Machiavelli's Tragic Geography

• In Event: Real and Imagined Landscapes in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Abstract

Machiavelli’s description of hills, valleys, plains, rivers, and marshes down to a single strategic idea: outmaneuver your opponent. Machiavelli evokes geography, often literally, often metaphorically, throughout his writings, and since those evocations of geography usually are inserted into an overall strategic argument, they have not been looked at as much other than aspects of his political reasoning. This paper investigates Machiavelli’s frequent recourse to images of the Italian terrain in The Prince and his other literary works as a means of defining and communicating knowledge. By uncovering the centrality and meaning of Machiavelli’s rhetorical engagement with the contours of his native land, I also seek to offer new insight into Machiavelli’s thinking on tragedy.

Author

• Kristin Phillips-Court, University of Wisconsin–Madison