Plato's Poem

Presentazione del libro di Piero Boitani

In 2023, Piero Boitani published Timaeus in Paradise. Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante: a wide-ranging essay tracing the long path that Timaeus, the most famous Platonic dialogue during the Middle Ages, has taken in the philosophy and imagination of Western cultures.

Parallel to the writing of that treatise, Boitani wrote a poem in where the voices of Plato, Ovid, Jesus, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas and Dante come to life. In fact, an answer to the question contained in Pope Francis' Letter On the Role of Literature in Education (2024): ’How can we reach the core of ancient and new cultures if we ignore, discard and/or silence their symbols, messages, creations and narratives with which they captured and evoked their most beautiful ideals, as well as their deepest violence, fears and passions... through novels and poems?’