Written between 1978 and 2006, these essays engagingly address the most hidden tradition in European political thought: the unpolitical.

Trialogus de possest -- De anima -- Toccare il Dio.

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. (shrink)

The importance of the Lectura Dantis for Schelling’s philosophy, at least between Das erste Systemprogramm (First System Programme) and Die Weltalter (The Ages of the World), has for many years now been clearly highlighted by Wolfram Hogrebe and there is no need to repeat here his reflections on it. I believe the link that ties Schelling and Dante goes beyond these limits and constitutes a special guideline to understanding general but fundamental key junctures in the maturing of his philosophical system, (...) both in terms of Fichte and Hegel. This essay focuses on showing a viable course of investigation on this, with particular attention to Schelling’s philosophy of nature and the role assigned by him to Dante in his general concept of the myth. (shrink)

Cacciari, academic (aesthetics, U. of Venice) and mayor of Venice as of 1993, surveys the history of angels in Judaic, Islamic, and Christian traditions; and how Dante, Rilke, Kafka, and other writers have used the metaphor of angels to ...

A interrogação filosófica que caracteriza a cultura europeia e que determina o próprio desenvolvimento técnico-científico nasce do carácter intrinsecamente problemático-paradoxal da sua "teologia", da interpretação que essa procura oferecer, desde as suas origens, do nexo entre o Deus veterotestamentário e a figura de Jesus. A inquietude da interrogação, que torna "interroganda" a própria verdade desta Revelação, faz da fé cristã qualquer coisa de dificilmente comparável com a dos outros grandes monoteísmos da "familia" de Abraão. Aparadoxalidade desta fé, que encerra em (...) si a marca da realização plena (Deus fez-se homem) e da espera perfeita, da certeza mais robusta e da dúvida mais angustiante, marca pelo seu carácter toda a história da Europa. /// A philosophical questioning that characterizes European culture and determines its very scientific and technological development arises from the intrinsically paradoxical character of its "theology" Otherwise said, such questioning arises from the interpretation that it seeks to offer in regard to the nexus between the God of the Old Testament and the figure of Jesus Christ. The restlessness of this questioning, eventually the means by which this very truth of Revelation is interrogated, has rendered, at least on this point, the Christian faith unique in comparison with the great monotheisms descending from Abraham. The paradoxical nature of this faith, bearing the promise of complete realization (the Incarnate God), perfect hope, the most robust certainty with the most anguishing doubt, has marked the entirety of European history. (shrink)