Dante, Alighieri

DANTE, ALIGHIERI. - The greatest poet of Catholicism.

I. THE MAN.

Born in Florence between May and June 1265 to Alighiero di Bellincione and to madonna Bella. The family, when he came into the world, did not enjoy the prosperity of former times; but it was of ancient nobility and allowed him to glory in being descended from the Romans who founded the city and to place among the splendors of Mars his great-great-grandfather, in whom he above all took pleasure in mirroring himself, Cacciaguida degli Elisei, knighted for his devotion to the Church and to the Empire (it is doubtbio whether by Conrad III of Swabia or by Conrad the Salic) and died a crusader.

While still a boy (we do not know the exact year) he was left an orphan by his mother. His father, having married in second nuptials monna Lapa di Chiarissimo Ciauffi, soon gave him a brother, Francesco, who always showed himself well-disposed toward him and helped him as much as he could before and after the exile, and, it seems, two sisters. Of the tenderness of one there is a dear remembrance in the Vita Nuova. Where and when he learned his first elements, whether and which schools of rhetoric he attended, it is easier to conjecture than to know. The most probable hypothesis is that he was instructed by the Franciscans of the convent of S. Croce. The report of da Buti that "Dante was a friar minor, but did not make his profession there, in the time of his boyhood" (Inf., XVI; Purg., XXX) has its confirmation, indirectly, in the mysticism of the Vita Nuova, and, directly, in the scene of the cord in the XVI of the Inf., which does not seem to admit of any other explanation.

He was almost at the end of his ninth year when he met for the first time a young Florentine girl named Beatrice, who merely by appearing to him made him hers forever, becoming the "glorious lady of his mind." Very subtle critics hold that she is a pure and simple idea. From an impartial reading of the Vita Nuova it follows that there is no reason to deny credence to the ancients, who handed down to us that Dante's Beatrice was Bice, daughter of Folco Portinari, later married to Simone de' Bardi and dead very young on 8 June 1290. The poet's grief was great, and he was still weeping for her three years later, when in August 1293 (Conv., II, II) there appeared to his sight "a gentle lady, young and very beautiful," who with the pity of which she seemed full and with the charm of her eyes made him gradually forget the "gentilissima." He would have wished to resist her, but he could not, and ended by falling in love with her, believing her endowed with virtues she did not have. The deception lasted rather a long time; but in the end the poet became aware of it and, though with pain, freed himself from it.

Something similar must have happened to him in the study of philosophy. To console himself in some way for the loss of Beatrice, in that same August when the "gentle" lady seemed to wish to comfort him with her pity, he set himself to reading Boethius's De consolatione and Cicero's De amicitia. At first it was hard for him to enter into their meaning, but, once the difficulties that the deepening of philosophical concepts arouses were overcome, he found relief and delight in them. Philosophy seemed to satisfy his every desire and he threw himself into it with ardor. Yet in time he had to convince himself that science did not keep all its promises and was itself an illusion; wherefore he returned to his former love.

Afterward, whether this was truly so, or whether it pleased Dante in reconstructing the principal phases of his thought to make them coincide and become one with his two greatest loves, certain it is that the cult of Beatrice, in its first period all dreams, visions and raptures, transports us into a purely mystical atmosphere, and lasts as long as adolescence, up to his 25th year; that of the "gentle" lady, when master and lord of his mind is Aristotle, begins shortly after he has crossed the threshold of youth and lasts, according to the Vita Nuova, only "a few days," according to the Convivio (II, II), until almost 1307. In him loves and studies mean more or less the same thing (Cons., II, xv, 10).

It would nevertheless be an error to picture a Dante entirely lost, at the time of the Vita Nuova, in vague fantasizing, and at the time of the Convivio exclusively intent on philosophy. He is a mystic who always keeps one foot on solid ground, and a thinker who aspires passionately to action; therefore along with his studies he can cultivate the virtues of valor and courtesy, which he will later lament as exiled from Florence and from Italy. Nor will his reserved and somewhat aloof nature have deterred him from taking an interest in the events of a republic as restless and factious as the Florentine one. Even if his writings did not bear witness to it, it would be shown by his having fought on 11 June 1289 at Campaldino in the troop of the feditori, whose lot it was to begin the assault, and by his having been present a few months later at the surrender of the castle of Caprona (Purg., V; Inf., XXI and XXII). Moreover he himself confesses that he is "transmutable in every way" (Par., V, 99), that is, that he has a mind ready for every call, and of such a nature as not to rest until it reaches the solution of its problems (Purg.,

XVII, 51). To see more deeply into philosophy and better satisfy his overmastering need to know, he begins to frequent the schools of the religious, almost certainly those of the Dominicans of S. Maria Novella, and attends the disputations of the philosophers, among whom will certainly have been Brunetto Latini, a man of the world, and his friend Guido Cavalcanti, Averroist and Epicurean. It is no wonder that their familiarity, the new direction given to his thought and, above all, his rather hot temperament should have gradually drawn him away from his former path and brought him into company not always praiseworthy. But even here it will be well not to exaggerate the gravity of his straying. Dante will have lived like so many others who do not believe, in enjoying themselves, that they are going against their religious convictions, or staining their good name; and, as happens to many, it will have befallen him that, once his senses were given free rein, the delicacy of his conscience and the gradual return to his former practices made him judge his own faults with perhaps excessive severity. A wholly vicious life ill accords with that the little that we nevertheless know. It cannot be stated precisely when, but roughly during what is called the period of error, he married Gemma di Manetto Donati; he had three children by her, Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia, and perhaps four, if that Giovanni, Filius Dantis Alagherii de Florentia, revealed to us in 1921 by a Lucchese document, is to be recognized as his; he devoted himself to philosophy; he composed songs in praise of the "gentle lady," and he prepared to take part in the administration of the Commune.

There has been talk of a crisis of his faith and of a sect, of which he would even have been the head; but the proofs have never come to light. D. is one of the most sincere men known. His errors he hides from no one; he was a little too sensitive to feminine attractions and exalted beyond measure the power of reason, believing it capable of satisfying his every thirst. In all his work not a word, not a phrase that might suffice to cast a blemish on his crystalline orthodoxy. The encyclical of Pope Benedict XV, In praeclara of 30 Apr. 1921 (AAS, 13 [1921], pp. 209-217), on the occasion of the sixth centenary of the poet's death, definitively places him among the greatest glories of the Church. In what and to what extent D. sinned is made clear, in the matter of morals, by the tenzone with Forese, and, in the intellectual matter, by the Convivio and the Commedia.

The profound social upheavals produced in Florence by the Ordinances of Justice of 1293, the very conditions of his family, noble but without the support of large and strong consorterie, and his innate need for action, united with the desire to serve with his intellect the good of the city, drove him to take advantage of the faculty, granted on 6 July 1295 to the Magnates, of being called to offices, provided they were enrolled in one of the guilds, even if they did not practice it; and, as a cultivator of natural philosophy, he gave his name to that of the physicians and apothecaries. In the various councils to which he was elected, about six of them are counted, the consultations of the republic show him very soon occupied with questions very different from those that had been uppermost in his thoughts. Nevertheless, in spite of the laconism of the notaries, aggravated by the lack of the minutes from July 1298 to Feb. 1301, several things appear clear: his constant uprightness, the trust placed in him by the rulers, and his love for the liberty and independence of the Commune, then threatened by the ambitious designs of Pope Boniface. But his having remained faithful to his principles, if it earned him some satisfaction, did not bring him fortune. In the two-month period from 15 June to 15 Aug. 1300, that is, in one of the most difficult and stormy moments of Florentine history, he was one of the priors. But too many and too powerful were the internal and external enemies by whom the government of the Whites was assailed.

The Curia of Rome had indeed sent Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta as peacemaker, ostensibly to reconcile the offices, but in reality to favor the party of Corso Donati; and the Signoria, having not acted with the necessary resoluteness, was not long afterward overthrown by the Blacks. When, in the hope of thwarting the machinations of his adversaries, in Oct. 1301, D. with two other ambassadors arrived in Rome to plead the cause of the liberty of Florence, he must soon have realized that it was by then too late. The Pope, in agreement with the Blacks, had already summoned to Italy, so that he too might come to make peace, that is, to bring it about that Florence should entrust itself to his government, Charles of Valois, who on 1 Nov. entered the city where immediately afterward the proscriptions and vendettas began, before all others, against those who were most prominent. It may be held almost certain that, when on 27 Jan. 1302 the sentence of banishment was issued against D., he was on the road back. Like the others they accused him of barratry, of illicit gains and of opposition to the Pope and to Valois. Naturally, he neither presented himself to clear himself, nor paid the 5000 small florins to which they had condemned him. It would have been to place himself in the hands of his enemies and to acknowledge the truth of the accusations. Wherefore on 10 March, together with 15 others, he was condemned, should he fall into the power of the Commune, to be burned alive: igne comburatur sic quod moriatur. To his and our good fortune he did not fall into it.

The exiles at first deluded themselves that they would return to his homeland by force of arms. And D. was with them. With what intentions may be inferred from the epistle to Cardinal da Prato, undoubtedly his, where, among other things, writing in the name of the University of the Whites: "We," he says, "have wished nothing else, do not wish and will not wish anything other than the peace and liberty of the Florentine people." But the negotiations with the pontifical envoy failed, and the exiles—because there must always be someone on whom to pour all the blame—turned unanimously against him. To what excesses they went and how he defended himself, the poet does not say. It is certain, however, that they, after no long time, having once more tried the fortune of arms, in the so-called enterprise of the Lastra, on 20 July 1304 were defeated and scattered. D., who had already detached himself from that "evil and foolish company" (Par., XVII, 46-69), remained more than ever alone to contemplate with sadness the sorrowful paths that lay before him; but which one he took, escapes us. We know from himself that his first refuge was the court of the Scaligeri of Verona; but when he arrived there, "like a ship without sail and without rudder..., carried by the dry wind that exhales dolorous poverty," there is no way to ascertain. Nor is it easy to establish whether he stayed there long. Since life there for guests was not too dignified, nor suited to his studies, it is permissible to believe he left relatively soon.

With the news of an epistle that began Popule meus, quid feci tibi?, dictated by the hope of being recalled spontaneously, there remains for us the sigh fixed in the Convivio (I, III) of resting at some time in the bosom "of the most beautiful and most famous daughter of Rome... the weary soul and ending the time" that was given him, to which responds, far more sorrowfully, the cry of the De Vulgari Eloquentia that henceforth "the world is his homeland as the sea is to fish" (I, vi).

In 1306 we find him hospitably received for some time at the court of the Malaspina in Lunigiana. Then his traces are lost. It may also be that he went to Paris and "in the street of straw" listened to one of the masters of that famous Studium.

His person becomes present and alive again following the news of the descent into Italy of Henry VII of Luxembourg, elected king of the Romans on 29 Nov. 1308. The announcement that he was coming to free the peninsula from internal hatreds and make it once more the garden of the Empire exalts the soul of our poet and makes him forget every injury. Trust in the ideas for which he had fought and wept is reawakened more vividly than ever; so that, when the latter finally, in the summer of 1310, crosses the Alps, D. runs to kiss his foot, perhaps at Asti, perhaps at Milan, and then, as if by instinct, betakes himself to Tuscany. He no longer thinks of the state in which, through greed for dominion, he has found almost all the parties for whose sake he has gone, like a pilgrim, showing the wounds of fortune; and he writes the epistle "to the kings, the senators of Rome, princes, dukes, marquises and peoples" of Italy, he, humilis ytalus Dantes Alagherii Florentinus et exul immeritus, inviting them to peace. Instead of looking around himself, he looked within himself and wrote as the hope of seeing justice return to earth dictated to him, in a biblical style; but he was deluding himself. It was toward the end of 1310.

Conversely, the Blacks of Florence left nothing untried so that the foreigner's enterprise should fail. Powerful in money and shrewd, they turned against him a good part of the lords and cities. And D. wrote a letter full of indignation, proud and threatening against the senseless ones who through their pride dared to rebel against the divine designs. In vain. His Henry wastes time in Lombardy to crush the resistance of Cremona and Brescia; and D. once again, on 17 Apr. 1311, turns directly to him to warn him that the principal cause of the opposition was Florence.

The reasons that sent the attempt of Henry VII to nothing are known. After long delays he finally goes to Rome and, not without grave conflicts, is consecrated emperor. Then in Sept. 1312 he moves against Florence. But D. "did not wish to be there... although he had been an encourager of Henry's coming" (L. Bruni, Vita). The latter, having struck camp and returned to Pisa, shortly afterward, on 24 Aug. 1313, almost suddenly dies at Buonconvento. Dreams and hopes, enthusiasms and fears, everything collapses in a moment. D. is again alone in a starless night. Nevertheless, when grief began to give him some respite and he could collect himself to meditate on what had happened, faith in the idea dearest and most his own rose up whole again. The facts had shown it to be fallacious; but, for him, it was certain and immortal. Henry had not carried the magnanimous design to completion. Another would come, the Veltro, and would bring it about. From this firm conviction the Commedia was born.

Where was he when it began: "In the middle of the journey of our life"? It is held almost certain that, on arriving at Ravenna, the city par excellence imperial and ecclesiastical, where his spirit nevertheless seems to find an altar, he had already composed the Inferno and part of the Purgatorio. The episode of Francesca would truly authorize the supposition that it was written out of gratitude for the courteous welcome of Guido Novello da Polenta, and therefore that Ravenna is itself the homeland of the "sacred poem." In any case, it was the last refuge. While there, surrounded by the veneration and affection of devoted disciples, toward the end of 1319 he received an invitation from a Latin master of the Studium of Bologna, Giovanni del Virgilio, to set aside the vernacular and sing in the language of Rome some of the contemporary events, so as to be crowned. He replied with a Latin eclogue and said that he preferred to receive that crown instead of at Bologna in his "beautiful San Giovanni." In Jan. 1320 he was at Verona to deliver, in the little church of S. Elena, the discourse entitled Questio de aqua et terra. Returning from an embassy to Venice, he fell gravely ill, and from one of those Ravenna houses, full of silence, his soul departed, at 36 years of age, on the night of 13 to 14 Sept. 1321, to go "to see the glory of his lady," gazing upon the face of Him qui est per omnia saecula benedictus.

Solemn honors were paid to his remains; his death was mourned by many of the poets of the time, and his tomb is visited in devout pilgrimage by peoples of every country and every tongue who cherish the eternal values of the spirit.

But what D. dreamed and willed, that is, his truest life, is better revealed by his works; beginning with the one that in content comes first among the minor works.

II. THE MINOR WORKS.

I. THE "VITA NUOVA"

It is a small book mixing prose and verse which, recounting the poet's love for Beatrice, a real woman and not a symbol, sent to earth to give sign of a new age that is beginning, gives us in light and shaded colors a profile of his soul from the end of his ninth year to the time when, through visions and raptures, joys and sorrows, errors and repentances, he is led to the conception of the Commedia, for which it serves as prelude.

With the solemn tone of the first chapters, he already makes us understand that this is a most singular love. Then the narrative descends to small and insignificant facts, with which the poet seeks to justify his more or less innocent infidelities. Chapter 11 is an exception, describing with astonishment the effects of Beatrice's greeting. But it is a parenthesis, which immediately returns to the account of the events he encounters because of the frivolity with which he had given himself to courting first one and then another woman, called "of the screen," inasmuch as behind them he strove to conceal the true object of his love. Beatrice is angered by this and denies him her greeting, nor does she restore it, although he remains deeply grieved, humbles himself, asks forgiveness and weeps. In vain; so much so that, while continuing to love her, he no longer knew what to do. At the point when everything seemed finished, a chance encounter with some companions of hers, curious to know his heart, unexpectedly reveals to him the goal toward which he must henceforth aim with his song. It is one of the freshest and most delightful pages of the little book: he must take as the subject of his speech "always that" which tends to the praise of the "gentilissima." His conscience tells him he was born to celebrate her.

Happy to answer the call, D. for so new a love brings forth the "new rhymes," beginning with "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore," discontented with one thing: that he is not able to celebrate worthily the virtues of his lady, to tell again the love that she bears in her eyes, "per che si fa gentil ciò ch'ella mira"; and what she appears "quando un poco sorride." But Beatrice's father dies, and the rhymes of ecstatic admiration are succeeded by those of grief: not beautiful, to tell the truth. The vein of song flows again in the canzone "Donna pietosa e di novella etade," in which a vision of death is followed by another of glory, where Beatrice's soul is seen ascending to heaven, surrounded, like the Assunta, by a host of angels singing hosannas.

Around the "gentilissima" breathes an aura of mystery, which lends hidden meanings to the simplest events. She even has a forerunner in the woman loved by Guido Cavalcanti, who on a memorable day passes through the street to announce the reappearance of Beatrice. At the baptismal font she had received the name Giovanna, from that John who "preceded the true light, saying: Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini," but she was called Primavera by her fellow citizens because of her great beauty, as they believed; in reality, the poet notes, "because she will come first," the day when Beatrice will show herself to him again. It is perhaps the most joyful moment of his love. The homage that the "gentilissima" receives as she passes through the street "vestita d'umilitate," the admiration she arouses, the expressions that accompany her after she has passed, fill the poet with joy and wonder at once, from which is born the famous sonnet "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare" and the other "Vede perfettamente onne salute"; and the canzone "Sì lungamente m'ha tenuto Amore" would have been born, had he not, after composing one stanza of it, found it pleasing to the "Signor de la giustizia... to call this gentilissima to glory under the banner of that blessed queen Virgin Mary."

One would expect the poet to communicate the bitterness of his grief with some of those phrases of which he possessed the secret. Instead he turns to investigating with subtle reasonings for what reason the number nine had so conspicuous a place in her life and death, so as to constitute the principal motif: "To give to understand," he concludes, "that she was a nine, that is a miracle, whose root... is solely the admirable Trinity." This was what mattered most to him to make known to his readers, who would thus have understood the mystery of that creature of heaven, come to give a sign that salvation was not far off.

Having established this, that a new life was beginning, D. resumes the narrative and writes the canzone "Li occhi dolenti," from which the cry of his soul comes to us here and there, in fits and starts. The prose passages make us better understand the depth of his affliction, which was so great that three years were not enough to mitigate it.

At the beginning of the fourth, a "donna gentile" enters the scene, endowed with a particular seduction. As happens to one who suffers, her pity calls him back to weeping; and he, so as not to show his vile life, withdraws. But she, with the compassion she shows at every encounter, ends by winning him over. The poet perceives that a new feeling is born in him ("Gentil pensero che parla di voi"); and he would certainly have devoted himself to it entirely, had not one day, suddenly, at the hour of none, Beatrice reappeared to him, of the same age as when he first saw her and with the same crimson garments. D. limits himself to calling strong the vision had at that moment; but he does not describe Beatrice's attitude, nor does he let us know whether she addressed words of reproach to him. He says that only at seeing her again does he repent bitterly of the trust placed for a time in the "gentile," weeps, curses the vanity of his eyes and yields himself with all his soul to the "gentilissima," become "spirital bellezza grande." The period of his second love, according to the "libello," is thus closed forever, and the sighs that before tore at his breast now rise to seek his angel "beyond the sphere that turns most widely," in the empyrean, to contemplate her glory. He has reached where it is his destiny henceforth constantly to gaze.

The Vita Nuova is a love story that has no equal in any literature, both for the way in which that feeling is born, lives, purifies itself, elevates itself and attains its end, and for the sense of mystery that accompanies it. Yet it is most human and reveals with sufficient clarity the note that dominates the life and work of D. Considered from the outside, his passion for Beatrice seems made of fantasies, dreamed in an atmosphere different from ours; in itself, there is no other of equal power. It takes possession of the poet's soul before he is out of childhood, and never leaves it again, not even when he seems to lose himself after the small infidelities of his early youth or that far more dangerous one of the "donna gentile." It is that D.'s love is identified with the spirit that in the book of his memory wrote for him the rubric: Incipit vita nova: it is his law and his beatitude to ascend ever higher, "verso l'ultima salute." The motto that defines it he has had Virgil utter on the slope of ante-purgatory: "Nessun tuo passo caggia" (IV, 37). Instead of seeking hidden meanings in it, let it be taken literally, and let it one sees that it aims to prepare the Commedia, saying of Beatrice that she was a miracle of a woman, by love of whom he was dominated from childhood and led, despite his infidelities, through revelations, visions and extraordinary events to become aware of the new era that was being prepared, as of the mission assigned to him to announce it.

II. THE « CONVIVIO »

But if from the Vita Nuova one passes to reading the Convivio, written as a continuation and clarification of it, one is surprised. In the last chapter of the "little book" he related that he was studying as much as he could to prepare himself to recite the praises of the "gentilissima"; and he does indeed study much, to the point of straining his eyesight too much, but in order to celebrate that "gentle" woman, whom we believed by then far from his heart. The contradictions between the Vita Nuova and the Convivio, numerous and serious, have seemed until today irreconcilable; but from a careful analysis of the two works it is evident that we know the former only in the form that D. gave it, when, having overcome his philosophical crisis, he took it up again and adapted it so that it might serve, as it does serve, as an introduction to the Commedia. It is a bold hypothesis; but whoever reflects without prejudice on chapter 2 of the second book of the Convivio cannot fail to notice that it speaks of a Vita Nuova in which the love for the "gentle" woman has an entirely different development from that handed down to us in chapters 35-38 of the version we possess. Nowhere in the "amorous little book" is it affirmed, as in the philosophical treatise, that the "gentle" woman was of greater virtue and therefore a better friend than Beatrice; or that he, without further hesitation, had consented to love for her, or still less that this love was perfect, as on the contrary the Convivio assures us at the very moment when it refers us back to the testimony of the Vita Nuova. So that of the reworking of the latter D. himself is the witness; and it is entirely vain to invoke the manuscript tradition, which does not exist, in order to oppose that of the Convivio, which does exist and removes every doubt. This being established, it is easy to understand that, when D. begins to write his philosophical treatise, the transformation of Beatrice into a symbol of revealed truth, since in it it is repeatedly declared that the "gentle" woman symbolizes philosophy, is already complete; and the battle between the two loves is converted into a battle between two philosophical orientations: between the mysticism that informs the Vita Nuova and the Aristotelianism that dominates in the Convivio.

To the memory of his first love he had dedicated a small book in 42 chapters; to the glory of the second he will consecrate a broad treatise in 15 long books, composed likewise of prose and of 44 canzoni "si d'amor come di verti materiati". The different bulk of the monument is an index of the different esteem he then held for the one and the other.

Like the Vita Nuova, which opens with the word in which its ultimate meaning is hidden ("Nove fiate già", etc.), the treatise opens with a sentence of Aristotle, the philosopher par excellence, to whose doctrine and authority he never tires of submitting himself: "tutti li uomini naturalmente desiderano di sapere". But since many, for various reasons, remain "ne la umana fame", it is an act of mercy to seek to satisfy it. But another motive also drives him. "Movemi — he resumes — timore d'infamia e movemi desiderio di dottrina dare" (I, II). He fears that the canzoni to be commented on may have made him appear excessively inclined to love, and he wishes to declare their true meaning, demonstrating that he was not pining for a beautiful and proud little girl, but for wisdom, which is the supreme guide of moral and civil life. He will also speak of himself, at times, but compelled by necessity; and he will use the vernacular, according to the current opinion, which was once also his own, that it is capable only of speaking of love. He will show, by example, how great instead is "l'agevolezza de le sue sillabe, le proprietadi de le sue costruzioni e le soavi orazioni che di lui si fanno" (I, X), to conclude that it is "luce nuova, sole nuovo, lo quale sorgerà dove l'usato (il latino) tramonterà" (I, XII). He reasons about the mother tongue with the same affection as for a greatly beloved person.

Having chosen 14 canzoni, which will provide him with the material for the remaining 14 books, he eagerly sets to work. The subjects for the digressions of the second book are suggested to him by the canzone "Voi che 'ntendendo", where the struggle between the memory of Beatrice and the love for the "gentle" woman is represented. In the commiato he said that perhaps few would have understood its meaning well; but the commentary clarifies everything. The "gentle" woman is philosophy; the "gentilissima" is she by whose grace he often ascended to the feet of the Lord of the angels, and there "contemplava lo regno dei beati" (II, VII). The one held him back with visions, the other with demonstrations and persuasions. The outcome could be foreseen. In a mind like his, greedy for knowledge, the "gentle" woman prevailed.

For the questions that arise concerning the allegories of the Commedia, a special mention is deserved by the poet's declaration that among the different senses of the scriptures "lo litterale dee andare innanzi, si come quello nella cui sentenza gli altri sono inchiusi, e senza lo quale sarebbe impossibile ed irrazionale intendere a li altri e massimamente a lo allegorico" (II, I).

The third book comments on the canzone "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona", certainly written when the study of philosophy, having become a true and proper passion, depicted her to him as "figlia di Dio, regina di tutto, nobilissima e bellissima" (II, XII). Whoever possesses her has nothing else to desire, because she is the highest thing and gives the soul the ultimate perfection to which one can aspire; she is "piena di dolcezza, ornata di onestade, mirabile di savere, gloriosa di libertade" (II, XV). Looking into the eyes of the "gentle" woman, that is, into the demonstrations of philosophy, and into her smile, into her persuasions, "si sente quel piacere altissimo di beatitudine, lo quale è massimo bene in Paradiso" (III, XV). "In questo sguardo solamente l'umana perfezione s'acquista, cioè la perfezione de la ragione, de la quale si come di principalissima parte, tutta la nostra essenza depende; e tutte l'altre nostre operazioni (sentire, nutrire e tutto) sono per quella sola, e questa è per sé e non per altri; sì che, perfetta sia questa, perfetta è quella, tanto cioè che l'uomo, in quanto ello è uomo, vede terminato ogni desiderio e così è beato" (III, XV). Where have the praises of Beatrice's eyes and smile gone? They will return, in the Commedia; but in the meantime her beauty, compared with that of the "gentle" woman, has disappeared. It was in the nature of things that the new love should be the adversary of the old, should drive it from its seat and destroy it. To mystical raptures the poet has preferred the demonstrations of reasoning reason, "specchio senza macula de la maestà di Dio" (III, XV).

In the fourth book, however, his admiration begins to wane. There are problems, he acknowledges, that philosophy does not solve; the beatitude it bestows is no longer so perfect; and even the active life is a most direct road to lead "to the highest beatitude, which cannot be had here" (IV, XXII). The limits of reason, always admitted in any case, become clearer to him, and his enthusiasm begins to cool. In short, the poet's thought shows unmistakable signs of a change. It will not be long before he sets aside his philosophical encyclopedia, never to return to it again. But our having it is a great stroke of fortune. Besides explaining to us many details of the Commedia, it helps us to follow closely the development of his thought, lets us witness the anxious and subtle labor of his mind, never sated with knowing, and offers us vivid and moving pages, such as those in which he touches on exile, on his love for the Italian language, and on his studies. In the Vita Nuova he rejoices to ascend following the inspirations sent him by his "youngest grief"; in the Convivio, through the teachings of philosophy, "whose rays make the flowers put forth leaves again and bear fruit of true nobility," he arms himself with "virtue and knowledge" (a pairing that recurs very often and in solemn form in the episode of Ulysses), so as to be able "to cry out to the people who were walking in an evil path, that they might set themselves straight along the right road." First-rate importance must be attributed to chapters 4 and 5 of the last book. They speak of the mission of Rome in the world, and are by themselves enough to open up the intimate meaning of the "sacred poem." In all likelihood the Convivio was written between the end of 1304 and 1307.

III. RHYMES

Of his loves D. also speaks in the rhymes that scholars have collected from the manuscripts, but they do not form a proper and true songbook; for, wholly taken up by the poem, D. did not trouble to rearrange them into a volume. Would all and only the genuine rhymes have been admitted there? It is legitimate to fear that some which in fact belong to him have remained outside or been relegated among the doubtful ones; not to mention that others, of which he himself makes mention, have been lost. In any case, as they stand, they can be distinguished into amorous, doctrinal, of correspondence, and extravagant. Of notable artistic value, few.

To reweave by means of the first the history of D.'s loves would be risky; but one can seek to grasp their various motives of inspiration. Now, whoever does not wish to maintain that our poet happened indeed to fall in love with several women, but each equally endowed with the same physical and moral gifts as her rival, must agree that in almost all the amorous rhymes we have to do with one "who has little time," is "young and beautiful," has blond and curly hair, entices with pity, enamors with the spell of her eyes; but then she changes style, becomes insensible and cruel, turns hard as a stone and does not notice, being perhaps a "little girl," that she is leading him to death.

The rhymes reconfirm what is read in the Vita Nuova and in the Convivio. After Beatrice the poet loved long and with true passion, and herein lies their importance, the "gentle lady young and very beautiful," who regarded him most piteously, but, D. notes, "as to appearance," so that "all pity seemed gathered in her"; but it only seemed (Vita Nuova, XXXV). It is a consequence to which those implicitly adhere who, reading the Convivio, are led to think that the canzoni, for which he feared the infamy of having followed so violent a passion, must of necessity concern the lady of his second love. They were not, naturally, those commented on in the second and third book, composed after the pitiful lady had been drawn to signify philosophy, but the others, such as "Io sento sì d'amor," "Al poco giorno," "E' m'incresce di me," "Amor, da che convien," not excluding the so-called "stony" ones and the best known among these: "Così nel mio parlar," whose sensual ardor is undeniable. Of a different love speaks to us the canzone "Tre donne intorno al cor," where perhaps for the first time the very accent of the Commedia resounds.

To the rhymes of correspondence belong the sonnets of the tenzone with Forese Donati. The impression one receives from them is not pleasant, despite the attempts made to soften it. Even granting that they were jesting, whoever in jest descends to certain insults gives proof of having become somewhat entangled. Sincere as he is, D. confesses it openly in the encounter with his one-time friend in the circle of the gluttons. After fifteen years and more, the memory of that kind of life, led in the period of error and wandering, still weighed on him.

The doctrinal rhymes demonstrate that the poet had long since overcome the prejudice that in the vernacular one should speak only of love; but they are reasonings in verse on nobility, gracefulness, liberality, rarely enlivened by some beautiful image.

More attention perhaps deserve the extravagant ones, inasmuch as they disclose to us certain aspects of the love for Beatrice that in the Vita Nuova would be out of place ("La dispietata mente," "Lo doloroso amor"), or reveal to us feelings that graze his fancy and rise no more.

IV. "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA." — From his first steps D. felt the need to clarify to himself the laws that govern the art of the word. An essay of this is found in ch. 25 of the Vita Nuova; and already in ch. 5 of the first book of the Convivio one reads the intention of composing a treatise on the art of speaking in the vernacular. It does not follow that he set to work at once. It seems written in a state of mind quite changed from that of the Convivio. The hope of being invited to return to his homeland has almost vanished, so that he does not scruple to use phrases capable of rekindling to his harm the hatreds of the citizens; philosophy no longer arouses no particular enthusiasm; the religious sentiment is more present. Except that the allusion to a Marquis Giovanni as still living and active, a marquis commonly identified by scholars with the lord of Montferrat, who died in January 1305, leaves us uncertain about the date of composition.

On the idea that in Italian every thought can be expressed, there is no longer any doubt; he even acknowledges that the vernacular is our true and natural speech. He explains the diversity of languages by the confusion that followed the building of the tower of Babel and by the dispersion of peoples. He distinguishes those who came into Europe into three principal ones: peoples of the language of oc, of oil, and of sì, derived from the same stock, but gradually differentiated in space and time into different languages and dialects. Drawing ever closer to his aim, which is to establish which among the many speeches of Italy should be used by one who intends to produce a work of art, he begins by excluding the dialects of Rome, of the March of Ancona, Spoleto, Milan, Aquileia, Istria, and Sardinia. He then examines those spoken to the right and to the left of the Apennines and finds none worthy of being declared illustrious, cardinal, courtly, curial, and he argues from this that it qualibet redolent civitate nec cubat in ulla (I, XVI); and therefore it belongs not to this or that region, but totius Italiae.

In the second book, having noted that the illustrious vernacular befits singers of arms or of love or of virtue, and that among the different metrical forms the canzone is the highest, he proceeds to reason about three styles: the tragic, which is the noblest and requires the courtly vernacular; the comic, which now employs the middle vernacular and now the humble; and the elegiac, which employs only the humble. He deals with the verses to be used in the various compositions and then comes to treat of the canzone, of the stanzas, of rhyme, and of the number of syllables. But here the work, which seemed destined to unfold in four books, remains interrupted. D. has finished only the writings that have the most direct connection with the Commedia, with which he knew he was giving what was greatest that his genius had inspired in him.

Yet it is no small glory to have attempted to penetrate into the nature of languages and of their variation; to have seen the relationship between the diversity of places and that of dialects; through the study of the vernacular to have intuited the moral unity of Italy, giving it Rome as its head. The De vulgari eloquentia furthermore makes us touch with our own hands the minute and scrupulous care given by the poet to the art of writing, which for him was a true priesthood, and shows us with how much study he sought the instrument most suited to the expression of his thought. He feels the passion for heights in all its forms.

V. « DE MONARCHIA »

The political treatise prepares us for the Commedia no less directly than the Vita Nuova, with the clear and precise exposition of what is customarily called his utopia, and which is such, if one considers men as they are, and, in its ultimate meaning, is no longer such, if one considers men as they ought to be. His assiduous meditations on the religious, moral, and civil conditions of his age had shown him that the evil from which all suffered derived from cupidity, that is, from the immoderate craving for worldly goods sought with greater anxiety, such as riches, pleasures, power, fame, greatness. Through it one man rushed against another, and no longer perceived the great happiness that there is in forming a single family, in recognizing oneself as children of a single father who is God. It was necessary to free oneself from so much evil.

The first and most notable fruit of his reflections is gathered in chapters 4 and 5 of the last book of the Convivio, where the master lines of his political thought are already clearly drawn. The idea of the Empire and of its function is already ripe. He already knows where « the radical foundation of the imperial majesty » lies, and to what necessities the family, the neighborhood, the cities, and the kingdoms respond; but he also knows how the human soul « in a bounded possession of land does not rest, but always desires the glory of acquiring »; and from this he deduces that, to remove the motives of discord and ever-reborn wars, « it is necessary of necessity that the whole earth and as much as is given to the human race to possess be a Monarchy, that is, a single principality and a single prince to have; who, possessing everything and being unable to desire more, keeps the kings content within the boundaries of their kingdoms, so that there be peace among them, in which the citizens may rest, and in this rest the neighborhoods may love one another, in this love things may take every their need, which taken, man may live happily, which is that for which he was born ». The idea of the Empire already holds a high place in his thought and exalts him.

The occasion for developing it may be held almost with certainty to have come to him at the time of Henry's enterprise. In those men who, clothed in the feathers of the crow, boast of being the white sheep of God's flock and are instead the sons of impiety who, to accomplish their misdeeds, prostitute the mother, the Church, drive the brothers from the house and refuse to open the doors to the judge, to the emperor (III, III), it is easy to recognize the Blacks of Florence, of whom Benedict XI in the letter of 21 June 1304 expressed the same idea: « Who would believe, he wrote, that these men, even while they go against the Church, wish to be reputed her sons? ». The author who emanates from every page, the study of assailing the adversary in each of his fortresses and leaving him no way of escape, the quality of the proofs, not always persuasive to us, but responding to the ways of reasoning of that age, all clearly shows that he wrote the Monarchia when he was fighting his fiercest battle.

If man, this is the principle from which he starts, is man insofar as he reasons, it follows that his ultimate perfection will consist in the full actualization of the possible intellect, to which one does not attain unless the world lives in peace; and peace is had only under a single monarch. In order that the human race may respond to the end for which it was created, it must therefore form a single family, resemble the heaven, which is moved with a single movement, and God who is one. The need for justice can be satisfied only by the monarch, as one who, possessing everything and having nothing to desire, is free from the light of cupidity with which the humana civilitas is infested. Only under the monarch is it granted to live in freedom, because only then is the will upright and sound.

In the second book he declares how and why the right to rule the world was conferred by God on Rome. The arguments naturally bear the mark of the manner of syllogizing of that age, subtle, dialectical, combative. Many derive from the Aeneid, which, there is no cause for wonder, becomes one of the richest sources of Dante's thought. But perhaps the most original proof is furnished him by the consideration that if in Christ the whole human race was to suffer, the sentence had to come from one who had legitimate jurisdiction over all the earth.

The most significant book of D.'s system is the third, and it may be said that the other two were written in its service. The question of the independence of civil authority from pontifical authority in the dispute between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII had arisen again to divide the minds of one and the same people and one and the same city. D. begins by declaring that he will tell the truth, come what may; and having clearly set out the terms of the problem, he proceeds at once to refute the proofs adduced both by the supporters of pontifical authority supra regna et regna, and by those who are sons of the devil (the thrust is aimed at the Florentines) and by the decretalists. And he demolishes them all with implacable and sometimes sophistical logic. The authority of the Empire derives directly from God, who, having made man in such a way that by his nature he tends toward two felicities, the temporal and the eternal, has placed over him the emperor, to guide him to the first by means of philosophical teachings, and the pope to the second by means of revealed truths. It is right nonetheless, since the felicity of this life is ordered to the other, that the former show toward the latter the reverence of an elder son toward his father. With this concession, since reverence is not

1

subjection, but respect for another's dignity, the poet is so far from the idea of derogating in any part from his concept, that he calmly ends the treatise by reaffirming that the emperor has been placed at the government of the world ab illo solo... qui est omnium spiritualium et temporalium gubernator.

From the Consilio to the Monarchia the poet's attitude is greatly changed. The philosophical treatise ignores the pope and knows no other authority than that of the emperor and of reason; the political one gives the first place to the pontifical authority inter pares with the imperial.

VI. EPISTLES

Only 12 of them are extant; for the one to Cangrande must be considered spurious. All are important, but not all to the same degree; most precious are the three written for Henry's enterprise, the other, between June and July 1314, to the cardinals of Italy, assembled in Conclave, and the one to his Florentine friend, with the magnanimous cry: "This is not, O father, the way to return to the Fatherland," which is almost certainly from 1315, when D. already knew he had a right to a glorious return.

VII. ECLOGHE

Toward the end of 1319, when Inferno and Purgatorio were already known, D. received from Giovanni del Virgilio, a master of Latin at the Studium of Bologna, an eclogue urging him to set aside the vernacular and sing in Latin one of the themes that he himself suggested to him. He could thus have presented him to the Gymnasia with his temples crowned with laurel. D. replied in Latin hexameters, which demonstrate his familiarity with the language of the learned, but he did not accept the invitation. Del Virgilio replied with another eclogue; but D. did not budge. In Bologna was the cave of Polyphemus, that is, there lived and held a position of command one who was perhaps Fulcieri da Calboli, who in the Purgatorio kills, like a beast accustomed to slaughter, the wolves of the sad wood that Florence had become, and in the reply is described as assuetum rictus humano sanguine tingui.

VIII. «QUAESTIO DE AQUA ET TERRA»

On 19 Jan. 1320, with the bishop's authorization, D. discussed at Verona in the little church of S. Elena the question, then a live one, whether the level of the waters is higher than that of the emerged land, or the habitable fourth. To the five arguments most worthy of attention he opposed five demonstrations to prove the contrary. It has been doubted whether it is his work, but the order, the clarity and, especially, certain ways of feeling and expressing himself peculiar to him, assure us that it belongs to him.

III. THE COMEDY.

I. GENESIS AND DATE OF COMPOSITION

For a full understanding of the poem nothing is better than to study its genesis. Now the cantos of the Styx, if compared with epistles V, VI and VII, demonstrate ineluctably that the inspiration for the scenes so dramatic, which those cantos make us witness, D. drew from the events to which the resistance of the Florentines to Henry gave rise; and therefore that the composition of the Commedia must be postponed to after 1313. The same situation, the same particulars, even the same images; so much so that in the light of those epistles everything in cantos VIII, IX and X is explained and remains clear, even the verses called by the poet "strange"; without it, the legend of the first seven cantos written before the exile is reborn, and, along with many others, the discussions on the incomprehensibility of the poet's cruel and vindictive conduct toward Argenti.

In a state of mind akin to that in which the Commedia was conceived, D. had found himself another time because of the slowness with which his new Moses conducted the campaign. Seized by the well-founded fear that the delays would make the enterprise fail, with the words of the Precursor: Tu es, he asked him, qui venturus es, an alium expectamus? The certainty that the restoration of the Empire and the consequent resurgence from universal misery was inevitable, already suggested to him that, should Henry not have been he was the expected one, well then, another would certainly have come to carry out the divine designs.

He repeats the same in a situation beyond comparison more grave: at the sudden disappearance of the Luxembourger. The world in which he had placed all his hopes had fallen shattered at a single blow, darkness had overwhelmed the light, error had triumphed over truth, iniquity over justice. To dream that one would soon rise again from the ruins, even to him for a time will have seemed madness. Nevertheless, when grief allowed him to make his considerations on what had happened, faith in that which he had always invoked, awaited, yearned for, lived again stronger than before; wherefore, having silenced every doubt, he rose up among the peoples to prophesy the near advent of the liberator. He wished that the coming one, unlike his Henry, might be swift in action, as befits a bearer of the eagle, always lightning-like in its enterprises, and he commended him by the name, calling him the Veltro.

That human society should be governed by the two guides, as the old man of Crete by the two feet, was for him one of those convictions which are not discussed. He firmly believed he had read it in the book «where white nor black is ever changed», and to suppose that what is in the designs of Providence would not come to pass was not possible.

With this unshaken faith in his soul he returned to the years of his first love, never entirely fallen from his mind, and, retracing those many mysterious signs that had come to accentuate its most sacred moments, he confirms himself in the idea that «the youngest angel» had been sent to announce the new age, of which he would have been the prophet. Now he understands why an invisible hand had written at the beginning of the book of his memory the rubric Incipit vita nova; and he explains to himself how he had had the revelation that one day he would descend into hell and would tell the damned that he had seen the hope of the angels and of the damned (Vita Nuova, XIX, 8); now he understands for what purpose it had been granted him to taste the blessedness of her greeting (ibid., XI), to admire the ascent of that blessed soul to heaven (ibid., XXIII, 26) and to rise with his pilgrim spirit as far as the empyrean to contemplate her glory (Oltre la spera, ibid., XLI, 10). The hidden meaning of the visions of that time is revealed to him in full only now.

When he was writing «the amorous little book», he did not foresee that Beatrice would lead him back to herself and forever. For the account to correspond to truth, it was fitting to take it up again, modify it and continue it. And he took it up again, breaking off the narration at the point where «the gentlest lady» by reappearing to him had broken off his second love and had once more taken possession of his mind. Afterwards he gave himself body and soul to the work to which God had destined him. From this conviction and from a thirst for justice without equal the Comedy is born.

II. THE INFERNO

He already knew on what foundations the immense edifice would rise. The idea that the right path had been lost by everyone had occurred to him at other times as well (Conv., IX, 1); but after the deceit of the Guasco (Par., XVII, 82) no one could any longer doubt that the evil by which the world had been destroyed anew had its root in cupidity, which had returned to corrupt the earth from the day of the Donation of Constantine. Without intending it, by dividing the Empire, the latter had "with blasphemy in deed" torn up and robbed a second time the plant of the earthly paradise (Purg., XXXIII, 52 ff.; Par., XX, 55-60); and "the fraud at which every conscience is bitten" had naturally re-entered into men.

And since the same causes are followed by the same effects, behold, the earth has been converted into a "deep wood," bristling with "thorns and thistles" (Gen. 3:18), like that into which our forefather was exiled. And as then "within its bounds" the human creature had been unable to raise itself, so now. Hell has dilated its jaws (Is. 5:14) and sent its satellites into the world; so that, even if one takes the step "which never yet left any person alive" and escapes from the wood, he is not thereby able to climb to the summit of the mountain where man is happy. The powers of evil prevent him, which, remaining one, assume ever graver forms, and combat him now under the aspect of the leopard (incontinence), now of the lion (violence) and, finally, of the she-wolf (fraud), the invincible beast that lets no one pass "along her way" and does so much that she kills him. There remains only to trust in the help of heaven and to invoke it: the mighty one, furnished with the virtue of liberating the earth from the she-wolf, will come without doubt. D. is as certain of this as of the truth of the first principles of reason. Indeed Mary has already broken the "hard judgment" that weighed upon men, obtaining that the world be redeemed another time from the new original sin.

As to the manner that would be followed, it was impossible to be mistaken: given the immutability of the divine decrees, the new liberation from human sin would certainly have been modeled on the "high and magnificent process" of the ancient one. Then the three divine Persons operated "most conjoined" (Conv., IV, v, 3); now the three ladies of paradise, mirror of the three pre-eminently divine virtues, operate united. And as then God ordained two peoples, that of piety, of which He made the Church the minister, and that of justice, of which He made the Empire the minister; so to the liberation of now, obtained by Mary (Inf., II, 93-96), contribute piety, personified in Beatrice, and justice, personified in Lucia.

So that no mistake be made about her proper office, she descends into the antipurgatory like an eagle, has in her name the same root as the lesser luminary (lucina), and elects as her representative Virgil, friend of silence and fire. Reason and faith, human and divine truth, cross and eagle, Church and Empire, all together the powers of good will vanquish those of evil and the she-wolf will be driven back into hell.

That is not enough. As Paul and Aeneas went to the immortal age, the former for the comfort of the faith, the latter to prepare Rome and the Empire, so now, by divine decree "for the good of the world that lives ill," D. goes to take up again the mission of the one and the other, since the two institutions, remedies of sin, have both fallen. It is an end to which the poet had felt himself called since the time of the Convivio, and to which he had even applied himself, but with inadequate means (Conv., IV, 1, 9).

So that it be known that he now moves from other principles and goes with the help of quite other virtues, he first feigns to have yielded quickly and willingly to Virgil's invitation, in the supposition that the latter, as he held during his love for the gentle lady, possessed what was needed to save him from the she-wolf, the "foul death" toward which one ran and from which philosophy, then, liberated. But now his thought has changed; so that, along the path over the deserted shore, assailed by the doubt that his may not be a folly, he "unwills what he willed," and consumes the enterprise to which he had so promptly resolved. He returns to his purpose only after having learned that Virgil comes to him sent by the three blessed ladies. To set about so solemn a mission without a most special grace from on high would have been to wish to fly without wings. He will go, then, but by the merit of a gentle lady, quite different from her in whom he had erred, and assisted by another truly compassionate (Inf., II, 94, 133). Then, when the wondrous vision has ceased, he will faithfully recount it to men, and these will learn from it that without which every science becomes vain: in what evil consists, in what good, and how from the one one can, while alive, rise again and return to the other; not according to his own judgment, but according to the eternal and immutable judgment.

In the first two cantos there is an autobiographical page in which the fundamental lines of the great design are drawn. To make use, however, of an architecture that appeared the fruit of his fantasy was not possible: the "sacred poem" would have produced nothing but the emotion that beauty gives; and it had to induce men to recognize their error and take up again the right path. The ordering principle of those worlds had to spring from a rigorous concept of the law given by God to men for attaining temporal and eternal happiness, to which they aspire. On the manner in which the divine commandment will have been observed or vilified will depend the quality of the rewards and punishments.

In order not to err in a matter of such importance the safest counsel was to adhere to the teaching of the sacred writings, which affirm that evil entered into men with Adam for not having suffered to remain subject to the law with which God had placed a bridle on his will. Seduced by cupidity, he violated the interdict and became impious and unjust (Par., VII). Now since from his all sins derived, these will naturally be daughters of impiety and injustice, as is repeated in the epistle to the cardinals of Italy: Cupiditatem unusquisque sibi duxit in uxorem quemadmodum et vos, quae nunquam pietatis et equitatis, ut caritas, sed semper impietatis et iniquitatis est genetrix (Ep., XI, 14). From this simple concept of the good that is born of right love, and of evil, which is twisted love, that is, cupidity, importance, the safest counsel was to adhere to the teaching of the sacred writings, which affirm that evil entered into men with Adam for not having endured remaining subject to the law with which God had placed a bridle upon his will. Seduced by cupidity, he violated the interdict and became impious and unjust (Par., VII). Now since all sins derived from his, these will naturally be daughters of impiety and injustice, as is repeated in the epistle to the cardinals of Italy: Cupiditatem unusquisque sibi duxit in uxorem quemadmodum et vos, quae nunquam pietatis et equitatis, ut caritas, sed semper impietatis et iniquitatis est genetrix (Ep., XI, 14). From this simple concept of the good that is born of rightful love, and of evil, which is twisted love, that is, cupidity, and gives rise to two principal kinds of sin, it has removed
not only the image of the she-wolf that mates with many
animals, but also the axis around which his moral, civil and
religious thought revolved, and therefore the three kingdoms
of the spirit (Par., XV, 1-3). And here is how.

In Hell there are circles descending like the
steps of an immense amphitheater, of which Virgil
speaks exhaustively in canto XI; and circles almost
level like great plains, such as the antechamber of Hell
which comprises the vestibule and limbo, the Stygian region
constituted by the fifth and sixth circles, and Cocytus, about
which the master has little to say. Each of these last,
by means of a passage of death, is constantly distinguished
into two zones: the first for the souls that have sinned against
justice; the second for those against piety.

So that the relation in which these three
infernal regions stand to one another might not escape us, in the vestibule, stretching
around a « livid marsh » (III, 68), he causes us to meet
a damned soul, that of the « great refusal », whom he recognizes, though foul with blood and tears, but whose name he disdains
to speak; in the Stygian marsh another,
Filippo Argenti, with his face likewise foul with tears
and blood, who does not wish to be recognized,
and whose name is instead shouted throughout the circle; and in the
pool of Cocytus - before descending into it he pretends to see
« many lofty towers », which remind him of those of the Styx,
then, having descended, he finds souls whom wrath overcame (XXXII, 51),
as in the fifth circle (VII, 116) - finally he stumbles
upon Bocca degli Abati, who would wish to remain hidden, but
meets the same fate as Filippo Argenti (XXXII, 106);
not to mention that the dialogue between him and the poet unfolds almost
in the same manner as that with the « bizarre Florentine spirit ».
This device of parallels is one used by D. throughout the poem to put
the various parts of which it is composed into relation.

Now, that the traitors of Caina and Antenora have
violated justice, on which the family and the fatherland rest,
no one will doubt; but what justice have the proud of the Styx and the vilest of the vestibule
offended? There seems to be no other means of knowing it
than by discovering the doctrine hidden « beneath the veil of the strange
verses » (IX, 63). It is perhaps the least understood passage of the Commedia;
but since this is conceived in such a way that, once a part
of greater importance, such as cantos VIII, IX and X of the
Inferno, is clarified, it remains clarified in all the rest, an attempt will be made
at its explanation, in the hope of putting into the hands of
scholars the guiding thread for orienting themselves in the interpretation of the allegories. Once the difficulties that, in the opinion
of many, these present are eliminated, each person will be better able
on his own to savor the beauty of the work; for of expositions
of the Commedia there are more than there is need.

Up to the Styx the poets' journey has been through the
kingdom of the leopard, and therefore not difficult to overcome; but
once they have arrived at the bank of the fifth circle, things begin to look
bad. It is clear that Hell is on its
guard and is preparing for fiercer resistance. We are approaching
the Hell of the lion and of the she-wolf. At the « signals of a castle »,
given on the summit of the towers, swifter than an arrow,
the boatman Phlegyas hastens with a resolutely hostile attitude.
Yet Virgil makes his rage choke and compels
him to receive them in his boat. While they course along « the dead
channel » on whose banks, let it be noted, are dogs and pigs (VIII,
42, 50), as on those of the Arno (Purg., XIV, 43, 52),
one of those furious ones tries to plunge D. « into that broth »,
but Virgil, ready, thrusts him back into the mire; and then, in an
impulse of emotion, embraces and kisses the disdainful
pupil, exclaiming: « Blessed be she who in thee was pregnant ».

The expression seems made on purpose to recall to us
the greeting of the Hebrew women to Jesus: Beatus venter qui
te portavit (Lk. 11, 27); so much so that some have even been
scandalized by it. And not wrongly, if the poet, so averse to
speaking of himself and his own, had truly intended to bless
madonna Bella, his mother.

Fortunately D. has himself provided us with the
explanation, in the episode of ser Brunetto. As the « Fiesolan
beasts », which must make fodder of themselves,
have their precise counterpart in Argenti who « was turning on himself with his
teeth », so the Florentine dung has its counterpart in the mire of the marsh, and the plant not to be touched, because
in it lives again « the holy seed » of Rome, in the poet in
person. After epistles V, VI and VII it should not have been
difficult in the « poor great madman » of the Styx to see
the Black Florentines depicted, opposed to the imperial
idea, and in D. the Florentine who kept himself faithful to mother
Rome.

The memory of having run the risk of falling under the
claws of the Black Florentines, who had condemned him
to be burned alive, the poet has entrusted, and in a more
suggestive form, to another episode, that of the pursuit
by the devils in the ditch of the barrators, conceived in such
a way that the reader, whether he will or no, in the image of
Virgil sees shining through that of a mother at the moment when, awakened
suddenly, she sees the flames burning near and, without
delaying an instant, embraces « her son and flees and does not
stop ». Picture to yourselves the master who, having taken D.
to his breast - « as his son », mark well, « not as
a companion » - slides supine down the bank of the sixth
ditch, and you will agree that he renders the figure of a mother,
heavy with her burden.

