The Senses of Virtú in Machiavelli

RUSSELL PRICE
University of Lancaster

It has usually been recognized that virtu’ is one of the most important notions
used by Machiavelli in his consideration of human conduct, and especially of
military and political affairs. Most of those who have written general studies
of Machiavelli have mentioned, referred to, or discussed briefly, the idea
virtu. There have also been more extended discussions of the idea. Yet it
cannot be said that virtu has been examined satisfactorily in the comprehen-
sive way that it deserves.
Such an examination of the idea virtu’ requires a systematic consideration
not only of the synonyms of virtu but also of its antonyms,’ since a complete

understanding of any idea cannot be achieved without an awareness of

what it excludes or what ideas are opposed to it.2
The scope of this article is limited to examining the different senses in
which Machiavelli uses the word virtu. Virtu was used in a great variety of
senses by Italian Renaissance writers and this wide range is also found in

Machiavelli’s writings. His style is informal and untechnical; for the most
part he uses everyday words, and he rarely defines or explains carefully the
terms that he uses. This makes the task of examining the ways in which he
uses such a significant word as virtú not only very necessary but also rather

complicated.
One of the
1 more ambitious discussions of virtú in Machiavelli is Eduard Wilhelm Mayer’s

Machiavellis Geschichtsauffassung und sein Begriff virtù (Munich and Berlin, I9I2). Yet he
deals very sketchily with the synonyms and antonyms of virtú, disposing of them in a few
pages (see especially, I9-2I). This is, I think, typical of the casual way in which the matter
has been treated, even by scholars who have acknowledged its importance.
2 The most important synonyms of virtú are animo, gagliardia, fortezza, destrezza and ingegno;
the most important antonyms are viltà, ozio, ignavia and debolezza. There are also ideas
that should be considered as ’elements’ of virtú (since virtú is very much a composite notion),
such as furore, ferocia orferocità, prudenza, industria, astuzia, inganno and arte. The relation of
virtú to merito, scelleratezza and bontà also needs examination. I am at present engaged on a
comprehensive survey of the idea virtú in Machiavelli, of which the present article forms
the first section.
Eur. Stud. Rev. 3, No. 4 (1973). Printed in Great Britain

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The very frequency of the occurrence of virtu in Machiavelli’s writings

indicates its importance. In all, virtu and its related adjective virtuoso and
adverb virtuosamente occur 6o2 times: 70 times in 11 Principe, 248 in the
Discorsi, 101in the Istorie fiorentine, 63 in Dell’arte della guerra, 3 7 in Il teatro
e tutti gli scritti letterari, y in the Scritti politici minori, 10 in Castruccio Castra-

cani, 8 in the Lettere, and 48 times in the Legazioni e commissarie.3

1. MORAL VIRTUE

Most commentators and writers have been aware of the complexity of

Machiavelli’s notion of virtu; some4 have recognized that he sometimes
3 I have used the Feltrinelli edition of Machiavelli’s Opere : vol. I -Il Principe and Discorsi
sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, I960; II-
Arte della guerra and Scritti politici minori, I96I;
—Legazioni e commissarie, I96I; VI
III-V , I96I; VII
—Lettere —La vita di Castruccio Castracani
di Lucca and Istorie fiorentine, I962; VIII-Il Teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, I965. Vols
I-V are edited by Sergio Bertelli (whose notes are cited as Bertelli), vols VI-VIII by Franco
Gaeta (cited as Gaeta). I have also used Machiavelli’s Legazioni, commissarie, scritti di governo
vol. I, I498-I50I, edited by Fredi Chiappelli (Bari: Laterza, I97I). This volume (which is
cited as Legazioni-Chiappelli) is much fuller than the Feltrinelli edition of the Legazioni e
commissarie; forty of the instances of virtú in the Legazioni are to be found in it, the other
eight instances occurring in the Feltrinelli edition.
I have referred in the footnotes to several Italian commentaries, for which the following
abbreviations are used: Lisio Il Principe, a cura di Giuseppe Lisio (Florence: Sansoni,
=

I900); Russo Il Principe e pagine dei ’Discorsi’ e delle ’Istorie’

=
, a cura di Luigi Russo
(Florence: Sansoni, I93I); Carli N.M., Le opere maggiori
=
..., scelta e commento di
Plinio Carli (Florence: Le Monnier, I923); Bonfantini N.M., Opere, a cura di Mario
=

Bonfantini (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, I954); Arangio Ruiz N.M., Scritti scelti, a cura di
=

Vladimiro Arangio Ruiz (Milan: Mondadori, I929); Girardi Il Principe, con una scelta =

dei Discorsi, a cura di E. N. Girardi (Brescia: La Scuola Editrice, I967); Piergili Dis- =

..., commentati da Giuseppe Piergili (Florence: Successori Le Monnier, I893);

corsi
=
..., a cura di Luigi Malagoli (Turin: Paravia, I944). Ricci-Vincent
Malagoli Discorsi =

The Prince, translated by Luigi Ricci, revised by E. R. P. Vincent, and Detmold Dis- =

..., translated by Christian E. Detmold. Both these works were published (with
courses
continuous pagination) by Random House, Inc., in ’The Modem Library’ (New York,
I940).
4
Carli,op. cit. note 3, I9, says that virtú is used by Machiavelli firstly ’nel senso pieno e
compiuto in cui la usano i moralisti (in questo caso la chiama piú spesso bontà)’. The latter
observation recalls the view of Pasquale Villari in his Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi
(Florence, I88I), II, 274, that ’la parola virtù significa per lui sempre coraggio, energia, cosi
nel bene come nel male. Alla virtù cristiana, nel suo più comune significato, dà piuttosto
il nome di bontà, ed ha per essa un’ammirazione assai minore che per la virtù pagana’.
(In the 3rd edition [Milan, I9I3], 276, the first sentence is significantly altered. Quasi
is inserted before sempre and the rest of the sentence reads : ’coraggio, energia, abilmente
adoperata cosi nel bene come nel male ad un fine determinato’. J. H. Whitfield, Machiavelli

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uses virtú in a traditional Christian sense.s When he talks about virtu and vice
(vizio), virtu usually has this sense of ’virtue’. In chapter XV of Il Principe, he
discusses ’Those things for which men, and especially rulers, are praised or
blamed’. They are praised for being liberal (liberale), free givers (donatore),
merciful (pietoso), faithful (fedele), fierce and courageous (feroce et animoso),
humane (umano), chaste (casto),6 honest (intero), gracious (facile),7 serious
(grave) and believing (relligioso). And they are blamed for being miserly
(misero), rapacious (rapace), cruel (crudele), treacherous ( fedifrago), effeminate
and pusillanimous (eJJeminato e pusillanime), haughty (superbo), lascivious
(lascivo), two-faced (astuto), harsh (duro), frivolous (leggieri) and unbelieving
(incredu lo) .8Machiavelli says that he knows that :
’everyone will admit that it is most praiseworthy for a ruler to have all the above-
(Oxford, I947), 96, claims that ’there are passages, and by no means solitary ones, in which
the acceptation of virtú must perforce be that of virtue.’ Leo Strauss, ’Walker’s Machia-
velli’, Review of Metaphysics, 6, 3 (I953), 443, says that ’Machiavelli sometimes understands
by virtù what everyone understands by "virtue", i.e. moral virtue’. Michael B. Foster,
Masters of Political Thought, Volume One: Plato to Machiavelli (London, I942), says that by
virtú Machiavelli means those qualities that fit a man to attain ’success, power, and fame’
(27I). But Foster recognizes that there are also ’some passages in which he seems to waver
...between his own and the Christian notion of virtue’ (275, note I).
5
This usage was, of course, very common in Machiavelli’s times as well as earlier. Bono
Giamboni, for example, wrote (probably in the late thirteenth century) two treatises
entitled Il libro de’ vizî e delle virtudi e delle loro battaglie e ammonimenti and Il trattato di
virtú e di vizîe di loro vie e rami (Turin: Giulio Einaudi. Nuova raccolta di classici italiani
annotati, no. 7, a cura di Cesare Segre, I968). Another well-known example of this genre
is the Fior di virtù historiato, written perhaps by Fra Tommaso Gozzadini of Bologna, at the
end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth (Florence: Electa, I949).
But in almost all Renaissance writers one can find examples of virtú used in a moral sense,
as well as in a variety of other senses.
6 Casto
(and lascivo) : as far as rulers are concerned, Machiavelli is not thinking of strict
chastity but rather of refraining from interfering with the women of their subjects or
citizens. On several occasions he warns of the dangers of such interference ., Princ XVII,
(
70; XIX, 75; Disc., III, 6, 392; III, I9, 444) and he praises the Roman general Scipio
Africanus for an outstanding example of ’chastity’ in Spain, which greatly enhanced his
reputation (Disc. III, 20, 445; Arte d. guerra, VI, 490).
7Bertelli, op. cit. note 3, glosses facile: ’amabile, contrapposto a rigido (duro)’, Princ., 65,
note 3.
8 Russo, op. cit. note 3, I32, aptly observes that these antithetical adjectives indicate the order
in which Machiavelli will treat them: ’donatore e rapace (vedi il cap. XVI: Della liberalità e
della parsimonia); crudele e pietoso (cap. XVII: Della crudeltà e pietà
fedifrago e fedele (cap.
);
In che modo e’ principi abbino a mantenere la fede). Poi gli aggettivi seguono in varia
XVIII:
molteplicità (da effeminato a incredulo
), ma trovano riscontro in un capitolo riassuntivo,
il XIX, dove si discorre ’"In che modo si abbia a fuggire lo essere sprezzato e odiato"’.

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named qualities that are held to be good (che sono tenute buone) ; but since he cannot
have them all, nor can he completely observe them, human conditions (le condi-
zioni umane) not permitting it, a ruler must be so prudente as to avoid the scandal
(infamia) of those vices that would deprive him of his position (stato)’.9
And he concludes the chapter by saying that:
’one must not mind incurring the notoriety (infamia) of those vices (vizii) without
which it is difficult to preserve one’s position. For if one examines the matter
thoroughly, one will find that doing something that seems virtuous (parrà virta)
can cause one’s ruin, and doing something that seems wicked (parra vizio) can lead

to security and prosperity.’10

There is, of course, a certain ambiguity in the last part of this passage.
Machiavelli may be saying that these qualities seem to be virtues and vices,
but are not really so; it is more likely, however, that he is saying that they
are real virtues and vices but that always being virtuous is not conducive to

political success just as being wicked does not necessarily harm a ruler.ll In
the next chapter, Machiavelli discusses liberality and parsimony. He says that
the virtue of liberality (questa virtu del liberale) in the long run damages a ruler,
and that it is better to be mean (misero),12 ’because it is one of those vices
(vizii) that enable him to rule.’13 The armies of Scipio rebelled against him in
9 Princ. XV, 65-6.
10 Princ. XV, 66: ’Et etiam non si curi di incorrere nella infamia di quelli vizii sanza quah e’

possa difficilmente salvare lo stato; perché, se si considerrà bene tutto, si troverrà qualche
cosa che parrà virtú, e seguendola sarebbe la ruina sua, e qualcuna altra che parrà vizio,
e seguendola ne riesce la securtà et il bene essero suo.’
11 What Machiavelli held to be the proper relations of morals and politics is, of course, a
controversial subject, on which much has been written. (One of the best discussions of this
problem is that of G. H. R. Parkinson, ’Ethics and Politics in Machiavelli’, The Philosophical
Quarterly, 5 [January I955], 37-44.) But it would be inappropriate to discuss it here, and I
shall merely quote two passages that seem to support my interpretation of what Machia-
velli says in Il Principe. In chapter XVIII, 73, he says that ’a ruler, and especially a new ruler,
cannot do all those things for which men are considered good ) buoni since, in order to
(
maintain his position (per mantenere lo stato), he is often forced to break his word (operare
contro la fede) and to disregard carità, umanità, and relligione.’ But he says that a ruler
’should be good as far as possible, but must be ready to do evil, when this is necessary’ for
the maintenance of his position ( non partirsi dal bene, potendo, ma sapere intrare nel male
necessitato), 74.
12
Although Machiavelli considers being misero or parsimonio a vice (even if a politically
necessary one) in Principe, XVI, in DiscorsiII, I9, 337, he refers to the comment ofJuvenal
that the experience of the Romans in the countries they conquered caused them to neglect
parsimonia e altre eccellentissime virtú and to adopt gluttonous and luxurious ways. But
...

here parsimonia means ’frugality’, Detmold, op. cit. note 3, rather than ’meanness’.
13 Princ., XVI,
67, ’... perché questo è uno di quelli vizii che lo fanno regnare’.

