Journal article
2022

Curing Virtue: Epicureanism and Erotic Fantasy in Machiavelli’s Mandragola

Michelle T. Clarke

Political Theory 50, no. 6 (2022): 913–938.

Asks why Lucrezia, the heroine of Machiavelli’s comedy Mandragola, is called ‘fit to govern a kingdom.’ Tracing the play’s overlooked borrowings from Lucretius’s De rerum natura, which Machiavelli himself transcribed, and Ovid’s Ars amatoria, it argues that Machiavelli accepts Epicurean hedonism but sides with Ovid against Lucretius in rejecting the idea that happiness requires freedom from illusion. Virtue becomes a kind of seductive skill, and Lucrezia, who orders the competing desires of her household, models a princely art of staging and managing fantasy.

  • Machiavelli
  • Mandragola
  • Lucretius
  • Ovid
  • Epicureanism
  • Gender
  • Princely virtue

How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “Curing Virtue: Epicureanism and Erotic Fantasy in Machiavelli’s Mandragola.” Political Theory 50, no. 6 (2022): 913–938. https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221095859.

@article{clarke2022curing,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{Curing Virtue: Epicureanism and Erotic Fantasy in Machiavelli's \emph{Mandragola}}},
  year      = {2022},
  journal   = {Political Theory},
  volume    = {50},
  number    = {6},
  pages     = {913--938},
  doi       = {10.1177/00905917221095859},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221095859}
}