Marino e Dante

After describing the critical reception of Dante between the end of the second part of the Sixteenth century and the first decades of the Seventeenth century, so as to illustrate the cultural context in which Marino may have read the "Commedia", the essay demonstrates how the author uswed Dante's work as a repertoire of linguistic and thematic elements, often rewritten as a parody. The article then offers a list of lexemes, rhymes, phrases, lines, images, characters and narrative units coming from Dante in order to attempt an explanation of the ways in which these materials have been reused in the "Adone". In the end, the attention is focused on two passages, located at the beginning and at the end of the "Adone". The clear reference to Dante's "Commedia" shows that the two poems, in spite of their being opposite in the refusal or in the acceptance of a highly structured system of thought, share a similar openness to a cosmic experience.