This paper examines the function of metaphor in the poetry of Dante’s Commedia. It first establishes what is characteristic about the use of metaphor and of figurative language in the Commedia, contrasting it with the use of figurative language in Dante’s previous works, in other literary traditions (especially other vernacular poetry) as well as contemporary theoretical debates about the value of figurative language (i.e. in Latin artes dictaminis). What emerges is a view of metaphor’s special importance to the poetry of the Commedia from a linguistic, rhetorical and structural standpoint. The analysis considers lexical, metrical, and stylistic features (such as the combination of metaphor and neologism), intertex tual and intratextual relationships, as well as other connections to Dante’s cultural context.