Italian Department at Oxford
International Conference on Machiavelli’s Prince
22 - 23 November 2013
The Department of Italian at the University of Oxford is delighted to announce the International Conference on Machiavelli’s Prince to be held at Oxford on 22 - 23 November 2013
The Conference
Machiavelli finished writing his treatise
De Principatibus in 1513. As is obvious from the numerous debates around this political treatise produced over the past 500 hundred years, one could hardly think of a text whose reception has been more controversial and apparently more essential to the
fashioning of modernity. This conference is aimed at exploring the “double” tradition of
The Prince, by focusing on two fundamental aspects:
1) the textual tradition of the work, including the philological history of the
Prince and translations of it into foreign languages (English and other translations, with their cultural adaptations and re-conceptualizations of the original);
2) The Prince’s own ways of appropriating ancient and modern traditions of political thought. Despite its obvious modernity, Machiavelli’s treatise looks backwards to classical texts and ancient history as
well as to the medieval and humanist tradition of advice books for rulers and more recent historical-political events.
Keynote speakers
Prof. Robert Black (Emeritus Professor of History, University of Leeds)
Prof. Riccardo Fubini (Emeritus professor of Renaissance History, University of Florence)
Prof. Giorgio Inglese (Professore Ordinario di Letteratura Italiana, University of Rome, La Sapienza)
Prof. Ritchie Robertson (Taylor Professor of German Literature, University of Oxford)
The confirmed Keynote speakers are major authorities in appropriate fields. The conference is balanced in its appeal both to Italian experts and to scholars working in the UK, and this is reflected in the keynote
speakers and their ‘home’ universities. The conference is also open in the three main sessions to graduate students and other colleagues to submit papers.
Call for Papers
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words in English
by 30 May 2013 to BOTH organizers, and put ‘Machiavelli Conference’ in the subject line of your email:
We look forward to welcoming you all to Oxford in late November.