Lucio Biasiori
Scuola Normale Superiore, Classe di Lettere, Department Member
- Humanities, History of the Book, History of Religion, History and Classical tradition studies, Heresy, Early Modern Catholicism, and 27 moreCensorship (History), History of concepts, History of Political Thought, History of Reading, 15th Century Italian Art, Iconoclastic Controversy and Iconophilia, Prints and Drawings, History of Suicide (History), Reformation History, History of Religious Freedom, Saints' Cults, Machiavelli, Theology and Suicide, Representation of Suicide in the Visual Arts, Moral Philosophy and Suicide, Law and Suicide, Anthropology of Suicide, Reception Studies, Xenophon, Nachleben, Reception in popular culture, History, Renaissance Studies, Philology, Church History, Crime, and Criminal Justiceedit
Il libro raccoglie per la prima volta alcuni saggi mai prima tradotti in italiano composti dal grande storico e critico d’arte E. H. Gombrich nell’arco di quasi mezzo secolo. Il filo che li lega è il rapporto tra le immagini e le parole:... more
Il libro raccoglie per la prima volta alcuni saggi mai prima tradotti in italiano composti dal grande storico e critico d’arte E. H. Gombrich nell’arco di quasi mezzo secolo. Il filo che li lega è il rapporto tra le immagini e le parole: le parole che accompagnano le immagini e quelle che noi usiamo per descriverle, le parole che designano i movimenti artistici e quelle scritte nei documenti che ci parlano di un’immagine, e così via. Un libro che ci insegna ad aprire gli occhi su quello che ci sta intorno.
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Senofonte è lo scrittore greco che Machiavelli cita più spesso, e la Ciropedia – il racconto della giovinezza del fondatore dell’impero persiano Ciro il Grande – è l’unica opera antica esplicitamente nominata nel Principe. Non stupisce... more
Senofonte è lo scrittore greco che Machiavelli cita più spesso, e la Ciropedia – il racconto della giovinezza del fondatore dell’impero persiano Ciro il Grande – è l’unica opera antica esplicitamente nominata nel Principe. Non stupisce perciò che le somiglianze e le differenze tra i due autori siano state oggetto di oltre mezzo millennio di discussioni fra gli studiosi, che hanno visto in Senofonte ora un precursore delle turpi massime del Principe, ora un antidoto al veleno del machiavellismo. Il volume ritorna dunque su un problema antico, ma cerca di risolverlo in modo innovativo, trattando Machiavelli, prima che come uno scrittore, come un lettore, e interrogandosi su come la forma in cui egli lesse
Senofonte abbia influito sui contenuti delle sue opere, prima fra tutte il Principe, e sulla loro ricezione.
Entrando nello scrittoio di Machiavelli, si scoprono particolari sorprendenti sulla sua biografia, il suo pensiero e la sua fortuna e lo si può osservare non solo nelle vesti di lettore geniale, ma anche nei suoi rapporti quotidiani con stampatori, amici e protettori. Il confronto ravvicinato fra testi e contesti diviene in tal modo un ingrediente essenziale per conoscere meglio il più influente pensatore politico della prima età moderna.
Senofonte abbia influito sui contenuti delle sue opere, prima fra tutte il Principe, e sulla loro ricezione.
Entrando nello scrittoio di Machiavelli, si scoprono particolari sorprendenti sulla sua biografia, il suo pensiero e la sua fortuna e lo si può osservare non solo nelle vesti di lettore geniale, ma anche nei suoi rapporti quotidiani con stampatori, amici e protettori. Il confronto ravvicinato fra testi e contesti diviene in tal modo un ingrediente essenziale per conoscere meglio il più influente pensatore politico della prima età moderna.
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in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, serie 5, 2018, 10/2, pp. 657-666.
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N. Machiavelli, Tutte le opere secondo l'edizione di Mario Martelli (1971), coordinamento editoriale di P. Accendere, Milano, Bompiani 2017, pp. 1131-41; 2521-31.
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In the fifth chapter of the second book of the Discourses on the first Decade of Livy, Machiavelli addresses the problems surrounding the eternity of the world. Since the Middle Ages, the issue was considered in contradiction with both... more
In the fifth chapter of the second book of the Discourses on the first Decade of Livy, Machiavelli addresses the problems surrounding the eternity of the world. Since the Middle Ages, the issue was considered in contradiction with both creation and the Last judgement, and therefore was strongly condemned and persecuted by the Catholic Church. Machiavelli’s
position has been hitherto considered an enigma: while he rejects the objections against the world’s eternity, he does not explicitly supports it either. What was his opinion? Scholars are divided: some consider him an eternalist, some other believe that he refuses to take a stand on this issue because the problem was out of his interests. As this article shows, the riddle can be solved by shedding light on the source he used for his analysis of this contentious topic.
