Commentary Inf XXIV 107-111

The reference to the phoenix is also Ovidian (Metam. XV.392-402). That rare bird was reputed to live 500 years and then to be reborn out of the ashes of its own perfumed funeral pyre. Christian exegetes thus easily took the phoenix as a symbol of Christ (Beal.1983.1, pp. 105-07). Vanni, seen in this light, thus parodically enacts the death and resurrection of Christ.