Della Potestà De' Prencipi

Erasmo Castellani

Della potestà de’ prencipi: An Unfinished Project in Conversation with Modern

European Political Thinkers

Introduction

The name Paolo Sarpi immediately brings to mind his defense of Venice during the papal

Interdict in 1606 and the history of the Council of Trent. However, these are only the tips of the iceberg of his literary production, both private and official, in which he discussed religion, politics, philosophy, and logic. From the moment he was appointed official canonist and theological adviser by Doge Leonardo Donà (one of the most prominent patricians of the giovani faction, whose political view share several points with that of Protestant countries), Sarpi made available his erudition to the Venetian Republic.

Sarpi was probably one of the most radical souls among the Venetian reformers, very much eager not only to abate the papal influence in Venice’s business, but also deeply involved in the contemporary developments of the concept of State, coming in particular from the

Protestant environment. His major reforming project, doomed to fail, was probably the reconfiguration of the benefices in the territories of the Republic, in order to reorganize

Venice politically and ecclesiastically. Yet Sarpi did not abandoned completely his program: despite not being able to carry on his reforming plan in the public space, and kept extremely busy by his official duties, he continued developing it in the personal sphere, as it emerges significantly in his private correspondence.

The text that I will analyze is an example of Sarpi’s “private” production. As we will see, this writing is controversial and not easy to position organically in his work; moreover, the lack of historical information around these few, long forgotten pages, makes it almost impossible to define the genesis of this work and to whom it was addressed. Most likely, it was the draft of the first three chapters of a larger project whose aim was to define the rights of a sovereign State and the limitations of the Church within it. Fulgenzio Micanzio, in the biography of Sarpi, wrote: “Si sono ancora vedute le rubriche di 206 capitoli d’un’opera, che si vede ch’egli aveva nell’idea, Della potestà dei prencipi,... e se ne può far argomento dell’estesa ch’egli ha fatta de’ tre primi capitoli solamente.”1 Hence, even the title is ambiguous, since it was “invented” by Sarpi’s biographer, possibly in contrast with Bellarmine’s De potestate summi pontificis. However, the titles of the sections and the development of the first three allow us to put this work in a broader context, that is to say in a precise historical moment, and in conversation with other contemporary political theorists, especially in Italy, France,

Germany, England and the Netherlands. It represents part of the ideological political agenda of Sarpi, free from the constraints of the legal framework that bound him in his official consulti. It finally exemplifies the modernity of Sarpi in the discourse of sovereignty and State, with many features in common with Protestant theorists, yet heavily grounding his thoughts on the Scriptures and their exegesis.

The titles of the sections show clearly the main goal of Sarpi’s work: in civil life, there is no room for two equal and independent powers (ecclesiastic and secular) within the territories

1 Micanzio, Vita, p. 1333.

2 of one State. This was not a new argument for the author, who had expressed the same point in several other works, from the writings over the Interdict to the consulti on the jurisdiction on Ceneda, and in his private correspondence, especially to the Gallican jurist

Jacques Gillot.2 Actually, since many titles are easily deductible from Sarpi’s previous works, it would not be surprising that that list was in fact drafted by Micanzio or others familiar with Sarpi and his thought. Nonetheless, and possibly for this very reason, it can be used to analyze Sarpi’s ideas on the relationship between a sovereign State and the Church of Rome.

What is particularly problematic here is dating both the titles of sections and the first three drafts of these titles. Corrado Pin in his essay posits as terminus post quem for the production of the sections the two-year period 1609-10, since at that time Sarpi, among other things, was discussing with Gillot and Agostino Dolce – a Venetian in the court of the viceroy of

Naples – the idea of writing a book on the topic mentioned above, discussing of theology, law and politics.3 Another reason to consider that period as the one in which Sarpi started to lay down ideas for this work is the publishing of Bellarmine’s Tractatus de potestate summi pontificis in rebus temporalibus, adversus Gulielmum Barclaium in 1610, which, as suggested before, probably inspired the title given by Micanzio to the unfinished work of his master, in open contrast with the writing of Bellarmine.

However, that period was a very busy one for Sarpi, who was starting several projects, working on the translation of Sir Edwin Sandys’s Relation of the State of Religion, completing his

Historia dell’Interdetto, outlining the left undone Trattato delle materie beneficiarie and, of course, issuing several consulti for the Venetian government; among them, worth of notice for their

2 Pin, Progetti e abbozzi sarpiani sul governo dello stato, pp. 103-104. 3 Ibid, pp. 101-2.

3 resonance with the analyzed work, Della potestà coattiva and Difesa delle scritture, in which Sarpi on the one hand accused the misinterpretations of the Scriptures made by Church of Rome, and on the other praised the religious and political virtues of Venice.4 Also, in one consulto on

Ceneda, Sarpi stressed two general points that emerge very clearly in Della potestà de’ Prencipi: first, the fact that the State must be aware of its rights and its duties, its sovereignty and those who threaten it; second, that one of the main duty of a government is to guarantee the public order and calm.5

We cannot go any further with conjecture about the dating of the work, nor is the identification of its audience an easy task too. But we can try to close in on the possible readers by analyzing the text. At first glance, Della potestà de’ prencipi appears to be a politico- juridical work: it addresses questions already elaborated in other consulti, it aims to propose a different organization of the State, and accuses the Papacy, the most significant rival of

Venice at that time, of being the mother of all problems that a sovereign State can have.

Even the tone – at times authoritative, at times ironic – recalls that of his other writings.

