Chiara de Caprio Andrea Salvo Rhetorical Strategies

RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND THE
MANIPULATION OF DISCOURSE IN
MACHIAVELLI’S WRITINGS*
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I
METHODOLOGY AND OBJECTIVES
Thanks to an impressive body of research on the language and prac-
tices of diplomacy in the Italian states of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, we know that a broad range of diplomatic officials was called
upon across the Italian peninsula to mediate between positions that, if
not in opposition, were certainly divergent.1 This required distinguish-
ing between confirmed facts and unconfirmed rumours;2 reporting
events with clarity; not overstepping the limits of one’s role and man-
date;3 reporting words and tone of voice precisely and vividly, noting
*
In this collaborative work, sections I and II were written by Chiara De Caprio
and sections III, IV and V by Andrea Salvo Rossi.
1
In the following pages the citations of the letters of Machiavelli are from the
translations in Niccolò Machiavelli, Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings,
trans. Christian E. Detmold, 4 vols. (Boston, 1882), iii. We have indicated where
the translations are of passages not present in Detmold’s volume, and where it was
necessary to retranslate some passages where Machiavelli’s use of narrative strat-
egies or rhetorical devices was not evident in Detmold’s translation. Our transla-
tions are based on the original texts of the letters in Niccolò Machiavelli, Legazioni:
Commissarie, scritti di governo, ed. Denis Fachard and Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina,
2 vols. (Rome, 2003), ii [1501–3]. Where our analysis required it, we have provided
the original Italian in a footnote. The citations from the Discourses on Livy are from
Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan
Tarcov (Chicago and London, 1996).
2
See for instance John K. Hyde, ‘The Role of Diplomatic Correspondence
and Reporting: News and Chronicles’, in John Kenneth Hyde, Literacy and its
Uses: Studies on Late Medieval Italy (Manchester, 1993), 232; Isabella Lazzarini,
‘Renaissance Diplomacy’, in Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini (eds.), The
Italian Renaissance State, (Cambridge, 2012), 432–6.
3
For a range of examples of extracts from diplomatic letters that express the
idea that ‘the attitude required for the ambassadors was neutrality’, see Francesco
Senatore, Uno mundo de carta: Forme e strutture della diplomazia sforzesca (Naples,
1998), 225–30; Isabella Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict: Italian Diplomacy in
the Early Renaissance, 1350–1520 (Oxford, 2015), 83.
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234 PAST AND PRESENT SUPPLEMENT 16
the gestures, pauses and silences of one’s interlocutors. This enabled

an emissary to produce effective renderings of the communicative
exchanges that played a crucial role in the formulation of decisions
whose consequences could determine the salvation or destruction of

regimes of considerable size.4
The invasion of Italy by King Charles VIII of France in 1494 was a
tipping point in the formalization of diplomatic practices and strate-
gies. The invasion required diplomacy to be refined so as to increase
the cohesion of the fragmented political system of Italy.5 It also led
to a greater awareness of the need for verbal diplomatic exchanges to
be reported in fine detail and for meticulous interpretation, not only
of the information they provided, but also of the words, gestures and
silences of such meetings. Even before the 1494 invasion, throughout
the fifteenth century, ambassadors and other officials needed a range
of multifaceted competences and skills. They needed to be skilled in
the timely use of colloquial or jocular expressions to convey a relaxed
demeanour, and to harden or soften the meaning of words through the
appropriate use of facial expressions and posture. They also had to be
skilled in the use of rhetorical devices that modulated the standard for-
mulas of oratory and epistolography, in order to adapt them with fine
precision to the requirements of the context and the status of the inter-
locutor; that is, to ensure that they adhered to the ethical and formal
principles of convenientia.6 These were the tools of a communicative
grammar that was shared by monarchs and rulers, too: the ensemble
of elements that enabled diplomatic exchanges to become ‘human and
amicable’.7 They also meant that an actor on the political chessboard
4
For more on the role of the ambassador, and the qualities and skills required,
see Stefano Andretta et al. (eds.), De l’ambassadeur: les écrits relatifs à l’ambassadeur et
à l’art de négocier du Moyen Âge au début du XIXe siècle (Rome, 2015).
5
See for instance Riccardo Fubini, ‘Diplomacy and Government in the Italian
City-states of the Fifteenth Century (Florence and Venice)’, in Daniela Frigo (ed.),
Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice,
1450–1800 (Cambridge, 2000), 46–8; Lazzarini, ‘Renaissance Diplomacy’, 426–32.
6
For the issues discussed here and the role of convenientia in the letters of the
fifteenth century, see Francesco Montuori, L’auctoritas e la scrittura: Studi sulle let-
tere di Ferrante I d’Aragona (Naples, 2008), 2; Francesco Montuori and Francesco
Senatore, Discorsi riportati alla corte di Ferrante d’Aragona, in Discorsi alla prova (Atti
del Quinto Colloquio italo-francese, 2006; Naples, 2009), 532– 5.
7
Montuori and Senatore, Discorsi riportati alla corte di Ferrante d’Aragona, in
Discorsi alla prova, 535. See infra for the context in which the two adjectives were
used.
RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND DISCOURSE 235
of Italy could be praised for the ‘effectiveness of the words used’, as one
ambassador put it in 1458.8
At the same time, throughout the fifteenth century, officials applied
themselves to the writing of history. They often grappled with the

planning of summaries, diaries and memoirs, at times studying and
reflecting upon current events in the light of the writings of ancient
historians. Moreover, in their reporting of current events, they demon-
strated a mastery of the codes that defined the communicative prac-
tices of courts, chanceries and councils. These codes allowed them to
distinguish between reliable information and mere rumour in their
historical writings. Consideration of these aspects reveals an interme-
diate grey area in the historical narratives produced in such circles. The
texts are on a continuum of approaches consisting of shared perspec-
tives, knowledge and languages, that constituted the link between the
everyday administrative records of the chanceries and the more com-
plex forms of historical narrative exemplified by the works of Niccolò
Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.9
However, as the political landscape increased in size and complexity
following the French invasion, the information to be gathered and then
managed increased disproportionately. In parallel, the ‘idea of getting
at the truth thanks to a refined ability to relate events and understand
human behaviour . . . lost ground compared to the emerging feeling
of the latent power of language’: a power, not only to deliver informa-
tion and capture the truth, but also to feed ‘suspicion and mistrust’, to
increase confusion rather than clarity, to contribute to the deepening
of conflict rather than its resolution.10 In diplomatic letters, as well
as in historical writings, the strategies adopted when spoken words
are reported assume an ever more central role when they appear as
reported speech. It becomes a rhetorical device that highlights the ten-
sion between fact and fiction inherent in every reconstruction of one’s
own words and the words of others.
To clarify what is meant here by the term ‘reported speech’, there
is a focus on the distinction between direct discourse and indirect
8
Montuori and Senatore, Discorsi riportati alla corte di Ferrante d’Aragona, in
Discorsi alla prova, 535.
9
See Isabella Lazzarini, ‘A “New” Narrative? Historical Writings, Chancellors
and Public Records in Renaissance Italy (Milan, Ferrara and Mantua, 1450–
c.1520)’, in Nicholas Scott Baker and Brian J. Maxson (eds.), After Civic Humanism:
Learning and Politics in Renaissance Italy (Toronto, 2015), 193–214.
10
Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict, 85.
discourse, the two rhetorical devices at the heart of this analysis. Direct
reported speech (or direct discourse) is where the reporting subject
cites the words and phrases used and conveys, or purports to convey,
the original speaker’s exact words. In direct discourse, the pronouns,

