What Was Dante's Political View

Throughout the centuries, the political interpretation of Dante 's oeuvre has been subjected to various metamorphosis that are strongly connected with the political-ideological situations coming from the historical momentum in which they occurred. Consequently, in modern days, Dante has been credited as a political author who promoted the birth of the rule of the law, ensuring also the progress of the modern legal consciousness that is the base of the secular State equipped with an its own ethics.

Therefore, in order to understand why Dante 's oeuvre, in a well-defined historical momentum going from the 18th century onwards with peaks into 19th and the early 20th centuries, was subjected to numerous metamorphosis strongly connected with

2) To what extent the various features spread by Dante in both, his philosophical and political treaties (Convivio and De Monarchia) allowed his own thought to have a cultural life lasted for centuries up to our days?

3) To what extent Dante 's political thought is able to explain the huge popularity that this author acquired particularly during the Italian Risorgimento and during the European Romanticism?

In an attempt to find some significant answers for the above questions, our first step will be the analysis of the historical-cultural background that characterised Dante 's century and that in turn influenced his political and philosophical thought.

The historical-political background during Dante 's century.

According to Gabriele Rossetti, Dante 's century "represented one of the most calamitous era of the history" (Rossetti, 1832, p.37), as it saw the continue struggles between the two powerful institutions of the time such the Church and the Empire, which dominated not only Italy but also the European, political scenario. The long-standing issues between Church and Empire had emerged centuries before Dante. In fact, at the beginning of the eleventh century arose in Germany a conflict between the Bavarian House of the Welf (Guelph) and the House of the Swabian Hohenstaufen (Ghibelline) that unfortunately influenced also the political and social life of the Italian

In fact, when on 1216, a member of the Buondelmonte family was killed by another member of the Amidei family for personal revenge, Florence saw the first division between the two main political parties that, in addition to the political struggles between Church and Empire, exasperated also further the already, precarious political situation in Florence, radicalising the formation of those two great powerful factions that, at the end of the thirteenth century, were still fighting for political and economic hegemony on the city and that, according to Dante, made Italy a field of veritable orgy of warfare, pushing Dante to write: "Ah slavish Italy! thou in of grief,/Vessel without a pilot in loud storm,/Lady no longer of fair provinces,/But brothel-house impure! this gentle spirit,/Ev 'n from the Pleasant sound of his dear land/Was prompt to greet a fellow citizen/With such glad cheer; while now thy living ones/In thee abide not without war; and one/Malicious gnaws another, ay of those/Whom the same wall and the same moat contains,/Seek, wretched one! around thy sea-coasts wide;/Then homeward to thy bosom turn, and mark/If any part of the sweet peace enjoy (Purgatory VI, 76-87). In describing the political scenario of the Italian cities, Dante said: "For all the towers of Italy are full/Of tyrants, and becometh a Marcellus/Each peasant churl who plays the partisan" (Purgatory VI,