Pietro Tamburini, amico di Giuseppe Zola. "Società di amicizia" e "civil società" nelle riflessioni di un giansenista italiano

The core of this essay is the way Pietro Tamburini, the father and the mind of Italian Jansenism in the 18th century, conceives the relationships between friendship and civil society in the second phase of his life and doctrine, after the French Revolution. Throughout his life Tamburini maintained deep friendship with Giuseppe Zola, who was his companion not only as a priest and as a theologian, but also as a professor at the University of Pavia and as a religious and political reformer. I argue that this significant bond led Tamburini to include the society of friendship, grounded in virtue and choice, among the basic societies, along with family, general society and civil society. I think Tamburini’s theory of friendship in based upon a connection between the Jansenistic conception of man and grace and Aristotelian virtue; besides, his conception of the four societies also reveals an influence of modern jusnaturalism.