Had Ada Palmer back on – this time to talk about Machiavelli, perhaps the most misunderstood thinker of all time.
Machiavelli cut his teeth as a high-level diplomat for Florence, a position from which he got to closely observe the most important rulers in Europe at the time, including the ones who were on the path to destroying his dearly beloved Florence.
In 1513 the Medici retook control of Florence and, wrongly suspecting Machiavelli of participating in a coup attempt, fired, tortured, and exiled him.
Machiavelli could have left exile and worked for any number of different principalities that would have been eager to make use of his talents.
Instead, he decided to rot in the countryside and compile his career’s lessons about power, politics, and human nature into a book he dedicated to the very man whose new regime had tortured and exiled him, Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici.
But at least the Medici were in a position to use his insights to defend Florence. Machiavelli the patriot did not want any other hands to touch these books, because those hands, armed further with these lessons, might pose an existential danger to Florence.
The closest modern analogy, at least as Machiavelli would have seen it, would be Szilard’s letter warning FDR about the possibility of a nuclear fission bomb.
What were those insights? And how were they inspired by Machiavelli’s dangerous diplomatic missions all across Europe, and his extensive reading of antiquity? Watch this episode with Ada Palmer to find out!
By the way, Ada is launching a new podcast which I’m very excited about. The first season will be about Machiavelli - a perfect way to dive deeper into the topics we discussed in this episode. Subscribe at Beforecast’s website to be notified of the first episode, subscribe on YouTube, follow her on Patreon, and if you want even more Ada, check out her FixTheNews Podcast episode, and check out her books and more.
Watch on YouTube; read the transcript.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) – How Florence bargained with Cesare Borgia for survival
(00:15:08) – Machiavelli’s analytical innovations
(00:23:58) – Why popes became warlords
(00:36:13) – Why the common people demanded nepotism
(00:47:57) – Cesare Borgia brought terror to rulers and justice to the people
(00:57:55) – Art as a proxy for war
(01:06:41) – Florence, a city famous in hell
(01:15:57) – The Prince was a job application to Machiavelli’s torturers
(01:41:39) – During the Renaissance, original ideas had to be couched in antiquity
(01:50:44) – Why copyright began with the Inquisition
(02:02:12) – Machiavelli wasn’t Machiavellian
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