nor boys? I must come at your house immediately and appear at the door and say: ‘What house is this where there are no boys and no girls?'” Yes, sir. Says, “I love women. I cannot possibly come in a house like this.”

So you notice the story? Vettori is defending a very moral position: no more boys, no more girls. Machiavelli says you have to have both of them because that’s the way I live. And he even says, “Ambassador, it won’t go well for you. You will be sick if you continue to live in this way.” I see. So you see how Machiavelli — how willing he is to upset convention.

7. In Love with Machiavelli the Person
Host: Yeah, so we — we talked about Machiavelli’s Christianity and before I ask you about your interpretation of his ethics and political philosophy… it’s clear to me that the crux of your reading of Machiavelli has to do with his life, right? And — and you are, I think, in love with his life even more so than — than even his ideas. So, what about Machiavelli’s life is so attractive and fascinating to you?

Professor Viroli: You are absolutely right. Uh, Machiavelli used to say in one of his last letters — probably the — the last important letter is in 1527 — “I love my fatherland. I love my fatherland more than my soul.” I think I can replicate and can adapt his position. I really love Niccolò Machiavelli. I don’t know if I… more than your soul? Oh, that’s easy because I don’t have a soul. So it would be a simple comparison. Maybe I have it, but I — I’m not particularly fond of my soul.

Um, in any case, I — I admit it. I honestly and openly admit: I love Niccolò Machiavelli. And love in the sense in which the word “love” — which the word love was used in Machiavelli’s time — love is an experience based on idem sentire, that is to say similar feelings. You love persons with whom you have — you share ideas and beliefs and principles, ideas and projects and dreams. So I love Machiavelli because I share his own ambition, way of life. I see. There is nothing that I don’t admire in his life.

Host: But what you — what special, yeah, do you admire or — or what specific episodes just — just gives — put a smile on your face?

Professor Viroli: Yeah. What I really love was the fact — is not “was,” is the fact — that I think of all the political theorists of modern times, he was the only one capable of writing the most serious books possibly about republic and liberty, about emancipation, about religion, such as The Prince, such as the Discourses on Livy, the Florentine Histories, the Art of War. But he was also the author of fantastic comedies such as Mandragola and Clizia. Now I cannot imagine — I — I don’t know of any other political theorist who was capable of being uh so — I shall say like — both serious and levity, right?

Host: Both weightiness and levity. Exactly. Right. And it’s interesting to bring in Rousseau here because Rousseau obviously wrote great dramas but it’s not comedy, right? And that’s what you like about it — you like the jocular — like — like — um… right.

Professor Viroli: Right. Mandragola is considered one of the greatest comedies, probably the greatest comedies of Italian theater, and Italian theater has had great comedies. But Mandragola is… so is Clizia that he wrote it after Mandragola. So he was capable and he was formidable, Machiavelli, at telling stories, inventing stories impromptu. So I would like to just for comparison’s sake: can you imagine a comedy written by Hobbes or a comedy written by Locke or a comedy written by Hegel? They would be horrible, tedious, lethal, mortal. Machiavelli could do both. So he could write the greatest pages about the emancipation of Italy and at the time — and at the time — write Mandragola.

And what is the point of Mandragola? He says it makes people laugh. And that’s something — not only make the audience laugh — but he himself wants to laugh about — what? — about himself, about life, about the misfortunes that he is enduring. Machiavelli is writing Mandragola in the darkest years of his life when he had absolutely nothing: no job, no status, no friends, no prestige, no money. And he writes a great comedy. Oh, that’s something that has to be recognized. This is what is a great philosophy of life.

Host: Friend, this is not exactly it, but it’s something like he’s willing to laugh at himself, right? It’s — it’s something like he is both someone who is one of the deepest and most serious thinkers who wholeheartedly committed himself to the republican cause, gave it his all, and when he failed, he’s able to sit in his — sit in his — place in Tuscany and write out these comedies with amazing levity to — to joke about all the things that he was just so serious about. Right? It’s that duality that’s so attractive. Is that right?

