Booknotes

Professor MAURIZIO VIROLI, AUTHOR, "NICCOLO'S SMILE": You did it right.

Prof. VIROLI: When someone says that a politician is Machiavellian, what they mean to say is that the person in question has very low moral standards, that the person is not reliable, that he's cunning like a fox, astute, that you cannot trust him. That--that is what they mean when they say that the politician is Machiavellian.

Prof. VIROLI: It came s--from the mid of the 16th century in--within the context of the counterreformation. Then, at that time, the Jesuits begun to use the word Machiavellian in the sense that I have described, meaning someone unreliable, someone who always wears a mask, someone who is ready to deceive, who is always keen, always ready and prepared to put his interest before any other moral consideration.

Prof. VIROLI: Niccolo Machiavelli was the opposite of a Machiavellian--precisely the opposite. Machiavellians are calculators. Niccolo was passionate. Machiavellians always try to adapt themselves to the circumstances. Machiavelli fought many battles against the conventional political culture of his time. Machiavellians normally win. Niccolo was a loser. Machiavellians always fight for what they think they can get. Niccolo always fought for grand ideas. He was precisely the opposite.

Prof. VIROLI: Because Niccolo Machiavelli's works have been read over the centuries by scholars who were not apt to understand. They don't want to make the effort to understand what Niccolo was saying, either because they were prejudiced or because they were too bigoted or for one reason and the other.

Prof. VIROLI: He was born in 1469 in Florence.

Prof. VIROLI: He--he died in 1527, June.

Prof. VIROLI: I'm very bad with numbers.

Prof. VIROLI: Yeah. No--yeah, 59, I guess. But I'm very bad with numbers, so it should be 31 plus 27? Fifty-eight, yes. Even though, in one of his last letters, he said, `Now that I am 60,' it was not true. He was only 58. He...

Prof. VIROLI: He was also very bad with numbers.

Prof. VIROLI: He was born from Florence, yes. And the family was coming from the southern part of Tuscany. He was the son of a lawyer. His father was a lawyer, unsuccessful, which is very rare; poor, which is even more difficult because in Florence, lawyers then and even today are normally very wealthy. So Niccolo did not belong to the inner circle of the Florentine elite. He was cul--he had the chance to study in Latin, rhetoric, ancient history, modern history, grammar. He knew how to write, and it shows. But he had--he did not belong to the important families. For him, was impossible even to be elected or appointed to important positions in the government, because, according to the statutes of Florence, in order to be appointed to the highest positions, you--you had to belong to a family that had already had someone governing high posts in the government. That's important because Machiavelli was close to power but never within the circle of power.

Prof. VIROLI: I come from Romania. It's a bit north of Florence. Romania is the area of Ravenna, Rimini, Phillippe. If you have seen the--Fellini's movie, "Amarcord," that's where I come from.

Prof. VIROLI: It was--it was a joke. I--I had completed my PhD thesis at European University in Florence. I was, like many other people at the time, jobless, unemployed. I had no chances to get into an Italian university...

Prof. VIROLI: 198--1985 we are talking. A friend of mine--a friend of mine was here at--at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She said, `Maurizio, they are looking for an assistant professor in political theory.' And I responded to her, `And do you think that the Princeton, they need someone from Forli in Romania from Italy to cover a position in political theory?' `It costs you nothing to try.' I applied. I sent my vita, my disser--dissertation that I composed then in French. It was in part translated into English by Cambridge University Press. And they should never forget the fact that I got the position at Princeton University without even knowing the names of the people in s--in the committee. One day I must tell the names of these people, because they are an example of how you should conduct this kind of activities if you want to keep a university great.

Prof. VIROLI: It's a normal application. As you know, there were about 250 applicants. They selected three. I was wha--what they call the short list. Then they summoned me. I got the phone call late in the night from Professor Amy Gutmann who is now the director of the Center for Human Values in Princeton. She say, `We would like to interview you.' And I asked back, `But I have to fly.' And she say, `No problem.' So I flew over. I spent three days. I gave my talk. I met everyone in the department--strange feeling, very completely different world. Then I came back. And after two months, I got the pho--phone call saying, `We would like you to offer you a position as an assistant professor in politics.' That's--that is as simple as that.

