Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry 9781442673984

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Texts and Translations
Introduction: Dante’s Incarnational Dialectic
1. Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody
2. Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large
3. Dante’s Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission
Notes
Index

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DIVINE DIALECTIC: DANTE'S INCARNATIONAL POETRY

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Divine Dialectic Dante's Incarnational Poetry

GUY P. RAFFA

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2000 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4856-0

Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Italian Studies

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Raffa, Guy P. Divine dialectic : Dante's incarnational poetry (Toronto Italian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4856-0 1. Dante Alighieri, 1265—1321. Divina commedia. 2. Incarnation in literature. 3. Dialectic in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PQ4390.R33 2000

851M

COO-931766-X

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a University Cooperative Society Subvention Grant awarded by The University of Texas at Austin. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

To my teacher, Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), and to my students at the University of Texas at Austin

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

A Note on Texts and Translations

xi

Introduction Dante's Incarnational Dialectic

3

Chapter One Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 1 Incarnation Manque in the Vita nuova 24 2 Dante's Infernal Web of Pride 37

23

Chapter Two Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 67 1 Incarnational (Dis)appearances: Virgil and Beatrice 68 2 Dialectically Marked Spirits in the Shadowed Spheres 76 3 Incarnational Reflections and Lines 87 4 The Poet's Incarnate Word 110 Chapter Three Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 125 1 Lifting the Hermeneutic Veil: Circling the Cross in the Sun arid Mars 2 The Bitter-Sweet Lessons of Cacciaguida and Scipio 147 3 Dante's Divine Tetragon 164 4 Intellectual Action and Dialectical Hermeneutics 178 Notes

197

Index

241

126

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Acknowledgments

I am pleased to acknowledge the generous support I have received throughout the course of this project. I am grateful to the University of Texas at Austin for financial assistance in the form of research awards and a Dean's Fellowship. I am thankful to the anonymous readers for University of Toronto Press and to other scholars who read and commented on the book in whole or in part: Rebecca S. Real, Theodore Cachey, Jr, R. Allen Shoaf, and Ronald L. Martinez. I owe special thanks to Mark Musa, who guided my first efforts in Dante studies, and to my colleague Douglas Blow for his perceptive and helpful feedback at every stage of this project. My work has also benefited from the advice and support of Giuseppe Mazzotta, Millicent Marcus, Wayne A. Rebhorn, Daniela Bini, Ricardo J. Quinones, Victoria Kirkham, Peter Bondanella, and Christopher Kleinhenz. I am thankful to University of Toronto Press for making the experience of publishing this book, my first, an exciting and satisfying one. I am especially grateful to Amilcare A. lannucci for working to include the book in the Italian Studies series; to Ken Lewis for bis superb copy-editing; and to Ron Schoeffel for attentively steering the book through the publication process from start to finish. Finally. I lovingly thank Helene Meyers for sustained support even as she wrote her own book, and for showing me, a fellow New Yorker in exile, that it is indeed possible to root for both New York baseball teams - a dialectic of paradox if ever there was one.

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A Note on Texts and Translations

The sources for the texts and translations of all works except the Bible and those by Dante are given in the Notes. Original texts of Dante's works and their English translations (occasionally modified) are taken from the following editions: Convivio. Ed. Franca Brambilla Ageno. Florence: Le Lettere, 1995. Dante's 'II (Convivio' ('Tfie Banquet'). Trans. Richard H. Lansing. New York: Garland, 1990. Dante's 'Monarchia. 'Ed. and trans. Richard Kay. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998. De vulgari doquentia. Ed. and trans. Steven Botterill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. La D'nnna Commedia. Ed. Giorgio Petrocchi. Turin: Einaudi, 1975. The, Divine Comedy. Trans. Charles S. Singleton. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-5. Epistole. Ed. Arseiiio Frugoni and Giorgio Brugnoli. In Dante Alighieri. Opere minori. Vol. 5, part 2. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1979. Vita, nuova. Ed. and trans. Dino S. Cervigni and Edward Vasta. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. References to the Latin Bible are from Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam Clementinam, 6th ed., ed. Alberto Colunga and Lorenzo Turrado (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1982), and translations are from The Holy Bible (New York: Douav Bible House, 1941).

xii A Note on Texts and Translations The following abbreviations are used: DDP Data base of the Dartmouth Dante Project (telnet:// library.dartmouth.edu). PL Patrologiae cursus completus ... Series latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne. 221 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1844—64, with later printings.

DIEBAM

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Introduction: Dante's Incarnational Dialectic

This looser sense [of dialectic] has passed into more general use, alongside the older sense of the process of argument or a method of argument. It is not often easy to see which of these various senses is being used, and with what implications, in the course of contemporary argument. - Raymond Williams, Keywords

Dunque a Dio convenia con le vie sue riparar 1'omo a sua intera vita, dico con 1'una, o ver con amendue. [Therefore it was needful for God, with His own ways, to restore man to his full life - 1 mean with one way, or else with both.] - Paradiso 7 103-5

As the pre-eminent Christian epic of the Middle Ages, Dante's Divina Commedia properly ends with a vision of the Incarnation. To represent the paradoxical union of complete human and divine natures in a single person, the poet imagines a fit between an image of humankind — 'nostra effige' [our image] — and the reflected circle of the triune Godhead (Par. 33.1 15-38). Of course, the wayfarer is unable to see this theological mystery on the strength of his 'own wings' (139). The vision, we are told, is granted by a 'flash' - fulgore - of divine power (140-1), the final act of grace in a voyage set into motion by a chain of heavenly intervention consisting of'three blessed women' (Inf. 2.124). However, the Incarnation is not just the goal of the journey and the thematic culmination of the poem but the complex theological doctrine that underpins both the journey itself and the way the poem is dialectically structured and conceived. By transforming the mystery of the Incarna-

4 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry tion into what I call an incarnational dialectic, Dante promotes a paradoxical, 'both-and' way of reading his poetry - a hermeneutics that serves, in turn, as a model for thinking and being in the world. The descent of the divine Logos into humanity, as Erich Auerbach, Charles S. Singleton, John Freccero, and Marcia L. Colish have argued, is the controlling model for Dante's depiction of the otherworld. Auerbach identifies the Incarnation as the basis for the Commedids figural typology, the manner in which historical characters prefigure their ultimate, fulfilled truth in the afterlife.1 Singleton likewise bases his exposition of Dante's 'allegory of theologians' on a literal level of meaning that is historical and concrete in the manner of the incarnate Word.2 For Freccero, the vision of the Incarnation at the end of the poem authorizes the union of Dante-poet with Dante-wayfarer, the moment when 'the poet's word joins the flesh of his experience.'3 Colish shows how Dante fashions his renowned mimetic realism out of this union of 'word' and 'flesh,' thus making his Corn-media 'the poetic corollary of the Incarnation.' 4 These and other scholars make a strong case for the hermeneutic and representational significance of the Incarnation in Dante's poetry, and I shall attempt to support and expand parts of their arguments in later chapters. However, the primary focus of this book remains the poet's belief in the Incarnation not only as the key to writing and reading the Commedia but as the foundation of a dialectical approach to knowledge and being in the lives of his readers. Dante hints at the epistemological importance of the Incarnation by raising the issue as to whether or not he possessed a mortal body during his celestial voyage. More pointedly, did he bring his own body into the spherical bodies of paradise? Instead of answering this question unequivocally, he uses it to entice the reader to consider a far more vital mystery, the union of humanity and God in the person of Christ: S'io era corpo, e qui non si concepe com' una dimensione altra patio, ch'esser convien se corpo in corpo repe, accender ne dovria piii il disio di veder quella essenza in che si vede come nostra natura e Dio s'unio. (Par. 2.37-42) [If I was body (and here we conceive not how one bulk could bear another, which must be if body enters body), the more should the longing enkindle us to see that Essence wherein we behold how our nature and God united themselves.]

Introduction 5 Here the poet affirms that the Incarnation (the union of 'our nature' and 'God') is accessible to humankind 'through faith,' not as something 'demonstrated' [per fede, / non dimostrato] (43-4). A paradox that transcends reason alone and defies the laws of conventional logic, the doctrine of the incarnate Word can be believed - in the wayfarer's extraordinary case, it can even be seen and experienced - but it cannot be proved. That the Incarnation exceeds the limits of human reason and thereby remains forever 'non dimostrato' is part of what makes it a divine mystery in the first place. Because such mysteries of the faith cannot be demonstrated through reason and argument, they demand a new, alternative way of knowing. In truth, the Incarnation has a logic of its own, albeit one that blatantly violates the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction - a linchpin of Western rationalism - whereby the same subject cannot be both one thing and its opposite at the same time. By this standard of formal logic, the ontological structure of the incarnate Word is essentially paradoxical: a union of two natures in a single person, the same subject Christ - is at once completely human and completely divine. While the word Incarnation nowhere appears in the gospel texts, incarnational theology begins with the portrayal of Jesus as both the Son of God and the son of Mary, and is crystallized in the image of 'the Word made flesh' [verbum caro factum est] (John 1:14). However, the precise meaning of the Incarnation and the proper way to express it were vigorously debated in the early centuries of Christianity, with various thinkers and factions emphasizing one or the other of Christ's two complete natures. The declaration of faith issued by the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.), while not putting a definitive end to the animosity and misunderstandings that marked Christological debate, nonetheless established the orthodox view of the Incarnation as the union of two complete natures, human and divine, in one person. Faced with this paradoxical 'both-and' doctrine, medieval writers who attempt to explain or represent the Incarnation understandably focus primarily on the why of the god-man — CurDeus Homo [Why God Became a Man], as Anselm titles his famous treatise - and devote less energy to the how. Thus Richard of St Victor, after considering possible ways 'i which humanity and Divinity are united so that they can be one person,' readily declares the question to be so 'secret' — intima — that 'it is not debatable and hence may perhaps be more rightly suppressed' (Benjamin Major 18).n In his allegorical Antidaudianus, Alan of Lille dramatizes this resistance of the Incarnation to logical debate. When Prudence enters God's realm, she sees that 'logic's arguments are

6 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry refuted' by a host of paradoxes occasioned by the Incarnation, including a virgin-mother and a father begotten by his daughter (6.155-61). Upon viewing God in human form, she seeks to know the nature of this union of divine with mortal. Faith, who has supplanted Theology as guide, explains that for such matters all human laws and natural processes are silenced: 'Not Reason but Faith alone is taken into account there' (6.ISO).6 Other writers deal with the paradox of the Incarnation by breaking out of their sober method of theological exposition with dramatic bursts of wonder. Boethius, in refuting the Christological heresies attributed to Nestorius (two natures imply two persons) and Eutyches (one person implies a single — divine — nature), celebrates the singular, inimitable event in which the two natures join in one person: 'For how great and unprecedented a thing it is - unique and incapable of repetition in any other age - that the nature of him who is God alone should come together with human nature which was entirely different from God and thus form from different natures by conjunction a single person!' (Contra Eutychen et Nestorium 4.62-7).7 Anselm, who appears in the Paradiso with Boethius and Richard of St Victor among the wise souls in die heaven of the Sun,8 expresses similar awe before the Incarnation, declaring that it is wondrous not merely because two different natures become one person but because, paradoxically, 'the integrity of each nature is preserved and the same [individual] who is divine is also human!' (CurDeus Homo 2.16).9 In Dante's Commedia this paradoxical 'both-and' structure, the defining feature of the Incarnation that challenges the intellectual and rhetorical metde of theologians and poets alike, is hardly limited to representations of the man-god. It is also the mainspring of what has come to be known as a 'dialectical' Dante. Addressing a wide range of topics - from the poet's complex encounter with the Classical world and Christian theology to his imagining of the relationship between history and the afterlife, from his ambiguous figuration of his exile and literary mission to his relationship to the first-person protagonist of the Commedia — dialectical approaches to Dante's poetry continue to yield innovative and substantive results in recent scholarship, particularly in the American tradition. Giuseppe Mazzotta and Teodolinda Barolini, who otherwise bring different critical assumptions to bear on different aspects of Dante's works, make the most compelling case for reading and understanding Dante dialectically. Within a discussion of Dante's allegory, Mazzotta captures the dynamic, paradoxical nature of this dialectic. Viewing the 'ruptures' in the Commedia between theological cer-

Introduction

7

tainty and historical-linguistic contingency as 'the very sinew of the text and a consistent and controlled strategy,' Mazzotta argues that Dante's reader 'is confronted ... with the possibility of two opposed readings which do not deconstruct and cancel each other out, but are simultaneously present and always involve each other.'10 Although Mazzotta here does not explicitly label this double reading of the Commedia 'dialectical,' he elsewhere uses the term to advance arguments predicated on this paradoxical hermeneutics of 'both-arid.'" When Barolini claims that 'Dante himself is a dialectical being,' she refers to the wayfarer alone, whose experience in the heaven of the Sun is characterized by both undifferendated atemporality and the distinctions of a time-bound existence.12 Yet this provocative statement clearly extends beyond the bounds of this one issue/episode and may well apply to 'Dante' metonymically understood as his epic poem. Barolini suggests as much when she states that her strong belief in 'a dialectical Dante' compels her 'to demonstrate both sides of the equation: not just the corrections that make Dante appear so orthodox, but also the emulations that make him so radical.' 13 Barolini, too, acknowledges the paradoxical, 'both-and' logic of her dialectical conception of Dante when, calling Virgil 'the paradox at the heart of the poem,' she identifies the poet's simultaneous undermining and exalting of his Roman precursor as 'an inescapable dialectic.'14 To speak of Dante's work as dialectical in this way is to recognize the poet's unsurpassed ability, at once exhilarating and exasperating, to 'have it both ways' on issues that normally cry out for a definitive 'either/or' solution. Indeed, the current burgeoning of Dante criticism employing this type of dialectical hermeneutics - opposed readings that are 'simultaneously present and always involve each other,' attention to 'both sides of the equation' - makes of the poet's preference for 'bothand' over 'either/or' an exemplary virtue rather than a sign of vague uncertainty. The accumulation of these dialectical readings, covering several of the so-called 'opere minori' in addition to all three cantiche of the Commedia, shows this paradoxical logic to be a defining quality of Dante's thought and poetry. The dialectical configurations of perfection/imperfection and stability/instability in the Vita nuova (Kleiner, Stillinger); 'the struggle between positive and negative aspects of the poet-lover's situation and of his nature' in the rime petrose (Durling and Martinez); the poet-philosopher's simultaneous critique and legitimation of authority in the Convivio (Ascoli); the competing voices of the grammarian and the ironic poet in the De vulgari eloquentia (Cestaro);

8 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the 'unresolved dialectic' emerging from the poet's refusal to settle the question of values in the Inferno (Franke); the 'dialectic of violence and guidance' running through the Purgatorio (Schnapp); the 'dialectic of ineffability' conspicuous in the Paradiso (Hawkins) - these are only a few recent examples that evince to varying degrees the paradoxical 'bothand' logic of Dante's dialectical imagination.15 Of course, additional dialectical approaches to Dante, as well as to other literary figures, are also legitimate and productive, consistent with the varied understandings and uses of dialectic in philosophy and criticism. Whatever dialectic means today, it likely draws from one or more of the following conceptions: Zeno's unity of opposites in being; Socratic dialogue; Plato's 'copestone' of philosophy; Aristotelian logic based on opinions and probable premises; Kant's antinomies of subjective reasoning; Fichte's triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; Hegel's sublation of real contradictions; Kierkegaard's existential tensions; and Marxist analysis of class conflict and socio-economic contradictions. Since, as Raymond Williams remarks, 'it is not often easy to see which of these various senses is being used, and with what implications, in the course of contemporary argument,'16 the reader must often determine on a case by case basis the particular values, attributes, and connotations of the dialectic employed. A recent PMLA article containing multiple uses and characteristics of dialectic — including tension, play, counterparts, dialogue, and synthesis - typifies die semantic flexibility of the concept and the difficulty in reducing it to a single meaning or tradition in contemporary literary studies.17 Within Dante studies, dialectic has two significant critical histories besides the paradoxical 'both-and' model described above. Several studies examine the role of dialectic in the poet's works as one of the artes^ along with grammar and rhetoric - of the medieval trivium, including its kinship with logic as the method for pursuing knowledge by distinguishing truth from falsehood.18 Often starting from the poet's comparison of dialectic to the sphere of Mercury (Conu 2.13.11-12), these investigations explore Dante's ambivalence toward the techniques and aims of dialectic in the Corn-media, the Paradiso in particular. Another line of dialectical Dante criticism originates in the nineteenth century with Hegel's conception of history as a dialectical movement toward Absolute Spirit. Praising the Commedia as the supreme representation of both the divine world and the particularities of human existence, Hegel views Dante's otherworld as the place where each individual life is 'fathomed objectively in its inmost being, judged in its worth or worthlessness by the

Introduction 9

supreme Concept, i.e. by God.'19 This Hegelian understanding of the relationship between history and the afterlife has exerted a profound influence on modern Dante scholarship, primarily through the major contributions of Francesco De Sanctis in the nineteenth century and Erich Auerbach in the twentieth. A.C. Charity clarifies the dialectical dimension of this eschatological perspective by distinguishing between allegorical and typological exegesis: whereas allegory posits a literal event interpreted according to a higher spiritual truth, generally at the expense of the letter, typology - or figural interpretation, in Auerbach's terms - is dialectical because one event is related to another based on a real parallel and historical continuity between them.20 This mode of dialectical reasoning therefore assumes a Ideological movement toward fulfilment, an ideal unification of the living world with its true essence. Benedetto Croce, also steeped in Hegelian thought, applies this historical-eschatological dialectic to his aesthetic theory. Insisting that for Dante, unlike Shakespeare, there is both 'poesia' and 'struttura' rather than a homogenous totality of poetry, Croce strategically appeals to dialectic - 'moto dialettico,' 'senso dialettico' - to describe the only true 'unita' of the Commedias easily discernible dichotomies.21 More recently and less obviously, a diluted Hegelian dialectic appears at times in the work of John Freccero, who perceives an essential relationship between dialectic and the Incarnation in Dante's poetry. Freccero views the Incarnation as the transcendent ground or synthesis of various dichotomies, such as physical blindness/spiritual vision and individuality/divinity, rather than the theological and rhetorical foundation for the poet's overt, paradoxical embrace of mutually exclusive states/2 Aimed at either the fulfilment of history or the essential unity of the poet's heterogeneous work, these dialectical Dantes bear only a nominal resemblance to the Dantean dialectic modelled on the paradoxical 'bolh-and' figuration of the Incarnation. Hegel, to be sure, also looms large for a dialectical Dante defined by paradox, but not the Hegel who aspires to a comprehensive ideological, metaphysical system. Rather, Hegel's insight into the inherently contradictory nature of reality arid his notion of 'sublation' (Aufhebung) - the simultaneous erasure and preservation of contradictions as they are 'raised up' - make him the philosophical prophet of a paradoxical dialectic. Stephen N. Dunning, relying more on Kierkegaard than Hegel, describes this 'dialectic of paradox' as a transformational dialectic that 'simultaneously affirms the theoretical dialectic of contradiction and the transactional dialectic of reciprocity.'23 While 'theoretical' thinkers

10 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry thrive on oppositions and 'transactional' ones aim at reconciliation, the 'transformational' type, whose ideal subject matter is revelation (178), imagines the paradoxical embrace of both dialectical relationships at once. To Dunning's broad, multidisciplinary sample of practitioners of this transformational dialectic of paradox - Thomas Kuhn (science), Joseph Campbell (myth), Reinhold Niebuhr (history), S0ren Kierkegaard (love), Paul Tillich (self, identity), and Paul Ricoeur (hermeneutics) - we may certainly add Dante, whose vision arguably encompasses the primary concerns of all these thinkers combined. I am aware, of course, that dialectic of any sort is anathema for many philosophers and theorists, notably those who use it as a foil for various philosophies of difference.24 After all, no matter how dialectic is conceived or applied it cannot help but reinforce the hegemony of binary reasoning in logic, language, and culture. That the post-Hegelian dialectic of paradox thrives today therefore reflects its ability to absorb such 'anti-dialectical' values as affirmation, multiplicity, and play. Put differently, the basis for Linda Hutcheon's repeated claim that '[t]here is no dialectic in the postmodern' — unresolved tensions and contradictions, problematization instead of synthesis - is also, ironically, part of the basis for a dialectic defined by simultaneous opposition and resolution.25 If this dialectic of paradox holds an important place in literary criticism generally, its potential for studying a poet for whom the paradoxical union of two perfect natures, human and divine, in a single person is the goal and foundation of his vision can hardly be overestimated. Dante's narrow conception of dialectic in the Convivio points to the gap separating the earlier, philosophical text from the mature poet's epic vision of the afterlife. Dante argues in his unfinished treatise that dialectic and Mercury are similar in two ways: as Mercury is the smallest planet, so dialectic is the 'smallest' science because it is perfectly contained in Aristotle's logical treatises; and as Mercury is veiled by the Sun's rays, so dialectic is the most Veiled' discipline inasmuch as it requires probable, sophistic arguments (Conu 2.13.11-12). Dialectic, limited to this Aristotelian conception of logic and method, is thus antithetical to theology, the 'divina scienza' that 'suffers no diversity of opinion or sophistical reasoning because of the supreme certainty of its subject, which is God' (Conu 2.14.19). Conversely, the poet's selection of Mercury as the sphere of the Incarnation in the Paradiso evinces a sophisticated understanding of dialectic in terms of paradox, a decidedly un-Aristotelian dialectic embracing both contradiction and reconciliation at the same time. This dialectic of paradox - presented in

Introduction 11 Plato's Parmenides, refined by Hegel and Kierkegaard, and employed by contemporary literary critics - is the mode of being and thinking best suited to Mercury-Hermes. In the myth of this god, as Umberto Eco writes, 'we find the negation of the principle of identity, of noncontradiction, and of the excluded middle, and the causal chains wind back on themselves in spirals: the "after" precedes the "before," the god knows no spatial limits and may, in different shapes, be in different places at the same time. Defying Aristotelian principles, this transgressive logic distinguishes both the ancient messenger god, who shuttles back and forth between heaven and earth, and the Christian man-god, the incarnate Word who descends from and returns to his heavenly father. Mercury is therefore the optimal planetary location for Dante's personal foray into incarnational theology, the subject matter of Parodist) 7. Here the poet dramatizes the essential relationship, adumbrated in the theological and philosophical traditions, between the Incarnation and the dialectic of paradox. In this canto Beatrice offers a detailed explanation of how the destruction of Jerusalem could be construed as just punishment for the crucifixion of Christ, itself understood as just revenge for original sin (7.20-1). The episode glosses an issue raised in the previous canto with the emperor Justinian's description of the providential flight of the imperial eagle through history. A convert to the true understanding of the Incarnation prior to his monumental codification of Roman law (Par: 6.10-24), Justinian possesses keen insight into the operation of justice linking the three events. Beatrice's elucidation of this operation in Parodist) 7, the most systematically developed presentation of incarnational doctrine in the Corn-media, illustrates the dialectical force of the incarnate Word in Dante's imagination. The poet not only follows the example of Anselm and other theologians in defining the paradoxical union of two complete natures in one person as a dialectical product, but he goes further, as we shall see, by imagining the dialectical process in which God chooses both mercy and justice - the gift of himself and the atonement of Christ's crucifixion - as the method of redemption. A hallmark of Dante's poetry, this incarnational process is an important reason why the Commedia continues to have such unprecedented success in challenging the minds of its readers to think dialcctically and not fall into the trap of reducing complex issues to simplistic 'either/or' solutions, First, however, Darite imitates Anselm's argumentation in Cur Deus Homo by employing a partial form of this dialectic of paradox. In his

12 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

seminal text of incarnational theology, Aiiselm (through his interlocutor) wonders how God's punishment of the devil for tormenting humankind could be considered just if Adam and Eve in fact deserved to be tormented. He concludes that a determination of justice at times depends on perspective: 'Accordingly, from different viewpoints this very same action is both just and unjust; but it can happen that it is judged by one person only as just and by another person only as unjust' (1.7).27 In this case, God's punishment of the devil is just insofar as the devil maliciously harmed humankind (not by God's command, though God permitted it) and unjust to the extent that humankind deserved to be tormented in the first place. On the surface, this type of dialectical reasoning resembles the 'both-and' logic of the Incarnation whereby Christ is both human and divine. Yet, the perspective-dependent, partia nature of Anselm's example - the fact that God's punishment of the devil is neither wholly just nor wholly unjust - distinguishes it from the incarnational dialectic of paradox, in which Christ is completely human and completely divine in a single person. Similarly, justice is the theme of Dante's example of perspectivedependent dialectic in Paradiso 7. But whereas Anselm considers the question of God's justice in punishing the devil, Dante stays within a Christological framework by showing the importance of perspective in determining the justice of Christ's crucifixion. The poet sets up this situation by providing a conventional representation of Christ's incarnational union of two complete natures, human and divine, in a single person. Beatrice explains to the wayfarer that humankind, following Adam's momentous transgression, wallowed for 'mold secoli in grande errore, / fin ch'al Verbo di Dio discender piacque / u' la natura, che dal suo fattore / s'era allungata, uni a se in persona / con 1'atto sol del suo etterno amore' [many centuries in great error, until it pleased the word of God to descend where he, by the sole act of his eternal love, united with himself in person the nature which had estranged itself from its maker] (7.28-33). This statement of incarnational doctrine then enables Beatrice to resolve the apparent contradiction raised by Justinian in the previous canto: how the crucifixion, later punished through the destruction of Jerusalem, was just punishment for original sin - how, in other words, the crucifixion was both just and unjust at the same time. The solution lies in Anselm's idea that the 'very same action is both just and unjust' depending on the point of view taken. While justice was served through the crucifixion based on Christ's human nature, nothing was ever more unjust from the perspective of his divinity. From

Introduction

13

this latter perspective, Dante figures the destruction of the Jewish city as just punishment for the crucifixion, thereby promulgating the antiSemitic deicidal argument of traditional Christian theology.28 Within this perspective-dependent model of dialectic, the crucifixion may be considered 'both just and unjust' because of Christ's concomitant humanity and divinity. In Beatrice's summary statement: 'Pero d'un atto uscir cose diverse: / ch'a Dio e a' Giudei piacque una morte' [Therefore from one act issued things diverse, for one same death was pleasing to God and to the Jews] (7.46-7). The 'both-and' logic of dialectic in Anselm's thought is certainly not limited to cases in which an apparent contradiction is resolved by taking into account different points of view. Anselm also provides ample evidence of how the Incarnation conforms to the dialectical union of both contradiction and resolution by requiring that 'one and the same [individual] be fully divine and fully human' (2.7).29 Dante exploits this paradoxical structure of the Incarnation in Paradiso 7 when the wayfarer having heard and understood the logic of retribution linking original sin, the crucifixion, and the destruction of Jerusalem — seeks to learn why God chose the method of the incarnate Word to redeem fallen humankind in the first place. Both Anselm and Dante, then, address the same big question - 'Why did God become a man?' - and confront squarely the paradoxical logic of the Incarnation. However, their theological presentations reflect different intellectual, cultural, and rhetorical contexts.' The framework of Anselm's incariiational doctrine derives from the 'ransom' theory of redemption, payment to the devil for the release of humankind from the captivity of sin. Rejecting this argument, Anselm nevertheless conceives of satisfaction to divine justice as a transaction involving humankind, God, and the devil. Moreover, Anselm's model for the satisfaction offered through the Incarnation is likely based on some combination of the church's penitential system, feudal law, and the Germanic custom of wergild (payment proportionate to the station of the offended party).'11 Dante, who ignores the devil in his treatment of the Incarnation in Paradiso 7, continues the theme of the previous canto by framing the justice of the Incarnation within the context of Roman law and the unfolding of providential history. Known for the 'high task' - alto lavoro - of compiling and trimming the laws, the emperor Justinian holds a mock trial in Paradiso 6, with Dante as judge, to demonstrate how both the Guelfs and Ghibellines are guilty of crimes against the imperial eagle in its flight through providential history (6.28-33, 6.97-111).32 This is the legal context in which Beatrice

14 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry explains that the crucifixion, just revenge for original sin, was itself justly avenged by a 'just court' (7.51). However, Dante differs most from Anselm by celebrating God's greater joy in giving freely of himself to satisfy divine justice: Ma perche 1'ovra tanto e piu gradita da 1'operante, quanto piu appresenta de la bonta del core ond' ell' e uscita, la divina bonta che '1 mondo imprenta, di proceder per tutte le sue vie, a rilevarvi suso, fu contento. (7.106-11) [But because the deed is so much the more prized by the doer, the more it displays of the goodness of the heart whence it issued, the divine Goodness which puts its imprint on the world, was pleased to proceed by all its ways to raise you again.] The poet's emphasis on God's generous decision reflects his desire to model the process used in arriving at the Incarnation. While Anselm undoubtedly plays a leading role in the long and illustrious tradition of incarnational theology, whereby Christ is defined as both completely human and completely divine in a single person, it remains for Dante, the incarnational theologus-fjoeta, to figure the Incarnation as a paradoxical union of choices as well as natures. Dante illustrates this dialectical movement in the second half of Paradiso 7, where Beatrice again addresses the issue of the Incarnation, this time from the perspective of original sin. Given the enormity of this transgression, in that only sin imprisons humankind by making it dissimilar from the highest good, restitution and reconciliation could occur through one of two ways: 'o che Dio solo per sua cortesia / dimesso avesse, o che I'uom per se isso / avesse sodisfatto a sua follia' [either that God alone, solely by his clemency, had pardoned; or that man should of himself have given satisfaction for his folly] (91-3). Highlighting the nature and magnitude of humankind's fall with the paradigmatic Ulyssean attribute of madness (follia), Beatrice is emphatic that satisfaction cannot occur outside this prototypical 'either/or' scenario.33 Either God does it or humankind does it, with no room for an alternative solution. Yet, the rigidity of this initial formulation, hardly an impediment, enables the poet to take his incarnational dialectic to another level. Beatrice indicates the difficulty of the task at hand by instructing the way-

Introduction 15 farer to 'fix [his] eyes now within the abyss of the Eternal Counsel' (94-5). She then definitively rejects the second of the two methods for restitution, the possibility that humankind might redeem itself by itself (97-102). With this option foreclosed, Dante's logic begins to shift from its initial 'either/or' form to something else as Beatrice now describes the power of God, the supreme decision maker, to choose between the methods at his disposition to save humankind: either to do it himself or to employ both ways: 'dico con 1'una, o ver con amendue' [I mean with one way, or else with both] (104). The poet therefore generates another 'either/or' situation, but it is one that contains within itself the possibility for a 'both-arid' solution. And, of course, this method in which both God and humankind join in the redemptive process, a configuration excluded from Beatrice's initial presentation of the problem, is the one chosen by God. Thus Dante not only imagines the Incarnation as an ontological dialectic of two complete natures in a single person, but he also models the dialectical process that produces this being. Fittingly, God is the model decision maker who takes the two possibilities previously posited as mutually exclusive and chooses them both. In the paradoxical world of incarnational theology, the Word's assumption of human flesh allows two things to happen at once: God shows himself to be even more generous in giving of himself than if he had redeemed humankind unilaterally; and justice is served as humankind's disobedience is matched by Christ's humble obedience and eventual sacrifice (115-20). Not coincidentally, these two motivations for Dante's incarnational poetry -justice and divine generosity - are central to his overall conception of the Corn-media. While justice, as the proportionate relationship between human actions and their consequences in the afterlife, is the basis for the moral order of the poet's three realms, divine generosity - particularly in the guise of grace - serves as both the catalyst for the wayfarer's journey and the guarantor of its success. Dante, who envisions the Incarnation as both dialectical process and product, holds nothing back in celebrating the mystery of his supreme theological event. The poet's paean to the Incarnation constitutes one of his most successful examples of language imitating its subject. He captures the ineffable paradox of the Incarnation at the level of syntax by emphatically negating - 'Ne ... fu o fie' - three successive dichotomies: 'Ne tra 1'ultima notte e '1 primo die / si alto o si magnifico processo, / o per 1'una o per 1'altra, fu o fie' [nor between the last night and the first day so exalted and so magnificent a process, either by one (way) or by the other, has been or will be] (Par. 7.112-14). Moving out-

16 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

side the strict confines of incarnational theology, Dante takes full account of the multiple dimensions - representational, hermeneutic, epistemological, and ontological - of this 'magnifico processo.' While the three major chapters of Divine Dialectic view the Incarnation as a legitimate basis for Dante's poetics and the interpretive procedures inscribed in his texts, they also examine the poet's transformation of this theological doctrine into a dialectic of paradox, a radical model for knowing and being in the world.34 Chapter 1, 'Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody,' is divided into two sections, each identifying an important early stage in the development of Dante's incarnational dialectic. The first section, 'Incarnation Manque in the Vita nuova,' argues that Dante dramatizes a failed incarnational union of human and divine love. A truncated version of Augustine's Confessions, Dante's literary-spiritual autobiography must defer resolution to a prophesied future because its de-centred protagonist has not grasped the true significance of Beatrice's Chrisdike mediation between heaven and earth. Insofar as Dante figures the relationship between the two realms as a dichotomy, the dialectic of the Vita nuova remains one of contradiction rather than the paradoxical union of opposition and reconciliation underpinning the Incarnation. The poet strategically revisits this Incarnation manque in the prologue scene of the Corn-media. Here, as I show in the second section, 'Dante's Infernal Web of Pride,' the trinitarian intercession of Mary, Lucy, and Beatrice effects a successful if fragile incarnational relationship: Dante and Virgil become one in their two wills — 'un sol volere e d'ambedue' [a single will is in us both] (Inf. 2.139) - so that the fallen wayfarer can undertake his salvific journey to the otherworld. In the realm where Christ is the enemy, Dante and Virgil's unified will exacerbates the suffering of the damned at the same time that the travellers' relationship is itself threatened and occasionally shaken during their encounters with the sinners. Several of these sinners are caught in the poet's Web of Pride, which consists primarily of divided and doubled spirits who mock the Incarnation - the humble descent of the divine Logos into humanity - through their manifestations of the capital sin punished nowhere specifically in hell but subtending the overall representation of evil. A parody of the dialectical paradox of the Incarnation, this infernal web joins several memorable couples - from the transgressive lovers, Francesca and Paolo, and the deceitful comrades in war, Ulysses and Diomedes, to the vengeful traitors, Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri - with a network of divided and half-visible Individ-

Introduction 17 uals that includes Farinata, Pope Nicholas in, the Giants, and Lucifer. Like Bertran de Born, whose separated yet joined head and trunk - 'ed eran due in uno e uno in due' [and they were two in one and one in two] (Inf. 28.125) - illustrate the law relating the sins to their punishments (contrapasso), these proud sinners, either doubled ('due in uno') or divided ('uno in due'), parody the incarnadonal union of two natures in one person that motivates the poet's dialectic of paradox. The four sections of chapter 2, 'Iricarnational Dialectic Writ Large,' examine Dante's transformation of the failed and mocked unions of the Vita nuova and the Inferno into the achieved incarnational dialectic represented in the final cantos of the Purgatorio and the opening cantos of the Paradiso. The terrestrial paradise crowning the mountain of purgatory and the three celestial spheres located within the earth's shadow offer the poet an opportunity to represent the incarnational union of heaven and earth on a grand scale. First, however, he dramatizes the wayfarer's personal encounter with the wondrous paradox of the Incarnation through the figure of the Christlike Griffin, whose complete natures - leonine and aquiline - are reflected in Beatrice's eyes. This incarnational moment, I argue in 'Incarnational (Dis)appearances: Virgil and Beatrice,' is inextricably linked to the return of Beatrice to Dante's literary universe and the wayfarer's recognition and repentance of the failures of his 'vita nova.' Sadly, Dante's reunion with Beatrice must come at the expense of the dissolution of his union with Virgil, the incarnational relationship that made possible the journey through hell and purgatory. The second and third sections of chapter 2 demonstrate the centrality of incarnational dialectic in Dante's conception of the shadowed spheres, the souls who appear within them, and the wayfarer's movement to and between the Moon, Mercury, and Venus. 'Dialectically Marked Spirits in the Shadowed Spheres' shows how the poet extends his incarnational use of ombra in the Purgatorio - the word pointing to both the 'shadow' cast by the wayfarer's mortal body and the ontological status of the blessed 'shades' in the afterlife - to the conical umbra, the astronomical intersection of the human and divine realms. Dante creatively shapes the astronomy of his day to locate the first three spheres within the earth's shadow, thereby establishing a marker within paradise based on the paradoxical union of uniformity (all the heavenly souls are equally blessed) and difference (the souls in the first three spheres are defined by their earthly limitations). From the vow-breakers in the Moon (Piccarda and Constance) and the fame-seekers in Mercury (Jus-

18 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry tinian and Romeo) to the passion-driven souls in Venus (Charles Martel, Cunizza, Folco, and Rahab), the shadowed spirits embody the Hegelian dimension of Dante's incarnational dialectic of paradox: spiritually 'raised up' (aufgehoben), they both preserve and erase the tensions of their mortal lives. These blessed souls are not alone in figuring an incarnational union of heaven and earth in the subsolar spheres. Thus 'Incarnational Reflections and Lines' focuses on the incarnational progress of the wayfarer himself as he leaves the earth and begins his celestial voyage. In the early cantos of the Paradiso, Dante 'connects' the human and divine realms by launching the wayfarer along a straight flight path. Yet, consistent with the continued presence of the mortal life in the shadowed spheres, the poet complicates this 'straight path' or rectitude, in moral terms - with the inevitable swervings and detours of human existence. Within the fundamental specular arrangement of the Commedia — the historical world and the afterlife 'reflecting' one another - the poet imagines rectitude ('diritta via') and swerving ('disviare') in terms of direct and oblique rays of light. Adapting Roger Bacon's optics to the exigencies of his poem, Dante marks the stages of the mortal wayfarer's participation in divinity, from oblique reflection in purgatory and an aborted attempt at direct vision at the beginning of the celestial voyage to the final, direct infusion of divine light required for a vision of the Incarnation. 'The Poet's Incarnate Word,' the final section of chapter 2, shows how the 'Word made flesh' is Dante's model for his own incarnate word in the cantos treating the celestial spheres of the trivium, the language arts of grammar (Moon), dialectic (Mercury), and rhetoric (Venus). The poet's incarnational dialectic of words and the world is best seen in Paradiso 6, where he both performs and corrects Justinian's heretical belief that there was 'una natura in Cristo ... non piue' [one nature and no more ... in Christ] (Par. 6.14) by giving the legal-minded emperor, who appears 'doubled' in his light, the only unified, canto-length monologue in the entire poem. Blurring the line separating the telling of the journey from the journey itself, Dante joins the medieval commonplace that words follow from things ('nomina sunt consequeiitia rerum') with the converse notion that things follow from words. The poet's paradoxical union of words and the world in the astronomical meeting place of heaven and earth unequivocally establishes the incarnate Wbrd as the representational foundation for the 'poema sacro / al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra' [sacred poem to which heaven and earth have set hand] (Par. 25.1-2).

Introduction

19

Chapter 3, 'Dante's Iiicarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission,' takes as its subject the poet's projection of his incarnational dialectic into history, based on hardships endured and lessons learned during life in exile. Upon leaving the earth's shadow, Dante joins Beatrice at the centre of two rings of solar spirits that pay homage to Francis and Dominic, whose respective lives and mendicant orders are figured as an incarnational union of sameness and difference. Treating the cantos of the Sun and Mars (Par. 10-17) as a conceptual and iconographic unit, the first section, 'Lifting the Hermeneutic Veil: Circling the Cross in the Sun and Mars,' shows how Dante anticipates the final incarnational vision of the human form ('nostra effige') in a trinitarian circle by figuratively centring the cross of martian warriors in the circles of solar luminaries. The poet establishes this cross-in-circle design - built from astronomical images, rhetorical figures, and narrative structures — by imagining the martian cross as 'il venerabil segno / che fan giunture di quadrant! in tondo' [the venerable sign which joinings of quadrants make in a circle] (Par. 14.101-2). By taking up his own cross in the central episode of the Paradiso, Dante forges an image of himself as both victim and victor. The second and third sections of chapter 3 thus examine the causes and effects of the poet's personal appropriation of incarnational dialectic. In doing so, these sections challenge the predominant critical paradigms by placing Cicero and Plato on a par with Virgil and Aristotle as Dante's primary Classical interlocutors in the cantos of Mars. 'The Bitter-Sweet Lessons of Cacciaguida and Scipio' argues that Dante views his exile in terms of martyrdom and mission by identifying with Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, and Scipio Africanus the Younger, the protagonist of Cicero's influential Dream of Scipio. Figuring his unjust banishment from Florence and the subsequent hardships of exile as martyrdom, Dante clearly identifies with his blood relative, a crusader who earned the peace and eternal life of heaven through his redemptive death. Cacciaguida, who relates the course of his descendant's future life, prophesies the events, both bitter and sweet, that resonate with Scipio's dream-vision: political betrayal and malevolent compatriots, on the one hand, defeated enemies and righteous vindication, on the other. Most important, like Scipio, whose public accomplishments are his 'passport to the sky,' a legitimate path to the blessed life, Dante learns that his poetic voice, a source of 'vital nourishment' for humankind, will carry him to earthly renown and celestial glory. 'Dante's Divine Tetragon' then shows how the poet compresses these familial

20 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry and literary-historical representations of his dialectic of martyrdom and mission into a single incarnational image. When the wayfarer, upon hearing Cacciaguida's harsh prophecy of exile, declares himself 'ben tetragono ai colpi di veiitura' [truly foursquare against the blows of chance] (Par. 17.24), he employs a mathematical term - tetragono whose philosophical and theological history further identifies the exile's hardship and reward with the sacrifice and redemptive victory of the incarnate Word. Scholars have long glossed Dante's tetragon with the Aristotelian-Thomist metaphor of the virtuous individual who faces fortune - favourable and adverse - with an even temperament. I now offer a new, more comprehensive interpretation of the poet's tetragonal allusion by complementing this conventional reading with the tetragonus developed by twelfth-century theologians working within a ChristianPlatonic tradition. Defining the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, as the 'equality of unity,' Thierry of Chartres, followed by his student Clarembald of Arras, concludes that Christ is the 'first tetragon.' Thus the tetragon, more than an image of the exile as he withstands the blows of fortune, confirms that for Dante, as for the crucified figure flashing forth in Mars, victory is the price of his defeat. The incarnational dialectic that Dante uses to define himself is also his message to his readers and the world at large. 'Intellectual Action and Dialectical Hermeneutics,' the fourth and final section of chapter 3, probes the substance of this message as it is articulated through Cacciaguida's relationship to two characters, one each from heaven and hell. By 'rhyming' Cacciaguida with Boethius, an outstanding representative of the life of the mind in the solar sphere, the poet transforms the traditional dichotomy of contemplation and action into a dialectical union. Dante models this intellectual action, in which he qualifies the Aristotelian and patristic hierarchy by conceiving of'doing' and 'seeing' as a union of equal partners, on the incarnational union of two complete natures in a single person. For the incarnational poet, the paradoxical union of solar pens and martian swords is a pragmatic goal for the earthly city. By pairing Cacciaguida with Brunette Latini as well as with Boethius, Dante crosses textual and theological boundaries to offer a dialectical alternative to the oppositional hermeneutics of Scriptural exegesis, routinely applied to the Commedia, whereby one figure is the 'corrected' version (in bono) of its 'corrupted' double (in malo). While Cacciaguida has generally been viewed in opposition to Brunetto as Dante's 'good father,' the poet's incarnational dialectic encourages us to imagine continuity as well as antagonism between the sodomite in

Introduction 21

hell and the crusader in paradise. Dante, paradoxically, exhorts us to interpret their relationship as both oppositional and complementary at the same time, a dialectical hermeneutics that is truly divine. Dante's most direct approaches to the paradox of the Incarnation, the union of two complete natures - human and divine - in a single per son, are inevitably marked by a conceptual struggle: the alternating reflections of the Griffin's two complete natures in Beatrice's eyes while the animal itself remains fixed in its hybrid form is a source of wonder 'mi maravigliava' [I marveled] - that occasions an address to the reader (Purg. 31.124-32); the wayfarer's possible corporeal presence in the lunar sphere defies conventional knowledge — 'qui noil si concepe / com' una ditnensiotie altra patio' [here we conceive not how one bulk could bear another] - and should therefore stimulate our desire to see in paradise the incarnational union of human and divine natures (Par. 2.37-42); in his final, strenuous attempt to see how Christ's human nature - 'nostra effige' - remains perfect in its union with the equally perfect circle of the divine Trinity, the wayfarer is compared to a geometer who puts forth a total effort — 'tutlo s'affige' — to find the elusive principle needed to square the circle (Par. 33.133-8). Each passage verifies that the Incarnation cannot be known or represented perfectly in the world of time and history. Thus Dante sees the union of God and humankind at the end of his journey, consistent with the lessons of incarnational theology, only by the grace of a flash of divine intervention. Yet, the wayfarer's conceptual struggle has prepared him to receiv this vision. Even if God alone can square circles, human efforts do not always go unrewarded. Through the incarnational efforts of its author and protagonist, the Commedia ultimately champions a new way of thinking and being in the world - the way, in Dante's divine imagination, of incarnational dialectic.

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Chapter One

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody

As theological doctrine, the redemptive narrative of the Incarnation most properly belongs to the Divina Commedia, in particular the two cantiche - Purgalorio and Paradise - treating the realms of the saved souls. Yet Dante, who likes to build on ideas and examine them from multiple angles, including the absence or negation of these ideas, sets up his complex representation of the Incarnation and its relation to the world in earlier works. In the Inferno, the poem of'le genti dolorose / c'hanno perduto il ben de I'intelletto' [the wretched people who have lost the good of intellect] (Inf. 3.17-18), the poet, as might be expected, explores the negative face of the Incarnation. Subjected to a generic contmpasso, Dante's causal principle relating the sins to their punishments, individuals who did not heed the Incarnation in their lives either by not believing in it or by not repenting of their sins against it now suffer for eternity in the place where Christ is never named but is powerfully present. 1 The poet more precisely positions the damned in opposition to the Incarnation by constructing an infernal network of proud shades who mock - and are mocked by - the humble descent of the divine Logos into the world. Illustrative of Dante's celebrated attention to mimetic realism and the literal foundation of spiritual truth, these rebel spirits - most of whom appear doubled or divided to the way farer's eyes and the reader's imagination - negatively embody the paradoxical union of two complete natures iri one person. However, Dante's incarnational poetry, like every important manifestation of his literary and spiritual journey, begins with Beatrice. The poet's divine dialectic, his paradoxical union of the word and the world, thus begins with the incarnational promise and failure of his strange, new life - his Vita nuova.

24 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry 1. Incarnation Manque in the Vita nuova e par che sia una cosa venuta da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare. [and (she) seems a thing come down / from heaven to earth to reveal miraculousness. ] - Vita nuova 26.7-8

ubi sacrificaveram mactans vetustatem meam, et inchoata meditatione renovationis meae, sperans in te, ibi mihi dulcescere coeperas et dederas laetitiam in corde meo. [where I had offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and beginning the purpose of my newness in life, putting my hope in you - there did you begin to grow sweet to me, and to put gladness in my heart.] - Augustine, Confessions

A thematic and stylistic highpoint of Dante's challenging 'libello' [little book], the first poem of Vita nuova 26, 'Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare' [So gentle and so honest appears], is arguably Dante's finest love lyric and certainly one of the best-known sonnets of world literature. Performing its final word, the imperative sospira, the poem is one long 'sigh' in praise of Beatrice's salvific beauty and humility. Proper to the poetic excellence of the sonnet is its theological resonance within the entire Vita nuova. The narrative of chapter 24 places Beatrice in a welldeveloped analogy with Christ: resembling the personified figure of Love, Beatrice is preceded by a woman who, like John the Baptist, announces the arrival of one far greater than herself. In chapter 26 'Tanto gentile' brings this Christological comparison to life by investing Beatrice with the exalted humility of the Incarnation. As the divine Logos humbly descended from heaven to take on human flesh, so Beatrice, who is the embodiment of humility (6), appears to be 'una cosa venuta / da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare' [a thing come down / from heaven to earth to reveal miraculousness] (7-8) .2 Beatrice's incarnational descent 'da cielo in terra' is reversed in the final canzone, which describes the ascent of her blessed soul 'in 1'alto cielo, / nel reame ove li angeli hanno pace' [to high heaven, / to the realm where the angels have peace] (31.15-16).3 The Beatrice of the Vita nuova is therefore more than a generic Christ figure. Connecting heaven and earth, she intimates the miraculous union of humanity and the divine inhering in the Incarnation. How-

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 25

ever, it is precisely Beatrice's incarnational significance that eludes the poet-lover and thus determines the well-conceived failure - or perfected imperfection - of his initiation into the ways of love and poetry.4 The strategic failure of the Vita nuova is an incarnational failure. Because Beatrice's Christlike union of heaven and earth fails to take hold in the poet-lover's imagination, the two realms remain separate and there can be no reconciliation of divine love with human desire. In theological discourse, the Incarnation, in all its paradoxical glory, is inseparable from the equally paradoxical doctrine of the Trinity. Dante captures the inextricability of these Christian mysteries in the poetry of his Paradise: 'tre persone in divina natura, / e in una persona essa e 1'umana' [Three Persons in the divine nature, and it and the human nature in one Person] (13.26-7). Here in the Vita nuova, where oscillation and instability reign supreme, a figurative union of heaven and earth cannot occur because the trinitarian and incarnational movements of the text are themselves at odds with one another. Dante's account of his early life thus pivots around a dialectic of contradiction, in which the poles of the Incarnation — heaven and earth, divine love and human desire — constitute a divisive dichotomy rather than the paradoxical union of both opposition and reconciliation at the heart of incarnational dialectic.3 Despite the failure of the Vita nuova's trinitarian figurations to generate and sustain an incarnational dialectic, the theological doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity nonetheless inform important moments in the story. The narrator alludes to the sacrificial conclusion of the divine Word's descent into humanity, Christ's crucifixion, when he announces that Beatrice's father was called to eternal life by the 'glorioso sire lo quale non negoe la morte a se' [the Lord of Glory who did not negate death for himself] (22.1). This report of the death of Beatrice's father immediately precedes the poet-lover's imagined death of Beatrice herself in chapter 23. Here Dante incorporates potent imagery - including eclipses and earthquakes - associated with both Christ's death on the cross and his appearance at the Final Judgment (Matt. 24:29, 27:45, 27:54; Luke 23:44-5). Some time after Beatrice's death, the arrival of pilgrims passing through Florence affords the poet an opportunity to give a human face to the Incarnation at the same time that he glorifies Beatrice's blessed state. Whereas the pilgrims are travelling to Rome to view the Veronica, the image of Christ impressed on the cloth with which he wiped his face on the way to Calvary, Beatrice in paradise gazes upon the original - the 'bellissima figura' [most beautiful countenance] of the incarnate Word. Dante likewise uses the Trinity to

26 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry glorify Beatrice following her death. Explaining why the number nine 'fue a lei cotanto amico' [was so much her friend] (28.3), the narrator reasons that the miraculous Beatrice was herself a nine 'by similitude' because nine equals the square of three, that is, 'la mirabile Trinitade' [the wondrous Trinity] (29.3). These and other Christological and trinitarian allusions in the Vita nuova point to the elaborate if incomplete theological structure of the text and its implications for Dante's literary and spiritual quest. Charles S. Singleton's influential study of the Vita nuova paved the way for a theologically inflected reading of the text, but it also set up an imposing roadblock.6 Glossing over the approximations, partialities, and imperfections in the theological design and movement of Dante's 'libello,' Singleton tamed the work's creative chaos by imposing a fixed, ideological grid: 'The whole work, from its first words, may be said to be aiming at Heaven - which is reached in its last words' (101). Taking Beatrice's resemblance to Christ as 'the central and controlling principle of the whole construction' (112), he channelled the Vita nuova into the extra nos, intra nos, and supra nos stages of the itinerarium mentis in Deum ('Journey of the mind into God') as conceived by Augustine and Bonaventure (87-109). Gabriele Rossetti's 'rediscovery' of the tripartite arrangement of the poetry in the text thus provided 'a sort of external architecture' for Singleton's straightforward trinitarian interpretation (79).7 While many of Rossetti's views of Dante have been rightly discredited, he was indeed the first to assert, in a letter to Charles Lyell in 1836, the widely accepted belief that the poet symmetrically arranged the poems of the Vita nuova around the three major canzoni.8 Including a poem by Guido Cavalcanti and identifying the first version of 'Era venuta ne la mente mia' as a poem unto itself (chapter 34), Rossetti anticipated Singleton's fashioning of the Vita nuova into a Commedia in miniature by assuming a parallel between the supposed thirty-three lyrics and the thirty-three cantos of each cantica proper.9 Despite this questionable assumption, the basis for Rossetti's arrangement still holds for the actual thirty-one poems of the text. The central poem, the canzone 'Donna pietosa e di novella etate' [A lady compassionate and young] (chapter 23), is flanked on either side by four minor poems, another canzone (in chapters 19 and 31), and ten more minor poems. The standard formulation (with 'C' indicating the canzoni) is: 1 0 - C - 4 - C - 4 - C - 1 0 . The three canzoni take as their subject, in different ways, the death of Beatrice. In 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore' [Ladies who have understanding of love] (chapter 19), this event is

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody

27

merely suggested in an apparently playful exchange between heaven and earth. An angel, speaking to God, attests to Beatrice's 'miraculous' nature. Her ascension to heaven would ensure the perfection of paradise: 'Lo cielo, che non have altro difetlo / che d'aver lei, al suo segnor la chiede, / e ciascun santo ne grida merzede' [Heaven, which has no other defect / but to have her, asks her of its Lord, / and every saint cries out for this grace] (19-21). Although the prevalent theme of this first canzone is the miraculous status of Beatrice in this life, the poet's rhetorical allusion to Beatrice's eventual blessedness obviously implies that she first must die. This implication is the premise of the canzone in chapter 23. Acutely aware of his own mortality, the poet logically infers that Beatrice, too, will die, and he deliriously imagines this harsh reality. The consequences of heaven's call for Beatrice in 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore' are now painfully realized in the poet's ominous 'imaginazione.' This hallucination is finally converted into the actual experience of Beatrice's death and apotheosis in the final canzone, 'Li occhi dolenti per pieta del core' [The eyes grieving for the heart's pity] (chapter 31). Taken together, the three canzoni firmly establish Beatrice's death as the structural nucleus of the Vita numa's poetry. With the chances for a symmetrical distribution of the twenty-eight minor poems and three major canzoni calculated as 1 in 300,10 there is good reason to consider Rossetti's arrangement a planned feature of the text. Less clear are the implications of this arrangement. Both Rossetti and Singleton use the pattern to support the poet's identification of Beatrice with the miraculous number nine, square of the Trinity." Whether critics accept, qualify, or reject claims for a deliberate arrangement of the poems, they increasingly distance themselves from Singleton's theological imperative.12 After all, even to imagine the symmetrical pattern that provides the 'external architecture' for Singleton's God-ccntrcd reading requires multiple sleights of hand: the fourteenliiie canzone of chapter 27 is a sonnet; the two stanzas of a canzone in chapter 33 are not a canzone; and the sonnet with two beginnings in chapter 34 counts as a single poem. But the general perception that Singleton's theological grid jars with the oscillations and open-endediiess of the Vita nuova does not mean that trtnitarian and Christological concerns are extraneous to the text. On the contrary, the dramatic tension of the work derives from the young Dante's struggle and ultimate failure to reconcile his poetic imagination with the creative potential of theology. The suggestive but wobbly architecture of the text's poetry helps ensure that the poles of the Incarnation remain separated in a dialectic

