Il ritratto del vero governo del prencipe dall'essempio vivo del gran Cosimo de' Medici [...]

AN ERASMIAN MACHIAVELLIAN

4to (153x105 mm). 107, [3] pp. Collation: A- N⁸ O⁴. Contemporary limp vellum, signs of ties, partially faded inked title on spine (slightly stained and soiled). Bonelli's woodcut device on title page (Minerva riding a lion) with the latin motto "Virtuti omnia parent" ('Everything leads to virtue'). Woodcut historiated initials and, on title-page verso, large woodcut illustration of a man holding a rock and pointing to a dove and a crown within clouds, with the Greek motto "God is with me". Some occasional light foxing and staining, but a very good, genuine copy.

First and only edition, dedicated by the author to Cosimo the Medici's firstborn, Francesco, with an obvious pedagogical aim. Rosello's work is divided into two “Ragionamenti” followed by two Isocrates' Orationes translated from the Greek by the author himself and already translated from the Latin by Erasmus and published as an appendix to many editions of his Institutio principis christiani.

Il ritratto is structured as a dialogue, a literary style much appreciated in the 16^th century which permits a certain neutrality. The interlcutors of the first “Ragionamento”, which takes place in Naples (the city where Juan de Valdès lived for a period), are Girolamo Muzio (Italian humanist, courtier, and literary theorist closely associated with Counter-Reformation culture), Ferrante Carafa (a Neapolitan nobleman, soldier, and man of letters active in the cultural and political life of Spanish Naples), and the Marquis of Laterza Giambattista d'Azzia (a Neapolitan nobleman and intellectual associated with the aristocratic and literary circles of the Kingdom of Naples under Spanish rule). Choosing historical relevant people instead of fictional characters, shows Rosello's intention of disclosing his own political position: Muzio, for instance, is the leading character in the conversation (“princeps sermonis”), but he was also a controversial personality who publicly joined the Counter-Reformation: he therefore represents an ideological position that Rosello needed to put forward after his conviction for heresy.

Muzio begins the dialogue by recalling his experience at Henry II of France's court: while drawing inspiration from Machiavelli's The Prince, Rosello significantly modifies the meaning of his example, which considered the institution of the French Parliament as a means for the king to combat the “great” and favor the “lesser”; here, instead, its institution is seen as a guarantee for the sovereign, who thus manages to maintain equidistance from the warring classes. Muzio also recalls as well his time spent at Cosimo the Medici's court in Florence: the Grand Duke was legitimately elected by incorruptible free men and he always had been tolerant towards his enemies. Carafa, embracing Machiavelli's philosophy more closely, replies that a prince should instead “exstinguish” his opponents, while Muzio, who represents the author's and Erasmus' perspective, considers it a dangerous behaviour especially in case of conflicts. Other topics addressed include the cruelty of the prince, whether he should be loved or feared, and his qualities and education, as well as that of his sons. Several examples are taken from Erasmus's Apophthegmata, Declamatio de pueris instituendis, Adagia, and Institutio principis christiani. However, as with Machiavelli, Rosello never mentions Erasmus as a source.

The second “Ragionamento” deals with the usefullness of weapons and literature as a mean to preserve the State. It has two new interlocutors: Girolamo Ruscelli (a sixteenth-century Venetian humanist, editor, and cartographer whose works contributed significantly to Renaissance geography and scientific dissemination) and Bernardino Bonifacio (an Italian humanist, and bibliophile renowned for his extensive intellectual networks and his commitment to the preservation of books and learning. His personal library, later donated to the city of Ljubljana, became one of the most important humanist collections in Central Europe). Rosello is inspired by a debate which just took place in Florence between Lelio Torelli and Duke Cosimo himself. Torelli, an Italian jurist and humanist renowned for his expertise in Roman and civil law during the Medicean period, argues that literature should be preferred to weapons, while Cosimo claimes the opposite. Benedetto Varchi (Florentine humanist, historian, and man of letters closely associated with the Medici cultural politics, renowned for his Storia fiorentina and his lectures on Dante and Petrarch) and Stefano Colonna (member of the influential Roman family, connected with prominent intellectuals and figures of the papal and imperial courts) also join the debate, arguing that if you can rely on brave captains, it makes little difference whether you have foreign soldiers or your own. Colonna, exactly like Machiavelli (The Prince, chapters XII-XIV), differentiates between the various types of soldiers (mercenary, auxiliary, mixed), and harshly criticizes the less courageous mercenary troops, while praising the native militias.

