Funzioni delle metafore nelle epistole arrighiane

The article investigates figurative language in Dante’s epistles concerning Henry VII (Ep. VI-VI-VII), with particular reference to the opposition between obscurity and clarity. In order to show that Dante rejects a poetics based on obscuritas, I firstly compare these letters with two textual traditions whose language was often considered obscure, namely late Medieval pseudo-prophecies and dictamina. Secondly, I summarize the norms pertaining to the main tropes (pronominatio, permutatio, translatio) developed by the artes dictaminis, so as to show how said tropes are used, in Dante’s epistles, within the frame of a rhetoric aimed at explanatio. Finally, I suggest that such strategies are consistent with the prophetical epistemology that Dante embraces in these letters.