I: THE MAN WHO SOLD THE REPUBLIC
The Florentine Guelphs were divided primarily along the question of Papal Supremacy not only in Christendom as a whole, but specifically in the Central Italian region in which Tuscany and Florence itself laid. The White Guelphs were worried that in the absence of Imperial authority, Rome would dominate the region and Florence as in the days of old. The Black Guelphs either were optimistic about their ability to prevent the ascendant Papacy from imposing its authority over Tuscany, or actually welcomed the prospect.
While Dante and his family supported the losing side in this civic conflict, the Whites, the Blacks would come to count amongst their ranks the resourceful and diligent financier, Giovanni di Bici de' Medici.
Like Dante's family, the Medici belonged to the aristocratic Milites class. Giovanni, born in 1360, had, like Dante, to find a place in one of the Arti to be able to participate in politics. But while the great poet chose to throw his lot with the apothecaries (apothecary shops doubled as bookstores and Dante, like many before and after him. was adamant to be his own publisher) the Medici, despite their names, preferred the Arte della Lana - the guild of Wool Producers and Traders.
This guild was not only the most numerous and powerful (and most ardently committed to the Guelph cause), but was also branched, through the lucrative commerce in Wool, into the field of banking, invading the territory of the traditional Arte del Cambio ("Guild of Exchange") and eventually replacing it completely.
After the collapse of the Sienese Gran Tavola in 1290, the capital holders of Italy required a new center for their banking needs. This the Florentine Arte della Lana could supply them in abundance. Further, the triumph of the Whites meant that Florence was a particularly attractive venue for the largest capital-holder in Italy and perhaps the world- the Pope.
By the end of the Fourteenth Century the government of Florence was well and firmly in the hands of the Arte della Lana, under the leadership of the Albizzi family. Under the leadership of Giovanni, the Medici were soon contending for this position. Originally the manager of the Rome branch of his uncle's bank, Giovanni would become the head of his own firm the Banco di Medici.
This bank had established its position by raising a considerable sum of money in Rome, which were used to gain control on the Church business sector of Florentine banking - displacing (and banishing) the Alberti, a family which had prior to that monopolized this business at the expense of at least three smaller banking families, scions of one of which, the Bardi, joined the Medici first as a partner and then as a subordinate managers (curiously, the Portinari, Beatrice's family, also came to supply managers to the Medici Bank). The next move was for the Medici bank to establish branches up and down the Italian peninsula, including in Naples and Venice. But the Roman branch was always paramount and its ties to the Papal court were reflected in its name: I Nostri Che Seguono la Corte di Roma ("Those of Us who Follow the Court of Rome") - there was of course only one court in Rome - that of the Pope.
The functions of the Bank were twofold from the point of view of the Papal court:
First, it's promise of absolute discretion meant that corrupt clerics could hide their ill-gained profits and save a nest egg for the day a Pope less favorable to them may decide to deprive them of the benefices of church lands under their "custody".
Second, this money was then deployed in well-placed and politically strategic loans to various interests in Florence and other Italian cities, securing support for the Papal cause.
It is important to note that the volume of actual business in the 15th century was low in comparison to the previous two. Italy was declining, despite the advent of the Renaissance. We should see the Medici as political agents being rewarded for their services to the Pope, not as businessmen.
II: THE PRICE OF PEACE
That is not to say that Papal designs were sinister nor that the Medici were hapless pawns. On the contrary, both parties can be seen as acting nobly and our of principle once their circumstances and perspective are understood.
If we re-examine the history of the Florentine Republic and contrast them with the principles of Christianity and especially with the teachings of Augustin, we can glean a justification to the policy of Rome.
Christianity demands that believers should live together in peace and resort to war between themselves (or even against non-believers) only as the last resort to correct an wrong and reestablish justice in the affairs of Mankind. The great innovation of Augustin (elucidated later by Thomas Aquinas) was not that Christians may wage only a "Just War" but that Christians may wage any kind of war at all, especially against each other. This principle, based on the teachings of the Christian Gospels and the examples of many saints, was reinforced in the 10th Century with the Pax Dei movement, which was nothing short than a popular cry against the incessant conflicts of the six centuries since the Fall of Rome (indeed the 7 centuries since the death of Theodosius) marks the end of the Dark Age of Europe and the rise of modern European nations such as England, France and the Spanish kingdoms.
