Il senso tipologico della struttura. Per una nuova interpretazione del disegno compositivo del carme Ad Cytherium di Paolino di Nola (= carm. 24H)

The structure of Paulinus of Nola’s poem Ad Cytherium exhibits some well-crafted correspondences of passages (the encounter between the poet and the tabellarius Martinianus: vv. 1-12 ~ 423-436; the discrimen between the sinners and the saved: 31-304 ~ 897-932; the nautical episode of Jonah and the spiritual journey of Cytherius’s son: 205-238 ~ 617-884) within a framework centered on the conversion of the addressee and the reciprocal relationship between him and the other characters (481-502). This compositional strategy reveals the adoption of a typological perspective, which Paulinus – in the light of a pervasive Pauline substratum – reinterprets as a dynamic of progressive unveiling of the authentic spiritual veritas.