Conspiracy has been a political phenomenon throughout history, relevant to any form of power from antiquity to the post-modern era. This means of resistance against power was prevalent during the Renaissance, and the Italian fifteenth century, in particular, can be regarded as an 'age of plots'. This book offers the first full-length investigation of Italian Renaissance literature on the topic of conspiracy. This literature covered a range of different genres and itenjoyed widespread diffusion during the second half of the fifteenth century, when the development of this literary production was connected with the affirmation of centralized political thought and princely ideology in Italian states. The centrality of conspiracies also emerges in the sixteenthcentury in Machiavelli's work, where the topic is closely interlaced with problems of building political consensus and management of power.This volume presents case studies of the most significant humanist texts (representative of different states, literary genres, and of prominent authors--Alberti, Poliziano, Pontano--and minor, yet important, literati), and it also investigates Machiavelli's political and historical works. Through interdisciplinary analysis, this study traces the evolution of literature on plots in early Renaissance Italy. It points out the key function of the classical tradition and the recurring narrativeapproaches, the historiographical techniques, and the ideological angles that characterize the literary transfiguration of the topic. This volume also offers a reconsideration of the complex facets of humanist political literature that played a crucial role in the development of a new theory ofstatecraft.
Author(s): Marta Celati
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2021
Cover
Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy: Historiography and Princely Ideology
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
I.1 Fifteenth-century literature on conspiracies: a thematic and political genre
I.2 The prince in literature on plots: power and resistance in the literary realm
I.3 The classical tradition and crossovers between humanist historiography and political literature
I.4 Texts on political plots: a multifaceted corpus
Chapter 1: Orazio Romano’s Porcaria: Humanist Epic as a Vehicle for Papal-Princely Ideology
1.1 Orazio Romano and the composition of the poem
1.2 Stefano Porcari and the conspiracy against Nicholas V
1.3 Poetry as literary transposition of the topic of conspiracy
1.4 Classical legacy and Latin sources in the Porcaria
1.5 The ‘papal prince’ and the political perspective in the poem
1.6 The eclectic use of the classical legacy and a new political symbolism
Chapter 2: Leon Battista Alberti’s Porcaria coniuratio: The Epistle as an Unresolved Reflectionon the Political Plot
2.1 Alberti and the Porcaria coniuratio
2.2 The epistle as historical writing: the conflation of literary genres
2.3 Classical theoretical models: Alberti’s view of history
2.4 Thematic and stylistic models: a Sallustian conspiracy
2.5 ‘Eclectic classicism’ in Alberti’s language
2.6 The rhetorical construction of an unsettled political dialogue
2.7 The disapproval of res novae and the ‘iciarchical’ image of power
Chapter 3: Giovanni Pontano’s De bello Neapolitano: The Historia of the Conspiracy in Political Theory
3.1 Pontano the historian, the royal secretary, and the theorist of politics and historiography
3.2 Pontano’s models and the development of political historiography
3.3 Conspiracy, obedience, and kingship in Pontano’s political theory
3.4 The barons and the crime of disobedience
3.5 The loyal noblemen and the repentant traitors
3.6 The princeps and his people
Chapter 4: Angelo Poliziano’s Coniurationis commentarium: The Conspiracy Narrative as ‘Official’ Historiography
4.1 Composition, publication, and circulation of the Coniurationis commentarium
4.2 Classical models: varietas in the historical account
4.3 The stylistic revision of the text
4.4 The Commentarium in Medici cultural politics
4.5 The evolution of the political perspective: from the first to the second version
Chapter 5: The Conspiracy Against the Prince: Political Perspective and Literary Patterns in Texts on Plots
5.1 The classical legacy: genres, models, symbolism, and political tradition
5.2 The centrality of history and its literary forms
5.3 Political ideology and narrative strategies: the practical model for an ideal state
5.4 Moving towards the sixteenth century
Chapter 6: ‘Congiure contro a uno principe’: Machiavelli and Humanist Literature
6.1 The ‘conspiracy’ in Machiavelli’s work
6.2 The phenomenon of plots, between political theorization and historical narrative
6.3 Conspiracy, tyrannicide, and crimen laesae maiestatis
6.4 The princely dimension of Machiavelli’s thought on plots
6.5 The common people as decisive protagonist
6.6 Motives and outcomes of plots: the bitter acknowledgement of the ‘certissimo danno’
Conclusions
Index of Manuscripts and Archival Documents
Bibliography
Texts and translations
Secondary literature
Index
