CANTO IX

1 There has been continuing disagreement, from the earliest commentators to the present, as to whether, in invoking “fair Clemence,” Dante had in mind Charles’s late wife, Clemence, who died in 1295, at only twenty-seven years of age, in the same epidemic as her husband, or his daughter, Clemence, married by the time of Dante’s otherworld journey, to Louis X of France. A persuasive argument in favor of the wife is the use in the Italian text of the first name with the intimate possessive, “Carlo tuo,” rendered in the translation as “your dear Charles.” Charles has of course “enlightened” Dante by explaining “ ‘how from a gentle seed, harsh fruit derives’ ” (VIII, 93). [return to English / Italian]

2 Charles’s “seed,” his son and Clemence’s, is Charles Robert (known in Italy as Caroberto), king of Hungary from 1308 to 1342. According to Dante, he was defrauded as rightful heir to the kingdom of Naples by his uncle Robert of Anjou, who succeeded to the throne in 1309, with the approval of the reigning pope, Clement V. (At the same time, the pope approved Charles Robert’s Hungarian succession.) Dante thought Robert an ineffective ruler, but, as the eldest surviving son, he had in fact been designated as successor as early as 1296, by his father Charles II, Charles Robert’s grandfather. Pope Boniface VIII, though unnamed, is once again the target of Dante’s disapproval, since he supported the candidacy of Robert of Anjou. [return to English / Italian]

3–6 Dante claims to have been sworn to secrecy by the soul of Charles Martel. This is why he cannot be specific regarding the “wrongs” that threaten Charles’s family or about the “vengeance well-deserved” that will redress them. [return to English / Italian]

25–30 In northeast Italy, between “Rialto,” i.e., Venice (designated by the name of the largest of her islands), and the Alps (where the Brenta and the Piave rivers have their origin), lies the hill of Romano, where the family of Ezzelino III da Romano (1194–1259) had its stronghold. From there, the “firebrand” Ezzelino himself descended to conquer and lay waste the surrounding countryside. Popular legend attributed to the infamous Ezzelino’s mother a dream in which she dreamt she would give birth to a flaming torch that would destroy the entire March of Treviso. (In Canto XII, 58–60, the poet will allude to a similar prophetic vision granted St. Dominic’s mother.) Ezzelino (or Azzolino) was condemned among the Violent against their Neighbors in Inferno XII, 109–110. [return to English / Italian]

31–33 Cunizza da Romano (c1198–c1279) was Ezzelino’s sister, saved, like Piccarda Donati, while her brother was damned. Married for political reasons to Rizzardo di San Bonifacio, lord of Verona, she was abducted by the Italian troubadour Sordello (see Purg. VI, 58, et seq.), with whom she lived for several years. She subsequently eloped with Enrico da Bovio of Treviso, traveling far and wide in considerable style before returning to Treviso, where Enrico met with a violent death. Freed to marry again by the demise of her husband, Cunizza this time wed a Count Almerio (or Neimerio) di Braganza. The Paduan chronicler Rolandino, on whom we rely for the details of her life, speaks of a subsequent marriage of the widowed Cunizza to a Veronese nobleman, after the death of her disapproving brother Ezzelino in 1259. She would have been about sixty at the time. Whether or not Rolandino was gilding the lily, it is clear that Cunizza was very much under the influence of the planet Venus. Jacopo della Lana, the author of one of the earliest commentaries on the Comedy (published 1324–8), remarks: “She was a woman in love in all her ages, and so generous in her love she would have counted it great villainy to refuse it to any man who sought it courteously.” [return to English / Italian]

34–36 Cunizza pardons in herself her abundantly amorous disposition, which, although it made her a figure of scandal in her early life, was directed in later life toward God and earned her a seat in Heaven. Like the other blessed souls, she is perfectly content with the place alotted to her and does not grieve. Vulgar and censorious minds find the salvation of so exuberant and impetuous a lover hard to fathom. The 14th-century commentator Benvenuto da Imola (d1387), however, stressed the compatibility of sacred and profane love and the positive, charitable side of Cunizza’s temperament: “a true daughter of Venus, she was always amorous and desiring…and at the same time she was full of pity, kind, merciful, and compassionate toward the poor wretches whom her brother so cruelly afflicted.” [return to English / Italian]

37 The “ ‘precious jewel’ ” is another blessed soul, that of Folco (or Folquet) of Marseilles (d1231), a famous Provençal love poet who later became a Cistercian monk and ended his life as bishop of Toulouse. [return to English / Italian]

39–40 Folco’s earthly fame will last another five hundred years from the present centennial year 1300. The expression is not intended to be restrictive and implies simply that he will be famous for centuries. [return to English / Italian]

41–42 Folco is an example of how by seeking excellence in this world a man can live on, as it were, after his physical death, through the fame he leaves behind. It has been objected that this concern for earthly fame is not entirely appropriate for a soul in Heaven (especially after Oderisi’s strictures on temporal fame in Purgatorio XI, 82–117), for whom eternal salvation should be the touchstone of all actions. Dante’s present concern, however, is with rebuking the corrupt inhabitants of the March of Treviso (which lay between the Adige and the Tagliamento rivers), a “ ‘rabble’ ” (43) who never aspired to nobility or fame. [return to English / Italian]

46–48 Cunizza’s prophecy most likely alludes to the bloody punishment that fell upon the Paduan Guelphs, who obstinately refused to recognize the authority of the emperor Henry VII. They were routed in 1314 by the imperial vicar Cangrande della Scala (to whom the Paradiso is dedicated), allied with the Ghibellines of Vicenza. The Bacchiglione River runs through Vicenza before it reaches Padua. [return to English / Italian]

49–51 The Sile and the Cagnano rivers meet at Treviso. Rizzardo da Camino, arrogant despot of Treviso from 1306 until his death, was attacked from behind and killed in 1312, as he was playing chess, by a peasant with a billhook, no doubt the agent of his noble rivals. [return to English / Italian]

52–54 Alessandro Novello, bishop of Feltre from 1298 to 1320, treacherously handed over to Pino della Tosa, representative of King Robert and the pope, in Ferrara, a group of conspiratorial refugees from Ferrara who had placed themselves under Novello’s protection. Along with their associates, the Ferrarese victims, thirty in all, were publicly beheaded. [return to English / Italian]

61–63 That is, “We who are blessed feel ourselves authorized to speak of God’s judgments in this way because we are privileged to behold His justice reflected in the angelic order of the Thrones.” [return to English / Italian]

71 “down below”: i.e., in Hell. [return to English / Italian]

77–78 The “ ‘pious fires’ ” are the highest of the angelic orders, the Seraphim (in Hebrew, “ardent,” “burning”), who are associated with charity or love, as the Cherubim are with wisdom. The Bible pictures them with six wings, with which they cover themselves as with a hooded cowl: “Above him stood seraphs, each one with six wings: two to cover its face, two to cover its feet, and two for flying” (Isa. 6:2). [return to English / Italian]

82–87 The “ ‘widest valley’ ” of water, the largest sea in the hemisphere of land, is the Mediterranean, the Mare Magnum, spread between the “ ‘discrepant shores’ ” of Africa and Europe. (The other hemisphere contains “ ‘the sea that girds the world,’ ” with the island mountain of Purgatory at its center.) Curiously, medieval geography saw the Mediterranean as extending eastward for a full ninety degrees, ending under the meridian of Jerusalem, from which point the zenith of the Strait of Gibraltar (where the sea began) lay on the horizon. The first part of this speech made by Folco of Marseilles, a poet praised by Dante in his De vulgari eloquentia for his mastery of rhetorical construction, is appropriately composed of solemn and learned circumlocutions and is reminiscent, for instance, of the elaborate diction of the chancellor poet Pier della Vigna in Inferno XIII. [return to English / Italian]

88–90 It is as if Folco, from his heavenly vantage point, were gradually zeroing in on Marseilles, his birthplace. This second step toward locating his native city places it on the northernmost of the Mediterranean’s “ ‘discrepant shores,’ ” somewhere between Spain (where we find the river Ebro) and Italy (where the Magra formed the boundary line between the territories of Genoa and Tuscany). [return to English / Italian]

91–93 Another of the coordinates, Bougie, in North Africa, lies on the same meridian as Marseilles. The place of Folco’s birth is finally designated by an historical allusion, usually taken to refer to Brutus’ naval siege of the rebel city in 49 B.C. (Cf. Lucan, Phars. III, 572–573.) [return to English / Italian]

97–102 Three examples of extreme love: Belus’ daughter was Dido, whose fatal love for Aeneas was an offense to the memory of both her dead husband Sychaeus (to whose ashes she had vowed fidelity), as well as Aeneas’ late wife Creusa (cf. Inf. V. 61–62 and note). The Thracian princess Phyllis, believing that her lover Demophoön, son of Theseus and Phaedra, had deserted her, hanged herself and was changed into an almond tree. She is called “Rhodopeia Phyllis” by Ovid (Heroides II, 2), after the Rhodope Mountain range where she lived. Heracles (or Hercules), grandson of Alcaeus (whence the Greek patronymic Alcides), carried off Iole from her home in Thessaly. To win back his love, Hercules’ wife, Deianeira, sent him the tunic of Nessus, which instead caused his death (see Inf. XII, 67–69, note). [return to English / Italian]

103–105 These souls died repentant and made reparation for their sins in Purgatory. Immersion in the river Lethe, in the Earthly Paradise, canceled all recollection of their faults. Now they rejoice in God, who predisposed them for salvation. [return to English / Italian]

115 The harlot Rahab hid in her house the two messengers from Shittim sent by Joshua to spy out the land of Canaan and the city of Jericho. Because she helped them escape, she and her family alone were spared when the Israelites took and destroyed the city and its inhabitants (see Josh. 2:1–21 and 6:17). For St. Paul, Rahab was an example of salvation by faith: “It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies and so was not killed with the unbelievers” (Heb. 11:31); while for St. James she illustrates salvation by good works (see James 2:25). [return to English / Italian]

117–120 Rahab, the brightest light and “ ‘highest rank[ing]’ ” soul in this order of beatitude, was the first of the souls of the pre-Christian elect to be taken up into the Heaven of Venus, when they were liberated from Limbo at the time of Christ’s Harrowing of Hell (see Inf. IV, 52–61 and note). According to the astronomers Ptolemy and Alfraganus, the Earth casts a cone-shaped shadow on the three lower heavens. The tip of that shadow reaches as far as the Heaven of Venus. Dante interprets this supposed shadow in a moral and spiritual dimension, as indicating that the blessed in the first three heavens were too much influenced by earthly considerations. [return to English / Italian]

