Simonetta Adorni Braccesi and Mario Ascheri, eds., Politica e
Cultura nelle Repubbliche italiane dal Medioevo all’Età Moderna.
Firenze, Genova, Lucca, Siena, Venezia. Atti del convegno (Siena
1997), (Rome:
Istituto storico italiano per l’Età Moderna e
Contemporanea, 2001), xv + 360pp.
The aim of the conference whose proceedings are published in this book
was to bring together the study of political ideas and of the politics and
institutions in which those ideas were manifested. In itself, this is a
fruitful approach to the study of political ideas, and can provide relief
from endless reworking of canonical texts of ‘political thought’. In this
case, it was used with the contemporary problems of Italian politics in
mind, to see what the experience of Italian republics from the fourteenth
to the sixteenth centuries could show about the nature of republicanism.
This project is particularly dear to the heart of two of the
organizers of the conference, Mario Ascheri, who combines an active
career in teaching, writing and research with passionate engagement in
contemporary political issues, and Maurizio Viroli, whose study of
political ideas in Renaissance Italy is consciously informed by a wish to
contribute to the revival of political values in contemporary Italy. In his
summary of the ideas discussed in the contributions, Viroli draws the
lesson that republican values start with local government and that liberty
depends on readiness to serve the public good; and in his essay on
Machiavelli he argues that at the heart of Machiavelli’s reflections on
government was an emphasis on government by law and the priority of
the common good—not what most people would understand as
‘Machiavellian’. Ascheri discusses the government of the Nove in Siena
in the fourteenth century, arguing that the Nove stressed communal
values and government for the public benefit.
Two papers discuss the famous frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
commissioned by the Nove (the papers were given under the frescoes
themselves). Quentin Skinner reiterates his analysis of the frescoes in
terms of the literature on good government produced in such texts as
manuals of advice for podestà, rather than in terms of Thomist and
Aristotelian concepts; while Maria Monica Donato passionately repeats
her objections to his thesis. She also complain about English-speaking
historians ignoring and undervaluing the Italian literature on the subject, a
comment other Italian scholars might feel inclined to make about the
literature in their own fields.
Three British scholars contributed to the conference, all speaking
wholly or in the main about Florence. In his characteristically erudite
paper on the medieval origins of fifteenth-century republican thought,
Nicolai Rubenstein’s discussion of the practical manifestations of
republican ideas is very largely drawn from Florentine examples. The
reality behind the language and images of republicanism in late fifteenthcentury and early-sixteenth century Florence, and how the images and
rhetoric of libertà were appropriated by the Medici, is the subject of
Alison Brown’s paper. Humfrey Butters summarizes the changes during
what have often been called the periods of ‘republican’ government in
Florence, between periods of Medici dominance of the city, from 1494 to
1512, and from 1527 to 1530.
There are two contributions on Genoa, a state whose political
institutions have received little attention. Arturo Pacini, who has
produced an invaluable series of studies of Genoa in the first half of the
sixteenth century, argues that despite a reputation for instability and the
proliferation of factions, Genoese political life was marked by a search
for compromise and consensus. (This view is shared by other historians
of Renaissance Genoa, but may have to struggle to displace the traditional
characterization of Genoese politics.) Riccardo Ferrante discusses the
‘Regulae’, written rules drawn up on several occasions in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, setting out how Genoa should be governed. He
stresses the importance of the concept of the accountability of officials
(including the Doge) for their actions, although the force of his argument
is weakened by his assumption that the Regulae represented how Genoese
government in fact worked—something that can never be taken for
granted and certainly not for the fifteenth century.
There is a two-handed contribution on Lucca, linking a summary
by Guja Simonetti of the changes in the government of the city between
the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, to a discussion by Simonetta
Adorni Braccesi of Lucca as an Imperial city in the sixteenth century, and
the accretion of religious to republican ideals. It is not clear what is
gained by combining these two contributions: it might have been
preferable to have two separate articles. The last major republic, Venice,
is covered by a discussion by Matteo Casini of some aspects of Venetian
political ideals in the Renaissance. He highlights the themes of how the
peculiar origins of the city were seen as determining the character of the
republic; its providential role as the guardian of libertà; and Venice as
the model of a ‘mixed’ state combining elements of monarchy,
aristocracy and popular government.
Combining recapitulation of some well-known themes with fresh
insights, together the papers in this volume constitute a valuable addition
to the literature on political thought in Renaissance Italy—not least
because of the rarity of books bringing together consideration of all five
major republics of Renaissance Italy.
Christine Shaw
University of Warwick