Events Schedule
UCC Dante Public Lecture V: ‘“Per te poeta fui, per te cristiano.” Dante’s Statius and the Authority of Virgil’.
- Time
- 6pm - 7.30pm
- Date
- 17 Feb 2026
- Duration
- 90 minute(s)
- Location
- Main Quad - North Wing, Council Room
- Language
- English
- Presenters
Dr Leyla Livraghi (University of Pisa)
- Cost
- Free
- Registration Required
- Yes
- Registration Information
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKW829z3cmMgxrM8reNCtbdLGG--SXBTKKSoCkhkPIipalUA/viewform
- Organising Department
Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland; Department of Italian
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Quality education, Reduced inequalities
In canto 22, Virgil is defined for the one and only time in the poem through his comic poetry, the Eclogues, whereas Statius, across both cantos, is consistently associated with the epic-tragic mode of the Thebaid. Dante had already established in the Inferno that the comic genre is a bearer of truth (surpassing in this respect the tragic mode of the Aeneid); similarly, the Fourth Eclogue, invoked in canto 22, figuratively expresses the Christian truth of Christ’s advent. Indeed, it is precisely Virgil in his comic guise who points Statius toward Christianity and eventually also provides a precedent for the comic-Christian poetics of the Commedia.