Le istituzioni di Roma pagana e Roma cristiana nell’opera «Del governo de i regni et delle republiche così antiche come moderne» di Francesco Sansovino

The Treatise Del governo de i regni et delle republiche così antiche come moderne (1561, later amplified in the editions of 1567, 1578, 1583) was composed by Francesco Sansovino, a well-known polygraph active in Venice in the second half of the 16th century. In this work he limited himself to presenting a collection of sections taken from previous treatises on political matters in order to offer a profile on the forms of government and organization of magistracies by various ancient and modern monarchies, empires, city-states. His intention was to propose a political treatise based on a historical perspective and conceived as a comparison of different forms of government and political systems, going beyond the traditional theoretical view inspired by Aristotle. Sansovino’s work is worth consideration not only for this innovative method but also for the original choice of proposing a two-strand focus on Rome. In fact, by means of the translations of Andrea Fiocchi’s De magistratibus, sacerdotiisque Romanorum and Ottaviano Vestri’s In Romanae aulae actionem et iudiciorum mores introductio the author describes religious and civic institutions of ancient Rome (mainly of the republican period) as well as of Pontifical Rome, without expressing any preference