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The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli's Discourses and Guicciardini's Considerations
The question of order inspired two of the greatest political thinkers of the Renaissance―Niccoló Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, whose major works on the nature of government are linked in an authoritative new translation. Political adversaries but nonetheless friends, Machiavelli and Guicciardini both reflected on ancient Rome and refined their conceptions of government with an eye to the political turmoil of their own Florence. Based on the definitive Italian editions and including extensive explanatory notes, this new translation recreates the fascinating conflict that helped to shape the history of political thought.
504 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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September 5, 2025
James B. Atkinson & David Sices' Fresh Translations Breathe New Life Into Niccolò Machiavelli's 'Discourses On Livy' & Francesco Guicciardini's 'Considerations'.
James B. Atkinson & David Sices first published their landmark duology of Niccolò Machiavelli's 'Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius' & Francesco Guicciardini's 'Considerations of the 'Discourses' of Niccolò Machiavelli' in 2002, & they have collaborated on a number of other projects as well, including their 2004 'Machiavelli & his Friends : Their Personal Correspondence', & their 2007 'The Comedies of Machiavelli', all of which are currently published by the Northern Illinois University Press. This edition of 'The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli's Discourses & Guicciardini's Considerations' is 466 pages in length, & the translation's two parts are each subdivided according to each book of the 'Discourses' & its corresponding companion book of the 'Considerations', the latter of which are located in their own section at the back of the volume. Atkinson & Sices have chosen an exceptional format with which to present their book by placing after each Discourse or Consideration its own set of expanded notes in an easy-to-access, sequential layout that eliminates the need to turn all the way to the index as is usually the case. This compendium has been prepared with an unmistakable degree of polish & an excruciating attention to detail.
Although they came from different backgrounds, Niccolò Machiavelli & Francesco Guicciardini both devoted their lives to the Florentine government & shared a lifelong passion for history, politics, & statecraft. Machiavelli served as secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498-1512 before he was implicated in a conspiracy plot against the Medici & effectively barred from politics. While in exile, he completed the majority of the work for his treatise on republican government, the 'Discourses on Livy', between 1517-1519, & the writing was intended to serve as a political commentary on the first ten books, also called the first decade, of Titus Livius' 'Ab Urbe Condita'.
Francesco Guicciardini, on the other hand, was an economic 'have' & prominent Medici partisan & as such, he enjoyed a successful political career during the regime of Giuliano de'Medici, Duke of Nemours, & his nephew, Lorenzo II de'Medici, whom had returned to power in Florence due to the influence of their blood relative, Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici, later to become Pope Leo X. In 1516 Leo appointed Guicciardini as papal governor of Modena, & the next year he was also given jurisdiction over Reggio Emilia, & finally, during the papacy of Pope Clement VII, Francesco was awarded a promotion to president of papal-controlled Romagna in 1524. Guicciardini's good fortune would not last, however. He ran afoul of the anti-Medici faction, the 'Arrabiati', who had established the short-lived Last Republic of Florence from 1527-1530, & due to his close Medici ties, all of Francesco's property was confiscated & he was banished from the city. Later in 1530 while in Rome Guicciardini ran across an original manuscript copy of Machiavelli's 'Discourses on Livy', & it was then that he began considering the idea of composing his own commentary to his friend's disquisition on Republican statecraft which, appropriately enough, would be entitled, the 'Considerations of the 'Discourses' Of Machiavelli'.
Each of the 142 Discourses is devoted to a particular topic, or group of topics, & each features a descriptive headnote, such as Discourse I 1:'What the Origins of Cities Have Usually Been & What Were Rome's Origins', or Discourse II 4: 'Republics Have Had Three Ways of Expanding'. They vary greatly in length, with the shortest not exceeding a single paragraph while the treatise's largest & most famous, Discourse III 6:'On Conspiracies', exceeds 20 pages when factored with the supplementary translation notes.
Historians have deduced from a notebook left by Guicciardini after his death in 1540 that he had originally planned to compose 'Considerations' for 59 of the 142 'Discourses on Livy', but 20 of the pages in the book were left blank, so only 39 of the intended 59 were ever written. The 'Considerations' are comparatively a much smaller body of writing than the 'Discourses', & their number is unevenly distributed within the 3 short books as follows -- 28 in Book I, 8 in Book II, & 3 in Book III.
