Gualdo Priorato e la storia militare antica. Sul Guerriero prudente e politico (1640)
abstract
This chapter analyses Gualdo Priorato’s relationship with the ancient world by focusing on his 1640 treatise entitled Il Guerriero prudente e politico. The paper reconstructs the repertoire of ancient exempla quoted by Priorato, the reference tools he used to understand Greek and Roman history, as well as the different ways in which ancient warfare contributed to shaping Priorato’s own views on politics and war. What emerges is a peculiar approach to antiquity which is extravagant and naive, very distant from that of philologists and antiquarians, but nonetheless fostering an original political thought rooted in the Machiavellian tradition.
Keywords: Greek and Roman warfare • Niccolò Machiavelli • Early-modern political thought • Military revolution • Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato