George Corbett reconstructs the twentieth-century conflict between Pierre Mandonnet and Étienne Gilson over the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri. Mandonnet’s Institut historique d’études thomistes sought rigorous historical study in defense of Thomistic integrity, while Gilson’s account of “Christian philosophy” and his recovery of a primitive Aquinas challenged Dominican scholastic categories. Their disagreement concerned the proper order and distinction of philosophy and theology, the influence of Neoplatonism, and whether historical method clarified or distorted Aquinas.

The dispute became a contest over Dante’s alleged Thomism. Gilson and Bruno Nardi dismantled the “myth of the Thomist Dante,” arguing that Dante’s treatment of faith and reason, the natural desire for God, political theology, and humanity’s two final ends diverged from Aquinas. Corbett revisits these eight alleged contradictions, noting that they often depend on disputed readings of Aquinas or on treating poetic fiction as literal dogma. Mandonnet and Joachim Berthier instead read Virgil and Beatrice as poetic figures for nature and grace and defend a harmony in which reason and revelation retain distinct but complementary orders. The study calls for reassessing traditional Dominican critiques alongside the now-dominant Gilsonian interpretation.