Machiavelli's City of God
Civic Humanism and Augustinian Terror
The A. argues that the political eschatology of Machiavelli's most provocative texts is at heart a volatile mixture of his peculiar classicism and Augustine's ambivalent relationship to the earthly city he would transcendend. Their overlapping anthropologies are reflected in Augustine's struggle to...
Author: | Paul R. Wright |
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Published: |
2005
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Pages: | 297-336 |
Language: | English |
Format: | Essay |
Topic: | -
Influence and Survival
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Early Modern Period (1453-1789)
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[Machiavel]
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Parent Work: | Augustine and politics |
Status: | Active |
Summary: | The A. argues that the political eschatology of Machiavelli's most provocative texts is at heart a volatile mixture of his peculiar classicism and Augustine's ambivalent relationship to the earthly city he would transcendend. Their overlapping anthropologies are reflected in Augustine's struggle to sustain a critique of Rome with language borrowed from it, and Machiavelli's failure to develop a misanthropy free of theological dimensions. Ultimately, Augustinian typology fuels the civil religion of Machiavelli, which in the Discourse on Remodeling Florence on its most ambitious, perilous, and strangely pragmatic form. |
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