‘Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth have arisen, and the princes have gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Let us burst their chains and cast their yoke from us.’

When confronted with an unfamiliar phenomenon whose cause we do not comprehend we usually feel amazement; and equally, when we do understand the cause, we look down almost mockingly on those who continue to be amazed. For my own part, I used once to be amazed that the Roman people had set themselves as rulers over the whole world without encountering any resistance, for I looked at the matter only in a superficial way and I thought that they had attained their supremacy not by right but only by force of arms. But when I penetrated with my mind's eye to the heart of the matter and understood through unmistakable signs that this was the work of divine providence, my amazement faded and a kind of scornful derision took its place, on seeing how the nations raged against the supremacy of the Roman people, on seeing the peoples meditate vain things, as I myself once did; and I grieved too that kings and princes should be united only in this one thing: in opposing their Lord and his Anointed, the Roman prince.

The translation

The difficulties posed by translating a text like the Monarchy are considerable. Dante's language is concise and vigorous, yet dense with philosophical implications: to find a balance between literal translation and explanatory paraphrase is a constant challenge. I have tried to keep as close to the original text as seemed consistent with modern English usage, preferring to clarify in notes rather than to stray too far from Dante's formulations, and avoiding (I hope) the ponderousness (and even occasional opacity) of some earlier versions, qualities which seem to me entirely alien to Dante's style.

The translation is based on the Latin text printed in the Cambridge Medieval Classics edition of the Monarchia, which in its turn is based on the text established by Pier Giorgio Ricci in his 1965 edition of the treatise, emended in some forty odd places. Most of these emendations do not affect the meaning: a small group of substantive changes (concentrated at the end of Book II, chapter x) is described in ‘Some proposed emendations to the text of Dante's Monarchica’, in Italian Studies 50, 1995, pp. 1–8. Where Ricci's text diverges from Rostagno's earlier edition (see Bibliographical note), the present translation will differ from earlier English versions. The critical edition of the Latin text of the Monarchy which I am currently preparing, and which will be published under the auspices of the Società Dantesca Italiana, will include a full critical apparatus and an exhaustive discussion of the textual situation.

Why read the Monarchy, Dante's treatise on political theory? A minor work by one of the world's great poets, written in the moribund language which he wisely rejected in favour of the vernacular when writing at full creative pressure, argued in a manner which can seem needlessly pedantic and repetitive in its procedures and its formulations, it expresses ideas which have been described as backward-looking, Utopian and even fanatical. Yet a recent book on the political thought of the period can unselfconsciously refer to the Monarchy as a masterpiece, and it is surely a text of remarkable interest. The originality and power of the political vision it embodies, the passion with which that vision is experienced and expressed, shine through the alien language and the alienating methodology. The small effort the text requires of its modern readers is amply repaid by the sense it conveys of a man passionately engaged in the political debates of his age, but equally passionate in his determination that the pressure of present concerns should not blind us to underlying principles. Only a grasp of universal truths about human beings and human life will furnish an answer to the fundamental question of how people should live together and what form of political organization best suits human nature.

The attempt to argue from first principles is one of the most strikingly original aspects of the Monarchy, but it is not a work of ivory-tower idealism, of theory divorced from political experience.

For all men whom the Higher Nature has endowed with a love of truth, this above all seems to be a matter of concern, that just as they have been enriched by the efforts of their forebears, so they too may work for future generations, in order that posterity may be enriched by their efforts. For the man who is steeped in the teachings which form our common heritage, yet has no interest in contributing something to the community, is failing in his duty: let him be in no doubt of that; for he is not ‘a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in due season’, but rather a destructive whirlpool which forever swallows things down and never gives back what it has swallowed. Thinking often about these things, lest some day I be accused of burying my talent, I wish not just to put forth buds but to bear fruit for the benefit of all, and to reveal truths that have not been attempted by others. For what fruit would a man bear who proved once again a theorem of Euclid's? or who sought to show once again the nature of happiness, which has already been shown by Aristotle? or who took up the defence of old age which has already been defended by Cicero? None at all; indeed the tiresome pointlessness of the exercise would arouse distaste.