ABSTRACT

What is the relation between Dante’s first and his second love — between Beatrice, the heroine of his Vita Nuova, and the Donna Gentile, the heroine of his Convivio? We who know the Commedia know that Dante’s first love, Beatrice, was also his last — the heavenly guide whom he rediscovers in his otherworld. But that rediscovery falls outside the scope of the present study, in which I shall glance only rarely at works later than the Convivio itself. For the earlier group of writings, the first problem — inescapably — is what appears to be a series of contradictions between the Vila Nuova, the work composed around 1292-93, which is the summation of the poetry and strivings of Dante’s youth, and the Convivio, composed between 1304 and 1307, the first major work of his maturity. 1