‘That golden sentence of Tacitus’: Tacitean quotation as the medium of political knowledge in Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnasso

ABSTRACT

Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnasso (1612) provides us with a satirically inflected view of how Tacitean quotation was used throughout the sixteenth century as a medium of political knowledge. A detailed analysis of some Tacitean scenes in Ragguagli will help us to elicit some of the issues underlying the turn to Tacitus in the intellectual climate of the period: the search for truth in a new era of moral relativism; debates about the applicability of ancient maxims to contemporary realities; and the connection between externally acquired techniques and internalized wisdom. In both Ragguagli and Comentarii Tacitus’ characterization of the emperor Galba becomes emblematic of the gulf that can open up between theoretical knowledge and practical understanding. When the same model is used to measure Tacitus’ own unsuccessful tenure of power over Lesbos in Ragguagli, Boccalini presents a case study of how ‘properly’ to make use of Tacitean political insight.

KEYWORDS:

• Traiano Boccalini
• Tacitus
• Tacitism
• quotation
• sententiae
• early modern political thought

1. Introduction

The late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries in Europe marked the highest point of Cornelius Tacitus’ popularity and influence, beyond anything attested for his reception in antiquity.¹ Through the media of commentaries, translations, and commonplace books, Tacitean expression and thought were disseminated and incorporated into the political language of royalists and republicans alike.² Tacitism was understood as a way of accessing practical political knowledge: the historian’s notable coinage of the term imperii arcanum — ‘secret of state’, which becomes associated with ‘reason of state’ — suggested that his distinctive language and style constituted a mode of political insight.³ Debates arose about whether this insight should be afforded exclusively to rulers, or whether Tacitism constituted a counter-cultural as much as an establishment tradition of political thinking. But the authority of Tacitus was presumed and even intensified by such debates: fighting for possession of Tacitus implied that Tacitus was a possession worth having.

The inter-related reading practices and associated book productions through which Tacitus became viral drew on the commentaries and commonplace books which had already served as systems of knowledge for some centuries.⁴ Tacitus’ relatively recent arrival as a ‘classical text’ enabled textual commentators to showcase their critical skills in the establishment of a definitive edition.⁵ The dominant figure in this field, from his earliest edition of Tacitus in 1574, was Justus Lipsius, whose successive editions and commentaries have left their mark on the Tacitean text up to the twenty-first century.⁶ Alongside such editorial activities which brought critical attention to bear on confirming and monumentalizing Tacitus’s works, there was an equally engaged commitment to carving them up into usable fragments: sententiae or maxims for general (usually political) application.

These two inter-related types of reading practice produce a variety of discourses in the Tacitean books that emerged as a result. Lipsius’ commentaries on Tacitus, for example, were primarily focused on historical exegesis and textual criticism, but his prefaces continually enjoined the reading of Tacitus for political understanding in the present day.⁷ He praised the author himself as ‘incisive and prudent’ (acer … et prudens),⁸ endowing Tacitus with the key virtue of political wisdom in sixteenth-century discourse,⁹ and invited the reader to see in his historical narratives ‘a veritable theatre of contemporary life’ (velut theatrum hodiernae vitae).¹⁰ But it is not to the full Tacitean narrative that Lipsius turns for his political work but rather to Tacitus’ sententiae, which he compiles in the tradition of the mediaeval florilegium or the early modern commonplace-book. About half of the maxims from Lipsius’ Politica were drawn from Tacitus.¹¹

Similar practices of presenting Tacitus through selected or discrete extracts can be seen in the commentators who explicitly drew out the political lessons to be learned from his works. Some political commentators, such as Scipione Ammirato, selected a few sententiae upon which to base a series of discursive essays in competitive emulation of Machiavelli.¹² Others, such as Carolus Paschalius and his continuator Annibale Scotus, generated universalizing maxims out of the specific historical details in Tacitus’ narrative: as Jacob Soll has observed, the political commentary on Tacitus imitated the visual and material aspects of the commonplace book, inviting the reader to engage with it in similar ways.¹³

We can see how generalizations operate by comparing Scotus’ commentary on the Histories with Boccalini’s on the same text, noting first how Scotus confines himself to generalization while Boccalini introduces an example from recent political history to underpin the universal relevance of Tacitus’ text. This is from the narrative immediately preceding the emperor Galba’s speech of advice to his newly adopted heir, Piso (a significant episode which we will examine in more detail later in this paper).

Here, Tacitus presents a short and pungent character sketch of Piso which reflects as much on the character of the emperor himself, who considered Piso a suitable successor. Scotus takes this specific remark about two individuals and fashions it into a universal truth for courtiers.

Tacitus:

et pars morum eius quo suspectior solicitis, adoptanti placebat. (Hist. 1.14.2)

Scotus:

Parum refert aulico, quo modo a ceteris aestimetur: dummodo Principi, qui illum sublimare potest, probetur. Qui semper unius cuiusque prudentis aulici finis esse debet.¹⁴

Tacitus:

And that part of his character which made his uneasy subjects distrust him was what appealed to his adoptive father.

Scotus:

It makes little difference to the courtier how he is judged by others, provided only that he is approved by the Prince, who has the power to raise him up. Which should be the objective of each and every prudent courtier.

Newly coined generalizing maxims such as these confirm the applicability and relevance of Tacitean insights even as they redirect them to new ends. At the same time, by sticking to abstract advice, commentators like Scotus and Paschalius were able to escape the potential to cause offence by commenting on present-day politics. Boccalini, whose commentary was only published posthumously, could follow more closely the Machiavellian tradition of supplementing readings of Tacitus with parallels from contemporary history — a practice which Machiavelli himself had elaborated from earlier mediaeval and humanist commentary traditions.¹⁵ Boccalini’s commentary on the same passage in Histories begins with a (tendentious) example from Venetian politics in the 1590s before formulating a piece of universal advice which reaches quite different conclusions from that of Scotus.

Sono tutte l’azioni della serenissima republica di Venezia piene di grandissima prudenza, perciò che doppo la morete del duca loro Pasqual Cicogna vedendo qui prestantissimi senatori che con liete acclamazioni era dal popolo desiderato duce Maria [sic] Grimani, stimarono molta buona cosa dargli quella sodisfazione: onde l’elessero con giubilo di tutta la città duce. … Grand’avantaggio ha nell’elezione colui che gode l’aura popolare, la quale devono quelli che hanno auttorità d’eleggere un principe <avere> in luogo di grandissimo merito.¹⁶

All the actions of the most serene republic of Venice are full of the greatest prudence. Hence, after the death of their duke Pasquale Cicogna, when those notable senators saw the joyous acclamations with which the people expressed their desire for Marino Grimani as duke, the senators considered it a very good thing to give the people that satisfaction: hence they elected him duke, to the delight of the whole city. … In elections he has a great advantage who enjoys popular favour, which those who have the authority to elect a prince should count among his greatest merits.

Across the diversity of these reading and writing practices we see that the idea of generalized or universal truths are the concrete instances which illustrate the principle of history’s utility in the present. But more than this, the fact that universal truths take their form as brief pithy sententiae creates a discourse which enables readers to engage actively with the ancient material – whether by coining further maxims or by weaving contemporary examples into the spaces between sententiae.

