The Different Faces of the People: On Machiavelli's Political Topography

The aim of this paper is to extract from Machiavelli's discussion of the 'nature' fo the people (popolo) several important theoretical elements, which haunted and continue to haunt modern political thought, and in particular every political theory meant to project the building of a unitary political form (the State) which, as Weber stated, possesses the legitimate monopoly of violence. This attempt is determined by the conviction that Machiavelli's reflection on the idea of the people does not only create a radical discontinuity with medieval tradition, but also presents a radical alternative to mainstream modern political theory, whose birth can be traced back to the Hobbesian theory of sovereignty