histofthought1

J80Economic thought before Adam SmithItalian city-states. Such a theory would assert the claims of the secular state ­whether republic or monarchy made little difference - to rule at will, uncheckedby the age-old moral and often concrete authority of the CatholicChurch to limit state invasions of natural law and human rights. In short, theItalian oligarchs needed a theory of state absolutism, of secular power untrammelled.The Church was to be impatiently relegated to the purely theologicaland 'religious' area while secular affairs would be in the entirelyseparate hands of the state and its temporal power. This amounted to thepolitique doctrine, as it would come to prevail in late sixteenth centuryFrance.As we have seen above, the Italian oligarchs found their new theory in thewritings of the political theorist and university professor, Marsiglio of Padua.Marsiglio can therefore be considered the first absolutist in the modern westernworld, and his Defensor Pacis (1324) the first main expression of absolutism.While Marsiglio was the founding theorist of absolutism in the West, thespecific form of his own cherished polity quickly became obsolete - at leastin Padua. For Marsiglio was an adherent of oligarchical republicanism, butthis form of government proved short-lived, and disappeared in Padua soonafter the publication of his treatise. During the latter half of the thirteenthcentury, the Italian city-states became riven between the old oligarchs - themagnati - striving to retain their power, and the newly wealthy but disenfranchisedpopolani, who kept attempting to gain power. The upshot was thatthroughout northern Italy during the last half of the thirteenth century ­beginning with Ferrara in 1264 - power was seized by one man, one signor,one despot who imposed the hereditary rule of himself and his family. Ineffect, hereditary monarchy had been established once again. They were notcalled 'kings', since that would have been an absurdly grandiose title for theterritory of one city; and so they gave themselves other names: 'permanentlord'; 'captain general'; 'duke', etc. Florence was one of the few cities able toresist the new tide of one-man rule.In 1328, four years after the publication of Defensor Pacis, the della Scalafamily finally managed to impose their control over the city of Padua. Thedella Scalas had taken over Verona in the 1260s, and now, after many yearsof conflict, Cangrande della Scala was able to seize power in Padua as well.Quick to inaugurate a new tradition of fawning adulation of tyranny was theprominent Paduan literary figure Ferreto de Ferreti (c. 1296-1337), who abandonedhis previous republicanism to compose a long Latin poem on The Riseofthe della Scala.The hero Cangrande had come, according to Ferreti, and brought peaceand stability at last to 'turbulent' and torn Padua. Ferreti concluded hispanegyric by expressing the fervent hope that the descendants of Cangrandedella Scala would 'continue to hold their sceptres for long years to come'.