Machiavelli on Dante on language

Abstract

Machiavelli’s ‘Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua’ (c. 1515) is not one of the major treatises on the ‘questione della lingua’. Critics even doubt that the author is Machiavelli since the work contains injurious attacks on Dante that are believed unlikely from someone who wrote highly of him in his other works. Machiavelli scholars have tried to justify his position toward Dante in the treatise as an attempt to make a case for Italian unity. The work has also been read from the perspective of the received ideas on Dante in the Renaissance, which are echoed in Machiavelli’s slanderous criticism. In my article, I would like to approach the treatise from Dante’s point of view to weigh the extent to which Machiavelli’s claims can be said to be valid and justified. Although Machiavelli seems to have had a limited knowledge of Dante’s linguistic treatise, De vulgari eloquentia, he certainly knew the Inferno well enough to parody it in his L’Asino and to take Dante to task for his attitude toward the Florentine language, the Florentines and Florence. My aim is to show that Machiavelli’s unstated objective in the treatise, and the reason for his critique of Dante, is to ingratiate himself with the Medici and be accepted into their service.