Rome, 15 January – Gennaro Sangiuliano cites Dante as the founder of Italian right-wing thought. And as we predicted, the left is going crazy, after already giving signs of intolerance (in the press) in the first hours following the minister’s departure.
Sangiuliano and Dante “of the right”: the livers of the left do not hold up
Livers of the left, or at least of the centre-left, are in turmoil. From the adolescent “but can you?” by Carlo Calenda on Twitter, up to the most consistent outburst, which could only be piddina. And so the Nazarene party comments, through the mouth of the group leader Irene Manzi, on the words of the minister in this way: “Minister Sangiuliano at least leave Dante alone. We understand that he is an excellent source of publicity and that the Minister likes to pronounce words freely, but let’s not bother the father of the Italian language with laughable and caricatured analyses”. The grillini, from the top of their very high profile, define Sangiuliano’s statement as “colossal nonsense”: “A minister of culture who places a figure like that of Dante Alighieri on the right qualifies himself. More than a provocation from him, it is a colossal nonsense, in front of which Dante himself would have suggested ‘let’s not reason about him, but look and pass’ “.
A forced thought? Yes and no: but that’s not the point
Let’s clarify one issue: it is impossible to frame the thought of a man of letters, in fact the founder of the Italian language, who lived between the XIII and XIV centuries after Christ in a politically contemporary way. This for a series of innumerable reasons which perhaps it is even stupid to underline in terms of contextual, social, historical differences and so on. However, it is difficult to think that a man of culture like Sangiuliano was not aware of all this when he expressed that opinion. Instead, I believe that he wanted to relaunch a theme of national roots, even before political ones, to which, undoubtedly, the right has always drawn, differently from the left, at least in Italy, from the second decade of the last century onwards (excluding, for obvious reasons, the historical right and left which represented a completely different matter).
He drew on it despite the misunderstandings about the devaluation of the Risorgimento (with the only useful result of “feeding it” to a left that had not the slightest intention of exalting it) and the confusion that, in general, has permeated Italian politics from 1945 onwards. Admitted and not allowed to consider historical fascism “of the right” (an operation which, to simplify, can also be done, but which does not correspond to reality) it is obvious that no one would ever dream of defining Dante as “a comrade” (and this, yes, it is really stupid to have to point it out, but in this world it is also necessary to carry out operations of this type, because on the left there is some smart-ass who is thinking it seriously right now, and you can put your hand on the fire).
On the other hand it is true that the poet was in fact a supporter of the Empire in the exercise of political power, in the wholly medieval dispute on the need to leave only spiritual power to the Church, eliminating precisely the temporal one which more than any other hindered the formation of the Unity of the Fatherland: it was in one of the acts of his infinite literary production, with a view to a separation between temporal and spiritual power which becomes explicit in De Monarchia. This, something attributable to the right, which has always been fascinated by the imperial “idea”, undoubtedly has it.
In any case, it is difficult to produce credible sermons from those who, in recent years, have tried to make the great Dante Alighieri even a symbol of welcoming illegal immigrants, vulgarly and shamefully using his name as an icon of the so-called “World refugee”. It would only be the case to keep quiet, after similar propaganda operations and beyond all limits of indecency. But Dante, you know, is tempting. Too important and too unquestionable. That someone else tries to take possession of it politically cannot please.
Stelio Fergola
The article Sangiuliano and Dante “of the right”: as expected the left blurts out, but has very little to preach comes from Il Primato Nazionale.