It is not known either when or where D. was at
a point of being seized by his enemies; but one may
be certain that he attributed his salvation to the intervention of his ideal mother, mindful of preserving to
the world the holy seed of Rome. This is a piece of news to be added
to his biography, but here it matters above all to warn that,
even if from the discourse of ser Brunetto it did not emerge
evident how in the mad gesture of Filippo Argenti is to be
seen an attempt to drown in that swamp the assertor
of the imperial idea, and in the proud of the Styx the Florentines, blinded by the smoke of cupidity and raised
against Henry VII, the analysis of the following scenes would lead
us to the same conclusion.

By virtue of the law he imposed upon himself, that between the parts of
the poem there must run perfect harmony, having finished describing
the kingdom of the leopard, which extends as far as the walls of Dis,
it was natural that the poet should pass on to develop the motifs of the assault of the lion and of the she-wolf. Instead of asking everything of his fantasy, he preferred to make use of the elements offered him by the stubborn resistance of Florence to the Emperor, adapting them to his own ends. In reading, it occurs to no one that, besides coloring his artistic design, he could be thinking of anything else. And he was reliving the most agitated and anguished hours of his life. Every phrase can be commented on with the corresponding ones of the Epistles.

Those more than a thousand devils, who rushed to the gate of Dis to block his passage, resemble the Florentines, quasi itimites in limine carceris et miserantem quempiam, ne forte vos liberet captivatos... propulsantes (Ep., VI, 21); like the day when they sent back with "haughty and dishonest" words the ambassadors of the Luxembourger, saying "that never for any lord had the Florentines bowed their horns" (D. Compagni, XXXV, III). What the devils answered to Virgil we do not know. It is known only that D., on seeing him with "his eyes on the ground and his brows" shorn of all boldness, would readily turn back, as when, stoned by the she-wolf, he lowered "his brows to ruin" (Par., XXXII, 138). But the good leader, who shortly before had been unable to hide his agitation, has the vision of a great one descending the slope, and revives him with the announcement of the imminent arrival of the Messenger. On the "malignant slopes" of the swamp he does the very same as on the "desert slope" of the prologue: "There will come one who will drive this beast back into the hell of envy from which it first emerged — he said then, and: — There will come one who will open this gate — he says now. But the mighty one delays, and Virgil begins to doubt again (Ep., VII, 7). When behold, three furies, personification of the three evils punished in the three last circles, appear on the burning summit of the tower. They are the satellitium snevi tyranni (Ep., VII, 10), which Henry should have dispersed. The poets show that they do not fear them. Then those cry out: "Let Medusa come." At this threat Virgil immediately orders D. to close his eyes, turns him around and, not content that he has covered them with his own hands, closes them with his. It represented the gravest danger the poet had once faced (Purg., XXXIII, 67 ff.). But the passionate lover of the "gentle lady" this time deliberately renounces seeing, does not yield to the temptation to fix his gaze on that head severed from the bust, evident symbol of thought divided from its principle; he dies, that is, to the pride of the intellect; and behold, the awaited one comes, like a wind (and sento di Soave is also said of Emperor Henry VI; Par., III, 10), "impetuous through the adverse ardors" (Hac obice, he wrote to the Florentines, iusti regi adventus inflammabitur amplius: Ep., VI, 13), "that strikes the forest" (Vitale silva: De Vulgar. Eloq., XV, 1), and without anyone being able to resist him (quid vallo sepsisse, quid propugnaculis et pinnis urbem armasse iuvabit, cum advoluerit aquila in auro terribilis?, Ep., VI, 12), "shatters the branches, fells them and carries them off" (Non etenim ad arbores extirpandas valet ipsa ramorum incisio quin iterum multiplicus virulenter ramificent, quousque radices incolumes fuerint; Ep., VII, 21), "puts the beasts to flight" (above all the she-wolf that blocked his path, as at the gate of Dis the devils, her authentic sons) "and the shepherds" (those, probably, whom St. Peter sees throughout all the pastures "in the garb of shepherds, rapacious wolves": Par., XXVII, 55).

It is the first grandiose variation to which D. makes us witness of the motif set out in vv. 88-111 of the prologue, and it represents the victory of the justice of the Empire over all the forces of evil conspiring together. We are at canto IX of the first cantica, that is, at the canto that bears the number of the miracle. For heaven to intervene, Virgil had exhorted his pupil not to despair, but rather to comfort and feed his spirit "with good hope" (VIII, 106); and he, instead of trusting in reason, summons to his heart his heroic hope, and wins (Par., XXV, 52). As a reward for this faith of his in the unfailing fulfillment of the divine design, he is granted a glimpse of the imminent coming to pass of his great dream. The Messenger of heaven who opens the gate of Dis and disperses the wolves fiercely arrayed against the two faithful assertors of the imperial idea, in the likeness of the Florentines risen in arms against Henry, and drives them back whence envy had parted them, that is into

Malebolge - outside of which no true or proper devils are encountered - fulfills precisely the mission of the Veltro; it is the confirmation of his imminent advent.

On that day, what would have happened to Florence, had she persisted in her rebellion? Videbitis aedificia vestra... tam ariete ruere, quam igne cremari (Ep., VI, 73), the poet warned. They enter in fact into the "city of fire" that burns entirely, and is also a burial ground, from the midst of which sounds a voice, loud, solemn, that of Farinata, recalling that the hatreds have lasted too long, to the grave harm of the parties. Each tomb encloses the followers of a particular heresy, and there are many. A city more "divided" (VI, 61) it would be impossible to imagine. If among the many heretical sects of his time D. mentions only two, it is explicable. By drawing attention to the Epicureans and the Monophysites, equally prevented by their doctrines from conceiving the theological virtue of hope, he supposed it would be understood that without this virtue, consisting in "a certain expectation of future glory" (Par., XXV, 67), that gate does not open. Precisely because they are deprived of it, the heretics are in a "blind prison" (X, 58); and "in the first circle of the blind prison" (Purg., XXII, 103) are the inhabitants of Limbo, for not having had faith. After the passage of Acheron, those without faith; after that of Styx, likewise accompanied by an earthquake (IX, 66), those without hope. The one group suspended and the other equally suspended, not only by the lids of the tombs (IX, 121), but in every respect. Suspension marks the rhythm of canto X.

From the little that has been said and the much that could be added, it is gathered with certainty that in the region of Styx, before the closed gate of Dis, are the incontinent of the irascible appetite, who rush, like rabid dogs, against the faithful of the Empire; within, but a little lower, those lacking hope. Similarly, on a plane slightly inclined toward the center, in the last circle, is found the swamp of Cocytus, distinguished into two principal parts by a passage of death, invisible to the gaze, and nevertheless more terrifying than all (XXXIII, 127). To betray, like friar Alberigo, and to fall ruined once it is done down there are one and the same thing. The supine face of the damned soul, characteristic of the envious, the memory of the "fruit of the evil orchard," his insistence that they open his eyes - even the serpent had promised Eve that their eyes would be opened: aperientur oculi vestri (Gen. 3, 5) - the name of the zone, taken from that Ptolemy who betrayed Pompey, all make it understood that he violated the universal law of humana civilitas, which ordains that one sit at a single table, which must be one of love (Purg., XIII, 27).

He committed a fault as grave as that of Judas, and has been subject to the same punishment: "And it was then, after that morsel, that Satan took possession of him" (Jn 13, 27). Therefore, "in the depth of every guilty one" are encountered, in the first two rounds, sinners against justice, which is the foundation of family and fatherland; in the last two, those who violated the divine justice that is realized in the Empire, and the charity on which the Church is founded: both virtues necessary, both divine, both derived equally from the same source (Monarchia, I, XI, 14). And then, if in the flat region of the antechamber of Hell after the passage of Acheron are those without faith, what virtue shall be said to have been unrecognized by the vilest, who lived like beasts quibus non est intellectus, and therefore entirely deprived of the virtues from which the others are born, the human and the divine? Extremes meet. It is clear in fact that they knew neither justice nor pity; and it is natural that they be disdained at the same time by mercy and by justice (III, 50). They are in fact envious "of every other lot," even of the worst of all.

A simple glance at the circles descending in an amphitheater will show that from the second, of the lustful, to the fifth, of the wrathful and the slothful, are sinners against the human virtue of temperance; in the seventh, of evil wrath or mad bestiality, against fortitude; in the eighth, of the fraudulent, against justice. It will be objected that those who lacked prudence are missing, the virtue that sees the present, the past and the future and is the guide of the others (Purg., XXIX, 130). But precisely because it is such, the most authentic deniers of it should be sought among the "wretches" of the vestibule, set to running, neither dead nor alive, eternally in vain after a banner. Consider their condition, and you will discover that for them it would be just as well to remain perpetually motionless. They are so far, and yet the closest, morally, to the traitors of Judecca, where D. beholds the banners of the king of Hell, at the sight of which he relates that he neither remained alive nor died (XXXIV, 1, 25).

D.'s imagination, inexhaustible in translating his concepts into images, thus succeeds, by means of correspondences, in creating a poem of admirable unity and variety. Having established, for example, that the ninth circle is the "depth of every guilty one," that is, the matrix of every evil, he places its individual zones in intimate relation with the individual parts into which the abyss is distinguished: Caina with the swamp of Styx, which is in turn the depth of the Hell of incontinence; Antenora with that of mad bestiality (XXXII, 133); Tolomea with the Hell of envy, that is, with Malebolge, and Judecca with the cemetery of Dis. The resemblance between these last two is astonishing. In Cocytus life gradually fades away hand in hand as one advances; and the same happens, in due proportion, up in the sixth circle, from Farinata to Cavalcante, to Pope Anastasius. In the face of Cavalcante, who falls back supine, shines through that of the traitors of Tolomea embedded in the ice; Pope Anastasius announces Judas, and the whole burial ground after the final judgment will render the image of Judecca, with the difference, if indeed it is such, that the one group is eternally consumed by fire, the other by frost. But this which comes true in Cocytus and in the "city of fire" is observed everywhere. As one descends, evil grows graver, and from one degree of movement one passes to a more or less accentuated immobility: from the leopard « light and very swift », one comes to the she-wolf that brings heaviness. The law is carved even into that enormous mass of matter which is Dis.

Furthermore, at the beginning of the ninth circle are the two brothers of Mangona who butt at each other like two rams; at the beginning of the eighth, Venedico who prostitutes his sister; at the beginning of the seventh, Obizzo da Este, slain by his stepson; at the beginning of the sixth, Farinata, who is not moved in the least at the fate of Guido, his son-in-law; at the beginning of upper Hell, Francesca and Paolo, killed by Gianciotto; unless one should add that at the beginning of Purgatory one meets Pia, done to death by her husband's hand, and at the beginning of Paradise Piccarda, torn from the cloister by her brother. Corruption has spoiled even the institution of the family. The carnal sinners, recalled by Virgil in the fifth canto, have all offended conjugal faith; then comes Ciacco, who has such bitter words about the city, to whose action he seems to attribute the primary cause of his condemnation; there follow the avaricious and the prodigal, a living image of the perpetual struggles in which the world toils for the acquisition of earthly splendors; and finally, in the Styx, the despisers of justice and of piety. From the family to the city to the Empire and the Church, as in Cocytus.

D. is nonetheless so certain that God will redeem the earth from so much evil that, having been transformed almost into certainty by means of the Messenger of Heaven, the prophecy of the imminent coming of the Veltro, having reached the hell of evil wrath, of which through the donation of Constantine we have again become children (Eph. 2, 3), he has Virgil point out to him in that stream of horrifying redness the most « notable » thing of the sights up to that point. It springs indeed from the wounds of the great Old Man, symbol of the human race, who now, in consequence of the confusion of the two regimes, goes limping, resting upon his right foot of baked clay. Like the other rivers it is an effect of sin, and like every sin, through suffering, it has in itself the principle of redemption; wherefore it extinguishes above itself « all flames », and thus opens a way through that universal conflagration. Take away that virtue from those waters and no one will any longer be able to reach salvation. With their vapors they fulfill the office of the ruins, which are like so many breaches opened for the death of Christ in the kingdom of Satan, so that evil might be assailed within its fortress and vanquished.

It does not seem so, but another proof of the redemption of the world, and not only of the present world, is in the manner in which the poets come out « to see the stars again ». With D. upon his shoulders Virgil grasps the shaggy sides of Lucifer, descends, bent under the weight, down to the thick of the haunches of the great monster, turns slowly upon himself carrying his head where he had previously had his feet, and begins to climb up « with toil and with anguish », until he comes out through the hole

HERE BEGINS THE COMEDY OF
Dante Alighieri of Florence, in the third part
of the pains and punishments of the vices and the merits
and rewards of the virtues: First chapter of the
first part of that book which is commonly called
Hell: in which the author makes a prologue to
the whole treatise of the book:

In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark forest
for the straight way was lost.
And how hard a thing it is to tell
of that forest, savage, harsh and strong,
which in thought renews the fear!
So bitter is it that death is little more;
but to treat of the good that I found there,
I will tell of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well recount how I entered it,
so full was I of sleep at that point
that I abandoned the true way.
But after I had come to the foot of a hill,
there where that valley ended
which had pierced my heart with fear,
I looked up and saw its shoulders
already clothed with the rays of the planet
that leads men straight along every road.
Then the fear was somewhat quieted
that had endured in the lake of my heart
through the night that I passed in such pity.

(Int. Enc. Catt.)
DANTE - Inf., I, 1-21, Ed. of Foligno 1472, corrector Giovanni Andrea de' Bussi da Vigevano - Rome, copy in the Biblioteca Angelica.

of a stone and sets D. to sit on its edge. He has conformed himself to the proud of Purgatory and has purged, at least in part, the stain that everyone carries within himself from birth through the effect of Adam's sin, so much so that the truths of the faith begin to be revealed to him more openly. Shortly hereafter we shall hear him confess the principal mysteries of the Christian faith, thus, without knowing it, taking a decisive step toward his liberation.

