Abstract

I propose that the notion of tumulto in Machiavelli's Florentine Histories should be recognized as having a representational character, meant to provide Machiavelli's readership, the Medici family, with the necessary perspective to build a solid political understanding of the 'movements' of the Florentine Republic. Machiavelli 'spotlights' three tumultuous events -the riots that led to the fall of the tyranny of Walter de Brienne, The Ciompi revolt, and the riots that followed the so-called Pazzi conspiracy- to present the parochial fact that Florence needed a new (Republican) government. Machiavelli employed this history writing as a political device, showing his task as a pedagogue to advice his patrons that political success involved a socially accommodating perspective, which encompasses a republican lesson of political accessibility rather than the elimination of opposition in the vain hope of social harmony and political domination. This 'perspective' of the various social discords of the city is particularly coherent with the context of Florence during the post-1512 Medici regime: the political disenfranchisement of the Ottimatti sectors, the co-optation of the merchant middle sectors, the lack of political leadership and political knowledge on the part of the remaining members of the clan.