Gioacchino da Fiore e le origini teologiche del pensiero italiano contemporaneo

The present article suggests the inclusion of Gioacchino da Fiore in the canon of the Italian Thought and discusses that his messianic structure, centred on the three Ages of the Spirit, would prove a fruitful addition to the attempts of such thinkers as Esposito and Agamben, who are analyzing the present political crisis in the light of political theology. The article begins with some annotations on the not only historiographical, but also genealogical character of the concept of “canon”, with particular reference to the one sketched by Esposito in Living Thought. It then moves on to an interpretation of Gioacchino’s thought which, emphasizing its figurative nature, avoids the reduction to eschatology (and thus secularization) typical of the Taubes-Löwith hermeneutic line. The articles ends by showing the similarities between what Gioacchino says on the Age of the Holy Spirit and what Esposito envisages about a possible “Saturday”, in which the theological-political figure of debt is suspended, as well as with Agamben’s reflections on the shift from the paradigm of sovereignty to that of oikonomia.