The Revolt of the <i>Ciompi</i> in Niccolò Machiavelli’s <i>Florentine Histories</i> and the Mixed Constitution

Based on a reading of the Florentine Histories 3, 1???18 and the Discursus florentinarum rerum , I argue that although Machiavelli is sympathetic to the ciompi revolt of 1378, we should not conclude that the author prefers a ‘popular’ or ‘democratic’ state. His understanding of the social and political conditions under which the ciompi lived and the fact that, through the speech of one of their leaders, he grants them the right to speak publicly, are, in my view, indications that he prefers a ‘mixed’ polity, in which they should participate along with the powerful ( grandi ) rather than a proof of his ‘democratic’ leanings. I also argue that Machiavelli’s preference for the ‘mixed’ polity does not appear only in his later texts, but is consistent with the famous analysis of the Roman constitution in the first chapters of the Discourses on the first ten books of Titus Livius .