My Machiavelli and Florentine Republic Study, 2024-2026

My inspiration for taking on Machiavelli and for focusing on Italy is an essay by R.S. Allen called “The Transalpine Renaissance” - an excerpt from a book of his called The Age of Erasmus (1915, 1963). It was in the back of my Norton Critical Edition of The Praise of Folly and Other Writings by Erasmus (1989).

This essay reveals the dynamic between Italy, which was progressing quickly due to the Renaissance, and the Germanic countries, which were lagging behind. The haughtiness with which the Italians beheld the Germans was a flashpoint between the two peoples, and perhaps why the Germanic countries were in such a rush to prove themselves. This may have contributed to the Germanic countries hurry to lift up the common man and to distinguish themselves religiously. Martin Luther is usually credited with these democratizing changes, but the Renaissance in Italy is probably equally a source. I want to learn more about that.

Another goal is to understand Machiavelli beyond his reputation of ruthlessness and amorality.

So, here’s the list:

Machiavelli and the Florentine Republic

Writings -
**The Prince, Machiavelli (Norton Critical Edition) (334 pp.)
**Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli (Oxford World’s Classics) (359 pp.)
*Florentine Histories, Machiavelli (363 pp.)
Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, Machiavelli and others (650 pp.)

Biographies -
*Machiavelli: His Life and Times, Alexander Lee (768 pp.)
*Machiavelli in Hell, Sebastian de Grazia (512 pp.)

History and Essays -
*The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, Baron (700 pp.)
Machiavelli and Republicanism, Bock and Skinner, eds. (332 pp.)
The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe, Bireley, ed. (309 pp.)

Historiography -
*What Is History?, E.H. Carr, (the 2001 edition has an introduction by Richard J. Evans) (240 pp.)
*What Was History: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe, Anthony Grafton (330 pp.)

Political Philosophy -
-The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Pocock (612 pp.)
-Thoughts on Machiavelli, Leo Strauss (348 pp.)
*Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements and the Virtue of Populist Politics, John P. McCormick (271 pp.)
*The Statecraft of Machiavelli, Herbert Butterfield (126 pp.)

Writers Roughly Contemporary to Machiavelli -
*Guicciardini: Dialogue on the Government of Florence (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), Francesco Guicciardini (256 pp.)
*The Defeat of a Renaissance Intellectual: Selected Writings of Francesco Guicciardini, by Francesco Guicciardini (240 pp.)
*The History of Italy, Guicciardini, trans. Alexander (488 pp.) (abridged; orig. 4 vols.)
Botero: The Reason of State (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), Giovanni Botero (274 pp.)

Literature -
The Book of the Courtier, Castiglione (345 pp.)

— 20 titles, (skipping 2)

“*” denotes a book has been read.
“-“ denotes I’m skipping this title.

Here’s a nice article about how the Greeks from Constantinople, fleeing the coming Ottoman takeover, brought the Greek language to Italy. It says that not all the refugees were scholars, of course, but many who came had trades like shipbuilding or tailoring. In 1478, there were about 4,000 Greeks living in Venice, the Italian city with the most refugees.

Aldus Manutius’ press took advantage of a gift of 800 Greek books to St. Mark’s in Venice by Greek scholar, Bessarion. These books formed the basis of many of the Greek language books subsequently published by the Aldine press.

The first professorships in Italy in the Greek language were held by Chrysoloras in 1396 and John Argyropoulos in 1456, both at the University of Florence.

https://the-orb.arlima.net/encyclop/late/laterbyz/harris-ren.html