A Cultural History of Peace presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. The set of six volumes covers over 2500 years of history, charting the evolving nature and role of peace throughout history. This volume, A Cultural History of Peace in the Renaissance, explores peace in the period from 1450 to 1648. As with all the volumes in the illustrated Cultural History of Peace set, this volume presents essays on the meaning of peace, peace movements, maintaining peace, peace in relation to gender, religion and war and representations of peace. A Cultural History of Peace in the Renaissance is the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on peace in the early modern era.
Frequently asked questions
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes, you can access A Cultural History of Peace in the Renaissance by Isabella Lazzarini in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Historia & Historia del Renacimiento europeo. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
The period under our scrutiny is roughly delimited by two major treaties, the peace of Lodi in 1454 and the peace of Westphalia in 1648. The two tumultuous centuries that separate these events fundamentally shape future philosophical ideas and the political paradigms that establish Western Europe as the crucible in which modernity is formed. Of critical political importance to this process is the rise of nation states, especially in Spain, France, and England, and the corresponding diminution of the respublica christiana, the name given to a combination of territorial Christian unity and the corresponding reach of Roman Catholicism.
This paradigm shift in political organization creates new principles in the management of these emerging state’s affairs, both internally, within the increasingly well-defined borders, and in their external relations. As our period progresses, nation states become more autonomous from Rome and more dependant upon their own resources to make and enforce agreements among one another. Consequently, a more complex “balance of power” across larger geographical areas influences how and why wars are fought and peace treaties negotiated.
In the early part of our period, the dream of Charles V and his heirs of a universal Hispanic-Habsburg Empire is undermined mainly by their confrontation with the Ottoman empire in the east, the French in Italy, and the rising Dutch commercial power in the North of Europe. In addition, from 1517, Christian unity in Germany starts to fracture due to the Protestant Reformation, the scope and reach of which is only restrained by a Catholic Counter-Reformation that in turn strengthens the national “sovereign” governments where Catholicism remains and thrives.
Economic changes manifest themselves rapidly in this period. In a relatively short period after Columbus “discovers” America in 1492, the Europeans explore and open up extensive trade with the rest of the world, creating new colonial empires and unleashing new wealth that begins to generate nascent forms of capitalist economic activity. Within this triad of new economic interests, the invention of modern sovereignty, and the Protestant Reformation, we can distinguish two approaches to the problem of peace—one distinctly religious, and one distinctly political.
The Protestant Reformation gains momentum and begins to resist the Roman Catholic attempt to recover its ideological and political supremacy. This conflict eventually results in the “peace of Augsburg,” which introduces the right of German princes to choose between these two forms of Christianity. By the mid-sixteenth century, however, this peace has sown the seeds of a deeper religious animosity that results in religious wars across Europe during the early seventeenth century. The ensuing Thirty Years War is one of the most destructive conflicts in European history and the deadliest European religious war. Our period closes with the peace treaties, collectively known as the peace of Westphalia, from which a provisional and altered balance in the European physiognomy emerges.
When we make a distinction between the religious and the political dimensions of the problem of peace, we are not suggesting a material distinction between different domains. Rather, we are making use of a theoretical construction to help in analyzing authors’ priorities and intentions, their concrete positions and their theoretical definitions of peace. Politics and religion are strongly intertwined, and the early modern mentality hardly distinguishes between them. It is therefore more correct to speak of the mutual influence of the early modern theological discourse on one hand and the discourse on sovereignty on the other.
The cultural background of early modernity is very rich. It is useful to establish a few coordinates in this context: in the Old Testament, the Hebrew term shalom (
) represents the harmony and reconciliation with God and Nature, as opposed to the chaos and conflict brought by enemies of the Jews. In the New Testament, Jesus brings peace to the human world (Jn 14.27, 16.33) and blesses the peacemakers (Mt 5.9). Paul appeals to the “God of Peace” (Rm 15.33). Inside and outside the community, peace is a universal value, mediated and made possible by Christ, and sharply opposed to the political peace of the Romans, the pax Romana (ex. Jn 14.27).
The most authoritative and influential position among the Church Fathers is that of Augustine of Hippo. Augustine is not the first philosopher to develop a theory of just war. However, he systematizes ideas derived from Aristotle, Cicero, and his master Ambrogius in a highly original way. Commenting on Paul’s Rom 12:17 and 21 in the Ep. 138, and in the Civitas Dei, Augustine recognizes the possibility of using violence to resist wickedness. Peace is a universal desire of all creatures, and although war is evil, it is nonetheless necessary when caused by unjust enemies. They are also part of the eternal divine order and contribute to the realization of the ultimate end, namely universal peace among all creatures, who will reach their own and deserved place under the government of the wise Judge (Civitas Dei XIX. 12–13).
