«NELLI OCCHI DELLA FILOSOFIA». UN¿ANALISI SISTEMATICA DI FORMULE E PROCEDIMENTI LOGICI NELLE OPERE IN PROSA DI DANTE

More than twenty years ago, Enzo Cecchini prompted to realize a “systematic analysis” of the vast number of logical formulas and argumentative procedures that stud Dante’s prose works. Since then, several specific contributions have appeared, highlighting the importance of this topic both for the understanding and the philological restitutio of Dante's text. Still missing, however, is a fully comprehensive and systematic study of this side of the Poet’s philosophical language. This work aims to fill this gap, bringing to fulfillment this critical desideratum. The first part of the thesis provides an analytical census of all the passages in which Dante deploys a technical logical terminology. Specifically, the selected formulas have been compared with: (i) the main Latin translations and commentaries to the so-called "Ars Vetus" and "Ars Nova"; (ii) the most popular logical textbooks and summulae of Dante’s time (such as Peter of Spain’s Tractatus); (iii) widely consulted works such as the Auctoritates Aristotelis and Vincent of Beauvais’Specula. Rather than identifying the specific sources Dante used, the primary aim has been to scrutinize his terminology in relation to coeval logical traditions, discussing its level of linguistic and conceptual “specialism” on a case-by-case basis. In particular, possible relations with the Auctoritates Aristotelis and the Tractatus have been explored and evaluated, as well as points of contact with the more complex exegetical traditions linked to the texts of the Organon. As requested by Cecchini, all the Poet’s prose works have been included in the analysis: the Vita nova, the Convivio, the De vulgari eloquentia, the Epistole and the Monarchia. In light of the new editorial initiative of the Società Dantesca Italiana, the controversial Questio de aqua et terra has been considered as well. Thus, the traditional consideration of the “Latin Dante” has been integrated with a special attention to the “Vernacular Dante”; and the terminological enrichment leading from the Vita nova to the Monarchia and the Questio has been diachronically pointed out. In the second part, the lexicographical entries I prepared for the Vocabolario Dantesco Latino (Accademia della Crusca; Istituto Opera del Vocabolario Italiano) have been collected and presented. In this way, an essential vocabulary of Dante's logical lexicon is provided, as a tool of easy reference to be used when Dante's text «fia […] in parte alcuna un poco duro» (Conv. I III 2).