CRRS Friday Workshop: Machiavelli’s The Prince at 500 Lecture – Mark Jurdjevic

The 2013/2014 Friday Workshop Series:
Commemorating the 500^th Anniversary of Machiavelli’s The Prince

Mark Jurdjevic (Associate Professor, History, Glendon College)

“Writing History in a Ruined World:
Machiavelli, Vettori, and Guicciardini on History and Republicanism”

This paper looks at the role of history in the political outlook and careers of Machiavelli and his friends Francesco Vettori and Francesco Guicciardini.  All three were significant participants in Florentine politics who wrote major histories of their city in their times.  They also shared a preference for republican government.  But as Medici power raised the possibility of an outright princely state in Florence, Vettori and Guicciardini set aside their republican sympathies.  They justified their position in Florentine historical terms, arguing against any clear moral distinctions between regime types.  Machiavelli, however, insisted on a republican reading of Florentine history and tried to persuade the family to adopt a republican solution to the city’s constitutional dilemmas.

Friday 18 November 2013
3:30-5:00 pm
Northrop Frye, Room 205

For more information, please contact the series organizer, Mauricio Suchowlansky
— mauricio.suchowlansky [at] utoronto.ca