Democritus and Heraclitus: A Duet in Major and Minor

Abstract

was the first to choose " Superanda omnis Fortuna" as his device.' Macchiavelli and his friends had intended to solve the divergences between Virtue and Fortune through the aggressive forteza by which man would master Fortune.2 Leo X tried to reconcile chance and virtue by turning this aggressive power into the passive forteza, i.e., Patientia.s This Christian virtue, in the view of Pierio Valeriano, enabled him to seize his opportunity and to become the Christian ruler of the world.' Nothing is more apt to illustrate the spiritual changes at the beginning of the Counter-reformation than the acceptance of this passive religious emblem by a worldly prince like Ercole II.