ANCORA SULL’"EPISTOLA A CANGRANDE", GUIDO, LANA: IL "SUBIECTUM" DELLA "COMMEDIA"

This paper firstly examines the relationships between the accessus included in the Epistle to Cangrande, and the prologues of first commentaries on Dante’s Commedia. An internal analysis shows that both Guido da Pisa’s first accessus and Iacomo della Lana’s one (followed by Ottimo) borrow from the Epistle’s accessus, independently one of another, while the later Guido’s prologue depends on Lana and even is an original response to him. Then the paper focuses on the Epistole’s definition of the literal and the allegorical sense of the Commedia, and considers Lana’s and Guido’s expansions of it. Lana basically identifies the two levels, by awarding a mere symbolic meaning to Dante’s ultramundanes meetings. Guido instead firstly repeat the Epistle’s text and then presents in his later prologue new elements to defend it and clarify it, despite some concessions to Lana’s approach. The paper ultimately aims at confirming that status animarum post mortem is a right definition of the literal Commedia’s subject, due to the fact that Dante’s real knowledge of the state of souls after death is the basis and the condition for the accomplishment of the mission he received during his ultramundane journey, i.e. to tell the world what he really saw and to show the abstract system of sins and punishments, virtues and prizes which the divine Justice established, in order to remove those living in this life from the state of sin and lead them to the salvation, without prejudice to the exercise of free will