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Machiavelli and the Ideology of the Offensive: Gunpowder Weapons in The Art of War
- The Journal of Military History
- Society for Military History
- Volume 67, Number 2, April 2003
- pp. 381-404
- 10.1353/jmh.2003.0106
- Article
- Additional Information
Historians have often claimed that Niccolò Machiavelli shunned the use of gunpowder weapons, both field artillery and hand-held weapons, because of their absence in the ancient world which the Italian loved so dearly. Machiavelli, however, did not reject the use of gunpowder weapons, but gave them a secondary role in his military scheme. The reason for this was that, in Machiavelli's time, reliance on gunpowder weapons necessitated defensive tactics in battle, while Machiavelli believed that an army should take the offensive in war, and he prescribed the role of guns in his army accordingly.