ABSTRACT
We have already heard that in Italy, in the first decade of the seventeenth century, there were discussions about ragione di stato among the porters in the market-place and the artisans in the inns. This showed the tendency of Italians towards political argument and dialectical controversy on the piazza. But it also gave some indication of certain deeper processes. The whole age of the Counter-Reformation did indeed betoken a tremendous rebound (though in no sense completely successful) against the spirit of the Renaissance which had begun to secularize life. Men’s way of thought was won over again to a respect for those other-worldly values which were administered by the Church—but the new secular values, which the Renaissance had discovered, remained none the less vital. Certainly they were thrust into the background; but in many cases too, where the naked view of them was disturbing, they were only veiled or painted over, and under cover of this were able to continue exerting an influence. It is this kind of painting over of Machiavellism that is exemplified in Botero’s doctrine of ragione di stato. Machiavelli was now considered an infamous heathen, but the actual practice of courts and statesmen followed in his footsteps. Not altogether, it must be admitted; because the purely utilitarian and basically unbelieving attitude towards Church and religion, which he had adopted, was unendurable, at least for the conscience of natures filled with the new ardour of belief. But the authority of the Church did not rest merely on its inexorably maintained theological doctrine and efficient organization; it also rested on a doctrine of morality and ethical values which encompassed the whole of mundane life, and seemed to create a harmonious and unambiguous union between natural law and the divine command. And so it came about that a conflict, between this doctrine of morality and ethical values (inspired by Christianity and natural law) on the one hand, and the Machiavellian statecraft and 118doctrine of ethical values on the other, was absolutely unavoidable and was always having to be decided afresh. Thus one felt oneself torn in two, between the demands of practical politics which tended to force one along the path of Machiavelli, and the doctrines of pulpit and confessional which condemned lies, deception and bad faith. One had recourse, as we have already seen in the example of Botero, to creating a ‘good’ raison d’état, purified and rendered harmless; and the large number of books about ragione di stato which were written in Italy during the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century indicates a passionate interest in this task. These books reflect the whole terrible tension between the traditional and newly invigorated ideals of the religious view of the world, and the growth of the modern State. It was, for the most part, in the many commentaries on Tacitus (which were still undertaken in the manner of Ammirato and Boccalini) that the Machiavellian doctrines lived on—and were frequently expressed there quite baldly; 1 whereas the real theoreticians of ragione di stato generally wanted to demonstrate the possibility and beneficial influence of a ‘good’ ragione di stato, as opposed to the rea and cattiva ragione di stato. But at the same time they had to confess that what the term signified when used in ordinary speech was in fact the evil doctrine, that it was permissible for the ruler to pursue his own interests by any methods, even improper ones. 2
