Redescribing the Machiavellian prince. The idea of monarchy in Giovanni Botero’s Della Ragion di Stato (1589)

Abstract

The monarchical character of Botero´s Della Ragion di stato has been neglected or at most taken for granted, due to the successful reception of the reason of state formula to justify any kind of domain (principalities, republics, monarchies, etc.), independently of its author´s preferences. However, a clear identification operates between monarchy and reason of state that deserves further discussion, since Botero not only reappropriates Machiavellian language, when referring to a political community (as res publica) or the prince (as metaphor of centralized monarchies), but goes a step further to elaborate a non-juridical path to absolute sovereignty, that differs from Jean Bodin´s (1530-1596) concept of the king as ab legibus solutus and Thomas Hobbes´s (1588-1679) theory of authorisation and the social contract. This paper will argue that Botero´s reason of state can be understood as a complex process of reduction to unity that resembles God´s creation and the functioning of the natural world and, despite all its contradictions and limitations, gives the prince an unusual supremacy and control over society.