Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political : Essays on Dante

Among today's Italian philosophers, Massimo Cacciari is perhaps the most assiduous commentator of Dante. Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political collects all of Cacciari's writings on Dante to this day, from his masterful analysis of St. Francis of Assisi in Dante's Paradiso and Giotto's frescoes to a new consideration of Dante's European idea of empire as a federation of nations, peoples, and languages. Cacciari does not force Dante into any philosophical straitjacket. Rather, he walks with Dante, takes notes, asks questions, raises issues, and tries to understand the Divine Comedy in Dante's terms. Cacciari approaches Dante's Ulysses and the theologico-philosophical vertigo of Paradiso not as a critic but from the point of view of a faithful, assiduous, perceptive, sometimes perplexed, and sometimes worshipful reader. Cacciari's analysis shows once more that Dante does not belong to the past. Dante creates his own age and stays with us whenever we wish to follow his path. Contents 6 Introduction: Nostalgia for the Empire, or Dante’s Metapolitics 8 Touching Dante 8 The Mystery of Saint Francis 12 A Sin against Aristotle 16 The Politics of Heaven 20 Toward a European Empire? 23 German Dante 25 Chapter 1 Double Portrait: Saint Francis of Assisi in Dante and Giotto 28 I 28 II 33 III 42 IV 46 V 54 VI 56 Chapter 2 The “Sin” of Ulysses 68 I 68 II 76 Addendum 86 Chapter 3 Dante’s Divine Perception (Aesthesis Theia) 90 Chapter 4 The Concrete Ineffable: The Last Cantos of the Commedia 100 Chapter 5 Dante’s Intellectual Love 112 Chapter 6 Latin and Vernacular in the De vulgari eloquentia 120 Chapter 7 On Dante’s Political Theology 126 Chapter 8 A Brief Note on the German Reception of Dante 140 Chapter 9 Schelling’s Dante 152 Notes 164 Chapter Sources 184 Index 186 "Nine masterful essays on Dante's Divine Comedy and Dante's political theology by one of today's leading Italian philosophers"-- Provided by publisher