Prof. VIROLI: At Princeton.

Prof. VIROLI: Since 1987.

Prof. VIROLI: Political theory.

Prof. VIROLI: Well, I--it's a long--it's an old and deep love for Niccolo Machiavelli. I started writing on Niccolo Machiavelli in 198--in 1989.

Prof. VIROLI: Well, because I have written a number of essays and the book on Niccolo Machiavelli's political thought. Then while I was writing the book on Niccolo Machiavelli's political thought, I discovered that perhaps Niccolo, the person, his life, his passions, his ideals, was more interesting than the thinker. And what was interesting about Niccolo, his wisdom of life, the wisdom with which he conducted his life, the wisdom with which he tried to make sense of his own experience and of human experience in general, meaning how to deal with despair, hopelessness, defeat and gratitude but also with love, friendship, the various dimensions of life. I have discovered, if I'm right, that Niccolo conducted his life--he dealt with all the issues that I've mentioned, all the aspects of human experience that I have mentioned, with a--a remarkable depth and intelligence, wisdom. That wisdom was, so to speak, summarized by his smile, his way of smiling at life, at himself and--Who knows--perhaps even smiling at God.

Prof. VIROLI: It's Tito Santi; Santi di Tito is his correct name. He painted the portrait after Machiavelli's death, so he did not see Machiavelli. That's how he imagined Niccolo Machiavelli to be on the basis of existing sketches or statues. There is a marble--th--sorry, wooden bust of Niccolo Machiavelli in Palazzo Vecchio where, of course, I always go to pay my tribute in the pilgrimage.

Prof. VIROLI: Vecchio, yes. Second floor.

Prof. VIROLI: Palazzo Vecchio is the palace in which the great council of the Republic of Florence used to meet, is in Piazza della Signoria. It's the center of the republican power of the Republic of Florence. In fact, when Machiavelli tried to persuade de Medici in 1521 to restore the republican institutions in Florence, the manner in which he said that was `reopen'--(foreign language spoken)--reopen the main hall in Palazzo Vecchio. It--Palazzo is the symbol of Florence self-government.

Prof. VIROLI: De Medici is--de Medici were the most powerful family in Florence. They were bankers, silk traders. They had only Machiavelli's lifetime, two popes. Imagine a family that can produce two popes. It's much more than producing two presidents of the United States, like the Bush family. They are--they were extremely wealthy. And thanks to their wealth, they were able to offer favors--lending money, helping people in various ways to set up their business or help them to find the solution for legal problems. And in this way, they became--they became extremely powerful. They had a large network of partisans, supporters, so, in fact, they were practically the rulers of Florence, the masters of Florence, particularly between 1434 and 1464 under the leadership of Cosimo de Medici. Then de Medici were expelled from Florence in 1494 when the republican government was instituted. They returned in power in 1512 with the help of Spanish armies. And they were, so to speak, the enemies of the republic. Florence lived its own political life, then the oscillation between the republican governments, more or less aristocratic, and the regime of de Medici.

Prof. VIROLI: Well, you have to consider that you had northern part of Italy. You had the--the dukedom of Milan. That was under--it was a dukedom. Then east, you had the Republic of Florence--of Venice, sorry. They were very powerful, very wealthy, very aristocratic. South, you had small principalities, Balogna, Robino. You had the Republic of Genoa. And then south, you had the Republic of Florence. Florence was not just a city republic. Florence also controlled a large countryside.

Prof. VIROLI: No. To be a republic means to be, as the--as the jurists used to say, to be (foreign language spoken), which means you are--you are your own prince. Or you are a prince unto yourself. And you do not recognize superior powers. That is the meaning of--being a republic means that there are--you do not recognize political powers around you.