Machiavelli rewrites a long passage of a book that was held in his father’s library, namely the commentary to Cicero’s Dream of Scipio by Macrobius. The textual and contextual analysis of this reading advanced in this article will for the first time justify the placement of Machiavelli’s most extended philosophical statement within the theological discussions of the beginning of the 16 th century and will allow scholars to fully understand its implications.
position has been hitherto considered an enigma: while he rejects the objections against the world’s eternity, he does not explicitly supports it either. What was his opinion? Scholars are divided: some consider him an eternalist, some other believe that he refuses to take a stand on this issue because the problem was out of his interests. As this article shows, the riddle can be solved by shedding light on the source he used for his analysis of this contentious topic.
Machiavelli rewrites a long passage of a book that was held in his father’s library, namely the commentary to Cicero’s Dream of Scipio by Macrobius. The textual and contextual analysis of this reading advanced in this article will for the first time justify the placement of Machiavelli’s most extended philosophical statement within the theological discussions of the beginning of the 16 th century and will allow scholars to fully understand its implications.
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in "Nuova informazione bibliografica", 15/1 (2018), pp. 25-44.
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in L. Biasiori, D. Conti (eds.), Prima di Lutero. Nonconformismi religiosi nel Quattrocento italiano, "Rivista storica italiana", 129/3 (2017), pp. 863-886.
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(L'indice dei libri del mese, marzo 2018)
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«Nos sumus chaos». Un profilo religioso di Giacomo Broccardo, in «Iddio è informatissimo del caso mio». Il processo del Sant’Uffizio di Venezia contro Giacomo Broccardo, a cura di F. Ambrosini con la collaborazione di Lucio Biasiori ed Elisabetta Lurgo, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2017.more
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No scholars have apparently noticed that the sixth part of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was molded on Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discourses on the first Decade of Livy II 5, in which the Florentine Secretary took position... more
No scholars have apparently noticed that the sixth part of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was molded on Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discourses on the first Decade of Livy II 5, in which the Florentine Secretary took position on the eternity of the world. Starting from this textual finding, the article sheds some light on Hume’s ambiguous reappropriation of Machiavelli’s works (in particular The Discourses and the History of Florence), with special regard to religion. Both the Dialogues and the Natural History of Religion bear deep traces of Hume’s meditation on Machiavelli. The connection between them explains not only the making of his texts but also the long lasting influence that the Humean juxtaposition of learned and popular religion exerted on 19th and 20th century religious studies.
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Vita del Principe, written by the Florentine Migliore Cresci and dedicated to the Duke of Florence Cosimo I, is a patchwork made up of a plagiarism of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum secretorum (written in tenth-century Iraq)... more
Vita del Principe, written by the Florentine Migliore Cresci and dedicated to
the Duke of Florence Cosimo I, is a patchwork made up of a plagiarism of the
pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum secretorum (written in tenth-century Iraq)
and the insertion of some crypto-quotations from Machiavelli’s Prince. What does
this patchwork nature reveal? A close reading of both the work and the author’s life
shows that Cresci was at the same time an admirer of Machiavelli and a supporter
of those figures of Italian heterodoxy, the so-called spirituali, who wanted an inner
reform of religious life and expected Emperor Charles V and his allies to pursue
political change. This overlapping between early Machiavellianism and religious
non-conformism cannot be taken for granted, all the more if one considers that, on
the one hand, Cresci was not alone (in the article the similar cases of Lucio Paolo
Rosello and Antonio Brucioli are highlighted) and, on the other, the “black legend”
of the Florentine Secretary was initiated by Reginald Pole himself, the leader of the
spirituali. The article aims at solving this apparent knotty question.
the Duke of Florence Cosimo I, is a patchwork made up of a plagiarism of the
pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum secretorum (written in tenth-century Iraq)
and the insertion of some crypto-quotations from Machiavelli’s Prince. What does
this patchwork nature reveal? A close reading of both the work and the author’s life
shows that Cresci was at the same time an admirer of Machiavelli and a supporter
of those figures of Italian heterodoxy, the so-called spirituali, who wanted an inner
reform of religious life and expected Emperor Charles V and his allies to pursue
political change. This overlapping between early Machiavellianism and religious
non-conformism cannot be taken for granted, all the more if one considers that, on
the one hand, Cresci was not alone (in the article the similar cases of Lucio Paolo
Rosello and Antonio Brucioli are highlighted) and, on the other, the “black legend”
of the Florentine Secretary was initiated by Reginald Pole himself, the leader of the
spirituali. The article aims at solving this apparent knotty question.
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Starting from a historical research on the interrelations between the cult of S. Catherine of Siena and the cult of Italian Nation between the two World Wars, this essay also aims to test the validity of the notion of “civil religion” as... more
Starting from a historical research on the interrelations between the cult of S. Catherine of Siena and the cult of Italian Nation between the two World Wars, this essay also aims to test the validity of the notion of “civil religion” as applied to an analysis of religious phenomena. Can we better understand devotion, if we replace it with another absolute notion (such as “identity”)?
Or, in the sublunar world of historical research, is it more rewarding to examine how various political options have tried to intercept a cult and adapt it to their various aims (Lateran Agreements, war mobilization, racism)? Is an ideological notion, like “civil religion”, useful for loosening the knot of the relationships between politics and religion, or is it preferable to insist more on the political, social, geographical rifts among the promoters of a cult, rather than on homogeneity and condivision? And are these two approaches really incompatible? These are questions this work would like to focus
on, without forgetting that its fi rst purpose is to clarify a specific historical problem.
