Fabio Albergati (1538 – 15 August 1606) was an Italian diplomat, author, political philosopher, and moralist. Albergati lived during the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and wrote against the background of religious and ideological conflict. He was a staunch Catholic throughout his life and was highly critical of Jean Bodin and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Life

Political carreer

Fabio Albergati was born in Bologna in 1538 of an ancient and noble family.[2] He was born in Bologna,[1] Around 1562, he married Flaminia Bentivoglio, daughter of Count Antonio Bentivoglio. After the election of Gregory XIII to the papacy (1572), he moved to Rome, where he entered the service of Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora.[3]

He was much esteemed by Pope Sixtus V, and in 1589 was sent as papal Ambassador to the court of Francesco Maria della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino, who held him in high regard. Albergati was his constant companion whenever the Duke set out on his diplomatic journeys.[4] Innocent IX made his acquaintance while still a cardinal, and in 1591 appointed him Captain of the castle of Perugia. Later, Albergati became consistorial lawyer under the same pope.[4]

The Discorsi politici

In a letter of 1596 Albergati told the duke Francesco Maria della Rovere that he had asked Cardinal Francisco Toledo for permission to read Jean Bodin (whose works were on the Index of forbidden books). The prelate granted it but urged Albergati to confute Bodin's errors. Therefore, he wrote his unpublished Antibodino, submitted it to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini after Toledo's death (1596), and sent a copy to the duke. After substantially enlarging his original manuscript Albergati eventually decided to publish it, first in Rome (1602) and then in Venice (1603), under the title: Dei discorsi politici libri cinque. Nei quali viene riprovata la dottrina di Gio. Bodino, e difesa quella di Aristotele.[5]

Last years and death

Fabio Albergati died in Bologna on 15 August 1606.[1] A bronze medal was struck in honour of him, bearing on the obverse his effigy, with the words “Fabius Albergati Mon. Canini Marchio;” and on the reverse, falling dew, with the legend “Divisa beatum.”

Marriage and children

By his wife, the Countess Flaminia, he had six sons and five daughters. One of his daughters, Lavinia, became the wife of the Duke Orazio Ludovisi, the brother of Gregory XV.

His son Niccolò embraced the ecclesiastical life and was created cardinal by pope Innocent X on March 6, 1645.[6]

Ideas

Title page of Albergati's La Republica regia.

Fabio Albergati is best known as an opponent of the French political philosopher Jean Bodin.

Albergati's Dei Discorsi Politici (1602; 1603) is a detailed analysis of Bodin's République (1576). Albergati considers the political community to be natural, and states his preference for monarchy as the ‘best’ of the constitutions described by Aristotle in his Politics, because of its similarity to divine government.[1]

Albergati takes an anti-Machiavellian line in the work, arguing specifically against his idea that religion could be used as a prop to political power.[7] He elaborated the idea of a kinship, a participation in a similar 'unorthodoxy', between Jean Bodin and Niccolò Machiavelli and equated the philosophy of raison d'état with Machiavellianism.[8]

In his work La republica regia (1627), a counter to Machiavelli's Prince,[9] Albergati prefers to reconfirm that, against reason and interest of state, the natural and moral reasons on which political government is based are still valid:

Knowing how to operate on the basis of absolute reason of state, namely to treat equally all states, and republics, is the work of the universal legislator, or let us say architect, or shall we say of the prudent citizen who, familiar with all forms of government, know how to operate in an equal manner for all. And operating according to the particular reason of this, or of that state is a matter for the particular legislator of this or that Republic. Thus, we can deduce that absolute reason of state is the rule, on the basis of which the absolute legislator operates in each state according to its particular form.

— Fabio Albergati, La republica regia, pp. 83-84.

Consequently, if one wants to talk of reason of state as an instrument of government utilized by all sovereigns, it must be strictly combined with that civil prudence which guarantees a solid link - already definitively argued by the doctrine of Aristotle - of honesty to usefulness, of virtue to civil commitment. Certainly, the reference to the Catholic faith is explicit, nevertheless - sustains Albergati - it is natural reason which must guide the work of the governors and the governed; this is the main aim of his work: «the reasons of the modern politician, turned down not on the grounds of faith, but on the grounds of natural reason» (La republica regia, p. 338). Furthermore, in the writing of Albergati, the difficulty of defining the point of equilibrium in the tension between morals and politics, can be found in those passages in which the author confirms the possibility of the prince's carrying out certain dissimilatory practices (La republica regia, pp. 199 and 261).

