Niccolò Machiavelli - Silvia Ruffo-Fiore (essay date 1982)
Silvia Ruffo-Fiore (essay date 1982)
SOURCE: Ruffo-Fiore, Silvia. “Machiavelli's Dramatic and Literary Art.” In Niccolò Machiavelli, pp. 107–20. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982.
[In the following excerpted essay, Ruffo-Fiore discusses Machiavelli's approach to the theater.]
DATING, MANUSCRIPTS, EDITIONS, AND PERFORMANCE OF MANDRAGOLA
Although the action of the Mandragola occurs in 1504 (I, 1), its composition date remains controversial. Various dates have been cited by Tiraboschi (1498), Villari and Tommasini (1512-20), Renaudet (1523), Colimore (1504-12), and Ridolfi (January-February 1518). Ridolfi's speculations, having recently gained widest acceptance, are based on two points. First, in III, 3 the old woman who briefly converses with Fra Timoteo fearfully questions, “Do you believe the turk is coming over into Italy this year?”1 Ridolfi argues that this popular fear, which probably began...
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