Paolo Carta

Università di Trento

The legal training of Francesco Guicciardini and his political lexicon

2010-2011: Spring

Paolo Carta is professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Trento. He also taught at the École Normale SupÉrieure (LSH-Lyon). He collaborates with Il Pensiero Politico (as editor of the section Cinquecento) and with the Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance. He is co-director of the journal Laboratoire italien, published by the ENS editions (École Normale SupÉrieure). His principal object of study is the history of political thought in Renaissance Europe, with a particular focus on the relationship between law and politics. Among his main publications are: Nunziature ed eresia nel Cinquecento (1999) and Ricordi politici (2003), dedicated to the history of the apostolic nunciatures in the age of Reformation; La RÉpublique en exile XVe-XVIe siècles (2002), edited with Lucie De Los Santos and Scritti sul Principe di Niccolò Machiavelli by Ugo Foscolo and Angelo Ridolfi (2004) edited with Christian del Vento and Xavier Tabet. His latest book is Francesco Guicciardini tra diritto e politica (2008). Recently he also edited Machiavel aux XIXe et XXe siècles (2007), Ordine giuridico e ordine politico (2008) and GÉographie et politique au dÉbut de l'âge moderne (2008). He is also the author of Il poeta e la polis (2003), an essay dedicated to the dialogue between Hannah Arendt and Wystan H. Auden on forgiveness. At the Italian Academy he will work on the formative years of Francesco Guicciardini and the development of his political thought. His research is also an investigation of the historical and doctrinal roots of Guicciardini's maxim: you cannot hold states according to conscience, for if you consider their origin, they are all illegitimate.