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Spain, Machiavelli says, because ’his excessive kindness (troppa sua pieta)
allowed his soldiers more freedom than was compatible with military
discipline.’14 Pietd is a virtue but when it is carried to excess it can have
disastrous results. In the Discorsi, Machiavelli says that ’nations for a long
time preserve the same character (costumi), being always greedy (avara) or
crafty ( fraudolente), or having some other such vice or virtue (o avere alcuno
altro simile vizio o virtu).’15 In book I, chapter IX, of the Discorsi, Machiavelli
says that one who assumes extraordinary powers ’for the purpose of ordering
a kingdom or
founding a republic’ should be very prudente and virtuoso, and
ensure that these powers do not become hereditary, ’for men being more

prone to evil than to good, his successor could use for evil purposes (ambi-
ziosamente)16 that which he has used virtuosamente.’177

II. POLITICAL AND MILITARY VIRTLI

Nevertheless, although this use of virtú in a more or less traditional moral
sense is
significant and important, in the vast majority of cases, virtu, virtuoso,
and virtuosamente have a different meaning, signifying rather ‘drive’, ’de-
termination’, ’courage’, ’skill’ or ’ability’ in political or military affairs,188
Despite what has sometimes been thought,l9 the use of virtu in these ways did
14
Princ., XVII, 7I, ’Il che non nacque da altro che dalla troppa sua pietà, la quale aveva data
a’ sua soldati piú licenzia che alla disciplina militare non si conveniva’.
15
Disc., III, 43, 497.
16 Ambizione is always (or almost always) a term of disapproval in Machiavelli.
17 Disc., I, 9, I55, ’... perché sendo gli uomini piú proni al male che al bene, potrebbe il
suo successore usare ambiziosamente
quello che virtuosamente da lui fusse stato usato’.
Malagoli, op. cit. note 3, I5I, says: ’Qui la parola virtùè usata, non nel solito senso rinas-
cimentale di capacità, ma nel suo senso comune. Il principe debbe essere prudente e virtuoso,
cioè aver di mira il bene dello Stato; e virtuosamenteè contrapposto ad ambiziosamente.’
18
Therefore, it is often misleading or wrong to translate virtú as ’virtue’. Although virtú and
its related adjective and adverb are used 70 times in Il Principe and 248 times in the Dis-
corsi, the translators of these works in the Modem Library edition thought it appropriate
to use ’virtue’, etc., only I8times in The Prince and 74 times in The Discourses. For a list
of their renderings of other instances of virtú, see my ’Virtú in Machiavelli’s Il Principe and
Discorsi’, Political Science, 22, 2 (December I970), 43-9.
19 Francesco De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana, II (Naples, I870), I26, says that Dante’s
world is ’essenzialmente mistico ed etico’ but Machiavelli’s is ’essenzialmente umano e
logico. La virtù muta il suo significato: nonè sentimento morale, ma è semplicemente
forza o energia, la tempra dell’animo’. Charles N. R. McCoy, The Structure of Political
Thought (New York, I963), I72, says that ’the traditional concept of virtue undergoes a
transmutation into Machiavelli’s virtù the new habit of skillful force proper to the "lion-
fox".’

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not originate with Machiavelli. Virtu was frequently used with this wide
range of meanings by Italian20 Renaissance writers, as well as by French21 and
20 Bruno Migliorini, in his Storia della lingua italiana (Florence: Sansoni, I960), 298, cites
virtúexample of a fifteenth-century semantic change in which the old meanings of
as an

words of Latin origin were revived: ’virtù non più, o non soltanto, nel senso cristiano, ma
nel senso di "valore, eroismo"’. In the English translation, The Italian Language, abridged
and recast by T. Gwynfor Griffith (London, I966), I90, this is rendered as: ’Virtù was ...

not only used in the Christian sense of "virtue", but also increasingly with the meaning
"valour, heroism"’. This is clearer, and it is also more satisfactory, because virtú was
frequently used before the fifteenth century in the sense of ’valour’. Thus, Giovanni
Villani (d. I348), in his Cronica, says that it is not surprising that the Florentines are always
at war and quarrelling among themselves, ’essendo stratti e nati di due popoli cosi con-
trari e nemici e diversi di costumi, come furono gli nobili Romani virtudiosi e Fiesolani
ruddi e aspri di guerra’ (I, 38). He also tells how, in the battle of Benevento in I266, ’gli
Tedeschi per loro virtude e forza colpendo di loro spade molto dannegiavano i Fran-
ceschi’ (VII, 9). And he relates how the Florentines, when they went to war, used to lead
with the carroccio, the war-chariot, which was guarded by ’i migliori e più forti e virtu-
diosi popolani a piè... e a quello (carroccio) s’ammassava tutta la forza del popolo.’
Petrarch’s canzone Italia mia contains the lines with which Machiavelli concludes Il
Principe: ’Virtù contra furore / Prenderà 1’arme, e fia’1 combatter corto, /Ché 1’antico
valore / Ne l’italici cor non è ancor morto.’ See also his Canzoniere, 53 and II9.
Virtú was frequently used in the senses referred to above during the fifteenth century
(as well as by Machiavelli’s contemporaries). Even Matteo Palmieri, who usually uses
virtú to mean ’virtue’, in his discussion of war, says: ’Certe volte la necessità fa gli uomini
animosi e fortemente combattere, quando la speranza d’ogn’altra salute è perduta, e solo
nell’armi e potente virtù è posto lo scampo’, Della vita civile, II (I439). The Florentine
bookseller, Vespasiano da Bisticci (I42I-98), in his Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV ,
says that when Federico Montefeltro saw il
that ’(v)enne signor Roberto per voler pigliare
Ficheruolo, ch’era uno castello importantissimo all’avere Ferrara’, Montefeltro ’si mise a
difendere questo castello; e misevi drento tutti uomini di condizione de’ sua uomini, de’
quali aveva asperienza delle virtù loro’, Vita di Federico duca d’ Urbino. In the Vita di Alessan-
dro Sforza, Vespasiano says that he was ’peritissimo nella disciplina militare, nella quale
fece assai esperienza della sua virtù in più luoghi d’Italia’. In the Vita di Cosimo de’ Medici,
he says that ’benché la città in quello tempo aveva copia d’uomini singulari, nientedimeno,
conosciuta la sua virtù, cominciò a essere adoperato nelle pratiche, e in ogni cosa.’ Casti-
glione, in his Cortegiano, written between I506 and I528, says that almost always both
’nelle arme e nelle altre virtuose operazioni gli omini più segnalati sono nobili’, I, I3, and
later he remarks that ’ne mi mancheriano esempii di tanti eccellenti capitani antichi, i
quali tutti giunsero l’ornamento delle lettere alla virtù dell’arme’, I, 43. There is another
reference to ’la virtù dell’arme’ in I, 46, and in III, 35, he refers to the ’famose vittorie
e ... egregie e virtuose opere’ of Gonsalvo Ferrando, the ’Gran Capitano’. In IV, 27,
there is a critical comment about ’some rulers’ who consider ’il loro intento dover essere
principalmente il dominare ai suoi vicini, e però nutriscono i populi in una bellicosa
ferità di rapine, d’omicidii e tai cose, e loro danno premii per provocarla e la chiamano
virtù.’ Ariosto, in his Canto primo, LXIV, writes: ’In somma, ogni guerrier d’alta virtute, /

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chi città, chi castella ebbe, e chi ville’, and in his Orlando furioso (I5I6) there are scores of
examples of virtú used in the above senses.
21 Vertus, meaning’courage’ or’strength’, is found in French from the earliest times. E.g. in La
chanson de Roland, ’Grandónies fut e pruzdome e vaillanz, / E vertudos e vassals combatanz’
(I636-7); but Roland struck him ’tant vertudosement’ (I644) that he split his head in two.
Philippe de Commynes, in his Mémoires (written c. I489-98), says that although
Edward IV of England was a ’prince très vaillant’, Louis XI was more skilful both in
political and military affairs (’le sens et vertu de nostre roy precedoit celuy de roy
Edouard’, VI, i). Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, thought that his success was
attributable only to his own shrewd judgement, skill and courage (’son sens et ... sa
vertu’). Commynes acknowledges, however, that he certainly did possess ’bonnes partz
et vertueuses’. As for his ’bonnes partz’, he encouraged his nobles to live well, he was
generous though not extravagant with gifts, he was accessible both to those who served
him and to his subjects generally and, except at the end of his life, he was in no way cruel.
He also possessed ’partz vertueuses’, for he ’desiroit grant gloire, qui estoit ce qui plus le
mectoit en ces guerres que nulle autre chose, et eust bien voulu resembler à ces anciens
princes dont il a tant esté parlé après leur mort: hardy autant que homme qui ayt regné
de son temps’, V, 9. The condottiere Muzio Attendolo, father of Francesco Sforza, ’fut
homme très vertueux, et encores plus le filz’, for Sforza succeeded in becoming Duke of
Milan, and ruled ’non point comme tiran, mais comme vray bon prince: et estoit bienà
extimer sa vertu et bonté aux plus nobles princes qui aient regné de son temps’, VII, 4.
’Vertu et bonté’ here mean ’skill, strength and good qualities’ but sometimes ’vertu’
means simply ’courage’ or ’firmness’, as when Commynes says that the Prince of Orange,
hard pressed during a military engagement, ’se monstra homme de vertu, car oncques ne
se voulut
bouger’, II, II. Again, Commynes relates how Louis XI died very courageously
(‘vertueusement’). Although he had always been so afraid of dying that he had forbidden
mention of the subject, when it was made clear to him that he was mortally ill, he faced
death with fortitude (’Toutesfois, il l’endura vertueusement et toutes autres chose jusques
à la mort et plus que nul homme que j’aye jamais veü mourir’, VI, II).
Rabelais, in Gargantua et Pantagrvel occasionally uses ’vertu’ in this sense. A conqueror’s
’vertu est apparüe en la victoire et conqueste’, III, I. In I, 39, a monk asks: ’N’est il pas
meilleur et plus honorable mourir vertueusement bataillant qui vivre fuyent villainement?’
With soldiers, it is ’vertu et hardiesse’ that is important, not numbers, I, 43. See also IV,
37, ’soy monstrer vertueux au combat’ and II, 27, ’Ce fut icy qu’apparut la vertus / De
quatre preux et vaillant champions’.
François de la Noue, in his Discours politiques et militaires (written I580-5; Geneva,
I967, ed. F. E. Sutcliffe), 404, remarks, like Machiavelli, on the ’disproportion qu’il y a de la
vertu antique à la modeme’, saying that ’c’est pareille imprudence & matiere de risee de
vouloir aproprier les faits heroiques de ceux du passé aux hommes presens, que de mettre
en la teste & aux pieds des petits enfans de six ans les bonnet & les souliers de leurs grands

peres’. In his discussion of the possibility of driving the Turks from Europe, he says that
’les hommes magnanimes ... se contenteroient de 1’honneur, & de quelque cimeterre,
ou autre chose
pareille, pour reporter en leurs maisons, & les pendre à un cabinet, a fin
que leurs enfans, voyans des despouilles honnorables, conquises par leurs peres, en lieu si
digne, se souvinssent d’imiter leur vertu’, 5I3. Clearly ’vertu’ here means ’bravery’ or
’valiant deeds’.