Professor Viroli: You know who is the one of the — the main character probably of Clizia? Clizia — and this is a fascinating aspect. Clizia is the story of an old man falling in love with a young girl. And uh since, of course, the old man cannot attain his goal because he is old, she’s young, and the wife Sofronia gets in the way — so she prevents her husband from doing something completely insane that would make him look like a fool. The entire story is about the failure of — uh — the old man’s plan to seduce and to sleep with a young girl. Right? What is the name of — uh — this fellow? Nicomaco. Why? Because at the time, poor Niccolò, when he was writing Clizia, he — uh — had fallen in love with a magnificent beautiful opera singer. Her name is Barbara Raffacani Salutati. What was wrong about that? That she was much younger. And Machiavelli himself in one of the poems that he inserted in the comedy has this magnificent line: “An outstanding beauty wants younger age.” So you see? Machiavelli puts himself on the stage.

Host: It’s to mock — to mock, right? He’s self-deprecating. Yeah.

Professor Viroli: Self-deprecating. But what kind of smile is this? Is it the smile of despise, of reproach? It is a benevolent understanding, right, smile — a smile that reveals a humane compassionate understanding of his own weaknesses.

Host: Right, like… yeah. And — and it’s a good time to — to bring up your book, which is called… I’m going to put it up for the camera here. Niccolò’s Smile. When I first saw this smile, it was deceiving. It was conniving. It was the smile of a fox who was able to trap his prey. But you interpret the smile as being not resignation to life, but an acceptance of life’s fortuna and — uh — and still being able to affirm it in some way, right? That’s what’s so admirable.

Professor Viroli: Uh, it was easy to interpret Machiavelli’s smile because Machiavelli himself describes in a few poems his own smile. He say, “I smile but my laughter doesn’t go inside. It remains on the surface.” So what kind of smile is this? Is it a smile that reveals happiness and joy? No. It’s a smile that covers sadness and despair. Sadness for what? Despair for what? Sadness for the kind of life that he was living. Being a defeated man who was unable — who could not see his ideals triumphing. Who — who was a defeat? What — what kind of political — uh — triumphs did Machiavelli achieve? None. None. He would have loved to see Italy liberated from the barbarians when he passed away; Italy was even more slain. He would have loved to see a republican government in Florence; such a thing did not happen until the very last days of his life. He would have loved to see a Christianity, like we said, based on the value of caritas and compassionate love — that is to say true Christianity triumphing. He lived on the eve of the Counter-Reformation. That is to say, an idea of Christianity that was based on the absolute devotion to the absolute power of the popes. That is another story.

So, Machiavelli was a defeated man, but he did not want to give human beings uh the pleasure of — of being happy about his own misfortune. So, he put on his smile and wrote comedies. But remember, he wrote me, “My smile does not enter into my soul.”

Host: What — what about that philosophy of life is really appealing to you? I — I — I understood the seriousness and levity part but — but that seems to be a kind of despair and putting up a front to — to not have his enemies uh feel their victory, right? So what — what — what about that philosophy of life really speaks to you?

Professor Viroli: Uh, his philosophy of life: you have to live for and work for grander ideals. You have to achieve glory in this sense. Like I said earlier on, Machiavelli was definitely part of the mentality of the Renaissance. The mentality that preached that as human beings we should strive for glory. What is glory? It is — it is a form of immortality on earth to be remembered for great things, important achievements that you have accomplished.

So imagine: would you be able to write the Discourses on Livy or the Florentine Histories? These are grand works, right. In fact, only the Art of War was published in his own lifetime. The Prince was never published. The Discourses on Livy were… yeah, laboring with — in conditions of serious personal and social and financial difficulties. Unless — unless you wanted to do — you wanted to do two things with the Discourses on Livy. Let’s focus on this question: to teach the future generations, to inspire them. To inspire the future generation to do what? To stand for their liberty. Those who will read my work when — when he will be no longer alive. So writing — we professors, we write for — when you are young to get tenure, when you have tenure to get — uh — uh — glory now, fame now. He didn’t. He knew that he couldn’t accomplish those works.