28 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry of contradiction rather than joined in a 'both-arid' dialectic of heaven and earth. If a trinitarian structure based on the sequence of poems in the Vita nuova is shaky, arguments in favour of a precise design with symbolic or theological meaning in the prose require even greater readerly initiative. For one thing, the textual format of numbered chapters that critics often use to argue for meaningful structures is imposed by modern editors on a text whose manuscript tradition authorizes no such chapter layout.13 Although extant manuscripts (most from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) contain textual divisions according to capoversi and paragrafi, and the repetitive structure of the work - prose narrative, poem, explicative divisioni - suggests that the author mentally divided his 'libello' into distinct conceptual units, Michele Barbi's canonical presentation of the text in forty-two chapters was aimed primarily at regulating scholarly conventions of citation with no illusion of fidelity to the medieval text's manuscript culture. Still, it cannot be denied that Barbi's forty-two-chapter arrangement accounts for certain architectural symmetries consistent with other structures and themes of the text. The fact that the prose correspondences add up to a partial yet precise trinitarian structure only supports the conjecture that they, too, might be part of a well-planned imperfection. The Vita nuova most obviously falls into two asymmetrical portions separated by the announcement of Beatrice's death in chapter 28. The poet signals the significance of this textual division by altering the placement of the explicative divisioni of the poems: whereas the poems of chapters 1-27 are immediately followed by their divisioni, the poems of chapters 28-42 are made to appear 'widowed' (31.2) - that is, more isolated - by following their schematic prose explications.14 However, the narrative also lends itself to a three-part movement, based on specific shifts to 'new matter' in the poet-lover's account of his 'new life.' In the first instance, the narrator tells how he had to 'ripigliare materia nuova e piu nobile che la passata' [take up new matter, more noble than the previous] (17.1). This 'new matter,' we soon learn, consists in the poet's realization that his fulfilment — his 'beatitudine' — lies in praising Beatrice (18.6-9). The poetic breakthrough that incorporates this 'new material' is the canzone of chapter 19, 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore,' the first of the three major canzoni in the Vita nuova. The second explicit transition occurs somewhat after the fact. The narrator refers back to the biblical verse announcing the death of Beatrice at the beginning of chapter 28 (Lamentations 1.1) as if it were a kind of 'entrata de la nuova

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 29 materia che appresso vene' [introduction to the new matter that comes after] (30.1). Whatever course this new 'new matter' takes in the rest of the story, it is certainly influenced by Beatrice's death, the ostensible reason for the incomplete canzone of chapter 27. With adjustments and assumptions commensurate with those underpinning the symmetrical poetry sequence, the textual 'matter' of the Vita nuova can thus be divided into three equal groups within Barbi's forty-two-chapter format. If Dante indeed conceived of the text in terms of three sections of fourteen units each, he may have been inspired by the gospel genealogy of the generations extending from Abraham to Christ: 'So all the generations, from Abraham to David are fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon are fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations' (Matt. 1:17).15 From this tripartite arrangement, tenuous as it may be, a reasonable pattern of correspondences obtains. The three groups under consideration are chapters 1-14; chapters 1528; and chapters 29-42. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh positions of the three groups produce a series of symmetries whose significance is enhanced rather than diminished by its 'symmetrical' incompleteness. The corresponding ninth chapters of the Vita nuova's first two sections each recount an imaginary experience. In chapter 9, the narrator tells of his second encounter - via an 'imaginazione' - with the figure of Love, who appears as a melancholy pilgrim. This episode marks the transition from the first to the second of the poet's 'screen-ladies.' The 'imaginazione' in the corresponding location in the second group, chapter 23, results from the poet-lover's delirious state due to physical illness. On the fateful ninth day of his illness, he feverishly imagines nothing less than the death and apotheosis of Beatrice. As there is no such 'imaginazione' in the corresponding ninth chapter of the final group of fourteen chapters (37), the symmetrical pattern remains incomplete. In the tenth-chapter locations of the second and third groups (24 and 38), the partial correspondence derives from a certain 'nuova coridizioiie' [new condition]. In chapter 24 the narrator describes his fourth and final imaginary encounter with Love. The moody lord seems to have come from Beatrice, and he is exceedingly happy as he tells the poet-lover to bless the day in which Love seized him. Dante's reaction suggests that Love's joyful mood is contagious: 'E certo me parea avere lo cuore si lieto, che me non parea che fosse lo mio cuore, per la sua nuova condizione [And certainly I seemed to have a heart so happy that I thought it could not be my heart, because of its

30 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry new condition] (24.2). In chapter 38 the poet-lover is beginning to enjoy - perhaps more than he should - the sight of the 'gentile donna' who took pity on him as he painfully reflected upon the one-year anniversary of Beatrice's death: 'Ricovrai la vista di quella donna in si nuova condizione, che molte volte ne pensava si come di persona che troppo mi piacesse' [I recovered the sight of this lady in so new a condition that I often thought of her as a person who greatly appealed to me] (38.1). This 'new condition' leads Dante to experience an inner conflict between desire (Tappetito') and reason ('la ragione'), which he expresses in the ensuing sonnet as a dialogue between his heart and soul. The two symmetrically placed 'new conditions' thus represent dia metrically opposed moments in the poet-lover's spiritual development. In the tenth chapter of the second third of the narrative (24), the 'nuova condizione' of Dante's heart allows him to comprehend the theological tautology linking Beatrice, Christ, and Love. In the tenth chapter of the Vita nuovds final fourteen chapters (38), the 'nuova condizioiie' in which he receives another woman's image throws him into such a state of confusion that he sees his heart and soul as irreparably divided. Once again, the pattern remains incomplete insofar as no such 'nuova condizione' appears in the tenth chapter of the first group. The third partial correspondence, like the first, involves the first twothirds of the forty-two-chapter layout. The eleventh chapters of the first two groups are both major digressions from the principal story-line, the first treating the meaning and effects of Beatrice's greeting and the second explaining her association with the number nine. To complete the incomplete symmetry, chapter 39, the corresponding eleventh chapter of the book's final third, presents no such narrative digression. In each case, then, two of the three sections of the Vita nuova correspond to one another through a significant narrative repetition. This consistently partial symmetry in the prose distribution, like the imposing yet unpolished architecture of the poems, attests to Dante's pursuit of theological perfection even before he could fully integrate it within his poetic imagination.16 If we take seriously Dante's identification of Beatrice with the number nine, Barbi's controversial chapter arrangement provides a sign of this unattainable theological perfection of the Vita nuova. The loose yet common assertion that Beatrice occupies the centre of the work has a precise mathematical basis within the textual space extending from chapters 9 to 39. Within this thirty-one-chapter span, chapter 24, the chapter in which Beatrice appears Christlike, indeed occupies the exact

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnauonal Failure and Parody 31

centre: 9 - 1 9 - 2 4 - 2 9 - 39. Of course, this centre, based on a limited if significant section of the entire text, remains local, for chapter 24 is decidedly 'off-centre' within the work's forty-two-chapter layout. But such local centring is consistent with medieval artistic practice, particularly for representations of Christ. Dante's compositional technique here might resemble the use of pictorial space by Giotto, the poet's renowned contemporary compatriot.17 In the famous fresco cycle in Padua's Arena Chapel (c. 1306), Giotto breaks with tradition by 'decentring' important thematic moments within the total pictorial space. In the words of one art historian, '[t]he traditional location of the most important action in a painting before Giotto's time was the very center of the composition, but Giotto often shifts the action. For example, in the Raising of Lazarus the center of the action does not occur in the center of the fresco.' 1 The painter must therefore devise alternative methods to direct the viewer's eyes to the otherwise central actions. This is accomplished in The Meeting of the Golden Gate with a framing technique: a group of women on the right and a man on the left spatially enclose the embrace of Joachim and Anna. In The Pact of Judas, in which Christ and Judas appear left of centre, a semicircle of soldiers and a priest's gesture draw our gaze to the two protagonists. In other cases, Giotto uses the glances of secondary figures (The Mocking of Christ) or natural landscape (a sloping ridge in The Lamentation) to highlight Christ's ccntrality. When the painter does not place the most dramatic action - usually involving Christ - in the centre of his total composition, he still manages to make this action the focal point of the viewer's attention. Dante, whose textual medium makes the perception of such spatial structuring less immediate, similarly centres Beatrice's Christlike appearance in chapter 24 - an episode that otherwise occurs slightly 'right' of centre - within a group of thirty-one chapters based on the miraculous nine, square of the Trinity. In chapter 12 of the Vita nuova Dante himself raises the issue of centres and what it means to be decentred. The young lover, distraught because Beatrice withheld her salvific greeting, experiences in his sleep a visionary encounter with Love. After announcing that the time for 'fabrications' - simulacra - is over, Love enigmatically defines himself with a geometric metaphor: 'Ego tanquam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent circumfereiitie partes; tu autem non sic' [I am like the center of a circle, to which all the points of the circumference bear the same relation; you, however, are not] (12.4). The statement loudly begs for an interpretation, many of which have been forthcoming, encour-

32 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry aged no doubt by the perplexed protagonist's recognition of its 'obscurity' and Love's outright refusal to explain his meaning: 'Non dimandare piu che utile ti sia' [Ask no more than may be useful to you] (12.5).19 Love defines himself in this way to oppose the wretched poetlover: while he, Love, occupies the exact centre of the circle, the protagonist, who is off-centre, embodies none of the circle's conventional perfection.20 Yet, the unfolding story of Dante's 'new life' shows that Love, though he maintains perfect balance in this world, is similarly decentred from the perspective of such theological matters as Beatrice's incarnational significance. A projection of the young Dante's psycho-emotional state, Love remains stuck in the sublunar realm of mortality and grief even after his self-identification with the Christlike Beatrice in chapter 24. Love's unstable, oscillatory behaviour - reflected in languages, colours, the nature of his 'visits,' and his relationship to the protagonist - makes him one of the surest indications of the polar, oppositional dialectic of the Vita rmova.'2} This dialectic of contradiction, consistent with the trinitarian imperfections and approximations of the text, is best understood as an iricarnational failure: humanity and the divine remain opposed in a dichotomy rather than paradoxically joined in an incarnational dialectic of both opposition and reconciliation. Appropriate for his portrait of the lover as a young poet, Dante folds this failed union of divine love and human desire into the formal structure of two successive poems. The strangely dichotomized lyrics of chapters 33 and 34, a canzone and sonnet respectively, signify something more than 'the poet's faltering, his groping for the lost voice of lyricism.'22 The unusual poems ironically show how the theological framework of the Vita nuova - precisely because it is flawed - informs Dante's successful failure. The canzone is the poet's response to the request of Beatrice's brother - the poet's second closest friend - for a poem expressing this man's grief over Beatrice's death. Considering the sonnet of chapter 32 insufficient for this purpose, Dante decides to double the challenge by writing 'due stanzie d'una canzone, 1'una per costui veracemente, e 1'altra per me' [two stanzas of a canzone, one truly for him and other for me] (33.2). The two stanzas are therefore in the respective voices of Beatrice's brother and the poet, even though they would appear upon casual inspection - 'a chi non guarda sottilmente' [to whoever does not look carefully] - to be dictated by a single person. The attentive reader, according to the prose narrative, can see that the two stanzas present different poetic voices because the woman, Beatrice, is referred to as 'la

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody

33

donna' in one stanza and 'la donna mia' in the other. Closer attention to the poem itself reveals an important further distinction. The speaker in the first stanza, Beatrice's brother, is overwhelmed by an implacable grief: tanto dolore intorno '1 cor m'assernbra la dolorosa mente, ch'io dico: 'Anima mia, che non ten vai?' (33.4-6) [such grief around my heart is gathered by my grieving mind that I say, 'My soul, why don't you go?']

He laments his own miserable state in this world - 'nel secol' (8) - to the point that he calls upon Death, actually envying those who are allowed to die (10-12). In the second stanza, this death wish continues but is placed in a new context by the second speaker's celebration of Beatrice's celestial glory. The lover beseeches Death to take him, as it has already taken Beatrice, but he also recognizes a greater purpose in Beatrice's passing from this world to the next: perche '1 piacere de la sua biekate, partendo se da la nostra veduta, divenne spirital bellezza grande, che per lo cielo spande luce d'amore, che li angeli saluta, e lo intelletto loro alto, sottile face tnaravigliar, si v'e gentile. (20-6) [because the pleasure of her beauty, taking itself from our sight, became great spiritual beauty that throughout heaven spreads light of love, which beatifies the angels, and makes their intellect, lofty and fine, marvel, so gentle is she there.]

The significant shift in tone and imagery between the two stanzas of the canzone becomes the literal difference between heaven and earth in the sonnet of chapter 34. With two distinct beginnings, this

34 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry otherwise unremarkable sonnet is the only known example of a poem with interchangeable parts in Dante's lyric production. Chapter 34 marks an important moment in the narrative, the first anniversary of Beatrice's death. In the prose narrative, the poet recalls that he was interrupted by visitors while drawing an angel in memory of Beatrice. This interruption, and the poet's realization that Beatrice's image so occupied his mind that he at first failed to notice his guests, inspires an anniversary poem addressed to the visitors. Surprisingly, Dante provides no explanation for writing - and, more important, for 'transcribing' - two introductory quatrains, except to say that only one of the two 'cominciamenti' identifies the moment in which Beatrice's image entered his memory. Again, a closer look at the poem brings to light a more meaningful distinction between its two beginnings: Primo cominciamento

Era venuta ne la mente mia la gentil donna che per suo valore fu posta da I'altissimo signore nel ciel de rumilitate, ov'e Maria. [Into my mind had come the gentle lady who for her worth was placed by the most high Lord in the heaven of the humble, where Mary dwells.]

Secondo cominciamento

Era venuta ne la mente mia quella donna gentil cui piange Amore, entro 'n quel pun to che lo suo valore vi trasse a riguardar quel ch'eo facia. [Into my mind had come the gentle lady for whom weeps Love, at the moment when her worth led you to watch what I was doing.]

After identical opening verses, the two quatrains move in opposite direc-

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnationa! Failure and Parody 35

lions. In the first beginning, the poet calls attention to Beatrice's blessed state by describing her placement in heaven, appropriately designated 'ciel de I'umilitate' [heaven of the humble] (4). Placed there by God (Taltissimo signore'), Beatrice enjoys for eternity the company of none other than Mary. In the second beginning, the poet describes the precise moment in which Beatrice's image entered his mind. He refers now, not to God and Mary, but rather to Love, who is weeping. This second beginning thus records the mundane circumstances of the poem's genesis. Whereas Beatrice's 'valore' in the first beginning leads God to place her in heaven, here it merely invites the visitors to observe the poet as he sketches an angel. Since the remaining verses describe the sorrowful behaviour of Love and the poet's psycho-physical 'spiriti,' this more 'worldly' quatrain certainly provides greater coherence to the poem as a whole.23 The opposition between the two stanzas of the canzone and between the two beginnings of the sonnet is a formal representation of the incarnational failure of the Vita nuova. If Beatrice's descent 'from heaven to earth' (sonnet 26.8) and her ascent 'to high heaven' (canzone 31.15) intimate a miraculous union of heaven arid earth, this incarnational lesson exceeds the young Dante's overall conception of love. The reaction of Dante's personified Amore to Beatrice's death leaves no doubt as to the irreconcilable separation of divine love and human desire in the text. Love's fixation on Beatrice's presence in this world is clear from his implacable grief once she has died. In the prophetic dream of chapter 3, after Love has made Beatrice eat Dante's heart, the moody lord's joy quickly turns to sorrow: 'la sua letizia si convertia in amarissimo pianto' [his happiness converted into most bitter weeping] (3.7). Love continues to cry as he gathers Beatrice in his arms and carries her off to heaven. Likewise, in the final poem of the Vita nuova, the sonnet of chapter 41, Love weeps even as he prepares the poet's sigh for its journey to heaven to gaze upon the blessed Beatrice: Oltre la spera che piu larga gira passa '1 sospiro ch'esce del mio core: intelligenza nova, che 1'Amore piangendo mette in lui, pur su lo lira. (1-4) [Beyond the sphere that circles widest penetrates the sigh that issues from my heart: a new intelligence, which Love, weeping, places in him, draws him ever upward.]

36 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry Love's sorrow suggests that he is unable to comprehend Beatrice's ultimate significance as an incarnational being, a miraculous union of humanity and the divine. Alternately playing the roles of authoritarian lord arid sympathetic confidant, Love can understand the protagonist's relationship to Beatrice solely in human terms. Theologically unenlightened, this Amore is a long, long way from Tamor che move il sole e 1'altre stelle' [the Love which moves the sun and the other stars] (Par. 33.145). It is the gap between these two conceptions of Love that drives the Vita nuova's dialectic of contradiction. With human desire and divine love opposed rather than joined in their difference, the text's only closure must take the form of a deferral to another literary space and time - a hope, there and then, to say of Beatrice 'quello che mai non fu detto d'alcuna' [what was never said of any other woman] (42.2). Insofar as the young Dante's poetic arid spiritual development is blocked by this incarnational impasse, the Vita nuova invokes the principal lesson of Augustine's Confessions only to refashion it. For Augustine, embracing the doctrine of the Incarnation - the glaring absence in certain 'books of the Platonists' — is what finally enables him to reject Manichean dualism and prepare himself for conversion to Christianity (Con/ 7.9-21).24 Anticipating Dante's incarnational Beatrice, Augustine's Christ is the 'mediator of God and men' (1 Tim. 2:5) who made himself 'humble' - humilem- by descending from the highest heaven to raise up lowly humankind (Conf. 7.18). Having heard accounts of the conversions of other men to 'new life' (8.6), Augustine experiences his own conversion as a great inner struggle resulting in a violent self-immolation of his earlier self: But there, where I was angry with myself in my chamber, where I was inwardly pricked, where I had offered my sacrifice, slaying my old man, and beginning the purpose of my newness in life, putting my hope in you there did you begin to grow sweet to me, and to put gladness in my heart. (9.4) Augustine's conversion to new life therefore entails the slaying of his old life ('mactans vetustatem meam'), a metaphoric erasure of the past. Dante, on the other hand, envisions his spiritual journey to God and new life, not through a sudden act of conversion, but by enfolding the old life within the new.25 The poet's way is not repudiation but revision. Dante's spiritual rebirth presupposes a keen understanding of exile, a frequent outcome of internecine Florentine politics that undoubtedly

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 37

made a strong impression on the poet even before his banishment in 1302. His exilic imagination, privileging metonymic contiguity over Augustine's metaphoric conversion, reflects a more ambivalent attitude toward the past.26 Flickering in the Vita nuova, this essential fire of Dante's poetry sparks in a dark wood and burns bright throughout the Commedia, beginning in the gloom of hell. 2. Dante's Infernal Web of Pride unitas enini essendi conservatio et forma est: divisio vero causa interitus. [Unity is the preservation and form of being, while division is the cause of destruction.] - Thierry of Chartres, Tractatus de sex dierum operibus

Di se facea a se stesso luccrna, ed eran due in uno e uno in due. [Of itself it was making a lamp for itself, and they were two in one and one in two. | - Inferno 28.124-5

Although Beatrice will not return in person to Dante's literary universe until the final cantos of the Purgatorio, Virgil's flashback in Inferno 2 to her action prior to the wayfarer's journey allows the poet to revisit and rectify the incariiational failure of the Vita nuova. Like the sonnet with two beginnings, Dante's journey from the 'selva oscura' [dark wood] to the otherworld begins twice. The opening canto ends with Dante unequivocally stating that he followed Virgil into hell: 'Allor si mosse, e io li tenni dietro' [Then he set out, and I followed after him] (1.136). However, this confident movement is soon shown to be a false start. Only after Virgil has allayed the wayfarer's fears and overcome his doubts by convincing him that access to the otherworld is willed in heaven does the journey begin for good: 'e poi che mosso fue, / irilrai per lo cammino alto e silvestro' [and when he moved on, I entered along the deep and savage way] (2.141-2). In the Commedia, then, the beginning inspired by Beatrice's blessed mediation issues into the rest of the poem/journey, whereas the sonnet of Vita nuova 34 is completed by the beginning that records Love's implacable sorrow over Beatrice's departure from the world. Between the two beginnings of the proemial cantos, the poet transforms the Vita nuova?, dichotomy between heaven

38 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry and earth into an incarnational dialectic. For the descent into hell and the ascent of purgatory, this paradoxical union of both opposition and reconciliation, is best represented by the relationship of the two travellers. The journey can truly be said to begin at the moment the individual wills of Dante and Virgil join into one - 'un sol volere e d'ambedue' [a single will is in us both] (2.139). A result of the trinitarian intercession of Mary, Lucy, and Beatrice ('tre donne benedette' [three blessed women (2.124)]), this relationship shows striking signs of both conflict and resolution, particularly during the infernal leg of the journey.27 Over the three-day period commemorating Christ's death and resurrection, Dante and Virgil have ample opportunity to test and nurture their joining of two distinct wills - the breeding ground for dissension - into a single, unified purpose: to put the errant wayfarer back on the 'straight way.' At the same time, their union serves to exacerbate the punishment of the damned, especially the doubled and divided shades caught in the poet's Web of Pride.28 As three-headed Cerberus and three-faced Lucifer mock the Trinity, so certain figures in Dante's Inferno parody the Incarnation through their dual-natured bodies.29 In the place - both textual and geographical - where Christ cannot be called by name, his presence is marked in malo through a series of guardians and tormentors whose hybridity mocks the incarnational union of humanity and the divine. At times the poet underscores the dual nature of these creatures. When Virgil addresses Chiron, the leader of the Centaurs patrolling the fiery river in the circle of violence, he stands before the horse-man's chest, 'dove le due nature son consorti' [where the two natures are consorted] (12.84).30 The Harpies, who nest in the suicide-trees that they rend, have 'colli e visi umani* [human necks and faces] to go along with their avian attributes (13.13-14). Minos, the infernal judge, and his titular son, the Minotaur, have also been viewed as incarnational parodies, though the poet places less emphasis on their dual-natured bodies.31 Dante's hybrids mock the Incarnation in two interrelated ways. As creatures with two distinct natures but no overall sense of unity or wholeness, their appearance suggests an abortive attempt at incarnational union. Their coupled bodies, with the two natures separated rather than joined in a harmonious whole, thus stand for the paired sinners who are defined by less than serene relationships with their infernal partners. Viewed from a different angle, the dual-natured creatures represent division, the result of an individual identity split into two. In this way, their divided forms focus attention on the series of sinners whose bodies

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 39

are cut in half, visually if not literally. As both doubles and halves, the poet's infernal hybrids lay the groundwork for a composite parody of the Incarnation through their complementary perversions of the union of two complete natures in a single person. This incarnational parody is completed by the divided and doubled shades in hell. Mocking the Incarnation with their false representations of unity and duality, these sinners more than compensate for the lack of a specific circle of hell devoted to the punishment of pride - and its companion sin, envy - by offending the humble descent of the divine Logos into humanity.'32 Exploiting the conception of pride as 'the beginning of all sin' (Ecclus. 10:15), Dante liberally adorns the circles, rounds, pouches, and zones of his underworld with displays of the foundational transgression. Pride's prominence among all sinful dispositions is made clear on the mountain of purgatory: after the angel removes from the wayfarer's forehead the P for the sin - peccatum - of pride, the remaining six P's themselves grow faint (Purg. 12.121-3). While the rush of humility found at the shore of the island of purgatory may indeed point to Christ's humble descent as the corrective to Adam's — that is, humankind's - sinful ascent in pride,'™ the poet directly treats the humility of the Incarnation, the doctrine of God's exinantio ('self-emptying'), in Paradiso 7. Here Beatrice teaches the wayfarer that divine justice would not have been served 'se '1 Figliuol di Dio / non fosse umili'ato ad incarnarsi' [if the Son of God had not humbled himself to become incarnate] (118-20). In hell, where Christ is the enemy, it is therefore appropriate for Dante to interweave a web of proud shades whose physical appearance - as either doubles or halves — parodies the paradoxical union of two perfect natures, human and divine, in one person. Lucifer, whose hideous body is visually cut in half by the ice of Cocytus, is of course at the centre of this infernal Web of Pride as the "mperador del doloroso regno" [emperor of the woeful realm] (34.28). Indeed, his supercilious behaviour— 'contra '1 suo fattore alzo le ciglia' [he lifted up his brows against his maker] - occasioned all human misery and suffering (34.35-6). However, on a purely textual level, the sinner who takes the prize as the most rebellious soul in the Inferno is Vanni Fucci, the plunderer of the Pistoian sacristy who gives God the proverbial finger (s): 'Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro!' [Take them, God, for I aim them at you!] (25.3). Of all the signs of sacrilege and unrepentaiice in hell, nothing stands out more than this brief, obscene gesture. Speaking as the returned wayfarer, Dante wishes for the incineration of the entire city, Pistoia, that has produced the likes of this thief who surpasses in his

40 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

pride even Caparieus (25.13-25), the blasphemer whose continued defiance of God adds to his punishment (14.67-72).34 Because Varini Fucci is in hell for theft, not blasphemy, he receives a specific punishment for this outburst different from the usual transformations between human and reptilian forms: the snakes - pointing ahead to Lucifer, the 'vermo reo' [evil worm] (34.108) who 'robbed' humankind of paradise silence and immobilize the 'superbo' by wrapping around his throat and arms (25.4—9). Vanni Fucci's presumption is a fitting point of departure for Dante's conception of theft as an offence against the Incarnation. Effacing the difference between self and other, theft is punished through changes in identity that parody, in increasingly complex ways, the paradoxical union of two distinct natures in one person." Dante's transformations in the bolgia of the thieves, of which he is so understandably proud, continue a theme that began rather humbly in the previous bolgia. Virgil and Dante must repair their relationship following troubles with the Malebranche (cantos 21-2) and the Latin poet's subsequent embarrassment during the encounter with the hypocrites (canto 23) .36 In this longest single episode in the Inferno, the wayfarer and his guide experienced a temporary rift in their relationship as Dante was justifiably suspicious of the devils while Virgil remained oblivious to their threats. When Virgil realized the wisdom of his companion's distrust, he was finally moved to action and expressed the convergence of Dante's thought with his own in terms that recalled their originary union of wills at the end of Inferno 2: or

Pur mo venieno i tuo' pensier tra 'miei, con simile atto e con simile faccia, sf che d'intrambi un sol consiglio fei. (23.28-30) [Even now came your thoughts among mine, with like action and like look, so that of both I have made one counsel.]

The fact that first Dante and then Virgil articulated their joining of wills/thoughts is itself significant. By having a different member of the duo declare their unity of purpose in such strong terms at critical junctures of the journey, the poet foregrounds the coincidence of sameness and difference that inheres in both the joint enterprise of the two travellers and the Incarnation itself. In the end, Dante was right not to trust Malacoda and his brethren since, as the hypocrite Catalano informed Virgil, every schoolboy knows that the devil is 'padre di menzogna' [the

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 41 father of lies] (23.144). Virgil paid dearly for not heeding his companion's warnings. Only when it was clear that the Malebranche indeed meant to harm the travellers did he act, more out of instinct than reason. Like a mother rescuing her child from a burning house, Virgil grabbed Dante, 'e giii clal collo de la ripa dura / supiii si diede a la pendente roccia, / che 1'un de' lati a 1'altra bolgia tura' [and, down from the ridge of the hard bank he gave himself supine to the sloping rock that closes one side of the next pouch] (23.43-5). Having barely averted a disaster largely of his own making, Virgil now figuratively mends his relationship with Dante by helping him up the rocky slope - made by the broken bridge - leading out of the sixth bolgia. This act of renewal occasions the elaborate, multi-layered simile that opens canto 24. Anticipating the transformations of the thieves, the poet compares Virgil's recovery of his old, cheerful self to the burning off of hoar frost on an early spring morning and the resurgence of hope in the peasant who mistook the frost for snow. With a retrospective glance toward the beginning of the journey, Dante expands the simile by inserting an additional comparison. Virgil's expression has returned to 'quel piglio / dolce' [that sweet look] (24.20-1) that the wayfarer first saw at the base of the mountain (Inferno 1). With this renewed good humour, Virgil affectionately helps his mortal companion up the slope ('diedemi di piglio' [he laid hold of me (24)]). The repetition of the word piglio (21, 24) is the third instance of equivocal rhyme in the opening verses of canto 24. These examples of poetic doubling, two words which look and sound the same but have different meaning, reinforce the image of doubling, the hoar frost that is mistaken for snow. If the theme of change on which the entire simile is predicated anticipates the contrapasso (the metamorphoses of the thieves), Dante's cluster of equivocal rhymes provides insight into the very essence of the sin and its punishment. 38 Theft, as Dante conceives it, entails a fundamental problem with identity, an inability or unwillingness to distinguish between self and other. As the thieves showed no respect for interpersonal boundaries (what's yours is mine), so they are now punished in hell by having to undergo literal re-enactments of this erasure of difference.39 Their very identities are rendered uncertain and arbitrary by the frequent exchanges, the 'mutare e trasmutare' of forms (25.143), that occur in the seventh bolgia. Dante's equivocal rhymes, the stylistic centre of these cantos, mimic and mock the sin and its contrapasso. On the one hand, the apparent sameness of the rhyme words mirrors the thieves' transgression of the 37

42 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

boundary separating self and other. On the other hand, the repeated forms - the maintained superficial identities - that conceal semantic differences constitute a parodic gesture toward the sinners who lose their forms through transformation. At most, they keep their names as a sign of their previous, recognizable human identity. As both imitation and derision, repetition with an infernal difference, the equivocal rhymes within a simile of multiple changes prepare for Dante's poetic response - in the form of three transformations - to the question of identity itself.40 Like a fourth of July fireworks display, the three transformative acts of cantos 24-5 build on one another in a crescendo to a grand finale. In the first transformation, Dante introduces the theme of identity by having an individual sinner experience a temporary loss of his human form. Attacked by a serpent, Vanni Fucci is first burned to ashes and then restored to his human form, a metamorphosis that reminds the poet of the self-immolation and rebirth of the phoenix (24.97-111). While it is another form, the serpent, that occasions the transformation, Vanni Fucci alone undergoes a momentary loss of identity.41 The second transformation, involving an exchange of forms between two thieves, brings the issue of identity squarely within the context of incarnational parody. After Cianfa (in serpent form) attacks Agnello, the two beings merge into a monstrosity in which both sinners lose their individual identities without acquiring new ones (25.49-78). As Agnello begins to lose his human appearance, the two spectator-thieves describe this change in decidedly anti-incarnational terms: 'Ome, Agnel, come ti muti! / Vedi che gia non se' ne due ne uno' [Oh me, Agnello, how you change! Lo, you are already neither two nor one!] (25.69). Rather than the 'due euno' of the Incarnation, the morphing thief possesses neither a hybrid form nor any single, recognizable form whatsoever. That this transformation is a parody of the union of two complete natures in a single person is clear from theological discussions of what the Incarnation is not 'For it is not the case that the divine nature and the human nature can be changed into each other so that the divine nature becomes human or the human nature becomes divine; and it is not the case that they can be so mingled that from these two natures there is formed a third nature which is neither fully divine nor fully human' (Cur Deus Homo 2.7). Anselm goes on to explain that the product of two 'corrupt natures' would be 'neither someone who is human nor someone who is divine,' but some third nature - a transformation into 'lie due ne uno' of the original natures.4^ When the two forms, one human and one rep-

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 43

tiliaii, have completed their fusion, all signs of their previous natures have been destroyed. The word indicating this erasure, casso (76), is the double of the word from the previous tercel signifying the torso of the human figure (74). This final equivocal rhyme of the episode aptly captures the process of doubling that results not in an incarnational union of sameness and difference but in a hideous, unidentifiable creature: 'due e nessun 1'imagine perversa / parea' [the perverse image seemed both and neither] (77-8). In the third and final transformation, by far the longest (textually) and most spectacular, Dante builds on his idea of identity loss, momentary for Vanni Fucci and more lasting for Cianfa and Agnello. Now he describes a reciprocal theft as two sinners, one human and one serpentine ('un serpentello acceso' [25.83]), exchange forms with one another, an even clearer example of what the Incarnation is not.47' Through the medium of smoke that issues from the mouth of the serpent and the punctured belly of the man, each sinner begins to take on the appearance of the other. Shedding any pretenses to modesty, Dante claims innovation by dismissing the metamorphoses described by Lucan and Ovid as inferior to the double exchange that he is about to describe (94-102). The poet's thirty-three-verse performance of reciprocal transformation is indeed a stupendous culmination to his presentation of the thieves. When the smoke has finally cleared, each of the two souls has effectively stolen a new identity at the expense of losing its previous one, thus demonstrating once and for all the inherent instability of selfhood in the realm of theft. All three of the transformations, and the contrapasso generally, derive Irom a fundamental confusion, a literal 'flowing together' — con-fondere — of self and other. This confusion enmeshes Dante — both wayfarer and poet - as well as the thieves in the infernal Web of Pride. After the travellers have extricated themselves from the sixth bolgia, the exhausted wayfarer sits down at the first opportunity. Virgil lectures his mortal companion that by lying in bed one does not achieve fame, 'sanza la qual chi sua vita si consuma, / cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia, / qual fummo in aere ed in acqua la schiuma' [without which whoso consumes his life leaves such vestige of himself on earth as smoke in air or foam on water] (24.49-51). Readers armed with foreknowledge will likely consider that it is precisely this attitude that risks situating Dante under something far more burdensome than feathered bed linen. On the terrace of envy, after he has witnessed the cruel suffering of the proud and heard Oderisi da Gubbio's denigration of 'fama' as a symptom of 'vana

44 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

gloria,' the poet will confess that he expects one day to join the proud penitents under their boulders: 'che gia lo 'ncarco di la giu mi pesa' [already the load down there is heavy upon me] (Purg. 13.138).44 In the Inferno Dante earns his place among the proud when he silences the great transmuters of antiquity, Lucan and Ovid, with his arresting metamorphoses of the thieves - particularly the finale, in which he has two natures, one human and one reptilian, perform a mutual exchange of forms (25.94-135).45 He complicates the major representational claim of his poem - the fiction of recounting a lived experience - by blurring the line between what he supposedly saw and what he now describes. While Ovid may have poetically transformed - 'converte poetando' Cadmus into a serpent and Arethusa into a fountain, he never transmuted two natures into one another with his words (97-102). By taking credit for creating the unprecedented double transformation through his verse, the poet usurps God's role as the author of the punishments in hell. Dante would have no need - indeed, no right - to silence his Classical precursors if he were merely reporting what he witnessed in the seventh bolgia. This representational disruption perhaps appears less egregious because the poet has so deftly planted other writerly metaphors in the episode, from the hoar frost 'written' over the countryside in imitation of snow (24.4-6) to the speed of Vanni Fucci's incineration compared to the writing of the letters 'O' and T (24.100-2). However, the poet's explicit claim at the end of the episode 'to have been there' — 'Cosf vid' io la settima zavorra / mutare e trasmutare' [Thus I saw the seventh ballast change and transmute] - cannot erase the trace of what has been, after all, a slip of the pen ('se fior la penna abborra' [if my pen goes aught astray (25.142-4)]). Dante's transgression of the boundary separating human from divine creation, a parodic gesture toward the Incarnation, is a slip that puts him in the company of his thieves in the Web of Pride. If the thieves participate in the performance of incarnational parody by alternating, fusing, and exchanging human and reptilian 'natures,' other sinners mock the incarnational union of two complete natures in one person by appearing either divided in two or doubled with an infernal companion. 'Not knowing the "half,"' writes the author - possibly Dante - of the Letter to Cangrande, 'its "double" could not be understood.'46 Defining one another, Dante's halved and doubled sinners create a stunning circle of pride in the Inferno. Like Chiron, the Centaur whose joining of two natures is textually marked ('le due nature son consorti' [12.84]), the major couples of the

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 45

Inferno are clearly defined as unions of two individuals. Such companionship is no cause for celebration in hell. Concluding her lyric hymn to love, Francesca tells of the destructive consequences of her illicit union with Paolo, an incarnation in the carnal sense of the term. This Amor not only joined the two lovers 'in one flesh' (Gen. 2:24) hut it also brought them, Francesca tells Dante, 'ad una morte' [to one death] (Inf. 5.106), a violent and morbid image of togetherness that also determines the form of their joint punishment in hell.4 Paolo's shade will be with her always ('mai da me non fia diviso' [shall never be parted from me (5.135)]), an intimate reminder of not only the 'tempo felice' [happy time] that now brings 'miseria' [wretchedness] (5.121-3) but also the physical and moral consequences of their amorous activities: death and damnation. 'Unity,' for Thierry of Chartres, 'is the preservation and form of being, while division is the cause of destruction.' In the case of Francesca and Paolo, it is the non-division - the 'mai... diviso - forever holding the infernal couple together that indicates devastation beyond the 'one death' to which their passion brought them. As Dante's Eve, the sinner - the first encountered - whose story of passion causes the wayfarer to re-enact the Fall with his swoon (5.142), Francesca possesses exemplary credentials for inclusion in the Web of Pride. With Paolo, she forms a couple - 'quei due che 'nsieme vanno' [those two that go together] (5.74) - that casts contrastive light on Dante and Virgil's incarnational union of wills. The lovers respond to the wayfarer's "affettuoso grido' [compassionate cry] in a decidedly instinctive manner: 'Quali colombe dal disio chiamate / con Tali alzate e ferme al dolce nido / vegnon per 1'aere, dal voler portate' [As doves called by desire, with wings raised and steady, come through the air, borne by their will to the sweet nest] (5.82-4). With voler suggesting the spontaneous response of the two lovers to the external force of disio, will and desire are morally disordered. It will take the entire journey for Dante's own 'disio' and 'velle' to be set into perfect order by a love far greater than that of Francesca and Paolo (Par. 33.143-5). Ulysses' place is unrivalled in the collection of proud sinners whose 'circle' in hell is the network of lines that connect them to one another. A monitory story for the proud poet (26.19-24), the restless Greek hero is the embodiment of pride and ambition in the Commedia. Ulyssean pride radiates out from canto 26: his 'folle volo' [mad flight] (25) reaches back to the wayfarer's fear of violating limits by undertaking his journey (Inf. 2.34—5) and forward to 'folle Aragne' [mad Arachne] on the terrace of pride (Purg. 12.43) and to Adam's great transgression

46 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

(Par. 26.115-17), humankind's 'follia' in disobeying God (Par. 7.93).4g Dante adds a theological frame to his presentation of Ulysses by probing the relation of pride to rhetoric. Ulysses may tell his shipmates that they were born to follow 'virtute e canoscenza' [virtue and knowledge] (Inf. 26.119-20), but this declaration falls short of the trinitarian 'sapienza, amore e virtute' [wisdom, love, and virtue] that nourishes the salvific greyhound who will drive the she-wolf back into hell (Inf. 1.100-11). From a Christian perspective, Ulysses' persuasive words come perilously close to the divine Logos ('Christum Dei virtutem, et Dei sapientiam' [Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24)]), which Dante echoes - with incarnational resonance - as 'la sapienza e la possanza / ch'apri le strade tra '1 cielo e la terra* [the wisdom and the power that opened the roads between heaven and earth] (Par. 23.37-8). Like the dangerous orators discussed by Cicero and Brunette Latini,'10 Ulysses is a master of 'eloquerizia' who possesses great knowledge and virtue but lacks 'sapienza.' Wisdom, as Dante himself confirms, is shorthand for Christ (Inf. 3.5-6), whose humble descent into humanity reverses Ulysses' proud defiance of divinely ordained limits. Ulysses' punishment in the eighth bolgia therefore serves as a visual sign of his avant la lettre offence to Christ. Joined for eternity as 'due dentro ad un foco' [two within one fire] (26.79), Ulysses and Diomedes parody the incarnational union of two natures in one person. That this union of the former comrades in arms inspires more hostility than fond reminiscing is clear from the separation of the flame into two horns, the larger of which contains Ulysses (26.85). The division of the flame - 'diviso / di sopra' [divided at its top] - appropriately reminds the wayfarer of the forked flame rising from the funeral pyre of the fratricidal Theban brothers, Eteocles and Polynices (26.52-4), even before he knows the identity of the souls concealed within the flame. Virgil thus explains that as Ulysses and Diomedes once inspired one another's wrath against a common enemy so they mutually increase their eternal suffering in hell (26.56-7) .51 If Francesca and Paolo burden one another with reminders of the flesh and Ulysses and Diomedes seethe with mutual anger, the sinners who are paired up in the final circle of hell openly and violently punish their companions according to a fearful symmetry: enemies in life, enemies in death. In Caina, the sector in which familial traitors are punished, the wayfarer comes upon the Alberti brothers. The Guelf Alessandro and the Ghibelline Napoleone allegedly murdered one another over their father's inheritance ('discordiam propter heredi-

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47

tatem').' 2 Another traitor in Caina, Camicioii de' Pazzi, explains to Dante that the close relationship of the two sinners - their origin in the same womb - makes them particularly deserving of placement in the region of familial treachery: 'D'un corpo usciro; e tutta la Caina / potrai cercarc, c non troverai ombra / degna piii d'esser fitta in gelatina' [They issued from one body; and all Caina you may search and not find a shade more fit to be fixed in ice] (32.58-60). While not technically twins, the Alberti brothers still offer a negative alternative to Castor and Pollux, the mythological Gemini whose fraternal bond extends to their shared celestial placement and whose power Dante claims as the source of his own genius when he arrives within the constellation of his birth (Par. 22.112-20) .5S After Dante and Virgil depart from Bocca degli Abati, a traitor against his political party, they approach the border between Antenora and Ptolomea. Here they encounter a second pair of traitors whose 'sign' in hell is an even greater perversion of the poet's zodiacal sign of twinship. The poet refrains from immediately revealing the identity of this final major infernal couple, preferring instead to end the canto - and anticipate the next - with arguably the most gruesome scene of the entire Inferno. The wayfarer sees 'due ghiacciati in una buca, / si che 1'un capo a I'altro era cappello' [two frozen in one hole so close that the head of the one was a hat for the other] (32.125-6). Dante's characterization of this suggestive image as a 'bestial segno' [bestial sign] (133) is understandable given what takes place between this 'head' and 'hat': e come 1 pan per fame si manduca, cosi 'I sovran ii denti a I'altro pose la Ve '1 cervel s'aggiugne con la mica. (32.127-9) land as bread is devoured for hunger, so the upper one set his teeth upon the other where the brain joins with the nape.J

To convey the awful determination of the cannibalistic feaster, the poet provides an example from the epic tradition. He alludes to Tydeus, one of the seven against Thebes, who, having been mortally wounded by Menalippus (and having returned the favour), calls for his enemy's head so he can exact added revenge before succumbing to death (Thebni.d 8.739-862). Narrating that Tydeus gnawed on Menalippus's skull 'per disdegno' [for disdain] (32.131), Dante manages to bring before his reader's eyes, if only for a moment, the superimposed images of a

48 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry number of proud figures in the Inferno, including Farinata, Capaneus, and Ulysses. Feasting on human flesh instead of the Word made flesh, Ugolino - as one of 'two frozen in one hole' - takes his rightful place at the table of defiant mockers of the Incarnation.'14 While the infernal couples parody the Incarnation through the joining of individuals in a single space (two in one), a more extensive array of anti-incarnational sinners is caught in the poet's Web of Pride through the halving of their bodies (one in two).0'1 Illustrative of these proud, halved shades is Filippo Argenti, though his body is actually divided into more than two pieces. When Dante rudely dismisses Filippo's request for sympathy (8.37-8), Virgil responds with an affectionate gesture accompanied by a seemingly misplaced allusion to the gospel scene of an anonymous woman blessing the womb that bore Christ: 'Lo collo poi con le braccia mi cinse; / basciommi '1 volto e disse: "Alma sdegnosa, / benedetta colei che '11 te s'incinse!"' [Then he put his arms around my neck, kissed my face, and said, 'Indignant soul, blessed is she who bore you!'] (8.43-5). Able on occasion to cite Scripture, which only heightens the drama of his exclusion from salvation, Virgil here contrasts the arrogant reputation of Filippo with the humble circumstances of the Incarnation. Luke tells how a woman expressed her enthusiasm for Christ's teachings by specifically recalling his human mother: 'Blessed is the womb that bore thee' [Beatus venter qui te portavit] (11:27). Virgil immediately contrasts this humble aspect of the Incarnation with human pride by labelling Filippo a 'persona orgogliosa' [arrogant individual] (8.46), thereby justifying his and Dante's harsh treatment of the angry sinner.56 This harshness borders on sadism as the wayfarer's wish to see Filippo physically punished is fulfilled. While Dante's desire to have the sinner 'dunked' (attuffare) in the marsh may not appear excessive (53), his jubilation at the mere recollection of how Filippo was literally torn apart by his cohabitants indicates a strong element of vicarious pleasure in the infernal violence: 'Dopo cio poco vid 'io quello strazio / far di costui a le faiigose genii, / che Dio ancor ne lodo e ne ringrazio' [A little after this I saw such rending of him by the muddy folk that I still praise and thank God for it] (8.58-60). The powerful word - strazio - used to indicate the violent assault on Filippo's body reminds us that the travellers are in the circle where the sinners employ any means possible to dismember one another piece by piece ('a brano a brano' [7.112-14]). It also points ahead to strazi associated with other members of Dante's infernal Web of Pride: Farinata's massacre of the Guelfs at the Battle of

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Montaperti (10.85) and Boniface vni's figurative butchery of the church (19.57), violence also practised by Boniface's accuser, Pope Nicholas in. The dismemberment of Filippo in the Stygian marsh thus prepares for these and other figures who are visually - at times, literally - divided in half. Together with the infernal couples, these halved shades attest to the poet's conception of pride as violence against not only the humility of the Incarnation but humanity itself. In the canto of Farinata, the first of the great divisive sinners, Dante weaves several strands of his overall depiction of pride. Farinata could accurately be said to embody pride from the moment we follow the wayfarer in directing our gaze at his sudden, imposing presence: '"Volgiti! Che fai? / Vedi ia Farinata che s'e dritto: / da la cintola in sii tutto '1 vedrai"' [Turn round! what are you doing? See there Farinata who has risen erect: from the waist up you will see him all] (10.31-3). Visible in his sepulchre 'from the waist up,' the heretic strikes a pose consistent with the iconography of resurrection (of the dead at the Final Judgment as well as of Christ) and the Imago pietatis ('Man of Sorrows'), the figure of the upper half of the dead Christ's body thought to represent a moment of suspension between life and death. '7 Farinata's visual division in two also marks him as one of the proud sinners who parody the incarnational union of two complete natures in one person. Michele Barbi remarks that the phrase 'da la cintola in su' (along with 'da la cintola in giii' [from the waist down]) was common in Dante's day. )K It is therefore no surprise that several early commentators use these very expressions to describe Lucifer and the Centaurs, other divided figures implicated in the poet's Web of Pride.' Farinata is figuratively cut off at the waist, with the lower part of his body still hidden from view, by the tomb in which he is punished along with other heretics of his ilk. At the end of the episode, in response to Dante's request to know the identity of some of these cohabitants, Farinata expresses his pride verbally by naming only two of the 'piu di mille' [more than a thousand] with whom he lies - certainly two of the most illustrious of his fellow heretics: Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini and Emperor Frederick u (10.118—20). This non-believer in the immortality of the soul extends his upper body out of his sepulchre 'com' avesse 1'inferno a gran dispitto' [as if he had great scorn of hell] (36). Benvenuto da Imola comments that with this passage it is 'as if Dante wished to say, "with prominence and pride," for Farinata, along with his clan, was proud.'60 Indeed, Farinata's disdainful attitude is one of the most salient features of his presentation, from his overall scorn of hell and

50 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the way he looks at the wayfarer ('quasi sdegnoso' [as if in disdain (41)]) to his complete disregard for Cavalcaritc, the second heretic to engage Dante in conversation. It is actually through the figure of Cavalcante, the father of Dante's 'primo amico' [best friend] from the days of the Vita nuova, that the poet completes - by means of contrast - his portrait of the proud Ghibelline leader. Whereas Farinata cuts an imposing figure, extending out of his tomb and towering above his interlocutor, Cavalcante lifts only his head above the edge of the tomb. The wayfarer infers that he must therefore be on his knees (53-4). This contrast comes into sharper focus after Cavalcante mistakenly takes Dante's 'forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno' [(to?) whom perhaps your Guido held in disdain] (63) - a phrase notoriously ambiguous to both Cavalcante and critics alike - to mean that his son is dead. As Cavalcante falls out of sight, back into the tomb ('supin ricadde' [he fell supine again (72)]), 61 Farinata continues to stand upright: 'ne mosse collo, ne piego sua costa' [he neither moved his neck nor bent his side] (75). Cavalcante's physical collapse, while contrasting with the arrogant pose of the immobile Farinala, also contains a certain measure of pride. He already displayed a hint of this attitude in his initial exchange with Dante. Having a high opinion of his son's intelligence and talent ('altezza d'ingegno'), the only qualities he thinks could earn a living person passage to hell, Cavalcante asks why Guido has not been granted the same privilege afforded Dante (58-60). Dante's reply - 'Da me stesso non vegno' [I come not of myself] (61) - calls attention to the arrogance implicit in Cavalcante's question. The wayfarer goes on to explain that someone else - a higher authority- leads him through hell, one (whether Virgil or Beatrice or even God) whom Guido, true to his father's nature, 'forse ... ebbe a disdegno' [perhaps held in disdain] (63). Dante's humility, contrasted with Cavalcante's pride, therefore shows how the two representative heretics are themselves entwined within the poet's infernal web. Each displays an excessive devotion to his 'people,' whether the clan structure of the city's political parties (Farinata) or the more intimate unit of a father and son (Cavalcante). In Dantean fashion, the juxtaposition of the two figures - physically as well as thematically - creates a dialectical composite of both contrast and complementarity. In his first question to the wayfarer — 'Chi fuor li maggior tui?' [Who were your ancestors?] (10.42) - Farinata reveals the symbiotic relationship between familial and political affiliations in thirteenth-century Italy. Identifying Dante's ancestors in terms of their allegiance to the

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Guelf party, he quickly initiates an adversarial series of exchanges with the wayfarer: Farinata, as a Ghibelline leader, defeated the Guelfs two times (in 1248 and 1260); however, the Guelfs succeeded in returning to power both times, unlike the Ghibellines following their defeat in 1266. The tit-for-tat nature of the barbs aptly reflects the strife-ridden politics of Florence in the late Middle Ages that resulted iri periodic upheavals, with the victorious group exercising its power by banishing its defeated foes. These political exchanges, grounded in the logic of exclusion that pits one group against the other, literally divided the city's populace. Dante raises the issue of Florence's political divisions here in the circle of heresy because this sin is virtually defined in relation to medieval ideas of unity and divisiveness.'"2 Theologians commonly associate heresy with the act of dividing, breaking, or tearing something apart. Peter Lombard makes this connection in his commentary on Psalm 21:19: 'They parted my garments amongst them: and upon my vesture they cast lots' [diviserunt sibi vestimenta inea, et super vestem meam miserunt sortem]: By the garments, the Scriptures of Christ or the sacraments of the Church are understood; by the seamless coat, over which they cast lots, charity or the unity of the Church is understood; by those who divided the garments, the perverters of the Scriptures are understood. In this way therefore they actually divided (he clothes: thus those who do not seek unity have divided among themselves my garments, corrupting the spiritual sacraments and the holy Scriptures.1'3

The medieval exegete interprets the Psalm as a prophecy of the division of Christ's clothes to promulgate a conception of heresy as an inherently divisive act.1'4 In Dante's syncretic imagination, the divisive forma mentis characteristic of heresy rips the fabric of both the city and the religious community. When distinctions between ecclesiastic and civic governance are subsumed within a larger social vision, heresy has both political and theological dimensions. It is therefore appropriate that an emperor and a cardinal, as well as Pope Anastasius u (canto 11), should be singled out as prominent inhabitants of the sixth circle. However, Farinata, Dante's star heretic, is also a 'magnanimo' [great soul] (73), an appellative bearing at least a trace of honour and nobility: the only other magnanimo in the Commedia is the poet's beloved - if damned - Virgil (Inf. 2.44). This word is the signal that Farinata, no less than other larger than life inhabitants of hell, can be redeemed in part

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even as he is damned. Like the theological doctrine that they mock as it punishes them, these spirits are paradoxically dialectical. Suffering for their unrepented sins, the infernal celebrities nonetheless tell compelling stories that bear witness to extraordinary talents and sentiments. In Farinata's case, his most virtuous quality, like his damning vice, takes a political slant. Although the Ghibelline chief is depicted as a fomenter of civic divisiveness through his partisan politics, he also emerges as the city's saviour when the other party leaders consider razing the city to the ground: 'Ma fu' io solo, la dove sofferto / fu per ciascun di torre via Fiorenza, / colui che la difesi a viso aperto' [But I was alone there where all agreed to make an end of Florence, the one who defended her before them all] (91-3). Paradoxically, then, it is the heretic Farinata who stands up for maintaining Florence's integrity in the face of the political dissension that periodically divides the city. To the extent that Dante well understood the desire of the Ghibellines to destroy Florence, the exiled poet's recognition of Farinata's courage in fighting that destructive impulse is a testament to his own magnanimity. The poet reinforces thematic and metaphoric intersections of heresy and simony through similarities in the landscape and the position of the souls punished therein. The spirits in both locations experience some form of entombment, literal in the case of the heretics and strongly suggested in the presentation of the simonists in canto 19. Dante's summary reference to the entire third bolgia as a 'tomb' (tomba [19.7]) may be applied to the individual openings in the ground, much as the same word designates the sepulchres of the heretics generally and that of Farinata in particular (9.129; 10.40). The circle of the heretics is described as a great plain dotted with tombs of varying size, each of which, Virgil explains to the wayfarer, houses more souls than he thinks (10.110-29). Dante now sees the walls arid floor of the pit of the simonists punctuated by holes of equal dimensions (19.13-15). The wayfarer is drawn to the spectacle of individual shades sticking out of the ground, one visible body to each round hole. He sees only partial figures, the lower extremities of the suffering souls: 'Fuor de la bocca a ciascun soperchiava / d'un peccator li piedi e de le gambe / infino al grosso, e 1'altro dentro stava' [From the mouth of each projected the feet of a sinner and his legs as far as the thigh, and the rest was within] (22-4). Stuffed upside down in the holes, the simonists visually reverse the position of the two heretics who addressed the wayfarer in the sixth circle. While Farinata and Cavalcante revealed portions of their upper bodies to Dante ('from the waist up' and 'down to the chin'), the sinners viewed in the third

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bolgia show their legs and feet and nothing more. However, at least one of these holes is stuffed with more shades than meets the eye. Under his buried head, Pope Nicholas in tells Dante, are an unspecified number of fellow simonists, and he prophesies the arrival of Boniface vm and Clement v in the same hole, each pushing his predecessor further down (19.73-87). Like Farinata, Nicholas singles out two outstanding - in this case, future - cohabitants of his tomb while alluding to the presence of numerous others. Inferno 19 has been amply discussed as a canto of biblical and sacramental inversions consistent with the corrosive effects of the sin of simony, loosely defined as trafficking in ecclesiastical power and wealth.65 Baptism is the most obvious - and perhaps the most elaborate - of these spiritual inversions. In a striking autobiographical moment, Dante equates the size of the holes in the third bolgia with that of the baptismal fonts in the Florentine baptistery (16-18). He goes on to add, almost parenthetically, that he was forced to break one of these fonts in order to save someone trapped inside, an act that sheds contrastive light on the simonists' violation of the bonds between the church and her ordained ministers. Nicholas stresses the brutal nature of this sin when he mistakes Dante for Boniface vm, the simonist next in line for the papal pouch in the third bolgia. Employing the common metaphor of a woman for the church (the bride of Christ), the pope holds nothing back in his sarcastic address: 'Se' tu si tosto di quel aver sazio / per lo qual non temesti torre a 'nganno / la bella donna, e poi di farne strazio?' [Are you so quickly sated with those gains for which you did not fear to take by guile the beautiful Lady, and then to tear her apart?] (55—7). Nicholas's final, violent expression —farne strazio [to tear her apart] - powerfully conveys the poet's view of simony as a destructive force directed against the community of believers. The strazio of the church resulting from simony echoes the massacre - 'Lo strazio e '1 grande scempio' [The havoc and the great slaughter] (10.85) - carried out by Farinata's Ghibellines at Montaperti. The two episodes illustrate the threats to civic and ecclesiastical unity posed by the partial, selfserving perspectives that Dante associates with heresy and simony. However, both heresy and simony are literally directed against the church, and this common target perhaps determines the similar general form of their punishment. Whereas heresy calls into question the church's very existence, simony represents the extreme type of ecclesiastical corruption. Dante's outrage at these sins thus finds an appropriate outlet in his decision to 'bury' the heretics and simonists, the former in

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sepulchres and the latter in pouches resembling baptismal fonts. The two ends of the life cycle according to church reckoning - baptism and burial - are thereby joined to show that arch-heretics and simonist popes are not so different in terms of their injury to the religious community. The reversed positions of the bodies of Farinata and Nicholas may therefore be seen as two complementary pieces of a composite image pointing to the damage wrought by the combined effects of heresy and simony on the church body. Partially cut off from view, Farinata from the waist down and Nicholas from the thighs up, Dante's representative heretic and simonist parody the incarriational union of wholeness (one person) and separation (two complete natures). Bona fide members of the infernal Web of Pride, Farinata and Nicholas anticipate with their entombments the exceedingly large tomb at the centre of the earth that Lucifer made for himself with his fall from heaven (34.128). In the case of Nicholas, Dante sets into relief the divisiveness resulting from the simonists' arrogance by framing the episode with a pair of reminders of the bond forged between the wayfarer and his guide in canto 2. There Dante indicated his renewed resolve to undertake the infernal journey by expressing the union of his will and Virgil's in almost incarnational terms: 'un sol volere e d'ambedue' [a single will is in us both] (2.139). Now that the journey through hell is more than half over, and having had their union tested severely by the crisis at the gates of Dis, Dante and Virgil appear indeed to function harmoniously. When Virgil offers to bring him down into the bolgia to learn the identity of the flailing simonist, the wayfarer goes out of his way to display solidarity with his guide: 'Tanto m'e bel, quanto a te piace: / tu se' segnore, e sai ch'i' non mi parto / dal tuo volere, e sai quel che si tace' [Whatever pleases you is to my liking: you are my lord and you know that I depart not from your will; and you know that which is left unsaid] (19.37-9). Dante certainly seconds Virgil's wishes many times in the Inferno; however, few passages come this close to echoing the originary union of the two travellers' wills. This union now grows from a joining of wills to a joining of bodies as Virgil carries Dante to and from the location of Nicholas in the tomblike ditch. The physical bonding of the travellers is especially strong - perhaps the most positive expression of solidarity in the Inferno - following the wayfarer's long diatribe against simony (90-117): Pero con ambo le braccia mi prese; e poi che tutto su mi s'ebbe al petto,

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 55 rimonto per la via onde discese. Ne si stance d'avermi a se distretto, si men porto sovra '1 colmo de 1'arco die dal quarto al quinto argine e tragetto. Quivi soavemente spuose il carco, soave per lo scoglio sconcio ed erto che sarebbe a le capre duro varco. (19.124—32) [Thereupon he took me in his arms, and when he had me quite on his breast, remounted by the path where he had descended; nor did he tire of holding me clasped to himself, but carried me up to the summit of the arch which is the crossway of the fourth to the fifth bank. Here he gently set down his burden, gently because of the rugged and steep crag, which would be a hard passage for goats.]

