Machiavelli’s Aesthetic Advice: Visual Arte and the Political Sublime in The Prince

Machiavelli wrote The Prince with a keen eye for the realities of politics and would not have ignored an aspect as politically relevant as art. The visual arts were pervasive at all levels of state and society in 15th-16th century Florence. The Medici family’s conscious use of art as a means of securing political legitimacy and glory, along with Machiavelli’s involvement in the commissioning of Leonardo and Michelangelo’s Battle frescoes for the Florentine Republic, should lead one to consider the inclusion of advice on the use of visual art for political ends in The Prince. It is in the rhetorically distinct aesthetic representation of Remirro de Orco’s severed corpse in Chapter VII that one finds Machiavelli’s suggestion that a worthy prince must not only imitate Cesare’s violent and cunning virtù to craft an act of the political sublime, but also adopt his use of a visual effect for political legitimacy. Chapter XVIII further elaborates on this point through its emphasis on the appearances a prince can cunningly craft with the aid of artists and their arte so as to gain favor from the people and deceive political rivals - a point exemplified through Machiavelli’s use of Leon Battista Alberti’s language describing the visual arts. In both instances, a form of political legitimacy is attained through a visual effect inspired by a religious aesthetic. Arte, in these instances, goes beyond being a metaphor for statecraft, and becomes an actual strategic tool for governance in Machiavelli’s text