Host: Right, it was the eternal fame he was after… or sorry, not fame, eternal glory. You’re right, glory. Um, that is a bit confusing in the following sense: we described how you can win fame but not glory if you become famous through extraordinary actions that are not noble — Caesar, for example. However, it seems like Machiavelli thinks the people who give out glory um they are not dependable. They’re not good judges of character. However, those are the only judges on this world because it’s — is — a this-worldly thing you’re after. So there could also be people who accomplish noble and great deeds who are not recognized, right?

Professor Viroli: Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, definitely. For instance, in the Florentine Histories, Machiavelli cites examples of lost Florentines who did accomplish really glorious things but were completely forgotten in their own time. And even more important — that’s why it’s — it’s — um — necessary when you read Machiavelli to read the entire corpus of his works. There are a few letters of Machiavelli to Antonio Giacomini de’ Tebalducci. He was a military commander serving — serving under — serving under the Republic of Florence with — uh — who made some remarkable — remarkable — uh — military achievements, but he was completely forgotten in his own lifetime. Now Machiavelli remembers it. He remembers this military commander as one of the few loyal and capable military commanders who served the Republic of Florence. So he is aware, right, that it’s not dependable, this — this glory thing.

Host: Yes. So — but why? So then it doesn’t seem like a great thing to — to — to try to aim your entire life for.

Professor Viroli: No, it is. If you have a great soul, there is no… there’s nothing else. There’s nothing. You’re just pulled to it. It’s not a normative thing. It’s just… no. Oh, otherwise what would you do? Would you be — would you become a — a — a courtier serving the powerful persons? Would you become a — a servant of powerful men? Would you become an historian who praises powerful people, the emperors and the kings of your time? Would you become a flatterer? Or would you become a person who only aims at amassing enormous amounts of money for the only purpose of amassing money? Or you want more?

Machiavelli — oh, let’s be clear on this — Machiavelli loved good food, good wine, the company of — of — courtesans, of women, traveling. He was also vain. In fact, he spent an enormous amount of money to get himself a fine dress, lucco, for which his wife Marietta Corsini was mad. He wanted to be elegant. He wanted to be… oh, no. But that was not enough, right? Those things, those worldly things are not enough for a great soul as him. That’s… yes. But you don’t need to be a monk. You don’t need to be — you don’t need to despise worldly pleasure in order to achieve glory. That’s the finesse of Machiavelli. He was not pursuing an ideal of — of — poverty, uh, voluntary poverty. He was not a Franciscan. He was not a follower of Saint Francis. He enjoyed life. He wanted — he enjoyed life as much as he could, all aspects of life, and at the same time pursuing grand things. Now, since I am now an old man, if I have two daughters and now I also have a granddaughter and a grandchild… if I had the opportunity to pass on them some pieces of wisdom, I say: “Read Machiavelli. That’s a life you should live.”

Host: Wow. I see. Um, I want to finish our interview on Machiavelli uh by asking you about his ethics that we’ve touched upon already.

8. Machiavelli’s Ethics
Host: The classical understanding that I’ve been taught about Machiavelli was that even if he wasn’t a teacher of evil, he was about the importance of necessity. Right? Life is about necessity. Uh, because people are going to be coming after you. And I’m — I’m, you know, I’m simplifying here. And when you get past this necessity, look — look out for yourself, right? Acquire glory for yourself. Acquire material wealth. Um, that is almost opposite the Machiavelli that you paint, right, who was almost — or is — somewhat selfless patriot. He got offered a stipend or quite generous salary to work in Rome when he — in his one of his worst years — he — he refused because of how much he was — how much he was a patriot. Um, and I want to challenge this reading.

Let’s — let’s begin with The Prince, because in many of the suggestions in that book, it seems to not be how the ruler benefits the republic or — or the principality, but how the ruler saves his own skin, right? It’s better to be feared than loved. He’s not saying it’s better for the republic to have a consul who’s feared than loved. It’s saying: no, it’s safer for you to be feared than love. So, let’s begin there. How do you reconcile his seemingly selfish and egoistic recommendations that you find in his writings with this altruistic patriot that you’ve painted?

