Abstract/Summary

The essay considers the encyclical In Praeclara Summorum dedicated by Pope Benedict XV to the memory of Dante Alighieri. In this encyclical, published on 30 April 1921, on the occasion of the six-hundredth anniversary of the death of the poet, the pontiff promoted Dante as a moral, social, and political guide for societies torn apart by the madness of the First World War. My aim is to try to understand the deep socio-political reasons that pushed Pope Benedict XV to transform the Florentine poet into the mystagogue and political theorist of the contemporary world with the power to regenerate spiritually in particular the youth of post-war Europe.