Dai volgarizzamenti agli scrittori. «Conversare» nel «Convivio» di Dante

Conversatio / communicatio in Middle Ages means not a linguistic, but a moral condivision. By developing this concept of conversazione, in the third book of the Convivio, Dante reveals to the reader the real essence of Aristotelian knowledge: the Wisdom beloved by Solomon in the Bible. In Aristotelian terms, he says, Love is the «form» of the relationship between man and Knowledge because Wisdom loves the one who loves her (III xi). Thus, the desire for knowledge quoted by Dante at the beginning of the Convivio is not a mechanic impulse leading to an actualization of human potential, because the essence of Science revealed in the third treatise is the personal, mutual relationship between the knowing subject and the object known. This radically new essence of Science proposed by Dante is based upon the Love- Knowledge conceived by Saint Paul in I Cor 13, 12.