Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republian Imagination

Between the Renaissance and Romanticism, republican polities such as Venice, the Dutch Republic and the United States heavily drew upon the inspiration offered by republican models from antiquity. A good example of this inspiration is the figure of Lycurgus of Sparta, who was depicted around 1660 by the Dutch painter Caesar van Everdingen as a model of a wise educator. That painting figures on the cover of the edited volume I published together with Wyger Velema in 2017.

The contributions to this volume focus on the specific ways in which ancient republics such as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and the Hebrew Republic served as models for early modern republican thought. The result is a novel interpretation of the impact of antiquity on early modern republicanism. 

For more info on the volume, see the page of Brill publishers.