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae also enriches the early modern philosophical background on the concept of peace. The IIa IIae Q. 40 is a systematic discussion of the problem of war. Thomas builds upon Aristotle and Augustine to develop a theory of just war grounded on the criteria of rightful authority, just cause, and the right intention to use violence. Thomas discusses Lk 3:14 in which Christ does not forbid war, thus indirectly admitting just war, and from the just war theory, a concept of peace can be derived. Peace is the tranquillitas ordinis, a harmonious and peaceful disposition that society enjoys in both its internal order and external security: “pax ergo in hoc est quod omnes sua loca teneant” (1–2 q. 70 3 c; 2–2 q. 29). Thomas distinguishes the social and the international sense of peace, to which he adds the notion of an interior peace when man is in peace with God.
THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF PEACE
The religious dimension of the discourse on peace unfolds according to three main problematics. The first is imposed by the rising power of the Ottoman empire in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Europe1 until its defeat at Lepanto in 1571. The second is dictated by the clash with Amerindian civilizations in the newly discovered continent.2 The third is opened up by the Protestant Reformation and the conflict within Christianity,with the social and political establishment of new Churches as centers of ideological and political power,3 but also the proliferation of heresy and rebellious religious movements, sects, and individual forms of resistance.4
FIGURE 1.1: Benozzo Gozzoli, Triumph of Saint Thomas of Aquin over Averroes, Musée du Louvre, Paris (1468–84). Wikimedia Commons.
The question of peace becomes of paramount importance for several reasons: the urgency of the Ottoman threat and the consequent call for unity within Christendom to resist the infidel (military league promoted by Pope Pius V 1571 leading to the victory of Lepanto); the necessity of meshing the religious enterprise of Christianization of the native Americans with the proto-capitalist system based on extermination, slavery and the colonial enterprise (Burgos’s laws of 1512, Valladolid debate between Sepulveda and Las Casas, 1550); the need to end the carnage among Christians across Europe (sack of Rome, 1527).
FIGURE 1.2: Anthon von Werner, Luther at the Diet of Worms, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1877). Wikimedia Commons.
CHRISTIAN HUMANISM
In the beginning of the period under our scrutiny, humanists are often reluctant to accept the social consequences of a radical pacifism and its political implications for the recognition of legitimate authority. Toward the foreign and infidel enemy, though, positions are more clearly defined. In 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, the neoplatonic philosopher and Catholic cardinal Cusanus develops a consistent treatment of the concept of peace in his De pace fidei. While cardinal Bessarione and Pope Pius II preach the crusade against the Turks, Cusanus opts for a radical religious ecumenism. All non-Christian religions, he claims, contains fundamental truths compatible with Christianity. Rather than offering a definition of peace, the De pace fidei is a fictional dialog in heaven between the representatives of religions that share the conviction that peace will be the universal outcome once all religions deeply understand themselves and their core values. The implicit superiority of Christianity is not completely absent from Cusanus’s work, as his utopian ideal is perhaps a Christianization of the whole world through Catholicism.
The first early modern author to develop a consistent pacifism is the great Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus. The unsystematic character of his theory, scattered through several works and probably the result of political opportunity and historical contingency5 has produced two different historiographical interpretations. The first sees Erasmus as an uncompromising upholder of peace; the second underlines the ambiguity and ambivalence of his discourse, especially where it concerns the possibility and even necessity of waging war against non-Christians and infidels.
In the Enchiridion militis Christiani (Handbook of the Christian Soldier, 1503), Erasmus speaks strongly for preserving peace, as directed by the original message of Christ. The motive of inspiration is the neoplatonic idea of unity in Christ, which also resonates in Marsilius Ficinus and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who promote a congress of scholars around the theme of ecumenism, religious, and philosophical peace. In his most systematic writing, the Querela pacis of 1521, however, Erasmus explains that his call for peace is intended for Christians, not universally. “Cedo bona!” (I renounce to my former opinion!), he repeats in the Utilissima consultatio de bello Turcico suscipiendo of 1530, arguing again for the necessity of waging war against the Ottomans.
Erasmus thus moves between his initial radical and unconditional pacifism on the one hand, and the more classic limitation of pacifism within the boundaries of Christianity (Juan Luis Vives, De Europae dissidiis et bello Turcico, 1526, in J.L. Vives, Opera omnia (1529)). This ambiguity aside, during the early modern period Erasmus develops some of the theoretically and theologically strongest arguments for peace.
In the Querela, Erasmus focuses on the ideological and always unsubstantiated claims that one’s own war is just. He asserts that whatever the alleged reas...
