Geography and Cartography in Dante's «Comedy»

The GEODETIC project aims to explore an understudied and undervalued aspect of Dante’s poem: the geography of our world.

Alongside its imaginary afterlife sceneries, the Comedy shows fourteenth-century Italian and European geographies, most of which are still recognizable today.

Dante outlines an unprecedented, detailed, and exact image of the world, but above all he reveals profound geographical awareness. The very few studies on this theme are obsolete or weak at exegetical level.

An updated analysis is therefore needed, integrating a philological approach with the territorial data through a specifically interdisciplinary methodology.

The project firstly proposes a complete examination of the Italian and European geographical areas described in the «Comedy», along with of those in the «De vulgari eloquentia».

Secondly, a specific focusing on a selection of places is foreseen, aiming for the geo-historical reconstruction of the physical territories mentioned by the poet through relevant geographic, historiographic, literary, and iconographic sources. Web mapping services will be also fundamental to localize and visualize each of the geographical elements considered.

The first objective is to investigate the components of Dante’s geographical culture.

The second objective is to evaluate his geographical knowledge in its own environmental framework, in order to enrich our comprehension of his poetry and shed light on passages, whose correct interpretation depends on a clear understanding of topographical details.

The third objective is to verify the possible presence of maps among Dante’s sources by matching his text to extant cartographic documents.

The recent progress made in medieval cartography and the increasing digital accessibility of this heritage will be crucial to advancing my analysis. The result will open up an innovative perspective on Dante’s geo-poetics as an essential constituent of the poem.