Both sides of the Guelph and Ghibelline conflict, therefore, viewed the authority of the Emperor in Italy as an aberration. Enforced only by the power of the Emperor's occasional processions down the Peninsula (really, military expeditions) in which he would use the full might of his German dominions to subdue the Italians and upend or confirm the customs that have taken root since the last expedition, then leaving again the Italians to their own devices, often to fight conflicts sparked by his own intervention.
Both sides wanted the establishment of a permanent authority in Italy- either to make the Imperial one a more coherent and stable power, or to make the Papal power the counterbalance that would prevent the chaos of Imperial interventions.
We have therefore no real reason to complain about Papal attempts to intervene in and subvert the politics of Italian city states such as Florence, using non-violent means such as the Medici Bank. One must not be surprised that the Popes believed their own doctrine of the Double Sword and of Papal Supremacy and that they therefore attempted to exercise their presumed authority to achieve the Christian goal of establishing a stable peace and legal order in their immediate vicinity, which was harmed greatly by the lack of both.
III: FOOL'S GOLD
The corruption and reduction of Italian finance to an appendage of Black Guelph politics was all too successful. While Medici domination of Florentine politics was valiantly resisted by their political opponents who wished to preserve the famed "Florentine Liberty" and more than one Medici had found himself exiled from the Republic or murdered in his prime.
But at the end of the process, the Medici found themselves ranking amongst the first houses of Europe and holding the office of the Grand Maestro of Florence - created by and for them - firmly at hand. Papal influence on Florentine politics was undeniable and omnipresent, several Medici who had become cardinals even administered the affairs of Florence before being elevated to the Papal Throne.
But the damage to both the Church and to Italian finances were immeasurable. By shifting capital from viable enterprises to political patronage, Italian banking would soon lag behind banks in the German parts of the Holy Roman Empire such as the Fugger bank of Augsburg. Another result was that the Church had found itself in need of greater sources of revenue as it was losing on its investments. It was under a string of Medici (now ascendant to the papal throne or hovering close to it) that the Papacy made its disastrous decision to open an aggressive campaign of selling indulgences.
The replacement or waving of severe canonical penances with lighter ones, such as the saying of certain prayers, pilgrimage and so on long have been a Catholic tradition. It was completely within the doctrine of Christianity that the penitent should be not driven away from the forgiveness of God and extenuating circumstances and the spiritual authority of particularly holy individuals had a great role to play in the early days of the practice, when Christians which lapsed to paganism under Roman pressure sought to return to the Church.
However, through the Middle Ages, the practice had grown considerable abuses and cancers. Church Councils and Popes decried, in vain, the sale for money of both authorized and unauthorized indulgences, promising the buyer anything from forgiveness for a particular sin to outright permission to abrogate the fasts of the church. Selling of indulgences was an act of Simony, or the trading in the name of the Holy Spirit, a sin which preoccupied many medieval Catholic thinkers and which Dante, among others, denounced in the most harsh terms.
Nevertheless, in the new world created by the ascent of the Medici, funds were needed and Pope Leo X, born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, had ordered a sales campaign in the mid 1510s.
While Martin Luther is the most famous opponent of the practice, it was widely despised. We have established that the sale of Indulgences for money had repulsed popes and councils in the past. Indeed, Luther's final break with Rome was not achieved until he was disabused of the idea that the "Pardoners" would be restrained by the Papacy.
It would be redundant to repeat here the entire history of the Reformation, but it sufficient to say that in its aftermath, the Pope have seen his power greatly diminished: Whole countries left his sphere of influence completely and those rulers that remained became his patrons rather than his inferiors. In the 11th century, the threat of a papal excommunication could reduce one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors to asking forgiveness barefoot in the snow. In the 12th century, an English king would be publicly flogged in his own capital for inadvertently causing the murder of Thomas Becket. In the 16th Century, an emperor, officially the Pope's supporter, had sacked Rome and a king of England, which was previously granted the title Fidei Defensor, in response to the Pope's refusal to annul his marriage to his wife of 24 years and the mother of his child, had unceremoniously declared his national church autocephalic and independent of Rome after the Byzantine manner.
