Disprezzare il principe : le crepe nella maestà (Principe, XIX)

Prince XIXth, centered around the importance for the prince to flee hate and scorn, is one of the least studied chapters due to its deceptive lack of internal coherence. Nevertheless, it is a primary point of junction for many themes of the whole treatise. The chapter shows a web of internal connections, so that the catalog of Roman emperors between Marcus Aurelius and Maximinus Thrax, developed on the wake of Erodiano, is aimed at better understanding the role of the two causes that ignite consipiracies (hate for social reasons, scorn for moral issues) as well as at producing a case system of scorned and respected princes. Condition for being respected is magnanimity, not on the wake of Aristotle’s and Pontano’s theory, but of Valentino’s and Septimius Severus’ model. Eventually, is apparent how scorn is more dangerous than hate, since it erodes a fundamental element of majesty, that is the sacral distance between the prince and his subjects.