126 That is, “Pope Boniface VIII appears to have no further thought for the liberation of the Holy Land,” which had been usurped by the Saracens. This rebuke recalls the invective of Inferno XXVII, 85–93, and introduces a further attack on the corruption of the Church. [return to English / Italian]

127–129 Dante’s native city of Florence, he insinuates, sprang from a seed planted by Lucifer (or Satan) the emperor of Hell, who, out of envy for Adam and Eve, led the revolt of the rebellious angels against their Maker. [return to English / Italian]

130 The coin of Florence, the florin, bore on one of its faces the imprint of a flower, the Florentine lily. [return to English / Italian]

133–135 The spiritual message of the Gospels and the great theological writings of the early Christian Fathers are neglected in favor of the Decretals, the collections of decrees and decisions issued by the popes and the Church councils. The extensive annotations in the margins of these latter texts (along with the lack of such annotations in the former) attest to their regrettable popularity. The Decretals formed the basis for the Church’s claims to temporal dominion, as well as for the privileges enjoyed by the Church hierarchy—both abuses virulently opposed by Dante. [return to English / Italian]

136–142 The pope and his cardinals neglect the lesson of humility implicit in the New Testament scene of the Annunciation at Nazareth, where the Archangel Gabriel bowed his head with wings outstretched in adoration before the future mother of Christ. But soon, Folco prophesies, the Vatican hill, where St. Peter was crucified and buried, and the rest of Rome, sacred to the memory of the early Christian martyrs, will be rid at last of the simoniacal adultery of these evil shepherds. In the final line of the canto, the Italian word for “ ‘adultery’ ” is “ ‘avoltero,’ ” recalling the “avolterate” of Inferno (XIX, 4), in the canto of the Simonists. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO X

1–6 Cf. St. Thomas: “To create belongs to God according to His being, that is. His essence, which is common to the three Persons. Hence to create is not proper to any one Person, but is common to the whole Trinity” (Summa theol. I, q. 45, a.6). God the Father (“the Power—first and inexpressible”), gazing upon His Son (His Word, or Wisdom) with the Love that is the Holy Spirit, made all creation—the spiritual and the material—in such perfect harmony and order that he who contemplates creation cannot but admire its Creator. In emphasizing that the Holy Spirit emanates from both the Father and the Son, Dante adheres to the Roman Catholic position in the controversy that had led to the severing of the Greek and Latin churches in the Great Schism of 1054. [return to English / Italian]

7–21 Dante, drawing the reader to contemplate the divine perfection of the universal order, invites him or her to “gaze directly” at the constellation Aries, in which the point of the spring equinox lies. This is one of the two points (the other is the point of the autumn equinox) where the celestial equator (the plane of revolution of the heaven’s diurnal east to west motion) and the ecliptic (the plane of revolution of the heaven’s annual west to east motion) intersect (“where the one motion strikes against the other”). There one readily sees the obliquity of the path of the zodiac—the band eighteen degrees in width, within which are contained the orbits of the sun and all the planets—as it forms an angle of twenty-three and a half degrees with the celestial equator at their point of intersection (“cross-point”). Without this obliquity there would be no seasonal variation (consider, for example, how the lower position of the sun in the sky during winter results in shorter days and lower temperatures), and the generative cycle of plants could not take place; furthermore, the powers (“virtue[s]”) of the stars and planets, dependent, for their effect, upon the heavenly bodies’ properly varying positions, would be largely wasted. On the precise path of the stars and planets depends “earth’s harmony,” the perfect regulation of the seasons, which “would be defective” if the zodiac were more or less oblique. [return to English / Italian]

23–27 “that of which you have foretaste”: namely, Divine Wisdom and the harmony of Creation. For the metaphor of wisdom as food, cf. Cantos II, 1–18, note and XXIV, 4–5, note. [return to English / Italian]

28–33 “The greatest minister of nature” is the sun, which, of all the celestial bodies, exercises the greatest influence upon the earth and, with its diurnal movement, determines day and night and “provides the measurement for time.” Since the sun was in Aries, the time of year of Dante’s journey was, as we know, spring, when the sun rises earlier each day, and farther northward, thus tracing a spiral path from day to day. [return to English / Italian]

34–39 “I was with him”: i.e., in the Fourth Heaven, the Sphere of the Sun. [return to English / Italian]

40–42 Dante perceives these soul-lights not because their color is different from that of the sun, but because they are brighter than the sun! [return to English / Italian]

49–51 God’s “fourth family,” the spirits who appear within the Fourth Heaven, the Sphere of the Sun (cf. IV, 28–39), are the spirits of the wise. These souls’ desire for wisdom is at last fully satisfied, for to them God grants an understanding of the greatest mystery of the Christian faith, that of the Trinity. [return to English / Italian]

53 “ ‘The angels’ Sun’ ”: i.e., God. In the Convivio (III, xii, 7) Dante writes: “No object of sense in all the universe is more worthy to serve as a symbol of God than the sun, which, with sensible light, illuminates first itself, and then all the celestial and elemental bodies; and just so, God illuminates, with intellectual light, first Himself, and then the celestial and other intelligible creatures.” [return to English / Italian]

62–63 Dante’s love for God, causes the “splendor of [Beatrice’s] smiling eyes” to become more dazzling still, catching some part of Dante’s attention, so that his mind is “divided…between two objects.” [return to English / Italian]

67–69 “Latona’s daughter” (and Jove’s) is Diana (see Purg. XX, 130, note), who is identified with the moon. The “crown” (65) of lights is likened to a halo that sometimes forms around the moon in misty air. [return to English / Italian]

70–7 In Paradise there are many things of such beauty and sublimity that they cannot be re-presented by description here on earth. (Cf. I, 4–7.) [return to English / Italian]

74–75 He who does not live in a manner that earns him a place in Paradise, where he may hear the song of those splendors himself, should not expect to have even the least idea of its indescribable and inconceivable beauty. For the image of “tak[ing] wings,” cf. Isaiah 40:31. [return to English / Italian]

77 “three times,” in celebration of the Trinity. [return to English / Italian]

83 “ ‘true love’ ”: i.e., the love of God. [return to English / Italian]

86–87 Since “ ‘none / descends who will not climb that stair again,’ ” this soul is implying that Dante’s salvation is assured. (Cf. Purg. XXXII, 101–103 and note.) [return to English / Italian]

88–90 Charity is as natural to the souls of the blessed as flowing downward is natural to water. Thus these souls are no freer to refuse to quench Dante’s thirst for knowledge, than water would be to “ ‘not flow toward the sea.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

94–99 The soul addressing Dante identifies himself as a member of the Dominican order. (His words—“ ‘the path where one / may fatten well if one does not stray off’ ”—will be amply explained in Canto XI, in response to Dante’s uncertainty.) A student of his fellow Dominican (“ ‘my brother’ ”) Albert of Cologne (see 98–99, note), he is none other than Thomas Aquinas, the most famous of the Scholastic theologians and philosophers, known as the Angelic Doctor. Born in 1225 at Roccasecca near Aquino in northwest Campania, the son of the count of Aquino and kin to several of the royal houses of Europe, Thomas Aquinas was educated first at the nearby Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino and then, till the age of sixteen, at the University of Naples. In 1243 he joined the Dominican order and went to Cologne to study under Albertus Magnus. In 1257 he became a doctor of theology at the Sorbonne in Paris, and from 1261 to 1264 served in Rome as papal theologian for Urban IV. In 1269 he again taught in Paris, where he opposed Siger de Brabant (see 136–138 and note), and in 1272 taught at the University of Naples. Summoned by Pope Gregory X in 1274 to participate in the Council of Lyons (intended to reconcile the Greek and Latin churches), Thomas Aquinas undertook the journey but died of illness along the way, having stopped at the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova. (He was unjustly rumored to have been poisoned at the behest of Charles of Anjou [see Purg. XX, 68–69].) He was canonized in 1323 (two years after Dante’s death).

St. Thomas’s great reconciliation of Christian and Aristotelian thought was accomplished in his Summa theologica. He wrote, in addition, the Summa contra gentiles, as well as commentaries on most of the works of Aristotle, and on the works of other theologians. [return to English / Italian]

98–99 Albert of Cologne, St. Albertus Magnus, was born of noble parents in Lauingen, in Swabia (c1193). He joined the Dominican order in 1223 and studied in Paris, Padua, and Bologna, afterward teaching in Cologne, Hildesheim, Freiburg, Ratisbon, Strasbourg, and Paris. In 1254 he was elected provincial of the Dominican order at Worms and was appointed bishop of Ratisbon in 1260. He died in Cologne in 1280, at the age of eighty-seven. Albertus was among the first to seek to reconcile Aristotelian thought with Christianity. A voluminous writer, his works include commentaries on Aristotle, the Scriptures, Dionysius the Areopagite (see 115–117 and note), the Sentences of Peter Lombard (see 106–108 and note), as well as his Summa theologica, a Summa de creaturis, a treatise on the Virgin, and various scientific works, one of which is on alchemy. [return to English / Italian]

103–105 St. Thomas now introduces the other soul-lights making up the “ ‘holy wreath’ ” (102). Next to Albertus Magnus is Gratian (Franciscus Gratianus). Born in Tuscany near the end of the 11th century, Gratian, a Benedictine monk, wrote the Concordia discordantium canonum, known as the Decretum Gratiani, in which (drawing on the canons of the Apostles and the councils, the Decretals of the popes, Scripture, and the patristic writings) he reconciled the ecclesiastical and secular laws and firmly established the basis of canon law. [return to English / Italian]

106–108 Peter Lombard was born near Novara, circa 1095, and studied in Bologna and Paris, where he was sent with a letter from Bernard of Clairvaux, and where he later taught theology at the school of the cathedral. Appointed bishop of Paris in 1159, he died either in 1160 or 1164. His greatest work, the Libri sententiarum quatuor (Sentences), principally an organized collection of the sayings of the Church Fathers, became the standard textbook in schools of theology and was widely commented upon.

