Alberico Gentili's Lutheran Ideas and His Account of the Concept of Sovereignty (original) (raw)
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Franciscan Studies, 76, 2018
In this paper, I shall inquire into the story of the distinction between God's absolute and ordered power (‘potentia Dei absoluta’ and ‘potentia Dei ordinata’) in the fourteenth century. This period saw the emergence of orientations that would prove decisive for the fate of modernity. In my analysis, I will try to explain the reasons, both historical and doctrinal, for the success of such a distinction as a specifically legal question during this key period. I shall dwell, in particular, on the years from 1316 to the 1330s, under John XXII’s pontificate, explaining the relevant religious and political issues of those times. To this end, I will examine the perspective of John XXII himself in relation to his two great doctrinal rivals Meister Eckhart (†c.1328) and William of Ockham (†1347), and pay special attention to the dispute between the pope and the Franciscans over evangelical poverty.
Alberico Gentili and the Secularization of the Law of Nations
Rafael Domingo y John Withe, Jr. (eds.) Christianity and Global Law, Routledge, 2020
A prominent early modern Italian legal theorist and practicing lawyer, Alberico Gentili is regarded, along with Francisco de Vitoria and Hugo Grotius, as one of the founders of the science of the modern law of nations (ius gentium) and a major figure in the development of international relations. He designed a solid and autonomous framework for the law of nations based on three pillars: the Greco-Roman idea of natural law, the Justinian compilation of Roman law, and the-then novel Bodinian notion of sovereignty as supreme, perpetual, and indivisible power. Gentili freed the law of nations from excessive scholastic influences and theological importations, avoiding metaphysical developments and overly subtle dialectics. He tried to build a system based on practice and experience. His legal construction is more inductive from events, episodes, customs, and facts, than deductive from unchanged premises. Providing some new arguments, he removed religion as a valid reason for conflict and war, he advocated for the legitimacy of non-Christian regimes, especially the Ottomans, and he tried to fix the tenuous lines of separation between jurisprudence and theology and between the internal forum and external forum of canon law. Neither the pope nor the Roman Catholic Church has a place in Gentili’s systematic account. His world-famous saying—silete theologi in munere alieno! —commands the theologian not to be involved in other people’s business and was claimed centuries later by the jurisprudence of European public law to argue in favor of the secularization of the law, beyond the limits Gentili himself intended.
The Corpus iuris as a Source of Law Between Sovereigns in Alberico Gentili's Thought
"This essay argues that Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) held a radical view on the sources of law between sovereigns, according to which Roman private law provided binding rules between sovereign states. It is not custom but the Roman Corpus iuris, construed as declaratory of the law of nations and of nature, which is for Gentili the normative yardstick in the international realm. The Roman empire with its law had thus laid the foundations for a future normative framework between sovereigns, sovereigns which had risen from within and without the boundaries of the ancient Imperium Romanum. Gentili's doctrine of sources provides furthermore a vantage point from which to consider whether and to what extent it makes sense to describe Gentili as a humanist. "
De rebus divinis et humanis, 2019
Hoc experimentum hominis, opus eius 1. The main title of this brief contribution in honour of Professor Jan Hallebeek is taken from Alberico Gentili's Disputationum De nuptiis Libri VII (1601), where it appears as the heading of Chapter 6 of the fourth book 2. "Audiuntur theologi" may seem a far cry from Gentili's most famous soundbite, his "Silete theologi…" exclamation which had appeared a few years earlier in De iure belli (1598) 3. The "Silete" line, which few scholars writing about Gentili are able to resist quoting, is often mentioned as a shorthand for Gentili's endeavours to reduce the influence of theology in the areas covered by secular law scholarship 4. As with Grotius's "Etiamsi… non daretur" quote, historians are also quick to point out that Gentili's exclamation ought to be read in context 5 , while opinions differ whether or to what extent it expresses a more general view on the respective provinces of theological and civil law expertise, or even more generally on the autonomy of secular law. The present contribution's central theme is that Gentili's views expressed in De nuptiis fit in the author's attempts to argue in favour of an extensive understanding of the areas governed by civil law, without drawing entirely a definite borderline between the realm of civil law scholarship and that of theology 6. Perhaps (but such speculation is beyond the theme of the present contribution) that as a native from San Ginesio, the very concept of Marches was also part of his intellectual identity and approach to the topics of his scholarly work 7. 1 Albericus Gentilis, De armis Romanis (new edition, see hereafter, Fn. 15, p. 122).
SSRN Electronic Journal
Destacado teórico del derecho italiano de principios de la Edad Moderna y brillante abogado en ejercicio, Alberico Gentili es considerado-junto con Francisco de Vitoria y Hugo Grocio-uno de los fundadores de la ciencia del derecho de gentes moderno (ius gentium) y una figura señera en el desarrollo de las relaciones internacionales. Diseñó un marco sólido y autónomo para el derecho de gentes basado en tres pilares: la idea grecorromana del derecho natural, la compilación justinianea del derecho romano (Corpus Iuris Civilis) y la entonces novedosa noción de soberanía como poder supremo, perpetuo e indivisible desarrollada por Jean Bodin 1. Gentili liberó el derecho de gentes de las excesivas influencias escolásticas e importaciones teológicas, así como de los argumentos metafísicos y dialécticas demasiado sutiles. Trató de elaborar un sistema basado en la práctica y la experiencia. Su construcción jurídica fue más inductiva, a partir de acontecimientos, episodios, costumbres y hechos, que deductiva, a partir de premisas invariables. Aportó nuevos argumentos, rechazó la religión como justificación legítima
Is it possible to be a free citizen and the subject of a sovereign contemporaneously? In 1589, Camillo Paleotti, a Bolognese senator and the city's ambassador to Rome, sought to explain how in a treatise directed to Pope Sixtus V. Until his election, the pope had implemented a policy seeking to nullify Bologna's libertas and the liberties exercised by its citizens in the governance of the res publica. Paleotti composed a brief manuscript treatise, De Republica, that is divided into two parts. The first treats the definition of the term res publica, the models of the ancient republics, and the problem of the best regime. The second considers Bologna's status within the Papal State, as well as traditional Bolognese customs. My paper centers on the distinction between false and true libertas made by Paleotti in addressing the question of whether Bolognese libertas is compatible with subjection to the pope.