The 'Machiavellian' Label Through History
How Machiavelli's name became a synonym for cunning and evil, and why this reputation distorts his actual thought.
Old Nick: The Demonization of Machiavelli
Within decades of his death, Machiavelli's name had become synonymous with political evil. In Elizabethan England, 'Machiavel' was a stock villain in theater — a scheming, godless Italian who manipulated others for power. Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta opens with a prologue delivered by a character called Machiavel. Shakespeare referenced Machiavellian cunning repeatedly. The English nickname 'Old Nick' for the Devil may derive from Niccolo Machiavelli's first name.
This demonization was driven partly by the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic Church placed Machiavelli's works on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1559, and Jesuit writers produced extensive refutations. In Protestant England, Machiavelli became associated with Catholic Italy's perceived corruption and treachery — a projection that had more to do with English anti-Italian prejudice than with anything Machiavelli actually wrote.
Ironically, many of those who condemned Machiavelli most loudly were practicing exactly the politics he described. Cardinal Richelieu, who built French absolutism through relentless raison d'etat, condemned Machiavelli while embodying his precepts. The gap between public condemnation and private practice was itself the most Machiavellian thing about Machiavelli's reception.