Convivio

The Convivio is a kind of vernacular encyclopedia of the knowledge of Dante's time; it touches on many areas of learning, not only philosophy but also politics, linguistics, science, astronomy, and history.

Book 3 is a hymn of praise for philosophy, launched by an allegorical interpretation of Dante's great canzone Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona (Love, who speaks to me in my mind).

It opens with the longest canzone of the Convivio, Le dolci rime d’amor (Those sweet poems of love), which is explicitly about gentilezza or nobility, as well as a condemnation of avarice, asserting that reason and the spirit of acquisition are mutually incompatible.

The Convivio, in its autobiographical passages and in the trajectories of its lines of thought, gives us a rich portrait of Dante himself, of great importance for an understanding of his work as a whole, especially the Divine Comedy.

The Convivio is a major stage of development for Dante, very different from the visionary world of the Vita Nuova (although like the earlier work it too is a medium for the author’s evolving sense of artistic vocation and philosophical-spiritual quest).