Clizia » (1st Edition)

Machiavelli writes in the prologue to Clizia that comedies were invented for the dual purpose of amusing and benefiting the audience. Clizia is no exception. It is a raucous comedy about love that extends to the scandalous, but it also contains a serious teaching about managing passions and relationships.In Clizia, as in the better-known Mandragola, Machiavelli intends reform through comedy. It is a reform that mixes liberation with techniques of management, an eerily contemporary reform of private life that complements Machiavelli s famous reforms of public life.