History as Effect of Free Action: Fortuna and Virtù in The Prince

Abstract

The conflict between virtù and fortuna is identified by Cassirer as the “ultimate root, to which we must always return if we would comprehend in their true depth the philosophical doctrines of the Renaissance concerning the relationship between freedom and necessity.”¹ Notoriously, at the close of The Prince Machiavelli proposes his version of this conflict by asserting that “fortuna is a woman,” and “if one desires to keep her down” it becomes “necessary to beat her.”² In this chapter I argue that Machiavelli’s formula gives expression to a modern conception of history as effect of free human action.