18
As a monarchy, his rule obviously lacked a domestic republican order, something that
would have a given the Spanish Empire a greater durability and that had a lasting legacy
in Spain and Latin America by depriving them of love of freedom. He achieved imperio
by marrying Queen Isabella II of Castile and vanquishing the Moors in 1492. In 1501-2
he expelled the Sephardic Jews from Iberia, the Marranos. In Italy, he drove out the
French from Naples thereby becoming its king in 1505. Eventually his enterprise in the
Americas would allow Spain to be the foremost empire of its time.
28
Machiavelli praises the wisdom of Ferdinand and his calculated decisions in
expanding his area of power. Wont to say that “men often act like certain lesser birds of
prey, in whom there is such desire to catch their prey, to which nature urges them, that
they do not sense another larger bird that is above them so as to kill them” (D I 40.7),
Ferdinand was thus in tune with the way that competition among states functions in the
sense that Machiavelli sees it. He was also aware that conspiracies could bring him down
(D III 6 fn. 16; P XXI). He was able to foresee challengers and execute them swiftly,
such as Francesco Coppola in 1487. Thus, in Ferdinand Machiavelli finds a modern
emperor to be emulated, someone who used Christianity to his advantage and did not live
by its tenets.
29
28
Until the wars of Latin American independence in the early 1800s.
29
“Ferdinand of Aragon furnishes a prominent exception to the general domination of secular leaders by
religious ones” (Sullivan, p. 42). Sullivan goes on to say that Machiavelli eventually rejects Ferdinand as a
model since he does not fully renounce Christianity. However the historical evidence of the effective use of
religion for the political domination of Latin America by Spain suggests that Machiavelli did not see the
full imperial political potential of Christianity precisely because he largely neglected to study the Spanish
Empire. Christianity may be negative for republican politics, but perhaps it is useful for imperial policies.
Convention