Machiavelli canterino?

Abstract

Two slightly posthumous descriptions of Machiavelli as a prodigious improviser of octaves on the lira – one hitherto unknown (because it had been censored), the other barely known – shed new light on his profile as a man and an intellectual. A reconsideration of the letters, of the social and cultural ties, of the contemporary portraits and of the literary works (especially in verse) by Machiavelli offers a host of confirmations, as dispersed as they are systematic (with some finetuning concerning the second Venetian Mandragola and the
Serenata too). The pieces of information, connotations and analogies that come to light underscore messer Niccolò’s close ties with the Florentine tradition of improvised poetry and brilliant entertainment. Poetic improvisation was also pursued in elite environments, but it was particularly and organically linked to the centuries-old school of street singers and palace heralds, without any discontinuity between high and low culture. Machiavelli seemed to position himself precisely at the center of that continuum, and obtained from that tradition and from his own canterino-like talents a body of knowledge and techniques of no small import, not only for his literary production but also for his diplomatic activity and as a political essayist.