After Machiavelli: "Re-writing" and the "Hermeneutic Attitude"

Chapter Four. Machiavelli's Re-writing of Himself: The Events at Sinigaglia

Chapter Four Machiavelli's Re-writing of Himself The Events at Sinigaglia Interpretation, it seems, must necessarily be a circular process t. . .J -Hodges We have so far touched upon four different manifestations of re-writing in the discussion of Machiavelli's Clizia,Andria, the Discorso 0 dialogo intorno alIa nostra lingua, and the Discorsi sopra La prima deca di Tito Livio. In each of these four instances Machiavelli chose to look outside of himself-to the writings of others-for the material that he would eventually re-live and re-create as his own. This, however, is not always the case. In the course of his activity, Machiavelli will also look to re-live his own experiences, to make a palimpsest of his own writings. In fact, we can distinguish yet another phase in the cyclical process of re-writing: that one in which the writer re-writes himself.1 There are, among Machiavelli's writings, many occasions in which we will detect strong intra- or intertextual connections, as happens in Chapters 8 and 24 of Book I of The Discourses, where the character of Manlius Capitolinus is examined closely; or in Chapter 19 of The Prince and Chapter 10 of Book I of The Discourses, where Machiavelli reflects upon the Roman emperors.2 These are but two examples among the great body of correspondences constituting the network of concordances within the Machiavellian oeuvre. However, we would not necessarily consider the aforementioned examples as evidence of Machiavelli's having re-written himself. It does not suffice to cite instances in which the writer treats the same subject, r even those situations in which a further embellishment or development of a character or a theme 103 Chapter Four takes place. Re-writing does not denote a process that is simply repetitive or edifying. It is not equatable to a treatment of intra/intertextuality, though the latter nonetheless plays a fundamental role in the discussion concerning the re-writing of oneself. We recall that re-writing, as it relates to the Diltheyan concepts of reproduction and re-living, involves "creating along the line of events,,,3 creating while proceeding forward: a transformation thatoccurs along with the word, not after, above, or beyond it. Re-writing reveals the "newness" that is in what already is, arriving at understanding through continued expression. Such a process can be identified in Machiavelli's telling and re-telling of the story portraying the events concerning the murder of Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Paolo and il Duca di Gravina Orsini.4 There are, to date, four sources to which we can turn in order to read Machiavelli's varying accounts of those events: the "Legation to Duke Valentino in Romagna," the Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino in Killing Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Others, The Decennali, and The Prince.5 The plurality of renderings of this incident, which, on one level, bears witness to Machiavelli's having crossed the "boundary" separating his professional writings from his literary ones, on a different level also serves to document another type of movement taking place among the texts. This movement is the traveling from notizia to esemplo, the transformation that befalls the (in)famous story ofthe events at Sinigaglia. In Machiavelli's first accounts in the "Legation," this incident figures as one particulare (a fact among many, so to speak) fixed within the broader scheme of relations between Cesare Borgia and the Republic ofFlorence. We then observe a marked gain of importance attributed to the incident in the later versions. Machiavelli's Description (1503) is dedicated entirely to this story; in The Decennali (1504) the writer has considered this event among the most important events in Italy's recent history; and by the time we read of the ill-fated endeavors of Vitellozzo Vitelli and the others in The Prince (1513), it is Machiavelli himself who speaks in terms ofesempli.6 The transformation from the notizia, something of a temporally limited nature and relatively anonymous, to the esemplo, a gathering place and immediate presencing of experience -something "rara e memorabile"7-is the fruit of re-writing. 104 Machiavelli's Re-writing of Himself Let us now tum our attention to the four works dealing with this story. The events leading up to and 'culminating in the murder of Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Paolo and Francesco (Duca di Gravina) Orsini...