Abstract

The paper examines the use of sources in the construction of the bestiary in Dante and Petrarch’s writings with a comparative perspective, firstly analysing those figures integrated in the poetic architecture of the Commedia and the Canzoniere as terms of comparison in their project of self-representation. Then, by comparing the iconographic apparatuses of the same zoological figures (cattle, sheep, birds) used by the two auctores, the essay investigates the collection of common biblical, classical and literary sources. The aim is to detect the different functions and the different treatment of those images whose naturalistic connotations are integrated with the characteristics accumulated over the course of the literary tradition that contribute to their symbolic and allegorical substratum.