Machiavelli References: Machiavelli and the Discource of Literature

The literature devoted to Machiavelli is enormous!!!

Edited by Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn
Cornell University press

Contents:

Introduction by Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn
*letter of M to Alamanni re his nonmention in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso

1. Carlo Dionisotti: Machiavelli, Man of Letters
*M's understanding of himself as a man of letters. Tuscan literary and political traditions and M's borrowing and ultimate rejection of the dominant Florentine literary tradition.

2. John M. Najemy: Machiavelli and Geta, Men of Letters
*M satirized his own intellectual and literary pretensions in the figure of "Geta". M's letter to F Vettori. The changed literary scene after the fall of the Medici.

3. Giulio Ferroni: "Transformation" and "Adaptation" in Machiavelli's Mandragola
4. Ronald L. Martinez: Benefit of Absence: Machiavellian Valediction in Clizia

5. Ezio Raimondi: The Politician and the Centaur
*analysis of "The Prince" chapter 18. M notoriously subverts Cicero's recommendations re political action.

6. John Freccero: Medusa and the Madonna of Forlì: Political Sexuality in Machiavelli
*Mythmaking; Sexual symbolism in M; the story of Caterina Sforza; the identification of a woman's body with a citadel and the male attempt to take the citadel. Rape symbolism in M. Reproductive power in the Madonna.

Caterina's appearance at tghe castle wall is meant to ward off would-be assailants precisely as the head of the Medusa was meant to ward off potential attackers from ancient cities and fortifications...

The terror of medusa is thus the terror of castration ... (pg 176)
see Freud "Medusa's Head" in "Sexuality and the Psychology of Love"

7. Barbara Spackman: Politics on the Warpath: Machiavelli's Art of War

8. Victoria Kahn: Virtù and the example of Agathocles in Machiavelli's The Prince
9. Albert Russell Ascoli: Machiavelli's Gift of Counsel
10. Guiseppe Mazzota: Machiavelli and Vico
11. Nancy S. Struever: Purity as a Danger: Gramsci's Machiavelli, Croce's Vico