Cromohs Virtual Seminars

The Italian libertine historians and the English Revolution

Pietro Messina
Independent scholar

P. Messina , "The Italian libertine historians and the English Revolution", in M. Caricchio, G. Tarantino, eds., Cromohs Virtual Seminars. Recent historiographical trends of the British Studies (17th-18th Centuries), 2006-2007: 1-3
<http://www.fupress.net/public/journals/49/Seminar/messina.html>

1. Though brief, the description of the Italian works on the English events of the 1640s and 1650s by Stefano Villani - a great expert on the Anglo-Italian relationship of the seventeenth century - is admirable. So also is his sketch of the relationships between the Incogniti and England. I find it very significant that he judges some of our libertines as progressive intellectuals and thus breaks with the historiographical stereotype which depicts the Italian libertine as a dull misoneist. He also displays the interesting idea that our historians' hostility towards the revolutionaries comes from a shared Sarpian ideological heritage which turned their interest and admiration to James I's ecclesiastical policies, at that time taken up by his son. The idea is interesting because it seems to accord the libertines a renewed respectability in present-day historiography, but one which is hardly acceptable, I believe, as it is founded on very weak bases^[1]. To consider them as merely "pro-royalist" could lead to misunderstanding or to distorting important aspects of their ideal and cultural heritage.

One possible distortion of this perspective is that one may be induced to look in their works for the English revolution, its implications and its political and ideological debates as they have been shaped in our modern consciousness according to this or that historical trend of the twentieth century. Instead, our seventeenth century historians were writing about their contemporary events, with results and meanings which all call to be understood.

They were very strongly influenced by the world view which they shared with the English parliamentarians and regicides. It implied - even ahead of a radical hostility - a basic extraneousness to the idea of novelty, of novità, which was read as "the reversal of the basic rules of civil life and of the natural order".^[2] Being guilty of felony and rebellion was considered a defamatory accusation in a world that seemed unchangeable at its base. The Italian historians interpreted English events, which were so complex and in many respects so alien to them, according to the method inherited by the political historiography of the Renaissance, their master being Guicciardini.^[3] It is a banality to say that this method is completely inadequate in order to comprehend and interpret the English revolution as we now perceive it: it is more useful to try to understand the nature of their shortcomings, to see if even in them something positive can be found.

To make the chasm between our historians and those events even deeper, there was the eminently biblical and theological horizon in which they were framed and ideologically characterized. The English vicissitudes were the expression of cultural values developed through forms of religious thought, to which our historians, with their hermeneutical criteria and theoretical ascendancies, were absolutely extraneous. Their interpretation of religion was completely, and uniquely, political. I do not believe that they saw the Puritans' strictest orthodoxy as a new spiritual tyranny. They were as far removed from Arminianism as from its enemies, because their way of interpreting religious strife and currents was political only. This shows them to be heirs and followers of the forma mentis through which Guicciardini and our Renaissance historians had looked at the Reformation, and more generally at religious manifestations in History. They followed the major exponents of that tradition: Sarpi, Davila, Bentivoglio.^[4] To the thought of Guicciardini and Machiavelli, who were the real pivots of their historical view, one should also add the contributions of the French libertines, Bruno's criticism of religion, the heterodox teaching of Boccalini, the political thought of Campanella, at least the part linked to realism and influenced by Machiavelli.

Seventeenth-century Italian historians never see the different English "heretics" from a theological point of view but always link them to political ideas and parties. In particular they read the Puritans and Calvinists as followers of the "popular" and "democratic" programme. Bisaccioni emphasises "the Calvinistic sect, the only enemy of the Monarchy and of the Nobility, and the only upholder of people's dispositions"^[5], and writes that the political aim of Calvinism was clearly "introducing the Popular republic"^[6]. We could find other similar quotations, because Bisaccioni completely agrees with Siri, Gualdo, and Brusoni on this point. To put it in their own words, we can say that the English revolution was "Puritan" for our historians simply because it was "democratic" and "popular". Religion for them, whether it was that of the King, the Presbyterians or the Independents, was always and only figmentum.

