[batarjal]

I'm currently listening to the Great Courses course called "Machiavelli in Context" on Audible, and his take was more that Machiavelli viewed monarchical rule as a stepping stone to a republic. In the Discourses on Livy, he gives the example of the people of the Roman Kingdom rising up to dethrone itheir king to establish the Roman Republic.

He goes on to say that, depending on the circumstances, a republic could backslide into monarchical or despotic rule, as the Roman Republic did when it transitioned into the Roman Empire.

The idea of a monarchy or a dictatorship being a stepping stone to a republic isn't something I see expressed online as much.