After Macchiavelli: "Re-writing" and the "Hermeneutic Attitude."

This book is less about the reception of Machiavelli than it is about "re-writing," that is the intellectual activity which, drawing upon ideas and situations described in existing texts, recreates them for new purposes. The process tends to convey relevance to the old, authority to the new, and, at the same time, bridges past and present, underscoring a continuous and vital relationship between what was and what is. The cognitive evolution from old to new implies a "hermeneutic attitude," which guides the interpretive act along the lines of the author's worldview. Accordingly, the analysis of an author's re-writing may help identify the cultural and the ideological background which informs his/her Weltanschauung. Machiavelli, more than any other writer, provides a good opportunity for this type of study, as he left us various forms of re-writing: imitation (Clizia), translation (Andria), commentary (Discourses), citation (A dialogue on language), and his own rewritings, that is, the four versions of Borgia's murder of Vitellozzo and others.

Goderecci explores the manner in which Machiavelli's act of re-writing and his "hermeneutic attitude" manifest themselves in his re-writings of others, namely, Plautus, Terence, Dante, and Livy (33-102). She demonstrates Machiavelli's profound understanding of the linguistic and thematic components of the existing text which enables him to re-produce, re-live, re-experience, "presence" it in a manner that is relevant to his times. She couches these creative activities in Diltheyan terms so that Clizia, which takes place in Florence and is grounded in current social/moral issues, is Machiavelli's re-production (Nachbilden) of Plautus's Casina. His masterful rendition of Terence's Andria reveals an interpretive effort of the "other wor(l)d," which leads to his "presencing" (Erlebnis) of a world removed from him in time and space. In A Dialogue on language Machiavelli re-produces (Nachbilden) specific points raised by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia and, at the same time, re-lives (Nacherleben) the poet's experience.

Once the reader overcomes the hurdle of this rather obstruse terminology, Goderecci's argument becomes clear and interesting, especially in her discussion of the Discourses. Here she illustrates how Machiavelli, crossing all spatio-temporal boundaries, brings past and present to coexist on the same narrative level. Particularly significant is Machiavelli's "presencing" of history at the linguistic level whereby he bridges the gap between now and then by referring to the Gauls as Franciosi and to the Etruscans as Toscani. Through this and other mechanisms the past is recovered, or in Goderecci's terms, re-experienced, re-lived, and held up as esemplo, that is "an enduring and accessible means to knowledge." Through an analysis of Machiavelli's version of the Horatii episode, Goderecci shows most convincingly how Machiavelli sees Roman history according to his own experience of the present and knowledge of the past. She also establishes that his interpretive mode reflects a Weltanschauung by which history is not an objective truth, something absolute and atemporal, but a dynamic process open to different perspectives or "hermeneutic attitudes."

The process of re-producing, re-living, "presencing" a textual experience is also noted in Machiavelli's re-writing of himself (103-20), specifically the various versions of the events concerning the killing of Vitellozzo and his fellow conspirators at Sinigaglia. Here, Machiavelli, like a movie director "who re-films the same scene over and over, changing it a bit each time" (112), turns the story of the murder from a report, hastily written for his superiors in Florence, into a "spettaculo," and ultimately, in the Prince, into an esemplo embodying the concept that the "use of one's virtu can overcome the hostile force of Fortuna" (119). The transformation underscores the creative and interpretive nature of re-writing, as it demonstrates how the essence of an historical event is relative to a specific "hermeneutic attitude."

The study concludes with a brief consideration of the re-writing of Machiavelli by later writers, which partially justifies the title After Machiavelli (121-37). Sidestepping all the literature on reasons of state that either directly or indirectly deals with Machiavelli's political writings, Goderecci focuses her attention on Gramsci, whose idea of the "Modern Prince" is a creative reproduction of the Machiavellian text. Here, Machiavelli's ideas of impetuosity and caution (respettosita), are re-experienced and re-produced in Gramsci's concepts of "Jacobinism" and "historicism" respectively. Also, Machiavelli's "verita effettuale" in the Gramscian text becomes "realta effettuale." The changes, while reflecting a new cultural context, reaffirm the force and the continuity of a creative process whose point of departure is fixed in the past. For Goderecci, this process is driven by the capacity of the human mind to make "poetic" leaps across the centuries.

The poetic leaps are, of course, conditioned by the "hermeneutic attitude," which is not a method, but, again, an "attitude" subject to change within the successive works of a single author as well as from author to author and from period to period. This fluidity allows readers through the centuries to return to old texts and discover "truths" meaningful to their own experience. Here lies the validity of the method, and Goderecci has cogently demonstrated both its validity and its usefulness as a critical tool. The book is a contribution to Machiavelli studies primarily for the fresh approach with which she takes the reader through uncharted critical "roadways."

SALVATORE DI MARIA University of Tennessee