Search

How did the idea of monarchy develop in Giovanni Botero’s thinking? How did he use it in his largest work, Relazioni universali (1st edition 1591)? How did he redefine it at the beginning of the seventeenth century? Botero developed his idea of monarchy by reading the classics and traditional literature on the subject, as well as by travelling and observing different models of government: his diplomatic experience in France (1585) and his three years in Spain as tutor of the princes of Savoy (1603-1606) led to theories on the features of the ‘best form of government’. Starting from Botero’s first thinking on the subject (De regia sapientia, 1583), this chapter will focus on Relazioni universali as a kind of catalogue of comparative monarchy case studies from all over the world and pay particular attention to Discorso dell’eccellenza della monarchia (Discourse about the Excellence of Monarchy) published in Turin in 1607. Discorso has been translated into English in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El cronista real Alonso Núñez de Castro en su Libro Histórico Político, Solo Madrid es Corte (1658), define a la Corte cómo la cabeza que gobierna, dónde reside la razón, y el rey (como cabeza de los reinos), sus consejos, vasallos y hombres importantes cercanos a él. Núñez enfatiza la población de Madrid, enumera los consejos del rey y sus funciones, describe detalladamente la etiqueta observada en la Corte alrededor del cuerpo del rey, incluye la jerarquía de la totalidad de reinos y provincias del monarca, y da cuenta detallada de sus finanzas y contribuciones al erario real. Esta obra produce/establece el espacio (y geografía) imperial del cuerpo político de los Austrias españoles con Madrid como su cabeza cortesana y político-cultural. También se conforma a estructuras y argumentos similares a los que Giovanni Botero, a fines del siglo XVI, definió como característicos de una gran ciudad como cabeza, y los que describen las grandezas de Lima y de la ciudad de México. Una comparación de Madrid con otras ciudades-cortes del cuerpo político de los Austrias españoles, ayuda a entender su bajo perfil en la documentación del Nuevo Mundo, a pesar de su lugar a partir de 1561 como cabeza político-administrativa dentro del imperio.

Accused to be leading a plot against the Spanish government in Calabria in 1599, supposedly supported by a Turkish fleet, Campanella was almost labeled as a renegade. On the contrary, while in jail, he deepened his prophetic interpretation of the history, and of the future of the world, offered theological and political confutation of Islam, and began shaping a wider idea of the role of this religion in the ‘apocalyptic’ times. Not focusing on the Turkish menace only, he tries to integrate some of the Muslim kingdoms in his appeal to the universal recognition of the Christian revelation as ‘natural reason’. In his main work about this topic, Quod reminiscentur, completed in 1618, but published only in the 20th Century, Campanella presents different strategies of conversion of Islamic peoples, depending on the various historical features of Islam, and adapted to the diverse societies involved. Giovanni Botero’s Relationi universali (1599) was a very important source of Campanella’s historical and geographic information about Islam, but the philosopher developed an original prophetic and political vision of Church, conversion and apocalypse, alternative to that dominating in the Counter Reformation.

This article analyzes the concept of Raison d’Etat in the works of the Italian theologian Giovanni Botero, in the light of Carl Schmitt’s political theory. The analysis will put special emphasis on those concepts in Botero’s thought which later Schmitt will describe as essential notes in the Modern state formation process: the idea of sovereignty, the idea of political enemy and the establishment of order in front of a state of exception. Using these Schmitt’s concepts, the author looks for a deeper comprehension of the process followed by Botero to define the idea of Raison d’Etat in the light of the political, social and religious problems of late sixteenth century.