However, there are as well several aspects that suggest that the Venetian ruling class was not the ideal reader of this work. In fact, the consulti are usually very pragmatic, straight to the point of the controversy; their language is rarely academic while this text is clearly not suited for men who have learnt about politics by dealing first-hand with administrative and judicial problems. Micanzio, presenting Della potestà de’ principi in the passage mentioned above , wrote: “… sendosi mandate quelle rubriche in diversi paesi dove si trovano uomini celebri in

4 Sarpi, Consulti, Vol. I, book II, pp. 623-628, 677-695. 5 Ibid, pp. 855-862.

4 dottrina et erudizione.”6 Again, it is necessary to be cautious with the words of Micanzio, but it is meaningful that he stressed the fact that, ideally, Sarpi’s work was meant to be read, discussed and debated among European intellectuals. Once more, despite the truthfulness of this claim, we can see that the text was intended, or at least had the potential, to be in conversation with the intellectual debates about the meaning of State, and was not limited to simply address the controversy between the Church and the Serenissima. Pin, on this regard, attempts to locate more precisely Sarpi’s work in the intellectual debate: he proposes that this work could have been thought to participate to the lively debate between Gallicans and

Huguenots against Bellarmine’s De potestate summi ponteficis and in general Jesuit’s politics.

However, he is aware that this is a conjecture supported only by pieces of evidences in the text and Sarpi’s close relationship with many French leading thinkers, since there are no documents that can support this thesis.7

Another point I want to stress to underline the European inclination of this work is precisely its main topic. As we have seen, the title Della potestà de’ prencipi was not given by Sarpi himself; rather, it was assigned by Micanzio, who read in the sections – which clearly address the problem of the interference of the Church in the administration of a State – a more general vocation towards the essence of sovereignty. We have also seen before that Paolo

Sarpi believed that one of the main goals of the prince, if not the most important, is to maintain the public order and to guarantee peace and tranquility. Sarpi called his time

“troubled.” And in fact he lived in the aftermath of the Reformation and the Council of

Trent, read and heard about the difficult situations in England between Anglicans and the

6 Micanzio, Vita, p. 1338. My Italic. 7 Pin, Progetti e abbozzi sarpiani sul governo dello stato, p. 111.

Puritans, followed with attention the religious wars in France and the fragile situation within the Holy Roman Empire. He then fought in the front line during the Interdict Crisis, and witnessed the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. All these “troubles” were caused by the difficult relationship between States, the unclear powers of the sovereign and the interference of the Church of Rome in State’s business.

It appears therefore that organizing a theoretical work on the relations between Church and

State was the most direct way to address the question of sovereignty or, as Micanzio would call it, Della potestà de’ prencipi. Nonetheless it is hard to say that the elaborations of the first three sections were nothing more than drafts, or outlines for some chapters. In fact, they do not offer any kind of background and do not lay down the foundations on which one can build a theoretical masterpiece. And here probably lies the reason why Della potestà de’ prencipi fell into oblivion: it was just a collection of sketched ideas, works in progress, too blurry for

Sarpi to circulate them, too radical for Micanzio to publicize them, and too erudite for the

Venetian government to adopt them as guidelines.

II.

In his brief analysis of the text, Corrado Pin can easily single out certain passages typical of

Sarpi, while some other times he results surprised by the unusual radicalness in which Sarpi expresses his positions. Pin suggests as well that this text must be consider for what it is, which means an unfinished work, possibly drafted in several moments and therefore not necessarily organized reflections and considerations on the subject of sovereignty. And I will consider it as such, without trying to place this work within the whole opera of Fra Paolo

Sarpi. Rather, I will attempt to see in which ways these thoughts were in conversation with contemporary works on the same topic, and if his rhetorical strategies resonate with those of other thinkers.

To do so, I have adopted as my starting point Quentin Skinner’s The Foundations of Modern

Political Thought. I will reference to this book not only to review other political thinkers who can be echoed or are in contrast with Sarpi’s work, but also to try to locate him in a broader,

European conversation, being aware, as I have attempted to outline so far, that although it is a theoretical work, it was well grounded in – if not fully derived from – the historical reality in which he lived. The general framework of the debate around the State described by

Skinner is very much a religious one. The aim is to highlight the importance of the spiritual sphere in the formation of the concept of modern State, a sphere often overlooked as subsidiary to the politico-economic one. Sarpi and his work, in particular the consulti supplied to the Venetian government, would offer a compelling argument to support Skinner’s thesis, as Pin reminds us:

Quanti si accostano ai consulti devono essere consapevoli di trovarsi di fronte

all’azione politica sarpiana in continuo divenire, i cui scopi finali quasi mai vengono

esplicitati e tantomeno in un singolo consulto, ma possono essere colti solo

attraverso un accumulo di informazioni che provengono dalla storia politica e

religiosa della Venezia del tempo, dalla intensa vita di relazioni di Sarpi e dalla [sua]

quotidiana attività politica.8

8 Sarpi, Consulti, Vol. I, book II, p. 113.

Thus the work of Sarpi’s here analyzed, although it belongs to his private production, will be considered under this light, keeping in mind that the positions that Venice held in the

Reformation/Counter Reformation debate were ambiguous, to say the least.

Skinner gives relevance to the “normative vocabulary available at any given time [that helps] to determine the ways in which particular questions come to be singled out and discussed.”9

The normative vocabulary actually not only explains why several thinkers indulge on a particular topic around the same time, but in a way it legitimates their thinking. As far as I am concerned, in the analysis of Sarpi we will see that, for him, this vocabulary was mostly related to the biblical language and to the historic-juridical one, in order to justify an absolutism that leave little room, if any, to the Church of Rome, in favor of a Church of the

State.

