Gli exempla monastici nel De vita solitaria. Sui Dialogi di san Gregorio Magno

Abstract

On the basis of vernacularization of the Vitae

Patrum and of the Dialogi of Domenico Cavalca, we

examine the influence of hagiographic literature in the

debate between solitary life and community life. In the

Vitae the model of life is the solitary one, like the fathers

of the desert, in the gregorian Dialogi the community

model prevails, embodied by St. Benedict of Norcia. Petrarca

in the De vita solitaria theorized his ideal of solitude

as free choice of the subject devotes himself to the

study that he free from passions. Petrarca retrives in the

treaty many exempla of Vitae and Dialogi to create a

translation with which to legitimize their choice. Boccaccio,

to this mythizaton of solitary life, answers with two

novellas of the Decameron (III, 10 e IV, Introduzione), in

which the exempla of hagiographic literature are overturned

natural drives thriumph over moral impositions.