| ID | 115735 |
| Title Proper | Plebeian politics |
| Other Title Information | Machiavelli and the Ciompi Uprising |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Winter, Yves |
| Publication | 2012. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In his Florentine Histories, Machiavelli offers an ambivalent portrayal of the revolt of the textile workers in late fourteenth-century Florence, known as the tumult of the Ciompi. On the face of it, Machiavelli's depiction of the insurgent workers is not exactly flattering. Yet this picture is undermined by a firebrand speech, which Machiavelli invents and attributes to an unnamed leader of the plebeian revolt. I interpret this speech as a radical and egalitarian vector of thought opened up by Machiavelli's text. The revolutionary address reveals an untimely and not entirely self-conscious political radicalism, a plebeian politics that repudiates the logic of oligarchic privilege and is simultaneously not available for subsumption under the mantle of civic republicanism. |
| `In' analytical Note | Political Theory Vol. 40, No.6; Dec 2012: p.736-766 |
| Journal Source | Political Theory Vol. 40, No.6; Dec 2012: p.736-766 |
| Key Words | Machiavelli ; Ciompi ; Florentine Histories ; Popular Movements ; Labor Struggles |