Skimming through the 207 sections listed by Sarpi, this normative vocabulary appears obvious. There are several points in which his work recalls the thought of early Lutheranism.

To give an example, both Luther and Sarpi shared a common Ockhamist view on the questions of obedience to God’s commands, property rights, and conciliarism. Luther’s belief that the man is incapable to understand God and therefore His commands, led him to embrace the idea of William Ockham that one must obey God’s will not because it is right, but because it is from God.10 Doing so, Ockham nullified the mediator function of the

Church between men and God, laying down the foundations for Luther’s theology. Sarpi appears to be particularly close to this view as well. Addressing both subjects and princes, he

9 Skinner, The foundations of modern political thought, vol. I, p. XI. 10 Ibid, p. 5.

8 made clear the point that obedience to God is unquestionable and unexplainable through the use of reason. On section 114, last of a short list of titles regarding the obedience to the prince, whether or not he was not a good one, Sarpi wrote: “che ciò non è stato [to be subject of good or bad princes] per timore o diffidenza di forza.”11 If we consider this in the light of section 98 “che il Prencipe dipende da Dio solo e non [ha] superior in terra”, and 5

“che per questi effetti Dio ha dato potestà assoluta al Prencipe sopra la vita e la morte delle persone, sopra la terra e tutto quello che è all’uso degli uomini”, it becomes clear that obedience towards God or those who have been chosen by him is mandatory, unquestionable and not justified because it is perceived as reasonable or just, but simply because it is God’s will.12 Even the prince is in the same situation: if he does not behave according to what God has decided for him, he will sin: “Ch’il Prencipe, abbandonando la cura delle cose della Chiesa e religione, ovvero lasciando minuire l’auttorità sua, in ciò offende Dio e pecca.”13

It appears from the sections 5 and 98 mentioned above that Sarpi agreed with Luther on another point, which is the sole origin of every power: God. The basis for the German reformer to make such a claim is of course the New Testament, in the specific Saint Paul and his Epistle to the Romans.14 Sarpi, more open to adopt the Old Testament than Luther, commented Saint Paul only at the end of his biblical excursus. Before he cited Ecclesiastico

11 Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, p. 82. 12 Ibid, pp. 81, 75. 13 Ibid, p. 76. 14 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 15-16. Romans, 13: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

(Sirach), in which the godly nature of the prince is explicitly stated. 15 He interpreted a Psalm in an inventive way, to the point that he ended up affirming that princes are gods, and God is among them, judges or princes, and He judges with them, that is to say that they rule and judge with His divine authority.16 He did not forget to cite Proverbs, Hosea and Exodus as well, and explains the reason for indulging so much – both the Bible and himself – reaffirming the godly nature of the ruler: to avoid anarchy (described by Sarpi as “plague of human society”) and an ecclesiastical government which, attempting to transform the kingdom of Heaven in a temporal one, corrupts religion.

Sarpi went even further, and in a scholastic fashion, did not limit his analysis to a biblical exegesis, but affirmed that the prince was established by God also according to natural right:

“Come si potrà mettere in dubbio questa dottrina (cioè che il principato, ovvero summa potestà in ciascuna republica è instituito da Dio) sia non solo vera e naturale, ma anche confirmata dalla bocca propria di Dio per le Scritture sante?”17 This move recalls the one made by the “Thomist revivalists”, as Skinner calls them, who fought the protestant theses with the ideas of the Aquinas. In fact, they believed that the law of nature is connected with the higher divine and eternal laws, not only because it is just, but because it is the will of

God.18 This conclusion was problematic for the Thomist revivalists, since it opens to several

15 Sarpi, Della potestà de’ prencipi, p. 32. Sirach, 17: “He gave each nation its own ruler.” 16 Ivi. Psalms, LXXXI, 1; 6: “Dio si alza nell'assemblea divina, giudica in mezzo agli dèi.” “Io ho detto: «Voi siete dèi, siete tutti figli dell'Altissimo» .” I have used here the Italian version of the Bible of Jerusalem, since this translation fits better with Sarpi’s analysis. Sarpi when is quoting Biblical passages in Latin refers to the Vulgata, but when he is quoting in Italian, it is hard to say whether he is translating St. Jerome or he is using the Diodati/Bruccioli version. For the other passages cited here, I have adopted the English Standard Version, since the differences were not meaningful. 17 Ibid, p. 35, my Italic. 18 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 148-149. This theological-legal argument was not new: contrasting interpretations on the definition of natural law and its connections with God and His law have been debated

10 interpretations, in which the borders between God, nature and reason are very thin. For

Sarpi, on the other hand, this harmony between nature and will of God was functional to sustain the idea that the Prince was established by God. It is not an accident that right after having used this Thomist approach, Sarpi spent a few paragraph to rebut cardinal Bellarmine

(one of the most important thinkers who revived Scholasticism to reject Reformist’s theses) and his Tractatus de potestate summi Ponteficis, although in a quite hasty manner: Bellarmine had perverted the word of God, and his interpretation was simply wrong.19 Afterwards,

Bellarmine was contested point by point by Sarpi, who drew upon a close analysis of the text, with a particular attention to the key words and their different translations in Latin,

Greek, and Hebrew. Once again, the attack on the Jesuit thinker is clear, since he was extremely well versed into Hebrew, to the point that he wrote a successful and popular grammar of that language. Sarpi was not contesting the ignorance of Bellarmine, rather he was accusing the systematic misrepresentation that the Church was making of the word of

God to gain or maintain unjust power and control over sovereigns.

