That Which Concerns a Prince on the Subject of the Art of War Backround Info

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 past Lord Fabrizio Colonna (peradventure Machiavelli's persona) at the outset, "To honor and advantage virtù, non to take antipathy for poverty, to esteem the modes and orders of war machine discipline, to constrain citizens to love one some other, to live without factions, to esteem less the private than the public good." To these ends, Machiavelli notes in his preface, the armed services is similar the roof of a palazzo protecting the contents.

Written between 1519 and 1520 and published the following twelvemonth, it was Machiavelli'southward only historical or political work printed during his lifetime, though he was appointed official historian of Florence in 1520 and entrusted with minor civil duties.

Format [edit]

The Art of War is divided into a preface (proemio) and seven books (chapters), which accept the form of a series of dialogues that take place in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens congenital in a classical style past Bernardo Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to appoint in give-and-take, between Cosimo Rucellai and "Lord Fabrizio Colonna" (many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, but this view has been challenged by scholars such as Mansfield^[1]), with other patrizi and captains of the recent Florentine republic: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni. The work is dedicated to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, patrizio fiorentino in a preface which ostentatiously pronounces Machiavelli's authorship. Later repeated uses of the beginning person singular to introduce the dialogue, Machiavelli retreats from the piece of work, serving as neither narrator nor interlocutor.^[1] Fabrizio is enamored with the Roman Legions of the early to mid Roman Commonwealth and strongly advocates adapting them to the contemporary state of affairs of Renaissance Florence.

Fabrizio dominates the discussions with his knowledge, wisdom and insights. The other characters, for the about part, simply yield to his superior knowledge and merely bring up topics, ask him questions or for clarification. These dialogues, then, often become monologues with Fabrizio detailing how an ground forces should be raised, trained, organized, deployed and employed.

Groundwork [edit]

Machiavelli's Art of War echoes many themes, issues, ideas and proposals from his earlier, more than widely read works, The Prince and The Discourses. To the gimmicky reader, Machiavelli's dialogue may seem impractical and to nether-rate the effectiveness of both firearms and cavalry. All the same, his theories were not only based on a thorough study and analysis of classical and contemporary military practices. Machiavelli had served for fourteen years every bit secretarial assistant to the Chancery of Florence and "personally observed and reported dorsum to his regime on the size, limerick, weaponry, morale, and logistical capabilities of the virtually constructive militaries of his day."^[two] Nonetheless, 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 machine strategy and scientific discipline [edit]

Machiavelli wrote that state of war must be expressly divers. He developed the philosophy of "limited warfare"—that is, when diplomacy fails, state of war is an extension of politics. Art of War also emphasizes the necessity of a state militia and promotes the concept of armed citizenry. He believed that all society, faith, science, and art rested on the security provided past the war machine.^[iii]

Critique [edit]

However at the fourth dimension he was writing, firearms, both technologically and tactically, were in their infancy and the overwhelming of enemy missile-armed troops, of arms fifty-fifty, betwixt salvos, past a charge of pikes and sword and shield men would have been a feasible tactic. In improver Machiavelli was not writing in a vacuum; Fine art of War was written equally a practical proposition to the rulers of Florence equally an alternative to the unreliable condottieri mercenaries upon which all the Italian city states were reliant. A standing army of the prosperous and pampered citizens that would have formed the cavalry would accept been lilliputian better. Machiavelli therefore "talks upwards" the advantages of a militia of those arms that Florence could realistically muster and equip from her own resource.

However, his basic notion of emulating Roman practices was slowly and pragmatically adjusted by many later rulers and commanders, well-nigh notably Maurice of Nassau^[4] and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.^[4] They would lay the foundations for the organization of linear tactics which would dominate the warfare of Europe and the world until afterward the Napoleonic Wars.

While Machiavelli's influence as a military theorist is frequently given a dorsum seat to his writings equally a political philosopher, that he considered Dell'arte della guerra to exist his most important work is articulate from his discussions of the military science and soldiery in other works. For example, in The Prince he declares that "a prince should accept no other object, no whatsoever other thought, nor take annihilation as his art but that of state of war and its orders and subject field; for that is the just art which is of business organization to one who commands."^[v]

In the course of the sixteenth century 20-1 editions appeared and it was translated into French, English language, German, and Latin. Montaigne named Machiavelli next to Caesar, Polybius, and Commynes equally an authority on military affairs. Although in the seventeenth century changing military methods brought other writers to the fore, Machiavelli was notwithstanding oft quoted. In the eighteenth century, the Align de Saxe leaned heavily on him when he equanimous his Reveries upon the Art of War (1757), and Algarotti—though without much basis—saw in Machiavelli the master who has taught Frederick the Great the tactics by which he astounded Europe. Similar nearly people concerned with war machine matters, Jefferson had Machiavelli's Art of State of war in his library, and when the State of war of 1812 increased American interest in problems of war, The Art of State of war was brought out in a special American edition."^[6]

This continued involvement in Machiavelli as a armed forces thinker was not but caused by the fame of his name; some of the recommendations made in the Fine art of War—those on grooming, discipline, and classification, for example—gained increasing practical importance in early modernistic Europe when armies came to exist composed of professionals coming from the near different social strata. This does not mean that the progress of armed services fine 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 military innovators of the time were pleased to find a work in which aspects of their practice were explained and justified. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, with its wide knowledge of ancient literature and its deep respect for classical wisdom, it was unremarkably held that the Romans owed their military triumphs to their accent on discipline and grooming. Machiavelli's attempt to nowadays Roman military organization as the model for the armies of his fourth dimension was therefore non regarded as extravagant. At the finish of the sixteenth century, for instance, Justus Lipsius, in his influential writings on military affairs, besides treated the Roman armed services gild as a permanently valid model.

Themes [edit]

The content and format of The Art of State of war are strangely at odds. In the opening pages, afterward Cosimo has described his grandfather's inspiration for gardens in which the conversations are set, Fabrizio declaims that nosotros should imitate ancient warfare rather than ancient art forms. Still, the Art of War is a dialogue in the humanist tradition of imitating classical forms. Machiavelli himself appears to take fallen into the trap for which Fabrizio criticizes Bernardo Rucellai. Despite this inherent contradiction, the volume lacks much of the cynical tone and humor that is so feature of Machiavelli'south other works.^{[seven] [8]}

References [edit]

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

External links [edit]

• Notable Quotes and Aphorisms from Art Of War
• The Fine art of War and other writings
• Machiavelli's The Fine art Of War at Project 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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