Discover the different practices and forms of Machiavellian otium across a selection of letters taken from Niccolò Machiavelli’s correspondence between 1512 and 1527.
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.
Nerli congratulates M. on the tremendous success of his Clizia staged on the Florentine countryside in the gardens of “Il Fornaciaio” (Jacopo di Filippo Falconetti).
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.
M. writes in a playful and jocular manner in relation to his rather ‘otiose’ mission to the Minorite Friars at Carpi, where he had been sent by the Otto di Pratica of Florence in order to negotiate for installation of a new governor and administrative reforms for the Order. In this letter to Francesco Guicciardini he reflects on religion, writing, and his own role as a citizen and diplomat of Florence and as a writer.
Comments of Buondelmonti and many other friends from the Orti Oricellari on M.’s Vita di Castruccio Castracani.
M.’s description of the collapse of the Soderini government and the return of the Medici after the atrocities committed by the Spanish army during the sack of Prato.