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English22 writers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. When Machiavelli

contrasts or links virtu with fortuna it always has one of these meanings. So
the many writers who have characterized Machiavelli’s idea of virtú in this
22 Marlowe’s Tamburlaine has often been seen as an embodiment of Machiavellian virtú but
the word ’virtue’ does not occur frequently. Men tend to be ’valiant’ rather than ’vir-
tuous’, e.g., I Tamb. 2.I.2; 2.3.6I; 3.3.II & 89; II Tamb. 4.I.II6, and they fight ’coura-
geously’ rather than ’virtuously’, e.g., I Tamb. I.2.I28; 3.3.30. However, in I Tamb.
4.4.I28-32, Tamburlaine addresses the ’Kings of Argier, Morocco, and of Fez’ thus:
’Deserve these titles I endow you / By valour and by magnanimity. / Your births shall be
no blemish to your fame; / For virtue is the fount whence honour springs, / And they are

worthy she investeth kings.’ Here ’virtue’ means ’merit’ or ’ability’ (U. M. Ellis-Fermor in
her edition of Tamburlaine [London, I930] I55, glosses ’virtue’ as ’power and ability’) and
the distinction between merit and mere birth is clearly drawn. In I Tamb. 5.2.I26-7,
Tamburlaine says ’That virtue solely is the sum of glory, / And fashions men with true
nobility’. ’Virtue’ probably has the same meaning as in the previous passage (but see Ellis-
Fermor, I63-4, for a discussion of the ambiguity of these lines, which hinges on whether
’that’ is a conjunction or a demonstrative adjective) and the thought is similar. In II Tamb.
I.4.I47-53, Tamburlaine encourages his youngest son to perform valiant deeds and says,
’If thou wilt love the wars and follow me,Thou shalt be made a king and reign with me, /
Keeping in iron cages emperors.’ He adds, ’If thou exceed thy elder brothers’ worth, / And
shine in complete virtue more than they, / Thou shalt be king before them, and thy seed /
Shall issue crowned from their mother’s womb.’ Ellis-Fermor, I96, glosses ’virtue’ as
’power, courage’, and it is evident that Marlowe means a combination of ability and
courage.
, a citizen says that the services Coriolanus performed for his
In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
country were done ’partly to please his mother and to be proud, which he is, even to the
altitude of his virtue’, I.I.38-9. Some commentators gloss ’virtue’ as ’valour’, and draw
attention to the passage in North’s translation (from Amyot’s French) of Plutarch’s Lives
(on which Shakespeare relied heavily) where it is said that ’in those dayes, valliantnes was
honoured in Rome above all other vertues: which they called Virtus , by the name of
vertue selfe, as including in that generall name, all other special vertues besides. So that
Virtus in the Latin, was asmuch as valliantnes’ (Plutarch’s Lives, ed. George Wyndham
[London, I895], II, I44). Indeed, in Coriol. 2.2.8I-3, Cominius says, ’It is held That
valour is the chieftest virtue, and / most dignifies the haver.’ In 2 Henry IV, I.2.I66-7,
Falstaff says : ’Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers’ times that true valour is
turned bearhead’. Cf. i Henry IV, 2.4.II5. John Dover Wilson (New Cambridge Shake-
speare) glosses ’virtue’ in both these passages as ’manliness’.
Queen Elizabeth, in her speech at Tilbury in I588, said that ’rather than any dishonor
should grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and
rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.’ Later she refers to ’your valor in the
field’, George P. Rice, Jr., The Public Speaking of Queen Elizabeth (New York, I95I),
96-7.
In John Marston’s The Wonder of Women; or, The Tragedy of Sophonisba (I606), Cartha-
lon says: ’We judg’d the Romans eighteen thousand foot, / Five thousand horse; we almost
doubled them / In number, not in virtue’ (I.2.I07-9). Again, ’virtue’ here means ’valour’
or a combination of valour and ’skill’.

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way are by no means completely wrong; they have simply taken the most
common meaning (or group of meanings) to be the only one. These writers
fall into two groups.
The first assert that it has no ethical significance whatever. Thus, Federico
Chabod (whose view is similar to that of Pasquale Villari)23 says that
’Machiavelli’s virtu is not a &dquo;moral&dquo; quality, as it is for us; instead, it means
energy, the ability to decide and to act, leaving aside any &dquo;moral&dquo; aspect of
this energy and ability.’24 L. Arthur Burd maintains that ’&dquo;[v]irtm&dquo; cor-
responds in some degree to the French &dquo;habilete&dquo; : any man who by his
abilities, tact, and dexterous management of men and things attains his end,
is said to possess &dquo;virtu&dquo; : the character of the means he employs or the object
he attains are indifferent.’25 Luigi Russo emphasizes that Machiavelli’s idea of
virtu is different from that of the medieval scholastics, ’which has an ethical
character and derives its validity from Heaven’; it is also different from that
of Livy, ’for whom it generally means military valour. Instead, it is the virtu
of Renaissance man, which is capacity, ability, industry, individual power,
sensibility, the flair for seizing opportunities and the measure of one’s own
potentialities.’ In short, for Russo, it is ’psychological excellence, not ethical
excellence.’26 Jakob Burckhardt maintains (and his view is endorsed by
Giovanni Gentile)27 that what Machiavelli calls virtu is a ’combination of
force and skill’ and he observes that it is ’compatible with villainy’ (scellera-
tezza).2g Sir Keith Hancock says that virtu for Machiavelli means ’technical
23 See above,
3I6, note 4.
24 Federico Chabod, ’Il
segretario fiorentino’ (I953) in Chabod, Scritti su Machiavelli (Turin
I964), 248: ’La "virtú" di Machiavelli non è, come per noi, una qualità "morale", è,
invece, energia, capacità di volere e di fare, a prescindere dal contenuto "morale" di
questa energia e capacità.’
25 Burd’s edition of Il
Principe (Oxford, I89I), I78, note 5.
26 Russo, op. cit. note 3, 40: ’... la virtú di cui parla il Machiavelli non è piú la virtú degli
scolastici, la quale ha un carattere etico e ripete la sua forza dal cielo, e nemmeno quella di
Tito Livio, che sta a significare per lo piú il valore militare, ma la virtú dell’uomo del
Rinascimento, che è capacità, abilità, industria, potenza individuale, sensibilità, fiuto delle
occasioni e misura delle proprie possibilità. Virtú per eccellenza psicologica e non etica’.
But see also below 33I, note 76.
27 Gentile, Studi sul Rinascimento (Florence: Vallecchi, I923), I08-9: ’...la celebre virtù
sostanza viva dello Stato nel suo sorgere e nel suo mantenersi: che il Burckhardt defini

giustamente unione di forza e di talento, e che certamente si puo definire anche soltanto
forza, se per forza s’intende non forza meccanica, ma umana: volontà (e quindi forza di
talento).’
28
J. Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (Leipzig, I869), I2: ’Dieser Verein von

Kraft und Talent ist es, was bei Macchiavell virtù heisst und auch mit scelleratezza verträ-
glich gedacht wird’.

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competence and brilliance of execution ... it has no ethical connotation:

it is technique pure and simple.’29 Arthur A. Tilley says that ’by virtÙ the
author of The Prince means, not virtue, but vigour, ability, and, above all,
success’.30 G. P. Gooch claims that ’[t]he supreme qualification for the ruler in
the eyes of Machiavelli ... is virtù, which means not virtue but virility,
energy, force of character, remorseless vigour, the head to plan and the arm
to strike.’31 And The Cambridge Italian Dictionary (1962) defines virtú as used

by Machiavelli as ’ruthlessness and determination combined with excep-

tional ability to conceive and carry through a plan of action’.
It may very well be held, of course, that most of the characteristics of
virtu that have just been mentioned imply an ethic of some sort, since there is
a sense in which all human qualities are moral qualities. All voluntary actions

(as distinct from involuntary or reflex movements) are proper subjects of

moral judgements. Abilities and skills may be well or badly used, or em-
ployed for good or bad ends (and courage, of course, was traditionally
considered a moral virtue). Nevertheless, one need not make judgements of
this sort in a particular situation and to say that a man is able or skilful is not in
itself to make a moral judgement on him. Moreover, since it is certainly true
that Machiavelli usually shows no interest in making moral judgements,
Chabod’s view of the matter does have something to commend it.
The second group of writers emphasize that Machiavelli’s idea of virtu
does imply or express an ethic, above all, a pagan or Roman view of life.
Francesco De Sanctis says that Machiavelli uses virtu ’in the Roman sense,
meaning the force and energy that makes men capable of great sacrifices and
great enterprises’.32 Augustin Renaudet also claims that Machiavelli uses
virtu ’au sens romain: la vertu consiste avant tout dans 1’energie, capable
d’action perilleuse et de sacrifice’33 and a later French student of Machiavelli,
Emile Namer, says that [ll ’homme politique est pour Machiavel un homme
de pens6e et d’action, de courage et d’initiative, en un mot de vertu.’34
Giuseppe Lisio says that ’virtu’ for M[achiavelli] and for the ancient writers ...
29 W. K. Hancock, ’Machiavelli in Modem Dress’, History, 20 (September I935), I03. (In
Hancock, Politics in Pitcairn and other Essays [London, I947], 26.)
30 The Cambridge Medieval History, VII, 775.
31 G. P. Gooch, ’Politics and Morals’, in Studies in Diplomacy and Statecraft (London, I942),
3I2.
32 F. de Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (Napoli, I870), II, II6:’La virtù è da lui inteso
nel senso romano, e significa forza, energia, che renda gli uomini atti a’ grandi sacrificii e
alle grandi imprese.’
33 A. Renaudet, Machiavel (Paris, I956 edition), 85.
34 E. Namer, Machiavel (Paris, I96I), I73.

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means energy or any quality whatsoever (moral, intellectual, or material),

by which a man rises above others.’35 Bernard Wall maintains that by virtu
’he did not mean virtue in the Christian sense’; rather he used it ’as equivalent
to the classical latin virtus-with the meaning of &dquo;strength&dquo;, &dquo;efficiency&dquo;,
&dquo;manliness&dquo; and &dquo;patriotism&dquo;. In other words, in the field of ethics he
substituted for the Christian conception an ancient Roman conception.’366
Michael B. Foster’s view is similar, though he also emphasizes the
Renaissance aspect, saying that the ’virtus of the citizen of ancient Rome,
the &dquo;virtu&dquo; of the adventurer of Renaissance Italy ... are the two
incompatible conceptions of human excellence which struggle together in
Machiavelli’s mind.’37
It is now necessary to examine in some detail this sense of virtu. While
Machiavelli never actually defines virtu, he often uses it in ways that throw
much light on its meaning.

II(a). Political virtd

First, let consider what may be called political virtú :38 skill or ability in
us

founding or in ruling States, in short, statecraft. At the beginning of the

Discorsi there are several examples of this sense. Machiavelli says that the
virtu of founders of States is revealed in two ways: in the choice of the site
and in the fundamental laws or constitution of the Stated He discusses at
length the necessity of choosing a place and the framing of laws that will
prevent the growth of indolent habits and will encourage the people to act
energetically and courageously. The laws and institutions of Rome were
such that it is no matter for surprise that ’so much virtu should have endured
for centuries in that city and that a mighty empire should have developed
from the Roman republic.’40 Machiavelli thinks that those with political
ability or virtu should have the opportunity to exercise it. He observes that
countries flourish where there is much freedom; the population increases,
among other reasons, because people have children more willingly when

35 Lisio, op. cit. note 3, I6, note 4: ’... virtú per il M. e per gli scrittori antichi ... vale
qualunque Energia o Qualità, morale intellettuale materiale, per cui un uomo si levi su

gli altri’.
36 B. Wall, ’Machiavelli and the Italian Tradition’, The Dublin Review, 452 (Second Quarter,
I95I), 36.
37 Foster, op. cit. note 4, 284. See above 3I6, note 4, for Foster’s other remarks on virtú.
38 It should perhaps be emphasized that Machiavelli never actually speaks of la virtú politica.
39 Disc., I, I, I27. 40 Disc., I, I, I25.

