Drawing on her unequaled expertise concerning the governments and political systems of Renaissance Italy—the fruit of decades of research in both the archival and published sources of every major Italian state (and several minor ones) between the mid-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth century—Shaw has produced a comprehensive and salient analysis of what she identifies as the fundamental “political principles” of Italy’s republics. This excellent and deeply learned book—the latest of her many monographs—challenges the dismissive view of Renaissance republicanism as moribund, especially after European monarchies took control of most of the peninsula in the early sixteenth century.
Shaw’s approach is grounded in careful explication of the language of the “principles” that she unearths, not from the works of political thinkers but from the records of council proceedings, proposals by government committees, debates and advisory sessions, preambles to legislation, chancery letters, diplomatic instructions and reports, and much more. These practical, collaborative, and mostly...