Virtues and institutions as the foundations  of a res publica in Wawrzyniec Goślicki  and Gasparo Contarini

Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves

doi:10.35765/hp.2544

Published : 2024-03-30

Vol. 15 No. 50 (2024)

Virtues and institutions as the foundations of a res publica in Wawrzyniec Goślicki and Gasparo Contarini

Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7080-9169

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/hp.2544

Section: Thematic Articles

Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to examine and compare two republican approaches to politics and res publica presented in the sixteenth century by Wawrzyniec Grzymala Goślicki and Gasparo Contarini.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Both authors define the core elements of a republican scientia civilis but emphasize different aspects as being of primary importance for a well‑ordered civitas libera. Goślicki saw the best safeguards of a free and well‑ordered commonwealth in the character and virtues of the rulers and citizens, whereas Contarini believed that such safeguards could only be found in a good legal and institutional structure that kept corruption at bay. The article follows the contextual method typical for intellectual history to present different arguments that Contarini and Goślicki formulated in their understanding of scientia civilis and the best commonwealth looking at both the context of their works and their arguments.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: After introducing the context for the two works the next two parts focus on Goslicki’s and then Contarini’s vision of scientia civilis and the most effective ways to keep corruption and decay at bay followed by comparison and conclusion.

RESEARCH RESULTS: A comparison of these two visions should shed some light on the later development of both polities and republicanism in modern Europe more generally which largely followed Contarini and not Goślicki. It can also provide an important lesson for our own understanding of politics and political philosophy that should underpin a political order to make it resilient to corruption and backsliding.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Examining these two authors and their prominent works helps better situate political discourses in the two countries that explain different trajectories of their constitutions and political developments, and for us today provide an interesting lesson on how we should understand politics and respublica.

Keywords

wawrzyniec goslicius (goslicius) ; fasparo contarini ; res publica ; poland-lithuania ; venice

Details

References

Indicators

Authors

Download files

pdf

Zasady cytowania

Altmetric indicators

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CC BY-ND licence that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are asked to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). We advise to use any of the following reserach society portals:

References

Bałuk‑Ulewiczowa, T. (2009). Goslicius’s Ideal Senator and His Cultural Impact over the Centuries: Shakespearean Reflections. Kraków: PAU.

Bałuk‑Ulewiczowa, T. (2011). Goslicius’s Treatise of the Ideal Senator: The Englishman’s Epitome of Polish Republicanism. Kultura i Polityka, 9.

Bouwsma, W. (1968). Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bowd, S.D. (2000). The Republics of Ideas: Venice, Florence and the Defence of Liberty, 1525–1530. History, 85(279), 404–427.

Bracciolini, P. ([1459] 1982). Oratio in Laudem Rei Publicae Venetorum. Florence.

Bruni, L. (1921). Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII e rerum suo tempore gestarum commentaries. Emilio Santini (Ed.). Citta di Castello.

Cicero (1999). On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. J.E.G. Zetzel (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Collinson, P. (1987). The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 69(2), 394–424.

Contareno, G. (1551). De magistratibus et Republica Venetorum libri quinque. Venetiis: Apud Baldum Sabinum.

Contarini, G. (1599). The Commonwealth and Government of Venice. L. Lewkenor (Trans.). London.

Czartoryski, P. (1963). Wczesna recepcja „Polityki” Arystotelesa na Uniwersytecie Krakowskim. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich.

Gleason, E.G. (1993). Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gaeta, F. (1961). Alcune considerazioni sul mito di Venezia. Bibliotheque d’humanisme et Renaissance 23.

Gilbert, F. (1967). The Date of the Composition of Contarini’s and Giannotti’s Books on Venice. Studies in the Renaissance, 14.

Gilbert, F. (1968). The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought. In N. Rubinstein (Ed.), Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence (pp. 463–500). London: Faber and Faber.

Gleason, E. (1993). Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome and Reform. Berkeley Los Angeles–Oxford: University of California Press.

Górnicki, Ł. (1961). Rozmowa Polaka z Włochem o wolnościach i prawach polskich [1616]. In Ł. Górnicki, Pisma. Vol. 2. Warszawa: PIW.

Goslicius, L. (1568). De optimo senatore libri duo. Venetia.

Goslicius, L. (1593). De optimo senatore libri duo. Basilea.

Goslicki, W. ([1733] 2010). The Accomplished Senator. In Two Books. Mr. Oldisworth (Trans.). London. Reprint Gale Ecco.

Grubb, J. (1986). When Myths Lose Power: Four Decades of Venetian Historiography. Journal of Modern History, 58(1), 43–94.

Grześkowiak‑Krwawicz, A. (2012). Queen Liberty: The Concept of Freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Leiden: Brill.