The aforementioned sack of Rome, occurring in 1527 in the reign of "The Most Unfortunate of Popes" Clement VII, born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, had ended the Guelph and Ghibelline dispute for good, as Emperor Charles V now reigned supreme in Italy and dominated the Papacy (which did not even dare excommunicate him for this crime). That is, until the aftershocks of the Reformation had shook the throne of his successors in the long conflict starting in the Cologne War of 1583 and continuing in the 30 Years War of 1618-1648, at the end of which the Emperor had as much secular authority in Germany as the Pope in Italy.
IV: TRUSTING IN PRINCES:
Examining the coming destruction of Italy, the Guelph cause, the Florentine Republic and the authority of the Pope, Niccolo Machiavelli set out to solve the problem of political rejuvenation.
Machiavelli's career ran parallel to the last hoorah of the Papal cause and the Florentine Republic. Seeing the rapid rise of Cesare Borgia under the patronage of his father, Pope Alexander VI, and his crushing fall from power after Alexander's death and replacement by a candidate less favorable to Cesare.
To fully understand these failures, argued Machiavelli, one must focus not on the purpose of the State in its either ideal or original form but on the nature of power. Power, he asserts is the real stuff of politics and all State structures are merely constructed to contain and utilize it. Power enables princes and republics to rise and maintain an orderly regime. When power is lacking, no titles and constitutions would save the regime.
Power, he believed, is achieved through the use of Fortuna and Virtù and Machiavelli gives these two commonly used words new interpretations. Fortune, for him, is not mere luck. It is an opportunity for the creation and perpetuation of power. Virtue, in the Machiavellian sense is not the personal virtue of Christianity or Pagan philosophy and traditions, but those traits which allow the Prince or the Citizen of the Republic to cease and maintain power. Prudence, courage, self-regard and temperance benefit the political actor. Indulgence, cowardice and lowliness of character are detrimental to him.
But more important than these two are the actual sources of power which are the two chief human frailties: fear and greed. Human beings are, in Machiavelli's analysis, afraid to lose what they have and desire to have what they do not possess (and often, what others possess). Therefore, the Prince or the Republic draw their power from their ability to impress upon the populace that the replacement (or attempted replacement) of their rule would carry more risk than potential gain.
Therefore, the Pope is limited in his ability to be an effective prince since he relies on generosity that is the product of religion for his wealth, and on his wealth to recruit mercenaries to fight on his behalf. But since armed men can always seize what they desire instead of standing by their contracts, they are an unreliable force:
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.
The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were.
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, XII
The Pope cannot transform himself into a prince who rules by force since to do so would destroy the love and respect people feel towards him and destroy his existing base of power. However, he can create a prince to rule on his behalf. Such a prince would be dependent on the Pope for support in his endeavors. Therefore the Papacy would always be able to remove him and inherit his gains and might even be able to hold onto them for a while, as the example of Cesare Borgia shows. This method is so effective, that this would be the result even when the Prince was raised for his own grandeur rather than that of the Church:
Alexander the Sixth arose afterwards, who of all the pontiffs that have ever been showed how a pope with both money and arms was able to prevail; and through the instrumentality of the Duke Valentino (-Duc de Valentinois, Cesare's Frence title), and by reason of the entry of the French, he brought about all those things which I have discussed above in the actions of the duke.
And although his intention was not to aggrandize the Church, but the duke, nevertheless, what he did contributed to the greatness of the Church, which, after his death and the ruin of the duke, became the heir to all his labours.
Nevertheless, warns Machiavelli, this is not a stable set of affairs since Ecclesiastical Principalities:
These princes alone have states and do not defend them; and they have subjects and do not rule them; and the states, although unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability to alienate themselves.
Ibid, XI
Machiavelli's disdain to such principalities leaps off of the page despite his best effort to hide it with sarcastic admiration for "the Powers beyond human reach" which "sustain them". Or in other words, princes who can hold to the benefit of power without need to sustain this power are unreliable and doomed to lose whatever temporal power they have. Their involvement is bound to create naught but mischief - not due to their own vices, but due to the inherent weakness of the basis of their power.
