The Art of War 1st Edition Niccolo Machiavelli Release Date

Peter Whitehorne's 1573 translation of The Art of War

The Fine art of War (Italian: Dell'arte della guerra) is a treatise past the Italian Renaissance political philosopher and historian Niccolò Machiavelli.

The format of The Art of War is a socratic dialogue. The purpose, declared by Lord Fabrizio Colonna (perhaps Machiavelli's persona) at the outset, "To honor and advantage virtù, not to have contempt for poverty, to esteem the modes and orders of military discipline, to constrain citizens to beloved ane another, to alive without factions, to esteem less the private than the public skillful." To these ends, Machiavelli notes in his preface, the war machine is like the roof of a palazzo protecting the contents.

Written between 1519 and 1520 and published the following year, information technology was Machiavelli'southward only historical or political piece of work printed during his lifetime, though he was appointed official historian of Florence in 1520 and entrusted with small-scale civil duties.

Format [edit]

The Fine art of State of war is divided into a preface (proemio) and seven books (chapters), which have the form of a series of dialogues that take identify in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens built in a classical way by Bernardo Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to engage in discussion, between Cosimo Rucellai and "Lord Fabrizio Colonna" (many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, simply this view has been challenged by scholars such every bit Mansfield^[1]), with other patrizi and captains of the contempo Florentine commonwealth: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni. The work is defended to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, patrizio fiorentino in a preface which ostentatiously pronounces Machiavelli'due south authorship. After repeated uses of the outset person atypical to introduce the dialogue, Machiavelli retreats from the piece of work, serving every bit neither narrator nor interlocutor.^[i] Fabrizio is enamored with the Roman Legions of the early to mid Roman Republic and strongly advocates adapting them to the gimmicky situation of Renaissance Florence.

Fabrizio dominates the discussions with his knowledge, wisdom and insights. The other characters, for the most function, simply yield to his superior knowledge and merely bring upwards topics, ask him questions or for clarification. These dialogues, then, often go monologues with Fabrizio detailing how an army should exist raised, trained, organized, deployed and employed.

Background [edit]

Machiavelli'due south Fine art of War echoes many themes, issues, ideas and proposals from his earlier, more widely read works, The Prince and The Discourses. To the gimmicky reader, Machiavelli'due south dialogue may seem impractical and to nether-rate the effectiveness of both firearms and cavalry. However, his theories were not simply based on a thorough study and analysis of classical and contemporary military practices. Machiavelli had served for xiv years equally secretary to the Chancery of Florence and "personally observed and reported back to his government on the size, limerick, weaponry, morale, and logistical capabilities of the most effective militaries of his day."^[2] However, the native fighting force he assiduously oversaw was struck a catastrophic defeat in Prato in 1512 which led to the downfall of the Florentine republican authorities.

Military strategy and science [edit]

Machiavelli wrote that war must exist expressly defined. He developed the philosophy of "limited warfare"—that is, when diplomacy fails, war is an extension of politics. Art of War likewise emphasizes the necessity of a state militia and promotes the concept of armed denizens. He believed that all society, organized religion, science, and art rested on the security provided by the military.^[three]

Critique [edit]

However at the time he was writing, firearms, both technologically and tactically, were in their infancy and the overwhelming of enemy missile-armed troops, of artillery even, between salvos, by a charge of pikes and sword and shield men would have been a viable tactic. In addition Machiavelli was non writing in a vacuum; Art of War was written as a applied proposition to the rulers of Florence as an alternative to the unreliable condottieri mercenaries upon which all the Italian metropolis states were reliant. A standing army of the prosperous and pampered citizens that would have formed the cavalry would have been little better. Machiavelli therefore "talks upward" the advantages of a militia of those arms that Florence could realistically muster and equip from her ain resources.

Nonetheless, his basic notion of emulating Roman practices was slowly and pragmatically adapted by many later rulers and commanders, about notably Maurice of Nassau^[4] and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.^[iv] They would lay the foundations for the system of linear tactics which would boss the warfare of Europe and the earth until later the Napoleonic Wars.