tenses and deictic elements of the original discourse are not transposed,
whereas in indirect reported speech they are, and the reporting subject
is summarizing rather than citing the speaker’s original words.11
In any case, irrespective of which approach the reporting subject
opts for, reported speech is never a mere replication of what someone
else has said. It is a reconstruction, even when presented as direct
speech.12 Direct speech can perform a broad range of functions,
depending on the nature of the text in which it is used and on its com-
municative goals. Citations in direct speech may serve to reinforce
a sense of veracity as well as to elaborate the relationships between
exposition, exemplification and argumentation. When the fidelity of
the citation has documentary or legal consequences, as in the case
of diplomatic letters, direct speech can convey a sense of veracity by
citing verbatim the words of the original speaker. Moreover, direct
speech allows the writer of a narrative to ‘dramatise and highlight key
elements’ of a story, to enhance the vividness with which a person
or their words are represented, or to ‘transmit the emotive aspects’
of what is being recounted.13 Direct speech can also be used in
11
See Sophie Marnette, Speech and Thought Presentation in French (Amsterdam,
2005); for Old Italian and Modern Italian, see Bice Mortara Garavelli, La parola
d’altri. Prospettive di analisi del discorso riportato (Torino 2009; first pub’d Palermo
1985); Emilia Calaresu, Testuali parole: La dimensione pragmatica e testuale del discorso
riportato (Milan, 2004); Chiara De Caprio, ‘Intertestualità’, in Giuseppe Antonelli,
Matteo Motolese and Lorenzo Tomasin (eds.), Storia dell’italiano scritto, 5 vols.
(Rome, 2014–21), iv (Testualità).
12
There is a considerable body of linguistics research on the rhetoric of verisi-
militude that characterizes reported speech. For Italian and the Romance languages,
see Marnette, Speech and Thought Presentation in French, esp. 48 for the idea that
reported discourse ‘is always a construction, never a duplication’ of words and
phrases. Further readings include Meir Sternberg, ‘Proteus in Quotation-Land:
Mimesis and the Forms of Reported Discourse’, Poetics Today, iii, 2 (1982); Deborah
Tannen, Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse
(Cambridge, 1989); with particular reference to Italian, Mortara Garavelli, La
parola d’altri; Calaresu, Testuali parole, 53–81; De Caprio, ‘Intertestualità’, 101–16.
13
The link between direct speech and the climax of a story has been evidenced
in a large body of research. See the foundational work of Sternberg, ‘Proteus in
Quotation-Land’; Tannen, Talking voices, 98–133; for Italian, see Calaresu, Testuali
parole, 53–62.
argumentation, to enhance the persuasive force of the reasoning and
arguments presented, especially when a range of contrasting views
and positions is outlined. For example, direct discourse is used in a
diverse range of didactic and expositional settings to further one line

of argument and confute another, putting arguments into the mouths
of exemplary authoritative figures such as saints, generals and so on.14
This function has been widely recognized in conversation, in fiction
and in a broad range of non-narrative genres. Similarly, the important
role of reported speech in diplomatic letters has also been highlighted and
demonstrated clearly.15 However, the complex interaction of the poten-
tial functions of reported speech, including those pertaining to verac-
ity, argumentation and narration, can be investigated in greater detail
through an analysis of rhetorical devices. This is because diplomatic let-
ters are factual documents that must be precise in how they report the
actual words used: ambassadors were required to produce documents
in a way that was detailed, clear, well-structured and iustificato (that is,
‘warily prudent and appropriate for the political requirements of the cir-
cumstances’).16 At the same time, the writers of such documents might
be tempted to deploy rhetorical devices, when required, in order to blur
the line between reality and its reconstruction in a narrative.
The discussion above has so far highlighted the central role of
reported discourse in diplomatic letters and historical accounts pro-
duced in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These obser-
vations become even more relevant when we consider the writings of
one of the foremost figures of Renaissance Italy: Niccolò Machiavelli.
14
Calaresu, Testuali parole, 159. For the use of direct speech and quotations in dis-
course for persuasive or didactic functions in the Late Middle Ages and the Modern
Period (treatises, sermons, historical works), see De Caprio, ‘Intertestualità’, 94–9
and 112–13.
15
The rhetorical strategies used in diplomatic letters are addressed in a line of
research focusing on the interplay of history with linguistics. See Senatore, Uno
mundo de carta; Montuori, L’auctoritas e la scrittura; Montuori and Senatore, Discorsi
riportati alla corte di Ferrante d’Aragona, in Discorsi riportati; Lazzarini, Communication
and Conflict; Filippo de Vivo, ‘Archives of Speech: Recording Diplomatic Negotiation
in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy’, European History Quarterly, xlvi (2016);
Andrea Felici, ‘Parole apte e convenienti’: La lingua della diplomazia fiorentina di metà
Quattrocento (Florence, 2018).
16
Senatore, Uno mundo de carta, 237. For the importance of reporting words pre-
cisely, the techniques used and the ability of ambassadors to memorize exact words,
see Senatore, Uno mundo de carta, 211 and 230; Montuori and Senatore, Discorsi
riportati alla corte di Ferrante d’Aragona, in Discorsi riportati; de Vivo, ‘Archives of
Speech’.
Recent decades have seen increased recognition of the importance of

the conceptual and stylistic aspects of Machiavelli’s diplomatic and
chancery texts, in addition to their documentary value. This is, to
some extent, a consequence of the close connection between the prac-

tices of government and historical and political reflection. His years
in the chancery were a laboratory in which Machiavelli developed his
political and historical language, which he went on to use in his major
works.17 The extensive research on Machiavelli’s formal correspon-
dence and chancery records is also relevant to the rhetorical strate-
gies deployed when words are reported.18 Nevertheless, despite this
increased interest in Machiavelli’s work, the rhetorical devices used in
his diplomatic letters of 1502 merit further attention. They were writ-
ten while Machiavelli was undertaking a difficult and complex ambas-
sadorial mission to a key figure in Italian politics in those years: Cesare
Borgia, Duke of Valentinois (known as ‘il Valentino’).19
17
On Machiavelli’s years in government as key to the evaluation of his later works,
see Francesco Bausi, Machiavelli (Rome, 2005), 100–12 e 352–4; and Jean-Jacques
Marchand (ed.), Machiavelli senza i medici (1498–1512). Scrittura del potere / potere
della scrittura (Atti del convegno di Losanna, 18–20 November 2004; Rome, 2006).
The linguistic nexus between rhetoric and chancery archives has recently been high-
lighted in Giovanna Frosini, ‘Lingua’, in Giorgio Sasso and Andrea Inglese (eds.),
Enciclopedia Machiavelliana, 3 vols. (Rome, 2014), 729; Giuseppe Patota, ‘Stile’, in
Sasso and Inglese (eds.), Enciclopedia Machiavelliana, 735.
18
For a linguistic analysis of Florentine diplomatic and chancery writings,
including those of Machiavelli, see Stefano Telve, ‘Aspetti sintattici del discorso
indiretto nella prosa fra Tre e Cinquecento e nelle Consulte e Pratiche fiorentine’, Studi
di grammatica italiana, xix (2000); Claudia Bonsi, ‘Behind The Prince: Machiavelli
as the Transcriber of the Consulte e pratiche of the Florentine Republic’, in Nicola
Gardini and Martin McLaughlin (eds.), Machiavelli’s Prince: Traditions, Text and
Translations (Rome, 2017); Felici, ‘Parole apte e convenienti’. For a broad overview
of the linguistic strategies used in Machiavelli’s works, in particular in The Prince
and the Discourses, see the works of Frosini and Patota, in Sasso and Inglese (eds.),
Enciclopedia Machiavelliana; Sergio Bozzola, Tra Cinque- e Seicento: Tradizione e anti-
classicismo nella sintassi della prosa letteraria (Florence, 2004), 47–119; and Maurizio
Dardano, La prosa del Cinquecento: Studi sulla sintassi e la testualità (Rome, 2017),
31–198. For a linguistic analysis of the structures favoured by Machiavelli for
reported speech, see Telve, ‘Aspetti sintattici del discorso indiretto’; and Bozzola,
Tra Cinque- e Seicento.
19
There have been innumerable studies of the role that Borgia played in
Machiavelli’s writings. For a recent analysis and additional bibliographical
references, see John Najemy, ‘Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia: A Reconsideration of
Chapter 7 of The Prince’, Review of Politics, iv (2013).
The importance of the letters relating to this mission has been noted.
For example, it has been shown that Machiavelli’s opinions and recom-
mendations to the Florentine authorities demonstrate his full awareness
of the multifaceted forces deployed on the Italian peninsula. It has also

