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Are you sure that it's by Joly? I can't find any reference in any of the Wikipedia articles (English, German, French) to him being responsible, though a 2004 Repubblica article says
Dicendo che è questo il modello cui s' è ispirato Berlusconi, si deve anche dire che il Dialogo di Joly non risulta tra i suoi "testi" di riferimento. Il Dialogo di Joly no, ma una delle sue fonti principali invece sì: Il Principe di Niccolò Machiavelli annotato da Napoleone Buonaparte, archetipo della sinergia machiavel-bonapartista, che Berlusconi pubblicò come «dono di Natale 1992-Capodanno 1993» per «gli amici più cari».

[...]

Quanto al fatto che il commento al Principe di Napoleone Buonaparte sia un falso, non sembrava turbare più che tanto il futuro capo di Forza Italia, che scrive: «è una singolare strumentalizzazione politica di una grande autorità culturale: un' ulteriore testimonianza delle fortune de Il Principe»

The only other reference to the annotated edition I could find was a Spanish translation for sale on Amazon with no indication that it's a forgery (and the Napoleon in question is Buonaparte).
by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Wed Mar 10th, 2010 at 05:20:01 PM EST
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When I was in secondary school I had to do a term paper on The Prince and the edition I read was the one annotated by Napoleon (Bonaparte).

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Mar 10th, 2010 at 07:42:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm wrong. The Repubblica article you cite may be the cause of my confusion of the false Machiavelli translated and annotated by Napoleon with Maurice Joly. Over time I confounded the two.

The false version was likely written by Aimé Guillon. It was published in 1817. In the decades following Napoleon's defeat there was an enormous production of false works and paraphernalia attributed to Napoleon. The alleged original book and Guillon's copy have never been found.

The history of the Spanish version is interesting: the Napoleonic version was translated in the 1930's and apparently had enough success to continue to be republished. The controversy over its falsehood seems not to have touched Spain. In France Jean de Bonnot published the text in 1985 asserting that it was authentic. However, researchers now agree it is false, remarking that de Bonnot had "stacked the deck" by making a false claim about an inventory in the Bibliotheque Nationale dated 1827.

The Berlusconi version makes no secret that the annotations are false. The book is presently very difficult to find. The original was a limited edition (1000 copies) while the version put in commerce is long out of print.  

The forgery is considered to be very astute to the point it could have been written by Napoleon but I think we will have to call Borges on that.

by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Thu Mar 11th, 2010 at 05:20:52 PM EST
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