Abstract
In Dante's Comedy (in Inferno, canto XXVI) there are many subjects of great interest, as the Ulysses' travelling on a route we may identify as Eratosthenes' diaphragma (a geographical line through the Mediterranean Sea, dividing the classical oecumene into two imaginary parts), or else the memory of the medieval wanderings (as the Navigatio Brendani) and the travelling of the great voyageurs in Dante's age (Vivaldi brothers who disappeared in 1291 on a voyage from Genoa to the Indies, sailing West through the Straits of Gibraltar). Above all, Ulysses may be considered as a metaphor of Dante himself and of his yearning for knowledge: Dante was also challenging the unknown metaphysical world, pushed by reason and Faith. Otherwise, Guido Cavalcanti, the most beloved of Dante's friends, was trying the way of a rational knowledge only using his mind and according with the Averroes' radical interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy. This effort would be failed (as Dante suggests taking his speech with Cavalcante Cavalcanti in Inferno, canto X). Indeed Dante was following a different spiritual way, according to the Thomas Aquinas' philosophy: in his metaphysical journey his reason is driven by Faith and is propaedeutical to Theology.
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