Dante’s Commedia as Itinerarium Mentis in Deum: Charity, Grace, and the Transformation of the Viator

Abstract

This article reads Dante’s Commedia as a mythic-religious macro-narrative of spiritual transformation. Building on the interpretation of the journey as an itinerarium mentis in Deum, it examines the Thomistic degrees of charity—incipientes, proficientes, and perfecti—and their respective studia principalia as a framework for interpreting the pilgrim’s changing formative priorities. The contribution lies in connecting moral discernment, relational practices, and contemplative adherence within a single account of growth in charity. Close readings of Francesca and Ulysses examine the difficulty of judging apparently compelling forms of love and aspiration; purgatorial intercession shows how progress in the good becomes mutual assistance; and Piccarda’s explanation and the examination on charity in Paradiso XXVI illuminate the integration of love of God with love of others. Aquinas’s formulation is considered alongside its Augustinian source, Bonaventure’s contemplative itinerary, and scholarship that distinguishes Dante’s penitential ethics from Thomistic moral systematization. Finally, the article explores how the poem’s symbolic participation invites readers to examine the orientation of their own desires and relationships, bringing spiritual transformation into dialogue with religious self-interpretation and identity formation.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Religions, 2026 · DOI ↗