05-11-1526
After his return to Florence M. informs Guicciardini about his trip to Modena and provides an account of a meeting with his friends Filippo de’ Nerli and Guido Rangoni.
Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Guicciardini
Discover the different practices and forms of Machiavellian otium across a selection of letters taken from Niccolò Machiavelli’s correspondence between 1512 and 1527.
After his return to Florence M. informs Guicciardini about his trip to Modena and provides an account of a meeting with his friends Filippo de’ Nerli and Guido Rangoni.
Guicciardini gives instructions to M. concerning the performance of Mandragola in Faenza and emphasizes the importance of comedy during times of hardship.
Nerli provides an assessment of the situation of the “brigata”, i.e. their circle of friends in Florence, and congratulates the absent M. on his inclusion in the “squittino”, i.e. his admission to the elections for public office.
M. replies to Guicciardini, who, in previous letters (see for instance the letter of 18-5-1521), had made fun of M.’s mission to the friars of Carpi and helped him to increase his reputation at his host’s house by sending him seemingly important letters and legations.
This letter is a response to M.’s previous letters, in which he had asked for Francesco Guicciardini’s advice on how to negotiate with the friars of Carpi and requested, in a playful way, the dispatch of further couriers from the Governor in order to increase the ex-secretary’s reputation at Carpi.
Nerli writes to keep M. in the picture about what is going on in the group of friends and members of the Orti Oricellari in Florence during his absence.
Description of a day in M.’s life in his villa in Sant’Andrea in Percussina (San Casciano). This letter is M.’s most famous letter because in it he informs Francesco Vettori that he is writing “un opuscolo de principatibus” later identified as The Prince. He asks Vettori to convey his “opuscule” to the Medici.
