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The Many and the Few: Machiavelli and Guicciardini's Critique of Aristocratic Regimes
Hardcover
Series: Toronto Italian Studies
PhilosophyMedieval & Renaissance HistoryGeneral Political Science
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ISBN10: 1487566867
ISBN13: 9781487566869
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: Jan 20 2026
Pages: 256
Weight: 1.35
Height: 0.88 Width: 6.07 Depth: 9.14
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781487566869
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: Jan 20 2026
Pages: 256
Weight: 1.35
Height: 0.88 Width: 6.07 Depth: 9.14
Language: English
The Many and the Few reconstructs a pattern of recurring populist themes in the writings of Francesco Guicciardini and Niccolò Machiavelli. These two pioneering thinkers of the late Renaissance are almost always presented in terms of dramatic contrasts - while Machiavelli's violent populism and scorn for aristocratic culture is well established, many consider Guicciardini the most influential Renaissance advocate of narrow, elitist regimes. In The Many and the Few, Mark Jurdjevic challenges these pre-existing beliefs and argues that Guicciardini was a vastly more complex thinker who subjected his own aristocratic ideals to devastating scrutiny.
From his very first to very last texts, Guicciardini consistently embedded an alternate narrative in which he thoroughly embraced, and arguably exceeded, Machiavelli's view of the innately positive qualities of the people and destructive qualities of the elites. Subsequent republican writers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Madison, all claimed Guicciardini as one of the chief Renaissance exemplars of a longstanding tradition of aristocratic, senatorial politics, but The Many and the Few demonstrates that Guicciardini's contribution was a Trojan horse: it appeared to confirm this tradition even while affirming every aspect of Machiavelli's critique.
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