A powerful corrective to Clement v, the 'pastor sanza legge' [lawless shepherd] (83), and the various other spiritual shepherds whom Dante compares to the Whore of Babylon (106-11), Virgil here imitates the Pastor Bonus— the Christ-shepherd who carries his lost sheep back to the fold.61' Nowhere before or again will Dante and his guide join so completely- emotionally, intellectively, and physically - into a unified whole. Although the position of Nicholas, stuffed upside down in his pouch, reverses the upright posture of Farinata, both figures are made to appear larger than life, Farinata somewhat positively as a magnanimo (10.73) and Nicholas as one who wore the 'gran manto' [great mantle] of the papacy (19.69). The Ghibelline leader and the pope stand out in their respective locations, the former literally rising out of his tomb (10.32-3) and the latter thrashing more vigorously than his fellow simonists (19.32-3). In addition, both Farinata and Nicholas are 'great' sinners drawn more or less from Dante's world. They are men whose exploits would have been available to the poet from the chronicles and possibly the oral traditions of thirteenth-century Florence and Rome. In the final two episodes containing visually halved figures, Dante shifts his focus from contemporary politics and religion to the world of ancient myth, both Christian and Graeco-Roman. He thereby gives his contemporary creations a mythic aura by including them within the larger domain of providential history. To this end, Dante presents characters — from both Classical and Scriptural accounts - who are truly larger than life. The Giants and Lucifer, archetypal examples of defiant overreachers,

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are models for Farinata, Nicholas HI, and Ulysses. Their very size attests to an inordinate capacity for transgression, namely, the act of challenging the authority of their supreme deity, whether Jove or the God of Scripture. The Giants and Lucifer complement one another, as Dante makes clear in an elaborate simile based on the mathematical principle of proportion: Lo 'mperador del doloroso regno da mezzo '1 petto uscia fuor de la ghiaccia; e piu con un gigante io mi convegno, che i giganti non fan con le sue braccia: vedi oggimai quant' esser dee quel tutto ch'a cosi fatta parte si confaccia. (34.28-33) [The emperor of the woeful realm stood forth from mid-breast out of the ice; and I in size compare better with a Giant than Giants with his arms: see now how huge that whole must be to correspond to such a part.]

Lucifer is large indeed if Dante is closer in size to the Giants than the Giants are to the fallen angel's batlike arms. Hyperbolic or not, the comparison draws an implicit analogy between Lucifer's unmatched size and his status as the 'king of hell' (rex inferni [34.1]). However, the Giants are not so easily superseded when the wayfarer encounters them at the precipice separating the eighth and ninth circles. They add a new thread to the poet's Web of Pride at the same time that they reinforce several of its most prominent strands.67 With his usual attention to detail, Dante establishes the Giants' importance in this network through their physical placement in the infernal landscape. Alerting his companion that what he sees are not towers but Giants, Virgil supplies a partial explanation for this logical if mistaken first impression: instead of appearing in their full form, only the upper halves of the Giants' bodies extend above the level of the eighth circle (31.31-3). As Farinata appeared 'da la cintola in su' [from the waist up] (10.32), so the lower halves of the Giants - 'da 1'umbilico in giuso' [from the navel downward] (31.33) - extend down into the ninth circle and are therefore hidden from view.68 Interpreted by medieval exegetes as offspring of 'the sons of God' and 'the daughters of men' (Gen. 6:2), Giants possess a Christological union of divine and human natures. The popular transformation of the number 666 of Apocalypse 13:18 into the Greek word teitan establishes a decidedly negative

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association between Giants and the Christian Deus-homo.m Dante takes this tradition in a different direction by presenting his Giants as incarnational parody through their visually halved bodies. Towering above the horizon 'di mezza la persona' [with half their bodies] (43), the Giants are more threatening than their rebellious counterparts - the fallen angels - who menaced die travellers from the turreted city of Dis (cantos 8-9). The Giants inspire greater fear in the wayfarer precisely because of their partially concealed bodies. He can only imagine the total size of these 'orribili giganti' [horrible Giants], whom Jove still threatens with his thunder (44—5). The Giants' audacity in challenging Jove at Phlegra, already recorded in Capaneus's blasphemous outburst (14.52—60), is the most obvious example of their attitude of proud defiance. Dante recalls a related episode here in canto 31 with Virgil's description of Ephialtes as a 'superbo' [proud one] (91), who, along with his brother Otus, attempted to scale Olympus by piling Mount Pelion on top of Ossa (945). In his flattering plea to Antaeus for a lift down to the final circle, Virgil again points to the Giants' transgression by suggesting, only partially as a rhetorical ploy, that the outcome of Phlegra might have changed with the addition of Antaeus to the ranks of the 'figli de la terra' [sons of earth] (119-21). But these Classical examples of gigantomachy in canto 31 are not the only manifestation of the Giants' pride. With Nimrod, the first Giant encountered, Dante taps the Scriptural tradition to expand his Web of Pride with a pair of typological events from Genesis. Described in Genesis 10:9 as a 'stout hunter' ('robustus venator'), Nimrod was deemed a Giant by Augustine and Orosius. ' Dante follows this tradition in his De vulgari eloquenlia, where he laments humankind's presumption in attempting to surpass God by constructing a tower to heaven: Incorrigible humanity, therefore, led astray by the giant Nirnrod, presumed in its heart to outdo in skill not only nature but the source of its own nature, who is God; and began to build a tower in Sennaar, which afterwards was called Babel (that is, 'confusion'). By this means human beings hoped to climb up to heaven, intending in their foolishness not to equal but to excel their creator. (1.7.4) '

The poet thus uses the Scriptural account of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:4—9) to foreground Nimrod's pride by having Virgil identify the Giant as the responsible party for the linguistic confusion that resulted

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(31.76-8). The divisive verbal consequences of Nimrod's endeavour now serve to determine the form of his punishment in Dante's hell. He not only speaks an incomprehensible language (67-9; 79-81), but, like the other Giants, he is figuratively divided - at least from the perspective of Dante arid Virgil as they travel across the plain of the eighth circle. The narrative description of Nimrod's divided body contains the second archetypal example of pride drawn from Genesis. Considering the part of the Giant's body that is not visible, Dante refers to the cliff separating the eighth and ninth circles as a 'perizoma,' a garment covering the lower half of Nimrod's body ('dal mezzo in giu' [from his middle downward (61-2)]). The term perizoma, as commentators point out, is a hapax legomenon in the Commedia, an unusual word of Greek origin that Dante borrows from the Genesis passage in which Adam and Eve, ashamed of their nakedness, cover themselves with fig leaves: 'And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons' [Et aperti sunt oculi amborum, cumque cognovissent se esse nudos, consuerunt folia ficus, et fecerunt sibi perizomata] (3:7). The perizoma covering the Giants, signalling the disobedience and subsequent shame and punishment of the first human couple, adds considerable texture to the fabric of the Web of Pride that the poet has so deftly spun from the thread of his first infernal couple. For if the transgression of Francesca and Paolo (patterned on the temptation in Eden) led to their common death ('una morte'), and the recounting of their tale led to the wayfarer's literal fall, the absurdly large fig leaves now needed to cover the loins of the proud Giants magnify that first act of human hubris into titanic proportions. Rounding out Nimrod's association with human hubris in Dante's imagination are the allusions to him in Purgatorio, where he is included as one of the monitory exempla on the floor of the first terrace (12.34—6), and in Paradiso, where Adam states that the Edenic language was extinct before Nimrod and his people built the tower of Babel (26.124—6). Considering Nimrod 'an echoing talisman of overweening pride in human endeavor,' Barolini observes that the Giant and Ulysses, the only single-episode characters named in each cantica, join with Phaeton, another figure mentioned in all three can79 tiche, to form a trio of creative overreachers. These three figures are indeed complementary inasmuch as their transgressive pride encompasses earth (Nimrod's tower), sea (Ulysses1 ship), and sky (Phaeton's flight in Apollo's chariot).

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Dante also yokes the enormous dimensions of the Giants to the sin of pride in his depiction of the part of Nimrod's body that is visible. By comparing the size of the Giant's face to that of the bronze pine cone displayed at St Peter's in Rome (31.58-9), the poet does more than provide a concrete visual aid for his reader. He also works within the intratextual dynamics of his poem by reminding us of the high ecclesiastical office associated with that Roman church. Not only is Boniface vin, the pope at the fictional date of the journey, the most present absence in the Cornmedia, but one of his similarly wicked predecessors, as we have seen, figures prominently in the infernal network of proud sinners. Dante's oblique strategy of invoking the simonist ghost of Pope Nicholas HI continues in the latter part of canto 31, when the wayfarer comes upon Ephialtes. In the face of the Giant's earth-rattling shake, Dante claims he would have died from fright had he not seen the chain that, wrapped around Ephialtes' body, pins the Giant's powerful arms to his torso (31.106-11). With pinpoint precision, the poet-tailor refers to the binding coils of the chain as rilorte (111), thus echoing the only other use of this term in the Commedia: Nicholas's thrashing legs, had they been bound together, 'spezzate averien ritorte e strambe' [would have snapped ropes and withes] (19.27). These allusions to ritorte function as specular inversions, the one foregrounding the unbound legs of the simonist and the other calling attention to the chained upper-body of the Giant. They each highlight the physical power of the respective figures by means of a hypothetical: no ritorte would be able to resist Nicholas's thrashing legs, while it is only the presence of ritorte holding the Giant that keeps the wayfarer from falling victim — literally dropping dead - from fear. Dante's twofold use of the restraining word thus adds another loop to (he coils binding Nicholas and the Giants to one another within the infernal Web of Pride. Dante's depiction of Ephialtes, in addition to recalling the simonist pope, complicates the articulation of pride in the Infer-no by providing a glimpse of its complementary sin, envy. In purgatory, where pride and envy are purged on the first two terraces of the mountain, the sins appear as two sides of the same coin. Virgil defines pride and envy, as well as the other capital sins, within his discussion of love at the centre of the second cantica: E chi, per esscr suo vicin soppresso, spera eecellen/a, e sol per questo brama rh'cl sia di sua grandezza in basso messo;

60 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry e chi podere, grazia, onore e fama teme di perder perch' altri sormonti, onde s'attrista sf che '1 contrario ama. (Purg. 17.115-20) [There is he that hopes to excel by the abasement of his neighbor, and solely for this desires that he be cast down from his greatness. There is he that fears to lose power, favor, honor, and fame, because another is exalted, by which he is so saddened that he loves the contrary.]

Nearly interchangeable, both definitions derive from a competitive, oppositional relationship between self and other. One person's gain is necessarily another person's loss. To dramatize this close relationship between pride and envy, Dante sets up an atmosphere of competition in his presentation of the Giants. He first establishes a hierarchy of ferocity: while towering Nimrod shouts with a lfiera bocca' [fierce mouth] (68), Ephialtes is 'assai piu fero e maggio' [far more savage and bigger] (84), and finally, Virgil informs the wayfarer, the huge Briareus is equal in size to Ephialtes but 'piu feroce par nel volto' [he seems more ferocious in his look] (105).73 This last comment, with Ephialtes on the short end of the comparison, triggers the most dramatic display of envy in the Inferno- the Giant's violent shaking that overwhelms the wayfarer and makes him appreciate the restraining chains: 'Non fu tremoto gia tanto rubesto, / che scotesse una torre cosi forte, / come Fi'alte a scuotersi fu presto' [Never did mighty earthquake shake a tower so violently as Ephialtes forthwith shook himself] (106—8). If the ritortethat reassure Dante wind back to the proud pope in the bolgia of the simonists, the hierarchy of ferocity here among the Giants stretches ahead to a member of the poet's web of defiant figures who, in the circle of treachery, makes of his companion a 'fiero pasto' [savage repast] (33.1). But the transitional episode of the Giants ultimately directs our attention to the two ends of the Inferno, the prologue scene and the presentation of Lucifer. The landscape and the wayfarer's psycho-emotional state described at the beginning of canto 31 thrust us back into the liminal atmosphere of cantos 1-2 as the first caritica begins to come full circle. Recalling the 'nowhere' setting of the proemial cantos, which, in its turn, recalled Augustine's 'region of unlikeness' (regio dissimilitudinis) ,74 the scene before the wayfarer's eyes as he approaches the Giants is one of liminal uncertainty. Dante's vision is so hampered by the dusky ambiance (31.10) that he perceives towers in the distance when what he actually sees are the Giants rising up from the circle below. The liminal

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atmosphere of the prologue scene corresponded to Dante's fear at following Virgil into hell, a complex admixture of legitimate trepidation and unwarranted cowardice. This fear rose to the surface several times during the infernal journey, most notably before the rebel angels at the gates of Dis and the Malebranche in the fifth bolgia. However, the wayfarer's fear is explicitly couched in terms of life and death only at the beginning and end of the Inferno. These two scenes are also defining moments in the relationship between Dante and his heaven-sent guide. In his initial appearance, Virgil was called upon to perform a rescue operation by saving Dante from spiritual death, 'la fiumana ove '1 mar non ha vaiito' [that flood over which the sea has no vaunt] (2.108). But Virgil also had reason to question Dante's reluctance to undertake the journey. The wayfarer's motives, in truth, seemed less than noble, and it was only through Virgil's explanations and psychological manipulations in canto 2 that the journey could begin for good following the false start at the end of canto 1. This successful resolution was expressed in poetic and theological terms as the incarnational union of the travellers' two wills into a single, unified purpose: 'un sol volere e d'ambedue' [a single will is in us both] (2.139). Dante and Virgil now enjoy the fruits of their experience together as they approach the final stage of the infernal voyage. This is evident in Virgil's reaction — so different from his behaviour at the beginning of the journey - to the wayfarer's fear before the Giants. Here Virgil anticipates Dante's anxiety and seeks to protect him with an affectionate gesture - 'caramente mi prese per mano' [lovingly he took me by the hand] (31.28) - even before explaining the identity of the apparent towers. Whereas Virgil's similar affection in canto 19 was a direct response to Dante's righteous anger at papal arrogance and the practice of simony (121-33), he now treats his companion with tenderness for the sole reason of softening the frightening revelation that the towers are not what they seem. Virgil cannot perform miracles, however. As the wayfarer begins to make out the figures of the Giants through the dim atmosphere, his ignorance ('errore') is replaced by the fear ('paura') that so demoralized him in the dark wood. Although Dante succeeds at times in putting aside this fear, as when he eagerly asks to see Briareus (31.97-9), Ephialtes' violent reaction upon being compared unfavourably to his fellow Giant makes the mortal traveller fear death 'piu che mai' [more than ever] (31.109). Therefore, Dante's courage and self-reliance are tenuous even at this late stage, and it will take another moment of intense bonding with Vir-

62 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry gil to effect their descent to the final circle of hell. This occurs when the guide, in a gesture replete with practical, affective, and theological significance, makes of himself and the wayfarer 'one bundle' - un fascio (31.135) - within Antaeus's huge hands so the Giant can deposit them together in the nether region containing Lucifer and Judas. The poet anticipates the brutal punishment of the souls in this region farthest from God with a single image that draws together the final figures in his infernal Web of Pride: as the bottom of hell 'divora / Lucifero con Giuda' [swallows Lucifer with Judas] (31.142-3), so Ugolino gnaws on the skull of his mortal enemy and Lucifer himself chews on the body of Judas (and those of two others) in the circle of treachery. In the last verse of canto 31, Dante complements this proleptic allusion to Ugolino and Lucifer with a retrospective glance at perhaps his most notorious overreacher and alter ego. As the image of Antaeus returning to an erect position reminds Dante of the way a mast on a ship is raised, so we are reminded of a ship that ventured too far and was subsequently sunk, its stern slipping from view beneath the sea. Like the composite body formed from the upper and lower bodies of Farinata and Pope Nicholas in, the sinking and rising masts of Ulysses and Antaeus - two majestic figures moved by Virgil's flattering eloquence -join to form a complete panel within Dante's overall depiction of infernal pride. If the wayfarer was frightened nearly to death in his encounter with the Giants of Classical mythology and Nimrod, it is only fitting that his approach to Lucifer, the super-gigantic rebel of Scriptural mythology, elicit a proportionate emotional response. Fear spills over from the wayfarer's experience into the poet's act of recounting it: 'con paura il metto in metro' [with fear do I put it into verse] (34.10). To heighten the intensity of the moment, Dante describes his liminal condition - suspended between life and death - in the Infernos final address to the reader: Com' io divenni allor gelato e fioco, nol dimandar, letter, ch'i' non lo scrivo, pero ch'ogne parlar sarebbe poco. Io non mori' e non rimasi vivo; pensa oggimai per te, s'hai fior d'ingegno, qual io divenni, d'uno e d'altro privo. (34.22-7) [How frozen and faint I then became, ask it not, reader, for I do not write it, because all words would fail. I did not die and I did not remain alive:

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now think for yourself, if you have any wit, what I became, deprived alike of death and life.l

A grim inversion of the Trinity, with his three hideous faces on a single head, Lucifer also takes his pivotal place among Dante's other proud sinners as a parody of the Incarnation.'''' Extending out of the ice of Cocytus 'da mezzo '1 petto' [from mid-breast] (29), the arch-traitor joins Farinata and the Giants as one who, in his divided appearance, embodies the divisiveness of his overreaching behaviour. Stuck in the ice for eternity, Lucifer is even less capable of movement than his defiant brethren. Taken together, these visually halved figures put on an impressive show of pride as a mockery of the humble, paradoxical union of complete human and divine natures in a single person. Lucifer, like Nimrod and Ephialtes, also figures in Dante's Web of Pride through his association with Nicholas in, the simonist pope stuffed head first in a hole in the third bolgia. A repeated word or phrase - such as the infernal ritorte binding the unbound pope and the bound Giants to one another - serves at times to juxtapose figures or episodes from distant textual locations, usually with the result that the two (or more) contexts shed contrastive and/or corroborative light on one another. This is surely the case when Dante refers to Lucifer's legs as zanclie (34.79), thereby echoing the only other use of the colloquial word in the Corn-media, the description of Nicholas's thrashing legs in the bolgia of the simonists: 'si piangeva con la zanca [he was lamenting with his shanks] (19.45). 7 ' 1 Dante recalls the pope's protruding lower limbs by providing a similar image of Lucifer's legs — albeit from a different perspective - when Virgil, with the wayfarer hanging on, reverses the orientation of his body and begins to climb. The travellers have passed through the centre of the earth (i.e., the centre of gravity), as Virgil will soon explain, but Dante is perplexed when he first looks back following their ascent. He expects to see Lucifer as he initially appeared, his immense upper body emerging from the ice. Instead, the wayfarer sees a pair of legs sticking straight up, in the fashion of the simonists of canto 19: 'e vidili le gam be in sti tenere' [I saw him with his legs held upwards] (34.90). A simonist pope writ extra large, Lucifer thus takes his rightful place as the infernal king of Dante's court of proud rebels. Division in the Inferno is an expansive metaphor, a poetic way for Dante to interweave a network of figures into a composite portrayal of the destructive effects of vice on the secular body. Through the figura-

64 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry lively divided bodies of several prominent characters, Dante's poetics of division touches on virtually every major aspect of human existence, from the politics and governance of the city (Farinata) and the religious community (Pope Nicholas in) to the sacred relationship between intellective creatures and their gods (the Giants and Lucifer). In the spirit of incarnational parody, Dante complements these divided individuals with three outstanding pairs of sinners. While Francesca, Ulysses, and Ugolino are presented as shades experiencing the eternal torments of hell as one half of an intimate couple, the other member - Paolo, Diomedes, and Ruggieri - is conspicuously silent,77 an absent presence suggesting various levels of discomfort. No less than Dante's network of divided figures, these paired sinners weave an impressive design within the Web of Pride. They, too, bear witness to the ruinous consequences of their attitudes and actions on those with whom they share special bonds of trust, from family and lovers to shipmates and fellow citizens. However, there is one place in hell where Dante moves halving and doubling from the metaphoric margins to the centre of his vision. In the bolgia of the 'sowers of scandal and of schism' (28.35), the fictive bodies of the souls are literally divided as punishment for their sin, a relationship that will finally be defined in this episode as the contrapasso. Dante, through Bertran de Born, defines the term here (and only here) because the sin of this bolgia — fostering discord and rebellion — allow for the most literal representation of the divisive effects of sin in general. Equally important, the divisive sin per eccelknza provides the context for the poet's sharpest parody of the paradoxical union of two complete natures in one person. The procession of broken, bloody bodies appearing before Dante's eyes and the perverse pleasure the sinners take in displaying their wounds transform the ninth bolgia into a chamber of horrors. From the opened body of Mohammed and the split face of All to the mangled features of Pier da Medicina and Curio and the bleeding stumps of Mosca de' Lamberti's arms, the violence visited upon the human body in this location far exceeds that which so upset the wayfarer in the bolgia of the contorted soothsayers (canto 20) and more than justifies the poet's recourse to the rhetoric of ineffability in the canto's opening verses: 'Chi poria mai pur con parole sciolte / dicer del sangue e de le piaghe a pieno / ch'i' ora vidi, per narrar piu volte?' [Who could ever fully tell, even in unfettered words, though many times narrating, the blood and the wounds that I now saw?] (28.1-3). Bound by the constraints of 'rhymed words' - 'parole rimate' - and afforded only a single narrative

Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 65

moment in which to 'tell' what he 'saw,' Dante meets the challenge by embodying the 'who' of his rhetorical question. Not surprisingly, he reserves his most dramatic flourish for the presentation of a fellow poet. By displaying Bertran de Born as his showpiece among the sowers of discord, Dante isolates the source of the divisiveness he abhors in language. Words, as seen in Curio's exhortations to Caesar and Mosca's provocations of the Amidei family, can result in cycles of reciprocal violence.78 Like Ulysses, Dante's most renowned master of rhetorical persuasion, Bertran is a powerful monitory figure for the author of the Commedia. So it is perhaps to exorcize his own worst fears that Dante assigns to this fellow activist-poet the task of demonstrating and explicating the principle in hell by which the punishment fits the unrepented sin: Perch' io parti' cost giunte persone, partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso!, dal suo principio ch'e in questo troncone. Cosi s'osserva in me lo contrapasso. (28.139-42) [Because I parted persons thus united, I carry my brain parted from its source, alas! which is in this trunk. Thus is the retribution observed in me.]

The punishment reserved for Bertran and his companions in the ninth bolgia enmeshes them in the poet's Web of Pride: their literally divided bodies parody the simultaneous unity and duality of the Incarnation, the humble descent of the Word into humanity. Nowhere in the entire Inferno is, this parodic gesture more vivid than in Dante's description of the Provencal poet's mutilated state: 'Di se facea a se stesso lucerna, / ed eran due in uno e uno in due; / com' esser puo, quei sa che si governa' [Of itself it was making a lamp for itself, and they were two in one and one in two — how this can be, He knows who so ordains] (28.124— 6).79 If these last verses were to appear in the Paradiso, we would immediately identify them as an elegant declaration of the mystery of the Incarnation, the paradoxical union of complete human and divine natures in one person. This doctrine, like Bertran's severed yet joined head and trunk, can be believed by mortals but it can be understood only by God. Here in the Inferno, the troubadour's inexplicable union of integrity and division emerges as the truest image of a false Incarnation. Combining the suffering couples ('due in uno') with the intricate network of divided figures ('uno in due'), Bertran's defining punishment is

66 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

the knot that finally ties together the loose ends of Dante's infernal Web of Pride. It is no coincidence that several sinners entangled in this web are among the best known of Dante's creations. There is just no getting around the fact that they emit productive energy even as unrepentant spirits damned for eternity in hell. On the one hand, they are clearly meant to test the reader, just as Francesca and Ulysses challenge Dante the wayfarer in canto 5 and the 'returned' poet in canto 26. We can learn from his recorded mistakes and struggles. On the other hand, some of these rebels display a capacity for positive agency that matches or exceeds that of many saved souls in Purgatorio and Paradiso. They have stories to tell because they did something worth telling. To both admire and reject Francesca's passion, Farinata's patriotism, Ulysses' ambition, and Ugolirio's rage is not to read Dante naively or amorally. On the contrary, only by viewing the Commedia as the work of both a poet and a theologian do we fully acknowledge Dante's paradoxical embrace of contradiction and resolution - his incarnational dialectic of human potential and divine power.

Chapter Two

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large

After Dante and Virgil have completed their climb down and then up Lucifer's lower body, the wayfarer is confused because he no longer sees the ice of Cocytus. More puzzling still, Lucifer now appears upside clown, with his legs sticking straight up, and evening has suddenly turned to morning (Inf. 34.100-5). Virgil patiently explains that, having passed through the centre of the earth, the travellers are under the southern hemisphere. To escape the fallen angel's head-first entrance into this hemisphere, the land shifted to the other half of the globe. The southern hemisphere, however, was not made completely landless. The cavity in which Dante arid Virgil now find themselves was perhaps created from earth that 'fled' Lucifer's penetration and 'su ricorse' [rushed upwards] (34.126). The poet naturally elects Lucifer, the largest divided figure in hell, who brutally divides Christ's betrayer -Judas by chewing on his upper body, as both the infernal emperor and the final, colossal representation of incarnational parody in the Inferno. He calls attention to Lucifer's anti-incarnatioiial status by having Virgil identify the northern hemisphere, 'covered' by land because of Lucifer's fall, with the most detailed, personal periphrasis for the unnamed Christ: in Jerusalem, the 'zenith' of the inhabited hemisphere, 'consunto / fu 1'uom che nacque e visse sanza pecca' [was slain the man who was born and lived without sin] (34.114-15). If Lucifer is Dante's magnified image of incarnational parody, the mountain of purgatory created from the earth that 'rushed upwards' in flight from Satan is a massive, positive sign of the Incarnation as the temporal realm of saved souls on their way to eternal glory in paradise. Together with the earth's shadow, another expansive area joining humanity with the divine, purgatory rises up in the Corn-media as Dante's

68 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

incarnational dialectic writ large. The spirits presented within these geographic and cosmic intersections of earth and heaven appropriately embody the incarnational dialectic absent from the Vita nuova and parodied in the Inferno. While the purgatorial shades correct their earthly vices in preparation for heaven, the blessed spirits in the shadowed spheres - the Moon, Mercury, and Venus - remain marked by their worldly struggles even in paradise. Dante contributes to the incarnational dialectic of purgatory and the earth's shadow by bringing his mortal body into contact with these saved yet worldly souls. Strategically couched in specular and rectilinear terms, the wayfarer's movement through purgatory and the first three spheres helps join the human and divine realms. Finally, and most importantly, the poet's response to the paradoxical world of paradise, a world ostensibly beyond the representational powers of language, is to collapse the ontological distinction between words and things by making his word incarnate. Dante's audacious attempt in the Paradiso to reify his artistic medium firmly establishes incarnational dialectic as the informing principle of his poetic vision. 1. Incarnational (Dis)appearances: Virgil and Beatrice Come in lo specchio il sol, non altrimenti la doppia fiera dentro vi raggiava, or con altri, or con altri reggimenti. [As the sun in a mirror, so was the twofold animal gleaming therewithin, now with the one, now with the other bearing.] - Purgatorio. 31.121-3

per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio. [wherefore I crown and miter you over yourself.] - Purgatorio 27.142

In the Inferno it was through Virgil's account of Beatrice's descent into hell that he and the wayfarer were able to forge the incarnational union of wills needed to set the journey into motion.1 This union provided the foil in hell against which the poet wove a web of proud figures in a grand mocking gesture toward the humility of the Incarnation. Beatrice herself does not reappear in Dante's literary universe until the final cantos of the Purgatorio, when she arrives in an elaborate allegorical pag-

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eant as a figu.ro. Christi to judge the wayfarer and elicit the tears of true repentance required for ascension to the realm of the blessed. The reappearance of Beatrice in the Commedia, which in the chronology of the poem is the wayfarer's first sight of her since she died ten years earlier, appropriately occasions another incarnational event, the wondrous image of the Griffin's paradoxical union of two complete natures reflected in Beatrice's eyes. In the terrestrial paradise (Purgatorio 28-33) Beatrice therefore fulfils her typological role within Dante's literaryspiritual itinerary by continuing and completing the Christological advent of Vita nuova 24. Here, as Singleton argues, Dante enjoins us to 'hold the Vita Nuova and the Comedy together,' for, at the moment Beatrice calls Dante hy name (Purg. 30.55), the Commedia may indeed be said 'to build on to the earlier work.'2 By accepting Singleton's recognition of continuity between the Vita nuova and Purgatorio 30,1 do not.mean to ignore the palinodic relationship between the two texts. But the claim that this relationship 'is marked not by continuity but by reversal, not by orderliness but by disruption, and not by harmony but by tension' is misleading because the poet himself controls this reversal/disruption/ tension. Rather than aiming 'to redress ... the one-sided partiality' in interpretations of the relationship between the Vita nuova and the Cornmedia^ I view this oppositional framework as itself only one aspect of Dante's incarnational dialectic: revision, for the poet, demands both continuity and reversal at the same time. In the terrestrial paradise, Beatrice revisits Dante's earlier text by referring to the wayfarer's youthful life as 'la sua vita nova' [his new life] (Purg. 30.115), a time when he turned from the 'dritta parte' [right goal] (123) while Beatrice was still alive to a 'via non vera' [way not true] (130) following her death. Attempting to regain the 'diritta via' [straightway] (Inf. 1.3) through his journey, Dante must now come to a fuller understanding of Beatrice's divine significance than he was able to achieve in his youth. To gain this greater knowledge, the wayfarer must first recognize and confess his past transgressions to the point of feeling such remorse that he passes out ('caddi vinto' [I fell overcome (Purg. 31.89) ]). If Francesca's words in Inferno 5 resulted in a similar fall - 'E caddi come corpo morto cade' [I fell as a dead body falls] (142) by causing Dante to reflect on his complicity as a poet and lover, Beatrice's accusations now overwhelm him because they represent an indictment of his spiritual transgression from die mouth of the offended party herself. When the wayfarer regains consciousness, he finds himself

70 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry clinging to Matelda as she pulls him into the river Lethe. In the Vita nuova the young poet-lover twice travelled along the banks of a river but never crossed over to the other side (9, 19). Similarly, the wayfarer at first walks alongside the river Lethe - across from and in imitation of Matelda- in the terrestrial paradise (Purg. 29.7-9). However, unlike the river walks in the Vita nuova, here in the divine forest Dante's eyes are directed primarily to the opposite shore, where first Matelda and then Beatrice commands his attention. Only when Dante succeeds in recognizing, confessing, and washing away his sins can he cross Lethe and join Beatrice in witnessing the incarnational wonder of the Christlike Griffin. Dante reveals the incarnational symbolism of the Griffin before actually experiencing the miracle for himself. Stung by Beatrice's harsh accusations, the wayfarer directs his uncertain gaze on her as she, in turn, faces the Griffin. Describing the marvellous creature as 'la fiera / ch'e sola una persona in due nature' [the animal that is one person in two natures] (Purg. 31.80-1), the poet establishes the Griffin as a Christ figure in no uncertain terms.4 Anselm, in Cur Deus Homo, similarly describes the man-god as a union of two natures, each maintaining its completeness, in a single person: Therefore, since it is necessary to find a God-man who retains the integrity of both natures, it is no less necessary that these two integral natures conjoin in one person (just as a body and a rational soul conjoin in one man); for otherwise it is impossible that one and the same [individual] be fully divine and fully human. (2.7)5 During the elaborate allegorical representation of Christ's Final Judgment, the personified cardinal virtues encourage the wayfarer to look into Beatrice's 'emeralds.' She, in the meantime, is transfixed on the Griffin: Mille disiri piu che fiamma caldi strinsermi li occhi a li occhi rilucenti, che pur sopra '1 grifone stavan saldi. Come in lo specchio il sol, non altrimenti la doppia fiera dentro vi raggiava, or con altri, or con altri reggimenti. (Purg. 31.118-23) [A thousand desires hotter than flame held my eyes on the shining eyes

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71

(hat remained ever fixed on the griffin. As the sun in a mirror, so was the twofold animal gleaming therewithin, now with the one, now with the other bearing.]

Functioning as a mirror reflecting the sun, a traditional symbol for Christ, Beatrice's eyes miraculously distort the image of the 'doppia fiera.' In an address to the reader, Dante expresses his wonder at seeing the Griffin's reflected image alternate between the eagle and the lion as the beast itself remains fixed in its hybrid form: Tensa, lettor, s'io mi maravigliava, / quando vedea la cosa in se star queta, / e ne 1'idolo suo si trasmutava' [Think, reader, if I marveled when I saw the thing stand still in itself, and in its image changing] (Purg. 31.124-6). This description approaches the union of sameness and difference that Anselm expresses in theological terms as two complete natures coexisting in one person.5 When the wayfarer experiences this central tenet of his faith without the mediating function of Beatrice, then - and only then - the journey will end. To differentiate his singular incarnational moment from the rest of the poem, Dante's loud cry of ineffability will finally have to do as it says and fall silent. The incarnational context triggered by Beatrice's return comes at a high price: the dissolution of the union of the wayfarer with his beloved first guide forged at the beginning of the journey in Inferno 2. This dramatic break occurs in two stages. While the first stage is marked by Virgil's final words to Dante after they have reached the top of the mountain, the second phase unfolds gradually before the wayfarer's traumatic discovery of Virgil's absence. Although Virgil's verbal departure from Dante does riot explicitly mark the end of their relationship, its placement within a scene that directly recalls the foundational material of the first two cantos of the Comme.dia signals that a major movement of the poem is coming full circle and a new one is about to begin. At the end of Inferno 1, Virgil clearly states that after guiding Dante through the realms of the 'spiriti dolenti' (hell) and those who are 'contend / nel foco' (purgatory) he will leave his charge in the care of a 'worthier soul' for the journey to the kingdom of the 'beate genti' (paradise). Although this more worthy guide is not formally identified as Beatrice until the travellers have begun their climb up the mountain of purgatory, Dante already appears to reach this conclusion from Virgil's account of Beatrice's behind-the-scenes intercession (Inferno 2). As he bears the blows of harsh prophecies during the infernal descent, Dante shows an increasing awareness that Beatrice, though she is not explicitly

72 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry named in the Inferno after canto 2, will replace Virgil for the celestial voyage. When the wayfarer is confused and upset by Farinata's ominous retort that he will experience first-hand the pain of exile, Virgil assures him that he will learn the full story of his future life from 'quella il cui bell' occhio tutto vede' [her whose fair eyes see all] (Inf. 10.131), a periphrasis echoing the Latin poet's earlier description of Beatrice as 'beata e bella' [blessed and fair] with 'occhi lucenti' [shining eyes] (Inf. 2.53; 2.116). Dante repeats this information when he responds to similarly distressing news, couched in more sympathetic terms, from Brunette Latini in the round of the sodomites: 'Cio che narrate di mio corso scrivo, / e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo / a donna che sapra, s'a lei arrivo' [That which you tell me of my course I write, and keep with a text to be glossed by a lady who will know how, if I reach her] (Inf. 15.88-90).7 When Virgil explicitly announces that Dante will indeed meet Beatrice, he refers to her not as the discloser of Dante's future but as one who will enlighten the wayfarer on points of theological doctrine and truth. To help the wayfarer resolve a contradiction between purgatorial belief in the efficacy of prayer and a Virgilian verse appearing to refute such power (Aen. 6.376), the Latin poet first attempts a partial explanation and then defers to one who, he says, 'lume fia tra '1 vero e lo 'ntelletto' [shall be light between the truth and the intellect] (Purg. 6.45).8 Lest Dante misunderstand, Virgil specifies that this 'light' is Beatrice, who awaits Dante on the top of the mountain. The wayfarer's strong desire to proceed more quickly up the mountain — '.Segnore, andiamo a maggior fretta' [My lord, let us go on with greater haste] (6.49) - displays the power of Beatrice's name as a motivating force in the poem. Dante also keeps a painful implication of the wayfarer's future reunion with Beatrice before his reader's eyes. When the wayfarer concludes his conversation with Forese Donati on the terrace of gluttony, he notes that this reunion will mark the end of his relationship with Virgil: 'quivi convien che sanza lui rimagna' [there I must remain bereft of him] (Purg. 23.129). This awareness, of course, will not make Virgil's departure any easier to accept. On the terrace where lust is corrected, the resourceful Virgil must again resort to psychological prodding, this time to lead Dante through a final, formidable obstacle: the wall of fire extending from the mountain across most of the terrace. To reach Beatrice, Dante must now experience the literal fires of purgatory alluded to by Virgil in their initial encounter (Inf. 1.118-19). Only Virgil's observation that the fire sepa-

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73

rates Dante from his beloved Beatrice — 'tra Beatrice e te e questo muro' [between Beatrice and you is this wall] (Purg. 27.36) - can convince the reluctant wayfarer to overcome his fear and enter the flames. As before, it is the name 'Beatrice' that breaks the impasse and enables the journey to go forward. As Virgil's account of Beatrice's intercession and her imperviousness to the torments of hell impelled Dante to action in Inferno 2, the savvy guide's invocation of her name provides the motivation demanded at this difficult juncture in purgatory. Still, Virgil takes no chances. He reinforces his psychological strategy with a subtle physical manoeuvre by moving Statius, who was previously in the middle (Purg. 27.48), to the end of the line. Dante is now surrounded by his companions. Virgil thus anticipates the possibility that the wayfarer might lose heart before entering the wall of fire and turn back - something he nearly did at the start of the journey through hell by abandoning his 'primo proposto' [first resolve] (InfernoT) and before the threats of the fallen angels at the entrance into the city of Dis (Inferno 8). Now before the final threshold experience of purgatory, Virgil stealthily removes the temptation on Dante's part of a last-ditch, undignified escape. Given that Dante would have thrown himself into molten glass to escape the heat of the flames (Purg. 27.49-51), Virgil's precautions appear that much more reasonable. Once through the flames, the travellers must halt their ascent for the night, during which Dante has his third and final dream. They reach the top of the mountain in the morning. At this point Virgil acknowledges that his mission is complete. Dante has witnessed the punishing and correcting pains of hell and purgatory — 'II temporal foco e 1'etterno' [the temporal fire and the eternal] (Purg. 27.127) and Virgil's light of understanding can shine no farther (129). As if to announce that the end of their time together is imminent, Virgil summarizes his role in guiding Dante, urging him now to observe the sun and the vibrant flora — Terbette, i fiori e li arbuscelli' [the tender grass, the flowers, the shrubs] - until Beatrice arrives (133-8). The stiliiovistic atmosphere of Inferno 2 is fittingly evoked, with the garden imagery faintly echoing the famous Tioretti' simile that expressed Dante's renewed desire to begin the journey (Inf. 2.127-32) and Virgil explicitly recalling Beatrice's beautiful, crying eyes when she entreated him to go to Dante (Inf. 2.116): 'li occhi belli / che, lagrimando, a te venir mi fenno' [the beautiful eyes that, weeping, made me come to you] (Purg. 27.136-7). In the spirit of these echoes and recollections, Virgil's ritual investi-

74 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry ture of Dante marks the completion, and also the dissolution, of their incarnational union forged at the end of Inferno 2 when their individual wills became one. Now that Dante's will is itself 'libero, dritto e sano' [free, upright, and whole] (Purg. 27.140), Virgil sends his beloved companion off on his own by celebrating a major rite of passage, the acquisition of a new, independent status: 'per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio' [wherefore I crown and miter you over yourself] (27.142) .9 Reprising the imagery and language of the initial bonding of the two poets, Virgil's final words to Dante thus join the beginning to the end of one of the most developed - perhaps the most poignant - of the Commedia's thematic circles. With this solemn rite of investiture, Virgil inaugurates Dante's entrance into a state of salutary autonomy while at the same time bidding farewell to his literary protege and divinely elected companion. This first stage of Virgil's exit therefore concludes with a dramatic flourish, though the painful act of departure is itself delayed. The second stage, which culminates with Dante's devastating realization that Virgil has in fact left, extends over the next two and a half cantos and translates the verbal majesty of Virgil's final words into a series of stunning images, visual snapshots by which to remember Virgil as the rest of the poem/journey unfolds. John Freccero has described the intertextual resonance of Virgil's departure in Purgatorio 30 by charting Dante's movement across Virgil's texts from 'direct citation, in the original Latin, to direct translation, to the merest allusion as Virgil fades away.'10 Within the narrative of Purgatorio 28 and 29, Dante dramatizes Virgil's textual dissolution by conveying the impression that the Latin poet and guide has been left behind when the wayfarer (with Statius) enters the terrestrial paradise and approaches the river Lethe. The reader must work hard indeed to keep track of Virgil in the scenes leading to his disappearance. In the opening verses of canto 28, as Dante leaves the ledge of the mountain ('lasciai la riva' [I left the bank (4)]) to enter the forest, no mention is made of Virgil and Statius. After observing his lush surroundings (trees, birds, breezes, and smells), Dante reaches a river and realizes he has penetrated so far into the forest that he can no longer see the location at which he entered (22-4). At this point, the whereabouts of Virgil and Statius are textually unclear, though there is no reason to believe that they are not with the wayfarer. Only after Dante observes a beautiful woman (Matelda), and begs her to approach the other bank of the river so he can understand her song, do we learn that at least one other person is within the woman's vision, physically close to the wayfarer.

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 75 Matelda first addresses her audience in the plural - 'Voi siete nuovi' [You are newcomers] (76) - and then implies that Dante is standing in front of his companion(s), closer to where she is located ('tu che se' dinanzi' [you that are in front (82)]). It therefore follows that Statius and Virgil are still with Dante, only slightly behind him, even though their presence in the terrestrial paradise has thus far been defined only through a plural pronoun in relation to the wayfarer. If Virgil is indeed next to Dante, the narrative works to keep his textual presence to a minimum, thereby increasing the psychological distance between the wayfarer and his guide. Following Dante's question concerning the presence of water and wind in the forest, Matelda speaks for the next fifty-seven verses with no recognition of Virgil's presence whatsoever (Purg. 28.88-144). Finally, after Matelda concludes her lecture with a corollary that the ancient poets who sang of the golden age and Parnassus were perhaps dreaming of this very place, the earthly paradise, the canto closes with a visual reminder that Virgil (with Statius) has been close to Dante all along. Turning to 'his poets,' Dante observes the pleasing effects of Matelda's words: 'vidi che con riso / udito avean 1'ultimo costrutto' [I saw that with a smile they had heard these last words] (Purg. 28.146-7). It stands to reason that Virgil and Statius are with Dante in the forest since they are both able to understand Matelda's words — something the wayfarer could not do before he approached the river — and Dante is able to sec the two poets smile even though he can no longer see his point of entry into the forest. The final image of Virgil in the poem is similarly brief and expressive but considerably less serene than his smile at the end of canto 28. After Matelda exhorts Dante - and Dante alone - to watch and listen (Purg. 29.15), he sees a flash of light and hears a melody so sweet that he laments the disobedience of Eve that deprives humankind of the delights he now experiences. As the light and music approach, Dante struggles to find the words, the poetic power, to describe the spectacle before him. When his vision and hearing are accurate, he identifies seven flaming candles, as large as trees, and a chorus of voices singing 'Hosanna.' Dante turns to share his wonder with his cherished guide for the last time: lo mi rivolsi d'ammirazion pieno a! buon Virgilio, ed esso mi rispuose con vista carca di stupor non meno. (Purg. 29.55-7)

76 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry [I turned round full of wonder to the good Virgil, and he answered me with a look no less charged with amazement.]

Virgil's expression of wonder here is particularly poignant because it recalls a moment in the Inferno when Dante saw his companion stand amazed - 'Allor vid' io maravigliar Virgilio' [Then I saw Virgil wonder] - over the figure of Caiaphas crucified on the floor of the sixth bolgia (Inf. 23.124-6). In that episode, a watershed moment in the relationship between the two travellers, Virgil suffered perhaps his greatest humiliation upon learning from a hypocrite that the devil Malacoda had duped him. As Virgil stormed off in anger, Dante showed his unconditional affection by following behind the 'care piante' [beloved footprints] of his defeated guide and mentor (23.145—8). Now in the terrestrial paradise, where Virgil has already been textually effaced as a character and is soon to fade from view as an author, Dante must pursue his own destiny according to the dictates of his rightly directed will. He therefore turns immediately back to the spectacle unfolding before him, and he will not think of Virgil again until the arrival of Beatrice. By then, however, it will be Dante's turn to cry as he discovers that the restoration of his full, true self has come at the cost of Virgil's necessary exclusion.12 2. Dialectically Marked Spirits in the Shadowed Spheres Da questo cielo, in cui 1'ombra s'appunta / che '1 vostro mondo face ... [By this heaven - in which the shadow that your earth casts comes to a point...] - Paracfeo9.118-19

'To sublate' [aufheben] has a two-fold meaning in language: on the one hand it means to preserve, to maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to. - Hegel, Science of Logic

With the appearance of the Christlike Griffin, Beatrice's return introduces one incarnational context at the same time that it signals the end of another. Dante's union with Virgil was, after all, a divinely sanctioned relationship in which individual autonomy coexisted with a unified will and common purpose. As a poetic approximation to the Incarnation, this relationship served two important purposes. First, it worked to off-

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set the false incarnational representations of hell. As Christ could never he named in hell, the unified duo of Dante and Virgil constituted an incarnational image of divine providence - a Christological sign - to torment further the divided and doubled sinners. Essential to setting the wayfarer's journey into .motion, the travellers' relationship established the Incarnation as the alpha and omega of Dante's vision: the circle is closed - and the poem/journey comes to an end - with the wayfarer's perception in the Empyrean heaven of the paradoxical union of complete human and divine natures in one person. Second, Dante arid Virgil's incarnational relationship had a precise heuristic function. Although their union was insufficient in and of itself for Dante's complete vision, it served as a provisional model, for the reader as well as for the wayfarer, of the Commfdia's increasingly direct incarnational representations, beginning with the extraordinary image of the Griffin in the terrestrial paradise. While the Griffin is a visual sign of the Incarnation, a corrective to the divided and doubled figures of hell, it can only approximate the union of two complete natures in a single person. The appearance of the creature's two separate natures (eagle and lion) reflected in Beatrice's eyes amazes the wayfarer because of the discrepancy between the object fixed in its hybrid form - and its reflected image of alternating complete natures. This very discrepancy illustrates the major obstacle in representing the paradoxical essence of Christ, who is both completely human and completely divine at the same time. It is this temporal paradox, the 'both at the same time,' that makes Dante's Griffin an inexact representation of the Incarnation, for the wayfarer sees the complete images of the eagle and lion alternating with one another rather than coexisting in their complete natures. As Augustine emphasizes the inherently temporal nature of language, so Dante underscores the fact that visual perception is subject to time.ls Because the poet must use language to construct images for his reader, he is doubly exposed to temporal obstacles in representing the theological paradoxes of his faith. Despite these temporal limitations, the episode of the Griffin enables Dante to delineate the sort of paradoxical relationship between unity and difference that underpins the doctrine of the Incarnation. From this point, Dante seeks to provide an ever more accurate, or at least convincing, image of two complete natures joined in a single person. Consistent with the Paradises embrace of paradox, the poet records the wayfarer's direct perception of the interpenetratioii of humanity and

78 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the divine just as he runs out of words and images. However, Darite first lays the groundwork for this vision by transforming the incarnational theology of the Middle Ages into poetry. In the cantos describing the first three celestial spheres, the poet takes full advantage of a unique opportunity for this incarnational poetry: enveloping the Moon, Mercury, and Venus, the earth's shadow represents an astronomical union of the human and divine realms.14 The earth's shadow demarcates Dante's treatment of the first three celestial spheres, in the first nine cantos of Paradiso, as a unit within his overall conception of the third cantica. However, it is only as the wayfarer and his guide prepare to leave Venus and enter the light of the Sun that Dante refers to the astronomical phenomenon of the conical umbra. In a periphrasis for Venus, Folco of Marseilles identifies the third sphere as the last one within the cone-shaped shadow cast into the heavens by the earth at the same time that he identifies Rahab, a biblical prostitute (Josh. 2:1-21 and 6:17-25), as the first soul liberated from limbo during Christ's harrowing of hell: 'Da questo cielo, in cui 1'ombra s'appunta / che '1 vostro mondo face, pria ch'altr' alma / del triunfo di Cristo fu assunta' [By this heaven - in which the shadow that your earth casts comes to a point - she was taken up before any other soul of Christ's triumph] (Par. 9.118-20). Appearing so late in Dante's presentation of the three subsolar spheres, this brief description of the conical umbra itself serves to cast a shadow back over the material of the first nine cantos and invites consideration of the incarnational implications of Dante's shadows, the earth's in particular.15 Astronomically, Dante's conical umbra figures as a union of heaven and earth, a meeting of the mortal and immortal realms recalling the incarnational act itself. As an extension of the earth, the shadow brings with it all the connotations of worldliness that enable medieval theological thought, Dante's included, to view humanity as essentially flawed and in need of redemption. From this perspective, Dante's use of the conical umbra as a threshold, a way to separate the first three spheres from the rest of paradise, throws a figurative shadow on the representative spirits - their past lives and eternal place in the celestial hierarchy who appear in the Moon, Mercury, and Venus for the wayfarer's and reader's edification. At the same time, Dante's imagining of this contact between the earth and the realm of the blessed supports astrological theories of the complex, often contradictory influences of the planets and stars in human affairs. ' Dante's 'both-and' conception of the conical umbra, site of the

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mutual influences of the world and the heavens, makes it an attractive incarnational representation. However, shadows in general, not just the earth's, already hold an important place in the poet's incarnational imagination. Not the same as mere darkness, defined as the absence of light, shadow is a more nuanced phenomenon in that its very existence depends on a light source directed at an opaque object. Consistent with incarnational dialectic, the image of a shadow entails the coexistence of apparently contradictory states, namely, the interaction of light and darkness in a new configuration that eliminates neither component. Dante underscores the complex interrelations of light, darkness, and visibility by exploiting the astronomical conception of Mercury as the planet that is 'veiled' because of its proximity to the Sun. Dazzled by the effulgent appearance of Justinian, 'nested' in his own light, the wayfarer seeks to know why the spirit is assigned to 'la spera / che si vela a' mortal con altrui raggi' [the sphere that is veiled to mortals by another's rays] (Par. 5.128-9).'7 If anything, the shadowed effect associated with a veil is more pronounced in the lightscape of paradise. Justinian, who is not yet identified, completes this paradoxical image of a shadow created by excessive brightness as he conceals himself- 'mi si iiascose' -within his own ray of light (Par. 5.136-7). The poet reinforces Justinian's ability to produce the effects of a shadow through dazzling light - consistent with Mercury's possession of a solar 'veil' — with a precise verbal decision: the emperor is the last inhabitant of Dante's otherworld who is referred to as an ombra in the Corn-media (Par. 5.107). In the poet's lexicon, where the word for 'shadow' also designates the spirits of the otherworld ('shade'), the saved as well as the damned, ombra has particular incarnational resonance. This is perhaps most evident in the Purgatorio, where the shadow cast by the wayfarer's living body in the presence of the purgatorial shades dramatically points to the reciprocity of eternity and time — the otherworld and the world of the living - in Dante's vision. Now in the Paradiso, the poet increases the incarnational charge of his ombra by designating the resplendent emperor as the last celestial 'shade.'Justinian is not just any ombra whose mortal existence determines his appearance in a sphere touched by the conical umbra. He is also, according to medieval tradition, a great emperor whose theological beliefs once denied Christ his humanity - that is, his possession of a mortal body capable of casting a shadow. Dante therefore applies a sort of representational contmpasso by choosing Justinian, renowned sceptic of the Incarnation, as (he last celestial 'ombra' in the poem. In the sphere of Jupiter, where

80 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the spirits are no longer called ombre, the poet calls attention to the incarnational overtones of his polysemous term. Piling metaphor upon metaphor in an attempt to describe the unfathomable nature of eternal justice, the speaking eagle finally exclaims that light is unobscured only in the highest heaven; all else 'e tenebra / od ombra de la carne o suo veleno' [is darkness, either shadow of the flesh or its poison] (Par. 19.65-6). The poet thus associates the shadow-producing object with a mortal body in a way - 'ombra de la carne' - that recalls the decision of the Son of God, in the formulation of Paradiso 7.120, 'to become incarnate' (incarnarsi). The interdependence of the mortal and immortal realms figured in Dante's ombra is writ large in his depiction of the conical umbra - the astronomical phenomenon of the earth casting a shadow that extends out to the first three celestial spheres. The earth's shadow is Dante's cosmic image of the fundamental allegory of his vision, the inextricability of the world of the living and the afterlife: how individuals, through their actions, merit either eternal bliss or damnation; and, conversely, how the otherworld reflects the world of time and history. The earth's shadow even allows Dante to colour the allegorical relationship between this world and the next with an incarnational hue: as darkness fell at the moment of Christ's crucifixion (the culminating event of the Son of God's mortal nature), now, in a dramatic reversal, the darkness rises, so to speak, from the earth into the heavens.19 This reciprocity is an extraordinary manifestation of Dante's incarnational dialectic because it represents the mysterious union of the human and divine realms on a grand scale. To figure the earth's shadow as this cosmic incarnational image, Dante creatively adapts the known scientific theories of the astronomical phenomenon to the exigencies of his poetry. While commentators regularly acknowledge Ptolemy and al-Farghani ('Alfraganus') as Dante's authoritative sources for the doctrine of the conical umbra, the importance of this scientific material for Dante's conception of paradise has not been adequately explained. Whether or not Dante had a direct acquaintance with Ptolemy's Almagest, he was undoubtedly familiar with some of the Greek astronomer's important theories and calculations from medieval astronomical treatises, the work of Alfraganus in particular. This Islamic astronomer's work was widely available in the West through the thirteenth-century Latin translations of John of Seville (Johannes Hispalensis) and Gerard of Cremona.20 For Dante to claim, with some scientific credibility, that the earth's shadow 'comes to a point' - s'appunta- at Venus (Par. 9.118-

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 81 19) he would have to know the length of the shadow and the distance of Venus from the earth. In the astronomical material available to Dante, both of these numbers were generally calculated as multiples of the earth's radius (sometimes called its 'half-diameter'). Dante's familiarity with the recognized length of the earth's radius is evident from several passages in the Convivio. With respect to the earth's shadow, the first passage (2.6.10) is clearly the most relevant, for here Dante provides the length of the earth's radius (3,250 miles) when he calculates the minimum distance of Venus from the earth as a multiple of this radius (167 X 3,250 = 542,750 miles). Dante identifies his most likely source for these figures in Convivio 2.13.11, where he calls on the authority of Alfraganus for the calculation of the diameter of Mercury as one twenty-eighth the length of the earth's diameter. Dante gives this length, consistent with the previous passage, as 6,500 miles. Finally, in Convivio4.8.7 Dante again lists the earth's diameter as 6,500 miles, this time in relation to the diameter of the Sun (thought to be five and a half times the earth's diameter). Without mentioning the earth's shadow in the Convivio, Dante nonetheless provides two pieces of information needed to determine its relationship to the celestial spheres, Venus in particular: the length of the earth's radius and the minimum distance of Venus from the earth. Curiously, the three passages in which Dante mentions the length of the earth's radius (or diameter) each treat a member of the astronomical configuration used for his conception of the earth's shadow in the Paradiso (Venus, Mercury, and the Sun). Only the Moon is missing. To determine the length of the earth's shadow in miles, and to compare this length with Venus's minimum distance from the earth, Dante still needs to know the length of the shadow as a multiple of the earth's radius. Not coincidentally, the missing sphere and the missing number appear together in the crucial passage from Alfraganus's treatise. Alfraganus discusses the conical umbra, logically enough, in his description of a lunar eclipse, since the Moon undergoes partial or total eclipse precisely by passing through the earth's shadow. Citing Ptolemy, Alfraganus gives the length of this shadow as two hundred sixty-eight times the length of the earth's radius: 'The length of the shadow from the earth's surface through to where it disappears is, according to Ptolemy's demonstration, equal to 268 times the earth's radius' (28.3).21 In his Almagest, Ptolemy arrives at this multiple of the earth's radius for 'the distance from the centre of the earth to the apex of the shadow cone' as part of his geometrical calculation of the sun's distance from the earth (5.15). 22 In Ptolemy's demonstration, the Moon is between

82 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the earth and the Sun (a solar eclipse), with no consideration of the positions of Mercury and Venus. Likewise, Alfraganus, though he switches Ptolemy's context from a solar to a lunar eclipse, makes no mention of other planetary spheres in relation to the earth's shadow. Nonetheless, with Alfraganus's figures, Dante now knows that the earth's shadow is 871,000 miles long (268 x 3,250 miles), a length that falls somewhere between the minimum and maximum distances of Venus from the earth.23 Equally important, Alfraganus describes the shape of the earth's shadow in a way consistent with Dante's depiction of the shadow 'coming to a point' (s'appunta): 'And since the Sun is larger than the earth, it follows that the earth's shadow extends through the air in a round shape (tornatilis), diminishing in circumference and becoming narrower until it disappears' (28.2).24 This description appears that much more concrete by contrast with Brunetto Latini's generic observation that 'the earth's shadow decreases always as it moves further away, because it is smaller than the sun, which sends its rays all around it' (Tresor 1.116.4).25 While John of Seville's translation of Alfraganus's passage describes the shape of the shadow as round and tapering to a point, a Latin version of Aristotle's Meteorologica succinctly labels this shape 'conus,' and Thomas Aquinas comments that the shadow rises like a pyramid 'in conum.'26 The sum total of this information finally enables Dante to have Folco state that the earth's shadow comes to a point at Venus (Par. 9.118-19). Yet, Dante's direct association of the shadow with the first three spheres, especially Venus, is conspicuously absent in the most reliable astronomical literature available to the poet. In fact, though Dante's most likely source, Alfraganus, provides both the shape and length of the shadow, as well as the planetary distances necessary for Dante's conception in the Paradiso, he nowhere combines this material to describe the earth's shadow extending as far as the first three spheres before coming to a point at Venus. Moreover, other astronomical authorities explicitly deny the possibility of the conical umbra extending out to Venus. Albert the Great, for instance, claims that the shadow extends only 'ad sphaeram Mercurii,' with the actual planet therefore 'extra umbram terrae' [beyond the shadow of the earth] (De metemis 1.2.3).27 Only in certain commentaries on John of Holywood's popular Tractatus de sphaera, a non-mathematical university manual based in part on Alfraganus, do we find possible corroboration of Dante's identification of the shadow with Venus. John of Holywood himself makes no mention of Venus, merely positing that the cone-shaped shadow ends 'in the plane of the circle of

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 83 the signs inseparable from the nadir of the sun,' which he defines as 'a point in the firmament directly opposite to the sun.'^ 8 However, a commentary on the treatise ascribed to Michael Scot, as well as another anonymous commentary, take this to mean that the shadow ends by coming to a point ('ends in a cone') before reaching the sphere of Venus: 'umbra terre deficit in cono antequam deveniat ad speram Veneris.''9 Of course, this idea of the shadow coming to a point before Venus still differs from Dante's conception of Venus as the sphere 'in cui I'ombra s'appunta' [m which the shadow comes to a point] (Par. 9.118). Technically speaking, moreover, Dante's configuration could never occur - not even according to medieval astronomy — because the Sun would have to be on the opposite side of the earth from the Moon, Mercury, and Venus. The earth, in other words, would have to be between the Sun and the other spheres in order to cast its shadow in their direction. But Mercury and Venus, according to a venerable astronomical tradition, were generally depicted in close proximity both to one another and to the Sun. Thus Cicero, in the Somnium. Sdpionis, describes the two planets as the Sun's 'companions' (comites), for which Macrobius states that Mercury, Venus, and the Sun 'complete their revolutions in the same space of time, that is, a year more or less.'30 In short, the common belief, stated by Cecco d'Ascoli (1269-1327) in his commentary on John of Holywood's Tractatus, that Venus and Mercury 'vadunt semper cum sole' [always travel with the sun] (The 'Sphere' of Sacrobosco, 410), implies that the planets are too close to the Sun for the earth to appear between them and the light source. In this configuration, they could never actually be touched by the earth's shadow. 31 By imagining a situation, as poetically attractive as it is astronomically impossible, in which the earth's shadow could actually envelop Mercury and Venus in addition to the Moon, Dante establishes an incarnational dialectic of two realms - heaven and earth - that he figured as irreparably dichotomous in the Vita nuova. Having confronted the anti-incarnational divisions and doubles of hell, and having glimpsed a true if approximate image of the Incarnation within Beatrice's eyes in the terrestrial paradise, the wayfarer is now able to see and experience for himself the sort of cosmic harmony of the worldly and the divine that was unavailable to the poet-lover of the earlier text. Viewing the itineraries of the Vita nuova and the Com.me.dia as one, we could say that the celestial traveller is now enacting in toto— surely in anima and possibly in corpore — the journey of his 'sigh' that he imagined in the final poem of the Vita n/i.ova. By making the imagined journey literal, Dante is also fulfilling

84 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry his promise, made in the final paragraph of the Vita nuova, 'to say of [Beatrice] what was never said of any other woman.' Thus Dante finally achieves, with the help of some creative astronomy, his elusive union of the mortal and immortal realms at the same time that he personally participates in that union by bringing his own ombra to the world of the afterlife.

