Human potential and meritorious leadership in Anna Komnene, Giovanni Boccaccio and Niccolò Machiavelli

By Michail Theodosiadis

Publication Date: 2024

This article identifies a shared set of political concerns present in Anna’s oeuvre with Giovanni Bocaccio’s and Niccolò Machiavelli’s texts . It examines Komnene’s 282 social background, focusing squarely on the literary culture of Byzantine society. It also demonstrates that Komnene’s views on leadership have much in common with those developed by Machiavelli (as outlined in The Discourses and, to a degree, in his misunderstood Prince) and Boccaccio (consider, for example, his famous Decameron). Komnene utilised a distinctly humanist lexicon to craft the image of her father. This image, I explain, approaches those figures Machiavelli and Boccaccio depicted as the prototypes of meritorious leadership.