The Spectacle of Privilege in Machiavelli’s "Mandragola"

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Machiavelli’s play, “Mandragola” ("The Mandrake," 1518), saw more performances in sixteenth century Italy than any other comedy and is still performed today. With its satirical perspective on Florentine life, the play resonates theoretically with important themes like virtue, equality, and conflict in Machiavelli’s political works. For example, dramatizing aspects of elite privilege (as also discussed in his well-known “Discourses on Livy” (1531) and “Florentine Histories” (1532)) demonstrates how they may contribute to others’ indignation and affect politics. In doing so, the play draws attention to normative theoretical considerations about class relations, institutional design, and political ethics in ways that echo contemporary concerns about privilege in politics.

The papers on this panel revisit “Mandragola” five hundred years after its first appearance in order to explore the play’s connections to Machiavelli’s political theory and works. Erica Benner’s paper compares the comedy to “The Prince” (1532) in order to show how unscrupulous political elites subvert republics, according to Machiavelli. Through a democratic reading of the play’s protagonist, Katherine M. Robiadek’s paper demonstrates the hypocrisy of elite pretensions to superiority given the equality of common human nature for Machiavelli. And, looking beyond the “Discourses on Livy” to Machiavelli’s use of Livy in “Mandragola” demonstrates his skepticism about the political ideal of “concordia,” as argued in the paper by Michelle T. Clarke.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 41: Politics, Literature, and Film

Individual Presentations

• Marriage and Society in Livy’s “History” and Machiavelli’s “Mandragola” - Michelle Tolman Clarke, Dartmouth College

• The Democratization of Desire in Machiavelli’s “Mandragola” - Katherine M. Robiadek, Boston University

• How Princes Steal Republics: Machiavelli’s "Prince" and "Mandragola" - Erica Benner

Chair

• Catherine H. Zuckert University of Notre Dame

Discussant

• Daniel J. Kapust University of Wisconsin, Madison