L’immaginazione nella Vita nova

This article analyses the concept of imagination in the Vita nova by relating it to the ways in which Dante was influenced by patristic Christian anthropology. Within the realm of the latter, the concepts of image and imagination played a central role in the medieval interpretation and representation of reality. Although intrinsically linked to the image, the imagination can wield greater power, because it assumes that the image is active (imago plus actio, imago agens). The aspect of image in the Vita nova is part of the broader question of the performative power of images in the Middle Ages, which also included, for example, verbal and gestural images in the world of theatre and jesting.