PhD Project Giovanni Zaniol

The commentary on Dante’s Commedia by Alberico da Rosciate (c. 1290-1360): edition of the ms. Bergamo, Biblioteca civica "Angelo Mai", Cassaforte 6.1

The research project aims to produce the critical edition of the commentary of Dante's Commedia written by the Italian jurist Alberico da Rosciate (c. 1290-1360). The edition will be carried out on the manuscript kept at the Civic Library in Bergamo (ms. BERGAMO, Biblioteca civica “Angelo Mai”, Cassaforte 6.1). Alberico's commentary (which is still partially unpublished today, although it had been previously studied) is remarkable because of the wealth of allegations of legal sources that the jurist inserted in the glosses to the text of Dante's poem. Thanks to this jurist, therefore, the patrimony of the juridical tradition becomes an integral part of the exegetical work on Dante’s Commedia; in the same way and at the same time, in his juridical works (especially the Commentaria on the Corpus iuris civilis and the Dictionarium iuris) the literary formant becomes an important integrative authority at the support of the juridical argument.
The project wants to offer a decisive contribution to the knowledge of Dante's commentary by Alberico on an international level and to give impetus to analyzing the links between literature and law in the age of ius commune, enhancing a testimony of the highest interest both in legal history and in the history of exegesis of the Commedia and of Dante's works. It also intends to complete the research work undertaken during the Doctoral Course in Comparative and European Legal Studies at the University of Trento. This work has merged into the doctoral thesis dedicated to the Dante's commentary by Alberico on the Inferno handed down from the manuscript preserved in Bergamo: in it the text of the manuscript relating to the first canticle, completely unpublished up to now, was offered for the first time.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Susanne Lepsius (LMU)