Michele Ciliberto, Il potere velato. Tirannide, eguaglianza, libertà da Tacito a Spinoza, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 2025

Michele Ciliberto's Il potere velato examines tyrannical power as inherently disguised, tracing its logic across nine thematic "scenes" from Tacitus to Spinoza through a morphological rather than chronological method. Engaging Tacitus, Savonarola, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Bodin, Shakespeare and Spinoza, the book explores how each author, shaped by distinct conceptions of equality and conflict, addressed the recurring problem of one-man rule. Its central thesis holds that unregulated equality collapses into inertia and despotism, while unregulated conflict collapses into chaos with the same result – a tension embodied differently by each thinker considered. Particular attention is devoted to Renaissance authors, whose "disenchanted, even tragic humanism" contrasts sharply with Ficino and Pico's rationalist optimism. Spinoza emerges as Tacitus's structural counterpart, translating anti-tyrannical reflection from theory into institutional design through plural offices and rotating power. Rigorously argued, the volume ultimately invites reflection on the endurance of these deep structures of power within contemporary institutions.