Bonnet, Stéphane <br/><br/>
Botero’s Machiavelli or Inventing the Motive of the State 

 -  2003.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 86 
<br/><br/> — At the beginning of the treatise Della ragione di Stato, Botero claims his determined opposition to machiavellism. He impugns any notion of the reason of State that would be based on immorality, that is on constant transgression of God’s prescriptions. But Botero doesn’t advocate the return to a theological foundation of politics. He uses the expression ragione di Stato to denote a notion of politics released from every relation to transcendent morality coming from God, an amoral notion that Machiavelli was already contemplating. In this matter, it is necessary to distinguish the ordinary from the extraordinary reason of State, because Botero shows how an ordinary reason of State, even looking for the only domination, is able to work in a way which is in full accordance with christian morality.