Machiavelli's Conception of Religion and its Relevance to his

Political Philosophy in The Prince

Victoria Johnston

Abstract

This paper seeks to shed light upon the apparently contradictory nature of
religion as it pertains to politics in Machiavelli’s The Prince. The relationship
curated by Machiavelli between the two is complex, and offers little surface level
consistency. This inconsistency may appear to suggest a generalised critique of the
mingling of religion and politics. However, upon a closer reading of The Prince,
contextualised by The Discourses as well as research by scholars Nicole Hochner,
John M. Najemy, and Benedetto Fontana, it becomes clear that Machiavelli has his
own conception of religion uniquely suited to the political sphere. This paper will
explore what that religion looks like, as well as how it lends itself well to
Machiavelli’s politics, allowing for a deeper and more complex understanding of
The Prince.

Keywords: Machiavelli, Niccolò; Humanist Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion; Political

Philosophy; Early-Modern Philosophy; Religion and State; Italian Literature; The Prince

Machiavelli uses religious anecdotes, language, and metaphor to articulate the specifics
of his political philosophy in The Prince. The relationship that Machiavelli creates between
religion and politics in the work is therefore complex and fascinating, and the places at which
they converge offer little surface-level consistency. This inconsistency may appear to suggest
that Machiavelli is advocating for a complete separation between religion and politics.
However, as has been illuminated by scholars such as Hochner, Fontana, and Najemy, who tie
together Machiavelli’s discussions of religion in The Prince with similar discussions in his
other work, such as The Discourses, this is not a belief that Machiavelli holds to be true. Rather,
Machiavelli has his own unique conception of religion that merges with his political
philosophy. In light of the research and informed reinterpretation, this paper will argue that

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Machiavelli conceives of a practical religion that can be used to maintain authority through
spectacle and ritual, instil good virtues in the citizens of a state, and allow for the existence of
the will of God and the freedom of men to work in tandem to create history together.
Religion in The Prince has a contradictory nature. Machiavelli discusses it both
implicitly and explicitly. The places in which it is mentioned is steeped in an air of calculated
intention, and it often seems as though more is left unsaid than is spoken of. In some of the
more subtle places that the topic of religion appears, there is an appeal to biblical language
without ever having to explicitly mention its inspiration in the prose. This is exemplified in the
final chapter of The Prince, where Machiavelli calls for the “redemption” of Italy: “And
although up to now a glimmer has shone in someone who could judge that he had been ordered
by God for her redemption, yet later it was seen that in the highest course of his actions, he was
repulsed by fortune.” 1 Redemption in a biblical sense is exclusively an act of God. It is a gift,
given to the unworthy mankind that betrayed its Creator, meant as a symbol of His grace and
superiority. While the credit and inspiration for the act is attributed to God himself, the call to
action is directed to man in The Prince . Machiavelli is asking for a new hero, in the wake of
the failure of a heroic predecessor, to answer the God-given call and redeem Italy from the
barbarians that have overtaken her. Only, it is not God calling for Italy's redemption; it is
Machiavelli, using God as a mouthpiece for his own calls to action. This does not mean that
Machiavelli sees this call as unrelated to God, however. On the contrary, by appealing to
religion, Machiavelli, at the very least, acknowledges its power to move and inspire, if not
being moved and inspired by it himself.
Congruently to this, Machiavelli adopts an almost scornful attitude towards religious
institutions throughout The Prince. In chapter three, he states, “The French do not understand
the state, because if they understood they would not have let the Church come to such
greatness.” 2 To Machiavelli, France has allowed the Church to grow too vast in scope and
influence, which implies a belief in a separation between religious and political spheres. If not
complete separation, Machiavelli believes that the marriage between religion and politics must
be done in a particular way that is distinct from that of France. Here, it becomes notable that
he only critiques the growing power of the Church, the institution, not the presence of religion
in the country. This suggests that religion itself is not a negative, and that Machiavelli may

1
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1998), 102.
2
Machiavelli, The Prince, 16.

