4. The Italian Renaissance.
Reflections upon the
course of human events were reoriented during
the
Middle Ages when the moral behavior of states was
of more
importance than natural law. But early in the
Renaissance the ideas of
Polybius were revived. Before
Polybius was translated from Greek to Latin
and
printed in 1473, we find in Giovanni Villani's Chronicle
of Florence the cyclic pattern emphasized. Whether
Villani (ca. 1275-1348) could have read Polybius in
Greek is doubtful since the Greek manuscripts came
later to
Italy. Villani's cycle depends on the supposed
psychological fact that
success engenders pride, pride
sin, and sin brings on decline.
It was Machiavelli who carried on the tradition of
Polybius. In his Discourses (Book I, Ch. ii) he argues
that the mixed
form of government is the best and that
it was found in Rome. He bases his
argument on the
same points as those made by Polybius. Also Francesco
Guicciardini in his Ricordi argues that the future re-
peats the past and that only the names of
things change.
But the history of this particular idea, which is one
of the bases for the program of mixed constitutions
belongs elsewhere We
shall here merely point to its
outcome in the Constitution of the United
States.
