Abstract

The first part of this essay examines two of the most significant episodes of the most ancient reception of the "Comedy" in religious environments, the commentaries by the so called Anonymous Lombardus and Anonymous Theologus. The shared manuscript tradition of the texts (always transmitted together) and the common cultural education of both authors (religious, in a widesense, for the Lombardus, and specifically dominican for the Theologus) justify a combined analysis of these two commentaries. The second part of the essay focuses on the relation between fictio and truth within the dantean poetry. This issue, as tackled by the first exegetes of mendicant extraction, Guido da Pisa in particular, and secular, first of all Benvenuto da Imola, shows two different perspectives in the interpretation of Dante's "Commedia" in XIV and XV centuries.