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have a unique conception of religion present beneath the surface of this passage. The reason
Machiavelli has such seemingly contradictory and incompatible opinions regarding religion in
the political sphere is that he is discussing religion in two distinct forms. One form of religion
is taken on in Machiavelli's contemporary society: fifteenth century Italy and its surrounding
nations. This is the religion that he often critiques, and this is the religion he references in
chapter three of The Prince. For the sake of clarity and specificity, this will be addressed as
“contemporary religion” for the remainder of this essay. The second, and more interesting,
form of religion that Machiavelli conceives of is that which he advocates the adoption of in his
contemporary political sphere. This form will be addressed as political or practical religion, for
its emphasis on its usefulness and practicality in the political sphere. The latter form is designed
to be applicable to Machiavelli's politics. The remainder of this essay will dedicate itself to
exploring what political religion looks like to Machiavelli, how it can be used, and where it is
especially helpful in ruling a state or principality.
While Machiavelli recognizes the distinction between the two, he does not obviously
advocate for the implementation of ritual in the exact same manner as cruelty. However, there
is precedent for his belief in the manipulation of ritual as means to control the population
through spectacle, which holds similarity to his use of cruelty. As in chapter eight of The
Prince, to be mentioned in more detail in the ensuing sections of this paper, Machiavelli’s The
Discourses sheds more light upon the possibility of control that ritual can award to those that
use it properly. Najemy discusses this in great detail, recounting the historical anecdote that
Machavelli references in demonstrating this point.3 There was a Roman ritual used to determine
the favour of the gods in the outcome of any particular battle. In it, a chicken-handler gave
chickens auspice, and if they partook of it, the battle would have been in the favour of those
that had performed this ritual. In one battle against the Samnites, the chickens refused to eat.
The chicken-handler lied about this, and the army commenced with the battle under false
pretences. When Lucius Papirius heard of this deception, he did not reveal it as such to his
troops. Rather, he saw that it was smartest to let the soldiers fight with the confidence the
successful ritual gave them, and he sent the chicken-handlers to the front lines, where they were
“accidentally” killed. The battle was won, and Machavelli praises the choice of Papirius to
keep the deception secret and effectively joins in it himself. In The Discourses, Machiavelli

3
John M. Najemy, "Papirius and the Chickens, Or Machiavelli on the Necessity of
Interpreting Religion," Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 4 (1999): 659-681 , 676,
doi:10.1353/JHI.1999.0041.
© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.
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also praises Papirius, claiming that he “made the result correspond to the prophecy.” 4 Prophecy,
then, is not a transcendent verdict of divine will. It is a tool, like cruelty, that can be used to
varying degrees of success. The prophecy was wrong, and Papirius won the battle in spite of
it. However, he was able to use the deception of the chicken-handlers to his own benefit,
effectively bending Fortuna to his will, and using religious ritual as a tool in doing so. In both
his advocacy for the careful implementation of cruelty and his admiration for the control
Papirius had over the spectacle and manipulation of Roman ritual, it can be understood that
Machiavelli believes that extravagance and spectacle can stupify and control citizens in more
ways than one. Machiavelli believes it paramount that a Prince be able to bend Fortuna to their
will. 5 Ritual is but another tool the Prince may use to ensure a strong and continuous hold over
Fortuna. Ritual can be used and its extravagance can contribute to its effectiveness, just as in
demonstrations of cruelty. The ruler’s ability to manipulate religion is a key aspect to
Machiavelli's political religion. This begins to demonstrate how Machiavelli conceives of
religion and its utility in politics.
In chapter seven of The Prince, Machiavelli elaborates on the effectiveness of cruelty
when properly used, and the ineffectiveness of cruelty when improperly used. Specifically, he
speaks of the potential that spectacle offers in controlling and satisfying a people that at all
times must have their desire for justice upheld by the ruler. 6 On the brutal execution of Messer
Remirro de Orco, he comments: “The ferocity of this spectacle left the people at once satisfied
and stupefied.” 7 Not only did the execution satisfy the people's need for justice, it also deterred
others from committing any act against the ruler, as demonstrations of cruelty serve as warnings
as well as fulfillments of justice. Therefore, cruelty through spectacle is a tool that can be used
by the ruler to varying degrees of success. It is practical, and Machiavelli conceives of political
religion in a similar way he does cruelty. Hochner discusses this tactic further, and she directly
relates the harshness of this spectacle to the possible harshness of religious ritual, which, she
argues, can be used to produce the same effect as the execution of Remirro de Orco: “Rituals
of rebellion and public sentence are, on the contrary, regulatory mechanisms that reestablish
limits and impose restraints, sometimes on the insolent nobility, sometimes on the disobedient
masses, by equally feeding them with the fear of punishment (D 1.29.3) and the love of virtue.

