The aim of the project is an in-depth investigation of a thoroughly innovative interpretation of the outcome of Machiavelli's intellectual curriculum: an anti-Lutheran interpreter of Erasmus of Rotterdam in the orbit of the Roman "Arciconfraternita della carità di san Girolamo", a military leader of the pontifical army, an eulogistic Pasquinista for Clement VII, the author of four Pasquinate thus far considered anonymous. In short, Machiavelli as courtier of the Pope, who in the end will turn out to be at the origin of the myth of don Giovanni.
The starting point of the analysis will be the reconstruction of the sources of one of Machiavelli's minor texts, the "Esortazione alla penitenza". The discovery of its dependence on Erasmus' "De immensa Dei misericordia" will shed new light on the final years (1525-27) of Machiavelli's endeavors. The positioning of Machiavelli's activity at the very core of Roman power, surrounded by powerful friends such as Sadoleto, Guicciardini or Gaddi, will show the pragmatic shape of his political theory. The discovery of a full participation of Machiavelli in the religious, intellectual and political life of the court of Clement VII will show the apical moment of Italian Humanism, facing the challenges of the Lutheran revolution, providing some ideological answers and somehow fearing a foreseen disaster, which materialized with the Sack of Rome. The methodological strength of the research is to use the point of view of the History of Christianity to analyze one of the fathers of the secular thought- Machiavelli- thus highlighting the world of the Roman confraternities and the Pasquinate, in which he operated. Confraternal archives, theological production and political writings will be investigated with the cooperation of modern historians, palaeographers and archivists. Therefore, we will realize an interdisciplinary portrait of the theology, literature and political culture of the Roman court of the early decades of the`500.
