California Italian Studies

In a famous passage from the dedicatory letter to the Principe, Machiavelli paradoxically authorizes himself as an expert concerning the high and the mighty by claiming to speak with “the voice of the people”. On the face of it the Principe contains one lesson after another in how a “virtuous” leader can manipulate and control the populace to his own ends. On the other hand, from shortly after the composition of the treatise, readers have asserted that Machiavelli is secretly, ironically, allegorically, expressing opinions that place him on the side of the “popolo” against the repressive regimes of such as Cesare Borgia and Julius II. Rather than taking sides in this still unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, debate, I argue that the Principe, in the letter to Lorenzo and throughout, delineates the problematic nature of Machiavelli’s relationship to the “people”—and with it the unstable contours of his “subject position” as opinionated commentator on politics and history—posing questions which will continue to haunt his writings from the near contemporary Discorsi, particularly in the remarkable chapter 59 of book 1, up through his final masterpiece, the Istorie fiorentine.  Indeed I will claim that Machiavelli’s treatment of the categories of the “popolo” and “opinione” in relation to his own discursive stance may be said to anticipate, mutatis mutandis, features later associated with what Habermass has called “the public sphere” in which private citizens express opinions about public matters.