SOURCE: "In Search of Machiavellian 'Virtu'," in The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli's Philosophy, edited by Anthony Parel, University of Toronto Press, 1972, pp. 157–78.

In the essay below, Plamenatz examines Machiavelli's concept of virtue, put forth in The Prince and Discourses upon the First Decade of T. Livius. The critic argues that Machiavelli approaches a philosophical understanding of humankind, but he exalts heroic qualities at the expense of important human traits.

The most vilified of political thinkers is also the one of whom it has been said that he 'concentrated all his real and supreme values in what he called virtù.'¹ There is nothing here to be surprised at; for those who have been shocked by Machiavelli have been so, not only by his seeming to justify murder, cruelty, and treachery, but by his way of speaking about virtue.

Benito Mussolini describes Machiavelli's pessimistic view of human nature...