Thus in the structure of Hell lies the first proof that D.'s thought concerning the two authorities, ministers of the two virtues necessary for temporal and eternal life, corresponds in every respect to the law of God. Offenses against justice and piety in the levels of the sorrowful kingdom, and in the other circles, which proceed from them, or rise above them, are offenses against the virtues that have in those their root or their foundation.

III. THE PURGATORY

Through a "natural burella" the poets climb up backwards along a "ruscelletto" that flows to feed Cocytus, and they come out at the foot of the mountain of Purgatory. At first sight it truly seems that in the ordering of sins the "second kingdom" obeys a different criterion; but the nature of evil is one, and sins, though varying infinitely, always spring from the same root. Indeed, in the second kingdom the ordering principle appears more clearly.

The first character encountered there is an authentic representative of the virtue of Rome, brought by Cato to such perfection as almost to match, by the splendor of the four cardinal virtues, that of the theological virtues symbolized in the sun (Purg., I, 37); for when man, as the De Monarchia teaches, lives in tranquillitate pacis and attends to his most truly own work, he performs an opus fere divinum (I, IV, 2). Shortly afterward there appears a representative of spiritual authority, the angel helmsman who, without oars or sails, carries the souls gathered at the mouth of the Tiber to the world glimpsed by Ulysses - where to seek the happiness the Greeks knew it (De Monarchia, I, 1, 4) — We are barely at the foot of the holy mountain when the poet already calls us back to his dearest idea. But since clarity is never excessive, a little further on, still standing on the «solitary slope» that surrounds purgatory, on one side he finds souls who, through too much love for the beautiful things down here, for art and philosophy, including Virgil himself, thought of God late; on the other, Manfred, who through too much love for the Empire rebelled against the Church. The weave varies, but the warp is that of the flat circles of the Inferno: lack of justice and lack of piety.

Between the first and second pair stands the episode of Casella, one of the most admirable and most admired of the poem. It is commonly held that in it he wished to express the power of music over his soul. Now music certainly plays a part, but not alone. The greatest seduction, in my view, is exercised over those spirits newly arrived at the shore of purgatory by the song «Amor che nella mente», whose content is entirely a praise so warm of human reason that, on hearing it, Virgil forgets everything else and lends ears and soul to that song, as if he felt rising from the dark roots of his being the ancient aspiration to know all things (Virgil, Georg., II, 490). At that moment he wants nothing other than to listen fixedly and attentively; for those notes have renewed his soul and made him forget the end for which he walks that path. But to rouse him from that enchantment comes the cry of Cato, who immediately calls him back to self-awareness. He blushes, is confused, and in his turmoil misinterprets a most natural gesture of D. And then: You wonder, he says, at these our bodies that cast no shadow, and yet suffer torments of heat and cold? But there are, my son, mysteries far greater that it would be madness to hope to explain: «Mad is he who hopes...» (III, 34). And from idea to idea with sincere humility he passes to making his profession of faith in the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is one of the most beautiful pages of the Comedy; but to savor it one must not take it as a piece of bravura; it is born instead from one of D.'s most vivid and profound needs: to open in some way the path to the redemption of the sweet leader. The most human idea that informs it is prepared long in advance and reappears, in embryo, in Virgil's first words to Beatrice (Inf., II, 76-81), throbs in the architectural lines of the noble castle, which make of it a purgatory in miniature, defended round about by the waters of a river, with seven orders of walls each higher than the last, with seven gates and at the summit a bright and lofty open place, inhabited by great spirits; it holds us astonished at the sight of the «fresh green», blooming in the abode of the hopeless; it appears fleetingly in the citation of Genesis; it forms the implied meaning of the episode of Ulysses, made present again by way of contrast by the angel who comes from the mouths of the Tiber; it returns in the vague allusion to the man who «was born and lived without sin»; it inspires the episode of Casella, which ends in an open and candid profession of faith, only to resurface, at the circle of the «slow spirits», in the dream of the stammering woman who under D.'s gaze is transformed into a siren. She sings more sweetly perhaps than the intoner of songs, and declares herself to be precisely the one who turned «Ulysses from his wandering path», and therefore the greatest temptation D. could have. But Virgil, who elsewhere too, even when his pupil was rapt in aesthetic vision (Purg., XV, 124 ff.), has read his thoughts, now seems to feel again the seduction of that song and does not notice that the enchantress is attempting her final assault, until a «holy and ready woman», Lucia, of whom the Utican is a representative, comes to rouse him from his drowsiness. A series of episodes in intimate correspondence with one another, and all ordered toward those of the heaven of Jupiter, where the poet finally finds a solution to the doubt that had been «fasting so very old», and, having cleared the ground of every obstacle, he exhorts all who love and venerate the sweet father and feel themselves sons of Rome, to force heaven, which is pleased to be conquered «by warm love and by living hope» (Par., XX, 94-99), thus yielding to the long «desire» of the spirits of Limbo. D. is a divine dreamer who is not content that the living be happy; he aspires to redeem all those who, through no fault of their own, passed beyond deprived of faith in Christ, but who by the worship they professed to justice well deserved of the human race. «Slow spirits» Cato called the souls who allowed themselves to be seduced by Casella's song. Rightly so.

They have made it clearly understood that they still feel the consequences of the slow love of seeing and acquiring God (Purg., XVII, 130). Sloth is always encountered on the terraces. But purgatory has a second terrace (III, 35), to which one climbs through a cleft in the mountain and where above all one finds the slothful who, enlightened at the last hour by Grace, repented and are saved. To which of the three beasts had they yielded? Doubtless to the leopard, which comes "at the beginning of the ascent" and extends its dominion as far as the fifth circle of hell, where the sluggish in the mire of the Styx weep for having been sad "in the sweet air that is gladdened by the sun": and, like these, the slothful saved in extremis still suffer from the tendency to flee that light and remain motionless in the shadow of a great rock.

A little higher up, one sees coming across the path the souls of those who died by violent death, victims of the lion, whose kingdom is in the hell of evil wrath; and higher still, souls who through greed for their own greatness neglected their duty, and were victims of the she-wolf, which is to say of the serpent "that gave to Eve the bitter food." Indeed every evening, slithering among the grass and the flowers, this one reappears before their eyes, so that they may feel more burning remorse for their guilt.

But D. in the bosom of that "little valley," full of green, has an unexpected joy. In the ninth canto of the Inf. he has witnessed the action of the Messenger who routs the gates of hell; here he witnesses a kind of mystery in which two angels, green their garments and green their wings, descended from the bosom of Him who has broken the "hard judgment," put to flight "the evil streak" that seduced Eve and comes among the grass and the flowers. It is simply absurd to suppose that the serpent represents temptation. The two messengers of heaven are without doubt figures, the one of temporal authority, the other of spiritual, and they clearly make it understood that, thus acting, the one in perfect concord with the other, the she-wolf will be forced to retreat into hell. In all that representation there is no detail that is not explained by the De Monarchia. What in the parallel cantos of the Inferno is said in a somewhat enigmatic form is here openly declared. It is therefore only too right that, after having read in that [Inferno] scenes under a sufficiently transparent veil showing how heaven prepares to redeem the earth from the evil that has corrupted it, the "slumber of tranquility" should descend to refresh the limbs of the poet and he falls asleep secure upon the green enamel, symbol of his heroic hope. The Comedy is the admirable unfolding of a single idea. Whoever still doubted the meaning to be given to Virgil's exclamation: "Blessed is she," need only read on.

At dawn D. dreams of an eagle that comes down from on high and carries him off as far as the region of fire. It is Lucia, the lady of divine justice, the very one who to save him had made use of the arms of Virgil (Inf., VIII, 28 ff.; XXIII, 12 ff.), and to open the gate of Dis had sent a Messenger. Now, to make him overcome the evil "that occupies all the world," she intervenes directly; first she circles around D. (IX, 28), then she takes him in her arms and, in contrast to the she-wolf that "does not let anyone pass along her way," she eases him "along her way," leading him to where with a turn of her eyes she points out to the good leader the gate of St. Peter, guarded by the angel of penitence. The ministers of justice and of mercy always work in accord, but with the understanding, one might say, that, once one has completed his office, at the approach of the one the other withdraws. Lucia has reopened the gate of Dis; a representative of Beatrice will open that of purgatory.

On the bank of the first terrace, which is that of the proud, the order most commonly received. In reality he abandons nothing: he merely qualifies sins with names different from those used for Hell, where from the second to the fifth circle are sinners of lust, gluttony, avarice and prodigality, wrath and sloth, indicated simply by the designation found both in the author of the Ethics and in the Fathers of the Church. And then? Then, if one considers, to say nothing of the rest, that the seventh circle is guarded by a "bestial wrath" equivalent to the "mala ira" of Purgatory (XVII, 19-21), not to be confused with the wrath of the Styx, deriving from incontinence of the irascible and concupiscible appetite; that the Malebolge have as their guardian a monster reflecting in many respects the image of the biblical serpent, symbol of primal envy, are hollowed out in a livid stone, entirely similar to that of the terrace of the envious in the second kingdom, and teem, especially the last ones, with sinners whose guilt depends on that original sin - the thieves conformed themselves to Lucifer changed into a serpent to induce Adam to steal from the tree of the earthly Paradise; Ulysses did not observe the law of limit; the sowers of scandal divided what must be united; the falsifiers are struck by a plague that spares no one, like Adam's sin, not to mention that in their midst stands the figure of one who, Adam also by name, laments a terrestrial paradise of his forever lost - and finally that around and in the midst of the last pit are the same proud ones as in the first terrace (the giants and Lucifer); it will not take long to be persuaded that D. did not give the names of the three capital vices punished in the three last circles, but took care to give us the elements to recognize that in them are crammed the sinners driven to crime by those three vices. It would be irreverent to suppose that the poet, after having relegated to limbo those lacking faith, forgot to give a place to those lacking hope and charity, or that he left outside the abyss the sinners of wrath, envy and pride, the firstborn daughters of evil.

The moral ordering of the Inferno is a masterpiece of thought and feeling; and the lesson of canto XI, given the end the poet aimed at, besides being opportune, reveals, if read with the soul of the poet, an unsuspected warmth. But to see this, one must first reflect that, if to classify sins D. makes use of the language of his ethics, it is no less true that, descending into the remaining circles, he has recourse to all the means that art suggests to him, so that the reader, seeing in them shine through the signs by which to recognize that those names ("mad bestiality, fraud in one who does not trust and fraud in one who trusts") are respectively effects of evil wrath, of envy and of pride, may render due praise to our fathers who had long meditated on the science of good and evil and had splendidly opened the way to Christian truth. Secondly, one must note the anxiety with which he waits for Virgil to define for him upon which sins the divine wrath extends, in order to gather elements that may help him resolve the anguished problem concerning the fate of the just pagans. Finally, one must observe that, pressing the master to explain to him how usury is violence against God, he leads him unwittingly to appeal to the principle of Genesis, that is, to complete his knowledge as a truth of that faith toward which he was oriented and would ever better orient himself along the journey through Hell and Purgatory. Having indeed arrived at the terrace of sloth, the wise guide resumes the treatment of the subject and completes it with the theory concerning love, to which "every good action and its contrary" is reduced; wherefore, having climbed higher, into the seventh circle of the holy mountain, he will say of himself that he feels "nearer to God" (XXVII, 24). It followed as a natural consequence from the concept that the new civilization is an offspring of the ancient. The episode of Statius is born from this same motive. "Through you I was a poet, through you a Christian," exclaims the singer of the Thebaid turning to the singer of the Aeneid. After God, the light to convert came to him from Virgil; and to the work, already prepared, Grace was added. Thus it is explained why Statius asks with affectionate urgency about the companions of the noble castle, even when no other thought should occupy him than that of the beatitude toward which he is about to ascend. They are two worlds that, intimately united with one another, seek each other and perhaps one day will be reunited.

But the whole second kingdom, in its structure, is a splendid variation on one of the thoughts most long meditated by D.: a thought that resurfaces at every leap, now in the angel's invitation to climb higher, addressed not to one alone but to both poets, although one of them comes only with the virtues of pagan Rome; now in the examples to be contemplated; now in Statius, who is a second Virgil made Christian, who rises from a punishment lasting centuries upon centuries and, accompanying our pilgrims, provides them with the explanation of a phenomenon concerning which the Mantuan had never clearly seen the sign of liberation (Inf. XII, 31-45; XXI, 106-14; XXIII, 127 ff.); and now in Matelda who comes from the east singing psalms, and, asked by D., fully confirms the natural philosophy of Statius and then, in step with the three who came from the west, she on the right bank and these on the left, they ascend the current of Lethe and witness a grandiose sacred representation, distributed in three acts. In the first, which begins with D.'s meeting with Matelda, the trial held by God in the redemption of humanity from original sin; in the second the renewed violation of the interdict, and the announcement of rebirth in the third. Matelda indisputably personifies the wisdom of the Old Testament, inspired in the chosen people to prepare the advent of revealed truth and therefore of piety, and the three poets the three principal ages in which Western civilization guided by Rome unfolded; the pagan age with Virgil, who is setting out to become Christian, and becomes such, at a second moment, with Statius, to finally live again whole and full of future in D. who, reconciling them, carries in his breast the new man, citizen of the city that is the « holy place » of the one and the other « sun ».

