De regimine principum

Chapter 5 considers the most important factor in the reception of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, its translation from the speculative domain of scholastic philosophy to political philosophy and statecraft in Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum. Widely copied and translated, this treatise proved the most influential interpretation of the Rhetoric. If in his early commentary Giles had showed little understanding of Aristotle’s distinctive phenomenology of emotions, his mirror of princes, written only a few years later, registers and mobilizes that active political dimension of emotion that is so important to Aristotelian rhetoric. Aristotle’s treatise on the emotions in book 2 of the Rhetoric figures extensively in De regimine principum, as Giles frames his theory of kingship in terms of the communicative strategies essential to rhetoric, “through arguments that are obvious and felt by the senses.” In this treatise, we also see how Giles has internalized the power of enthymematic argument, understanding political discourse as a kind of affective persuasion calling upon beliefs as well as emotions.