Dante’s Cosmology in the Divine Comedy and the Geometry of Paradise

· In this article, we consider Dante’s cosmology from both a theological and a scientifc point of view. Although Dante’s conception of the universe drew on the culture of his time, we show that in the Commedia he elaborated an original model illustrating how physical and divine laws harmonically determine the functioning of the «machine of the world». In the frst part of this article we describe the premises and main characteristics of Dante’s cosmological model; in the second part we illustrate this model in terms of the mathematics and geometry of his time. Building on Speiser and Peterson’s previous work, we propose an alternative architectural hypothesis consistent with both the scientifc knowledge of the time and Commedia. Contrary to previously proposed hypothesis, ours does not rely on scientifc knowledge (non-Euclidean geometries) extraneous to the medieval scientifc context and, unlike alternative explanations of Dante’s cosmology, it is centered on the pivotal role of the angelic choirs as a hinge between the Empyrean and the Ptolemaic cosmos.