This chapter examines the highly influential political writings of the humanist authors Desiderius Erasmus and Jean Bodin; specifically I will show how they use musical metaphors to propose different models of harmonious monarchical rule.

Humanism was one of the greatest achievements of the early modern revolution in knowledge, as it placed a new emphasis on the individual within the greater scheme of things. Humanist ideas were a response to changing times: fractures in the traditional systems of science, economy, technology and political domination in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought about changes in the traditional structure of the society, manifested in international wars, rebellions, heresies and utopian movements, which presented the holders of political power with the challenge of creating a new political entity that over-ruled disgregation. The loss of certainty in the medieval cosmic vision had to be counteracted by a new unquestionable foundation, namely man himself. Consequently, the state was seen to originate from the abstract individual, maker of his own society. The political community existed to guarantee the free realization of individual interests, assuring the necessary social concord.

Hence the state began to be defined as a human construction. Reason no longer had to fight against natural hostile forces, but its role was to co-ordinate them through a regime which expressed, and was part of, a universal order.