III

Another question largely debated on the nature of the prince, and extremely important for different developments on the right to revolt or resist, revolves around the bad prince. It was questioned neither by Lutherans and Calvinists, nor by Catholics that the sovereign was

throughout the Middle Ages. Without analyzing the different positions held on the alleged godly character of nature, and if natural law proceeds from human reason or from God’s will, as it has been already done by Brian Tierney, here is important to consider the fact that still in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries theological arguments played the most authoritative role in legal questions together with the Roman code and its glosses. 19 Sarpi, Della potestà de’ prencipi, pp. 35-36.

11 established by God. The difference was in which way he was allowed to govern. We have seen that Sarpi believed that the prince has a natural and divine right to rule without constrains, in many ways along the same lines of early Lutheranism. The Catholics, on the other hand, especially Bellarmine and Suárez, contested the godliness of the prince intrinsically part of his position. To explain this point, they affirmed that the political society was not created by God; rather, it was a human creation, whose needs followed natural law and never embodied divine aims.20 There were also other views on the relationship between

God and the rulership of the prince: the English reformer William Tyndale, for example, affirmed that “the people are God’s, not their’s” and “the law is God’s, not the king’s.” It follows that the prince does not fulfill his will by ruling; instead, he serves God’s will.

Melanchthon, on his part, originally developed in the context of rulership the thesis of adiaphora, that is to say “indifferent things.” By that he intended that only the law of God is necessary for the salvation, but there are several other rules that do not play a role in the pursuit of it.21 Hence those “indifferent things” are not forbidden and should not be converted into laws. It follows therefore that the range of the prince’s duties was limited to enact the laws of God.

Obviously, these different views affected significantly the ways in which a bad prince was perceived and on the duties of the subject towards him. The question was particularly problematic in Luther: since he claims that the ruler is that for divine will, it follows that

God is the maker of evil. This unacceptable position was solved drawing upon Saint

Augustine. A bad ruler, or a tyrant, is sent to the people from time to time because of their

20 Skinner, The foundations, p. 167. 21 Ibid, pp. 68-69.

12 sins.22 Tyndale elaborated Luther, and considering the ruler a (deserved) gift from God to the people, even though he was a bad one, affirmed that not accepting him is tantamount to resist His will and anger.23 Sarpi’s perspective on the issue was very much along the same lines of Luther and Tyndale: “Quando è utile all’uomini l’esser ammonite con li castighi, Dio li dà un principe cattivo…la potestà del Prencipe, che regge in questo mondo, è da Dio, il quale dà quella sorte di governatore che è utile, secondo l’opportunità.”24 It appears to be less problematic for the Catholic thinkers to deal with the existence of the bad prince, since, as we have seen, they did not accept the Lutheran conclusion that the ruler is by definition a godly one. The Calvinist theologian Peter Martyr, took a step further from orthodox

Calvinism, and made an important distinction between the office of the prince, which is good by definition because it derives from God, and the man who holds the office, who can be easily corrupted because of his human nature.25 The variable nature of human beings was considered by Sarpi, but to make a completely different point, that is to reaffirm the divine authority that characterizes the princes. He provocatively asked Bellarmine in which way

God is in a closer relationship with the king, as it appears in Proverbs, since it is self-evident that the rulers are not necessarily the most honorable or wisest. Sarpi could not see anything else but the divine authority that differentiates the prince from other individuals.26

22 Ibid, pp. 19-20. 23 Ibid, p. 70. 24 Sarpi, Della potestà de’prencipi, p. 42. 25 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 213-214. 26 Sarpi, Della potestà de’prencipi, p. 42.

The possibility of a bad prince of course posits the question of how the subjects have to behave in the event that the ruler is ungodly. Luther, on his earlier stage was quite contradictory in this behalf. On the one hand, he pointed out that a subject must disobey ungodly order, “for it is no one’s duty to do wrong,” and rather follow the conscience, which is closer to divine law.27 On the other hand, relying once again upon Saint Paul, he also stressed the fact that one cannot resist the ruler, even if he is a tyrant, for each sovereign is established by God. Up till the time of the Peasants’ Revolt, Luther was adamant in his disapproval of violence and resistance to the prince. Later, when the Emperor started to threaten the very existence of the Lutherans, he started to consider just the opposition to the secular authority. Calvin too was faithful to the passive obedience taught by Saint Paul, and

Skinner argues that Calvinists developed a theory of resistance some twenty years after the

Lutherans did, and they did so by using arguments of Lutheran origin.28 Tyndale and

Melanchthon added to the early Lutherans’ view that the rulers must be obeyed not only out of fear of being punished, but mostly to please the conscience, because – and even here the authority is Saint Paul – “disobedience hurts the conscience and… God condemns it.”29

Sarpi dedicated five sections to this issue, and according to the words he used, there is no doubt that for him the subjects have no right to resist or revolt against the sovereign, whether he is a good or a bad one. It is worth noticing that he made a point which is in conversation with the distinction operated by Martyr. In fact, Sarpi wrote, on section 110:

27 Skinner, The foundations, p. 17. The passage is quoted by Luther’s The temporal authority. 28 Ibid, pp. 206-207. “Calvinists succeeded in developing a theory of revolution in the course of the 1550s...; it was rather because they took over and reiterated the arguments in favor of forcible resistance which Lutherans had already developed in the 1530s, and had subsequently revived In order to legitimate the war against the Emperor fought by the Schmalkaldic League after 1546.” 29 Ibid, p. 67.

