The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 1, The Renaissance by Skinner Quentin

Author:Skinner, Quentin [Skinner, Quentin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1978-11-30T06:00:00+00:00

THE CONTRIBUTION OF HUMANISM

Although the contribution of scholastic legal and political ideas to the revival of Republicanism at the start of the sixteenth century was of more significance than is sometimes allowed, it is of course true that the most important works of Republican political theory written at this time were generally cast in a humanist rather than a scholastic mould. The main influence on the evolution of Republicanism during this later period was undoubtedly exercised by the writings of the so-called ‘civic’ humanists of early quattrocento Florence – Salutati, Bruni, Poggio and their various followers. It was essentially the recovery and development of their outlook which gave rise to the last and greatest works of Renaissance political theory, including the Republican treatises of Guicciardini and Machiavelli. It is this tradition of argument which we next need to investigate as a conclusion to our survey of Italian Renaissance political thought.

The beginnings of the revival of Florentine Republicanism can be discerned a whole generation before the anti-Medicean coup of 1494. A sense of outrage at the Medici had been growing at least since 1458, when Cosimo had made his first decisive move in the direction of imposing a ‘tyrannical’ regime. This prompted a number of writers to respond by reviving the ideology of ‘civic’ humanism. One of the earliest was Francesco Patrizi (1413–92), who composed a major treatise on The Institution of a Republic in the 1460s before eventually reconciling himself to writing in the manner of an adviser to princes in his later work on The Kingdom and the Education of the King. The same values were kept alive in the 1470s by Alamanno Rinuccini (1419–99), a correspondent of Patrizi’s and a virulent enemy of the Medici, who released a deliberately inflammatory tract On Liberty in 1479 (Kristeller, 1965, p. 46). And a similar line of criticism was propagated by Donato Acciaiuoli (1429–78) in his commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, as well as in the history of Rome’s campaigns against Carthage which he produced in the 1470s (Baron, 1966, p. 437).

But the main efflorescence of Republican political theory occurred in the generation after the return of the Medici in 1512. The defenders of Florence’s traditional liberties were animated during this period by three main considerations: the memory of the successful restoration of the Republic between 1494 and 1512; the hope of overturning the government of the Medici once again – a hope which was duly fulfilled in 1527; and the need in the meantime to maintain a spirit of opposition to their allegedly ‘despotic’ and ‘tyrannical’ practices. The outcome was the most intensive and influential analysis of Republican political principles to appear in early modern Europe.

The chief forum for the discussion of these ideas was provided by the meetings which took place at the Orti Oricellari, the gardens on the outskirts of Florence owned by Cosimo Rucellai, an aristocratic opponent of the restored Medici regime (Gilbert, 1949, pp. 101, 118). Amongst the leading anti-Medicean theorists who took part in

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