Experience and Ideology: The Problem of Machiavelli's Realism

This article explores Machiavelli's trademark realism by juxtaposing his political theory and his political experience. Focusing on his polemical denial of the centrality of money in war, it argues that in his theoretical works Machiavelli wilfully contradicted his direct experience of a fundamental politico-military development of the times. It is suggested that what lay behind this intriguing disregard for his own realist principles was his primitivist ideology