been emphasized that, unlike in his later letters, Machiavelli devotes
significant space to Borgia’s words and argumentation.20 Today’s schol-
ars on the letters pertaining to the Borgia mission were not the first
to comment on this. Machiavelli’s Florentine correspondents empha-
sized the stylistic qualities of his letters in their replies. Their comments
and remarks will turn out to be a valuable tool in understanding the
constraints imposed on an ambassador when reporting the words of
others. While reporting what others say is always a reconstruction and
to some extent artificial, the content of a diplomatic letter had to be
credible and trustworthy, and had to be seen to be so.
This chapter, therefore, has two related objectives. The first is to
show that Machiavelli’s letters reporting on his diplomatic missions to
Borgia are a key tool for capturing the delicate balance between two
opposite yet complementary factors: the need to ascertain and report
the truth, and awareness of the potential fallacies and limitations of
any representation of the words of others. Therefore, section II below
provides an analysis of the lexical choices and devices of reported
discourse. Section III focuses on the intended effect of these choices
and devices on Machiavelli’s contemporaries, as well as on the com-
ments and reactions of Machiavelli’s Florentine correspondents to his
letters. The second objective is to show how Machiavelli’s rhetoric in
his approach to ancient history includes many of the same reported
speech devices used in his diplomatic letters. Therefore, the analysis
of reported discourse in section IV extends to the Discourses on Livy,
in which Machiavelli explicitly reflects on the meaning and objectives
of the writing of history. It illustrates the coherence of Machiavelli’s
approach to the relationship between facts and their representation by
examining the ways in which similar rhetorical devices are at work in
20
See Denis Fachard, Introduzione, in Machiavelli, Legazioni, ed. Fachard and
Cutinelli-Rèndina, 19. For observations on the rhetorical strategies used in these
letters, see Jean Louis Fournel, ‘Traces of Orality in Machiavelli’s Prose’, in Luca
Degli Innocenti, Brian Richardson and Chiara Sbordoni (eds.), Interactions between
Orality and Writing in Early Modern Italian Culture (London and New York, 2016);
and Raffaele Ruggiero, ‘Cesare Borgia in piedi e in ginocchio, tra Machiavelli e
Castiglione’, in Raffaele Ruggiero (ed.), Lessico ed etica nella tradizione italiana di
primo Cinquecento (Lecce, 2016).
both his diplomatic correspondence and his major historical works. In

this perspective, Machiavelli’s diplomatic letters and historical writings
are each a precious tool to understand how in Renaissance diplomatic
interactions and historical narratives people had to re-negotiate the

interplay between facts and fiction, information and disinformation.
II
PRECISION AND THE MANIPULATION OF REPORTED DISCOURSE
IN DIPLOMATIC LETTERS
1. The Historical Context And Machiavelli’s Role

Between the autumn of 1501 and that of 1502, Cesare Borgia’s
unscrupulous expansionist policies plunged the political establishment
of Florence (the Signoria) into one of the most dramatic periods in
its history. On 3 September 1501, the city of Piombino was taken by
Borgia, and a few months later, in April 1502, Faenza could not with-
stand the ‘unbridled ambitions of il Valentino’.21 Tension and trepida-
tion increased in Florence when, in June 1502, Arezzo rose against the
Signoria, followed by Cortona, Castiglione, Anghiari and Borgo San
Sepolcro. As Machiavelli incisively put it in his 1504 Decennale primo,
Borgia had taken from Florence ‘the whole of Valdichiana and other
territories at a stroke’.22
These developments, and how they were evaluated by the Signoria,
prompted the sending of Cardinal Francesco Soderini, as emissary of
the Republic of Florence, to the court of Cesare Borgia from 22 June
to 29 June 1502. Machiavelli was a member of Soderini’s delegation.
The seven days of this first mission were followed by a second, on the
occasion of which Machiavelli met Borgia in Imola (October 1502),
just as Borgia was preparing to counter the rebellion launched by the
Orsini brothers and Vitellozzo Vitelli.23 Machiavelli sent a significant
number of letters to Florence during these two missions, informing the
Ten of War (the Florentine magistrature responsible for foreign affairs
and military operations) of events that constituted concrete potential
threats to the Signoria’s stability and its hold on power. These daily let-
ters are vivid and detailed in their accounts of the tone of the meetings
21
sfrenata voglia del Valentino: Niccolò Machiavelli, Decennali, in Niccolò
Machiavelli, Opere letterarie, 2 vols. (Rome, 2013), ii, v. 321.
22
la Valdichiana tutta e l’altre terre in un baleno: Ibid., v. 336.
23
For the political context of the letters, see Fachard, Introduzione, in Machiavelli,
Legazioni, ed. Fachard and Cutinelli-Rèndina; Bausi, Machiavelli, 41–2 and 104–9.
with Borgia, who was seen as a risk to the existing equilibrium among
Italian regimes.

2. EXPOSITION AND EVALUATION
To focus on the range of rhetorical devices used by Machiavelli, this
section first examines the letters he sent to the Ten of War in October
and November 1502. The analysis reveals that the narrative structure
of the letters serves two principal objectives, with a third gradually
emerging from behind. Above all, it is clear that Machiavelli respects
his mandate. The numerous meta-discursive formulas show that his
words and tone comply with the convenientia appropriate to his inter-
locutors. Moreover, Machiavelli takes pains to construct up-to-date
and trustworthy reports that reflect Borgia’s intentions. To provide the
Florentine leadership with the information required to formulate a
political line, he strives to derive Borgia’s intentions from his words,
or, as Machiavelli himself wrote, to ‘conjecture his frame of mind’.24
However, pressures intensify. Borgia is increasingly impatient, and
there are shifts in the equilibrium between him and the Signoria as
moves on the political chessboard break alliances or create new ones.
With each letter, it becomes increasingly evident that a third objective
is emerging in addition to the two overt objectives (of respecting the
mandate and providing strategically valuable information). In the face
of the indecision and circumspection of the Ten of War, Machiavelli
builds into his letters a narrative system that allows him to express
his conjectures, thus nudging the Signoria towards a certain course
of action.25 In doing so, his letters become a way of simultaneously
accepting and redefining his role. Machiavelli includes passages that
tread a fine line between what he is able to say and what he would like
his addressees to understand. The letters relating to the two missions
to Borgia include several rhetorical devices that cover the following
aspects: objective trustworthiness, appropriateness with respect to
the addressee (convenientia) and the latent argumentation inherent in
Machiavelli’s narrative.
With respect to convenientia and trustworthiness, we see that
Machiavelli adheres to the rhetorical code of diplomatic letters in how
24
‘I merely wanted to give your Lordships this information, so that you may the
better understand the Duke’s intentions, or rather be better able to conjecture them’
(Letter dated 17 October 1502, 152).
25
See Ruggiero, ‘Cesare Borgia in piedi e in ginocchio’, in Ruggiero (ed.), Lessico
ed etica nella tradizione italiana, 256–9.
he portrays his own participation in the meetings with Borgia. He is

discreetly evasive in the absence of a clear line from the Signoria. He
is careful to distinguish between what he says on behalf of the Signoria
and what he implies (or feigns to imply) on his own behalf. He is

skilled in making full use of the fluidity and immediacy of spoken dia-
logue.26 Another narrative strategy that Machiavelli adopts contributes
to this view of his methods: he sometimes refrains from detailing what
he says to Borgia, describing his interventions in generic terms that
indicate that they reflected his mandate and the political line expressed
in instructions received from the Signoria: in Machiavelli’s own words,
he did not ‘stray beyond the limits’ of the Signoria’s instructions.27
Following established practice, the lexical choices made in the dip-
lomatic letters meet the requirement of signalling which information
has been confirmed and which may be dubious, leaving the interpre-
tation to the Ten of War. Machiavelli is careful to differentiate between
passages that reflect his role as a simple messenger and those that
require interpretation by his superiors. He uses words that belong to
the semantic field of esposizione (‘exposition’) for the former and that of
giudizio (‘evaluation’) for the latter.28 Words associated with evaluation
refer to the potential prediction of future developments on the basis of
available information by using congetture (‘conjecture’). As conjecture
requires interpretation, this is a task for the Ten of War.29
26
For the skill with which ambassadors are able to exploit the here and now of
verbal exchanges to present words and ideas that were in fact part of their man-
date as if they were spontaneous personal considerations, see de Vivo, ‘Archives
of Speech’.
27
‘Not deeming it important, I shall not relate what I answered, but I was
careful not to stray beyond the limits of my instructions’ (Letter dated 7 October
1502, 134).
28
For the key role of the terms ‘conjecture’ (congettura) and ‘exposition’ (espo-
sizione) in the language of diplomacy, see ‘Au-delà de l’expérience: la conjecture
et l’opinion’, in Jean Louis Fournel et al. (eds.), Catégories et mots de la politique
à la Renaissance italienne: Categorie e termini della politica nel Rinascimento italiano
(Brussels, 2014), 227–42; Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict, 93–6; Helène
Miesse, Un laboratorio di carte: Il linguaggio della politica nel ‘carteggio’ di Francesco
Guicciardini (Strasbourg, 2017), 183–230.
29
Machiavelli notes in his Advice to Raffaello Girolami that ‘to know well
the dealings that are going on and to infer their outcome is also hard, because
you can be helped merely with inference and judgement’ (Niccolò Machiavelli,
Advice to Raffaello Girolami when He Went as Ambassador to the Emperor, in Niccolò
Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham and
London, 1989), i, 117).
There is an additional layer of complexity, however. Machiavelli’s
exposition-related words and formulations are sometimes set into
passages in a way that disguises or downplays what is in fact an inter-
pretation or an argument. The following is from the letter dated 13