IV. THE PARADISE

The freedom that the poet enjoyed in placing the realm of eternal sorrow in the dark bowels of the earth and that of purification on the highest mountain, which from an immense sea, full of light, silence and peace, surges toward the region of fire, failed him for the seat of the blessed. Everything almost obliged him to place it in the heavens, as he did; but without thereby altering his design; rather, making number, order and the influences of the planets serve that design, so that what in the preceding cantos was said in figure, through the almost perfect fusion of the moral sense into the literal, finds in the Paradise its explanation.

In the vestibule of Hell are the souls of the vilest, wholly like beasts, and therefore deprived of the faculties by which man is man; in the moon (which, according to Benvenuto, inclinat mulieres sua influentia ad virginitatem and has here and there a defect of light), are the souls of nuns, who chose well the path to follow, but did not have the strength to pursue it to the end. They yielded, in fact, to the violence of others and thus showed that they did not possess whole that will which in those others was entirely lacking (IV, 76 ff.).

The glorification of the Empire, begun in limbo with the review of the great spirits who prepared its advent, finds its completion in the heaven of Mercury (significant, in the opinion of the same commentator, of praise, fame, poverty and similar things), in the hymn raised by Justinian to the eagle of Rome and to Romeo, "a person humble and a pilgrim," but worthy, for his love of justice, to enjoy the same degree of beatitude. But since in limbo for several centuries the Hebrew patriarchs were relegated, who prepared the advent of piety; behold, before leaving that heaven, Beatrice extols "the high and magnificent process" held by God through the Incarnation and death of the Son. A canto to the eagle and a canto to the Cross, the signs by virtue of which we were redeemed from original guilt.

Approaching the circle of the lustful, D. perceives the roaring of a tempest, which drives the spirits around "with its rapine"; and, having risen to the heaven of Venus, he sees spirits "move in a circle more or less swift," speaks of winds that blow swiftly and then, as in the episode of Francesca, fall silent for a little, and there presents itself a series of souls who in life too much abandoned themselves to the passion inspired by that star, but freed themselves from it in time and turned all their love to God. To find some of them in paradise one must confess surprises us a little. When, however, at the end of the canto one reads reconfirmed the prophecy of the imminent liberation of Rome "from the adulterer," then, returning in memory to Inferno IX, in which the Messenger of heaven drives the devils back into Malebolge, and to Purgatorio IX, where Lucia, having taken D. in her arms, eases him "along his way," one understands that by those names the poet meant: evil has no abyss from which God cannot redeem us; as those slaves of the flesh now rejoice in the "valor that ordained and provided" (IX, 105), so men will soon be able to rejoice in the new order that the Coming One will establish in the world.

In the heaven of Venus the cone of shadow of our planet comes to a point; and from the third heaven upward we enter and become inebriated in an ocean of light, in the sun, studded with spirits "living and conquering" the whiteness of its rays. They are of those to whom it was supremely sweet to satisfy the thirst "that never sates" at the fountain of divine wisdom. "The refreshment of the eternal rain" that drinks them in and the language they often and willingly use (X, 88, 96, 111; XI, 124 ff.; XII, 84; XIII, 39) say with sufficient clarity that the poet thinks of them in contrast with the gluttons of the "circle of the rain," eternal and accursed. But whoever does not keep his eye fixed on earthly things and raises it "to the eternal wheels," yielding to the poet's exhortation (X, 7-27), is not redeemed only from "the harmful fault of gluttony." Indeed the souls who did not remain in human hunger, but fed "on the bread of the angels," in speaking recite the praises of St. Francis, the spouse of Lady Poverty, happy to possess nothing of that for which the world toils; then those of St. Dominic, "who struck among the heretical thorns," in defense of the Faith, with which he had accomplished "the espousals" at the baptismal font; they demonstrate how worthy of a royal crown was Solomon, who asked for wisdom "so that he might be a sufficient king," while on earth many consider themselves "great kings," who will go to tear each other apart in the mire of the Styx; and finally they feel themselves rapt by a wave of joy more powerful on hearing the same Solomon invoke the day when "the glorious and holy flesh shall be reclothed." They touch, in short, on all the principal motifs offered to the reader's meditation by the circle of Ciacco, where for the first time there is speech of the resurrection, to that of the heretics condemned in the sixth.

But the cantos of the sun invite us to note something else as well: this, first of all, that the center around which the three crowns of sages dance is Beatrice, revealed truth, but also the poet (XII, 20): not, certainly, because he believed he was one with his lady, but rather to make us understand that he had ended by conforming himself entirely to her, was a reflection of her, like the blessed who gaze upon her. The first garland receives its character from the Aquinate, and represents the work accomplished by the School in favor of wisdom, a sun of truth that shines and burns more than the natural sun. To attain so high an end, neither two nor three, however great in genius, would have sufficed: the concurrence of many was required who under different aspects, according to a particular orientation, have illustrated the true, concordant in keeping their gaze always fixed on the "fount from which every truth derives" (IV, 116). They aimed at the same goal: they deserve to be celebrated together (XI, 42; X, 133). But various are the paths to tread. The second crown, in fact, takes its tone from the Seraphic Doctor. It pleased good Friar Thomas to philosophize and theologize in the footsteps of Aristotle; Bonaventure in those of Augustine. The fair company of sages at whose head he stands, embracing the other in its circuit, and completing it at the same time, is a sign that it turns more swiftly, sees more deeply into the divine essence and loves more (XXIV, 18; XXVIII, 100). To the method of the scholastics D. now prefers that of the mystics, to which Beatrice had initiated him as a youth and to which he has definitively returned. But this does not mean that between the two glorious wheels there is discord. The one inserts its rays into the other (XIII, 16), they make the same rejoicing and flame with "light with light, joyous and gentle." In life they sometimes disagreed and fought one another; now they do not even remember the disputes they sustained. The true cult of wisdom has raised them into a sphere where there is perfect harmony, by grace of which they know that even in error a part of truth lies hidden, and the discord between flesh and spirit, at first sight insuperable, can be considered likewise overcome in the words, so full of desire, concerning the resurrection (XIV, 43 ff.): when behold, all around

...of equal clarity,
a luster is born above what was there,
like a horizon that brightens (XIV, 67 ff.).

Beyond the first two garlands, D. suddenly sees a third shining with such splendor that he is dazzled by it. Who are they? "Oh true sparkling of the Holy Spirit," exclaims the poet, but without naming anyone. Sages, then, who drew, or must draw, their inspiration from eternal Love. So that after the scholastics and the mystics he wishes for the world a host of philosophers and theologians who may resolve the truths conquered by those into a higher truth. No other meaning is easy to attribute to the image that serves as a corollary to the figurations appearing in the sun, unless one prefers to pass over it, as if the poet, for once, had wanted to indulge himself in saying something without saying anything.

With a dialectician of such depth there is no longer any reason to discuss whether his doctrines are to be found in one rather than another of the authors he studied, or whether in the Commedia he is a mystic or a scholastic. From the poem one derives the indisputable exhortation to aim, starting from Revelation, at truth "with clear eye and pure affection," to recognize it from whomever it may come, and not to inveigh against those who, in seeking it, err. Thus Virgil cooperates in the salvation of the world, as does St. Bernard.

In Mars, god of war, it followed naturally that D. should find the spirits of those who placed at the service of piety that force of which the damned of the seventh circle made use to do injury to their neighbor, to themselves and to God. Down there one enters through a kind of breach opened in the infernal abyss at the death of Christ on the cross, and during the time that D. spends considering the effects of mad wrath, his master speaks to him of a stream as the most noteworthy thing among the sights seen thus far, inasmuch as only by virtue of the vapors it exhales is it possible to free oneself from that evil. Up there he marvels in stupefaction at Christ flashing in a great cross that stretches its arms from one pole of the planet to the other. From the souls that stud it there comes to his ears a hymn, of which he catches only the principal motif that says: "Rise again and conquer." To whom do they address these words? To the poet, or to men who live as slaves of death? To both, for the Commedia announces the resurrection to all. Moreover, in the fifth heaven D. has the good fortune to meet his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, who comforts him to endure manfully the blows of adverse fortune. Something similar he had heard from the "good and dear paternal image" of ser Brunetto. Up there the praises of ancient Florence; down here, asked about the present state of his city, he is constrained by bitterness to lift his face and cry out: "The new people and the sudden gains." The reader can continue the comparisons on his own.

They ascend into Jupiter, the gentle star that mediates justice. To demonstrate that the souls descended into it are the opposite of those punished in Malebolge would be superfluous. Whoever is ignorant of D.'s passion for that virtue and the cult paid to its symbol, the eagle of Rome, will not be surprised that he can smile at that kind of cinematography invented to describe the successive figurations in which the spirits of the just arrange themselves. Poetry gains nothing from it; but for him to contemplate with his own eyes, stamped in gold amid the silver of the planet, the initial of his monarchy which shortly thereafter, with a slight movement, transforms into the sign "that made the Romans reverend to the world," and to hear it speak in such a way that from so many voices one single voice results, meant obtaining directly from God the seal upon the idea that was his passion. Nor would the reflection that this was a fantasy have arisen to disturb their joy. With its form, its lights, its movements the eagle did nothing but sanction the law by which God governs the world: eternal, immutable, real law.

The problem of the salvation of the just pagans had its roots in the most delicate fibers of his heart; and one would have to be entirely devoid of feeling not to share in the emotion with which he formulates his doubt and in the trepidation with which he follows every phrase, every accent of the eagle's response. On earth, he confesses, he had found nothing to satisfy his hunger: he carried it all with him into the beyond, and so biting that, already at the beginning of his journey, having barely learned from which spirits limbo is inhabited, he bursts forth into the invocation: "Tell me, my master, tell me, lord," full of anxiety; and in the eighth bolgia at the sight of the two-pointed flame, where Ulysses and Diomedes are, having premised that he felt himself instinctively drawn toward it, with unequaled ardor he begs Virgil "that the prayer be worth a thousand" prayers and that he allow him to speak. The son of Laertes meant for him all Greek Wisdom. But the hero's tale can only have sharpened his thirst. Only the eagle offers him a "sweet medicine."

From the heaven of Jupiter one ascends to the "crystal" of Saturn, which by its influences disposes one to the contemplative life, for D. the best of all. The beautiful ladder by which the souls descend and ascend he did not invent, but he has the merit of having discovered in it the luminous symbol of the spirits who come to meet him. Of love, as was inevitable, all the blessed speak; but in the seventh heaven with more insistence than elsewhere (XXI, 45, 69-69, 74, 82; XXII, 52). It was and is their preeminent virtue, the one in which every commandment is resolved; in evident contrast with the traitors of Cocytus, who knew nothing but hatred, and violated the compendium of all laws: "Love God and your neighbor as yourself." In the ice of the ninth circle, the most terrifying ruin of all, sign of a death without redemption; and in Saturn a loud cry that promises this death near. Making a ladder of Lucifer's body, the poets emerge "to see the stars again"; and at a sign from Beatrice in an instant D. flies up that ladder and is in the starry heaven, that is, in the vestibule of the highest paradise.

The examinations concerning the three theological virtues complete the acts of faith, hope and charity performed upon entering the first, sixth and ninth infernal circles, symbolized in his turning to the right; and more things, of capital importance for the poet, are derived from the conversation with Adam: that evil has its origin in transgressing the limits assigned assigned to our faculties; that from evil one can and must redeem oneself through sorrow comforted by the hope of future glory; that it is the nature of man always to advance and create new instruments for his progress, as the changing of languages demonstrates (XXVI, 115 ff.).

In confirmation of what has been said, one turns a last glance at the "white rose," where all the fruit gathered from celestial influences, from good will and from Grace is found. Divided into two great halves, in a seat of the highest rank sits Mary, from whom the age of Redemption begins, and facing her the Baptist, who closes the preceding age and announces the new. To the right of the "Virgin mother" are the souls of the Fathers and teachers of the Church in whom the cult of piety prevailed (St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist); to the left the souls of the fathers and legislators of the humana civilitas who above all loved justice (Adam, Moses). Opposite Mary, to the right of the Baptist, is St. Anne, happy to contemplate her daughter; to the left Lucia-eagle, the minister of divine justice. So that paradise is nothing other than a "most just and pious empire," after whose example D. prophesies that of men will soon be formed, figured in Adam's tree made in a cone, like the white rose, and like, but inverted, is also the empire of Dis, where there are only the impious and unjust. It would remain to analyze in what relation God and Satan stand; but it is clear to all that they are in perfect antithesis.

Whatever value may be assigned to the architecture of the Commedia in relation to art, it is certain that it possesses an admirable harmony and, together with its background, offers the explanation of many of the countless scenes of which it is composed. Given his undertaking, the poet had to ensure that the reader would not believe those worlds to be a human work, but a divine one; and this would have been possible only on condition that they appeared to him stamped with the order that shines in the universe. The difficulties to be overcome, already great in the first two canticles, were very great in the last; and he overcame them. The architectonic genius did not conflict with the poetic.

Contrary to what is often repeated, in the Paradiso Beatrice becomes more human; she has smiles, glances, words and gestures such as are found in mothers, in sisters and in the purest and most foreseeing and most affectionate of lovers. The blessed who descend from the empyrean to come to meet D. give him the most joyful and loving welcomes, burn with greater charity, if chosen to satisfy his desires or to resolve his problems, and despite that band of light that hides them from our sight, they are poetry that makes us feel them near. They are like us, much better than we are; and they take so lively an interest in the fate of the brothers left on earth, and pray with such ardour that God may hasten to free them from the slavery of the she-wolf, that they almost move us. In the spheres of heaven D. brought all of himself, his dreams, his hopes, his magnanimous wrath and his most delicate refinements of feeling, and created episodes that do not fade in comparison with the best known of the Inferno and the Purgatorio, such as, to cite a few, those of Piccarda, Romeo, St. Francis, Cacciaguida, St. Bernard. It is true that at times he indulges too much in the need to account for everything and to reason; but it is rare that he assembles cold syllogisms without reviving them with flashes of genuine poetry.

