Dal pensiero politico al sentimento politico: Rodolfo De Mattei interprete di Petrarca

From political thought to political feeling: Rodolfo De Mattei as Petrarch’s commentator Il sentimento politico di Petrarca (1944) is in fact a major achievement in Rodolfo De Mattei’s studies on the controversial matter of Petrarch’s “politicity”. However, this long essay is also an instrument of great interest to verify the evolution of the Sicilian scholar’s theoretical reflection on Petrarch, which encompasses some works published in reviews since 1928. This paper covers all the key aspects of De Mattei’s thought, which stands out against the landscape of studies on national and political Petrarch, without disregarding the Aretine poet’s incidence on the author’s researches about the genesis of politics modernity. This last aspect does not have to be set apart from the more general analysis about the epistemological statute of the history of political doctrines, which develops a peculiar trait in the same years we deal with. In fact, also the interpretation of Petrarch is consistent with the innovating methodological perspective of the discipline, opened by De Mattei.