Disarmed to Armed

This chapter evaluates both Niccolò Machiavelli's account in the Florentine Histories of the causes and consequences of the disarming of the Italian powers and some of his prescriptions in the Art of War for their rearming with arms of their own. The object and scope of Florentine Histories focus on what Machiavelli is willing to say to a Florentine pope about the actions of the Florentine people. It details the rise of a corrupt system of foreign affairs dominated by mercenary arms, papal meddling, and rentier wealth. Machiavelli then urgently counsels statesmen to arm their cities with their own arms as the indispensable condition for resisting the pernicious influence of the corrupt system of foreign affairs on domestic politics. Looking at the Art of War, the chapter also discusses how an artificial political unity can be forged by means of military orders and military discipline, even as the tension between the military and political orders themselves remains at least partly unresolved within the person of the military captain who is himself both a self-interested mercenary and a servant of the political authorities, be they republican or princely.