Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Vitruvius and Dante's Imago dei

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02666286.2005.10462116

1943-2178

Richard Kay,

Byzantine Studies and History

Abstract At the end of his Comedy, Dante leaves the reader with a problem in iconography. Dante the character has ascended to the highest heaven with Beatrice as his guide, but there she leaves him to take her seat among the blessed and is replaced by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who completes the pilgrim's tour of heaven, first by identifying its leading citizens and then by praying to the Virgin Mary that 'the Supreme Pleasure may be disclosed to him' (Par. 33.33). The result is the series of visions that conclude the poem: first God is perceived as the unitary cause of all being; next, the Trinity appears as three superimposed and revolving circles of light; and finally the circle that represents God the Son 'seemed to me depicted with our image and in its own color - dentro da sé, del suo colore stesso,/mi parve pinta de la nostra effige' (130-131). The problem, which never seems to have been posed in iconographic terms, is whether la nostra effige refers to a specific image that the poet had in mind but only indicated to the reader by context and cryptic hints.