Francisco de Quevedo's Como ha de ser el privado and the Spanish Anti-machiavellian Tradition of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

In Como ha de ser el privado by Francisco de Quevedo, it is possible to find numerous elements very revealing of this author's political ideology that in general have been completely ignored by Hispanist scholars. The aim of this essay is to explain and contextualize adequately some of these political ideas and, in particular, those connected in one way or another to the concept of reason of state. I also demonstrate here that in terms of ideology, and in particular when it comes to the concept of reason of state, Como ha de ser el privado is perfectly consistent with other theoretical works by this same author and, more generally, with the Spanish Anti-Machiavellian school of thought. In this play Francisco de Quevedo shows in the person of the Marquis of Valisero (not necessarily a mirror image of the Count Duke of Olivares) the ideal catholic minister. By doing so, he provides catholic monarchs with an example of an efficient and moral method of ruling in sharp contrast with what Machiavelli and his followers propose.