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On Machiavelli's Idea of Virtu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Felix Gilbert
Felix Gilbert*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Extract

The following observations are hardly more than a footnote, but a footnote to one of the most discussed questions of Machiavelli's thought, to his concept of virtù. When scholars became aware of the central importance of this term in Machiavelli's thought, they also realized that virtù was a most elusive term to which it was difficult to assign a precise and definite meaning; the term seemed to contain a great variety of meanings. In recent times, almost each new interpretation of Machiavelli's thought has implied a new intepretation of his virtù-concept, or, at least, has stressed the decisive significance of one particular factor among the various elements which went into the making of this concept.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Winter 1951 , pp. 53 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1951

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References

1 The first systematic analysis of Machiavelli's use of this concept is Mayer, Eduard W., Machiavelli's Geschichtsauffassung mid sein Begriff virtù, (Historische Bibliothek, vol. XXXI)Google Scholar, Munich ami Berlin [912, hut later works—particularly Ercole, Francesco, La Politico di Machiavelli, Roma 1926 Google Scholar; Olschki, Leonardo, Machiavelli the Scientist, Berkeley 1945 Google Scholar; Whitfield, J. H., Machiavelli, Oxford 1947 Google Scholar—have added much material to this discussion.

2 op. cit.

3 Restauramento de la virtute et forza vitale', Lettere inedite di Joviano Pontano in nome de’ Reali di Nafoli, Publicate da Gabotto, Ferdinando, Bologna 1893, p. 71.Google Scholar

4 ‘La virtu sua è forte', Pontano, op. cit., p. 178.

5 Tommasini, Oreste, La vita e gli scritti di Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. II, Torino 1911, p. 38 Google Scholar, 39; also Olschki, op. cit., p. 39.

6 Whitfield, op. cit., p. 96 writes: ‘Tommasini probably exaggerated this medical connection'; against Tommasini's emphasis on medicine also Mayer, op. cit., p. 18.

7 An excellent description of the function of the pratica (and to my knowledge the °nly one) in Anzilotti, Antonio, La crisi costituzionale della Refubblica fiorentina, Firenze 1912, p. 85, 86.Google Scholar

8 On Bernardo Rucellai see my article: ‘Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari,’ ‘Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. XII (1949), p. 101-131.

9 “Che stiano come uno corpo a quale e manchata la virtù et è medici buoni principalmente attendono ad fortificare la virtù et pero attenderebbe ad fare uno exercito … ” Pratica of August 18, 1500, Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Mediceo “vanti il Princifato, Consulte a Pratiche, vol. 66, fol. 102 verso. The statements of ‘he participants are given in an indirect form of speech.