As a consequence, the sententia in early modern Europe maintained the cultural value it had gained through the Middle Ages, where its circulation and re-ordering had served as the medium of knowledge formation and dissemination. Latin had already, as Ann Moss has shown, been firmly established ‘as an assemblage of separable quotations which were authoritative, morally loaded, and available for extraction and placing in appropriate contexts.’¹⁷ Now, aided by the emergence of Tacitus as the master of sententiousness, sententiae became the hard currency of up-to-date political wisdom.

Indeed, the (manuscript) culture in which Tacitus himself wrote at the end of the first century AD was equally involved in similar readerly and critical activities. Tacitus’ literary style lent itself to being excerpted and collected precisely because such an ‘excerption habit’ – the collection of quotations and epigrams from the published or declaimed works of orators, philosophers, and historians – was pervasive in high imperial Rome and its provinces. Tacitus himself attests to this practice in his Dialogue on Oratory.

… iuvenes et in ipsa studiorum incude positi … non solum audire, sed etiam referre domum aliquid inlustre et dignum memoria volunt; traduntque in vicem ac saepe in colonias ac provincias suas scribunt … (Dial. 20.4)

… young men, placed on the very anvil to hone their rhetorical activity … wish not only to hear, but also to bring home some splendid and memorable expression; they exchange these among themselves and often transcribe them in letters home to their colonies and provinces … ¹⁸

The Elder Seneca’s collection of striking expressions from the great declaimers of his day, in his Controversiae and Suasoriae, provides another example of this practice of listening or reading with attention to what can be excerpted.¹⁹ And the style of speaking and writing in this period invited such attention, with its pithy epigrams or sententiae, many of them grammatically detachable or self-sufficient, and coined with a broader application than their immediate context.²⁰

Boccalini satirically recasts this practice of collection when he presents the pedantic epigram-gatherers attending the debates of philosophers:

… [Il] numero infinito de’ pedanti, che co’ bacili in mano andavano raccogliendo le sentenze e gli apoftegmi che quegli uomini tanto saggi ogni passo scatarravano. (Ragg. 1.77)

… the great number of Pedants, who with their little baskets in their hands, went gathering up the Sentences and Apothegmes, which fell from those wise men as they went along.²¹

But these gnomic sententiae are not merely inert objects for collection: mobilized as quotations, they serve as the medium for political knowledge. While Lipsius’ Politica (1589) demonstrates the reading practices which excerpt Tacitean sententiae from their historical context, and rearrange them in a universalizing thematic format, Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnasso (1612) provides us with a satirically inflected view of how Tacitean quotation could be used in a process of political thinking — or of polemical argument. There are sixty-seven quotations from Tacitus across Ragguagli and its sequel, Pietra del paragone politico,²² but their mere number does not do justice to their significance. The act of quoting Tacitus is dramatized throughout the narrative, with quotations often serving as the weapons of argumentation or providing the authority for a conclusive judgement. The appearance of Tacitus as a character in many of the episodes, moreover, intensifies his significance for Boccalini: Tacitus is the central figure of nine advertisements and appears as an incidental character in others. A detailed analysis of some Tacitean scenes, episodes, and metaphors in Ragguagli will help us to elicit some of the issues underlying the turn to Tacitus in the intellectual climate of the period. Examining these episodes, we will see how the moral relativism associated with Tacitus (as a substitute for Machiavelli) enabled thinkers to situate the search for truth in human intellectual activity and socio-political exchange.

In the next part of this paper I examine how Boccalini dramatizes this activity through agonistic debate on Parnassus. The fact that Tacitus himself participates in such debates of the applicability of his words paradoxically facilitates the ‘release’ of his sententiae from their original context, to become universally applicable maxims. Debates over the ‘proper’ use of Tacitus tap into a traditional theme of rhetoric from its earliest appearance in Classical Greece: how to observe the appropriate moment which illuminates and is illuminated by a generalized maxim. Alongside such issues of propriety and property is a related concern with technique, applicability, and sincerity. Rhetoric is above all a techne, but persuasion requires the commitment of the speaker’s soul in order to move other souls. The anxiety of rhetoric from the outset circles around this tension between the externally acquired techniques of speaking well and belief that speaking well must communicate an internal conviction. In the move to book culture (whether the manuscripts of Tacitus’ age or the printed books of Boccalini’s), this anxiety finds a new material focus: how does the written text become internalized as human wisdom? As we will see later in this paper, Tacitus’ ‘golden Sentences’ should be engraved on the hearts of all rulers, but there is always the fear that quoting Tacitus renders one no more than a Pedant with a little basket of maxims.

In the third part of this paper I will review some of the metaphors and tropes through which Boccalini develops the connection between externally acquired techniques and internalized wisdom. The most prominent of these is his well-known deployment of spectacles or eyeglasses, a metaphor which brings cutting-edge technology to bear on human perception – and incidentally contributes to the secularization of knowledge. Reconfiguring Tacitus as a manufacturer and purveyor of ‘Politick Spectacles’ conscripts the ancient historical writer to the new scientific order. Other less aggressively innovative metaphors include the concept of the mask or persona. Again the idea predominates of a detachable object which performs a prosthetic function on the human body and fundamentally alters how the individual engages with the world around them. The mask is evoked by Boccalini to distinguish his satiric Ragguagli from his (only posthumously published) Comentarii a Tacito. Instead of considering the mask as a signifier of insincerity or figured speech, I will examine how Boccalini’s discourse identifies the mask initially with perception, relating it more closely to the image of the ‘Politick Spectacles’. I will explore how the nexus of spectacles-mask-persona brings together the actions of perception and expression and materializes the question of whether the Tacitean sentence can be fully internalized. This question is dramatized in Boccalini’s most famous Tacitean episode, where he recounts the historian’s failure to put his own precepts into practice when governing Lesbos. In this episode, the historian is only able to appreciate the latent truth of his own writings once he has learnt from experience.

In the final section of this paper I will examine how Boccalini draws on Tacitus’ characterization of the emperor Galba as emblematic of the gulf that can open up between theoretical knowledge and practical understanding. Tacitus’ Galba is able to construct a fluent speech of advice to future princes, replete with generalizing sententiae, but his disastrously short-lived reign suggests he is unable to use this wisdom to any effect. Boccalini follows this model in representing Tacitus’ unsuccessful tenure of power; while this seems to present a reductively negative view of what can be learned from Tacitus, I argue that the episode instead constitutes an exploration of how ‘properly’ to make use of Tacitean political insight.

