You are cordially invited to a seminar entitled “Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories — An Essay on the Birth of “Const\u0131tutional” Law ” organised by the Department of History.<\/p>\n
Date: 08.04.2021, Thursday
\nTime: 16.30 (Ankara Time Zone)<\/p>\n
Title: Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories — An Essay on the Birth of “Const\u0131tutional” Law
\nSpeaker: Prof. Levent Y\u0131lmaz, University of Paris Nanterre<\/p>\n
Please contact to the department for the Zoom Meeting information details.<\/p>\n
Abstract
\nIn the decade that preceded 1293 and especially after the victory of Campaldino against the Ghibellines and the people of Arezzo on June 11, 1289, the city of Florence was plunged into complete chaos. The Guelph nobility, unbearable and responsible for a distressing situation (“assai mala condizione”, says Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, II, XI), committed unscrupulous massacres and unforgivable crimes without any fear of being punished. Thus begins Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories (Istorie Fiorentine, II, XI-XIV) on these events of the end of the 13th century in Florence, which led to the “Ordinamenti di Guistizia” of 1293. This text may probably be considered an early version of constitutional law. Machiavelli, in this work, largely follows Bruni’s History of Florence (IV, 15 et seq.; as well as the chronicles of Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani), but with, as we shall see, a great difference in the elaboration. Giano della Bella being the protagonist.
\nIndeed, this history written by Machiavelli at the end of his life (commissioned by Giulio dei Medici, in 1520, presented in May 1526 to the same who in between had been elected as the Pope Clement VII, and first published in 1532) is a history of Florence from its origin to the death of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici in 1492, and takes up a theme that was dear to him: the universal nature of cities. He had already dealt with this point elsewhere, in another form and for other purposes (The Prince, IX and Discourses, I, 5).<\/p>\n
Bio
\nLevent Yilmaz is a professor of intellectual and cultural history of the early modern and modern Europe. He received his Ph.D. from EHESS on the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns (2002, under the supervision of Fran\u00e7ois Hartog), worked at the Istanbul Bilgi University between 2003-2015 (Chair of the History dept. between 2011-2014), and later joined the History Department at Ko\u00e7 University. He was the director of the Akmed \u2013 Suna & Inan Kira\u00e7 Center for Mediterranean Studies until 2017 when he went to EHESS.
\nHe directed and edited the Turkish translation of Yves Bonnefoy’s Dictionnary of Mythologies. His publications include : Le Temps moderne (Gallimard, 2005), Giambattista Vico and the Basic Concepts of The New Science (ed., 2007) and The Vico Road (ed., 2016, with Manuela Sanna). He is also the author of seven books of poetry in Turkish: his poetry had been translated into English (Saturn, Sheep Meadow Press, 2006), German, French and Italian, and has appeared on the Grand Street, Raritan, Neue Rundschau etc.
\nHe was a Senior Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute, Directeur d’\u00e9tudes invit\u00e9 at the EHESS, Mellon Fellow at the Villa I Tatti (Harvard University), Fellow of the Paris Institute of Advanced Study, Senior Fellow of Im\u00e9ra, and since 2017 he has lectured at the Coll\u00e8ge de France, NYU in New York and at the University of Paris Nanterre (ongoing).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You are cordially invited to a seminar entitled “Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories — An Essay on the Birth of “Const\u0131tutional” Law ” organised by the Department of History. Date: 08.04.2021, Thursday Time: 16.30 (Ankara Time Zone) Title: Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories — An Essay on the Birth of “Const\u0131tutional” Law Speaker: Prof. [\u2026] <\/p>\n