The Mandrake
Quick Summary
The Mandrake (La Mandragola) is a play written by Niccolò Machiavelli around 1518. It is considered his best-known dramatic work.1
The plot centers on a foolish old jurist, Messer Nicia, who is deceived into allowing his wife, Lucrezia, to have an affair with a young man named Callimaco. This deception is facilitated by a corrupt priest and a procurer, all in the hope of producing a son for Messer Nicia, whom he cannot father himself. Despite Lucrezia's virtue, she is persuaded to participate. The play concludes with everyone achieving their desires, suggesting that immoral actions can lead to happiness and that good can emerge from evil.1
The title refers to the mandrake plant, known for its hallucinogenic properties and historical use in superstitious practices, often associated with magic and fertility.2
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humanismMachiavelli’s realism…humanistic function by creating, in La mandragola (1518; The Mandrake), the first vernacular imitation of Roman comedy. His unswerving concentration on human weakness and institutional corruption suggests the influence of Boccaccio; and, like Boccaccio, he used these reminders less as topical satire than as practical gauges of human nature. In…
Read More…humanistic function by creating, in La mandragola (1518; The Mandrake), the first vernacular imitation of Roman comedy. His unswerving concentration on human weakness and institutional corruption suggests the influence of Boccaccio; and, like Boccaccio, he used these reminders less as topical satire than as practical gauges of human nature. In…
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Italian literaturePolitical, historical, biographical, and moral literature…above all for his play La Mandragola (1518), one of the outstanding comedies of the century.
Read More…above all for his play La Mandragola (1518), one of the outstanding comedies of the century.
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