“Che contro il Prencipe cattivo non è lecito ribellarsi, né machinare contro la persona o governo.”30 It may be ambiguous to define precisely the meaning of “governo” in this case, which can imply both the conduct of the prince, and the office, the ruling role not associated with any particular individual. The analysis that Sarpi made in the second section of Della potestà de’ prencipi (“che il modo del governo, che in qual si voglia tempo si usa, viene da Dio non solo quanto al generale, ma quanto all’individuo della persona o persone che governano, e qualunque governa stato, lo governa iure divino”) can help us to understand it better. There he specified that the prince he was writing about was the one who holds the majesty, whether he was an individual or an assembly. With majesty he meant the right to command all and not be commanded but anyone, except God, therefore he is legibus solutus. Sarpi also made a distinction with other “leaders”, such as the king of Sparta, who was not a real prince, but a mere general, a minister of the republic – Sarpi used this word also when he was writing about kingdoms – and the republic itself, in that case, was the owner of majesty.

Therefore he recognized as plausible that there could be a distinction between the office and the man who rules, as Martyr affirmed, although he did not qualify the human component as corruptible and the office as the one coming from God. On the contrary, all he cared about was the human prince and support his ruling position above everyone else.31

Sarpi here explained the reasons for which a prince cannot be removed from his position, in contrast with Bellarmine’s view who was claiming the right of the Pope to dethrone ungodly princes. He rejected all the assumptions that the people elect their ruler, or an assembly elects a king, or even that one is prince because of his lineage: the prince receives the majesty

30 Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, p. 82, my Italic. 31 Sarpi, Della potestà de’prencipi, pp. 52-53.

15 directly from God; the people, the assembly and the lineage are simply satisfying God’s will.

He went even further: not only the Christian kings, but even idolatrous and pagan ones are established by God. He mentioned a couple of historical examples cited in the bible and then explained that of course they were not aware of it, as much as the prophets become so ignoring that God is giving them His power. Once again, he legitimated his beliefs through biblical passages: Deuteronomy, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Kings.

I have slightly diverted from the main argument of this section because I wanted to clarify a little Sarpi’s position before returning on other opinions on the right to resist unjust kings.

The purpose is to show in which way the methodological approach of Sarpi resembles and differs from that of other thinkers.

The counter-reformation theorists proclaimed blasphemous the Lutheran theory of resistance according to conscience, for disobeying civil law is not different than putting aside the divine law, since the former necessarily derives from the latter and the law of nature.

Bellarmine explained, in striking contrast with Lutheran’s belief, that “the rationale of divine and human laws is the same”, and therefore whoever sets aside positive law commits a sin towards the divine law.32 It appears that one of the strategies developed by the Thomist revivalists in order to contrast the reformists was emphasizing the relevance of the hierarchy of law, setting aside – or at least, adding it to – biblical and historical precedents, widely used by the theorists to support and spread their beliefs. This is not to say that the legal argument was a new one. Even radical theologians of the like of John Mair, who developed constitutionalism and the subsequent right to remove a prince, did so interpreting in a

32 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 167-168.

16 creative way the Roman canon. In fact, he considered cases unrelated to the question of political power and gave them political meaning.33 However, it is significant that those who aimed to uphold the right of resistance or some form of control over the prince, started to rely more and more on this kind of “secular bible” which was the Roman code. Arguably,

Thomists and Lutherans had completely different reasons to support the end of the immunity of the prince, and developed a variety of theories accordingly. We already had some glimpse of what was Bellarmine’s goal, or at least, Sarpi had pointed out (most likely, correctly) what was the political object of the Jesuit. Denying that the power of the prince derives directly from God, allowed Bellarmine to support the papal claim to confirm or remove the princes from their positions. We can find the same claim as well in Francisco

Suárez who, in order to fight the controversy of James I’s oath of alliance, stated that the pope exercises an indirect form of coercive power over the princes, not only, as Marsiglio of

Padua believed, through excommunications and interdicts, but also with the right to deprive the king of his kingdom.34 There is not much to say about Sarpi’s position on this: we find a section titled “se l’uso della scomunica, come al presente, è legittimo e istituito da Cristo”, and another one which significantly states “che la scomunica non leva lacuna soggezione.”35

Obviously, the whole project of Della potestà de’ prencipi revolves around the idea that the rights claimed by the pope are inconsistent and that he has no right to interfere with princes’ secular power. However, it is interesting to notice that Sarpi on this work hardly touched legal arguments: in fact most, if not all his arguments were based on biblical exegesis and

33 For example: if an adulterous wife can be rightly killed, a king who is not respecting his obligations toward the subjects should be punished according to the same logic. Ibid, pp. 120-121. 34 Ibid, pp. 180-181. 35 Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, pp. 77, 82.

17 historical precedents which confirmed his theories. This argumentative strategy appears in other works of Sarpi. For example, in his writings on Ceneda, Cozzi observes that Sarpi

“rifiuta preliminarmente di trattare le questioni in iure, sapendo che sarebbe stato un farsi invischiare nelle panie del diritto romano e delle autorità di giureconsulti, che tanto piacevano alla Sede Apostolica”, preferring to rely upon history “intesa come restituzione del passato ai fini del presente, come strumento per spiegare la realtà attuale,... elemento essenziale della scienza politico-giuridica.”36 Although Cozzi recognizes in this attitude the strong influence of Cesare Baronio on the one hand and the French culture characteristic of the likes of Bodin on the other, it is interesting that his radical position against the Church of

Rome, to a certain extent more radical than the one held by protestant thinkers, is very similar to the one developed in England. Without drawing a hasty conclusion, I believe it is interesting to notice that both England and Venice were detached, if not opposed to the

Roman code, the first never accepting it in favor of the common law, and the latter, although very much familiar with it, definitely not willing to surrender its characteristic mercantile-based legal system whose guiding principle was equity.37

