- Virgilio Malvezzi
Virgilio Malvezzi (1595-1653) was an Italian historian and essayist, soldier and diplomat, born in
Bologna . He became court historian toPhilip IV of Spain . He used the anagram-pseudonym Grivilio Vezzalmi.Life
He fought for the Spanish forces in
Flanders .Richard Tuck , "Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651" (1993), p. 74.]Olivares called him to
Madrid , where he arrived in 1636, to become the official chronicler to Philip IV. [J. H. Elliott , "Richelieu and Olivares" (1984), p. 168.] [J. H. Elliott, "Power and Propaganda in Spain of Philip IV", p. 166, in Sean Wilentz, "Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics Since the Middle Ages" (1999).] In 1640 he was one of the ambassadors sent by Philip to England, in an attempt to avert the marriage of Mary Stuart toWilliam II of Orange . [Michael Mendle, "Henry Parker and the English Civil War: The Political Thought of the Public's 'Privado' " (2003), pp. 12-13.]He became adviser to the
Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria from 1643.Writing
Initially he wrote on
Tacitus , in the tradition ofJustus Lipsius , but as a Christianneo-stoic , and anti-Ciceronian. [Adriana McCrea, "Constant Minds: Political virtue and the Lipsian paradigm in England, 1584-1650" (1997), p. 9, citing "Davide perseguitato".] Olivares, who became Malvezzi's patron, was also a Lipsian. [Elliott, p. 29-30.] His style imitated Tacitus, too, in its dour compression, and was criticized for its opacity by the translator Thomas Powell; another view is that his prose was "elegantly laconic". [George Alexander Kennedy, "The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism" vol. III (1989), p. 357.] [Jon R. Snyder,"Mare Magnum: the arts in the early modern age", p. 162, in John A. Marino, editor, "Early modern Italy" (2002).]John Milton referred to "Malvezzi, that can cut Tacitus into slivers and steaks". [John Milton, "Of Reformation in England", Book II, [http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1209&chapter=78003&layout=html&Itemid=27 online text] .]His political thought was in the tradition of
Machiavelli . [Mary Augusta Scott, "Elizabethan Translations from the Italian" (1969), p. 420.] His "Tarquin" argues the case for dissimulation in politics. [Sergio Zatti, "The Quest for Epic: From Ariosto to Tasso" (2006 translation by Dennis Looney, Sally Hill), p. 206.]His biography of Olivares ("Ritratto del Privata Politico Christiano") has been called hagiography. It argued that he was right to invoke the
reason of state on behalf of the Spanish Empire. [R. A. Stradling, "Spain's Struggle for Europe, 1598-1668" (1994), p. 130.]Works
He wrote in Italian and Spanish, and was early translated into Latin, Spanish, German and English, with a Dutch edition of 1679.
* Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito (1622)
* Il Romulo (1629),
* Il Tarquinio Superbo (1632)
* Davide perseguitato (1634)
* Il ritratto del privato politico christiano (1635)
* Succesi principali della Monarchia di Spagna nell'anno (1639)
* Considerationi con occasione d'alcuni luoghi delle vite d'Alcibiade e di Coriolano (1648)
* Introduttione al racconto De'principali successi accaduti sotto il comando del potentissimo Ré Filippo quarto (1651)Notes
Further reading
*Rodolfo Brandli (1964), "Virgilio Malvezzi, politico e moralista"
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