3 - Great senates and godly education: politics and cultural renewal in some pre- and post-revolutionary texts of Milton

Summary

In the early 1650s Milton had an amanuensis copy the following note into his Commonplace Book. It was in his own Latin but based on Machiavelli's Discorsi, one of seventeen notes from that work entered at about the same time:

Laudatissimos omnium inter mortales, eos esse qui vera Religione hominum mentes imbuunt, immo iis etiam laudationes qui humanis legibus Regna et Respub: quamvis egregie fundarunt. (Discorsi, 1.10)

[He states] the most praiseworthy of all mortals to be those who imbue the minds of men with true religion, even more to be praised than those who have founded, with whatever distinction, kingdoms and republics according to human laws.

This was under the heading ‘De Religione Quatenus Ad Rempub: Spectat’ (Of religion, to what extent it has a bearing upon the commonwealth).

The entry shows a characteristic partiality in appropriating the Discorsi. Machiavelli had actually written at the beginning of that chapter of his discourses on Livy:

Intra tutti gli uomini laudati sono i laudatissimi quelli che sono stati capi e ordinatori delle religioni. Appresso, dipoi, quelli che hanno fondato o republiche o regni.

Amongst all praiseworthy men those are most to be praised who are heads of states and orderers of religions. Next after them are those who have founded republics or kingdoms.

The burden of the chapter is that we should learn from the examples of Roman history to support good leaders and not to serve tyrants, like emperors, who do not have the interests of their cities at heart.