Giovanni Botero was an Italian thinker, priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

, best known for his work Della ragion di Stato (The Reason of State)

The Reason of State

The Reason of State is a work of political philosophy by Italian Jesuit Giovanni Botero. It as first published in Venice in 1589, and is most notable for criticizing methods of statecraft associated with Machiavelli and presenting economics as an aspect of politics....

. In this work, he argued against the amoral political philosophy associated with Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

's The Prince

The Prince

The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus . But the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after...

, not only because it lacked a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 foundation but also because it simply did not work. Basing his political and economic ideas primarily on the thought of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

, Botero argued for a more sophisticated relationship between princes and their subjects, one that would give the people more power in the political and economic matters of the state. In this way, Botero foreshadowed the thought of later liberal thinkers, such as John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

 and Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

.

Early life

Born around 1544 in Bene Vagienna

Bene Vagienna

Bene Vagienna is a comune in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 60 km south of Turin and about 30 km northeast of Cuneo....

, in the northern Italian principality of Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

, Botero was sent to the Jesuit college in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

 at the age of 15. A year later, he moved to the Roman College, he was introduced to the teaching of some of the most influential Catholic thinkers of the sixteenth century, including Juan Mariana, who, in his On the King and the Education of the King, would argue for the popular overthrow of tyrannical rulers.

In 1565, Botero was sent to teach philosophy and rhetoric at the Jesuit colleges in France, first in Billom, and then in Paris. The second half of the sixteenth century saw the kingdom dramatically, and often violently divided by the French Wars of Religion

French Wars of Religion

The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...

. Paris especially was heating up during Botero's stay there from 1567-1569, and he was recalled to Italy after getting too caught up in the excitement, apparently for his involvement in an anti-Spanish protest.

Botero spent the 1570s drifting from one Jesuit college to another, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

, Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, and then back in Milan. After a doctrinally incorrect sermon he gave questioning the Pope's temporal power, he was discharged from the Jesuit order in 1580.

Secretary and diplomat

Botero's life took a major turn at this time, when he was commissioned by Bishop Carlo Borromeo

Charles Borromeo

Charles Borromeo was the cardinal archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Milan from 1564 to 1584. He was a leading figure during the Counter-Reformation and was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church, including the founding of seminaries for the education of priests...

 of Milan as a personal assistant. Borromeo introduced Botero to the practical side of Church administration, often socializing with the nobility of northern Italy, most notably Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy. When the Bishop died in 1584, Botero continued his service to the family as assistant to Carlo Borromeo's nephew, Federico.

Before his work with Federico began, however, Botero took part in a diplomatic mission to France on behalf of Charles Emmanuel. For most of 1585, Botero was in Paris, discussing affairs of the day, and perhaps overhearing the conspiratorial debate on whether the pope would grant license for the French Duke of Guise, assisted by the Duke of Savoy and Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

, to kill the French King, so they could then launch a massive offensive against the French and Swiss Calvinists. The license was never granted, and the offensive was postponed and made more modest, but this conspiracy tells of what kind of political debate was being had, and just what kind of trouble there was in 1580s France.

Works and thought

By the late 1580s, Botero had already published a few works, most notably an epic-style poem dedicated to Henry III of France

Henry III of France

Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...

 in 1573 and a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 commentary on Hebrew Scriptures titled On Kingly Wisdom in 1583, but his most important works were yet to come. In 1588, Botero first published his Delle cause della grandezza delle città (On the Causes of the Greatness of Cities). Foreshadowing the work of Thomas Malthus, here Botero outlines the generative and nutritive virtues of a city, the former being the rate of human reproduction, and the latter being the ability of the products of the city and its countryside to maintain the people. Cities grow when their nutritive virtue is greater than the generative, but at the inevitable point when these virtues are inverted, the city begins to die.

In 1589, Botero completed his most famous work, Della ragion di Stato (The Reason of State). In this work, Botero argues that a prince's power must be based on some form of consent of his subjects, and princes must make every effort to win the people's affection and admiration. This differed from Machiavelli's philosophy in that it is not sufficient to seem like a just prince, for one's true nature will always shine through; one must actually be a just prince by the advice Botero lays out.