In his preface to the Sentences, Peter Lombard likens his work to the offering of the poor widow: “As [Jesus] looked up he saw rich people putting their offerings into the treasury; then he happened to notice a poverty-stricken widow putting in two small coins, and he said, ‘I tell you truly, this poor widow has put in more than any of them; for these have all contributed money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in all she had to live on’ ” (Luke 21:1–4). [return to English / Italian]

109–114 “ ‘The fifth…and…fairest light’ ” is the soul of Solomon, son of David and king of Israel, who “ ‘breathes forth such love’ ”—the love that went into composing his Song of Songs, interpreted allegorically by Christian exegetical tradition as an expression of the mutual love between Christ and His Church. “ ‘All the world below / hungers for tidings’ ” of Solomon, since theologians were divided on the question of his damnation or salvation. In Solomon “ ‘such profound / wisdom was placed’ ”—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Wisdom were all attributed to him—that, Thomas says, “ ‘no other ever rose with so much vision.’ ” In Canto XIII Thomas will amply elucidate these words in response to a doubt they raise in Dante’s mind. [return to English / Italian]

115–117 He who “ ‘beheld most deeply / the angels’ nature and their ministry’ ” is Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian converted to Christianity by St. Paul (see Acts 17:34). The De coelestia Hierarchia (On the Celestial Hierarchy) was erroneously attributed to him in the Middle Ages (see XXVIII, 97–102, note). (He will later be referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius in these notes.) [return to English / Italian]

118–120 “ ‘That champion of the Christian centuries’ ” is probably Paulus Orosius the historian. A Spanish priest, born in the late 4th century, Orosius was the author of a universal history, the Historiarum adversus paganos, in which he countered the pagan charge that the world had deteriorated under Christianity. Orosius was encouraged in his work by St. Augustine, who saw in Orosius’s History confirmation of the ideas in his own De civitate Dei (The City of God). [return to English / Italian]

123–129 Within the eighth light is the “ ‘blessed soul’ ” of Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius), Roman statesman and philosopher, born circa A.D. 480. Famed for his virtue and wisdom and honored and entrusted with high offices by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths (then in control of Italy), in 525 Boethius was unjustly accused by jealous enemies of plotting against Theodoric, who had Boethius imprisoned and later cruelly put to death. The writings of Boethius were of tremendous importance for the transmission of late classical learning and culture in the Middle Ages. His last and most famous work, composed while he was in prison, the De consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolation of Philosophy), was of particular importance to Dante after the death of Beatrice (see Convivio II, xii, 2). In that work Philosophy, personified as a gracious and beautiful woman, argues that only virtue is secure and “ ‘makes the world’s deceit / most plain.’ ” In the Middle Ages, Boethius came to be regarded as a martyr for the Christian faith and, though never canonized, is revered as St. Severinus. His tomb is in the basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro (Cieldauro) in Pavia. [return to English / Italian]

131 St. Isidore of Seville (c560–630), archbishop of Seville in 600, was the author of a vast and extremely influential encyclopedia of medieval learning, the Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, as well as the De ecclesiasticis officiis (On the Ecclesiastical Offices) and the Libri sententiarum, on dogmatic theology and ethics. [return to English / Italian]

The Venerable Bede (674–735), an Anglo-Saxon monk born at Monkwearmouth in county Durham, wrote—among many other works—the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of England) and is considered to be the father of English history.

131–132 Richard of St. Victor, probably a native of Scotland, was among the greatest of the 12th-century mystics. From 1162 till his death in 1173 he was prior of the famed Augustinian monastery of St. Victor in Paris. A fierce opponent of rationalism, his writings (several of which are dedicated to his friend Bernard of Clairvaux) include commentaries on portions of the Old Testament, the Epistles of Paul, and the Book of Revelation, and works on theology and on mystical contemplation. The latter earned him the title Magnus Contemplator, reflected in Dante’s words, “ ‘he / whose meditation made him more than man.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

136–138 Siger de Brabant (c1225–c1283), a professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris (located in “ ‘the Street of Straw’ ” [Rue du Fouarre, today called Rue Dante]), was a leading proponent of the Averroist interpretation of Aristotle (see Purg. XXV, 61–66, note) and became a central figure in the fierce controversy that arose concerning the teaching of Aristotle and Averroës. In 1269 St. Thomas (here placed next to Siger) was sent to Paris to combat the Averroist doctrines of Siger and others, and in 1270 Siger’s teaching was officially condemned by the archbishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier. Anathematized again in 1277 and summoned before the inquisitor Simon du Val, Siger fled to Rome to appeal to the pope (probably without success). According to tradition, Siger was stabbed to death by a demented servant in about 1283 at Orvieto. [return to English / Italian]

139–142 The “Bride of God” is the Church, which, at dawn, sings matins to “her Bridegroom,” Christ, “encouraging / His love.” [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XI

1–12 From the height of the Heaven of the Sun, too far away to be affected, as were the three lower heavens, by the shadow cast by the earth (see IX, 117–120, note), Dante views with superior detachment the bustle of human activity and the error of those whose lives (virtuous or vicious as they may be by earthly standards) are directed toward merely practical ends. Here, at the center of the crown of lights formed by the great thinkers of the near and distant past, the contemplative delights of pure intellectual speculation are seen to transcend by far, not only the despicable rewards of violence, fraud, sensuality, and indolence (6–9), but also the goals of an acceptable professional career (law, medicine, the priesthood, politics [4–6]). Dante’s condemnation of “syllogistic reasonings” is not, of course, an outright condemnation; indeed, Aquinas and the other medieval followers of Aristotle (to say nothing of the poet himself, principally in the Convivio and the Paradiso) made almost exclusive use of this quintessentially Scholastic form of argument. Nor is Dante’s recognition of the unsatisfactory nature of an exclusively earthbound existence tantamount to a total repudiation of the active life. It is fitting, however, that a canto almost wholly devoted to the eloquent celebration of the mystic faith of St. Francis of Assisi should begin by pointing out the dangers of an excessive reliance on human reason. (Cf. 40–42, note.) [return to English / Italian]

22–27 St. Thomas Aquinas, reading Dante’s perplexity, will offer two corollaries or explanatory footnotes to his discourse in the previous canto. The first will make explicit his implied reservation concerning the present corrupt tendencies of the Dominican order (cf. X, 94–96), the second, for which we will have to wait until Canto XIII, will quash possible objections to the declared preeminence of Solomon (X, 109–114). [return to English / Italian]

28–36 Divine Providence sent two “ ‘princes’ ” to hearten and guide His medieval Church. The Church (the sum of all the faithful) is the metaphorical Bride of Christ. Christ wedded the Church through the covenant of His precious blood, shed for mankind in His Passion. Christ’s death was accompanied, according to three of the Evangelists, by “ ‘loud cries’ ” (see, e.g., Mark 15:37). [return to English / Italian]

37–39 The prince “ ‘seraphic in his ardor’ ” was St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), founder of the Franciscan, or Minorite, religious order; the other, who “ ‘possessed / the splendor of cherubic light,’ ” was St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans. The Seraphim and the Cherubim, the two highest angelic orders, symbolize, respectively, ardent love and knowledge. [return to English / Italian]

40–42 There had been considerable discordance throughout the 13th century between the Franciscan and Dominican orders, the Franciscans retaining a basically Augustinian perspective, which viewed rational reflection as posterior to, and an explication of, faith—a perspective felt to be threatened by the rise of the Aristotelianism (propagated, most notably, by the Dominican Thomas Aquinas) according to which reason might formulate the premises of theology (see Tullio Gregory, “Filosofia e Teologia Nella Crisi del XIII Secolo,” Belfagor XXI, Jan. 1964, pp. 1–16). A spirit of grand conciliation, then, underlies Dante’s envisioning of the amicable praise by St. Thomas, a Dominican, for St. Francis, which will be reciprocated (in Canto XII) by the Franciscan St. Bonaventure’s praise of St. Dominic. [return to English / Italian]

43–48 The site of Assisi, where Francis was born, lies on the hillside below the “ ‘high peak’ ” of Mount Subasio, between the Topino River, which empties into the Tiber, and the Chiascio (a tributary of the Topino), which flows down from the hill chosen by the saintly Ubaldo (bishop of Gubbio, 1129–1160) as the site of his remote hermitage. From this eastern quarter, Perugia, across the valley, receives its most intense summer heat and bitterest winter cold (on the side of the city where the gate known as Porta Sole [Sun Gate] was situated). Assisi itself lies in the lee of the mountains, unlike the nearby hill towns of Nocera and Gualdo, which lie over the crest exposed to the “ ‘hard yoke’ ” of the prevailing winds. The solemn allusive eloquence, modeled on classical geographical circumlocutions, recalls the self-presentations of Charles Martel (VIII, 58–70), Cunizza (IX, 25–30), and Folco of Marseilles (IX, 82–93). It will find an exact parallel in the rhetorical designation of St. Dominic’s birthplace in Canto XII, 46–54. [return to English / Italian]

49–51 St. Francis, the author of a “Hymn to Our Brother the Sun,” is often compared to a spiritual sun in Franciscan devotional literature. The real sun (referred to as “ ‘this sun’ ” because Dante is within its sphere) is at its most resplendent “ ‘when it is climbing from the Ganges,’ ” i.e., from the point on the horizon that in Dante’s cosmology marks true east. It rises there at the vernal equinox. [return to English / Italian]

52–54 A lofty pun on the place-name Assisi, usually written Ascesi in Dante’s Tuscan Italian. The past perfect of the verb ascendere, ascesi, means “I rose,” or “I ascended.” By a kind of folk etymology, Dante reads the name as prophetic of an ascent, or rising, to take place there. But considering the importance to the Christian world of the “sun” who dawned there, it would be more appropriate, Dante says, to rename it as the absolute “ ‘Orient.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

55–59 Francis was still a youth when, in 1206, he gave the first signs of his vocation, turning from the world into which, as the son of a well-to-do merchant, he had been born, to embrace an ascetic life of loving self-sacrifice. [return to English / Italian]

58–63 The “ ‘lady unto whom, just as to death, / none willingly unlocks the door’ ” is (as is made explicit in line 74) the allegorical figure of Lady Poverty. In repudiating his former wealth, Francis contracted a symbolic marriage with Poverty. Francis’s father, Pietro Bernardone, perturbed by his son’s rash donations to the poor, took him before the episcopal court of Assisi to compel him to renounce his claim to his inheritance. Not only did Francis gladly do so, but he went so far as to strip off the clothes he was wearing, before the court and “ ‘coram patre’ ” (“in his father’s presence”), and don a sackcloth garment, in uncompromising obedience to the evangelical precept of poverty. And Francis “said to his father: ‘Until now I have called you father here on earth, but now I can say without reservation, Our Father who art in heaven [Matt. 6:9] since I have placed all my treasure and all my hope in him’ ” (St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis [Legenda Maior], II, 4). [return to English / Italian]