What appears to be relevant therefore, is to notice that the novelty brought by the Reform, first in German territories and subsequently in France and the Netherlands, radically altered the strategies to balance the secular powers with the one of the Church: before the

36 Cozzi, La Questione della Sovranità su Ceneda, p. 485. 37 “Il diritto veneto... per i suoi tratti essenzialmente consuetudinari e per la cultura politica che lo sottendeva era refrattario ad ogni forma di teorizzazione.” “Nella gerarchia delle fonti del sistema giuridico veneziano,... il richiamo alle consuetudini era veicolato dall’arbitrium dei giudici stessi: un concetto di equità esplicitamente provvisto di una dimensione politica, considerando non solo che i giudici erano gli stessi uomini politici che reggevano la Repubblica, ma che pure essi, per tradizione e come regola costante, non erano provvisti di alcuna cognizione giuridica che si rifacesse al diritto comune." Povolo, Un Sistema Giuridico Repubblicano, pp. 8, 45.

18 interference of the Church with State’s affairs and its claims to gather taxes in sovereign territories was tolerated through concordats, in order to have papal recognition of “imperial” rights, and therefore “exercising complete jurisdictional control within their own territories.”38

Luther, as we have implied before, in 1529, threatened by the emperor, moved from the

Pauline passive obedience to active resistance to contrast the emperor. The formal protest with which the Lutheran princes resisted to Charles V, was based on legal-religious assumptions (every power is ordained by God), and historical precedents (the removal of emperor Wenzel in 1400). It is interesting that, according to Skinner, the bases for their claims were taken from the Thomist revivalists: every prince has the regnum over his territory, therefore each of them is to consider legibus solutus; the radical difference with the “Catholic” thinkers is that for the Lutherans this was given by God, rather than being natural and man- made.39

Previously, we have mention that Calvin, in the latest part of his life, developed his theory of resistance drawing on Luther and his use of the private law. To justify his position he cited

Daniel’s refusal to obey Darius’s command, claiming that, since Darius was going against

God, Daniel committed no sin.40 Here is important to underline the fact that, although radical Calvinism quickly developed a theory of revolution, up to 1550s their political positions were never detached from the religious ones: the society was justify in its existence to defend the law of God and the right Christian faith; it was established by God, oppressed

38 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 59-60. 39 Ibid, pp. 195-197. 40 Ibid, pp. 220-221.

19 by tyrants who were considered most of all heretics, and resistance therefore was their religious duty.41

Several sections of Sarpi resonate with Calvin and Luther’s ideas. For example, we have seen that section 5 states that the prince has supreme authority over all his lands and things.

Together with the Protestants, Sarpi made clear that the authority (potestà) comes directly from God; but unlike them, he believed that the prince has absolute authority over his subjects.42 Neither in the list of sections, nor in the drafts of the first three, he took in consideration that free people can constitute their ruler, as Suárez and the like thought. On the contrary, he strongly affirmed that even when an assembly chooses his ruler, the people are just performing God’s will.43 At first glance, both Sarpi’ and Suárez’ thoughts – who believed that the people, transferring to the ruler their original sovereignty, were also abrogating it – seem to lead to the same conclusions: the prince has absolute power. But I would argue that it would be a hasty and imprecise assumption. Skinner shows that Suárez’s conclusion has an ideological and an intellectual value:

at an ideological level… it served to accommodate the natural-law theory of the

State, with emphasis on the original freedom of the people… At an intellectual level,

the no less important result was the establishment of a vocabulary of concepts…

which Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf and their successors all adopted and developed in

building up the classical version of the natural-law theory of the State.44

41 Ibid, p. 240. 42 Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, p. 75. 43 Sarpi, Della potestà de’prencipi, p. 53. 44 Skinner, The foundations, p. 184.

Sarpi, on the contrary, did not develop or even indulged on the concept of State in the modern sense of the term. The only time that the word Stato appears in the list is when he was discussing – actually, contesting – the territorial possessions of the Church within the lands of the prince.45 Again, the scarcity of explanations allows us only to speculate on the true meaning of the words of Sarpi, but I think that the account given by Skinner on

Cromwell’s theory would suit Sarpi’s well. Skinner argues that when Henry VIII in 1539 proclaimed himself “head and supreme defender of the Church” and Thomas Cromwell invoked the imperial rights of the crown, they have been wrongly dismissed for using a medieval in tone, deploying the same arguments developed almost two centuries before by

Bartholus of Saxoferrato, and already used in England in the past to limit the papal interference into royal business. Contrarily, Skinner believes that Cromwell was not asking, mutatis mutandis, to limit the rights of the Church. Rather, although deceptively using a medieval vocabulary and making references to historical evidences, he was claiming that the

Church of Rome had neither rights, nor jurisdiction within the king’s territories. Such a claim implies a typically modern concept, revolutionary at that time: that the prince might be the only authority within his own territories.46

Sarpi was precisely asking that kind of authority for the prince, as many sections around the rights of the sovereigns over ecclesiastical privileges postulate.47 Pin believes too that Sarpi

45 Section 93: “Se col ministero ecclesiastico è compatibile l’aver Stato”; s. 94: “Di che è lo Stato, che li preti al presente possedono”; s. 96: “Se quello Stato può esser perduto e acquistato legitimamente in guerra”; s. 97: “Se è soggetto alle altre mutazioni per quali Dio trasferisce gli Stati.” Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, p. 81 46 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 87-89. 47 I just want to report some of the most relevant: s. 7 “che al Prencipe Cristiano Dio ha commesso la tutela e difesa della Chiesa”; s. 17 “che al Prencipe appartiene punir li delitti commessi contro la religione”; s. 24 “al Prencipe appartiene congregar li ministri per avvisar sopra la verità e sopra la disciplina della Chiesa”; s. 45:

