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Ada Palmer

Ada Palmer

@ada-palmer · 37 positions · On ppll ↗

Historian of the Renaissance and of the history of ideas, professor at the University of Chicago, author of Inventing the Renaissance and the Terra Ignota novels, and writer of the blog Ex Urbe.

Ada Palmer did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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  1. Our reading

    A government only has legitimacy through long continuity, and once that thread is cut one regime change reliably becomes five.

    government

    Their wordsWhen you break that, when you overthrow the ruler, when you dissolve the republic, when you put in a new thing, it doesn't have that same staying power. And so, it's very common when there's one regime change for there to then be five regime changes rapid-fire over and over.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:00:52 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 1st of 26 in this recording

  3. Our reading

    The papacy made Italy uniquely unstable in Europe, because each new pope inherited a precedent that he could overthrow any government he liked.

    governmentEurope

    Their wordsAnd soon we have a precedent that every new pope feels he has the authority to knock down every pawn upon the chessboard if he feels like it. Once that is the norm, even a fairly nice pope still inherits the idea that the pope is going to overthrow and replace governments. And this creates a unique instability within Italy that no other part of Europe is subject to
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:03:25 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 2nd of 26 in this recording

  5. Our reading

    The moral Machiavelli draws from the Borgias is that we should imitate them: they fell to fortune, not to their choices.

    Their wordsThey fell because half of what happens in the world is never in our control. And you can do everything right and it's out of your control, but we have to evaluate what would have happened and therefore we should imitate them, because everything they did was right.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:14:54 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording

  7. Our reading

    Whether breaking your word destroys you depends on the shape of your power: Savonarola’s rested on never erring, so his contradictions ruined him.

    Their wordsAnd so his power base was fragile vis-a-vis untruth. And for him because of the specific shape of his power and then the specific way he handled his contradictions, that did hurt him.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:17:04 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 4th of 26 in this recording

  9. Our reading

    Machiavelli is the first person in the European tradition to suggest that two political parties could exist in one state at once and be viable.

    Europe

    Their wordsMachiavelli is the first person that we have ever in the European tradition to suggest that it could be viable for there to be more than one political party in a state at the same time.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:20:02 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 5th of 26 in this recording

  11. Our reading

    By Machiavelli's day the Guelph and Ghibelline split had no doctrinal content left in it: it meant only that those people murdered Uncle Tibalt.

    politics

    Their wordsThese are the two factions for which these parties fought originally. 300 years ago, these days what these factions actually mean is those jerks murdered Uncle Tibalt and we will never forgive them.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:27:59 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 6th of 26 in this recording

  13. Our reading

    Corrupting the church was a prisoner's dilemma: a duke who declined to bribe the pope while his enemies bribed him was simply beaten.

    Their wordsIt even becomes a kind of a prisoner's dilemma system because if you're the duke and you don't manipulate the papacy, if you don't bribe the pope, if you don't work hard to get your brother to be bishop, and your enemies do, you're screwed.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:33:42 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 7th of 26 in this recording

  15. Our reading

    Machiavelli held that every institution is gradually corrupted and must be reformed back to its foundations or collapse under the weight of that corruption.

    Their wordsAll institutions are gradually corrupted and need to be reformed and returned to their foundations, or they will collapse under the weight of their corruption.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:35:29 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 8th of 26 in this recording

  17. Our reading

    Patronage in Renaissance Italy was not merely more prominent than in our world — it was the fundamental glue of the society rather than one glue among several.

    Their wordsWell, it's it's not that it was just more prominent, but it was the fundamental glue of the society as opposed to one of several glues of the society.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:36:23 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 9th of 26 in this recording

  19. Our reading

    Romans rioted to demand more nepotism from their pope, because only a man's own son could be trusted not to turn the army against him.

    Their wordsTherefore, by popular demand, the people want more nepotism because the system depends on it.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:37:37 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

  21. Our reading

    Medieval law codes prescribed death for almost everything and almost never delivered it, and the reason is patronage rather than mercy.

    Their wordsAnd then you look at the actual trial records, and maybe one in a hundred convictions for that crime actually ends in a capital sentence. And almost all of the other ones end in a fine or a public flogging, but not in the sentence that's on the books.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:39:16 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 11th of 26 in this recording

  23. Our reading

    Before the Enlightenment the point of a trial was not proportional justice but the interior spiritual correction of the sinner's soul.

    Their wordsThe ideal of this period's justice which is much more shaped by Christianity is the purpose of the trial is the spiritual interior correction of the soul of the sinner.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:41:19 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 12th of 26 in this recording

  25. Our reading

    Giordano Bruno went to the stake because he had lost his patron, not because his thought had finally grown too radical.

    Their wordsAnd the reason that trial goes all the way to a capital sentence is that he doesn't have a patron. He's the 99th case that time.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:44:13 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 13th of 26 in this recording

  27. Our reading

    Cesare Borgia's conquered cities loved him because an outsider with no local faction gave them the first neutral justice they had seen in generations.

    Their wordsAnd everyone says, "Why are they liking this man? He is a cruel murdering tyrant." And the answer is for the first time in generations, they have had something close to fair justice.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:51:02 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 14th of 26 in this recording

  29. Our reading

    For Machiavelli a man who can be killed on somebody's word is a slave, and a man protected by a system — however unfair that system is — is free.

    Their wordsIf there is a system, then you have liberty. That system may be unfair. It may be biased. It may be, in Machiavelli's case, the very system that tortured and exiled him.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:54:07 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 15th of 26 in this recording

  31. Our reading

    Renaissance art was not made out of a surplus left over from war — it was diplomacy, and diplomacy was cheaper than the armies Florence could never afford.

