The Ties that Bind: Filippo Cavriana on Obligation, Passion and Public Appearance

This article analyses Filippo Cavriana’s commentary of Tacitus from 1597. It argues that Cavriana’s thought, while belonging to ‘reason of state’ discourse, cannot be reduced to the view that political necessity sometimes validates the violation of otherwise universal norms. Rather, Cavriana’s political thought is premised upon a turn to Machiavellian ‘effective reality’ that translates into a complex engagement with the social psychology of the people who are to be governed. Specifically, the article details how Cavriana analyses the failed policies of French King Henri III in the late 1580s in terms of a failure to correctly address the French population.