Hidden in a European Bestseller: The Quadragesimale of Gritsch/Grütsch and the Reception of Dante’s Commedia in Sermons

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article investigates the presence of Dante in a sermon of the Quadragesimale printed under the name of Johannes Gritsch, one of the main sermon bestsellers in late medieval Europe. Albeit quite in plain sight, this text that translates into Latin and comments extensively on Paradiso 33. 1–9 has been completely overlooked by sermon and Dante scholars. By analysing this Dantean passage and by contextualizing it within the Quadragesimale, the article underlines its relevance within the broader phenomenon of the use of the Commedia in late medieval preaching in and outside Italy. On this latter aspect, the sermon under investigation is a game changer. While a few German preachers who used sermons composed in Italy that included references to Dante were already known, this time we encounter a German Franciscan friar who, when composing sermons meant first and foremost for a German audience, engaged with a passage of the Commedia. He did so probably knowing nothing about Dante, perhaps not even his name. As a result, mediated by preachers and detached from its original cultural context, a fragment of the Commedia found its way on a prodigious journey across Europe.