Machiavelli’s virtu means human capacity, ability, and self-measure, not divine virtue
Evidence
Literally “virtue”, but in connection with Machiavelli better rendered by a word without moral overtones, such as “prowess”. In The Prince Machiavelli sets up an opposition between fortuna (roughly—“circumstance”) and virtu —the ability of the individual to act on and overcome the given world of circumstance. In Latin virtus meant an inherent quality such as (for example and in particular) military valour: Machiavelli tends to make it rather a quality of the will. The moral sense of the English word “virtue” evolved through an intermediary phase in Stoic and Early Christian thought where it meant “inner strength” and hence the ability to act well. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2695
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the technical distinction between fortuna and virtu in The Prince, a key conceptual pair.
- XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s own use of Machiavelli’s political vocabulary, where the fortuna/virtu opposition recurs as a framework for historical agency. — connects to: Machiavelli’s concepts function as intuitions and symbols, not metaphysics
- corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2695