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Submitted by skoshi on July 7, 2008
Category: History Other
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Machiavelli as a Humanist:
Examples and Lessons Learned
Sydni M.Eicke
Hum100 013016
June 1, 2008
Niccolo Machiavelli a Renaissance thinker? or Political Philosopher? Machiavelli went from poverty to a Florentine politician by observing what leaders do wrong and guiding others on how to gain, maintain and streamline power.
Machiavelli’s intellectual life was dominated by three men: Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. These famous men were part of Machiavelli’s day-to-day life, as they were close friends of his father. They were a large influence to Machiavelli in his early adulthood and throughout his career.
Marsilio Ficino was the son of Cosimo de’ Medici’s physician and was best known for his translations of Plato, as well as his attempt to show the harmony of Christianity with Neo-platonic thought. Ficino presided over the intellectual milieu of verbal jousting and textual citation in the Medici court. He became a priest in 1473 and later began the Christian religion. Ficino wrote to leaders, as well as the Pope, hoping to convince them to fulfill their duty at a time when dishonesty in the Catholic Church was great.1
Angelo Ambrogini, known as Poliziano, was born into a family of jurists. He studied Latin and Greek with the best of teachers of the day. At age 16, he translated four books of the Iliad into Latin hexameter which earned him the title Homericus juvenis. His publications included not only essays and poetry in Latin, but verse and a play, Orfeo, in Italian. He became the tutor of the Medici family’s children. Poliziano followed through with many political missions and, with the help of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, they searched the northern Italian cities for books and manuscripts for the Medici library.2
1, 2 Roger D. Masters, Fortune is a River (New York: Plume, 1999) 54-55.
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