Machiavelli's The Prince
Cited in Chapter VI of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired By One’s Own Arms And Ability) Fra Girolamo Savonarola was seen by Machiavelli as an incompetent, ill-prepared, and 'unarmed prophet', unlike 'Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus' (Machiavelli's The Prince)
Of Savonarola, Machiavelli wrote:
"If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could not have enforced their constitutions for long — as happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe."
Read more about this topic: Girolamo Savonarola
Famous quotes containing the words machiavelli and/or prince:
“A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
“When the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother Prince William [later William IV] at Plymouth, and all three being very loose in their manners, and coarse in their language, Prince William said to his ship’s crew, “now I hope you see that I am not the greatest blackguard of my family.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)