October 1502:
I cannot and must not, Magnificent Signori, judge of these matters

differently, but will continue from time to time simply to inform
you as to how things stand; and over the last 4 days, they have
changed in ways that you have been informed of; and the more
favourable the weather, the harder will it be to work this soil. I
humbly wish to note just one thing: if you resolve the issue of
the Marchese speedily, the negotiating parties will become more
reasonable.30
Here Machiavelli emphasizes that his role is not to evaluate, through

his use of the reduplicated negation (io non so né debbo, Magnifici
Signori, giudicare, that is, ‘I cannot and must not, Magnificent Signori,
judge of these matters’). He then clarifies that he is a mere messenger
with the phrase solo in dare notizia (‘simply to inform you’). Finally,
when he does formulate a conjecture, he inserts a formal term that
reduces its force (con riverenza, ‘humbly’).31 However, the passage
also contains the exact opposite of what is signalled by the open-
ing words dare notizia and giudicare (assigned to himself and to the
Ten of War, respectively). In fact, it contains a suggestion that flows
from an evaluation of the events: if Florence secures the support of
the Marchese di Mantova, it will dissuade those who, like Vitelli, are
not well disposed towards the Signoria. Machiavelli therefore soft-
ens his advice and his conjecture by using a phrase (dare notizia, ‘to
30
Letter dated 13 October 1502, our translation. ‘Io non so né debbo, Magnifici
Signori, giudicare altrimenti queste cose; seguirò solo in darne notizia di tempo in
tempo, come le si troveranno; e per insino ad ora da 4 dì in qua elle hanno fatto
questa mutazione che voi intendete; e quanto più bel tempo fia, tanto più sarà diffi-
cile a lavorare queste terre. Una cosa sola, e con riverenza, voglio dire alle Signorie
vostre: che se fate cavar presto il Marchese, si ridurrà al ragionevole sempre chi se
ne discostasse’ (Machiavelli, Legazioni, ed. Fachard and Cutinelli-Rèndina, letter
256, 359).
31
For similar examples pertaining to Machiavelli and to the ambassadors of the
House of Sforza, see Senatore, Uno mundo de carta, 228–9.
inform’) that belongs to the semantic field of exposition rather than

evaluation.32
This passage also displays another strategy used to soften what is
definitely an interpretation on Machiavelli’s part. His advice to his

superiors is preceded by a more generic formulation that uses a meta-
phorical maxim on farming and weather conditions (‘the more favour-
able the weather, the harder will it be to work this soil’).33 This reduces
the perceived subjectivity of the interpretation by prefacing it with a
formulation akin to a proverb.34
A similar strategy can be found in the letter dated 17 October 1502.
Machiavelli justifies exceeding his mandate, not only on the grounds of
patriotism, but also by making use of a concise and sententious max-
im-like formulation: di due si può dire quattro (‘a two can be called a
four’). He does so in order to highlight what had been the Signoria’s
political conduct: proceeding ‘with greater caution’, doing ‘whatever
else the Duke demands’, and being ‘ready’ are necessary. In other
words, uncertainty reigns and sudden change can occur, so much so
that ‘a two can be called a four’.35 Overall, we see that Machiavelli’s
diplomatic letters contain underlying threads of argumentation, cam-
ouflaged by the use of a range of rhetorical devices based on the dis-
tinction between information gathering and interpretation. Moreover,
as the analysis below shows, this disguised argumentation is most
32
On the frequent use of the term dare notizia (‘to inform’) and similar expres-
sions, and on its value as a term from the semantic field of information and exposi-
tion (and not of evaluation) in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period,
see Jérôme Hayez, ‘Avviso, informazione, nove, nuova: la notion de l’information
dans les correspondances marchandes toscanes vers 1400’, in Claude Gauvard et
al. (eds.), Information et société en Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge (Actes du Colloque
international tenu à l’Université du Québec à Montréal et à l’Université d’Ottawa,
9–11 mai 2002; Paris, 2004), 113–34; Chiara De Caprio, Scrivere la storia a Napoli
tra Medioevo e prima età moderna (Rome, 2012), 118–37.
33
See the comment in Machiavelli, Legazioni, ed. Fachard and Cutinelli-
Rèndina, 359, n. 32.
34
On Machiavelli’s frequent use of proverbs and idioms in his chancery texts,
see Bausi, Machiavelli, 101–3; Bonsi, ‘Behind The Prince’, 90. For more on this
practice in Florentine diplomacy, see Isabella Lazzarini, ‘Argument and Emotion in
Italian Diplomacy in the Early Fifteenth Century: The Case of Rinaldo degli Albizzi
(Florence, 1399–1430)’, in Andrea Gamberini, Jean-Philippe Genet and Andrea
Zorzi (eds.), The Language of Political Society (Rome, 2011), 15; Felici, ‘Parole apte e
conveniente’, 59–60.
35
Letter dated 16 October 1502 (our translation).
clearly seen in the ways in which Machiavelli chooses to report the
words that Cesare Borgia utters as well as the tenor of the meetings
held with his entourage.

3. THE WORDS OF A SHADOWY FIGURE
Before proceeding with an analysis of how Borgia’s words are repre-
sented, there is a further point to be made. Machiavelli (wearing his
narrator hat) slips his argumentation into the narrative by skilfully bal-
ancing the dynamics of his verbal exchanges (as emissary) with Borgia,
but also with an unnamed informer.36 We will therefore examine the
role of this shadowy figure whose opinions Machiavelli reports at del-
icate points in his mission. It is worth recalling that Machiavelli him-
self, in his Advice to Raffaello Girolami, contemplates the possibility of
attributing to a persona ficta any opinions and conclusions that might
be inappropriate for an emissary to express. This important observa-
tion suggests that the fine line between actual discussions and their
reconstruction in letters could shift in one direction or the other to
increase the credibility or effectiveness of words, information and
opinions. However, rather than investigating whether this figure is real
or fictional, it is important to consider a further element: the rhetor-
ical and performative effect achieved in these letters by reporting the
informer’s words as direct speech.
In practice, when he reports the words of the informant, Machiavelli,
not only chooses to use direct speech, but also constructs a dialogue
within the dialogue: a fictitious dialogue in which Florence’s point of
view is subject to a rigorous critical examination, as can be seen in the
letter dated 8 November 1502:
Apart from what I have written in the enclosed, I must communicate

to your Lordships a conversation I had with that friend of mine, who,
as I have mentioned, told me within the last few days that it was not
advisable for you to remain on general good terms with the Duke . . .
He arranged to meet me yesterday evening, and said: ‘Secretary, I
have on a former occasion intimated to you that for their Lordships
to remain on good terms with the Duke was of little advantage to
him, and still less to them . . . And although I speak only for myself,
yet I have good grounds for what I am about to say . . . Now were you
36
For more on the role of informers in the gathering of information for diplo-
matic letters, see Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict, 79.
to ask me “What ought they to do? Let us be specific”, I would reply

that you for your part have two sores, which, if you do not treat them,
will make you fall ill and perhaps die . . . And if you were to tell me,
with regard to Vitellozzo, “The Duke has come to an arrangement

with him and the Orsini”, I should reply that this has not yet been
confirmed, and that the Duke would give up his best territories for it
not to happen or for it never to have been contemplated . . . ’. As my
friend had other matters to attend to and could not continue our con-
versation, he left, urging me, however, to communicate the substance
of his argument as I saw fit, but to maintain secrecy. This I have done
herewith, as your Lordships will observe.37
In this passage, the informer puts forward Machiavelli’s reservations

