Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli

Bernardo Machiavelli (* between 1426 and 1429; † 1500 ), citizen of the Republic of Florence , is known to posterity as the father of Niccolò Machiavelli . His person and his life in Florence have become tangible for us through his own diary. Bernardo Machiavelli's diary, his libro di ricordi from the years 1474–1487, occupies a special position among the Florentine diaries of the 15th century, the so-called ricordanze .

Life

Born as the son of Niccolò di Buoninsegna Machiavelli and his wife Ghostanza, Bernardo Machiavelli lived with his wife Bartolomea, their four children, Primavera, Margherita, Niccolò and Totò, and a maid in the Florentine district of Santo Spirito south of the Arno . His house was part of a complex of medieval houses owned by the Machiavelli clan on Via Romana (now Via Guicciardini) between the Church of Santa Felicita and the Palazzo Pitti . These houses were destroyed by bombing during World War II.

The Machiavelli family can be counted among the older Florentine families and among the popolani grassi , the class of the “well-nourished” citizens, who belonged to the higher guilds in the 14th and 15th centuries. Although not particularly wealthy, the family was among the top 100 families in town. Volker Reinhardt describes him as “an advocate of rare unsuccessfulness”. "These poor living conditions stood in stark contrast to the past of the Machiavelli clan as a whole."

By the end of the 14th century at the latest, the Machiavelli families also owned property in the area of Sant'Andrea in Percussina , a small village near the market town of San Casciano , southwest of Florence. Bernardo Machiavelli's house in this village, the albergaccio , became famous through the letters written by his son Niccolò during the bitter years of exile there. It was here that Niccolò wrote his Principe and Discorsi after the Medici had dismissed him from his office in the Florentine chancellery and banished him from the city.

Bernardo Machiavelli studied Roman law , probably in Florence, hence his title knife . Although he had little income from a legal profession, he still bought books on Roman and Canon Law as an elderly man . In addition to house ownership, he had inherited debts from his father and uncles, which blocked his way to political office and probably also to membership in the guild of judges and notaries. Machiavelli was also a member of a flagellant lay fraternity, the Compagnia di S. Jeronimo , as can be found in the fraternity's registers.

Bernardo Machiavelli's diary

The records are 63 pages in the Tuscan dialect. The manuscript of the diary is kept in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence. Cesare Olschki transcribed this manuscript, which was published as a small edition in 1954. Although more related to the prosaic affairs of a family father, Machiavelli's notes contribute to our knowledge of the childhood and youth of Niccolò Machiavelli and his upbringing (Latin and commercial arithmetic), inform about the living conditions of the family of six and the father's book possession.

The ricordi are not the result of an inward look and are rarely a place of intimacy and mystery. All of Machiavelli's entries are caused by influences such as an agreement or transaction with his fellow men and mostly deal with everyday business: orders for linen from Florentine weavers, leases for Machiavelli's two small country estates in Sant'Andrea di Percussina , sales of agricultural products or repair work on the own villa or casa da signore in the same village. On the pages of the diary we also read about Machiavelli's serious illness from bubonic plague ( malattia del segno ) and the almost exterministic, arbitrary and unpredictable rage of the epidemic in families and neighborhoods for individuals of all generations. He also provides information about a dispute with a Florentine butcher who is unwilling to pay, the pledging of old, worn out clothing, the purchase of a wedding dress for the eldest daughter Primavera and the loan of valuable books. A total of 27 books that Bernardo borrowed or bought are mentioned on the pages of the diary. In one case he received a copy of the “Ab urbe condita” from Titus Livius as a gift , because he had compiled an index of all the cities, rivers, mountains and islands mentioned in the book on behalf of a cartographer.

Sometimes the diary gives valuable insight into everyday Florentine culture and culture. Objects of any kind (items of clothing, household items, etc.) were treated as valuables and could be incorporated into the "canon of things" valid at that time. They all had a transfer value and could be exchanged for other things, given, pledged, lent, sold. In addition, descriptions of conflicts and their regulations give insight into the special practice of arbitration ( arbiter ). This informal way of resolving conflicts is seldom so vividly and lifelike described in the sources as in Machiavelli's diary.

literature

• Catherine Atkinson: Debts, Dowries, Donkeys. The Diary of Niccolò Machiavelli's Father, Messer Bernardo, in Quattrocento Florence. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38351-7 .
• Cesare Olschki (Ed.): Bernardo Machiavelli: Libro di Ricordi. Florence 1954.
• Christoph Wurm : Don't admire the Romans, but imitate them - Machiavelli as the reader of Titus Livius. In: Forum Classicum 4/2011, pp. 278–284 (deals with the influence of Bernardo Machiavelli's literary activity on his son).

Footnotes

1. ↑ Volker Reinhardt: Machiavelli or The Art of Power. Eine Biographie , Munich 2012, p. 29.
2. ↑ Volker Reinhardt, p. 29.