After depicting the birth of the Cambridge historical school of political thought, the focus of the analysis is placed on the development of some theoretical assumptions created by one of its most representative followers: Quentin Skinner. Unconcerned with the exposition of "alternative models" for text interpretations or with the analysis of the criticism directed to linguistic contextualism, this study revises the key elements of the interpretative theory of political texts, according to the English historian. In this sense, we discuss the assumptions that the author, even today, seems to deem useful to those who are interested in noticing in classic Politics the uniqueness which set us apart from the system of beliefs and normative vocabulary of the political societies lost in remote times.
Text interpretation theories; historicity of ideas; language and political action; Quentin Skinner