Freedom and harmony of the republic : Italian humanists and the importance of republican tradition

The aim of this article is to provide a critical analysis of the development and evolution of some main concepts in the early modern republican tradition that developed in Italy, especially in Florence. It is argued that Italian republicanism was not only influenced by humanism, but also by concepts in legal and political philosophy formulated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including those of glossators and William of Ockham. Mature republicanism of Quattrocento and that of Machiavelli posed a crucial question of the best way to preserve a republic, that is on the relationship between order, liberty and virtue. Its significance cannot be overestimated even today