and addresses them in subtle yet vivid terms (‘Now were you to ask me
“What ought they to do? Let us be specific.”, I would reply . . . ’ and
‘And if you were to tell me, with regard to Vitellozzo, “The Duke has
come to an arrangement with him and the Orsini”, I should reply that
. . . ’). The Florentine perspective is used to allow counterarguments to
be expressed and to suggest that the position that the Signoria intends
to take is weak.
Moreover, we see that the persuasive force of Machiavelli’s words
also derives from the form in which the informer’s considerations are
presented, that is, as direct speech.38 This allows the insertion of con-
jecture into a dialogue where the locutor only has a reporting role,
without being the original enunciator.39 In particular, using direct
speech and staging the extended dialogue allow Machiavelli to con-
vey the force of his informer’s arguments. Direct speech maximizes
the effect of the linguistic elements through which the speaker’s point
of view emerges: the first person forms and the verbs that indicate
that an hypothesis is being expressed (‘I should reply’); the allocutions
37
Letter dated 8 November 1502, 182–4. The two passages in which the informer
formulates Machiavelli’s potential questions have been modified so as to be able to
use direct speech in the English translation.
38
We use the technical term ‘force’ here in the sense in which it is used in linguis-
tics: ‘the type of action the speaker intends to accomplish in the course of producing
an utterance’ (Y. Huang, Pragmatics (Oxford and New York, 2007), 102).
39
Following Ducrot’s theory and the French approach to Bakhtin’s notion of
polyphony, the difference between locutor and enunciator is illustrated in Marnette,
Speech and Thought Presentation in French, 22–3. In short, the locutor realizes the act
of enunciation and the enunciator is responsible for what is expressed.
directed at the interlocutor (the vocative expression ‘Secretary’); and
the expressive metaphors (‘two sores, which, if you do not treat them,
will make you fall ill and perhaps die’). Indeed, it is worth noting that
Machiavelli’s use of metaphors evoking diseases and medical con-

duct was just as deliberate. In a time pervaded by plagues which were
easily lethal, medical images were bound to be very effective among
Machiavelli’s readers.
There is a broader point to be made here. In reporting what he was
told by his informer, Machiavelli constructs a fictitious dialogue with
him. The words put in Machiavelli’s mouth in this dialogue correspond
to the position adopted by the Signoria, while the informer’s words
match Machiavelli’s position. In short, Machiavelli appears to be mak-
ing the most of the tolerance afforded by the reconstruction of spoken
dialogue as narrative, with his own views hidden behind those of an
informer and his voice camouflaged as that of a different enunciator.
This is therefore not simply the innocent use of direct speech, but a
paradoxical tool deliberately used to enhance the semblance of reality,
while exploiting to the full its forcefulness in argumentation.
4. THE WORDS OF CESARE BORGIA

The role in argumentation of dialogue presented as direct speech
becomes even more evident when Borgia appears. First of all, it
is Machiavelli himself who observes that Borgia’s words must be
reported and interpreted with due attention to his gestures, his tone
and his silences, as well as taking into account the wider commu-
nicative setting in which the dialogues take place. Given that his
words may serve as a window onto Borgia’s intentions, Machiavelli
knows (and writes) that there is no unequivocal or direct relation-
ship between Borgia’s words and his intentions, especially given how
careful he seems not to disclose his most sensitive information and,
ultimately, his decisions.
Secondly, the picture of Borgia as a masterful weaver of dialogues
and orchestrator of meetings emerges when Machiavelli reports on
other meetings at which he was not personally present. For example,
in his letter from Cesena dated 19 December 1502, Machiavelli recon-
structs a double meeting in which Borgia meets with Machiavelli, and
also, separately, with a delegate from Pisa. Paying careful attention
to detail, Machiavelli describes how Borgia orchestrates the meet-
ings, comparing him to a stage director devising how to maximize
the impact of his production. He asks Machiavelli to wait while
he conducts his meeting with the Pisa delegate. Then, as agreed in

advance, he summons him to disclose the substance of that meeting.
This move is of value to Florence, but there is a sting in the tail, as
we can infer from Machiavelli’s text: if Florence acts swiftly, it could

ally itself with Borgia, but it will be Borgia who controls negotiations
and the flow of information, and who determines how information
will be used to strengthen alliances and confound enemies. The text
of Machiavelli’s letter corresponds here to Borgia’s theatrical mise en
scène of his power.
We have seen the subtlety with which Machiavelli reports on and
dramatizes the words used in his meetings. The same subtlety is used
when he reports the words of Borgia, directly or indirectly. Above all,
as is the norm in diplomatic letters, Machiavelli sometimes specifies
that he has reported Borgia’s formali parole (‘literal words’) in direct
speech. Sometimes, however, even when he uses indirect speech, he
takes care to point out that his summary reflects Borgia’s words to
the letter, including the accompanying tone and gestures.40 The faith-
ful literal reproduction of Borgia’s words therefore appears not to be
restricted when Machiavelli uses direct speech, but extends to his
more general ability to identify key words, to capture the tone of the
exchanges, to note the critical points of the reasoning, and to establish
clear links between Borgia’s words and gestures, and his intentions.41
In his Advice to Girolamo, Machiavelli emphasizes the importance of
distinguishing fact from interpretation in diplomatic letters. However,
when he reports on the mission to Borgia, the literal reproduction of
the words used and the faithful reconstruction and interpretation of
the exchanges appear to be elements that, not only coexist, but inter-
sect and overlap in the representation of Borgia’s words. Direct speech
is used, not only to report Borgia’s actual words, but also to emphasize
the arguments implicit Machiavelli’s text. An example of this use of
direct speech can be seen in the exchange of letters between 20 October
1502 and 27 October 1502. The next section provides a close reading
of this exchange and an overview of the effect that Machiavelli’s letters
had on his correspondents.
40
See, in the letter dated 7 October 1502, 134, following an instance of indirect
reported speech: ‘I listened with the utmost attention to the above remarks of his
Excellency, and have given you in full, not only their substance, but his very words’.
41
On the link between direct speech and formali parole (‘literal words’), see
Senatore, Uno mundo de carta, 393–6.
III
BORGIA’S WORDS, MACHIAVELLI’S LETTERS AND THE REACTIONS
OF HIS CORRESPONDENTS

Machiavelli’s contemporaries acknowledged at the time how vivid his
letters on the mission to Borgia were. For example, Bartolomeo Ruffini,
an official of the Otto di Pratica magistracy, wrote to Machiavelli that
his letters ‘are delightful, with witticisms and jokes that make every-
one burst into laughter’.42 Ambassador Niccolò Valori noted that ‘they
provide so much hard detail and demonstrate such good judgment
that approval could not be higher’.43 In turn, Valori’s note raises an
important issue, namely its praise of Machiavelli’s buono iudicio (‘good
judgment’). As we have seen, Machiavelli’s mandate did not cover slip-
ping between exposition and evaluation. In fact, Machiavelli was repri-
manded for this during his mission to Borgia, as evidenced by the letter
dated 27 October 1502 that he received from Biagio Buonaccorsi, his
friend and colleague at the Seconda Cancelleria:
Notwithstanding your detailed description of the people available to

this Prince, the assistance he hopes to acquire and his mental r eadiness
to defend himself; and notwithstanding the clarity with which you
have laid out his strength and that of his enemies, nevertheless you
come to an overly rash conclusion when you write that his enemies
are no longer able to oppose him. And my view is that this is not
the task that has been assigned to you and that it is not possible for
you to reach such a clear conclusion, because, as you yourself write,
the headway made by these enemies, and their forces, on which your
judgement is based, has not been attested. And here, on the basis of
various reports, we know that the alliance is strong and we do not
consider the position of this gentleman to be a positive one. In conse-
quence, having described everything in fine detail, as you have done,
leave the task of evaluation to others.44
The reprimand, written by a subordinate of Machiavelli’s, is very

courteous. Buonaccorsi makes haste to clarify that the comments
come from the upper echelons of the Signoria: ‘in this you have been
42
Translation of an extract from the letter dated to M, in Machiavelli, Tutte le
opere: Secondo l’edizione di Mario Martelli (1971) (Milan, 2018), 2601.
43
Translation of an extract from the letter dated 31 October 1502 in Machiavelli,
Tutte le opere, 2607.
44
Translation of an extract from the letter dated 27 October 1502 in Machiavelli,
Tutte le opere, 2604–5.
reprimanded by Their Lordships’.45 In any case, what is being criti-

cized is Machiavelli’s tendency to augment his reports with comments
and conjectures that go beyond his mandate. In this specific case, his
transgression is that of reaching ‘an overly rash conclusion’, namely,

