Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy

Harvard University history professor Hankins, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, illuminates the political theories of Italian Renaissance humanists in this exhaustive study. Modern scholars of the era have focused on anachronistic “ideas of liberty” and neglected other important strains of humanist thought, Hankins contends. Renaissance theorists conceived of freedom as a “fruit of virtue,” rather than a “natural right,” he claims, linking the concept of “virtue politics” to widespread corruption in 15th- and 16th-century Italy. Such philosophers as Flavio Biondo and Leonardo Brundi, Hankins writes, sought systematic political reform by reviving classical Greek and Roman culture, displacing heredity as the primary source of authority, and positing that laws were dependent on the “moral character” of rulers. Turning to Florentine statesman Niccolò Machiavelli, Hankins argues that his masterworks The Prince and Discourses are not as contradictory as they seem. In the former, Hankins writes, a “prudent ruler” foregoes his aspirations to moral probity in order to save his regime from external and internal threats. In the latter, a different set of needs (“to achieve great and long-lasting security and empire”) requires a more classically humanistic approach. Hankins’s clear chronology of events and tireless research lend credence to his analysis. This is a worthy contribution to the field of Renaissance studies. (Dec.)