A Critical Companion to the 'Mirrors for Princes' Literature / / edited by Noëlle-Laetitia Perret and Stéphane Péquignot.

• Superior document: Reading Medieval Sources Series ; Volume 7
• TeilnehmendeR: Perret, Noelle-Laetitia,; Péquignot, Stéphane,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Brill,, [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Edition: First edition.
• Language: English
• Series: Reading medieval sources ; Volume 7.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

The literary genre collectively known as “mirrors of princes” offers key insights into political thoughts of the past. This volume explores the genre in a global and comparative historical perspective, from antiquity to early modernity and in the Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin Christian worlds.

Why devote a Companion to the "mirrors of princes", whose very existence is debated? These texts offer key insights into political thoughts of the past. Their ambiguous, problematic status further enhances their interest. And although recent research has fundamentally challenged established views of these texts, until now there has been no critical introduction to the genre. This volume therefore fills this important gap, while promoting a global historical perspective of different “mirrors of princes” traditions from antiquity to humanism, via Byzantium, Persia, Islam, and the medieval West. This Companion also proposes new avenues of reflection on the anchoring of these texts in their historical realities. Contributors are Makram Abbès, Denise Aigle, Olivier Biaggini, Hugo Bizzarri, Charles F. Briggs, Sylvène Edouard, Jean-Philippe Genet, John R. Lenz, Louise Marlow, Cary J. Nederman, Corinne Peneau, Stéphane Péquignot, Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Günter Prinzing, Volker Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Tom Stevenson, Karl Ubl, and Steven J. Williams.

Table of Contents

Ideal models and anti-models of kingship in ancient Greek literature : mirror of princes from Homer to Marcus Aurelius / John R. Lenz -- Greek and Roman writers on the virtues of good rulers : praise, instruction, and constraint / Tom Stevenson -- Carolingian mirrors for princes : texts, contents, impact / Karl Ubl -- Byzantine mirrors for princes : an overview / Günter Prinzing -- The conception of power in Islam : Persian mirrors of princes and Sunni theories (11th-14th Centuries) / Denise Aigle -- Western medieval specula, c. 1150-C. 1450 / Charles F. Briggs and Cary J. Nederman -- Refutation, parody, annihilation : the end of the mirror for princes in Machiavelli, Vettori and Guicciardini / Volker Reinhardt -- Specula principum and the wise governor in the Renaissance / Sylvène Édouard -- The influence of Aristotle's thought on Arab political-philosophical ideas / Makram Abbès -- The Arabic mirrors for princes as witnesses to the evolution of political thought / Makram Abbès -- Royal power and its regulations : narratives of Hrn al-Rashd in three mirrors for princes / Louise Marlow -- The pseudo-Aristotelian secret of secrets as a Mirror of princes : a cautionary tale / Steven J. Williams -- The Castilian versions of the pseudo-aristotle's secretum secretorum and French versions of Giles of Rome's De regimine principum (13th-16th centuries) : a comparative perspective / Hugo Bizzarri and Noëlle-Laetitia Perret -- The relation between wisdom literature, law, and the mirrors of princes : Castile and Sweden / Olivier Biaggini and Corinne Péneau -- The use of mirrors of princes / Hans-Joachim Schmidt -- Conclusion : mirrors for princes and the development of reflections on the state / Jean-Philippe Genet.