While Machiavelli's influence every bit a military theorist is often given a back seat to his writings as a political philosopher, that he considered Dell'arte della guerra to be his about important work is clear from his discussions of the military scientific discipline and soldiery in other works. For case, in The Prince he declares that "a prince should have no other object, no whatsoever other thought, nor accept anything every bit his art only that of state of war and its orders and discipline; for that is the only art which is of business organisation to one who commands."^[v]

In the class of the sixteenth century twenty-ane editions appeared and it was translated into French, English, German, and Latin. Montaigne named Machiavelli next to Caesar, Polybius, and Commynes equally an dominance on military affairs. Although in the seventeenth century changing military methods brought other writers to the fore, Machiavelli was still frequently quoted. In the eighteenth century, the Marshal de Saxe leaned heavily on him when he composed his Reveries upon the Art of War (1757), and Algarotti—though without much basis—saw in Machiavelli the principal who has taught Frederick the Cracking the tactics past which he astounded Europe. Like most people concerned with military matters, Jefferson had Machiavelli's Art of War in his library, and when the State of war of 1812 increased American interest in issues of war, The Art of War was brought out in a special American edition."^[6]

This continued interest in Machiavelli as a military machine thinker was non only caused past the fame of his name; some of the recommendations fabricated in the Art of War—those on training, discipline, and classification, for instance—gained increasing applied importance in early on modern Europe when armies came to be composed of professionals coming from the virtually different social strata. This does not mean that the progress of military art in the sixteenth century—in drilling, in dividing an army into distinct units, in planning and organizing campaigns-was due to the influence of Machiavelli. Instead, the war machine innovators of the time were pleased to discover a piece of work in which aspects of their do were explained and justified. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, with its broad knowledge of ancient literature and its deep respect for classical wisdom, it was unremarkably held that the Romans owed their war machine triumphs to their accent on discipline and grooming. Machiavelli's attempt to nowadays Roman military organization as the model for the armies of his time was therefore not regarded as extravagant. At the end of the sixteenth century, for instance, Justus Lipsius, in his influential writings on military affairs, as well treated the Roman military order as a permanently valid model.

Themes [edit]

The content and format of The Fine art of State of war are strangely at odds. In the opening pages, after Cosimo has described his grandad's inspiration for gardens in which the conversations are set up, Fabrizio declaims that we should imitate ancient warfare rather than aboriginal art forms. Withal, the Art of State of war is a dialogue in the humanist tradition of imitating classical forms. Machiavelli himself appears to have fallen into the trap for which Fabrizio criticizes Bernardo Rucellai. Despite this inherent contradiction, the volume lacks much of the cynical tone and humour that is and then feature of Machiavelli's other works.^{[vii] [8]}

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996, (a&b)194, (c)191 & 196.
2. ^ Christopher Lynch, "Introduction," in The Fine art of State of war trans. Christopher Lynch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), xiv.
3. ^ Art of State of war, Machiavelli, p. 234
4. ^ ^{a b} Niccolò Machiavelli, Art of War, Trans. Ellis Farnesworth. Da Capo press edition, 2001, with introduction past Neal Forest.
5. ^ Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince trans. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1985), p. 14.
6. ^ Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age edited by Peter Paret (Princeton University Printing, 1986), p. 27.
7. ^ Mansfield, Harvey C. "Machiavelli'south Virtue" p. 191 and 196.
8. ^ Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Idea of Niccolò Machiavelli (Berkeley: Academy of California Press, 1984), 68–69.

External links [edit]

• Notable Quotes and Aphorisms from Fine art Of State of war
• The Fine art of State of war and other writings
• Machiavelli'southward The Art Of War at Projection Gutenberg
• Tudor Translation (1560 in a 1905 ed.) and Neville Translation (1675).
• The Art Of War public domain audiobook at LibriVox (Neville Translation)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War_(Machiavelli_book)

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