Il commento inedito alla Commedia di monsignor Carlo De Cani

[Autom. eng. transl.] The essay reconstructs the bio-bibliographical profile of Monsignor Carlo De Cani (1861-1944), professor at the Rotondi College of Gorla Minore, and analyzes for the first time his unpublished commentary on the Comedy, preserved in the Ambrosiana Library. De Cani wrote it for his students, but he also aims to address specialists. The strong idea of ​​the sacred and Catholic character of the poem is expressed both by a doctrinal pars construens, based on the pontifical magisterium, and by an apologetic pars destruens, which recovers the confessional exegesis of Giuliani, Tommaseo and Poletto. These ideological implications emerge clearly from the glosses dedicated to the episode of the tomb of Anastasius II, the first pope explicitly named in the Comedy. More than understanding Dante, the ultimate aim seems to be to defend the Church from Dante and through Dante, as well as claiming its full orthodoxy against the Foscolo icon of the Ghibelline poet and reformer.