Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed by Vickie B. Sullivan (review)

74BOOK REVIEWS that would bring about peace and justice as found in Dante's De Monarchia, Strnad gives us an outline, albeit subjective at times, of the character and policy of the various German kings or emperors. His account clearly shows that his sympathies lie with the Habsburg dukes in their rivalries with the Imperial rulers of the Luxemburg line. It does not prevent him from disapproving the vacillations and indecisiveness of the Habsburg Frederick III. This survey sets the tone for much that is to follow in the subsequent articles, many ofwhich are concerned with the attempt of the Austrian territorial rulers to seize control over the church within their lands, a struggle that involved them, inter alia, with the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, the see of Passau, and the Luxemburg Emperor Charles IV, not to speak of their own intra-family quarrels. For example, in his second study, also unpublished, the author traces the history of the diocese of Seckau in the province of Styria, which was started ostensibly as a suffragan see of the metropolitan of Salzburg in 1 164, but became a point offriction between the archbishop and the territorial ruler over the appointment of the bishop. Somewhat similarly the see of Passau became a pawn in the power struggle between the Austrian and Bavarian dukes. Although the Passau suffragan had his seat outside the duchy of Austria, the Austrian rulers looked upon him as their own "territorial bishop," and sought reliable supporters within the chapter who had the right of election. By devious but successful diplomacy they usually managed to occupy the see with either their personal protégés or Austrian nobles closely tied to them. Some articles shed light upon the early history of the University of Vienna and its struggle to compete with the older and more distinguished learned institution in Prague. But in general the articles deal with the ecclesiastical careers of individuals and their relationship to the local dukes. The final essay, also previously unpublished, summarizes region by region the influence the Austrian state exercised over the nomination of bishops, beginning with St. Stephen ofHungary in 1000 and ending with the collapse of the Habsburg empire at the close of World War I, an appropriate conclusion. Hanns Gross Loyola University Chicago Early Modern European Machiavelli's Three Romes:Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed. By Vickie B. Sullivan. (DeKaIb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press. 1996. Pp. xi, 235. $30.00.) Sullivan advocates a novel interpretation of how Christian and classical elements in Machiavelli's thought relate to each other. Drawing primarily upon the Florentine Histories, The Prince, and the Discourses, she argues that Machiavelli described three distinct "Romes": (1) the Christian one, dominated by the papacy; (Z) the pagan (specifically, the ancient Roman Republic); and (3) BOOK REVIEWS75 an idealized"Rome" ofMachiavelli's invention that could transcend the political defects of the other two. Part One details Machiavelli's view of the deleterious effects of the papacy and the Church upon contemporary politics. To a fairly conventional interpretation Sullivan adds two novel elements: (a) that "the tyrant from whose grip Machiavelli would see humanity extricated is the Christian god" (p. 4), and (b) that neither Christianity nor pagan religion is ultimately a useful instrument of politics. Part Two furthers the argument, showing the inadequacy of republican Rome in preventing ambitious men from seizing power. Sullivan's Machiavelli holds that Christianity replicated pagan Rome's tensions between the demands of religion and those ofpolitics so that, like ancient tyrants, the popes promised unseen lands (in their case, lands beyond human experience) as a means of shoring up demagogic power. In Part Three, Sullivan claims that Machiavelli envisioned the establishment ofa new Rome, an"irreligious republic" that"utilizes elements of both paganism and Christianity in order to subvert both" (p. 24). This third "Rome," while earthly, can transcend present political crises and potentially last forever—a position that Sullivan views as a direct challenge to the Christian conception of eternity. While surely original, Sullivan's thesis fails to convince,primarily because she does not adequately establish the idiosyncratic interplay of Christian and pagan elements that is central to her argument. In analyzing...