Although Italian historians were dealing with "heretics" who had pushed their break with Rome to its furthest it is remarkable that there is no rebuttal of a moral or religious nature in their work. They intensely criticised the Calvinists because they were rebels and mob mongers, not because they were supporters of predestination. The hypothesis of their sympathy with Arminianism is also weakened by their unanimous refutation of Charles I's religious policy. If the main cause of the crisis was religious, the judgement of the Italian historians was still political. They mostly deemed religion a pretext for programmes of other natures, and stressed that it was an instrumentum regni: for this reason the country's religion had not to be changed. Charles's most evident error was the idea of introducing "novelties" in it, which were all the more dangerous because they clearly enraged his subjects. The theoretical origin of this position can easily be found in Machiavelli's excerpt: "Princes and republics who wish to maintain themselves free from corruption must above all things preserve the purity of all religious observances, and treat them with proper reverence"^[7]. These were ideas also supported by Campanella.

Writing of the English events was a way for the Italian historians to spread libertine theories on religious imposture.^[8] While speaking about Puritanism, they could take advantage of the protection offered by its contiguity with topics which were typical of the Counter-Reformation's apologists. Through this rhetorical strategy they could express ideas peculiar to the libertine milieu, without running into censorship. Their ideas about Puritanism could be applied not only to the Reformation but also to every religion. More precisely, their pages on England make visible reference to the libertine theory of religion as imposture. In this regard, there is no originality nor peculiar force or depth of thought in them, but they had, at least, the merit of disseminating that idea to a more general public. The opportunity for a critical vision was allowed, at least, to dawn on a larger number of people. The doubt, furthermore, was insinuated that religion could be deemed as lacking all transcendence or claim to revealed truth. It could instead be seen as a human means for human ends such as political strife, management of power, perhaps even superstition, or deception of simple and uneducated people.

2. How far they were from the patterns of orthodoxy is evident from more than one clue.

First of all, there is a lack of any rebuttal of even the vaguest theological character, the lack of any criticism of the Puritan theories as "heretic", as well as the lack of a meaningful and not merely formal apology for Catholicism. Then, there are also remarks concerning the "credulity" and "ignorance" of persons who believe in preachers, and criticism of their "fanaticism", "superstition" and "hypocrisy". Therefore, the character of Cromwell seems to be the perfect embodiment of the libertine pattern of the impostor-lawgiver.

It is true then that the heritage of our political historiography provided too narrow a schema for the complexity of the cultural topics and social dynamics of the English revolution, but is also true that this subjective limitation of our writers was the legacy of a prestigious cultural tradition. In a Europe which was illuminated by heretics and witches' bonfires, the position of these libertines, somehow forerunners of a radical secular anthropology and of the idea of tolerance,  is all the more valuable because it was expressed in a place and at a moment of heavy ecclesiastical control over every aspect of cultural life. One cannot, then, forget the affinities with the "political" interpretations of their great contemporaries: Hobbes and Clarendon.^[9]

The language, symbolism, and cultural references of the English revolutionaries, who, though divided in their disparate denominations, were all trying to build a New Jerusalem on earth, were incomprehensible to our intellectuals. Even so some of them did find a positive pattern in Cromwell's absolutism.^[10] Bisaccioni and, above all, Gualdo Priorato saw him as the man who had put an end to chaos and rebellion by creating a new kind of power, which sprang from the regicide and the overthrow of the aristocracy, but made him "more powerful than any King"- a view not so far removed from that of Hobbes. It would be too simple to explain this change in emphasis merely through the pro-French proclivity of our writers, which would have been stimulated by the accidental occurrence of the Anglo-French alliance against Spain in 1655. This revision is deeply linked to ideas already expressed on very different occasions, and repeated, especially by Gualdo, several times, on a different international stage, even many years after Cromwell's corpse was unearthed and hanged. It was a heterodox stance which broke with official culture. We must not forget that Cromwell was not only a "great" figure of his age, but he was also a leader of the Protestants and a revolutionary leader. Showing a great admiration for Gustav Adolf, the Incogniti could not avoid running into trouble with the ecclesiastical censorship for this. The Swede, however, was a lawful king, not a revolutionary leader, and the praises given to him were limited to military aspects. On the contrary Cromwell, not only epitomized (whether rightly or wrongly) the whole revolutionary process behind him, but all our historians had always thought of him as the most determinate supporter of the Republic and of the overthrow of monarchy and aristocracy. All of them juxtaposed his "democratic" ideas with those of Fairfax, supporter of an "aristocratic republic". Therefore, Cromwell was the first of the regicides, the enemy of the King and aristocracy, and was always deemed more radical than he really was. In particular, one cannot undervalue the horrible "scandal" of the regicide: more than a century later, and in a very different cultural climate, a non conformist character such as Alfieri did not hide his sympathies for Charles I, victim of the revolutionary fury.^[11]

