Hello and welcome to this episode of Chronicles where today we're going to be talking all about

The Mandrake by Niccolo Machiavelli. Yes, that's Machiavelli.

He also, it turns out, wrote plays, comedies, in fact. And here today joining me to talk all

about the comedy of Machiavelli is Stelios. Thank you for joining me, sir. You're welcome. I'm

really looking forward to it. I have to say that I hadn't read the play. Thank you for joining me, sir. You're welcome. I'm really looking forward to it.

I have to say that I hadn't read the play, and you suggested us to do it, and I said yes.

Yes, you did. And I really enjoyed it. It's great, isn't it? Well, I find that it's a facet of

Machiavelli that is really underappreciated. Obviously, you know, not saying that the stuff that

he's most well known for, the discourses and the prince and the art of war, that these things aren't

remarkable, you know, in their own right. But the fact that he also was able to write,

and also the thing to bear in mind, not just that he was able to write

theatre, but theatre that was successful. This sold really well. Lots and lots of people

went to go and see the Mandrake. It was performed for got many, many years of performance

out of it, even after Machiavelli died, it was a very, very popular play.

And, you know, it was quite a wit that Machiavelli.

He was always cracking jokes.

And that's a sign of intelligence.

If you can make it in two different...

If you can make it in some cases, it's a sign that, you know, something's going right.

Something's going well.

Yeah, definitely. But if you can make it in several genres, that's a sign of intelligence.

Right. And what's more as well, Machiavelli, at the time of this play, had many personal reasons for doing all of the writing that you did. So historians and people who study this sort of thing professionally

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