4
Najemy, "Papirius and the Chickens,” 676.
5
Machiavelli, The Prince, 98.
6
Ibid., 91.
7
Ibid., 30.
© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.
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Machiavelli, in brief, opts for a performative approach to ritual.” 8 Understanding that Hochners
conception of ritual is a specifically religious phenomenon, this comparison allows for a more
rounded understanding of practical religion. Therefore, one can turn to Machiavelli's
description and instruction pertaining to the appropriate usages of cruelty and extrapolate them
to apply, in part, to the rituals of practical religion. In chapter eight of The Prince, Machiavelli
states that: “Those can be called well used (if it is permissible to speak well of evil) that are
done at a stroke, out of the necessity to secure oneself, and then are not persisted in but are
turned to as much utility for the subjects as one can.” 9 To Machiavelli, practical religion must
be, as cruelty is, used sparingly and only for the security and maintenance of a ruler's position
of political power or only insofar as it produces a favourable outcome for the masses at large.
It is here that one must step back, and consider what exactly Machavelli believes to be
the role of God in his political religion. Thus far, his conception of religion has remained almost
exclusively applicable to human affairs, very notably leaving God out of direct discussion, even
when advocating for the manipulation of prophecy. How does a transcendent God fit into a
religion optimised for earthly concerns? It is this way by design. Najemy, like many other
Machiavellian scholars, conceives of Machiavelli's God to be one that “acts in history.”10
Najemy argues that Machiavelli's God acts directly in military and political victories and
defeats. This contextualises Machiavelli's aversion to the presence of the Christian faith in
politics as an aversion to the Christian faith as it is used by the rulers of Florence, and Italy as
a whole, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Christianity that Machiavelli was
critiquing existed outside of his own conception of God, and therefore was not heresy, despite
what his contemporaries may have believed. 11 Contemporary religion acts directly through
those who wield it. In this conception of religion, to use prophecy or ritual as a tool would be
seen as sinful and unjust, as the power of God should not be manipulated through worldly
means. Additionally, to use ritual as a means to bend Fortuna to one's own will, as Machiavelli
advocates for, would be to dismiss the divine providence of God, whose will is absolute. This
is directly opposed to practical religion, which employs a method through which the masses
could be manipulated to the will of the ruler. Machiavelli’s God is but another tool to be used
to varying degrees of success by a ruler, and His defining trait is this very applicability.

8
Nicole Hochner, "A Ritualist Approach to Machiavelli," History of Political
Thought 30, no. 4 (2009): 575-594, 578.
9
Machiavelli, The Prince, 37–38.
10
Najemy, “Papirius and the Chickens,” 661.
11
Ibid.
© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.
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To look again and more completely at Machiavelli's conception of Fortuna and its
relationship to God and religion, one must return to The Prince. In chapter twenty-five,
Machiavelli discusses and accounts for the co-existence of Fortuna and human free will.
Machiavelli states that, “it might be true that Fortuna is an arbiter of our actions, but also that
she leaves the other half, or close to it, for us to govern.” 12 The question here is whether
Machiavelli believes that Fortuna is something controlled by God. Due to his elaborations on
this thought later on in The Prince, it can be understood that Machiavelli, at least in part,
conceived of Fortuna to be controlled by God. 13 Later on the same page he states: “It is not
unknown to me that many have held and hold the opinion that worldly things are so governed
by fortune and by God, that men cannot correct them without their prudence.” 14 He clarifies
that he shares in this opinion, except that he believes that men do influence the outcome of
Fortuna. 15 That is his condition, and he elaborates upon it without mention of the existence
and power of God as it pertains to Fortuna. His neutrality is not proof that he rejects the
connection between God and Fortuna. Rather, it seems to imply he believes the two are at least
partially related. This belief is compatible with the assertion that God and fortune both have a
significant hand in worldly affairs, and it allows for Machiavelli's rejection of the notion that
men have no control over them. In these opinions, Machiavelli establishes that Fortuna
(controlled at least in some part by God) accounts for half of the actions of men. The other half,
he conceives of as opportunities that free men can seize and use to the best of their ability: it is
up to the user of Fortuna to exercise their free will in the correct way in order to take the most
full advantage of an opportunity. Therefore, Machiavelli’s God is one that acts in history
through His manipulation of Fortuna.
This paper has established how political religion can be used as a tool through ritual to
help maintain political power, as well as how this manipulation of Fortuna concurs with
Machiavelli's conceptions of free will and of God. There is another use for political religion
that Machiavelli outlines in The Prince. Machiavelli leaves various allusions throughout the
work that religion fosters the character of people, and thus, a country with a good religion will
foster a people with good character. In The Discourses, Machiavelli makes this blatant. In The
Prince, Machiavelli makes clear that the opinion of the people is, in part, based upon the
perceived religiosity of the ruler. In order to maintain authority in the minds of the people, the

