Commentary (both by Dante and on Dante)

Abstract The first part of this chapter aims to reconstruct the essential moments of Dante’s self-exegesis through an examination of the conditions that inspired it: a redefinition of the function of lyric, in the Vita nova; the explanation of the transmission of philosophical truths in poetic forms, in the Convivio; the original explanatory dialectic between the two planes of meaning, literal and allegorical, implemented in the Commedia. The second section of the chapter is devoted to the first commentaries on Dante’s Commedia, from the general introduction to Dante’s poem in the Epistle to Cangrande to the Esposizioni sopra la ‘Comedia’ by Giovanni Boccaccio.