Machiavelli’s daily routine while writing The Prince
“For four hours I forget all my worries and boredom, I am afraid neither of poverty nor death.”
Welcome to the latest issue of Subtle Maneuvers. Previously: Kubrick’s willpower, Baldessari’s “Johnisms,” and other pieces of subtle inspiration.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
Machiavelli died on this day in 1527. For 14 years, he was a high-ranking diplomat in the Republic of Florence, but the return of the exiled Medici family in 1512, and the subsequent dissolution of the republican government, resulted in Machiavelli’s sudden fall from power. In the words of the historian Paul Strathern, he was “stripped of his office, deprived of his Florentine citizenship, and fined 1,000 florins, which effectively bankrupted him. He was then banned from the city and exiled to his family smallholding seven miles south of the city walls, to a life of poverty and disgrace.”
In exile, Machiavelli turned his attention to writing a book that drew on everything he had learned in his diplomatic career. This was, of course, The Prince, one of the most influential works of political thought in Western history. He wrote the book in a matter of months, working in the evenings after full days supervising work on his land (and playing backgammon at the local inn). Machiavelli described his daily routine in a letter from December 10, 1513: