Abstract

the purpose of this article is to analyze the 2nd canto of the Inferno through the metaphor of pugna spiritualis. in the christian tradition, the pugna spiritualis is the drama of liberty when it is faced with the decision between following or refusing the announcement of a christian life. this parallel perfectly fits into the narrative development of the 1st and 2nd cantos, where virgil assists the pilgrim who had been lost, and announces to him – as augustine would say – a «new life». to become agens dante has to give an affirmative answer to virgil. nonetheless, he is dominated by vileness, a spiritual attitude that – as a passage of the Convivio 4.7 explains – has the result of blocking any reasonable behavior. according to these considerations i could realize that dante needs fortitude, the virtue with which the pilgrim is able to follow the rightness of reason and that indicates the necessary steps to take in order to reach its own destiny, defying the vileness that is stopping him. only through the strength of this virtue, sustained by the company of virgil, dante can overcome all threats. this representation of the ethical theme allows me to outline, at the end of my article, the novelty of dante’s poetry compared to the allegorical tradition this poem comes from