ABSTRACT
Trasmutabile' means transmutable, impressionable, subject to change. It is possible that, through the hidden acrostic, Dante may want to communicate his affinity with the Mercurial souls who were active so that honour and fame might follow them. During the weeklong journey, the character Dante does not change, except superficially and temporarily as required by the circumstances in which he happens to find himself. However, there is undeniably a chronology that affects the character Dante in the story he narrates, and there is a turning point, a before and an after, that separates and distinguishes two very different stages of his life; what is unusual is that this turning point is not placed in the middle or at the end of the story, but at its very beginning, where Dante is rescued by Virgil. There are many occasions in which Dante the narrator explicitly insists on the absolute identity of author, character, and narrator.
