ALIGHIERI, PIETRO

PETER ALIGHIERI. — The poet’s eldest son, a doctor of laws, is known to have served as a judge in Verona (records exist for 1332 and 1337) and in Vicenza in 1342; he died in Treviso in 1364. The legend of the discovery of the final cantos of the *Paradiso* may perhaps reflect the care he devoted to the *Divine Comedy*, for which he wrote (in 1340) a Latin commentary notable for its abundant citations, in which he sought to compare his father’s theological propositions with the writings of the Church Fathers and of Scholastic authors. In one of his moral canzoni, he extols the seven liberal arts, science, and his father’s orthodoxy; similar aims inform his commentary, especially after the *De Monarchia*, which had become a political instrument, risked extending the charge of heresy to the poem itself.