Machiavelli and the Role of Religion in Political Power
This paper examines Niccolò Machiavelli's treatment of religion across three major works — The Prince, The Discourses, and The Florentine Histories — arguing that he regarded religion not as a moral guide but as an instrument of political power. Drawing on Machiavelli's realpolitik framework, the paper explores his critique of the Roman Catholic Church for weakening and dividing Italy, his ambivalent portrayal of Cesare Borgia, and his contention that stable governance requires subordinating religious authority to political will. The paper concludes that for Machiavelli, religion functions purely as a tool of statecraft rather than a sincere expression of faith.
- Introduction: Machiavelli as a Realist Philosopher: Machiavelli's realpolitik framework and use of religion
- Religion and Power in The Prince: Cesare Borgia and Church authority in The Prince
- The Church as a Source of Italy's Division: How the Church kept Italy politically fragmented
- Reforming Christianity and the Call for a New Prince: Machiavelli's call to reform or transcend Christianity
- Mass Politics, Unity, and the Abolition of Church Authority: One ruler needed to unify Italy against Church power
- Summary and Conclusion: Religion as pure statecraft in Machiavelli's vision
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- It grounds its argument in close textual evidence, drawing direct quotations from all three of Machiavelli's major works to support each claim about his view of religion.
- It maintains a consistent analytical lens — Machiavelli's realpolitik framework — that ties together discussions of The Prince, The Discourses, and The Florentine Histories without losing focus.
- It anticipates counterarguments (e.g., readers who interpret Machiavelli's critique of Italy's irreligion as evidence of sincere Christian faith) and explains why the textual evidence points in the opposite direction.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates sustained interpretive synthesis: rather than treating each of Machiavelli's three works in isolation, the author traces a single thesis — that religion is purely an instrument of statecraft — across multiple texts, showing how the same argument appears in different registers and genres of writing. This cross-textual method strengthens the claim by demonstrating its consistency throughout Machiavelli's corpus.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing Machiavelli's realpolitik identity before moving to a close reading of The Prince, where Cesare Borgia's story anchors the discussion of church authority. It then widens the lens to The Discourses and The Florentine Histories to address Italy's political fragmentation. A focused section on reforming Christianity bridges the textual analysis to the paper's broader political argument, which is consolidated in the penultimate section on unity and the final summary-and-conclusion section.
Introduction: Machiavelli as a Realist Philosopher
Machiavelli, in his works, uses his political outlook and views about the power given to the Church and Christianity to present both his religious and political perspectives, keeping readers in a constant state of reflection about what he truly believes and why.
This paper discusses Machiavelli's political expressions and views in light of three of his writings: The Prince, The Discourses, and The Florentine Histories. In all three works, the author uses his characters and plots to describe settings that lead him to express his views about the political mishaps and mistakes that produced inflated, lasting problems.
It is essential to establish, from the outset, what Machiavelli's politics consist of and how he arrives at his viewpoint, in order to fully appreciate his perspective on religion in politics. Machiavelli can be categorized as a realist philosopher whose major arguments relate to upholding political power over a state by means of historical accounts — predominantly Roman — in order to support his hypotheses. His major writings are a design of realpolitik, a governing principle that emphasizes maintaining power through any means necessary, including war and deception. Consequently, one should keep in mind when reading Machiavelli that he is working to use religion as a tool to uphold political power rather than as an instrument for attaining moral ideals.
Religion and Power in The Prince
In The Prince, Machiavelli challenges his readers by painting an ambiguous portrait of his central figure, Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI and the future prince of Romagna. It is through the flaws and mistakes of this character that the author expresses and debates his views on politics and on the authority granted to the Church and Christianity — authority which, in his opinion, is unwarranted and overrated.
Although many agree that the character of Cesare represents an idealized portrait of a virtuous man in the author's eyes, even Cesare makes the mistake of choosing the future warrior pope, Julius II, as his supporter for future elections. This decision enabled and empowered the Church with an exaggerated authority over state affairs, which Machiavelli believed was the root cause of unjust rule.
Many readers have determined that Cesare was the hero of the work and the author's own representative figure, clearly indicating what Machiavelli believes should be the proper process of handling state affairs. As Rousseau put it: "The choice of his execrable hero is in itself enough to make manifest his hidden intention … The Prince is the book of republicans." This reading is further supported by Machiavelli's more explicitly republican work, The Discourses.
In a chapter of The Prince dedicated entirely to the authority of the Pope and the Church in Rome, Machiavelli makes his ideas more lucid. He observes that the influence of the pope is determined by the assembly of cardinals, and vice versa. He argues that for a state to fully reclaim its authority, both the power of the pope and the cardinals must be abolished. In the work, the author suggests that Cesare had the capability to accomplish this but was unable to put it to any practical effect.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.