"Política da virtude" e virtude política

The object of this paper is the presentation, critical review and commentary of Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy, by James Hankins. In this book, Hankins dares to describe, «for the first time, a new kind of political education, and indeed a new way of thinking about political questions,invented and promoted by the Italian humanists, in the century and half from Petrarch to Machiavelli»: what Hankins designates as “virtue politics”. The basic idea is that the Italian city-states should be governed by people of character, prudent and pious, illustrated by the studies of classical literature and Christian moral philosophy, inspired by the great deeds and ideas of classical antiquity, and by the investigation of the respective historical models, from which precept and example should be taken. In short, Italian political humanism advocates the priority of virtue over the regime, as the source of political legitimacy, and the precedence of “soulcraft” over “statecraft”, along with the belief in the political reach of an adequate paideia. This view is contrasted with that of Machiavelli, whom Hankins considers to be an atypical (and hostile)example of Italian Renaissance political thought. In the end, I briefly discuss the limits of this perspective and the lessons we can draw from it for our time.