Lecture 5: Machiavelli

Question 1

crucial concept in Machiavelli

Answer 1

Virtue:
- does not have a Christian meaning
- often means energy and it is something that that is typically manliness
- being feminine is very bad and dangerous
- women and babies are mainly passive and dependent
- ture virtues can be found in real men (similar to a fox)
- Lucrezia represents the Machevellian concept of virtue, foxiness
- modern concept of virtue: foxiness

Question 2

sexual imaginaries

Answer 2

• sex is treated as a matter of domination
• love is discussed in terms of military attacks and assaults and defence, in terms of mastery
• the city is seen as a woman and its citizens as her lovers

Question 3

Machiavelli women

Answer 3

• extremely realist, interested in things as they are
• his world seems to be exclusively masculine but this world is dominated and threatened by women acting from behind the scenes
• women have power over men, opposed to manliness and adulthood and politics
• woman are explicitly the weak sex
• femininity is the counterpart of virtue, it is bad and dangerous
• man has to avoid being feminine
• he considers women dumb, fearful, dependent, weak, childish, naive and easliy manipulated
• women are incapable of defending themselves
• women are useless people in his thought but possess a mysterious and dangerous power&raquo_space; makes them a threat to men both personally and form a political perspective
• fortune considered a woman

Question 4

2 categories of powerful women

Answer 4

Young and attractive women:
- depicted as sexual objects
- love expressed in terms of attacking and meeting resistance > men preparing to make love to a woman are like soldiers going to war
- young women cause political toruble to men even wihtout doing anything
- violence against women and ambition leads to success&raquo_space; he recommended chastity to political leaders (only alternative to chastity is to only treat women as sexual objects)
- violence against women is also a danger for the political scenario > if a woman is violated her relative will be ready to vindicate his honour, causing political instability
- women are dangerous for leaders

Older women, wise mothers and matrons:
- powerful in another way
- ambitious women, for their fmailies and daughters
- often control access to young and attractive women and can therefore manipulate men

Question 5

Machiavelli

Answer 5

• introduced the idea of sexual conquest of fortunes
• he does not believe in fortune’s omnipotence and leaves some space to man’s initiative
• metaphor fortune as a woman: established a stereotype on women: idea that they are attracted only by bad men