2. Quotation and debate

Boccalini’s political satire achieved a popularity comparable to Tacitus’ own in the same period: the Ragguagli were translated into different languages and embellished with local up-to-date commentaries as much as a century after their first publication.²³ As well as being genuinely funny, the political wranglings of the virtuosi on Parnassus, presided over by the mostly benign god Apollo, present a metadiscursive reflection on culture, the canon, and the uses of the past. Many of the agonistic scenes in Ragguagli are concerned with who should or should not be admitted to the ranks of poet, historian, or scholar, and what their respective rankings should be. These ‘culture wars’ are shot through with Tacitean quotation, as speakers seek to verify their position with the language of political wisdom while their antagonists strive to show that their quotations are misapplied and reflect their failure to understand the real-world situation with which they are faced. The implicit inter-dependence of theoretical and practical knowledge is a theme which will recur across Boccalini’s writings and throughout this paper.

Examining a brief example of Tacitean citation in Ragguagli will illustrate both the quality of a Tacitean sententia and the process of thinking which underpins its citation in a new context. In one of the many charges brought before Apollo, the poet and critic Dionigi Atanagi is accused of ingratitude by fellow-poet Annibile Caro, who comments as follows.

… nell’atto discortesissimo dell’Atanagi verissima esperimentava in sé la sentenza di Tacito, che beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse: ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur. Udito questo, Apollo con voce alquanto alterata rispose al Caro che la sentenza di Tacito era verissima, ma da lui e dal altri infiniti pessimamente intesa … (Ragg. 1.33)

In this [most] discourteous act of Atonigi [sic], Tacitus his Sentence was proved very true upon himself [Caro], That, Benificia eo usque laeta sunt, dum videntur exolvi posse, ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur. Tacit. lib 4: Ann. Benefits are so long welcom, as there is any appearance of a possibility of repayment, which when it is much exceeded, hatred is repaid instead of love. Apollo hearing this, answered Caro somewhat angerly, That Tacitus his Sentence was very true, but very badly understood by him, and by many others … ²⁴

Apollo then goes on to expound the proper application of the ‘Sentence’ which discredits Caro rather than Atanagi. This Tacitean quotation displays many of the distinctive features of the sententia. It presents a generalized truth about human interactions by using impersonal constructions and present tenses. It applies economic terms (exolvi … redditur) to the award of benefits so that affective relations are seen as investments or exchanges. The notorious paradox or punchline to the sententia is supplied when the repayment for benefits — the expected gratia, affection or gratitude — is replaced before the reader’s eyes by odium, resentment. In this way Tacitus provides insight into how relations between the ruler and his subjects cease to be sustained productively and become socially corrosive. Political knowledge is here packaged in a statement which displays all the qualities of Tacitus’ artistry in prose.

As it is produced in this new environment, the sententia is deployed in the interest of an accuser, but is eventually turned against him. When Apollo dismisses Caro’s claims he does not deny the truth of Tacitus’ ‘Sentence’ but simply claims that Caro misunderstands and therefore misapplies Tacitus’ words. In the process of citation in this episode, the Tacitean sententia further illuminates interactions between rulers and subjects by showing us that Apollo’s interpretation of Tacitus prevails simply because he is the ruler. In this respect we can see how Tacitean quotations are mobilized as political wisdom and how Boccalini dramatizes quotation as the struggle for control over the true ownership of this source of wisdom. We also see how Boccalini can ironically replicate the insight of a Tacitean quotation by inviting the reader to reapply its insights to the scene of quotation and debate.

In the fantasy world of Parnassus, moreover, Boccalini is able to pursue the dynamics of Tacitean quotation by juxtaposing this practice with the embodied presence of the historian himself, who appears several times in episodes which variously confirm his authority or condemn his pernicious influence. The first scene which pits a Tacitist against Tacitus himself is, appropriately enough, on the arrival of Justus Lipsius to Parnassus. After an unedifying struggle between Tacitus and Seneca for precedence in the ceremony of Lipsius’ admittance (a reflection of Lipsius’ own allegiances to these two authors), Lipsius surprises everyone by bringing a charge of impiety against the historian, arraigning against him a quotation from one of his own works.

Voi nel primo libro delle vostre Istorie liberamente avete detto che Iddio non tiene altramente cura della salute del genere umano, ma solo del castigo … non esse curae deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem. (Ragg. 1.23)

You in your first Book of History have taken the freedom to say, That God cares not otherwise for mans welfare, then in what concerns punishment … non esse Cura [sic] Deis securitatem nostram, esse Ultionem. Tacit, lib. 1. Hist.²⁵

The historian’s defence becomes a tutorial in reading Tacitus in his original context, as Tacitus insists that the word nostram here must not be understood as universalizing, but as exclusively applicable to the Romans. The ensuing discourse between the historian and his accuser humorously exploits Lipsius’ expertise as the editor of Tacitus’ works by asking him to recall and parse other moments where Tacitus has used the term nostram.²⁶ After Lipsius himself provides the evidence that Tacitus’ usage is never universalizing, he is forced to confess his error in interpretation, abandon his prosecution, and (to a degree) renounce his status as the authority on Tacitus.

… gli scritti tuoi, più che si leggono, meno si intendono, e che i tuoi Annali e le tue Istorie non sono lezione da semplice gramatico come son io. (Ragg. 1.23)

… the more your Writings are read, the less are they understood, and your Annals and Histories are not to be read by a meer Gramarian, such a one as I am.²⁷

One outcome of this episode is that we see Tacitus rejecting the sort of interpretation that might arise from excerpting and decontextualizing sentences from a larger work. But this appears to be a contingent and momentary tactic by the ‘Politick Historian’ to meet a present crisis and not an attack on the practice tout court. A later episode shows us Tacitus again prosecuted for the immorality of his views as expressed in his writings, and this time he does not present the defence of a contextual reading.

The prosecutors of Tacitus in this episode are the philosophers, who charge the historian with having referred to poverty as the greatest of all evils. Diogenes the Cynic elaborates on the significance of this charge, explaining to Apollo that poverty endows humans with the patience to acquire learning. This makes poverty ‘the true foundation of all Science’ and if it were, on Tacitus’ advice, to be avoided, it ‘would prove the greatest calamity which could befal the Liberal arts.’²⁸ Unlike Lipsius, the philosophers are somewhat imprecise in their charge, accusing Tacitus of using the words summum malorum to describe poverty, but this is the least of their imprecisions. In Annals 14 Tacitus presents a brief and pungent character description of Asinius Marcellus, who has been implicated in the forging of a will.

Marcellus Asinio Pollione proavo clarus neque morum spernendus habebatur, nisi quod paupertatem praecipuum malorum credebat. (Ann. 14.40.2)

Marcellus was distinguished, being the great-grandson of Asinius Pollio, and was not regarded as morally contemptible, except that he persisted in thinking poverty to be the greatest of evils.

The context of the phrase shows us that Marcellus’ distaste for poverty is used by Tacitus to indicate a moral weakness, and one which leads to Marcellus’ fall into disgrace. This would seem to place Tacitus in a strong position to initiate a counter-charge against the philosophers for poor understanding or inappropriate application of his words. Instead, however, Tacitus levels his attack against Apollo and against the judicial system generally and charges them with the same hatred of poverty that they deplore in his text, as evidenced by their custom of requiring poor defendants to undergo torture. The episode illustrates Tacitus’ ‘wonted vivacity of wit and … usual liberty of language’²⁹ by focusing not on his authority to determine the meaning of his own writings but on the agility with which he can adapt his words to the contemporary situation.