Or, in the sublunar world of historical research, is it more rewarding to examine how various political options have tried to intercept a cult and adapt it to their various aims (Lateran Agreements, war mobilization, racism)? Is an ideological notion, like “civil religion”, useful for loosening the knot of the relationships between politics and religion, or is it preferable to insist more on the political, social, geographical rifts among the promoters of a cult, rather than on homogeneity and condivision? And are these two approaches really incompatible? These are questions this work would like to focus
on, without forgetting that its fi rst purpose is to clarify a specific historical problem.
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The note intends to develop the implications of a lexical recurrence between Machiavelli’s letters and The Prince, showing how the renowned distinction between “avaricious”, which «in our language is still he who desires to possess by... more
The note intends to develop the implications of a lexical recurrence between Machiavelli’s letters and The Prince, showing how the renowned distinction between “avaricious”, which «in our language is still he who desires to possess by robbery» and “miserly”, that is «he who deprives himself too much of the use of his own» (The Prince XV, trans. W. K. Marriott) has a precedent in a variant between the draft and the letter actually sent to Vettori the 29th April 1513. What does an apparently so small detail reveal about the Machiavellian way of working?
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This paper joins the debate about the dating of The Prince. Putting the chapter XXI in relationship with the letters and the Relazione di Spagna by Francesco Guicciardini, it seems likely to date the first part of the chapter (par. 1-8)... more
This paper joins the debate about the dating of The Prince. Putting the chapter XXI in relationship with the letters and the Relazione di Spagna by Francesco Guicciardini, it seems likely to date the first part of the chapter (par. 1-8) to the first months of the year 1514, while a comparison with Machiavelli’s own letters recommends to place the section about the war neutrality (par. 11-24) after December 1514. If we are right to suppose that the paragraphs about neutrality are chronologically so ahead, it is then possible to give a more coherent interpretation of the whole chapter, conjecturing a later insertion of them and connecting therefore the last paragraphs (25-27) - concerning the prince’s duties to the subjects - with the first ones, to which they are linked by remarkable textual and lexical consonances.
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I take into account the most theologically-engaged work by the Italian humanist and heretic Celio Secondo Curione (1503-1569), De amplitudine beati regni Dei (1554), in order to see the meaning of some themes, often taken for granted or... more
I take into account the most theologically-engaged work by the Italian humanist and heretic Celio Secondo Curione (1503-1569), De amplitudine beati regni Dei (1554), in order to see the meaning of some themes, often taken for granted or rarely considered in their real importance, for his theory of universal salvation in the name of the law of nature. It was not only the religious dispute between the various streams of the Reformation that allowed Curione to express the radical thesis which made the De amplitudine a scandalous text for both religious sides of Europe. I will argue that the geographical discoveries, the antiquarian tradition, and the thought of Niccolò Machiavelli as well played an important role for the development of Curione’s religious positions. The «wide regions of the newfound world» – as he called them – brought him to change his mind about the problem of the «wideness of God’s kingdom». In the second part I will analyze some episodes concerning the fortune (or misfortune) of Curione’s work, up to Bayle. Highlighting its reception in the most detailed way allows to show its concrete incidence, avoiding the simplistic solution of the “forerunner” of the modern idea of tolerance.
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It is a well-known fact that the Society of Jesus played an important role in the ecclesiastical censorship, collaborating with the Congregation of the Index of prohibited books and offering many of its members as “lectures teachers” for... more
It is a well-known fact that the Society of Jesus played an important role in the ecclesiastical censorship, collaborating with the Congregation of the Index of prohibited books and offering many of its members as “lectures teachers” for the lays. Less known is that the first Jesuits organised an internal circuit of censorship, according to which every book written by a Jesuit should be examined in advance by a commitee of brethren. According to the normative, the purpose of such a measure would have been the preservation of the “doctrinal uniformity” inside the Company. But this official position conceals another reason why the books had to be controlled. As recent researches have shown, the Company of Jesus was - at its very beginning - suspected by the Inquisition. The new, influent position reached by the Jesuits inside of the Church must not be compromised by incidents with the Congregation of the Holy Office and of the Index, caused by the publication of books that risked to bring back the memory of ancient divergences in matter of doctrine. By controlling themselves in advance, the Jesuits did not run the risk to be controlled later by the ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals. This paper tries to see theory and practice of the internal jesuitic censorship, tracing the evolution of normative, its concrete exercise, the obstacles frequently met and its relationship with the changes occurred into the Company and into the Roman tribunals of the faith during almost a century.
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Research Interests: History and Machiavelli
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Kolloquium zu Problemen der sächsischen Landesgeschichte, der Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit und der Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Wintersemester 2018/19
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Eröffnungsvortrag/Relazione d’apertura,
Bozner Gespräche zur Regionalgeschichte/Colloqui bolzanini di Storia
regionale, October 11, 2018
Bozner Gespräche zur Regionalgeschichte/Colloqui bolzanini di Storia
regionale, October 11, 2018
