Knowledge and Counsel in Giovanni Botero’s Ragion di stato

This article examines the relationship between knowledge, political counsel, and reason of state in Giovanni Botero (1544–1617). Botero is primarily known as the champion of Catholic reason of state, mainly on account of his treatise Ragion di stato. I argue that Botero marks a watershed in the hist...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Braun, Harald E. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2017
In: Journal of Jesuit studies
Year: 2017, Volume: 4, Issue: 2, Pages: 270-289
IxTheo Classification:CG Christianity and Politics
KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance
KDB Roman Catholic Church
Further subjects:B Botero reason of state counsel Ragion di stato Delle cause della grandezza delle città knowledge political science Machiavelli Catholicism
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Summary:This article examines the relationship between knowledge, political counsel, and reason of state in Giovanni Botero (1544–1617). Botero is primarily known as the champion of Catholic reason of state, mainly on account of his treatise Ragion di stato. I argue that Botero marks a watershed in the history of European political thought not because of his response to Machiavelli, but on account of his conscious and innovative integration of different field of knowledge into a new language of the state. He is the first to capture convincingly the reality of the Counter-Reformation state and European global expansion. While Botero writes with a view to serve the universal church and Catholic secular princes, his language transcends confessional boundaries. This argument is made with reference to Delle cause della grandezza delle città (1588) and Ragion di stato (1589), though it could be extended into his Le relazioni universali (1591–96).
ISSN:2214-1332
Contains:In: Journal of Jesuit studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22141332-00402007