64 Poverty’s “ ‘first husband’ ” was Jesus Christ. [return to English / Italian]

67–69 The reference is to Lucan’s account (Phars. V, 515–531) of the meeting of Caesar (“ ‘he / who made earth tremble’ ”) and the fisherman Amyclas, whose extreme poverty made him unafraid of Caesar’s foraging and plundering legions. Lucan’s moralizing reflections on the advantages of indigence (echoed in line 82) are quoted at length in Convivio IV, xiii, 11–12. Not even the security from thieves and predators that she confers has sufficed to make men choose Poverty. [return to English / Italian]

70–72 Neither did the constancy with which Lady Poverty stood by her “ ‘first husband,’ ” Christ (who died on the cross stripped of all He had, including His garments), win her many followers. [return to English / Italian]

78 The first of Francis’s disciples (all of whom went discalced, or barefoot, in imitation of Christ’s Apostles) was the wealthy and influential merchant Bernard of Quintavalle, who sold all he owned to follow the saint, donating the proceeds to the needy. [return to English / Italian]

83 Egidius of Assisi (known in English as the Blessed Giles) and Sylvester were two other early followers of Francis and of the rule of poverty. [return to English / Italian]

85–87 In late 1209 or early 1210 Francis and his monks left Assisi for Rome to seek papal approval of his order. Dressed in coarse sackcloth, they girded their loins with a plain rope, a symbol of their rejection of earthly finery. [return to English / Italian]

93 Innocent III’s verbal approval of the new order (1210) and his granting of permission to preach on moral (but not dogmatic) issues, constituted the first “seal,” or confirmation, of three granted to the order. [return to English / Italian]

98 The second “ ‘seal’ ” (or “ ‘crown’ ”) came with Honorius III’s solemn recognition of the Franciscan order by papal bull in 1223. [return to English / Italian]

100–105 In 1219 Francis, with twelve of his followers, accompanied the army of the Fifth Crusade to Egypt, where he attempted to convert the sultan al-Malik al-Kámil to Christianity. The sultan, “ ‘too unripe / to be converted,’ ” nevertheless granted Francis and his followers safe passage back. [return to English / Italian]

107 The “ ‘final seal’ ” was conferred, not by the Vicar of Christ, but by Christ Himself. In 1224, on the “ ‘naked crag’ ” (106) of Mount Verna in the Tuscan Apennines, St. Francis was visited with the Stigmata, the five wounds of Christ’s Passion (the wounds of the nails in His hands and feet, and the wound of the centurion’s lance in His side), bleeding wounds that St. Francis bore for the remaining two years of his life. [return to English / Italian]

117 Like Christ, faithful to his “bride” till the very last, as death approached, Francis asked to be taken to the remote church of the Porziuncola, where, at his request, his disciples stripped him and laid him naked on the bare earth to die. [return to English / Italian]

118–139 After the eloquent “digression” in praise of St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas returns to speak of his own order and to elaborate on the first of the two points from his previous discourse that called for clarification—the phrase “ ‘ “They fatten well” ’ ” (25). [return to English / Italian]

118–119 The “ ‘colleague / worthy of Francis’ ” is St. Dominic (see 28–39, notes). The “ ‘bark [or boat] of Peter’ ” is the Church. [return to English / Italian]

125 The “ ‘new nourishment’ ” sought by the erring members of the order has been variously interpreted to mean the pursuit of ecclesiastical benefices or that of profane studies. [return to English / Italian]

137 The “ ‘splinters on the plant’ ” refer metaphorically to the corruption of the Dominican order. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XII

1 “the blessed flame”: the soul of Thomas Aquinas. [return to English / Italian]

2–3 “the millstone / of holy lights”: the souls of the twelve great thinkers introduced in Canto X. [return to English / Italian]

7–9 The song of the souls surpasses in sweetness—as a direct light surpasses in brightness its reflection—even the songs of the Muses (the nine sister divinities who presided over the arts) and the songs of the Sirens (mythological creatures, half woman, half bird, who, from the rocky islands where they dwelt, lured sailors to destruction with the enchanting sweetness of their song). [return to English / Italian]

10–13 Juno’s “handmaid” is Iris, goddess of the rainbow. (Cf. Aen. IV, 964–966.) The secondary rainbow sometimes seen outside, or surrounding, a primary rainbow was believed in Dante’s time to be a reflection or “echo” of that primary inner rainbow. [return to English / Italian]

14–15 The “wandering nymph” is Echo, daughter of Earth and Air, who was consumed by her love for Narcissus, till only her voice remained (see Met. III, 339–510). [return to English / Italian]

16–18 “the pact God made with Noah”: God set the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of the Covenant He established with Noah: “There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again.” (See Gen. 9:8–17.) [return to English / Italian]

32–33 The soul speaking to Dante is that of St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan mystic and one of St. Francis’s foremost hagiographers (see 127–129, note), who will eulogize “ ‘the other leader,’ ” St. Dominic, just as St. Thomas, a Dominican, did St. Francis (XI, 43–117), for “ ‘in praising either prince one praises both’ ” (XI, 41). (See XI, 40–42, note.) [return to English / Italian]

37 “ ‘Christ’s army,’ ” humanity, which had lost its defense against evil when Adam and Eve succumbed to Lucifer’s temptation, was rearmed at so dear a cost—Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross. [return to English / Italian]

39 “its ensign”: the Cross. [return to English / Italian]

39–41 God “ ‘helped his ranks in danger’ ” of damnation, by giving His Son to accomplish man’s atonement (cf. VII, 28–33). And this God did “ ‘only out of His grace and not [man’s] merits’ ” (cf. VII, 97–120). [return to English / Italian]

42–45 “ ‘as was said,…’ ” in XI, 28–39. [return to English / Italian]

46–51 “ ‘gentle zephyr’ ”: Zephyrus, the west wind, which was believed to bring with it the spring. St. Bonaventure’s circumlocution designates Spain, at the western extreme of Europe. In spring, the sun (as seen from Italy) appears to set behind the western coast of Spain. [return to English / Italian]

52–54 Calaroga, or Caleruega, in old Castile in Spain, was the birthplace of St. Dominic (c1170). The coat of arms of the king of Castile bore on one side a lion above a castle, and on the other, a castle above a lion. Thus the lion “ ‘loses and prevails.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

55 “ ‘the loving vassal / of Christian faith’ ”: St. Dominic. The “holy athlete”: i.e., a champion of the faith. St. Bonaventure uses the same term to describe St. Francis, in his Legenda maior (II, 2). [return to English / Italian]

58–60 It is recounted that before St. Dominic’s birth his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a black-and-white dog holding a torch in its mouth, with which it set the world on fire. Black and white became the colors of the Dominican habit; the torch symbolized the zeal of Dominic’s preaching. [return to English / Italian]

61–63 Through baptism (“ ‘at the sacred font’ ”), Dominic wedded Faith (just as Francis had wed Poverty [XI, 61–63]), receiving salvation from that Faith, and destined to bring salvation to it. [return to English / Italian]

64–66 St. Dominic’s godmother had a dream in which Dominic appeared with a bright star on his forehead, symbolizing the great work that he and “ ‘his heirs,’ ” the Dominicans, would do in guiding and illuminating the world. [return to English / Italian]

67–71 Through divine inspiration his parents gave him the name Dominicus (the possessive of Dominus), meaning “of the Lord.” [return to English / Italian]

71–72 Christ’s “ ‘garden’ ” is the Church. [return to English / Italian]

71–75 Note, in the Italian, that Dante will rhyme the name Christ only with itself (see XIV, 104–108, XIX, 104–108, and XXXII, 83–87, in the Italian). [return to English / Italian]

73–75 The “ ‘first injunction Christ had given’ ”: This may refer to the First Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount: “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3); or perhaps to Christ’s words in Matthew 6:25–34 (with which the description of Dominic in lines 76–78 accords); or (with “ ‘first’ ” understood as “first in importance”) to Christ’s words to the rich young man: “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (see Matt. 19:16–22). St. Dominic’s early biographers relate that during a famine he sold his clothes and books to help feed the poor. [return to English / Italian]

79 Dominic’s father’s name, Felice, means “happy.” His mother’s name, Giovanna, is from the Hebrew Johana, meaning “the grace of God,” or “full of grace,” as Dante would have found “ ‘asserted’ ” (81) in the medieval lexicons. Thus, as the parents of Dominic, both are appropriately named. [return to English / Italian]

83 “ ‘Taddeo’s way or Ostian’s’ ”: The former is probably Taddeo d’Alderotto (c1215–1295), founder of a famed school of medicine in Bologna and author of numerous works, including philosophical commentaries on Hippocrates and Galen. The latter is Enrico Bartolomei (da Susa) (c1200–1271), cardinal bishop of Ostia from 1261 until his death and the author of a famous commentary on the Decretals that became a standard text in the medieval schools of law. Those who “ ‘travail / along…Ostian’s [way]’ ” are those who neglect the study of Scripture and the patristic writings, studying instead the Decretals (worthy of reverence in themselves, but no substitute for the former). In the Monarchia, Dante especially condemns those who, “ignorant in every kind of theology and philosophy,” base on the Decretals their support of the Church’s claims to temporal power. (Cf. XI, 4–5.) [return to English / Italian]

84 “ ‘the true manna’ ”: i.e., spiritual knowledge, Divine Wisdom. (Cf. Purg. XI, 13.) [return to English / Italian]

86–87 Dominic began to oversee the Church (“ ‘the vineyard’ ”), caring for it and nourishing it with true doctrine. (Cf. Jer. 2:21.) [return to English / Italian]

88–90 The “ ‘seat that once was kinder to / the righteous poor’ ” is the papacy. Dante draws a sharp distinction between the papacy as an institution (as sacred as ever) and the degeneracy of the pope (Boniface VIII), under whom it has “ ‘gone astray.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

91–96 Dominic, in Rome in 1205, did not ask the pope for permission to retain for himself part of the money intended for the poor (“ ‘to offer two or three / for six’ ”), nor did he ask for the first fat benefice that fell available, nor for the right to apply the tithe that belongs to God’s poor (“ ‘decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei’ ”) to his own purposes. Rather, he pleaded for the right to preach against heresy—in particular, against the Albigenses (members of a Manichaean sect in southern France), whom he strove to convert to the true faith, “ ‘the seed from which / there grew’ ” the twenty-four men of wisdom whose souls, in two rings, surround Beatrice and Dante. [return to English / Italian]

97–102 “ ‘where the thickets of the heretics / offered the most resistance’ ”: Provence, in southern France, where the Albigensian heresy was most widely diffused. Dominic’s “ ‘force’ ” (100), however, was confined to his zealous and learned preaching; he neither took personal part in nor advocated the violent persecutions of the Albigenses. [return to English / Italian]

