The second of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the world´s leading intellectual historians. This collection includes some of his most important essays on the political thought of the Italian renaissance, each of which has been carefully revised for publication in this form. All of Professor Skinner´s work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition; these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought.
Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. The rediscovery of republican values; 3. Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the portrayal of virtuous government; 4. Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the power and glory of republics; 5. Republican virtues in an age of princes; 6. Machiavelli on virtu and the maintenance of liberty; 7. The idea of negative liberty: Machiavelli and modern perspectives; 8. Thomas More´s Utopia and the virtue of true nobility; 9. Was there a Calvinist theory of revolution? 10. Moral ambiguity and the renaissance art of eloquence; 11. John Milton and the politics of slavery; 12. Classical liberty, Renaissance translation and the English civil war; 13. From the state of princes to the modern state; 14. Augustan party politics and Renaissance constitutional thought.