Machiavelli in the debate between the ancients and the modern

Abstract

Leo Strauss identified in Machiavelli the architect of the modern project, the thinker who delineates for the first time the possibility of the autonomy of a political field that, closed in on itself, abandons the possibility of an orientation towards a higher good. His figure, therefore, occupies a singular place in Strauss's work, since it is in him that Strauss will situate the point of break between "ancients" and "moderns". Machiavelli is, therefore, the name that opens the quarrel between ancients and moderns that Strauss declares he wishes to reopen. In the present text we will seek to highlight some of the fundamental features of this reading of Machiavelli with the intention of illuminating Strauss's political philosophical project in this light, concentrating on his characterization of modernity. To this end, we will focus on the only book devoted exclusively to Machiavelli (Thoughts on Machiavelli), while tracing the connections with the references to Machiavelli in the rest of his work. Using this approach, we will seek in the conclusion to outline some questions about the Straussian reading of Machiavelli's ordini nuovi, and about the meanings (ancient and modern) of the politicization of philosophy.