Gli scritti di Paolo Mini e l’ideologia del “Principe repubblicano”: tra approssimazioni successive e necessitate ricomposizioni

Abstract

The essay analyses how the Florentine Paolo Mini elaborated the model of the “Principe repubblicano” (republican principality) in his writings such as the Difesa della città di Firenze e dei fiorentini (Lyon 1577). On the one hand, Mini – linked to the context of the anti-Medicean Florentine diaspora in France – proposed an idea of the “republican principality”  based on the continuity between the Florentine republican experience and the grand duchy of Cosimo I de’ Medici. On the other hand, Mini interpreted the foundation of the principality promoted by Cosimo as a “providential” turning point. Furthermore, a copy of the Difesa was in Gian Vincenzo Pinelli’s library and it might suggest some influence on the later unfinished treatise Della Potestà de’  prencipi (Potestà) drafted by Paolo Sarpi between 1610 and 1611.