Abstract

The essay re-examines an early Cinquecento Florentine comedy in verses. Anepigraphic in the manuscripts, the comedy circulated since the first printed edition, at the end of the xviii century, under the title Commedia in versi. At first scholars have attributed the work to Machiavelli because they had found the text in an original manuscript of him. Since 1892, however, they have identified the Commedia in versi, as a work of Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi. The main evidence for this attribution are the words that Lorenzo di Filippo penned on a manuscript of the Commedia that he copied. Scholars have so far believed that Machiavelli transcribed Strozzi’s work as a gesture of kindness and gratitude to his protector. The collation of the manuscripts instead reveals that the original text of the Commedia is not that copied by Strozzi but that copied by Machiavelli. The author of the Commedia is therefore Machiavelli, not Strozzi. The language and the style of the text too point to Machiavelli, and indicate that the Commedia in versi is the missing link between early xvi century Florentine theater in verses and Mandragola.