Although most of what Machiavelli says applies more to despotic regimes, he does indicate his support for what he calls in Latin a Principatus Civilis, a civil principality, that is one that respects the rights and traditions of citizens.
Rather than present the entire alphabet with pronunciation, let us start with the vowels.
I have been asked more than once to clarify what is meant by faith, hope and charity. Faith and hope seem, in English at least, to overlap: If I have faith that my friend will pick me up for work in the morning, doesn’t that mean that I hope he picks me up?
Many modern Italian series for Americans avoid grammar. While this makes it easy at first, it becomes tedious and time-consuming as one goes on. Italian, though it has lost most of the declensional forms of nouns, adjectives and pronouns, has retained most of the active verbal system of Latin and added on tense: The Conditional. By learning the grammatical terms from the beginning, students will make rapid progress.
The American republic was founded, for the most part, by men with fine classical training, and anyone who takes the trouble to read the correspondence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson will see that their conversation is studded with discussions of points of grammar, ancient history,
I have been long considering a not too formal Italian class, partly to help people intending to participate in one of our Italian programs. When I proposed it recently, I received one positive response from the Cornells–at least from Papa Cornell.
Bowing to popular demand, the program in October we are planning will be held in Tuscany. My current thinking is to stay for 3-4 days in Florence and Arezzo, and from those bases we shall visit a few smaller places. Possible destinations include Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Pistoia.
Karl White writes in to ask which translations of Herodotus and Thucydides I recommend. In some ways, I am not the best person to ask, since I do not spend much time reading translations, but I have used a number of translations of the historians for classes.
So begins an epic poem that many readers even today regard as the best work of literature that has ever been written, equalled only by the Odyssey. I never cared for such judgments—the most important theologian, the 3 greatest western movies ever made, the world’s best hotdog. I leave the making of lists to newly wed brides who torture their husbands with “Honey Do lists” they post on the bathroom mirror.
Anyone interested in the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans–the languages, the literature, history, philosophy, etc–may wish to visit the Autodidact on Fleming.Foundation.
