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Machiavelli in Paradise: How Reading Dante and Ovid Shaped The Prince

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Martin Eisner
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Abstract

This article argues that Machiavelli's description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Francesco Vettori of 10 December 1513, illuminates some of the most surprising and scandalous sections of The Prince. Beginning with Machiavelli's quotation of Paradiso 5 in the letter to Vettori, this study investigates how Machiavelli uses the literary works of Dante and Ovid to craft several of his most distinctive arguments on the problem of vows, value of violence, and legitimacy of deception. It argues that the reading of these literary works constitutes a crucial, but often overlooked, component of intellectual history.

Type
Special Topic: Cultures of Reading
Information
PMLA , Volume 134 , Issue 1: Special Topic Cultures of Reading , January 2019 , pp. 35 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2019

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