Reading the pages of our libertines, as is the case for all the heterodox authors of the seventeenth century, implies an approach of catching the different levels of communications which they offer, levels linked and often hidden behind irony, necessity, cultural customs, intellectual interplay and, above all, behind the explicit choice of dissimulation and pretence regarding their own ideas^[12]. I will here reproduce a few instances only.

Bisaccioni, both in the previous editions of his Historia, and in the novel Il Demetrio moscovita,^[13] -which in the edition of 1649 has clear allusions to English events- showed his appreciation for an ideal of  monarchy capable of being a bulwark both against "the whims of peoples, and the tyranny of the Mighty ones".^[14] His pro-absolutist thought offers affinities with Hobbes and recalls Naudé, Machiavelli and Campanella.^[15] In 1655, the fourth edition of the Historia would coherently lead him to appreciate the Protector. Reporting the political instructions "of firm doctrine" ("di soda dottrina") given to his son and after having praised the use of spies, "explorers, let's say hounds of justice" ("esploratori, o diciamoli bracchi della giustitia"), he writes : "For the good Prince makes the good subject, therefore he must needs have long ears, which is the hearing if he wants to well rule, high the sense of smell and in this length or amplitude of the senses the good rule of Princes consists".^[16] Here is both a hidden excerpt and an explicit reference to Campanella, and in particular, to a little piece of prose where, using a similar metaphor, he links it to the State founded by the lawgiver, "the most knowing man" ("umano sapientissimo") who "has the idea of his own policy [...] in the government of the universe or of the human body" and for whom "the commonwealth has [...] as its eyes, the learned inquirers of the sciences. As ears, merchants and spies...".^[17] Bisaccioni wanted to suggest the idea of Cromwell as a "most knowing lawgiver" ("legislatore sapientissimo") through an oblique allusion to the Aforismi. My suggestion may be confirmed by the fact that just a few lines after this sentence - and after having recalled a number of points of Cromwell's politics which he  appreciated the most ("Silenced the Army, and humbled the preachers" - "Quietata la militia, e mortificati li Predicanti")- he uses another reference to Campanella: "the Protector was deemed to be protected by Heavens, or at least by fortune (if there is other fortune than Heavens, which is the same thing with human fortune, whence the two sentences agree, that Heavens let themselves be forced, and that every one makes his fortune to himself)^[18], the fate is surely God's will, fulfilled by the causes altogether, which, as we ignore it, is said fate or fortune and, as we know it, is said Providence".^[19]  We can see here that Bisaccioni's conclusion about the Heavens which could be influenced and about trust in mere human action, is in agreement with Machiavelli, who wrote: "I think it may be true, that Fortune is the mistrisse of one halfe of our actions; but yet that she lets us have the rule of the other halfe, or little less"^[20]. The meaning of Bisaccioni's passage is thus rightly understood when Campanella's hidden quotation is read through the lense of Machiavelli.

