CAMPANELLA, Tommasso.

De monarchia hispanica. Editio nouvissima, aucta & emendata ut præfatio ad lectorem indicat.

      Amsterdam, Louis Elzevir, 1641. - Finely engraved alegorical title page. (4 ll.), 379 [i.e. 376] pp. Page 376 misnumbered 379. * A-Z 2A 24°, contemporary stiff vellum (ties gone; small defect to spine), horizontal manuscript author and title on spine (rather faint). Fraying at outer edge of title page and next four leaves, affecting a few letters of text. Some small dampstains. A somewhat less than good copy. Contemporary ink inscription on title page. Engraved armorial and pictorial bookplate of Robert R. Livingston of Clermont (1746-1813), New York legislator and revolutionary patriot. This work is an able account of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century politics, especially Spanish, as well as being a basic political economy text for the period, including a chapter on governing the American colonies, and one on navigation. It was translated from the original Italian manuscript and published first in German, then translated into Latin. Tommaso Campanella (Stilo, Calabria, 1568 ? Paris, 1639) was one of the most important philosophers of the late Renaissance. His best-known work is the utopian treatise @La città del Sole; inspired by Plato's @Republic, but, in reality, his thought was extremely complex and engaged with all fields of learning. The fundamental core of his thinking was concerned with the philosophy of nature (what would nowadays be called science), magic, political theory and natural religion. Campanella's reflections on Machiavelli, and on "politicians" in general, constituted one of the most forceful aspects of his thought. His deliberations focused, above all, on two closely connected points. On the one hand, he underlined the philosophical limits of Machiavelli's theories?limits that made his political constructions inherently fragile. On the other hand, he developed and inserted into a Catholic and Counter-Reformation context an element that was already present in Machiavelli, especially in his Discourses on the @First Decade of Livy: the view of religion as one of the most powerful bonds in the human community. Both these elements are found in this central text of Campanella's political thought, the @Monarchia hispanica. From the outset, he expresses the doctrine of the three causes that are at the origin of political associations?God, prudence and expediency?in order to highlight the inadequacy of a vision of history, characteristic of politicians, that is limited solely to human causes. The first cause, that rules and governs the others and that is always present, even if in hidden ways, in all historical events is, of course, God. This means that a skillful and shrewd politician must endeavor to integrate empirical causes into more general ones. To this end, it is indispensable to have recourse to the "highest sciences" of prophecy and of astrology, that enable one to insert particular events into a universal background. Appealing to biblical texts, Campanella maintains that the Spanish sovereign can aspire to the monarchy of the world if he takes inspiration from the model of Cyrus, invested by God, as Isaiah (45.1) confirms, with the mission of liberating the Church from infidels and of bringing together all peoples under a single faith. For the Catholic king the only practical way of achieving his own universal plans is through a firm accord with the Church and with the pope, following the example of Constantine and Charlemagne. Campanella further stresses that religion is the most powerful bond of political unity. Machiavelli, too, had emphasized the strength of this bond, when analyzing the events of the Roman Republic, but then had condemned the Christian religion as a cause of weakness, strife and divisions. Campanella has no doubt that religion, whether true or false, is the primary and most powerful unifying force in the political body, in that it rules over souls and brings them together, and that all other ties between human beings depend on it. The two other primary causes of political associations are prudence and e [Attributes: Signed Copy]