Il piacere delle lacrime: il diletto oblico nella Spositione all’Inferno di Lodovico Castelvetro

The diletto obliquo, which in Ludovico Castelvetro’s commentary to Aristotle’s Poetics, the spectator feels facing the unjust suffering of the tragic hero plunged into misery, is felt by Dante at the sight of the damned in the Spositione. The paper shows how the dynamic of pleasure is oblique and how the Aristotelian precept is based on a common, philanthropic feeling.