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they know that these through their own virtu can rise to the highest positions
in the State.41 Machiavelli also says that ’kingdoms that depend solely on the
virtu of one man are unlikely to last’.42 Yet the virtu (the political ability or
qualities of leadership) of one man can halt for a time the degeneration of a
State. Thus the virtu of Epaminondas enabled the political institutions of
Thebes to endure during his lifetime but afterwards anarchy followed.43
Machiavelli says that Francesco da Savona, although of very obscure origins,
through his virtu (per le sue virtu) became head of the Franciscan Order and
then cardinal. As Sixtus IV, Machiavelli tells us, he was the first to show how
much a pope was capable of achieving.44 It is evident that virtú here means
not moral virtues but talents: ’political’ ability, the determination and capacity
to rise in the Church, a talent for influencing and managing men; in short, he
was a skilful and
spirited ruler. In the Istorie fiorentine, Machiavelli discusses
the political virtues of Lorenzo de’ Medici, saying that his reputation ’grew
day by day because of his ability (prudenzia), since in the discussion of affairs
he was eloquente and penetrating (arguto), in deciding them wise (savio), and in
his actions he was decisive and courageous (presto e animoso)’. He then says:
’Nor can one (vizii) that marred his many virtues (che maculassero
mention vices
tante snevirti4’), although he was extraordinarily dedicated to sexual pleasure,

the
enjoyed company of frivolous and sarcastic men and playing childish games
that were incongruous in such a great man’.45
’°

This may seem to be a contrast between political virtues and moral vices but
I think Machiavelli is really considering these vices from a political view-
point and is saying that they were not of a sort to harm him politically. In
the Discorsi Machiavelli notes that in his day France and Spain do not suffer
from the disorders that so trouble Italy, and he believes that their unity
derives partly from the virtu of their kings, partly from the quality of their
institutions.46

II(b). Political and military virtd combined

Secondly, Machiavelli refers to a combination of political and military virtu,
and these references are much more frequent than those to purely political
41
Disc., II, 2, 284. 42 Disc. I, II, I62. 43
Disc., I, I7, I79.
44 Ist. fior., VII, 22, 486-7.
45
Ist. fior VIII, 36, 576. Machiavelli may well have had Lorenzo in mind when, at the end or
.,
Principe, XXI, 93, he warns that a ruler should always preserve the dignity appropriate to
his position (la maestà della dignità sua).
46 Disc., I, 55, 255. For other references to ’political virtú’ see: Disc., II, Proemio, 273 ; III, 27,
463; .,
Ist. fior III, I7, 248; IV, 2, 272; IV, 7, 279.

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virtu’. In the Discorsi, Machiavelli discusses ’the virtuosissime operazioni of

ancient kingdoms and republics, of kings, generals (capitani), lawgivers and
others who laboured for their countries (la loro patria)’.47 In the last chapter of
IlPrincipe, Machiavelli exposes the weakness of the leaders of Italian States,
saying that no one has been able, by virtl’4’ and fortuna, to achieve a pre-
dominance that the other leaders or States are forced to recognize.48 Here
virtu military and political prowess. Not all Italian leaders have lacked
means

virtu, of course; Francesco Sforza showed great virtú and by using appropriate
methods rose from being a private citizen to be duke of Milan, ’and that
which he acquired by overcoming a thousand difficulties he easily pre-
served’.49 Again, we have a combination of political and military prowess,
although perhaps the emphasis is on the latter. Rulers who are virtuosi,
Machiavelli says, always lead their military expeditions personally.50 Machia-
velli gives several examples of political and military virtu from the Ancient
World. King David ’was undoubtedly a very fine warrior and a man of
inuch learning and very sound judgement, and his virtu was such that,
having defeated and subdued all his neighbours, he left a peaceful kingdom to
his son Solomon’.51 Two successive rulers (principi) who are virtuosi, as Philip
of Macedon and Alexander the Great were, are sufficient to conquer the
world.52 In this case, as in that of David, military prowess seems more im-
portant than political prowess. The virtu of Romulus, who was ferocissimo
and bellicoso, was of the utmost importance to Rome,53 as was that of the
third king, Tullus, who came to power after forty years of peace. He wished
to make war, and since he was a ruler who was prudentissimo he decided not
to use the Tuscans or the Samnites but to rebuild the Roman army. He was of
such virtu that he achieved this very quickly.54 When Epaminondas and
Pelopidas liberated their city, Thebes, from the Spartans they, like Tullus,
found a people who were not at all warlike. But through their great virtu
they developed an army that succeeded in defeating the Spartans in battle.55
Severus Septimus, although very cruel and rapacious, possessed such virtu

47 Disc., I, Proemio, I24. 48 Princ., XXVI,

I03-4.
49
Princ., VII, 34. 50
Disc., I, 30, 20I.
51
Disc., I, I9, I84: ’Davit sanza dubbio fu un uomo per arme, per dottrina, per giudizio
eccellentissimo; e fu tanta la sua virtú, che avendo vinti e battuti tutti i suoi vicini, lasciò a
Salomone suo figliuolo uno regno pacifico’.
52 Disc., I, 20, I85-6. Virtuosi certainly in no way refers to moral virtue, since in Disc., I, 26,
I94, Machiavelli says that Philip was very cruel and his actions were not only un-Christian
but also inhuman.
53
Disc., I, I9, I83. 54
Disc., I, 2I, I86. 55 Disc., I, 2I,
I87.

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that he was able to supplant the Emperor Julian and rule successfully.
Machiavelli says that he was ’a very fierce lion and a very cunning fox’ who
kept the soldiers happy and was feared and respected by all.56 Theodoric,
king of the Ostrogoths, ’excelled both in war, in which he was always
victorious, and in peace, conferring great benefits on the cities and the
peoples that he ruled’. It was only at the very end of his life that his many
virtu (tante virtu) were sullied (bruttate) by certain cruel acts that were caused
by his suspicion of plots, as the deaths of those holy men Symmachus and
Boethius showed. Otherwise, his reputation would have been unblemished,
since through his virtu and bonta all the Western Empire was freed from the
pressures of the continual barbarian invasions and became well ordered,
prosperous and contented.57 Virtu’ here certainly refers to both military and
political skill, though there seem also to be overtones of moral virtv, as the
word bontà indicates.58
One of the most significant phrases that Machiavelli uses to express virtu
that is political or military (or a combination of the two) is virtu di animo e di
corpo. Corpo means ’body’ but animo is less straightforward: in Machiavelli it
often means ’mind’, ’intention’, ’purpose’, ’disposition’ or ’inclination’59 but
56 57 .,
Princ., XIX, 80-I. Ist. fior I, 4, 80-I.
58 For other examples of political and military virtú, see Disc., II, 24, 353; II, 25, 356; II,
29, 366; II, 3I, 372-3; III, I, 38I-2; III, 25, 457, III, 30, 467, III, 3I, 469, 471, 473; III,
43, 496; ., Ist. fior I, 32, I26.
59 There are many instances in Machiavelli’s works; I give some examples, from the Dis-
corsi : la malignità dello animo loro (’their vicious nature’, Detmold, op. cit. note 3, II7),
fossero diventati d’animo popolare (’seemed to have ... assumed popular manners’,
I, 3, I35;
ibid.); ibid; non potere la moltitudine sfogare l’animo suo ... contro uno cittadino (’the populace
could not vent their anger against a citizen’), I, 7, I48; sodisfazione d’animo (’tranquillity of
mind’, Detmold, I42), I, I0, I56; che gli caggia mai nello animo usare quella autorità bene che
gli ha male acquistata (’that it should enter into his mind to use for good purposes that
authority which he has acquired by evil means’, Detmold, I7I), I, I8, I82; E pervenuto
presso a Perugia con questo animo (’Having arrived at Perugia with that purpose’, Detmold,
I85), I, 27, I95; per aversi sempre riserbato contro al popolo l’animo inimico (’because he always
preserved an implacable hatred against the people’, Detmold, I9I), I, 29, 200; non si
debbe mostrare l’animo (’one should never show one’s intentions’, Detmold, 228), I, 44, 232;
acciocché gli animi de’ giovani che questi mia scritti leggeranno (’so that the minds of the young
men who will read my work’) II,
faccendo cose contro allo animo tuo (’doing things
Proemio;
contrary to your way of thinking’, Detmold, 404), III, 2, 385; uno animo ostinato alla
vendetta (’a determined desire for revenge’, Detmold, 4I2), III, 6, 392; subito che tu hai
manifestatoa quel male contento l’animo tuo (’As soon as you have revealed your designs to
that discontented person’), III, 6, 396; per tentare l’animo di alcuno che elli aveva a sospetto
(’by way of testing the fidelity of some one whom he suspected’, Detmold, 435), III, 6,
4I2.

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in this phrase it has more the sense of ’spirit’ or ’heart’,60 allied with certain
qualities of mind. That is, it includes ’intelligence’ but not in any narrowly
intellectual sense. Virtu di animo, then, means capacity or strength of spirit and
mind, and virtu di corpo means bodily capacity or vigour. This is apparent
from what Machiavelli says about Castruccio Castracani when he was
growing up. He says that Castruccio ’began to interest himself in arms;
indeed he enjoyed nothing so much as using them, competing with other
youths in running and jumping, and engaging them in mock fights and
similar exercises. In these activities he showed very great virtu di animo e di
corpo, and far surpassed all others of his own age.’ Castruccio was intelligent6l
but he was in no sense a studious or intellectual youth, for ’even if he some-
times read, he did not care for reading that was not concerned with war and
the deeds of great men’.62
In the Istorie fiorentine, Machiavelli says that one of the leaders of the
Florentine army in the fifteenth century was Baldaccio di Anghiari, ’who was
a very fine soldier, there being in those times no one in Italy who had greater

virtu di corpo e d’~nimo’.63 Manlius Capitolinus, who saved the Capitol from
the besieging Gauls and rendered Rome many services (buone opere) was
another who had great virtu d’animo e di corpo ;64 indeed, he was a citizen
(cittadino) pieno d’ogni virt£65except for one great fault, his ambizione, his
’evil lust for power’ (una brutta cupiditd di regnare),66 which was the cause of
his fall and death. Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus did great things, but
without the opportunities (occasione) that they received the virtu dello animo
loro would have been wasted (spenta).67 In chapter XIX of Il Principe,
Machiavelli considers why certain Roman emperors, who always lived nobly
(egregiamente) and showed great virtu d’animo, were nevertheless deposed or
assassinated.68 In the Discorsi, Machiavelli says that Savonarola’s writings
shows dottrina, la prudenza e la virtu dello animo suo’.69 Prudenza usually
60 Animo is often used as a synonym of virtú (just as animoso is a synonym of virtuoso, and
animosamente of virtuosamente
).
61 Machiavelli says that even in adolescence Castruccio ’showed intelligence (ingegno) and
ability (prudenza) in everything he did’ (Castruccio Castracani, II).
62 Castruccio castracani, II: ’... cominciò a trattare le armi; né di altro si dilettava che o
di maneggiare quelle, o con gli altri suoi equali correre, saltare, fare alle braccia [Gaeta,
op. cit. note 3, giocare alla lotta] e simili esercizii; dove ei mostrava virtú di animo e di
corpo grandissima, e di lunga tutti gli altri della sua età superava. E se pure ei leggeva
alcuna volta, altre lezioni [Gaeta: letture] non gli piacevano che quelle che di guerre
o di cose fatte da grandissimi uomini ragionassino’.
63 64
Ist.fior. VI, 6, 396. Disc., III, 8, 414. 65 Disc., 415. 66 Disc., 414.
67 Princ. VI, 3I. 68 Princ. XIX, 78. 69 Disc., I, 45, 233.

