Présentation de l'éditeur

Why devote a Companion to the "mirrors for princes", whose very existence is debated? These texts offer key insights into political thoughts of the past. Their ambiguous, problematic status further enhances their interest. And although recent research has fundamentally challenged established views of these texts, until now there has been no critical introduction to the genre.

This volume therefore fills this important gap, while promoting a global historical perspective of different “mirrors for princes” traditions from antiquity to humanism, via Byzantium, Persia, Islam, and the medieval West. This Companion also proposes new avenues of reflection on the anchoring of these texts in their historical realities.

Contributors are Makram Abbès, Denise Aigle, Olivier Biaggini, Hugo Bizzarri, Charles F. Briggs, Sylvène Edouard, Jean-Philippe Genet, John R. Lenz, Louise Marlow, Cary J. Nederman, Corinne Peneau, Stéphane Péquignot, Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Günter Prinzing, Volker Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Tom Stevenson, Karl Ubl, and Steven J. Williams. 

Sommaire

Introduction

Authors: Stéphane Péquignot and Noëlle-Laetitia Perret

Part 1 Mapping the Mirrors for Princes’ Traditions

Chapter 1 Ideal Models and Anti-Models of Kingship in Ancient Greek Literature: Mirror of Princes from Homer to Marcus Aurelius

Author: John R. Lenz

Chapter 2 Greek and Roman Writers on the Virtues of Good Rulers: Praise, Instruction, and Constraint

Author: Tom Stevenson

Chapter 3 Carolingian Mirrors for Princes: Texts, Contents, Impact

Author: Karl Ubl

Chapter 4 Byzantine Mirrors for Princes: An Overview

Author: Günter Prinzing

Chapter 5 The Conception of Power in Islam: Persian Mirrors of Princes and Sunni Theories (11th–14th Centuries)

Author: Denise Aigle

Chapter 6 Western Medieval Specula, c. 1150–c. 1450

Authors: Charles F. Briggs and Cary J. Nederman

Chapter 7 Refutation, Parody, Annihilation: The End of the Mirror for Princes in Machiavelli, Vettori and Guicciardini

Author: Volker Reinhardt

Chapter 8 Specula Principum and the Wise Governor in the Renaissance

Author: Sylvène Édouard

Part 2 Thoughts in Motion: The Circulation and the Uses of the Mirrors for Princes

Chapter 9 The Influence of Aristotle’s Thought on Arab Political-Philosophical Ideas

Author: Makram Abbès

Chapter 10 The Arabic Mirrors for Princes as Witnesses to the Evolution of Political Thought

Author: Makram Abbès

Chapter 11 Royal Power and Its Regulations: Narratives of Hārūn al-Rashīd in Three Mirrors for Princes

Author: Louise Marlow

Chapter 12 The Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets as a Mirror of Princes: A Cautionary Tale

Author: Steven J. Williams

Chapter 13 The Castilian Versions of the Pseudo-Aristotle’s Secretum secretorum and French Versions of Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum (13th–16th centuries): A Comparative Perspective

Authors: Hugo O. Bizzarri and Noëlle-Laetitia Perret

Chapter 14 The Relation between Wisdom Literature, Law, and the Mirrors of Princes: Castile and Sweden

Authors: Olivier Biaggini and Corinne Péneau

Chapter 15 The Use of Mirrors of Princes

Author: Hans-Joachim Schmidt

Conclusion: Mirrors for Princes and the Development of Reflections on the State

Author: Jean-Philippe Genet