Machiavelli and Mystery of State

This 1989 book studies the sacred and secular conceptions of kingship in the Renaissance.

Peter S. Donaldson (Author)

9780521437905, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 August 1992

242 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.36 kg

'This is a book on Machiavelli as Machiavellian, as advocate of the effectiveness of the use of evil in politics. The author, Peter S. Donaldson, has carefully examined the works of a number of Trans-Alpine writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and we get a clear impression of the great influence that Machiavelli had in Northern Europe.' The American Historical Review

Machiavelli and Mystery of State, first published in 1989, studies the intersection of sacred and secular conceptions of kingship in the Renaissance by documenting in detail six instances of the attempt to connect Machiavelli's thought to an ancient and secret tradition of political counsel, the arcana imperii or mysteries of state. This book illuminates an important and neglected dimension of Machiavelli's powerful influence on Renaissance political discourse.

Preface
1. Machiavelli and Antichrist: prophetic typology in Reginald Pole's De Unitate and Apologia ad Carolum Quintum
2. Bishop Gardiner, Machiavellian
3. John Wolfe, Machiavelli, and the republican arcana in sixteenth-century England
4. Machiavelli and the arcana imperii
5. Gabriel Naudé: magic and Machiavelli
6. Biblical Machiavellism: Louis Machon's Apologie pour Machiavel
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]