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Following Machiavelli’s footsteps

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Palazzo del Bargello

Palazzo del Bargello

The inner courtyard of the Palazzo del Bargello

The inner courtyard of the Palazzo del Bargello

The Hall of Michelangelo and 16th century sculpture in the Bargello Museum

The Hall of Michelangelo and 16th century sculpture in the Bargello Museum

A few dozen meters from Piazza della Signoria, in Via del Proconsolo, stands the Palazzo del Bargello (formerly Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo), one of the most ancient public buildings in Florence, today the seat of the National Museum. During the time when Machiavelli was Second Chancellor, and more precisely in 1502, the Bargello became the seat of the Council of Justice, a magistrature operating in the field of civil justice, appeals, and minor criminal causes. However, the Bargello is most interesting today for its Museum, whose works by such great artists as Michelangelo and Donatello make it one of the city's richest and most splendid.

In the National Museum of the Bargello is a marble bust attributed to Antonio del Pollaiolo that may represent Machiavelli, although this identification is dubious. It is not for this bust, in fact, that the Bargello is included in the Machiavellian itinerary, but primarily because it contains an important collection of weapons, both military and hunting arms, dating also from Machiavelli's time. Here we can see with our own eyes not only the weapons used by Machiavelli's soldiers in the Pisan wars, but also the instruments Machiavelli was thinking of when, post res perditas (after having been purged from political office) he suggested that princes should always be ready for war, training for it by hunting. In addition, the Museum houses such masterpieces as Donatello's David and Michelangelo's Brutus, powerfully representing the conflict between republican liberty and Medicean servitude, so important to understanding the drama of Machiavelli. The David was probably commissioned by Cosimo the Elder for his palace, but was moved several times in connection with the changing political relations between the Medicean Signoria and the Republic, which also affected its 'symbolic' value. The figure of Brutus, instead, possesses striking republican and anti-tyrannical significance, and in fact the work was commissioned by an adversary of the Medici a few years after the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici in 1537.

In the National Museum of the Bargello we can admire the bronze statue of David by Donatello, one of the greatest sculptors of the Florentine Quattrocento. The David was probably commissioned by Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici and completed between 1435 and 1440. The statue represents the Biblical theme of the shepherd-boy David, who has just slain the giant Goliath, although some "pagan" interpretations have identified the hero as the God Mercury. Although the statue may now seem almost feminine, in its original collocation - standing on a column - it appeared in all its heroic splendour. While the first collocation of the work was presumably the Medici's Casa Vecchia, in the following years it stood at the center of the courtyard in Palazzo Medici. Since the front gate was nearly always open, in its new position the David could be admired by all the citizens, enhancing the family's prestige. Although the Medici were the de facto rulers of the city, the republican institutions still existed. Anti-tyrannical symbolism such as that of David slaying Goliath was intended to suggest that the Medici were the defenders of Florentine liberty. When in 1495, after the expulsion of Piero di Lorenzo il Magnifico, the new republican regime confiscated the David (along with other works such as the Judith and Holofernes, also by Donatello) and placed it in the courtyard of Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio), its symbolic-imaginary meaning took on new vigour, coming to represent not only the freedom of the Florentine Republic, but also opposition to Medicean tyranny.

After the return of the Medici and the downfall of the Republic, it was decreed that the statue should be returned to the Medici, but for political motives this was never done. Over the centuries the David was moved several times before being transferred to the newly founded Bargello Museum in 1865.

In the Hall of Michelangelo and 16th century sculpture at the Bargello Museum is the only marble bust by the great Florentine sculptor, depicting Brutus, who had slain Julius Caesar in a conspiracy. Michelangelo Buonarroti did not design a classic Renaissance portrait bust, relatively static, gazing straight ahead, but a more animated work, with the head turning forcefully to one side. Although the Brutus has no precise, distinctive characteristics, his determined gaze shows him to be an 'ideal' tyrannicide. The Brutus has a powerful political connotation. It was commissioned of Michelangelo, a sculptor openly sympathetic to republican ideals, by a client hostile to the Medici a few years after Duke Alessandro de' Medici had been assassinated by Lorenzino de' Medici in 1537. The latter, a member of the cadet branch of the family with republican leanings, was often called the Tuscan Brutus. In the mid-sixteenth century the conditions for establishing a republic in Florence were lacking, and the conspiracy had no real effect on the political situation in the city. But still today, the Brutus superbly represents the tension between republican ideals, still vitally present at the time, and the increasingly stronger Medicean Signoria.

A few years later the Brutus was acquired by the Medici family but, considering the subject it represented, it could not easily be reinterpreted in some other way on the symbolic or imaginary level. But like many other works by Michelangelo, the Brutus had not been finished, and so a base was added with a little inscription stating that the artist had stopped working on it when he realized that it might seem connected with the assassination of Duke Alessandro.

War is one of the key elements for understanding Machiavelli's experience, both his strictly political activity and his 'theoretical' work post res perditas. Machiavelli is not only the author of a highly successful The Art of War (Arte della Guerra), widely disseminated and imitated, mainly in France but in other European countries as well, but had also personally organized an army composed of Florentines (from the countryside) and not mercenaries. The army created by Machiavelli had paraded through Piazza della Signoria in 1506, and in January 1507 Machiavelli was appointed Chancellor of the magistrature responsible for the militia. In the years 1508-09, with the intensifying conflict between Florence and Pisa, Machiavelli assumed a role of absolute priority in guiding - as civil director - the Florentine troops, entering the conquered city at their head. This experience can make us reflect still today on the role of a national army for a policy of independence, and the role that should pertain to national armies in a Europe striving for increasingly closer unification. Returning to our itinerary, in the Armoury Room of the Bargello Museum we can admire a vast collection of historic weapons, some dating from Machiavelli's time, both parade arms and real military equipment (firearms). In the same room is a fine collection of hunting arms, recalling Machiavelli's recommendations to the Prince: he should always keep firmly in mind the thought of war and its possibility. Even in times of peace, he should not only keep an army on the alert, but also devote himself to "hunts", to become used to enduring hardship and, above all, to learn the geographical nature of territories, knowledge that will help him to understand even unfamiliar places.