How Many Pages in the Original Edition of the Art of War

Peter Whitehorne's 1573 translation of The Art of War

The Art of State of war (Italian: Dell'arte della guerra) is a treatise by the Italian Renaissance political philosopher and historian Niccolò Machiavelli.

The format of The Art of War is a socratic dialogue. The purpose, declared by Lord Fabrizio Colonna (perhaps Machiavelli's persona) at the outset, "To honor and advantage virtù, not to have contempt for poverty, to esteem the modes and orders of military discipline, to constrain citizens to love one another, to live without factions, to esteem less the private than the public practiced." To these ends, Machiavelli notes in his preface, the military is like the roof of a palazzo protecting the contents.

Written between 1519 and 1520 and published the following year, it was Machiavelli'southward simply historical or political work printed during his lifetime, though he was appointed official historian of Florence in 1520 and entrusted with small-scale civil duties.

Format [edit]

The Art of War is divided into a preface (proemio) and seven books (chapters), which take the grade of a serial of dialogues that take place in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens built in a classical style past Bernardo Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to appoint in discussion, between Cosimo Rucellai and "Lord Fabrizio Colonna" (many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, simply this view has been challenged by scholars such every bit Mansfield^[ane]), with other patrizi and captains of the contempo Florentine republic: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni. The piece of work is dedicated to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, patrizio fiorentino in a preface which ostentatiously pronounces Machiavelli's authorship. After repeated uses of the showtime person atypical to introduce the dialogue, Machiavelli retreats from the piece of work, serving as neither narrator nor interlocutor.^[1] Fabrizio is enamored with the Roman Legions of the early to mid Roman Republic and strongly advocates adapting them to the contemporary situation of Renaissance Florence.

Fabrizio dominates the discussions with his knowledge, wisdom and insights. The other characters, for the most part, simply yield to his superior cognition and simply bring up topics, ask him questions or for clarification. These dialogues, then, frequently become monologues with Fabrizio detailing how an army should exist raised, trained, organized, deployed and employed.

Background [edit]

Machiavelli's Art of War echoes many themes, problems, ideas and proposals from his earlier, more widely read works, The Prince and The Discourses. To the gimmicky reader, Machiavelli's dialogue may seem impractical and to nether-rate the effectiveness of both firearms and cavalry. Withal, his theories were not merely based on a thorough study and analysis of classical and contemporary armed services practices. Machiavelli had served for fourteen years as secretary to the Chancery of Florence and "personally observed and reported back to his government on the size, limerick, weaponry, morale, and logistical capabilities of the well-nigh effective militaries of his day."^[2] However, the native fighting strength he assiduously oversaw was struck a catastrophic defeat in Prato in 1512 which led to the downfall of the Florentine republican government.

War machine strategy and science [edit]

Machiavelli wrote that war must exist expressly defined. He developed the philosophy of "limited warfare"—that is, when diplomacy fails, war is an extension of politics. Art of State of war also emphasizes the necessity of a state militia and promotes the concept of armed citizenry. He believed that all guild, religion, science, and art rested on the security provided by the military.^[3]

Critique [edit]

However at the time he was writing, firearms, both technologically and tactically, were in their infancy and the overwhelming of enemy missile-armed troops, of arms fifty-fifty, between salvos, by a charge of pikes and sword and shield men would accept been a viable tactic. In addition Machiavelli was not writing in a vacuum; Art of War was written as a practical proposition to the rulers of Florence as an alternative to the unreliable condottieri mercenaries upon which all the Italian urban center states were reliant. A continuing ground forces of the prosperous and pampered citizens that would take formed the cavalry would have been petty amend. Machiavelli therefore "talks up" the advantages of a militia of those arms that Florence could realistically muster and equip from her own resources.

However, his bones notion of emulating Roman practices was slowly and pragmatically adjusted by many later rulers and commanders, well-nigh notably Maurice of Nassau^[four] and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.^[4] They would lay the foundations for the system of linear tactics which would dominate the warfare of Europe and the world until after the Napoleonic Wars.