These episodes show us not just the potential that Tacitean quotation holds for political thinking but the possibilities and pitfalls of using Tacitus in persuasion or debate. They show us the work that needs to be done to render Tacitean quotation ‘properly applicable’ to a given case. The various accusations that are brought against Tacitus on Parnassus reflect concerns about the morality of drawing on this author. We see also how Tacitean sententiae achieve universalizing relevance, or how they can be brought back down to their ‘original context’. All of these activities and issues not only reflect the status of Tacitus in the early seventeenth century but also are exploited by Boccalini for his satiric investigation into the nature of political knowledge.

3. Metaphor and medium

The skilful use of Tacitean sententiae requires the speaker to make a perceptive judgement about their contemporary situation and to display good understanding of Tacitus’ text in ‘applying’ the sententia to a new context. Then, as we’ve seen, they must persuade others that their use of Tacitus is appropriate and illuminating. In particular, the Tacitean quotation ‘succeeds’ in its new context by bringing to light previously hidden aspects, such as human motivations. This is one of Tacitus’ most distinctive interpretative features and is discernible in the structure of sententiae which present unexpected or paradoxical insights. The qualities of the sententia and the qualities of a successful quoter of Tacitus are equivalent and are based on techniques of perception and expression, vision and voice. The metaphors used by Boccalini to elaborate these techniques are not unique to him but contribute to wider discourses about knowledge in Early Modern Europe. As we will see, Boccalini’s representation of how vision and voice promote knowledge supports Tacitus’ contemporary relevance and enables further exploration of the process by which political wisdom is acquired, assumed, and internalized.

In the preface to his posthumously published Comentarii sopra Tacito, Boccalini retrospectively characterizes Ragguagli as a ‘masked text’ in contrast to the open speech of the Comentarii.

I Ragguagli del mio Parnaso passano per le mani di tanti uomini di senno, che non m’è che superfluo il recordare qual frutto abbino cagionato con la maschera sul volto, mentre anche senz’occhi hanno fatto parire gli occhi a gli uomini, che ciecamente dormendo lasciavano guidarsi per il naso dall’auttorità, e dagli artifizi non conosciuti o non osservati de’ principi. Ma qual frutto doverebbero produrre queste mie presenti fatiche, che si metteranno alla vista di tutti, e senza maschera d’alucuna sorte? … La mia penna prima ardisce ragionarti apertamente de’ principi, sì come fu la prima che osò parlarti in cifra de’ principi medesimi.

The reports from my Parnassus have passed through the hands of so many men of discernment, that it is not necessary to recall their fruitful produce when with a mask on their face, although they lacked eyes themselves, they opened the eyes of men who blindly sleeping allowed authority to lead them by the nose, not seeing or recognizing the artifices of the Princes. But what will be the fruitful produce of my present labours, exposed to the gaze of all without a mask of any sort? … My pen is the first which dares to reason openly about the Princes, just as it was the first to dare to speak of them in ciphers.³⁰

While the primary meaning of Ragguagli as a masked text has to do with its self-protective evocation of anonymity through the reporting persona of ‘Menante’,³¹ the more striking and unusual aspect of the mask metaphor lies in its remedial use, to ‘open the eyes of men’. Boccalini in effect coins a sententia here by combining the usual associations of the mask as disguise and misdirection with the paradoxical associations of the mask with another facial prosthesis – eyeglasses – which convey not misdirection but clarification and true vision. So, when Boccalini asserts that his Ragguagli ‘without eyes themselves … opened the eyes of men … led by the nose’, his emphasis on the eyeless mask alludes to the way a mask filters communication between the wearer and their audience, blocking out all visual signs and allowing only the voice to permeate.³² Masks are therefore more usually associated with visual misdirection or concealment (which Boccalini exploits later in the passage quoted above) rather than with opening men’s eyes to the truth. Boccalini thus introduces a paradox into his characterization of Ragguagli in order to convey how the satire’s multiple voices and personae enable the reader to achieve an insight into the secrets of political power. His emphasis on eyes (and, to a degree, noses) evokes the predominant motif of Ragguagli of spectacles, which perform an equivalent function throughout the satire as does the mask (briefly) in this preface.

As Vincent Ilardi has shown, by the fifteenth century spectacles in their thousands were circulating around Europe and the Mediterranean, in concave form to correct myopia and in the new convex form to correct presbyopia.³³ As well as effectively doubling the working life of any person whose employment required fine observation of detail, spectacles became the medium not only of vision but of discourses about perception and its relationship to knowledge and interpretation.³⁴ Spectacles symbolized the technological advancement of mortal vision and by the seventeenth century they were being assimilated to the other optical invention which seized contemporary imagination, the telescope.³⁵ Now people saw not only what was small, but also what was far away. As a medium of innovation the telescope was associated with challenges to traditional forms of knowledge, and the anxiety about such challenges transferred itself to eyeglasses as well. In Catholic Spain, political and scientific writers carefully negotiated the transmission of material from Galileo’s work without actually mentioning his name, while one novelist, writing in imitation of Boccalini, provides a politico-religious gloss on the lenses by praising Spanish eyeglasses over those produced in the republic of Venice.³⁶

Boccalini himself opens Ragguagli with an extensive list of articles for sale from the ‘Polititians [sic] Ware-House’,³⁷ among which by far the most numerous are spectacles of various kinds.³⁸ This list shows how the concept of spectacles condenses contemporary anxieties about vision and perception by denaturalizing the medium in the traditional chain of cognition from object to sense-organ. This is evident in the way spectacles are presented as either correcting or distorting one’s perception of reality. As Stuart Clark has observed of Bacon’s work a decade later in England, ‘[e]xactly balanced …  are an admission that the senses can be rendered uncertain and misleading and an equal intention to strengthen them and extend their reach. In this context deceiving the eyes artificially was poised between scepticism and empiricism.’³⁹ In Boccalini’s list, for instance, the first set of spectacles are advertised as suitable for saving the reputation of those afflicted with moral myopia.

… alcuni servono per far veder lume a quegli uomini salaci, a’ quali nel furor delle libidini di modo si scorta la vista, che non discernono l’onor dal vituperio … né altra cosa che meriti che gli sia portato rispetto. (Ragg. 1.1)

Some of them serve to give light to those libidinous men, who amidst their goatish lusts, grow so short sighted, as they cannot discern between honour and shame … nor any thing else to which respect ought to be given.⁴⁰

Various other types of spectacles serve the interests of different classes by introducing distortions, such as those which give substance to the meaningless gestures of patrons. Once more what is at stake is the proper apprehension of the honourable.

Ma mirabilissimi sono quegli occhiali fabbricati con maestria tale, che altrui fanno parer le pulci elefanti, i pigmei giganti; questi avidamente sono comperati da alcuni soggetti grandi, i quali, ponendoli poi al naso dei loro sfortunati cortigiani, tanto alterano la vista di quei miseri, che rimunerazione di cinquecento scudi di rendita stimano il vil favoruccio che dal padrone venga loro posta la mano nella spalla, o l’esser da lui rimirati con un ghigno, ancor che artificioso, e fatto per forza.

