Carlo Sigonio, The Hebrew Republic

“Clearly this meant that as long as the judges ruled in accordance with the law, God himself ruled over the Hebrews, since the law was in charge; but once power was transferred to a king in the manner of the gentiles, God was no longer king—the conduct of affairs was now going to be placed in the hands not of the law, but of one man’s will.”

The Hebrew Republic of Carlo Sigonio was one of the first works dedicated to the religious and political institutions of the ancient Hebrew state, and it was the first book to frame this kind of research under the Latin title Respublica Hebraeorum. Soon after its original publication in Bologna in 1582, it was suppressed by the Church because of its strenuous antimonarchism, and it reappeared in Italy only in 1734. In the rest of Europe, however, it enjoyed great popularity and profoundly influenced such thinkers as Grotius, Althusius, and Bodin. This edition is the first modern English‑language translation from the Latin.

Carlo Sigonio (1520/24–1584) was a historian of Greek and Roman antiquity and the Italian Middle Ages. He taught in the universities of Venice, Padua, and Bologna and was one of the last interpreters of the humanistic tradition during the Catholic Counter‑reformation.

Guido Bartolucci is a scholar of early modern history and teaches at the universities of Bologna and Calabria. He has written in both English and Italian on the discovery of Jewish political thought in early modern Europe, including La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio: Modelli politici dell’eta moderna (2007).

Peter Wyetzner holds a Ph.D. in ancient history from the University of California at Berkeley.