L’esegesi dell’architettura dell’Inferno dantesco da Brunelleschi a Galileo

This essay examines the studies of Dante’s topography carried out during the Renaissance by important Florentine architects and scholars such as Filippo Brunelleschi, Antonio Manetti, Cristoforo Landino, Girolamo Benivieni and Pierfrancesco Giambullari. Alessandro Vellutello from Lucca took a stand against this cultural environment in 1544, developing a geometric interpretation of Inferno that was very di*erent from that of Manetti, and bitterly arguing with Benivieni. In response to Vellutello’s criticisms, in 1587 the Accademia Fiorentina commissioned Galileo Galilei to hold two lectures on the same topic. Galileo refuted the interpretation of the “forestiero” from Lucca, demonstrating the superiority of Antonio Manetti’s theses, but in 1638 he returned to his interest about Inferno in the Discorsi which essentially constitute a resumption of the themes contained in the Lezioni.