Dies Irae

DIES IRAE. - Sequence for the Mass of the Dead, consisting of seventeen ternary stanzas of paroxytone monorhymed octosyllables, plus six of a closing section, in a different strophic system: 57 verses in all. But its original length cannot have been this, also because in its content, up to verse 51, nothing alludes to the dead and the pains of purgatory: it is probable therefore that the hymn was sung in this form at the Mass of the first Sunday of Advent, as a fitting preparation for the Gospel passage on the end of the world (Lk. 21:25-33) that is read on that day. Subsequently the three concluding distichs were added, which made it suitable for the Mass for the dead, and it spread thanks to the Franciscan and Dominican liturgical books (the present text is already found in the Missale Romanum, published in Venice in 1493). This hypothesis about the primitive structure of the sequence seems confirmed also by one of the oldest redactions known, preserved for us in a codex from Caramanico (now in the National Library of Naples [VII. D. 36], late 12th century), which ends precisely with the tercet corresponding to the 17th of the Roman Missal. It must not be passed over in silence, however, that another of the oldest codices (Angelica Library in Rome [D. 7. 3.], from the monastery of the Hermits of St. Augustine in Jerusalem, palaeographically assignable to the 13th century), reproduces faithfully the text of the Missal, including the six final verses. Two late versions of the D. i. then deserve particular mention, one preserved in the church of St. Francis in Mantua (engraved there in characters no earlier than the beginning of the 15th century) and the other in the works of Felix Hammerlin (or Hemmerli), a well-known political-religious writer of Zurich (1388-1461 ca.), canon and cantor of that city; but both present such variations and expansions with respect to the redaction of the Missal (the Mantuan text comprises 22 stanzas, the Hammerlinian 24) as to suggest the work of little-skilled and ill-advised rehandlers.

A highly controversial question is that of the time of composition and the author of the hymn. The most varied names have been put forward, from Gregory the Great to Innocent III, from St. Bernard to St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas, to cite only the most illustrious; Ermini recently has maintained the attribution to Thomas of Celano (b. ca. 1200), the biographer of St. Francis, also the author of two other sequences (Fregit victor virtualis and Sanctitatis nova signa). This attribution was founded on a certain tradition of the Franciscan Order (for example, Friar Bartholomew of Pisa, in his Liber conformitatum, written between 1383 and 1390, attests that Thomas of Celano «prosam de mortuis, quae cantatur in Missa, D. i. dies illa, etiam fecisse dicitur», a notice that is confirmed by the late epitaph placed on his tomb); therefore before Ermini, Wadding, Daniel, Mohnike, Chevalier and Raby had declared themselves in favor of Celano. However, it cannot escape notice that the relations of style and thought that he established between the writings of Celano and the D. i. are quite tenuous, while Inguanez, who published the redaction contained in the codex of Caramanico, antedated its composition to the 12th century.

Nor does it seem indispensable to think of 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 nebulae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos» (Soph. 1:14-16). Moreover, the whole Middle Ages is extraordinarily rich in liturgical sequences whose subject is penance and the universal Judgment (Ermini himself counts no fewer than about eighty of them); for his part Inguanez recalls a rhythm of the 8th-9th century, whose similarities of form and content to the D. i. are very significant. Furthermore, even the not strictly liturgical literature of the Middle Ages takes pleasure in transmitting through the centuries and in developing with particular delight themes that often have an evident connection with the matter of the D. i.: suffice it to recall, for example, the very widespread «contrasti» between the soul and the body.

If the author of the sequence did not treat an original subject, nevertheless his verses possess a singular expressive and incisive force, and reflect the sincere emotion of the sinner, who, though he is greatly disturbed at first by the idea of the Judge who will have to know and weigh all his faults, is then calmed in the hope, indeed in the certainty, of divine clemency, toward which the poet finds accents of simple and serene trust.

Ruggero M. Ruggieri

The D. i. is obligatory in all Masses for the dead, with the exception of the daily one, in 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 Notturno di Pasqua. It can also be compared with the verse of the responsory Libera me (indeed some authors maintain that the D. i. is nothing other than a trope of this verse), and it is developed in a manner that departs greatly from the serenity of the Gregorian melodies that illustrate the thought of death: these create an atmosphere of peace and light, that one requires the terribleness of the final judgment. This theme inspired, in classical polyphony, Palestrina, Victoria, O. Vecchi, F. Anerio, etc., while in later centuries the sequence was freely set to music with a profane and sometimes melodramatic character (Mozart, Cherubini, Verdi). In the modern era the original theme reappears here and there in compositions by Berlioz (Symphonie fantastique, Grande Messe des Morts), by Liszt (Symphonie zu Dante's Divina Commedia, Inferno), by Saint-Saëns (Danse macabre), etc.

Pietro Thomis