Convivio and De vulgari eloquentia: Dante as exile, secular philosopher and theoretician of the volgare

Abstract

The Convivio and the De vulgari eloquentia were written in a specific phase of Dante’s life (1303-1306) and clearly define his intellectual identity at the time as that of a "lay philosopher" and a theorist of the vernacular. The article examines some characteristics common to the two treatises (§ 2), and in particular tracks down two thematic lines that run through both of them: that of "rationality" (§§ 3.1-2), resulting from Aristotelian philosophy as the intellectual beacon of Dante in this phase; and that of "nobility" (§§ 4.1-2), resulting from Dante’s search for a political order capable of overcoming the violence and desorder endemic in the life of the Communes. Two target audiences then come out for the two treatises (§ 5): for the Convivio, the noblemen and nobelwomen of the feudal regimes and Signorie that Dante had met in the Apennines and the Po Valley in his early years of exile; for the De vulgari eloquentia, university philosophers, vernacular poets and masters of artes dictandi. Therefore the most likely political and biographical circumstances in which the two treatises were conceived and composed can be outlined (§ 6): Verona emerges as a likely place where the Convivio was devised in 1303-1304 (§ 6.1); Bologna, with its favorable political and cultural conditions and its libraries, as a likely place where both treatises were written for the most part in 1304-1306 (§ 6.2). Finally (§ 7) some lines of further research are proposed.

Mirko Tavoni URL http://unimap.unipi.it/cercapersone/dettaglio.php?ri=5326&template=dettaglio3.tplAffiliazione Università di PisaNazione ItaliaNote biografiche

Professore ordinario di Linguistica italiana

Dip. di Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica