Abstract

Even if often qualified as a repetition of the thesis of the first two books, or as a summation of various and scattered considerations, the third book of Machiavelli's "Discourses On the First Decade of Titus Livius", and especially it's main topic, the "return to the beginnings", represents an important contribution to the political and historical thought of the secretary. Focusing particularly on the problematic relationship between origin and event, this essay tries to account the complex articulation of historical transformation and conservation of orders in Machiavelli's view.