FELIX GILBERT

There is little doubt that Felix Gilbert, professor of history at Bryn
Mawr College and a member of the executive board of the Renaissance
Society of America, is one of the most active American scholars in the
field of Machiavelli studies. After several years abroad, where he re-
ceived his Ph.D. in 1931 at Berlin, Gilbert returned to the Institute of
Advanced Study at Princeton, and then served with the O.S.S. and the
U.S. State Department from 1943 to 1946. In the autumn of 1959 he
was a visiting professor of modern history at the University of Cologne.
Gilbert is well known not only for his many articles and contribu-
tions to Renaissance topics, but also for his perceptive scholarship
in the fields of diplomatic and military history. He is a contributor to
and co-editor of The Diplomats, 1919-1939, and editor of Hitler Directs
His War.

O F, all the writings of Machiavelli,
none has been so much com-
mented upon as The Prince, and of the var-
ious sections of The Prince, none has been
discussed so much as the last chapter. The
chapter is an "exhortation to liberate Italy
from the Barbarians." Machiavelli believes
that the opportunity has come "to introduce
a new system" in Italy. A new Prince
should place himself at the head of the
Italians, who are "ready and willing to
follow any standard, if only there be some-
one to raise it."

What doors would be closed against him?
What people would refuse him obedience?
What enemy could oppose him? What Italian
would withhold allegiance? This barbarous
domination stinks in the nostrils of every one.

Machiavelli feels sure that the Barbarians
could not withstand the impact of the
Italian forces united under a new Prince.
"This opportunity must not, therefore, be
allowed to pass, so that Italy may at length
find her liberator."

There are two reasons for the great
attention which this chapter has aroused.
The dramatic appeal to nationalism seems
most strange in a stage of political develop-
ment where nationalism, if it plays any role
at all, has certainly not an important part.
And it is particularly astonishing to find
this reliance on popular enthusiasm in
Machiavelli; there is a striking difference
between the emotional idealism which per-
vades the national appeal of the last chap-
ter of The Prince and the cold and realistic
analysis of political forces which forms the
distinguishing feature of the rest of the
work.

Although the full extent of the problem
involved in Machiavelli's appeal to na-
tionalism has been appreciated only in
more recent studies, the difference between
the last chapter and the rest of the book
has been noticed ever since critical scholar-
ship began to occupy itself with the work.
Ranke, in his first historical work, was
struck by this contrast and wrote: "Let us
be just! He sought the salvation of Italy,
but her situation seemed to him so des-
perate that he was bold enough to prescribe
poison." Thus Ranke saw in Machiavelli

-35-