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means ’prudence’ but since it does not refer here to actions (and is apparently
linked with animo) it should be rendered as ’ability’ ; animo may mean ’spirit’
but in this context ’mind’ is the more likely meaning. So the phrase is best
translated as ’his learning, and the ability and vigour of his mind’.70
Perhaps the most interesting and difficult case of virtu di animo e di corpo
being attributed to someone is that of Agathocles of Syracuse. Chapter VIII
of Il Principe is concerned with those who come to power through villainy
(per scelleralper scelleratezze), as opposed to succeeding through one’s own
arms and virtu (chapter VI) or through the arms and fortuna of others (chapter

VII), and Agathocles is the first example considered. Machiavelli says that ’as
he rose to power he always led a wicked life (tenne sempre, per li gradi della sua
età, vita scellerata). Nevertheless, his scelleratezze were accompanied by so
much virtu d’animo e di corpo’71 that in time he became pretore of Syracuse.72
After saying that Agathocles ’owed little, if anything, to fortuna’ in the
advancement of his career, and in maintaining himself as ruler, which he did
’with so many courageous and dangerous expedients’ (con tanti partiti animosi
e pericolosi), Machiavelli observes :

’Non si puo ancora chiamare virtu ammazzare li sua cittadini, tradire li amici,
essere sanza fede, sanza plet~, sanza relligione; li quali modi possono fare acquistare
imperio, ma non
gloria.’73
70 Neal Wood, ’Machiavelli’s Concept of Virtù Reconsidered’, Political Studies, I5, No.2,
(June I967), I60, note i, discounts this reference to Savonarola’s virtú, and says that ’Machia-
velli refers only to the reflection of virtù dello animo in Savonarola’s writings, perhaps a
way of intimating that the priest’s actions lacked virtù.’ On the following page, 234,
Machiavelli criticises Savonarola’s failure to condemn the Signoria for disregarding an
important new law in Florence (which Savonarola himself had proposed), ’thus revealing
his ambitious and partisan spirit (animo suo ambizioso e partigiano) and ruining his reputa-
tion’. In fact, Machiavelli’s references to Savonarola, when they are not critical, are almost
always ambiguous or ironical. In the Decennale primo, I57-8 (Teatro, 242), Machiavelli
refers to ’quel gran Savonarola ... afflato da virtú divina’, but this too should not be taken
seriously.
71 Carli, op. cit. note 3, 50, says: ’virtú: qui è pura e semplice energia’, but it seems to me to
be rather a combination of energy and ability. Arangio Ruiz, op. cit. note 3, 52, glosses
virtú here as ’energia, forza’ and adds: ’È qui evidente il significato non morale che si
dà alla parola.’
72 This is one example of the conjunction of virtú and scelleratezza to which Burckhardt
refers (see above, note 28, 323). Another is in the same chapter, 43, where Vitellozzo
Vitelli is said to have been the teacher of Oliverotto da Fermo in his virtú e scelleratezze.
Severus, too, had very great virtú and was also scelerato.
73 Princ., VIII, 42; ’Yet it cannot be called virtú to kill one’s citizens or betray one’s friends, to
be treacherous, merciless, and irreligious. One can attain power by acting in these ways,
but not glory.’

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He then says that:

’If one considers the virtu of Agathocles in undertaking dangerous courses success-
fully and his greatness of spirit (la grandezza dello animo suo) in enduring difficulties
and overcoming them, it cannot be said that anyone has been a better leader
(eccellentissimo capitano). Nevertheless, because of his barbarous crudeltà and inumanita,
and his countless atrocities (infinite scelleratezze), he cannot be included among the
most excellent men (eccellentissimi uomini).’74

Here the difference between being a good leader or ruler and being a good
man is made very clear. Yet it cannot be said that Machiavelli’s discussion of
the virtu of Agathocles is free from difficulty because he concludes by saying:
’Therefore one cannot attribute to fortuna or to virtu that which he achieved
without either.’75 Machiavelli says explicitly that Agathocles possessed great
virtu, both of animo and corpo. It is difficult, therefore, to understand why he
should deny that Agathocles’ virtu was an important factor (it was obviously
not the only or the most important factor, this being his scelleratezze) in his

becoming, and remaining, ruler of Syracuse. If it were not for this final
sentence about Agathocles, we could conclude that Machiavelli is using virtu
in two senses in this chapter, and that Agathocles possessed virtu in the sense
of ‘ability’ and ’determination’ but not in the sense of moral virtue, to which
Machiavelli seems to be referring in the passage quoted in Italian6

II(c). Military virtu

We come now to military virtu, that is, preparing for war in a sensible and
skilful way, fighting strongly, skilfully or courageously.77 Machiavelli some-
times speaks of virtu militare78 or virtu d’arme~9 and there are several references
74 Ibid. Carli, op. cit. note 3, 52; observes: ’Non per nulla dice qui uomini, e di sopra ha detto
capitano: gran capitano Agàtocle si; grande uomo no, perché del grande uomo è propria
quella virtú machiavellica piena, da cui solo può venir "gloria".’
75 Princ VIII, 42.
.,
76 Russo, op. cit. note 3, 9I, comments on this passage: ’non si può ancora chiamare virtú ecc.
La "virtú" del M. è "energia", "capacità", in ma che presuppone ...
senso tecnico,
sempre un ideale morale’. This is a modification of his statement (40) that Machiavelli’s
virtú means ’psychological not ethical excellence’. (See above, 323.)
77 Most of the cases in which virtú should be rendered as ’courage’ or ’valour’ refer to military
action, although courage may of course be displayed in other circumstances. E.g., Theo-
dorus, after being arrested by Hieronymus, ruler of Syracuse, showed great courage and
firmness ) virtú and did not reveal the names of the other conspirators (Disc., III, 6,
(
397-8).
78 Princ., XXVI, I03; Disc., I, 4, I37; Ist. fior., III, I, 2I2.
79 Disc., II, 2, 280; II, 30, 368; Ist. fior., I, Proemio, 70, III, I, 2I3; virtuose armi occurs in
Disc., III, II, 424.

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to the virtu of generals (capitani),80 soldiers,81 infantry,82 or armies.83 Thus,

now ’it always seems that virtu militare is extinct’ (spenta) in Italy;84 and the
Romans ’never bought peace or acquired territory with money, but always
with virtu dell’armi’.85 But as well as such explicit references to military virtu,
on many occasions virtu clearly refers to military capacity or exploits; at least
a hundred of the 248 references to virtu in the Discorsi are of this sort. Two

passages in the Istorie fiorentine illustrate this sense very well. Machiavelli says
of the battle of Campomorto, which took place on 21 August 1482, that it
was ’fought with more virtu than any other that had taken place in Italy for

fifty years, because altogether more than a thousand men were killed’.86
Of another fifteenth-century battle, which lasted four hours, Machiavelli
says that ’only one man died, and not because of wounds or any other
doughty blow (virtuoso colpo), but because he fell from his horse and was
trampled to death.’87 Mercenary soldiers, Machiavelli says in Discorsi,
because they lack affection towards those for whom they fight, and are not
loyal or willing to die for them, ’will never have enough virtu to enable them
to resist an enemy who is at all virtuoso.’88 Machiavelli says in Il Principe that
before the Venetians acquired territory in Italy they used to fight their own
wars, with the nobles (gentili uomini)89 and the armed people (la plebe armata)
fighting virtuosissimamente.90 In the last chapter of Il Principe, he emphasizes
the necessity of Italian reliance on native soldiers, so that with virtu italica
80
Ist. fior V, I, 327, V, 32, 38I; virtuosi capitani occurs in Disc., I,
Disc., III, I3, 429, twice; .,
23, I90, and in Legazioni-Chiappelli, 30, 35, 50, 5I, 60, 86, II0, II5, II8, 127, I35, I58,
285.
81 Disc., III, I3, 429, twice; III, I5, 434; III, 33, 477; III, 38, 489; Arte d. guerra, V, 456; VII,
5I2; Legazioni-Chiappelli, 83, 88, I28.
82 Disc., II, I8, 332, twice; Arte d. guerra, II, 368.
83 Disc., II, I, 275; II, 24, 354 Ist. fior., VI, 24, 425; esercito virtuoso occurs in Disc., II, 22,
344; III, I0, 420.
84 Princ., XXVI, I03.
85 Disc., II, 30, 368.
86 Ist. fior., VIII, 24, 552-3: ’E fu questa giornata combattuta con piú virtú che alcuna altra
che fussi stata fatta in cinquanta anni in Italia, perché vi morí tra 1’una parte e 1’altra piú che
mille uomini’.
87
Ist. fior V, 34, 383: ’... non vi morí altri che uno uomo: il quale non di ferite o d’altro
.,
virtuoso colpo, ma caduto da cavallo e calpesto espirò.’
88 Disc., I, 43, 23I:’... non mai vi potrà essere tanta virtú che basti a resistere a uno nimico
un poco virtuoso.’
89
gentili uomini as being idle (oziosi) does not apply to
Machiavelli says that his criticism of
those of Venice, since they are gentili uomini ’more in name than in reality because they
do not possess great estates, their great riches being derived from trade’ (Disc., I, 55, 258.)
90 Princ., XII, 56.

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Italy can be defended against invaders.91 In the Discorsi, Machiavelli says that
most historians exaggerate not only what the victors have done virtuosamente
but also the deeds of those that they have defeated, in order to make the
victories more glorious.92 In the Roman republic, Machiavelli says, all
classes undertook military duties and there were always many men who were
virtuosi and successful in war.93 The Romans never punished generals who
blundered unintentionally, for it was thought that their task was already
difficult and dangerous enough, and that fear of punishment would have
prevented them from operating virtuosamerate.94 In chapter i of Book II of the
Discorsi, Machiavelli discusses whether the State that the Romans acquired
owed more to their virtu, to their valour and military skill, than to fortuna.
He asserts that the peoples living near the Romans defended their freedom ’so
obstinately that they would never have been subjugated except by very great
virtu (una eccessiva virtu).’95 For example, the Samnite State was ’so well
ordered and powerful that it would have been insuperable, if it had not been
assaulted with a virtu like that of the Romans.’96 The Romans won three very
difficult wars against invaders, two of them being against the Gauls and one
against the Teutons and Cimbrians, ’for which all their virtu was necessary
since when the virtu romana disappeared and their armies lost their ancient
valour (antico valore), the Empire was destroyed by the same peoples, by the
Goths, Vandals and others, who occupied all the Western Empire.’97
Sometimes virtu refers more to individual skill or bravery than to that
shown by armies or peoples. Thus when Crassus and Mark Antony invaded
Parthia, Crassus and a part of the army were killed but Mark Antony,
Machiavelli says, saved himself and the rest of the army virtuosamente (in the
next sentence we find the superlative, virtuosissimamente).98 The achievements
of Horatius were very great, since by his virtu he defeated the Curatii.99

91 Princ., XXVI, I04. 92

Disc., II, Proemio, 27I.
93 Disc., I, 3I, 203. 94
Disc I, 30, 202.
.,
95 Disc., II, 2, 279: ’... la [libertà] tanto ostinatamente difendevano che mai se non da una
eccessiva virtú sarebbono stati soggiogati.’ Later in the same chapter, 283, Machiavelli
says that the condition and spirit of these peoples were such that ’il Popolo romano sanza
una rara ed estrema virtú mai non le arebbe potute superare.’
96 Disc., II, 2, 283: ’... vi era tanto ordine e tanta forza che gli era insuperabile, se da una
virtú romana non fosse stato assaltato.’
97 Disc., II, 8, 298: ’Né era necessario minore virtú a vincerle: perché si vide poi, come la
virtú romana mancò e che quelle armi perderono il loro antico valore, fu quello imperio
destrutto da simili popoli: i quali furono Gotti, Vandali e simili, che occuparono tutto lo
Imperio occidentale.’
98 Disc., II, I8, 33I. 99
Disc., I, 24., 191.

