TCD MS 10962: Niccolò Machiavelli and Ludovico Ariosto

Fols 1r-40r Machiavelli:

Fols 1r-13r Biography followed by a historical summary of critical attacks on Machiavelli and responses to them. In English (nfi). Fols 14r-31r Machiavelli’s thought and place in Renaissance history. In English, condensed from Symonds, Ital- ian Literature. Fols 32v-40r Excerpts from Machiavelli’s writings copied in Italian. One from Discorsi followed by excerpts, in Italian or summaries in English, from Il Principe.

Fols 41r-71r Ariosto:

Fols 41r-60r “Antithesis of Machiavelli”. The influence and significance of Orlando Furioso and its imitators. In English, condensed from Symonds, Italian Lit- erature. Fols 60v-71r “Italian Renaissance Purists”. In English, con- densed from Symonds, Italian Literature.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION 71 fols (+ 14 blank leaves), ms, mostly rectos. Exercise copybook. 203 x 160 mm.

Softbound, 20 pale blue lines per page, with red, watered-silk patterned, glossy, laid finish cover. Printed on front cover, “EXERCISE BOOK” over a dull gold line-and-dot patterned monogram. At top right of out- side cover, “S. B. Beckett” written large in Beckett’s hand and under- lined with a flourish. Evidence of the removal of some leaves at fol 32, i.e. the centre of the copybook, without obvious loss of text. 30 Catalogue of “Notes diverse holo”

Stain on fol 70v the size and shape of which suggests that TCD MS 109671/10 (a flyer for the Dublin Horse Show, dated August 1926) was inserted at the back of the notebook for an extended period of time. Notes written in large youthful hand in blue/black ink and in pen- cil on fols 58r-60r. Mostly on rectos, except for fols 60v-64v, which are written on both rectos and versos, with occasional notes or keywords (k) also on versos throughout. All except the final two sections are separated by blank, unfoliated leaves so that sections could be main- tained independently.

REMARKS The card advertising the Dublin Horse Show (TCD MS 10971/10), in- serted in the back of the notebook and used as a blotter, would suggest late Summer or Autumn 1926 as the date of the notebook. It would probably have been compiled as part of private lessons or ‘grinds’ in the language school run by Bianca Esposito in preparation for the Mod- eratorship examinations in Modern Literature given in the Michelmas term (October 1926) in Trinity College Dublin (K, 52, and see the “Remarks” to TCD MS 10963). Beckett got the highest score in this examination, and the required list for candidates choosing the Italian option included both Machiavelli’s Il Principe and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (DUC 1926-1927, 139). The Machiavelli notes convey a subtext asserting that Machia- velli’s agenda for a strong and united Italy finds its contemporary ful- fillment in Benito Mussolini (who is mentioned by name on fols 23r and 26r), which probably reflects the persuasions of Beckett’s lecturer or tutor. (Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922, and throughout the 1920’s was engaged in severe measures to consolidate it. Not inciden- tally, he once wrote a preface to an edition of Machiavelli’s Il Prin- cipe). Below is an excerpt from Beckett’s notes, followed by the passage in Symonds from which it is derived (illustrating that Symonds was himself, in the 1880’s, an enthusiast of the Italian Risorgimento):

Machiavelli, seeing the decadence of Italy, did not insist, like Mussolini, on Reformation. He was simply content to evoke a Dictator whom he advised to meet the evil of the Age with fraud and violence: i.e. he was recommending to his prince the virtues which he himself condemned (fol 26r).