Prof. VIROLI: In Florence, the city?

Prof. VIROLI: It's difficult to--I forget figures. I know for Florence--at the time of Machiavelli, Florence must have been around 60,000 people.

Prof. VIROLI: Yes. Relatively small population.

Prof. VIROLI: Interestingly, as you have perhaps noticed, the correspondence and the friends of Machiavelli used that kind language more than Niccolo himself. Let me give you an example. He--one of the best friends of Niccolo Machiavelli was Francesco Vettori. They had more or less the same age with a difference that--I'm giving you a little background--that Francesco Vettori was powerful and successful. Niccolo Machiavelli was powerless and unsuccessful. Nonetheless, they remained friends.

When Vettori was the ambassador of Florence in Rome in the--at the paper court, Vettori wrote his friend Niccolo, who was at the time in Florence elected, in which Vettori says, `I'm so bored by life here that I must necessarily think about something pleasant, and I know nothing that is more pleasant than'--you know what they mean--`or the thought of.' Interestingly, Niccolo Machiavelli responds back with a letter in which he speaks of the enchanting sweetness of love. Someone is using--a friend of his uses that language, F and so on. Niccolo responds with a poem on the beauty and sweetness of the passion of love. Nonetheless, Niccolo himself was famous in Florence for the--the stories he used to tell. And I'm sure that he was pretty good at using the same language.

You ask why? Because they were Florentine. In Florence, there is the air--the atmosphere itself is irreverent. They are colorful. There are various ways of expressing the concept, but they always prefer the most colorful. And the most colorful is exactly the language that I have described.

Prof. VIROLI: Yes.

Prof. VIROLI: Because I think most biographers--well, they thought that perhaps it was--it'd be damaging to show how they were speaking. I think that, in fact, there is nothing wrong in showing contemporary readers how 16th century Florentine were speaking.

And it's also--also funny because I must say that you can use colorful words without being vulgar, and you can be vulgar without using colorful words. When you use words like--like the ones we are alluding to, you must be very good because then it takes a special intelligence, sensitivity--you have to u--use them with--in the right moment, in the right context. And you can see that there are letters in which, if you replace the colorful words with ordinary words, the letter or the expression would lose its brightness, its intensity. Remember that Niccolo Machiavelli and many other--many friends of him, they were belonging to popular classes, to the people. That's where--the way--that was the way in which they spoke.

Prof. VIROLI: You're going to reveal too much.

Prof. VIROLI: 109?

Prof. VIROLI: Oh. Oh, no, please. Don't do that.

Prof. VIROLI: Well, if you want to. If you read it.

Prof. VIROLI: No. I think that this is--you picked an important place. I think that Niccolo liked to make fun of himself. He liked to exaggerate not his virtues, his vices. And in this case, what he's doing is to respond--you are referring to the famous letter in which he narrates the misadventure he had with the--an old prostitute, very old, very ugly prostitute, in Verona. That's what they're mentioning.

Well, you have to consider that Machiavelli in that letter is responding to a letter of a friend of him, Luigi Richardini. Luigi Richardini, we can guess from Niccolo's answer, must have written him a letter of that sort. `You know, Niccolo, last night I met a gorgeous woman, so charming. And we did this and that,' and he must have gone forever, and he must certainly have ended the letter, `Luigi,' by saying I can't wait to see her again.

Niccolo, what does he do? He turns upside down the letter of Luigi. He says, `I instead, I have met the most ugly woman on Earth. I had the most horrible sexual experience I've ever had and I--I'm sure that for a long time I will not see her again, and for sure, I will not even look for other similar experiences.' It's the opposite of what Luigi Richardini was glorifying himself. Niccolo debases himself to have fun.

Prof. VIROLI: Now you--you bring me into very difficult terrain. Machiavelli was--we have only one letter from his wife, Marietta. We have letters of friends that speak of his wife. We have two letters from his younger son, Guido, in which Guido speaks of mother. What we can derive from this little evidence is--is that Marietta Corsini was very fond of Niccolo. She missed him badly.