There is a clear contrast between the two parts of the work: while the first portrays the Duke as an ‘Erasmian' prince, the second reveals his bellicose nature. In Erasmus's Institutio principis christiani, there is a section dedicated to war, which the author believes should be avoided among Christians. Rosello also considers Machiavelli's arguments on this topic and quotes several examples from The Prince, particularly from chapters VIII, XII-XIV, XIX, XX, XXI and XXII. However, he censored Machiavelli's writing extensively, removing anything that contradicted the Christian charity that inspired Erasmus's political and religious work

Following the conclusion of the dialogue, Rosello inserts his translation of two of Isocrates' Orations: Ad Nicoclem and Nicocles. The texts address the concept of the wise courtier or philosopher educating the prince, known as the "paideia" in Isocrates' works. Greece in the 4th century BC and Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries have some things in common. Firstly, there was a need for a new type of communication: the former shifted from an oral to a written tradition, while the latter shifted from manuscripts to print. In both cases, we see a significant increase in the number of people who  benefitted from culture. This lead to an elite who had the cultural and linguistic means to educate their leaders, just as Erasmus did for Charles V of the House of Habsburg, the future emperor who was destined to partially unite Europe. 

Lucio Paolo Rosello (or Roselli) was a cleric, editor, and intellectual connected to the humanist circles and heterodox religious movements of the Republic of Venice. He came from a well-know family of jurists based in Arezzo and he was related to Antonio Roselli, Venetian nobleman and professor at the Padua's University from 1438 to 1468, a fierce anti-papal polemicist. Trained in legal and theological studies, he carried out an intense editorial activity, distinguishing himself by publishing and revising classical, legal, and religious texts according to the philological criteria of humanism, in collaboration with Pietro Bembo, the printer Pietro Perna and with Cornelio and Girolamo Donzellini. His literary activity appears to have begun in 1510 when he became the editor, for an unknown Venetian printer, of Masuccio Salernitano's Novellino, which was reprinted in Venice in 1522. Venice indeed was a very important publishing centre, but also a place where new religious ideas developed, also due to its importance in trade and its well-known greater tolerance: Italian historian Giuliano Procacci affirmed that, at least in the first period of Rosello's life, “All roads leads to Venice” (Machiavelli in European culture during Modern Age, Rome-Bari 1995, p.92). Having come into contact with the Erasmian thought and the Reformed circle centered around the figure of Pier Paolo Vergerio and the German humanist Friedrich Nausea, Rosello concentrated himself on writing works characterized by demands for spiritual renewal close to Protestant sensibility. Around 1531 Rosello began an epistolary correspondence with the theologians Philipp Melanchthon and Agostino Terzi, showing that he had adhered to the Reformation but with its typical traits of simulation and dissimulation also visible in the Ritratto. Appointed priest of the province of Pordenone in 1532, where Lutheran ideas were widely spread, he nevertheless maintained close ties with the Venetian publishing circles, participating in the circulation of texts suspected of heresy. Between June 22 and 23 1551, he was tried by the Venetian Inquisition following the discovery of prohibited books in his home; after his abjuration, he received a relatively moderate sentence.

His best-known work, The Portrait of the True Government of the Prince (1552), represents an attempt to reconcile Machiavellian political realism and Erasmian moral idealism, outlining a model of government founded both on political prudence and the ethical discipline of the prince. The choice of such a topic derives from the tumultuous development of the sixteenth century in Italy, which led men of culture to ask themselves what an excellent prince should have been, like Machiavelli did a few years before. The choice of Cosimo de Medici as well was not accidental: the Grand Duke in fact had several conflicts going on with the then Pope Paul III, who had aims of control over Florence and was enraged by Cosimo's refusal to take the hand of his niece Vittoria Farnese. Moreover, Cosimo's confessor, Raffaele Sannini, was accused of being Lutheran and close to Juan de Valdès. Comparing the autograph manuscript of the work, today preserved at the Ambrosian Library in Milan, with the printed edition, Rosello's uncertainty can be easily seen: he modified the structure of the text until its final publication. In the first place the manuscript is lacking a title and the dedication, but moreover it does not contain any historical and geographical reference, beside Cosimo himself, therefore the author's hidden intentions are less clear. In conclusion, if the manuscript appears more like a flat apologia of the Grand Duke, the Ritratto is instead a much more structured and political work.

An analysis of the book has been made by L. Perini (Gli eretici italiani del Cinquecento e Machiavelli, in: "Studi storici", X, 1969, pp. 880-902), showing how themes and concepts taken from Machiavelli's The Prince are woven into a fundamentally Erasmian idea of the figure of the prince, sometimes with almost literal borrowings (cf. A. Del Col, Rosello, Lucio Paolo, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 88, Rome, 2017, s.v., see also A. Del Col, Lucio Paolo Rosello e la vita religiosa veneziana verso la metà del secolo XVI, in: “Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia”, XXXII, 1978, pp. 422-459).

Edit 16, CNCE29529; L.P. Rosello, Il ritratto del vero governo del prencipe (1552), M. Salvetti, ed., Milan, 2008.

[15932]