Dante’s Political Narratives

Abstract

This contribution investigates Dante’s work by putting it under the lens of law and the legal literature that has taken an interest in his reflections. The essay is divided into three parts: the first part discusses some legal writing on Dante’s work; in the second part, I analyze some passages of the Monarchia in which Dante’s imperial vision emerges; in the third part, I discuss the three political cantos of the Commedia in which Dante deals with the municipal, national and universal dimensions of political action. I will argue that the political Dante does not reach the intellectual heights of Dante the poet, and that his conceptions of politics and law are contradictory and remain within the context of medieval culture.