Prof. VIROLI: If I remember correctly, he must have married her soon after the death of the father. I guess 1501, 15--15...

Prof. VIROLI: Well, we don't know of Marietta, but Niccolo at the time must have been around 31, 32.

Prof. VIROLI: Well, they were belonging to--they both belonged to families that--Florentine families of the same social ranking. Machiavelli could not have married--Niccolo Machiavelli could not have married a woman of the nobility. And Marietta Corsini could not have married a prominent ari--aristocrat. You--as you know, at the time, marriages were a political and economic affair. It was essential for a--a--a--a rich farmer to marry their daughters well, to someone at least as powerful or as wealthy. So it's not surprising that was--Niccolo must have thought about getting married after the death of his father, because I'm sure Niccolo doesn't like loneliness and solitude. And--and he wanted to be surrounded by a family. They had seven children.

He was affectionate, Niccolo. We can see that, because Marietta says, `When you are here, we feel safe. It's better. When you are not with us, I'm sad and disgusted.' And she was angry at him because he was spending so much time abroad for diplomatic missions.

Niccolo was also a good father, a wonderful father. When I say `wonderful father,' I mean a father who was not imposing, not authoritarian. He was too poor and too powerless to be authoritarian. But we have a--one--we have two letters from Niccolo Machiavelli to his son, Guido, that are really spectacular, the best, I think, of the entire collection of Niccolo's personal letters. You can see that Niccolo was teaching his son how to be a good person, how to try to attain great things by working, by studying. And the way in which he teaches is tender, is affectionate. He doesn't say, `You must.' He says, `If you do that, if you believe in yourself, you will attain a life probably, great things, more than I have done.'

And he tells Guido--he teaches his son, Guido, a wonderful story about weak creatures, the story of the little mule. Guido says, `Wait. We have here in the farm a mule that has become crazy, mad.' And what you normally do with crazy mules is to kill them or to tie them up. Niccolo says to the son, `Don't do that. Let him free. Bring him somewhere where he can be free. Freedom will probably help the little animal to regain his sanity.' It's a wonderful story, wonderful story.

Having said all that, I must immediately emphasize Machiavelli was not a loyal husband, not at all. He loved--Marietta Corsini was not the greatest love of his life. He was too fascinated by women's beauty, and he pursued it with great devotion, with some success, if we judge from the record that we have, until he was quite old for his time, till he was 54. His last love that we know of was dramatic, because he fell in love with a younger woman, very attractive, Ms. Barbara, or Barbara (pronounced bar-BAIR-ah), an opera singer. And Niccolo said--he remarks that if you fall in love with a woman who's very attractive, much younger than you, it's likely that you suffer be--because, as he wrote in a nice poem, little poem, `so much beauty deserves much younger person.'

With women, what I found extraordinary is that the common opinion sustained by important scholars that Niccolo was a macho is completely absurd, completely. I've seen--I've shown in the book that in the important occasions, he treats women as equals. That's not the behavior of a macho. He says that he has found in women more tenderness, more gratitude, deeper compassion and friendship, more lasting friendship than in men. He says that women are better then men, even in governing kingdoms.

And what impressed me in reading this side of Niccolo's life is that he felt for women a kind--he felt he was similar to women, in one sense, that, like women in 16th century Florentine society, he was not part of the privileged circle. And all the stories I have--I've rediscovered about his love affairs, they show us a Machiavelli that--Machiavelli who is a poet, who has a poetic abandonment about love.

Prof. VIROLI: The record speaks. We--one woman who was waiting for him nearby Pontelogratz, certainly one when he was in France, Jan or John. Then the best, the most lasting story with Lucretzia. (Foreign language spoken), the curly .. …. Then probably the wife of (foreign language spoken). Then for sure, Barbara, and--and how many others.

Prof. VIROLI: No.

