The Prince’s Two Bodies: The Machiavellian Hero as a Literary Character Between History and Invention

This article discusses how in De principatibus Machiavelli defines the status of the treatise main character (the Prince) through the intersection of three levels: (a) history (as a character born from the symbolic fusion of traits and characteristics of historical personalities who actually existed); (b) politics (as a character who is the sign of an abstract political function); and (c) literary invention (as a fictional character constructed according to the rhetorical and logical strategies of literary invention). This case study shows how rhetoric, historiography, oratory, and political analysis are mixed together in a coherent organism, thanks to the creation of a character (the Prince) who constantly oscillates between historical–political reality and literary fiction. The analysis, both theoretical and historical, of the status of the protagonist of De principatibus is accompanied by the study of the critical readings of Francesco De Sanctis, Antonio Gramsci, and Luigi Russo, whose reception is strongly conditioned by the ambiguous nature of the character of the Prince, both in terms of critical categories and argumentative strategies.