Vicisitudes y peripecias del concepto de virtud entre el siglo XV y XVI en los specula principum

Through the reading of some of the most important specula composed between the 15th and the 16th centuries, this article aims at analysing the changes in the concept of virtue between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, by observing its semantic shifts and deviations of meaning from the classic model of areté. Therefore, it analyses the virtues typical of the figure of the king in the treatises by Giovanni Pontano, Bartolomeo Sacchi, and Francisco Patrizi, to then proceed to the reading of The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli who, in 1513, created his most famous treatise by adopting the humanist style of the speculum. The article therefore points out that, even though Machiavelli did not completely abdica-te the classical concept of areté, and still followed the previous tradition, he renounced to keep the bond that joined all virtues, inevitably leading to a semantic and ontological emptying of the very concept of virtue, to hand over to modernity a “debal” and frag-mented virtue, more flexible and adaptable to the changing political scenario.