Please read Chapters 15-19 of Machiavelli's The Prince (either pp. 84-104 of the Signet edition or at the link below).Add a comment or two here giving your impressions of Machiavelli. Try to say something that would help another students trying to prepare on essay on Renaissance achievements.
http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/basis/machiavelli-prince.html
In Machiavelli's The Prince some of the achievements were as follow.
ReplyDelete"And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and hated. And a prince should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach with hatred." The prince must also keep his subjects united and loyal. Nevertheless the prince must be slow to believe and to act, nor should he show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity.
"Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted."
These are just a few examples quoted inside The Prince that shows the Renaissance achievements.