Professor Viroli: Let’s focus on The Prince and then on republican ideas on The Prince. It’s one and the same. If the prince is defeated, the state collapses. It means — it means you are invaded. You are conquered. You are dominated. The prince’s good is the state’s good. Of course, the prince is a personification of the state in — if you are in — under a monarchy and or a principality. And either because the prince is ineffective, incapable — is incapable at being a good military leader — then chances are, or to use Machiavelli language, it will almost necessarily happen that you are conquered.

Consider the constitution of Italy. Consider how many times Italy had been invaded in — by foreign troops in Machiavelli’s time. That’s a fact. So that is a dimension of necessity: you are not capable of defending yourself, you are conquered. But then necessity is also present in the Discourses on Livy. That is to say, the necessity of using extraordinary means in situations in which the republic is under threat by internal enemies, sedition, then you have to do what is necessary, like Moses — like Moses as we said earlier on.

But when he speaks on necessity, he is using a rhetorical argument to persuade readers or persuade rulers to do what he thinks is right. Therefore, Machiavelli knew perfectly well the Latin mentors and theorists of eloquence: Cicero, but also Quintilian. All these theorists would say: you want to persuade a council or a ruler to do what you think it is — necess — is important. Say it is necessary, right?

Host: There’s no moral decision. You just got to do it.

Professor Viroli: Yeah. You can say — you say it’s honest, is the honest thing to do. You can say it’s a glorious thing to do. You can say it is useful. But if you say it’s necessary and you persuade them that what they should do is necessary, then your argument is powerful. So Machiavelli speaks of necessity and he uses it in The Prince. It is necessary. And he means to say that you really have to do it. But “necessary,” like I said, is — is not a scientific consideration. How do you prove that a particular course of action… it’s a rhetorical one? Is a rhetorical. As a great orator, Machiavelli was using the — the language of necessity.

Host: Um, another objection I had was it seems like if your reading of Machiavelli as selfless patriot is right, at the very least that’s not how he interpreted other people. Right? Let me give you a quote from the Discourses: “As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a republic and establish laws in it to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity.” So clearly his understanding of other people isn’t as selfless patriots, right? Even if his own self-conception is…

Professor Viroli: His patriotism was not selfless. It was intelligent, right? Intelligently selfish, right? It was for his glory, yes. One thing is — as selfish — to stand and to work for glory as it is selfish to stand for your own personal aggrandizement. In both cases, what you are caring — caring for — is yourself, right? The person who wants to do something grand for his own fatherland and get glory is selfish, right, because he gets something for himself or herself, right? So there are — but there are different ways of being — let’s use this language — selfish.

Right? For Machiavelli, he was inviting us to work for a nobler, higher self. Not — he was never preaching selflessness or — uh — total lack of consideration for ourselves. After all, of the millions and millions of persons who have lived their life pursuing only their own self-interest, of the hundreds of corrupt politicians who have accumulated money through bribes, who is — for — who is remembering them, right? And — uh — if attaining immortality on this earth is selfish, which is — is — is something for you, is the value you want to pursue, then you have to follow Machiavelli.

Last night I was on television — I was watching on television a movie about one of the most powerful Italian politicians of the period of after World War II. Say from 1947 till the nineties. His name was Giulio Andreotti. He was the politician who stayed in power in Italy longer than anybody else. He was a master of practicing politics, clientele, corruption, simulations, and… who is now remembering Andreotti? Completely forgotten.

I see. So — uh — Machiavelli was not — was not teaching or pretending. He was a realist, as you correctly say. He knew that human beings — they wanted to — uh — attain glory and to be remembered, to prestige and power. But he was simply teaching one particular way of attaining true glory. The key word is vera gloria — true glory.

Host: Right. So when I look at — um — him turning down Rome, or when I look at his spotless history of not taking any bribes even though he was managing the republic’s finances, and I say that’s selfless… your rebuttal is: that’s a deeper form of selfishness because we remember him because of that.

