Mandragola: a comedy as heritage

Abstract

This article intends to analyze how the reading of Machiavelli’s theater can contribute to a theoretical reflection on the established interfaces connecting memory, identity and heritage. We will try to understand how these concepts are expressed on the Italian Renaissance drama, specifically in Machiavelli’s Mandragola, trying to identify its main contributions to the preservation of Italy’s language, memory and history, not only as the most important play of the Italian Cinquecento, but also as an agent of preservation of the cultural heritage and identitary characters of the Florence Renaissance society. Additionally, we intend to study the conversion of the play itself in a landmark, which would be revered and preserved by future generations of writers, as Andrea Calmo, Carlo Goldoni and Luigi Pirandello. To achieve this, we will base our studies on the text philology writings, as well as Stoppelli’s and Giovanardi & Trifone’s works about Machiavelli’s language.