Abstract

The study, divided in two parts - the second part will appear in the next number of the review -, offers a systematic reading of "Paradiso" X. The first part examines the ways in which the ascent to the Sun is described and raffigured by Dante. Then the essay focuses on the twelve Wise spirits that make up the first crown, presided over by St. Thomas Aquinas (the same Aquinas enumerates the spirits of his circle one by one). All the second part of this study deals with the twelth and last spirit introduced in the circle, the Philosopher and Pariser Master of Arts Siger of Brabant, one of the most controversial Aristotelian thinkers of his Time.