Machiavelli Re-writing Woman. A Grammaticalization of Conspiracy

Abstract

“Machiavelli Re-Writing Woman. A Grammaticalization of Conspiracy” is an attempt to track Machiavelli's own meanderings and repeated ruminations on the act of conspiracy as evidenced in his writings and re-writings of the “same” story. The story involves the figure of Caterina Sforza as portrayed in the Discourses and the Florentine Histories. The purpose of this article is to shed light on a characteristic process by which Machiavelli crystallizes his own understanding of human events through language, thus offering it up to those who will read his writings. What lies at the heart of “Machiavelli Re-Writing Woman” is an effort to comprehend and articulate Machiavelli's literary performance of the act of conspiracy. The focus, therefore, is necessarily concentrated on the smallest of details within the text and between texts, as this close reading tries to scan the subtle and meaningful distinctions — Machiavellian simulations and dissimulations — that would be themselves linguistic representations of a conspiratorial act.