Abstract

In his poetry Dante describes a journey into a full universe of wonder, the latter understood in its widest sense, in which bewildered curiosity merges with unsettling perplexity, awe and his love for truth. From the early "Vita nuova" to the very last instants of his beatific vision in the "Commedia", wonder marks each and every stage of Dante's penetration of God's creation as well as of his journey to Beatrice and it is linked to the experience of human and divine beauty and knowledge. Dante's itinerary in the "Commedia", a repeated experience of surprise, wonder and astonishment, culminates in a "supreme instant of wonder" in "Paradiso" XXXIII that magnifies to the furthermost limit the echo of the "Convivio" 's 'stordimento d'animo'.