12
Machiavelli, The Prince, 98.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.
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prince must appear to be religious to them. 16 Thus, the virtue instilled within the people is an
obedience to the ruler, who is assumed virtuous due to their perceived religiosity. This can be
compared to an anecdote brought up by Fontana in The Discourses, where Machiavelli
expresses disdain for the way contemporary religion leads men astray in the fifteenth century. 17
It is a lamentation for the “liberty-loving past” that he believes characterised the people of
ancient Rome. The religion of antiquity led people to hold liberty dear to their hearts,
establishing a connection between virtue and goodness of character with religiosity. This
appears again in The Prince, when Machiavelli concedes the helpfulness of the appearance of
contemporary religiosity for the ruler of a state or principality. He acknowledges a throughline
between the perception of both character and religion, and he believes that contemporary
religion has led people away from good virtue, specifically the loss of the “liberty-loving
past.” 18 There is a solution to this: if the ruler of Italy were to implement political religion, the
citizens would be instilled with good values, exemplified by the love of liberty that Machiavelli
laments the loss of so intensely. 19 A love for liberty and an appreciation for the perceived
religiosity of the ruler creates a unified populace, and a people who hold values that align with
one another creates a more cohesive state, and a cohesive state is one that is easier to
manipulate. This offers security in the rulership and dominion of the ruler, and by extension
security in the state itself.
The nature of Machiavelli's relationship and opinions towards contemporary religion,
as well as the specifics of his own political religion, have both been established. In addition to
this, his relationship and opinions towards religion have been explored through his
implementation of ritual in a manner similar to his advocacy for the use of cruelty, his
conception of Fortuna, God, and free will, as well as the ways in which religion can build a
stronger, more unified country whose people share virtues and values with one another,
creating a sort of religious hegemony that Machiavelli sees as beneficial to the state as a whole.
Not only does this rectify his seemingly contradictory attitude towards contemporary religion
in The Prince, it allows for a richer, more complete understanding of his political philosophy
by building on its relationship to his own political religion. His own conception of political or
practical religion is characterised by the above attributes, and, although it may remain buried

16
Ibid., 70.
17
Benedetto Fontana, "Love of Country and Love of God: The Political Uses of
Religion in Machiavelli," Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 4 (1999): 639–658, 645,
doi:10.1353/jhi.1999.0035.
18
Fontana, "Love of Country and Love of God,” 653.
19
Ibid., 654.
© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.
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beneath Machiavelli's contradictory discussions of religion (both contemporary and political)

in The Prince, further study into The Discourses and Machiavelli scholarship illuminate his
political religion baked into his political philosophy.

© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.

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Bibliography

Fontana, Benedetto. "Love of Country and Love of God: The Political Uses of Religion in
Machiavelli." Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 4 (1999): 639–658. doi:
10.1353/jhi.1999.0035.

Hochner, Nicole. “A Ritualist Approach to Machiavelli.” History of Political Thought 30, no.
4 (2009): 575–594.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Najemy, John M. “Papirius and the Chickens, Or Machiavelli on the Necessity of

InterpretingReligion.” Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 4 (1999): 659–681.
doi:10.1353/JHI.1999.0041.

© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.

59
 –– Victoria Johnston ––

© Victoria Johnston, 2022. All rights reserved.

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