To speak of the earth's shadow as a union of humanity and the divine is to speak of the lunar, mercurial, and venusian spirits appearing within the shadow as 'marked' with the poet's incarnational dialectic. As the gates of Dis and the door to purgatory proper constitute strategically placed thresholds within the first two realms of the otherworld, so the earth's shadow designates a passage separating the lower spheres from the rest of the celestial realm.32 The characters Dante presents in the Moon, Mercury, and Venus illustrate the basic premise that this region differs qualitatively from the rest of paradise in poetic terms, even though - as first Piccarda and then Justinian explains - heaven is theologically uniform insofar as the true home of all the blessed is in the Empyrean before God. More precisely, while all of paradise (except for the Empyrean) embodies a single, grand illusion, the first three spheres taken together contain an even greater degree of illusory difference. Accordingly, the virtues extolled in these spheres — constancy in religious life, active participation in public service, passionate fulfilment of one's role in providential history - are exemplified by characters whose lives were marred by a struggle, not always successful, to stay true to those virtues in the face of the most difficult obstacles inevitably encountered in an imperfect world. In this way, Dante's imagining of the earth's shadow within his overall conception of paradise is a prime example of his ability to 'have it both ways.' On the one hand, the beatitude of the spirits appearing in the first three spheres is clearly less than that of the saints who present themselves to the wayfarer in the higher spheres. Despite the fact that they are blessed souls, several of whom performed admirable deeds on earth, the eight spirits encountered or identified in the lower region distinguish themselves as much or more for their imperfections as for their accomplishments and holiness. On the other hand, Dante insists that all the blessed (including the lunar, mercurial, and venusian spirits) are equally content by definition, for otherwise their will would conflict with

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God's will. Upon hearing Piccarda explain this paradox, Dante understands 'come ogne dove / in cielo e paradise' [how everywhere in heaven is paradise] (Par: 3.88-9). Dante's incarnational dialectic in the earth's shadow is truly divine poetry because it obtains from the relationship of the poet's theological doctrine (all the blessed are equal) to his representational strategy in the Paradiso (those in the lower spheres are defined by their imperfections)/'3 To account for the part of this dialectic in which the spirits in the first three heavens differ from all the rest, critics generally take the earth's shadow as a sign that these spirits 'were too much influenced by mundane inclinations.' 34 But specific commentary on the ontological status of the spirits in the earth's shadow is limited, particularly in comparison with the voluminous criticism devoted to Dante's treatment of the corresponding souls in upper hell and the ante-purgatory. From the nineteenth century, Maria Fraricesca Rossetti offers an overview of the moral order of Dante's paradise that at least attempts to account for the liminal function of the earth's shadow. In her provocatively titled A Shadow of Dante, which for the most part is little more than a paraphrase of the Commedia, Rossetli structures Dante's paradise according to less or more sanctified will: 'the imperfection of Earthliness being below, as far as Earth's shadow extends to the celestial spheres; the perfection of heavenliness above, in light unshadowed.'^ Based on this denigration of the first three spheres, Rossetti views the Moon as the place of 'Wills imperfect through instability'; Mercury as the 'abode of Wills imperfect through that Love of Fame which half puts out within the soul the rays of the Love of God even as they dart outward'; and Venus as the sphere of 'Wills imperfect through excess of mere human love' (203). More recently, Frank B. Ordiway has related the deficiencies of the spirits in the first three spheres to deviations from the three theological virtues: 'faith, hope, and charity are now shown to Dante in their imperfect, earth-tainted forms so as to correct Dante's intellect in preparation for his final vision of God's essence.''36 However, these classifications of the special status of the spirits who appear under the sign of the earth's shadow only partially account for Dante's poetic motivation in these early cantos of the Paradiso. Discussing the sphere of Venus, Teodolinda Barolini provides insight into the incarnational dimension of Dante's subsolar spirits by ascribing to dialectic the 'both-and' structure that underpins the paradoxical union of two complete natures in one person. While the popular understanding of Hegel's dialectic too often reduces the philosopher's thought to a

86 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry mere method or the formulaic idea of synthesis arising out of a thesis and its antithesis, Barolini captures the complex nature of dialectic by isolating 'a moment in fieri in which the dialectical elements of the achieved synthesis are still visible in their component parts.'37 It is true that Barolini's discussion of these cantos privileges the idea of synthesis, an 'integration of concerns that on earth were viewed as separate and antagonistic' (Dante's Poets, 69). Still, Barolini usefully qualifies these syntheses by attending to the vestiges of the original conflict that remain in the new configurations. Describing the 'nonachievement' of Venus as 'a symptom of the original conflict, which is still obliquely present, like the shadow of the earth that is still felt' (68), she views Dante's treatment of such dichotomies as spiritual love and political philosophy as 'the representation of a stage in which the elements of a prior conflict and duality are still visible though no longer conflicting' (69). Returning several times to the status of the third heaven and its representatives, Barolini demonstrates the complex relationship between dichotomies and syntheses in this part of the Commedia. She concludes that 'the very dichotomy between eros and politics that Dante sees in [Folco] and reflects in the heaven of Venus serves to suggest an ideal state beyond dualism and dichotomy' (184-5). This 'ideal state' is exemplified by the poet's grandiose trinitarian hymn and his paean to cosmic order that open Paradiso 10, after Dante and Beatrice have passed out of the earth's shadow. By characterizing Dante's treatment of dichotomies in the venusian spirits, Folco in particular, as 'the representation of a stage in which the elements of a prior conflict and duality are still visible though no longer conflicting' (69), Barolini implicitly calls on Hegel's Aujhebung, whereby contradictions are both negated and preserved as they are raised to a higher level. Considering the verb 'to sublate' (aujheberi) 'one of the most important notions in philosophy,' Hegel observes that the word 'has a two-fold meaning in language: on the one hand it means to preserve, to maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to.'^ Hegel's use of the inherently contradictory term, as his commentators regularly note, expresses the insistently 'both-and' structure of his dialectical thought. Thus for Hans-Georg Gadamer, as the contradictions themselves are preserved through elevation to a new level, 'dialectic becomes the advocate of the "concrete" of mediated truth over against the one-sided abstractions of the understanding.'39 Like a palimpsest manuscript, in which the earlier document that has been scraped away still appears - at times more or less visible - beneath and oo

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 87 around the newer text, the spirits throughout the subsolar region bear the traces of conflict from their earthly existence that Barolini identifies in her discussion of Venus. From Piccarda's abdication of her vows because of violence (Moon) and Justinian's excessive political ambition (Mercury) to Cunizza's and Folco's irrepressible passion (Venus), Dante's luminous shades in the shadow are visible manifestations of a Hegelian dialectic of paradox. Spiritually 'raised up' (aufgehoberi), they continue to be marked by their shortcomings even in paradise. Dante's depiction of these celestial figures thus reverses his conception of the Web of Pride in hell inasmuch as the blessed spirits have been made whole while the infernal shades suffer figurative, at times literal, divisions of their bodily forms. Yet, because the return to unity of at least a certain number of the saved occurs in a healing process that leaves scars, however minimal, Dante is able to develop further his incarnational poetry, grounded as always in the dialectical space between heaven and earth that he first explored in the Vita nuova.

3. Incarnational Reflections and Lines Nam in bonis perfectis infusio gratiae comparatur luci directe incident! et perpendicular!, quoniam non reflectunt a se gratiam, nee frangunt per declinalionem ab incessu recto, qui attenditur secundum viam perfectionis vitae. [For in (be perfectly good the infusion of grace is compared to light incident directly and perpendicularly, since they do not reflect from them grace nor do they refract it from the straight course which extends along the road of perfection in life.] - Roger Bacon, Opus ma/us

e quando li disiri poggian quivi, si disviando, pur convien che i raggi del vero atnore in sii poggin men vivi. [And when desires, thus deviating, tend thitherward, the rays of true love must needs mount upwards less living.] - Parad/so6.115-17

Dante's ascent from the terrestrial paradise to the divine realm, like his descent into the underworld at the beginning of the journey, does not occur without a slight delay. Although the wayfarer declares himself

88 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry 'puro e disposto a salire a le stelle' [pure and ready to rise to the stars] at the end of the Purgatorio (33.145), his actual departure from the mountain does not begin until the middle section of Paradiso 1. In other words, while Dante's sight of the stars at the end of the Inferno marks the end of both the first cantica and the realm it describes, the journey and the poem share no such matching closure in the Purgatorio. Thus the most obvious sign of Dante's attention to symmetry- the ending of each of the three cantiche with the word stelle ('stars') - also determines a crucial asymmetrical aspect of the poet's vision. Textual space and Dante's spatial position in the narrative of the poem are out of sync with one another because he is still in the terrestrial paradise for much of Paradiso 1. This simple yet underanalysed fact illustrates a fundamental consequence of Dante's theological thought: purgatory and paradise, despite their thematic and representational differences, are essentially unified as the successive realms - one temporal, the other eternal - of the blessed. Whereas the stelle of Inferno 34.139 textually seal the unbreachable boundary between damnation and salvation, the corresponding stelle of Purgatorio 33.145 provide continuity between the two realms of the saved - a transition that enables the first half of Paradiso 1 to overlap with Dante's stay in the terrestrial paradise atop the mountain of purgatory. This overlap is significant because it enables the poet to connect the temporal and eternal realms with a detailed description of the wayfarer's movement from the terrestrial paradise to the heavens. Dante, it bears repeating, has yet to enter the celestial realm in the opening verses of Paradiso 1. Still located in the terrestrial paradise, he must submit completely to Beatrice's will to rise to the first planetary sphere. When Beatrice's eyes previously revealed the incarnational wonder of the Griffin to the wayfarer, they were compared to a mirror reflecting the sun, 'Come in lo specchio il sol' [As the sun in a mirror] (Purg. 31.121). Beatrice now begins to fulfil this earlier comparison by gazing into the solar sphere as the poet indicates the time of year with one of the Commedia's most felicitous astronomical passages, the first of the Paradiso: Surge ai mortali per diverse foci la lucerna del mondo; ma da quella che quattro cerchi giugne con tre croci, con miglior corso e con migliore Stella esce congiunta, e la mondana cera

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 89 piu a suo modo tempera e suggella. Fatto avea di la mane e di qua sera tal foce, e quasi tutto era la bianco quello emisperio, e 1'altra parte nera, quando Beatrice in sul sinistro fianco vidi rivolta e riguardar nel sole: aguglia si non li s'affisse unquanco. (Par. 1.37-48) [The lamp of the world rises to mortals through different passages; but through that which joins four circles with three crosses it issues with a better course and conjoined with better stars, and tempers and stamps the wax of the world more after its own fashion. Although such an outlet had made morning there and evening here, and all the hemisphere there was white, and the other dark, when I saw Beatrice turned to her left side and looking at the sun: never did eagle so fix his gaze thereon.]

Dante's astronomy serves here as a pretext for distinguishing between the wayfarer's present location - the otherworld - and the world he left behind. The poet expresses this relationship in terms of place ('di la'; 'di qua'), time of day ('mane'; 'sera'), and colour ('bianco'; 'nera'). Dante's emphasis on the relationship between 'here' and 'there' in these verses is not fortuitous, for the terrestrial and the celestial realms metonymically represent the fundamental terms of his divine dialectic: the human and divine natures that join, each maintaining its integrity, in the Incarnation. In the incarnational poetry of the Paradiso, Dante extends the specular metaphor of the mirror from Beatrice's reflecting 'smeraldi' to the medieval topos of the 'mirror of God' (speculum Dei). In Scripture, wisdom - sapientia- is both the pure 'brightness of eternal light' and a perfect 'mirror of God's majesty' (Wisdom 7:26), and the medieval encyclopedists, most notably Vincent of Beauvais, view the sum total of knowledge as a 'Great Mirror' (Speculum Maius). In the Convivio, a banquet to satisfy humankind's natural hunger for knowledge, Dante fittingly translates the Vulgate's specular depiction of wisdom: 'Essa [Sapienza] e candore della etterna luce e specchio sanza macula della maesta di Dio' [She is the brightness of the eternal light and the flawless mirror of the majesty of God] (3.15.5). Dante joins the specular conceptions of divine and human knowledge in the Commedia. The poet combines his own knowledge of optics with traditional figurations of the 'straight way' to mark the wayfarer's incarnational progress as he rises with his mortal nature to God's eternal realm.40

90 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry Dante had both personal and professional reasons for learning theories of vision and light.41 In the Convivio he relates how prolonged study weakened his 'spiriti visivi,' thus causing a temporary change in his eyesight (3.9.15). The poet may have been encouraged to keep up with current thinking on vision and ocular physiology through his association with the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries. This group included among its members many painters, for whom optics was an important scientific field. It is even likely that Dante planned an entire book of the Convivio dedicated to the medieval science of perspectiva, the mathematical component of optics that flourished in the late thirteenth century and beyond. Based on a concentration of images of light and sight in 'Amore, che movi tua vertu da cielo,' Parronchi has good reason to argue that Dante would have glossed this poem in the optical treatise.42 In the canzone, Dante illustrates the three modes of vision - direct, refracted, and reflected - in his description of the effects of Love's rays on the poet-lover: the poet's description of the light of Love striking his heart accords with direct vision, whereby a ray of light follows a straight path (16-17); his comparison of the entrance of the woman's image in his imagination to light passing through water suggests refraction (24-7); and, clearest of all, Love's beams reflect off the lover back into the woman's eyes (28-30). That these three optical phenomena - reflection, refraction, and a direct infusion of light - illumine Dante's poetic vision of the afterlife comes as no surprise when we consider the central role of this same optical trinity in the work of Roger Bacon. The Greek science of optics, based on Aristotle's natural philosophy and to a lesser extent on Plato's Timaeus, was transmitted to the Middle Ages through Euclid (Optica and Catoptrica) and Ptolemy (Optica). The major premises in these treatises, including the principles of reflection and refraction, were repeated and elaborated by the Islamic scientific writers — such as al-Kindi, Avicenna, and Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) - whose works (in Latin translation) greatly influenced the Western thinkers closer to Dante's day. Of these, Bacon, Witelo, and John Pecham produced the most significant works on optics in thirteenth-century Europe. Neither the occasionally superficial quality of his synthesis of Greek, Islamic, and Christian traditions nor his exaggerated conception of optics as a universal science prevented Bacon's work from gaining wide acceptance in the late Middle Ages.43 Portions of this work provide insight into Dante's imaginative leap from the erudite glosses of the Convivio (3.9.6-16) to the poetry of the Commedia, particularly the sparkling verse of the Paradiso.

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Dante's optical vocabulary has led some commentators to conclude that the poet thought of reflection and refraction interchangeably, possibly in accordance with the scientific conventions of his day.44 However, despite the occasionally confusing terminology, such as Dante's use of rifratto to indicate reflection (Purg. 15.22, Par. 2.93), it is clear that late medieval optical writers - Dante included - were indeed capable of distinguishing between the movement of light from one medium into another (refraction) and the reflection of a ray of light off a surface. Bacon is exemplary on this point. Bacon also emphasizes in his demonstrations of reflection and refraction the far more important distinction between a ray of light striking a surface perpendicularly and one striking a surface obliquely. This apparently innocuous distinction - the difference between a right angle and some lesser angle of incidence actually makes a world of difference for both Bacon and Dante. In part 4 of his Opus mains Bacon treats the phenomenon of reflection, which occurs when the second medium is so much more dense than the first that the light cannot pass through. Bacon first presents the case of a ray of light striking a surface at a right angle so that the second ray returns along the same path as the first ('et tune redit in se omnino per eandem viam a qua venit' [1:114]).4;' He explains this rectilinear rebound by calling on the optical law whereby the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence ('anguli incidentiae et reflexionis semper sunt aequales') - the famous law of reflection defined in proposition 19 of Euclid's Optica. But Bacon goes beyond merely stating this law as a matter of scholarly consensus ('et auctores omries suppommt'). He also expects recognition of this law on the part of his reader based on common experience. According to Bacon, the perception of a reflected image in a mirror offers proof of the law of reflection insofar as we only see objects — that is, their reflected images - that reach our eyes along the line of reflection (1:115). This appears to be the arrangement Dante has in mind for his poetic illustration of reflection in the terrestrial paradise when Beatrice's eyes reveal an incarnational image (the Griffin) that the wayfarer cannot perceive directly (Purg. 31.121—3). Viewing Bacon's work as representative of the Christian 'theology of light,' a tradition deriving from the gospel reference to Christ as 'the Light' (John 1:4-9), David C. Lindberg quotes a passage from the Opus mains with moral and theological implications that have considerable bearing on Dante's specular poetry: Then regarding the expression of spiritual matters by means of geometri-

92 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry cal truths, I offer an example in grace and in glory, both in the case of those to be saved and those to be damned, in order that we may see how lines straight, broken, and reflex, may be adapted to spiritual matters of this kind. Since the infusion of grace is very clearly illustrated through the multiplication of light, it is in every way expedient that through corporeal multiplication of light there should be manifested to us the properties of grace in the good and the rejection of it in the wicked. For in the perfectly good the infusion of grace is compared to light incident directly and perpendicularly, since they do not reflect from them grace nor do they refract it from the straight course which extends along the road of perfection in life. But the infusion of grace in imperfect, though good men is compared to refracted light; for owing to their imperfections, grace does not continue in them an altogether straight course. But sinners, who are in mortal sin, reflect and repel from them the grace of God, and therefore grace with them is compared to light driven away or reflected. (l:238-9)46 Bacon's three categories of the perfectly good, the good but imperfect, and mortal sinners loosely parallel - a rovescio - the three realms of Dante's vision: paradise, purgatory, Inferno. Bacon repeats and revises his extraordinary mapping of lines of light - perpendicular, refracted, and reflected rays - onto spiritual states, including those of humans, angels, and the Holy Trinity. Thus, in the long section of his work devoted entirely to perspectiva (part 5), Bacon assigns direct vision to God, refraction to angelic nature, and reflected vision - 'which is weaker still' - to humankind.47 However, his overall argument stresses one fundamental distinction: a ray of light forming an angle of less than ninety degrees with the horizontal surface - whether that angle is produced through reflection or refraction - best represents flawed humanity, while a direct, perpendicular infusion of light is attributed to God and, by extension, to the blessed. Although Bacon does not explicitly state the law of reflection in his optical theology, his multiple hierarchies of light find significant poetic corroboration precisely in those moments when Dante alludes to the well-known principle of equality between angles of incidence and reflection. We learn from these moments that Dante, like Bacon, makes an important distinction between both oblique reflection and refraction, on the one hand, and perpendicular vision, on the other. This difference, plainly stated, is between the two terms of the Incarnation, humanity and the divine. On the mountain of purgatory, as Dante and Virgil head west, into the light of the afternoon sun, the wayfarer finds his vision over-

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whelmed by an even brighter light - one whose source will soon be traced to the angel at the entrance to the next terrace. The wayfarer's experience with the divine light occasions the poet's first technical description of reflected light: Come quando da 1'acqua o da lo specchio salta lo raggio a 1'opposita parte, salendo su per lo modo parecchio a quel che scende, e tanto si diparte dal cader de la pietra in igual tratta, si come mostra esperienza e arte; cosi mi parve da luce rifratta quivi dinanzi a me esser percosso; per che a fuggir la mia vista fu ratta. (Purg. 15.16-24) [As when the beam leaps from the water or the mirror to the opposite quarter, rising at the same angle as it descends, and at equal distance departs as much from the line of the falling stone, even as experiment and science show; so it seemed to me that I was struck by light reflected there in front of me, from which my sight was quick to flee.]

To say the light is bright, Dante has no compelling reason to call on the law of optics whereby the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection when a ray of light strikes a reflective surface. Yet, the passage is more than a misleading flash of erudition. By using the vertical dropline ('cader de la pietra') to indicate the symmetrical relationship of the angles of incidence arid reflection, Dante provides a precise visual depiction of the symmetrical temporal description with which he opens the canto: three hours before nightfall 'reflecting' three hours after sunrise (15.1-6).48 More broadly, these symmetries based on a specular principle replicate, en abime as it were, the grand mirror image of the world and the reflected/reflecting realms of the afterlife, the poet's speculum, mundi. Based on Bacon's theological optics, the poet's specular simile glosses the wayfarer's spiritual progress. Reflection away from the perpendicular marks the struggle of human existence at best and unrepentant wickedness at worst. Dante clearly figures the divine light travelling from the angel to the wayfarer as an oblique reflected ray: it is neither direct nor perpendicular to the reflecting surface. On the second terrace of purgatory, then, the wayfarer's flawed spiritual state is consistent with Bacon's consistently negative characterizations of

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oblique reflection. Like the Pauline subject who can only grasp the truth 'in a dark manner' (1 Cor. 13:12), the mortal pilgrim in purgatory is limited in his capacity to receive the divine light. His vision is similar to Bacon's 'reflexiva visio,' the weakest form of vision in comparison to the direct infusion of divine light received by the blessed. Within the reflective configuration of Purgatorio 15, the angel, the wayfarer, and a point on the terrace floor constitute the three vertices of a triangle, with the terrace point - here standing for the mountain itself - serving as the intermediary through which the wayfarer's mortal body comes into contact with the divine light. We are thus reminded that Dante's conception of purgatory is itself incarnational insofar as the mountain bridges the human world of time and space with the boundless eternity of the divine. The incarnational dialectic of purgatory is traced by the movement of the mortal wayfarer from time to eternity as he ascends the mountain on his way to heaven. On the mountain itself, the incarnational implications of Dante's optical triangle are revealed when Beatrice's 'smeraldi' miraculously reflect an image of the Griffin as 'una persona in due nature' (Purg. 31.81; 31.121-3). Although even this incarnational representation is partial, it marks an important stage in the wayfarer's progress toward an unmediated experience of the paradoxical union of humanity and the divine. Dante's second explicit reference to the optical law of reflection, in Paradiso 1, suggests that the wayfarer is indeed closer to achieving this goal than he was on the second terrace of purgatory. Partway up the mountain, the wayfarer's spiritual state bore the negative markings of oblique reflection. Now, as the wayfarer prepares to rise to the lunar sphere, the poet's optical simile remains strategically neutral on the crucial question of oblique versus perpendicular reflection: E si come secondo raggio suole uscir del primo e risalire in suso, pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole, cosi de Fatto suo, per li occhi infuso ne 1'imagine mia, il mio si fece, e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr' uso. (Par. 1.49-54) [And even as a second ray typically issues from the first, and mounts upwards again, like a pilgrim who would return home: thus of her action, infused through the eyes into my imagination, mine was made, and I fixed my eyes on the sun beyond our custom.]

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 95 Like Dante's previous description of the law of reflection, the relation of the optical term of the simile to the action occasioning it is hardly precise. Before the angel at the passage from the second to third terrace, Dante introduced the optical principle, which does not imply that a reflected ray of light is brighter than a direct one, to 'explain' the overwhelming brightness of the divine ray. Here he describes the wayfarer's very first narrative action of the Paradiso, his attempt to imitate Beatrice's solar gaze, in terms of the way a reflected ray ('secondo raggio') issues from an incidental ray ('uscir del primo'). Again, the poet chooses a less than obvious context in which to present the optical law of reflection. While any number of images could have satisfied Dante's desire to represent the wayfarer's mimetic act, his comparison of the celestial travellers to rays of light - incidental (Beatrice) and reflected (the wayfarer) — accords with the light metaphysics of medieval conceptions of paradise.49 Indeed, Dante's first description of light and the mechanics of vision in the Paradiso is a tour de force of specular poetry. The simile mirrors itself as the primary figurative term of the comparison - the wayfarer compared to a reflected ray of light - corresponds literally to the action underlying it, Beatrice's act of gazing into the sun. Reflexive in both structure and meaning, Dante's verses function as poetic mirrors. The equivocal rhyme (sole rhyming with suole of verse 47), the proximity of quasi-identical possessive adjectives ('ne 1'imagine mia, il mio si fece' [53]), and the repetition of the key mirror-word occhi [eyes] (52, 54) all combine to 'reflect' the event described, the wayfarer's imitation of Beatrice's feat of fixing her eyes on the sun. Yet no formal analysis of this simile - no matter how detailed - can account adequately for the significance of the poet's second description of the law of reflection without considering its purgatorial precursor and the tradition of optical metaphysics informing Dante's specular poetics. As the first optical simile reinforced Dante's mirroring of the world and the afterlife and glossed the wayfarer's purgatorial progress, so this second comparison to reflected light provides a measure of the wayfarer's spiritual condition as the moment of his celestial voyage approaches. Most important, Dante's comparison of Beatrice and the wayfarer to light rays contains no indication of the angle of reflection; the wayfarer merely imitates Beatrice as the reflected ray matches the incidental ray, whether it strikes perpendicularly or not.30 Given the theological distinction in Bacon's optical treatise between perpendicular and oblique reflection, Dante's imprecision at this particular

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moment in the Commedia is itself noteworthy. As the wayfarer is about to trasumanar [pass beyond humanity] in order to experience the realm of the blessed, the poet anticipates this momentous event by positing a possible image of vertical reflection with all the attendant spiritual connotations of perfection, redemption, and godliness described by Bacon. This very prospect means that the wayfarer's fallen nature can at least be bracketed at the start of the celestial voyage now that his conscience has been symbolically cleansed and restored in the waters of Lethe and Eunoe (Purg. 31.91-6; 33.127-45). The poet's catoptrics in Paradiso 1 repeat and refine the specular configuration introduced with the presentation of the Griffin in Purgatorio 31. There Beatrice's eyes were the mirrors reflecting the mystery of Christ, who was figured symbolically as the sun and more concretely that is, incarnationally - by the complete natures of the hybrid creature alternately reflected in Beatrice's 'smeraldi.' Now Beatrice again looks at the sun, this time a figure with literal as well as symbolic import. However, the wayfarer directs his gaze, not at the reflected image in Beatrice's eyes, but at the same object of his guide's attention. By following Beatrice's example of looking straight into the sun, Dante shows his desire to connect with the divine realm and thereby participate in the incarnational union of mortal and immortal natures that is the goal of his journey. But the point of this imitative action in the opening canto of Paradiso is to establish that Dante is notable to participate fully in the celestial realm, at least not yet. If the wayfarer was overwhelmed by the reflected ray of divine light on the second terrace of purgatory, he now cannot bear the divine light of the sun even as he himself takes on the role of the 'secondo raggio,' the reflected ray of light. His progress toward this goal of complete participation thus emerges in Paradiso I as the dramatic motivation for his celestial voyage. The simile of Paradiso 1.49-54, the first of the third cantica, is technically a double-simile, as Dante compares himself not only to a reflected ray of light ('secondo raggio') but also to a 'pelegrin' yearning to return. This inner simile provides telling commentary on the wayfarer's attempt at direct, perpendicular participation in the divine realm at the beginning of his celestial voyage. While commentators generally gloss Dante's pelegrin as a 'pilgrim,' a traveller far from home, Chimenz's preference for the falcus peregrinus, a bird of prey trained to hunt ducks over water, accords well with the dominant imagery of the canto.51 The wayfarer's identification with the 'pelegrin' both complements and complicates the previous comparison of Beatrice to an eagle (Par. 1.48). On

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the one hand, the two avian images contribute to the general theme of vertical movement so well developed in this and the following canto. The eagle and the falcon, two birds known for their swift flight, are appropriate intermediaries between the terrestrial and celestial realms. On the other hand, the difference between the 'aguglia' and the 'pelegriri' is precisely the difference between Beatrice and Dante in these opening verses of the Paradiso. The eagle, according to legend, can gaze into the sun;°2 Beatrice, by implication, is therefore able to participate fully in the celestial realm and rise up through the spheres to the actual home of the blessed before God. Not only does the falcon possess no such legendary visual prowess, but Dante's infernal comparison of Geryon's descent and departure to that of a sullen, frustrated falcon ('disdegnoso e fello' [Inf. 17.127-36]) casts the bird of prey in a decidedly negative light.53 Although the wayfarer clearly seeks to imitate Beatrice by gazing into and eventually rising to the solar sphere and the heavens beyond, his identification with the less noble, downward-prone peregrine falcon suggests limited success at this moment of preparation for the celestial journey. It is ultimately impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when Dante departs from the terrestrial paradise and passes through the sphere of fire on his way to the Moon. His direct gaze into the sun lasts just long enough — To nol soffersi molto, ne si poco' [I did not endure it long, nor so little] (1.58) - to propel him upward into the fiery sublunar region. However, Dante is careful to explain, albeit with little fanfare, that the transformative process through which he enters the celestial realm — his literal passing beyond his mortal state (trasumanar) — occur within the familiar triangular configuration of optical reflection: Beatrice tutta ne 1'etterne rote fissa con li occhi stava; e io in lei le luci fissi, di la su rimote. (Par. 1.64—6) [Beatrice was standing with her eyes all fixed upon the eternal wheels, and I fixed mine on her, withdrawn from there above.]

Therefore, Dante's contact with the divine still requires an indirect, reflected infusion of the divine light, with Beatrice serving as the mediating mirror. This arrangement recalls the specular function of Beatrice's eyes in revealing the incarnational wonder of the Griffin during the elaborate allegorical representation of Christ's Last Judgment in

98 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry Purgatorio 31. Moreover, the initial ambiguity regarding perpendicular and oblique reflection is here definitively resolved in favour of the latter: instead of bouncing straight up, the divine light that strikes Beatrice's eyes now reflects horizontally toward her mortal companion. Dante's specular poetry in the terrestrial paradise and the subsolar spheres requires a mediating figure able to join the human wayfarer with the heavens. The need for a third, mediating term in this initial section of the Paradiso means that the wayfarer's ultimate goal of an incarnational union of humanity and the divine is still a long way off. This is true for what Dante strives to see as well as for what he must become in order to achieve that vision. The Incarnation is both the product of the journey, the objective of Dante's direct vision, and the process by which he obtains it. Only by joining his mortal being with the divine essence, and thereby participating in an incarnational relationship himself, will Dante be able to experience his desired vision of the god-man. And this vision, as suggested by the optical imagery of Paradiso 1, will require a direct infusion of divine light. The mechanics of reflection that have glossed Dante's spiritual itinerary at least from the half-way point of his journey up the mountain of purgatory represent only an initial stage toward an unmediated incarnational vision. In the earth's shadow, Dante figures the triangular - that is, indirect - basis of this optical scenario in ways both obvious and subtle, from Beatrice's experiment with three mirrors that disproves his 'scientific' theory of the moon spots (Par. 2.97-105) to a triad of reflexive verbs coined in the sphere of Venus that delineates a specular relationship among God, Folco of Marseilles, and the wayfarer (Par. 9.73-81 ).54 Although the stage of indirect, mediated contact with the divine is the rule here in the early cantos of the Paradiso, Dante has provided a proleptic look at the direct infusion of divine light toward which the wayfarer is progressing. His initial gaze, in imitation of Beatrice, was enough to activate his transformation, the completion of which occurred after he locked his eyes once more on Beatrice as she continued to look upward. Even at the centre of his planetary voyage, in the sphere of Mars, the wayfarer continues to receive a reflected version 'secondo aspetto' - of the splendour 'che diretto / raggiava in Beatrice' [that shone direct on Beatrice] (Par. 18.16-18). Only toward the end of his celestial journey will Dante acquire the visual power necessary for direct, prolonged observance of the divine light. At that point, he will have no choice but to keep his eyes directed upward:

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 99 lo credo, per 1'acume ch'io soffersi del vivo raggio, ch'i' sarei smarrito, se li occhi miei da lui fossero aversi. (Par. 33.76-8) [I believe that, because of the keenness of the living ray which I endured, I should have been lost if my eyes had been turned from it.]

From the perspective of the Paradisos catoptrics, the distinction between Dante's first action of the poem and this action in the final canto could not be clearer. Whereas the wayfarer was unable to sustain his celestial gaze and had to fall back on the reflective assistance of Beatrice, he cannot remove his gaze from the divine light once he has passed beyond time and space in the Empyrean heaven. Direct vision and infusion at the end of the journey become a function of God's will as well as Dante's desire. The poet vividly marks this optical transformation by repeating words and images in the first and final cantos of Paradiso that call attention to the different contexts in which they occur. Verses that could have elegantly described Beatrice's actions at the beginning of the celestial voyage apply to Dante alone as the journey/poem draws to a close: Cosi la mente mia, tutta sospesa, mirava fissa, immobile e attenta, e sempre di mirar faceasi accesa. A quella luce cotal si diventa, che volgersi da lei per altro aspetto e impossibil che mai si consenta. (Par. 33.97-102) [Thus my mind, all rapt, was gazing, fixed, motionless and intent, ever enkindled by its gazing. In that Light one becomes such that it is impossible he should ever consent to turn himself from it for other sight.]

Dante's concentrated gaze, underscored by the tricolon 'fissa, immobile e attenta,' mirrors Beatrice's posture at the start of the celestial journey: 'Beatrice tutta ne I'etterne rote / fissa con li occhi stava' [Beatrice was standing with her eyes all fixed upon the eternal wheels] (Par. 1.64-5). Now that Beatrice has returned to her place in the Celestial Rose, Dante can — indeed he must - experience a direct infusion of the divine light. In specular terms, Dante has not only fulfilled his fleeting resemblance to a 'secondo raggio' that reflects upward, but he has finallyjoined Bea-

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trice as the 'primo raggio' that participates in a direct union with the divine.

Dante imitates the humble descent of the divine Logos into humanity by rising with his human nature to the divine realm. This is the spiritual journey that Augustine describes when he admonishes the Manichees for not knowing that 'they should descend from themselves to [Christ]' in order to 'again ascend to him' (Conf. 5.3).55 Although the wayfarer generally winds his way through the circles of hell and around the terraces of purgatory in a spiral, his ascent to and between the celestial spheres follows a straight course.36 Dante's celestial voyage thus represents the literal fulfilment of his attempt to regain the 'diritta via' [straight way] (Inf. 1.3), the impetus for his journey through the three realms of the afterlife. The straight - or 'direct' - way holds an illustrious place in the medieval imagination, its abandonment often indicating the moral and spiritual deficiencies of the soul alienated from God as a result of sin. Augustine, remembering the time soon after his conversion in the garden, yokes together several of the figurative markers of sin from Isaiah 40:4 that ground Dante's vision, including the image of the winding path made straight: 'how you have taken me down, by bringing low those mountains and hills of my high imaginations, and made my crookedness straight (tortuosa mea direxeris), and my rough ways smooth' (Conf. 9.4). Likewise, an important part of Augustine's preparation for conversion is his discovery that iniquity is not a substance but a 'perverse swerving of the will' — detortae voluntatis perversitatem - away from God (Conf. 7.16). The straight way, as seen in Roger Bacon's work, inspires an elaborate series of analogies between light rays and spiritual states. Bacon's linkage of light striking a surface perpendicularly with 'the road of perfection in life' gives scientific support to Dante's poetic and theological figuration of the 'diritta via.' Lacking the mystical dimension of the circle, Dante's lines at least establish a contiguous relationship between realms that were kept apart in the Vita nuova and whose incarnational union was mocked by the doubles and divisions of hell. Not coincidentally, Dante's array of rectilinear images - including lightning, flowing water, and flying arrows - is most pronounced across the first nine cantos of the Paradiso. The earth's shadow and the wayfarer's flight through the subsolar spheres are complementary representations, one cosmic the other personal, of the poet's incarnational dialectic of humanity

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and the divine. For Dante, who promotes himself as a poet of rectitude (De vulgari eloquentia 2.2.8), progress toward the achievement of this incarnatiorial union in the Commedia runs parallel with the wayfarer's attempt to regain the 'straightway.' The direct light ray is one of several rectilinear figures defining the wayfarer's entrance into the heavens as an incarnational event. Dante anticipates his incarnational poetry of the 'diritta via' in a technical passage from the Convivio. Glossing a verse from the canzone 'Voi che 'ntendendo il terzo ciel movete' [You whose intellect the third sphere moves], the poem cited by Charles Martel in Venus (Par. 8.37), he describes the danger involved in looking straight into the eyes of his beloved: E qui si vuol sapere che, avegna che piu cose nell'occhio a un'ora possano venire, veramente quella che viene per retta linea nella punta della pupilla, quella veramente si vede e nella imaginativa si suggella solamente. E questo e pero che '1 nervo per lo quale corre lo spirito visivo, e diritto a quella parte, e pero veramente 1'occhio 1'altro occhio non puo guardare, si che esso non sia veduto da lui; che, si come quello che mira riceve la forma nella pupilla per retta linea, cosi per quella medesima linea la sua forma se ne va in quello ch'ello mira; e moke volte, nel dirizzare di questa linea, discocca 1'arco di colui al quale ogni arme e leggiere. Pero quando dico: 'che tal donna li vide.' e tanto a dire quanto che li occhi suoi e li miei si guardaro. (2.9.4-5) [Here it should be known that although many things can enter the eye at the same time, nevertheless that which enters along a straight line into the center of the pupil is the only one that is truly seen and which stamps itself upon the imagination. This is because the nerve along which the visual spirit runs is pointed in this direction; and therefore one eye cannot really look into another eye without being seen by it; for just as the one which looks receives the form in the pupil along a straight line, so along that same line its own form proceeds into the one it looks at; and many times along the extension of this line is discharged the bow of him against whom all arms are light. Therefore when I say that 'such a lady looked on them,' it is as much as to say that her eyes and mine looked upon one another. |

Consistent with Bacon's privileging of rectilinear rays, Dante singles out images travelling along the direct path ('retta linea') into the eye's pupil as the ones carried by the optical nerve and eventually taking hold in

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the 'imaginativa.' Since this 'retta linea' is a veritable two-way street, he is unable to look into the eyes of his beloved without having his own eye seen by hers ('one eye cannot really look into another eye without being seen by it'). This reciprocal visual perception along the 'retta linea' makes him vulnerable to the arrows shot from Love's proverbial bow ('discocca 1'arco'). These arrows presumably use the straight path as a conduit to the imaginative power within the sensitive faculty of the lover's soul. In the Paradiso, where Dante transforms the lyric god of love into the epic god of divine providence, images of straight-flying arrows serve an incarnational purpose by figuratively joining the terrestrial paradise with the spheres within the earth's shadow. The first archery passage of the Paradiso aptly occurs within the incarnational scenario so well depicted by Augustine, the descent of the Word that enables fallen humankind to ascend to eternal life (Conf. 7.18). Explaining to the wayfarer that he is no longer on the earth as he believes, Beatrice first describes divine providence as a bow whose arrows strike humankind as well as the rest of the physical and natural world: 'ne pur le creature che son fore / d'intelligenza quest' arco saetta, / ma quelle c'hanno intelletto e amore' [And not only does this bow shoot those creatures that lack intelligence, but also those that have intellect and love] (Par. 1.118-20). She then reverses the direction of the arrow from descent to ascent by extending the archery metaphor to the ultimate goal of Dante's journey, his arrival in the Empyrean heaven: La provedenza, che cotanto assetta, del suo lume fa '1 ciel sempre quieto nel qual si volge quel c'ha maggior fretta; e ora li, come a sito decreto, cen porta la virtu di quella corda che cio che scocca drizza in segno lieto. (1.121-6) [The Providence which ordains all this, with its light makes ever quiet that heaven within which revolves the sphere that has the greatest speed; and thither now, as to a place decreed, the virtue of that bowstring bears us on, which aims at a joyful target whatsoever it shoots.]

The poet thus sketches a nearly complete archery scene by joining the 'corda' [bowstring] and 'segno lieto' [joyful target] to the 'arco' [bow] of verse 119. Still missing is the arrow itself, though the accumulation of

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strong verbs - saetta, scocca, drizza - conveys the image of a swift projectile. Propelled by the 'virtu' of the divine bowstring, the wayfarer becomes that arrow by bringing his mortal nature into the celestial realm. Dante's passage, as commentators point out, echoes a remark in Thomas Aquinas's discussion of predestination: 'Now when a thing cannot reach an end by its own power, then it has to be lifted up and sent there by another, as when an archer (sagittante) flights an arrow (sagitta) to the target' (Summa theologiae la.23.1).57 The comparison to archery, Aquinas continues, is especially appropriate for showing how a human being - 'rationalis creatura' - is sent by God to eternal life. He concludes by saying that both the 'idea of this sending' and the 'idea of ordering the whole of things to their end, which we have called Providence,' pre-exist in God. Figured as the arrow - sagitta - 'lifted up and sent' to eternal life by the divine archer (sagittante), the wayfarer enacts the drama of salvation described by Aquinas. To this end, as Dante actually leaves the terrestrial paradise, Beatrice employs two similes suggesting the incarnatlonal reciprocity of descent and ascent. After comparing the speed of the wayfarer's upward flight to that of a descending bolt of lightning (Far: 1.91-3), Beatrice claims that his ascent is as natural as the flow of a stream down from a mountain: 'Non dei piii ammirar, se bene stimo, / lo tuo salir, se non come d'un rivo / se d'alto monte scende giuso ad imo' [You should not wonder more at your rising, if I deem aright, than at a stream that falls from a mountain top to the base] (1.136-8). Dante's natural yet paradoxical journey to the heavens parallels - if only as an instructive reflection - the incarnational circle established with God's descent into humanity. While the poet's comparison of God's providential power to that of a perfect marksman in Paradiso 1 provides a proleptic view of the goal of the wayfarer's celestial voyage, subsequent archery metaphors mark his movement to and between the subsolar spheres. For instance, the poet compares the duration of the wayfarer's ascent from the terrestrial paradise to the Moon ('la prima stella') to the time in which 'un quadrel posa / e vola e da la noce si dischiava' [a bolt strikes, flies, and from the catch is released] (Par. 2.23-4). Reversing the temporal order - hysteron proteron - of the actions constituting the archery event, Dante emphasizes the speed and directness of the wayfarer's flight. He also completes the scene by adding the arrow (quadrel), described in its threefold action ('is released'; 'flies'; 'strikes'), to the bow (arcd), bowstring (corda), and target (segno) of Par. 1.119-26. A similar archery simile

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marks the wayfarer's transition between the first two celestial spheres: 'e si come saetta che nel segno / percuote pria che sia la corda queta, / cosi corremmo nel secondo regno' [And as an arrow that strikes the target before the bowcord is quiet, so we sped into the second realm] (Par. 5.91-3). The poet again foregrounds the swift ascent of the travellers, this time from the Moon to Mercury, by visually joining the end of the action (the arrow striking the target) with its beginning (the bowstring that continues to quiver) ,58 Dante's figuration of rectilinear travel to and from the lunar sphere dramatizes the assignment of the liberal arts to the planets. Strongly suggested in Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus and explicitly - if partially treated in Restore d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo, this 'convention' is fully expounded in Convivio 2.13.8-30.59 Assigning grammar to the lunar sphere, Dante informs his poetics of the straight line in and around the lunar sphere with the medieval conception of grammar. John of Salisbury's commentary on the etymon of grammar is a good example from a popular text in the late Middle Ages: Grama means a letter or a line, and grammar is 'literal' since it teaches letters, that is, both the symbols which stand for simple sounds, and the elementary sounds represented by the symbols. It is also [in a way] linear. For in augmenting size, the length of lines is fundamental, and, as it were, the basic dimension of plane surfaces and solids. So also this branch, which teaches language [educates the tongue], is the first of the arts to assist those who are aspiring to increase in wisdom. For it introduces wisdom both through the ears and eyes by its facilitation of verbal intercourse. (1.13.13-21)60

John's etymological analogy follows from his general definition of grammar, expanding on that of Isidore of Seville, as the 'science of speaking and writing correctly (recte) — the starting point of all liberal studies' (1.13.5-7). ] Based on these passages from the Metalogicon, Eugene Vance remarks that rectilinearity 'was an important metaphor for describing man's spiritual state,' and R. Howard Bloch hints at an incarnational figuration of grammar when he summarizes its function as 'the delineation of straight paths, the creation of linear links between symbols, sounds, and letters as well as between words and the physical properties of things.' While Dante compares the Moon to grammar in the Convivio based on the sphere's variable luminosity and its apparent shadows (2.13.9-10), the explanation of which he revises in Paradiso 2,

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 105 his depiction in the Paradiso of swift, direct celestial movement to and from the lunar sphere dramatizes the verbal analogy between letters and lines used by John of Salisbury to ground grammatica. Within the Moon, Beatrice maps this rectilinear conception of grammar onto the iiicarnationally marked spirits when she exhorts Dante to speak with them because 'la verace luce che le appaga / da se non lascia lor torcer li piedi' [the true light that satisfies them does not suffer them to turn their steps aside from it] (Par. 3.31-3). If Dante's way in the Commedia is the 'straight way,' this is because he conceives of the alternative - veering off course and following a tortuous route - as an overarching metaphor for the moral and societal woes of his world. For Dante, as seen in his infernal poetics of division and doubling, aesthetic issues are inseparable from intellectual, historical, and spiritual ones. In the first major section of the Paradiso, the cantos describing the wayfarer's sojourn in the earth's shadow, Dante offers a retrospective gloss on the 'diritta via' that sets his personal, spiritual struggle within a larger ethical context and ultimately within the workings of the cosmos itself. While the archery imagery of Paradiso 1.118-26 conveys the ineluctable accuracy of God's power in ordering the universe, Beatrice's description of lightning illustrates how created beings at times 'bend away' - piegar - from their providentially established course: cosi da questo corso si diparte talor la creatura, c'ha podere di piegar, cosi pinta, in altra parte; e si come veder si pud cadere foco di nube, si I'impeto primo 1'atterra torto da falso piacere. (Par. 1.130-5) [so the creature sometimes departs from this course, having the power, thus impelled, to swerve toward some other part; and even as the fire from a cloud may be seen to fall downwards, so the primal impulse, diverted by false pleasure, is turned toward earth.] Following the medieval imagining of the descent of lightning - 'foco di nube' - as an unnatural act (since the instinct of fire is to rise), Beatrice superimposes a moral judgment ('diverted by false pleasure') that is exemplified by Dante's purgatorial dream of the siren. The 'sweet Siren' distracted Ulysses with her promise of fulfilled desire, a contradiction in

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terms: 'Io volsi Ulisse del suo cammin vago / al canto mio; e qual meco s'ausa, / rado sen parte; si tutto 1'appago!' [Ulysses, eager to hear my song, I turned aside to my song; and whosoever abides with me rarely departs, so wholly do I satisfy him!] (Purg. 19.22-4). The poet here yokes illusory pleasure with the love of the world, even the most noble aspect of it championed by Ulysses, the adventurous navigator whose 'bending away' from the straight course - 'sempre acquistando dal lato mancino' [always gaining on the left] (Inf. 26.126) - proves fatal and quite possibly worse.63 The Greek hero is Dante's close yet false double, the figure 'with whom Dante enjoys great self-identification, but from whom finally he must distance himself.'64 There now emerges in the very heart of the shadowed region of paradise a character through whom the poet rewrites the Ulyssean story with a happy ending. The emperor Justinian, Dante's spokesman for the mercurial spirits, undoubtedly appealed to the late medieval imagination not only as an illustrious bearer of the Roman Empire's 'sacred standard' (Par. 6.32) but as one inspired by God to undertake a 'high task' (23-4), the monumental codification of Roman law (Corpus luris Civilis). While Dante's Justinian differs from his infernal counterpart primarily because he lived in the Christian era and therefore had - from Dante's perspective - the right gods on his side, he is like Ulysses a great overachiever and an outstanding orator. As such, Justinian gives voice to the dangers of excessive earthly ambition when he satisfies Dante's desire to know the reason for the resplendent spirit's appearance in Mercury: Questa picciola Stella si correda d'i buoni spirti che son stati attivi perche onore e fama li succeda: e quando li disiri poggian quivi, sf disviando, pur convien che i raggi del vero amore in su poggin men vivi. (Par. 6.112-17) [This little star is adorned with good spirits who have been active in order that honor and fame might come to them. And when desires, thus deviating, tend thitherward, the rays of true love must needs mount upwards less living.]

