Dante and the Canonists: Adhesions and Deviations on the Dialectic between Heresy and Schism

Abstract

In this article, I will highlight how Dante’s clear separation between heretics and schismatics is radical compared to contemporary thought and can, therefore, tell us a great deal about his conception of these two sins and about the nature of the characters condemned in Cantos X and XXVIII. In fact, the heresy of disobedience, a political weapon created ad hoc to favor the imposition of the hierocratic model, tended, in the reflection of jurists, to bring together these two sins so well-separated by Dante. The proposal of a new interpretation of these concepts that is more adherent to their historicity, with a specific and radical meaning, can open up interesting reflections on Dante’s possible desire to affect this historical process. It also brings new interpretations to questions that still lack a convincing answer, such as the silence on the numerous heretical movements that had characterized the decades preceding the writing of the Commedia, the presence of Dolcino among the schismatics, and the selection of Epicurus as an exemplum of heresy.