Prof. VIROLI: I ask myself the same question. I think that it was difficult for her to know. But I cannot answer the question that I think is even more difficult, namely had she known, what was--would have been--what would have been her reaction?

Prof. VIROLI: Oh, precisely in a Catholic country is the right country where you can have affairs.

Prof. VIROLI: Because there is a double morality. Because there is the pope. And remember that popes, at time, were the most libertine creatures on Earth. Read the letter in which Victoria speaks--describes--Victoria was in Rome, was the ambassador of the papal court. He describes how he spends his evenings. And he says, `Around 8:00 some women come to spend the evening with us, only to chat,' he says, `because I'm too old to do much else.' They're coming from the court of the pope. They've completed their day of service, and now they stop by graciously.

The friars, they were famous for being libertines. Consider the story that Machiavelli says, puts in the mouth of a character in one of his comedies, "Clizia," there is a woman speaking of another woman and she says, `Well, she wanted to be pregnant. They told her that if she goes for 40 days in a row, to take the first Mass in the morning in the friar, in the fr--s--in the convent, the monastery, she will certainly get the miracle of getting pregnant.' And the other woman says, `It would be a miracle if she did not get pregnant by--after going for 40 days to take Mass.'

Catholic countries are countries in which transgression is much easier, much easier. Certainly Niccolo had no moral anxieties about his devotion to women's beauty. And considering one last aspect that Florence was Catholic, but also there was this vein of paganism. That is to say, mentality focused on the pursuit of beauty, pleasure, transgression.

Prof. VIROLI: That's wonderful.

Prof. VIROLI: It is certainly read. It is discussed. It is translated. There are--there are new translations coming out every year. Why? I think because in that text, Niccolo Machiavelli tells us, or reveals to us some important truths about political life. Truths that surpass, that go beyond his own time, his own te--intellectual context of his time. Of course, in "The Prince" Machiavelli meant to--to teach something to the political leaders of his own time. But certainly, he wanted to teach something important about politics to possible future princes interested in becoming great princes. There's one thing I want to make clear. Niccolo never told, never intended to teach princes--real or possible, present or future, princes how to gain power. He wanted to teach them how to do great things in politics, such as redeeming a country, liberating a people, restoring political life, emancipating your republic from corruption. He really was not the teacher of ordinary, low, mediocre, mean, miserable politics. He was a teacher of grand politics. That is--I think, is the lasting beauty of that text.

Prof. VIROLI: Thirteen.

Prof. VIROLI: It's a difficult question. You know that in my courses--I teach a course in political theory, I never comment about the United States because I'm a resident alien and I think it is indelicate for me to comment about the life of a country to which I cannot contribute since I'm not an American citizen.

But I can certainly answer your s--your questions by saying that if you mean to kn--what--the meaning of your question is, you think there are politicians that are Machiavellian, the answer is easy. There's plenty of them. Politicians who are simulators, people whom you cannot trust, people who are always prepared to seek their own advantage. Or the advantage of their faction, and to put the interest of their group above the common interest of the republic. There are plenty of them.

But if you ask me, have you ever seen in America or do you know of, from American history, political leaders whom Machiavelli would have admired? Would have said, `He is a great politician'? Then the answer is, yes. Machiavelli loved founders and redeemers. Those who have founded new states or those who have redeemed republics from corruption, from slavery, from oppression. You had plenty. Machiavelli liked leaders who were capable of inspiring, of touching people's passions, of generating a culture, of sustaining hope. You had politicians like that. You had people like Roosevelt. You had people like Lincoln. You had people like Martin Luther King. These were certain politicians that Machiavelli would have enjoyed to meet. And I'm sure that they would have enjoyed the company of Niccolo.

Prof. VIROLI: Slim.

