Dante and the Geometry of Paradise

Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies, 2017

La parte meno rilevante e`quella dedicata agli studi sulla fortuna critica di Dante. È la meno rilevante, ma anch'essa e`parte integrante del tutto. Picone non scrive per se stesso, ma dialoga costantemente con i critici di Dante, mostrando consensi ma anche dissensi, e questi ultimi spesso con la durezza che non risparmia neppure i suoi maestri come Contini. Questo scritti danteschi sono un monumento alla memoria dell'autore. Si possono leggere uno dopo l'altro perche´la scrittura di Picone e`densa ma elegantissima, vivace e lucida. Che fara`questo lavoro ne trarra`tesori e una visione generale dell'autore e uomo Dante perche´Picone non dimentica mai che chi scrive e`un uomo impegnato nell'alta missione del letterato. Chi invece consulteraò ccasionalmente alcuni di questi studi, sara`tentato di leggerne molti altri, non solo perche´i rimandi interni abbondano e invitano a farlo, ma perche´Picone sa rendere avvincente una materia che la pedanteria di una dantistica che cresce su se stessa ci ha reso fastidiosa.

Annali d'Italianistica, 2021

Dante Studies, 2018

The 136th issue of Dante Studies (2018) hosts a new section, the Forum, devoted to new research trends in the field. This first Forum, coordinated by Elisa Brilli, explores the questions of Biography and new Historical Studies in current research on Dante. Brilli’s opening piece on "Dante’s Biographies and Historical Studies" draws a cross-disciplinary state of the art over the last decade and raises five major questions (pp. 133-142: 10.1353/das.2018.0004). The answers tackle all or some of these questions from different angles and traditions of studies. Manuele Gragnolatiand Elena Lombardi focus on Dante’s textual constructions and storytelling ("Autobiografia d’autore," pp. 143-169: 10.1353/das.2018.0005). Giorgio Inglese reflects on his biography (Dante. Una biografia possible) in a new contribution entitled "Una biografia impossibile" (pp. 161-166: 10.1353/das.2018.0006). Giuliano Milani develops a methodological reflection on the possibility of writing "La vita di Dante iuxta propria principia" (pp. 167-175: 10.1353/das.2018.0007). Paolo Pellegrini engages the discussion with the new trend and declares the "De profundis per l’Instant Book" (pp. 176-186: 10.1353/das.2018.0008). Jean-Claude Schmitt challenges Dante Studies by analyzing Dante’s Vita Nova with the approach of historical anthropology ("Dante en rêveur médiéval : « Memoria » funéraire et récit autobiographique, pp. 187-200: 10.1353/das.2018.0009). Mirko Tavoni’s "Dante e il ‘paradigma critico dellacontingenza’" (pp. 201-212: 10.1353/das.2018.0010) offers a theoretical reflection on Tavoni’s critical approach. Finally, David Wallace compares the situation in Dante studies with other research fields, and asks the most uncomfortable question: "Lives of Dante: Why Now?" (pp. 213-222: 10.1353/das.2018.0011). A Bibliography completes the Forum (pp. 223-231: 10.1353/das.2018.0012). This issue also includes the essays by Luca Fiorentini, "Archaeology of the Tre Corone: Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio in Benvenuto da Imola's Commentary on the Divine Comedy" (pp. 1-21), Ronald L. Martinez, "Dante 'buon sartore' (Paradiso 32.140): Textile Arts, Rhetoric, and Metapoetics at the End of the Commedia" (pp. 22-61), Barbara Newman, "The Seven-StoreyMountain: Mechthild of Hackeborn and Dante's Matelda" (pp. 62-92) and Matthew Collins, "The Forgotten Morgan Dante Drawings, Their Influence on the Marcolini Commedia of 1544, and Their Place within a Visually-Driven Discourse on Dante's Poem" (pp. 93-132). Dante Studies is available on print and online on Project Muse. Access to Dante Studies is a primary benefit of membership in the Dante Society of America (https://www.dantesociety.org/). Current members receive both print copies and electronic access to current and recent issues. Individual subscriptions are available only through membership in the Society (https://www.dantesociety.org/membership-and-benefits#Joining_or_Renewing). Institutions that wish to subscribe to Dante Studies may place their order online via the JHUP journals website (https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals).

On 20 th October 1519 the Accademia Medicea, which included Michelangelo among its members, petitioned Pope Leo X for the restitution of Dante's remains from Ravenna to the city of Florence. Michelangelo added to the petition his heartfelt offer to sculpt a suitable tomb for the "divine poet" 1. His wish to «fare la Sepoltura sua chondecente e in locho onorevole in questa cictà» was however left unfulfilled, since, as is well known, Ravenna was to remain, as it is still today, the burial place of the great poet 2. Michelangelo's admiration for Dante and close knowledge of his work is a well-known, indeed pervasive, theme, though mostly studied on the evidence of Michelangelo's visual art, as opposed to Dante's influence in his poetry 3. This is * I am grateful to Simon Gilson for his assistance and to Davide Dalmas for helpful comments. Heartfelt thanks also to my friend Stefano Jossa for his constant support. 1 «Io Michelangelo Schultore il medesimo a Vostra Santità suplicho, oferendomi al divin poeta fare la Sepoltura sua chondecente e in locho onorevole in questa cictà». In GiorGio VAsAri, Vita di Michelangelo, edited by iVo bombA, Pordenone, Studio Tesi, 1993, p. 259: «I Michelangelo the Sculptor beg Your Holiness to let me make a worthy burial for the Divine Poet in an honorable place in this city». Translation in English is mine. Further translations of citations will also be mine unless stated otherwise. 2 Pope Leo X did send a delegation to Ravenna to ask for Dante's bones to be returned to Florence, but when the papal emissary opened the sarcophagus Dante's remains could not be found; the Franciscan friars had removed them and hidden them in the cloister of the monastery until 1677, when one of the friars, Antonio Santi, identified the poet's bones and put them on display. Florence only managed to boast a beautiful cenotaph to Dante. It was sculpted by the neoclassical artist Stefano Ricci between 1819 and 1830 and installed in the church of Santa Croce close to Michelangelo's monumental tomb.

