ABSTRACT
Niccolò Machiavelli is today the most famous of the proponents of republican government the returning Medici saw fit to exile from Florence upon their return to power in 1512.1 Giulio dismissed him immediately from his post as Secretary to the Council of Ten, and the next year, suspected of involvement in a conspiracy against the family, Machiavelli was imprisoned and tortured. Following his release, he and his family endured banishment in a town beyond the Arno, where he wrote, among other works, comic plays, including La mandragola (1520)— whose prologue expresses his profound despair over his exile-and Clizia (1525), an adaptation of Plautus’ Casina in the senex amans tradition.2 Most likely, he chose to write drama knowing its popularity with Leo X in Rome and hoping for a pardon and reinstatement in his native Florence. Although Machiavelli wished to win Medici favor for personal advancement, he continued in his heart to prefer republicanism over princely rule.3 Unfortunately, he died just before
1 A portion of this chapter appeared as Anthony Ellis, “The Comic Old Man in a Medicean Context: Lorenzino, the ‘New Brutus,’ and Aridosia,” Forum Italicum 37 (2003): pp. 40-55.
