«DIES IRAE». — Sequence for the Mass of the Dead, consisting of seventeen ternary stanzas of monorhymed regular octosyllabic lines, plus six closing stanzas in a different strophic form: 57 lines in all. But its original length cannot have been this, also because, in its content, up to line 51 nothing refers to the dead or to the pains of purgatory: it is therefore probable that the hymn was sung in this form at the Mass of the first Sunday of Advent, as a suitable preparation for the Gospel passage concerning the end of the world (Lc. 21, 25-33) read on that day. The three concluding couplets were subsequently added, making it suitable for the Mass for the Dead, and it spread through the Franciscan and Dominican liturgical books (the present text is already found in the Missale Romanum, published in Venice in 1493). This hypothesis concerning the primitive structure of the sequence also seems to be confirmed by one of the oldest known versions, preserved in a codex from Caramanico (now in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples [VII. D. 36], from the end of the 12th century), which ends precisely with the tercet corresponding to the 17th in the Roman Missal. It must not, however, be left unmentioned that another of the oldest codices (the Biblioteca Angelica of Rome [D. 7. 3.], from the monastery of the Hermits of S. Augustine in Jerusalem, paleographically attributable to the 13th century) faithfully reproduces the text of the Missal, including the six final lines. Particular mention should then be made of two late versions of the D. i., one preserved in the church of S. Francesco of Mantua (engraved there in characters no earlier than the beginning of the 15th century), and the other in the works of Felice Hammerlin (or Hemmerli), a noted politico-religious writer of Zurich (c. 1388–1461), canon and cantor of that city; but both present such variations and expansions in relation to the Missal version (the Mantuan text comprises 22 stanzas, the Hammerlin version 24) that they must be suspected of being the work of persons little skilled and ill-suited to the task of reworking II.
A highly controversial question is that of the date of composition and the author of the hymn. The most varied names have been put forward, from Gregory the Great to Innocent III, from S. Bernard to S. Bonaventure and S. Thomas, to mention only the most distinguished; Ermini recently argued for its attribution to Tommaso da Celano (born c. 1200), the biographer of S. Francesco, also the author of two other sequences (Fregit victor virtualis and Sanctitatis nova signa). This attribution was based on a certain tradition of the Franciscan Order (for example, fra Bartolomeo da Pisa, in his Liber conformitatum, written between 1383 and 1390, attests that Tommaso da Celano «prosam de mortuis, quae cantatur in Missa, D. i. dies illa, etiam fecisse dicitur», a report confirmed by the late epitaph placed on his tomb); thus, before Ermini, Wadding, Daniel, Mohnike, Chevalier, and Raby had expressed their support for the Celanese attribution. It cannot, however, escape notice that the stylistic and intellectual affinities he established between the writings of the Celanese and the D. i. are very tenuous, whereas Inguanez, who published the version contained in the Caramanico codex, assigned its composition to the 12th century.
Nor does it seem indispensable to posit an influence of pseudo-prophetic literature and Joachimite thought on the inspiration of the first stanzas, which depict the Day of Judgment in terrifying colors, if one bears in mind the biblical passage: «Dies irae dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebuliae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos» (Soph. 1, 14-16). In any case, the entire Middle Ages is extraordinarily rich in liturgical sequences whose subject is penance and the Last Judgment (Ermini himself lists no fewer than eighty); for his part, Inguanez recalls an 8th- or 9th-century rhythm whose similarities of form and content with the D. i. are highly significant. Moreover, even the non-strictly liturgical literature of the Middle Ages took pleasure in transmitting through the centuries and elaborating with particular relish themes often plainly connected with the subject matter of the D. i.: suffice it to recall, for example, the widely disseminated «debates» between the soul and the body.
Although the author of the sequence did not develop an original subject, his verses nevertheless possess singular expressive and incisive force, and reflect the sinner’s sincere emotion: at first he is deeply troubled by the thought of the Judge who will know and weigh all his sins, but then he is calmed by hope, indeed by certainty, in the face of divine clemency, toward which the poet finds accents of simple and serene trust.
The D. i. is obligatory in all Masses for the Dead, with the exception of the daily one, at which, when it is not sung, it may be omitted.
The musical theme of the D. i. is taken from the antiphon Ego sum qui sum, of the first psalm of the Paschal Nocturns. It may also be compared with the versicle of the responsory Libera me (indeed, some authors maintain that the D. i. is nothing other than a trope of this versicle), and is developed in a manner that departs considerably from the serenity of the Gregorian melodies illustrating the thought of death: these create an atmosphere of peace and light, whereas that seeks to convey the dreadfulness of the final judgment. In classical polyphony, Palestrina, Victoria, O. Vecchi, F. Anerio, and others drew inspiration from this theme, while in later centuries the sequence was freely set to music with a secular and at times operatic character (Mozart, Cherubini, Verdi). In the modern period the original theme reappears here and there in compositions by Berlioz (Symphonie fantastique, Grande Messe des Marts), Liszt (Symphonie zu Dante's Divina Commedia, Inferno), Saint-Saëns (Danse macabre), and others. Pietro Thomis