Les Six Livres de la République/De republica libri sex: Livre premier/Liber I by Jean Bodin (review)

This bilingual edition of the first book of Jean Bodin’s seminal work represents a major contribution not only to Bodin studies, but also to the study of French and European political thought in the early modern period, as Quentin Skinner’s generous Preface attests. Bodin first published his highly influential République in French in 1576, and then his own Latin translation of the work in 1586. There are over a dozen varying versions of the original French; here the source is largely that of 1593, and the Latin is based on the 1591 text. Mario Turchetti suggests that a new French critical edition, given the variation among early editions, would require ‘des énergies considérables’ (p. 16) — but let us not underestimate the effort that has gone into the preparation of the present volume. It is not only the first modern edition of La République for a francophone readership, but also the first bilingual edition, setting the French and Latin texts side by side so that the reader may compare the two with ease. As the acknowledgements indicate, this work is the product both of Turchetti’s long and distinguished career as a historian of political thought, and of many conversations with and studies by his colleagues; credit is also due to doctoral student Nicholas de Araujo, who worked alongside Turchetti on the text. The decision to publish a bilingual edition rested on Turchetti’s conviction that ‘l’on ne pourra plus se passer du De Republica pour comprendre et expliquer La République ’ (p. 32). He describes in his Introduction how he was led to this view through his analysis of the term politique in La République, noting that Bodin’s Latin translation for this term was never politicus -a -um, but almost always a paraphrase or a different word. Turchetti refers to recent work in conceptual history that advocates sensitivity to language and its uses in context; the case of politique is evidence of how a comparison of the French and Latin editions facilitates this approach. The Introduction also deals with Bodin’s life and works, and his theory of sovereignty (laid out in Chapter 8). Turchetti’s hopes that this edition will invigorate Bodin scholarship are likely to be fulfilled, owing to the helpful and detailed references to Bodin’s plethora of sources, in footnotes that also indicate precisely where the Latin differs from the French. The integration of chapter subtitles into paragraphs here marks a clear visual difference for readers used to working with the 1986 Fayard facsimile edition of the 1593 French, which uses a modern typeface but retains the original marginal annotations and page layout. Turchetti’s edition may not entirely replace the 1986 version for specialists, but, used alongside it, it will undoubtedly make this author more accessible to students and general readers. Bodin scholars and historians of thought will eagerly await the next five books.