5 - Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo's Rereading of the Prince

Summary

Juan Pablo Mârtir Rizo was a well-known intellectual and historian at court who favored the Count-Duke of Olivares. He dedicated his Norte de principes, published by Diego Flamenco in Madrid in 1626, to don Diego de Corral y Avellano, member of the Council of Castile and author of the famous consulta of 1619, which had proposed to Philip III remedies for the “illness” of his kingdoms toward the end of his reign. Later Mártir Rizo was a personal correspondent and advisor to the Count-Duke of Olivares himself. In 1632, one “Pablo Riccio” was accused of keeping “libros politicos y en particular los machabellos, u otros prohibidos,” and his home was searched. Although the results of this search are now unknown, Mártir Rizo's Norte de principes constitutes a close rereading of the Prince, adapting Machiavelli's text, almost chapter by chapter, to his readers' Catholic, imperialist worldview.

At the very beginning of his treatise, Mártir Rizo offers his readers a warning: “En estos discursos Politicos, hallaran los ingenios maliciosos ocasion en que derramarse, yo los disculpo, con el conocimiento de mi propia ignorancia.” He also acknowledges that he has taken much from those who have written previously on politics: “Aquellos que hazen estimacion de los escritos agenos tendran razon de agradecer estos cuidados, por ser el alma de muchos varones que es-criuieron Policia, ya sean Latinos, Franceses, Italianos, o Españoles, a quien he vsurpado los mejores conceptos.”