This article has been subjected to double blind peer review

This article has been published in: Ocula 26, Matters of holiness: semiotic perspectives on Dante

author: Massimo Leone (Dipartimento di filosofia e scienze dell'educazione, Università di Torino (IT); Dipartimento di Lingua e Letteratura Cinese, Università di Shanghai)

Viso, volto, faccia e sembiante in Dante

language: italian

abstract: Verses 22-45 of canto XXVIII of Dante’s Inferno are problematic for translations into languages that are prevalent in predominantly Islamic countries. These verses, in fact, describe the punishment that Dante imagined for Muhammad and Alì. The severity of their punishment is expressed, in particular, through the figure of the face cleaved in two halves, a counterpoint for those who, according to Dante, committed the sin of dividing Christianity. The face is omnipresent in Dante’s masterpiece. The article summarizes its semantics in reference also to the various terms used by Dante to designate different aspects of the face (faccia, viso, volto, sembiante); ; it distills the salient bibliography on the subject and proposes that the itinerary of the viator through the three dimensions of damnation, purgation, and bliss is also and above all an itinerary made of faces that the viator meets, his face also transfiguring itself gradually along the path of holiness.

citation information: Massimo Leone, Viso, volto, faccia e sembiante in Dante, "Ocula", vol.23, n.26, December 2022. DOI: 10.57576/ocula2022-6

Ocula.it publishes articles and essays in semiotic research, with a particular eye on communication and culture; it is open to dialogue with other research fields and welcomes contributions from all the areas of the social and human sciences. See the Editorial Board and the Editorial Committee.