Justinian thus explains his adornment of the 'picciola Stella' in words that amount to a devastating indictment of the 'orazion picciola' [little

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speech] (Inf. 26.122) proffered by Ulysses to his men as they set out upon their final voyage. Implicitly glossing Ulysses' exhortation to his men to realize their full human potential by forsaking their own world for the 'world that has no people' (Inf. 26.116-17), Justinian answers that human desires - no matter how noble or well intentioned - neces sarily veer off course (disviando) if they are driven solely by the pursuit of honour and fame.65 Within the context of his own story and its intratextual commentary on Ulysses', Justinian's words solidly ground the metaphor of swerving, previously used by Beatrice to illustrate the presence of evil in the universal order (Par. 1.130-5), in the world of time and history. Clearly a warning for Dante, Justinian's negative assessment of the active mercurial spirits still allows for outstanding worldly accomplishments and even salvation. The 'rays of true love' are 'less living,' but they are not extinguished. Dante articulates - through Justinian his paradisal qualification of Ulysses' infernal veering here in the centre of the earth's shadow because this is the place where the divine and mortal realms figuratively meet.66 At this incarnational juncture, as the wayfarer's rectilinear flight from the earth to the heavens represents another stage in his journey back to the 'diritta via,' Justinian's 'disviando' underscores the fact that Dante has plenty of company, even among those who are now blessed, in his spiritual turnings from the straight path. Dante's sophisticated conception of the 'diritta via,' including possibilities for veering and correction, figures in all three realms of the afterlife as well as in the world of those still in 'our life.' The wayfarer himself is the most obvious example of a living soul who has wandered off the 'straight way,' as Beatrice makes painfully clear when she describes his life before and after her death. While she was alive, her countenance led Dante in the right direction ('dritta parte' [Purg. 30.123]). This direction, as Dante will proclaim to the evangelist John in the Fixed Stars, is the love of God, who is the highest good. Beatrice's earthly presence - like God's self-sacrifice underpinning the Incarnation - drew him from the sea 'de I'amor torto' [of perverse love] and placed him on the shore 'del diritto' [of right love] (Par. 26.55-63). However, after Beatrice had become 'less dear and less pleasing' (Purg. 30.129) to Dante following her death, he abandoned this straight and true road ('e volse i passi suoi per via non vera' [130]). In a passage that more closely parallels Justinian's swerving, Marco Lombardo, another well-informed political figure, emphatically lays blame for the sorry state of current affairs on humankind as opposed

108 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry to the heavens: 'Pero, se '1 mondo presente disvia, / in voi e la cagione, in voi si cheggia' [Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought] (Purg. 16.82-3).67 For individuals, the poet couples inordinate ambition - the cause of Justinian's swerving with pride, the sin that most vexes Dante himself (Purg. 13.136—8). Speaking of Provenzan Salvani, one of the proud penitents straining under the weight of his boulder in purgatory, Oderisi da Gubbio defines the painful punishment as fitting payment for such overweening arrogance: 'cotal moneta rende / a sodisfar chi e di la troppo oso' [such coin does he pay in satisfaction who yonder is too daring] (Purg. 11.125-6). The 'too daring' - troppo oso- of the souls on the terrace of pride is an apt epithet for the active fame-seekers appearing in Mercury for Dante's edification. In fact, the wayfarer's entrance into all of purgatory proper is described in terms that anticipate Justinian's conception of excessive ambition as earthly desires veering off course ('disviando'): 'fummo dentro al soglio de la porta / che '1 mal amor de 1'anime disusa, / perche fa parer dritta la via torta' [we were within the threshold of the gate which the souls' wrong love disuses, making the crooked way seem straight] (Purg. 10.1-3). Even those who make it to the temporal realm of salvation must have their 'crooked ways straightened out' by the mountain of purgatory, as Dante puts it to Forese on the terrace of gluttony (Purg. 23.125-6). If the 'rays of true love' are merely less intense because of the swerving ambition of the souls whose motivation for action is fame and honour, the 'mal amor' of the world, by making the crooked way ('torta') appear straight ('dritta'), keeps many souls from entering the blessed life at all. Harmful to the individual soul in addition to society, swerving off the straight path or mistaking it for the crooked one can lead to damnation, as Dante's imagining of Ulysses' veering sea voyage and twisted logic poignantly demonstrates. This is also the case for another figure in Justinian's textual genealogy, a heretic whose sepulchre bears the inscription 'Anastasio papa guardo, / lo qual trasse Fotin de la via dritta' [I hold Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew from the right path] (Inf. 11.8-9). According to the early commentators, Photinus, a decan of Thessalonica, corrupted the emperor Anastasius (whom Dante likely confused with Pope Anastasius n) with the heretical beliefs of Acacius, the patriarch of Constantinople who denied Christ's divine origin. Anastasius's heresy thus complements Justinian's Monophysitism in that one denied the divine, the other the mortal, nature of Christ. Each (mis)belief leads one off the 'diritta via,' as holding only f~Q

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one view in a truly 'both-and' dialectic inevitably leads to rancour and divisiveness. Prior to his conversion, Augustine also struggles with the 'heresy of Photinus,' and the lesson he learns is instructive for considering Dante's imagining of straight and oblique paths to knowledge and God. Far from decrying the heretical movements of his time, Augustine claims that 'the confuting of the heretics makes more eminent the opinions of the Church and the tenet which the sound doctrine maintains' (Con/ 7.19). He boldly concludes, closely following the example of Paul (1 Cor. 11:19), that 'there must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among the weak.' Dante similarly shows how the 'diritta via' requires the occasional 'disviare' to define and redirect itself. The poet, in fact, imagines a cosmic manifestation of such a beneficent turning from the straight and true when, as part of his celebration of divine order at the beginning of Paradiso 10, he praises the life-sustaining force of the zodiac, the slanting path 'oblico cerchio' - that carries the planets, the sun in particular (along the ecliptic): Che se la strada lor non fosse torta, molta virtu nel ciel sarebbe in vano, e quasi ogne potenza qua giii morta; e se dal dritto piu o men lontano fosse '1 partire, assai sarebbe manco e giu e su de 1'ordine mondano. (Par. 10.16-21) [And were their pathway not aslant, much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, and well-nigh every potency dead here below; and if it parted farther or less far from the straight course, much of the order of the world, both above and below, would be defective.]

It is significant that Dante exalts the virtues of this planetary swerving only after the wayfarer and Beatrice have passed out of the earth's shadow into the light of the Sun. So long as the celestial travellers are within the incarnational space of the conical umbra, images of harmful veering and obliqueness mark the spirits assigned to the three subsolar spheres. Like Dante himself, these marked souls had veered off the 'diritta via/ but they found their way back and now embody the paradoxical wholeness of incarnational dialectic: a union of both the preservation and resolution of their earthly struggles.

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4. The Poet's Incarnate Word Et verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis. [And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.] -John 1:14

It is the world of words that creates the world of things. - Jacques Lacan, Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis

Si comincio Beatrice questo canto. [So Beatrice began this canto.] - Paradiso 5.16

The poet's description of the wayfarer's physical ascent from the terrestrial paradise to the heavens through images of reflection and rectilinearity complements his representation of the spirits in the three subsolar spheres. While the wayfarer rises with his mortal nature to the celestial realm, the shadowed figures in the Moon, Mercury, and Venus bear the traces of their earthly struggles even in the lightscape of paradise. The two perspectives reflect one another in that they each point, one from below and the other from above, to Dante's incarnational dialectic of humanity and the divine. The earth's shadow, the cosmic meeting of the world and the heavens, is therefore the optimum location in the Commedia for Dante to present his most detailed commentary on the doctrinal and historical basis for the man-god. In the incarnational episode from Paradiso 7, Dante (through Beatrice) identifies Christ as the 'Verbo di Dio' [Word of God] (30), one of only two instances in the entire poem in which he explicitly states the logocentric expression of God's descent into humanity.69 This infrequency is striking when we consider that there are over seventy allusions to Christ in the Paradiso alone. That Dante, any less than Augustine, fails to explore the gospel image of the man-god as the 'Word made flesh' (John 1:14) would be strange to say the least.70 Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more attractive theological conception for the author of the 'poema sacro' (Par. 25.1). In fact, despite this lack of explicit commentary on the 'Verbo di Dio,' the poet fully exploits the notion of the incarnate word through specific verbal and narrative decisions in the cantos describing the spheres within the earth's shadow. Performing rather than expounding the most poetic manifestation of incarnational theology, Dante appropri-

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atcly makes the 'Word made flesh' his own incarnate word in the cantos treating the celestial spheres of the trivium, the language arts of grammar (Moon), dialectic (Mercury), and rhetoric (Venus). As he develops his poetics of the divine word, Dante does not leave behind his paradoxical 'both-and' conception of the Incarnation. Rather, he combines the two primary ideas of incarnational theology by imagining the descent of the Word as the rejoining of the word and the world, a variation on the union of humanity and the divine in one person/ Already in the Vita nuova Dante articulates a causal relationship between language and the referential world when the poet-lover relates the delights of Love to the word love itself: lo nome d'Amore e si dolce a udire, che impossibile mi pare che la sua propria operazione sia ne le piu cose altro che dolce, con cio sia cosa che li nomi seguitino le nominate cose, si come e scritto: 'Nomina sunt consequentia rerum.' (13.4) | the name of Love is so sweet to hear that it seems impossible that in most instances its own operations can be other than sweet, for names are consequent upon the things named, just as it is written: 'Names are consequent upon things.']

In that early yet sophisticated text, in which Dante structures the absence of closure around a failed incarnational union, the Latin dictum exemplified by Amore captures only one side of the mature poet's incarnational dialectic. After all, the idea that 'names/nouns follow from things' still privileges the referential world as the ground for language. But the incarnational image of the incarnate Word demands a more complete conception of the intrinsic relationship between words and the world. 'Things follow from words' - 'res sunt consequentia nominum' - is the poet's way of reversing the ontological hierarchy of words and the world. Dante's place for the primacy of the word over the world of things, like Lacan's assertion that 'it is the world of words that creates the world of things,' is rooted in a childlike apprehension of the world through language.72 The wayfarer's journey to God, in the end, is also a return to origins, the primal moment when raand nommawere at one. Of course, for Dante, the scriba Dei who legitimates his poetry of the incarnate word as a (self)-authorized imitation of God's poetics, it is the W7ord, not Lacan's 'world of words,' that creates the 'world of things.' Furthermore, the poet offers 'res sunt consequentia nominum'

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as a complement to, not a replacement for, the traditional idea that 'nomina sunt consequenda rerum.' His specular imagining of the reciprocity of res and nomina itself mirrors the incarnational union of the world and the Word. Dante's incarnational dialectic of words and the world is most easily seen in the thematic resonance of several of his characters' nomina proper, their given names. For example, Dante's presentation of Saint Dominic in the sphere of the Sun explicitly treats the saint's name as an interpretive key to his role - parallel to that of Saint Francis - in guiding the church. Not only is Dominic's name divinely inspired, conceived as the possessive ofDominus (Par. 12.67-79), but his parents' names are fulfilled through his birth: Dominic's father is 'veramente Felice' [Felice indeed] and his mother becomes, according to the Hebrew etymology of Giovanna, 'full of grace' (79-81). Yet Dante's most concentrated and illuminating poetry of names, technically known as interpretatio nominis, fittingly occurs in the earth's shadow. In the lunar sphere, Dante complicates the traditional conception of the Moon as both the planet of Diana, the virgin goddess, and the planet of mutability or inconstancy. Thus Piccarda, who recalls her status as a 'vergine sorella' [virgin sister] in the world (Par. 3.46), concludes her encounter with Dante by introducing the empress Costanza, mother of the emperor Frederick n. This great lady is now the brightest of the lunar spirits, not because of her noble lineage, but because of the fulfilment of her name ('Constance'). Though Costanza, like Piccarda, nominally broke her vows when she was forced to leave the convent, she nevertheless remained true to her promise — and thus to her name — in her heart: 'non fu dal vel del cor gia mai disciolta' [from her heart's veil she was never loosed] (117).74 With Folco of Marseilles, the Provencal poet who later became a Cistercian monk and finally the bishop of Toulouse, Dante hints at the reciprocity of nomina and res in the sphere of Venus. Folco, whose name echoes the Latin fulgo (T shine'), says that he burned with a passion even greater than that of Virgil's Dido (Par. 9.97-9).75 'Folco' now shines forth as brightly as the royal crown of Charles Martel ('Fulgeami gia in fronte la corona' [Par. 8.64]) and the radiant soul of Cunizza ('qui vefulgo [Par. 9.32]), two of his companions in the third and final subsolar sphere. In an episode suffused with burning light, Folco's name embodies Dante's conception of Venus as the sphere of unrestrained ardour. Admittedly, these etymological associations in the first and third spheres are limited in scope, serving at most as ornamentation to

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 113 Dante's presentation of the lunar and venusian spirits. However, at the centre of the earth's shadow, where the doctrine of the Incarnation is itself central, so too is the poet's meditation on nomina and res. To express the essential agreement between the name Amore and its meaning in the Vita nuova, Dante introduces the Latin phrase 'Nomina sunt consequentia rerum' with the words 'si come e scritto' [just as it is written], thereby implying a recognizable, authoritative source. In two essays from the 1920s, Bruno Nardi found Dante's citation, or words nearly identical to it, in the Corpus luris Civilis, the fundamental texts of Roman jurisprudence compiled by Tribonius and sixteen collaborators at the behest of the emperor Justinian in the early sixth century. 6 By the early thirteenth century, Accursius's Glossa Ordinaria, the definitive medieval edition of Justinian's legal works and their glosses, was a standard text in European law schools, at least one of which - Bologna Dante may have visited. Giuseppe Mazzotta underscores the importance of the causal relationship of nomina and res to medieval legal theory: for the glossators, 'law is the "vera philosophia" in that it connects words and deeds and it translates the generality of abstract principles into the 78 contingent particularities of justice.' The nomina/res theory was available to Dante grosso modo from traditions besides the legal one identified by Nardi. Both 'Nomina sunt consequentia rerum' and its specular inversion that I ascribe to Dante represent the 'naturalist' view of the relation between language and the referential world. This philosophical position goes back at least as far as Plato's Cratylus - hence 'cratylism' - where it received the vigorous opposition of 'conventionalism' that shaped subsequent debate in the ancient world and throughout the Middle Ages. " Thus Boethius, following Aristotle's conventionalist position, is emphatic that nouns (and verbs tor that matter) do not have meaning 'naturaliter' but rather 'secundum positioiiem hominum' or 'secundum placitum' - that is, according to human convention (De divisione 42) .80 Similarly, Augustine, whose philosophy of language is complex, with occasional nods toward cratylism, nonetheless views the relationship between verbal signs and their meanings as a social pact. He describes himself in De magistro as one who began his examination of the way to eternal life 'by considering not the realities themselves [rerum ipsarum] which are signified, but only the signs [signorum]' (8.21).81 Augustine further exposes this ontological gap between signifier and signified when he warns, in De doctnna chnstiana, that 'it is a servile infirmity to follow the letter and to take signs for the things that they signify [signa pro rebus, quae his sig-

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nificantur]' (3.9.13) ,82 His predominant conventionalism, grounded in a fundamental mistrust of language and its relation to truth, is most clearly seen in his distinction, following Paul (2 Cor. 3:6), between the letter which kills (occidit] and the spirit which gives life (vivificat). This distinction plays a crucial role in Augustine's conversion since it enables him to understand Scripture allegorically, that is, to grasp the figurative (or spiritual) meaning of certain difficult parts of the Bible which previously 'slew' him when he attempted to understand them 'ad litteram' (Conf. 5.14). More important, Augustine also follows Paul by equating the letter with the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament, thus figuring the New Testament as the life-giving spirit. ' In the Confessions Augustine tells how Ambrose, by removing the 'veil of the mystery,' 'spiritually laid open' passages from Scripture which 'according to the letter seemed to teach perverse doctrines' (6.4). Dante, by contrast, famously incorporates the literal level of meaning into his conception of allegory, thus imagining the relationship between the letter and the spirit in terms of metonymic contiguity rather than the sort of metaphoric substitution privileged by Augustine. The allegorical or spiritual sense is an expansion - not a replacement - of the literal meaning. In Augustinian terms, then, Dante must recuperate the Law in order to recuperate the Letter. Accordingly, the legal context of the nomina/res theory is essential for understanding Dante's semiotics, even if, as Curtius maintains, he was undoubtedly familiar with it from sources besides the Corpus luris and thirteenth-century legal commentary.84 In the law, albeit with a lowercase I, the poet finds a basis for imagining the union of language and the world. Dante ingeniously fig ures this union as an incarnational act within his presentation of the emperor whose name is virtually synonymous with law in the Middle Ages. Justinian, the principal character and sole speaker in Paradise 6, is certainly a fine choice as spokesman for the story of the Empire's illustrious history in his capacity as an outstanding ruler. An ambitious emperor who sought to reunite the divided Roman Empire, Justinian enables Dante to imagine nothing less than 'a reconciliation of secular and sacred history, of the interests of church and state and, on the contemporary stage, those of Guelph and Ghibelline.'85 But clearly his Christian name, which he takes pains to emphasize over and against his title ('Cesare fui e son lustini'ano' [I was Caesar, and am Justinian (6.10)]), serves to reinforce - if not to determine - Dante's decision to select him (and him alone) for the all-important narration.86 Indicative of the narQQ

Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 115 rative force of the emperor's name in the canto is his twofold allusion to God as 'la viva giustizia' [the living Justice] (88, 121). Dante could hardly find a more effective way to inscribe imperial history into God's providential plan than to have lustintano pay homage to divine giustizia in paradise. Within the poem's architectonic structure, the two unheeded and unnamed 'giusti' praised by Ciacco in Inferno 6.73, and the inhabitants of other cities who - unlike the corrupt Florentines condemned in Purgatorio 6 - at least have 'giustizia' in their hearts (130), now find their celestial realization in this emperor whose name 'lustiniano' - matches his deeds in Paradiso 6. Likewise, Romeo de Villeneuve, the mercurial spirit whose story is the dramatic coda to Justinian's canto-length narration, joins words and the world in his name. Critics are quick to point out the relevance of Romeo's sad fate at the hands of envy - his poverty and voluntary exile to Dante's own unjust banishment.8 Romeo's name situates the poet's personal identification with the character within the broader political and theological dimensions of his literary itinerary. In the immediate context, Romeo provides a spatial and cultural link to the speaker, for the centrepiece of Justinian's imperial history is the pax romana (Par. 6.801), the necessary political condition for redemption through Christ's crucifixion (82-90). Dante, characteristically, associates the harmonizing, peace-bringing myth of the Empire with Julius Caesar as well as with Augustus: Toi, presso al tempo che tutto '1 ciel voile / redur lo mondo a suo modo sereno, / Cesare per voler di Roma il tolle' [Afterward, near the time when all heaven willed to bring the world to its own state of peace, Caesar, by the will of Rome, laid hold of it] (55-7). When Justinian calls Romeo 'questo giusto' [this just man] (137), he firmly establishes justice as the motivation for Romeo's story as well as his own in one of the Commedia's most extensive portrayals of the Empire, the temporal manifestation of 'the living Justice.' At the same time, Justinian calls attention to the incarnational union of nomina and res embodied by Romeo insofar as 'questo giusto,' as Mariotti observes, is the same epithet with which Pontius Pilate releases Christ in order to be crucified: 'Innocens ego sum a sanguine iusti huiusr. vos videritis' [I am innocent of the blood of this just man. Look you to it] (Matt. 27:24) .88 The unfortunate circumstances shared by Dante and Romeo in Paradiso 6 also fulfil a previous story. In chapter 40 of the Vita nuova, within a discussion of various types of pilgrims, Dante explains that romei are pilgrims who travel to Rome - as opposed to palmieri, who visit Jerusalem, and peregrini, who travel to the sanctuary of Saint James in Galicia. He

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then specifies that the pilgrims whom he met in Florence and with whom he thought to share news of Beatrice's death through his poetry were indeed romei, pilgrims on their way to the Holy City. Justinian's description of Romeo as 'persona umile e peregrina' [a man of lowly birth and a pilgrim] in Paradiso 6.135 thus completes the circle begun in the Vita nuovawhen Dante sent a sonnet- the final poem in the 'libello' - relating the celestial experience of his own 'peregrine spirito' [pilgrim spirit] to a group of romei. Now travelling through the heavens in his (fictionalized) flesh, Dante meets an exemplary Romeo, a pilgrim who has found everlasting peace in 'quella Roma onde Cristo e romano' [that Rome whereof Christ is Roman] (Purg. 32.102). Although it does not appear in Paradiso 6, Romeo's well-known geographical moniker 'Villeneuve' or 'Villanova' ('New Town') - enables Dante to reconcile his imperial and theological figurations of the heavenly city as both Rome and the 'New Jerusalem.'90 Unjustly exiled from Florence, the unnamed but ubiquitous city of the Vita nuova, Dante could not help but raise his painful identification with Romeo in the Commedia to a poetic level on which the sign of injustice remains, side by side with its vindication, under the law of the villa nova.

The reciprocity of nomina and res in selected figures is one way in which Dante informs his celestial vision with the logocentric conception of the Incarnation. On the one hand, the poet's performance of the incarnate Word in paradise may seem at odds with his representational claims. Heaven, after all, is practically defined by its wrzrepresentability. On the other hand, because Dante thrives most when confronted with a representational challenge, the Paradiso - perhaps more so than the first two cantiche - is the poem in which, to follow Barolini's interpretive line, what Dante actually does need not follow from what he says, particularly what he says he cannot do. The ineffability of paradise means, paradoxically, that Dante's words become the poem's content as well as the poet's means of expression. By reifying his verbal medium in the earth's shadow, from the narrative unit of the canto down to the syllables - even the letters - of his rhymes, Dante makes his word incarnate in the astronomical union of humanity and the divine.91 Evincing the flexibility of Dante's incarnational dialectic, the same poetic device is a vehicle for both in malo and in bono representations of the Incarnation. In the episode of the thieves (Inf. 24—5), the poet's con-

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cen(ration of homonym rhymes - the same words with different meanings - underscores the principle underlying his conception of theft. By effacing the boundary separating self from other ('what's yours is mine'), Dante's thieves mock the incarnational union of two complete natures in the single person of Christ. As the simultaneous erasure and preservation of the distinction between Same and Different, between God and humankind, the Incarnation is represented, in malo, by the horrible and perverse exchanges between the human and reptilian forms of the seventh bolgia. In the realm of the blessed, on the other hand, Dante's equivocal rhymes support the in bono representation of the Incarnation that accords with paradise as the realm where saved human souls partake of divine glory. This is especially true in the first three spheres, the region where the terrestrial and celestial realms meet in the earth's shadow. The equivocal rhyme palma thus figures Rahab's heavenly rank in Venus (her victory palm) as a sign of Christ's crucifixion (his nailed palms) precisely where the earth's shadow is identified for the first and only time in the poem (Par. 9.118-23).9~ The paradoxical union of uniformity and variation in the Incarnation is at the very core of Dante's conception and representation of paradise. Beatrice's exhaustive, theological explanation of the moon spots in Paradiso 2, concluding with the consecutive equivocal rhymes lega (139, 141) and luce (143, 145), depends on this incarnational dialectic of unity and difference: E come 1'alma dentro a vostra polve per different! membra e conformate a diverse potenze si risolve, cosi 1'intelligenza sua bontate multiplicata per le stelle spiega, girando se sovra sua imitate. (Par. 2.133-8) [And as the soul within your dust is diffused through different members and conformed to different potencies, so does the Intelligence deploy its goodness, multiplied through the stars, itself circling upon its own unity.]

Beatrice's refutation of Dante's earlier view - first articulated in Convivio 2.13.9 - that the lunar marks are the result of an admixture of 'i corpi rari e densi' [rare and dense matter] (Par. 2.60) signals an epistemological shift from the rational, scientific discourse of the philosophical treatise to the incarnational poetry of the Comnwdia, the Paradiso in

118 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry particular. The episode, lasting exactly one hundred verses (49-148), serves a precise pedagogic function by establishing the wayfarer's need for a new way of knowing in the divine realm. In the final analysis, the dichotomy between faith and reason collapses when theological beliefs become self-evident truths. Driven by a paradisal logic that celebrates rather than shuns paradox, Dante uses this collapse to reconcile the doctrinal uniformity of heaven with the differential demands of poetic representation. As Piccarda explains that the individual wills of all the celestial spirits, even those appearing in the lower spheres, are one within the divine will (Par. 3.79-81), so Justinian praises the uniformity of paradise that arises from the proportionate relationship between the merits and rewards of the blessed (Par. 6.118-20). Even the differences among the spirits their distribution 'di soglia in soglia' [from threshold to threshold] (3.82), their collocation in 'diversi scanni' [different ranks] (6.125) are subsumed under the sign of an overall uniformity and equality. In the lunar sphere, the wayfarer's confusion of the spirits with their reflections triggers another corrective lesson with epistemological consequences extending beyond the immediate context: 'Non ti maravigliar perch' io sorrida,' mi disse, 'appresso il tuo pueril coto, poi sopra '1 vero ancor lo pie non fida, ma te rivolve, come suole, a voto: vere sustanze son cio che tu vedi, qui rilegate per manco di voto.' (Par. 3.25-30) ['Do not wonder,' she said to me, that I smile at your childish thought, since it does not yet trust itself upon the truth, but turns you, after its wont, to vacancy. These that you see are real substances, assigned here for failure in their vows.'] The equivocal rhyme voto does more than underscore Dante's failure to distinguish the actual figures from their reflections. Like a false reflection, the wayfarer's tendency to turn from truth, his movement 'a voto [to vacancy], mirrors the deficiency of the lunar souls, their 'manco di voto' [failure in their vows]. More important, the dialectical structure of this particular equivocal rhyme - the fact that voto stands both for the vow and its unfulfilled status - captures the union of sameness and difference at the heart of incarnational theology and Dante's transforma-

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tion of this doctrine, 'poetando,' into his Paradiso. Repeating and embodying Beatrice's dialectical use of voto, Piccarda explicitly attributes the 'lowly' appearance of the lunar spirits to the 'voti' that remained 'voti,' the unfulfilled vows: 'E questa sorte che par giu cotanto, / pero n'e data, perche fuor negletti / li nostri voti, e voti in alcun canto' [And this lot, which appears so lowly, is given to us because our vows - voti - were neglected and void - voti - in some particular] (Par. 3.55-7). Piccarda's internal repetition of voti, following Beatrice's rhyming example, leads the wayfarer to ask if the lunar spirits desire a 'more exalted place' in the celestial hierarchy (64-6). The answer lies in the polysemous word voto itself inasmuch as the incarnational union of uniformity and variation in homonyms also explains how 'ogne dove / in cielo e Paradiso' [everywhere in heaven is paradise] despite the unequal distribution of divine grace throughout the universe (88-90). In Dante's verses devoted to the sphere of Mercury and the souls appearing therein, from the end of canto 5 through cantos 6 and 7, the single occurrence of an equivocal rhyme points to a deficiency far more severe than the 'empty vows' of the lunar spirits. Piccarda and Constance, though their relative wills failed in the face of violence and kept them from the glory of martyrdom, nevertheless enjoy the fruits of their blessed if imperfect lives in paradise. As Justinian lets his dramatic narration of the eagle's flight through history serve as the evidence upon which the wayfarer (and the reader) must judge the sorry state of current affairs, it appears the same will not be true for many Guelfs and Ghibellines: Omai pnoi giudicar di quei cotali ch'io accusai di sopra e di lor falli, che son cagion di tutti vostri mali. L'uno al pubhlico segno i gigli gialli oppone, e 1'altro appropria quello a parte, si ch'e forte a veder chi piu si falli. (Par. 6.97-102) [Now you may judge of such as I accused but now, and of their offenses, which are the cause of all your ills. The one opposes to the public standard the yellow lilies, and the other claims it for a party, so that it is hard to see which offends the most.]

The emperor takes no prisoners: the two major political factions are equally accountable for all that is wrong in contemporary society. Con-

120 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry sistent with the political charge of Paradiso 6, the equivocal rhyme indicates the crimes of the Guelfs and the Ghibellines combined ('lor f a l l t ) as well as the difficulty in determining which group 'offends the most' ('piu si fall?). In this case, the coexistence of same and different in the rare rhyme word reflects two combative political parties that do considerable - and equal - harm to the imperial eagle, the secular sign of divine justice: the one by opposing it (Guelf) and the other by appropriating it (Ghibelline). Justinian is a central figure in the poem's incarnational drama because of his alleged Christological heresy as well as his embodiment nominal and historical - of justice and the law. While the orthodox doctrine, decreed by the Council of Chalcedon, stated that Christ possessed two complete natures - human and divine - in a single person, the Monophysitism attributed to Justinian held that Christ had a single, divine nature.93 Justinian credits Pope Agapetus i for turning him to the 'fede sincera' [true faith] before he undertook his massive compilation and overhaul of Roman law (Par. 6.13-18). By re-presenting, challenging, and correcting Justinian's putative belief that there was 'una natura in Cristo ... non piiie' [one nature and no more ... in Christ] (14), Dante enlists the emperor for both in bono and in malo incarnational purposes. As a poetic response to the Monophysitism that Justinian himself repudiates in Paradiso 6, Dante frames the canto with an extraordinary display of doubles and repetitions that rhetorically insists on the dualnatured incarnational tenet allegedly opposed by the emperor for much of his life. Justinian first appears toward the end of Paradiso 5 in a passage that exhibits the poet's creative flexibility in turning out rhymes for his terza rima. In the space of twenty verses (5.110-29), Dante not only succeeds in ending fifteen of them with the vowel sound i but he creates a rhyme from the doubling of this vowel (it) as well as a rima composta (Di, di) based on this sound. The acoustic effect is dizzying: 'del lume che per tutto il ciel si spazia noi semo accesi; e pero, se disii di noi chiarirti, a tuo piacer ti sazia.' Cosf da un di quelli spirti pii detto mi fu; e da Beatrice: 'Di, di sicuramente, e credi come a dii.' (Par. 5.118-22) ['we are enkindled by the light that ranges through all heaven; therefore, if you desire to draw light from us, sate yourself at your own pleasure.' Thus

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was said to me by one of those devout spirits; and by Beatrice, 'Speak, speak securely, and trust even as to gods.']

This doubling at the level of the letter - passing from Justinian (disii) to Dante-narrator (pit) and finally to Beatrice (dii) - soon forms part of a larger binary pattern as the poet ends Paradiso 5 by literally introducing the next canto: 'e cosi chiusa chiusa mi rispuose / iiel modo che '1 seguente canto canta [and, thus close enclosed, it answered me in such fashion as the next canto sings] (138-9). The 'double doubling' of these final verses of canto 5, as Roger Dragonetti notes, sets the stage for the repetitions and doubles that characterize Justinian's speech in canto 6.94 Dragonetti lists eight examples of such paired syntactic constructions in the canto, including a pair of striking repetitions from the emperor's presentation of Romeo toward the end of the canto: E dentro a la presente rnargarita luce la luce di Romeo ... (6.127-8) (And within this present pearl shines the light of Romeo ...]

e se '1 mondo sapesse il cor ch'elli ebbe mendicando sua vita afrusto afrusto, assai lo loda, e pin lo loderebbe. (6.140-2) [And if the world but knew the heart he had while begging his bread morsel by morsel, much as it praises him it would praise him more.]

However, Dante places the exclamation point on his binary linguistic display immediately following the emperor's canto-length speech. In the opening verses of Paradiso 7, the poet coins the reflexive verb adduarsi ('to en-two oneself) to describe the action of a 'doppio lume' [double light] suddenly appearing above the singing mercurial spirit (7.6). Like the multiple doubles at the end of canto 5 and the numerous repetitions of canto 6, Dante's description of the redundant doubling of Justinian's 'double light' that 'en-two's itself,' just as the spirit is about to disappear from view at the beginning of canto 7, stands out as a poetic corrective to the emperor's acknowledged failure to recognize Christ's double nature. c > After live tercets of direct discourse at the beginning of Paradiso 5, Dante interrupts Beatrice's speech to tell us that she continued to speak

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uninterruptedly: 'e si com' uom che suo parlar non spezza, / continue cosi '1 processo santo' [and as one who does not interrupt his speech, she thus continued her holy discourse] (5.17-18). Justinian's speech in Paradiso 6 is noteworthy because even the narrative interruptions are removed, thus enabling the emperor's discourse to flow continuously ('does not interrupt his speech') from the first word of the canto to the last. This is the only time in the Commedia, as commentators regularly observe but only rarely and vaguely discuss, that a single voice sings an entire canto.96 More than a formal tribute to the solemnity of Justinian's elegant portrayal of the flight of the imperial eagle through history, Dante's huge narrative hapax is also his most sophisticated incarnational statement of the poem. On the one hand, the poet mimics the emperor's Christological error - his belief in 'one nature and no more' (14) - by electing him as the speaker of the unique, 'single-natured' canto. On the other hand, when combined with the repetitions and doubles of cantos 5-7, Dante's integral canto completes his corrective response to this same Monophysitism. While these doubles, from the ii rhymes of Paradiso 5.119-23 to the 'en-two-ed' double light of Paradiso 7.6, served as reminders of the two natures - human and divine - of the orthodox doctrine adopted by Justinian under the direction of Pope Agapetus i, the unified canto narratively figures the Incarnation as the union of these two natures in a single person. Dante thus plays out the drama of Justinian's alleged heresy as well as its resolution. Whereas Dante's celebration of unity through his monovocal Paradiso 6 is purely verbal, the conventional image of unity opposed to the divisiveriess of heresies and schisms is the 'seamless garment' (tunica inconsutilis) worn by the crucified Christ. Because it is seamless, 'woven from the top throughout,' the Roman soldiers cast lots for it instead of dividing it (John 19:23-4). Dante himself employs this textile metaphor of unity in a section of his De monarchia that treats a key moment of the imperial story narrated by Justinian in Paradiso 6. Rehearsing a familiar argument, Dante describes the monarchy under Augustus as the only time in providential history - from the fall to the present - that the entire world was at peace (1.16.1). This 'Monarchia perfecta' was therefore the appropriate secular condition under which God came into the world to redeem fallen humankind. Within an incarnational context that includes the Son of God about to assume human form ('hominem assumpturus'), Dante introduces the image of Christ's seamless tunic as a metaphor for the integrity of the Empire. However, he does so in order to foreground, not the traditional idea of wholeness, but rather

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the first violent tear - sdssuram— in the universal social fabric: 'But what the state of the world has been since that seamless garment was split for the first time by the nail of cupidity, this we can read - would that we could not see it as well!' (1.16.3). In the Paradiso, where the unity of the textile metaphor becomes the unity of the text itself, Dante shifts his focus from the divisiveness of the world to the integrity of the Word through the uninterrupted words of a renowned - and reformed leader of the World. By turning every word in Paradiso 6 over to Justinian, Dante willingly relinquishes authorship of the canto so that his poetry can in fact represent itself as incarnational. He anticipates this process at the beginning of the previous canto where he invests Beatrice with authorship. Commenting on her words with the ostensibly banal 'Si comincio Beatrice questo canto' [So Beatrice began this canto] (5.16), Dante pronounces what is arguably the most remarkable verse of the entire Commedia from the perspective of the poem's representational order: when Beatrice spoke at this point during the wayfarer's celestial voyage she - not the poet - 'began' Paradiso 5. By crediting Beatrice - a character in the poem - with beginning the canto, the poet unabashedly crosses the ontological line separating his recollection and telling of the journey from the journey itself. Dante therefore takes literally - or rather, he presents as literal - the controlling metaphor of the poem as journey, thus inscribing the incarnational union of the Spirit and the Letter the 'Word made flesh' - in the body of his poetry.97 Dante's ontological blurring in the Paradiso, his poetic representation of the union of the Spirit and the Letter, is his incarnational response, in bono, to his writerly participation in the episode of the thieves in the Inferno. There, too, the poet crosses the line separating his experience (what he saw) from his recounting of it through memory. With a slip of his pen (Inf. 25.144), Dante slips out of his role as scribe and usurps God's role as creator of the unprecedented metamorphoses of the thieves. The poet thereby joins the Web of Pride by writing himself as a 'thief whose transgression parodies the miraculous union and humility of the Incarnation. Now in paradise, where transgression becomes trasumanar, Dante revisits this effacement of the distinction between res and verba in accordance with the Johannine conception of the Word made flesh. Once again, the earth's shadow, as the astronomical and poetic meeting place of humanity and the divine, is Dante's incarnational crucible, this time as the ideal location for the Letter to be redeemed through the Spirit as they become one.

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Although Justinian disappears in a flash at the beginning of Paradiso 7, his presence is still felt as the wayfarer ponders the apparent paradox of the crucifixion as just vengeance that is itself justly punished. First articulated by the emperor (Par. 6.92-3) and then reformulated by Beatrice (Par. 7.20-1), this theological problem is the point of departure for the lecture that occupies the rest of Paradiso 7. However, before Beatrice begins to trace the events of providential history that could not have been fulfilled 'se '1 Figliuol di Dio / non fosse umili'ato ad incarnarsi' [if the Son of God had not humbled himself to become incarnate] (11920), Dante recalls his inability to ask his guide for clarification in language that enacts the essence of the incarnational discussion to follow: Ma quella reverenza che s'indonna di tutto me, pur per Be e per ice, mi richinava come 1'uom ch'assonna. Poco sofferse me cotal Beatrice e comincio, raggiandomi d'un riso tal, che nel foco faria 1'uom felice. (Par. 7.13-18) [But that reverence which is wholly mistress of me, only by Be and by ice, bowed me like one who drowses. Short while did Beatrice suffer me thus, and she began, irradiating me with a smile such as would make a man happy in the fire.]

By first dividing and then reuniting a word already heavily invested with theological meaning in his poetic imagination, Dante figuratively takes the two primary representations of the Incarnation - Christ as man-god arid Christ as Word - and joins them into a single image. As Justinian's 'double light is en-two-ed' (Par. 7.6), so Dante 'doubles' the structure of his incarnational dialectic.98 Beatrice, who was so named in life even by those who did not know her name (Vita nuova 2.1), properly embodies the miraculous union of the Word and the world in Dante's incarnational poetry.

Chapter Three

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission

I turn now to the episodes of the Sun and Mars not merely because they immediately follow upon Dante's imagining of the shadowed spheres of the Moon, Mercury, and Venus according to medieval cosmology and the poem's textual chronology. Rather, the solar and martian cantos (Par. 10-17) constitute the focus of my final chapter because they function together as a unit that provides a sweeping view of the incarnational itinerary traced in this study. As the wayfarer and Beatrice move toward the centre of the planetary universe, thereby accompanying the reader to the centre of the Paradiso, the poet's incarnational vision appropriately looks back to its origins in the Vita nuova while previewing its completion in the final verses of the Commedia. In this sense, Dante's middle way, 'nel mezzo del cammin,' is the centre around which his incarnational circle revolves. While the cantos of the Sun lay the trinitarian foundation for Dante's incarnational poetry, the cantos of Mars illustrate Dante's transformation - or 'transfiguration' — of the earthshattering climax of the Incarnation, Christ's crucifixion, into a 'poetics of martyrdom.' 1 Taken together, the two episodes also show how Dante's poem is a supreme product of medieval Christian thought at the same time that it boldly transgresses traditional theological lines. As Dante superimposes his personal cross of exile onto the cross of light in Mars, the 'sign of the Son of man in heaven' (Matt. 24:30), he envisions a new type of citizen - what I call the intellectual activist - as an incarnational response to the traditional dichotomy of the active and contemplative lives. To make this case for what I perceive to be Dante's most innovative and daring figuration of incarnational doctrine in the Commedia, I will explore three interrelated lines of inquiry: an elevation of Cicero's Somnium Scipionis to the level of Virgil's Aeneid 6 as a subtext for the way-

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farer's encounter with his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, in the heaven of Mars; a Platonic-Chartrian reading of the wayfarer's resolve to stand 'ben tetragono' [truly foursquare] in the face of future hardship, a metaphor routinely glossed solely in an Aristotelian-Thomist key; and an incarnational approach to rhetoric as it is figured in Cicero's foundation myth and Brunetto Latini's commentary. By thus placing Cicero and Plato on an equal footing with Virgil and Aristotle, I propose a more comprehensive examination of Dante's incarnational dialectic of defeat and triumph in the centre of paradise. Moreover, the lifting of Brunette's voice from the depths of hell to the heaven of Mars will enable me to end this study on a metacritical note as I use the familiar (and familial) pairing of Cacciaguida and Dante's fatherly mentor to offer a dialectical alternative to the oppositional hermeneutics - in bono / in malo, 'good dad' / 'bad dad' - that at times bedevils even the most nuanced discussions of these central figures in the Commedia. Dante not only represents his poetry as incarnational but he also inscribes an incarnational hermeneutics in his text, a way of reading - as we will see with Brunetto and Cacciaguida - that paradoxically embraces both opposition and fulfilment: a dialectic that is truly divine. 1. Lifting the Hermeneutic Veil: Circling the Cross in the Sun and Mars si costellati faceano nel profondo Marte quei raggi il venerabil segno che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo. [so did those beams, thus constellated, make in the depth of Mars the venerable sign which joinings of quadrants make in a circle.] - Paradiso 14.100-2

It is a general conviction that geometry, with all its truths, is valid with unconditioned generality for all men, all times, all peoples, and not merely for all historically factual ones but for all conceivable ones. - Edmund Husserl, The Origin of Geometry

Dante's celebration of the Holy Trinity in the opening tercet of Paradiso 10 - the 'primo e ineffabile Valore' [primal and ineffable Power] gazing on his Son with the Love eternally breathed forth by both - is a clear departure from the incarnational doctrine of the first nine cantos. The apex of Dante's incarnational poetry in those cantos was Beatrice's

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description of the 'magnifico processo' - a truly divine dialectic requiring the humble descent of the Son of God into humanity (7.103— 20). Indeed, Dante closed an important circle of his incarnational poetry at the end of the wayfarer's sojourn in the shadowed spheres when Folco located Venus at the tip of the conical umbra while identifying Rahab as the first venusian spirit released from Limbo at 'Christ's triumph' (9.118-20). But the closure of one circle opens another within the poet's incarnational imagination. In fact, circles themselves play a prominent incarnational role in the rest of the Paradiso, beginning with the circular/circling rings of wise spirits in the Sun. When Dante figuratively places the cross of martyred martian souls in the centre of these concentric circles in the central cantos of the Paradiso (a preview of the final vision of Christ's human figure - 'nostra effige' [our image] within his divine circle), he uses his incarnate words to translate theological concepts into visual images. Put differently, Dante shifts his representational mode from exposition to ecphrasis by lifting the veil off his incarnational poetry as the wayfarer and Beatrice move out of the earth's shadow into the light of the Sun/Son. The poet's representational turn from telling to showing as he lifts the 'veil' of the earth's shadow both performs and challenges the predominant figuration of Christian hermeneutics in the medieval imagination. Based primarily on Paul's interpretation of the veil ('velamen') used by Moses to cover his face as a figurative veil concealing the gospel message from non-believers (2 Cor. 3:12—16 and 4:3), this conception is central to Augustine's understanding (again following Paul) of the relationship between the letter and the spirit. Thus in the Confessions, as I observed in the last chapter, Augustine tells how Ambrose revealed the spiritual meaning of Scriptural passages which 'according to the letter seemed to teach perverse doctrines' by removing 'the veil [velamento] of the mystery' (6.4). Umberto Eco has recently described this hermeneutics, in which, according to Augustine's formulation, the interpreter must 'remove the veil' covering words in order to 'pierce into their sense' (Cow/. 3.5), as a form of'hermetic semiosis.'2 Eco charts the influence of this interpretive tradition, from its triumph in the second century C.E. with the appearance of the Corpus Hermeticum through the transmission of these texts and their hermetic doctrine into the Middle Ages and the modern era. Macrobius, for instance, in his extensive commentary - from the late fourth or early fifth century - on Cicero's Sommurn Stipionis, deems worthy of philosophical treatment a form of 'fabulous narrative' [narratio fabulosa] in which 'a decent and dignified

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conception of holy truths, with respectable events and characters, is pre sented beneath a modest veil of allegory [sub pio figmentorum velamine]' (1.2. II). 3 While such an allegorical conception most closely conforms with the 'allegory of poets' that Dante replaces with the 'allegory of theologians' in the Commedia,4 it is nevertheless true that Dante's insistence on non-literal meaning hidden beneath the 'veil' of his verse (itself figured as 'literally' true) encourages the sort of hermetic activity carried out by the 'Followers of the Veil,' precursors of the 'Diabolicals' who populate the universe of Eco's second novel, Ilpendolo diFoucault? Dante aggressively calls for hermetic semiosis at threshold moments in the poem that indeed promise 'holy truths' when the hermeneutic veil is removed. At the critical infernal juncture before the city of Dis, after Virgil has been rudely rebuffed by the fallen angels, the poet makes the first of two exhortations to his reader to 'look beneath the veil' of his poetry, in this case verses that he himself describes as 'strange': O voi ch'avete li 'ntelletti sani, mirate la dottrina che s'asconde sotto '1 velame de li versi strani. (Inf. 9.61-3) [O you who have sound understanding, mark the doctrine that is hidden under the veil of the strange verses!]

While attempts to identify the precise content of Dante's 'dottrina' might be the task of intellects more 'folli' than 'sani,' critics are in basic agreement that some sort of spiritual revelation is involved. John Freccero, for example, interpreting the 'strange verses' primarily in relation to the Medusa episode preceding the address, argues that they are nothing less than 'an exhortation to conversion,' a call to 'behold the light of the Gospel' beneath the Veil of Moses.'6 Focusing instead on the arrival of the angel - 'da ciel messo' [messenger from heaven] - immediately following the address, Mark Musa interprets this infernal episode in relation to its purgatorial counterpart, the second of Dante's hermeneutic veils: 'Aguzza qui, letter, ben li occhi al vero, / che '1 velo e ora ben tanto sottile, / certo che '1 trapassar dentro e leggero' [Reader, here sharpen well your eyes to the truth, for the veil is now indeed so thin that certainly to pass within is easy] (Purg. 8.19-21). Applying Saint Bernard's model of Christ's three advents (PL 183.35-56), Musa reasons

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that 'Dante, in asking us to consider the deep significance of the two angelic interventions, is asking us to think of the First and Second Advents of Christ.'7 Dante also centres his vision on Christ in the cantos of the Sun and Mars, this time by imagining two - going on three — cir cles of wise spirits followed by the cross of martyred warriors. As the poet lifts the 'veil' of the earth's shadow, at a point in paradise corresponding to his instructions to the reader to peak under the veil of his verse at liminal moments in hell and purgatory, he again offers the man-god as the substance of his 'dottrina.' Only now he also challenges the conventional 'veiling' that separates the letter from its spiritual significance by making the veil visible - a literal figure - in the guise of the earth's shadow. If Dante's infernal address to the reader 'enacts at the metanarratological level the same impasse-calling-forth-interpretation that is illustrated within the narrative,' 8 his cosmic depiction of the hermeneutic veil in the Paradiso both enacts and exposes the veil of Scriptural interpretation as an artificial barrier between literal and spiritual truth. By thus disclosing the figural grounding of figural hermeneutics, Dante once more goes a full step farther than Augustine (and therefore Paul), for whom the distinction between the spirit and the letter is the sine qua non of proper interpretation. This is the essential way in which the poet - to modify his verse and qualify a trend in modern Dante criticism - 'is not Augustine, is not Paul.'9 For the poet who claims that his words are themselves as true as Scripture, the spirit and the letter are one, each preserving its integrity in their incarnatioiial union. As Dante goes beyond Paul in his probing of the grounding and implications of figural hermeneutics, he literally moves his protagonistself ahead of the Apostle with the former's entrance into the fourth celestial sphere. The poet's ostensibly banal declaration that the human mind is limited in imagining and representing the upper heavens because 'sopra '1 sol non fu occhio ch'andasse' [our eyes never knew a light brighter than the sun] (10.48) reminds us that the wayfarer, who began his journey to the afterlife feeling grossly inferior to Paul (and Aeneas [Inf. 2.10-36]), is now about to see and hear things in the heavens that surpass the vision of even his chosen predecessor; Paul, in the end, 'only' made it to the tertium caelum (2 Cor. 12:2) and therefore never reached - much less saw beyond - the solar heaven.10 Since, according to Dante's cosmology, Paul's vision was limited to the shadowed portion of paradise, the wayfarer's journey to the Sun and subsequent spheres signals a fresh opportunity for divine revelation. In the solar cantos, after Thomas and Bonaventure have magnanimously cele-

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brated each other's order by paying homage to its founder, the 'double dance' of wise spirits sings in praise of- not Bacchus or Apollo - 'ma tre persone in divina natura, / e in una persona essa e 1'umana' [but Three Persons in the divine nature, and it and the human nature in one Person] (Par. 13.26-7). Dante here expresses the inextricability of the Trinity and Incarnation in two verses of poetry worthy of the finest theological disquisitions, several authors of which appear within the two solar rings. As he removes the hermeneutic veil of the earth's shadow, the poet does not squander his chance to weave the fine threads of these two verses, the 'arcana verba' which Paul says 'it is not granted to man to utter' (2 Cor. 12:4), into a celestial tapestry depicting the interrelationship of the supreme Christian mysteries: three persons in a single nature and two natures in a single person. This tapestry is Dante's theological and artistic solution to the failed union of the Vita nuova: there the trinitarian subtexts remained apart from, even competed with, the poet's incarnational figurations. In Dante's Christian epic the two principles underlying his religious vision are necessarily joined. The poet prefigured this theological interdependence in Infernt 2, the proto-paradisal canto, when he grounded the Commedias first incarnational representation - 'un sol volere e d'ambedue' [a single will is in us both] (139) - in the divine intervention of 'tre donne benedette' [three blessed women] (124). Now that the wayfarer has overcome all obstacles and limits of shadow - the cavernous gloom of hell, the shadow of his mortal flesh in purgatory, the cosmic darkness cast by the earth's shadow - he is ready at last to experience the mysteries of his faith as they are figured forth by the celestial spirits constituting the circles of the Sun and the cross of Mars. Dante weaves his trinitarian-incarnational design slowly, beginning with a group of twelve effulgent, melodious souls who encircle the wayfarer and his celestial guide: 'Io vidi piu folgor vivi e vincenti / far di noi centre e di se far corona, / piu dolci in voce che in vista lucenti' [I saw many flashing lights of surpassing brightness make of us a center and of themselves a crown, more sweet in voice than shining in aspect] (Par. 10.64-6). When considered in relation to the struggles recounted in his Vita nuova, Dante's simple act of imagining himself joined with Beatrice at the centre of a blessed circle takes on enormous significance. It is one thing for the 'garland' of wise spirits to make the 'glorious lady' of Dante's early life the centre of their loving attention and thus their circle in the Sun (10.92-3). The centrality of Beatrice in paradise is consistent, after all, with her explicitly Christological symbolism in the Vita nuova and her

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place in the trinitarian chain of grace reported in Inferno 2." However, insofar as the wayfarer himself is 'cotanto glonosamente accolto' [thus gloriously received] by these same spirits (11.12), who together form a 'gloriosa rota' [glorious wheel] (10.145), the poet provides a vivid reminder of the distance travelled along the literary-spiritual path connecting the young lover of his lyric past with the protagonist of his epic vision. Now that Dante, by the grace of his poetry if not God, has transformed Beatrice from a projected object of desire into a spiritual guide, he is finally able to regain the centre of the circle which is love (Vita nuova 12.4). The threefold circling of the singing spirits around Dante arid Beatrice further establishes their central location as a privileged point, aptly termed 'Christ's place' by Schnapp. The poet hints at the reciprocity of the Trinity and Incarnation when the Christocentric wayfarer is directed to repeat the circling gesture of the spirits surrounding himself and Beatrice - 'si fuor girati intorno a noi tre volte' [they had circled three times round about us] (Par. 10.77) - by 'circling' his sight ('col viso / girando [101-2]) around the spirits as Thomas identifies them. After Bonaventure has identified the members of his group, the second circle of wise spirits, Dante again emphasizes his choice location, this time as the point encircled by 'the double dance' (13.20-1). The poet thus depicts an important feature of Bonaventure's own theology, his elaborate figuration of Christ - the Mediator between God and humankind - as the 'central point of all understanding' (Collationes in Hexaemeron 1.11). a Glossing an earlier statement that Solomon had no second, Thomas metaphorically defines this central point as the site of truth: 'Or apri li occhi a quel ch'io ti rispondo, / e vedrai il tuo credere e '1 mio dire / nel vero farsi come centre in tondo' [Now open your eyes to that which I answer you, and you will see your belief and what I say become in the truth as the centre in a circle] (13.49—51). With this incarnational image of the wayfarer's belief and Thomas's words becoming one in truth, we are reminded that the centre of the circle is indeed the place held by Christ in Dante's imagination. Thomas's explanation of Solomon's unsurpassed vision as arising from his profound wisdom (Par. 10.112-14) is also a mini-lesson in the dialectical method at which the scholastics excelled. Demonstrating the importance of making distinctions, Thomas affirms that while Dante was right in thinking that Adam and Christ were the only two perfect human beings in absolute terms, he was wrong in not realizing that Thomas's claim for Solomon's unmatched vision obtained from a compari-

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son with other earthly rulers only (13.103-8). With this distinction in mind, the wayfarer's belief about Adam and Christ is not contradicted by Thomas's declaration of Solomon's singular standing. Thomas thus reasons according to the sort of perspective-dependent dialectic previously exhibited by Beatrice in Paradiso 7 to explain how the crucifixion of Christ was both just (based on his humanity) and unjust (based on his divinity). Because Anselm, as I showed in the introduction, was particularly adept at employing this dialectical model, it is appropriate for Dante to write him into the poem as one of the wise spirits - in the second circle, to be precise - singing and dancing in harmony with Thomas in the sphere of the Sun (12.137). Masters of dialectical reasoning, Anselm and Thomas, as well as several of their solar companions, also had a keen appreciation of the 'both-and' structure of Christ's being that is at the heart of Dante's incarnational dialectic. Thus it is perhaps in homage to these Christian sages that the poet creatively represents the two central acts of his solar vision, the successive hagiographies of Francis arid Dominic, as part of a larger, incarnational performance. The dialectical structure of this performance accords with the principle of concordia discors as the two mendicant orders, Franciscan and Dominican, preserve their distinct characteristics (derived from their two founders) within a complementary framework: Thomas, a Dominican, praises Francis, while Bonaventure, a Franciscan, presents the life of Dominic, with both speakers sure to point out the shortcomings of their own orders. This complementarity extends to the composition of the twin circles themselves. Siger of Brabant and Joachim of Flora, theological thorns in the respective sides of Thomas and Bonaventure, now flank the two saints in paradise precisely because of these earthly antagonisms. ' In the heaven of the Sun, in contrast to the three shadowed heavens, all signs of tension disappear, not only between Dominicans and Franciscans or between intellectual enemies in life (Thomas/Siger, Bonaventure/Joachim) but even within the spirits themselves. Unlike their predecessors in the Moon, Mercury, and Venus, blessed souls who nevertheless either came up short in fulfilling vows or exhibited an excessive attachment to fame or propensity for passion, there is nothing 'manco' or 'troppo' about the solar lights. Of course, consistent with his overall dialectic of the afterlife and the world of history, Dante still manages to use the Sun to cast a revealing shadow back on his errant society as Thomas and Bonaventure excoriate their respective orders for straying from the righteous ways of Francis and Dominic.16 Thomas's composite depiction of Francis and Dominic - the one 'tutto serafico in

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ardore' [all seraphic in ardor], the other 'di cherubica luce uno splendore' [a splendor of cherubic light] (Par. 11.37-9) - takes on a specifically iricarnational cast when he justifies his decision to speak of Francis only: 'De 1'un diro, pero che d'amendue / si dice 1'un pregiando, qual ch'om prende, / perch' ad un fine fur 1'opere sue' [I will speak of one, because in praising one, whichever be taken, both are spoken of, for their labors were to one same end] (40-2). Consonant with the relationship between the two concentric circles, harmoniously joined in dance arid song ('e moto a moto e canto a canto' [12.6]), Bonaventure later repeats this gesture of incarnational dialectic in his corresponding introduction to the life of Dominic: 'Degno e che, dov' e 1'un, 1'altro s'induca: / si che, com' elli ad una militaro, / cosi la gloria loro iiisieme luca' [It is fit that where one is, the other be brought in, so that, as they warred for one same end, so together may their glory shine] (12.34-6). The complementary nature of the differences between the two saints therefore makes them simultaneously 'un'/'altro' and 'amendue' in a dialectical union of difference and sameness. As such, Francis and Dominic constitute a paradisal alternative to such incarnationally challenged couples as Francesca and Paolo ('Love brought us to one death' [Inf. 5.106]), Ulysses and Diomedes ('two within one fire' [Inf. 26.79]), the Alberti brothers ('They issued from one body' [Inf. 32.58]), and Ugolino and Ruggieri ('two frozen in one hole' [Inf. 32.125]).17 Dante supports his figurative joining of Francis and Dominic into an 'amendue' displaying the union of sameness and difference typical of incarnational dialectic with a series of metaphoric marriages. First and foremost among these matrimonial unions in the Sun is the traditional conception of the church as the bride of Christ. In a passage generating the sort of spiritually sensual energy associated with the Song of Songs, the poet concludes Thomas's presentation of the first circle of spirits by comparing their coordinated dance and song to the pull and push — 'lira e urge' - of the gears and levers of a mechanical clock at the hour when the church, 'la sposa di Dio' [the Bride of God], gathers to offer prayers to 'lo sposo' (Par. 10.139-48). To introduce his biography of Francis (and, by extension, Dominic), Thomas himself uses the topos of the church as 'la sposa di Dio' - that is, 'la sposa di Cristo' -when he explains that Providence commissioned these two 'princes' to strengthen the love of the bride for 'colui ch'ad alte grida / dispose lei col sangue benedetto' [Him who, with loud cries, espoused her with the blessed blood] (11.323). Consistent with the generous reciprocity that defines the presentations of Francis and Dominic, Bonaventure adapts Thomas's spousal

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metaphor to his more robust, militaristic discourse, saying that the divine ruler came to the aid of his bride, 'Christ's army' (12.37), by sending 'two champions' [due campioni] (43-4). As marriage is the controlling metaphor for the union of the community of believers with their Redeemer, Darite fittingly sets into relief the sacred unions of Francis and Dominic, outs landing figurae Christiin their own right, with their beloved spouses. Thus Francis, while still a young man, took as his bride Lady Poverty and joined himself to her - 'le si fece unito' - in public before his father (11.62). Their happy, harmonious relationship then inspired others to join Francis and his spouse as members of a spiritual family (76-84). Dominic's marriage, in this case to 'la Fede' [the Faith], was even more remarkable in that the espousal ritual occurred along with his entrance into the Christian community through baptism (12.61-2). Despite the metaphoric nature of these holy unions, each based on some form of personification or figural allegory, they nonetheless point to the carnal and, more important, incarnational - conception of matrimony inaugurated with the union of Adam and Eve: 'et erunt duo in carne una' [and they shall be two in one flesh] (Gen. 2:24). Although Dante does not treat the Incarnation thematically in the cantos of the Sun, he keeps the redemptive narrative before his reader's eyes with explicit references to events from the life of Christ scattered throughout the episode, as well as with the first of four sets of Cristorhymes in the Paradise}a He twice alludes to the Virgin Mary as the future mother of Christ, both instances triggered by the figure of Solomon, the most beautiful light adorning the inner circle of solar luminaries. In the first case, Thomas approves of the wayfarer's opinion that, while Solomon reigns supreme over secular rulers, Adam's human perfection was matched only by that of the Virgin's divinely fathered child (Par. 13.82-4). Solomon himself contributes to the wayfarer's celestial education, in the final lesson of the solar episode, when he explains that the blessed sages will still be able to look upon one another after they have been reunited with their bodies as their increased luminosity is matched by the increased powers of their physical organs (14.43-60). By comparing Solomon's 'modest voice' to that of 'the Angel to Mary' (14.34-6), the voice of Gabriel anointing the Virgin as the future mother of God, Dante again emphasizes Solomon's high standing among his wise brethren at the same time that he properly places the greatest earthly king in the service of the ruler of the universe. However, the cantos of the Sun, no doubt in anticipation of the poet's conception of Mars, foreground not the Annunciation of the

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Christ-child but the blood sacrifice of the crucifixion that seals his redemptive mission. Against the backdrop of Boethius, his kindred spirit who came to the glory of heavenly peace 'da martiro / e da essilio' [from martyrdom and exile] (10.128-9), arid Francis, the subject of his story who 'per la sete del martiro' [in thirst for martyrdom] preached of Christianity before the proud Sultan (11.100), Thomas defines Christ as the man 'forato da la lancia' [pierced by the lance] (13.40), one whose matrimonial union with the church was consummated 'col sangue benedetto' [with the blessed blood] (11.33). Already within the circles of the Sun, then, we begin to perceive the image - as yet faint - of Christ's crucifixion, directly represented only through Thomas's description of humankind's abandonment of Poverty, who 'wept with Christ upon the Cross' (11.72). As the image of the crucified Christ takes hold in the cantos of the Sun and Mars, Dante retrospectively glosses the astronomical setting of the opening canto of the Paradiso when he described the vernal equinox, the propitious time for the celestial voyage, as the intersection of four circles with three crosses (1.37-42). Certainly symbolic of the conjunction of the four cardinal and three theological virtues, 19 the poet's configuration of 'quattro cerchi'joined with 'tre croci' also emerges as his astronomical-geometric blueprint for the foundational iconography of the final cantica. Because this intersection occurs at the point where the physical sun - 'the lamp of the world' - rises above the horizon, Dante appropriately begins to revisit and develop the interdependence of cruciform and circular imagery when the wayfarer arrives in the solar heaven of paradise. The circle, formerly limited in the Paradiso to the harmonious turning of the venusian souls with their angelic intelligences - 'd'un giro e d'un girare e d'una sete' [with one circle, with one circling and with one thirst] (8.34—5) - and the revolving influence of the heavens on the earth and humankind ('La circular natura' [8.127]), dominates the solar episode through repeated and varied references to the spatial organization of the wise spirits.20 Although the figure of the cross, as the sign of Mars, is less visible in the cantos of the Sun, Dante traces it - in filigree, as it were - within another astronomical representation of the spring equinox, the crossing of the plane of revolution of the annual path of the sun - the ecliptic - with the circle of the equator (10.7-9). Designated in Platonic cosmology with the Greek letter chi, this celestial intersection is an apt image of the cross writ large,21 much as the earth's shadow figures the reciprocity of the mortal and divine realms in the subsolar spheres of Dante's cosmology.

