Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica

Il “Principe repubblicano”. Paolo Sarpi e altri teorici della sovranità (secc. XVI-XVII)

Alessia Ceccarelli — 2024-03-24

The concept of “Principe repubblicano” (“Republican absolutism” or “Republican principality”, as the case may be) aims to combine republicanism and absolutism and unites many theories on sovereignty elaborated in sixteenthand seventeenth-century Europe by thinkers of various profiles. This idea is in fact a hybrid that reflects the specific characteristics of the political-state context for which it was conceived: the Republics of Venice, Genoa and Holland, Florence (under Cosimo I de’ Medici), England (under James I Stuart). It is an ideology that seeks to overcome such a complex political-institutional turn of events that new and daring political instruments were needed. This
collection of contributions is primarily concerned with the most important of these ideological positions: the “Republican absolutism” by Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623), i.e. the Potestà (Della potestà de’ prencipi), an unfinished work, composed around 1610-11. Long thought to have been lost (or never existed), the Potestà came to light again in 2006, through the seventeenth-century copy identified by Nina Cannizzaro among the manuscripts of the Beinecke Library (Yale University). The political and literary issue revolving around Sarpi’s unfinished treatise that Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica brings to the attention of readers on the occasion of the fourth centenary of Sarpi’s death is also extremely compelling. This monographic section contributes to illuminate the “Potestà affair”, especially with regard to the problem of its/Sarpi’s possible or very probable legacies. We hope that some of the hypotheses and suggestions formulated in these pages may sooner or later prove useful in unravelling the tangle.

Prima del “Principe repubblicano”. Machiavelli, principato “civile” e repubblica

Andrea Guidi — 2024-03-18

Before the “Principe repubblicano”. Machiavelli, “Civil” Principality and Republic Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which Machiavelli discusses the terms of “liberty”, “republic” and “principality” in his political works, this contribution demonstrates how some of the content referable to them later characterized the current of thought that can be traced back to the idea of “republican principality”. In particular, this essay shows how the reuse of certain themes by late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century authors in many cases conceals a process of transposition of famous Machiavellian vocabulary and expressions into political concepts that sometimes significantly diverge from their original and are revealing of the polysemous use of terms from the general political vocabulary of the time.

Il “Principe repubblicano” di Paolo Sarpi*

Diego Quaglioni — 2024-03-18

Paolo Sarpi’s draft of the treatise Della potestà de’ prencipi is a very important example of the revolution that took place in the field of law and its complex relationship with theology and politics between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considered lost until its publication in 2006 by Nina Cannizzaro, Sarpi’s draft calls into question some essential points of his intellectual biography.

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

Francesco Vitali — 2024-03-18

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.

Il patriziato veneziano tra eredità repubblicana e modelli monarchici

Dorit Raines — 2024-03-18

This essay aims to investigate whether in Venice there ever truly existed a prince comparable to other royal sovereigns, or whether we should speak of a republican “prince” proper, namely a representative figure devoid of actual power or authority. As early as the fifteenth century, the Venetian patriciate began to diminish the power of the Venetian dux (which had replaced the Byzantine Empire’s magister militum), in order to underscore the sovereignty of the Grand Council, in which all male patricians took part. This progressive limitation of his powers led to considering the doge as primus inter pares for internal interests of the ruling class, but failed to take into account that such a process would weaken the regality of the doge in the face of sovereigns from emerging states in Europe.
The downgrading of the Venetian doge’s precedence in European courts became emblematic of the diminishing political centrality of the Most Serene Republic in comparison to absolute states.

«Una guerra di parole non meno travagliosa che una guerra d’acciaio». Paolo Sarpi, Della potestà de’ prencipi e la Disputa anglicana

Chiara Petrolini — 2024-03-18

This contribution explores the affinity, recognized by their contemporaries, between Paolo Sarpi and James I, delving into Sarpi’s profound interest in the Oath of Allegiance enacted in England and the sovereignty model it embodied. Through the examination of polemical texts, legal consultations for the Senate, private letters, and diplomatic dispatches, this article reaffirms the genesis of Sarpi’s treatise Della potestà de’ prencipi within the James I-Paul V Controversy. However, it also reveals how Sarpi’s engagement with the issue of the oath extended beyond the failure of the treatise Della potestà de’ prencipi and its related project. On one hand, he sought to utilize or resist loyalty oaths in the Venetian domain as tools for defense or attack against the Pope and the Inquisition. On the other hand, the British Oath of Allegiance persisted in being recalled by Sarpi as a cautionary tale to the Senate of the Republic. Despite his harsh criticisms of the English sovereign, Sarpi continued to view James I’s conduct during the crisis with Pope Paul V as an exemplary demonstration of sovereignty, a model he aspired to introduce within the Republic of Venice.