After perfunctory reproofs, Gualdo Priorato displays open admiration for Cromwell. This admiration is based on the same political ideas that inspired his critical attitude towards Charles I's politics in 1641 - in that case he considered Charles I to be a weak and uncertain ruler, incapable of either pretence or "political considerations" (considerationi politiche). His stance was also suggested by Machiavelli's thought.^[21] Machiavelli informs Priorato's positive appraisal of the Protector in such an explicit way that he often uses direct excerpts from Il Principe and the Discorsi,^[22] and describes Cromwell as the "new prince", who thanks to his "virtue" (virtù) knows how to take the opportunity (occasione) offered to him by "fortune", and how to wear both the hide of the "lion" and the "fox".

3. Even in England Machiavellianism was used in some pro-Cromwell works, but usually his supporters accused their opponents of Machiavellianism.^[23] There were those, however, who appreciated Cromwell by grasping Machiavelli's more authentic lesson. Andrew Marvell^[24] and John Harrington^[25], both eminent figures in seventeenth century English culture, are cases in point: thanks to Gualdo, they found affinities with Italian culture, despite always hiding behind the screen of the contrary.

Reminiscent of Gualdo, Santacroce in his Secretaria di Apollo, was sure of the bitter reality that "history has the obligation to be true, and the privilege to be free, but truth has neither to be manifest"^[26] and that when "to speak of justice is simplicity, to show reason is felony"^[27] and that it is necessary to cover "your heart's ingenuities by way of dissimulation, because when justice is suspect in the midst of tyranny, it is vanity to attempt to enliven it by way of mouth".^[28] Thus he used various screens, echoes and dissimulations to approve the regicide. The letter, which he claims to have been sent by Apollo to the "Popolo Scoto" and in which he "does not detest" the death penalty for his "Roman King", ends as follows: "by keeping on this practice by the subject, no tyrants will be found". This follows a passage drawing heavily on quotations by Boccalini and Campanella.^[29] According to his usual method, in a letter sent to the "English People", Santacroce deploys an emphasized condemnation of the regicide followed by ironic accusations towards the people because they did not prevent it although they had the means and the right to do so. The following is the key to this entire piece of prose: "Authority gets his being by the multitude, and the people can do all what they list".^[30] Throughout the book there is proof of his proclivity for Republican liberties and even of justification for the slaughter of whoever is suspected of tyranny for the sake of the commonwealth. Sometimes this proclivity is hidden and distorted by irony, sometimes it is explicit as when he writes in favour of Junius Brutus: "there is no thing more necessary, nor more useful, nor more glorious, than to defend the native country, the faith, the liberties for which everything is allowed".^[31] They were words inspired by Boccalini, and readers knew that according to historical tradition Brutus had no religious motivations. Nonetheless such words could be found in a book published in Venice only two years before, namely the fourth part of the Historia by Gualdo, where the writer describes Cromwell while addressing his soldiers before the battle of Preston and reminding them "that they were fighting for their Country, their liberty, and their Religion".^[32] These were the motivations of the English regicides; so 'he who had ears to hear. .'

We can also find a strong Machiavellian influence in Santacroce. As in the cases of Gualdo and Bisaccioni,^[33] his critical attitude towards Charles I's weak and uncertain politics comes from this influence, but Santacroce also suggests a different reading, which through Boccalini's tradition looks at the "Republican" Machiavelli. Therefore he displays the two positions coexisting among the Incogniti, sharing the same potentialities for the demystification of power, the use of power and its theories, especially those of the powerful literature of the "Ragion di Stato". I believe that this aspect of libertine thought is one of the richest and most vital veins of seventeenth century Italian culture. In order to avoid phraseological misunderstanding it is useful to stress that the Italian historians' "Machiavellianism" was not a mere repetition of empty patterns and forms, but was the evocation of the political lesson of the "Segretario fiorentino" and that in no way can it be read as a dead stereotype of the previous century. It is enough to hint at its extreme vitality from Campanella and Spinoza to Gramsci, by way of the Enlightenment thinkers and Republicans of the eighteenth century. Thanks also to the Incogniti, this was a vital culture in the middle of our seventeenth century: for them it was not only a means for the critique of religion but also a crucial method of political analysis. In an age in which Machiavelli's works were pushed into clandestinity and the mere possession of them could lead to inquisition and prison^[34], the Italian historians, albeit through different readings, reaffirmed all their demystifying force. This was a cultural operation that was deeply shocking both for meaning and context and went against the hegemonic conformist orthodoxy. If our culture had a certain understanding of an event as radically subversive as the English revolution, it is as a result of Machiavellianism. This is a paradox indeed. Though in some respects Machiavellianism posed an obstacle to understanding the reasons and ideology of regicides and parliamentarians, it was through it that the libertine Gualdo could appreciate the Puritan Cromwell and meet him on the ground both of Machiavellian language and of the same active and dynamic view of political action, which was common to both Machiavellianism and Puritanism.^[35] It is only an apparent paradox however, because in a Europe where Locke had not yet ousted Habakkuk, there were men that perhaps could not understand each other, but in different ways had taken the same direction, that could lead to the utter collapse of the the ancien régime.

