Machiavelli Week 2 - Pre Reading: Nederman Flashcards
Name of this source
Nederman, C. J., ‘Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli’s Thought’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (1999), pp. 617–638 [online: JSTOR
What does Sebastian de Grazia suggest about Ms work
that central biblical themes run through his writing but also reveals a coherent conception of divine centre and “ordered cosmos in which other forces (“the heavens,” “fortune,” and the like) are subsumed under a divine will and plan”
Nederman suggests that:
he does make reference to monotheistic divinity and other elements of Christian theology - arguably in the more important and troubling sections of his work
What does De Grazia suggest about about Ms conflicting view of God
we must understand Ms idea of God and the divine role in earthly affairs to understand the principles of Machiavellian political theory.
What do scholars seem to accept in response to Ms view
Scholars seem implicitly to accept the view that Giuseppe Prezzolini once bluntly stated: “Machiavelli is anti-medieval. He represents the most complete rupture with the medieval world, in the most extensive way.”
13 Giuseppe Prezzolini, Machiavelli Anticristo (Rome, 1954), 86-87.
but what does this mean for M
Agreeing with this means that there is no appreciation for how M did embrace and extend major tenets of medieval Christian thought like his recognition of Fortuna or other important elements of his work are therefore inevitably seen as confused or inconsistent.
