Francesco Piccolomini on honor

Abstract ‘Honor’ is one of the key notions in Renaissance ethics. The present paper analyzes the honor code which Francesco Piccolomini (1520–1604) articulates in his Vniuersa Philosophia de Moribus. Drawing not only on Aristotle, Plato, and ancient Stoicism, but also on medieval and early-modern Christian authorities, he argues that ‘proper honor’ is situated in the inner of a virtuous person because “everybody is the artificer of their own merits of honor.” Despite the aristocratic and patriarchal aspects of his ethics, he propounds an interiorizing and non-militarist interpretation of honor, which runs parallel with Montaigne’s concept of vray honneur and even anticipates to some extent Kant’s Ehrliebe.