Obbedienza e giustizia in Napoli aragonese Diomede Carafa e Giovanni Pontano

Abstract

The essay deals with the political thinking of both Giovanni Pontano and Diomede Carafa, politicians and humanists on the service of the Aragonese Kings of Naples in the second half of the Fifteenth century. The state pattern they propose is essentially based on virtue, in its more ample significance. The monarch must have many moral and politic virtues, which make him able to rule and to establish a mutual love with subjects. The whole social and political body is supported by two other basic virtues: obedience and justice. Actually, subjects have to obey the king and those men charged with public offices; but at the same time the king and those men charged with public offices; but at the same time the king and his men have to keep justice alive at every level for the people. Therefore virtue has not only a moral function, but, working in the politic body, shuold be a tool that promotes union and solidity in the community.