The Discourses' first book is concerned chiefly with the constitutional, institutional, & legal innovations of the Roman republic---in short, Rome's domestic policies which were conducted through what he refers to as 'public resolutions'. For instance, Discourse I 10 contains Machiavelli's illustrative examples of the various ruses & deceptions employed by early Greek & Roman rulers throughout history while introducing law & religion to those over whom they governed. Numa Pompilius successfully added to his credibility by claiming to be on amicable terms with Egeria, a water nymph, while Lycurgus of Sparta & Solon of Athens both justified their own actions by acting under the pretense of having received favorable omens from the oracle at Delphi. And during the Renaissance, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, according to his own account, regularly spoke with & received his instructions from God himself, claiming as much while organizing the Bonfire of the Vanities & Piero de'Medici's exile from Florence in the year 1494.
In Discourse I 17, Machiavelli discusses Milan's difficulties retaining a non-authoritarian form of government when, after Filippo Maria Visconti's death in 1447, the short-lived Golden Ambrosian Republic lasts a mere 3 years before being taken over by Visconti's son-in-law, Francesco Sforza, in 1450. He also provides a comparison between Lucius Iunius Brutus, who, along with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus & Publius Valerius Publicola was responsible for expelling the Tarquin monarchs from Rome in the year 509 BC, & his descendant, Marcus Iunius Brutus, who led the conspiracy against & plotted the assassination of Rome's dictator perpeteo, Julius Caesar, in 44 BC. Later in Discourse I 29, Machiavelli provides several striking examples of ungrateful rulers who punished the victorious generals serving under them, most notably the Roman emperor Vespasian, who rewards Marcus Antonius Primus for defeating 2 armies under the command of his rival, Vitellius, at Bedriaco & Terni by dispatching Gaius Licinius Mucianus to summarily relieve Primus of his military command, depriving him of all political & military power. During the Italian Cinquecento, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba was known as 'The Great Captain', & after his successful conquest of the Kingdom of Naples for Ferdinand of Aragon, was first removed from his position as commander, & then relieved of the fortresses under his control, & after accompanying his sovereign back to Spain, according to Machiavelli, "..he died without honor a short while later.", in December 1515. The supplementary notes provided by Atkinson & Sices are exceptional in this section, offering expanded information on the generals & rulers discussed for casual readers, history enthusiasts, & specialists alike.
The text of Discourse I 38, contains a summary of Florence's diplomatic relations with various foreign powers such as Duke Valentino, whose papal army was refused permission to cross Florentine-held territory following its conquests of Faenza & Bologna in the spring & early summer of 1501. King Louis XII of France was also turned down by the republic in 1500 after offering to have his commander Jean de Polignac turn Pisa over on the condition of Florence's restitution of a sum of 50,000 ducats in return for control of the city. Louis & Florence later reached an accommodation regarding the city of Arezzo where after being conquered by another French commander, Imbaud de Rivoire, it was restored to Florentine authority following a month of negotiations in August 1502. Machiavelli was personally involved in all of these events, as they occurred during his tenure as secretary of the second chancery during the regime of Gonfalonier Piero Soderini.
According to the renowned political scholar Professor Leo Strauss, the second book of the 'Discourses' is chiefly concerned with "..the foreign affairs of Rome that were transacted on the basis of public counsel." -- More specifically, the wars, conquests, & alliances which were conducted through public resolutions. In Discourse II 4, Machiavelli discusses the different leagues & alliances formed by the republics in antiquity such as the Etruscan league, which at the height of its power included twelve cities, among them Chiusi, Veii, Arezzo, Fiesole, & Volterra. The Etruscans founded a colony called Adria, which is thought to have been the inspiration for naming the Adriatic Sea, & although Etruria originally had controlled all of the territory in what is now considered Lombardy, it was conquered from them by a tribe of Gauls led by Bellovesus roughly 200 years before the arrival of the Romans. Machiavelli then elaborates on the various ways the Achaean & Aetolian leagues successfully overcame the inherent challenges faced by large coalitions of city-states before briefly summarizing a diplomatic meeting between the Aetolian Praetor, King Philip V of Macedonia, & the Roman general Titus Quinctius Flamininus. This is an especially interesting chapter, as Niccolò's eloquent historical commentary is rendered doubly informative alongside Atkinson & Sices' detailed notes on the Swiss Confederation & Swabian League of the early Renaissance period which also are discussed in this Discourse.
'The Sweetness Of Power' is an outstanding, one-of-a-kind compilation containing superior-quality translations of two influential Renaissance political writings with such a wealth of finely penned expanded notes that it would be impossible to discuss everything -- it is most certainly not to be missed. Atkinson & Sices have prepared a top-notch product, of that there can be no doubt. For a smartly-written modern commentary on Machiavelli's 'Discourses', Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.'s 'Machiavelli's New Modes & Orders: A Commentary on the Discourses on Livy' is most widely known, & probably the best overall commentary on this political treatise. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review!
