General Studies of Machiavelli’s Political Thought
The fullest outline is Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli I. Il pensiero politico (Bologna, 1980). A classic work is Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Italy (revised edn, New York, 1984). Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton, 1983) stresses Machiavelli’s subversion of classical humanism. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, Ill., 1958) views him as ‘a teacher of evil’. The place of religion in Machiavelli’s thought has been valuably reappraised in a symposium — with contributions by John H. Geerken, Marcia L. Colish, Cary J. Nederman, Benedetto Fontana, and John M. Najemy — in the Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), pp. 579–681. See also Anthony J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (New Haven, 1992).
Machiavelli’s Political Vocabulary
J. H. Whitfield, ‘On Machiavelli’s Use of Ordini’ in Discourses on Machiavelli (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 141–62. J. H. Hexter, ‘Il Principe and lo stato’ in The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation (London, 1973), pp. 150–78. Russell Price, ‘The Senses of Virtú in Machiavelli’ in European Studies Review 4 (1973), pp. 315–45. Russell Price, ‘The Theme of Gloria in Machiavelli’ in Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977), pp. 588–631. Victor A. Santi, La ‘Gloria’ nel pensiero di Machiavelli (Ravenna, 1979). Quentin Skinner, ‘Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty’ in Politics, 18 (1983), pp. 3–15. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (Berkeley, Cal., 1984). Russell Price, ‘Self-Love, “Egoism” and Ambizione in Machiavelli’s Thought’ in History of Political Thought 9 (1988), pp. 237–61. Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago, 1996).
Machiavelli’s Rhetoric
This has recently become a major focus of research. For pioneering studies see Nancy S. Struever, The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, 1970) and Brian Richardson, ‘Notes on Machiavelli’s Sources and his Treatment of the Rhetorical Tradition’, Italian Studies 26 (1971), pp. 24–48. The first part of Victoria Kahn, Machiavellian Rhetoric from the Counter-Reformation to Milton (Princeton, 1994) considers the rhetoric of Machiavelli’s Prince and Discourses. Quentin Skinner, ‘Thomas Hobbes: Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality’ in Proceedings of the British Academy 76, pp. 1–61, highlights Machiavelli’s use of rhetorical redescription. Virginia Cox, ‘Machiavelli and the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Deliberative Rhetoric in The Prince’ in Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997) connects Machiavelli’s vocabulary directly to the Roman ars rhetorica. Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli (Oxford, 1998) lays particular emphasis on the rhetorical character of Machiavelli’s thought.
Studies of The Prince
Hans Baron, ‘Machiavelli: The Republican Citizen and the Author of The Prince’ in The English Historical Review 76 (1961), pp. 217–53. Felix Gilbert, ‘The Humanist Concept of the Prince and The Prince of Machiavelli’ in History: Choice and Commitment (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), pp. 91–114. Marcia Colish, ‘Cicero’s De Officiis and Machiavelli’s Prince’ in Sixteenth Century Journal 9 (1978), pp. 81–94. J. Jackson Barlow, ‘The Fox and the Lion: Machiavelli Replies to Cicero’ in History of Political Thought 20 (1999), pp. 627–45.
Studies of the Discourses
For a classic reading of the text and its context see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), Part II, ‘The Republic and its Fortune’, pp. 81–330. On the broader setting of Machiavelli’s republicanism see Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics, 1250–1600 (Cambridge, 1992). Harvey Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Ithaca, 1979) offers a chapter-by-chapter commentary. More specialized studies include Felix Gilbert, ‘The Composition and Structure of Machiavelli’s Discorsi’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 115–33; Felix Gilbert, ‘Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari: A Study on the Origin of Modern Political Thought’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 215–46; Quentin Skinner, ‘Machiavelli’s Discorsi and the Pre-humanist Origins of Republican Ideas’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Bock, Skinner, and Viroli, pp. 121–41.
Studies of The History of Florence
The fullest analysis is Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli II. La storiografia (Bologna, 1993). The following detailed studies are of particular importance: Felix Gilbert, ‘Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine: An Essay in Interpretation’ in History: Choice and Commitment, 1977, pp. 135–53; John M. Najemy ‘Arti and Ordini in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine’ in Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore ed. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus, 2 vols (Florence, 1978), pp. 161–91; Carlo Dionisotti, ‘Machiavelli storico’ in Machiavellerie (Turin, 1980), pp. 365–409 and Gisela Bock, ‘Civil Discord in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Bock, Skinner and Viroli 1990, pp. 181–201.