Machiavelli’s virtu means Renaissance capacity, not scholastic virtue or Livian valour

Evidence

Machiavelli’s “virtu ”, as Russo puts it, is no longer the virtus of the scholastics, which has an ethical character and takes its power from heaven, nor that of Livy, which generally means military valour, but it is the virtu of Renaissance man, which is capacity, ability, industriousness, individual strength, sensibility, intuition of opportunity and a measure of one’s own possibilities. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1470

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Machiavelli’s ‘virtù’ as secular Renaissance capability against scholastic and Roman predecessors.