Guido vostro

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In the tenth canto of the Inferno, Farinata degli Uberti, from the tomb of the heretics, recalls Dante's «first friend» by calling him «Guido vostro» and suggests that he «had in disdain» the path of faith and grace indicated by Beatrice, a path that Dante instead subsequently chose. Critical notes identify in this passage the moment of the rupture between the two friends and the change in Dante's poetic and spiritual course, and describe Guido as a personality «disdainful and solitary and intent on study», of high moral and intellectual stature. The definition of disdain is linked to the intellectual refusal of the self-sufficiency of reason, considered characteristic of the Florentine cultural elite of the time, of which Guido was one of the foremost representatives, and which Dante himself had partly shared before embracing the guidance of grace.