Machiaveli and Erasmus: The oposing destiny of two names. A study of the interrelation between thought, reputation and posterity

Abstract

The names of Erasmus and Machiavelli are associated nowadays to different ideas and opposing philosophical and moral. However, we can find astonishing analogies in the work of both authors. This article analyzes the origin and the nature of those analogies. Together share the certitude that political power always rests on public opinion, and therefore they emphasize in their work the necessity of cultivating a façade of virtue to gain or maintain that power. They also agree in the analysis of the character of the crowd, from which power necessarily flows. Both feel the same kind of moral indignation when facing the shallowness and the mutability of public morals.