{{Short description|Concept theorized by Machiavelli}} {{italic title}} thumb|right|Machiavelli in the robes of a Florentine public official
'''{{lang|it|Virtù}}''' is a concept theorized by Niccolò Machiavelli, centered on the martial spirit and ability of a person,<ref>{{cite thesis|url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI3113789/|title=Machiavelli and the politics of virtue|last=de Bruyn|first=Martyn|institution=Purdue University}}</ref> but also encompassing a broader collection of traits necessary for maintenance of the state and "the achievement of great things."<ref name=Mansfield>{{cite book|last=Mansfield|first=Harvey C.|title=Machiavelli's Virtue|publisher=University of Chicago Press|date=1998|isbn=978-0-226-50372-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Skinner|first=Quentin|title=The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 2, The Age of Reformation|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=1978|isbn=978-0-521-29435-5}}</ref> In a secondary development, the same word came to mean an object of art.
==Classical and medieval origins== {{lang|it|Virtù}}, an Italian word meaning "virtue" or "power",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virt%C3%B9|title=Virtù - Wiktionary}}</ref> is derived from the Latin {{lang|la|virtus}} (lit. "manliness" but for a sense of 'man' closer to 'gentleman' than 'masculine' or 'male'). It describes the qualities desirable for a man, as opposed to {{lang|it|vizio}} (vice). In the Italian language, the term {{lang|it|virtù}} is historically related to the Greek concept of {{transliteration|grc|aretḗ}}, the Latin {{lang|la|virtus}}, and medieval Catholic virtues, e.g. the seven virtues. Thus, Machiavelli's use of the term is linked to the concept of virtue ethics.
Aristotle had early raised the question "whether we ought to regard the virtue of a good man and that of a sound citizen as the same virtue";<ref>{{cite book|author=Aristotle|title=Politics|at=III.4 (1276b16)}}</ref> Thomas Aquinas stressed that sometimes "someone is a ''good citizen'' who has not the quality... [of] a ''good man''".<ref>{{cite book|last=Ullmann|first=Walter|title=A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages|year=1965|page=176}}</ref>
Machiavelli suggests a different set of virtues than Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, apparently with less focus on beneficence and concord, and with more focus on courage. According to Machiavelli, {{lang|it|virtù}} includes pride, bravery, skill, forcefulness, and an ability to harness ruthlessness when necessary.{{r|Mansfield}} But Machiavelli is always careful to insist that these are the marks of a good ''ruler'', not a good ''person''. In this, he is following in Aristotle's footsteps in the ''Politics'', where he says that the virtue of the person and the virtue of the citizen are often not the same, while the ruler is just the citizen who rules and, when excellent, does so with practical wisdom.<ref>{{cite book|author=Aristotle|title=Politics|at=III.4 (1276b16-1277b31)}}</ref>
{{lang|it|Virtù}} is, in practice, a ruler having the intelligence to know what needs doing coupled with the willpower and fortitude to follow through with what are sometimes starkly immoral but likely necessary actions. In ''The Prince'', Machiavelli praises both Cesare Borgia and the Roman emperor Septimuis Severus, for instance, as both having {{lang|it|virtù}}, despite both resorting to significant ruthlessness and brutality during their rise to power and subsequent rule. By contrast, Agathocles of Syracuse and Severus' son Caracalla come in for significant criticism because their brutality was unnecessary—they apparently did not know what needed doing, so Machiavelli denies that they had {{lang|it|virtù}}.<ref>{{cite book|author=Machiavelli|title=The Prince|at=VIII, XIX)}}</ref>
==Florentines== Florentine republicans at the turn of {{CE|the 16th century}} like Francesco Guicciardini rediscovered the classical concept of the virtue of the active citizen, and looked to it for an answer to the problems of preserving their city-state's independence.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hexter|first=J. H.|title=On Historians|year=1979|pages=276–79}}</ref>
Machiavelli extended the study of classical virtue to include skill, valor, and leadership, and to encompass the individual prince or war-leader as well.<ref>{{cite book|last=Donnelly|first=Jack|title=Realism and International Relations|year=2000|pages=175–77}}</ref>
{{lang|it|Virtù}}, for Machiavelli, was not equivalent to moral virtue, but was instead linked to the ability for a prince to win and maintain his state, even at the expense of ethical conduct.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GF6X2ow__MgC&dq=virt%C3%B9%20in%20a%20prince.%20Hitherto%2C%20as%20we%20have%20seen%2C%20it%20had%20generally%20been%20assumed%20that%20the%20possession%20of%20virt%C3%B9%20could%20be%20equated%20with%20the%20possession%20of%20all%20the%20major%20virtues.%20With%20Machiavelli%2C%20by%20contrast%2C%20the%20concept%20of%20virt%C3%B9%20is%20simply%20.&pg=PA138 | title=The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 1, the Renaissance | isbn=978-0-521-29337-2 | last1=Skinner | first1=Quentin | date=30 November 1978 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>
===Influence=== Both the positive Machiavellian idealisation of the virtues of ancient Roman republicanism, and the negative image of {{lang|it|virtù}} as {{lang|de|realpolitik}} passed into the wider European consciousness over the centuries that followed.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Pocock|editor-first=J .G. A.|title=The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500-1800|year=1996|pages=58 and 68}}</ref>
==Artistic value== A secondary English meaning developed in the 18th century: a curio or art-object – something of value in itself.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pound|first=Ezra|author-link=Ezra Pound|title=Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts|editor-first=Harriet|editor-last=Zinnes|year=1980|page=65}}</ref> Thus, Horace Walpole could refer to "my books, my virtus and my other follies".<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Osborne|editor-first=Harold|title=The Oxford Companion to Art|year=1992|page=1195}}</ref>
Following the establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768, one contemporary considered that "the taste for virtu has become universal; persons of all ranks and degrees set up for connoisseurs".<ref>''Fugitive Miscellanies'' (1773), quoted in {{cite book|last=George|first=M. Dorothy|title=Hogarth to Cruikshank|location=London|year=1967|page=121}}</ref>
==See also== * {{annotated link|Hercules at the crossroads}} * {{annotated link|Virtuosos}}
==References== {{Reflist|2|}}
{{Niccolò Machiavelli}} {{Virtues}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Virtu}} Category:Machiavellianism Category:Niccolò Machiavelli Category:Virtue Category:Concepts in political philosophy