1274 As Dante tells the story in chapter XXIV of La Vita Nuova (1295), his autobiographical quest for spiritual perfection through his idealised love of Beatrice, they met only once again. While out walking in Florence, the poet feels the dormant spirit of love suddenly wake in his heart. Then he sees Love himself afar off, who approaches and says laughing, ‘Try to show me some respect’. At that point he sees Beatrice approaching, accompanied by the Lady Vanna, of whom Love says: ‘She is the spring, but the other must be called Love, since she resembles me so much’:
Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core
Un spirito amoroso che dormia:
E poi vidi venir da lungi Amore
Allegro sì, che appena il conoscia,
Dicendo: ‘Or pensa pur di farmi onore’;
E ’n ciascuna parola sua ridia.
E poco stando meco il mio segnore,
Guardando in quella parte onde venia,
Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice
Venire inver lo loco là ’v’io era,
L’una appresso de l’altra maraviglia;
E sì come la mente mi ridice,
Amor mi disse: ‘Quell’è Primavera,
E quell’ha nome Amor, sì mi somiglia.’1
The scene would be painted by Henry Holiday (1839–1927), the English Pre-Raphaelite. Three women stroll along the banks of the Arno. Of the two in front, Vanna is in red and Beatrice in white, while Dante stands astonished at the corner of a bridge, clutching his heart. But whereas the artist presents the poet as stricken by the sight of Beatrice, Dante’s point is that the emotion precedes the object. His imagination wouldn’t have invoked the god of love had not his own ‘loving spirit’ come awake within him, and he doesn’t see Beatrice until having already agreed to honour Love as his feudal lord.
In ‘real life’ Beatrice married a banker in 1287, and died three years later at the age of 24. Dante’s love for her was not the sort to lead to marriage, with ‘a boy for you and a girl for me’. He had a wife and children. Beatrice was something else, even more rarefied than Petrarch’s Laura (see 6 April), a demi-goddess at the extreme, most worshipful end of the courtly love spectrum.
Which is why she takes over from Vergil as Dante’s guide in the last four Cantos of ‘Purgatorio’ and the whole of ‘Paradiso’, leading him through the nine celestial spheres of heaven in The Divine Comedy.
1 I felt awaken within my heart / A loving spirit that had slept there. / And then I saw Love coming from a distance, / So happy, who as soon as I recognised him, / Said: ‘Do you really think you can honour me?’ / And he laughed as he spoke each word. / And while my Lord stood with me a little while, / Watching the place he came from, / I saw Lady Vanna and Lady Bice [Beatrice’s nickname within the family] / Approaching the place where I stood, / One marvel surpassing another, / And as my memory keeps repeating, / Love said to me: ‘The first of these is Spring, / And the other bears the name of Love, since she resembles me.’