Modern Philology

LORENZO GERI

General objectives: the course is aimed at students of master's degree courses who already possess historical-literary, metric and narratological knowledge, and intends to present an exemplary theme (an author, a text, a genre ... ) of particular importance, also on the methodological level, inserting it into the current discussions on the subject, placing it in the appropriate historical-literary context, and highlighting the most relevant philological problems.
Specific training objectives are: 1. acquisition of in-depth skills concerning nodal issues of Italian studies; 2. acquisition of a secure working methodology (critical analysis of the current bibliography, ability to work directly on ancient and modern texts, ability to put them in relation with other historical-cultural disciplines); 3. ability to discuss critical bibliography at an advanced level; 4. ability to communicate the acquired information and explain the procedures that allowed the acquisition; 5. development of new texts analysis skills through their formal characters, and the comparison between similar objects.

1. good knowledge of the main lines of development of the Italian and European Renaissance;
2. fair knowledge of the figures of Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Francesco Guicciardini, and Niccolò Machiavelli;
3. ability to discuss passages from the works of Piccolomini, Guicciardini, and Machiavelli included in the course.

The course is aimed at students with basic knowledge of reading literary and critical texts.

The course, of a seminar nature, aims to examine the reflections on history and moral philosophy that Francesco Guicciardini developed, starting from his service to Leo X and Clement VII, a twenty-year career focused on intense activity as an administrator, advisor, and diplomat. Indeed, Guicciardini's political activity, from his youthful embassy to Spain onward, was combined with a tireless recourse to writings composed on the fringes of his actions, continually measuring the distance between "practice" and "theory." The texts examined range from a selection of letters (with particular attention to those addressed to his brothers) to a close analysis of the various versions of the Ricordi, to the pages of the Storia d'Italia dedicated to the history of the Medici pontificates. Thus, we will address one of the fundamental questions of Guicciardini's criticism: the relationship between a reflection on the mechanisms of politics addressed to himself and his family members and the development of a modern historiographical method within a book, the Storia d'Italia, conceived as an apologia for his own political career.
In examining this case study, we will highlight the intertwining of historical methodology, aimed at reconstructing Guicciardini's political profile starting from his relationships with his family network, and historical-literary and philological methodology, aimed at analysing his highly complex relationship with writing. We will focus in particular on the ways in which to interpret the Ricordi, between its intentio auctoris (a text addressed to the family) and its success in the second half of the twentieth century as a book of disquiet and a classic of the Early Modern period.
The second part of the course will also examine the fortunes of Ricordi and the Storia d'Italia between the second half of the sixteenth century and the second half of the nineteenth century, with particular attention to Michel de Montaigne, Alessandro Tassoni, Giacomo Leopardi, and Francesco de Sanctis.

1. Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, introduzione e commento a cura di Carlo Varotti, Roma, Carocci, 2013;
2. passages from Guicciardini's work (pdf uploaded on Google classroom: https://classroom.google.com/c/MjM0ODYyOTAzNDVa?cjc=5hw7cark and in the my Sapienza webpage).

1. Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, Guicciardini, Roma, Salerno, 2013;
2. Marcello Simonetta, Francesco Guicciardini fra autobiografia e storia, Vicenza, Vignate, 2022
3. antologia di saggi critici in pdf su Google Classroom (pdf uploaded on Google classroom: https://classroom.google.com/c/MjM0ODYyOTAzNDVa?cjc=5hw7cark and in the my Sapienza webpage) e sulla pagina del docente a partire dall’inizio del secondo semestr.

The first part of the course will be devoted to an introduction to the Italian Renaissance. Pages from both Humanists and XIX century scholars will be read in class in order to analyse the birth of the concept of Renaissance. After an introduction to the lives and works of the three authors, a survey that will lead to the study of their own times, the class will close read and discuss Piccolomini’s Commentaries, Machiavelli’s Prince and Guicciardini’s Counsels and Reflections. Both primary and secondary sources will be read in English translation.

Not-mandatory attendance

Students will answer questions about Italian Renaissance and will also have to discuss some of the pages that have been read in class.

Please read aloud and comment the first of Guicciardini’s maxims.
What are the characteristics of Piccolomini's autobiographical writing?