A Fourteenth Century Dante Commentator Retells the Death of King Arthur

Christopher Berard and Morris Tichenor translate the gloss that Benvenuto da Imola, a scholar lecturing in Bologna, wrote on Inferno XXXII.61-62 in his Latin commentary on Dante, composed between 1373 and 1388. Working from Boccaccio's chapter on Arthur and the Geoffrey of Monmouth tradition, Benvenuto tells the whole story: Arthur king at about fifteen, his wars against the Saxons and in Norway, Denmark and Gaul, the Round Table and its laws, the refused Roman tribute, Mordred's seizure of Guinevere, battles at Richborough and Winchester, the duel in which each man wounds the other, and Arthur carried to Avalon.