Utopia and Reality: the “Culture” of Politics in Rodolfo De Mattei

Politics between Ideas and Forms. Evolution of Utopian Paradigms Utopia and Reality: the “culture” of politics in Rodolfo De Mattei Laura MITAROTONDO Abstract: This work aims to deal with the composite reflection of the historian of political doctrines Rodolfo De Mattei (1899-1981) about the subject of utopia, going through some moments of his researches on 17th century political literature, between treatises about reason of State and the tradition of political utopia. The judgement on the literary-political utopian kind turns out to be perfectly consistent with the scholar’s more general conception of politics, expressed in some key essays of methodological character, which appeared during the thirties of 19th century, about the history of political doctrines discipline role and aim. It is in fact a critical perspective which is a rethinking of some traditional classifications, such as those of realism and idealism, that centres around the worth of the historical process and the lead of an ethical approach to politics, which always relies on the mediation of multiple forms and manifestations of culture. Keywords: Utopia, Realism, Ethics, Politics, Renovation. E cos’è, poi, questa ‘autonomia storica di tali ideali, che per essere della politica’? La politica, magari espressione di uomini e di tempi, laddove appare più scientificamente e sono anch’essi realtà viva, provvista categoricamente dedotta, è sempre in di efficacia e di proiezione sulla vita funzione del problema morale. pratica. La Repubblica platonica è, sì, (R. De Mattei, 1938) un programma massimo, ma sempre un programma, cioè un verbo che Utopia as an ethical-political tende a farsi carne, ed altrettanto ben project può dirsi del sogno campanelliano: quanto poi all’effettivo fascino Ma per fortuna gli stessi dissa- riscosso da detto schemi, si possono cratori dei miti e degli ideali, gli rammentare gli sforzi, le aspirazioni, stessi differenziatori degli schemi dai le cospirazioni consumate per l’at- programmi pratici, finiscono, volenti tuazione pratica dei vari disegni.1 o nolenti, col convenire sulla forza 153 POLIS With these words, Rodolfo De history of culture, but of keeping the Mattei introduced the concept of theoretical aspect and the practical utopia, underlying those of myth and together of knowledge, recording the political ideal, in his treatise on the manifestations of civil life, of a lite- method and aim of the history of rary kind, juridical, economic, reli- political thought. We are in 1938 and gious, established in a well-defined the Sicilian professor is immersed in historical framework. The history of the folds of a debate on the episte- political thought was in fact intended mological statute of his discipline.2 as history of heterogeneous reflection His position is clearly anti-idealistic, on reality and on political-social polemical against ‘la pregiudiziale activity and, so, as history of the pro- “scientista” e positivista’,3 and the cess of human civilization.4 From a doctrinaire notion of the discipline theoretical scope defined as such, not expressed, among others, by the could be excluded myths, ideologies, Gentilian Felice Battaglia in 1936, in utopias, which held an extraordinary his Lineamenti di storia delle dottrine historical force.5 politiche. It is a critical perspective The interest towards the kind of chosen in a lively argument among utopia, which leads De Mattei, in the philosophers of law, philosophers of immediate post-war period, to com- politics, scientists of politics, histo- ment works such as Harrington’s La rians of philosophy. In his claiming Repubblica di Oceana, Zuccolo’s La the distance between the history of Repubblica d’Evandria, Campanella’s thought and other subject matters, La Città del Sole, and to turn his such as political science, which attention to lesser witnesses of the aimed at ‘fornire la conoscenza esatta utopian tradition, is consistent with a delle leggi regolanti la natura sociale broader view on politics and its aims, dell’uomo’, De Mattei goes in search which had grown a theoretical soli- of the political in multiple mani- dity right in the course of the lively festations of man’s life in history, debate on the study of political which include literature, poetry, doctrines in Italy. Historian Carlo theatre, art. In this sense, putting Morandi, from whom De Mattei also distance both between the excesses of drew inspiration, reflecting upon the science, and the conceptual rarefac- evolution of political thought in the tions of doctrines, he proposes to join field of ‘philosophical-historical the practical dimension, realistic, of disciplines’, acknowledged that the politics with its theoretical expres- distinctive trait of political utopias sion, receiving witnesses of various was in being somehow out of their kinds, which marked relevant stages time because replete of future.6 An in the historical process of social and idea, this one, that De Mattei for sure civil life. As it was already underli- approved to the extent of reading in ned, it was not a matter of reducing utopia not something unreachable, the