SOZZINO BENZI, DE SOMNIO. TESTO CRITICO, TRADUZIONE E NOTE

The manuscript Classe II 102 kept in the Ariostea Library of Ferrara represents the only known witness of the De somnio, an unpublished work written in 1546 by the physician Sozzino Benzi from Ferrara. Using the formal model of Dante’s Commedia, the physician tells about a dream in which he sets out with his genius a research journey of happiness through all the degrees of universe, in a speculative ascent animated by love that rises from the contemplation of beauty. Going through the world, the physician observes the images and myths in which had set the great tradition of Ficino’s philosophy of love, and thanks to the incessant mediation of his genius he is constantly urged to understand the symbolical meaning of that language. Pushed by the unceasing wish of new beauty, but unable to go beyond of her physical dimension, the physician reaches the limits of universe without finding any satisfaction, and he understands only thanks to the divine help that the only way to reach happiness is the abandon to the grace. Telling a history of a conversion from the research of a corporeal beauty to the research of true beauty, which is God, Benzi’s work becomes thus a radical criticism of the surrounding cultural reality. Although it is unknown, the De somnio represents a precious witness of the philosophical culture in Ferrara at the middle of XVIth century, and proves the capacity of some characteristic themes of philosophy of love of answering the worries of a period of great political, cultural and religious changes.