Scritto da: Angelo Paratico
Fonte: http://beyondthirtynine.com/machiavelli-in-china/

Italians love celebrations, monuments, official ceremonies. They are, after all, a demonstration of democracy at work because they give a chance to everybody to become a president, vice president, member of the board, of something.

Now we know that we have a State sponsored committee for the celebrations of five centuries of the writing (not final editing, mind you!) of the Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527). Normally  it is the publication day that set in motion such celebrations (the Prince was published posthumous in 1532) but in our case someone inside a Ministry in Rome decided that it will be the ‘probable’ day of finishing of the manuscript that really count, even knowing that Machiavelli had worked on it well after 1513: the dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici was added later as well as the last chapter.

An article written by Dino Messina on the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera on May 26 informed the readers that the University of Tianjin in China has called an international meeting and Valdo Spini, a former PSI politician, now belonging to the PD (democratic party) was invited as president is the ‘Committee for the V centenary of the completing of the Prince.’ At the same time Messina was pointing out that in Italy we cannot find enough funds to publish the complete Opera Omnia by Machiavelli, an heroic work carried out  by the publishers ‘Salerno Editrice.’ Two years ago a professor of Italian at Strasbourg University, Emanuele Cutinelli Rendina, had revealed that the publication of Machiavelli’s diplomatic papers was made possible only because of the money provided by a Swiss based foundation.

http://lanostrastoria.corriere.it/2013/05/26/machiavelli-star-in-cina-ma-non-in-italia/

But here comes the catch: on the other side of the world, in China, there is a publisher, Jilin Publishing Group, in far away Jilin Province, bordering North Korea that is completing the translation in Chinese of the  Opera Omnia of the Florentine thinker.

I wrote a comment on Messina’s blog doubting that there is a sincere interest on Machiavelli in China, because in China no real connection with modern society will be possible, and not doing so the whole matter boil down to an exercise in Archaeology or a parade for the Made in Italy. Furthermore I was adding that in Italy only an elite really care about Machiavelli, proof is the fact that the little money needed to complete our critical Opera Omnia is still missing. On the other hand we spend money to send Valdo Spini to China…

Apparently on this point I was wrong, on the same blog the politician and the Italian Embassy in Beijing commented that no money was paid for this trip, being all provided by the Chinese university of Tianjin.

The title of such international meeting, staged on 25-26 May, was : ‘Machiavelli and Modern Politics: a quincentenary celebration.’ Again the story of the 500 years. But even not taking into consideration Valdo Spini the academic line up seems indeed impressive:

Diego Quaglioni – Università di Trento, James Hankins – University of Harvard, Peter Stacey – UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), Stephen J. Milner – University of Manchester, Valentina Lepri – Villa I Tatti, Nicoletta Marcelli – Villa I Tatti, Mark Jurdjevic – University of York (England).

I tried to locate some news about this event on the Chinese press but I was unable to locate anything which seems to confirm that few Chinese citizens are really interested in Machiavelli.

With my critical notes I don’t want to spoil this or any other celebration – I am myself guilty of having used the beginning of a 50 years period with friends as an excuse to get drunk – but as far as I am concerned I would prefer to wait the year 2032, the 500 years anniversary of the publishing of the Prince.