In all of this, I do not believe that Gregorio Leti's work on the English revolution played any part whatsoever. His "Vita di Cromuele" of 1692 is full of falsehoods that perhaps could be amusing to recount, and were useful in making for an appealing reading. However, such a reading did not add to or take away from the comprehension of Cromwell's character and age for the Italian readers. Perhaps the Incogniti's historiography was a sclerotic one. However thanks to their tedious attention to the documentary details, Benedetto Croce judged it "as meaning a relatively more serious way of understanding history, which they aimed to move from literature towards science (as was said later)".^[36] While Leti lingered over describing Cromwell's travels in France, his French mistresses and the places he brought them to stroll, the libertine historians bound themselves to be strictly true to their sources to describe him as the political and military leader of Parliamentarians, while achieving at the same time a not entirely contemptible approximation to the significance of the reported events. Some of the least reliable bibliographies of the twentieth century opened their studies with Leti, followed by Carlyle and Gardiner. I distrust the motivations behind the revaluation of Leti. In the final years of his life, Leti arrived in Amsterdam and became Protestant: that would have bought him a sort of safe-passage, which would have purged his literary dishonesties like baptismal water. A final offshoot of the old Hegelian idea is that Modern history was born out of the Reformation. Even if it is not the only reason, this idea played a not inconsiderable role in artificially expunging the Italian libertines from our cultural history.

Note

^[1] This discussion has very extensive implications on a range of topics from the role and meaning of Italian libertinism to the potentialities of our entire seventeenth century culture. I confine myself here to underlining a number of points made in my lecture at the seminar "Storie inglesi: l'Inghilterra vista dall'Italia tra storia e romanzo (XVI – XVII secolo)", Pisa, April 10– 2 , 2003, the proceedings of which will soon be available in print.

^[2]  R. Villari, Elogio della dissimulazione, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1987,  p. 8; cf. Id., Il ribelle, in Id. (ed.) L'uomo barocco, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1991, pp. 109-137; Id., Considerazioni sugli scrittori politici italiani dell'età barocca, in M. Herling and M. Reale (eds.), Storia, Filosofia e Letteratura, Scritti in onore di G. Sasso, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1999, pp. 332-337.

^[3] B. Croce, Storia dell'età barocca in Italia, Bari, Laterza, 1929, pp. 99, 136.

^[4] G. M. Barbuto, Religione e politica in Guicciardini, "Il Pensiero Politico" XXXIII, 2000, pp. 385-413, particularly for the attitude towards the Reformation, pp. 410-413; G. Miccoli, La storia religiosa in Storia d'Italia, II, 1, Torino, Einaudi, 1974, p. 983; D. Cantimori, Interpretazioni della Riforma Protestante, in Grande antologia filosofica, VI, Il pensiero della Rinascenza e della Riforma, Milano, Marzorati, 1964, p. 275; B. Croce, Storia dell'età barocca, p. 133.

^[5] "[L]a setta Calvina, unica inimica della Monarchia, e della Nobiltà, & unica fautrice degli animi plebei".

