Dante e la mitopoiesi del personaggio di Stazio nel 'Purgatorio'

The paper investigates the cultural and poetic origins and motivation for the constructing of the character of Statius in Dante, within the plot of the Commedia. Starting from the analysis of the accessus Queritur, the various elements of this cultural construction are identified: Stazio's conversion from rhetorician and ‘Toulousain’ to poet and Roman, his conversion to Christianity, as a result of the reinterpretation of the venerated Virgilian text; finally, the real meaning, within the poem, of the character of Stazio as a ‘figure’ of Dante.