Autonomia e armonia nella trattazione politica di Dante

Dante expresses the relationship between temporal and spiritual authority in terms of the independence between the two orders, but the autonomy granted to the emperor is ‘reverent’. The political actions of the universal monarch must follow reason, but he must keep in mind the religious horizon – Christian – that allows him to embody charity and piety, virtues he must possess to govern correctly. Dante goes so far as to support a religiosity of politics, making explicit a religious sense of laicity by recognizing the legitimacy of the State’s independence from the Church. In Dante’s political perspective, man’s ultimate earthly end is the common life in a universal kingdom, where the juridical authority is autonomous concerning the spiritual authority of the Church, a kingdom where there is peace, and where a man can dedicate himself to knowledge, realizing himself and acquiring freedom that removes him from his biological determinism. The political and theological perspectives converge in the project of the diarchy, of the building of the dual supreme and independent authority.