Works

Albergati left several manuscript works, which were preserved in the library of the Duke of Urbino. His complete works were published in Rome by Zanetti in 1573.

Legacy

Albergati is the foremost champion in the counter-offensive unloosed by the Aristotelian political philosophers against Bodin's attack on Aristotle. He is a subtle mind, a closely reasoning logician, too much of a doctrinaire to have any appreciation of the wealth of induction buried under the slags of Bodin's generalizations. He is the first to give a comprehensive critique of Bodin's idea of sovereignty.

Albergati's importance has for a long time escaped the notice of scholars both in Italy and abroad, with the exception of Otto von Gierke, who glimpsed the interest of Albergati's remarks about Bodin's identification of majestas with summa potestas, and of Arnold Wehn, author of the one and only monograph on Albergati which we possess. Wehn admits that even Bodin's most zealous followers have, consciously or unconsciously, walked in the footsteps of Albergati and have subjected his theory of sovereignty to strictures identical or very similar to those produced by the latter.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Fasano Guarini 1960.
  2. ^ "Fabio Albergati". Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2011-09-26.
  3. ^ J. R. Mulryne; Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly; Margaret Shewring, eds. (2004). Europa triumphans: court and civic festivals in early modern Europe. Vol. 1. Ashgate Publishing. p. 211 note 42. ISBN 9780754638735.
  4. ^ a b Gianturco 1938, p. 684.
  5. ^ Comparato 2013, p. 346.
  6. ^ Miranda, Salvador. "ALBERGATI-LUDOVISI, Niccolò (1608-1687)". The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Florida International University. OCLC 53276621. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  7. ^ Del Fante 1987, p. 151.
  8. ^ Gianfranco Borrelli. "Reason of State. The Italian Art of Political Prudence" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2011-09-26.
  9. ^ Manuel, Frank Edward; Manuel, Fritzie Prigohzy (1979). Utopian Thought in the Western World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 153.
  10. ^ Fragnito, Gigliola (2001). Church, Censorship, and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 141–2. ISBN 978-0521661720.
  11. ^ It has been argued that Albergati's work was 'a demanding intellectual effort to furnish moral and political legitimacy for the pontiff's repression of banditry and of the sectors of the feudal and nobiliary world connected with it'. G. Angelozzi, 'Cultura dell'onore, codici di comportamento nobiliari e Stato nella Bologna pontificia: un'ipotesi di lavoro', Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 7 (1982), pp. 305–24 (p. 309).

References

  • Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from McClintock, John; Strong, James (1867–1887). Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. Harper and Brothers.
  • Bumaldi, Giovanni Antonio (1641). Bibliotheca Bononiensis. Bononiae: typis haeredis Victorij Benatij. p. 65.
  • Dolfi, Pompeo Scipione (1670). Cronologia delle Famiglie Nobili di Bologna. Bologna: presso Gio. Battista Ferroni. p. 33.
  • Gianturco, Elio (1938). "Bodin's Conception of the Venetian Constitution and His Critical Rift with Fabio Albergati". Revue de littérature comparée. 18: 684–95.
  • Fasano Guarini, Elena (1960). "ALBERGATI, Fabio". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 1: Aaron–Albertucci (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
  • Del Fante, Alessandra (1987). "Tendenze utopistiche, antimachiavellismo e 'ragion di Stato' nella "Republica Regia" di Fabio Albergati". Atti e Memorie dell'Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere 'La Colombaria'. 52: 141–158.
  • Baldini, Artemio E. (1997). "Albergati contro Bodin. Dall'"Antibodino" ai "Discorsi politici"". Il Pensiero Politico. 30 (2): 287–310.
  • Wahnbaeck, Till (1999). "Die Reaktion der Kurie auf die Begründung des Absolutismus. Fabio Albergati versus Jean Bodin". Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung. 26 (2): 245–267. JSTOR 43569268.
  • Comparato, Vittor Ivo (2013). Howell A. Lloyd (ed.). "The Italian "Readers" of Bodin. From Albergati to Filangieri". The Reception of Bodin. Leiden: Brill: 343–370. doi:10.1163/9789004259805_016. ISBN 9789004259805.
Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabio_Albergati
No tags for this post.