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When Did Machiavelli Write Mandragola*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sergio Bertelli
Sergio Bertelli*
Affiliation:
University of Perugia
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Extract

The dating of La Mandragola is one of the most difficult problems in Machiavelli scholarship. Roberto Ridolfi, first in his biography of Machiavelli (1954) and more recently in an essay in La Bibliofilia (1962), proposed a new and apparently definitive solution; the comedy must have been written between January and February 1518, for the marriage of Lorenzo de’ Medici the younger, in the short space of one month, and performed soon after, on February 16, 1518.

In fact, we have very few and very late records about the performance of La Mandragola and the text of the comedy has come down to us only through an anonymous edition and one manuscript.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1971 , pp. 317 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1971

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References

1 Vita di Niccolo Machiavelli (Roma, 1954); ‘Composizione, rappresentazione e prima edizione della Mandragola,’ in La Bibliofilia, 64 (1962), 285-300: reprinted in Studi sulle commedie del Machiavelli (Pisa, 1968).

2 Epistolario, ed. by Bertelli, S. (Milan, 1969), no. 234, p. 337 Google Scholar. There is no reason to connect those words with the statement by Paolo Giovio, in his E ogia illustrium virorum, that a performance was prepared for Pope Leo X in an indeterminate year.

3 Diari, XXXII (Venice, 1892), col. 458.

4 Le vite … , ed. by Pergola-Grassi-Previtali, Delia (Milan, 1964), p. 297 Google Scholar.

5 For this performance see also Giannotti, D., Delia repubblica florentina, in Opere, II (Pisa, 1819)Google Scholar, 189-190.

6 The problem arose in the chronology presented by Guido Mazzoni in editing Machiavelli's works (Florence, 1930). Mazzoni did not see that in La Clizia there is a very clear reference to La Mandragola!

7 Epistolario, no. 278, p. 434.

8 See in Epistolario, Machiavelli to Guicciardini, August 17,1525, no. 270, p. 418; October 16-^20, 1525, no. 273, p. 424; Guicciardini to Machiavelli, December 26, 1525, no. 276, pp. 430-431; Machiavelli to Guicciardini, January 3, 1525/26, no. 277, p. 432.

9 Ridolfi, , Studi, p. 28 Google Scholar.

10 Stuttgart and Paris, 1826-32, no. 10416.

11 Manuscript in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS.II.1.106, f. 44.

12 ‘Pope Leo X and the Turkish Peril,’ Penrose Memorial Lecture, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 113 (1969), 377 Google Scholar.

13 ‘La Mandragola. An Interpretation,’ Journal of Politics, 23 (1961), 320-340; Parronchi, , ‘La prima rappresentazione della Mandragola. Il modello dell'apparato. L'allegoria,’ in La Bibliofilia, 64 (1962), 37–86 Google Scholar.

14 The Strozzi's autograph is in Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana, MS. Ashburnham 579. A copy in Machiavelli's hand, with the final words: ‘Ego Barlachia recensui,’ is in the same manuscript as Arte della guerra, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magliabechi VIII. 145 bis.

15 The attribution to Francesco di Cristofano called ‘il Franciabigio’ (Florence, 1482- 1525) is essential for Parronchi's purpose, but is quite unacceptable, since Franciabigio was a mannerist painter and the Urbino painting shows a rationalist perspective typical of the humanist Quattrocento. Against Parronchi see H. Saalman, ‘Baltimore and Urbino panels: Carlo Rosselli,’ Burlington Magazine, July 1968, pp. 376-381. Rosselli, whom Saalman proves to have done these perspectives, was born in Florence, in 1439, and died in 1507.

16 Chiapelli, F., ‘Sulla composizione della Mandragola,’ L'Approdo Letterario (1965), pp. 84–97 Google Scholar.

17 Lorenzo il Magnifico, Opere, ed. by Simioni, A., II (Bari, 1914), 333.Google Scholar

18 Studi, p. 92.

19 This notula is now in the manuscript Bargagli, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, N.A. 1004.

20 Epistolario, no. 93, p. 125.

21 Studi, pp. 68-69.

22 Studi, p. 71.

23 Epistolario, no. 229, pp. 371-372.

24 Epistolario, no. 246, p. 391.

25 Opere complete, ed. by Mazzoni-Casella, (Florence, 1930)Google Scholar, p. xlvi.

26 Giustinian, A., Dispacci, ed. by Villari, P., I (Florence, 1876), 489.Google Scholar

27 S. De’ Ricci, Priorista, manuscript in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Ms. Palatino E.B. 14.7. cc. 760v.

28 See Gaeta, F., ‘Noterelle machiavelliane: un codice di Lucrezio e di Terenzio,’ Rivista Storica Italiana, 73 (1961), 551–553 Google Scholar.

29 It might be important to study the connection which may exist between Machiavelli and Francesco Leoni marchio Trimontinus; the latter was in those years in Florence, author of a comedy in which appears also a parasite Ligurio; the name Ligurio does not occur in any classical comedy, but, as far as I know, for the first time in Leoni and in Machiavelli. I know very few facts about Francesco marchio Trimontinus, but it is perhaps possible to recognize him in the ominous notary of the Chancery of the Florentine republic. See my essay, ‘Petrus Soderinus Patriae Parens,’ Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 31 (1969), 103-105.

30 Pier Francesco Tosinghi to Pier Soderini, original in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS. Ginori Conti 29/108, no. 13.