V: THE GOOD STATE OF STRIFE
But while Machiavelli enumerates the virtues of good princes, he ultimately believes that all Virtù is the product of a good state, where good laws prevail.
Such a State, argues Machiavelli, can exist only when not one group or individual is secured in their power and complacent in their lot. It requires a internal balance and internal competition, that forces both sides to keep up their Virtù and does not allow either side to subject the other.
I say that those who condemn the tumults between the nobles and the plebs, appear to me to blame those things that were the chief causes for keeping Rome free, and that they paid more attention to the noises and shouts that arose in those tumults than to the good effects they brought forth, and that they did not consider that in every Republic there are two different viewpoints, that of the People and that of the Nobles; and that all the laws that are made in favor of liberty result from their disunion, for from Tarquin to the Gracchi which was more than three hundred years, the tumults of Rome rarely brought forth exiles, and more rarely blood.
Nor is it possible therefore to judge these tumults harmful, nor divisive to a Republic, which in so great a time sent into exile no more than eight or ten of its citizens because of its differences, and put to death only a few, and condemned in money [fined] not very many:
Nor can a Republic in any way with reason be called disordered where there are so many examples of Virtù, for good examples result from good education, good education from good laws, and good laws from those tumults which many inconsiderately condemn; for he who examines well the result of these, will not find that they have brought forth any exile or violence prejudicial to the common good, but laws and institutions in benefit of public liberty.
Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, IV
This leads us to the conclusion that successful princes are ultimately the outgrowth of good republics, and good republics are maintained by internal strife which is kept just short of violence. It was not, Machiavelli seems to argue, the strife between the Magnati and the Popolo of Florence that have doomed this republic, but the fact that the Popolo first, then the Guelphs and then the Neri all prevailed over their rivals and managed to exile them from the city. It is only when the human weaknesses of greed and fear can be alleviated and elevated that the uncommon, unnatural, well-bred citizen who is courageous rather than cowardly, temperate rather than greedy and ambitious for glory and honor rather than for gold or pleasures can be created.
VI: THE BATTLE OF MONSTERS
When we contrast Machiavelli's Prince with Hobbes Leviathan, we observe a particular difference between the two, despite the great similiarity.
Machiavelli is interested mainly in the nature of power and studies it, its properties, origin and the devices for its containment, for its own sake. He does so as an avowed Renaissance Humanist interested in human nature and while he lacks the Humanist movement's usual optimism about the subject of his inquiry, it does not shift his focus from the nature of Man as an individual. Ultimately the goal of a good state and its chief hope of posterity is the improvement of its citizens and their Virtù. The State's chief enemy is the unreliability of of those who lack Virtù, which is the ability to stand for and defend something besides One's immediate needs and concerns. Thus a well-ordered State, in which two elements, both jealous for their Liberty and dignity, are locked in a strife that never spill into war shall remain free and prosperous without need of a Prince or a strong government.
Hobbes the jaded English courtier in exile had no such hope or interests. The focus of his attention is not the private vices and virtues of individual Man but of the inability of humanity to create an harmonious society based on love and trust. Human vice is not as detrimental to human affairs as human suspicion. It is the fear of each other which keeps us in need for the all-powerful Leviathan, which is inescapable.
Both do not believe in love as the source of politics or its solution. For Machiavelli, politics emerge out of fear of another's power and the desire to acquire power of One’s own. Love is a poor motivator in politics since everyone love themselves first and therefore would abide by this love only as long as it alligns with their self-interest, which means that Love does not move the equation even one iota. The best civic love can do is to move One's homeland upwards in the hierarchy of loves, so it occupies a higher place than One's family or friends, but not much else.
For Hobbes, love is worse than useless politics - it is non-existent and impossible. While the Leviathan reigns, it holds in its hands all power and potency for civic action, so whatever citizens do for each other, they do not do as citizens but as private friends. If Leviathan is fallen or never materializes, love cannot flourish at all, as the State of Nature reigns supreme and forces us all to miserly cow in our primitive lonely hovels, nestling only our crude rocks- which we prepared to murder our brethrren from the ambush.