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A cosmic depiction of the cross, the Platonic ' chi in the sky' conveys the particularly incarnational dimension of the Christian symbol, which is more directly associated with Christ's passion and resurrection.22 As the doctrine of the Incarnation describes a unity of Difference (two distinct, complete natures) and Sameness (complete union in a single person), so the Greek letter chi- the Latin x— represents the way in which the Demiurge of Plato's creation story joins the circles of Same and Different cut from the fabric of the world-soul:23 This whole fabric, then, he split lengthwise into two halves; and making the two cross one another at their centres in the form of the letter X, he bent each round into a circle and joined it up, making each meet itself and the other at a point opposite to that where they had been brought into contact. [Tune hanc ipsam seriem in longum secuit et ex una serie duas fecit casque mediam mediae in speciem chi Graecae litterae coartavit curvavitque in orbes, quoad coirent inter se capita.] (Timaeus 36B-C)

Astronomically, the circle of Same (eundem) represents the daily revolution - from east to west - of all the planets and stars, and the circle of Different (diversum) corresponds to the apparent longer-term motion of the planets against the background of the fixed stars in the reverse direction. The incarnational implications of the crossing of these two circles - 'quella parte / dove 1'un moto e 1'altro si percuote' [that part where the one motion strikes the other] (Par. 10.8-9) - are reinforced by a well-documented liturgical interpretation of the Christological monogram for the prayers preceding the medieval Canon of the Mass. Beginning with the words Vere dignum, this preface was commonly indicated by a shorthand liturgical formula comprising the initial letters of the opening Latin words — (V from Vere; D from dignum) — joined with a line passing through the centre that often intersected with the letters in the form of a cross. From the twelfth century to Dante's day, liturgists viewed this monogram as a symbol of Christ's incarnational union of divine and human natures. Thus John Beleth, in his Rationale divinorum officiorum,a writes that, since the circular D figures Christ's divine nature and the Vpoints to his human nature (originating in the Virgin), the tractulus connecting the two letters is 'the cross through which human things are joined with divine ones' [crux est per quam humana sociantur divinis] (PL 202.53).24 While R.E. Kaske and Gian Roberto Sarolli, in independent investigations, have marshalled evi-

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dence from the liturgical commentaries on this ubiquitous monogram to identify Christ as the 'Five Hundred, Ten, and Five' prophesied in the 'hard enigma' of Purgatorio 33.37-45,2:) the union of Christ's divine and human natures through the figure of the cross also supports an incarnational reading of this supreme Christian symbol — from the Platonic chi to the flashing cross of martyred warriors - in the cantos of the Sun and Mars. Dante inscribes the cross, whose full thematic and iconographic force is reserved for Mars, into the heaven of the Sun through a multi-layered use of chiasmus, the grammatical figure defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a 'crossing, diagonal arrangement' in which 'the order of words in one of two parallel clauses is inverted in the other.' Etymologically linked to the Greek verb chiazen ('to mark crosswise') and ultimately to the letter c.hi, chiasmus finds its nearest Latin equivalent in decussatio based on the symbol Xfor the number ten ('decem'). 2 Thus Cicero renders the joining of the circles of Same and Different described by Plato (Timaeus 36B-C) - the same passage that elicits Chalcidius's comparison to the letter chi ('in speciem chi Graecae litterae') with the verb decussare ('mediaeque accommodans mediam quasi decussavif [Timaeus 8]). 27 Dante adopts these celestial and grammatical crossings as the narrative principle shaping Paradiso 10-12: Thomas first introduces his circle before presenting the life of Francis, while Bonaveiiture, reversing this order, begins with the story of Dominic and then identifies himself and his companions. Consistent with the predominant solar image, Dante brings out the circular effect of this simple, chiastic arrangement (identification - story - story - identification), in which the beginning meets the end, by having Bonaveiiture 'circle back' to Thomas in his gracious conclusion (12.142—5). At the beginning of canto 14, after Thomas returned to centre stage for most of canto 13 to gloss his previous characterization of Solomon, the poet captures this circular movement of chiasmus in a single verse when he compares the reciprocity between Thomas's concluded speech and Beatrice's imminent words to the flow of water in a round vase 'Dal centre al cerchio, e si dal cerchio al centro' [From the center to the rim, and so from the rim to the center] (14.1).28 Chiastic in structure and circular in theme, this verse exemplifies Dante's effort to wed the cross of the incarnational man-god with the circles - the second, in particular - of the Holy Trinity. Dante begins to establish this trinitarian context for the Incarnation, alreadv introduced with the interrelations of the 'ineffable Power,'

138 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry 'Son,' and 'Love' of Paradiso 10.1-3, by increasing the crossings and circlings of chiasmus in the final acts of his solar performance. Setting the trinitarian doctrine of Paradiso 10 to music, the poet describes how each of the blessed spirits sang three times of 'Quell' uno e due e tre che sempre vive / e regna sempre in tre e 'n due e 'n uno, / non circunscritto, e tutto circunscrive' [That One and Two and Three which ever lives, and ever reigns in Three and Two and One, uncircumscribed, and circumscribing all things] (14.28-30). This melodious tercet - at once chiastic, circular, and trinitarian - marks the joyous response of the spirits to Beatrice's petition for them to satisfy the wayfarer's unspoken desire to know if they will retain their luminous appearance and possess the physical capacity to behold one another once they have been reunited with their bodies. Solomon, who answers this request, imitates the trinitarian chiasmus of verses 28-30 in narrative form through his repetition of light, desire, and vision. After first stating that 'chiarezza' follows 'ardore' which follows 'visione' (40-1), Solomon syntactically reverses the order of the three key concepts, though his meaning, of course, remains the same: 'onde la vision crescer convene, / crescer 1'ardor che di quella s'accende, / crescer lo raggio che da esso vene' [so that our vision must increase, our ardor increase which by that is kindled, our radiance increase which comes from this] (49-51). These 'syntactical criss-crossings' in canto 14, combined with the celestial chi and the chiastic arrangement of the presentations of Thomas and Bonaventure, certainly point ahead to the cross of Mars. In the meantime, however, Dante allows chiasmus to flourish in the light and warmth of the Sun so that 'the sign of the Son of man' (Matt. 24:30) can blossom in the circles of the Trinity. Indeed, though hardly enough for a full view, the poet lifts the veil of his verse for a glimpse of the trinitarian circles in which the Incarnation is centred just as the wayfarer is about to leave the fourth heaven. Uncertain as to what he actually saw, Dante describes the mysterious arrival of an ephemeral third ring of lights encircling the well-defined, concentric circles of Thomas and Bonaventure: E si come al salir di prima sera comincian per lo ciel nove parvenze, si che la vista pare e non par vera, parvemi li novelle sussistenze cominciare a vedere, e fare un giro di fuor da 1'altre due circunferenze. (Par. 14.70-5)

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[And as, at rise of early evening, new lights begin to show in heaven, so that the sight does, and yet does not, seem real, it seemed to me that there I began to perceive new subsistences making a ring beyond the other two circumferences.]

The sheer brightness of the outer ring of souls overwhelms Dante and occasions an immediate vocative to the Holy Spirit - 'Oh vero sfavillar del Santo Spiro!' [Oh true sparkling of the Holy Spirit!] (14.76) - that leaves little doubt as to the trinitarian inspiration of the three solar circles. Dante's successive rings generally resemble Bernardus Silvestris's three resplendent rays — the second arising from the first and the third from the first two - emanating from the supreme divinity in the realm of pure, spiritual light (Cosmographia 2.5.3). More precisely, the poet's dramatic depiction of this nebulous third circumference is tantalizing evidence that he envisioned it as an image of the third and final status mundi, the age of the Holy Spirit as conceived by Joachim of Flora, the Calabrian Abbot 'who was endowed with prophetic spirit' (Par. 12.1401) .30 Joachim described this condition of spiritual understanding, whose imminent arrival would follow the sequential states of the Father and the Son, as 'no longer beneath the veil of the letter but in the full freedom of the spirit' [iam non sub velamine litere, sed in plena spiritus libertate].31 Thus, if Dante felt the effects of Joachim's prophetic vision, he could hardly do better than to express them in the light of the solar heaven after treating the spheres within the hermeneutic veil of the earth's shadow. At any rate, the two circles of wise spirits, later enclosed by the mysterious third circumference of 'novelle sussistenze' [new subsistences] clearly anticipate the poet's representation in the final canto of two circles reflecting one another 'come iri da iri' [as rainbow by rainbow] and breathing forth a third circle to create a composite image of the Holy Trinity (Par. 33.115-20).32 Within the second, reflected circle, Dante will see 'our image' painted with the same colour as the circle itself (130-1). The perceived fit- conceptual and spatial - of this 'imago al cerchio' (137—8), granted by a final 'flash' -fulgore— of divine grace, will therefore represent the poet's ultimate figuration of the incarnational union of two complete natures, human and divine, in the single, second person of the Holy Trinity. All of this is prefigured in the heaven of the Sun, where at the centre of three concentric circles, the place of AmoreznA Christ, the mortal wayfarer together with his blessed Beatrice is located. This is as it should be, for only one who is still in 'nostra vita' - and in the Commedia the wayfarer is unique in this regard - can effec-

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lively stand in for 'nostra effige,' the human form of Christ that appears within the divine circle of the final vision. However, Dante and Beatrice do not stand alone at the centre of the circles in the Sun. We have seen how, with syntactic and narrative crisscrossings and astronomical intersections, the poet traces a cross in the circles to illustrate the necessary reciprocity of the Trinity and Incarnation, 'tre persone in divina natura, / e in una persona essa e 1'umana' [three Persons in the divine nature, and it and the human nature in one Person] (Par. 13.26-7). He explicitly joins the predominant iconographic representations of the Sun and Mars, and thus underscores the trinitarian basis for his incarnational dialectic, at the narrative intersection of the two heavens. Aware that he has been transported from the Sun - 'vidimi translate' - soon after being overwhelmed by the lights of the third circumference, the wayfarer immediately perceives the celestial sign of Mars: Corne distinta da minori e maggi lumi biancheggia tra ' poli del mondo Galassia si, che fa dubbiar ben saggi; si costellati faceano nel profondo Marte quei raggi il venerabil segno che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo. (Par. 14.97-102) [As, pricked out with greater and lesser lights, between the poles of the Universe, the Milky Way so gleams as to cause even the wise to question, so did those beams, thus constellated, make in the depth of Mars the venerable sign which joinings of quadrants make in a circle.] While Dante's transitional passages and images are often impressive, this one is exceptional even for the Commedia. By geometrically constructing the figure of die cross as he divides a circle into quadrants, the poet provides a seamless, logical progression from the circles of blessed sages in the Sun to the flashing cross of martyred warriors in Mars.33 More important, Dante finally sets before his reader's eyes an image of the nimbus Christi, the cross-in-circle design that Virgil likely saw as the 'sign of victory' crowning Christ - 'un possente' [a Mighty One] - during the harrowing of hell (Inf. 4.53—4) .34 Thomas E. Hart has amply documented the recurrence of this figure in the buildings and mosaics of Ravenna that undoubtedly fired Dante's imagination in his final years as he wrote the Paradiso?3 while H.D. Austin previously located Dante's

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 141 inspiration for the circumscribed cross closer to the poet's native domicile, in the facade of San Miniato al Monte (Purg. 12.100-2) .S6 Shaped by such visual representations, Dante's iconographic itinerary of the nimbus Chnsti extends from his description of Florence at a crucial juncture in the Vita nuova to his imagining of the incarnational figure at the intersection of the Sun and Mars in the celestial city. Although the poet, with the reticence that is typical of his 'libello,' hardly offers a detailed map of his unnamed city, he directs our attention to a particular point of the city - geometrically located - in the final action of the narrative before the last recorded sonnet and the unreported vision with which the story comes to its open-ended close. Observing that this was the time of year in which pilgrims set out for Rome to view the Veronica, 'the blessed image that Jesus Christ left us as a visible sign of his most beautiful countenance,' Dante singles out a group of these wmei who were passing 'per una via la quale e mezzo de la citta ove nacque e vivette e morio la gentilissima donna' [down a street which runs through the center of the city where the most gracious lady was born, lived and died] (Vita nuova 40.1). That this 'via' passing through the heart of Dante's Florence - a city considerably larger than Cacciaguida's Florence but still enclosed by a walled 'cerchia' (Par. 15.97) - could be thought of as one arm of a Greek cross, the figure formed by two perpendicular diameters of a circle, is perfectly consistent with the Christological, even crucifixional, context of the scene: the poet-lover seeks to inform these pilgrims, who are journeying to behold the image of Christ miraculously impressed on the cloth with which h wiped his face while carrying his cross to Calvary, that Florence has lost her own sacred figure, 'la sua beatrice' (sonnet 40.12). The pilgrims, too, would then appear grief-stricken as they passed 'per lo mezzo de la dolorosa cittade' [through the center of the desolated city] (40.3).^7 This cross-in-circle figuration of Florence is admittedly partial since, to complete the design, the reader must imagine a second 'via' perpendicular to the first. Yet this very 'partiality' is in keeping with the principle of incompletion that seems to govern the entire work as the poet-lover intuits but does not understand Beatrice's incarnational significance, her participation in both the human and divine realms as a woman 'venuta da cielo in terra/a miracol mostrare' [come down/from heaven to earth to reveal miraculousness] (sonnet 26.7-8). In the Inferno, on the other hand, the same Christocentric image is, if anything, overdrawn, perhaps in accordance with the cacophony and confusion of lower hell. Here Dante gives the abstract grid from the Vita

142 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry nuova three dimensional form through the topographical structure of the eighth circle. When seen from above, the bridges extending over the ten concentric ditches like the spokes of a wheel might convey the image of a single nimbus Christi or even several such circumscribed crosses, depending on the number of bridges (we are never told how many) and their angles of intersection.38 The wayfarer, though he could hardly appreciate the scene below, experienced just such an aerial view of the Malebolge as he descended aboard Geryon (Inf. 17.106-36). In recompense, the poet's narrative reconstruction of the layout of the eighth circle even before the travellers arrive in this region (Inf. 18.118) - a seemingly misplaced authorial intrusion - may suggest to the reader the cross-in-circle image that the frightened passenger was unable to grasp. The reader might also imagine, as one fifteenth-century commentator did, that the intersections of the bridges ('scogli') with the embankments ('argirii') separating the ditches 'rappresentavano a Dante figura di croce' [represented for Dante the figure of the cross] .'w The presence of the cross in Malebolge is then reinforced by the contrapasso reserved for Caiaphas, his father-in-law, Annas, and other members of the Council of Jerusalem: because their hypocrisy sanctioned Christ's crucifixion, they themselves are crucified to the floor of the sixth bolgia (Inf. 23.109-26). Dante's imagining of the cross-in-circle, passing from the lightly drawn cartography of Florence in the Viva nuova to the rock-hard though broken - topography of the Malebolge in the Inferno, finally emerges in its full incarnational splendour between the Sun and Mars as the 'veiierabil segno / che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo' [venerable sign which joinings of quadrants make in a circle] (Par. 14.101-2). More than a smooth transition between heavens and episodes, then, the circumscribed Greek cross is, like the Veronica, a 'true icon' in the strict sense (vera icona), a pictorial representation of the Word incarnate. 'Flashing forth' Christ, this cross is in effect Christ insofar as the poet's customary assertion of ineffability - 'non so trovare essempro degiio' [I can find for it no fit comparison] (14.105) - is here more (or less) than a trope: the inadequately represented image remains in fact invisible. Richly depicted, on the other hand, is the structure of the cross itself as the martian lights traverse it 'Di corno in corno e tra la cima e '1 basso' [From horn to horn and between the top and the base] (109). From this point forward in the Paradiso, the reader is asked to hold in mind this bare if spectacular cross, a figure waiting to be adorned with 'nostra effige.'

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Presenting the cross of Mars as the figure formed from the joining of quadrants in a circle, Dante poetically performs the activity carried out with a compass and a straight-edge known as geometric construction. The poet alludes to another, far more elaborate, geometric construction in the final verses of the Paradise when he completes the cross-iii-circle design of canto 14 by comparing the wayfarer's attempt to grasp the mystery of the Incarnation - the relationship of Timago al cerchio' - to the geometer's search for the principle needed 'to measure the circle' (Par. 33.133-8). This is the legendary problem better known as the squaring - or quadrature - of the circle. Simply stated, quadrature requires the use of a compass and a straight-edge to construct a square having area equal to that of the original figure, in this case a circle. A problem which fascinated the Greeks (notably Hippocrates of Chios), quadrature has important philosophical and aesthetic implications. William Dunham discusses Hippocrates' successful quadrature of the lune (c. 440 B.C.E.) — a crescent shaped figure - and hints at the significance of this mathematical problem for the idea of order underpinning Dante's conception of the Commedia as an imitation and reflection of the work of the divine artificer: Undoubtedly, the Greeks' fascination with quadrature went far beyond the practical. For, if successfully accomplished, quadrature would impose the symmetric regularity of the square onto the asymmetric irregularity of an arbitrary plane figure. To those who sought a natural world governed by reason and order, there was much appeal in the process of replacing the asymmetric by the symmetric, the imperfect by the perfect, the irrational by the rational. In this sense, quadrature represented not only the triumph of human reason, but also the inherent simplicity and beauty of the universe itself.40

Inasmuch as quadrature, particularly the squaring of the mystical circle, represented the quintessential way to impose order on disorder, it clearly held great appeal for Dante as well. The Italian poet, however, displayed scant confidence that the circle could actually be squared, preferring instead to figure the geometrical problem as an adynaton expressing the limitations of human reason rather than its triumph. Thus in De monarchia Dante adds the quadrature of the circle to theological and historical problems that he considers beyond the ken of human reason (and therefore no ground for dispute): Tor example, the geometer is ignorant of how to square the circle, but he does not dispute

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about it' [Nam geometra circuli quadraturam ignorat: non tameii de ipsa litigat] (3.3.2). Similarly, he argues in the Convivio that, as Jupiter's 'fine temperance' is challenged by Mars and Saturn, so geometry's 'certainty' finds resistance in the point and the circle: 'che lo punto per la sua indivisibilitade e immensurabile, e lo cerchio per lo suo arco e impossibile a misurare a punto' [for the point cannot be measured because of its indivisibility, and it is impossible to square the circle perfectly because of its arc] (2.13.27). As the finale to the Commedia, then, Dante appropriately chooses the impossible geometric feat - from the wealth of impossibilia at his disposal - to convey the awesome power of the Incarnation, his supreme theological and poetic principle. Although it is tempting to imagine that 'the direct connection between squaring the circle and the Incarnation is Dante's,'41 this does not appear to be the case. In his Rhythmus de incarnatione Christi, Alan of Lille anticipates Dante's simile of geometric impossibility by juxtaposing the essential goal of quadrature - 'In directum curvatura / Circuli convertitur' [the curvature of the circle is changed into a straight line] - to the paradox of the Incarnation.4' Alan's poem on the mystery of the Incarnation consists of seven stanzas, one for each of the liberal arts, that show - as the final couplet of each stanza states - how 'In this union of the Word, every rule is confounded' [In hac Verbi copula / Stupet omnis regula].43 Squaring the circle - or, in Alan's terms, converting the curvature of the circle into a straight line - is therefore an appropriate geometric metaphor for the transcendent logic of the union of two complete natures, human and divine, in a single person. But why should Dante resort to geometry for his incarnational finale in the first place? Alan, after all, celebrates the wonder of the Incarnation with examples drawn from all seven liberal arts, so Dante is hardly limited to the geometry that, according to H.D. Austin, 'many, even indulgent' readers may find 'cold' and 'almost abstract.'44 On the one hand, Austin's reasonable assumption points to an epistemological and aesthetic curtain separating many - probably most - modern readers of the Commedia from the intellectual and artistic culture of its creator. A manifestation of C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' model, the dichotomy between humanistic and scientific discourses that - at least according to Richard Rorty and Umberto Eco - continues to flourish, 4ri modern critical responses to Dante's geometer simile bear little or no resemblance to Benvenuto da Imola's late fourteenth-century assessment of the passage as simply 'uiiam comparationem elegantissimam' [a very elegant comparison].46 Even Singleton, whose work generally seeks to recapture the cultural

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matrix of the Corn-media, tends, in an unusually animated gloss, toward a poetry/science dichotomy alien to Dante and the intellectual climate of the late Middle Ages: 'No poet was ever more daring in his final simile, in so long a poem, daring to bring into this very end the notion and image ("cold," as in geometry or mathematics!) of the geometer who studies the circle in the vain attempt to square it.' 47 On the other hand, Dante's yoking of quadrature to the Incarnation evinces an understanding of geometry that is indeed transcultural. Far more than a heuristic tool or stage to be mastered on the way to God, Dante's divine geometry respects the foundational figuration of geometry within the Western imagination from well before the poet's time down to the modern era. 'Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here,' the inscription allegedly inscribed by Plato over the door to his Academy, attests to geometry's status as the fountainhead of knowledge among the ancients. Plato himself amply demonstrates the pre-eminence of geometry in his Timaeus, the Platonic dialogue available to the Middle Ages — the only one - primarily through Chalcidius's partial Latin translation.49 Although Chalcidius's translation stops immediately before Plato's detailed description of the five geometric solids corresponding to the elements and the cosmos, prominent in earlier sections is the Demiurge's fashioning of the created universe in explicitly geometric terms. Thus, he molded the world's body, in accordance with its nature, into a spherical shape, 'equidistant every way from centre to extremity - a figure the most perfect and uniform of all; for he judged uniformity to be immeasurably better than its opposite' (33B). He then placed the world soul in the centre of this spherical universe, 'and so he established one world alone, round and revolving in a circle ...' (34A). While Plato, in the last translated section of the dialogue, addresses himself to those schooled in the most valued branches of learning - 'omnes eruditionis iugenuae vias' - for his exposition of the arrangement and origin of the elements (53B-C), Chalcidius leaves no doubt that the philosopher intends to make his case 'secundum geometricam rationem' [according to geometrical reasoning] (CCCLV). More to the point, the final words of Chalcidius's influential commentary foreground the foundational figuration of geometry in Plato's thought. Geometry, according to Chalcidius, is Plato's vehicle for imagining the structure of the elemental bodies and the cosmos because it is 'unwavering' - minime nutat - and always offers 'certain, unassailable demonstrations' [certas et inexpugnabiles ... probationes]. With this Platonic pedigree it is hardly surprising that theoretical geometry, particularly in the wake of twelfth- and thirteenth-

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century translations of Euclid's Elements, was regularly used 'as a way into the philosophical and theological problems that really intrigued medieval professors and their students.'110 A recognized repository of incontrovertible truth, geometric reasoning has proved invaluable to thinkers and artists - from before Plato to Dante and beyond - intent on demonstrating or representing the most abstract tenets of their belief systems. Edmund Husserl, motivated by his phenomenological conception of space, provides insight into the transcultural, foundational imagining of theoretical geometry exemplified by Dante's quadrature simile at the end of the Commedia. In The Origin of Geometry, an important philosophical meditation written toward the end of his life (1936), Husserl probes 'the most original sense in which geometry once arose, was present as the tradition of millennia, is still present for us, and is still being worked on in a lively, forward development' (158).51 In this 'inquiry back into the submerged original beginnings of geometry' (158), Husserl's bracketing of empiricist, factual history in favour of what he calls 'an internal history' of geometry (180) is appropriate for the geometric object's exemplary otitological status. ' [PJeculiarly supertemporal' from the start, geometry 'is the existence of what is objectively there for "everyone" (for actual and possible geometers, or those who understand geometry)' (160). Geometry's ideal objectivity is absolute because it transcends even the contingencies of language: The Pythagorean theorem, [indeed! all of geometry, exists only once, no matter how often or even in what language it may be expressed. It is identically the same in the 'original language' of Euclid and in all 'translations'; and within each language it is again the same, no matter how many times it has been sensibly uttered, from the original expression and writing-down to the innumerable oral utterances or written and other documentations. (160)

Commenting on this passage, Derrida captures the boldness of Husserl's insight: 'The ideal Objectivity of geometry is absolute and without any kind of limit. Its ideality - tertiary - is no longer only that of the expression or intentional content: it is that of the object itself.'3'1 Geometry's infinite translatability - its supertemporal, singular existence - thus derives from its unique ontological status. In its purest form, geometry embodies the semiotic confluence of expression, meaning, and being that underpins the theological conception of the incarnate Word. Of

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course, in Dante's poem the Incarnation is the event which eludes even the 'geometricam rationem.' The wayfarer, after all, cannot find - non ritrova- the key to circle squaring, and it takes a flash of divine grace to complete his vision of the incarnational union of the human imago and the divine circle. Yet this same geometrical failure paradoxically sets into greater relief the absolute, ideal objectivity of geometry described by Husserl. God can square the circle even if, as the medieval poet intuited and a mathematician proved over five centuries later, human beings cannot.3' 2. The Bitter-Sweet Lessons of Cacciaguida and Scipio ... te senatus, te omnes boni, te socii, te Latini intuebuntur, tu eris unus in quo nitatur civitatis salus; ac ne multa: dictator rern publicam constituas oportet, si impias propinquorum man us effugeris. [... the Senate, all good citizens, the Allies, and the Latins will look to you; upon you alone will the safety of the state depend; and, to be brief, as dictator you must needs set the state in order, if only you escape death at the hands of your wicked kinsmen.] - Cicero, Somnium Scipionis

In lui tutta ia publica fede, in lui ogni speranza, in lui sommariarnente le divine cose e 1'umane parevano esser fermate. [On him all public faith, all hope, and, in a word, all things human and divine seemed to rest] - Boccaccio, Trattatello in laude di Dante

When Dante laments his failure to represent adequately the way in which the cross of Mars flashed forth Christ, he trusts that this deficiency will be pardoned by fellow believers, namely, 'chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo' [he that takes up his cross and follows Christ] (Par. 14.106). This proverbial expression is Dante's adaptation, as commentators regularly note, of an important gospel passage: 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me' [Si quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum, et tollat crocem suam, et sequatur me] (Matt. 16:24)."^ However, another passage from Matthew, the negative face of 16:24 and one of Christ's harshest declarations, stands more closely behind the poet's verse: 'he that taketh not up

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his cross and followeth me is not worthy of me' [qui non accipit crucem suam, et sequitur me, non est me dignus] (10:38).55 This warning fittingly occurs within a larger presentation of the radical violence of Christ's salvific promise. Announcing that he 'came riot to send peace, but the sword' [non veni pacem mittere, sed gladium] (10:34), this bellicose Jesus concludes his thought with the ultimate paradox: 'He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me shall find it' [Qui invenit animam suam, perdet earn: et qui perdiderit animam suam propter me, inveniet earn] (10:39). As the swords of Dante's martian soldiers replace the pens of his solar luminaries, he articulates what it means for him to 'take up his cross and follow Christ.' Losing his life in order to find it, the poet transforms the double-edged sword of exile into an incarnational dialectic of martyrdom and mission. As the supreme Christian symbol, the cross itself has an important incarnational dimension: as a sign of death - the redemptive sacrifice of the Word made flesh - it points to Christ's humanity; as a sign of resurrection - Christ's victory over death - to his divinity. This dialectical structure of the cross no doubt motivates the liturgical figuration, discussed earlier, of the tractulus connecting the letters Vand D as the cross through which the human and divine are joined (PL 202.53). Against the backdrop of the cross of martyred warriors in the sphere of Mars, Dante's incarnational dialectic pivots around the example of Christ and his followers as both victims and victors. Because the representative martian warriors - from Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus to Charlemagne and Robert Guiscard (Par. 18.37-48) - were all known for defending their people and their faith even unto death, they now reign triumphantly in heaven, exhorting others to emulate their heroic deeds: '"Resurgi" e 'Vinci'" ['Rise' and 'Conquer'] (14.125). First among those who can learn from the blessed soldiers is the wayfarer himself, as he grasps the inherently dialectical structure of his prophesied future. On the one hand, he will suffer the pain of unjust banishment from his city because of factional politics and a ruthless pope (17.46-51; 17.55-60); worst of all, his compatriots in exile will prove 'tutta ingrata, tutta matta e empia' [all ungrateful, all mad and malevolent] (17.61-5). On the other hand, even in exile he will live to witness the defeat of his enemies (17.53-4; 17.65-9); sweeter still, his poetic voice will carry a message that, though harsh at first, will provide vital nourishment to an ailing world (17.1302). Reflecting on this 'bitter-sweet' taste of Cacciaguida's prophetic utterances ('temprando col dolce 1'acerbo' [18.3]), Dante succinctly expresses the 'both-and' flavour of his future life.

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However, the wayfarer's incarnational path, his imitatio Christi, is hardly straightforward in this central episode of the Paradiso. It is rather through a network of associations and identifications, consistent with his indirect perception of God through reflected rays, that Dante appropriates the dialectic of Christ's sacrifice and victory for his exile and poetic vocation. Naturally, the wayfarer's most obvious imitation of Christ obtains from his identification with the Christlike martyrs in Mars, particularly his familial identification with his great-greatgrandfather. If Dante never truly becomes a figura Christi there is no doubt that he is a figura Cacciaguidae. Only through his 'personal and literary act of martyrdom,' in Schnapp's words, can Dante 'duplicate his ancestor's glorious course.'r'6 A series of Classical allusions also kindles Dante's Chiistological imagination in these cantos, including direct comparisons with Virgil's father Anchises and two of Ovid's tragic sons, Phaethon and Hippolytus.57 Yet Cicero's famous Scipios, though unnamed in these crucial cantos, emerge as the poet's most fruitful literary interlocutors for his incarnational dialectic of hardship and reward. Although Dante never explicitly refers to the Somnium Scipionis, the only part of Cicero's De re publica that was available throughout the Middle Ages, it is almost certain that he was familiar with this text along with Macrobius's accompanying commentary.58 If so, Cicero's influential account of Scipio the Younger's dream-vision of the afterlife, at age thirty-five, would have held special appeal for the author of a poem describing his mid-life journey to the Christian realms of the damned and the saved souls. The two principal characters in the Somnium, Scipio Africanus the Elder and his adopted grandson Scipio the Younger, figure prominently in Dante's works despite the absence of any direct mention of their oneiric celestial encounter. In the Convivio, for instance, Dante recounts the importance of Cicero's De amicitia, particularly the consolation of Lelius upon the death of his friend Scipio the Younger, as a source of solace following the death of Beatrice (2.12.3-4). Also in the Comnvio appears the first of several references in the poet's oeuvre to Scipio the Rider's victory over Hannibal in the Second Punic War as an illustration of God's providential role for Rome as the centre of first the empire and later the church: F non puose Iddio le mani, quando per la guerra d'Annibale avendo perduti tanti cittadini che tre moggia d'anella in Africa erano portate, li Romani volsero abandonare la terra, se quel benedetto Scipione giovane

150 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry non avesse impresa 1'andata in Africa per la sua franchezza? E non puose Iddio le mani quando uno nuovo cittadino di picciola condizione, cioe Tulio, contra tanto cittadino quanto era Catellina la romana libertate difesePCerto si. (4.5.19) [Was the hand of God not evident when in the war of Hannibal the Romans, having lost so many citizens that three bushels of rings were taken to Carthage, were ready to abandon their country if that blessed young Scipio had not taken his campaign for the liberation of Rome into Africa? And was the hand of God not evident when a new citizen of small means, namely Tully, defended the liberty of Rome against so great a citizen as Catiline? Most certainly it was.]

While Dante undoubtedly relies on Lucan and Orosius for his knowledge of Scipio's conquest, his inscription of both Scipio and Cicero in his book of providential history - on the same page, so to speak - neatly underscores the fact that one is a character in an imaginative work - the Somnium — authored by the other.39 The presence of Scipio's military victory in each cantica of the Commedia attests to its force in Dante's poetic imagination. Virgil uses the event as part of an elaborate captatio benevolentiae intended to persuade Antaeus to lower the travellers from the eighth to ninth circle of hell: the valley in which the giant once captured 'a thousand lions' was also the battlefield upon which Scipio defeated Hannibal (Inf. 31.115-23). In the terrestrial paradise, Dante mentions the celebration of Scipio's victory over Hannibal, his triumph in Rome, as one of a series of deficient comparisons to the beauty of the chariot drawn by the Christlike Griffin: 'Non che Roma di carro cosi bello / rallegrasse Affricano, o vero Augusto, / ma quel del Sol saria pover con ello' [Not only did Rome never gladden an Africanus or an Augustus with a chariot so splendid, but even that of the Sun would be poorer to it] (Purg. 29.11517) .f>0 But it is in the Paradiso, where Rome's imperial glory finds its true image in God's celestial city of blessed souls, that Dante most incisively calls on the example of Scipio's military prowess. The emperor Justinian naturally praises Scipio's prodigious accomplishments - at age seventeen he saved his father's life in battle before defeating Hannibal sixteen years later - along with those of Pompey a century later as part of the glorious course of the imperial eagle: 'Sott' esso giovanetti triunfaro / Scipi'one e Pompeo' [Under it, Scipio and Pompey triumphed, while yet in their youth] (6.52-4).61 Most important, the Apostle Peter's scath-

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ing criticism of the corrupt papacy in the heaven of the Fixed Stars dramatically raises Dante's poetic mission to the level of Scipio's providential military victory: Ma 1'alta provedenza, che con Scipio difese a Roma la gloria del mondo, soccorra tosto, si com' io concipio; e tu, figliuol, che per lo mortal pondo ancor giii tornerai, apri la bocca, e non ascender quel ch'io non ascondo. (Par, 27.61-6) [But the high Providence, which with Scipio defended for Rome the glory of the world, will succor speedily, as I conceive. And you, my son, who, because of your mortal weight will again return below, open your mouth and do not hide what I hide not.]

Echoing Cacciaguida's exhortations in Mars, Peter appropriately turns the colour of the red planet, namesake of the warrior god, as he launches into his diatribe against those who have usurped his place on earth (27.13-15). Indeed, he often burns red with anger- 'arrosso e disfavillo' [I often blush and flash] - at the thought of the 'rapacious wolves' who pose as shepherds and use the privileges of the papacy to wage war and procure wealth (49-56).fi2 Peter's specific condemnation of Clement v (58-9), the Gascon pope responsible for the Babylonian Captivity, mirrors Cacciaguida's prophecy of Clement's betrayal of the emperor Henry vn, Dante's last hope for an effective universal monarch (17.82). In the sphere of Mars, Cacciaguida commands the wayfarer not to reveal certain things, knowledge presumably concerning Cangrande della Scala (17.91-3). However, the warrior-spirit also insists that his gifted descendant hold back nothing in revealing the truth of what he has learned during his journey no matter now unpleasant others may find it: 'tutta tua vision fa manifesto' [make manifest all that you have seen] (17.128). Peter, the first pope, now adds sound to this visual imperative when he orders Dante to 'open his mouth' ('apri la bocca' [27.65]). Arid as Cacciaguida explains that, bitter though the taste may be at first, Dante's revelation will ultimately prove salutary (17.130-2), so Peter emphasizes the beneficent - even salvific — aim of the poet's duty to 'tell all.' The powerful implication is that Dante, like the Roman general, will be guided by the hand of providence for the good of the world. Around the figure of Scipio the Elder, therefore, Cacciaguida

152 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry and Peter join forces to invest the poet's mission with an urgency at once personal, political, and religious. Dante's solemn presentation of this mission in the central cantos of the Paradiso involves both Scipios as they appear in Cicero's Somnium: the protagonist (Scipio the Younger, Dante-wayfarer), who is also the teller of his tale, encounters in the heavens a venerable ancestor (Scipio the Elder, Cacciaguida); this ancestor prophesies future hardship for his descendant (Scipio's assassination, Dante's exile), while at the same time encouraging him to pursue his principal duty in this life (Scipio's good statesmanship, Dante's salvific poetry). While this common thematic frame has been recognized by Ernst Robert Curtius and others,63 the preponderance of scholarly attention has been and continues to be directed toward Aeneid 6 as Dante's literary inspiration for the wayfarer's meeting with Cacciaguida. Representative of this critical history is Richard Lansing's statement, with no mention of Cicero's text, that Dante's celestial encounter 'is distinctly modeled on Aeneas's meeting with Anchises in the underworld scene of Book Six.'64 Indeed, Dante's text strongly encourages this Virgilian emphasis with a series of allusions to Aeneid 6, beginning with the poet's initial comparison of Cacciaguida to Tombra d'Anchise' [the shade of Anchises] (Par. 15.25—7), and immediately followed by the spirit's repetition of Anchises' salutation to Julius Caesar within his revelation to Aeneas of Rome's future ('sanguis meus' [Par. 15.28; Aen. 6.835] — all as part of the general depiction of a fatherfigure whose long wait in the otherworld has been rewarded with the arrival of his chosen progeny (Par. 15.49-54; Aen. 6.687-91).65 It has even been argued that an ostensibly careless inconsistency in the Commedia deliberately repeats a similar problem in the Aeneid: as Rome's future is revealed to Aeneas not, as promised, by the Sibyl (Aen. 3.45860) but by father Anchises (Aen. 6.756-886), so prophecies of Dante's future life are glossed not by Beatrice (Inf. 10.130-2; 15.88-90) but by Cacciaguida.66 Not meaning to discount the valuable insights gained from a consideration of this inscription of Virgil's episode at the central juncture in the Paradiso, I suggest that we may come to a fuller understanding of Dante's incarnational vision by admitting (or restoring) Cicero to the poet's pantheon of Classical interlocutors. To be sure, Schnapp's rich study of the Cacciaguida episode provides a forum for Cicero's voice as well as Virgil's. Identifying Aeneid 6 and the Somnium as Dante's 'primary and secondary Classical models for the encounter of father and son in the heaven of Mars,' Schnapp demonstrates how the poet 'Christianizes'

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the encounters of Aeneas and Scipio with their respective ancestors under the sign of the cross.1'7 Yet even under this common sign, Cicero's Somnium adds a particular dimension to Dante's incarnalional poetry. Disentangled from its Virgilian counterpart, Cicero's visionary text, along with Macrobius's influential commentary, radiates in Dante's episode through its prophetic intimation of personal tragedy and its elevation of outstanding civic leadership - an alternative to the ascetic rejection of the world - as a legitimate path to celestial glory. Even hefore Cacciaguida descends from the cross to meet his greatgreat-grandson, thus eliciting the comparison to Virgil's Anchises, the poet establishes a distinctly Ciceronian setting for the encounter. He initially likens the brilliant rays forming the 'venerabil segno' [venerable sign] of the cross to the characteristic whiteness - 'biancheggia' - of the 'Galassia' (Par: 14.97-102), better known as the Milky Way.6S Comparing the Milky Way to metaphysics in the Convivio, Dante presents various explanations for the appearance of the celestial circle (2.14.5-7), a problem 'che fa dubbiar ben saggi' [to cause even the wise to question] (Par. 14.99). He concludes, essentially following Aristotle's view from among the 'diverse oppiniorn" of the philosophers and astronomers, that the white band comprises a heavy concentration of fixed stars too small to be distinguished from one another on earth: as the Galaxy is the 'effect' of the unseen stars, so metaphysics treats the 'primal substances' known to us only through their effects (Conu 2.14.8). Here in the Paradise Dante displays a similarly lofty conception of the Milky Way, though his galactic allusion in the heaven of Mars privileges not the abstractions of metaphysics but the rewards of ethical behaviour in the world. By using the Milky Way to gloss the cross of Mars, the site of his familial encounter in paradise, the poet echoes Cicero's high regard for this celestial region in the Somnium. There Scipio's biological father, Paulus, tells his son that he must 'cherish justice' and his 'obligations to duty' [iustitiam cole et pietatem], particularly in matters pertaining to the commonwealth; in this way, his soul will enjoy the company of likeminded civic leaders in the circle of unsurpassed brilliance 'which takes its name, the Milky Way, from the Greek word' [quern vos, ut a Grais acceptistis, orbem lacteum nuncupatis] (3.6-7).fiy As Dante, like Scipio, must pay a high price for his devotion to justice, especially in civic matters, so he will also emulate his Roman predecessor by earning a return trip - this time for eternity - to the city of the blessed (Par. 15.29-30). The Ciceronian subtext also enriches Dante's conception of Mars as the planet of music. The philosophical glossator of the Convivio bases

154 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry this association on two properties supposedly shared by Mars and music. The first common property is relational: the more beautiful the relationships in harmonized words and songs, the sweeter the harmony. This is presumably exemplified by Mars's privileged position at the centre of the nine spheres, counting from the Moon to the Primum Mobile or vice versa: 'da qualuiique si comincia, o dah"infimo o dal sommo, esso cielo di Marte e lo quinto, esso e lo mezzo di tutti, cioe delli primi, delli secondi, delli terzi, delli quarti' [from whichever we begin, whether from the lowest or the highest, this heaven of Mars is the fifth and the middlemost of them all, that is, of the first, second, third, and fourth pairs] (2.13.20). The second, even more creative, 'musical' property is the varying redness of the planet that results from the density of the vapours that surround it. This phenomenon calls to mind the way in which 'spiriti umani' - better thought of as 'vapori di cuore' [vapors of the heart] - are drawn to music (2.13.21-4). Anticipating the cross of martyred warriors in Mars, Dante reports the appearance of these martian vapours 'in figura d'una croce' [in the shape of a cross] as a sign of the imminent destruction of Florence (2.13.22). Here Dante corroborates Dino Compagni's eyewitness account of a 'croce vermiglia' [vermilion cross] appearing in the evening sky as a 'segno maraviglioso' [miraculous sign] indicating Florence's disfavour with God. Dino associates the celestial sign with the six days of mayhem - including fires, looting, extortion, forced marriages, and murder - that occurred soon after the arrival in Florence of Charles of Valois on 1 November 1301. As Dante introduces this politically charged cross, harbinger of factional violence, into his discussion of Mars and music in the Convivio, so he frames his presentation of the cross of martyrs in the central planet at the centre of the Paradiso with musical flourishes. Echoing the sweet harmony of the first ring of wise spirits in the Sun, whose song recalled, 'tin tin sonando con si dolce nota' [sounding ting! ting! with notes so sweet], the loving chimes of a clock (10.139-49), the singing martian souls now demonstrate the power of music by commanding the complete attention of the wayfarer's 'spiriti umani': E come giga e arpa, in tempra tesa di moke corde, fa dolce tintinno a tal da cui la nota non e intesa, cosi da' lumi che If m'apparinno s'accogliea per la croce una melode che mi rapiva, sanza intender 1'inno. (Par. 14.118-23)

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| And as viol and harp, strung with many cords in harmony, chime sweetly for one who does not catch the tune, so from the lights that appeared to me there a melody gathered through the cross which held me rapt, though 1 followed not the hymn.] Only able to make out the words 'Rise' and 'Conquer' (124—6), Dante is so enraptured by these 'such sweet bonds' that he must excuse himself for postponing the pleasure of Beatrice's 'beautiful eyes' (130-9). Cacciaguida, who descends from this melodious cross to encounter his descendant, will finally conclude the presentation of Mars several cantos later when he returns to his kindred spirits and joins in the beautiful singing that initially captivated the wayfarer.'1 The poet's celebration of Mars as the planet of music reminds us that Cicero's Somnium, whose themes and storyline are essential to Dante's conception of the Cacciaguida cantos, was also an important vehicle for the Pythagorean theory of musica mundana, or the harmony of the spheres, in the Middle Ages. When Scipio the Younger is struck by the 'great and pleasing sound' delighting his ears and asks for an explanation of its source, his grandfather replies that the music 'is a concord of tones separated by equal but nevertheless carefully proportioned intervals, caused by the rapid motion of the spheres themselves' [hie est ... ille qui intervallis coriiunctus imparibus sed tamen pro rata parte ratione distinctis, impulsu et motu ipsorum orbium efficitur] (5.1). The blending of different tones accounts for the harmonious song, with the Moon emitting the lowest and the Fixed Stars the highest pitched sounds (5.1-2). Although there are eight whirling spheres, the identical velocities of Mercury and Venus ensure that there are seven distinct tones, the number which holds everything together (5.2). Of course, this Pythagorean-Platonic conception of celestial music, with the varying speeds of the spheres producing different notes, was known to Dante from other texts in addition to Cicero's Somnium. In the Timaeus, though he does not discuss the music of the spheres as he does in book 10 of the Republic, Plato describes the harmony inherent in the structure of the world soul (35B-36B), and he spaces the planets according to the seven musical intervals (36D). While Chalcidius glosses this last passage with a brief reference to the Pythagorean idea of celestial harmony (xcv), Maciobius uses Plato's account of the world soul to interpret Cicero's description of the harmony of the spheres (Commentarii2.2-3). He concludes that the sounds arising from the revolving bodies 'had to be harmonious, for they were innate in the Soul which impelled the uni-

156 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry verse to motion' [necessitatem musicae concinentiae, quam motui a se facto inserit anima innatam sibi ab origine] (2.2.24). Vigorously refuted by Aristotle,72 the theory of celestial music is a fixture in the medieval Platonic tradition. Thus Martianus Capella describes the 'symphony of harmonious notes' [melodiae harmonicis tinnitibus] produced from the stars and the planetary spheres, and imagines that Harmony assigned musical notes to the revolving heavens.73 Alan of Lille, certainly influenced by Cicero, provides a more substantial account in the Anticlaudianus-w\\h his description of Phronesis's journey through the heavens: in order, she hears the slow, low tones of the Moon (4.347-55), the 'sweet and finer sound' of the Sun (4.386-8), the 'treble voice' of Venus (matched by Mercury's song [4.408-13]), the 'Siren of thundering Mars' (4.434-6), Jupiter's'sweet song' (4.458-62), and the 'matured harmony' of Saturn's voice (4.478-81).74 With this celebrated chorus of learned predecessors still singing in the background, led by Cicero's resonant voice, Dante introduces the celestial strains into his divinely ordered paradise by addressing God as the conductor of the wheeling heavens as well as the composer of their song: 'la rota che tu sempitemi / desiderate, a se mi fece atteso / con 1'armonia che temper! e discern!' [the revolution which You, by being desired, make eternal turned my attention to itself by the harmony which You temper and distinguish] (Par. 1.76-8).75 Accompanied by the 'instrument' of the cross, this music appropriately celebrates Christ's triumph over death in the heaven of Mars. The Cacciaguida episode, as Jacoff and Stephany argue, 'engages themes, motifs, and allusions from Inferno n,' in particular the wayfarer's relationship to his two eminent predecessors, Aeneas and Paul.76 Dante, after all, not only receives a welcome from Cacciaguida similar to Anchises' reception of Aeneas (Par. 15.25-7), but he also enjoys a privilege - a journey to heaven while still alive - previously experienced only by Paul, the factual answer to Cacciaguida's seemingly rhetorical question: 'sicut tibi cui / bis unquam cell ianiia reclusa?' [To whom was Heaven's gate ever twice opened, as to thee?] (15.29-30; 2 Cor. 12:4). But the poet does not just establish equivalencies with these comparisons. Rather, figured as both Aeneas and Paul, the wayfarer surpasses each of his models individually and therefore undoes the disclaimer of worthiness that delayed the start of his journey to the afterlife (Inf. 2.32): 'Io e Enea, io e Paulo sono' is the primary message of the central cantos of the Paradiso insofar as Dante invests himself with both the foundational mission of the imperial primogenitor and the prophetic power of the

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 157 Apostle. Harold Bloom rightly captures the boldness of this message, as it is announced in the Cacciaguida cantos, when he claims that 'Dante's revelation is his own, and will be of himself.'77 Yet Bloom too hastily loosens the poet's self-fashioning, which is ultimately modelled on the example of Christ in addition to - indeed more than - the heroes of the Hebrew Bible arid Classical literature, from its Christological mooring. Dante immediately lays the foundation for his imitatio Christi in the cantos of Mars when Cacciaguida echoes the heavenly voice heard at Christ's baptism — 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased' [Hie est filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi complacui] (Matt. 3:17) - in identifying himself to the wayfarer: 'O fronda mia in che io compiacemmi / pur aspettando, io fui la tua radice' [O my branch, in whom I took delight only expecting you, I was your root] (15.88-9). Having overtaken Aeneas and Paul, Dante will continue on his journey to Christ throughout this central episode, principally along the path that passes through Cacciaguida and Scipio the Younger. Cacciaguida's identification with Christ is most obviously seen in his appearance as one of the warrior spirits adorning the flashing cross, the sign of the redemptive sacrifice of the incarnate Word. The poet emphasizes Cacciaguida's crucifixional status when he distinguishes the spirit's clear presentation of the wayfarer's future life from the labyrinthine riddles - ambage — used in prophetic utterances 'pria che fosse anciso / 1'Agnel di Dio che le peccata tolle' [before the Lamb of God who takes away sins was slain] (Par. 17.31—5). However, Dante's ancestor also aligns himself with the beginning of Christ's earthly sojourn by twice relating his own birth to the entrance of the divine Logos into humanity. In the first instance, baby Cacciaguida was delivered into the world - the 'sweet abode' that was Florence - by Mary, the holy name 'called on with loud cries' (15.132-5). The poet's previous reference to parturient women calling on Mary supports the implicit identification of Cacciaguida's birth with Christ's. As the first corrective on the terrace of avarice, the penitents cry out 'Dolce Maria!' - as do women during childbirth — and then praise Mary's humble circumstances when she gave birth to the Christ child: 'Povera fosti tan to, / quanto veder si puo per quello ospizio / dove sponesti il tuo portato sari to' [How poor you were may be seen from that hostelry where you laid down your holy burden] (Purg. 20.19-24). In the second instance, Cacciaguida begins to describe the people and customs of the Florence of his youth with what is arguably the most grandiose birthday representation in world literature:

158 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry Da quel di che fu detto 'Ave al parto in che mia madre, ch'e or santa, s'allevio di me ond' era grave, al suo Leon cinquecento cinquanta e trenta fiate venne questo foco a rinfiammarsi sotto la sua pianta. (Par. 16.34-9) [From that day on which Ave was uttered, to the birth in which my mother, who now is sainted, was lightened of me with whom she had been burdened, this fire had come to its Lion five hundred, fifty, and thirty times to rekindle itself beneath his paw.]

