Italy: Center and Periphery Lecture Series presents Fabrizio Ricciardelli, Kent State University

Republicanism: A Theoretical and Historical Perspective

An individual can define himself/herself free if he/she does not depend upon the will of another individual in the same way that a state can consider itself free if it does not depend upon the will of another state, and is not forced to accept statutes and laws from others or to request permission for its own actions. We live in a world in which almost all states purport to be republican. Very few adhere to the Ciceronian concept of res publica, understood as ‘that which belongs to the popolo (respublica respopuli) […] and which has the observance of the law and the commonality of interests as its foundation’. The concept of republicanism is traditionally connected to the principle that true political freedom consists of not being subject to the arbitrary will of any man or group of men, and it requires equality of civil and political rights. Republicanism has attracted scholars who aim to develop insights from the classical republican tradition into an attractive political doctrine suitable for modern pluralistic societies. The volume examines republicanism from an historical and theoretical perspective after many years of scholarly investigation and debate.

Fabrizio Ricciardelli, Ph.D., is Director of the Kent State University Florence Center. His academic experience includes journal articles, conference presentations, and several reviews. A native of Florence, Fabrizio Ricciardelli earned his undergraduate degree in Medieval History at the University of Florence and his Ph.D. at the University of Warwick in England. He has authored and co-authored numerous books on institutional and political history. His main field of study is Italian city-states in the social, economic, political, and cultural landscape of Medieval Europe. Some of his publications are: The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Italy (2007); I luoghi del sacro. Il sacro e la città tra Medioevo ed Età moderna (2008); The Culture of Violence in Renaissance Italy (2012); Umanesimo e università in Toscana (1400-1600) (2012); Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual. Studies in Italian Urban Culture (2013), Emotions, Passions, and Power in Renaissance Italy (2015); The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy (2015); Regional History as Cultural Identity (2017); and A Tale of Two Cities: Florence and Rome from the Ground Tour to Study Abroad (2017).