history of political thought to a but a heartfelt projection of the 154 Politics between Ideas and Forms. Evolution of Utopian Paradigms possible, which however held a link a suo modo sempre attuale. Sempre with religion, not intended in the attuale, forse a preferenza dei pro- denominational sense, but as trans- grammi contingenti, proprio perché a cendent dimension intrinsic to man, carattere permanente, cioè perché his spirituality, an essential compo- appunto interessando l’universalità, nent of his matter, of his humanitas. tocca la parte generale ed eterna The utopian tradition origins them- dell’uomo.8 selves, which De Mattei distin- This passage enables to under- guished between utopianism with a stand the ostensible paradox of the “citizen” background and “universa- likeness between utopia and realism listic” utopianism, were to be sear- that De Mattei proposes again in ched also in well-established cultural many of his studies about Italian traditions, such as Neoplatonism and political tradition between the Christian Humanism.7 Truly in his Renaissance and the Baroque age. historiographical researches about Even in Machiavelli, father of the political thought, the scholar would tragic separation between ethics and reaffirm the connection between politics, pioneer of modern political utopia and religion, in the name of a realism, a markedly anti-realistic modern conception of man, obser- attitude, according to the scholar’s ving that non vi è utopia che non judgement, can be found in the inte- abbia in sé un carattere religioso; e gral dedication to the classical para- non perché sia connessa, come pur è digm of Roman respublica. Accor- possibile, a una data credenza meta- ding to the Florentine Secretary – son fisica, ma perché provvista di quella of that Humanistic tradition, soaked sua assolutezza che le conferisce with the cult of Classics –, who trusts appunto una fisionomia e un’esi- in the permanent effectiveness of the genza mistica, sì che necessaria- model, the political exemplarity of mente si arricchisce di quel pathos Rome becomes timeless, universal, che è della medesima natura del not bound to any judgement what- fervor di religione. Pathos, fervore, soever, prudential in kind, of con- peraltro, che si riscontrano ugual- tingency.9 It is as if De Mattei meant mente, magari di più, presso i pro- to underline that it does not exist a grammi politici per avventura ispirati neat break between realism and uto- a una visione ‘realistica’ della vita: pia in the Italian political tradition, in appunto per ciò, sorretti da mistica the right of nature itself of that sicurezza, da religiosa assolutezza. E tradition, marked by various cultural se nell’’utopia’ è già – come gene- ancestries. In many works, since ralmente si dichiara – qualcosa della 1924, the scholar stigmatises the realtà o della realtà futura, non v’è realism-utopianism dialectic compa- dunque utopia senza realtà, che sarà ring, for example, Machiavelli and futura nell’attuazione, ma è già Campanella, the mundane author and presente nella elaborazione, e quindi the metaphysical, though convinced 155 POLIS that they represent the two poles of a being universal and not personal, national political culture of great hints at politics to be intended as a complexity, but “spiritual” in cha- project, up to utopia, never resolved racter, made of possible oscillations in the immediacy of aims, in the of thought, but never of definitive techniques to preserve the “reason of contrasts.10 Actually, according to De States”. Rome is the place of histo- Mattei, the modernity of the writers rical memory, but also the location of of the national tradition modernity, a universal spiritual order, to which their historical continuity, is ex- to refer human political order, finite plained through that combination and contingent, paying reverence to a which crosses a vast political litera- view of politics, maybe even impo- ture among ‘domestic experience’, litic, as a project that procures, in practice of reality, and bookish primis, man’s moral improvement. experience.11 A vitality that still Utopia, therefore, represents one allows thinking about a cultural of the forms through which De identity suspended between utopia Mattei rethinks and makes it relative and reality. the idea of politics finiteness, as Also Utopia, which for De Mattei, politics is a subject that refers to the therefore, is to be thought as an complexity of human nature, to its ethical experience, not necessarily as being irreducible to a single dimen- a critical imagination of an ideal sion. What De Mattei celebrates elsewhere. Utopia is the possibility throughout all his literature, it is a that refers to the value of a project, of strongly ethicised version of politics, a model of perfecting potentially which spreads its roots deep into an achievable. In this perspective, the image of man matured right after a city of Rome, which is an authentic precise reading of the Humanistic muse in the Sicilian scholar’s tradition, effectively expressed by scientific and artistic imagination, Petrarch, a pioneer of Modernity.

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