Botero's idea of justness came from his exposure to Thomist thought and natural law

Natural law

Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...

 circulating the Jesuit college system, which had been greatly influenced by the work of Dominican theologians Francisco de Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria, OP was a Spanish Renaissance Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian and jurist, founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca, noted especially for his contributions to the theory of just war and international law...

 and Domingo de Soto

Domingo de Soto

Domingo de Soto was a Dominican priest and Scholastic theologian born in Segovia, Spain, and died in Salamanca at the age of 66...

 of the School of Salamanca

School of Salamanca

The School of Salamanca is the renaissance of thought in diverse intellectual areas by Spanish and Portuguese theologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria...

. Thomas Aquinas had argued that God infused each individual with certain natural rights, and by the use of reason, human beings could come together to create just societies. Politically, Aquinas imagined that the people would decide on a suitable king, and invest him with certain powers to protect them and allow their prosperity. If the king turned tyrant, Aquinas argued, the people were within their natural rights to depose him. This was in direct opposition to the ideas on the God-given absolute sovereignty of kings that were being proffered by Protestant theologians in the early sixteenth century, and by political thinkers like the French jurist Jean Bodin

Jean Bodin

Jean Bodin was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty; he was also an influential writer on demonology....

 at the end of the century.

Indeed, Jean Bodin's influential Six Books of a Republic was an important influence on Botero's writing of the Reason of State, even if, as with Machiavelli's Prince, much of that influence was negative. While Botero disagrees with Bodin's thought on sovereignty, preferring something more popularly based, he does agree with some of Bodin's economic ideas. Nonetheless, Botero's overall conception of political economy is again more 'liberal' than that of Bodin, who argued for active participation by kings in the economy of the country, including mercantilist policies that would be enacted wholeheartedly in seventeenth century France by Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 and Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

. Bodin cautioned kings only against trading with their own subjects; all other economic activity was allowed. Botero, on the other hand, argued that there were only three cases where the prince could take part in trade: 1) if no private citizen could afford it, 2) if a single private citizen would grow too powerful by the profits of it, or 3) there were some shortfall in supply whereby the prince would have to aid in the distribution of goods. Ultimately, Botero argued that economic activity was unbecoming a prince, and that the people were to be the prime economic mover in the state.

Later works, life, and influence

Through the 1590s, Botero continued in the employ of Federico Borromeo

Federico Borromeo

Federico Borromeo was an Italian ecclesiastic, cardinal and archbishop of Milan.-Biography:Federico Borromeo was born in Milan as the second son of Giulio Cesare Borromeo, Count of Arona, and Margherita Trivulzio...

, who would become Archbishop of Milan in 1595. Botero mixed in the high society of Rome and Milan in these years, and published another work for which he was to become quite well known, the Relazioni Universali. Released in four volumes between 1591 and 1598 (a fifth volume was finally published in the late nineteenth century), the 'relations' of the title referred to those of the 'universal' (Catholic) church in various parts of the world, a treatise on "The Strength of all the Powers of Europe and Asia", and even includes the Americas. The work marks the beginning of demographic studies

Demography

Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

.

Finishing his employment with Federico Borromeo in 1599, Botero returned to the House of Savoy

House of Savoy

The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...

, to be tutor to three sons of Charles Emmanuel. He would tour Spain with his three charges from 1603 to 1607, no doubt associating with the closest of Philip III

Philip III of Spain

Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...

's advisors, from whom his ideas would be passed on to Philip IV

Philip IV of Spain

Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...

's most trusted policy-maker, the Count-Duke of Olivares.

Here is where Botero's work began to have an influence. Olivares seems to have used Botero's Reason of State to outline the strategy for preserving the Spanish Empire

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....

 in his famous Memorial on the Union of Arms. There is also evidence that Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, one of the staunchest political supporters of Catholic reform and a leading figure of the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

, had discussed the Reason of State with his advisors. Thus, Botero's thought was able to shape at least some of the policy among the European states of the very troubled seventeenth century.

Botero's work would also influence the next generation of political and economic thinkers. Thomas Mun

Thomas Mun

Thomas Mun was an English writer on economics who has been called the last of the early mercantilists. He was among the first to recognize the exportation of service, or invisible items, as valuable trade, and made early statements strongly in support of capitalism.Mun began his career by engaging...

's liberal mercantilist treatise England's Treasure by Foreign Trade, written in 1624, but not published until 1664, owes something to the Reason of State, and there is evidence that the great Belgian thinker Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius was a Southern-Netherlandish philologist and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia...

 read the Reason of State.

External links

• The Greatness of Cities - Full English Text Relationi vniuersali di Giouanni Botero Benese diuise in quattro parti, Vicenza, 1595.
• The Earthly Structures of Divine Ideas, master's thesis on the influences on Botero's political and economic theory