21 was not setting up boundaries to limit papal jurisdiction, but rather he was aiming to a church of State, shaped as the Greek Church, as he wrote in other works.48 However, it is hard to understand if his radical positions upheld in the text were limited to invalidate

Bellarmine’s writings, or if it was a strategy to present his theories on a general level. Despite the real intentions of Sarpi, it is apparent the importance of the religious sphere, for him as much as for most of the theorists mentioned so far. As we have seen, for both Calvinists and

Sarpi, God, His word, His law, and to uphold the true Christian faith (whatever it could be) were more than guidelines or something to take in consideration; they were the essence of the State. But the religious sphere was overwhelmingly important also to justify positions, and had almost legal value: Saint Paul was at least as much important as the emperor

Justinian. It is therefore undeniable that Christianity supplied Europe with a normative vocabulary, a common language that allowed circulation – and dramatic clashes – of ideas, and at the same time legitimized those ideas. Nonetheless, it is harder to understand to which extent this Christian normative vocabulary was employed to support political and economic claims, or if these questions “were real” and arose out of people’s conscience.

Machiavelli and his lack of morality had been accused of being the father of the impious

State. It is interesting though that the Jesuits understood the importance of the ragion di stato and were able as well to connote as morally high the maintenance of the State; however, they also thought that the most pragmatic way to protect the State was to please God and follow

“Il Prencipe ha il ius patronatus di tutti gli benefici, che sono nel suo Stato”; 127 “che la Chiesa greca e tutte le altre d’i cristiani hanno tenuto questo stile, dove hanno avuto l’Imperio.” Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, pp. 75, 76, 77, 83. 48 Pin, Progetti e abbozzi sarpiani sul governo dello stato, p. 118.

His law.49 Sarpi, finally, in a passage in which he expressed his complete opposition to

Bellarmine’s thinking – that is to say that the power belongs to the multitude of free people, and therefore the prince can be removed by them – appeared to be shocked by the anarchical consequences that such a popular authority could create. What is unclear is the reason of his concern: was that fear of something that was about to happen? Did he consider that event a disgrace to avoid? Or he simply could not imagine the world going in that direction for real?

In the draft of the third section, Sarpi’s aim was twofold: on the one hand he wanted to clarify the meaning of the oath given to the prince, in order to organize the confusion made by Bellarmine; on the other, he took advantage to underline once more the God-given absolute power of the prince.

Bellarmine, to support his popular natural law, compared the oath given to the prince with the marriage and the vows of the monks. For him, the subjection to the prince is equal to that of the marriage: since the marriage can be dissolved if the husband is unfaithful, the subject can be released from his subjection if the prince is ungodly or heretic. On the contrary, a monk cannot be released from his vow of obedience to the abbot. Sarpi was particularly rude in rejecting both statements: on the first one because he said that it is against the Catholic doctrine to dissolve marriages with heretic men; therefore it is not

49 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 172-173.

23 possible to release a subject from his heretic prince either.50 Regarding the vows, the question was more problematic, because there was not agreement on their real force.

However Sarpi showed that the monk chooses to obey the abbot, whereas the subject cannot choose and must obey the prince for divine law. The oath therefore is just a formal act – or, possibly, a support for the weak nature of men – that confirms a state of nature which follows God’s will. It is particularly interesting the distinction that Sarpi made between oaths: the one given by the vassal is subject to iure civile, and therefore it follows different rules, according to the prince. The oath of allegiance given by the subject on the other hand follows iure naturali et divino, hence cannot be mutated by men. Moreover, although the prince is above and greater than the people and legibus solutus, he is still subject to God and His law, and consequently has no power to release anyone from subjecthood.51

Sarpi limited his discussion over oaths only to those owed by the subjects, and did not mention those given by the princes, such as the oath of coronation. It is apparent that he was trying to emphasize the rights and the powers proper of the majesty, glossing over a proper discussion of the prince’s obligations and limits.52 The only limitations are given by his subjecthood to God and conscience, who are the only judges in the event that he does not fulfill his duties. In this sense he was creating an absolute sovereign and judge, recognizing almost no restrictions to his power, but with significant differences with the likes of Bodin and his followers.

50 On the meaning of heretic, see supra, note 40. 51 Sarpi, Della potestà de’prencipi, pp. 64-72. 52 Even among the sections, the theme of the oath is touched only two other times: s. 121: “se il Prencipe può liberar dal giuramento prestato alli soggetti”; s. 123: “se il popolo può esser liberato dalla soggezione del Prencipe.” Apparently, in both cases, it does not seem that he will discuss something that has not been summarized yet in section 3. Sarpi, Capi d’un trattato, pp. 82-83.

Sarpi to some extent embraced certain assumptions of Bodin, the father of the concept of sovereignty, but often with significant differences. For example, until the publication of his

Six Books of the Commonwealth, Bodin never presented a plenipotentiary prince. Concerning the question of oath, he described it as binding for the ruler, who “having sworn [on his coronation], cannot easily violate his oath; or if he could, yet he would be unwilling to do so, for the same justice exists for him as for any private citizen, and he is held by the same laws.” Furthermore, he declared that to change the peculiar laws or the customs of the State, the king of France must have the consent of the Three Estates.53

Later Bodin, affected by the Huguenot question in France, shifted to a more absolutistic view of sovereignty. Sarpi agreed with the French thinker that the main goal a government must pursue is to guarantee the public order, rather than liberty and therefore they were both adamant in dismissing completely any kind of resistance to the prince.

