Il Dante di Felice Battaglia.

On several occasions, in his writings, Felice Battaglia highlights quite a few similarities and analogies between Dante and Marsilius of Padua, two thinkers who more than others distinguished themselves in the field of political science of their time, considering the thought of the Padua’s scholar greatly influenced by the doctrine of the author of De Monarchia. Redarding Dante’s political thought, the scholar of political doctrines analyses in particular the Empire issue, whose establishment is justified by the need to ensure people earthly happiness and to remedy the inability of States to coexist peacefully. Nevertheless, the existence of the universal Principality does not affect that of the particular States which, although dependent on it, continue to maintain authority and autonomy within their territorial boundaries. Attributing a proper aim to the Empire, which it is able to provide autonomously and exclusively to, Dante separates the Church from the State, and lays the groundwork for the primacy of politics and its laicization. Battaglia grasps the most original and “modern” feature of Dante’s reflection precisely in the doctrine of the separation of the two powers and in the idea of a State that asserts itself regardless of the Church.