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Dante fra monarchia e repubblica: Un problema politico nella Divina Commedia

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Author

  • Viktor Wahlström

Summary, in English

This study analyses the representation of Monarchy and Republic in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The starting point is the puzzling fact that Dante places Bruto and Cassius in the deepest pit of Hell but makes Cato the custodian of Mount Purgatory, bound for everlasting glory in Paradise at the Day of Judgement, even though all three of them were on the same side in the war against Julius Ceasar at the end of the Roman Republic. A basic supposition in this study is that this can be better understood if we consider Dante’s view on the contrast between Empire and Republic. The poet’s political ideas, as they appear in his treatise De Monarchia, are examined and compared to the political views which can be glimpsed in relevant passages in the Comedy. The study results in the argument that Dante, in his poem, expresses a profoundly rooted intellectual and emotional conflict between an ideological conviction of the necessity of a universal Empire and his own deep admiration for the republican civic virtue of the heroes of the early Roman Republic.

Summary, in English

This study analyses the representation of Monarchy and Republic in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The starting point is the puzzling fact that Dante places Bruto and Cassius in the deepest pit of Hell but makes Cato the custodian of Mount Purgatory, bound for everlasting glory in Paradise at the Day of Judgement, even though all three of them were on the same side in the war against Julius Ceasar at the end of the Roman Republic. A basic supposition in this study is that this can be better understood if we consider Dante’s view on the contrast between Empire and Republic. The poet’s political ideas, as they appear in his treatise De Monarchia, are examined and compared to the political views which can be glimpsed in relevant passages in the Comedy. The study results in the argument that Dante, in his poem, expresses a profoundly rooted intellectual and emotional conflict between an ideological conviction of the necessity of a universal Empire and his own deep admiration for the republican civic virtue of the heroes of the early Roman Republic.

Department/s

Publishing year

2020

Language

Italian

Document type

Student publication for Bachelor's degree

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • Dante
  • Political Philosophy
  • Republic
  • Monarchy

Supervisor

  • Verner Egerland (Professor)