Course Description

This class treats the works of Dante and Machiavelli, the most famous authors in the Italian Renaissance. The Hell of Divine Comedy of Dante not only inherits the classical tradtion but also severely criticizes the politics of Florence, his native city, and even the Pope. So we aim to read it in the historical background of the late Medieval Age. The Principate of Machavelli is famous as the origin of Machiavellism, but is regarded as the satrting-point of the modern political science. Reading it will lead to consider the relation between the man and the state.