^[6] "[I]ntrodurre la Republica Popolare"; M. Bisaccioni, Historia delle guerre civili di questi ultimi tempi, Bologna, per Carlo Zenero 1653 (I edition, Venetia, per Francesco Storti 1652), pp. 58, 56, 30.

^[7] "Quelli principi o quelle republiche le quali si vogliono mantenere incorrotte hanno sopra ogni altra cosa a mantenere incorrotte le cerimonie della loro religione, e tenerle sempre nella loro venerazione.»; Discorsi I, 12. English version from The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, translated from the Italian by Christian E. Detmold, in Four Volumes, Boston, James R. Osgood and Co., 1882, vol. II, p. 129, <http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Book.php?recordID=0303>. On the political interpretation of religion and libertine tradition: T. Gregory, Theophrastus redivivus. Erudizione e ateismo nel Seicento, Napoli, Morano, 1979, pp. 109-117.

^[8] On the Machiavellian ascendancy of these theories: T. Gregory, Apologeti e Libertini, "Giornale critico della Filosofia italiana", LXXIX, 2000, pp. 6-8; Id., Aristotelismo e libertinismo "Giornale critico della filosofia italiana", LXI, 1982, pp. 163-165; cf. E. Cutinelli-Rendina, Chiesa e religione in Machiavelli, Pisa-Roma, Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1998.

^[9] G. M. Finlayson, Historians, Puritanism and English Revolution: the Religious Factor in English Politics before and after the Interregnum, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1983, pp. 47-50; on Clarendon and religion cf. R. MacGillivray, Restoration Historians and the English civil war, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, p. 221; B. H. G. Wormald, Clarendon, Politics, History and Religion, 1640-1660, Cambridge U.P., 1951.

^[10] For the libertines' pro-absolutism see the bibliography in L. Bianchi, Rinascimento e libertinismo. Studi su Gabriel Naudé, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1996, pp.78-79.

^[11] Alfieri considered writing a tragedy on the Stuart King; he dedicated the Agide "to his Majesty Charles I King of England" ("alla maestà di Carlo I re d'Inghilterra") and in one of his travels he wanted to follow a "Stuart itinerary": J. Lindon, Reticenze alfieriane nella "Parte seconda" (1803) della Vita: il quarto viaggio in Inghilterra e la formazione dell'Alfieri "misogallo", "Giornale storico della letteraura italiana", CLXXI, 1994, pp. 321-342, particularly 339-341.

^[12] Cf. the exemplary edition of Torquato Accetto, Della dissimulazione onesta , edited by  S. Nigro, Genova, Costa & Nolan, 1983; and above all R. Villari, Elogio della dissimulazione.

^[13] M. Bisaccioni, Il Demetrio moscovita. Istoria tragica, edited by E. Taddeo, Firenze, Olschki,1992.

^[14] "[I]l capriccio de popoli, e alla tirannide de Potenti"; M. Bisaccioni, Historia delle guerre civili, Bologna, per Carlo Zenero 1653, p. 93.

^[15] We cannot undervalue the libertines' interest in Campanella. Although he was alien to them as 'Christian philosopher' and 'prophet', they sympathized with him as the 'plotter against Spain', as the man persecuted by the Inquisition who claimed to be a fool, and as the author of Antiveneti, Aforismi politici, Monarchia di Spagna; they appreciated the crypto-Machiavellian Atheismus Triumphatus, which alludes to religion as an imposture. In short they sympathised with the 'Campanella libertino'. Cf. G. Ernst, Campanella "libertino"?, in Ricerche su letteratura libertina e letteratura clandestina nel Seicento, Atti del Convegno di studio di Genova, 30 Ottobre-1 Novembre 1980, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1981, pp. 231-241; G. Spini, Ricerca dei libertini. La teoria dell'impostura delle religioni nel Seicento italiano, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1983, pp. 39-40, 83-99, 114-124; V. Angiuli, Ragione moderna e verità del cristianesimo, Bari, Levante, 2000, pp. 236-241. Angiuli's book is also disconcerting in a way, because it enlists Campanella and Charron in the strictest catholic orthodoxy without any nuances. We must also mention Naudé's interest in the thought of Campanella (G. Ernst, Tommaso Campanella. Il libro e il corpo della natura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2002, pp. 221-223, 250-251, and L. Bianchi, Rinascimento e libertinismo, pp. 62-70) and the fact that a text such as Theophrastus redivivus uses Campanella even more than Machiavelli (Theophrastus redivivus,  edited by G. Canziani and G. Paganini, Firenze, La Nuova Italia 1981-1982, pp. 969-970, 983).

