of this quintessential Renaissance man. Yet most treat this production as a reflection of
the other two Machiavellis, the immoral or the republican one. Few political theorists
treat Machiavelli the artist per se, for there is no easy way to reconcile these three faces
of the Florentine.
In this paper I want to posit a macro view of Machiavelli. Rather than focusing on
one precise detail or problem in his corpus (which can also be of great import), I want to
argue for a new general understanding of this author that seeks coherence on the basis of
his aesthetic approach.
The immoralist mask is something we see in The Prince but also in other works
such as the Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino in Killing Vitellozzo
Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Others. The republican mask is visible not only in the
Discourses, but also in The Florentine Histories. The artistic mask is evident in his major
poem The (Golden) Ass as well as his plays, such as Clizia. Rather than the artistic
Machiavelli being merely a reflection of teachings on evil or republican virtue, I want to
claim centrality for the aesthetic perspective of the Florentine. This, in turn, allows us to
see that Machiavelli understood power more in an aesthetic—rather than scientific or in
any other— fashion.
By doing so, I believe it is possible to find greater reconciliation between most of
Machiavelli’s works. While there is no doubt that there is evidence for the claims that
Machiavelli was a teacher of evil, on the one hand, and a proponent of classical
republican civic virtue, on the other, the tension between these two interpretations
appears so profound that there seems to be no way to reconcile them. They offer us two
vastly different portraits of Machiavelli from readings of the same texts. These readings,
2
Convention