“Segredos do Príncipe” ou “Jerônimo Osório e de como reagiu o mundo católico da Ibéria às idéias de Nicolau Maquiavel” (Séculos XVI e XVII)

Abstract

Machiavelli’s ideas made sixteenth century Europe quake, generating endless acrimonious debate and so causing a deafening roar whose echoes can still be heard today. The Roman Church at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries was foundering in corruption and intrigues of power and self-interest. Machiavelli, in chapter twelve of his Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio), first published in 1519, predicted that something big was about to happen, something that could shake the Throne of Saint Peter to its foundations. Indeed, the Lutheran schism began that year. This thesis seeks to demonstrate the complex relationship between the Catholic Church – and its subject states – and Machiavelli’s political writings. The Iberia, a staunch stronghold of Catholicism in these times, thus seems to be an appropriate focus for this study. Research into the Iberian response to Machiavelli’s ideas reveals that the Portuguese bishop Jeronymo Osorio was the first to criticize, in writing, the ideas of the former. Machiavelli, the response of his ideas in the land of Camões and Cervantes, and the importance of Jeronymo Osorio’s thought are the central themes of this dissertation.