James B. Atkinson & David Sices first published their landmark duology of Niccolò Machiavelli's 'Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius' & Francesco Guicciardini's 'Considerations of the 'Discourses' of Niccolò Machiavelli' in 2002, & they have collaborated on a number of other projects as well, including their 2004 'Machiavelli & his Friends : Their Personal Correspondence', & their 2007 'The Comedies of Machiavelli', all of which are currently published by the Northern Illinois University Press. This edition of 'The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli's Discourses & Guicciardini's Considerations' is 466 pages in length, & the translation's two parts are each subdivided according to each book of the 'Discourses' & its corresponding companion book of the 'Considerations', the latter of which are located in their own section at the back of the volume. Atkinson & Sices have chosen an exceptional format with which to present their book by placing after each Discourse or Consideration its own set of expanded notes in an easy-to-access, sequential layout that eliminates the need to turn all the way to the index as is usually the case. This compendium has been prepared with an unmistakable degree of polish & an excruciating attention to detail.
Although they came from different backgrounds, Niccolò Machiavelli & Francesco Guicciardini both devoted their lives to the Florentine government & shared a lifelong passion for history, politics, & statecraft. Machiavelli served as secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498-1512 before he was implicated in a conspiracy plot against the Medici & effectively barred from politics. While in exile, he completed the majority of the work for his treatise on republican government, the 'Discourses on Livy', between 1517-1519, & the writing was intended to serve as a political commentary on the first ten books, also called the first decade, of Titus Livius' 'Ab Urbe Condita'.
Francesco Guicciardini, on the other hand, was an economic 'have' & prominent Medici partisan & as such, he enjoyed a successful political career during the regime of Giuliano de'Medici, Duke of Nemours, & his nephew, Lorenzo II de'Medici, whom had returned to power in Florence due to the influence of their blood relative, Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici, later to become Pope Leo X. In 1516 Leo appointed Guicciardini as papal governor of Modena, & the next year he was also given jurisdiction over Reggio Emilia, & finally, during the papacy of Pope Clement VII, Francesco was awarded a promotion to president of papal-controlled Romagna in 1524. Guicciardini's good fortune would not last, however. He ran afoul of the anti-Medici faction, the 'Arrabiati', who had established the short-lived Last Republic of Florence from 1527-1530, & due to his close Medici ties, all of Francesco's property was confiscated & he was banished from the city. Later in 1530 while in Rome Guicciardini ran across an original manuscript copy of Machiavelli's 'Discourses on Livy', & it was then that he began considering the idea of composing his own commentary to his friend's disquisition on Republican statecraft which, appropriately enough, would be entitled, the 'Considerations of the 'Discourses' Of Machiavelli'.
Each of the 142 Discourses is devoted to a particular topic, or group of topics, & each features a descriptive headnote, such as Discourse I 1:'What the Origins of Cities Have Usually Been & What Were Rome's Origins', or Discourse II 4: 'Republics Have Had Three Ways of Expanding'. They vary greatly in length, with the shortest not exceeding a single paragraph while the treatise's largest & most famous, Discourse III 6:'On Conspiracies', exceeds 20 pages when factored with the supplementary translation notes.
Historians have deduced from a notebook left by Guicciardini after his death in 1540 that he had originally planned to compose 'Considerations' for 59 of the 142 'Discourses on Livy', but 20 of the pages in the book were left blank, so only 39 of the intended 59 were ever written. The 'Considerations' are comparatively a much smaller body of writing than the 'Discourses', & their number is unevenly distributed within the 3 short books as follows -- 28 in Book I, 8 in Book II, & 3 in Book III.
The Discourses' first book is concerned chiefly with the constitutional, institutional, & legal innovations of the Roman republic---in short, Rome's domestic policies which were conducted through what he refers to as 'public resolutions'. For instance, Discourse I 10 contains Machiavelli's illustrative examples of the various ruses & deceptions employed by early Greek & Roman rulers throughout history while introducing law & religion to those over whom they governed. Numa Pompilius successfully added to his credibility by claiming to be on amicable terms with Egeria, a water nymph, while Lycurgus of Sparta & Solon of Athens both justified their own actions by acting under the pretense of having received favorable omens from the oracle at Delphi. And during the Renaissance, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, according to his own account, regularly spoke with & received his instructions from God himself, claiming as much while organizing the Bonfire of the Vanities & Piero de'Medici's exile from Florence in the year 1494.
