Dear Carlos,
Otfried will no doubt reply in his usual generous manner.
San Antonino wrote about Dante on various occasions between 1440 and 1459.
He attacks Dante for having condemned Pope Celestine V in Inf. 3.59-60 (pace
George Ferzoco!) and for having claimed (in the third book of his *Monarchia*)
that the Emperor's authority was derived directly from God and in no way
through the Pope.
In particular, the worthy bishop denounced Dante's Limbo (Inferno 4) for
including pagan poets, philosophers, heroes. Citing Jerome and Augustine,
Antonino asserts that - with the exception of the unbaptized infants found in
the Limbus puerorum - all souls are either damned or saved, whereas Dante
states that the souls in Limbo exist "sine pena" [sic]. He even goes on to
berate those who attempt to defend Dante on the grounds that he did not really
believe in the Limbo he described in Inferno 4 but was only inventing fictions
as a poet.
There is, of course, an article on Antonino in the Enciclopedia Dantesca,
but there is an interesting discussion on p.114 of Giorgio Padoan's IL PIO
ENEA, L'EMPIO ULISSE (Ravenna: Longo, 1977). It does not seem that Antonino
homed in on the even more unorthodox presence of such infidels as Saladin and
Averroes in Dante's Limbo! Apart from editions of S. Antonino, his comments on
Dante can be found in: A. Solerti, LE VITE DI DANTE, PETRARCA E BOCCACCIO,
SCRITTE FINO AL SECOLO DECIMOSESTO (Milano, 1904), pp. 152ff.
All good wishes -
John Scott
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