Dante agiografo: i santi ‘all’Inferno’

In the last fifty years hagiographical studies have undergone an important period of renewal and development: the research on the saints and their cult, on the models of perfection in various periods of Christianity and on the literary texts that have transmitted them has made possible to achieve a better historiographical understanding of the complex phenomenon of Christian sanctity. Certainly Dante’s Comedy can also be defined as a ‘writing about saints’: from this point of view, indeed, it gives us a clear image of the ‘sanctoral pantheon’ of the Middle Ages. Although the most suitable field for this research is above all the third cantica, it should not be forgotten, however, that even the Inferno, paradoxically, has ‘its own’ saints (Mary, John the Baptist, the martyr Lucia, Peter of Morrone, Zita of Lucca, Francis of Assisi). Reading the first cantica according to the perspective and method of hagiography could offer some contribution to its interpretation and, above all, clarify in what sense we can speak of Dante as ‘hagiographer’.