This chapter addresses the political dimension of Dante’s ethical thought. Where scholars have tended to emphasise ‘the fundamental difference’ between the ethical–political theories expounded in the Monarchia and the Commedia, this chapter demonstrates their fundamental unity. No less than his Latin prose treatise in three books, Dante’s vernacular poem in three canticles was potent propaganda for the Imperial faction in Italy, and a controversial manifesto for the radical reform of the Roman Church.