to maintain that Borgia’s enemies were no longer an obstacle to his
expansionist ambitions. Buonaccorsi notes that this conclusion is, not
only not justified by hard information (‘the headway made by these
enemies, and their forces, on which your judgement is based, has not
been attested’), but also exceeds his responsibilities (‘my view is that
this is not the task that has been assigned to you’).
An examination of the letters that provoked Buonaccorsi’s response
reveals that they contain precisely those narrative and rhetorical devices
that serve to insert opinion into the body of a factual account. The fol-
lowing passage is from a letter dated 27 October 1502:
To this the Duke answered that he entertained no such thoughts, add-

ing: ‘You know that Antonio da Venafro has been to see me on behalf
of the Orsini, and, amongst much other news which he has given me,
he put forward a proposition to change the government of Florence.
I replied that the Florentine government was a friend of the King
of France, to whom I am devoted, and that it had never offended
me; and moreover, I was on the point of forming an alliance. To this
Antonio replied by urging me on no account to conclude such an alli-
ance, but to let him return and effect a good arrangement between us
. . . ’. And thus terminated this conversation with the Duke on this and
many other subjects not worth reporting; whereupon I took my leave.
Your Lordships have now been informed of the Duke’s words, half of
which I have not detailed; and you will now evaluate the matter with
your usual wisdom, having due regard to the individual who uttered
them. As to the situation here, I would observe that since I have been
here the Duke’s government has survived exclusively through good
fortune, which is founded upon the confident opinion that the King of
France will furnish him with troops and that the Pope will supply him
with funds. Another matter which has worked no less in his favour is
the tardiness of his enemies in pressing him; and in my opinion they
are no longer able to do him any harm, for he has established garri-
sons in all the important locations and has provided his fortresses with
ample defences.46
45
Ibid.
46
Letter dated 27 October 1502, 178–9.
This passage shows once again that Machiavelli was well aware of
the scope of his mandate. The preamble to his conjecture uses three
structural devices. First, he specifies that the information provided
stems from a selection of what was actually said in the meeting (‘Your

Lordships have now been informed of the Duke’s words, half of which
I have not detailed’). Secondly, he emphasizes the semantic field of
evaluation, first with respect to the Signoria (‘and you will now evalu-
ate the matter with your usual wisdom’) and then when he offers his
own considerations (‘in my opinion they are no longer able to do him
any harm’). Machiavelli thus places his estimation of Borgia’s forces
between the Signoria’s future evaluation and his closing conclusion.
In addition, Machiavelli uses reported speech skilfully, alternating
between direct speech and indirect speech.
What is more, the way that direct speech is used to report Borgia’s
words here is exceptional, even with respect to Machiavelli’s por-
trayal of Borgia in other dispatches.47 That is because the evaluation
of Borgia’s forces and position is not introduced by simply inviting
the reader to draw some conclusions; rather, it is explicitly linked to
Borgia’s actual words, as if the conclusions could be derived from
these automatically. Direct speech allows Machiavelli to convey his
view that Borgia no longer fears his foes and is simply waiting to strike
by slipping it into the body of a truncated dialogue. A finely elaborated
structure thus produces the effect of full transparency. Presenting the
words uttered during the meeting as a faithful literal reproduction
rather than as a paraphrastic summary also boosts their persuasive
force. It gives those who were not there a sense of immediacy, as if
they were immersed in the oral exchange itself and therefore better
able to absorb the persuasive force of Borgia’s actual words.
This is not the first case of reported discourse in which Borgia
expresses views that are in line with those of Machiavelli. It is also not
the only case where direct speech is used to convey Borgia’s haughty
self-assurance. In the letter dated 20 October 1502, Machiavelli
reports on a contemptuous statement in which Borgia openly rid-
icules his adversaries and the threat they pose.48 As in other cases,
Machiavelli specifies that he has been selective in his reported speech:
‘He elaborated much further upon this matter’. As he did following his
47
For the extensive use of direct speech for Borgia, see Fournel, ‘Traces of
Orality’ in Degli Innocenti, Richardson and Sbordoni (eds.), Interactions between
Orality and Writing.
48
Letter dated 20 October 1502, 170.
first meeting, in June 1502, Machiavelli repeats that his interlocutor

is an unconventional person: Borgia does not adhere to the norms of
institutional etiquette or political prudence, but speaks his mind about
his adversaries. Machiavelli deliberately chooses to reproduce his ver-

bal irreverence: it conveys authenticity precisely because it is uncon-
ventional. First of all, the apparent veracity of Machiavelli’s report is
strengthened by direct speech and by observations on Borgia’s dismis-
sive demeanour and tone (‘[Borgia] added, laughing: “They do well
not to specify in writing how many men-at-arms, which is to say none.
I do not mean to boast, but I intend the results to prove what they
are, and what we are” . . . ’). Moreover, in the letter there is reference
to Vitellozzo’s lack of courage and to his resorting to the excuse of
venereal disease (‘His constant excuse was the French illness’). This
is followed by a clinical exposition of Vitelozzo’s mediocrity as well as
of his treachery, in the form of the tricolon: ‘to devastate a defenceless
country, to rob those who dare not face him, and to commit treason’.
In sum, Machiavelli depicts Borgia as an individual who knows how
to use sarcasm, but can also contain his emotions and exploit them
for rhetorical purposes. This rhetorical strategy shows that Machiavelli
knowingly chooses to report those elements of the encounter that con-
stitute a breaking of established diplomatic norms. When the feelings
of the original speaker emerge, they are not so much an infraction of
the etiquette of negotiation as a prosecution of ‘negotiation through the
conscious and calibrated use of a different code’, a code based on emo-
tion rather than on argumentation.49 The aim of reporting the adoption
of a code of this nature is to enhance persuasive force, allowing the
exchange to be decoded on the basis, not only of the words, but also
of the accompanying tone and gestures. Noting similar strategies in
Machiavelli’s first mission to France, in 1500, Jean-Jacques Marchand
talks of the ‘theatricalisation of the diplomatic meeting’, observing that
direct speech serves to portray the individual ‘socially, culturally and
psychologically’.50 It has been shown here that Machiavelli uses devices
49
Isabella Lazzarini, ‘Il gesto diplomatico fra comunicazione politica, gram-
matica delle emozioni, linguaggio delle scritture (Italia, XV secolo)’, in Monica
Salvadori and Monica Baggio (eds.), Gesto-immagine tra antico e moderno: Riflessioni
sulla comunicazione non-verbale (Rome, 2009), 87–90.
50
Jean-Jaques Marchand, ‘Teatralizzazione dell’incontro diplomatico in
Machiavelli: messa in scena e linguaggio dei protagonisti della prima legazione in
Francia’, in Alessandro Pontremoli (ed.), La lingua e le lingue di Niccolò Machiavelli
(Atti del Convegno Internazionale di studi, Torino, 2–4 December 1999; Florence,
2001).
associated with direct speech, not only to add social and cultural
nuances, but also for their value in persuasion and argumentation. In
particular, direct speech allows Machiavelli to incorporate conjecture
into the reported words and facts, which inextricably embeds his con-

clusions into the perceived realism of what was meant to be a purely
factual account.
IV
DIRECT DISCOURSE IN HISTORICAL WRITING
Diplomatic practice and writings have been described as a workshop
for Machiavelli’s major works, referring mainly to his conceptual lexi-
con.51 The analysis above shows that this is also true of his use of direct
speech, which is one of the most salient characteristics of Machiavelli’s
historical and political outputs.52 To focus on this political exploitation
of a source, two examples from the Discourses on Livy are analysed
below. Other than a commentary on Livy’s masterpiece, Ab urbe con-
dita, the Discourses on Livy are Machiavelli’s most explicit reflection
on how the writing of history is undertaken.53 In particular, the pref-
ace to the second book contains Machiavelli’s unequivocal condem-
nation of the lack of impartiality demonstrated by ancient historians.
In Machiavelli’s words, ‘the truth of ancient things is not altogether
understood’, ‘for most writers obey the fortune of the victors, so that,
to make their victories glorious, they not only increase what has been
virtuously worked by them but also render illustrious the actions of
their enemies’.54
Machiavelli focuses here on the delicate relationship between the
facts of the events recounted by ancient historians and their tendency
to embellish or understate some of them. As we noted above, these
considerations may seem paradoxical in a work in which Machiavelli’s
aim is to encourage emulation of the ancients. These reflections
become less paradoxical if one bears in mind that Machiavelli’s
51
See Andrea Guidi, ‘Esperienza e qualità dei tempi nel linguaggio cancelleresco e in
Machiavelli (con un’appendice di dispacci inediti di vari cancellieri e tre scritti di governo
del Segretario fiorentino)’, Laboratoire Italien, ix (2009), 223–72.
52
See Gabriele Pedullà, Il divieto di Platone: Niccolò Machiavelli e il discorso
dell’anonimo plebeo (Ist. Fior. III 13), in Jean-Jacques Marchand and Jean-Claude
Zancarini (eds.), Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina (Firenze, 2003).
53
For systematic research into the manipulation of ancient historical sources in
Machiavelli’s work, see Andrea Salvo Rossi, Il Livio di Machiavelli: L’uso politico delle
fonti (Rome, 2020), esp. 81–134.
54
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 123.
concern is not that his contemporaries should imitate what histori-

