Classical Sources and a New Theory of the State in the Renaissance: A Neapolitan Mirror for Princes

This article focuses on an important, although still neglected, political treatise: Giuniano Maio’s De maiestate (1492), composed by a prominent intellectual of the Neapolitan Renaissance. This work, one of the first pre-Machiavellian mirrors for princes written in Italian, is a particularly significant case study, since it theorizes a new model of state, framing it through the extensive recovery and translation of several classical sources (both Latin and Greek). This contribution examines the approaches, aims, and results that characterize Maio’s work of translation and re-elaboration of classical texts into the developing Italian language of the fifteenth century. The complex process of translation carried out by Maio provides the conceptual foundations for his political discourse. At the same time, he also reworks his models with the purpose of creating an innovative theory of princely power based on the actual practical needs of the Kingdom of Naples under the Aragonese monarchy.