Though Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince centuries after Francesco Petrarch penned Rules for the Successful Ruler, the two documents bear uncanny similarities in subject, if not in theme.
Petrarch's View
Petrarch addresses a medley of issues concerning—as the title of the documents clearly states—rules for a successful prince. Indeed, these ‘rules’ are in fact an outline of an ideal ruler. Though Petrarch touches on many qualities of a ruler, the most important—besides outlawing the disruptive, keening wails of funeral lamentations in public thoroughfares—is that successful ruler is loved by his people, and loves them in return, being ‘father to his country’. To be feared as a ruler “is diametrically opposed to” the desires of a ruler, unless, as he so eloquently expresses it, that fear is the fear such as ‘a devoted child fears a good father’. As a man is father to his child, so must a ruler be father to his country, to his people, wishing for it the same ambitions as he would his child; treating it was justice and mercy and love, as he would his own child. Unless a prince does this, he does not deserve the rule, and, in essence, will not be a successful, good ruler.
Machiavelli's View
Machiavelli, however, had a different perception of an ideal, successful ruler. Ideal in success, not in morals, successful in power, not in love. Machiavelli flatly states in The Prince that it is better to be feared than to be loved, a direct opposition to Petrarch’s statement. Not only does Machiavelli believe this mantra, but he also states that those things that Petrarch attributed to the strength of a ruler’s success—truth, kindness, mercy—are actually the things that bring about a ruler’s downfall. He must appear to be such a ruler that possesses those ‘five qualities’, the general term Machiavelli dubs ‘mercy, faithfulness, humanity, sincerity, and religiousness’—and yet truly he must be manipulative, cruelly determined, and feared so much he is held in view by his people with neither hatred, nor love. In short, Machiavelli advises that to be successful, a ruler must be calculating. He must accomplish that feat of feats, that ultimate lie that all true liars aspire to: he must appear to be one thing, with in actuality he is another.
In Consquence
For all of Petrarch’s eloquence and insight, he fails to realize that goodness, while it certainly has its merits, hardly ever equals success. Politics is a not a game in which the victor is so because he is of any great moral and personal kindness. Perhaps such would be in a perfect world, but the world is not a perfect place. Would that mankind was a race to which mercy and sincerity and kindness were main goals, Petrarch’s Rules would be much more effective a guide line for success than Machiavelli’s. The harsh reality is that the world is not so. The goals of mankind—then as much as now—are goals of power, success, and wealth. Goodness does not grant these desires. Manipulation and cunning does.
It is simply for this reason that Machiavelli presents more practical reasoning in The Prince. His advice, while certainly more cruel, is certainly more realistic that that advice of Petrarch. This cynical advisory of Machiavelli, though, is not flawless. In order for a ruler to follow Machiavelli’s words, he must be exceedingly clever, clever enough to manipulate those under him, those following him, and those directly by his side. Manipulation is an art, a skill, not a mere commoner’s deception.
In an ideal world, Petrarch’s reasoning would be superior to Machiavelli’s. In an ideal world, though, Machiavelli would never have written The Prince, for no such things as machination, manipulation, and deceit would have neither name, nor place, nor recognition.
Sources
- Francesco Petrarca, How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State, trans. Benjamin G. Kohl, cited in The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981, copyrighted 1978), 35-80, passim.
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Faith McFadden - I am a writer by nature; I have been writing since the time that I could first pick up a pencil, and scratch out a scrap paper a few ...