ans wrote, but rather that they should imitate the achievements of the
greats of ancient times.55 However, the only available points of access
to the events of the past are precisely the works of ancient historians,

which Machiavelli sees as inadequate in terms of transparency and
veracity. Reading ancient historical works requires reading between
the lines, identifying the discrepancies between fact and narration,
and understanding the significance of events beyond how they have
been recounted. Machiavelli therefore affords himself the freedom of
adapting such sources where, in his view, they embellish or sugar-coat
the facts. Reported discourse comes into play in this reformulation of
Machiavelli’s sources.
About half of the citations of Livy in the Discourses are of direct dis-
course and almost none of them is faithful to the original, even when
Livy is cited in the original Latin. They are all adapted and modified to
serve the line of argument that Machiavelli wants to put forth. In short,
direct discourse is used to induce the reader to favour a certain political
stance and to follow certain recommendations. This is the same pur-
pose that was identified above in Machiavelli’s diplomatic letters. The
Discourses, like diplomatic letters, are a genre in which it is assumed
that source citations are reliable. Indeed, the Discourses are presented
as a comment on Livy’s work, and should therefore be expected to
reflect its content quite literally. Machiavelli, however, uses his com-
mentary on Livy’s words as an opportunity to imbue them with new
meanings, notwithstanding the lack of fidelity to the facts described by
the original or to the textual context of its words.
To illustrate these points, this section focuses on two extracts from
the third book. However, it is first necessary to clarify some general
aspects of these extracts that are central to our reasoning. Chapter 31
of Book III addresses the question of the determination required to
manage fluctuations in fortune. Even in the choice of the title — Strong
Republics and Excellent Men Retain the Same Spirit and Their Same
Dignity in Every Fortune — Machiavelli presupposes that the same rea-
soning applies to individuals (the ‘excellent men’) and collectives (the
‘strong republics’, or rather the armies on which they are founded).
In two different parts of Chapter 31 of Book III, Machiavelli cites the
55
With reference to the apparently contradictory way in which Machiavelli sug-
gests that the work of ancient historians should be read, and his emphasis of its
untrustworthiness, Erica Brenner has used the term ‘inadequate imitation’. See
Erica Brenner, Machiavelli’s Ethics (Princeton and Oxford, 2009), 107–11.
Roman general, Marcus Furius Camillus, as reported by Livy. This
makes Livy the cornerstone of a line of reasoning about two issues
developed in the Discourses.56
Machiavelli quickly lets the reader know that the words ascribed to

Camillus were not actually uttered by him. It is Livy (‘our historian’)
who ‘puts these words in his mouth’ in order to ‘show how an excellent
man ought to be made’. In itself, Machiavelli’s denunciation of the
fictitious nature of the source is in line with widely held views of the
orationes rectae of humanist historians. This tradition holds that citing
illustrious individuals is a rhetorical device that allows the historian to
disregard the veracity of his account, and dwell on moral issues instead.
The following, for example, is Lorenzo Valla’s preface to the Res Gestae
Ferdinandi Regis Aragonum:
The sole purpose of history is to teach by example. This is why every-

one appreciates the words of Cicero: history is the witness of time,
the light of truth, the life of memory, the master of life, the messen-
ger of antiquity. Or perhaps there is someone who believes that the
admirable orations of historical works are true? They are artefacts
devised by a wise and eloquent mind so as to be appropriate for the
people, circumstances and arguments they refer to, so that we might
become wise and knowledgeable when we read them.57
Here, history is not viewed as the simple recounting of disorderly

events, but as a method of teaching through exemplification (‘per
exempla nos doceat’). These admirabiles orationes have a clear peda-
gogical aim. What is required of them is not just reliability of content,
but also decorum in form; that is, appropriateness with respect to the
speaker, the setting and the subject matter. According to Valla, this
appropriateness enabled historical accounts to include philosophical
content and to excel over poetry in terms of veracity, as well as in terms
of the universality of the teachings provided.
Machiavelli had very different motives, however. He did not see the
words that he reported as solemn pronouncements that, as Valla puts
it, teach eloquence and wisdom, but above all as material to exploit
for political purposes through semantic manipulation. This approach
can be seen clearly in a concise passage from the Ab urbe condita,
56
See Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 281.
57
Laurentii Valle, Gesta Ferdinandi regis Aragonum, ed. O. Besomi (Padova,
1973), 3–8.
where Camillus exhorts his troops, opposing to their ‘hesitation and

unwillingness’ both the knowledge and the emotions provoked, and
stemmed by his clear awareness of their military valour and the differ-
ence between his soldiers and their enemies (‘Are you strangers to the

enemy, or to me, or to yourselves? . . . We are all of us, then, the same
that we have ever been, and since we are bringing just the same quali-
ties into this war that we have displayed in all former wars, let us look
forward to the same result’). And therefore, he can then conclude the
first part of his vibrant exhortation in this way: ‘As soon as you meet
your foe, everyone will do what he has been trained and accustomed to
do; you will conquer, they will fly’ [‘quod quisque didicit aut consuevit,
faciet: vos vincetis illi fugient’].58
The conciseness of Machiavelli’s version suffices to demonstrate two
points. Firstly, it shows how different the meaning is from that of the
original. Secondly, it shows how far Machiavelli strays from the posi-
tion of humanists such as Valla on the role of direct speech in historical
works. Machiavelli does not hesitate to transform a long contio into an
incisive maxim that no longer serves to expound reflections on virtue,
but only to show how powerful the words of a general can be before a
battle. Something even deeper occurs when Machiavelli cites the sec-
ond part of the general’s exhortation in the closing part of the work:
When, as we said above, Camillus had come with his army against the
Tuscans and his soldiers had seen the greatness of the enemy’s army,
they were all frightened since it appeared to them that they were so
inferior that they could not resist their thrust. When this bad dispo-
sition in the camp came to the ears of Camillus, he showed himself
outside, and as he went through the camp speaking to these and those
soldiers, he got this opinion out of their heads; and at last, without
ordering the camp otherwise, he said: ‘What anyone has learned or is
accustomed to, he will do’. Whoever considers well this means, and
the words he said to them so as to give them spirit to go against the
enemy, will consider that he could neither have said nor have done any
of those things to an army that had not first been ordered and trained
both in peace and in war.59
58
Livy, History of Rome, trans. Canon Roberts, 6 vols. (New York 1912–24),
vi. 7, 2–6 (consulted in the digital version available in Perseus Digital Library, ed.
Gregory R. Crane, Tufts University, <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu>; (accessed 12
July 2022). Square brackets enclose the Latin original of a fragment of the text to
be analyzed in greater detail.
59
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 283–4.
As in the previous case, Machiavelli does not limit himself to isolat-
ing the passage from its original context, but thoroughly remodels its
meaning. In his comments, he maintains that the passage shows that an
army will always tend to do ‘what [it] has learned or is accustomed to’

