Belief in prophetic inspiration and the possibility of discerning the future was a cornerstone of medieval conceptions of history and of God’s workings within that history. But prophecy’s significance for the Middle Ages is due as much to the multiplicity of its meanings as to its role as an engine of history. Prophetia was described in terms ranging from prediction and historiography to singing and teaching. This thesis examines the attempts of medieval thinkers to wrestle with these ambiguities. The nature and implications of prophetic inspiration were a crucial area of contention during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as scholastic theologians, with their particular techniques and standards of rationality, attempted to make systematic sense of inspired speech and knowledge. These attempts reveal a great deal about medieval structures of knowledge, and about theological reflections on the Church’s place in history. The stakes were high: ‘prophecy’ not only was the subject of Old Testament exegesis, but also, in its various forms, was often the basis of authority for exegetes and theologians themselves, as well as for preachers, visionaries, saints, and even writers of secular works. Those who claimed the mantle of the prophet came just as easily from inside the institutional structures as from outside. Theologians began legitimating a moderate form of inspiration that justified their own work through ordinary activities such as teaching and preaching, while trying to keep at bay perceived threats from powerful assertions of prophetic authority, such as Islam, female visionaries, and schismatic and apocalyptic Franciscans. This study argues that, as theologians sought to determine the limits of prophetic privilege, and to shape prophecy for their own purposes, they actually opened space for claims of divine insight to proliferate in those ordinary activities, and in a way that went beyond their control.

In the following thesis, I argue that to contextualize Machiavelli’s republican thought in his Italian humanist heritage permits us to understand how Machiavelli reaches back not only to an Italian pre-humanist inheritance of liberty as freedom from servitude, but to a Stoic conception of agency which he inherits and shapes in that concept of liberty. While my analysis of Machiavelli and his humanist heritage is in fundamental agreement with that of Quentin Skinner in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, it develops however the implications of two theses that Paul O. Kristeller outlines in his works on Italian humanism: the eclectic nature of humanist ideas and their rhetorical focus. From this I draw a slightly different picture of the humanist heritage and its polemics with Augustine, and from these an understanding about Stoic agency and how it is inherited and shaped in Machiavelli’s conception of the citizen and civic duties.

In the following thesis, I argue that to contextualize Machiavelli’s republican thought in his Italian humanist heritage permits us to understand how Machiavelli reaches back not only to an Italian pre-humanist inheritance of liberty as freedom from servitude, but to a Stoic conception of agency which he inherits and shapes in that concept of liberty. While my analysis of Machiavelli and his humanist heritage is in fundamental agreement with that of Quentin Skinner in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, it develops however the implications of two theses that Paul O. Kristeller outlines in his works on Italian humanism: the eclectic nature of humanist ideas and their rhetorical focus. From this I draw a slightly different picture of the humanist heritage and its polemics with Augustine, and from these an understanding about Stoic agency and how it is inherited and shaped in Machiavelli’s conception of the citizen and civic duties.

Orientador: Carlos Eduardo Ornelas Berriel / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T23:39:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MoraesJunior_HelvioGomes_D.pdf: 21905328 bytes, checksum: 58b7b44cf41f7b4ea55f583df1f1ec9b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Esta tese apresenta a tradução comentada dos Dez Diálogos da História de Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, uma ars histórica publicada em Veneza em 1560. Tal tradução e acompanhada de um estudo que busca colocar em evidencia aqueles que, para nos, são os aspectos mais relevantes deste texto: a revisão critica das principais idéias humanistas sobre a historia, essencialmente embasadas nos postulados de auctoritates como Cícero e Luciano, e a proposta de uma nova concepção historiográfica, de forte inspiração neoplatônica, que prescreve a união entre conhecimento histórico e filosófico como instrumentos úteis para a finalidade ultima da comunidade política, a felicidade civil. Também são trazidas para a cena dialógica as contribuições do pensamento político florentino da primeira metade do Cinquecento, que se aliam a defesa da tradição política veneziana (plasmada sobre um pano de fundo utópico), promovendo uma espécie de fusão que dara a esta ars histórica um perfil único entre os vários escritos que compõem o gênero. / Abstract: This thesis presents the Portuguese commented translation of Francesco Patrizi's Della historia diece dialoghi, an ars historica published in Venice in 1560. It is complemented by a study which is aimed at emphasizing the most relevant aspects of this text: a critical review of the main humanistic ideas on history, essentially founded on the statements pronounced by auctoritates like Cicero and Lucian, and the proposal of a union of historical and philosophical knowledge as useful means to the ultimate end of the political community, the civil happiness. The dialogical scene also brings the contributions from the Florentine political thought of the first half of the Cinquecento, sided with the defense of Venetian political tradition (formulated in a utopian background), and the result is a kind of fusion that gives this ars historica a unique profile among the many works which belong to this literary genre. / Doutorado / Historia e Historiografia Literaria / Mestre em Teoria e História Literária

In the following thesis, I argue that to contextualize Machiavelli’s republican thought in his Italian humanist heritage permits us to understand how Machiavelli reaches back not only to an Italian pre-humanist inheritance of liberty as freedom from servitude, but to a Stoic conception of agency which he inherits and shapes in that concept of liberty. While my analysis of Machiavelli and his humanist heritage is in fundamental agreement with that of Quentin Skinner in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, it develops however the implications of two theses that Paul O. Kristeller outlines in his works on Italian humanism: the eclectic nature of humanist ideas and their rhetorical focus. From this I draw a slightly different picture of the humanist heritage and its polemics with Augustine, and from these an understanding about Stoic agency and how it is inherited and shaped in Machiavelli’s conception of the citizen and civic duties.

No description available.

Fifteenth-century diplomatic protocol required the city of Florence to send diplomats to congratulate both new and militarily victorious rulers. Diplomats on such missions poured praise on their triumphant allies and new rulers at friendly locations. However, political realities also meant that these diplomats would sometimes have to praise rulers whose accession or victory opposed Florentine interests. Moreover, different allies and enemies required different levels of praise. Jealous rulers compared the gifts, status, and oratory that they received from Florence to the Florentine entourages sent to their neighbors. Sending diplomats with too little or too much social status and eloquence could spell diplomatic disaster. Diplomats met these challenges by varying the style, structure, and content of their speeches. Far from formulaic pronouncements of goodwill, diplomatic orations varied from one speech to the next in order to meet the demands of the complex diplomatic world into which they fit. Contextualizing these orations reveals the subtle reservations of diplomats praising a hostile ruler, the insertion of specific citations to flatter specific audiences, and the changing intellectual and stylistic interests of humanists throughout the fifteenth century. This essay will examine the different shades of flattery practiced by Florentine diplomats and the contexts that explain these variations.