103 “ ‘the streams’ ”: i.e., the followers of St. Dominic. [return to English / Italian]

106–111 The “ ‘one wheel’ ” is St. Dominic, “ ‘the other wheel’ ” is St. Francis. The imagery in these lines seems perhaps more appropriate to St. Dominic, though as Nardi points out, Francis, too, through his example, battled corrupt and avaricious prelates. [return to English / Italian]

112–117 Just as Thomas, following his praise of St. Francis, reproached the members of his own order, the Dominicans, for straying from the right path, so Bonaventure here, his praise of St. Dominic complete, rebukes the Franciscans for falling into corruption and for abandoning or retrogressing on the path St. Francis established. [return to English / Italian]

118–120 That is, “Those Franciscans who have deviated from Francis’s true path will soon weep to find themselves denied a place in the kingdom of heaven.” Cf. Matthew 13:30: “Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.” [return to English / Italian]

121–126 “ ‘ our volume’ ”: i.e., the Franciscan order, whose members are the volume’s leaves or pages. Matteo d’Acquasparta was general of the Franciscan order from 1287 until his death in 1302. Made a cardinal by Pope Nicholas IV in 1288, he was sent by Pope Boniface VIII to Florence in 1300, ostensibly to make peace between the White and the Black political factions, but covertly to strengthen Papal influence in Florence (see “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, p. 324). As general of the Franciscans, he advocated certain relaxations of the Rule prescribed by Francis. These relaxations were vehemently opposed by Ubertino da Casale, leader of the Franciscan Spirituals. Under Pope Clement V the Spirituals prevailed, and it was then, in 1305, that Ubertino wrote his Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu, a work undoubtedly known to Dante. In 1317, with the condemnation of the Spirituals by Pope John XXII, Ubertino transferred to the Benedictine order. Nevertheless accused of heresy (in 1325), Ubertino fled, and of his life afterward, nothing is known. [return to English / Italian]

127–129 Only now does Bonaventure identify himself. Born Giovanni di Fidanza in 1221 at Bagnorea (Bagnoregio) near Orvieto, he joined the Franciscans in 1243 (or 1238) and in 1257 became general of the order. He declined the archbishopric of York in 1265 but in 1273 was appointed cardinal and in 1274 bishop of Albano. He died later that year at the second Council of Lyons. “ ‘In high offices,’ ” Bonaventure says, he always gave priority to spiritual matters over temporal matters (“ ‘left-hand interests’ ”). (“Wisdom, like other spiritual goods, belongs to the right hand, while temporal nourishment belongs to the left, according to Proverbs 3:16: ‘In her left hand are riches and glory’ ” [St. Thomas, Summa theol. I–II, q. 102, a. 4, ad 6].) The greatest of St. Bonaventure’s mystical-philosophical works, the Itinerarium mentis in Deum (The Journey of the Mind to God), was well known by Dante, and his numerous other writings include a famous life of St. Francis. Canonized in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV, he was given the title Doctor Seraphicus by Sixtus V. [return to English / Italian]

130–132 Bonaventure now identifies the other eleven soul-lights forming the outer ring. Illuminato da Rieti and Augustine of Assisi were two of St. Francis’s earliest followers. Illuminato accompanied Francis to Egypt when he preached before “ ‘the haughty Sultan’ ” (XI, 101); Augustine became head of the Franciscan order at Terra di Lavoro in 1216. [return to English / Italian]

133 Hugh of St. Victor (c1097–1141) was among the great mystical theologians of the 12th century. Born near Ypres in Flanders, in 1115 he entered the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, of which he was appointed prior in 1133, and where, from 1130 until his death, he taught theology. Among his numerous works, much admired by St. Thomas, are the Didascalicon (an encyclopedia of the sciences, seen from a theological standpoint) and the theological treatise On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis Christianae fidei). [return to English / Italian]

134–135 Peter of Spain (Petrus Juliani), born in Lisbon (c1226), pursued his father’s profession, medicine, before being ordained a priest. Appointed archbishop of Braga in 1273 and cardinal bishop of Frascati in 1274, he was elected pope in 1276, taking the name of John XXI. He died at Viterbo in 1277 when a ceiling in the papal palace collapsed. His Summulae logicales (a treatise on logic, in “ ‘twelve books’ ”), notable for its treatment of certain issues in logic from a grammatical point of view, became widely popular in medieval schools. [return to English / Italian]

135 Peter Book-Devourer (Petrus Comestor), an omnivorous reader, was born at the beginning of the 12th century in Troyes. In 1164 he became chancellor of the University of Paris and canon of the monastery of St. Victor, where he died in 1179. Of his many works, the most famous is the Historia scholastica, a history of the world up until the time of the Apostles, drawn principally from the Bible. [return to English / Italian]

136 Nathan the prophet was sent by God to rebuke David for arranging the death of Uriah the Hittite so that he might take Uriah’s wife Bathsheba for his own. (See II Sam. 12:1–15.) Anselm, one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages, was born at Aosta in Piedmont in 1033. In 1060 he joined the Benedictine order and became abbot of the monastery of Bec in Normandy in 1078. In 1093 he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury, where he died in 1109. The most famous of his many works is the Cur Deus homo? on the necessity of the Incarnation (see VII, 57, note). [return to English / Italian]

136–137 St. John Chrysostom (from the Greek, meaning “goldenmouthed”), so named for the great eloquence of his preaching, is one of the foremost fathers of the Greek Church. He was born at Antioch (c345) and became metropolitan (primate) of Constantinople in 398. Exiled for his public criticism of the empress Eudoxia (403) but immediately recalled in response to the ensuing revolt of the people, he was then (in 404) exiled again and died in 407. [return to English / Italian]

137–138 Aelius Donatus, famed Roman scholar and grammarian of the 4th century, was the teacher of St. Jerome. His Ars grammatica became the standard textbook of Latin grammar (“ ‘that art which comes first’ ” in the medieval trivium, followed by rhetoric and logic). [return to English / Italian]

139 Rabanus Maurus, born at Mainz in 776, was educated at the Benedictine monastery at Fulda, of which he was later abbot from 822 to 842. From 847 till his death in 856, he was archbishop of Mainz. Renowned for his learning, he left numerous works of biblical exegesis and theology. [return to English / Italian]

140–141 Joachim of Flora was born c1145 at Celico in Calabria. A Cistercian monk, in 1177 he reluctantly accepted the abbacy of the monastery of Corazzo in Calabria and in 1189 founded a new monastery, San Giovanni in Fiore, in the forest of Sila in the Calabrian Mountains. Joachim greatly influenced the Franciscan Spirituals with his doctrine, derived from mystical interpretation of the Bible, that the dispensation of the Father (the Old Testament) and that of the Son (the New Testament and the Church) would be followed by a dispensation of the Holy Spirit, corresponding to a coming period of perfection and freedom. A number of Joachim’s ideas were condemned by the Church in 1215 and again in 1245, and Dante’s placing him among the blessed demonstrates “both the independence of his judgment, and his desire for the renewal of the Church that Joachim had preached” (Casini-Barbi). Among the critics of Joachim’s ideas and of the Franciscan Spirituals influenced by him was Bonaventure, whose praise of him here (like Thomas’s of Siger, in Canto X, 133–138) springs from Dante’s spirit of grand conciliation (cf. XI, 40–42, note). [return to English / Italian]

142 “ ‘such a paladin’ ”: i.e., St. Dominic, the “ ‘holy athlete’ ” (56). [return to English / Italian]

143–144 “ ‘the glowing courtesy and the discerning / language of Thomas,’ ” in praising St. Francis (in XI, 43–117). [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XIII

1–21 So that he may form some idea, however inadequate, of the “double dance” (20) of the souls encircling Dante and Beatrice at this point, the reader is invited to imagine the twenty-four brightest stars of the firmament brought together into two concentric but oppositely wheeling circles of twelve stars each. The twenty-four stars comprise: all fifteen of the stars classified as stars of the first magnitude by Ptolemy and Alfraganus, so radiant they are able to penetrate any perturbation of our atmosphere (4–6); the seven stars that make up the constellation of Ursa Major, always visible in the northern hemisphere (7–9); and the two brightest stars of Ursa Minor (10–12). The shape formed by the latter constellation is interpreted as representing a horn of plenty, with the North Star, or polestar, as its tip and the two stars referred to by Dante at its mouth. The last nine stars, incidentally, are placed in the second order of magnitude by Dante’s sources. The North Star forms the axis around which the “first wheel” (12) of the heavens, the Primum Mobile, revolves. [return to English / Italian]

14–15 The daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, Ariadne, was not herself transformed into a constellation. According to Ovid (Met. VIII, 174–182), it was her floral crown that Bacchus immortalized among the stars. [return to English / Italian]

22–24 The same proportion exists between heavenly truth and our ability to grasp it as between the slowest moving of rivers, the Chiana, little more than a stagnant swamp in Dante’s time, and the Primum Mobile, the swiftest moving of the heavens. [return to English / Italian]

25–27 The hymn that accompanied the celestial dance was no pagan Bacchic chorus, no paean to Apollo, but a sacred hymn in praise of the Holy Trinity and the hypostatic union of the two natures (“the divine and human”) in Jesus Christ. [return to English / Italian]

32 “the very light”: St. Thomas. [return to English / Italian]

34–36 The stalk already threshed (the problem discussed) is Thomas’s first corollary (see XI, 22–27 and note), on the seeds of corruption within the Dominican order. The stalk yet to be threshed concerns Thomas’s assertion, in Canto X, that “ ‘no other’ ” (X, 114) ever had wisdom as great as Solomon’s. [return to English / Italian]

37–39 The objection Thomas attributes to Dante could be stated syllogistically as follows: All “ ‘light’ ” (wisdom) is directly infused into His creatures by God (“ ‘that Force’ ”). But God created directly only Adam and Christ. Therefore, Adam and Christ were the wisest of men. Solomon must therefore have been less wise than they were. [return to English / Italian]

40–45 Adam, Eve, and Christ are designated by a series of synecdoches and circumlocutions that refer to the two central events of Christian history, the Fall and the Redemption. (See Gen. 2:21–3:24, and John 19:31–37.) [return to English / Italian]

49–51 That is, “What I am about to say will prove we are both right.” [return to English / Italian]

