Semantic Scholar Open Access 2020 55 sitasi

Machiavelli: from radical to reactionary

Maurizio Viroli

Abstrak

Niccolò Machiavelli never used the term “natural law” and never discussed the subject. His silence is quite eloquent, if we consider that the concept amply circulated in the political and intellectual context of his time. Prominent members of Florentine civic humanism frequently referred to natural law understood as a superior norm that comes directly from God and has therefore a higher normative status in comparison with civil laws. Coluccio Salutati, to mention a prominent example, wrote in his essay on the nobility of law (De nobilitate legum et medicinae), composed around 1399 that true civil laws must embody the universal principles of equity, proportion, and justice that natural and divine laws reveal to us. Girolamo Savonarola repeated over and over in his writings and his sermons (some of which Machiavelli surely heard) that natural law is valid in all times and among all peoples, and that human laws must take inspiration from it.

Penulis (1)

M

Maurizio Viroli

Format Sitasi

Viroli, M. (2020). Machiavelli: from radical to reactionary. https://doi.org/10.1163/2405-8262_rgg4_sim_13327

Akses Cepat

Informasi Jurnal
Tahun Terbit
2020
Bahasa
en
Total Sitasi
55×
Sumber Database
Semantic Scholar
DOI
10.1163/2405-8262_rgg4_sim_13327
Akses
Open Access ✓