Outline of scenes 1 - 4 (variation #1)

OUTLINE OF THE OPERA BY SCENE: A Preliminary Draft

Overture: Orchestra and Quartet: The Progression of Governments.

Act 1 Scene 1 - February 18, 1513. Machiavelli's name has been found among a list of conspirators and he is being interrogated. When he denies involvement, he is tortured by the strappado.

(Description of strappado, with picture, and M's views of torture in Grazia pg 36)

Act 1 Scene 2 - Feb 23. Daybreak. Mach, in his cell, hears boots in the hallway, a cell door opened and a prisoner led out. The prisoner is Agostino Capponi and as he is led away, we hear the Black Brothers singing psalms for the condemned. An ax falls. More boots. Another prisoner, Pietropaolo Boscoli is led out, accompanied by the Black Brothers, another ax falls. (Historically, a little less dramatic, read Ross King pg 135). Some time passes, no more boots in the hall. He then writes a poem and dedicates it to Giuliano de' Medici:

I have, Giuliano, a pair of shackles on my legs
with six hoists of the rope on my shoulders:
my other miseries I do not want to talk about,
as this is the way poets are to be treated!

These walls exude lice,
sick with the heaves no less, that are as big as butterflies
nor was there ever such a stench in the massacre of Roncesvalles.

or among those groves in Sardinia,
as there is in my dainty inn;
with a noise that sounds just as if at th earth
Jove was striking lightning , and all Mount Etna too.

One man is being chained and the other shacked
with a clatter of keyholes, keys, and latches;
another shouts that he is pulled too high off the ground!

What disturbed me most
was that close to dawn while sleeping
I heard chanting: "Per voi s'ora"

Now they can go their own way;
if only your mercy may turn towards me,
good father, and these criminal bonds be untied

(I have assurances the Italian (Grazia pg 392) is beautiful)

Act 1 Scene 3 - 11 March 1513. Giovanni de' Medici is crowned Pope Leo X. Amidst celebration, Machiavelli is released from prison and exiled to his house in the country. ...the news of the election of a Medici pope ... causes wild excitement and a four-day celebration during which little could be heard above the noise of firecrackers, bells and cannons"

Act 1 Scene 4 - Life in the country - his famous letter about his rural life - donning his robes and communing with the ancients in his library. At other times, he is drinking and gambling with woodcutters at the local tavern.

"I enter the ancient courts of the men of antiquity where affectionately received by them I graze on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born, where I am not too timid to speak with them and ask them about the reasons for their actions; and they in their courtesy answer me; and for four hours of time I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, I do not fear poverty, death does not dismay me; I transfer all of myself into them ..."

He sits at a long table and as the lighting changes, appears to have conversation with unseen guests.