La gratitudine nel pensiero politico cattolico italiano controrivoluzionario e liberale

This article is articulated in two parts. The first part is devoted to analyzing how the concept of gratitude to God was used by Italian Catholic antirevolutionary thinkers to legitimize the Monarchy as based on the theory of the divine right of kings, and on patriarchalism, as well as aristocratic society as based on inequality and obedience. The second part looks at how Liberal Christian political thinkers theorize a concept of political gratitude no longer associated to obedience of the subjects but rather as a feeling that sovereigns must aim to deserve by reforming the monarchy in liberal terms, in order to preserve the people’s freedom and rights, and to reach the moral good.