Cultura e ideologia alfonsina tra tradizione catalana e innovazione umanistica

ABSTRACT. ALPHONSINE CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY BETWEEN CATALAN TRADITION AND HUMANISTC INNOVATION. Alfonso conceived of his kingdom as a “Catalan lake” around which the coasts of both Catalonia and southern Italy were in constant touch. Its cultural life offered Alfonso an opportunity to achieve political consensus and rethink the function of literature in that milieu. Through a combination (and renewal) of the Catalan tradition with Italian Humanism, authors in his court (like Panormita, Manetti, Pelegrí, Facio) presented Alfonso, in laudatory speeches and historical works, as an ancient emperor far more powerful than any modern one. This process of monarchical transfiguration was long and its strategies were not linear. It reached a climax after 1452, when Emperor Frederick III visited and honored Alfonso, and resulted in the invention of an innovative “Monarchical Humanism”, which was certainly no less important than the “Civil Humanism” developed elsewhere