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Europe's long sixteenth century—a period spanning the years roughly from the voyages of Columbus in the 1490s to the English Civil War in the 1640s—was an era of power struggles between avaricious and unscrupulous princes, inquisitions and torture chambers, and religious differences of ever more violent fervor. Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe argues that this turbulent age also laid the conceptual foundations of our modern ideas about liberty, justice, and democracy.
Hilary Gatti shows how these ideas emerged in response to the often-violent entrenchment of monarchical power and the fragmentation of religious authority, against the backdrop of the westward advance of Islam and the discovery of the New World. She looks at Machiavelli's defense of republican political liberty, and traces how liberty became intertwined with free will and religious pluralism in the writings of Luther, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, and Giordano Bruno. She examines how the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the clash of science and religion gave rise to concepts of liberty as freedom of thought and expression. Returning to Machiavelli and moving on to Jacques Auguste de Thou, Paolo Sarpi, and Milton, Gatti delves into debates about the roles of parliamentary government and a free press in guaranteeing liberties.
Drawing on a breadth of canonical and lesser-known writings, Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe reveals how an era stricken by war and injustice gave birth to a more enlightened world.
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Political Liberty
Niccolò Machiavelli: Liberty and the Law 11
Niccolò Machiavelli: Liberty and Fortuna 16
Niccolò Machiavelli and Sir Thomas More 19
The Rule of the Prince 22
Chapter 2 Liberty and Religion
The Bondage or the Freedom of the Will: Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam 31
"Of Our Own We Have Only Sin": John Calvin and the Problem of Heresy 40
Inquisition: The Trial of Giordano Bruno 54
Religion as Dogma, or Religion as Debate? Richard Hooker and Jacobus Arminius 65
Chapter 3 Libertas philosophandi, or the Liberty of Thought
Between the Prince and Parliament 81
The New Drama: William Shakespeare 92
The New Science: From Giordano Bruno to Francis Bacon 99
The New Science: Galileo Galilei 103
Chapter 4 The Freedom of the Press
The Problems of Writing History: From Jacques Auguste de Thou to Paolo Sarpi 117
The Search for New Liberties: John Milton 133
John Milton: Areopagitica 140
The Virtues of Schisms and Sects 149
Chapter 5 Epilogue
Henry Neville, the Republic of Venice, and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1689 159
Conclusion 175
Notes 177
Bibliography 193
Index 207
Description
Europe's long sixteenth century—a period spanning the years roughly from the voyages of Columbus in the 1490s to the English Civil War in the 1640s—was an era of power struggles between avaricious and unscrupulous princes, inquisitions and torture chambers, and religious differences of ever more violent fervor. Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe argues that this turbulent age also laid the conceptual foundations of our modern ideas about liberty, justice, and democracy.
Hilary Gatti shows how these ideas emerged in response to the often-violent entrenchment of monarchical power and the fragmentation of religious authority, against the backdrop of the westward advance of Islam and the discovery of the New World. She looks at Machiavelli's defense of republican political liberty, and traces how liberty became intertwined with free will and religious pluralism in the writings of Luther, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, and Giordano Bruno. She examines how the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the clash of science and religion gave rise to concepts of liberty as freedom of thought and expression. Returning to Machiavelli and moving on to Jacques Auguste de Thou, Paolo Sarpi, and Milton, Gatti delves into debates about the roles of parliamentary government and a free press in guaranteeing liberties.
Drawing on a breadth of canonical and lesser-known writings, Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe reveals how an era stricken by war and injustice gave birth to a more enlightened world.
