Dante, Columbus and the Prophetic Tradition: Spiritual Imperialism in the Italian Imagination

by Mary Watt

Overview

Exploring the diverse factors that persuaded Christopher Columbus that he could reach the fabled "East" by sailing west, Dante, Columbus and the Prophetic Tradition considers, first, the impact of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the apocalyptic prophetic tradition that it reflects, on Columbus’s perception both of the cosmos and the eschatological meaning of his journey to what he called an ‘other world.’ In so doing, the book considers how affinities between himself and the exiled poet might have led Columbus to see himself as a divinely appointed agent of the apocalypse and his enterprise as the realization of the spiritual journey chronicled in the Comedy. As part of this study, the book necessarily examines the cultural space that Dante’s poem, its geography, cosmography and eschatology, enjoyed in late fifteenth century Spain as well as Columbus’s own exposure to it. As it considers how Italian writers and artists of the late Renaissance and Counter Reformation received the news of Columbus’ ‘discovery’ and appropriated the figure of Dante and the pseudo-prophecy of the Comedy to interpret its significance, the book examines how Tasso, Ariosto, Stradano and Stigliani, in particular, forge a link between Dante and Columbus to present the latter as an inheritor of an apostolic tradition that traces back to the Aeneid. It further highlights the extent to which Italian writers working in the context of the Counter Reformation, use a Dantean filter to propagate the notion of Columbus as a new Paul, that is, a divinely appointed apostle to the New World, and the Roman Church as the rightful emperor of the souls encountered there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367884413
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/12/2019
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary Alexandra Watt is an Associate Professor of Italian Studies and Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

1 Columbus’s Journey to the End of the World

2 The New Jerusalem and the End of Time

3 Earthly Paradise and the Westward Trajectory

4 “Beyond the Curve of the Sea”: Columbus and Dante

5 Ulysses, Columbus and Human Folly

6 Columbus, Aeneas and Paul

7 An Italian Apostle to the New World

8 Trouble in Paradise: Ariosto, Fracastoro and Gambara

9 Tasso, Stella and the Apotheosis of Columbus

10 Chiabrera, Stigliani and a World Turned Inside Out

Epilogue

Index