A journey from hell to atheism

My paper aims to clarify the relationship between making (and flaking) of the afterlife and political notions. The rituals of the death and the concept of the afterlife as boundary of the human esperience suggest the way in which humanity thinks of itself. The Afterworld is also an utopian city, the place of the perfect justice. Particurarly, political writers are apprentices of God, in working with vices and virtues of men, with punishments and rewards. At the heart of Early modern Europe the attempts to dismiss the orthodox hell has been an important step towards the autonomy of morality. These attempts were often classified as atheistic. Showing several case studies, from Machiavelli to Bruno, I would like to unlock the old debate on the meaning of atheism in the sixteenth century, using as keys the debates on heaven and hell.