MSt Student Giovanna de Campos Mauro awarded 2025 Senior Paget Toynbee Prize

MSt student Giovanna de Campos Mauro has been awarded the 2025 Senior Paget Toynbee Prize for her essay: The angelic “trasvolar” in Dante’s candid rose.

The prize is awarded annually to the two best essays written by Oxford University graduate students on the works of the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Old French Language and Literature or Old Provençal Language and Literature. It is named after the Dante scholar Paget Toynbee, and worth £1,000.

Giovanna de Campos Mauro’s essay examines Dante Alighieri’s use of the term “trasvolar” in Paradiso XXXII, 90, proposing that this neologism encapsulates the essence of the angels’ existence in the Empyrean, which is fundamentally tied to their continual motion. Through a detailed analysis of Paradiso XXX and XXXI, the essay explores how the flight of angels in the Empyrean is a transcendent act of communication that carries divine light and beatitude across the celestial realm. Giovanna’s essay argues that “trasvolar” reflects a profound resignification of the angelic motion and function, establishing a direct correspondence between the angels’ being, their role in the celestial hierarchy, and their interaction with the blessed souls and God in the Empyrean.

This paper was supervised by Professor Elena Lombardi.

Giovanna de Campos Mauro is currently pursuing an MSt in Modern Languages (Italian and Portuguese). Her thesis explores embodied performativity in Dante’s Commedia and 16th-century Portuguese plays. This fall, she will begin her PhD in Italian at Yale University.