Professor Viroli: Yeah. You — when he turned out the offer of going to work under Soderini, the previous leader, or going and abandoning Florence… Machiavelli at the time — he was working on the Florentine Histories. And in fact, Piero Soderini — the leader of republican regime under which Machiavelli served between 1498 until the fall of the regime in 1512 — when this man offered him a post with a salary that was almost twice the salary that he had when he was… he turned it down. And he was working because he was working on the Florentine Histories. And Soderini teased him, said, “You’re so… you can stay in Florence for a very small sum.” Because for him, writing the history of Florence was a more glorious accomplishment than becoming the secretary of a political or military commander.

Host: Right. I see. So then we have to… so Machiavelli — this teacher of evil, this man who was only concerned with his own aggrandizement — turns down a job offer that was extremely lucrative to write in Florence a — the — a book on history of his fatherland without any assurance that he would have been paid.

Host: Right. I see. Um, this is the final question I want to ask you for our interview on Machiavelli, which is — uh — another part of your interpretation of him that I find striking is Machiavelli seems to me to be recommending a lot of extraordinary actions that are outside of the constitution, that are not legal, that are done in the shadows. Your reading, however, emphasizes how constitutional he is, how much he favors even — uh — rescuing a republic through legal means and not through the shadows or — or outside of legal constraints. So when do you think is — uh — uh — Machiavelli advising us to do extraordinary extra-constitutional actions? And what is the role of the founder, the redeemer, uh, who goes above the constitution?

Professor Viroli: Yeah. Well, that’s a magnificent question. Um, the real heroes of Machiavelli are founders and redeemers — that is to say, those uomini rari — rare and marvelous men — who are capable of founding new good political orders and — and/or — redeeming their peoples from a foreign domination or from corruption. The real heroes of Machiavelli are founders — the founders and redeemers.

Host: So they established the constitution.

Professor Viroli: Yes. Right. They — and so he, of course, Moses is… he’s… Solomon is another hero like he mentions. Like, and he admired those persons because they were capable of accomplishing something extremely difficult, which is this: how do you persuade your fellow compatriots that it’s time to introduce a new constitution? Uh, human beings, citizens everywhere — in some countries more, in other countries less — they are reluctant. They are reluctant to see the benefits of constitutional reforms, for they are aware of the weaknesses of their present condition but they are hesitant to enter into new lands and new territories. So, Machiavelli writes that it is — it takes human beings, men of extraordinary virtue and eloquence…

Host: Rhetoric. Yeah.

Professor Viroli: Rhetoric, to persuade peoples to introduce new political orders. Because you cannot see the benefits of the new institutions immediately; you will see perhaps in the future. That’s why Machiavelli has this famous line with which we can interestingly end this part of the conversation, because it goes back to Moses. Moses did not persuade the — did not persuade his fellow Israelites to accept the new laws only by his own authority, but by God. He had to appeal to God. So founders, they have two — uh — weapons available: either they — Machiavelli in The Prince — either they force you to believe, but it’s absurd because forcing to believe someone doesn’t work — it doesn’t work — or you have to persuade them with an appeal to a grander, greater authority: the authority of God.

The problem is, if you want to persuade a people to introduce — to accept — new political orders and those people have no sincere faith in God, then the — the — entire mission fails. So that’s why Machiavelli wanted to do two things: to introduce — in — to teach the Italians of his own time to appreciate the religion of liberty and to persuade them to restore republican institutions.

Host: I see. And now we’re back full circle to Machiavelli’s God. So, thank you for a fascinating interview.

Professor Viroli: Thank you very much.

Host: Thanks for watching my interview. If you want to go even deeper into these ideas, then join my email list at jonathanb.com. You’ll not only get full-length episodes, but also transcripts, book notes, and invitations to future lectures. Now, if you like this interview, I strongly encourage you to watch my interview with Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli. Professor Mansfield, Professor Viroli are great friends who happen to disagree about everything when it comes to Machiavelli. Mansfield thinks Machiavelli is a teacher of evil; Viroli a republican patriot. Mansfield thinks he’s literally the antichrist; Viroli a genuine, albeit unorthodox Christian. Watching that interview will expose you to the breadth of possible interpretations of Machiavelli. You can find links to the Harvey Mansfield interview and everything else we discussed in the description and on my website jonathanb.com. Thank you.