Abstract
Traditionally, scholars have considered Porto a conservative utopia that lacks the audacious vision and the spirit of reformation distinctive to this genre. Some (e.g., Firpo) have even suggested that Porto marked the decline of Italian Renaissance utopias. However, an examination of the historical and cultural context of this dialogue offers a different picture. In Italy, More’s utopian model was never fully embraced due to Machiavelli’s scathing critique of utopianism and the enduring influence of the myth of Rome. Against this background, Porto emerges as an original attempt to rethink the essential features of Renaissance utopias in order to accommodate this genre into the Italian context. In a nutshell, Porto did mark not the decline of utopia; it heralded a new chapter in its history.
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Notes
- 1.
Firpo, Lo stato ideale della controriforma, 332.
- 2.
Firpo, Lo stato ideale della controriforma, 331–332.
- 3.
De Boni, Claudio. “Fra ragion di Stato e nostalgia repubblicana”; De Mattei, introduction to Zuccolo, La Repubblica di Evandria e altri dialoghi politici, 22–30.
- 4.
Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. XV.
- 5.
On this topic, please refer to Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 54–64; 104–167.
- 6.
Plato and Aristotle do adopt our notion of the individual, but they argue that the various ways in which the different parts of the human soul interact with each other give rise to different kinds of people.
- 7.
More, Utopia, 42.36–46.4.
- 8.
More, Utopia, 52.18–54.9; 94.29–30; 96.24–98.100.15.
- 9.
More, Utopia, 246.25–32.
- 10.
We should not confuse the Roman concept of pietas with our notion of piety. A better translation for pietas is “dutifulness.” This virtue consists in performing one’s duties toward not only the gods, but also one’s family and country. Throughout the Roman world, Virgil’s depiction of Aeneas was the typical model of a pious (pius) individual.
- 11.
Romans created this office since they realized that in times of crises, typically of the military kind, it was necessary to act in swift and efficient ways that were impossible in their regular political system. The tyrant was elected for a period of six months; at the end of this tenure, he could be reelected if the crises had not been resolved.
- 12.
Firpo, Lo stato ideale della controriforma, 331–332.
- 13.
More, Utopia, 54.6–84.21.
- 14.
For a study of this section of The Prince, please see Viroli, Redeeming the “Prince.”
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1961. Il Principe. Torino: Einaudi.
More, Thomas. 1995. Utopia: Latin Text and English Translation. Edited and Translated by George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams and Clarence H. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zuccolo, Lodovico. 1944. La Repubblica di Evandria e altri dialoghi politici. Ed. Rodolfo De Mattei. Roma: Colombo Editore.
Secondary Sources
Baron, Hans. 1966. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
De Boni, Claudio. 2012. Fra ragion di Stato e nostalgia repubblicana: l’Evandria di Lodovico Zuccolo. Morus-Utopia e Renascimento 8 (1): 217–230.
Firpo, Luigi. 1957. Lo stato ideale della controriforma: Ludovico Agostini. Bari: Laterza.
Viroli, Maurizio. 2014. Redeeming the “Prince:” The Meaning of Machiavelli’s Masterpiece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Donato, A. (2019). An Introduction to Porto or The Republic of Evandria by Lodovico Zuccolo. In: Italian Renaissance Utopias. Palgrave Studies in Utopianism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03611-9_8
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