(which is a liberal translation of Livy’s ‘didicit aut consuevit’). Camillus,
therefore, spurs on his men ‘without ordering the camp otherwise’.
According to Machiavelli, the general trusts in the extensive drills that
his soldiers have undergone and thus does not alter his army’s tactical
disposition, even in spite of the fears generated by the enemy forces.
This is the difference — concludes Machiavelli — between using a
standing army and relying on mercenaries, as it is impossible to drill
mercenaries continuously, so in due course they become incompetent
and unreliable.60
All this would be logically irreproachable and incontrovertible, but
for the fact that Camillus says something completely different in Livy.
Machiavelli has suppressed the final part of the sentence found in the
Ab urbe condita, distorting its meaning. What Camillus actually says is
‘quod quisque didicit aut consuevit, faciet: vos vincetis, illi fugient’,
that is, ‘everyone will do what they have learned to do and what they are
used to doing: you will be victorious and they will flee’, where quisque
(‘everyone’) does not refer to the soldiers that could rest assured that
all they needed to do was what they had been trained to do. Rather, it
refers collectively to the Romans as well as to their enemies, the Volsci.
Both are destined to do what they have become accustomed to doing
in the past: the Romans to being victorious, the Volsci to fleeing in
defeat. In Livy, the contemptuous words of Camillus serve to recall
that the Romans were victorious, and the Volsci were forced to flee
every time these two armies engaged in battle, and that things will go
the same way this time.
Machiavelli truncates the sentence to turn it into a testimony of the
importance of having a standing army that is continuously drilled and
able to refine its art of war. Mercenaries are therefore inferior, as they
receive no training and are disbanded after every battle. However, in
Livy we find nothing of the kind. In fact, there is no justification of
the view that being better trained might reassure an army in fear of
its enemy’s superior numbers. The manipulation of the text is evident
here, as we have the Livy original. This manipulation is to some extent
The issue of mercenary armies is central to Machiavelli’s thinking. See Jean-

60
Claude Zancarini, ‘Se pourvoir d’armes propres’: Machiavel, les péchés des princes et
comment les racheter’, Asterion, vi (2009), Doi: 10.4000/asterion.1475.
anticipated by Machiavelli’s reference to Livy’s practice of putting

words into the mouths of people for political reasons. Machiavelli can
therefore justify his own stretching of the truth about the exhortation
to the soldiers, as it is presented explicitly as a reconstruction and not

as a factual account.61
It is also worth noting that the mixture of political and historical
language is not a late addition to Machiavelli’s writings. It was always
there. An example is On the Method of Dealing with the Rebellious
Peoples of Valdichiana, written in 1503, where passages of direct dis-
course are taken from historical works, then redacted and used to
explain and interpret the present. In fact, the text opens with a long
address by the Roman general, Marcus Furius Camillus, taken from
Livy’s Ab urbe condita. A year after his mission to Borgia, Machiavelli
writes a severe reprimand to the Signoria in this text, addressing
their insufficient determination in how the aftermath of the Arezzo
rebellion had been handled. He reprimands the Florentine leadership
using the words of Marcus Furius Camillus to the Senate after the
Latin War, as a way of suggesting which measures should be adopted
with respect to the vanquished. This is a further example of how the
words of others are used to sustain political decisions that cannot be
expressed openly, and must therefore be expressed as another per-
son’s direct speech.
V
CONCLUSION
This chapter has presented two case studies based on the writings of
Machiavelli: the letters relating to the diplomatic missions to Borgia
and the Discourses on Livy. Both can be considered of particular
importance for the study of the relationship between fact and fiction.
Examination of the use of rhetorical devices associated with reported
speech has highlighted how such strategies can be deployed to mod-
ulate exposition and interpretation, and to bolster a line of argument
in both diplomatic and historical writing. Machiavelli’s letters and his-
torical writings serve as a valuable litmus test to identify the narrative
devices used to report words, and to maintain an appropriate balance
between artifice and transparency.
61
On the role of this rhetorical device in ancient historiography, see Morgens
Herman Hansen, ‘The Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography: Fact
or Fiction’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, xlii (1993), 161–80; and
Dennis Pausch (ed.), Stimmen der Geschichte: Funktionen von Reden in der antiken
Historiographie (Berlin 2011).
The first case study showed that Borgia’s stature and the dramati-
cally critical political situation required Machiavelli to be painstaking
in his efforts to make the letters he sent to Florence as persuasive as
possible. As we have seen, transparency is not an essential component

of persuasiveness. Machiavelli felt the need to alert the Florentine lead-
ership to the dangers inherent in the rapidly evolving political situ-
ation. This induced him to resort to using a rich arsenal of complex
rhetorical devices that could communicate what was happening and, at
the same time, propose suggestions for future scenarios without doing
so too openly. Machiavelli’s awareness of the difference between facts
and their reconstruction in a narrative is clear from the rhetorical strat-
egies used in his diplomatic letters: words from the semantic fields of
exposition and conjecture, citing an anonymous informer as direct dis-
course, and the hidden meanings in his citing of the words of Borgia.
In turn, this analysis of the Discourses has further evidenced the
importance of the rhetorical techniques that Machiavelli used to give
the floor to the famous or less famous people active in the politics of
the day or of earlier times. Indeed, throughout his writings, Machiavelli
consistently uses ‘speakers’ to add weight to the theses he elaborates.
It is precisely when he appears to step into the background in order
to allow the great men of past or present history to express themselves
directly that he is, in fact, subtly reaffirming his own position. We con-
clude that direct discourse provides useful clues in the reconstruction
of how Machiavelli saw the relationship between narration and argu-
mentation. To ensure that his words achieved his political objectives,
Machiavelli was quite ready to let others take centre stage as well as to
manipulate his sources, whether these were face-to-face conversations
or historical works, slipping into the space offered by the gap between
fact and narration, using calculated omissions, precise lexical choices
and subtle contextual changes. The aim of such manipulation was to
influence the current state of affairs, and find solutions to the political
emergencies that were the driving force of his writings.
There is an expression in The Prince that gives a good idea of the
idea of truth that Machiavelli pursues when he writes about politics.
Presenting his treatment as very different from the abstract models
of the classical philosophical tradition, Machiavelli says that he wants
to follow the verità effettuale (effectual truth). The adjective is no less
important than the noun: what counts is always the effect, the result
that certain words produce on the reader so that he can then act in
accordance with what he has learnt. The truth of the effects does not
coincide, it must be said, with the truth of the facts: it is instead the
attempt to predict, in a world governed by fortune, what a present

fact will produce in the immediate future. For this reason, Machiavelli
cleverly places himself in a hybrid zone between fact and fiction. Facts,
in themselves, are not enough, because there is a need for a conjectural

effort that prolongs them in time and takes the risk of hazarding a
prediction. Neither, however, are his writings fictions (Machiavelli is
not a utopian author such as More, whom he had read), but rather
hypotheses, risky and necessary at the same time (because the suspen-
sion of judgement would produce indecision, inaction and, ultimately,
would jeopardize the State). The recourse to the words of others,
which is so insistent in his works, makes it possible to draw this hybrid
zone: Machiavelli’s voice overlaps with that of the characters, but the
latter never totally leaves the stage to him. This interweaving makes
Machiavelli’s discourse persuasive, prompting action without ever pre-
senting itself in the form of abstract rules, but remaining somehow
implicated within the speeches that are reported.
University of Naples Federico II, Italy Chiara De Caprio
Scuola Superiore Meridionale,

University of Naples Federico II, Italy Andrea Salvo Rossi

Chiara de Caprio Andrea Salvo Rhetorical Strategies

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Chiara de Caprio Andrea Salvo Rhetorical Strategies

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RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND THE

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the gestures, pauses and silences of one’s interlocutors. This enabled

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Recent decades have seen increased recognition of the importance of

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both his diplomatic correspondence and his major historical works. In

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1. The Historical Context And Machiavelli’s Role

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he portrays his own participation in the meetings with Borgia. He is

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I cannot and must not, Magnificent Signori, judge of these matters

Here Machiavelli emphasizes that his role is not to evaluate, through

inform’) that belongs to the semantic field of exposition rather than

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Apart from what I have written in the enclosed, I must communicate

to ask me “What ought they to do? Let us be specific”, I would reply

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In this passage, the informer puts forward Machiavelli’s reservations

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4. THE WORDS OF CESARE BORGIA

he conducts his meeting with the Pisa delegate. Then, as agreed in

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Notwithstanding your detailed description of the people available to

The reprimand, written by a subordinate of Machiavelli’s, is very

reprimanded by Their Lordships’.45 In any case, what is being criti-

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To this the Duke answered that he entertained no such thoughts, add-

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first meeting, in June 1502, Machiavelli repeats that his interlocutor

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concern is not that his contemporaries should imitate what histori-

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The sole purpose of history is to teach by example. This is why every-

Here, history is not viewed as the simple recounting of disorderly

where Camillus exhorts his troops, opposing to their ‘hesitation and

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The issue of mercenary armies is central to Machiavelli’s thinking. See Jean-

anticipated by Machiavelli’s reference to Livy’s practice of putting

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attempt to predict, in a world governed by fortune, what a present

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University of Naples Federico II, Italy Chiara De Caprio

Scuola Superiore Meridionale,

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