| Man and his conflicts, examined through the prism of the Italian Renaissance, make up the subject of this dissertation. By exploring the multifarious forms of enmity, I aim to investigate the nature and the boundaries of power. The persuasion that political authority and hostility are inextricably linked is grounded in the notion that the key responsibility of any sovereign derives from decisions on war and peace or, in other words, from the answer to the question "who is the enemy?";The Early Modern Age, which I would roughly frame between the late 14 th century and the beginning of the 17th century, has been widely regarded as the time in European history during which a radical transformation towards a more secularized idea of sovereignty occurred as part of a broader revision of man's place in a newly shaped cosmos. Therefore, my examination focuses on those texts of the Italian Renaissance which most profoundly dramatize the various facets of this shift. As I hope to show in this study, a literary perspective can most effectively measure the breadth of man's oscillations between war and peace and unearth the roots of human desires and weaknesses.;The five chapters which constitute this study comprise a symmetrical arrangement which pivots around chapter 3, "The Enemy as the Self", dedicated to Ariosto's Orlando furioso and to the strife within the hero. While chapters 2 and 4, respectively dedicated to the theme of treachery in Pulci's Morgante and to Machiavelli's discussion of civil discord in the Discorsi, chiefly address conflicts within a political community, chapters 1 and 5, respectively focused on Dante's Monarchia and Inferno 28 and Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, primarily consider the representation of Rome as the ideal guarantor of global harmony and the mostly antagonistic perception of Islam in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.;Notwithstanding the early modern viewpoint adopted and the frequent incursions into even more ancient territories, I do not aim to undertake an archeological effort to collect fragments of wisdom on the subject of sovereignty. Instead, this dissertation seeks to underscore the enduring epistemological value of literature, while reflecting present, i.e. undying, concerns arising from the problem of enmity in relation to matters of politics and theology, of psychology and ethics. |