But very miraculous is the workmanship of those Spectacles which make Fleas appear to be Elephants, and Pigmies Giants; these are greedily bought up by great Personages, who putting them upon the noses of unfortunate Courtiers, do thereby work such an alteration in the eye-sight of those wretches, as, if their Lord do but lay his hand upon their shoulders, or do but cast an artificial smile upon them, they take it as acceptably as a reward of 500 hundred Crowns a year.⁴¹

Boccalini refers to the general practice for courtiers to be supplied with eyeglasses by their rulers,⁴² but this passage also resonates with his comments about Ragguagli in the preface to Comentarii quoted at the beginning of this section. There we saw that the masked and eyeless Ragguagli ‘opened the eyes of men who blindly sleeping allowed authority to lead them by the nose’. It is possible perhaps to imagine that these men are led by the nose because of the spectacles that are placed upon their nose, and that their acceptance of such distorted vision constitutes a form of blindness. While the subject of optics provides lively debate on the expanding limits of human perception and knowledge, Boccalini is one of the writers who offers a political perspective on the topic. In these opening advertisements he identifies spectacles as a marker of interested vision, where perceptions of the world are promoted either in the maintenance or the dismantling of positions of dominance underpinned by knowledge.

This is where Tacitean quotation comes together with the new technological advances of eyeglasses and spyglasses. Since Tacitus represents the political world in terms of false appearances and hidden realities, the issue of perception is dominant in Tacitean interpretations. As we’ve already seen, Tacitus’ sententiae often perform the act of perception through pointed or paradoxical statements which convey the sense of ‘uncovering’ the truth. This seems to provide the foundation for Boccalini’s identification of Tacitus as a manufacturer of ‘Politik Spectacles’ which lays him open to a charge brought by ‘divers great Princes’.

… che Tacito con la sediziosa materia de’ suoi Annali e delle sue Istorie fabbricava certe occhiali, che perniziosissimi effetti operavano per li principi; perché, posti al naso delle persone semplici, di modo assottigliavano loro la vista, che fino dentro le budelle facevano veder gl’intimi e più reconditi pensieri altrui: e … che alle genti mostravano la pura essenza e la qualità degli animi de’ prencipi, quali essi erano di dentro, non quali con gli artifici necessari per reganare si sforzavano di far parer di fuori. (Ragg. 2.71)

… that Tacitus by his seditious Annals and Histories, had made certain Spectacles which were very pernicious to Princes; for let the simplest person put them on his nose, they would make him so sharp-sighted, as to see into the very hearts of other men, and discover their most secret thoughts … and that he shewed unto the people, the very essence and quality of Princes souls, what they were indeed inwardly, and not what through the necessary tricks of Government they were forced to make themselves appear to be outwardly.⁴³

The text of Tacitus operates as a pair of eyeglasses, it is implied, because the reader looks through the Tacitean sententia at their contemporary political world. In other words, the very process of ‘applying’ Tacitus sketched out in the first section of this paper is here presented through the metaphor of putting spectacles on one’s nose. Tacitus’ spectacles are the subject of complaint by the Princes not only because they work against the interests of the ruler but also because they are implicated in the democratization of political knowledge, being available to the common people. It is not incidental that the order to imprison Tacitus proceeds through the censors, for this charge identifies Tacitus’ works as equally dangerous to those of Machiavelli. In an earlier episode, Machiavelli fails to escape condemnation despite his plea that the content of his writings is entirely derived from works of history. Tacitus is not explicitly mentioned but the reference to ‘l’occhiale politico’ must surely allude to him.

Ché certo non so vedere per qual cagione … io tanto debba esser perseguitato, quando la lezione delle istorie, non solo permessa ma tanto commendata da ognuno, notoriamente ha virtù di convertire in tanti Macchiavelli quelli che vi attendono con l’occhiale politico. (Ragg. 1.89)

For I see not … why I should be so much persecuted, when the reading of History (which is not onely permitted, but commended by all men) hath the particular vertue of turning as many as do read them with a politick eye, into so many Machiavels.⁴⁴

The association with Machiavelli is one way in which Tacitus is made into a contemporary, not just in the gleefully anachronistic world of Parnassus but in his pervasive relevance to the political thinking of the time. This is another dimension of the spectacles metaphor, which presents the ancient historical text as the product of modern manufacturing processes, making use of the latest technology and resulting in an innovative product.⁴⁵ We notice that the Princes charge Tacitus with having made or forged these spectacles out of the seditious material in his texts; a few episodes later we see Apollo recommending them to a deluded literato as ‘excellent spectacles … lately made in Tacitus his forge’ — ‘un paio di eccellenti occhiali modernamente lavorati nella fucina del politico Tacito’.⁴⁶ There is irony in the idea that the spectacles are ‘modernamente lavorati’, especially when they are deployed here to correct the literato’s mistaken belief that the present time is a golden age. It contributes further to the pervasive representation of Tacitus as very much at home in the present time.

The final aspect of masks and spectacles which make them so effective as metaphors for political perception is their detachability. This aspect leads us back to the issue raised in the first section about the process by which wisdom is acquired and internalized. More than once Boccalini draws attention to the detachability of spectacles by focusing on how they are placed on the nose and immediately transform the individual’s perceptive powers. The concept of a detachable object which so radically alters one’s ‘interface’ with the world goes to the heart of issues about the acquisition of knowledge which lends perspective to the learner. This is the reason, perhaps, for the intensified attention to the body parts which make contact with, hold, or support detachable objects (though body parts are also prominent discursive features in satiric writing). In addition to the nose on which the glasses rest, we see the hands which hold books while the knowledge within them is transferred to the holder. Boccalini in his preface to Comentarii introduces Ragguagli as a text that has ‘passed through the hands of so many men’ before he speaks of it as having ‘opened the eyes of men’. This motif also appears in Apollo’s accusation of Tacitus for democritizing political knowledge.

… dottrina per certo infernale, che dal suo agricoltor Tacito solo per beneficio de’ prencipi essendo stata seminata, con tanta ingordigia anco dagli uomini privati si vede ora abbracciata, che Tacito, prima autor solo stimato degno de’ prencipi, ora così pubblicamente va per le mani d’ognuno, che, fino i bottegai e i facchini non d’altra scienza mostrandosi più intendenti che della ragion di stato … (Ragg. 1.86)

Certainly an infernal doctrine which being sowed by the husbandman, Tacitus, only for the benefit of Princes, is now so greedily imbraced by every privat man, as Tacitus, who was formerly esteemed an Author only fit for Princes, is now so frequently handled by all men, as Shop-keepers and Porters, seem to understand nothing better then [sic] reason of State … ⁴⁷

The process of arriving at ‘scienza della ragion di stato’ involves an unusual sequence of bodily encounters with Tacitus. The first, ingestion, provides the most intuitive metaphor for internalizing knowledge. The second, however, returns us to the technological medium which facilitates but also problematizes the acquisition of wisdom and insight. Tacitus the author becomes conflated with Tacitus the book and appears in the hands of tradesmen. Behind this image is another contemporary scene of mass production, that of the pocket volume which enables on-the-move reading. As Jacob Soll explains ‘[between 1660 and 1694] certain editions published in octavo shrank to sizes more common for duodecimo and sextodecimo editions. These editions were not only smaller, but easier to handle and consult. With this physical transformation, the reader’s material relationship to Tacitus changed.’⁴⁸ Small books join eyeglasses as modern, portable objects which enable the human body more comfortably to engage with perceiving and knowing the world.

