Description
Book SynopsisEurope'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 Eu
Trade Review"Gatti offers a lucid primer of some famous and other less well known texts and debates of the period ... an eloquent analysis of the rich tradition of thinking about liberty in the early modern period."--Victoria Kahn, Times Literary Supplement "[An] illuminating book."--Jacqueline Broad, Times Higher Education "[Gatti] offers thorough, sweeping treatments of major figures in this period--Machiavelli, Luther, Shakespeare, Bruno, Milton--as well as many minor writers... Gatti helpfully situates all the discussions of the period in historical context. This book will be useful for upper-level students and scholars of the history of political thought."--J. Church, Choice "Ideas of Liberty is a learned, carefully wrought, and fine-grained study."--Henry C. Clark, Review of Politics
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Political Liberty Niccolo Machiavelli: Liberty and the Law 11 Niccolo Machiavelli: Liberty and Fortuna 16 Niccolo 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
