Beschreibung:

MACHIAVELLI, Niccolò (1469-1527). Libro della arte della guerra di Niccolo Machiavegli Cittadino et Segretario Fiorentino . Florence: heirs of Filippo Giunta, 16 August 1521. 8° (149 x 90 mm). Collation: a-p 8 q-s 4 . 124 leaves. Italic type. 14 pages of woodcut diagrams of military deployment on p4v-q3r, printer's device on verso of last leaf, one woodcut floriated initial, initial spaces with guide letters. (Occasional marginal foxing or staining.) 19th-century crimson morocco, covers panelled with azuré fleur-de-lys tools at corners, spine panelled with similar smaller tools, turn-ins gilt, edges plain. Provenance : L. Derôme, circular inkstamp on a2r and q4v; "R", 19th-century inkstamp on lower free endpaper. FIRST EDITION OF MACHIAVELLI'S FIRST MAJOR PUBLISHED WORK, and the only one published in his lifetime. Machiavelli derived his pessimistic view of human nature as fundamentally selfish, treacherous and cowardly from his decade and a half of public service as second Chancellor and Secretary in the chancellery of the Florentine commune, in which capacity he travelled widely within Italy and abroad on diplomatic missions of varying importance. One of his assignments had been the organization of a new Florentine militia, to which he devoted the greater part of the years 1506 and 1507; it was this experience that laid the groundwork for his theories of military organization, elaborated 14 years later in his Arte della guerra . Machiavelli's greatest works, the Arte , Il principe , the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio , and the Historie fiorentine , were written after his forced retirement from public life, when, disgraced by the false imputation of his involvement in the anti-Medicean conspiracy of Pier Paolo Boscoli in February 1513, he emerged, embittered and restless, from a month's imprisonment to retire to his villa near San Casciano. Written after the Prince though published before it, the Arte della guerra , presented in the form of a dialogue, is a "methodical treatise setting forth Machiavelli's views on military matters, digesting his theories respecting the superiority of national troops [over the existing Italian system of condottiere or mercenaries], the inefficiency of fortresses, the necessity of relying upon infantry in war, and the comparative insignificance of artillery. It is strongly coloured with his enthusiasm for ancient Rome; and specially upon the topic of artillery it displays a want of insight into the actualities of modern warfare. We may regard it as a supplement or appendix to the Principe and the Discorsi , since Machiavelli held it for a fundamental axiom that states are powerless unless completely armed in permanence" (John Addington Symonds, art. "Machiavelli", Ency. Brit. , 1911, 17, p. 236). The work's originality lay above all in Machiavelli's view of the necessary integration of civil and military life. His urging of the necessity of a citizen's militia ran directly contrary to the reigning philosophy of the city-state princes, whose use of hired soldiers was based on the wish to avoid consolidating armed power in the hands of one faction or citizen. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, the work was immediately popular, and despite proven lack of success of certain aspects of his theories, remained so, being regularly reprinted throughout the 16th century and translated into almost every major European language. RARE. Bertelli & Innocenti, pp. xiii-xxi and no. 3; Gamba 601; Gerber II: 44-46.