L’ ‘Inferno’ e Napoli. Spazi, personaggi e miti della catabasi negli antichi commenti danteschi

This paper aims at investigating the relationship between the "Angevin" Dante's commentators (Giovanni Boccaccio and Giovanni da Serravalle) and the landscape of Naples, in its both geographic and mythic perspectives. In this respect, the inquiry adopts the key-terms of Fernlandshaft (Far-landscape) and Nahlandschaft (Near-landscape) in order to stress, in the description of Inferno's landscape, the influence of literary tradition from one side, and the role of eye-witness experience from the other. Furthermore, the study will focus on two points making Naples' scenery very susceptible to Dante's infernal themes: the identification of Avernus as the "Acherusia palus", and the legends on Virgil as enchanter and magician. Lastly, the importance of the Neapolitan cultural milieu for those commentators is also stressed, by focusing on the Greek mythical sources and on the role of the famous Cronaca di Partenope, which gathers many virgilian legends