In Discourse I 17, Machiavelli discusses Milan's difficulties retaining a non-authoritarian form of government when, after Filippo Maria Visconti's death in 1447, the short-lived Golden Ambrosian Republic lasts a mere 3 years before being taken over by Visconti's son-in-law, Francesco Sforza, in 1450. He also provides a comparison between Lucius Iunius Brutus, who, along with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus & Publius Valerius Publicola was responsible for expelling the Tarquin monarchs from Rome in the year 509 BC, & his descendant, Marcus Iunius Brutus, who led the conspiracy against & plotted the assassination of Rome's dictator perpeteo, Julius Caesar, in 44 BC. Later in Discourse I 29, Machiavelli provides several striking examples of ungrateful rulers who punished the victorious generals serving under them, most notably the Roman emperor Vespasian, who rewards Marcus Antonius Primus for defeating 2 armies under the command of his rival, Vitellius, at Bedriaco & Terni by dispatching Gaius Licinius Mucianus to summarily relieve Primus of his military command, depriving him of all political & military power. During the Italian Cinquecento, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba was known as 'The Great Captain', & after his successful conquest of the Kingdom of Naples for Ferdinand of Aragon, was first removed from his position as commander, & then relieved of the fortresses under his control, & after accompanying his sovereign back to Spain, according to Machiavelli, "..he died without honor a short while later.", in December 1515. The supplementary notes provided by Atkinson & Sices are exceptional in this section, offering expanded information on the generals & rulers discussed for casual readers, history enthusiasts, & specialists alike.
The text of Discourse I 38, contains a summary of Florence's diplomatic relations with various foreign powers such as Duke Valentino, whose papal army was refused permission to cross Florentine-held territory following its conquests of Faenza & Bologna in the spring & early summer of 1501. King Louis XII of France was also turned down by the republic in 1500 after offering to have his commander Jean de Polignac turn Pisa over on the condition of Florence's restitution of a sum of 50,000 ducats in return for control of the city. Louis & Florence later reached an accommodation regarding the city of Arezzo where after being conquered by another French commander, Imbaud de Rivoire, it was restored to Florentine authority following a month of negotiations in August 1502. Machiavelli was personally involved in all of these events, as they occurred during his tenure as secretary of the second chancery during the regime of Gonfalonier Piero Soderini.
According to the renowned political scholar Professor Leo Strauss, the second book of the 'Discourses' is chiefly concerned with "..the foreign affairs of Rome that were transacted on the basis of public counsel." -- More specifically, the wars, conquests, & alliances which were conducted through public resolutions. In Discourse II 4, Machiavelli discusses the different leagues & alliances formed by the republics in antiquity such as the Etruscan league, which at the height of its power included twelve cities, among them Chiusi, Veii, Arezzo, Fiesole, & Volterra. The Etruscans founded a colony called Adria, which is thought to have been the inspiration for naming the Adriatic Sea, & although Etruria originally had controlled all of the territory in what is now considered Lombardy, it was conquered from them by a tribe of Gauls led by Bellovesus roughly 200 years before the arrival of the Romans. Machiavelli then elaborates on the various ways the Achaean & Aetolian leagues successfully overcame the inherent challenges faced by large coalitions of city-states before briefly summarizing a diplomatic meeting between the Aetolian Praetor, King Philip V of Macedonia, & the Roman general Titus Quinctius Flamininus. This is an especially interesting chapter, as Niccolò's eloquent historical commentary is rendered doubly informative alongside Atkinson & Sices' detailed notes on the Swiss Confederation & Swabian League of the early Renaissance period which also are discussed in this Discourse.
'The Sweetness Of Power' is an outstanding, one-of-a-kind compilation containing superior-quality translations of two influential Renaissance political writings with such a wealth of finely penned expanded notes that it would be impossible to discuss everything -- it is most certainly not to be missed. Atkinson & Sices have prepared a top-notch product, of that there can be no doubt. For a smartly-written modern commentary on Machiavelli's 'Discourses', Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.'s 'Machiavelli's New Modes & Orders: A Commentary on the Discourses on Livy' is most widely known, & probably the best overall commentary on this political treatise. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review!
July 18, 2017
This is the best of all Machiavelli's books. It is the truest explanation of his political philosophy. This translation is very good and made it an easy read. Machiavelli wrote in a personal voice anyway (speaking to the reader as "you") which made his writing vivid. Some of the individual chapters where a slog for me. But, only a few.
I recommend this book to all.
I recommend this book to all.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews