ENRICO CAPODAGLIO racconta i DISCORSI SOPRA LA PRIMA DECA DI TITO LIVIO di NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI

On Sunday, July 12, at 6:00 PM, in the courtyard of Palazzo Montani Antaldi (G.C.), Enrico Capodaglio will discuss Niccolò Machiavelli's Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius. He will be accompanied by readers Rita Caprio, Rosa Lorena Ferri, Antonella Taras, and Marcella Tomassoli of Voci dei Libri APS. Capodaglio writes: "The Prince is a work composed with a plastic, artistic, and dramatic spirit, as Antonio Gramsci writes in his Prison Notebooks, in relation to a unique and urgent political situation. Meanwhile, in the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, written from 1513 onwards, Machiavelli's meditations are broader, more diffuse, and more expansive, always keeping in mind the "effective truth" of things. This is a unique work that, starting from the historiographical work of Titus Livius, ranges across diverse, yet interrelated themes: there is a history of the human race; An investigation into the cycle of forms of government; a defense of the people and the common good; reflections on the interplay of virtue and fortune; a broad discussion of the social and political role of religion. My perspective will be precisely anthropological: how does he view human nature, I wonder, in its concrete historical and social expression? Some have been surprised that Machiavelli advocates the principality in The Prince and the republic in The Discourses, but in reality their political inspiration and judgment are unified, emanating from a close comparison with the ancient world. A fragment of an ancient statue is highly prized, he writes in the preface to the work, while "the most virtuous operations" accomplished by the ancients in the political and military fields are ignored, failing to draw sufficient inspiration from the works of the great historians. Machiavelli's civic passion and political ingenuity thus contribute to generating an original meditation, in a savory and poignant prose that greatly enhances the fascination of the undertaking.