Libertà e povertà: una lettura dell'Apologia pauperum di Bonaventura da Bagnoregio

The first part of this thesis deals with the value of human dignity. Man is the image of God and must try to regain the status of divine similitudo, lost through original sin, while at the same time bringing the universe back to God. This is possible because man performs a function of mediation between the universe and God, thanks to his being made of soul and body. The second part of the thesis deals with free will, which is the fundamental dimension of the soul. The latter is structured into vegetative, sensitive and intellectual soul. The life of the soul is articulated through the activity of two powers: the cognitiva and the affectiva or motiva. The potentia affectiva is divided into voluntas naturalis and voluntas electiva or deliberativa, which is appetitus ratiocinativus, or the will in the proper sense of the term. Natural will is called synderesis and naturally pushes man towards good and away from evil and tends towards beatitude. Deliberative will acts after the judgment of reason and can choose good or evil. Free will is dominium. It is present only in rational beings. To be free is the opposite of the condition of servitude (servitus) and libertas is peculiar to voluntas, it is dominium plenum tam respectu obiecti, quam respectu actus proprii, both because it can tend towards the totality of desirable objects, namely honestum, conferens and delectabile, while creatures without a rational soul can seek only the useful and the delectable, and because it can decide autonomously to initiate and cease an action, while animals lacking reason cannot govern their own internal acts, their own appetitus, since they are determined and necessitated by their nature. Arbitrium means the capacity for judgment which can distinguish between just and unjust and between that which is one’s own and another’s. Arbitrium also is peculiar to rational beings, which are the only ones capable of reflecting upon themselves, because they are not bound totally to matter, and can thus know their own acts. Libertas arbitrii begins with reason, but it is will that brings it to completion. Therefore will plays the most important role and libertas arbitrii consists above all in will. Free will entails the power to maintain rectitude, immunity from coercion and dignity of excellence. It expresses resemblance with God, which is linked to rule and dominion. Consequently, man’s relationship with things must be an exercise of freedom and dominion, which is realized in paupertas. The third part of the thesis presents the historical and cultural context in which the Apologia pauperum is born, while the fourth and final part analyses the theme of poverty. Bonaventure interprets poverty as an absence of property rights and maintains that it is an essential instrument for evangelic perfection. In particular, the highest degree of perfection can be reached through absolute poverty, by renouncing personal and common property and maintaining only a limited use of things, according to strict necessity. The renunciation of property is an act of will, which is capable of instituting a real and effective relationship with worldly goods, because will is the decisive faculty of the soul, on which depends the exercise of freedom and of rule over itself and over universe, an exercise which is realized through paupertas. Evangelic poverty and largitas politica are virtues founded on rectitude and solidarity and allow the realization of the value of human relationships hidden in the relationships with worldly goods, giving these relationships the authentic meaning that subordinates them to the value of the person, through the dimensions of gratuitousness and unconditional reciprocity, allowing the full achievement of freedom. [edited by Author]