Foreign thinker
Maurizio Viroli
Maurizio ViroliPolitical Philosophy and RepublicanismItalianb. 1952
Love of country without love of liberty and one’s fellow citizens has no sound political meaning.
Life and Thought
Maurizio Viroli is an Italian political philosopher and historian of political thought, best known for his studies of republicanism, patriotism, political liberty, and Machiavelli. He is Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and has served as Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Books such as For Love of Country, Republicanism, and his works on Machiavelli have established his standing in contemporary political theory.
Maurizio Viroli was born on 14 March 1952 in Forlì, Italy. He studied philosophy at the University of Bologna and earned his doctorate in political and social sciences from the European University Institute in Florence. He later taught and conducted research at various universities and academic institutions, including Princeton University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Cambridge, Georgetown University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Viroli’s principal fields are political theory and the history of political thought. His research has focused particularly on the republican tradition, civil liberty, patriotism, citizenship, political rhetoric, and the relationship between religion and politics. A central concern of his work is the reinterpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli, not merely as a theorist of power but as a thinker situated within the tradition of republican liberty.
For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism is among Viroli’s best-known works. In this book, he distinguishes republican patriotism from nationalism. He understands patriotism as a civic love of liberty, law, and the people of one’s country, whereas nationalism can lead to claims of superiority, nostalgia for the past, the construction of enemies, and the exclusion of others. For Viroli, love of country without love of liberty and one’s fellow citizens has no sound political meaning.
In works such as Republicanism, Niccolò’s Smile, Machiavelli’s God, and How to Read Machiavelli, Viroli has sought to reinterpret the republican tradition for the contemporary world. His importance lies in reclaiming concepts such as country, liberty, civic virtue, and civic responsibility from the exclusive grip of nationalism and authoritarianism, and placing them within the horizon of republicanism, the rule of law, and the common good.