1. Monastery of San Marco - Machiavelli’s Savonarola2. The First Performance of "The Mandrake" at Palazzo Medici Riccardi3. The Basilica of San Lorenzo - Preaching to the Women4. Piazza della Signoria - A Citizens’ Militia5. Palazzo Vecchio - Machiavelli and the Florentine Chancery6. The Loggia della Signoria (or “dei Lanzi”) - Machiavelli, the Republic and the Medicean Signoria7. The Bargello - Machiavelli and the War8. The Tabernacle of the Stinche - Machiavelli as Prisoner9. Casa Buonarroti - The Fortifications of Florence1011. Palazzo Strozzi - the Fortune of Machiavelli
Santa Croce - the Death of Niccolò Machiavelli
In the first months of 1527 the political situation in Italy, and especially in Florence, was dramatic. The League of Cognac - organized in opposition to the Emperor by Francis I of France, and including Medicean Florence and the Rome of Pope Clement VII, he too a Medici - had suffered crushing defeat. On May 6 Rome was actually put to the sack, while a few days later, on May 17, the Medici were driven out of Florence and the Republic was restored. But even with the new regime Niccolò Machiavelli was not reassigned the post in the Chancery that had been taken from him fifteen years before, and the Medicean Francesco Tarugi was instead named Chancellor. A little later Machiavelli died, on 21 June 1527, surrounded by a few friends, and was buried next day in Santa Croce.
The Basilica of Santa Croce stands in the piazza of the same name, at a distance of about two hundred metres from the Casa Buonarroti. The Basilica is one of the most important Florentine monuments, not only for its splendid Gothic architecture and its cycles of frescoes, but also for the sepulchres of illustrious Italians, made famous in the 19th century by such authors as Stendhal and the Italian Ugo Foscolo. In the Basilica of Santa Croce we find, in fact, the funerary monuments of many men who have bestowed glory on Italy - regardless of their acceptance of the Catholic religion - from Dante Alighieri to Galileo Galilei, from Gioacchino Rossini to Michelangelo Buonarroti, and from Ugo Foscolo to Niccolò Machiavelli. It is a unique site of historical memory, an authentic symbol of cultural roots not only Italian but also European.
Following in the footsteps of the Florentine Secretary, we are obliged to pause at the Sepulchre of Niccolò Machiavelli sculpted by Innocenzo Spinazzi in 1787 with an allegorical representation of Politics: In the Dei Sepolcri, Ugo Foscolo wrote precisely of this monument, suggesting an interpretation of Machiavelli as "that Great man" who revealed to all the dark secrets of politics. This is an interpretation opposed to - and equally unilateral - that of Machiavelli as one who furnished princes with the theoretical arms for political ruthlessness.
In the dramatic period of the war between Emperor Charles V and the French king, Francis I, that involved both Rome and Florence, Machiavelli finally had the chance to follow his true vocation and devote himself to public affairs at the service of his homeland. In 1526 Machiavelli became Chancellor of the Supervisors of the Walls, but when the situation of the League worsened dramatically, he did not hesitate to leave the task of fortifying the Florentine walls to his son Bernardo, allowing him to join Francesco Guicciardini and help him in his attempt to reorganize the troops of the League. These attempts were made in vain, since on 6 May 1527 the Lansquenets entered Rome and ruthlessly sacked it. A few days later, the Medici were driven out of Florence and the republican regime was reinstated. These days can be said to represent the entire drama of Machiavelli's life. He, a convinced republican, had lost all that was dearest to him with the return of the Medicean regime in 1512. Nonetheless, he refused to give up and continued to strive - while writing his great masterpieces, including the plays and The Art of War (Arte della Guerra), which met with a certain success already in the author's lifetime - to find an 'office' in which to express his 'political' qualities; but just as he was managing to enter political life again, the government he had begun to work with collapsed. In the new republican regime, more congenial to him, there was however no place for a man now paradoxically viewed as linked to the Medici and too far removed from the party of Savonarola's followers now in power. Little more than a month from the establishing of the Republic, Machiavelli, now tired and weak, was to meet his death. Legend has it that, shortly before dying, Machiavelli had dreamed of seeing poor beggars being welcomed to paradise, and the ancient pagan sages - Tacitus and Plutarch among them - directed toward hell, and that he had confessed he would prefer the company of the latter, to be able to continue their imaginary discussions, now the chief comfort to his misfortunes.
