L’“angiola giovanissima” e il linguaggio degli angeli: la musica della e nella Vita Nova

Paradoxically, the Vita Nova mentions music in its strict signification only twice, and nonetheless it can be defined as a “Buch der Lieder” (Wehle) or “book of songs”. So this paper examines the relationship between the book and the “music” in a broader sense of the word and proposes an interpretation of the Vita Nova that focuses on the musicality of the poems and its implications. According to the medieval conviction, the language of the angels is nothing but music, and therefore on earth it is only music that can give us an idea of the singing of the angels. In Dante’s text not only the canzone is an ‘angel’ in the etymological sense of the word, because it carries a message to the addressees; not only does it transport the I in a metaphorical sense to heaven because his tongue speaks “quasi come per se stessa mossa”. Above all poetry with its suavitas can transcend the limits of human language and give the beatitudo or transport “oltre la spera” those who are able to understand it already during their lifetime.