Dante Alighieri, il primo dei moderni. Riflessioni sul pensiero filosofico e simbolico-politico dantesco

The following essay aims at investigating Dante Alighieri’s relationship with the culture and politics of the Middle Ages and Humanism, trying to show how his philosophical-political thought (as highlighted also by Giovanni Gentile’s reading) in many aspects goes beyond the rigid medieval categories and prefigures some characteristic traits of Humanism. In this sense, Dante can be presented as the first author of the modernity of the West, first of all for the centrality that he attributes to man, as a citizen of a broad political reality, modern and able to emancipate himself from the spiritual power of the Church.