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Antonius Primus took his army from Illyria to Italy, defeated virtuosamente
two armies of the Emperor Vitellius and occupied Rome.100 At the beginning
of the sixteenth century, the Spanish general Gonsalvo de Cordova, known
as the Gran Capitano, with great industria and virtú defeated the French, who
held the kingdom of Naples, and won it for Ferdinand of Aragon.101 Furius
Cammillus showed virtu in liberating Rome from the Gatlls.1°2 Machiavelli
quotes what Livy said of Cammillus, that ’the soldiers both hated and
admired his virttls’,103 and he elaborates, saying: ’What they admired was his
vigilance, prudence, greatness of spirit, and the good order that he preserved
in his command of the army and in all his operations; what they hated was
that he was more severe in punishing them than he was generous in reward-
ing them.&dquo;04 It may perhaps be said that Cammillus epitomizes what
Machiavelli means by military virtú.1°5
It is evident, then, that Machiavelli uses virtu most often in a military sense
or in a military context. Neal Woodl 06 places great emphasis on the fact that

almost all the men to whom Machiavelli attributes virtu were men of action,
rulers and generals, particularly the latter. Three were popes,107 who were of
course also civil rulers. Of the remaining two, Savonarola was above all a

prophet and preacher, though he did play a prominent part in Florentine

politics,108 while Brunelleschi was an architect and sculptor.lo9 Wood rightly
_
observes that ’[q]uite often in referring to the virttl of an individual, Machia-
velli seems to be thinking of a mode of conduct most typically manifested by
the soldier in combat.’llo He concludes that ’[v]irtù, therefore, is a set of
qualities, or a pattern of behaviour most distinctively exhibited under what
100 101 102 Disc., I,
Disc., I, 29, 198. Disc., I, 29, 199. 8, I49.
103
Livy, V, xxvi, 8: ’Eius virtutem milites oderant et mirabantur.’
104 Disc., III, 23, 454: ’Quello che lo faceva tenere maraviglioso era la sollicitudine, la
prudenza, la grandezza dello animo, il buon ordine che lui servava nello adoperarsi e nel
comandare agli eserciti: quello che lo faceva odiare, era essere piú severo nel gastigarli che
liberale nel rimunerargli.’
105 Machiavelli also emphasizes individual virtú (in a military sense) in Disc., III, I8, 44I;
III, 22, 452, and III, 34, 479. For other examples of military virtú in the Discorsi, see: I,
I5, I72; I, 29, I98; II, I2, 3I0; II, I6, 3I8, 320, 322; II, 17, 322, 325, 326, 328; II, 20,
338; II, 22, 344; II, 24, 349, 355; II, 27, 362; II, 30, 368, 37I; III, I, 380; III, I0, 422; III,
II, 424; III, I2, 428; III, I3, 429; III, I6, 436, 437; III, I9, 443; III, 2I, 447, 448; III, 22,
449, 45I; III, 3I, 472, 473; III, 33, 476, 477; III, 36, 484, 485; III, 42, 496.
106
Op. cit. note 70, 162.
107 Leo X (Princ., XI, 53), Clement, VII .,
Ist. fior VIII, 9, 524), Sixtus IV (Ist. fior.,
( VII, 22

486.
108
Disc., I, 45, 233; Teatro, 242.
109 Ist. fior, IV, 23, 303-4. 110
Op. cit. note 70, I70.

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may be described as battlefield conditions, whether actual war or politics

provides the context.&dquo;,’

But it seems to me that Wood confuses what Machiavelli understands by
virtu with the kind of virtu that Machiavelli is most concerned with. By virtu
Machiavelli does not mean political or military ability or achievements; and a
comment about the virtu of an artist is not incongruous or something that
needs to be explained away. We should rather conclude that the reason why
men of action predominate among those to whom Machiavelli ascribes virtu

is simply that he was much more interested in political and military matters
than in religion, the arts or the world of nature.

III. OTHER SENSES OF VIR TI

Virtu’ was frequently used in the senses of natural ’power’, ’faculty’, ’efficacy’
or ’talent’ by Italian Renaissance writers’12 (and by French’13 and English’14

111 cit. note 70,

Op. I7I. Wood adds that ’Machiavelli’s politico is cast in the mould of the
warrior, and the standard of excellence of one is not so different from that of the other’.
For a criticism of this view, see I. Hannaford, ’Machiavelli’s Concept of Virtù in The
Prince and The Discourses Reconsidered’, Political Studies, 22, No. 2 (June I972), I85-9.
112 Petrarch uses virtú to refer to the power of Laura’s feet to make flowers grow: ’come,
’1 candido piè per l’erba fresca / I dolci passi onestamente move, / Vertu che ’ntorno i
fior apra e rinnove / De le tenere piante sue par ch’ esca’ (Rime, CLXV).
Boccaccio, in the Introduction to Il Decamerone, uses virtú to refer to the power or
efficacy of medicine: ’A cura delle quali infermità né consiglio di medico né vertù di
medicina alcuna pareva che valesse o facesse profitto’. And in VIII, 3, there is much
discussion of the miraculous properties of various stones (’incominciarono a ragionare
delle vertù di diverse pietre’) and we read of ’queste pietre cosi vertuose’, ’pietre ... di
grandissima vertù’, and ’una cosi virtuosa pietra’.
Leonardo da Vinci often refers to the organ of sight or the visual faculty as ’la virtù
visiva’, as in the Paragone (Literary Works ofL. d. V., ed. Jean Paul Richter (Oxford, I939),
2nd edition, 35, 52, 60, 6I). He also refers to the natural properties (’virtù naturali’) or
inherent properties (proprie virtù’) of natural bodies (37) and to the properties of herbs,
stones, and plants (’le virtù dell’erbe, pietre et piante’) (38).
Lorenzo de’ Medici, in his Comento ad alcuni sonetti d’amore, says that it often happens
that ’alcuni uomini avere qualche propria virtù, con la presenzia sanare certi mali e con
un semplice tatto di mano’, Scritti scelti, a cura di Emilio
Bigi (Turin, I965), 369.
Alvise Cornaro, in his Discorsi intorno alla vita sobria (I558) (a cura di Pietro Pancrazi
[Florence, I942]), often uses virtú in the sense of ’efficacy’ or ’power’. For example, he
says that non-alcoholic drinks (’acque alterate e preparate’) cannot have the virtú or
’efficacy’ of wine (III, ed. cit., I00); and he says that his spiriti, which are sustained by
light meals instead of being oppressed by much food, show their virtú or ’power’ most
after eating when, instead of sleeping, he sings and writes (II, ed. cit., 90).
Savonarola, in his Trattato circa el reggimento e governo della città di Firenze, observes that

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336
’la virtù unita è più forte che la dispersa’. This is true not only of physical things but also
of government (I, 2); and when a tyrant rules ’la virtù di tale cattivo governo è unita in
uno; e perchè son sempre più li cattivi che li buoni e ogni simile ama il suo simile, tutti li
cattivi uomini cercan di unirsi a lui.... Ma quando sono più cattivi che regnano, uno
impedisce 1’altro; essendo la virtù del regno sparsa in più, non hanno tanta forza a fare
quel male che desiderano quanta ha uno tiranno solo’ (II, I).
Benvenuto Cellini, in his Trattato dell’ oreficeria, tells of the beginnings of Michelan-
gelo’s career when ’non aveva potuto ancora dar saggio della sua gran virtù’ (XII), and
how he started his work in the Sistine Chapel when he was ’senza un credito al mondo e
non conosciuto le sue gran virtù’ (ibid.). Cellini also tells how he himself did a piece of
work for Clement VII, ’con tutta quella virtù e studio che io sapevo’ (XIV).
For other references to virtú in the sense in which Cellini uses it, see below, 339, note I30.
113
Rabelais, in Gargantua et Pantagruel, frequently uses ’vertu’ in the sense of ’power’,
’property’ or ’efficacy’. In the Prologue to Livre III, he speaks of the ’proprieté, faculté,
vertus, effect et dignité’ of wine; he also tells how Noah became drunk, ’car il ignoroit
la grande vertu et puissance’ of wine (II, I). He speaks of the ’vertus’ of words to make
’venir 1’eauà la bouche’ (II, 2I), the ’vertus’ of Gregorian water and stoles to make devils
disappear (I, 43), the ’vertus et faculté’ of fig leaves for making codpieces (III, 8), the
’vertu et occulte proprieté’ of a codpiece (III, 27), the aphrodisiac power (’vertus horri-
ficque’) of a monk’s habit (III, 27), an emerald that ’a vertu erective et confortative du
membre naturel’ (I, 7), ’certaines drogues et plantes’ that ’tant par leurs vertus elemen-
taires que par leurs proprietez specificques’ render men sterile (III, 3I),and of the ’in-
estimables vertus’ and ’admirables vertus’ of the herb Pantagruelion (III, 50-I).
François de la Noue devotes discours XXIII of his Discours politiques et militaires to ’la
pierre philosophale’. He mentions various ancient writers who gave ’plusieurs belles
instructions touchant la pierre philosophale, ou poudre de projection, qui est d’une
vertu si admirable’ (op. cit. 5I9) and later he refers to the common opinion about the

great ’vertu de ceste poudre’, 534. Sometimes he uses ’puissance’ (’puissance vegetative’,
53I); sometimes he links ’puissance’ or ’proprieté’ with ’vertu’, e.g. ’la seule vertu &
puissance de nature’, 533, and ’plusieurs vertus & proprietez de nature’, 54I. He also
refers to ’les differences des plantes, & les vertus des racines’, 552.
114 In the thirteenth-century poem ’The Love Ron’, Friar Thomas de Hales speaks of the
’vertu’ of some precious stones (lines I69-76), and the English translation of Mandeville’s
Travels contains several references to the ’vertue’ of ’dyamands’ (ch. XIV). In the poem
’Rats Away’ (probably late fourteenth century) there are references to the ’vertu’ or
power of Jesu Crist, the Evangelists, and two saints.
In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, after Mephistophilis has obediently departed to change his
shape and ’return an old Franciscan friar’, Faustus says: ’I see there’s virtue in my heavenly
words: / Who would not be proficient in this art? / How pliant is this Mephistophilis, /
Full of obedience and humility!’ (I.3.29-32). In Tamburlaine, after the hearse of Zeno-
crate is brought in, the dying Tamburlaine says: ’Now, eyes, enjoy your latest benefit. /
And, when my soul hath virtue of your sight, / Pierce through the coffin and the sheet of
gold, / And glut your longings with a heaven of joy’ (Pt. II, 5.3.224-7). And in Pt. I,
3.I.52, the King of Morocco speaks of the ’virtuous’ or powerful beams of the sun.
In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Menenius is told: ’The virtue of your name / Is not here
passable’ (5.2.I2-I3). In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon says: ’Then crush this