A chain of associations brings together masks, spectacles, and books as metaphors which elicit diverse aspects of Tacitus’ writing and the political knowledge it conveys. Predominant is the idea that it radically changes the viewer’s perception of the world, for good or ill. There is an underlying anxiety about the very concept that a material object should influence so profoundly human experience and understanding. The metaphors also bring out the way that Tacitism is associated with the democritizing of knowledge (again, for good or ill) and they help to present Tacitus as a figure of modernity and innovation.

4. ‘Personating’ wisdom

The image of a reader holding the text of Tacitus in their hands leaves opaque the process by which Tacitean wisdom permeates to their hearts and leaves open the possibility that they may simply parrot his sententiae without fully understanding either Tacitus’ words or their own world. The testing ground for true understanding of Tacitus is, as we saw in the first section of the paper, insightful application of his words to the contemporary political scene. Beyond this, possession of Tacitean wisdom will be fully proven by the individual who takes practical and efficacious action. Boccalini develops these ideas in both Ragguagli and Comentarii with detailed and repeated reference to one episode in Tacitus’ works, the speech of the emperor Galba in book 1 of the Histories.

Galba’s reign was short-lived: declared emperor by his troops in Spain in June of AD 68, he lost the support of the Praetorian Guard in Rome and was cut down in the forum in January AD 69 at the age of 70.⁴⁹ For many writers in the early second century, Galba attracted interest because for all his considerable political and military experience under several emperors he seemed unable to occupy the position of emperor himself when he finally came to it. Tacitus sums up the paradox in one of his most memorable sententiae: ‘everyone agreed that Galba was suitable for rule – until he ruled’.⁵⁰ His reign thereby poses the question of how it is anyone can learn the arts of government except by governing. It is suitable therefore that Tacitus gives the emperor a speech to deliver to his recently adopted successor, Gaius Licinius Piso. In Tacitus’ surviving works this is the most explicit and sustained instance of ‘advice to Princes’. The only equivalents which come near to it are the speech of Licinius Mucianus exhorting Vespasian to seize power in Histories book 2 and the advice of Sallustius Crispus to the new emperor Tiberius in Annals book 1.

In this speech Galba sets out his rationale for adopting an heir rather than relying on dynastic succession; he reviews the qualities of Piso which he believes make Piso the most suitable choice as future emperor; and he warns Piso of the main dangers facing him as a Prince – namely the self-interest and flattery of his courtiers. The themes of Galba’s speech, especially his focus on legitimacy, flattery, and how to learn the art of rule, are pertinent to many of the interests of Tacitist writers. It is a speech, moreover, with an unusually high density of generalizing sententiae,⁵¹ among which is Galba’s assertion that ‘[t]he most useful and swiftest way to discern good and bad policy is to reflect on what you would want or not want under the rule of another prince.’⁵² Boccalini calls this the ‘golden sentence of Tacitus’, echoing not so much Machiavelli as the popular ‘golden rule’ of ‘do unto others as you would have done to you’.⁵³ But Boccalini uses Galba’s sententia not only to reflect on the potential for a subject to learn principles of rule but also to turn the sententia back onto the speaker himself and expose his incapacity to fully internalize his own words.

Verissima sentenza è questa di Galba, degna veramente che ogni principe la porti scolpita e intagliata nel suo cuore: bellissimo e certissimo modo di ben governare uno Stato è l’aer dinanzi agli occhi l’azioni degli altri imperatori e degli altri principi, seguendo le buone, e quelle che gli hanno fatto precipitare regettarle, ma è cosa fatale degli uomini, che sanno quasi tutti esser saggi nella lingua, e poco prudenti con l’operazioni loro. Galba ricordò a Pisone quello che non seppe far egli … (Com. Hist. 115)

Very true is this sentence of Galba, truly worthy of being carved and engraved into the heart of every Prince, to carry it with him; the best and most certain way of governing a state is to have before one’s eyes the actions of other emperors and princes, following the good examples and rejecting the actions that brought them to ruin. But it is fatal for men who know how to be wise in speaking but are less prudent in their own operations; Galba warned Piso of what he himself could not achieve … ⁵⁴

Boccalini’s opening phrase sketches out the ideal of internalized knowledge, as the prince no longer carries Tacitus’ words around in a book but rather carries them inscribed on his heart. The idea of portability might point back to the detachable objects we have already seen associated with Tacitean wisdom in the previous section. But Boccalini then applies the lesson of the sententia to Galba himself and discerns different levels at which wisdom can be assimilated: speech and action. But, as Boccalini goes on to explain, Galba’s failing is not really a failure to put this sententia into practice but rather an exaggerated response to what he has learned under the previous ruler. As Boccalini observes, Galba seeks to rectify the errors of his predecessor Nero but goes too far to the other extreme. This historically contextualized interpretation of the sententia is highly appropriate for the Comentarii, but it also informs Boccalini’s deployment of the same sentence in Ragguagli. Here Tacitus is knowingly quoted by Sallustius Crispus, the emperor Tiberius’ advisor, as he speaks to the newly elected provincial governors, confirming the sententia’s role in a discourse of ‘advice to princes’.⁵⁵

Che l’aurea sentenza di Tacito, utilissimus idem ac brevissimus bonarum, malarumque rerum delectus, cogitare quid aut nolueris sub alio principe, aut volueris, praticasse con circumspezione tale, che per fuggir un difetto del suo antecessore non cadesse nell’altro estremo: come scioccamente aveva fatto un prencipe, che per odiar la soverchia piacevolezza molto biasimata nel suo antecessore, abbracciò una inaudita crudeltà. (Ragg. 1.41)

That he should practice that golden sentence of Tacitus, Utilissimus idem ac brevissimus bonarum, malarumque rerum delectus, cogitare quid aut nolueris sub alio Principe, aut volueris, Tacit. Lib 1. Hist. … with such circumspection, as to shun a defect in his Predecessor, he should not fall himself into the other extream. As a certain Prince had foolishly done, who to avoid the over much pleasantness which was blamed in his Predecessor, betook himself to unheard of severities … ⁵⁶

Crispus’ advice packages the generalized sententia and its historical context together as a broader lesson in applying Tacitean words not only to interpretation but to action. This echoes the longer lesson in quotation and experience from earlier in Ragguagli, where Tacitus himself gets the chance to put his wisdom into practice.

