Fabio Albergati

Fabio Albergati (1538–1606) was an Italian diplomat and writer, known for political theory and as a moralist.[1] He was born in Bologna,[2] and was in the service of Jacopo Boncompagni.[3]

Fabio Albergati, painting from the Palazzo Albergati, attributed to Giovan Antonio Burrini; imagined scene of Albergati as diplomat meeting Philip II of Spain, with his portrait secretly being taken.

Life
Title page of Albergati's La Republica regia.

Fabio Albergati was born in Bologna in 1538 of an ancient and noble family.

He was one of the most celebrated literati of his time in Italy. In 1591, Pope Innocent IX appointed him governor of Perugia; and Orlandi asserts that he was also consistorial advocate. This latter statement is not, however, supported by any collateral evidence.

He was held in great esteem by Pope Sixtus V, and in 1589 was sent as papal Ambassador to the court of Francesco Maria della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino, by whom he was greatly beloved: the duke and he had been fellow students in their youth. In a letter of 1596 Albergati told the duke that he had asked Cardinal Francisco Toledo for permission to read Jean Bodin (whose works were on the Index of forbidden books). The prelate granted it but urged Albergati to confute Bodin's errors. Therefore, he wrote his unpublished Antibodino, submitted it to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini after Toledo's death (1596), and sent a copy to the duke, who esteemed Bodin much. After substantially enlarging his original manuscript Albergati eventually decided to publish it, first in Rome (1602) and then in Venice (1603), under the title: Dei discorsi politici libri cinque. Nei quali viene riprovata la dottrina di Gio. Bodino, e difesa quella di Aristotele.[4]

By his wife, the Countess Flaminia, daughter of the Count Antonio Bentivogli, he had six sons and five daughters. One of his daughters, Lavinia, became the wife of the Duke Orazio Ludovisi, the brother of Gregory XV.

A bronze medal was struck in honour of him, bearing on the obverse his effigy, with the words “Fabius Albergati Mon. Canini Marchio;” and on the reverse, falling dew, with the legend “Divisa beatum.”

His death took place about the year 1605.

Works

Fabio Albergati was a very copious writer. He wrote against duelling in 1583, at a time when his patron was active against banditry.[5] He wrote a very detailed attack on Jean Bodin's theoretical dismissal of mixed constitutions.[2] He equated the philosophy of raison d'etat with Machiavellianism.[6] His La Republica regia (published 1627) was a counter to Machiavelli.[7]

The following is a list of his works:

  1. Del Modo di ridurre alla Pace le Inimicizie private. Roma, 1583, fol.
  2. Del Cardinale, Libri III. Bologna, 1589, 4to.
  3. Dei Discorsi Politici Libri cinque, nei quali viene riprobata la Dottrina politica di Bodino, e difesa quella d'Aristotile. Roma. Luigi Zanetti. 1602.
  4. Le Morali, edited by his son Antonio, Bishop of Bisceglie. Bologna, 1627, fol.
  5. Albergati, Fabio (1627). La Repubblica regia. Bologna. Vittorio Benacci.
  6. Ragionamento al Cardinale S. Sisto come nipote di Papa Gregorio. Milano, 1600, 4to.

He left several other works in MS., which were preserved in the library of the Duke of Urbino above mentioned. In 1573 Zanetti published, at Rome, six vols. of Albergati's moral works.

Family

His children included Cardinal Niccolò Albergati-Ludovisi.[8]

References
  • Comparato, Vittor Ivo (2013). Howell A. Lloyd (ed.). "The Italian "Readers" of Bodin. From Albergati to Filangieri". The Reception of Bodin. Leiden: Brill: 343–370. doi:10.1163/9789004259805_016. ISBN 9789004259805.
  • Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi, p. 109;
  • Pompeius Scipio Dolfi, Cronologia delle Famiglie Nobili di Bologna, p. 33;
  • Joannes Antonius Bumaldus, Bibliotheca Bononiensis, p. 65.

Notes
  1. "Fabio Albergati".
  2. Fasano Guarini, Elena (1960). "ALBERGATI, Fabio". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 1: Aaron–Albertucci (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
  3. J. R. Mulryne; Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly; Margaret Shewring, eds. (2004). Europa triumphans: court and civic festivals in early modern Europe. 1. p. 211 note 42. ISBN 9780754638735.
  4. Comparato 2013, p. 346.
  5. Gigliola Fragnito, Church, Censorship, and Culture in Early Modern Italy (2001), pp. 141–2; Google Books.
  6. Gianfranco Borrelli. "Reason of State. The Italian Art of Political Prudence" (in Italian).
  7. Frank Edward Manuel, Fritzie Prigohzy Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979), p. 153.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2011-09-26.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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