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writers too) and these senses are also sometimes found in Machiavelli’s
writings. In the Discorsi, he speaks of the natural powers (naturali virtu)
thought to be possessed by certain spirits that enable them to foresee the
future.115 He also says that ’those who compare the voice of the people to
that of God are by no means mistaken for one sees that popular opinion
predicts events in a remarkable manner, so that it seems that through some
hidden power (per occulta virtu) the people foresee the good or evil that will
befall them.’l16 Aratus of Sicyon ’was very successful in secret nocturnal
expeditions, although he was pusillanimous in those undertaken openly by
day, which was perhaps because of some hidden power (una occulta virtu) that
he possessed’.117 In the Discorsi, Machiavelli emphasizes how necessary it is
for a State to have a large population if it is to be powerful. The Romans
achieved this by encouraging foreigners to live in Rome and also by force
(per forza), by destroying the neighbouring cities and compelling their
inhabitants to come to Rome. Machiavelli uses a horticultural simile, saying
that ’the Romans acted like a good husbandman who, to make a tree (pianta)
large and strong and produce good fruit, cuts off the first shoots that appear,
so that the strength (virtu) remaining in the trunk (piede) of the tree can in
time cause it to grow more branches and bear more fruit.’118 Here virtu
means ’vital force’ or ’life force’, and indeed virtu often seems to mean,

herb into Lysander’s eye; / Whose liquor has this virtuous property, / To take from thence
all error with his might, / And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight’ (3.2.366-9).
There are references to the ’virtue’ or power of rings in Henry VIII (5.3.99-I05) and in
The Merchant of Venice (5.I.I99 and 3.2.I70-4). In Love’s Labour Lost, when the King
says: ’Rebuke me not for that which you provoke / The virtue of your eye must break
my oath’ (5.2.347-8), ’virtue’ means ’power’. But the Princess replies: ’You nickname
[= miscall] virtue; vice you should have spoke / For virtue’s office never breaks men’s
troth’ (5.2.349-50), and here ’virtue’ clearly has the usual moral sense. See also Othello,
I.3.3I8; Hamlet, 4.5.I55; King John, 5.7.44-5; Timon of Athens, 4.3.392.
Milton, in Il Penseroso (II2-I3), speaks of Canace who ’own’d the vertuous Ring and
Glass’, and in Paradise Lost there are several references to the ’vertu’ or power of the sun
(III, 586, 608-I2; VIII, 94-7, I22-5), and to the ’vertu’ of the Tree of Life or Knowledge
in the Garden of Eden (IV, I98-9; IX, 795, I033) and of its Fruit (IX, 6I6, 649, 745,
778, 973).
115 Disc., I, 56, 259.
116 Disc., I, 58, 264. This usage, too, is by no means peculiar to Machiavelli. Boccaccio
(Decam., II, 6) uses occulta virtú to refer to the power of maternal instinct to recognize a
long-lost son: ’e da occulta virtù desta in lei alcuna rammemorazione de’ puerili lineamen-
ti del viso del suo figliuolo’. It is also found in Dante ., Purg XXX, 38-9): ’Per occulta
(
virtú che da lei mosse / D’antico amor senti la gran potenza.’
117 Disc., II, 32, 375-6.
118 Disc., II, 3, 285.

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among other things, ’energy’ (as in the phrase virtu di animo e di corpo) ; this
use may be termed ’organic’.
Some writers have maintained that Machiavelli uses virtu in a medical
sense. Tommasini claimed that Machiavelli’s writings show the influence of

Galen, and he asserted that ’the word virth of [Machiavelli] does not mean
anything else than that which Galen and the physicians used to call virtus.’1199
Whitfield draws attention to this, saying that ’Tommasini ... observed that
[Machiavelli’s] use of virtu was medical also’12o (which is much less than
Tommasini claimed), ’and that it represented a &dquo;potestas quaedam effi-
ciendi&dquo; .’121 Whitfield believes that Tommasini’s annotation is ’more helpful
... than the elaborated theorizing of Ercole.’122 But he observes that ’it is
only a single facet of the word, and Tommasini probably exaggerated this
medical connection.’123 It seems to me, however, that Loren MacKinney is
right to say that ’&dquo;[m]edical&dquo; should be interpreted as specific human
...

methods of healing, and not merely the &dquo;ups and downs&dquo; of a man’s mental
or physical vigor (virta)’;124 and neither Tommasini nor Whitfield cite any

instances of the use of virtu in this sense by Machiavelli.125

In chapter XIV of Il Principe, Machiavelli uses virtu in the sense of ‘efficacy’.
He says that a ruler must concern himself with military affairs, for it is the
only art necessary to one who rules, and ’is of such efficacy (virtu)126 that it
not only maintains those born as rulers but often enables private citizens to
119 Oreste Tommasini, La vita egli scritti di Niccolò Machiavelli nella loro relazione col machia-
vellismo (Turin, Rome, I9II), II, 38-9: ’... nè altro indica la parola virtù del politico
fiorentino che quello che Galeno e i medici solevano designare col nome di virtus’.
120
J. H. Whitfield, Machiavelli (Oxford, I947), 95.
121 These words are from a passage in Spinoza’s Ethica (IV, 8) that Tommasini quoted,
saying that Spinoza also seemed to understand virtus in this sense.
122 Francesco Ercole, La Politica di Machiavelli (Rome: Anonima Romana Editoriale, I926).
123 Whitfield, op. cit. note I20, 96.
124 Loren C. MacKinney, ’Gilbert’s "On Machiavelli’s Idea of Virtù"’, Renaissance News, 5
(Spring I952), 22. This interesting discussion in Renaissance News of medical uses of
virtú in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began with Felix Gilbert’s ’On Machiavelli’s
Idea of Virtu’, 4 (Winter I95I), 53-5. See also Gilbert’s ’MacKinney’s Comments on
Gilbert’s "Machiavelli’s Idea of Virtù"’, 5 (Autumn I952), 70-I. Gilbert seems to con-
ceive of’"the ups and downs" of a man’s mental or physical vigor’ as a medical sense of
virtú.
125 The only passage in which virtú is connected with medical matters occurs in a letter
written in I509, in which Machiavelli expresses the hope that the skill of the physicians
(’la virtú de’ medici’) will cause Jacopo Guicciardini’s fever to end (Lettere, 202).
126 Most commentators gloss virtú as ’efficacia’ or ’forza’ and Bonfantini, op. cit. note 3, 47,
adds that ’la parola virtù, più che del significato classico, come quasi sempre in M., tien
qui di quello medievale, per cui si chiamavano "virtudiose" le pietre magiche.’

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rise to chapter VI of ll Principe, Machiavelli says that one

that position’.127 In
should imitate great men and that even if one does not equal their deeds one
will achieve something. One should act like prudent archers when their
target is very distant. Knowing well the power or strength (virt£)12 of the
bow (‘conoscendo fino a quanto va la virtu del loro arco’), they aim much
higher in order to reach the target.129
Machiavelli occasionally uses virtâ with reference to the arts or similar
pursuits,130 o In chapter XXI of ll Principe, he says that a ruler, in order to gain
127 Princ., XIV, 62.
128
Lisio, op. cit. note 3, 40, observes: ’Assai elastica è questa parola nell’ uso latino e italiano.
129
Princ., VI, 30.
130
Migliorini, in his Storia della lingua italiana, op. cit. note 20, 396, says that in the refined
society of the sixteenth century ’the qualities most valued came to be thought of as
; hence the new meaning of virtuoso that originated in court society and was used of
virtù
artists, men of letters, and singers.’ The use of virtuoso with reference to music, which
Migliorini observes was to predominate in later centuries, is well illustrated by an example
that he gives from Grazzini’s La Strega (V, 8): ’Taddeo innamorato vuol sonare il cem-
balo per mostrare d’esser vertuoso.’
Vespasiano (Vita di Nicola V Papa) tells how as Tomaso da Serezana he ’[d]eterminò di
seguitare gli studi ... a Firenze, madre degli studi e d’ogni virtù in quello tempo.
Subito giunto a Firenze, trovò messer Rinaldo degli Albizi, uomo singularissimo, che
lo tolse per insegnare a’ figliuoli, con buono salario, come giovane d’assai virtù.’ Virtú
clearly refers to Tomaso’s ability as a scholar and teacher. Giorgio Vasari, in his Le vite
de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori (I550 and I568), speaking of the death of
Brunelleschi, testifies to his goodness and his outstanding talents: ’Cosi dunque cristiana-
mente vivendo, lasciò al mondo odore della bontà sua e delle egregie sue virtù’ (Vita di

Brunelleschi). In his Vita di Donato [Donatello], he tells how the Martelli family, who
possessed many of Donatello’s works, recognized his prowess ). virtú In his Vita di
(
Ghirlandaio, Vasari tells how the painter introduced certain details into a picture ’per
mostrare che quella età fioriva in ogni sorte di virtù e massimamente nelle lettere’. And
at the beginning of the Vita di Botticelli, Vasari gives some advice to ’ogni virtuoso, e

particularmente agli artefici nostri’.

Both Vespasiano and Vasari often speak of men who favoured those who showed talent
or merit. In his Vita di Cosimo de’ Medici, Vespasiano says that ’Cosimo fu liberalissimo,
e massime con tutti gli uomini che conosceva che avessino qualche virtù’. He adds:
’I più degli uomini che occupano il tempo loro alle lettere, e non si danno ad alcuno
guadagno, sono poveri di robba, e ricchi di virtù’. When Nicolao Nicoli was in dire
straits because he had spent too much on books, he was given whatever he needed from
the Medici bank: ‘Avendo Nicolao buona parte delle sustanze sua consumate in libri, e
mancandogli da potere vivere ... Cosimo, conosciuta la necessità di Nicolao, gli disse
che non voleva che si lasciasse mancare nulla; che aveva ordinato al banco che gli fussino
pagati i danari che voleva’. Cosimo bought a house for Marsiglio Ficino, who was very
talented but lacked means: ’sendo uomo di buono ingegno, e vôlto alle virtù, e dotto in
greco e in latino, e avendo mediocre facultà, a fine che non avesse a andare a quello

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a good reputation, ’must show himself a lover of le virtu, and honour those
who excel in every art.’131 In the tenth chapter of book I of the Discorsi,
Machiavelli asserts that founders of republics or kingdoms should be praised,
while those who found tyrannies are blameworthy.
’Infamous and detestable are those men who destroy religions, who sap the strength
of kingdoms and republics, who are enemies of the virtu (inimici delle virtii), of
letters and of every other art that is useful or increases the glory of mankind’.132
And in the Istoriefiorentine, Machiavelli says that ’our city is full of the works’
of Brunelleschi, and that the inscription on his statue in the cathedral of
Florence testifies to his i~M.~3 There are at least two other passages in which
Machiavelli uses virtu with reference to intellectual, literary or artistic ability
or talents. In the Proemio to Book I of the Discorsi, he discusses the enterprise

ultimo estremo della povertà, gli comperò una casa in Firenze e dononnegli’. In short,

’[a]veva Cosimo questo buono vedere, d’essere amico degli uomini virtuosi, e sapergli e
istimargli e servigli: in tutte le cose che l’avessino richiesto, dava loro; e inoltre faceva
infinite di queste liberalità, sanza esserne richiesto.’ And Vasari, in his Vita di Andrea
Mantegna, tells how Mantegna worked in Mantua for the marquis Ludovico Conzaga,
’che sempre stimò assai e favori la virtù d’Andrea.’ Leon Battista Alberti was a ’persona
di civilissimi e lodevoli costumi, amico de’ virtuosi, e liberale e cortese con ognuno’
(Vita di Alberti). The young Michelangelo greatly regretted the death of Lorenzo de’
Medici, who was ’amico a tutte le virtú’ (Vita di Michelangelo). Michelangelo once
offended Pope Clement VII who, ’benché adirato con lui, come amico della virtù, gli
perdonò ogni cosa’ (op. cit.). And in the Vita di Filippo Lippi, Vasari refers to a work of
art in the possession of Baccio Baldini, ’fisico eccellentissimo et amatore di tutte le virtù.’
131 Princ., XXI, 92. Some texts have the phrase dando recapito alli uomini virtuosi (’giving
advancement to able men’) after le virtú. Russo, op. cit. note 3, I79, comments: ’Virtú,
virtuosi, nel senso tecnico, di abili, come oggi si parla dei virtuosi del canto, della musica,
ecc. Difatti si aggiunge "onorando gli eccellenti in una arte"’. Alvise Cornaro uses a

similar phrase, saying that his temperate life permits him, despite his great age, ’to converse
with gentlemen, distinguished intellectually, as well as in manners and literature, and
eccellenti in alcun’ altra virtù’ (I; ed. cit. note II2, 63).
132 Disc., I, I0, I56: ‘Sono ... infami e detestabili gli uomini distruttori delle religioni
dissipatori de’ regni e delle republiche, inimici delle virtú, delle lettere e d’ogni altra
arte che arrechi utilità e onore alla umana generazione’. Piergili, op. cit. note 3, 63,
comments: ’Virtù in questo luogo non tanto significa le virtù morali o civili, quanto

piuttosto l’ abilità nelle scienze o nelle arti d’ornamento. In tal senso chiamaronsi e
chiamansi, virtuosi anche i periti di canto o di disegno.’ Cf. Girardi, op. cit. note 3, 286:
’virtù: qui nel senso umanistica di "studia", occupazioni propriamente degne dell’uomo.’
133
Ist. fior IV, 23, 303-4: ’Era in quelli tempi in Firenze uno eccellentissimo architettore
.,
chiamato Filippo di ser Brunellesco, delle opere del quale è piena la nostra città, tanto che
meritò dopo la morte che la sua immagine fusse posta di marmo nel principale tempio di
Firenze, con lettere a piè che ancora rendono a chi legge testimonianza delle sue virtú.’