52–87 The first part of Thomas’s reply actually does no more than put into words the line of reasoning that led to Dante’s perplexity in the first place. The lean rigor of its concatenated tercets, however, provides a fine example of Dante’s poeticizing of theology, of the stupendous symbiosis between philosophical stringency and poetic technique that is one of the chief triumphs of the Paradiso. The argument is as follows: All of creation—both what is incorruptible (“ ‘that which never dies’ ”), because created by God directly (this category includes the angels, the heavens, primal matter, and the human soul), and what is corruptible (“ ‘that which dies’ ”), because created indirectly, through secondary causes—is a reflection of the Divine Idea, the “Highest Wisdom” of Inferno III, 6, the archetype of all created things. The Idea, the Logos, or the Word (“In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God” [John 1:1]) is the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, “begotten” by the act of Divine self-contemplation and self-understanding, existing from all eternity and indistinguishable from God Himself, as is the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, “the Love intrined with them” (57), God’s Love for Himself as Supreme Good. (Cf. X, 1–6.) [return to English / Italian]

59 The “ ‘nine essences’ ” are the nine angelic orders. [return to English / Italian]

62 In Scholastic philosophy the technical term potentiality designates what might be but as yet does not exist because it has not received its form. The “ ‘last potentialities’ ” are those of the sublunar material world. [return to English / Italian]

66 “ ‘with or without seed’ ”: i.e., organic (animal and vegetable) and inorganic. [return to English / Italian]

67–75 For the metaphor of the created world as “ ‘wax’ ” and the form imposed by the Creator as “ ‘seal,’ ” cf. Canto I, 42. [return to English / Italian]

76 “ ‘Nature’ ” is the sum of the secondary causes by means of which God shapes His Creation. [return to English / Italian]

82–84 The two cases of such complete human perfection are: Adam, who was placed on earth directly by God, and Christ, placed by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary. [return to English / Italian]

91–108 Thomas will now add a distinguo, between absolute and specific wisdom, which will allow both him and Dante to be right. So that the obscure can be made even plainer, the reader would do well to recall the biblical account of 1 Kings 3:5–12: “At Gibeon Yahweh appeared in a dream to Solomon during the night. God said, ‘Ask what you would like me to give you.’ Solomon replied ‘…Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil, for who could govern this people of yours that is so great?’ It pleased Yahweh that Solomon should have asked for this. ‘Since you have asked for this’ Yahweh said ‘and not asked for long life for yourself or riches or the lives of your enemies, but have asked for a discerning judgment for yourself, here and now I do what you ask. I give you a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

97–102 For the practical hypothetical requests of the biblical narrative (long life, riches, the life of his enemies), Thomas substitutes a sampling of the intellectual conundrums that exercised the medieval mind: the exact number of the angels (incalculable), whether an absolute (or necessary) premise followed by a contingent (or conditional) premise can produce an absolute conclusion (Aristotle said no), whether motion is possible without an efficient cause (“ ‘si est dare,’ ” etc.), whether it is possible to inscribe within a semicircle a non-right-angled triangle. [return to English / Italian]

111 Adam is the “ ‘first father’ ” of mankind; Jesus Christ is “ ‘our Beloved.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

124 Parmenides, Melissus, and Bryson were three ancient Greek philosophers whose methods were impugned by Aristotle. The first two are also cited by Dante in his Monarchia (III, iv, 4): “Since the error may be in the matter and in the form of the argument, it is possible to err in two ways: either by basing one’s case on false assumptions, or by reasoning incorrectly—two faults that the Philosopher [Aristotle] imputed to Parmenides and Melissus, saying: They take false things for good and do not know how to construct an argument.” Aristotle criticized Bryson’s ideas on the squaring of the circle. It is possible, since the same three examples occur in Albertus Magnus’s Physica, that that work, rather than the original texts of Aristotle, is Dante’s direct source. [return to English / Italian]

127 Sabellius was a 3rd-century heretic who denied the received doctrine of the Trinity; Arius, a heterodox thinker of the early 4th century for whom the popular Arian heresy (which denied the divine nature of Christ) is named. [return to English / Italian]

139 Grandgent remarks that Dame Bertha and Master Martin were equivalent to our “Tom, Dick, and Harry.” [return to English / Italian]

142 In the course of his journey Dante has already encountered a number of souls whose eternal fate contrasted with common opinion concerning them. Setting aside the members of the Church hierarchy, against whom he is particularly ferocious, we may mention the examples of the Franciscan monk Guido da Montefeltro, whom Dante found in Hell (Inf. XXVII); Manfred, the excommunicated son of the emperor Frederick II, who was about to enter Purgatory (Purg. III, 112–145); and, among the saved in Paradise, Siger of Brabant, condemned by the bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, as an Averroistic heretic in 1277 (X, 133–138). [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XIV

1–9 As Thomas, in the first circle of surrounding soul-lights, concludes his speech and Beatrice, at the center of the circles, begins hers, Dante is struck by the similitude of a round vessel filled with water, in which, according as it is struck on the vessel itself or struck in the center of the water, concentric waves will move from the rim to the center or from the center out to the rim. [return to English / Italian]

10–18 Beatrice, anticipating a question on Dante’s part—a question that he has not yet clearly formulated to himself—asks these souls to tell Dante whether the effulgence surrounding them will remain even after they are reunited with their bodies at the Resurrection of the Flesh at the end of time, and if so, how their corporeal eyes will be able to withstand a splendor so intense. Dante’s treatment of the question in this canto is based on St. Thomas’s (in Summa theol., Suppl., q. 85, a. 1–3). [return to English / Italian]

25–27 “eternal showers”: the grace of God, which rains upon the souls of the blessed “on high,” in Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

28–33 Again the souls sing in celebration of the Trinity (cf. XIII, 25–27 and note, 52–87, note, and X, 1–3), “not circumscribed and circumscribing all” (cf. Purg. XI, 1–2). [return to English / Italian]

34–35 “the smaller circle’s / divinest light,” surrounding the soul of Solomon (see X, 109). [return to English / Italian]

36 “the angel’s voice in speech to Mary”: the Archangel Gabriel’s voice at the Annunciation. (See Luke 1:26–38.) [return to English / Italian]

37–39 “ ‘such a garment’ ”: the effulgence surrounding the souls of the blessed, which, like Paradise, is everlasting. (Cf. Purg. I, 75.) [return to English / Italian]

40–47 Solomon explains first the cause of the different degrees of brightness surrounding the blessed souls: according to the grace that God bestows upon each soul (a gift so great that it exceeds all possible merit), that soul’s vision of God is more or less profound, and the more profound the soul’s vision of God, the greater the ardor, or love, with which it burns. In accord with that ardor, then, the soul will be more or less bright. Love springs from vision, and brightness from love.

Underlying the next part of Solomon’s explanation (43–45) is the Scholastic doctrine, derived from Aristotle, that the perfection of the soul and the body lies in their unity (cf. Inf. VI, 106–108 and note, and see Summa theol. I, q. 90, a .4). Thus, Solomon continues, at the Resurrection of the Flesh, when the souls are joined to their “ ‘glorified and sanctified’ ” bodies, the two together (“ ‘our persons’ ”), “ ‘in being all complete’ ” shall be more perfect, more like God, and so more pleasing to Him (cf. Summa theol. Suppl., q. 93, a. 1). The grace (beyond merit) that God grants to each of the blessed will, therefore, increase; their vision will increase, which in turn will cause their ardor and “ ‘the brightness born of ardor’ ” to increase. After the Resurrection of the Flesh the brightness of the blessed within their effulgence will outshine even that effulgence itself, like an intensely glowing coal visible within its own flame. (Cf. XXVIII, 106–114.) [return to English / Italian]

58–60 Solomon replies to the second part of the question (16–18). When the bodies of the blessed are “ ‘glorified and sanctified’ ” (43) in the Resurrection of the Flesh, the “ ‘body’s organs’ ” will be fortified, every physical obstacle to spiritual delight eliminated. (Cf. Summa theol. Suppl., q. 85, a. 2, ad 2.) [return to English / Italian]

61 “One and the other choir”: the two circles of soul-lights. [return to English / Italian]

67–75 “an added luster…/ even as a horizon brightening”: A horizon brightens only on one side, around the point where the sun is about to rise, but this “added luster” rose in every direction, and within it (with a sudden shift of simile to “the approach of evening”) new soul-lights appear, like faintly visible stars in a dimming sky, “forming a ring” around the two “blessed circles” (23) of the soul-lights of the wise. [return to English / Italian]

76–78 The “true sparkling of the Holy Ghost” is the radiance of Love. [return to English / Italian]

79–8 “the visions that take flight from memory”: cf. I, 4–9, and 1–12, note. [return to English / Italian]

82–87 “From this my eyes regained the strength to look…/ to higher blessedness”: cf. X, 92–93. Dante is translated to the Fifth Heaven, the Sphere of Mars. In his Convivio (II, xiii, 21) Dante writes that “Mars dries and burns things, because its heat is like that of fire; this is why he appears enkindled in color, sometimes more and sometimes less, according to the thickness or rarity of the vapors that follow him. Mars, here, is even redder than usual, enkindled with joy at Beatrice’s arrival (cf. V, 94–96). [return to English / Italian]

88–89 “that language which / is one for all”: the innermost, unspoken language of the heart and soul. [return to English / Italian]

90 “my holocaust”: The word, originally meaning “a sacrificial victim burnt entirely,” reinforces Dante’s affirmation that his ardent thanks to God, for the “new grace” (89) of being raised into a higher heaven, are rendered “with all [his] heart” (88). [return to English / Italian]

96 Dante uses the name Helios here for God. Greek for “sun,” the word was fused in medieval etymologies with Ely, linked to the Hebrew El, “God.” (Cf. IX, 8–9, and X, 53 and note.) [return to English / Italian]

101–102 “The venerable sign / a circle’s quadrants form where they are joined”: i.e., a cross (specifically, a Greek cross, its two axes equal). [return to English / Italian]

104–108 Note, in the Italian, that Dante will rhyme the name Christ only with itself (see XII, 71–75, XIX, 104–108, and XXXII, 83–87, in the Italian). [return to English / Italian]

106–108 See Matthew 16:24: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ ” Those who do so will readily pardon Dante’s inability to describe “Christ’s flaming from that cross” (104) when they behold the indescribable vision themselves in Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

109 “from horn to horn”: i.e., from arm to arm of the cross. [return to English / Italian]

121–126 Hearing the hymn sung by these soul-lights, Dante discerns only the words “Rise” and “Conquer”—enough to tell him that it “sang high praise” of God for Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death. [return to English / Italian]

131–139 “the lovely eyes”: Beatrice’s, which increase in beauty as she ascends in Paradise. It is not, Dante says, that he deemed them less lovely than the hymn sung by the soul-lights, but simply that he “had not yet turned to them” in the Heaven of Mars, to which Beatrice and Dante have ascended. Thus he “speak[s] truly” (138) in lines 127–129. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XV