Prof. VIROLI: Reasonably tall, but slim. I--I g--it's a guess, because we have--yes, we have a letter of his wife in which his wife describes him, the baby that she just--she had just had, and she say, `He looks like you,' so we know that he had dark eyes, that he was slim, and also because he was slim, he survived the torture in--when he was tortured in 1513, when he was accused of a conspiracy against the Medici. He was tortured and the torture was the torture of the rope. People were hanged to the ceiling, tied to their back.

Prof. VIROLI: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Prof. VIROLI: Yeah. And then they let the rope and they went, and that was the torture, and he survived because he was slim. If you're...

Prof. VIROLI: Because they found a note.

Prof. VIROLI: The prosecutors of the Medici regime. They discovered a note in the pocket of one of the conspirators that they captured and there was a list of names, 18 names, and one of the names was the name of--the name of Niccolo Machiavelli. So the prosecutors--prosecutors were people loyal to the Medici--implied that Niccolo Machiavelli was part of the conspiracy. So they seized him, they put him in jail and they tortured him, in order to obtain a confession, because the legal system at the time was based on the confession. It was not based on evidence.

Prof. VIROLI: From January--ah, it was easy--through March 10. He was...

Prof. VIROLI: 1513. Bec--he was liberated, thanks to the amnesty because a member of the Medici family became pope with the name of Leo X. So there was great--there were great festivities in Florence and they--and of course, the election of the Medici pope meant that the regime of the Medici Florence were felt to be much safer. Therefore, it could afford...

Prof. VIROLI: That's a new--that's a--a question that--on which tons of ink have been that--which tons of ink has been--have been used in order to try to answer. Some scholars maintain that he w--had ideologies of his own, not Catholic. He disliked the Roman church. He despised Christianity, the ethos of Christianity. He writes in the "Discourses on Livy," his major work, he says that Christianity has the great responsibility of having made the world weak, because Chris--Christian religion teaches human beings to be humble, to suffer, that there is dignity in suffering, that their sufferance will be rewarded in the afterlife. I don't think Niccolo was religious in--as a Christian or as a Catholic. Did he entertain a Christian or religious hope for salvation? My answer is that he didn't. In fact, if there is one figure, one name that is remarkably absent from his works, and from his letter is Jesus. Can you be a Christian without taking Jesus, the figure of Jesus, the Redeemer, the Savior?

I think that he never became religious, not even in his last years. And there--here I enter in a very difficult terrain because there are scholars who have claimed that Niccolo, in--at the end of his life, had a moral and religious crisis. He became religious. I think on the contra--on the contrary that certainly until 1521, that is to say, six years before his death, he showed no sign of religious conversion.

And we have evidences that he was still Niccolo, the irreverent, the anti-Christian. And the evidence is a letter from a man who knew Niccolo very well, intelligent, astute, cold, powerful, Guicciardini--Francesco Guicciardini, one of the greatest Italian political thinkers of the time. And Guicciardini says, `Now that you're in Carpi'--he was involved in a strange mission in a monastery, having to do with monks all day. Guicciardini says, `Be careful not to become devout, because you are dealing every day with monks. Because since you have lived all your life as a non-religious person, if you now become--if you now convert yourself and you become a devout, people will say that your conversion is not the result of the fact that you're good. It's the result of your senility. People will think that you have turned senile.' And what he did in Carpi to the monks, shows that he was not very keen to become religious. In fact, he spent most of his time plotting jokes against the monks, hilarious jokes, pranks.

Then we have the story of Niccolo's dream. Friends--it's a--it's a story--there are some evidences, but not compelling evidences that on his death bed Machiavelli described the dream that he had, and the moral of the dream was that Machiavelli openly said to his friends that when he--he said, `When I die, I don't want to go to paradise. I want to go to hell, because it's much more interesting a place. And in hell, I can talk to the great people of antiquity,' the people he loved. My last remark on your question, `Was he religious?' is the following: I think Niccolo did not believe in God, though he spoke a lot about God from political point of view, because Niccolo did not need God in order to attain a kind of transcendence, infinity. For him great pages, thinking about grand political ideas, composing books that would last was his way of attaining glory. And glory means that you survive time. He didn't need God.

