Giovanni Botero and the itineraries of knowledge between Humanism and the first baroque restlessness

Abstract

This study aims to underline the opinion of Giovanni Botero, the author of The Reason of State (1589) and of the main opus Relazioni universali (1591) about universities and their cultural function in Europe. It introduces an hypotethical parallel between Erasmus of Rotterdam, and his itinerant career all over the continent, and the Counter-Reformation intellectual Giovanni Botero, a jesuit until 1580, to see how the universities were considered into their education. Both of them were restless intellectuals, both of them used to travel and know different academic contexts. A focus on Botero’s opinions regarding the Studia of his time offers some hints of reflections about the cultural system and the crucial link between instruction and economic prosperity.