1–6 The will of the blessed souls who make up the fiery Greek cross, being in harmony with God’s will and directed toward righteousness, is, as a consequence, generous and not selfish. Their eagerness to assist Dante by responding to his prayers causes the soul-lights to be still and their music to fall silent, inviting him to speak. [return to English / Italian]

4 The simile of Canto XIV, 118–120 (“And just as harp and viol…”), here becomes a metaphor: the configuration of melodious lights is a lyre whose strings are plucked by God’s hand; the souls are perfectly attuned to His will. [return to English / Italian]

7–9 Dante’s experience confirms in passing the doctrine according to which the saints may intercede with God on behalf of the living. [return to English / Italian]

13–18 The simile of the shooting star (meteor) expands a simile of Ovid’s used to describe the fall of Phaethon, the son of Apollo and Clymene, whose foolish insistence that he be allowed to drive the chariot of the sun almost set the heavens and earth on fire and led Zeus to step in and strike down the unskilled charioteer with a thunderbolt: “As sometimes from the clear heavens a star, though it falls not, yet seems to fall…” (Met. II, 321–322). [return to English / Italian]

19–24 From the right arm (“horn”) of the cross, whose moving lights were now still, a single light left its place, sped to the center, then traveled down the vertical axis, coursing to meet Dante. While the other lights are still, the welcoming light, in movement, does not, as it were, break ranks, but continues to observe the conformation imposed on the souls by their perfect conformity with the Divine Will. The singular “gem” will soon reveal itself to be the light that clothes the soul of Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida. [return to English / Italian]

25–27 Dante’s meeting with his great-great-grandfather is one of the focal events of the Paradiso. It occupies, in fact, three of the central cantos of the Cantica—XV, XVI, and XVII. Even before Cacciaguida begins to speak, the reference to the encounter of Aeneas with the shade of his dead father Anchises, recounted at the structural and moral center of the Aeneid, alerts us to the importance of the episode. “Our greatest muse” is of course Virgil (“our greatest poet” [Convivio IV, XXVI, 8]), the singer of the historic destiny of Rome. See Aeneid VI, 905–910: “And when he saw Aeneas cross the meadow, / he stretched out both hands eagerly, the tears / ran down his cheeks, these words fell from his lips: / ‘And have you come at last, and has the pious / love that your father waited for defeated / the difficulty of the journey?’ ” As we shall immediately see, the explicit reference to the classical epic hero will be followed, in Cacciaguida’s first words, by an implicit allusion to the Christian apostle Paul—a combination of paradigms that reaffirms the parallels suggested by the modest disclaimer of Inferno II, 32: “ ‘For I am not Aeneas, am not Paul.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

28–30 This tercet, Cacciaguida’s first utterance, is rendered even more solemn in Dante’s original text by the fact that it is in Latin, not Italian. The initial exclamation, “ ‘O blood of mine,’ ” is adapted from Anchises’ speech to Aeneas foretelling the future greatness of Rome. There, this same salutation was applied to no less a personage than Julius Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire. The only other person to whom Heaven’s gate was opened twice was St. Paul, who, like Dante, was a recipient of “ ‘celestial grace / bestowed beyond all measure,’ ” when he “was caught up into paradise and heard things which must not and cannot be put into human language” (2 Cor. 12:4). [return to English / Italian]

32–33 The pilgrim is stupefied on one side by the words of the spirit (who has not yet identified himself), and on the other by the intensity of the joy that irradiates Beatrice’s smile. This is the first time in the Heaven of Mars that Dante has glimpsed her smile, which is continually enhanced as they ascend from heaven to heaven. [return to English / Italian]

49–54 Just as Anchises had anticipated and longed for Aeneas’ coming, so Cacciaguida has hungered for Dante’s, having read of it in the metaphorical “ ‘volume’ ” of the eternally immutable decrees of Divine Providence. [return to English / Italian]

55–69 Cacciaguida realizes that Dante does not question him because he is aware by now that the blessed souls are able to read his thoughts directly in the Mind of God, the source of all thought, as unity is the source of the value of all the derivative numbers. Nevertheless, in order that his ardent desire for charitable communication find seemly fulfillment, he urges Dante to an almost ritual formulation of his wishes. [return to English / Italian]

88 After the direct reference to Aeneas and the oblique allusions to St. Paul and Caesar, this is an even more exalted paradigm. Behind the words with which Cacciaguida—who has already called Dante “ ‘blood of mine’ ” (28), “ ‘my seed’ ” (48), and “ ‘son’ ” (51)—formally declares the nature of his paternity, we hear an echo of no less a model than the Gospels themselves and the voice from heaven that was heard at the baptism of Christ: “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on him.” The Italian text recalls more closely than the English the words of the Latin Vulgate: “Hic est Filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi complacui.” (Cf. Matt. 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22.) [return to English / Italian]

91–94 The man who gave Dante’s family its name was Alighiero I, son of Cacciaguida and father of Bellincione, Dante’s grandfather. Though modern archival research has turned up a document dated August 14, 1201, showing that Alighiero I was still alive at that date, the context suggests Dante was under the impression he had died before 1200. Otherwise, since we are in the year 1300, he could not have spent over a century among the Prideful on the first ledge of the mountain of Purgatory. [return to English / Italian]

97–99 Florence in those days was still contained within her first and smallest circle of walls, whose construction legend attributed to the time of Charlemagne. Those walls followed the course, more or less, of the ancient Roman walls. As the city expanded, a second circle was built in 1173, and a third was begun in Dante’s lifetime in 1284. The Alighieri house was located at the heart of the city, within the ancient circle, as was the Badia (the Benedictine convent of St. Mary), whose bells were officially recognized as telling the correct time of day. The canonical hours of “ ‘tierce’ ” (nine in the morning) and “ ‘nones’ ” (three in the afternoon) marked the beginning and the end of the artisan’s normal working day. (See Purg. XV, 6, note.) [return to English / Italian]

103–105 In those days girls married when they were ripe for marriage and dowries were not ruinously exorbitant. Implicit in Cacciaguida’s praise of the good old days is, of course, Dante’s criticism of the Florence of his time, which had all the defects Cacciaguida’s Florence did not have. The reader will do well to recall Forese Donati’s diatribe against the shameless women of modern Florence (Purg. XXIII, 94–111). [return to English / Italian]

107 Sardanapalus, king of Assyria (667–626 B.C.), was a legendary example of indolence, lust, and luxury. [return to English / Italian]

109–111 The Uccellatoio is a hill outside Florence that commands a fine view of the city, just as the height of Monte Mario is an excellent vantage point from which to view Rome. What is meant is that since Cacciaguida’s time the rise of Florence has been swifter than the rise of Rome. Swifter, too, says Cacciaguida, will be her decline and fall. [return to English / Italian]

112–117 Bellincione Berti, head of one of the most famous families of 12th-century Florence, was the father of “ ‘the good Gualdrada’ ” (Inf. XVI, 37), herself the grandmother of Guido Guerra. Jacopo di Ugolino dei Nerli (another prominent family of the Guelph nobility) was consul of Florence in 1204. Precisely whom Dante had in mind in mentioning “ ‘del Vecchio’ ” is uncertain. In any case, the point is clear. All of these couples—as well as the domestic genre scenes that follow (121–126)—exemplify the sober idyllic simplicity of the past as opposed to the corruption of the present. [return to English / Italian]

118–120 Each wife was confident she would be buried with her husband in the local cemetery. In other words, the deplorable party struggles that would force so many families into exile were as yet unknown. Equally unknown was the early capitalist avidity for commercial profit (repeatedly censured by the poet), which led so many of Dante’s contemporary Florentines to leave their native city for France and other foreign parts, abandoning their wives and children. [return to English / Italian]

125–126 Cf. Inferno XV, 61–78 and note. [return to English / Italian]

127–129 Two singularly unedifying representatives of present-day Florence—Lapo Salterello, a dishonest and conniving politician, condemned in 1302, along with Dante himself, by the victorious Black Guelphs, and Cianghella della Tosa, a female contemporary of the poet’s, who seems to have been given to boasting openly about her life of unbridled self-indulgence—are opposed to two proverbial examples of public and private Roman virtue: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the famous dictator who willingly surrendered his position of power and returned to his plough, after successfully leading the Republic against the Aequians (cf. VI, 46–47, and 43–54, note), and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi (cf. Inf. IV, 128). [return to English / Italian]

134–135 Dante, too, was baptized a Christian in the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence (cf. Canto XXV, 8–9, and Inf. XIX, 17). [return to English / Italian]

136 Cacciaguida’s brother or brothers are unknown to history. The line as it stands may in fact refer to two brothers, one named Moronto and one Eliseo, or to a single brother, Moronto, who unlike Cacciaguida and his descendants, kept the family name of Eliseo or Elisei. A further genealogical complication is added by the fact that some manuscripts read “ ‘father’ ” instead of “ ‘brother.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

137–138 The Po Valley lies to the north of Florence on the far side of the Apennine chain. Precisely where Cacciaguida’s wife was from is uncertain, though most commentators opt for Ferrara. [return to English / Italian]

139–147 Conrad III of Swabia, emperor from 1138 till his death in 1152, took part, along with Louis VII of France, in the disastrous Second Crusade (1147–1149). In that campaign against the Saracen usurpers of the Holy Land (cf. IX, 125–126), Cacciaguida met his death. [return to English / Italian]

148 In Canto X, 129, an almost identical line seals epigrammatically the fate of the philosopher Boethius. There, as here, the Italian text places the word that designates heavenly “ ‘peace,’ ” “ ‘pace,’ ” in rhyme with its polar opposite, “ ‘mondo fallace,’ ” “the erring [or deceitful] world.” [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XVI

1–6 Greeted so warmly by such a noble ancestor, Dante cannot help but feel pride, and he feels that pride in Heaven, where the paltry foolishness of all values other than individual virtue ought to be constantly before our eyes. Little surprise, then, that on earth men set such store by their lineage! [return to English / Italian]

7–9 For Dante, nobility is a dynamic concept, a value to be constantly and determinedly pursued. We do not patch the cloak by resting on our laurels, still less on the laurels of our ancestors. The idea that true nobility is nobility of the mind, which cannot be inherited but must be won, is frequent in his works: “Wherever there is virtue, there is nobility” (Convivio IV, xix, 3); “Their lineage does not make individuals noble, rather individuals make noble their lineage” (Convivio IV, XX, 5). It is a common theme in the works of Dante’s immediate predecessors and contemporaries, where it often has an anti-aristocratic political thrust. Here the topos has lost its polemical edge and appears in an elegiac form, not as the aggressive protest of the new classes against the proud man’s contumely, but as aristocratic regret for the inevitable decline of the good and the true, a lament over the triumph of violence and vulgarity. [return to English / Italian]

