Fall 2008
Italian 361.52/722.00
Tuesday, 5:30-7:20
HW 504
E-mail: mcalabri@hunter.cuny.edu
Prof. Monica Calabritto
Office: HW 1308
Office hours: Tue/Thu 12:30-14:00
and by appointment
Niccolò Machiavelli: The fox, the lion and the man
Course description: After the posthumous publication of Il principe in 1532, Machiavelli’s
political thought became the object of a lively ideological debate, in and outside of Italy. The
debate focused on Il principe and on its analysis of the personal rule of a prince as one of the
forms of government that lead to the construction of a State. Il principe and its author became—
erroneously—the symbol of a ruthless, amoral model of conduct that a prince or a monarch
should use to rule their state. The fiery debate of the opponents to Machiavelli equated his
political thought to devilish behavior.
The misunderstanding to which Il principe and its author were subjected was in part due
to the limited knowledge of Machiavelli’s production, which included political, military and
historical treatises, comedies, poetry and private correspondence. It is the goal of this course to
identify within the larger context of Machiavelli’s writing the themes of “virtù”, fortune, religion,
power, and history, which can be found not only in Il principe, in the Discorsi, part of which was
written in conjunction with Il principe, L’arte della guerra and La vita di Castruccio Castracani,
but also in Machiavelli’s comedy La mandragola and in his private letters to friends. The reading
and analysis of Machiavelli’s texts will contribute to an understanding of the layered dimension
of Machiavelli’s writing and thought, which can be personified in the triad of the lion, the fox and
the man and in the mythical figure of the Centaur, symbols, for Machiavelli, of violence and legal
power combined.
Reading list
Primary sources (required):
 Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe, (Turin: Einaudi, 2005, or Rizzoli 1997)
 Ibid., Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Turin: Einaudi, 2000)
 Ibid., La Mandragola, Belfagor, lettere (Milan: Mondadori, 1991)
 Ibid., La vita di Castruccio Castracani (Milan: Rizzoli, 2002)
Secondary sources (required):
 Harvey Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1996) 1-52
 Hans Baron, “Machiavelli: The Republican Citizen and the author of ‘The Prince’”, English
Historical Review 76 (1961): 217-53
 Neal Wood, “Machiavelli’s Concept of virtù reconsidered”, Political Studies 15 (1967) 15972
 Robert Adams, “The Rise, Proliferation and Degradation of Machiavellism: An Outline”, in
The Prince, ed. R. Adams, 236-247
 Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman. Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò
Machiavelli (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) 30-52 (pages dedicated to the
Mandragola)
 Victoria Kahn, “Virtù and the Example of Agathocles in Machiavelli’s Prince,” Machiavelli
and the Discourse of Literature ed. A.R. Ascoli and V. Kahn (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993) 195217
 Giulio Ferroni, “ Mutazione” e “Riscontro” nel teatro di Machiavelli e altri saggi sulla
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commedia del Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1972)
Ibid., Machiavelli, o dell'incertezza (Donzelli, 2003)
Il teatro di Machiavelli, a cura di G. Barbarisi e A. M.Cabrini (Cisalpino, 2005)
Ibid., Machiavelli e gli storici antichi. Osservazioni su alcuni luoghi dei «Discorsi sopra la
prima deca di Tito Livio» (Salerno, 1998)
Giorgio Inglese, Per Machiavelli. L’arte dello stato, la cognizione delle storie (Rome:
Carocci, 2007)
Nicolai Rubinstein, “Machiavelli and the Florentine republican experience” in Machiavelli
and Republicanism, ed. G. Bock, Q. Skinner, M. Viroli (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999) 316
Davide Canfora, Prima di Machiavelli. Politica e cultura in età umanistica (Rome; Bari:
Laterza, 2005)
Luca D’Ascia, Machiavelli e i suoi interpreti (Bologna: Pendragon, 2006)
Recommended reading (primary and secondary sources):
 James B. Atkinson and David Sices, eds., Machiavelli and His Friends. Their Personal
Correspondence, tr. J.B. Atkinson and D. Sices (DeKalb: Northen Illinois UP, 1996)
 Sebastian De Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989)
 Giuliano Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’età moderna (Bari: Laterza, 1995)
 Vickie B. Sullivan, The Comedy and the Tragedy of Machiavelli. Essays on the Literary
Works (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000)
 J.G.A Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic
Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975)
 A.R. Ascoli and V. Kahn, eds., Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature (Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1993)
 Federico Chabod, “Machiavelli’s Method and Style,” The Prince, ed. R. Adams (New York:
Norton & Company, 1992) 178-193 [originally published in Machiavelli and the
Renaissance, by F. Chabod, tr, D. Moore Harvard UP 1958]
 Mario Martelli, Saggio sul Principe (Salerno, 1999)
 Quentin Skinner, “Political philosophy,” The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 389-452
 J.R. Hale, “The setting of The Prince: 1513-1514,” in The Prince, ed. R. Adams 139-149
[originally published in Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy, London: English Universities
Press, 1961, chapter 7]
Participation and attendance: Students can miss only 1 class. If you make more than 1 absence,
I require you to schedule an appointment with me, otherwise your grade will be lowered of half
letter. Late work is graded down similarly.
Course format: The course will be conducted as a seminar and will be in Italian. Each student is
expected to come to class ready to discuss the assignment and to participate in class discussion.
MA students will write a 13-15 page final paper, while undergraduate students will write a 8-10
page final paper. MA students will be required to give a 15-minute presentation on a subject that
will be discussed in class. The final essay will be a comparative analysis of two texts read and
discussed in class. In order to facilitate the work required in the final paper, the students will be
asked to write 2 short textual analyses of passages extracted from the weekly reading
assignments. These analyses need to be 1/2 -page long, typewritten, double-spaced and will be
graded (- or +). I do not accept handwritten assignments. Beginning in the third week of class
students will discuss with me the topic of their final essay. I will provide you with a list of
possible themes for the final paper. On the ninth week of class they will hand a first submission.
There will be a mid-term and a final exam. The day of the final exam, the students will hand in
the final submission of the paper.
Statement on academic integrity: “Hunter College regards acts of academic dishonesty
(e.g., plagiarism, cheating on examinations, obtaining unfair advantage, and falsification
of records and official documents) as serious offenses against the values of intellectual
honesty. The College is committed to enforcing the CUNY Policy on Academic
Integrity and will pursue cases of academic dishonesty according to the Hunter College
Academic Integrity procedures.”
Should a paper turn out to be the result of plagiarism, the grade for the assignment will be
zero and the event will be reported to the Dean of Students of Hunter College.
Method of evaluation:

