MACHIAVELLI AND THE IMAGINED ROME OF RENAISSANCE HUMANISM

In: History of political thought, Band 36, Heft 3, S. 452-470

Abstract

This article argues that the early chapters of Machiavelli's Discourses constitutes a deliberate rejection of the ways in which Rome had been described and evaluated in the humanist political literature of the quattrocento and especially Poggio Bracciolini's Oration on Behalf of Venice. While agreeing with Poggio that early humanist portraits of Rome had been too idealized to be historically accurate, Machiavelli criticizes Poggio's own more critical view of Roman republicanism on both historical and theoretical grounds. Adapted from the source document.