Abstract

Historiographical studies have provided a wealth of information on the naturalistic background of medieval political thought, having incorporated Aristotle’s thesis resulting from the reception of Politics. The goal of our study is to provide the hermeneutics of this natural philosophy using as a common thread the body as an attribute of the human constitution which imposes certain needs and from which emerge certain impulses that determine its social and political condition. Specifically, we will analyze the treatises De regno ad regem Cypri and Defensor pacis by Saint Thomas Aquinas and Marsilius of Padua, respectively, regarding how the notion of body is especially important because it is the center of a series of activities which are decisive for life.