This episode is one of the most frequently cited in discussions of Boccalini’s treatment of Tacitus and is usually taken as humorously undermining the authority of the historian as a source of political wisdom with contemporary application. The episode begins with Tacitus’ authority earning him election as Prince of Lesbos, since he is ‘famed farr above all others for matter of Policy’.⁵⁷ Tacitus himself affirms this authority, declaring that ‘having shewn others the true practice of the most exact Reason of State, they might easily believe he should know better then any other, how to put it in execution in his own State’.⁵⁸ Tacitus’ confidence in the ease of translating his written wisdom into practical action might seem to be well-grounded, as he goes on to articulate the very same principle of rule which Crispus recommends to the governors in Ragguagli 1.41.

… che in quelle azioni che avesse conosciuto esser state di contento a’ popoli, diligentissimamente avrebbe imitato il prencipe passato, e che sommamente l’avrebbe obborrito in quelle che si fosse avveduto ch’erano dispiaciute … il sugo spremuto da tutta la vera politica, e la quinta essenza da lui lambiccata e solo escogitata dal suo cervello … (Ragg. 1.29)

That he would diligently imitate the late Prince in those actions which he should know gave content unto the people, and that he would exceedingly detest him in those which they were displeased with … the very extract of all true Policy, the quintescence distilled by him, and only by him thought upon.⁵⁹

Galba is not (yet) explicitly quoted, but Tacitus has restored the idea of imitating positive features of one’s predecessor as well as avoiding negative features; he has also implicitly suggested that the ruler look not to the actions of his predecessors but to the reactions of their subjects. And, most notably, Tacitus bolsters his authority by describing his policy to the ambassadors of Lesbos as a sententia, a distilled encapsulation of wisdom. But Tacitus’ practical application of wisdom is disastrous: he stirs up disagreement between nobles and people, introduces a foreign militia and a spy network, and generally acts the part of a tyrant. Universally hated, he flees back to Parnassus, where he offers an explanation of his failure to Pliny. At first the joke appears to be at Tacitus’ expense as he expresses the difficulty of putting theory into practice.

Il cielo, Plinio mio, tanto non è lontano dalla terra, e di colore la neve tanto non è dissimile dai carboni, quanto lontana e dissimile è la pratica dell’imperare dalla teorica di scriver bei precetti politici e ottime regole della ragion di stato. Percioché quella sentenza che in persona di Galba insegnai a Pisone, la quale tanto onore mi ha fatto appresso le genti, che è ripitutata un responso dell’oracolo, e che agl’ignoranti par che con facilità grande possa porsi in atto pratico, nell’usarla a me è riuscita infelicissima. (Ragg. 1.29)

Heaven (my Pliny) is not so far distant from earth, nor doth snow so far differ in colour from cole, as the exercise of Empire is far from, and unlike unto the Theory of Politick Precepts, and the best Rules of Reason of State: For that sentence which in Galba’s person I teach Piso, and which hath won me so much credit amongst men, as it hath been thought to be the answer of an Oracle, and which the ignorant think may be easily put into practice, hath in the use thereof proved very unfortunate to me.⁶⁰

Since Tacitus himself believed his sentences easily put into practice, it might seem that he is among the ignorant of whom he speaks. Hence when he refers to himself speaking ‘in Galba’s person’ he seems to have taken on Galba’s inability to translate spoken wisdom into prudent action. But this speech of reflection also shows Tacitus moving to a new understanding of his own words, from ignorance to experience. To express this development he turns to a second quotation from his own work.

Ma sappi che la stessa prima ora che pigliai il possesso del mio principato, di modo dalla maladetta forza della dominazione mi sentii svellere e diradicare da que’ miei buoni propositi, da quelle sante mie prime deliberazioni, che, per dirlati con parole proprissime, vi dominationis convulsus, et mutatus  …  (Ragg. 1.29)

But know, that the very first houre took upon me my Principality, I found those my first wholsom resolutions to be so grub’d up and eradicated by the cursed power of Rule, as to say it properly unto you, Vi Dominationis convulsus & mutatus. Tacit. lib. 4 Annall.⁶¹

The quotation comes from Annals 6.48 and expresses the insight of a prominent senator, Lucius Arruntius, into the deterioration of the emperor Tiberius: ‘by the force of absolute dominion he has been overturned and utterly changed’. It thus reflects a subject’s understanding of his ruler as he becomes a tyrant and coheres with Tacitus’ earlier observation that the people’s reaction to a past ruler provides useful guidance to those in the present. This second quotation also illustrates Tacitus’ dawning self-realization: while Galba’s sententia expresses the ideals with which Tacitus began his rule on Lesbos, Arruntius’ words more precisely capture the truth of his reign. We also see something of the process of internalizing the political understanding of the quotations. While Tacitus refers to himself as speaking ‘in Galba’s person’, evoking the idea of assuming a role or persona, he presents Arruntius words as ‘parole proprissime’ — words that are properly his own. His experience on Lesbos is what makes these words now ‘properly’ his own, and he can speak them as applicable to himself and as illuminating his understanding of himself. The trajectory from persona to unmediated voice exactly matches Boccalini’s account (examined above) of his own development from masked satirist to unmasked political commentator.

Elsewhere in Boccalini’s satire the democratic potential of Tacitism is exploited, but the Tacitus of the Lesbos episode is resolutely (perhaps predictably) anti-democratic, claiming that the obscurity of his Latin is a necessary obstacle to preserve Reason of State as the proper knowledge of ‘great Kings’. The episode ends with Tacitus blaming the disaster of his reign not on his own ignorance but on the inappropriateness of aiming for domination in an elective principality. In retrospect, therefore, he realizes that he had unthinkingly applied Reason of State to an unsuitable political context; in that respect he fell away from his originally proposed plan, which was to consult not the interest of the state but that of the people. But Tacitus redeems himself through the medium of his own sententiae, first using the Arruntius quotation from the Annals to describe his own transformation into a tyrant, and then returning to Galba’s speech for a phrase which encapsulates the nature of those who live in elective principalities: ‘they are unable to tolerate either pure liberty or total slavery’.⁶² Galba uses this phrase of the Romans of his own time, arguing that a return to Republican rule is no longer possible but that the dynastic monarchy of AD 14–68 would be better replaced by an adoptive monarchy which enables the choice of suitable adult candidates for rule.

This was a topic of considerable interest to Tacitus, who lived and wrote under Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, where the imperial adoption of successors fostered a new era of prosperity for Rome. It was also of considerable interest to Boccalini, who devotes detailed and lengthy commentary to that portion of Galba’s speech treating of the policy. It is a policy which works against the self-interest of a ruler who wishes to be succeeded by a family member, but which also highlights the principle that someone must acquire and be tested for the qualities of a ruler (as Tacitus himself was at the start of the episode). By turning to this quotation at the end of his encounter with Lesbos, Tacitus identifies that he was never qualified to rule in such a state, but in the process he fastens upon a discourse recognizable from his own works which (belatedly) enables his understanding of the government of Lesbos.

Tacitus’ failure to rule properly exemplifies the difficulty of achieving political prudence from his writings, but the lesson of the episode is not that his writings have no value for thinking politically. It is for that reason that Tacitus is able to explain and analyze his errors of judgement by more carefully selecting and quoting from elsewhere in his works. Boccalini’s engagement with Tacitus is exceptional for its humour and its reflection of multiple perspectives on the historian’s value. But it is sufficiently of its time to illuminate for us the complexity and richness of the activity of Tacitean quotation and its unique contribution to the art and practice of political understanding in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe.