While Machiavelli's influence as a military theorist is frequently given a back seat to his writings as a political philosopher, that he considered Dell'arte della guerra to be his most important work is clear from his discussions of the armed forces science and soldiery in other works. For example, in The Prince he declares that "a prince should have no other object, no any other idea, nor take anything every bit his art but that of state of war and its orders and subject area; for that is the just art which is of concern to one who commands."^[v]

In the course of the sixteenth century twenty-one editions appeared and it was translated into French, English, German, and Latin. Montaigne named Machiavelli next to Caesar, Polybius, and Commynes as an authority on military affairs. Although in the seventeenth century changing military methods brought other writers to the fore, Machiavelli was still frequently quoted. In the eighteenth century, the Align de Saxe leaned heavily on him when he composed his Reveries upon the Art of War (1757), and Algarotti—though without much footing—saw in Machiavelli the master who has taught Frederick the Slap-up the tactics by which he astounded Europe. Like virtually people concerned with war machine matters, Jefferson had Machiavelli's Art of War in his library, and when the War of 1812 increased American interest in issues of war, The Art of War was brought out in a special American edition."^[vi]

This continued interest in Machiavelli equally a military thinker was not merely acquired by the fame of his proper name; some of the recommendations made in the Art of War—those on training, subject area, and classification, for instance—gained increasing practical importance in early modern Europe when armies came to be composed of professionals coming from the most different social strata. This does not mean that the progress of military art in the sixteenth century—in drilling, in dividing an army into singled-out units, in planning and organizing campaigns-was due to the influence of Machiavelli. Instead, the war machine innovators of the time were pleased to notice a work in which aspects of their practice were explained and justified. Moreover, in the sixteenth century, with its wide cognition of aboriginal literature and its deep respect for classical wisdom, information technology was commonly held that the Romans owed their armed forces triumphs to their accent on discipline and training. Machiavelli'due south attempt to nowadays Roman war machine organization every bit the model for the armies of his time was therefore not regarded as extravagant. At the terminate of the sixteenth century, for case, Justus Lipsius, in his influential writings on military machine affairs, too treated the Roman military order every bit a permanently valid model.

Themes [edit]

The content and format of The Fine art of War are strangely at odds. In the opening pages, after Cosimo has described his grandfather's inspiration for gardens in which the conversations are set, Fabrizio declaims that we should imitate ancient warfare rather than ancient art forms. Nonetheless, the Art of War is a dialogue in the humanist tradition of imitating classical forms. Machiavelli himself appears to take fallen into the trap for which Fabrizio criticizes Bernardo Rucellai. Despite this inherent contradiction, the book lacks much of the contemptuous tone and humor that is so characteristic of Machiavelli'due south other works.^{[seven] [viii]}

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli'due south Virtue, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996, (a&b)194, (c)191 & 196.
2. ^ Christopher Lynch, "Introduction," in The Art of War trans. Christopher Lynch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), fourteen.
3. ^ Fine art of War, Machiavelli, p. 234
4. ^ ^{a b} Niccolò Machiavelli, Fine art of State of war, Trans. Ellis Farnesworth. Da Capo press edition, 2001, with introduction past Neal Wood.
5. ^ Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince trans. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1985), p. xiv.
6. ^ Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age edited by Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 27.
7. ^ Mansfield, Harvey C. "Machiavelli's Virtue" p. 191 and 196.
8. ^ Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 68–69.

External links [edit]

• Notable Quotes and Aphorisms from Fine art Of War
• The Art of War and other writings
• Machiavelli'southward The Art Of War at Projection Gutenberg
• Tudor Translation (1560 in a 1905 ed.) and Neville Translation (1675).
• The Art Of War public domain audiobook at LibriVox (Neville Translation)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War_(Machiavelli_book)

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