    Their wordsThey're using the art to do diplomacy and so in one sense if you're not doing the art you would have to spend more on the war. It's not that the art is being made from a surplus of the war.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 0:59:49 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 16th of 26 in this recording

  33. Our reading

    The Renaissance did not put human potential in the future: backwards was forwards, and the highest thing people could imagine being was Rome again.

    Their wordsthis is a period in which backwards is forwards, which is to say this is not a period that like us thinks of the future as where potential is and humanity might get better and better over time. The potential of humanity is recapturing Rome.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:01:32 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 17th of 26 in this recording

  35. Our reading

    Renaissance Christianity assumed that nobody was ever pure — everybody sins constantly, repents, and sins again — which is why its hypocrisy looks so strange to us.

    Their wordsThe assumption is everybody sins all the time. There is no such thing as purity. Everybody sins every 5 minutes.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:11:30 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 18th of 26 in this recording

  37. Our reading

    The word Machiavellian means self-serving, and Machiavelli himself was one of the most selfless men in recorded history.

    Their wordsThis is why it's so weirdly ironic to me that the reputation, the word Machiavellian, right, means self-serving. When Machiavelli himself is one of the most selfless men I've ever read about in the history of the earth.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:21:01 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 19th of 26 in this recording

  39. Our reading

    A book of radically unusual ideas drifts unread for centuries until a decade's new questions happen to be answered inside it, and then everyone reads it at once.

    Their wordsIt is often the case that a work which contains radically unusual ideas will drift along being not particularly zoomed in on by society and not widely read until it hits a moment that the new questions being asked in that century or that decade are answered by something in that text.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:28:28 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 20th of 26 in this recording

  41. Our reading

    Every new information technology is followed by a wave of censorship in which a great many books are banned at once.

    censorship

    Their wordsmini thesis, every time there's a new information technology, there's a subsequent wave of censorship to try to censor the new technology and a bajillion books get banned all at once.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:30:27 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 21st of 26 in this recording

  43. Our reading

    Machiavelli's first surge in readership came from people trying to refute Hobbes, not from anybody who agreed with him.

    Their wordsAnd so Machiavelli is suddenly useful not to people who sympathize with him but to people who see him as an enemy.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:33:07 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 22nd of 26 in this recording

  45. Our reading

    The Renaissance is not two hundred years of people being wrong about Plato; it is two hundred years of original thought using the ancients as a trellis.

    Their wordsWhat it is is 200 years of original thought using the ancients as the trellis up which the rose climbs in order to bloom.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:49:23 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 23rd of 26 in this recording

  47. Our reading

    Copyright was born out of the Inquisition: the record of having passed censorship was the first document proving an exclusive right to print.

    censorship

    Their wordsand you may now use the actual Inquisition record of you having gone through censorship as the document to prove that you and only you have the right to print the book and therefore you can sue people for plagiarizing it or printing an unauthorized edition. And so, the very first version of copyright is the Inquisition.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:53:26 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 24th of 26 in this recording

  49. Our reading

    The Inquisition's image as one centralised power is its own propaganda: it was scattered isolated men who could act only as far as a local government would fund them.

    government

    Their wordsThe Inquisition, the Vatican, it controls everything, which is completely untrue and is propagandistic. The Inquisition is overseen by a whole bunch of isolated guys who are in isolated towns and it takes weeks or months to even communicate with the Vatican and they're making their own decisions.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 1:56:16 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 25th of 26 in this recording

  51. Our reading

    The Prince is not a manual for getting ahead: it is a manual for how a government keeps power and protects the lives of its people.

    government

    Their wordsIt shouldn't It shouldn't be shelved next to How to Win Friends and Influence People because it's a manual not of how to gain power, but of how to keep power.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 2:03:28 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmeryoutube.com 26th of 26 in this recording

  52. 6 years earlier

  53. Our reading

    A mass death does not by itself produce a boom afterwards: expecting a pandemic to renew an economy on its own misreads what followed the Black Death.

    demographics

    Their wordsUsing history to understand our present is a great impulse, but it means some of the false myths we tell about the Black Death and Renaissance are doing new damage, one of the most problematic in my view being the idea that sitting back and letting COVID kill will somehow by itself naturally make the economy turn around and enter a period of growth and rising wages.

    ↗Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Agesexurbe.com 1st of 6 in this piece

  55. Our reading

    The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.

    Europe

    Their wordsAs a Renaissance historian, I feel it’s my job to shoulder the other half of the load by talking about what the Renaissance was like, confirming that our Medievalists are right, it wasn’t a better time to live than the Middle Ages

    ↗Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Agesexurbe.com 2nd of 6 in this piece

  57. Our reading

    The golden-Renaissance myth damages our understanding of the Renaissance itself as badly as it damages our understanding of the Middle Ages.

    Europe

    Their wordswhile the myth of the golden Renaissance does terrible damage to how we understand the Middle Ages, it does just as much damage to how we understand the Renaissance.

    ↗Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Agesexurbe.com 3rd of 6 in this piece

  59. Our reading

    Life expectancy in Italy fell sharply between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from 35-40 years in the 1200s to 18 by 1500.

    Europedemographics

    Their wordsIn Italy, average life expectancies in the solidly Medieval 1200s were 35-40, while by the year 1500 (definitely Renaissance) life expectancy in Italian city states had dropped to 18.

    ↗Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Agesexurbe.com 4th of 6 in this piece