Political Meritocracy | James Hankins

Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy
The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena

Published by Harvard University Press, 2023

At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was a longing to recapture the wisdom and virtue of Greece and Rome. But how could this be done? A new school of social reformers concluded that the best way to revitalize corrupt institutions was to promote an ambitious new form of political meritocracy aimed at nurturing virtuous citizens and political leaders.

The greatest thinker in this tradition of virtue politics was Francesco Patrizi of Siena, a humanist philosopher whose writings were once as famous as Machiavelli’s. Patrizi wrote two major works: On Founding Republics, addressing the enduring question of how to reconcile republican liberty with the principle of merit; and On Kingship and the Education of Kings, which lays out a detailed program of education designed to instill the qualities necessary for political leadership—above all, practical wisdom and sound character.

The first full-length study of Patrizi’s life and thought in any language, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy argues that Patrizi is a thinker with profound lessons for our time. A pioneering advocate of universal literacy who believed urban planning could help shape civic values, he concluded that limiting the political power of the wealthy, protecting the poor from debt slavery, and reducing the political independence of the clergy were essential to a functioning society. These ideas were radical in his day. Far more than an exemplar of his time, Patrizi deserves to rank alongside the great political thinkers of the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Thomas More, and Jean Bodin

Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy is currently being translated into Italian by Stefano Baldassarri and Alessio Panichi for Viella and will appear in the fall of 2025.

“We can all benefit from seeing Patrizi restored to his proper place in the history of ideas, as this deeply scholarly and splendidly readable study succeeds in doing.”
—Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement

“A tour de force in intellectual history and political theory.”
—John P McCormick, author of Reading Machiavelli

“For Hankins, the idea of meritocratic power is woven through humanist virtue politics, which held that everyone was equal in their capacity to become virtuous through a liberal education. If virtue can be learned, then even the humblest members of civil society can become rulers by acquiring it. Indeed, there was no other route to the legitimate exercise of power than the acquisition of virtue.”
—New York Review of Books

James Hankins

Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena

“We can all benefit from seeing Patrizi restored to his proper place in the history of ideas, as this deeply scholarly and splendidly readable study succeeds in doing.” —Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement

“A tour de force in intellectual history and political theory.” —John P McCormick, author of Reading Machiavelli

Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy
The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena

“We can all benefit from seeing Patrizi restored to his proper place in the history of ideas, as this deeply scholarly and splendidly readable study succeeds in doing.”
—Noel Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement

“A tour de force in intellectual history and political theory.”
—John P McCormick, author of Reading Machiavelli