Francesco Patrizi (bishop)

Francesco Patrizi of Siena (Franciscus Patricius Senensis) (1413–1494) was the most important political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance before the generation of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). He was the principal exponent of the humanist tradition of ‘virtue politics.’ He was the first Western political philosopher since antiquity to devote sustained attention to the question of how a republic devoted to liberty and equality could uphold meritocratic principles in government—how it could ensure that its rulers and political class generally were public-spirited, well-educated men of virtue and wisdom. He was the first political philosopher since Aristotle to devote sustained attention to citizenship (in both its republican and royal varieties), and the first to explore the potential of a planned urban environment to shape civic values and facilitate a free way of life. He was also the pioneer of a new ‘historico-prudential’ approach to political thought that applied the study of the humanities, above all history, to the reform of republican and royal institutions.

He acted as governor of Foligno, then in the Papal States, for several years from 1461. Pius II, who was a personal friend, appointed him bishop of Gaeta in the same year.