Dante's Second Love: The Originality and the Contexts of the Convivio

Three essays on the nature of the bonds between Vita Nuova and Convivio; the nature and significance of the Donna Gentile, Dante's 'second love'; and the imaginative and intellectual coherence of the third and fourth treatises of the Convivio . An excursus comments on the Donna Gentile's fate at the hands of scholars.