Benedetto Varchi as a Reader of Machiavelli. The Annotated Copy of the ‘Florentine Histories’ from the Bononi Book Collection

Abstract

This article traces the history of the copy of Niccolò Machiavelli’s ‘Florentine Histories’ housed in the Bononi book collection. It focuses on its owners, particularly Benedetto Varchi (co-owner of the volume along with his student Carlo Strozzi), who is responsible for the numerous marginal notes added along the pages. These annotations, in turn, are a valuable document for the study of the different phases of the composition of Varchi’s Storia fiorentina [‘Florentine History’], and reveal how he initially considered Machiavelli’s Histories as a model to follow, which he later abandoned. For this reason, the article examines marginalia on the Bononi copy, establishing a typology and identifying their use in the writing process of Varchi’s Storia.