2021

The aim of this article is to examine the specifically architectural and structural aspects of Dante's Rome in the Commedia which have not received particular attention in the critical literature. Focusing on the Eternal City's monumental and urban features and their placement in the order of the poem at pivotal junctures in each of the three canticles, reveals how the city was for Dante, paradoxically, both central and liminal. While Rome is central to Dante's political ideology, like the poem itself, the city is situated at the threshold between this world and the next. A key meta-architectural literary theme, Rome can serve as a point of departure for investigating the structure and status of the poem itself taken as an artifact fashioned in imitation of the divine architect: "Colui che volse il sesto a lo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso distinse tanto occulto e manifesto" (Par., XIX, 40-42).

Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies, 2020

International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 2010

La Divina Commedia was written nearly 700 years ago and for much of that time it has been closely examined and scrutinised across many different levels: the sources; the meaning; the linguistic structure of the poem; the hidden subtexts; the influences; the analogies and the numerology of the poem have all been analysed in detail. However, a totally neglected area of the great work is the architecture of the universe that Dante created, particularly the architecture of Paradise and the Celestial Rose. Dante attempted to create a universe that was truly Euclidian and one that was fitting for the Divine Architect with His compass and straightedge, a popular image of his time. However, Dante inadvertently created a four dimensional universe that was beyond the geometric understanding of his time. The universe that Dante created in La Divina Commedia cannot be drawn with a compass and straightedge. This paper examines Dante's architectural metaphors, the structure of his universe, and the paradox that it creates.

Italian Studies, 2023

The essay shows how the most comprehensive sixteenth-century printed collection of pre-Petrarchan lyric poetry, printed by the Giunti press in Florence in 1527 and known as the 'Giuntina delle rime', was conceived as a Dantean collection. The article argues that the 'Giuntina' can be understood in relation to a Florentine context that reacted in opposition to Bembo's codification, in his seminal dialogue Prose nelle quali si ragiona della volgar lingua (1525), of Petrarch and Boccaccio as supreme models for poetry and prose, and his devaluing Dante. This reaction led to the promotion of Dante's lyric poetry through a collection printed by the leading Florentine publishing house. The essay presents new evidence to show that the original programme of revaluing Dante that lies behind the collection and its scope seem to have undergone a transformation, which obscured the force of that re-evaluation in the final print of the 1527 anthology.

Lettere Italiane 56 (2004): 509-542, rpt. Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture, Fordham UP, 2006, pp. 245-78

2014

In her new volume (Dante between jurisprudence, theology and ancient exegesis) Claudia Di Fonzo-who in 2008 edited the L'ultima forma dell'Ottimo commento -discusses the legacy of the Supreme Poet with an innovative approach. Di Fonzo analyzes some important traits of Alighieri's work by inserting it in a context in which she intends to reconstruct the connections between jurisprudence, eschatology, hermeneutics and poetry in Dante's political-theological conception. The author re-reads Dante's texts not only in function of some new results in philological investigations, but also in an attempt to reveal new ways in Dante's interpretation. As Di Fonzo sustains, the Comedy and Dante's treatises are special synthesis of certain "roving concepts" ("motivi vaganti") of the European Middle Ages, reformulated by the poetic power of the man who is considered by Eliot as the greatest among the poets of modern languages (p.4). The book is divided in seven chapters, the titles indicate clearly the hermeneutic itineraries that Di Fonzo intends to accomplish. The thematic definitions are quite dense (for example, Ordinamento cosmologico e ordinamento giuridico: una specularità ordinata [Cosmological and juridical order: an ordered specularity]; Giusti son due e non vi sono intesi: giusto naturale e giusto legale [Two men are just, but no one pays them heed: natural and legal justice]; etc.), and evolve in some complex reflections, but unfortunately don't close in a general conclusion at the end of the volume (no matter the fact the Di Fonzo characterizes as "conclusive" the final chapter entitled Disarmonia infernale, liturgia astripeta e polifonia celeste [Infernal disharmony, liturgy oriented toward the stars and celestial polyphony; "astripeta" refers to "astripetam aquilam", in De vulgari eloquentia II/IV/11]; p.6). To the reader it might seem that the beautiful iconographic figures (pp.123-131) serve to substitute the conclusion, even if the analysis of the iconographic aspects of Dantesque texts can be found in the penultimate chapter, Dante maestro di felicità: risemantizzazione di una iconografia sacra [Dante, master of happiness: semantics of a sacred iconography]. Nevertheless, these unusual aspects don't diminish the value of Di Fonzo's impressive work, which -as it is clear also in base of the bibliography -has as an objective the renewal of the exegesis of Dante's works. The necessity to compare jurisprudence and literature is outlined-in the introductory chapter, Un palinsesto dantesco [A Dantesque palimpsest]-in the following way. "Literature becomes the authoritative source of jurisprudence, and law itself assumes, in certain cases, some literary role. The Medieval jurist reads […] Dante's Convivio, and he uses it as an authoritative foundation for a juridical commentary: in the specific case Dante becomes the authority, on which law and its interpretation are founded" (p.7). Di Fonzo goes on asserting that in the case of Dante, Cino da Pistoia and Bartolo da Sassoferrato the linkage between literature and jurisprudence is paradigmatic: literature is authoritative for the law, jurispru-*This book review was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.