Cacciaguida's method of dating is remarkable not only because he indicates the year of his birth by counting forward from the Annunciation, the official announcement of the Incarnation, but also because he counts in martian rather than solar years. This chronological complication is consistent with other instances of dating in which Dante requires the reader to calculate the year of an important event in salvation history. Thus Malacoda, truly showing his kinship with another black devil who proudly calls himself a 'logician' ('loico' [Inf. 27.123]), dates the destruction of the bridge over the sixth bolgia to the hour: Ter, piu oltre cinqu' ore che quest' otta, / mille dugento con sessanta sei / anni compie che qui la via fu rotta' [Yesterday, five hours later than now, completed one thousand two hundred and sixty-six years since the road was broken here] (Inf. 21.112-14). The travellers - and the reader - are thereby informed that Christ's harrowing, the cause of the infernal damage that immediately followed his crucifixion, occurred 1266 years and 19 hours prior to the present moment in hell — important numbers for placing the fictional date of the journey's beginning, the wayfarer's entrance into hell, on Good Friday of 1300. In the sphere of the Fixed Stars, Dante will demand even greater digital dexterity to determine Adam's age: since the first father spent 4,302 years in Limbo (Par. 26.118-20), after an earthly sojourn of 930 years (121-3), he is 6,498 years old at the time he meets the wayfarer in the stars (if we date the harrowing to 34 c.E. and the journey to 1300). In Cacciaguida's case, the difficulty lies in converting the 580 martian revolutions completed since the Annunciation ('Ave') into the solar years of Dante's Christian calendar. If, as seems likely, Dante accepted Alfraganus's accurate estimate of a 687-day sidereal period for Mars, then Cacciaguida was born in 1091 (687 times 580 divided by 365).79

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This solution to Cacciaguida's astronomical birthday riddle, combined with the knowledge that he met his death during the disastrous second crusade undertaken by Louis vii of France and 'lo 'mperador Currado' in 1147 (Par. 15.139-48), tells us that Dante's warrior ancestor lived to age fifty-six. Cacciaguida's life span -whether factual or fictional matters little - is notable because Cicero's Scipio the Elder prophesies the political crisis and hints at the tragic death awaiting his illustrious grandson at the very same age:80 When your age has completed seven times eight recurring circuits of the sun, and the product of these two numbers, each of which is considered full for a different reason, has rounded out your destiny, the whole state will take refuge in you and your name; the Senate, all good citizens, the Allies, and the Latins will look to you; upon you alone will the safety of the state depend; and, to be brief, as dictator you must needs set the state in order, if only you escape death at the hands of your wicked kinsmen. [nam cum aetas tua septenos octies solis amfractus reditusque converterit duoque hi numeri quorum uterque plenus, alter altera de causa habetur, drcuitu naturali summam tibi fatalem confecerint, in te unum atque in tuuin nomen se tota convertet civitas: te senatus te omnes boni te socii te Latini intuebuntur, tu eris unus in quo nitatur civitatis salus ac ne multa, dictator rein publicam constituas oportet si impias propinquorum manus eff'ugeris.) (2.2)

The speaker's astronomical circumlocution lends an air of mystery to his ominous revelation. While Scipio the Elder's description of the num bers seven and eight as plenus ('full') numbers provides the starting point for Macrobius's long excursus on numerology (Commentarii 1.5— 6), Dante is more interested in the product of the two numbers, fifty-six, Scipio the Younger's age at the time of the prophesied events. The poet offers a clue to the fated number when Cacciaguida uses an arithmetical property to explain how he perceives the wayfarer's thoughts even when they are not expressed verbally: 'Tu credi che a me tuo pensier mei / da quel ch'e primo, cost come raia / da Tun, se si conosce, il cinque e '1 sei' [You believe that your thought flows to me from Him who is First, even as from the unit, if that be known, ray out the five arid the six] (Par. 15.55-7). That Dante was familiar with Hindu-Arabic notation ('56'), despite the absence of explicit references to the number system in his works, is almost certain. Not only had two of the three major phases of

160 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry the transmission of Hindu-Arabic numerals to the West already occurred by Dante's day, with the third fully under way in Italy, but in 1299 Florence's Arte del Cambio included an article in its statute that banned the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals in account books because of the potential for cheating by changing a zero into a six or a nine.81 Intellectually engaged and directly involved in Florentine politics from the mid-1290s through his priorship in 1300, Dante was undoubtedly aware of the controversial 'new' number system and its uses. And controversy would hardly prevent the poet from announcing the fated age as 'the five and the six' to reinforce his intricate imitation of Cicero's prophetic passage. A passage from the Confessions of Augustine, one of Cicero's most assiduous students, perhaps combines with the Somnium episode as Dante's inspiration for envisioning Cacciaguida's blessed martyrdom. In fact, Augustine's announcement of Monica's death foregrounds the numerical signs of death and apotheosis central to the poet's representations of both Beatrice in the Vita nuova and Cacciaguida in the central cantos of the Paradiso: 'In the ninth day therefore of her sickness, and the sixth and fiftieth year of her age, and the three and thirtieth of mine, was that religious and holy soul released from the body' (Conf. 9.11). Augustine's chronological data reverberate in the Vita nuova when the poet-lover has a nightmarish vision of Beatrice's death on the ninth day of his illness (23), part of the pattern of nines that culminates with Dante's digression on the theological associations of Beatrice with the sacred number, square of the Trinity and therefore a miracle (29). 82 Here in the cantos of Mars, the death of Augustine's sainted mother in her fifty-sixth year provides another celebrated precedent for the lifespan of Dante's great-great-grandfather, himself an 'anima santa' in paradise (17.101). With Cacciaguida thus positioned as the figural fulfilment of Cicero's Roman leader and Augustine's devout mother, Dante's conception of providential history stretches to embrace the Classical vision and the pre-eminent Christian narrative in a new order containing his own familial history. However, Dante repeats Cicero's astronomical age reference with one glaring difference. In the Paradiso it is not the young protagonist but his blessed ancestor whose age must be determined. Dante, in other words, has reversed the roles of the two Scipios from Cicero's text. On the one hand, Dante's convoluted inscription of Cacciaguida's age is compelling because, despite the role reversal, it points to the common narrative structure of the Somnium and the martian episode: a blessed ancestor

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invests his progeny with a sacred mission predicated on great personal sacrifice. On the other hand, this very reversal functions within the economy of indirection that drives the poet's representation of paradise. Inasmuch as this indirection takes the form of familial doubling in the cantos of Mars, the wayfarer, whose blood is Cacciaguida's ('sanguis meus' [15.28]), vicariously shares in his ancestor's chronological resemblance to Scipio the Younger. In his Trattatello in laude di Dante, Boccaccio demonstrates a keen understanding of the relevance of Cicero's text to Dante's life."'1 'Ensnared' by the 'vain honors' gained from political office, Boccaccio's Dante becomes - with the help of Fortune - such a powerful figure in Florence that virtually every civic decision must first pass through him, from receiving foreign dignitaries and enacting (or rescinding) laws to declaring war and establishing peace. Omitting the specific age reference, Dante's most famous biographer admirably captures a measure of Cicero's eloquence - 'te senatus te omiies boni te socii te Latini intuebuntur, tu eris unus in quo nitatur civitatis salus' - in summarizing the poet's privileged yet precarious place in Florence prior to his exile: 'In lui tutta la publica fede, in lui ogni speranza, in lui sommariamente le divine cose e I'umane parevano esser fermate' [On him all public faith, all hope, and, in a word, all things human and divine seemed to rest] (sect. 60) ,84 Boccaccio purposefully exaggerates the poet's outstanding political success to illustrate the inexorable mutability of Fortune, here resulting in the internecine strife behind Dante's exile from Florence. In the Somnium Scipio the Elder similarly juxtaposes the apex of his grandson's brilliant political career to a devastating reversal of fortune, one even more dreadful than Dante's banishment from his native city. Scipio the Younger, who is thirty-five — 'nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita' - at the time of his prophetic dream, learns that he will be called upon to preserve the republic single-handed at age fiftysix if he is able to elude the murderous hands of his relatives ('si impias propinquorum manus effugeris' [2.2]). Alluding to the tumultuous period in Roman history of the agrarian reforms, Scipio the Elder prophesies that his adopted grandson will return from his victorious siege of Numantia to find the capital in turmoil because of the policies of another grandson, Tiberius Gracchus (2.2). After Tiberius was killed in 133 B.C.E., his brother Gaius continued to agitate for the reforms and was allegedly behind Scipio's mysterious death in 129, the year in which the great Roman leader's life 'completed seven times eight recurring circuits of the sun.' Cicero creatively exploits this tale

162 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry of political and familial violence by fashioning a fictional prophecy many years after the fact. Dante, of course, also presents past events in the guise of a prophesied future. Setting the wayfarer's journey in the spring of 1300, the poet places fragmented prophecies of his impending exile in the mouths of characters encountered during the first two legs of the voyage, from Ciacco, Farinata, Brunette Latini, and Vaniii Fucci in hell to Currado Malaspina and Oderisi da Gubbio in purgatory. Now at the centre of paradise it finally falls to Dante's warrior ancestor - who, like all the blessed, can see into the mind of God - to gloss these intimations of future hardship. Cacciaguida's response is not reassuring: Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta piii caramente; e questo e quello strale che 1'arco de lo essilio pria saetta. Tu proverai sf come sa di sale lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle lo scendere e '1 salir per 1'altrui scale. (Par. 17.55-60) [You shall leave everything beloved most dearly; and this is the arrow which the bow of exile shoots first. You shall come to know how salt is the taste of another's bread, and how hard the path to descend and mount by another man's stairs.] In the Somnium Scipio the Younger refers to the grave misfortune foretold by his ancestor as a betrayal, and he claims to be terrified less by the fear of death itself than by the thought that his own kin will orchestrate the treacherous plot ('insidiarum a meis' [3.2]). Cacciaguida likewise locates the source of Dante's future woes in deceit and treachery, 'le 'nsidie / che dietro a pochi giri son nascose' [the snares which are hidden behind but a few circlings] (17.95-6) ,85 These 'hidden snares' - insidie nascose - are set primarily by Boniface vin, the one who devises his wicked machinations 'la dove Cristo tutto di si merca' [the place where every day Christ is bought and sold] (17.51), and secondarily by Charles of Valois and the Black Guelfs who carry out Boniface's schemes. However, Dante's greatest outrage, not unlike Scipio's horror at the thought of familial betrayal, is reserved for his compatriots in exile, the 'evil and senseless company' that will turn against the poet and force him to become a party unto himself (17.61-9). While Dante surely calls on both the biblical proclamation - after the temptation of

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Eve - of the serpent's danger to future generations ('insidiaberis calcaneo ems' [Gen. 3:15]) and Augustine's figuration of temptation as a 'vast wilderness' [iminensa silva] 'full of snares and dangers' [plena insidiarum et periculorum] (Conf. 10.35),8fi he also follows Cicero by expanding this metaphor of insidiaem the silva of sin to include the historical realm, the maelstrom of human affairs in which individuals of exceptional abilities fall prey to the ruses of political enemies and, most frightening of all, to the perfidies of family and friends. Mercifully, both Scipio and Dante are consoled at the same time that they receive the disheartening news of their future misfortune. For Scipio, in fact, there remain over twenty years before he reaches the fated age at which a tragic death will take him from the republic when it needs him most. During this period he will fulfill his grandfather's prophecies when, after being elected consul in 147 B.C.E., he thoroughly destroys Carthage in the Third Punic War (146), thereby earning the right to his inherited tide (Africanus), and later, after holding the office of censor and serving as legate to several nations, he is again elected consul prior to defeating Numantia (in north central Spain) in 133. Scipio also learns that these spectacular secular achievements, testament to his talent and virtue, will earn him a glorious return to the heavens: But that you may be niore zealous in safeguarding the commonwealth, Scipio, be persuaded of this: all those who have saved, aided, or enlarged the commonwealth have a definite place marked off in the heavens where they may enjoy a blessed existence forever. Nothing that occurs on earth, indeed, is more gratifying to thai supreme God who rules the whole universe than (tie establishment of associations and federations of men bound together by principles of justice, which are called commonwealths. The governors and protectors of these proceed from here and return hither after death. [Sed quo sis, Africane, alacrior ad tutandam rem publicam, sic habeto: omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint auxerint, certurn esse in caelo defmitum locum ubi bead aevo sempiterno fruantur. Nihil est enim illi principi deo qui otnnern mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat, acceptius quam concilia coetusque hominum iure sociati, quae civitates appellantur. Harum rectores et c.onservatores hinc protect! hue rcverumtur.l ( 3 . 1 )

Leaving no doubt as to the salvific possibilities of excellent civic leadership, Cicero has Paulus, father of the dreaming Scipio, define this pub-

164 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry lie devotion as his son's 'passport to the sky' [via est in caelum], his road to a blessed life with fellow patriots in the brilliant circle of the Milky Way (3.5-6). Dante, too, receives an adequate portion of 'dolce' to temper the 'acerbo' in his ancestor's prophetic offerings (Par. 18.3). Like Scipio, he is given encouraging signs - Cacciaguida's implication that he will pass a second time through heaven's gate (15.29-30) - that his immortal soul will return to join the blessed spirits in paradise. The wayfarer can even look forward to a certain measure of satisfaction during the rest of his life on earth. Of course, because Dante's successful civic career will soon be cut short by the prophesied exile, this future compensation must derive in part from the even more wretched events in store for the poet's foes, from Boniface and the Florentine Black Guelfs (17.52-4; 17.97-9) to the other White Guelfs exiled along with the poet (17.656). But Dante's greatest earthly reward will surely be the revealed 'vision' (128) and poetic 'grido' (133) that is the Commedia itself, the prophesied source of 'vital nourishment' (131) for future generations, those who 'questo tempo chiameranno antico' [shall call this time ancient] (120). In this way, the poet will satisfy a moral responsibility as important as the Roman statesman's civic duty. Exquisitely dialectical, Dante's representation of his exile pivots around unjust punishment and prolonged suffering but also the defeat of his enemies and a glorious, redemptive mission. 3. Dante's Divine Tetragon Era questa una costruzione ottagonale che a distanza appariva come un tetragono (figura perfettissima che esprime la saldezza e 1'imprendibilita della Citta di Dio) ... [This was an octagonal construction that from a distance seemed a tetragon (a perfect form, which expresses the sturdiness and impregnability of the City of God) ...] - Umberto Eco, II name della rosa

Et quoniam tetragonatura prima generatio Filii est, et Filius tetragonus primus est. [And since the first squaring is the generation of the Son, the Son is the first square.] - Thierry of Chartres, Commentum super Boethii librum De Trinitate

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Even before Cacciaguida reveals the wayfarer's future life 'per chiare parole e con precise / latin' [in clear words and with precise discourse] (Par. 17.34-5), Dante captures in a single verse the dialectic of martyrdom and mission implied in the prophetic 'glosses' when he declares himself 'ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura' [truly foursquare against the blows of chance] (17.24). This mathematical metaphor is itself an illuminating gloss on the poet's representation of his exile, here prophesied in a section of the poem undoubtedly composed many years after his banishment from Florence. Imagining himself as both victim and victor under the sign of Mars, Dante participates in Christ's drama of passion and resurrection. Exile, for the poet, is more than a mark of personal hardship resulting from political injustice and therefore an 'excuse' to speak of oneself, as the first-person narrator of the Convivio, following the lead of Boethius, proceeds to do (1.2.12-15; 1.3.3-4). Exile is also, as Mazzotta argued in Dante, Poet of the Desert, Dante's controlling metaphor for history and, by extension, language itself. Against the backdrop of the flashing cross in Mars, the poet's exilic figuration takes on a specifically Christological cast. In the Anticlaudianus, a work whose theme of the perfect man bears affinities with Dante's 'tetragono,' Alan of Lille explicitly defines Christ's earthly life in terms of an exile aimed at bringing the exiled human race back to its home in God. As a result of the Incarnation, God 'suffered every pain of exile that Himself an exile, He might bring back the miserable from exile' [exulis omne / Passus ut exilio miseros subduceret exul] (5.525-6). In the cantos of Mars, Dante transforms Alan's idea of Christ as a 'soldier' who 'triumphs in heaven' but 'campaigns on earth an exile' (5.519—20) into his own exilic imitation of Christ and the blessed martyrs.K7 We have seen how the poet invests his exile with Christ's incarnational dialectic of sacrifice and triumph by mapping the experiences of both Cacciaguida and Scipio the Younger onto those of his wayfarer-self. With the wayfarer's 'tetragonal' self-representation, the poet telescopes these two Christological subtexts, one familial and the other literary-historical, into an emblematic image of the incarnate Word as it is represented in medieval philosophical and theological discourse. It is important first to understand the mathematical history of the term tetragonus - and a few related terms - that informs its use in nonmathematical contexts as an analogy or, as in Dante's case, a metaphor. Derived from the Greek roots tetra ('four') and gonia ('angle'), the Latin tetragonus (or its neuter forms, tetragonon and tetragonum) literally designates a plane figure with four sides and four angles, often - though not

166 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry necessarily - understood as a square. Thus Martianus Capella, in his book on geometry, first states that four straight lines 'lying in different directions' make a 'tetragonum' (De nuptiis 711) and then observes that the arrangement of four equal lines forming right angles is called a 'tetragonon' (712). The author, perhaps Boethius, of an Ars geometriae based on Euclid's Elements more precisely designates the normalis tetragonus as a square ('aequilaterus atque rectiangulis'), thus preserving the unspecified tetragonus for quadrilaterals generally.88 This geometric understanding of the tetragon continues into the later Middle Ages. Alan of Lille, for example, suggests a four-sided plane figure when he distinguishes the tetragonus from the triangle (Anticlaudianus 3.493). Using geometric shapes to make philosophical or metaphysical points in his Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas similarly equates tetragonus with 'quadrilateral' in relation to other two-dimensional figures. Citing Aristotle's Categories (6.11a7-9), he argues that terms assigning shape, such as trigonum and tetragonum ('triangular'; 'quadrilateral'), are types of formal qualities that define something 'altogether or not at all' (Ia2ae.52.1). Elsewhere he uses the same two figures, again equating tetragorewswith 'quadrilateral,' when he posits that one action may be contained in another 'as a triangle is contained in a quadrilateral' [sicut trigonum in tetragono] (Ia2ae.54.1). Thomas employs the same reasoning, this time applied to Aristotle's De Anima (2.3.414bl9-32), when he compares the hierarchy of souls - intellective, sense-soul, and nutritive to geometrical figures contained within one another. Accordingly, the intellective soul comprises the powers of the lower souls of animals and plants 'as a pentagon includes a quadrilateral' [sicut pentagonum continet tetragonum] (la.76.3).89 But while tetragonus, based on its etymology, is primarily a geometrical term, it also has arithmetical significance. In fact, if the geometric tetragon only sometimes translates into a 'square,' with the attendant qualities of unity, equality, and perfection that attach to its metaphoric status, this appears to be the only understanding of the numerical tetragon. Such 'square numbers' [numeri tetragoni] — from one, four, and nine to one hundred - constitute a diagonal of Boethius's multiplication table, an arrangement that elicits a rare moment of extra-mathematical commentary in the De institutione arithmetica: 'Such is the divine nature of things in this disposition that all the angles are tetragons' [Hoc autem in hac est dispositione divinum, quod omnes angulares numeri tetragoni sunt] (1.27).90 In a later section, Boethius discovers another pattern involving the creation of square — or 'tetragonal' —

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numbers. He observes that the addition of successive odd numbers, beginning with one and three, produces a series of squares (tetragonos): 1+3 = 4, 1+3 + 5 = 9 , 1+3 + 5 + 7 = 7 6 , and so on. This production of squares inspires him to explain the 'nature of tetragons' in terms of 'unity' and 'equality': such numbers 'are created from odd numbers which participate in unity [i.e., they proceed from the monad] and are of its immutable substance; they are equal in all their parts because angles to angles, sides to sides, and length to length are equal' [ab inparibus procreentur, qui sunt unitatis participes, id est eiusdem inmutabilisque substantiae, cunctisque partibus suis aequales sint, quod et anguli angulis et latera lateribus et longitudini compar est latitudo] (2.28). Boethius's praise of the tetragon as both the arithmetic square (participating in unity) and the geometric square (equality of angles and sides) attests to the legendary aesthetic and moral perfection of the square. Thomas, though he uses quadratus in place of tetragonus, argues that the 'square number' one hundred is perfect because it derives from a 'perfect figure,' the fegura quadrata, which is a paragon of equality ('ex omni parte aequalitatem habet' [3a.suppl.96.4]).91 Bernardus Silvestris takes this perfection of the square as a given when he has Urania speak to Nature about the formation of man: 'Let the work be square, let his beauty consist in the joining of his parts; it is God's will that nothing solid be lacking in his composition' [Quadret opus, faciatque suum iunctura decorem: / Velle dei, desit solido nichil] (Cosm,ographia 2.4). 92 The attributes of the square, tetragonus or quadratus, in particular its unity and equality, have implications outside the domain of mathematics. 'Square,' in certain contexts, is another way of saying 'perfect.' Alan of Lille, for instance, conceives of the four cardinal virtues as the 'square of human perfection' that leads to the 'circle of eternal beatitude.'93 Aristotle is the acknowledged ancient authority for this medieval conception of tetragonal perfection, specifically the 'four-square' man ascribed to the Greek poet Simonides in Plato's Protagoras (338e-348a). In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle uses this mathematical metaphor to indicate how the happy man responds to the inevitable mutability of fortune:94 The happy man will have the attribute of permanence which we are discussing, and he will remain happy throughout his life. For he will always or to the highest degree both do and contemplate what is in conformity with virtue; he will bear the vicissitudes of fortune most nobly and with perfect

168 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry decorum under all circumstances, inasmuch as he is truly good and 'foursquare beyond reproach.' (l.lO.HOOb, p. 25) [Existet autem utique, quod quaesitum est, felici. Et erit per vitam talis. Semper enim vel maxime omnium operabitur et speculabitur quae secundum virtutem. Et fortunas feret optime. Et omnino ubique prudenter qui et vere bonus, et tetragonus, sine vituperio.] (119-20, p. 50)

Armed with such tetragonal power, this man withstands the frequent and crushing blows of fortune 'not because he is insensitive to pain but because he is noble and high-minded' (LlO.llOOb, p. 26) [non propter doloris insensibilitatem, sed virilis existens et magnanimus] (121, p. 50). After paraphrasing Aristotle's thought on the happy man's magnanimous response to fortune, both good and bad, Thomas Aquinas remarks that the claim of some that the phrase 'four-square beyond reproach' [tetragonus, sine vituperio] implies perfection in the cardinal virtues 'does not seem to be according to the mind of Aristotle, who has never been found making such an enumeration' (193, p. 84). Thomas accordingly ventures his own interpretation of the metaphor based on its supposed geometric connotations: The tetragon does however indicate something perfect in virtue after the manner of a cube, which has six squared surfaces and so lies evenly on any surface. Similarly the virtuous person is of an even temperament in any fortune. (193, pp. 84-5) [Sed tetragonum nominal perfectum in virtute ad similitudinem corporis cubici, habentis sex superficies quadratas, propter quod bene stat in qualibet superficie. Et similiter virtuosus in qualibet fortuna bene se habet.] (193, p. 52)

It is unclear precisely why Thomas here describes the tetragon as a cube, given the overwhelming evidence - to which Thomas himself, as we have seen, elsewhere contributes - for the square (or quadrilateral generally) , and I know of no medieval precedent to support his view. Aristotle's context appears to outweigh the etymology and history of the term. In any case, the regularity and stability of the cube, which Thomas logically transfers to 'an even temperament in any fortune,' derive from the six square faces - 'sex superficies quadratas' - that make up the threedimensional figure.

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While there is nothing new about the putative perfection of the cube (Macrobius glosses 'cybum' as 'perfectionem soliditatis' [Commentarii 2.2.14]), Thomas's use of the term tetragonus to indicate this perfect cube marks a departure from the mathematical tradition that will have considerable resonance in the later Middle Ages and beyond. Cinquecento commentators on Aristotle were especially drawn to this notion of the perfect cube, as evidenced by Alessandro Piccolomini's motto, 'Semper iactatus semper erectus.'90 Umberto Eco, who discusses the medieval conception of the 'four-square man' - homo quadratus - in his scholarship,96 transfers the moral perfection of the tetragon to the three-dimensional realm of architecture in his novel set in the early fourteenth century. The narrator of II nome della rosa describes the Aedificium, an imposing structure housing the library, in geometric and aesthetic terms clearly informed by Thomas's interpretation of Aristotle's tetragonus: 'Era questa una costruzione ottagonale che a distanza appariva come un tetragoiio (figura perfettissima che esprime la saldezza e 1'imprendibilita della Citta di Dio) ...' [This was an octagonal construction that from a distance seemed a tetragon (a perfect form, which expresses the sturdiness and impregnability of the City of God) ...] (29; 15).97 Toward the end of the novel, as the library burns out of control, Eco's narrator details the destruction wrought by the conflagration, thereby implying that the building was perhaps not so tetragonal - that is, 'sturdy' and 'impregnable' - after all: L'Edificio, che sembrava cosi solido e tetragono, rivelava in quel frangente la sua debolezza, le sue crepe, i muri mangiati sin dall'interno, le pietre sgretolate che permettevano alia fiamma di raggiungere le intelaiature di legno ovunque esse fossero. (491) [The Aedificium, which had seemed so solid and tetragonous, revealed in these circumstances its weakness, its cracks, the walls corroded from within, the crumbling stones allowing the flames to reach the wooden elements wherever they were.] (594)

Consistent with Eco's depiction, Thomas's 'cubist' gloss on Aristotle's tetragonus, despite the philological evidence in favour of the 'square,' has served, in turn, as the definitive gloss on Dante's tetragonal metaphor from the earliest commentators down to the present. Thus Pietro di Dante (1340) cites Aristotle's 'tetragonus, sine vituperio' and, without mentioning Thomas's interpretation explicitly, defines the tetragonus as

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an object that 'always falls erect, like a die, when it is thrown' [quod projectum, semper est erectum, ut taxillus].98 Others, such as Benvenuto (c. 1380) and Danielle (1568), interpret the Aristotelian tetragon as a cube - again with no mention of Thomas - even as they display an awareness of the more accurate mathematical basis of the term." The only noteworthy obstacle to critical consensus for the interpretation of Dante's 'tetragono' as a cube or die is the view of some that the poet refers to a tetrahedron, a pyramid formed from four plane triangular faces, which was considered a symbol of immortality because of its stability.100 Enrico Proto's explicit consideration of Aristotle's tetragonus from the Nichomachean Ethics in light of Thomas's interpretation firmly established the 'cubist' reading of Dante's tetragono early in the twentieth century.101 This reading, the only one documented in the Enciclopedia dantesca, is so entrenched in modern Dante scholarship that some commentators gloss the term as 'cube' with no reference whatsoever to the original Aristotelian-Thomist context, and at least one translator renders Dante's 'ben tetragono' as 'firmly planted as a cube.'102 There is no question that Aristotle's 'tetragonus, sine vituperio,' combined with Thomas's application of this metaphor to the 'virtuous person' in the face of (mis)fortune, is an important subtext for Dante's representation of his magnanimous attitude toward the 'blows of chance' that lie in wait like 'hidden snares' (Par. 17.24; 17.95-6). Yet, it is only a slight exaggeration to suggest that critics sometimes call on Thomas's authority as if his interpretation of the tetragon were somehow based on Dante's passage rather than Aristotle's. By accepting the peremptory view that 'the interpretation of the word can only be that which is given in the context from which it is taken,' and then limiting that context to the Aristotelian-Thomist one, we perhaps unwisely close the door to further investigation.103 Such interpretive single-mindedness is particularly undesirable when there exists another medieval figuration of the tetragonus that adds a new - but by no means incongruous - twist to Dante's perception of himself as 'ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura' [truly foursquare against the blows of chance] (17.24). While this 'other' tetragonus remains unexamined in Dante criticism, it has received attention in studies of medieval architecture and aesthetics. Otto von Simson, in his classic study of Gothic architecture, illustrates the Platonic-Pythagorean yoking of mathematics to theological speculation in the work of Chartrian masters by summarizing a trinitarian argument that envisions Christ as the primus tetragonus: 'God is thus supreme unity, and the Son is unity begotten by unity, as the square

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results from the multiplication of a magnitude with itself. Rightly, Thierry concludes, is the Second Person of the Trinity therefore called the first square.'104 'Thierry' here is Thierry of Chartres, the prominent twelfth-century master in the Chartrian schools who also taught in Paris for about ten years before returning to Chartres in 1142 to become chancellor of the cathedral school, a position previously held by his brother, Bernard, and Gilbert of Poitiers. Thierry's tetragonal conception of Christ, as von Simson notes, is repeated in the work of his. pupil, Clarembald, Archdeacon of Arras, who studied with Hugh of St Victor as well.1"3 Thierry's importance in twelfth-century theological thought and education, if we trust the assessments of his peers, cannot be overstated. John of Salisbury refers to Thierry, listed first within a select group of true 'lovers of learning,' as 'Master Thierry, a very assiduous investigator of the arts' [magister Theodoricus, artium studiosissimus investigator] (Metalogicon 1.5.10-11).106 Likewise, Bernardus Silvestris dedicates his Cosmographia 'to Thierry, doctor most renowned for true eminence in learning' [Terrico, veris senteiitiarum titulis doctori famisissimo]. The Latin translator of Ptolemy's Planisphere adds specificity to his dedication, declaring that in Thierry 'the soul of Plato lives again.'107 Clarembald, not surprisingly, expresses the highest praise of all when he calls his master 'the foremost of all Europe's philosophers' [totius Europe philosophorum precipuus] in a letter accompanying both his commentary and Thierry's on Genesis (Epistola ad Dominant 3). Gilson's reasons for selecting Clarembald as a 'typical instance' of Chartrian intellectual life clearly apply to Thierry as well: 'the overwhelming influence of Boethius, the presence of an elementary Platonism borrowed from Chalcidius, the doctrine of God as the form of all being, an aggressively realistic interpretation of universals, last, not the least, a classical culture which enables him to express himself with some elegance.' Out of this complex of influences and ideas, Thierry forges a coherent trinitarian theory with a unique conception of the second person. Although Thierry only arrives at a complete theory, including a tetragonal definition of Christ, in his commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate, the basis for this argument is already apparent in his earlier commentary on the creation account in Genesis, Tractatus de sex dierum operibus.}m An outstanding example of Chartrian Platonism, Thierry's treatise attempts to explicate the opening of Genesis through a logical demonstration of how the letter of the text corresponds to Plato's view of being and the material world in the Timaeus. Eschewing an 'allegoricam et moralem lectionem,' Thierry approaches the biblical text

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'secundum phisicam et ad litteram' (1). Indeed, most of his analysis centres on a discussion of the temporal and material aspects of the first verse of Genesis, 'In prinicipio creavit Deus caelum et terram.' Topics include the underlying causes of creation (efficient, formal, final, material), the scientific meaning of 'caelum et terram' (based on the four elements), and the role and nature of the divine spirit ('spiritus domini') in the creative transformation of matter from unformed chaos into the forms of the well-wrought universe. In the spirit of his philosophical inquiry, Thierry praises Moses, the presumed author of Genesis, as 'prudentissimus philosopherum' (28), and he adduces support for his arguments by citing or paraphrasing Mercury (Hermes Trismegistus) and Plato himself, in addition to such authoritative Scriptural figures as David and Solomon. He even pays homage to Virgil by twice calling on his authority at significant moments. Thierry takes the Latin poet's mention - via Anchises in Aeneid 6.724—7 - of the essential role of 'spiritus' in creation as the definitive non-Scriptural gloss on the 'spiritus domini' of Genesis 1:2 (27); and he cites a passage from the Georgics (4.381-5) as the last word in support of his argument that water is the basis for all created matter (28). Haring conveniently summarizes the role of the Trinity in Thierry's understanding of creation: 'the most holy Trinity is active as efficient cause by creating matter; as "formal" cause by informing and ordering created matter; as final cause by loving and governing it. The efficient cause is the Father, the "formal" cause the Son, the final cause the Holy Spirit, the material cause the four elements.'110 Within this creationist account, Thierry's 'entire theological elaboration,' in Parent's words, depends on Augustine's expression of the interrelations of the persons of the Trinity:111 In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, and in the Holy Spirit a concord of unity and equality; and these three qualities are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all united because of the Holy Spirit. [In patre unitas, in filio aequalitas, in spiritu sancto unitatis aequalitatisque concordia, et tria haec unum omnia propter patrem, aequalia omnia propter filium, conexa omnia propter spiritum sanctum.] (De doctrina christianal.5.5)}n

A similar formulation attributed to Parmenides later in the Middle Ages

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 173 is perhaps evidence of the perceived Platonic basis of Augustine's trinitariari theory: 'God is unity, from this unity is begotten equality of unity, and proceeding from unity and equality of unity is union' [Deus est unitas: ab unitate gignitur unitatis aequalitas. Connexio vero ab unitate et unitatis aequalitate procedit] (De septem septenis 7). 1LS The notion of 'equality of unity' - equalitas unitatis - is precisely how Thierry defines the second person of the Trinity in his Tractatus: first as the 'eternal form of being of all things' [rebus omnibus forma essendi eterna], the 'formal cause' by which the 'eternal creator' brings the world into existence (45), and then as the 'equality of truth' [veritatis equalitas], which is the 'Word of God' (46). Thierry therefore concludes that Verbum deitatis and equalitas unitatis are one and the same (47) before the treatise abruptly ends just as he is about to discuss the Holy Spirit as the 'union of equality and unity' that proceeds from both. While all the ingredients are present in the Tractatus for a 'tetragonal' Christ, Thierry's only use of the term occurs in a mathematical context, consistent with the author's stated intention to lead others to divine knowledge through the demonstrations of the arts of the quadrivium (30). In practice, he relies solely on arithmetic and geometry, both of which inform his illustration of equality: 'First, numerical calculations produce only squares, cubes, circles, or spheres, all of which contain equal dimensions' [Prior igitur generatio numerorum facit tantummodo tetragonos vel cubos vel circulos vel speras que equalitatem dimensionum custodiunt] (37). Distinguishing 'tetragonos' from 'cubos,' Thierry, contrary to Thomas's later 'cubist' interpretation of Aristotle's tetragonus, follows the mathematical understanding of the figure as a quadrilateral, often - as in this case - a square. More important, Thierry's use of the tetragon as an example of geometric equality ('equalitatem dimensionum') lays the foundation for his figuration of Christ — the 'equality of unity' — as the primus tetragonus. In his major work devoted specifically to the Trinity, which takes Boethius's De Tnnitate as a point of departure for an autonomous investigation, Thierry fully develops his particular Platonic-Pythagorean trinitarian doctrine, based on Augustine, whereby the Father is unity, the Son is equality of unity, and the Holy Spirit is a union of both.114 Thierry adds several steps to his previous identification of the divine word as unitas equalitas. First, he equates the Father's wisdom ('sapientia'), which is the Son, with this unity of equality (Commentum 2.31). He next paraphrases Paul's characterization of the Son in relation to the Father - Tigura substantiae eius' (Hebrews 1:3) - to argue that the So

174 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry is the 'equality of being' [essendi est equalitas] (2.32-3). From Scripture to mathematics, Thierry now shifts the terms of his argument by calling on the power of the tetragon, the well-worn symbol of equality. He designates the unity of the Father as the 'first squaring' [prima tetragonatura], asserting that 'just as multiplying two by two or four by four makes a square, so unity creates the first square [tetragonum primum]' (2.34). Finally, Thierry triumphantly announces that 'since this first squaring' - the product of unity with itself - 'is the generation of the Son, the Son is the first square' [Et quoniam tetragonatura prima generatio Filii est, et Filius tetragonus primus est] (2.34).115 The divine presence perceived by Boethius in the arrangement of 'square numbers' numeri tetragoni- in his multiplication table (De inst. arith. 1.27) is now embodied in Thierry's primus tetragonus, a literal fegura Christi. I am aware of no direct evidence that Dante was acquainted with Thierry's work, the tetragonal Christ in particular, though it is of course possible that the poet was exposed to the trinitarian ideas of the influential twelfth-century theologian either in Florence, while attending the 'scuole delli religiosi' and 'disputazioni delli filosofanti' (Conv. 2.12.7) ,116 or perhaps during his post-exilic travels. In any case, echoes of Thierry's primus tetragonus can be heard in and around Dante's claim to feel 'truly foursquare (tetragono) against the blows of chance.' An intriguing connection between Thierry's commentary and Dante's episode is the shadow cast in both texts by the second crusade, undertaken by Conrad in along with Louis vii of France in 1147. Dante refers unequivocally to this failed mission by having his twelfth-century ancestor follow 'lo 'mperador Currado' to his martyr's death in the Holy Land (Par. 15.13948). Thierry, by contrast, alludes to the second crusade more elliptically when he attempts to establish the eternal nature of the tetragonal Son by citing the beginning of a prophecy ascribed to the 'Spanish Sibyl': 'When you have come to the coast of the eternally placed Tetragon and to the coast of the eternally standing tetragons ...' [Cum perveneris ad costam Tetragoni sedentis eterni et ad costam tetragonorum stantium eternorum] (2.34). This riddle, proof that prophetic utterances in the Middle Ages could be every bit as obscure as the ambage of the pagans (Par. 17.31-3), was interpreted in political terms as a sign of the second crusade, soon to be proclaimed by Saint Bernard.1 Insofar as this sibylline tetragon, however coincidentally, points to both the prophesied crusade in which Cacciaguida earned his martyrdom and the wayfarer's psychological approach to his prophesied exile, Dante once again appears as afigura Cacciaguidae within his overall imitatio Christi.

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While Thomas praises the perfection of the cube in his gloss to Aristotle's tetragonal individual, Thierry completes his discussion of Christ as the primus tetragonus by underscoring the perfection of the square that results from its equal dimensions: 'The tetragon is thus well suited to the Son since this figure is considered more perfect than others due to the equality of its sides' [Beiie autem tetragonus Filio attribuitur quoiiiam figura hec perfectior ceteris propter laterum equalitatem iudicatur] (2.34). In the cantos of Mars, Dante is similarly attentive to the tetragonal relationship between equality and divine perfection. Although a complete geometric square - a true tetragonus- is only available to the reader/viewer willing to connect the four points of the cross of Mars, the poet's construction and use of the flashing cross keeps the defining attributes of the square - equal sides and right angles - before his reader's eye. Dante's 'veiierabil segno,' we recall, is geometrically formed from the perpendicular crossing of two diameters in a circle (Par: 14.101-2). The four arms of the cross, in other words, are equal in length and form four right angles at the centre of the circle.118 Dante brings these abstract features to life by moving the warrior lights vertically and horizontally along the perpendicular diameters of the cross: 'Di corno in corno e tra la cima e '1 basso / si movieri lumi, scinullando forte / ael congiugnersi insieme e iiel trapasso' [From horn to horn and between the top and the base, lights were moving that sparkled brightly as they met and passed] (14.109-11). Fittingly, the poet honours his illustrious ancestor by allowing him to travel along both diameters — first across and then down - as he marks out two sides of a square. Descending, like a shooting star, from the right arm of the cross down to the base, Cacciaguida does not take a short cut by leaving the cross ('ne si parti la gemma dal suo iiastro' [15.22]); rather, he traces a right angle by going first to the intersection of the two arms - 'per la lista radial' - and then straight down to the bottom (15.23). The equality of the tetragonus that makes it a true image of Christ, the 'equality of unity,' emerges as a goal rather than a possession of the wayfarer at the centre of paradise. Once Cacciaguida has descended from the cross, he speaks in a way that exceeds his progeny's understanding (Par. 15.31-9), a sure sign of the gap separating the mortal traveller from his divine ancestor. Similar to how Scripture and the church 'condescend' to human minds through anthropomorphic depictions of God and the angels (Par. 4.43-8), Cacciaguida must 'lower his speech' to be understood by his living interlocutor (15.40-5). Able to read Dante's unspoken thoughts in the mirror of God's omniscience, the warrior

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spirit nonetheless urges his descendant to speak in order to satisfy completely the 'holy love' with which he has anticipated this celestial encounter (15.61-9). The wayfarer's long prelude to his request - to learn the identity of the blessed spirit - reveals the extent to which his mortal nature lacks the equality of intellect and love enjoyed by the blessed in the presence of God, here invested with the tetragonal power of the'First Equality': ... 'L'affetto e '1 senno, come la prima equalitd v'apparse, d'un peso per ciascun di voi si fenno, pero che '1 sol che v'allumo e arse, col caldo e con la luce e si iguali, che tutte simiglianze sono scarse. Ma voglia e argomento ne' mortali, per la cagion ch'a voi e manifesta, diversamente son pennuti in ali; ond' io, che son mortal, mi sento in questa disagguaglianza, e pero non ringrazio se non col core a la paterna festa. Ben supplico io a te, vivo topazio che questa gioia preziosa ingemmi, perche mi facci del tuo nome sazio.' (Par. 15.73-87) [Love and intelligence, as soon as the first Equality became visible to you, became of one weight for each of you, because the Sun which illumined you and warmed you is of such equality in its heat and light that all comparisons fall short. But will and faculty in mortals, for the reason that is plain to you, are not equally feathered in their wings, so that I, who am mortal, feel myself in this inequality, and therefore can only give thanks with the heart for your paternal welcome. But I beseech you, living topaz who are a gem in this precious jewel, that you satisfy me with your name.]

Pseudo-Dionysius praises God as both the embodiment and source of all equality.119 Here at the centre of Dante's vision the unequalled equality of God that balances love and intellect - 'L'affetto e '1 senno' - in the blessed souls, the unmatched equality ('si iguali') of the Sun's warmth and light, is precisely what is lacking in the wayfarer: like all mortals, he experiences the 'inequality' - disagguaglianza - of love and intellect, of will and the faculties of thought and expression. The wayfarer's inequal-

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ity at this central juncture therefore serves as yet another proleptic gloss on the endpoint of his journey, the moment when he, too, will experience the power of the 'prima equalita' - the primus tetragonus - as his desire arid will are set into perfect balance - 'igualmente' - by Tamor che move il sole e 1'altre stelle' [the Love that moves the sun and the other stars]. Declaring himself 'ben tetragorio' in the face of a harsh future, Dante directs the power of this divine equality to the world of time and history as well, thereby inscribing the lesson of a fellow exile in his celestial vision. After Boethius has heard Philosophy's lectures on fortune and her song on the governing force of love, he no longer considers himself 'unequal to the blows of fortune' [inparem fortunae ictibus esse noii arbitrer] (Consolation 3.Pr.l.6-7).120 Transforming Boethius's double negative of equality - inparem.... non arbitrer- into the positive equality of 'ben tetragorio,' Dante links his own destiny with one whom he has allowed to come 'from martyrdom and exile' to the blessed peace of paradise (Par. 10.128-9). Ultimately, the two traditions behind Dante's 'tetragoiio' - Aristotelian-Thomist and Platonic-Chartrian - are themselves joined in a unified whole. While Thomas's cube is an attractive metaphor for the exiled poet as he is tossed about by fortune, Thierry's Christological conception of the 'first tetragon' - combining Boethius's mathematical celebration of the tetragonus with Augustine's trinitarian doctrine - maps Dante's tetragonal self-representation onto the equal-armed cross of sacrifice and redemption that flashes forth 'Cristo' in the sphere of Mars. For Dante, then, the Christological implications of the Chartrian primus tetragonus coincide with the philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the 'four-square man' - homo quadratus - as the 'perfect man.' After all, the archetypal perfect man for medieval Christendom - the perfect man squared - is Christ, the crucified man-god who 'truly extends his arms and legs to the four corners of the universe.'1"1 Whereas Dante's geometer simile in Paradiso 33 exemplifies the dialectical structure and logic of the Incarnation, his tetragonal moniker points to Christ's crucifixion, the sacrifice necessary to fulfil the promise of the Incarnation. Claiming to be 'ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura,' the wayfarer does more than strike a magnanimous pose in the face of the ominous revelations of his future life enigmatically proffered by selected interlocutors in hell and purgatory and now glossed by Cacciaguida in paradise. Just as the poet's supreme effort to create order never erases completely the vestiges of chaos whence that order arose, so his 'tetragono' bears the markings of the hardship and sacrifice that require the exile's resolve

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and magnanimity in the first place. Against the backdrop of the cross of martyred spirits in Mars, Dante's tetragonal verse therefore emerges as his most concise - and personal - representation of incarnational dialectic. At once victor and victim, the exiled poet, like the crucified mangod whose triumph over death resounds in the song of the blessed warriors, must accept inexorable suffering as the price of future glory. 4. Intellectual Action and Dialectical Hermeneutics The real problem is not so much that the system doesn't give you literate politicians as that it guarantees that we will forever have cloistered intellectuals. The natural back and forth between the life of the mind and the life of the world which is the prerequisite for a genuinely cosmopolitan culture is difficult to sustain here. - Adam Gopnik, 'The Man in the Middle'

Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to the prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: 'Segui il tuo corso, e lasciadir le genti.' - Karl Marx, Das Kapital

In the Inferno Dante created an array of doubled figures - two sinners closely bound to one another - to complement an equally impressive line-up of individual shades either literally or figuratively divided. A parody of the humble descent of the divine Logos into humanity, the incarnational union of two complete natures - human and divine - in a single person, the poet's infernal halves and pairs formed an intricate Web of Pride. Here in the Pamdiso, where the Incarnation is celebrated rather than mocked, the blessed spirits appear in the fullness of their glory, and, if they occasionally work in tandem, as do Thomas and Bonaventure in narrating the lives of Francis and Dominic, the result is a harmonious union of their individual voices. Even in the shadowed region of paradise, where the soul of the emperor Justinian appears as a 'double light' (Par. 7.6), Dante aims to recast the volatile relationship between worldly and spiritual desire into a positive representation of incarnational union. Although the poet imagines no blessed couples, no two souls sharing the same celestial space, he uses his verse to join together selected figures in relationships with strong incarnational

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 179 implications. He spins one such union out of the central episode of the Paradiso: Cacciaguida's textual bonding with Boethius, whose light shines in the heaven of the Sun, represents Dante's dialectical response to the traditional dichotomy of contemplation and action. The poet's union of these two lives, the 'life of the mind and the life of the world' cited in the first epigraph, thus addresses the perennial problem motivating Plato's promotion of the philosopher-king and contemporary calls for civic-minded intellectuals.122 Committed to the power of his words, Dante envisions his Commedia as the sacred product of such intellectual action. The poet both advances and qualifies this dialectic by spinning a second, far more provocative union out of the cantos of Mars, this time joining the spirit of Cacciaguida with the infernal shade of Brunette Latini. Dante's doubling of his crusading ancestor with his fatherly mentor across textual and theological boundaries in a fertile indeed incarnational - union is nothing less than a hermeneutic call to arms. Hitherto regarded as a textbook case of the oppositional interpretive mode - in malo / in bono- of Scriptural exegesis and medieval theology in the Commedia, the poet's pairing of his two 'fathers,' one punished in hell for sodomy and the other glorified in heaven as a warrior-martyr, instead emerges as an outstanding illustration of his incarnational dialectic. Firmly rooted in the paradoxical logic of the mangod, Dante's poetry demands a hermeneutics that allows for both opposition and continuity at the same time. Because the Consolation of Philosophy struck such a deep personal chord in Dante following the death of Beatrice in 1290 and his banishment from Florence twelve years later (Conv. 1.2.13 and 2.12.2), it is natural for the poet to grant Boethius a prominent place in his celestial vision. Thomas's introduction of the famous exile as the eighth soul in his ring of solar luminaries is a full tercet longer than his presentation of Solomon, the most beautiful light of the twelve: Or se tu 1'occhio de la mente Irani di luce in luce dietro a le mie lode, gia de 1'ottava con sete rimani. Per vedere ogne ben dentro vi gode 1'anima santa che '1 mondo fallace fa manifesto a chi di lei ben ode. Lo corpo ond' ella fu cacciata giace giuso in Cieldauro; ed essa da martiro e da essilio venne a questa pace. (Par. 10.121-9)

180 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry [If now you are bringing your mind's eye from light to light after rny praises, you are already thirsting for the eighth. Therewithin, through seeing every good, the sainted soul rejoices who makes the fallacious world manifest to any who listen well to him. The body from which it was driven lies down below in Cieldauro, and he came from martyrdom and exile to this peace.]

The well-known verbal parallels and repetitions between this epitaph to Boethius and the Cacciaguida cantos are powerful ones. Boethius's pleasure in his blessed state ('vi gode' [10.124]) is matched by Cacciaguida's delight - 'si godeva' - in his divinely inspired words to the wayfarer (18.1). Whereas Boethius, through his life and work, reveals the world to be false and deceptive ("1 mondo fallace / fa manifesto' [10.125-6]), Cacciaguida, who was freed from this 'mondo fallace' (15.146), exhorts his talented descendant to 'put aside all falsehood' (17.127) and fulfil his poetic mission ('tutta tua vision fa manifesta' [17.128]). This doubling of Boethius and Cacciaguida- each a 'sainted soul' ('anima santa' [10.125; 17.1]) - is encapsulated in their salvific deaths, as both came from martyrdom to the peace of eternal life in paradise: 'da martiro / ... venne a questa pace' (10.128-9); 'veniii dal martiro a questa pace' (15.148). Unlike the poet's lexical doubling of prominent infernal shades, where the repeated word or phrase connects the sinners within a tightly woven web of incarnational parody, his 'rhyming' of Cacciaguida with Boethius constitutes doubling of a higher order.123 As the poet joins the solar and martian episodes with his transitional cross-in-circle image (Par. 14.100-2), thus fulfilling the cosmic joining of circles and crosses that launched the celestial voyage/ poem (Par. 1.37-42) and prefiguring the incarnational fit of 'nostra effige' [our image] in the divine circle of the final vision (Par. 33.12731), so he joins Boethius and Cacciaguida in a union of their paradisal 'natures.' Dante himself, through his incarnational poetry, embodies this dialectical union of Boethian wisdom and Cacciaguidan action, each complete in its own right. Of course, this celebration of intellectual action builds on the more traditional configurations of the contemplative and active lives, which the poet himself features in his work both before and after the cantos of the Sun and Mars. The philosophical glossator of the Convivio follows the procedure of Thomas Aquinas by combining Aristotle's thought on the two lives with the Scriptural exegesis of the Church Fathers, Augustine and Gregory the Great, in particular.124 He first views the active and

Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 181 contemplative lives as roads to two levels of happiness in the world, 'buona' and 'oltima': Veramante e da sapere che noi potemo avere in questa vita due felicitadi, secondo due diversi cammini, buono e ottimo, che a cio ne menano: 1'uno e la vita attiva, e 1'altro la conternplativa; la quale, avegna che per 1'attiva si pervegna, come detto e, a buona felicitade, ne mena ad ottima felicitade e heatitudine, secondo che pruova lo Filosofo nel decimo dell'Etica. (4.17.9) [We must know, however, that we may have two kinds of happiness in this life, according to two different paths, one good and the other best, which lead us there. One is the active life, the other the contemplative life, and although by the active, as has been said, we may arrive at a happiness that is good, the other leads us to the best happiness and state of bliss, as the Philosopher proves in ihe tenth book of the Ethics.]

Dante corroborates this Aristotelian conception, including the superiority of contemplation as a function of the speculative intellect's desire for truth, with the evangelical example of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:3842; Conn 4.17.10), the two sisters encountered by Christ who were 'moralmente' interpreted as symbols, respectively, of the active and contemplative lives beginning with Origen. He later ascribes the samedichotomy - with the same hierarchy - to the two uses of the soul, the practical and speculative (4.22.11-18). While the former requires the guidance of the cardinal - or moral - virtues, the latter leads one to consider the works of God and nature (11). He concludes, in accordance with the theological tradition, that individuals first approach beatitude in this life imperfectly, through the operation of the moral virtues in the active life, before reaching 'nearly' perfect blessedness in the operations of the intellectual virtues (18). Not even the contemplative life can produce perfect happiness and blessedness in the world because 'nostra beatitudine somma' four supreme blessedness] arid God are one and the same (17). Dante provides a detailed map of this journey to perfect blessedness with his vision of the afterlife that is the Commedia. While the poet may indeed figure the dark wood and the illuminated hill of the opening canto as visual representations of the active and contemplative lives,1'5 he calls directly on the theological tradition in the Purgatono with his imagining of a second pair of biblical sisters, Leah and Rachel. At the top of the mountain, before entering the 'divine forest' and encounter-

182 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry

ing Matelda, the wayfarer experiences his third and final purgatorial dream, in which he envisions a woman, 'yourig and beautiful,' who is singing as she gathers flowers for a garland. Leah describes herself and her sister Rachel according to the conventional symbolism of the active and contemplative lives, though she provides no indication of the standard superiority of the latter: 'Ell' e d'i suoi belli occhi veder vaga / com' io de 1'addornarmi con le mani; / lei lo vedere, e me 1'ovrare appaga' [She is fain to behold her fair eyes, as I am to deck me with my hands: she with seeing, I with doing am satisfied] (Purg. 27.106-8). Veering from the philosophical and theological traditions followed in the Convivio, Dante here presents 'seeing' and 'doing' as equal partners, consistent with his later yoking of spiritual speculation to moral action in the presentation of religious contemplatives in Saturn (Par. 21-2).126 The poet likewise joins contemplation and action in an incarnational union by rhyming Boethius with Cacciaguida in the central episode of the Paradise. 'Seeing' and 'doing' become one in the Corn-media itself, as the wayfarer's vision becomes the poet's work. Offering the union of Boethius and Cacciaguida as an alternative to such Scriptural pairings as Rachel/Leah and Martha/Mary, Dante thus adapts the traditional conception of the two lives to the lofty yet pragmatic aims of his poetry. By placing the realm of action on a more equal footing with that of contemplation, he is able to ground his dialectical union of the two lives in the mystery of the Incarnation, the joining of two complete natures in a single person. The Fathers prepare for the poet's incarnational dialectic of action and contemplation. Augustine, for example, enlists an interpretation of the names 'Lia' and 'Rachel' 'the one temporal, in which we labor, the other eternal, iri which we shall contemplate the delights of God' - to locate the two lives in the body of Christ.' ~7 Elsewhere he explicitly aligns Mary and Martha with Christ's two natures: 'In the beginning was the Word; this is the one Mary heard. And the Word was made flesh; this is the one Martha served.'I2S Thus the contemplative life - represented by Mary - honour Christ as the divine Logos, while the active life - Martha - honours God's assumption of human form. Gregory takes Augustine's mapping of contemplation and action onto Christ to its logical conclusion when he describes the man-god as the 'pattern' - exemplum - of the two lives insofar as they were joined in the incarnate Redeemer (Moralia in Job 28.33).129 Dante's imagining of a dialectic of action and contemplation, paradoxical in the manner of the Incarnation, emerges as his own exemplum for perfect living in the world.

Dame's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 183 To conceptualize this incarnational union of the two lives, Dante must at least qualify the Aristotelian and patristic privileging of contemplation over action. Not surprisingly, he finds support for this adjustment in the thought of other poet-visionaries, principally the Platonic conception of the philosopher-ruler (Republic 5.473C-D) as developed by Cicero and glossed by Macrobius. Whereas Boethius calls on Plato's example to justify his outstanding if ill-fated political activities only to reaffirm the conventional bias toward contemplation (thereby earning his place as Dante's representative intellect in the Sun), 1 '*" Cicero and Macrobius open the door to a more dialectical treatment of the two lives. Cicero, as we have seen, leaves no doubt as to the ultimate value of the active life, defining Scipio the Younger's devotion to duty and justice, primarily in political affairs, as his 'passport to the sky1 (Somnium 3.6). In the final exhortation to his grandson, Scipio the Elder succinctly expounds Cicero's view on the role of political action in preparing the immortal soul for the afterlife: Kxerdse it in the best achievements. The noblest efforts are in behalf of your native country; a soul thus stimulated and engaged will speed hither to its destination and abode without delay. [Hanc tu exerce optimis in rebus. Sunt autem optimae curae de salute patriae, quibus agitatus et. exercitatus animus velocius in hanc sedem et domum suam pervolabit] (9.2)

While the souls of outstanding civic leaders, it is true, will rise to blessedness even more quickly by contemplating what lies beyond the material world, they are nonetheless encouraged to put forth the 'noblest efforts' for their own good as well as that of the social order. Macrobius, whose commentary on the Somnium is informed by the earlier books of Cicero's De republica as well as by the Platonic model on which the Roman work is based - texts unavailable to Dante - appropriately anticipates the poet's incarnational dialectic of action and contemplation by joining Classical arid Christian-Neoplatonic traditions. The point of departure for Macrobius's analysis is his observation that, though Plato and Cicero differ inasmuch as the former imagined an ideal state as yet unrealized and the latter described one already in place, they both conclude their work with an account of the afterlife and a description of the celestial realm (1.1.1-3). Macrobius's brief explanation of the relevance of Plato's fiction and Cicero's dream to the

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political content of their philosophical texts would be an accurate gloss on the general moral structure of Dante's vision, the reciprocity of this world and the next. Because the 'love of justice' is Plato's essential ingredient for the establishment and maintenance of the state as well as human relationships and family life (1.1.4), Macrobius argues that the Greek philosopher ends his Republic with an account of the soul surviving death 'in order to show that rewards for the pursuit of justice and penalties for its neglect await the souls of men, for these are indeed immortal and must submit to judgment' [ut iustitiae vel cultae praemium vel spretae poenam animis quippe immortalibus subiturisque iudicium servari doceret] (1.1.7). Thus Cicero, according to Macrobius, imitates Plato in establishing a causal relationship between the central role of justice in socio-political life and the rewards and punishments of immortal souls (1.1.8). Macrobius provides a theoretical framework for this Platonic-Ciceronian conception of justice by explicating Cicero's bold assertion that 'all those who have saved, aided, or enlarged the commonwealth have a definite place marked off in the heavens where they may enjoy a blessed existence forever' [omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint auxerint, certum esse in caelo deiiriitum locum ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur] (Somnium 3.1). Examining four different types - political, cleansing, purified, exemplary - of the four moral virtues, Macrobius firmly counters the prevalent belief that 'virtues are found only in men who philosophize,' according to which 'none are blessed except philosophers' [nullis nisi philosophantibus inesse virtutes, nullos praeter philosophos beatos esse] (1.8.3). Rather, he puts the political leader who embodies the virtues on a par with the virtuous philosopher. Macrobius's celebration of the virtuous civic leader aptly describes Dante's warriors spirits - exemplary patriots - in the sphere of Mars: By these virtues upright men devote themselves to their commonwealths, protect cities, revere parents, love their children, and cherish relatives; by these they direct the welfare of the citizens, and by these they safeguard their allies with anxious forethought and bind them with the liberality of their justice; by these 'They have won remembrance among men.' [His boni viri rei publicae consulunt, urbes tuentur: his parentes venerantur, liberos amant, proximos diligunt: his civium salutem gubernant: his socios circumspecta providentia protegunt, iusta liberalitate devinciunt: hisque '... sui memores alios fecere merendo.'] (1.8.6)

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185

The citation that concludes Macrobius's passage, from Aeneid 6.664, is echoed in Cacciaguida's praise of the earthly accomplishments and subsequent reputations of the blessed souls adorning the cross. During their lifetimes these warriors 'fuor di gran voce / si ch'ogne musa ne sarebbe opima' [were of such great renown that every Muse would be rich with them] (Par. 18.32-3). The Virgilian presence also reminds us that Macrobius himself, as the commentator of both Cicero (Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis) and Virgil (Saturnalia), serves as a model of the reinforcing influences of the two Roman auctores in Dante's central episode. Glossing Scipio the Elder's final exhortation, in which he urges civic action and celestial contemplation as the principal paths to blessedness (Somnium 9.2), Macrobius returns to his earlier discussion of the virtues (1.8). He concludes that, while one set befitted philosophers and another public leaders, 'the exercise of both made one blessed' [utrasque tamen exercentem facere beatum] (2.17.4). Macrobius thus draws out the implications of Cicero's text by privileging a dialectical union of the virtues over a dichotomous separation. If individuals who distinguish themselves through either outstanding public service or exceptional learning earn their reward in the heavens (2.17.5-6), such blessedness is especially due those who both 'drank deeply of philosophy and laid a firm basis for the state' [qui et philosophiam hauserunt altius et firmamentum rei publicae praestiteruiit] (2.17.8). Macrobius naturally views Scipio the Younger, Cicero's dreaming protagonist, as one such dialectical being: obedient to 'the precepts of philosophy' and distinguished for 'deeds of valor' on behalf of the republic, 'he is charged with upholding the highest standards of both modes of life' [ei perfectionis gerninae praecepta maridantur] (2.17.9). While Boethius honoured 'the precepts of philosophy' and Cacciaguida served the socio-political order with 'deeds of valor,' their common ascension from the violence of the fallacious world to the eternal glory and peace of paradise attests to Dante's belief in this ideal union of action and contemplation that for Augustine and Gregory was embodied in the incarnate Word. Of course, it is true that the poet's polymath and crusader are martyrs whose 'natures' overlap. Boethius is a victim of his political activities, and Cacciaguida imparts wisdom gained from divine contemplation. Yet their essential identities in the Paradiso - contemplative for Boethius, active for Cacciaguida - are clearly determined by their virtual collocation in the Sun and Mars respectively, consecutive celestial markers of intellectual-spiritual and military-political journey

186 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry to God. Dante himself indefatigably pursued excellence in both the active and contemplative lives, even if his practical failures in the first led to his success in the second. Thus he recognizes, even in the rarefied atmosphere of his celestial vision, that the world is impoverished when rulers and poets - 'o cesare o poeta' - so infrequently strive for Apollo's prize (Par. 1.28-33). In this sense, Boccaccio's criticism of his predecessor's participation in Florentine politics - activity which allegedly prevented the poet from devoting himself to the 'philosophical considerations' that constitute the 'highest peace of mind' (Trattatello 48 [2nd redaction]) - is spectacularly misguided. Joining the philosophical fervour of Boethius with the crusading zeal of Cacciaguida, Dante effectively redraws the map of these virtuous paths to blessedness in the Commedia by imagining an indissoluble union - an incarnadonal dialectic — of action and contemplation. Insofar as Dante's poem is his call for spiritual and political renewal,131 the life of the mind and the life of the world become one in the name of the poet's intellectual action.

