On Pettigrew on De Cruz on Machiavelli and Du Bois
I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line, I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.
Pettigrew then comments “There, they describe a sort of friendship we can have with thinkers who have gone; a friendship grounded in our engagement with their thought as expressed in their writings.” Despite seeing the merit of De Cruz’s position, Pettigrew, unsurprisingly, adds “I like to think of continuing my friendship with Helen in this way. But it is a terribly attenuated form of friendship, and I would very much like to return to the real thing.”
As I was reflecting on Pettigrew’s loss, I kept thinking that Du Bois passage reminds me a bit of that Machiavelli letter. I decided to take a look at Helen’s essay. (This paper is gem, including lovely use of Lost in Thought by Hitz I also admire.) Of course, there I find she is familiar with the passage in the letter to Francesco Vettori dated December 10, 1513!
I have not read Machiavelli’s correspondence, but it gets “oft-quoted,” as Helen notes, in books on Machiavelli (and is often mentioned in introductions to translations of his work). Even so, it had somehow escaped my notice, or somehow I had forgotten, that De Cruz had been spending time with Machiavelli just as I was studying him with intensity to understand the corruption of our times.
The passage goes as follows (the Italian is supplied by Helen):
On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection (entro nelle antique corti degli antiqui huomini, dove, da loro ricevuto amorevolmente), I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me (et domandarli della ragione delle loro actioni; et quelli per loro humanità mi rispondono); and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them … I have noted everything in their conversation which has profited me, and have composed a little work On Princedoms, where I go as deeply as I can into considerations on this subject, debating what a princedom is, of what kinds they are, how they are gained, how they are kept, why they are lost.
Helen’s Italian is ordinarily superior to mine, but I would translate ‘amorevolmente’ as, ‘lovingly.’' And in this context I would use the more literal ‘humanity’ rather than kindness for ‘humanità.’ Interestingly enough, Helen must have felt the force of something like the first suggestion because later in the paper, they do introduce the language of love to discuss this very gesture: “Epistemic partiality is important, because much as we feel our ancient friends love us (e.g., Machiavelli’s ancient men in their ancient halls receive him with affection, feed him, and answer him kindly), we also love them in return.”
For, there is no reason to think these ancient men were kind in the colloquial sense of our age. Humanity is, of course, a tricky virtue in Machiavelli. Its absence (think of Agathocles) is incompatible with glory, but sometimes it’s necessary to act without it. This is why Scipio is less admired than Hannibal. And why Piero Soderini is no more praiseworthy than Biden.
But when it comes to intellectual legislators/new princes (what I would call ‘philosophical prophets’), at least some humanity is also a desirable quality for Machiavelli. (I owe you some more evidence on this.) For, humanity is, as Hume can tell you, the virtue apt for dealings with those that require one’s guidance.
To what degree, ‘friendship’ is the right word to describe Machiavelli’s stance toward these ancients is also by no means obvious. They hold court and he submits to their guidance. Not from passivity or fear or obedience — he questions them after all —, but because he rationally recognizes their (practical) superiority or wisdom in some sense. That is, I don’t deny that Machiavelli aspires to their stature and status (he’s not a friend of humility after all). But I doubt he sees himself, as of yet, as their equal; if he does, that’s aspirational (in Callard’s sense).
Helen recognizes this last, more aspirational point in their closing sentence, “trying to become friends with the ancients, to become equals in their eyes, and to thereby cultivate epistemic virtues.” The notion of equality Helen has in mind is clearly introduced (“I move arm and arm”) by Du Bois in his account (and I think quite important to both Hume and Adam Smith); and then imported by Helen into Machiavelli’s presentation (where I claim it’s not present).
Interestingly enough, and I think this saves Helen’s account from unfaithful appropriation of Machiavelli, in their own analysis they don’t imply that the salient notion of philosophical friendship at play presupposes (intellectual) equality. Helen writes, while drawing “on Sophie-Grace Chappell’s (2024) definition of friendship as “benevolent companionship over time,” I regard philosophical friends as people with shared philosophical interests, who are benevolently disposed toward each other, and who enter into a long-term relationship with each other.”
Or to put my modest emendation to Helen’s account somewhat differently: when it comes to friendship Helen and Du Bois incline toward the moderns, and, somewhat surprisingly, Machiavelli has a more ancient tenor. But these disproportions in their companionship does not inhibit their mutual friendships.