Class Participation
15 %

Paper (including outline and draft)
30%

Short analyses (2)
20%

Midterm
15%

Final Exam
20%
Schedule of classes (subject to change)
September 2
September 9
September 16
September 23
September 30
October 7
October 14
October 21
October 28
November 4
November 18
November 25
December 2
December 9
December16
December 23
Introduction. Main themes of the course and
methodology
Lettere (69-98); Il principe, lettera dedicatoria + first
seven chapters; Luca D’Ascia, Machiavelli e i suoi
interpreti, pp. 11-38; Giorgio Inglese, Per Machiavelli,
pp. 11-52
Il principe, chapters VIII-XIV; Victoria Kahn, “Virtù
and the Example of Agathocles in Machiavelli’s
Prince”; Nicolai Rubinstein, “Machiavelli and the
Florentine republican experience” in Machiavelli and
Republicanism, ed. G. Bock, Q. Skinner, M. Viroli. First
textual analysis due
Il principe, chapters XV-XIX; Neal Wood,
“Machiavelli’s Concept of virtù reconsidered”, Harvey
Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 1-52.
No class scheduled
Il principe, chapters XX-XXVI; Giulio Ferroni,
Machiavelli o dell’incertezza
Classes follow a Monday schedule
Discorsi. Introduction. Historical and philosophical
background. Book 1, chapters 1-10; Davide Canfora,
Prima di Machiavelli. Politica e cultura in età
umanistica (Rome; Bari: Laterza, 2005) 5-79
Discorsi, Book 1, chapters 11-18; Mario Martelli,
Machiavelli e gli storici antichi 7-24
Mid term exam
Discorsi, Book 1, chapter 58-60; Book 2, preface +
chapters 15-20, 27-32; Martelli, 48-56; 92-98; 107-121
First draft + outline due
Discorsi, Book 3, chapters 1-2; 9; 16-22; 26-27; 31; 4044. Martelli, 121-22; 160-176; 181-83; 188-90; 206-208
La vita di Castruccio Castracani. Robert Adams, “The
Rise, Proliferation and Degradation of Machiavellism:
An Outline”, in The Prince, ed. R. Adams, 236-247
Second textual analysis due
La Mandragola, prologo + first and second act; Hanna
Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman. Gender and
Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, pp. 2551; Letters (99-107)
La Mandragola, third-fifth act; Giulio Ferroni,
“Mutazione” e “Riscontro” nel teatro di Machiavelli e
altri saggi sulla commedia del Cinquecento pp. 17-137
Final paper due
Final exam 5:30/7:20