Before beginning, I’d like to go over a key detail for this and future posts. It is necessary to preface this post because I will not have read this book beyond the chapter that I am writing about. This means I could incorrectly state something about the author’s intentions due to a lack of context that future chapters will bring. It is my intention to go back at the end of writing these posts where I will write some kind of synopsis with my thoughts on the work as a whole. I hope my ignorance will not offend anyone as I work through this book and any future works.
This first chapter, which was one paragraph, sets the pace of the book with it’s first sentence that claims that all states and governments are either republics or princedoms. A republic, in short, is a government that is run by elected officials. A princedom, is a monarchy that has vassals rule over different parts of the state; in the context of this a book, a vassal can be rightly referred to as a prince. There can be two kinds of princedoms: hereditary and new.
A hereditary princedom receives little attention from Machiavelli and receives a simple definition, “the sovereignty is derived through an ancient line of ancestors.” It is not stated how many generations a family must go back to receive this designation, but to argue for a certain number would be pedantic.
A new princedom can be further broken down to two new categories. The first is categorized as “wholly new” and Machiavelli provides an example of Milan newly belonging to Francesco Sforza. After the duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, died in 1447 without a male heir, fighting broke out to take control of the seat of power. Sforza took control of the seat and formed what would be considered a “wholly new” princedom. He was the first in the Sforza Dynasty that held control of Milan for about a century. This dynasty, I believe, would begin to represent a hereditary princedom at some point in it’s century of power.
The second kind of new princedom, which receives more attention from Machiavelli, is a little less well defined, “they are like limbs joined on to the hereditary possessions of the Prince who acquires them.” Machiavelli gives an example of the Kingdom of Naples held by the King of Spain, which at the time of his writing, was contested between the French and Spanish. Although, by the time he was writing, the French had already significantly loosened their contestation of Naples being under Spanish rule. This kind of princedom appears to be based on the importance of the people’s loyalties as opposed to a vassal who is in control of the area.
Lastly, Machiavelli discusses the acquiring of states with brevity. A state can be acquired either when it is free or under another Prince’s rule. The Prince can either acquire the state “by his own arms or the arms of others; and either by good fortune or by merit.” In the example of Sforza, his mother in law enlisted the help of the condottieri of Patvia to help him take control of Milan. The condottieri were mercenaries enlisted by the papacy and Italian city-states during the Renaissance. Therefore, Sforza took control of Milan with the arms of others. I am, however, unable to say whether it was by good fortune or merit that the condottieri fought for him.