Girolamo Cardano - ARCANA POLITICA - 1668

[4], 726, [10]

Book in good condition, leather binding modern but well-made, inner pages slightly browned but still fresh, no gore, woodworms or obvious traces of damp, binding with title in gold and red.

The full title is Arcana Politica, sive de Prudentia civili, Liber singularis (The Secrets of Politics, or on Civil Prudence, the One Book).

• The Content: It is a treatise on political science and pragmatic philosophy. Cardano analyzes the internal mechanisms of States, the "secrets" of power (arcana) and the strategies that rulers must adopt to maintain order and stability.

• The Style: The work falls within the tradition of political realism inaugurated in Italy by Niccolò Machiavelli. Cardano does not describe an ideal or utopian State, but analyzes politics as it truly is: a combination of virtue, cunning, calculation, and fortune.

• The Fate of the Text: Written in the 16th century, the book achieved great diffusion across Europe, especially during the 17th century, when the current of political realism and the study of the raison d'État became central at European courts. The editions printed by Elzevir in Leiden made it a true pocket-sized bestseller of the era for diplomats and jurists.

Girolamo Cardano (known in Latin as Hieronymus Cardanus) was one of the most eclectic, brilliant, and controversial minds of the Italian Renaissance. Born in Pavia, he was a physician, mathematician, philosopher, astrologer.

His three main personas include:
1. The Mathematician: He is universally famous in the history of science for having published in his Ars Magna the solving formulas for cubic and quartic equations (sparking a famous dispute with Niccolò Tartaglia). He was also the first to formulate the systematic concepts of probability calculus, driven by his personal passion for dice and card games.
2. The Doctor: He was one of the most sought-after and famous physicians in Europe, renowned for accurate diagnoses. He treated sovereigns and cardinals across Europe (including the Archbishop of St. Andrews in Scotland). He was also among the first to describe typhoid scientifically.
3. The Philosopher and the Astrologer: His encyclopedic mind led him to write about everything, from the secrets of nature to his own autobiography (De propria vita). His independent attitude and his astrological theses, however, brought him into conflict with the Inquisition, which arrested him in 1570 (among the charges was having drafted the horoscope of Jesus Christ).