Virgilio: lo mio maestro e ’l mio autore

Virgil is undoubtedly a central figure in Dante’s cultural and poetic evolution, and so Dantes’s declaration when he addresses him in Inf., I 85-87 comes as no surprise: Tu se’ lo mio maestro e ’l mio autore, / tu se’ solo colui da cu’ io tolsi / lo bello stilo che m’ha fatto onore (“You are my master and my author, you are the only one from whom I took the beautiful style that has brought me honour”). The nature and extent of Dante’s debt to Virgil, whom he read directly as well as through the mediation of commentaries produced during late antiquity and the Middle Ages, is documented through the frequent borrowings of theme, creative device, narrative structure, literary genre (such as using Virgil’s Bucolics as a model for his Eclogues), explicit reference, stylistic feature, iuncturae that run – often skilfully remoulded, contaminated and assimilated into new contexts – throughout Dante’s work, from the Vita nuova to Paradiso. Although Virgil appears in an exclusively rhetorical and stylistic perspective up to the fourth treatise of the Convivio, from this point onwards, and especially in the Monarchia and the Commedia, this formal dimension is enriched with political-ideological and prophetic implications: Dante no longer sees Virgil only a lofty poet, but acknowledges, particularly in the Aeneid, a historical character in his poetry, and a remarkable ability to convey the sacred and providential function of the Roman Empire. In addition to the Bible, the story of Aeneas’ descent into hell, told in Book VI of the Aeneid, is the true literary precursor of the Commedia. There are recurring similarities between the two works, especially in their descriptions of Inferno: it has been calculated that Dante’s first five cantos (707 lines) contain no fewer than 70 references to Virgil; not even the Bible is present to this extent. But equally important is the fact that the crucial encounter between Dante and Cacciaguida at the centre of Paradiso replicates that of Aeneas with his father Anchises. This, perhaps, makes it even easier to understand why he elevates Virgil to a symbol of reason and to the role of guide in his pilgrimage through hell and purgatory, while maintaining his historical figuration throughout.