Alberico da Rosciate e il ‘genus comoediarum’

Abstract

This article focuses on the definition of genus comoediarum provided by Alberico da Rosciate in his commentary on Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the introduction to the first canticle, in particular, the critic translates Iacomo della Lana’s commentary into Latin and adds some interesting annotations regarding the origins of the comedy genre, based on sources both judicial (from the Digestum to Accursius’ Glossa) and literary. After a detailed examination of the texts in question and a comparison with other contemporary writings from a lexical perspective as well, this article proposes an analysis of the role of the comoedi, those narrative poems performed by alternating singing voices which were still widespread in the mid 14th century «maxime in partibus Lombardie», i.e. especially in the Lombardy region.