Machiavellian Moment Florentine Political Thought

by Pocock, J. G.

• ISBN13: 9780691100296
• ISBN10: 0691100292
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1975-06-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

This book is a study of the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. J. G. A. Pocock suggests that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, and which he calls the 'Machiavellian moment.'

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
PART ONE. Particularity and Time
The Conceptual Background
The Problem and Its Modes
Experience, Usage and Prudence	3	(28)
The Problem and Its Modes
Providence, Fortune and Virtue	31	(18)
The Problem and Its Modes
The Vita Activa and the Vivere Civile	49	(34)
PART TWO. The Republic and its Fortune
Florentine Political Thought from 1494 to 1530
From Bruni to Savonarola
Fortune, Venice and Apocalypse	83	(31)
The Medicean Restoration
Guicciardini and the Lesser Ottimati, 1512-1516	114	(42)
The Medicean Restoration
Machiavelli's Il Principe	156	(27)
Rome and Venice
Machiavelli's Discorsi and Arte della Guerra	183	(36)
Rome and Venice
Guicciardini's Dialogo and the Problem of Optimate Prudence	219	(53)
Giannotti and Contarini
Venice as Concept and as Myth	272	(61)
PART THREE. Value and History in the Prerevolutionary Atlantic
The Problem of English Machiavellism
Modes of Civic Consciousness before the Civil War	333	(28)
The Anglicization of the Republic
Mixed Constitution, Saint and Citizen	361	(40)
The Anglicization of the Republic
Court, Country and Standing Army	401	(22)
Neo-Machiavellian Political Economy
The Augustan Debate over Land, Trade and Credit	423	(39)
The Eighteenth-Century Debate
Virtue, Passion and Commerce	462	(44)
The Americanization of Virtue
Corruption, Constitution and Frontier	506	(47)
Bibliography	553	(16)
Index	569