This is the first new translation for forty years of a fascinating work of political theory. Dante's Monarchy addresses the fundamental question of what form of political organization best suits human nature. It embodies a political vision of startling originality and power, and illuminates the intellectual interests and achievements of one of the world's great poets. Prue Shaw's translation is accompanied by a full introduction and notes, which provide a complete guide to the text, and which place Monarchy in the context of Dante's life and work.

De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practicing poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Steven Botterill here offers the only Latin-English parallel-text edition of an important early work by the author of the Divine Comedy, and the only English translation with thorough and up-to-date notes and introductory material.