Luciano Gargan, Dante, la sua biblioteca e lo Studio di Bologna

Dante’s Christian epic was not created out of nothing; nor did he write his didactic prose without reference to the work of others. This is not despite the poet’s genius but because of it. Dante was a wordsmith, who worked with the materials he had at his disposal, melting them down in the furnace of his mind and recasting them in new forms. But what kind of materials was he dealing with? Is it possible to reconstruct the medieval network of knowledge that the poet drew upon to shape his visi..