Identical or Autonomous? The Final Goals of Humanity in St. Thomas’ Aquinas De regno and Dante Alighieris’ De monarchia

This study refl ects on questions of a beginning and an end in the view of St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri. Critical and comparative analysis will show: (1) in what ways the authors perceived the ultimate goals of humanity; and (2) what impact doing so had on their political outlooks. In both cases treatises came to life with two purposes: the declared (theoretical) purpose – discussion of how to organize a well-functioning state – and actual (practical) – resolution of the dispute between the regnum and the sacerdotium, that is, determination of which party deserves precedence. The heart of the matter lies in the differences between the two accounts, given how the two mediaeval thinkers arrived at completely different conclusions in addressing the same question.