Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 (Princeton Legacy Library, 5272)

Between Friends offers the first extended close reading of the most famous epistolary dialogue of the Renaissance, the letters exchanged from 1513 to 1515 by Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori. John Najemy reveals the literary richness and theoretical tensions of the correspondence, the crucial importance of the dialogue with Vettori in Machiavelli's emergence as a writer and political theorist, and the close but complex relationship between the letters and Machiavelli's major works on politics. Unlike previous and mostly fragmentary treatments of the correspondence, this book reads the letters as a continuously developing, collaborative text in which problems of language and interpretation gradually emerge as the critical issues. Najemy argues that Vettori's skeptical reaction to Machiavelli's first letters on politics and provoked Machiavelli into a defense of language's power to represent the world, a notion that soon become the underlying assumption of The Prince. Later, and largely through an apparently whimsical exchange of letters on love and the foibles of eros, Vettori led Machiavelli to confront the power of desire in language, which opened the way for a different, essentially poetic, approach to writing about politics that surfaces for the first time in the pages of the Discourses on Livy. John M. Najemy is Professor of History at Cornell University. He is the author of Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280-1400 (North Carolina). Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. Frontmatter Preface (page ix) Abbreviations (page xiii) INTRODUCTION: The Letters in Machiavelli Studies (page 3) CHAPTER ONE: Renaissance Epistolarity (page 18) The Social Worlds of Florentine Letter Writing (page 19) Petrarch and the Ancients (page 25) Humanists and Their Letter Collections (page 30) Letters and Literature (page 33) Manuals and Theory (page 42) CHAPTER TWO: Contexts Personal and Political (page 58) The Secretary and His Letters (page 58) Francesco Vettori (page 71) Friendship and Politics in the Republic's Crisis (page 82) CHAPTER THREE: "Formerly Secretary" (page 95) "Discoursi et concetti" in Exile (page 95) "A spirited maker of beginnings" (page 117) CHAPTER FOUR: Speaking Like Romans (page 136) "Some of it we just imagine" (page 136) "Naturale affectione o passione" (page 152) The Swiss and "the sweetness of domination" (page 156) The Invention of Redemptive Virtu (page 167) CHAPTER FIVE: The Prince "Addressed" to Francesco Vettori (page 176) What Text Did Vettori See? (page 177) "Verita effettuale" and "Imaginazione" (page 185) Security and Power (page 197) Intelligibility, Power, Love (page 201) CHAPTER SIX: Geta and the "Antiqui Huomini" (page 215) (The Letter of 10 December 1513) (page 215) "Sed fatis trahimur" (page 215) Maestro Geta and His New "Scienza" (page 221) "Tucto mi transferisco in loro" (page 230) CHAPTER SEVEN: "A Ridiculous Metamorphosis" (page 241) "What kinds of writers could not be criticized?" (page 241) "As worthy of being recited to a prince as anything I have heard this year" (page 253) Desire in the Text (page 271) CHAPTER EIGHT: "After a Thousand Years" (page 277) "These princes are men like you and me" (page 277) "To me alone Troy remains" (page 287) "To enlist you again in the old game" (page 295) CHAPTER NINE: Poetry and Politics (page 313) Corydon in San Casciano (page 313) Metamorphosis in the Text (page 319) EPILOGUE: The Poets of the Discourses (page 335) Index (page 351) Between Friends offers the first extended close reading of the most famous epistolary dialogue of the Renaissance, the letters exchanged from 1513 to 1515 by Niccol Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori. John Najemy reveals the literary richness and theoretical tensions of the correspondence, the crucial importance of the dialogue with Vettori in Machiavelli's emergence as a writer and political theorist, and the close but complex relationship between the letters and Machiavelli's major works on politics. Unlike previous and mostly fragmentary treatments of the correspondence, this book reads the letters as a continuously developing, collaborative text in which problems of language and interpretation gradually emerge as the critical issues. Najemy argues that Vettori's skeptical reaction to Machiavelli's first letters on politics provoked Machiavelli into a defense of language's power to represent the world, a notion that soon became the underlying assumption of The Prince . Later, and largely through an apparently whimsical exchange of letters on love and the foibles of eros, Vettori led Machiavelli to confront the power of desire in language, which opened the way for a different, essentially poetic, approach to writing about politics that surfaces for the first time in the pages of the Discourses on Livy . Between Friends offers the first extended close reading of the most famous epistolary dialogue of the Renaissance, the letters exchanged from 1513 to 1515 by Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori. John Najemy reveals the literary richness and theoretical tensions of the correspondence, the crucial importance of the dialogue with Vettori in Machiavelli's emergence as a writer and political theorist, and the close but complex relationship between the letters and Machiavelli's major works on politics. Unlike previous and mostly fragmentary treatments of the correspondence, this book reads the letters as a continuously developing, collaborative text in which problems of language and interpretation gradually emerge as the critical issues.Najemy argues that Vettori's skeptical reaction to Machiavelli's first letters on politics provoked Machiavelli into a defense of language's power to represent the world, a notion that soon became the underlying assumption of The Prince. Later, and largely through an apparently whimsical exchange of letters on love and the foibles of eros, Vettori led Machiavelli to confront the power of desire in language, which opened the way for a different, essentially poetic, approach to writing about politics that surfaces for the first time in the pages of the Discourses on Livy. Offers an extended close reading of one of the most famous epistolary dialogues of the Renaissance, the letters exchanged between Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori. Emphasis is placed on Machiavelli's emergence as a writer and political theorist.