Dante exploits blood's medical, theological and classical implications throughout his works.

What is it about?

The article argues that, despite blood’s polysemous agency, Dante consistently emphasizes two aspects of blood: its capacity to join together members of a body or of a group (family, city, empire, the body of Christ, which is the Church), and its capacity to balance entities within a group (for instance, Christ’s blood “balances” humanity’s debt to God for original sin).

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Why is it important?

An important contribution of this article is that it investigates blood throughout Dante’s works, whereas the few other studies addressing blood in Dante tend to focus on single passages or individual works.