Ombre sarpiane. Il “Principe repubblicano” di Paolo Sarpi e il pensiero politico genovese (1602-54)

Alessia Ceccarelli — 2024-03-18

This essay is largely based on primary sources and contains a review of the ideas of sovereignty elaborated by Giulio Pallavicino (1558-1635), Andrea Spinola (1562-1631) and Raffaele Della Torre (1579-1666), eminent Genoese thinkers. Is it possible to hypothesise some convergences between Genoese republicanism and the idea of sovereignty elaborated by Paolo Sarpi? Is it possible to hypothesise that the political and literary issue revolving around Sarpi’s unfinished treatise Della potestà de’ prencipi (Potestà) intercepted some of these biographical and intellectual trajectories? The most interesting case is that of Della Torre and his Astrolabio di Stato, published in Genoa and Venice in 1647.

Tra Grotius e Sarpi: l’assolutismo repubblicano di Theodorus “Dirck” Graswinckel (1600-66)

Alberto Clerici — 2024-03-18

Through the investigation of the life and works of Dutch jurist and politician Dirck Graswinckel (1600-66), a friend of Grotius and reader of Sarpi, the essay aims to investigate the theoretical and political category of “republican absolutism”, that is, the use of the vocabulary and sources of the absolutist tradition by non-monarchical States, beginning with Venice and the United Provinces. The essay will focus on the environments and networks of relationships that link Graswinckel, Grotius and Sarpi, and on the former’s possible reading of Della potestà de’ prencipi (Sarpi’s unfinished treatise).

Impero, nazione e mascolinità nel primo Novecento. Il caso del dominio spagnolo in Marocco

Gemma Torres Delgato — 2024-03-18

This article analyzes the relationship between empire, nation and masculinity in the case of Spanish imperialism in Morocco in the first thirty years of the twentieth century. The author aims to demonstrate how masculinity played a very important role in the nation-building process in the context of Spanish imperialism in Morocco. The article analyzes male representation of the imperial
nation in the most reactionary sectors of imperialism in Morocco, as well as in the liberal and republican circles, investigating how in this context the Spanish imperial nation was represented through masculinity.

Tra Achse e Avalanche: nemici di tutti. L’8 settembre 1943 nelle memorie dei militari italiani in servizio presso l’aeroporto di Pontecagnano

Edoardo Grassia — 2024-03-18

The events of 8 September 1943 have, among the main discriminating factors, geographical location. The Italian soldiers on duty at Pontecagnano airport 372, after the unexpected proclamation of unconditional surrender and being in an area affected by the Anglo-American landing in the Gulf of Salerno, first suffered immediate action from the men of the Wehrmacht and, a few hours later, that of the Allies. They found themselves, therefore, between Achse and Avalanche. The memoirs written by the soldiers of the Italian Air Force working at the airport, compiledì a few days after the events narrated, constitute a point of view from below and account for the fact that, in addition to being in the midst of the fighting, they were disarmed, arrested, looted, wounded and on one occasion beaten by the Germans, who also attempted to deport them, and were equally disarmed, arrested, deprived
of the possibility of transmitting messages and of the means of transport, including an ambulance, by the Anglo-Americans. They were, essentially, enemies of everyone. Responsibilities for such circumstances fall within the overall management of the armistice; however, the episode also clearly indicates a missed opportunity for Italians to take sides and fight alongside the allied forces and create the conditions for a change in the general political situation.

La Calabria e i neoborbonici

Andrea Mammone — 2024-03-18

The essay shows how neo-Bourbon revisionism reinterprets the epopee of the Risorgimento by making it a negative turning point and the main cause of the backwardness, abandonment, emigration, and poverty of Southern Italy. In an era in which the socioeconomic conditions of the south of the peninsula are destabilized and national politics shows some disinterest, the neo-Bourbons promote their vision of history with a renewed appeal. Calabria is a relevant example of this story – it is a place used by revisionists to confirm their bizarre historical views. The article challenges this narrative and some anti-Risorgimento myths.