Grześkowiak‑Krwawicz, A. (2015). Dyskurs polityczny Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK.

Guicciardini, F. (1998). Discorso di Logrogno. In A. Moulakis, Republican Realism in Renaissance Florence: Francesco Guicciardini’s Discorso di Logrogno. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Henry of Rimini (1472). Tractatus de Quatuor Virtutibus Cardinali. Strasbourg.

Koranyi, K. (1967). La costituzione di Venezia nel pensiero politico della Polonia (Eta del Rinascimento). In M. Brahmer (Ed.), Italia, Venezia e Polonia. Tra umanesimo e rinascimento (pp. 206–214). Wrocław: Ossolineum.

Kot, S. (1947). Venezia vista dai polacchi nel corso dei secoli. Venezia: F. Montuoro.

Martin, J. (1993). Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City. Berkeley–Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Muir, E. (1981). Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Opaliński, E. (2002). Civic Humanism and Republican Citizenship in the Polish Renaissance. In Q. Skinner, & M. van Gelderen (Eds.), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. Vol. 1 (pp. 147–168). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Orzechowski, S. (1972). Mowa na pogrzebie Zygmunta I [Funeral Oratio]. In S. Orzechowski, Wybór pism (pp. 3–88). Wrocław: Ossolineum.

Palczowski de Palczowice, P. (1604). Status Venetorum sive Brevis tractatus de origine et vetustate Venetorum. Cracoviae.

Patrizi, F. (1585). De institutione reipublicae libri novem. Paris.

Peltonen, M. (2002). Citizenship and Republicanism in Elizabethan England. In Q. Skinner, & M. van Gelderen (Eds.), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. Vol. 1 (pp. 85–106). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pietrzyk‑Reeves, D. (2012). Ład Rzeczypospolitej. Polska myśl polityczna XVI wieku a klasyczna tradycja republikańska. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka.

Pietrzyk‑Reeves, D. (2015). Kontynuacja i zmiany w polskim republikanizmie XVII i XVIII wieku. Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, 67(1), 45–74.

Pietrzyk‑Reeves, D. (2020). Polish Republican Discourse in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pocock, J.G.A. (1975). The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pullan, B. (1973). The Significance of Venice. Bulletin of The John Rynalds University Library, 56(2), 443–461.

Rau, Z. et al. (Eds.) (2016). Magna Carta: A Central European Perspective of Our Common Heritage of Freedom. London: Routledge.

Rinuccini, A. (1953). Lettere ed orazioni. V.R. Giustiniani (Ed.). Firenze.

Sallust (2017). The Conspiracy of Catiline. Q. Curtius (Trans.). In Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline and The War of Jugurtha. Fortress of the Mind Publication.

Silvano, G. (1993). La “Republica de’ Viniziani”. Richerche sul repubblicanismo veneziano in etá moderna. Firenze.

Skinner, Q. (1990). The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty. In G. Bock, Q. Skinner, & M. Viroli (Eds.), Machiavelli and Republicanism (pp. 293 309). Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press.

Skinner, Q. (2002). Visions of Politics. Vol. 2: Renaissance Virtue. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Smith, T. (1982). De Republica Anglorum: The Maner of Gouernement or Policie of the Realme of England. M. Dewar (Ed.). Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stanisław of Skarbimierz (1997). Mowy wybrane o mądrości. Kraków: Arcana.

Stępkowski, A. (Ed.) (2009). O doskonałym Senatorze studia. Prace upamiętniające postać i twórczość Wawrzyńca Gosliciusego. Warszawa: Kancelaria Senatu RP.

Varsevicii, C. (1598). De Optimo Statu Libertatis Libri Duo. Cracoviae: Jan Januszowski.

Wagner‑Rundell, B. (2008). Common Wealth, Common Good: The Politics of Virtue in Early-Modern Poland -Lithuania. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Virtues and institutions as the foundations of a res publica Wootton, D. (1994). Ulysses Bound? Venice and the Idea of Liberty from Howell to Hume. In D. Wootton (Ed.). Republicanism, Liberty and Commercial Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Worden, B. (1994). Harrington’s Oceana: Origins and Aftermath, 1651 1660. In D. Wootton (Ed.), Republicanism, Liberty and Commercial Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Zaborowski, S. ([1507] 1878). Tractatus de natura iurium et bonorum regis et reformatione regni ac eius reipublicae regimine incipit feliciter. In M. Bobrzynski (Ed.), Rerum publicarum scientiae quae saeculo XV in

Polonia viguit monumenta litteraria. Cracovia: Acad. Litterarum.

Zamoyski, J. (1563). De Senatu Romano libri duo. Venetiis: Ziletti Giordano.

Total abstract views : 26

PDF Downloads : 24