V. THE POEM OF HARMONY

All things considered, it is legitimate to conclude that to separate the aesthetic unity of the sacred poem from its conceptual unity is not fitting, or, better said, is not possible. It is born from the idea most long meditated, cherished and idolized by the poet. Therefore, going « behind the posts of the dear feet », the poem, judged among the most obscure, becomes most clear; the interpretation of the symbols becomes an almost mathematical operation, on account of the many parallel passages that determine them; riddles and enigmas are found not to exist, unless one claims to know the name of the Veltro who, in 1300, being unborn, had not yet been baptized. Certainly it astonishes one to think that the poet created so great a work of art by forcing the imagination within the gates of a structure, simple in its principal lines and most complicated in its accessory ones. Yet the undertaking of weaving the web of the poem in such a way that the three canticles, in the whole and in the parts, should correspond among themselves, from one passage referring to another, from one circle of Hell to a terrace of Purgatory and from this to one of the heavens, if at times it induced him to make use of rather material means and to fall into subtleties, in most cases, rather than harming the beauty, perhaps benefited it; because the passion with which he molded it into a living organism is impressed equally in the doctrinal parts as in the others. It is the same passion that is found in the minor works, which drove him to climb ever higher up to God, and drew him safe from the deep to the shore. He believes in the supreme values of the spirit as we believe in the sun. He thinks them, loves them, wills them, lives by them. He is firmly persuaded that only in them will men have peace and rest, and he never ceases to point them out to his own desire and to that of others. In the certainty that sooner or later the kingdom of piety and justice will come unfailingly, he awaits it anxiously and at times impatiently. He wishes to greet its dawn. Afterward, dying will not be grievous to him. Remove from his breast this faith and this hope, and you will no longer recognize him. They are so alive that he does not perceive the society by then changed and set upon a new path. He cannot perceive it. He is convinced that his conception is firmly founded on the sacred writings and on history, and he holds it to be unshakable. He does not suspect how great a part of himself he has given to the interpretation of facts. The age of the Empire, such as he dreamed it, had long since passed, and that of the Church was still to come. In one respect it has befallen him to place his idea in the past, in another in a distant future; but ancient and ever new is our need for justice and for God. Therefore the ideal of D. knows no sunsets; and neither does the Commedia, in which it shines in all its beauty. - See plates LXXX-LXXXI.

Commentaries on the Divine Comedy. - For the information they provide and especially for knowledge of the language of the time, mention should be made of the first commentaries written a few years after the poet's death or during the 14th century by Iacopo della Lana, by an anonymous Florentine known as l'Ottimo, and the chiese of Pietro, son of D.; more important than all of them, in the first 17 cantos of the Inferno which he composed, is the commentary of G. Boccaccio. Notable are those of Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola, a reader of the Commedia at Bologna, on all three canticles, in Latin; of Francesco da Buti, an expounder of D. at Pisa; and of another anonymous Florentine on the Inferno and half of the Purgatorio. On these see L. Rocca, Di alcuni commenti alla Divina Commedia composti nei primi venti anni dopo la morte di D., Florence 1891. A said commentary was given in the 15th century by Cristoforo Landino. Important, for anyone who loves to follow the history of the interpretations of the poem, are those of A. Vellutello and B. Daniello in the 16th century. In the 18th century those of Fr. Pompeo Venturi, a Jesuit, and of Fr. Baldassarre Lombardi, a Conventual Minorite, saw the light. To the understanding of D.'s poetry some contribution is made by Gaspare Gozzi's defense against the censures of Fr. Saverio Bettinelli, but Giambattista Vico regally opens the way with the Scienza Nuova. The 19th century abounded in commentaries, which begin to broaden the interpretation of the poem, to study the times and all of D.'s works. Here it is well to point out the Discorso sopra il testo della Divina Commedia of Ugo Foscolo, and among the commentaries that of Niccolò Tommaseo, Milan 1895; of Brunone Bianchi, Florence 1890; of Raffaele Andreoli, ibid. 1886. A considerable step was taken by Dante criticism thanks to the Storia della letteratura italiana of Francesco De Sanctis and to the famous essays on the most beautiful episodes of the Inferno. Alongside him it is worth recalling: B. Croce, La poesia di D., Bari 1921; K. Vossler, Die Göttliche Komödie, Heidelberg 1923, Italian trans., Bari 1927; L. Russo, Problemi di metodo critico, ibid. 1929. A work intended to gather and discuss the centuries-old exegetical tradition of the Commedia is found in the major commentary of G. A. Scartazzini, Leipzig 1874-82. It continues and in part improves it: La D. C. nella figurazione artistica e nel secolare commento, by G. Biagi, E. Rostagno, G. L. Passerini and, for the Paradiso, by U. Cosmo. For educated people and for schools there are the commentaries of T. Casini, the minor commentary of G. A. Scartazzini, entirely reworked by G. Vandelli, and those of G. Poletto, F. Torraca, C. Steiner, L. Pietrobono, V. Rossi (continued by S. Frascino), G. A. Venturi, I. Del Lungo, F. Flamini and A. Pompeati, Carlo Grabher, A. Momigliano, M. Porena, E. Rivalta, Dino Provenzal. For those who wish to deepen the study of the poet, the following are cited: I. Del Lungo, D. nei tempi di D., Bologna 1888; F. X. Kraus, D., sein Leben und sein Werk, sein Verhältnis zur Kunst und Politik, Berlin 1897; F. D'Ovidio, Dal secolo e dal poema di D., Bologna 1898; G. Pascoli, Minerva oscura, Livorno 1898; id., Sotto il volume, Messina 1900, Bologna 1923; F. D'Ovidio, Studi sulla Divina Commedia, Palermo 1901; G. Pascoli, La mirabile visione, Messina 1902, Bologna 1913; F. D'Ovidio, Nuovi studi danteschi, Milan 1906-1907; G. Pascoli, Conferenze e studi danteschi, Bologna 1915; L. Pietrobono, Il poema sacro, 2 vols., ibid. 1915; M. Barbi, Studi sul canzoniere di D., Florence 1915; E. G. Parodi, Poesia e storia della Divina Commedia, Naples 1921; G. Gentile, La filosofia di D., in D. e l'Italia, Rome 1921; G. Busnelli, Cosmogonia e antropogenesi secondo D. e le sue fonti, ibid. 1922; L. Valli, L'allegoria di D. secondo G. Pascoli, Bologna 1922; id., Il segreto della Croce e dell'aquila nella Divina Commedia, ibid. 1922; L. Pietrobono, Dal centro al cerchio, Turin 1923; F. D'Ovidio, Nuovo volume di studi danteschi, Caserta 1926; id., L'ultimo volume dantesco, ibid. 1926; L. Valli, I fedeli d'amore, Rome 1928; B. Nardi, Saggi di filosofia dantesca, Milan 1930; N. Zingarelli, La vita, i tempi e le opere di D., ibid. 1931; M. Barbi, Problemi di critica dantesca, Florence 1934; L. Valli, La struttura morale dell'universo dantesco, Rome 1935; L. Pietrobono, Saggi danteschi, ibid. 1936; U. Cosmo, L'ultima ascesa, Bari 1936; E. Gilson, D. et la philosophie, Paris 1939; M. Barbi, Nuovi problemi di critica dantesca, Florence 1941; id., Con D. e i suoi interpreti, ibid. 1941; G. Mazzoni, Almos lucen, malos cruces, Bologna 1941; B. Nardi, D. e la cultura medievale: Nuovi saggi di filosofia dantesca, Bari 1942; M. Rossi, Gusto filosofico e gusto poetico, ibid. 1943; B. Nardi, Nel mondo di D., Rome 1944; U. Cosmo, Guida a D., Turin 1947; E. Cerulli, Il « Libro della Scala » e la questione delle fonti arabo-spagnole della Div. Comm., Vatican City 1949.

Life. - G. Salvadori, Sulla vita giovanile di D., Rome 1901; A. Solerti, Le vite di D. ecc. scritte fino al sec. XVII, Milan 1904; G. Boccaccio, Trattatello in laude di D., in the redaction given by D. Guerri (G. Boccaccio, Il commento alla Divina Commedia), Bari 1918; G. L. Passerini, La vita di D., Florence 1920; U. Cosmo, Vita di D., Bari 1930; L. Fassò, D. La vita, ibid. 1935; T. Gallarati-Scotti, Vita di D., Milan 1939; M. Barbi, D. Vita opere e fortuna con due saggi su Francesco e Farinata, Florence 1940.

Reference works. - G. Poletto, Dizionario dantesco, 7 vols., and 1 of appendix, Siena 1885-92; L'Alighieri, directed by F. Pasqualigo, Verona-Venice 1889-93; Bullettino della Soc. Dant. it., Florence 1890-1921; G. A. Scartazzini, Enc. dantesca, 2 vols., Milan 1896-99; id., Dantologia, ibid. 1906; M. Barbi, Studi danteschi, Florence 1920 ff.; Il giornale dantesco, directed by G. L. Passerini and from 1924 by L. Pietrobono up to vol. XIII, to which has succeeded L'annuario dantesco, vols. I-XIII; R. Piattoli, Codice diplomatico dantesco, Florence 1940.

Translations of the Commedia. - For those prior to 1888 cf.: C. De Batines, Bibl. dantesca, 3 vols., Prato 1845-48, and the Giunte e correzioni to the same, publ. by G. Biagi, Florence 1888; of those later than that date the following are pointed out, among others: French: M. Durand Fardel (Paris 1895), A. de Margerie (ibid. 1900), A. Pézard (ibid. 1927); English: C. E. Norton (Boston 1891-92), T. W. Parsons (ibid. 1893), W. Warren Vernon (London 1894-97), C. Langdon (Harvard 1918-21), J. Butler Fletcher (New York 1931), L. Lolkert (Princeton 1931, Inf. only), M. Best Anderson (Oxford 1932), L. Binyon (London 1933, Inf. only); Polish: E. Porebowicz (Warsaw 1899); Romanian: G. Coșbuc (Bucharest 1925-32); Spanish: B. Mitre (Buenos Aires 1894), N. Verdaguer (Barcelona 1921); Swedish: E. Lidforss (Stockholm 1903), S. C. Bring (ibid. and Uppsala 1904-1906), A. Pipping (Helsingfors 1924); German: C. Bertrand (Heidelberg 1887-94), P. Pochhammer (Leipzig 1901), L. Zuckermandel (Strasbourg 1914-22), K. Falke (Zurich 1921), R. Zoozmann (Leipzig, rev. ed., ibid. 1921), St. George (Berlin 1925, partial), R. Schöner (Rome 1929), R. Borchardt (Munich 1930), Fr. v. Falkenhausen (Leipzig 1937), K. Vossler (Berlin 1942); Hungarian: C. Szász (Budapest 1885-91), M. Babits (ibid. 1913-23).

Fortuna di D. all'estero. - Cf.: M. Besso, La fortuna di D. fuori d'Italia, Firenze 1912; A. Farinelli, D. in Spagna, Francia, Inghilterra, Germania, Torino 1922. Inoltre: per l'America; C. H. Grandgent, Il contributo americano agli studi danteschi, in Giorn. dant., 18 (1910), pp. 45-52; T. N. Page, D. and his influence, Università di Virginia, 1922; per la Francia; A. Farinelli, D. e la Francia dall'età media al sec. di Voltaire, 2 voll., Milano 1908; A. Counson, Le réveil de D., in Revue de littér. comparée, 1 (1921), pp. 362-87; D. Mélanges de critique et d'érudition françaises publiés à l'occasion de VIe centenaire de la mort du poète, Parigi 1921; per la Germania; G. Gabetti, D. e la Germania, nel vol. misc. D., Milano 1921, pp. 281-314; K. Vossler, D. in Germania, in La nuova Italia, 13 (1942), pp. 121-26; per il Giappone; Jukichi Oga, Bibl. dant. giapponese, 2ª ed., Firenze 1930; per l'Inghilterra; P. Toynbee, D. in english literature from Chaucer to Cary, Londra 1909; id., The Oxford D. Society, Oxford 1920; id., Britain's Tribute to D., in Literature and art (1580-1920), Londra 1921; per l'Olanda; J. L. Cohen, D. in de Nederlandsche Letterkunde, Haarlem 1929; per la Polonia; S. P. Koczorowski, D. in Polsce, Cracovia 1921; per la Romania; G. Tagliavini, La fortuna di D. in Romania, in L'Italia che scrive, 4 (1921), pp. 221-222, ed altri sette articoli di autori vari su La fortuna di D. nel mondo (v. inoltre bibl. di Gh. Cardaş, in Mijcarea literară, 2 (1925), numero unico dedicato a D.); per la Russia e i paesi slavi; E. Lo Gatto, Sulla fortuna di D. in Russia, in Saggi sulla cultura russa, Napoli 1923; A. Cronia, D. nella letteratura serbo-croata, in L'Europa Orientale, 1 (1921), p. 4 ff.; for Sweden; L'Italia nella lett. svedese, Gothenburg 1944; for Switzerland; D. in der Schweiz, Zurich 1896; for Hungary; G. Kaposy, Bibl. dant. ungherese, Budapest 1922. Finally, see the Supplemento bibl. (1921-48) to the cited work by N. Zingarelli, edited by A. Vallone, Milan 1948, pp. IX-X.