Peace at the center of the Comedy. Purgatory XVII
Speaker
Rino Caputo
Università degli Studi “Tor Vergata”
The 17th canto of the Purgatorio can be considered, from an arithmetical point of view, the central canto of the Commedia. But its centrality acquires a second sense, perhaps not sufficiently found in the foregoing, beginning with its ‘central’ verse: “Beati / pacifici, che son sanz’ira mala!”. After Marco Lombardo’s clarification, in the previous canto, of free will and before Virgil’s clarification of “triforme amor”, the salvific journey can resume in the name of peace, in which ethics and politics are united. Peace on earth (through the ‘pacific’, the peacemakers who have the right aggressiveness for their action) can guarantee the ‘genus humanum’, already identified in the Monarchy, to be at the same time, good citizens and good Christians. Indeed, good Christians because good citizens.
Coordinator
Rosa Giulio
Università degli Studi di Salerno
