Numerous episodes in the Commedia present themselves as “scenes,” as interactions between characters that have a highly dramatic quality. These “scenes” would resonate, for medieval audiences, with their personal experiences of live performance events as well as depictions of related scenes in the visual arts that were visible in local churches and baptisteries. This essay takes Dante’s staging of the encounter with Sordello in Purgatorio 6 as a central case study of a scene of celebration with multiple resonances, exploring the ways in which that episode might bring to a reader’s mind visual and textual performances of the Visitation. By contextualizing the scene within relevant medieval modes of performing and viewing affectively powerful scenes, the essay proposes that known scenes of the Visitation might be implicitly employed in Dante’s text to enrich the affective charge of the depiction of the meeting with Sordello.

This essay reads the performative aspect of the human being as rooted in their physio-psychological structure. More specifically, it enlightens a connection between the inner balance of the individual—which, according to medieval science, depends on the medical notion of complexio—and a correct choice of behavior that leads to performance. Performance enters therefore into the relationship between medicine and ethics, as exemplified in medieval scientific literature as well as in Dante’s writing. This article re-reads performative moments across the Vita nuova and the Commedia (with particular reference to the Purgatorio) and uncovers the scientific roots of performance both at the diegetic level and in terms of authorship.

This essay examines four verbs from Dante’s Commedia that relate to music. Sections 2 and 3 discuss alleluiando and osannar, respectively. Section 4 considers the verb inneggiar—regarded, until Giorgio Inglese’s 2021 edition, as a corrupt reading of inveggiar—and argues that its similarity to the previously discussed denominal verbs, alleluiare and osannare, further supports inneggiar as the original lectio. Section 5 explores the meaning of alternando, a term with distinct, if not immediately obvious, musical resonance. As an introduction to the subject matter, section 1 provides an overview of the Commedia’s musical lexicon.