Discorsi mancati. Machiavelli e gli Homini illustri di Pietro Ragnoni

Abstract

The origins of Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy are still a matter of debate. In particular, research on the work’s literary genre has yet to offer consistent results. Some scholars, following Machiavelli’s own remarks, have suggested similarities with commentaries on Emperor Justinian’s Digest or collections of clinical cases. Others have singled out the importance of his master Marcello Virgilio Adriani’s exegetical method. Still others have highlighted the connections with vernacular literary commentaries, such as that by Cristoforo Landino on Dante’s Divine Comedy or that by Jacopo Bracciolini on Petrarch’s Triumph of Fame. This essay joins the debate by analyzing the Homini illustri (Illustrious men) composed by the Sienese Pietro Ragnoni. This commented translation of the fourth-century De viris illustribus shows many resemblances with the Discourses, first in terms of literary genre, then in the topics addressed, and finally in the two authors’ biographies. Ragnoni, who was very close to the de facto Lord of Siena, Pandolfo Petrucci, wrote (1503) and published (1506) the Homini illustri in the very same months when Machiavelli stayed in Siena as an emissary of the Florentine republic.