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R E NA I S S A N C E C I V I C H U M A N I S M
Reappraisals and Reflections
Civic humanism has been one of the most influential of all concepts in the history of ideas. In this volume, an eminent team of
political theorists and historians have been brought together to
reassess the impact on the subject of the pioneering work of Hans
Baron () and J. G. A. Pocock (), creating a fresh intellectual landscape in which Renaissance civic humanism can be discussed.
Drawing from medieval to early modern traditions of political
thought, this book evaluates civic humanism in the light of the
emergence of oligarchy, imperialism, patronage politics, and the
Medici ascendancy in Florence in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. It proposes new understandings of the evolution of important republican concepts such as liberty, the rule of law, virtue,
and the common good. This thought-provoking collection represents a significant contribution to the study of republican political
ideology in the Renaissance and modern periods.
          is Professor of History at Harvard University.
His publications include Plato in the Italian Renaissance,  vols. (Brill,
), and numerous studies on Renaissance humanism and Platonism. He is the General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library.
© Cambridge University Press
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0521548071 - Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections - Edited by
James Hankins
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  
Edited by Q      S      (General Editor),
L       D    , D    R   and J    T 
The books in this series will discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and
of related new disciplines. The procedures, aims and vocabularies that were
generated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the
contemporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies of
the evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences,
it is hoped that a new picture will form of the development of ideas in their
concrete contexts. By this means, artificial distinctions between the history of
philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature may
be seen to dissolve.
The series is published with the support of the Exxon Foundation.
A list of books in the series will be found at the end of the volume.
© Cambridge University Press
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0521548071 - Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections - Edited by
James Hankins
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RENAISSANCE CIVIC
HUMANISM
Reappraisals and Reflections
      
J A M ES HA N K I N S
© Cambridge University Press
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PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
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© Cambridge University Press 2000
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2000
First paperback edition 2003
Typeset in Baskerville 11/12.5 pt [VN ]
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections / edited by James Hankins.
p. cm. – (Ideas in Context; 57)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0 521 78090 X hardback
1. Italy – Politics and government – 1268–1559. 2. Humanism – Italy. 3. Renaissance – Italy.
4. Republicanism – Italy – History. I. Hankins, James. II. Series.
DG533.R44 2000
320´0945´09024–dc21 99-057079
ISBN 0 521 78090 X hardback
ISBN 0 521 54807 1 paperback
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Contents
List of contributors
page ix

Introduction
James Hankins
 The republican idea
William J. Connell

 ‘‘Civic humanism’’ and medieval political thought
James M. Blythe

 Civic humanism and Florentine politics
John M. Najemy

 The two myths of civic humanism
Mikael Hörnqvist
 Rhetoric, history, and ideology: the civic panegyrics of
Leonardo Bruni
James Hankins
 De-masking Renaissance republicanism
Alison Brown
 Civic humanism, realist constitutionalism, and Francesco
Guicciardini’s Discorso di Logrogno
Athanasios Moulakis
 Bruni and Machiavelli on civic humanism
Harvey C. Mansfield
 Rhetoric, reason, and republic: republicanisms – ancient,
medieval, and modern
Cary J. Nederman






vii
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viii
Contents
 Situating Machiavelli
Paul A. Rahe

Index of manuscripts and archival documents
General index


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Contributors
    .     , Professor of History at the University of Memphis,
is the author of Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages
(), and has recently translated Ptolemy of Lucca’s On the Government of
Rulers ().
    , Professor of Italian Renaissance History in the University of London, is the author of Bartolomeo Scala, –, Chancellor
of Florence: The Humanist as Bureaucrat () and The Medici in Florence: The
Exercise of Language and Power (). She has recently edited Guicciardini’s Dialogue on the Government of Florence for the series Cambridge Texts
in the History of Political Thought ().
      .   , the Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta
Chair in Italian Studies in the History Department at Seton Hall
University, is author of La città dei crucci () and editor (with Andrea
Zorzi) of Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power (). He has
written numerous articles on the history of the Renaissance, and he is
Secretary to the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Ideas.
   , Professor of History at Harvard University, is the
author of Plato in the Italian Renaissance,  vols. (), and numerous
studies on Renaissance humanism and Platonism. He is the General
Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library.
     ̈      , Researcher in the Department of the History of
Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, is the author of Machiavelli and
the Romans () and a number of essays on Renaissance political
thought.
   .      , William R. Kenan Professor of Government
at Harvard University, is the author of numerous books and articles on
modern political thought, including Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders: A
ix
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x
List of contributors
Study of the Discourses () and Machiavelli’s Virtue (). He has translated Machiavelli’s Prince () and Discourses (with Nathan Tarcov,
) for the University of Chicago Press and the Histories (with Laura F.
Banfield, ) for Princeton University Press.
      , Herbst Professor of Humanities at the University of Colorado, is the author of Homonoia: Eintracht und die Entwicklung
eines politischen Bewusstseins (); Beyond Utility: Liberal Education for a
Technological Age (); Simone Weil and the Politics of Self-Denial ();
Republican Realism in Renaissance Florence: Francesco Guicciardini’s Discorso di
Logrogno () and numerous essays on the history of political thought.
   .   , Professor of History at Cornell University, is the
author of Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, –
() and Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli–
Vettori Letters of – (), and numerous essays on Florentine
history and on Machiavelli.
   .       teaches political science at the University of
Arizona. The author or editor of nine books, most recently, Worlds of
Difference: European Discourses of Toleration, – (), he has also
published more than sixty journal articles and book chapters, including
contributions to American Political Science Review, Journal of the History of
Ideas, and Political Theory.
   .  , Jay P. Walker Professor of History at the University of
Tulsa, is the author of Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism
and the American Revolution (), and numerous articles on ancient,
European, and American political thought.
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