^[16] "Perché il buon Prencipe fa il buon suddito così conviene ch'abbia lunghe l'orecchie, ch'è l'udito se vuole ben governare, lungo l'odorato & in questa lunghezza o ampiezza de' sensi consiste il buon governo de' Prencipi"; M. Bisaccioni, Historia delle guerre civili di questi ultimi tempi, Venetia, presso Francesco Storti 1655, p. 233.

^[17] "[H]a l'idea della sua politica [...] nel governo dell'universo o del corpo umano". T. Campanella, Aforismi politici, edited by L. Firpo, Torino, Libreria Scientifica G. Giappichelli, 1941, aphorisms 57-58, p. 109; cf. G. Ernst, Tommaso Campanella, p. 86. Cf. P. Tuscano, Utopia e realismi negli "Aforismi" di Tommaso Campanella, "Esperienze letterarie", XXI, 1, 1996, p. 12.

^[18] M. Bisaccioni, Historia delle guerre civili, Venetia, presso Francesco Storti 1655, p. 232.

^[19] "[S]timavasi il Protettore di essere protetto dal Cielo, o per lo meno dalla fortuna (s'altra fortuna però si può dare ch'è il Cielo, ch'è lo stesso con la fortuna humana, onde si accordano le due sentenze, che i Cieli si lasciano sforzare, e l'altra che ciascheduno fabbrica a se medesimo la propria fortuna), certo il fato è la stessa volontà di Dio, eseguita dalla cause tutte insieme, che, da noi ignorata, si dice fato e fortuna e, conosciuta, si dice provvidenza". T. Campanella, Antiveneti, edite by L. Firpo, Firenze, Olschki, 1945, pp. 125-126; and also 7-8, pp. 125-126. The same concept in: Discorsi ai principi d'Italia, edited by L. Firpo, Torino, Chiantore, 1945, p.119.

^[20] "[I]udico potere esser vero che la fortuna sia arbitra della metà delle azioni nostre, ma che etiam lei ne lasci governare l'altra metà, o presso, a noi"; N. Machiavelli, Principe, XXV; English version from The Tudor Translations: Machiavelli, with an Introduction by Henry Cust, M.P.. Volume I: The Art of War, trans. Peter Whitehorne (1560), and The Prince, trans. Edward Dacres (1640), London: David Nutt, 1905, p. 349 online Pdf edition at "The Online Library of Liberty" <http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Book.php?recordID=0735>.

^[21] G. Gualdo Priorato, Historie parte II, Venetia per il Bertani, 1641, especially pp. 39, 215, 238.

^[22] G. Gualdo Priorato, Historia delle Rivolutioni di Francia, Venetia, Francesco Baba, 1655 (and in the same year always in "Venezia per Paolo Baglioni", pp. 129 e 175). The same positive judgements recur in the Colonia edition, "per gl'eredi di Pietro della Place", 1670 and in Historia del Ministero del Cardinal Giulio Mazarino, Colonia, [s.n.] 1669  [Bologna, Longhi, 1677; Venetia, Iseppo Prodicimo, 1678]; Historia di Leopoldo Cesare, I, Vienna, per G. B. Hacque, 1670; Vite et azzioni di personaggi militari e politici, Vienna, appresso Michele Thurnmayer, 1674.

