Dante in Umbria: ricezione e fortuna della Commedia tra i religiosi del tardo sec. XIV. Il caso di un poemetto in sonetti inedito

The essay intends to show the way some theological passages of Dante’s Commedia have been adopted by religious men in their works, as liturgical compositions and poems, created in Umbria up to the end of the XIVth century. The first part of the contribution deals with the quotation from Paradiso XXXIII in a lauda copied by Sante Cicchi, a member of the Confraternita of Santo Stefano d’Assisi, and explains how the bishop of Foligno, Federico Frezzi, uses Dante’s definitions of theological virtues in his Quadriregio, the poem he wrote at the end of the century. The second part of the contribution presents the description of the same virtues in an unpublished anonymous poem, handed down by a unique manuscript (V.A.L., Chig. M.IV.99) which comes from Umbria ‒ according to some significant linguistics elements ‒ and might have been written by a friar converso. In this poem, Dante’s Commedia plays a central role, not only as a literary model but also as a theological auctoritas.