# Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism

Michelle T. Clarke. Essay, 2022.
The Good Society 31, no. 1–2 (2022): 150–157.
Publisher: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/good-society/article-abstract/31/1-2/150/386690/Style-Is-the-Man-Himself-Eloquence-and-the-Revival
Author's site: https://michelletclarke.com/

## Summary

A review essay on James Hankins’s Virtue Politics (2019), which argues that Renaissance humanism was held together by the conviction that a community’s health depends on the character of its rulers. Clarke extends the argument through eloquence: Petrarch, following Cicero and Quintilian, held that good speech both reveals and shapes a well-ordered soul, which is why humanists cared so intensely about getting Latin right. Machiavelli, by contrast, strips Livy of his style in the Discourses, treating eloquence and virtue as separable.

## Topics

- Renaissance humanism
- James Hankins
- Petrarch
- Eloquence
- Cicero
- Machiavelli

## How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism.” *The Good Society* 31, no. 1–2 (2022): 150–157.

```bibtex
@article{clarke2022style,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism}},
  year      = {2022},
  journal   = {The Good Society},
  volume    = {31},
  number    = {1--2},
  pages     = {150--157},
  url       = {https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/good-society/article-abstract/31/1-2/150/386690/Style-Is-the-Man-Himself-Eloquence-and-the-Revival}
}
```

## Related work by the author

- Machiavelli: Menace to Societas (The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory, 2021): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/machiavelli-menace-to-societas.md
- Machiavelli and the Imagined Rome of Renaissance Humanism (History of Political Thought, 2015): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/machiavelli-imagined-rome-humanism.md
- Liberty, the People, and Republican Constitutionalism in Cicero’s Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo (Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 2025): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/cicero-pro-rabirio-liberty.md