«Prima natura, secunda doctrina, tertia felicitas». Enea eroe in formazione (e modello educativo) nella Virgiliana Continentia di Fulgenzio

At the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries, in North Africa, Fabius Fulgentius Planciades wrote a short text dedicated to the interpretation of the Aeneid. Within the structure of a dialogue between the author and Virgil, the poem is read asan “integral” allegory, which presentssub figuralitate historiaethe moral maturation of Man’s soul through the physiological progression of the ages of life. In this journey, Aeneas is the hero in a Bildungsroman, but he also becomes an educational model in a concrete sense and within a broader and more consistent pedagogical scheme.