The aim of the article is to understand some aspects of the Machiavelli's republicanism granting attention to his theory of the umori. More specifically, my purpose can be summarized as understanding the nature of the "desire of the people" and its role in the political life. The main hypothesis of this work is that the function that Machiavelli attributes to the people, the guardian of the freedom, demands, for its execution, the active participation of the citizen in the civic tasks, that is, his inscription in the public space as a political agent. That inscription cannot be understood entirely if the desire that characterizes the people lacks of any determination, that is, if it be only taken in a negative perspective.
Machiavelli; republic; freedom; desire of the people; vivere civile