Hankins has written a book about the Italian humanist scholars of the quattrocento and their effects on the politics of northern Italy. He states, “for most Renaissance humanists, freedom was a moral achievement, the fruit of virtue, and was prevented from collapse into license only by good character…. Their principle message [was] that cities needed to be governed by well-educated men and women of high character, possessed of practical wisdom, and informed by the study of ancient literature and moral philosophy.”
Quattrocento humanists were not necessarily republicans in the modern sense. They worked under, advised, and tried to influence princes and tyrants, but also aristocracies, oligarchies, and democracies. “What was common to humanist political literature was a commitment, not to a particular regime type or to “republican liberty,” but rather to a reform project that was in a certain sense supra partes, directed by political elites in general, whatever regime they served…. For the humanists constitutional form was far less important than the character of rulers.”
Hankins defines virtue ethics and virtue politics. “In contrast to the other two leading approaches to normative ethics in the modern world—deontology and utilitarianism—virtue ethics emphasizes the need to develop, through reflection and practice, excellent patterns of conduct (the virtues) so as to achieve human good and human flourishing (eudaimonia, or happiness)…. “Virtue politics” by analogy with virtue ethics, focuses on improving the character and wisdom of the ruling class with a view to bringing about a happy and flourishing commonwealth. It sees the political legitimacy of the state as tightly linked with the virtue of the rulers and especially their practice of justice, defined as a preference for the common good over private goods…. Legitimacy of exercise in the discourse of virtue politics must spring from the desire of a political leader both to be and to do good.”
Hankins begins with Petrarch. “It is still right to call him the father of Renaissance humanism, since it was he who created the new paideuma that opened Christian culture anew to the lost civilizations of the ancient world. It was he who deepened the admiration for ancient authors that had long existed in medieval culture into a kind of Sehnsucht, a longing for the restoration of lost qualities of mind, for the return of ancient virtue. It was he who turned the new paideuma that was the fruit of that longing into an institutio—a way of forming the mind, oriented above all to the acquisition of virtue, wisdom, and eloquence.” Petrarch was also able to convince his contemporaries that pagan philosophy was, not a threat, but complimentary to Christian faith. The pagan classics would instruct on the virtues of the world and Christ on matters of the spirit. “The studia humanitatis had to do with the edification of human beings in this life and the reform of human states and societies.” Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Tacitus, and, particularly, Cicero were their ancient lodestars.
Humanists were also concerned with moral character more than laws and justice. They thought beneficial laws would necessarily flow from a ruler with proper virtues. “Like Plato, they did not think obedience could be secured merely by writing down laws and institutions that conformed to abstract principles of justice. Human justice began in the soul, and a way had to be found of engraving laws in the souls of both rulers and ruled. Justice was not a right or entitlement, as most people believe today, but a personal commitment to give fellow citizens what they deserved, even citizens poorer or weaker than oneself. It was a virtue—an excellent character trait informed by practical wisdom.”
Quattrocento humanists were egalitarians. “Most humanists from Petrarch onward insist that even a person of humble birth can merit a place in the ruling class via the acquisition of virtue…. The humanists of the quattrocento may indeed by credited with inventing a new form of equality not found in modern political theory—nor in ancient for that matter—which might be labeled “virtue egalitarianism.”” Bartolomeo Platina expounds, “It is characteristic of nobility to follow the right, rejoice in duties, have command of desires, and restrain avarice. Whoever does this, even if he were by some chance born to the lowest human condition, merits being called and regarded as noble.”
Humanists saw partisanship as ugly and sought to act above that fray. “The humanists generally saw open partisanship as unseemly and, like other passions, a threat to virtue and the rule of reason, quite apart from the damage it caused to the state in affairs domestic and foreign…. The goals of the political project operated on a higher plane than that of partisan conflict and regime loyalties.” Humanist advisors had no problem mentoring new rulers and shifting loyalties when regimes changed from tyrant to tyrant or even from tyrant to Pope or republic. It was the virtue of the ruler and not the form of government that they sought to influence. “Loyalty to a particular constitutional form was no part of what it meant to be a man of virtue in the quattrocento.” Petrarch insisted, “Where there are no tyrants, the people tyrannize.”
The humanist scholars of the quattrocento were anti-scholastics. “Petrarch lays out a model of moral and intellectual self-cultivation that rejects the ethos of scholasticism. The latter for him represented a corrupt form of education, mere pre-professional training, oriented to power and money-making and transmitting expertise without concern for moral character. Scholasticism focuses on problem-solving in particular contexts; it is designed to train medical doctors or lawyers, future decision-makers in lay governments and in the Church. Petrarch’s otium litterarium by contrast—revealing its Stoic inspiration—is designed to instill wisdom and virtue. It broadens the mind so that it adopts a universal perspective, the perspective of all of time and space. By ranging through past times and around the globe the solitarius is drawn out of the moment.”
Hankins also extolls Leonardo Bruni as an exemplar of humanist philosophy. Bruni saw liberty and equality as the precursors to political virtue. “Liberty is valued above all because it produces virtue, and it is virtue that makes Florence worthy of leadership among peoples, perhaps even empire. It is the virtuous rule of Florence that in turn guarantees liberty to other towns and cities within their sphere of influence.” Bruni saw Florence as the natural successor to Rome, the classical model par excellence for most humanist scholars. Within Tuscany, Bruni saw Florence as first among equals and guarantee of liberty for all. He states, “Our magistrates and generals yearned to acquire the greatest praise from one thing alone, the fair and faithful defence of our provinces and of our allies. In this way we could more truly have been titled a protectorate [patrocinium] than an empire [imperium] of the world.”
Bruni identifies faction as Florence’s main obstacle to success. The Guelf and Ghibelline nobles vied for political power, even as both factions tried to suppress the rise of the popolo and the guildsmen. “Bruni’s approach is straightforwardly moralistic; he regards human vice as the ultimate cause of factionalism. The highest and lowest classes in the state are naturally uncivil and immoderate, while the broad middle classes—the popolo—have the greatest capacity for civic virtue. It is only the middle classes that have a real interest in observing the common good…. They can identify their own interests more closely with those of the state.”
Hankins ends by contrasting the quattrocento humanists with Machiavelli. For Machiavelli, “the study of letters and philosophy are a “dangerous deceit” that undermines a city’s institutio, the disciplines of civic life that buttress warlike virtue; and the softening of manners that result from literary study ultimately brings the state to ruin.” Machiavelli is not concerned with the virtues when governing affairs of state. “Necessity became Machiavelli’s watchword and the basis of his political science. Power, virtu in Machiavelli’s sense, is the condition of all other goods…. What should guide a ruler’s policies is the logic of necessity, which belongs to a different register entirely from the laws of morality…. Machiavelli teaches his prince that following habits of behavior, whether good or bad, as though on a kind of moral autopilot, will bring him ruin. He must learn moral flexibility, strategic inconstancy, selective clemency, and cruelty. Goodness must become the servant of necessita, the logic of power.” Rulers could not afford to be guided by personal morals and principles when dictating political affairs. “Machiavelli was the first to explore the paradox of the moderns: that evil must be done to safeguard the good. This a paradox of statesmen, not of philosophers, and it acquires moral gravity because, even in democracies, statesmen must choose not only for themselves but for others.”
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