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A Falsification by Machiavelli
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The encounters between Caesar Borgia and Niccolò Machiavelli, and their influence on the latter's thought and writing, are still shrouded in vagueness and uncertainty. This is due not to lack of positive documentation or to scarcity of evidence, but rather to a plethora of interpretations and fancy. Instances of this vagueness and fancy may be found in interpretations of a document written in Niccolò's own hand, which is preserved in the Central National Library of Florence.
On May 3, 1503, a certain Troches or Troccio, until then one of Caesar's most trusted bravos, fled from Rome. Caesar at once despatched a circular letter to his vassals ordering them to seize the fugitive, alleging that he had fled the city without hcense of His Holiness.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1959
References
1 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Carte Macchiavelli, I, I. From the Ricci collection ‘Perche havemo intesco che troches è partito de la Santita de N.S. Sanza sua et nostra licentia a tutti nostri vaxalli comandamo sotto pena derebellion et disgratia che in qualunque loco si trovasse sia subito retenuto finche a nostra notitia pervenisse: Et si site vassalli o amici de la Maesta cristianissima ve exortamo et pregamo che per quanto esso troches va per cose che sono contro l'honor de sua Maesta similmente lo vogliate retener protestando de tutti li danni et interesse della Maesta cristianissima che faciendo locontrario poteranno venire Datum Rome XIX Maij M.D. iij Cesar.’ (‘Since we have heard that Troches has left the Holiness of our Lord without His or our license, we order, under pain of rebellion and disgrace to all our vassals that wherever Troccio is he has to be held at once until we are given notice. If the recipient is a vassal of His Most Christian Majesty we exhort and beg His vassals to hold him as he (Troccio) is engaged in affairs contrary to His Majesty's honor, cautioning them that they are to be held responsible for all damages that would come to His Majesty if action is not taken. Given in Rome, XIX May 1503.’)
The author wishes to thank the staff of the National Central Library for their assistance and help, and in particular Drs. Lucia Giovannozzi and Marta Marachi, who were of kind and competent assistance in examining the handwriting of the document.
2 Opere di Nicolò Macchiavelli (Firenze: Cenniniana, 1873), IV, 298.
3 Macchiavelli nella vita e nelle opere (Napoli, 1876), pp. 223-224, n. 1.
4 Villari, , The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892), I. 344–345 Google Scholar.
5 Romane, Morley's Lecture on Machiavelli in Miscellanies, Fourth Series (London: Macmillan & Co., 1908), pp. 36–37 Google Scholar.
6 Letter to Francesco Guicciardini in Modena, dated May 18, 1521. ‘… Dissigli della malattia di Cesare e degli Stati che voleva comprare in Francia in modo che gli sbavigliava.’ (‘I told him of Caesar's illness and of the States he wanted to buy in France in a way that left him open-mouthed.’)
7 Bandello, 1, Novella no. 40. In the dedication to John of the Black Bands he writes that ‘messer Niccolò is one of the wittiest raconteurs (uno dei più belli e facondi dicitori) of your Tuscany’. Bandello also relates that ‘messer Niccolò kept us under the sun for more than two hours because he wanted to drill three thousand foot soldiers according to the rules he had written, and he was unable even to keep them in rank’. Bandello cites the episode as an instance of the virtue of practice over theory. Niccolò made amends by telling a story at the dinner table, a story dealing with ‘the trick employed by a woman in order to deceive her husband with sudden astuteness’ (ibid.).
8 On this point, Kraft, cf. Joseph, ‘Truth and Poetry in Machiavelli’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 (June 1951), pp. 109 Google Scholar ff.
9 Letter to Francesco Vettori, dated from Sant’ Andrea in Percussina, December 10, 1513. ‘ … (This book) should be well liked by a Prince and in particular by a Prince who has never ruled, because of this I am dedicating it to the magnificency of Giuliano “I have spoken of this book with Filippo (Casavecchia), whether it was wise to give it (to Giuliano) or not, and in the former case whether it would be better to take it myself or to send it … for I do wish that the Medici give me something to do.’ The Prince, instead of being dedicated to Giuliano di Lorenzo il Magnifico, was dedicated to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. Machiavelli tarried and hesitated for a number of years. Giuliano died in 1516 and the Prince who had never ruled was by then Lorenzo.
10 Lorenzo, for whom the dedication of The Prince was finally written, was the object of a rather cheap admiration by Niccolò. In a letter to Francesco Vettori in Rome dated from Florence during August 1513 (no day given), and published in Machiavelli's Lettres in the edition of the Societi Nazionale per il Rinascimento del Libro (Florence, 1929, p. 85), Niccolò favorably compares the puny nephew to his Magnificent namesake. He also exhorts Vettori to relate his admiration to the Pope in an attempt to enter his graces. Giuliano de Medici had been elected Pope on March 11, 1513, and this letter to Vettori can be considered a personal message of congratulation and an obvious attempt at flattering the brightest of the Medici by praising the dullest.
11 The Prince, Dedication, last paragraph.