This contribution aims to outline the physiognomy that economics and chrematistics take on in Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Aristotelian Politics. By carrying out an investigation which from an epistemological level aims to recover, as a founding moment, the ontology of the economic, a clear distinction is made between economics and chrematistics, the latter being auxiliary not only to economics but also to politics. In the Thomasian vision, based on the Aristotelian treatment of the topics in question carried out in Book I of Politics, the economy, being ontologically related to human action and its principles, is qualified as ars oeconomica and as prudentia oeconomica; in this way, on the one hand it manifests a direct connection to the intelligence of the government and a clear orientation towards the achievement of the natural purposes of the family and the community, on the other, it reveals its own specific ethical status. It follows that, from this perspective, as it is a chapter of human action, the economy (art and prudence) is governed by the principle of finality and the criterion of integrity. The acts that pertain to it, if duly ordered, are a good and aim at the good.