Prof. VIROLI: I do. I do.

Prof. VIROLI: Teaching at Princeton has been, for me, a spectacular experience, a spectacular experience. What students in the--I teach large courses, courses like political theory. This year I have about 300 students. What do they say about Machiavelli? Some of them say, `No, Professor Viroli, you're wrong.' You know that American students, they do not hesitate to question the professor, which would be a scandal by Italian standards. Some say, `No, Professor Viroli, Machiavelli is a teacher of evil. He is immoral.' But others say, `Niccolo deserves admiration because he was courageous. He said what the other political theorists did not want to say about politics. He has uncovered to us the real meaning of political action, both the greatness of politics and the horrors of politics. In any case, Machiavelli has showed us with the ambivalent--the ambivalent greatness of politics in bad terms and in good terms.' So I get, as you would say, mixed comments from the students.

Prof. VIROLI: Niccolo Machiavelli served as a secretary of the Republic of Florence from 1498 through November 1512. That is about 15 years. Then he was dismissed when the new regime replaced the--the--a regime controlled by the family of Namidici replaced the republic for which Machiavelli was working. Machiavelli never had direct political power. He was an adviser. He--his job was to, say, go to France, go to Rome and meet the king of France or meet the pope and report back in writing. So when people say Machiavelli was a politician, it's not correct. He was--he could not make a single decision. Other--other leaders, other committees were deciding on the basis of his letters, but he had no political power whatsoever. Then from 1512 until very late, until 1525, he was in disgrace. He had no relevant political positions. None. And...

Prof. VIROLI: He had ve--he was penniless. In order to make money--well, he was living out of his possessions. He had some land south of Florence in Sant'edrine Pucacina, some land, so he had wood, the products of--he had chicken. He--he was--he says in a letter, `In the evening, when I sit with my family, we eat the little that we can afford.' All his letters to his family are letters that end with recommendation, try to spend as little as possible.

Prof. VIROLI: Yeah. I have--I live with a companion in Italy.

Prof. VIROLI: No. I do not have children of my own.

Prof. VIROLI: I spend a lot of time in Italy, because I am involved in some kind of civic activities. Because I think that the duty of a scholar is not simply--scholar who studies political theory, is not simply to write books and to teach, but also to be active. By being active, I mean taking position on political and moral issues. In my case, on political and moral issues in Italy, speaking up, trying to criticize.

Prof. VIROLI: No, I don't belong to a party. I belong to a cultural association that dates back to the old days of the resurgemente. It's a secular, liberal association, small, prestigious, not powerful. What do we do? Our goal has always been to try to keep alive a civic culture. By civic culture, I mean, a culture or a mode of life based on the idea that to be a citizen does not simply mean to have rights, but also to have duties, responsibilities, doesn't simply--to be a citizen does not simply mean that they owe something to you. It also means that if you want to remain free, if you want to live in a decent society, you have to be prepared to give something, give your intelligence, your time, your strength, your courage. And in order to do that, I go to Italy. I write for a newspaper. I'm a columnist.

Prof. VIROLI: La Stampa of Turin.

Prof. VIROLI: No, no. A columnist.

Prof. VIROLI: They were. They were. And I--I, too, was a member of the Communist Party. That's a funny story. I think another time I might reveal it.

Prof. VIROLI: Ravenna.

Prof. VIROLI: The mayor of Ravenna was my great friend, Pier Paolo D'Attorre. He was few years older than me; he died some years ago. He was a brilliant historian and at certain time in his life he decided to become the mayor of his own city, Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast. And for me, Pier Paolo D'Attorre remains the example of a person who entered in politics in order to do some good to his own city, to his own people, to build a city that is beautiful because it is just, that is pleasant because it's dignified and it is dignified because it is a city that takes care above all of those who are weak. Pier Paolo D'Attorre, in my mind, my judgment is the best example of what a democratic politician should be.

Prof. VIROLI: Thank you.