Mallorca

Description

In Inferno XXVIII, v. 82, Dante includes Majorca in a geographical periphrasis: «Tra l'isola di Cipri e di Maiolica», where the form Maiolica is the one documented in the manuscripts. The expression is intended to indicate the entire arc of the Mediterranean, from east to west. The note to the passage clarifies that this is a customary Dantean periphrasis, which evokes places and images rather than naming them directly, but always based on real data: the enumeration of the Mediterranean islands in Orosius starts with Cyprus in the east and closes with the Balearics in the west, providing the model for this scanning. Moreover, in Canto XIX, the crown of Majorca is mentioned alongside that of Aragon as one of the two crowns of the Aragonese lineage, according to the explanatory note to the verse.