Between Friends

Najemy, John M.

doi:10.2307/j.ctv8pzb4k

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Only by doing so will he be able to limit Love's ability to harm him. 48 There may indeed be an element of self-parody here, but there is a more important similarity. We find in this exhortation to let oneself be carried away by Love's force the same passionate abandonment that Italians will feel for their Redeemer, allowing him to liberate Italy from the barbarians.…”

Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…If, as Najemy argues, Machiavelli often projected his personality and passions onto the historical figures he studied, the strategy he devised to understand them may tell us a lot about Machiavelli himself. 37 In other words, if Machiavelli's strategy of interpretation had poor results because Machiavelli was attributing his own passions to the figures he studied, it should have better results in analyzing Machiavelli himself.…”

Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…44 Perhaps sensing how excessive this enthusiasm was, and how much it contrasted with the sobering tone of what he had written only three weeks before, Machiavelli decided to leave this passage out of the final draft of the letter he sent to Vettori on 29 April. 45 He knew that his passions were again getting the better of him, and he did not want his friend to know.…”

Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, this is precisely what Machiavelli told him that he should promote. 75 Machiavelli then argued that the Pope's best option was to side with the French, and field an army that would march through Tuscany with the French troops that had just landed, while uprisings spread throughout the country. Machiavelli's traditional pro-French sympathies may have a played a role here, although more important seems to have been his projection on the Pope of his own preference for more popular-based regimes.…”

Section: Machiavelli's Memorandum To Leo X In December 1514mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Machiavelli’s passions

Faini

2017

Intellectual History Review

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Niccolò Machiavelli looks at us with an ironic smile. He escapes us, deceives us and at times even mocks us: "For some time now, I never say what I think, nor do I think what I say, and even if I tell the truth sometimes, I hide it among so many lies, that it's hard to find it again." 1 That ironic smile hides a tragic figure. Usually well hidden, it reveals itself in the moments of deepest desperation. "So if I sometimes laugh or sing,/", he wrote soon after being tortured and imprisoned, "I do it because I have just this one/ Way of giving vent to my bitter cry." 2 I want to uncover what lies at the heart of this tragedy using Machiavelli's own interpretative technique. Uncovering a complex, at times deceitful figure is a problem that Machiavelli himself faced repeatedly in his years as Florentine Secretary. Whether it was Cesare Borgia or Caterina Sforza, Machiavelli had to interpret the gestures and words of statesmen that were masters of deception. The strategy he developed to uncover these statesmen's intentions was based on the analysis of human passions, on uncovering the fundamental trait that defined a man's character. I apply Machiavelli's strategy of interpretation to Machiavelli himself. I do so by relying extensively on his letters and his comedies. Machiavelli would have envied the wide access that we have to the most private works of our subject of study. Had he had access to similarly private works by Cesare Borgia, his job as the Florentine envoy would have been much easier. Through this work of interpretation of human passions, I will uncover the irreconcilable disconnect which shapes Machiavelli's tragedy. On one hand, he relates to his objects of desire by entirely abandoning himself to them, regardless of how unachievable they are. On the other, to obtain these objects of desire his analytical mind develops strategies which take pride in their adherence to what he called the "effectual truth of the matter." 3 His incapacity to reconsider his objectives in light of the means at his disposal and his tendency to transfer all of himself into his objectives determined Machiavelli's successes and failures. He repeatedly failed when he had to set his own goals, or when he approached a problem with empathy. He succeeded when he was given precise and limited objectives and when he understood that he did not share the goals of those he was studying. The next section discusses how other scholars have struggled to understand the fundamental disconnect at the heart of Machiavelli's tragedy, focusing on the final exhortation of The Prince. The third section describes Machiavelli's interpretative strategy. The fourth section applies this strategy to his personal writings in order to understand what passions animated him, and then uses these passions to interpret some famous passages of The Prince. The fifth section looks at his political successes and failures and explains them in light of this fundamental disconnect between goals and means. The final section asks whether Machiavelli was aware of this fund...

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Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Machiavelli and The Interpretation Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Machiavelli's Memorandum To Leo X In December 1514mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Machiavelli’s passions

Faini

2017

Intellectual History Review

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Theater and its Social Uses: MachiavellisMandragolaand the Spectacle of Infamy^*

Tylus¹

2000

Renaiss. Q.

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Long seen as a play that celebrates the new-found freedom of its female protagonist, Mandragola may in fact question the very possibility of theatrical "liberation. "Drawing on the foundational myth central to Renaissance thinking about theater, the abduction of the Sabine women, this essay shows how Machiavelli endeavored to make his play a discomfitting experience for characters and audience alike. This conception of comedy as social trap both challenged humanistic notions of the ideal relationship between theater and the city, and accentuated the surveillant norms inherent in humanists'understanding of the role of the stage in society.

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Between Friends

Cited by 2 publications

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Machiavelli’s passions

Machiavelli’s passions

Theater and its Social Uses: MachiavellisMandragolaand the Spectacle of Infamy^*

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Between Friends

Cited by 2 publications

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Machiavelli’s passions

Machiavelli’s passions

Theater and its Social Uses: MachiavellisMandragolaand the Spectacle of Infamy*

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Theater and its Social Uses: MachiavellisMandragolaand the Spectacle of Infamy^*