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This book examines Machiavelli in contemporary or past realities through the way in which he read, wrote, related to cultures distant in time and space a first in the field of Machiavellian studies. It proposes and experiments with a change of perspective: in essence, it is not interested in what Machiavelli probably was, but in what Machiavelli did. In this perspective, Machiavelli remains a paradoxically still little-explored historical case. Issues and methods developed in recent decades by intellectual history, the history of reading, and cultural anthropology have remained substantially unfamiliar to Machiavelli scholars. This is a book that renews the vision of Machiavelli: no longer the starting or finishing point of intellectual genealogies that are often openly ideological, but an extraordinary case study that allows us to analyse the birth, in the sixteenth century, of a composite knowledge specifically dedicated to man in society.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The first impression.- Chapter 3. "He kept you closely bound with his words".- Chapter 4. "Public man .- Chapter 5. Knowing and governing the peoples.- Chapter 6. Other states and peoples.- Chapter 7. "Because they eat human flesh .- Chapter 8. Time of the End.- Chapter 9. For four hours at a time .- Chapter 10. The Inquiry.- Chapter 11. "To teach reading to children .- Chapter 12. "From writing everyone must protect himself as from a rock".- Chapter 13. "Historian, comic writer and tragic writer".- Chapter 14. The intelligence of the people.- Chapter 15. "In the minds of men". The religious experience of the people.- Chapter 16. The tyranny of Fame.
About the author
Sandro Landi is a historian specializing in early modern Italian political culture, with a focus on censorship, public opinion, and political discourse. In the last years, he has reexamined Machiavelli’s work from a historical perspective, and his book on Machiavelli has been translated into several languages. His current research explores the archaeology of populism.
Summary
This book examines Machiavelli in contemporary or past realities through the way in which he read, wrote, related to cultures distant in time and space—a first in the field of Machiavellian studies. It proposes and experiments with a change of perspective: in essence, it is not interested in what Machiavelli probably was, but in what Machiavelli did. In this perspective, Machiavelli remains a paradoxically still little-explored historical case. Issues and methods developed in recent decades by intellectual history, the history of reading, and cultural anthropology have remained substantially unfamiliar to Machiavelli scholars. This is a book that renews the vision of Machiavelli: no longer the starting or finishing point of intellectual genealogies that are often openly ideological, but an extraordinary case study that allows us to analyse the birth, in the sixteenth century, of a composite knowledge specifically dedicated to man in society.
