Medio-latinismi nella Commedia di Dante

Dante, the personaggio-poeta of the Commedia, is the pilgrim who, returning from another world, wants to report at least in part what he has seen; to report it, he needs a new language: the language proper to that world of extraordinary perfection of which he experienced: a language that Dante must teach to his reader who will certainly be attracted by it. The new language Dante constructs draws on all the resources of reason and literary tradition and a great deal from the Latin tradition and its lexicon, which is enriched in medieval experiments. Dante’s medio-Latinisms in the Commedia show how the Latin Dante needs to forge new words is dense with new meanings that are grafted onto the ancients, developing them strongly. The demonstration takes place on three terms: conflati, fulgore and arride, which are grasped in their meaning through comparison with the medieval Latin tradition. In this way they reveal to us how the experience of the Empyrean is presented not only as a visual experience but also a tactile one, in which a certain kind of warmth plays an important role.