Machiavelli's Ironic Faith

Historians of the mid-20th century debated whether atheism was possible in the 1500s. On the back of Lucien Febvre's major study of Rabelais, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century, they debated whether it was actually possible not to believe at the time. The Prince helps us answer that question.

The book's short chapter on "church states" is a masterpiece of subtle, savage anti-ecclesiastical irony. Church states, Machiavelli observes, are upheld by ancient religious institutions that "are so strong and well established" they "keep their rulers in power no matter what they do or how they live". "Only church leaders possess states without defending them and subjects without governing them," he continues in a tone that might have been Gibbon's.