^[23] F. Raab, The English face of Machiavelli, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul-Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1964, pp. 136-137; on Machiavelli's importance during the English revolution, F. Raab, The English face, pp. 118-184; V. Kahn, Machiavellian rhetoric from the counter-reformation to Milton, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 169-235; J. Macek, Machiavelli e il machiavellismo, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1980, pp. 227-246; J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton University Press, 1975, particularly part III, cap. XI; T. Raylor, Waller's Machiavellian Cromwell: the imperial argument of A Panegyrick to my Lord Protector, "The Review of English Studies", 56, 225, 2005, pp.386-411.

^[24] F. Raab, The English face, p.144; on Marvell and Cromwell regarding Machiavellism: B. Worden, Milton's republicanism and the tyranny of heaven, in G. Bock, Q. Skinner, M. Viroli (eds.), Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 227-228, 230; B. Worden, Andrew Marvell, Oliver Cromwell and the Horatian Ode, in K. Sharpe, S. Zwicker (eds.), Politics of Discourse, Berkeley,  Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1987, pp. 147-180; G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell'età moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, p. 247; V. Kahn, Machiavellian rhetoric, pp. 132-133, 220-222, 251; J. Macek, Machiavelli, 239; J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 652-654.

^[25] G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea, pp. 246-247, cfr. 263, 270; on Harrington and Cromwell regarding Machiavellianism : F. Rabb, The English face, pp. 187-216; A. Cromartie, Harrington virtue: Harrington, Machiavelli and the method of Moment, "The Historical Journal", XLI, 1998, pp. 987-1009; E. Capozzi, Costituzione elezione aristocrazia. La repubblica 'naturale' di James Harrington, Napoli, Ed. Scientifiche Italiane, 1996, pp. 35, 53, 58, 59, 88, 102, 107, 116, 127, 221, 232; A. Strumia, L'immaginazione repubblicana. Sparta e Israele nel dibattito filosofico-politico dell'età di Cromwell, Firenze, Le Lettere 1991, pp. 2, 7, 23, 37, 43, 50, 83, 85, 88, 101, 103-104., 117, 121, 123, 143, 166; J. Macek, Machiavelli, p. 242; J. G. A. Pocock, The political works of James Harrington, Cambridge University Press, 1977, pp. 30-31, Id., The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 654, 673, 680.

^[26] "[L]a Storia ha obbligazione d'esser vera, e privilegio d'esser libera, ma la verità non l'ha, d'essere manifesta"; A. Santacroce, La Secretaria di Apollo, Venetia, per Francesco Storti, 1653, p. 295.

^[27] "[P]arlare di giustizia è simplicità, il mostrare la ragione è delitto".

^[28] "… le ingenuità del vostro animo, con la dissimulazione, perché quando la giustizia è sospetta in mezzo alla tirannide, è vanità il tentare di ravvivarla con la voce"; A. Santacroce, La Secretaria di Apollo, p. 173. See here the political reading of Accetto.

^[29] Ib. pp. 227-228.

^[30] "[L]'autorità riceve l'essere dalla moltitudine, ed il popolo può fare tutto quello che vuole"; ib. pp. 378-379.

^[31] "[N]on vi è cosa più necessaria, nè più utile nè più gloriosa, che l'intraprendere la diffesa della patria, della fede, e della libertà, per le quali tutto è lecito"); ib. p. 555.

^[32] "[C]he combattevano per la Patria per la libertà, e per la Religione"; G. Gualdo Priorato, Historie, parte IV, Venetia, per il Turrini 1651, pp. 572-573.

^[33] We again find their pro-absolutist and anti-feudal reading of Machiavelli in the Neapolitan academy of Medinacoeli at the end of the century (G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea, p. 337).

^[34] G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea pp. 115, 139.

^[35] Puritanism as Christopher Hill has taught us to understand it.

^[36] "[G]iudicarsi significante di un modo relativamente più serio d'intendere la storia, che si voleva far passare (come più tardi fu detto) dalla letteratura alla scienza"; B. Croce, Storia dell'età barocca, p. 109.

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