Dante Alighieri - La memoria dei libri - Video di Maria Teresa de Vito

In Dante's work, and in the Divine Comedy in particular, the traditions of classical, Christian, and medieval culture are summarized like a summa: authors, books, schools of poets and philosophers, encyclopedias, ancient mythologies and Christian dogmas, canonical writers and more eccentric authors are all revisited by Dante's gaze, who, in writing his text, simultaneously rewrites the tradition to which they belong. In this sense, knowing which readings, which books, materially nourished Alighieri's culture and poetic imagination has always posed a profound question for both critics and readers, as they seek to gain a deeper understanding of the Divine Comedy. Research, however, comes up against the evidence that Dante never had a true, stable, personal library, as Petrarch did; we do not even possess autographs or books that definitely belonged to him. The debate over which works Dante actually read and which he knew only from quotations or epitomes is therefore still open and of great importance. The exhibition presents for the first time all the works explicitly cited by Dante and presumably read, thus forming part of his "library." The exhibition will largely feature codices from the 13th and 14th centuries, books that correspond to the manuscript typologies Dante may have used. Also on display will be some codices from the 13th-century collection of the library of Santa Croce, the Florentine convent that, according to recent studies, may have hosted the poet's early education. The manuscripts will be arranged thematically and chronologically according to the development of Dante's work, including its possible movements before and after exile. All works attributed to him by scholars based on hypotheses, allusions, or the often conflicting findings of modern scholars will be excluded. Instead, the exhibition will focus on those texts, with their ancient books, that will most certainly allow visitors to understand and explore the "fixed points" of Dante's "library." Source: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei