La Repubblica di Venezia: una repubblica perfetta? L’immagine di Venezia e del suo sistema politico nel De optimo senatore (1568) di Wawrzyniec Goślicki

Abstract

The Republic of Venice: A Perfect Republic? The Image of Venice and Its Political System in De optimo senatore (1568) by Wawrzyniec Goślicki The article discusses two passages from the treatise De optimo senatore libri duo, in which Wawrzyniec Goślicki evokes Venice as a model of a mixed form of government. It is shown that the image of Venice in the work of the Polish writer does not differ from that established in Italian literature of the 15th and 16th centuries by Pier Paolo Vergerio, Gaspare Contarini, Donato Giannotti. It has been shown that Goślicki, unlike the aforementioned authors, made the prosperity of the state dependent not on the wellfunctioning governmental bodies, but on the moral excellence of the ruling class.