Acknowledgements

Portions of this paper have been presented at the Classics Research Seminars at the Universities of Bristol and Liverpool, and at Annual Meetings of the Renaissance Society of America (2018 and 2022). I am grateful to Carolyn Starke and to Jan Waszink for organizing the respective RSA panels, and to Jan Waszink for collecting the panel papers for this edition. The British School at Rome where I held the Hugh Last Fellowship in 2023 provided the perfect interdisciplinary environment for revising this paper. I owe particular thanks to Abigail Brundin and to fellow-award holders for formal and informal discussion of these ideas. I am also deeply grateful to Pantelis Michelakis and Noah Millstone for commenting on earlier drafts, and to Patricia Osmond for her extensive comments and her wise advice. All remaining errors and infelicities are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Burke, ‘Popularity of Ancient Historians’.

2 Schellhase, Tacitus in Renaissance; Gajda, ‘Tacitus and Political Thought’; Kapust, ‘Tacitus and Political Thought’; Lindberg, ‘Tacitism in Theory and Practice’.

3 Meinecke, Machiavellism; Donaldson, Machiavelli and Mystery of State; Burke, ‘Tacitus, Scepticism, Reason of State’; Viroli, Politics to Reason of State; Tuck, Philosophy and Government.

4 Enenkel, ‘Practices, Forms, and Functions’; Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books.

5 Bartera, ‘Commentary Writing on the Annals’; O’Gorman, ‘Thucydides and his “Contemporaries”’.

6 Ulery, ‘Cornelius Tacitus’; Martin, ‘From Manuscript to Print’.

7 Morford, Stoics and Neostoics, 149–57.

8 Ulery, ‘Cornelius Tacitus’, 113 (Lipsius, Notae, 1574).

9 Morford, ‘Tacitean Prudentia’; Brooke, Philosophic Pride.

10 Ulery, ‘Cornelius Tacitus’, 115 (Lipsius, Liber Commentarius, 1581).

11 Lipsius, Politica.

12 Ammirato, Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito; Gajda, ‘Tacitus and Political Thought’, 262–3.

13 Soll, Publishing the Prince, 34; Momigliano, ‘First Political Commentary on Tacitus’.

14 Scotus, Commentarii ad Politicam et Aulicam Rationem, 691. My translation.

15 Wooten, Paolo Sarpi, 69–76; Meinecke, Machiavellism, 72–6; Figorilli, ‘“Cose politiche e morali”’.

16 Boccalini, Comentarii a Tacito, 1536–7. My translation.

17 Moss, Printed Commonplace Books, 27.

18 P. Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus. All translations from Latin are my own.

19 Berti, Scholasticorum Studia; Dinter, Guérin, and Martinho, Reading Roman Declamation.

20 Sinclair, Tacitus the Sententious Historian; Kirchner, Sentenzen im Werk des Tacitus.

21 Boccalini, I Ragguagli di Parnasso, 285–6. I have chosen to use a translation of Ragguagli which is the closest to Boccalini’s own time: Boccalini, Advertisements from Parnassus. For earlier (partial) translations, see Marquardt, ‘First English Translators’.

22 As a point of comparison, Seneca’s works are praised in Ragguagli for the value of their precepts, but his works are not quoted.

23 Hendrix, Traiano Boccalini fra erudizione e polemica; Momigliano, ‘Popularity of Ancient Historians’; Keller, Knowledge and Public Interest, 63–5.

24 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 167.

25 Ibid., 137.

26 Cf De Landtsheer, ‘Annotating Tacitus’.

27 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 139.

28 Ibid., 341: ‘ … il vero fondamento delle scienze tutte esser la povertà, la quale non senza l’ultima calamità delle arti liberali altrui poteva venire in odio.’

29 Ibid.: ‘col genio suo tanto vivace e con la solita sua libertà di lingua’; cf. infra ‘la mordace difesa di Tacito’.

30 Boccalini, Comentarii, 971. My translation.

31 Keller, ‘Fake News’, 52–53 observes how Boccalini’s text appears under his own name but very quickly becomes ‘anonymized’ in translations. Cary’s English translation used in this paper, for instance, refers in the translator’s preface only to ‘My Author’ when referring to Boccalini.

32 Cf the Latin for mask, persona, derived from persono ‘to sound through’.

33 Ilardi, Renaissance Vision.

34 Clark, Vanities of the Eye; Millstone, ‘Seeing Like a Statesman.

35 Reeves, Evening News.

36 Santo-Tomás, ‘Fortunes of the “Occhiali Politici”’; cf. Reeves, Evening News, 105–6.

37 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 89: ‘L’università de’ politici apre un fondaco in Parnaso, nel quale si vendono diverse merci utili al virtuoso vivere dei letterati.’

38 Keller, Knowledge and Public Interest, 65–7.

39 Clark, Vanities of the Eye, 79.

40 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 90.

41 Ibid., 91.

42 Reeves, Evening News, 105.

43 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 542.

44 Ibid., 337.

45 Cf Keller, ‘Mining Tacitus’.

46 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 576.

47 Ibid., 328.

48 Soll, Publishing the Prince, 46. Even in the previous century, Lipsius was imagining Tacitus ‘in the hands of those men who hold the rudder and the key of the commonwealth’ (in manibus eorum … in quorum manu gubernaculum et reipublicae clavus), Liber Commentarius, 1581.

49 Morgan, 69 AD.

50 Tacitus, Historiae 1.31: ‘omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset’.

51 Keitel, ‘Sententia and Structure’.

52 Tacitus, Historiae 1.16: ‘Utilissimus idem ac brevissimus bonarum malarumque rerum delectus, cogitare quid aut nolueris sub alio principe aut volueris’.

53 Machiavelli’s golden sentence of Tacitus comes from Eprius Marcellus’ manifesto of Realpolitik in Hist. 4.8.2 (Machiavelli, Discorsi III.6). For the ‘golden rule’ as a motif of popular ethics in European and Far Eastern thought, Höffe, Lexikon der Ethik, 113-4.

54 Boccalini, Comentarii, 1563.

55 Boccalini perhaps also reflects the use of the same sententia by Dio’s Maecenas as he gives advice to the emperor Augustus (Dio 52.39.1-2), a parallel picked up by a number of earlier Tacitists.

56 Boccalini, Ragguagli, 204.

57 Ibid., 149: ‘per fama grande di esser mirabil politico prevalesse ad ogni altro’.

58 Ibid., 150: ‘e che altrui avendo egli insegnata la vera pratica della più sopraffina ragion di stato, ben anco potevano credere che molto megio di qualsivoglia nello stato proprio l’avrebbe saputa porre in atto pratico’.

59 Ibid., 150.

60 Ibid., 153.

61 Ibid..

62 Tacitus, Historiae 1.16: ‘nec totam libertatem nec totam servitutem pati possunt’.