ABSTRACT
In Boccalini’s thought one sees reflected the awkward situation in which the man of intellect found himself, particularly in Italy, during the period of the Counter-Reformation. To what phenomena of the historical world surrounding him should he offer his allegiance? Certainly the Church, given new life by the Council of Trent, seemed at the moment to many to possess a sacrosanct value, now that the semi-Protestant and libertine tendencies had been ruthlessly suppressed. But in a man like Boccalini there was no trace of inner religious warmth. And anyone who, out of his own passionately vital feeling and thirst for knowledge, attempted to create for himself a meaningful divinely-enriched view of the world or tried to investigate freely the laws of the universe, was bound to run the danger, either of being burnt at the stake like Giordano Bruno, or of finding himself in prison like Galileo and Campanella. But we have already seen from the example of Boccalini how worrying were the problems of contemporary State life, and how inadequate was the situation of any thinker striving after political ideals. A century earlier, and again a century later, the situation was more favourable. Even during a period of his nation’s misfortune, Machiavelli could still work for its political regeneration. A century later, the consolidated absolutist State was already feeling the first effects of the Enlightenment, and one could think out new aims for it. But in between the Renaissance and the climax of absolutism lay confused and troubled periods of transition, in which the monarchical States of the Continent presented an altogether unpleasing, and in many ways repulsive, appearance; they were incomplete both in respect of their structure and of their frontiers, which they painfully contested, with the inadequate means of power at their disposal, against enemies without and within. Their guiding principle was ragione di stato—a continual struggle, completely unhindered and yet at the same time skilfully conducted, to attain power by any means, great or small, pure or impure. But the consequences of this striving were still so limited and questionable that they did not succeed in concealing the 91impure and petty means which the rulers, in their powerlessness, were forced to clutch at. The State still had no real nobility; and the ragione di stato (which still fell far short of being able to justify the striving for power from an idealistic point of view) was considered to be an unavoidable partie honteuse—shown up satirically by those who were entirely honourable, like Boccalini, and unctuously concealed by those who were less honourable, like Botero.
