Lorenzo De Medici Chapter 5 Summary

Since Lorenzo de Medici has come to power in Machiavelli’s homeland, Machiavelli uses his address to the prince to advise Lorenzo how to most effectively retain his regime: This is especially prominent in chapters four and five where Machiavelli largely discusses the difference between the ruling structure of the Turkish and French governments which were in recent memory during Machiavelli’s time. “Whoever attacks the Turks must necessarily assume that he will find here entirely united, and he had better put his hope in his own forces than in the disorders of another (Machiavelli 18).” On the contrary the government of France has ranked officials, where ancient bloodlines account for the barons who have their own states and subjects (Machiavelli

It was no secret that a cohort of feudal states was inherently unstable, thus the unification of Italy seemed like a very reasonable idea from Machiavelli’s perspective, even though he never saw unification come to fruition. Florence, had recently been acquired by Lorenzo de Medici with more potential acquisitions to come as Lorenzo develops his new order; therefore, chapter five is directly applicable to the current state of both Florence most all the states that are classified within the unified Italy. Machiavelli’s position within foreign relations for his home state of Florence, allowed him the knowledge to understand how the transition to a new order can be conducted. Machiavelli professes his knowledge of three methods by new orders in dealing with transition of orders in a newly acquired principality: ruin them, go live there personally, or let them live by their own laws like an oligarchical state (Machiavelli 20). Machiavelli goes on to elaborate on this phenomenon in republics specifically, which is directly applicable to most all the states that are classified within the unified Italy as they have a history of republican institutions: “The memory of their ancient liberty does not and cannot let them rest, so that the most secure path is to eliminate or live in them. (Machiavelli 21)” It seems intuitive that Machiavelli would implore Lorenzo to take the last option as the smoothest