Abstract/Summary

The influence of Medieval spirituality on Dante’s Commedia has been widely explored, however an aspect of Dante’s reception of and participation to Christian devotion has not received the attention it probably deserves: the poet’s relationship with late medieval confraternities, associations of pious laymen that had a paramount impact on the religious piety of Dante’s time. My dissertation considers how and to what extent the spirituality developed by such confraternities might have shaped the poet’s religious aesthetic. The thesis main concern is to reveal that Dante’s perception of the sacred, so deepened in the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, owns much to the life and experiences of the confraternities of his city. By examining the similarities between Dante’s representation of religion and religiosity and the spirituality of the confraternities, I verify the likely direct and indirect influence of confraternal devotion on Dante’s reception of many aspects of medieval religiousness. I focus, in particular, on the confraternities’ rich para-liturgical rituals, on their strong concern for communal Salvation, in its varied aspects (prayers, rituals, theological examination on the Incarnation, visual imaginary), as well as on the Eastern aesthetic theology that is embedded in their spirituality. I argue that all of these aspects of the compagnie’s religious life have shaped Dante’s religiosity, from the Vita nova to his conception of the three reigns of the otherworld in the Comedy.