Both Sarpi and Bodin used the term Republica/république to refer to the State, yet they would have not defined it in the same way. Sarpi did not offer a detailed description of what the

State (or the Republica) is, yet it appears from Della potestà de’ prencipi that he considered it as that undefined entity over which the prince exercises his majesty. On the contrary, Bodin considered “the State as a distinct apparatus of power”, distinguished from its citizens and its rulers, whose powers are limited “to command, judge and provide for the government of the State.”54 It is important to know that Repubblica/République were used just as synonyms or res publica, public affairs. Kainulainen Jaska pinpoints that Paolo Paruta as well sometimes

53 Bodin, Method for the easy comprehension of history, p. 204; quoted in Skinner, The foundations, pp. 273-274. 54 Skinner, The foundations, pp. 355-356.

25 uses this word referring to State. Nonetheless, Kainulainen states that Sarpi in his consulti often substitutes the word repubblica with principe, and that shows an absolutistic turn taken in the Venetian political language from Sarpi onward, strange to Paruta and the like.55

This underlines a structural difference with the thoughts of the two thinkers: Sarpi in fact did not embrace Bodin’s theory that the sole bearer of the imperium was the State and not the prince. The Venetian jurist still believed in the power of the ruler, in his role of supreme judge, rather than legislator (as it is in Bodin), and kept on considering among the most important duties of a prince the safeguard and the government of the Church (of State).

Conclusions

Sarpi in the end proposed a radical absolutist form of prince legibus solutus, but leaning toward already existing solutions, rather than revolutionizing the concept of State and, for the most part, diverging from the developments taken by Calvinists, Lutherans and even Gallicans, as represented by Bodin. Reading Della potestà de’ prencipi in context with Sarpi’s other legal works, as much as his private correspondence would probably help us to have a clearer idea about his real goals and his theoretical influences. However, contextualizing his work in the light of the theories of State that emerged and developed during the Reformation, have shown that Sarpi wanted to add his opinion in that conversation with the major European thinkers, or at least, he had the opportunity to read a great deal of their literary production. It is undeniable that Della potestà de’ prencipi was highly influenced by Reformation thinkers and

55 Moreover, Kainulainen specifies that when Sarpi is using the word principe is not referring only to the Doge, but to the government of the Serenissima as a whole. Kainulainen, Paolo Sarpi: A Servant of God and State, p. 205.

26 in striking contrast with Catholic ones. However, it is interesting to notice that he did not follow Bodin’s latest evolutions over the concept of sovereignty; if we believe that the politico-historical milieu in which they lived have determined their positions, we have then to rethink who could have been the potential audience for Sarpi’s work.

If I have to pinpoint two major issues that do not allow to consider this work fully modern,

I would choose the religious implications of the prince, and his characterization of supreme judge. On the one hand, it is true that both the sections and the drafts revolve around the

Church’s pretentions within sovereign States, and therefore the religious theme is unavoidable. It is true that even in the consulti over Ceneda Sarpi started from a controversy with the Church to develop a legal and political argument that could have been used as well to impugn similar pretensions from the emperor. However, if Sarpi was really planning to write a magnum opus on power and authority, he could have chosen other expositive arguments. One of the points of fracture expressed by Bodin in his Colloquium was certainly embracing the idea that religious tolerance within a State was the most favorable option, not only because it limits frictions and clashes, but also because we have no proof of which one is the “real” right one.56 Most likely Sarpi never read the Colloquium, written around 1588, but published only in 1857. However, it also true that Sarpi never mentioned Bodin, neither in his official works, nor in his private correspondence or in his personal notes, although he was certainly familiar with Bodin’s thinking, not only for the stir that his works provoked

(especially in Venice and Padua), but also because of his connections with French intellectuals, in particular Arnaud du Ferrier, French ambassador in Venice, close friend of

56 Ibid, pp. 248-249.

Bodin and inspiring personality for the young Sarpi.57 On the other, Sarpi several times pointed out that the prince is the supreme judge, and in fact this characterization goes together with his role of defender of the true faith. Bodin thought that the true mark of sovereignty in reality was “the power to give laws to all his subjects without seeking the consent of any other greater, equal or lesser than himself.”58 This move represented a first step towards a modern evolution of the State, less constrained by historical and biblical precedents, and more likely to develop an ad-hoc system of law which gives relevance to the peculiarities of the State. Sarpi on the contrary did not leave the “tradition” and built his own idea of State and prince within a framework that, although advanced and in some ways original, was still the one of the Medieval jurisdictional State. Administering the law was still central in Bodin’s theory, but his prince was not governing through the jurisditio anymore: he was not championing and using a pre-existing set of laws and established customs, resultant of the divine plan. Rather, he became the legislator, above the law and the creator of the legal order to impose on his subjects.59

57 Cozzi, La Questione della Sovranità su Ceneda, p, 482. 58 Ibid, p. 289. 59 Mannori and Sordi describe the jurisdictional state as such: “L’attività di ‘amministrazione’ … continuò a essere pensata come consistente nell’accertare illeciti e nell’applicare sanzioni, mantenendo quindi un’univoca caratterizzazione giurisdizionale.” The State was characterized by juridical pluralism rooted not only in territorial particularism, but also in a variety of courts, whose powers often overlapped. According to this description, it appears that Sarpi was trying to solve this problematic situation, while Bodin leaped over it. See Mannori and Sordi, Giustizia e amministrazione, pp. 67-69.

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