Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate

Jurdjevic, Mark

doi:10.1353/jhi.2001.0034

Cited by 31 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…22 Likewise, Mark Jurdjevic argues forcefully that Pocock "misunderstood civic humanism and the role of commerce in Renaissance Republicanism" by associating commercial values with forms of "corruption" about which the Florentines were utterly unconcerned. 23 Yet Rahe, Jurdjevic, and others perhaps take for granted a divide between ancient and modern republicanism in a way that caricatures medieval attitudes toward the values of commercial society. Rahe remarks, Neither in antiquity nor in the Middle Ages did the learned seek "to come to the relief of man's estate."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commercial Society and Republican Government in the Latin Middle Ages

Nederman¹

2003

Political Theory

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The mid-thirteenth-century theorist and rhetorician Brunetto Latini proposed a vigorous republican account of the art of government and the nature of community in his encyclopedic treatise, Li Livres dou Tresor . The interpretation of Latini's republicanism has been heavily based on its literary sensibilities, its attachment to rhetoric, and its praise for classical civic virtues. But Latini deserves to be classified as a republican insofar as he founds social and political order upon commercial principles—the production and exchange of material goods for profit—and consequent economic defense of republican government. Hence, the example of Latini challenges one of the principal remaining barriers that supposedly separates medieval defenses of republicanism from Renaissance versions. The essay contends that Latini holds that self-governing institutions depend upon and are especially well suited to sustain a society whose conception of the common good includes the creation and exchange of those material necessities required for physical welfare and comfort.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commercial Society and Republican Government in the Latin Middle Ages

Nederman¹

2003

Political Theory

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“…The neo-Roman school has often neglected the merchant imperialism of early modern republican expansion beyond Europe because theorists, such as Gordon Wood and J.G.A. Pocock, argued that republicanism perceived commerce as a threat to republican liberty (Jurdjevic, 2001: 723). Within the neo-Roman discussion of political liberty, the relationship between the polis and the economy has often come as an ‘afterthought’ (Gourevitch, 2011: 431).…”

Section: Republics As Merchant Empiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Eurocentrism of neo-Roman republicanism and the neglect of republican empire

Blachford¹

2021

Thesis Eleven

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Republicanism is an approach within political theory that seeks to secure the values of political liberty and non-domination. Yet, in historical practice, early modern republics developed empires and secured their liberty through policies that dominated others. This contradiction presents challenges for how neo-Roman theorists understand ideals of liberty and political freedom. This article argues that the historical practices of slavery and empire developed concurrently with the normative ideals of republican liberty. Republican liberty does not arise in the absence of power but is inherently connected to the exercise of power.

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“…was a conscious rejection of fifteenth-century humanist celebration and defense of Florence's rapid territorial expansion and imperialist triumph.' 36 Machiavelli's elaboration of the republican dilemma, therefore, is perhaps specific to the social context of pre-capitalist societies in general, and Renaissance Florence in particular. The factionalism and private conflict that he saw as opening the way to the re-establishment of the Principate and the emergence of empire, was rooted in the social organization of the Florentine economy and the social conflicts that ensued.…”

Section: Pre-capitalism Commercial Expansion and Florentine Republicanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Republican Dilemma’ and the Changing Social Context of Republicanism in the Early Modern Period

Kennedy

2009

European Journal of Political Theory

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This article relates the evolving relationship between republicanism and the problem of ‘empire’ to the changing social contexts within which republican political theory emerges in the early modern period. It is argued that the initial antagonism between republicanism and empire was a politically constituted dilemma that related to the specific configuration of economic and political power characteristic of pre-capitalist societies. With the development of capitalism in England in the early modern period, the problem of empire becomes partially resolved due to the way in which the separation of economic and political power under capitalism reconstitutes the nature of empire itself. This new social context — characterized by new social, economic and political relationships specific to an emerging capitalist context — laid the foundations for the resolution of the ‘republican dilemma’ of empire and the ideological establishment of the first ‘Republican Empire’ in 18th century America.

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Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate

Cited by 31 publications

References 64 publications

Commercial Society and Republican Government in the Latin Middle Ages

Commercial Society and Republican Government in the Latin Middle Ages

The Eurocentrism of neo-Roman republicanism and the neglect of republican empire

The ‘Republican Dilemma’ and the Changing Social Context of Republicanism in the Early Modern Period

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