9 Like all earthly things, nobility and reputation are vulnerable to circling time, the great destroyer. The temper of Dante’s meeting with Cacciaguida foreshadows Petrarch in discerning in earthly life the triumph of time, mutability, and the inevitable corruption of sublunar things. Through the words of Cacciaguida, the poet mourns the decline and death of families, cities, nobility, virtue. The echoing litanies of family names are litanies for the dead and dying. Even the place-names on Cacciaguida’s lips have nostalgic resonance—their geography is that of another time. [return to English / Italian]

10 The you the pilgrim is about to use to Cacciaguida is the second person plural you—in the Italian text, voi—the pronoun of deference, reserved for persons deserving of the greatest respect. This voi—in its nominative or possessive form—has previously been used in speaking to only seven people: Farinata (Inf. X, 51), Cavalcante (Inf. X, 63), Brunetto Latini (Inf. XV, 30), Currado Malaspina (Purg. VIII, 121), Pope Hadrian V (Purg. XIX, 131), Guido Guinizzelli (Purg. XXVI, 112), and Beatrice. Moreover, in Canto XV, before knowing who he was, Dante had used the more normal tu, even with Cacciaguida. This is one of those moments when one may appreciate the poet’s psychological detachment from the pilgrim and see the latter for the constructed character that he is. Certainly Cacciaguida is a venerable ancient, and on earth he had been a knight; on the other hand, Dante has encountered and will encounter personages far more venerable and exalted. What makes Dante so ceremonious at this point, rather than Cacciaguida’s distance, is his very closeness. Beatrice’s cough and her smile, along with the canto’s opening considerations on the vanity of pride in blood—Cacciaguida had in fact saluted Dante as his “ ‘blood’ ” (XV, 28)—suggest that there may be some irony here at Dante’s own expense, as the pilgrim, with his pompous allocution, perhaps basks in a little reflected glory. [return to English / Italian]

11 It was believed, on the authority of a misreading of Lucan, that the first individual to be addressed with the plural you had been Julius Caesar, on his triumphant return to Rome. [return to English / Italian]

12 Today, Dante says, when the custom of the respectful voi has spread to all Italy, it is remarkable that it is precisely the people of Rome and Latium who seem most reluctant to use it. This linguistic “democracy” of the Romans of Dante’s time is mentioned in other contemporary sources. [return to English / Italian]

13–15 In the medieval French Lancelot, the Lady of Malehaut, herself secretly in love with Sir Lancelot, on overhearing an indiscreet conversation between the knight and Queen Guinevere, coughed to let them know someone was there. Beatrice’s smile is a comment on Dante’s choice of pronouns. It reminds us of Dante’s smile at Statius’ effusions over Virgil in Virgil’s presence (cf. Purg. XXI, 109). These moments of delicate humor are certainly rare and certainly welcome. [return to English / Italian]

16–18 The voi is repeated three times! “ ‘You raise me so that I am more than I’ ”: surely Beatrice’s ironically knowing smile must have broadened at this affirmation! [return to English / Italian]

25 The “ ‘sheepfold of St. John’ ”: Florence, whose patron saint was John the Baptist. [return to English / Italian]

28–29 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses VII, 79–81. [return to English / Italian]

33 While most commentators assume that Cacciaguida spoke in archaic Florentine, it has been suggested that since his first words were in Latin (XV, 28–30) he spoke in that language throughout. (It is not clear however, why this would have been the case.) In any event, the words attributed to him are in fact translated by the poet into “modern speech.” [return to English / Italian]

34–39 Cacciaguida first tells Dante the year of his birth—1091. The “ ‘day when Ave was pronounced’ ” is the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, which in the Florentine calendar counted as the beginning of the new year. (According to this reckoning, the Christian era began with the conception, not the birth, of Christ). In the space of time since the Annunciation, the planet Mars (in whose sphere we now find ourselves) had returned 580 times to the constellation of Leo (“ ‘its Lion’ ”). According to Ptolemy and Alfraganus, Mars completes its revolution around the earth in 687 days. When 580 is multiplied by 687 and then divided by 365 (the number of days in the year), the result is 1091. Red Mars, the warrior planet, is rekindled under “ ‘the burning Lion’s breast’ ” (XXI, 14), because of the affinity of their fiery influences. [return to English / Italian]

40–42 That is, “My ancestors and I were born within the first circle of walls [cf. XV, 97–99 and note] at the spot where a runner in the annual horse race first enters the ward of Porta San Pietro.” The discreet periphrasis nevertheless declares that the family was among the oldest in Florence and came from the original “ ‘sacred seed’ ” of Roman stock (cf. Inf. XV, 76). [return to English / Italian]

46–48 The adult male population of Florence (and by inference the population as a whole) was a fifth of what it had become by Dante’s time—less was better. The Baptistery of San Giovanni and the statue believed to be of Mars on the Ponte Vecchio were at the opposite ends of the city. [return to English / Italian]

49–51 Campi, Certaldo, and Figline are neighboring localities several miles outside Florence from which there had been mass immigration into the city. [return to English / Italian]

54 Galuzzo and Trespiano; towns close by Florence, on the roads to Siena and Bologna respectively. The Florentine state should have stayed within these boundaries. [return to English / Italian]

56 “ ‘Aguglione’s wretch and Signa’s wretch’ ”: two descendants of families that immigrated to Florence from places in the surrounding countryside—identified as Baldo d’Aguglione and Bonifazio dei Morubaldini. Both were contemporary politicians and, whatever else they may have done, were in part responsible for Dante’s continuing exile. Dante accuses them of barratry (political corruption). [return to English / Italian]

58–60 “ ‘Those who in the world go most astray’ ” are the leaders of the Church, who, instead of living in affectionate peace with the emperor (“Caesar”), like two people of the same flesh and blood, have played the role of the envious grasping stepmother. If not for the interference of the Church, and the consequent rivalry between the pro-Papal Guelphs and the pro-Imperial Ghibellines, Florence would have remained in her primitive state of innocence. [return to English / Italian]

63–66 Semifonte, Montemurlo, and Acone are other castles or villages near Florence. The “ ‘Counts’ ” are the Conti Guidi, who sold their castles to Florence and moved into town. The Cerchi were an enriched family who became leaders of the White faction. [return to English / Italian]

70–72 Proverbial sayings to the effect that size and numbers are no advantage. [return to English / Italian]

73–75 Luni, Urbisaglia, Sinigaglia, Chiusi: cities once important, now in ruins or on their way to ruin. [return to English / Italian]

82–84 Just as the moon causes the tides to ebb and flow, uncovering and covering the shore, so the goddess Fortune (cf. Inf. VII, 61–96) keeps Florence in constant fluctuation. [return to English / Italian]

88–93 All of these families are formerly important dynasties, now fallen upon evil days. This celebration of the fabulous innocence of an earlier time is also fraught with a pervasive sense of earthly mutability. [return to English / Italian]

94–99 The noble Ravignani clan lived near the gate of Porta San Pietro, where the ignoble Cerchis live now (see “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, p. 323). Count Guido Guerra “ ‘was a grandson of the good Gualdrada’ ” (Inf. XVI, 37–38), whose father was Bellincione Berti (cf. XV, 112–114). [return to English / Italian]

100–111 Another roll call of resounding aristocratic names, which would have meant a great deal to contemporary Florentine readers of the Comedy. [return to English / Italian]

103 The Pigli family arms had a vertical stripe of vair (a heraldic representation of fur) on a red ground. [return to English / Italian]

105–106 “ ‘those who / blush for the bushel’ ”: the Chiaramontesi, who were still ashamed of one member of their family who had gone wrong by falsifying the measure of salt when distributing their rations to the citizenry. [return to English / Italian]

109–110 Those “ ‘whom pride laid low’ ”: the Uberti, the family of Farinata (cf. Inf. X). The arms of the Lamberti displayed golden balls on a field of azure. [return to English / Italian]

112–114 The Visdomini and Tosinghi families had an interest in keeping the bishopric of Florence vacant, since they administered the revenues in the absence of an incumbent. [return to English / Italian]

115–121 The “ ‘stock / so mean’ ” is the malignant, fawning, covetous clan of the Adimari. When Bellincione Berti, one of whose daughters had married a son of Ubertin Donato, wed the other to an Adimari, Donato objected to their kinship. [return to English / Italian]

121–124 Caponsacco, Giuda, Infangato: once-prominent Ghibelline families, since decayed. [return to English / Italian]

125–126 One possible explanation for Dante’s wonder at Cacciaguida’s statement is that a family so insignificant by Dante’s time had been sufficiently prominent in Cacciaguida’s to lend their name to one of the city gates. [return to English / Italian]

127–132 All the families that incorporate into their escutcheons the arms of Hugh the Great, marquis of Tuscany (d 1001)—the anniversary of whose death is celebrated on December 21, St. Thomas’s Day—received knighthood from him. Giano della Bella, the chief author of the 1293 Ordinamenti di giustizia, is the renegade who went over to the people’s side against the magnates. His family’s coat of arms had added a gold fringe to Hugh the Great’s ensign. [return to English / Italian]

133–135 The Gualterotti and Importuni lived peacefully in Borgo Santi Apostoli, outside the old walls, until the arrival of the troublemaking Buondelmonti. [return to English / Italian]

140–144 Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, betrothed to a daughter of the Amidei, broke off the engagement at the last moment, at the instigation of Gualdrada Donati, in order to marry one of her daughters. Members of the Amidei clan promptly avenged the affront by killing him. This feud was commonly blamed for the origin of civil strife in Florence. It would have been better for everyone if Buondelmonte had drowned in the river Ema, which lay between his castle of origin and Florence. [return to English / Italian]

145–147 Buondelmonte was killed at the foot of the ancient and mutilated statue, supposedly of Mars, at the end of the Ponte Vecchio, on Easter, 1216. [return to English / Italian]

152–154 The ensign of Florence, a white lily on a red field, was never dragged upside down over the battlefield by victors as a sign of the city’s humiliation. Nor were its colors yet reversed, to a red lily on a white field, as they were in 1251 by the Guelphs, victorious against the Ghibellines in the war of Pistoia. The line suggests that the crimson lily is red with the blood of a divided Florence or with shame for the changes time has wrought. [return to English / Italian]