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on which he is embarking and says that even if his work is defective it will at
least ’show the way to someone ... with more ability (virtu), discorso,134 and
judgement’.135 Again, in a letter to his son Guido, written in 1327, Machia-
velli encourages him to work hard at ’le lettere et la musica’,observing how
much he himself has made of his not very great talent (virtu).136

IV. VIRTCJ ANCIENT AND MODERN

Machiavelli frequently contrasts the virtu that existed in the ancient world
with that to be found in his own times. Since what he says about this sheds
light on what he means by political and military virtu, it is necessary to
consider it briefly.
In the second chapter of Book II of the Discorsi, Machiavelli considers why
in ancient times men loved liberty more than in his own. He says that it was
because they were stronger, and that their greater strength was largely due to
their upbringing which, in turn, was determined by their religion. Machia-
velli says that the ancient religions placed the highest good (il sommo bene) ’in
greatness of spirit, in strength of body (nella grandezza dello animo, nella
fortezza del corpo) and in all the other things that make men very strong
(fortissimi).’ Ancient religion emphasized ’pomp and magnificence in its
ceremonies and the bloody and terrifying sacrifice of animals’. Moreover, ’it
honoured only men who had attained great worldly glory (mondana gloria),
such as generals and rulers’. ’Our’ religion, on the other hand, ’reveals the
truth and shows the right path (mostro la veritd e la vera via)’ and it ’has glori-
fied humble and contemplative men more than those who have done great
things’. It ’has placed il sommo bene in humility, abasement, and contempt of
the world’; in its ceremonies ’the pomp is more delicata than magnifica, and it
lacks actions that are fierce ( feroce) or powerful (gagliarda)’.137This, then, is the
source of the present weakness of the world.
This theme recurs in Dell’arte della guerra, where Machiavelli says that one
of the reasons for the lack of virtu in Europe is that ’the way of living today,
because of the Christian religion, does not require that necessity of defending
oneself that there was in ancient times’. Those defeated in war are no longer
134 The meaning of discorso is uncertain here; most commentators suggest either ’eloquenza’
or ’capacità di analisi’.
135
Disc., I, Proemio, I23.
136
Lettere, 499: ’... vedi quanto honore fa a me un poco di virtú che io ho’. Cf. Bonfantini,
op. cit. note 3, II33: ’ un poco di virtù ...: quel poco di valore e di fama che egli aveva
potuto acquistare come uom di lettere.’
137 Disc., II, 2, 282.

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killed or enslaved, their cities are not destroyed or their possessions seized.
The natural result is that since men have little fear of defeat they do not want
to undertake military duties or exercises.138
There is no doubt that on the whole Machiavelli considers virtu to be
lacking in his own day compared with ancient times, especially ancient
Rome. On thirteen occasions he refers to virtu antica139 (or virtu antiqua)140 and
virtu romana.141 In the Proemio to Book I of the Discorsi, he contrasts the
interest shown in his own times in the material remains of antiquity, the
honour given them, and the attempts to imitate ancient art, with the neglect
of ancient history and politics and of the virtuoissime operazioni of which the
ancient historians write. The ancient kings, generals, citizens and lawgivers
are ’more admired than imitated’ and the result, Machiavelli says, is that

there is now no trace of that antiqua virtu.142

Machiavelli expresses a less extreme view, however, in chapter XXV of Il
Principe where, after likening, fortuna to a turbulent river, and saying that it
’shows her power where no virtú is organized to resist her’ (dove non e
ordinata virtu a resisterle),143 he says that:
’if one considers Italy, which is the seat of these changes (variazioni) and which has
been the cause of them, one will see a country (una campagna) without banks (argini)
and dykes (riparo); if it had been provided with appropriate virtIÍ (conveniente virtu),
as Germany (la Magna),144 Spain, and France have been, either there would not
have been these great changes or they would not have affected Italy.’145 ,

Machiavelli also praises the Swiss;146 therefore, although he often laments in

138 Arte d. guerra, II, 394-5.
139 Disc., I, 9, I55; II, I6, 322; II, I7, 327, 328; III, 22, 450; Arte d. guerra III, 4I5; .,
, Ist. fior
I, 39, I35; Teatro, 58 (Mand. Prologo).
140 Disc., I, Proemio, 124.
141 Disc., I, I5, I72; II, 2, 283; II, 8, 298; II, I9, 333. There is also a reference to the virtú del
Popolo romano in Disc., II, I, 275. Mayer, op. cit. note I, 23, note 3, says that there are ten
instances in the Discorsi, six of antica virtú and four of virtú romana, but he does not list
them.
142 ., I23-4.
Disc
143 Lisio, op. cit. note 3, I38, glosses non è ordinata virtú: ’non è ordinata, preparata, alcuna
virtú’. But he adds that it could also mean ’non èalcuna virtú ordinata’.
144 In Dell’arte della guerra, II, 396, Machiavelli praises Germany, saying that since there are
many principalities and republics there, there is much virtú . And in the Discorsi he says
that the German peoples today live virtuosamente, II, Proemio, 273.
145 Princ., XXV, 99.
146 In Arte d. guerra, II, 375, he says that the Swiss resemble in some measure the antica
only
milizia; and in II, 4I4, he notes their courage, and their use of capital punishment for

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general terms the lack of modern virtu it is probable that he has Italy par-
ticularly in mind.
Neal Wood, in his suggestive article, ’Machiavelli’s Concept of Virtu’
Reconsidered’,147 attempts to examine the meaning of virtú more thoroughly
than in previous studies, and he lists the persons to whom virtu is attributed in
11 Principe and the Discorsi. Since the Discorsi (by far the longer work) pur-
ports to be (and to some extent is) a commentary on Livy’s history of Rome,
it is not really surprising that Wood comes to the conclusion that most of the

persons whom Machiavelli considers to be virtuosi lived in ancient times. By

compiling his list (of fifty-three men) only from these two works, Wood
distorts the subject to some extent,148 for if we examine the Istorie fiorentine
we fmd that, of the uomini virtuosi named, only seven lived between the
fourth and twelfth centuries, while there are twenty-nine who lived in the
fourteenth century or later.149 In all, of the ninety-three uomini virtuosi named
or referred to by Machiavelli, thirty-nine lived before Christ, seven between

cowardly soldiers, saying that they should be imitated. (See also VII, 5I7.) In Princ .,
XII, he says that ’the Swiss are very well armed and enjoy great freedom’ (55), thus
resembling the Romans and Spartans; and he speaks of Italy as being vituperata da’
Svizzeri (57), referring to the Swiss victories at Novara in I500 and at Ravenna in I5I2.
In Princ., XIII, 60-I, he tells how, in the late fifteenth century, Louis XI of France ’dis-
pensed with his own infantry, and began to employ Swiss’, And ’since the French are
accustomed to fight with Swiss troops, they think they cannot win without them’. The
result is that ’the French are insufficiently strong to oppose the Swiss, and without the aid
of the Swiss they will not venture against others’ (Ricci-Vincent, op. cit. note 3, 52). See
also Ernst Walder, ’Machiavelli und die virtù der Schweizer’, Beiträge zür allgemeine
Geschichte, II (I944), 69-I28.
147 Political Studies, I5, No. 2 (June I967), I59-72.
148 Another important defect is that Wood’s list ’consists only of the individuals specifically
described by Machiavelli as virtuous’ (and indeed in his discussion of the meaning of
virtú, too, he pays scant attention to important synonyms of virtú
). Wood rightly empha-
sizes that it ’would be utterly fallacious to infer that all the countless others mentioned,
but not so described, are in his mind deficient in virtù. He is not the meticulous author of a
scientific treatise that can be read in this manner. Undoubtedly he fails to include the
names of some whom he considers virtuous, and neglects to refer to the virtù of some

whom he does include’ (op. cit. note I47, I63). However, Wood ignores those whom
Machiavelli does consider virtuosi but of whom he uses words like animoso or gagliardo.
For example, in the Istorie fiorentine (VII, 22, 486), Machiavelli speaks of the virtú of Pope
Sixtus IV. Wood does not include Sixtus in his list of , because it is limited
uomini virtuosi
to Il Principe and the Discorsi; but in the former work, Machiavelli calls Sixtus a resolute
or courageous pope (’benché
surgessi qualche volta uno papa animoso, come fu Sisto’
Princ XI, 5I]).
[
.,
149
Again, this is hardly surprising since most of the work is concerned with the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.

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the fourth and twelfth centuries, and forty-seven between the fourteenth and
sixteenth centuries. While these figures are interesting and by no means
without significance, they concern individuals only and not peoples, and
great importance should not be given to them. We certainly cannot infer that
Machiavelli thought that there were more uomini virtuosi in his own times
than in the ancient world or that there were few between the first and third
centuries or none in the thirteenth century. Nor is it surprising that many of
the uomini virtuosi mentioned in the Istorie fiorentine are Florentines.150 There
is no reason, then, to doubt the correctness of the common view that
Machiavelli thought his own times and the recent past were rather lacking in
virtu, but the contrast between ’modern’ lack of virtu and an ancient world
well endowed with uomini virtuosi should not be overemphasized.

.........

Virtu, then, is a word that has a wide variety of meanings in the writings of
Machiavelli. There are different kinds of virtú: moral virtue, political virtu,
military virtn (and a combination of political and military virtu). VirttÍ has the
sense of natural powers or faculties possessed by men, spirits, or things (e.g.,

virtu occulta, virtu naturale), and also the sense of talents that men have for
various pursuits, intellectual, literary or artistic.
The use of virtu with this wide range of meanings was not initiated by
Machiavelli.15, There are no grounds for saying that he changed virtu from
a moral idea into
something that is amoral or compatible with immorality;
first, because virtu had always had various and the moral sense, even
senses,
though very important, was only one; secondly, because Machiavelli some-
times does use virtu in a more or less traditional moral sense. Moreover, the
wide range of meanings of virtu is not peculiar to Italian. The same pheno-
inenon is found in other Western European languages; in French and English,

vertu and ’virtue’ also had a variety of meanings. Therefore, it cannot be

claimed that the dominance of the Italian language and culture in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ’corrupted’ French and English usage.152

150 Yet Wood, disregarding the Istorie fiorentine, can say that ’Florentines fare poorly at the
hands of Machiavelli’, op. cit. note I47, I65.
151 Most of the Italian writers that I quoted lived before Machiavelli or were contemporaries
whose vocabulary is unlikely to have been influenced by him (since few of his works
were published before his death).
152 The only definite influence is in the arts, and the persistence of the Italian word virtuoso
for a highly skilled performer indicates that it never really became assimilated. As for

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Nevertheless, our analysis has demonstrated that it is political and military
virtu that are most important in Machiavelli’s writings, and these are the
kinds of virtú that he so frequently contrasts or links with fortuna.
specifically Machiavellian influence, some of the passages I have quoted are from Com-
mynes, who wrote before Machiavelli, and from Rabelais, who is most unlikely to have
been influenced by Machiavelli.

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