When Karl Marx, in the second epigraph to this section, calls on Dante's example to declare his indifference to a prejudiced readership, he makes a telling mistake.132 Although the poet's supposed verse, 'Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le geiiti' [Follow your course and let the people talk], appears nowhere in the Commedia as such, it reads like a fusion of verses from three separate episodes, one from each cantica. While the purgatorial episode, in which Virgil urges his companion to ignore the exclamations of souls in the ante-purgatory and to keep moving, textually matches a part of Marx's citation exactly ('Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le gentf [Purg. 5.13]), the passages from the Inferno and Parodiso best capture the tone and significance behind the political philosopher's sentiment. Bruiietto Latini promises success for Dante if he follows his star ('Se tu segui tua Stella' [Inf. 15.55]), and the wayfarer dutifully commits to memory the sinner's enigmatic prophecies ('Cio che narrate di mio corso scrivo' [That which you tell me of my course I write]), combining them with others to be glossed by Beatrice (88-90). Of course, Cacciaguida - not Beatrice - performs this function in paradise, exhorting his gifted descendant to 'tell all' with scant concern for those who, like Marx's contemptible public, might take offence: 'e lascia pur grattar dov' e la rogna' [and then let them scratch where the itch is] (Par. 17.129). This last verse, the least similar - word for word - to the spuri-

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ous citation, most nearly expresses the haughty disdain that Marx sought to convey by appropriating 'the maxim of the great Florentine.' Triggered by Dante's network of internal echoes, Marx's literary lapse therefore bears witness to the Corn-media s remarkable system of self-commentary, the way in which episodes - from all three cantiche - shed comparative and conirastivc light oil one another through lexical, imagistic, tonal, and thematic repetitions.133 Whereas the doubling of Boethius and Cacciaguida is rich yet constrained by the textual disparity between the solar luminary's cameo appearance and the martiaii crusader's multi-canto narrative, the major role of Cacciaguida's infernal counterpart allows for a more developed series of parallels and echoes. Commentary on the Bruiietto-Cacciaguida nexus is plentiful and dates to the poem's earliest readers. Pietro di Dante (1340), for instance, glosses the wayfarer's infernal declaration of his readiness to confront a harsh future - 'ch'a la Fortuiia, come vuol, son presto' [I am prepared for Fortune as she wills] (Inf. 15.93) - with Aristotle's praise of the 'tetragonal' response to adverse fortune, one of the key passages behind Dante's reaction to such 'parole gravi' [heavy words] in the Cacciaguida episode: 'io mi seiita / ben tetragoiio ai colpi di ventura' [I feel myself truly foursquare against the blows of chance] (Par. 17.23-4). IH Scholars have adduced numerous links between the two episodes, ranging from specific verbal doubles to shared political and literary concerns. Thus, the word tesoro - 'treasure' - names both Brunette's book (Inf. 15.119) and Cacciaguida himself (Par. 17.121). The wayfarer's desire to make clear — manifesto — to Brunette his readiness to confront adverse fortune (Inf. 15.91—3) likewise anticipates Cacciaguida's exhortation to hold back nothing in revealing his vision: 'tutta tua vision fa manifesta' [make manifest all that you have seen] (Par. 17.128). As Brunette locates the source of the wayfarer's political woes in the 'Fiesolan beasts' (Inf. 15.73), the 'ingrato popolo maligiio' [thankless, malignant people] representing the part of Florence inimical to Dante (61-4), so Cacciaguida rails against Dante's political companions in exile, a group 'tutta ingrata' [all ungrateful] (Par. 17.64), whose 'bestialita will be seen in the results of their actions (67—8). Even Brunette's dramatic departure, in which he appears as one of the fleetfooted runners in Verona's polio (Inf. 15.121-4), is echoed by Cacciaguida's identification of his birthplace with the running of Florence's annual race (Par. 16.41-2). What to make of these and other correspondences is another matter all together. In fact, the ease in making such connections is matched

188 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry only by the difficulty in interpreting their significance for the relationship between Brunette and Cacciaguida. The importance of this relationship is compounded by the structural symmetry of the two episodes, located toward the centres of the Inferno and Paradise, a symmetry perhaps completed with Marco Lombardo near the middle of the Purgatorio.[^ No doubt encouraged by this feature of the poem's architecture, most critics take the repetitions and echoes in Inferno 15 and Paradiso 15-17 as nearly opposite in meaning to those linking Cacciaguida to Boethius in heaven, that is, as ironic markers of the eschatological difference separating Brunette from Cacciaguida. Irrepressible here is the power of Dante's theological domains in assessing the worth - in whole and in part — of the spirits placed therein and consequently the nature of relationships between two figures from different realms, principally hell and either of the two realms of the saved. But why not take Brunetto as Cacciaguida's typological figura rather than his infernal foil? Consistent with Cacciaguida's role as the glossator of the veiled and fragmented prophecies (including Brunetto's) gathered by the wayfarer during his journey, this manner of reading Dante's poem - so familiar to us from Auerbach's capital essay136 - illuminates major issues central to both episodes. Thus Cacciaguida's profound welcome, in which he guarantees his descendant's salvation by assuming a return trip to heaven (Par. 15.29-30), fulfils Brunetto's promise of his pupil's arrival at a 'glorioso porto" [glorious port] so long as he follows his star (Inf. 15.55-6).l37 Likewise, Brunetto's prophecy that Black and White factions will each want, a piece of the wayfarer - Tuna parte e 1'altra avranno fame / di te' [the one party and the other shall be hungry for you] (Inf. 15.70-2) - is a fitting pretext for Cacciaguida's argument in favour of no partisan attachments at all ('a te fia bello / avert! fatta parte per te stesso' [it will be for your fair fame to have made you a party by yourself (Par. 17.68—9)]). Most important, while Brunetto taught Dante 'come 1'uom s'etterna' [how man makes himself eternal] (Inf. 15.85), Cacciaguida, reversing the conventional denigration of artistic fame rehearsed by Oderisi da Gubbio on the terrace of pride (Purg. 11.91— 117), knows that the poet's inspired voice - like a powerful wind that strikes the highest treetops (Par. 17.133-4) - will indeed live on.138 According to this figural reading, then, Brunetto's 'cara e buona imagine paterna' [dear, kind paternal image] (Inf. 15.83) is fleshed out by Cacciaguida, a truly consanguineous father (Par. 16.16) overflowing with 'amor pater no' [paternal love] (Par. 17.35). Ultimately, neither the corrective reading of Brunetto as an in malo

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version of Cacciaguida nor the typological interpretation of the sinner as the blessed warrior's figura stands completely on its own. Dante instead transforms incarnational thought into a method of reading his poem: as the complete human and divine natures join in a single person, so the poet asks us to accept - on faith, as it were - a hermeneutics allowing for both opposition and continuity even when applied to a single character or issue. This hermeneutics, paradoxical in the way the Incarnation defies Aristotle's law of non-contradiction, is indeed a divine dialectic. In the case of Brunette, the predominant oppositional reading of his relationship to Cacciaguida is therefore reductive when passed off as the whole story. In addition to an in malo / in bono arrangement, the bad father in hell replaced by the good one in heaven, Dante also positions Cacciaguida as Brunette's figural fulfilment. It is true, of course, that Dante condemns the literary and intellectual glory valued by Brunette when it is divorced from a higher purpose, much as humankind could not redeem itself by itself in the incarnational narrative (Tuom fue / da poter sodisfar per se dischiuso' [man was shut off from power to make satisfaction by himself (Par. 7.101-2)]). Brunette's dramatic appeal to the wayfarer to remember his encyclopedic work, in which he claims life beyond the grave (Inf. 15.119-20), more than justifies his reputation as, in Giovanni Villani's words, a 'mondano uomo' [worldly man] (Cronichefeorentine8.lQ).l*g3 Yet, consistent with the poet's conception of intellectual action, human excellence and spiritual devotion join in an ideal union exemplified by the Word made flesh. Thus Brunette's promotion of literature and rhetoric is 'redeemed' - not merely denied - by Cacciaguida's encouragement of his progeny's poetry for the benefit of posterity. The fact that we listen so enthusiastically to Dante's voice today — presumably for more than its entertainment value, though for that too — is perfectly compatible with, not contrary to, the poet's conception and representation of his own literary mission. To perceive a redemptive dimension in Brunette's relationship with Cacciaguida in no way 'rescues' him from Dante's hell. It accepts, rather, the poet's collocation of his fatherly mentor as an unrepentant sodomite in the third round of the circle of violence without resorting to the metaphoric representations of the sexual act that abound in the critical literature. Several of the most influential arguments for an ersatz sodomy are instructive for what they reveal about common critical assumptions guiding interpretation of Dante's infernal characters, especially one 'charged' with a 'sin' as misunderstood and controversial

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today as it was in the Middle Ages. As is clear from Mark D. Jordon's recent study, 'sodomia,' despite the contradictions and oscillations in the meaning of the term, was considered primarily a sexual sin - usually same-sex copulation - in the theological tradition available to Dante.140 Nevertheless, many if not most modern discussions of Dante's Brunette either posit a substitute sin for the sexual one or bracket the carnal act in order to foreground a figurative version of it. Examples of the first type, often motivated by the absence of corroborating historical 'evidence' of Brunette's sexual proclivities (he was, after all, a 'family man'), include linguistic perversion (Pezard), unnatural political affilia tions (Kay), and a Manichean heresy (Armour) as reasons for Brunetto's exposure to flakes of fire on the plain stamped with Sodom.141 Figurative extensions of Brunette's sexual sodomy are no less varied and meticulously constructed, ranging from rhetorical sodomy (Vance) to a failed theory of knowledge (Mazzotta) and a humanist pursuit of immortality (Freccero).142 By either denying or occluding Dante's representation of at least a part of Brunette's sexual life, critics must find or construct other reasons for Dante's placement of his beloved father figure on the burning plain that 'seals' Sodom (Inf. 11.49-50), the name of the city shouted by the purgatorial spirits who engaged in the activity 'per che gia Cesar, triunfando, / "Regina" contra se chiamar s'intese' [for which Caesar in his triumph once heard 'Queen' cried out against him] (Purg. 26.77-8). As elegant as some of these figurative readings are, and as different as the motivations behind them may be, they share a methodological problem. Supported by 'evidence' - historical, political, linguistic-cultural, theological - aimed at showing how Brunette's views differed from Dante's (i.e., Dante-poet's), they only tell us what is true to a greater or lesser extent of almost everyone other than the poet himself. Indeed, it would be more difficult to find a major historical figure - even from thirteenth-century Florence - who agreed with every one of Dante's positions than to prove Brunette's alleged 'deviance,' sexual or otherwise. To propose an alternative or additional form of sodomy based on the considerable divergence between Brunetto's ultimately unremarkable literary/scholarly production and Dante's great poem only confirms that Dante is an outstanding writer while Brunette is not. I am unconvinced by these readings, then, not because I think they are necessarily 'wrong,' but because they are not specific enough to Brunetto's case. Freccero's argument is exemplary, for while he does not shy away from the sexual nature of Brunetto's sin (specifying it as pederasty), he

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further assumes that everything else about the infernal character must be damned as well. This unwarranted assumption is a result of Augustine's conversion narrative placed too tightly over Dante's poetic vision. While Freccero identifies the leitmotiv of Infernoo 15, in support of his conversion theory, as 'turning' and 'movement' (71), there is little doubt that the leitmotiv of his essay is irony. In fact, these two themes conversion and irony - are closely bound in Freccero's thought, as his reading of Brunette derives from a vantage point outside the episode the perspective, that is, of the 'converted' poet and his paradisal 'corrective' to Brunette in the form of Cacciaguida. As valid as Singleton's retrospective hermeneutics from which it derives,143 this conversion perspective - and the infernal irony it presupposes - does not always do justice to the creative complexity of Dante's imagination, his iricarnational dialectic of correction and refinement, conversion and continuity, metaphor and metonymy.144 In an underutilized study of Dante's Brunette, Charles T. Davis questions the assumption that hell has 'only the negative educational value of a deterrent.' 140 Refusing to read Brunette ironically, Davis offers a prudent caveat, one as indispensable today as it was in 1967: 'if it is dangerous always to identify the attitudes of Dante the pilgrim with those of Dante the poet, it is also dangerous, even in Hell, and much more in Purgatory arid Paradise, always to separate them completely' (196). By loosening the interpretive stranglehold of the poet-pilgrim dichotomy, 'even in Hell,' we can refrain from asking 'what's wrong with this picture?' when confronted with Brunette in Inferno 15 and both refocus attention on Dante's treatment of same-sex relations - as Pequigney, Boswell, and others have done146 - and come to a fuller appreciation of his dialectical hermeneutics. Dante, to my mind, imagines Brunette in hell as an unrepentant sodomite consistent with the virulent religious and legal rhetoric condemning the 'sin,' understood as copulation between men and not necessarily homosexuality per se. Insofar as such sexual activity (usually between a mature man and an adolescent) 'formed part, at one time or another and with varying significance and degrees of involvement, of the life experience of very many Florentine males of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance,'14' Brunette's sodomy is perhaps more shocking to certain modern readers than to the wayfarer himself, who is surprised to find his old teacher among the sodomites not for what Brunette 'did' but for what he failed to do: repent. 148 With no unrepented sin besides sexual sodomy required to explain Dante's presentation of Brunetto in hell, the possibilities for positioning Bru-

192 Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry netto in a dialectical relationship with Cacciaguida, rather than a wholly oppositional one, improve considerably. In recognition of the poet's imagining of continuity as well as conversion across his textual-theological confines, we could imagine that when Brunette ran off from Dante and Virgil in Infernoo 15, like the winner in Verona's palio, he kept running until he met up with Cacciaguida in the central episode of the Paradiso. What Dante's two fathers discuss in this meta-fictional encounter goes to the heart of the poet's project, his desire - indeed his mission - to invest his words with the redemptive power of the incarnate Word. Villani's famous assessment of Brunette's life, while tending toward hyperbole in describing the Florentine secretary as a 'great philosopher,' more accurately recognizes his foundational role in the commune: a 'perfect master in rhetoric' who had written a commentary on a Ciceronian work, Brunette was nothing less than the 'cominciatore e maestro in digrossare i Fiorentini' [initiator and master in refining the Florentines] (Croniche 8.10). The Ciceronian work in question, the De inventione, similarly celebrates rhetoric itself as the harbinger of civilization, the catalyst for moving wayward individuals from bestial living to ordered coexistence in a social structure (1.2.2).149 An important foundation myth in the later Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance, Cicero's account of a 'great and wise' man [magnus ... vir et sapiens] who used 'reason and eloquence' to transform savage humankind into a kind and peaceful community underscored for Brunetto the essential role of rhetoric - both oral and written - in guiding and maintaining the republic.150 Cicero, moreover, clearly states that rhetoric fulfils its foundational potential only when joined with wisdom; conversely, eloquence without wisdom — far worse than wisdom without eloquence — is an evil that can 'corrupt cities and undermine the lives of men' [pervertere urbes et vitas hominum labefactare] (1.2.3). In his Italian translation of Cicero's text, as well as in the accompanying commentary, Brunetto seizes on this interdependence of eloquence and wisdom as the foundation of individual, interpersonal, and communal wellbeing.151 Whereas Cicero merely credits eloquence with enabling reason to found cities, end wars, forge alliances, and form sacred friendships 'more easily' (fadlius), Brunetto grounds these desiderata of human existence in the explicit union of rhetoric and wisdom, 'eloquenzia congiunta con ragione d'animo, cioe con sapienza' [eloquence joined with reason, that is, with wisdom] (11-12). Simplified to 'eloquenzia congiunta con sapienza' (12; 30), this liberal rendering of

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Cicero's thought follows the example of Victorinus, whose late Classical commentary on the De inventions served as an acknowledged authority for Brunette's vernacular treatment.lr^ Brunette not only assigns rhetoric a larger role in political life than even Cicero, lr>3 but his shorthand formula for the union of eloquence and wisdom - emphatically marked with 'congiunta' - also brings rhetoric to bear on Dante's incarnational poetry. Indeed, Brunette embellishes upon Cicero's praise of rhetoric when joined with wisdom by investing it with a spiritual dimension - to incite individuals to love God and one another ('amare Idio e '1 proximo') - essential for the very survival of the human race: 'sanza cio 1'umana gerite non arebbe durato' [without it the human race would not have lasted] (19). Both fouridational and salvific, then, Brunetto's conception of eloquent-wisdom/ wise-eloquence clearly exceeds the secular confines of political science ('scienza delle cittadi' [40]) within which the civic leader and 'mondano uomo' is commonly thought to have distinguished himself. The very connective - congiunta - repeatedly used by Brunetto to designate the union of eloquence and wisdom also expresses the union of Christ's human and divine natures in incarnational theology: 'humanitas divinitate comuncta est,' in Boethius's formulation (Contra Eutycfien et Nestonum 4.28).1;l4 For a poem conceived as the sacred product of both divine and human authors ('e cielo e terra' [Par. 25.1-2]), Brunetto's iucarnationally inflected rhetoric provides a solid theoretical foundation. In the central episodes of the Inferno and Paradiso, this foundation supports the poet's dialectical union of Brunetto and Cacciaguida, a relationship comprising both antagonism and reciprocity. On the one hand, eloquence - in poetry as well as in oratory and letters — is useless at best and often extremely harmful when dissociated from wisdom. Dante well understood, as the canto of Ulysses vividly demonstrates, that eloquence joined with 'scienza' — that is, knowledge and intellectual acuity - but not 'sapienza' poses the greatest threat to the social order. 15 In this light, Brunetto, by overvaluing his erudite 'treasure' of worldly knowledge, is indeed a false teacher and defective father figure who stands in need of a paradisal corrective in the form of Cacciaguida. On the other hand, Brunetto argues in his treatise that the wise use of eloquence to move a listener or reader - 'eloquenzia congiunta con sapienza' - can save civilizations, while Augustine adopts the Ciceronian conception as a way to save souls as well. ° Timid neither to truth nor to public opinion, Dante invests his incarnational poetry with the power to

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do both. Thus Marx's emulation of 'the great Florentine' is both proper and ironic. By providing 'vital nourishment' to an afflicted world, the poet's vision aims to redirect those who have lost the 'diritta via' to eternal life in the celestial city. From this perspective, Brunette's example of how Tuom s'etterna' anticipates Cacciaguida's confirmation of his chosen descendant's redemptive mission. Himself an exemplary rhetorician, armed with eloquence and possessing the force of wisdom (La rettorica, 16),157 Brunetto is therefore both slain and saved by Dante's warrior ancestor.

Admittedly, this dialectical hermeneutics, embracing both in malo / in bono opposition and figural continuity, may be unsettling for many readers, particularly those intent on avoiding or rooting out contradictions at all costs. What is more 'wishy-washy,' after all, than an interpretation or worse, a way of interpreting - that blatantly seeks to 'have it both ways'? To some, this hermeneutics - as well as other figurations of incarnational dialectic discussed in this book - may even smack of cowardly indecision, the vice of Dante's suffering souls who are rejected by both heaven and hell proper (Inf. 3.34—69). But while Dante's 'neutrals' display their lack of conviction by following a banner that rests nowhere and stands for nothing (52—4), incarnational dialectic — even as it accords with a dialectic of paradox that enjoys some success in recent literary studies - is firmly grounded in Dante's intellectual culture and his poetic imagination. It is little wonder that some of the liveliest debates in Dante studies pivot around paired notions — such as poet/theologian, structure/ poetry, and pilgrim/author - that at times appear simultaneously antithetical and reciprocal. Endorsing rather than repudiating this paradox can be difficult. Yet this is precisely what we must do to engage fully with a poet for whom the incarnate Word is not only theological doctrine but also a way of writing and being. If Francesco De Sanctis's romanticist inclinations led him to lionize Dante's damned at the expense of the Commedia's moral structure, and Benedetto Croce's specious 'poesia'/ 'struttura' opposition further relegated the poet's theological imagination to the margins,158 the interpretive pendulum in the latter half of the twentieth century - while making necessary adjustments - has perpetuated these dichotomies by swinging too far in the other direction. That I am not alone in thinking this is evident from the critical mass of

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dialectical readings of Dante's works that makes the present book possible. As this dialectical Dante journeys into the new millennium, we will no doubt see even more clearly how the poet absorbed and transformed essential products of late medieval culture and intellectual history such as incarnational theology - in a poem which stirs the hearts and minds of those who call Dante's world 'antico,' certainly, but contemporary as well.

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Notes

Introduction: Dante's Incarnational Dialectic 1 Erich Auerbach, 'Figura,' trans. Ralph Manheim, in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature: Six Essays (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 11-76, particularly 72. 2 Charles S. Singleton, 'The Two Kinds of Allegory,' reprinted as the appendix to Dante Studies, vol. 1: 'Commedia': Elements of Structure (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), 84-98, in particular 93. See also, in the same volume, 'Substance of Things Seen,' 61-83, in particular 74, as well as 'The Irreducible Dove,' Comparative Literature9.2 (1957): 129-35, particularly 134. 3 John Freccero, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 219. See also 27-8 and 120. 4 Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge, rev. ed. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 215-20, quotation on 225. 5 'non mota, et idcirco fortassis rectius supprimenda' (PL 196.63-202, quotation on 159). I cite the English translation by Grover A. Zinn, The Twelve Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 294. 6 'Non Racio sed sola Fides ibi queritur.' I cite the edition of R. Bossuat (Paris: J. Vrin, 1955), and the translation by James J. Sheridan, Anticlaudianus, or the Good and Perfect Man (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973). 7 'Quam enirn magnum est quamque novum, quam quod semel nee ullo alio saeculo possit evenire, ut eius qui solus est deus natura cum humana quae ab eo erat diversissima conveniret atque ita ex distantibus naturis una fieret copulatione persona!' I cite the text and translation from The Theological

198 Notes to pages 6-8 Tractates, trans. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). 8 Boethius and Richard are members of the first circle (Par. 10.121-9 and 10.131-2), while Anselm appears in the second circle (12.137). I discuss the incarnational significance of these circles in chapter 3. 9 'ut servata integritate utriusque naturae idem sit homo qui deus!' (p. 117). I cite Anselm's Latin text - including page numbers for ease of reference from Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. F.S. Schmitt, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946-51), and the translation by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 3 (Toronto and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1976). I follow Hopkins and Richardson by ending this sentence with an exclamation point and not - as in Schmitt - a question mark. 10 Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the 'Divine Comedy' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 270. 11 For example, Mazzotta describes the relationship between order and transgression as 'the dialectical interaction between the exact boundaries and clarity of closed forms, and the as yet incomplete role and perfectibility of finite man ready to transgress all bounds' (Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 204). 12 Teodolinda Barolini, The Undivine 'Comedy': Detheologizing Dante (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 212. 13 'Arachne, Argus, and St. John: Transgressive Art in Dante and Ovid,' Mediaevalia 13 (1989 for 1987): 207-31, quotation on 208. 14 Dante's Poets: Textuality and Truth in the 'Comedy' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 239 and 201. 15 Thomas C. Stillinger, The Song of Troilus: Lyric Authority in the Medieval Book (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 116-17; John Kleiner, 'Finding the Center: Revelation and Reticence in the VitaNuova,' Texas Studies in Literature and Language 32.1 (1990): 85-100, in particular 98; Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez, Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's 'Rime Petrose' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), quotation on 48; Albert Russell Ascoli, 'The Vowels of Authority (Dante's Convivio IV.vi.3-4),' in Discourses of Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ed. Kevin Brownlee and Walter Stephens (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1989), 23-46; Gary P. Cestaro,'"... quanquam Sarnum biberimus ante denies ...": The Primal Scene of Suckling in Dante's De vulgari eloquentia,' Dante Studies 109 (1991): 119-47, in particular 121; William Franke, Dante's Interpretive Journey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 99-100; Jeffrey T. Schnapp, 'Injured by the Light: Violence and Paideia in

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Dante's Purgatono,' Dante Studies 111 (1993): 107-18; and Peter S. Hawkins, Dante's Paradisoznd the Dialectic of Ineffability,' in Ineffability: Naming the Unnamable from Dante to Beckett, ed. Peter S. Hawkins and Anne Howland Schotter (New York: AMS Press, 1984), 5-21. 16 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 108. 17 John D. Schaeffer, 'The Dialectic of Orality and Literacy: The Case of Book 4 of Augustine's De doctnna Christiana,' PMLA 111.5 (1996): 1133-45. 18 See Mazzotta, 'Logic and Power,' in his Dante's Vision, 96-115; Gustavo Costa, 'Dialectic and Mercury (Education, Magic, and Religion in Dante),' in The 'Divine Comedy' and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences, ed. Giuseppe Di Scipio and Aldo Scaglione (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1988), 43-64; and Warren Ginsberg, 'Place and Dialectic in Pearl and Dante's Paradise,' ELH55A (1988): 731-53. Costa (56-7) and Mazzotta (104) identify a relationship between dialectic and the Incarnation congenial with my notion of Dante's incarnational dialectic. For an in-depth study of dialectic's relation to logic in the Middle Ages, see Eleonore Stump, Dialectic and Its Place in the Development of Medieval Logic (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989). 19 G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1103. He elsewhere observes that, while Dante's poem depicts both the divine universe and a broad canvas of individual lives, 'there is no abstract separation of these two sides and no mere servitude of the individuals' (979-80). 20 A.C. Charity, Events and Their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Christian Typology in the. Bibk and Dante (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 199. 21 Benedetto Croce, La poesia di Dante, 2nd ed. (Bari: Laterza, 1921), 27 and 67-8. 22 John Freccero, 'Medusa: The Letter and the Spirit' and 'The Final Image: Paradiso xxxni, 144,' both reprinted in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, 11935 and 245-57 respectively, in particular 120-3 and 256-7. Freccero's discussion of Dante's 'narrative translation of the dialectic of language' (133) more closely anticipates the paradoxical dialectic employed by Mazzotta and Barolini. 23 Stephen N. Dunning, Dialectical Readings: Three Types of Interpretation (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 7. Similar to Dunning's dialectic of paradox is R.A. Shoaf's understanding of duality, as distinct from dualism, in his study of Milton's poetry. Whereas dualism assumes a real dichotomy, duality embraces both divisive separation and harmonious

200

24

25

26

27 28

29 30

31

32

Notes to pages 10-13

wholeness (Milton, Poet of Duality: A Study ofSemiosis in the Poetry and the Prose [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985], 2-5). For an outright rejection of dialectic in the name of difference, see Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), and Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); and Wlad Godzich, The Culture of Literacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 19-25. Hegel is not so easily dismissed by Jacques Derrida, 'Difference,' in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 1-27; Gianni Vattimo, 'Dialectics, Difference, and Weak Thought,' trans. Thomas Harrison, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 10.1 (1984): 151-64; 'Dialettica e differenza,' in Le avventure della differenza (1980; Milan: Garzanti, 1988), 173-202; and Jacques Taminiaux, Dialectic and Difference: Modern Thought and the Sense of Human Limits, ed. Robert Crease and James T. Decker (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1985), particularly 79-90. Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York and London: Routledge, 1988), x, 100, 209, 213, 221. By dialectic, Hutcheon intends the continual creation and unification of opposites subtending Marxist analysis. Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation: Umberto Eco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 29. 'Diverso igitur intuitu iusta et iniusta est eadem actio, quam contingere potest ab alio iudicari iustam tantum, ab alio iniustam' (p. 57). Although he does not speak specifically of the destruction of Jerusalem, Anselm also uses the deicidal argument to denigrate Judaism in his treatise (1.9, p. 61). 'idem ipse sit perfectus deus et perfectus homo' (p. 102). Christopher Ryan also challenges the prevailing view that Dante's soteriology is essentially the same as Anselm's ('Paradiso vn: Marking the Difference between Dante and Anselm,' in Dante and the Middle Ages: Literary and Historical Essays, ed. John C. Barnes and Cormac O Cuilleanain [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985], 117-37). For medieval conceptions - including Anselm's - of redemption, satisfaction, and atonement, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300), vol. 3 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 106-57, particularly 106-8, 130-1, and 139-44. After asking Dante to 'judge' (giudicar) those whom he has 'accused' (accu-

Notes to pages 14-24

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sai) of these crimes, Justinian provides an example of false accusations by recounting the unjust punishment of Romeo (6.127-42). 33 The semantic energy of this Ulyssean echo was already released earlier in the canto when Beatrice attributed original sin to Adam's inability to put a 'curb' - freno- on his will (7.25-7). For a recent discussion of the interrelations of Ulysses, Adam, and Dante based on, inter alia, the resonances of these key terms (follia, freno), see Barolini, Undivme 'Comedy,'1 48-58 and 105-15. 34 While my thesis derives from specific notions central to both incarnational theology and dialectical thought, there are certainly other ways to approach Dante's poetics of 'both-and.' These include Durling and Martinez's attention to Neoplatonic mediations of divine and human horizons in Dante's poetry ( Time, and the Crystal), and R.A. Shoaf's insights into twinship (in Milton's poetry but clearly applicable to Dante's as well [Milton, Poet of Duality, 30-9]) and Dante's mirroring - through images and rhymes — of truth and its imperfect reflections (Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word: Money, Images, and Reference in Late Medieval Poetry [Norman: Pilgrim Books, 1983], 21-100). Also promising is Christian Moevs' argument that while reality and human understanding are ultimately one in Dante's world-view, they must nonetheless be expressed in dualistic terms ('God's Feet and Hands [ParadMO 4.40-8 j: Non-duality and Non-false Errors,' MZJV114.1 [1999]: 1-13). 1: Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody 1 See 'Christ in Hell,' in The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighien, vol. 1: Inferno, ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 580-3. 2 Although I cite the text and translation of the Vita nuovafrom the edition of Dino S. Cervigni and Edward Vasta (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), I use Barbi's chapter and sentence numbering which Cervigni and Vasta rightly relegate to the margins - for ease of reference. I cite poems by chapter and verse numbers. 3 Dante uses similar language to describe the Incarnation in Convivio 4.5.3-4. Carolynn Lund-Mead writes, 'Without Christ as Word made flesh, Beatrice would not be the flesh which Dante makes word' ('Dante and Androgyny,' in Dante: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Amilcare A. lannucci [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997], 195-213, quotation on 204). Congenial with my incarnational reading is Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez's discussion of the Christian Neoplatonist principle of procession and return in the Vita nuova ( Time, and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's 'Rime Petrose' [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990], 53-70). Martinez elsewhere discusses Beat-

202

Notes to pages 25-7

rice's humility in relation to exinantio (God's humble 'self-emptying'), an important concept in incarnational theology ('Mourning Beatrice: The Rhetoric of Threnody in the Vita nuova," MLN 113.1 [1998]: 1-29, particularly 23-4). 4 While my interpretation of the Vita nuova takes a very different course from John Kleiner's, I follow him in challenging the notion that 'the only deliberate patterns are those executed without blemish' (Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's 'Comedy' [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994], 12). 5 Stephen N. Dunning describes the dialectic of contradiction as 'a grid of binary oppositions, polarities in which the two poles are opposed to each other by definition, as in the binary relations of subject vs. object, positive vs. negative, high vs. low, good vs. bad, and rich vs. poor' (DialecticalReadings: Three Types of Interpretation [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997], 4). 6 Charles S. Singleton, An Essay on the 'Vita Nuova' (1949; reprinted Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 7 Marianne Shapiro offers a different trinitarian interpretation, which emphasizes the patriarchal interdictions of the lord of love, Beatrice's Christlike figuration, and Dante's transformation of Amore'mto a mediating spirit (Dante and the Knot of Body and Soul [New York: St Martin's Press, 1998], 112-25). 8 Gabnele Rossetti, a Versified Autobiography, translated and supplemented by William Michael Rossetti (London: Sands & Co., 1901), 137-9. Umberto Eco points out the historical and philological flaws in Rossetti's attempt to associate Dante with Masonic and Rosicrucian traditions (Interpretation and Overinterpretation: Umberto Eco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose, ed. Stefan Collini [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 53-60). 9 Rossetti here separates out the first canto of the Inferno as a prologue to the entire Commedia. 10 Kleiner, Mismapping the Underworld, 10. 11 Rossetti focuses on the central group of nine poems (4 - C - 4), and Singleton isolates the first and last poems (as introduction and epilogue) to obtain the following pattern: 1 - 9 - 1 - 9 - 1 - 9 - 1 . Kenneth McKenzie, who documents the vigorous debate among dantistia.1 the turn of the century, thinks that 'to such ingenuities as this, little importance should be attached' ('The Symmetrical Structure of Dante's Vita Nuova,' PMLA ns 11.3 [1903]: 341-55, quotation on 350). 12 In addition to Kleiner, see Mark Musa, Dante's 'VitaNuova': A Translation and an Essay (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1973), 98-9

Notes to pages 28-31

203

and 128-34; and Thomas C. Stillinger, TheSongofTroilus: Lyric Authority in the Medieval Book (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 84-107. Arguing that Singleton's closed, ideological interpretation 'simply cannot stand up to the ambiguities that characterize the work's ending,' Robert Pogue Harrison questions the validity of the poem sequence (The Body of Beatrice [Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988], 9-11). Maria Rosa Menocal, for whom the theological themes are ancillary to the story of Dante's poetic apprenticeship, ignores the poetry pattern altogether (Writing in Dante's Cult of Truth from Barges to Boccaccio [Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1991], 11-50). 13 Cervigni and Vasta discuss this important textual issue and propose a way to present the text based on temporal markers (Vita nuova, 19-44). Guglielmo Gorni also dispenses with Barbi's forty-two-chapter scheme, replacing it with a thirty-one-paragraph structure that produces its own series of textual symmetries (Vita Nova [Turin: Einaudi, 1996], xxi-xxvii). 14 For the critical history of Dante's divisiom, as well as new ways of looking at them, see Stillinger (The Song of Troilus, 44-117) and Steven Botterill, '"Pero che la divisione non si fa se non per aprire la sentenzia de la cosa divisa" ( V.N., xiv, 13): The Vita Nuova as Commentary,' Italian Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5 (1994): 61-76. 15 Within the fortv-two-chapter layout, precisely fourteen chapters contain no poems at all. Of the twenty-eight which include poems (two-thirds of the book), three (one-fourteenth of the total) contain multiple poems (8, 22, and 26 have two sonnets). Applying principles of medieval architecture to the text, Jerome Mazzaro observes that the 2:1 ratio of poetry to prose chapters reflects the proportional relationship between the aisles and the nave of a typical Gothic church (The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the 'Vita Nuova' [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981], 54). 16 I here follow Giuseppe Mazzotta, who explores the tension in the Vita nuova between Dante's poetic imagination - shaped by language, memory, and desire - and the foundational rhetoric of theology (Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 56-74, in particular 64). 17 Dante implies that he and Giotto hold equally important positions in their respective fields when he has Oderisi da Gubbio name the leading figures in poetry and painting as part of an invective against 'vana gloria' on the terrace of pride (Purg. 11.94—9). 18 Bruce Cole, Giotto and Florentine Painting, 1280-1375 (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 82. My remarks on this fresco cycle are based on Cole's observations (74-95).

204 Notes to pages 32-8 19 See Margherita De Bonfils Templer, Itinerario di Amore: dialettica di Amore e Morte nella 'Vita Nuova' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 1973), 57-62; and Mario Trovato, 'II capitolo xii della VitaNuova,' ForumItalicum 16.1-2 (1982): 19-32, particularly 27-8. 20 Dante makes a clear distinction between more and less perfect circular forms in the Convtvio (2.13.26; 4.16.8). 21 I discuss Love's instability in 'Love's Duplicity in the VitaNuova,' Italian Culture 10 (1992): 15-26. 22 Harrison, Body of Beatrice, 112. Labelling the first beginning of the sonnet 'an abortive first stanza,' Harrison wonders why Dante would include it along with the second opening that successfully completes the poem. 23 However, Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde judge the first beginning 'more successful' than the second because the first 'enables the poem to stand in isolation' whereas the second is 'dependent on the prose narrative' (Dante's Lyric Poetry, 2 vols. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967], 2:142-3). Domenico De Robertis thinks the two beginnings reflect the division between Dante's work in the world (as a poet) and the divine source of his inspiration (// libra della 'Vita nuova,' 2nd ed. [Florence: Sansoni, 1970], 165). Musa explains the shift from the first to the second beginning as 'a movement from the Greater to the Lesser Aspect' of Love (Dante's 'VitaNuova,' 130). 24 I cite Augustine's Confessions, with modifications (for clarity and modern usage) in the translation, from the Loeb edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). 25 William C. Spengemann similarly describes Augustine's conversion as an 'instantaneous revelation' that 'divides the life in two,' whereas Dante's apprehension of truth 'emerges gradually from a number of experiences scattered through his life' (The Forms of Autobiography.-Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980], 14, 35, and 38). 26 David Lodge lucidly summarizes Roman Jakobson's view of metaphor and metonymy as a binary system, with metaphor characterized by substitution based on similarity and metonymy understood as combination based on contiguity (The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977], 73-81). 27 For discussion of this female trinity (Mary, Lucy, Beatrice), see Joan M. Ferrante, Woman as Image in Medieval Literature: From the Twelfth Century to Dante (1975; reprinted Durham: Labyrinth Press, 1985), 140-1. 28 While other metaphors - such as the 'tomb' - arise more naturally from Dante's text, I prefer the 'web' precisely because of its absence -just like the absent circle of pride it describes. The 'Web of Pride' is therefore a heuristic

Notes to pages 38-40 205

29

30

31

32

33 34

device based on the interconnectedness of the proud spirits otherwise scattered throughout hell. Kenneth Gross, who views Dante's overall conception of sin and punishment as parodic of the Incarnation (and conversion), singles out many of these divided and doubled figures ('Infernal Metamorphoses: An Interpretation of Dante's "Counterpass,"' MLN 100.1 [1985]: 42-69, in particular 46 and 65); so, too, does James Finn Cotter, 'Dante and Christ: The Pilgrim as "Beatus Vir,"' Italian Quarterly 28.107 (1987): 5-19, in particular 7. Dante's symbol of fraud, Geryon, described in the Aeneidzs 'forma tricorporis umbrae' (6.289), may be another example of trinitarian derision resulting from his human face, leonine paws, and a serpentine trunk though Geryon's scorpion-like tail makes this association less precise. Dante's choice of the word consorti to indicate the joining of the Centaur's two natures perhaps echoes, in malo, the biblical promise - based on the Incarnation - that virtuous believers 'may be made partakers [consortes] of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4). Taking Theseus as afegura Chnsti because of his double nature (both human and divine), Penelope Reed Doob describes his slaying of the Minotaur, a bull-man, as a victory over 'double-natured evil, the beastly hybrids who run hell' (The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages [Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990], 301). Minos, according to Doob, mocks the Incarnation through his combination of a human body with a demonic tail (295). Some commentators think that pride and envy are punished in the Styx (along with wrath and sloth). Bernard Delmay, for example, argues that the shades who shout 'A Filippo Argenti' (8.61) represent envy, while Filippo himself is damned for his pride (Ipersonaggi della 'Divina Commedia': dassificazione e regesto [Florence: Olschki, 1986], 144-5). Marc Cogan's argument for the structural symmetry of hell and purgatory (based on the three appetites) implicates pride and envy - as vices of the will - primarily in the sins of fraud, punished in circles eight and nine (TheDesign in the Wax: The Structure of the 'Divine Comedy' and Its Meaning [Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999], 68-72, 102, 109). Charles S. Singleton, 'The Vistas in Retrospect,' MZJV81 (1966): 55-80, particularly 76-9. Dante's explicit comparison of Vanni Fucci and Capaneus is reinforced by a textual association of pride with the state of being 'unripe' or 'raw.' In canto 14 the wayfarer remarks that the flakes of fire do not appear to ripen the blasphemer ('la pioggia non par che '1 maturi' [the rain seems not to ripen him (48) j ) , and in canto 25 the centaur Cacus refers to the thief as Tacerbo'

206 Notes to pages 40-2

35

36

37

38

39 40

41 42

[the unripe one] (18). Viewing Vanni Fucci as an adamic and satanic figure, Rebecca Beal discusses the typological dimensions of his pride ('Dante among Thieves: Allegorical Soteriology in the Seventh Bolgia [Inferno xxiv and xxv],' Mediaevalia9 [1983]: 101-23, particularly 104-10). Critics who discuss Dante's transformations as incarnational parody include Paul Priest, 'Looking Back from the Vision: Trinitarian Structure and Poetry in the Commedia,' Dante Studies 91 (1973): 113-30, particularly 114; Harold Skulsky, Metamorphosis: The Mind in Exile (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1981), 117-18; Beal, 'Dante among Thieves'; Teodolinda Barolini, Dante's Poets: Textuality and Truth in the 'Comedy' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 223-4; Robert J. Ellrich, 'Envy, Identity, and Creativity: Inferno xxiv-xxv,' Dante Studies 102 (1984): 61-80, particularly 70-2; and Gross, 'Infernal Metamorphoses,' 65-6. Barolini notes that the terms mutareand trasmutarein Inferno25 are echoed, in bono, in the description of the Christlike Griffin in Purgatorio31.l26 (224). I discuss these cantos in greater detail in 'Dante's Beloved Yet Damned Virgil,' in Dante's 'Inferno': The Indiana Critical Edition, ed. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 266-85, particularly 277-83. Rebecca West views touch in the Commedia, particularly Virgil's maternal care of the wayfarer, as a manifestation of Dante's incarnational poetics based on a 'refusal of the "mind-body" split that permeated and continues to permeate Western thought and its expressions in philosophy, poetry, and polities' ('On the Sense of Touch in the Divine Comedy,' Lectura Dantis 5 [1989]: 4658, quotation on 49). The other equivocal rhymes are tempra (2, 6),faccia (11, 13), and porta (37, 39). Later in the canto Dante will forge an unusual rhyme from a doubled vowel in a passage naming various snakes, including the two-headed amphisbene («? in 86, 88, 90). See Dorothy L. Sayers, The Comedy of Dante Alighieri the Florentine. Cantica I: Hell (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949), 231. Warren Ginsberg, Dante's Aesthetics of Being (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), discusses this simile as an allegory of the gathering (and hoarding) of manna (Exod. 16:13-21), which 'was commonly seen as a figure for both the Incarnation and the Eucharist' (142). Ginsberg views Vanni Fucci's punishment as a parody of the Resurrection (Dante's Aesthetics of Being, 130-1). 'Divina enim natura et humana non possunt in invicem mutari, ut divina fiat humana aut humana divina; nee ita misceri ut quaedam tertia sit ex duabus, quae nee divina sit omnino nee humana ... Aut si miscerentur ita, ut fieret ex duabus corruptis quaedam tertia ... nee homo esset nee deus.' I cite

Notes to pages 43-6

43 44

45 46

47

48

49

50

207

Anselm s Cur Deus Homo from Sancti Anselmi Cantuanensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omma, ed. F.S. Schmitt, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 194651), 101-2; and the translation by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 3 (Toronto and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1976). James T. Chiampi ('The Fate of Writing: The Punishment of Thieves in the Inferno,' Dante Studies 102 [1984]: 51-60) views Agnello's punishment as a perversion of his resemblance to his divine namesake, the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God] (54-5). Boethius, Contra Eutychen et Nestoriurn 7.25-31; Anselm, CurDeus Homo 2.7; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae3a..2.l. Oderisi's use of the verb mutareto describe the changeable, transient nature of'lama' (Purg. 11.102) echoes Dante's transformative language in the episode of the thieves ('mutare e trasmutare' [Inf. 25.143]). See Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the 'Divine Com,ed.y' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 256. 'ignoratio enim dimidio, nunquam cognoscitur duplum' (Epistok 13.16). 1 cite the translation by Robert S. Haller, Literary Criticism, of Dante Ahghien (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), 98. The abundance of plural verb forms in verses 5.73-142 underscores Dante's presentation of the two sinners as a couple, a joining of two identities into one. These occur in the third person when the speaker is Dante (wayfarer or narrator) and/or Virgil: vanno (74), paion (75), saranno (76), verranno (78), uscir (85); in the second person when the wayfarer addresses the two spirits: affannate (80), venite. (81), conosceste (120); and in the first person as Francesca refers to Paolo and herself together: tignemmo (90), pregheremmo (92), udiremmo (95), parleremo (95), kggiavamo (127), eravamo (129), and leggemmo (133, 138). 'unitas enim essendi conservatio et forma est: divisio vero causa interitus' (Tractatus de sex dierum openbus 34; my translation). I cite Thierry's treatise from Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartre.s and His School, ed. Nikolaus M. Hiiring (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971), 553-75. Saying that the Greeks might not deign to respond to the wayfarer's modern, vernacular speech (Inf. 26.74—5), Virgil implies that some of Ulysses' pride may be cultural. Cicero, De invention? 1.2.3 (1949; reprinted Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1960); Brunette Latini, La rettorica, ed. Francesco Maggini (Florence: Le Monnier, 1968), 28-33. For Dante's use of Brunetto's rhetorical writings to undercut Ulysses' claim to wisdom, see Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert, 73-82.

208 Notes to pages 46-9 51 For Pentecostal echoes of Dante's flames, see Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert, 91; and Anthony K. Cassell, Dante's Fearful Art of Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 88. 52 Benvenuto da Imola, gloss to Inf. 32.52-7 in the data base of the Dartmouth Dante Project (DDP). 53 For detailed discussion of Dante's Gemini, viewed in a Neoplatonic key as a sign of human duality, see Durling and Martinez, Time and the Crystal, 83-108 and 243-8. Cotter specifically relates the Gemini, as Dante's birth sign, to Christ's two natures ('Dante and Christ,' 9). 54 For the resonance of the Eucharist in this episode, see John Freccero, 'Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels: Inferno xxxn and xxxui,' in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1986), 152-66, particularly 164-6. 55 But see Christopher Kleinhenz for discussion of Dante's proud, divided figures in terms of trinitarian parody ('Dante's Towering Giants: Inferno XXKI,' Romance Philology 27.3 [1974]: 269-85, particularly 275-6). 56 Virgil notes that Filippo's anger is a result of his having nothing good to show for his notorious pride (8.47-8). Not coincidentally, Virgil uses a similar tone and an identical word (fregi) to deflate Capaneus's arrogance in the seventh circle (14.71-2). While the blasphemer is not a divided or doubled sinner, he parodies the humble descent of the Word into humanity through his fall from the walls of Thebes (25.14-15) and his posture and attitude in hell: 'giace dispettoso e torto' [he lies disdainful and scowling] (14.47). Pier della Vigna, another prominent-member of the circle of violence, parodies the Incarnation by simultaneously speaking and bleeding ('usciva insieme / parole e sangue' [13.43-4]), thus l mak[ing] the word not flesh but blood' (Douglas Biow, 'Mirabile Dictu': Representations of the Marvelous in Medieval and Renaissance Epic [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996], 46); see also Magdalena Gilewicz, 'Inferno?, Twisted Figuration,' LecturaDantis5 (1989): 59-67, in particular 64. 57 See Robert M. Durling, 'Farinata and the Body of Christ,' Stanford Italian ReviervZl (1981): 5-35, particularly 9-14 and 30-3; Cassell, Dante's Fearful Art of Justice, 24-6; and Christopher Kleinhenz, 'The Poetics of Citation: Dante's Divina Commediaand the Bible,' Italiana 1988, Rosary College Italian Studies 4 (1990): 1-21, particularly 14-15. 58 Michele Barbi, Tl canto di Farinata,' Studi danteschiS (1924): 87-109, particularly 92-3. 59 See the glosses, in the data base of the Dartmouth Dante Project (DDP), of the Anonimo Selmiano (Inf. 34.76-80) and the Anonimo Fiorentino (Inf. 25.19-21; 34.78-80). Several moderns, including Tommaseo (Inf. 31.61-3)

Notes to pages 49-56 209

60 61

62

63

64

65 66

67

68

and Mestica (Inf. 34.28-9), similarly transpose Dante's description of Farinata to other proud, divided figures in hell. 'quasi dicat, magnifice et superbe; fuit enim Farinata superbus cum tola sua stirpe' (DDP, Inf. 10.34-6). Guido da Pisa (1327) comments that Cavalcante's fall backward, in contrast to a fall face forward in humble praise of God, suggests 'a sinful act deserving of eternal punishment' [Retrorsum vero cadere est peccare et penam eternam incurrere] (DDP, Inf. 10.72). Barolini writes, 'In Hell, love of one's native land is put into a context of "heresv" or divisiveness, so that Farinata is able to turn common Tuscan origins into barriers of family allegiance and party affiliation' (Dante's Poets, 161). "Per vestimenta enim Christi Scripturae vel sacramenta Ecclesiae accipiuntur; per tunicam inconsutilem, super quam missa fuit sors, charitas vel unitas Ecclesae intelligitur; per illos qui vestimenta diviserunt perversores Scripturarum intelliguntur. Sicut ergo illi actualiter vestes diviserunt: sic illi qui non tendunt ad unitatem, diviserunt sibi vestimenta mea, spiritualia sacramenta, et Scripturas sacras corrumpentes' (PL 191.235). This passage is quoted and translated by Stillinger in his discussion of Dante's divisionim the Vita nuova (The Song of Troilus, 75). Indicative of the close relationship between heresy and schism is Richard of St Victor's contrast of the 'rents of schisms' - schismatum scissuras- with the integrity of Christ's garments (Benjamin Minor80; PL 196.1-64, particularly 57). I cite the translation by Clare Kirchberger, Selected Writings on Contemplation (London: Faber and Faber, 1957). See Ronald B. Herzman and William A. Stephany, '"O miseri seguaci": Sacramental Inversion in Inferno xix,' Dante Studies 96 (1978): 39-65. Christopher Kleinhenz, Tconographic Parody in Inferno xxi,' reprinted in Dante's 'Inferno': The Indiana Critical Edition, ed. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 325-39, particularly 334. Walter Stephens observes that Dante's early commentators 'uniformly note that his Giants are an allegory of pride (superbia) as the foundation of all sin' (Ciants in Those Days: Folklore, Ancient History, and Nationalism [Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989], 70). Teodolinda Barolini asserts that the canto of the Giants 'foregrounds the Commedia's ideology of pride' (The Vndimne 'Comedy': Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], 92). Kleinhenz relates the Giants and Farinata to Lucifer based on their partially visible bodies ('Towering Giants,' 274). See also Cassell, Dante's Fearful Art of Justice, 96-7.

210

Notes to pages 57-65

69 See R.E. Kaske, 'Dante's DXV,' in Dante: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Freccero (Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 122-40, particularly 1278; and Gian Roberto Sarolli, Prolegomena alia 'Divina Commedia' (Florence: Olschki, 1971), 266-9. 70 Augustine, in De civitateDei (16.3.12), follows the Vetus Latina translation of Genesis 10:9 in calling Nimrod a 'giant hunter' ('gigans venator'). He accordingly refers to Chus, Nimrod's father, as 'pater gigantis Nebroth' (16.3.18). 71 Tresumpsit ergo in corde suo incurabilis homo, sub persuasione gigantis Nembroth, arte sua non solum superare naturam, sed etiam ipsum naturantem, qui Deus est, et cepit edificare turrim in Sennaar, que postea dicta est Babel, hoc est "confusio," per quam celum sperabat ascendere, intendens inscius non equare, sed suum superare Factorem.' 72 Barolini, Undivine 'Comedy,'1 51 and 115. 73 Antaeus also figures in this 'gigantic' Web of Envy. As part of his flattering plea for Antaeus's help, Virgil tells the Giant that the wayfarer can renew his fame on earth. In a manner consistent with the theme of competition, Virgil implies that the travellers could obtain the help from other Giants if Antaeus should refuse (31.124-6). 74 Confessions 7.10. See John Freccero, 'The Prologue Scene,' in Poetics of Conversion, 1-18, particularly 5-15. 75 Singleton relates Lucifer's appearance to the outline of a cross, the patibulum in the hymn by Venantius Fortunatus that is parodied in the opening verse of Infernal (Dante Studies, vol. 1: 'Commedia': Elements of Structure [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965], 37-8). See also Freccero, 'The Sign of Satan,' in Poetics of Conversion, 167-79, particularly 170-1. 76 Here I follow Musa, who argues that the zanche of 34.79 belong to Lucifer not Virgil (Advent at the Gates: Dante's 'Comedy' [Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1974], 63). 77 Ruggero Stefanini writes, 'in all three instances the protagonist of the catastrophe is accompanied in torment by a companion in guilt, who is nevertheless rigorously excluded from the interview' ('Inferno xxvi,' Lectura Dantis 6 [supplement 1990]: 332-50, quotation on 335). 78 For a sustained treatment of this topic, see Ricardo J. Quinones, Foundation Sacrifice in Dante's 'Commedia' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). 79 Paul Priest, followed by Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice, 11), views Bertran's punishment as a parody of the Trinity, 'three in one and one in three' ('Looking Back from the Vision,' 114). For Richard Abrams, Betran's political divisiveness 'suggests an allegory of the separation of Father from Son in

Notes to pages 68-72

211

the Holy Trinity' ('Against the Contrapasso: Dante's Heretics, Schismatics and Others,' Italian Quarterly 27.105 [1986]: 5-19, quotation on 13). 2: Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large 1 For a discussion of Beatrice's descent modelled on the Descensus Chnsti ad Inferos, see Amilcare A. lannucci, Forma ed evento nella 'Divina Commedia' (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), 51-81. 2 Charles S. Singleton, 'The Pattern at the Center,' reprinted in Dante Studies, vol. 1: 'Commedia': Elements of Structure (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), 45-60, quotations on 53-4. 3 Zygmunt G. Bararisky, 'The "New Life" of "Comedy": The Commedia and the Vita Nuova,' Dante Studies 113 (1995): 1-29, quotations on 10 and 5. 4 Jaroslav Pelikan notes that this is 'the first time Dante grasps the subtle complexities of the orthodox doctrine of "two natures, but one person" in Christ' (Eternal Feminines: Three Theological Allegories in Dante's 'Paradiso' [New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1990], 64). I am not convinced by Peter Armour's argument that the Griffin is an image of Rome with no incarnational symbolism intended (Dante's Griffin and the History of the World [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989], particularly 46-73). 5 'Quoniam ergo servata integritate utriusque naturae necesse est inveniri deum-hominem, non minus est necesse has duas naturas integras conveniri in unam personam - quemadmodum corpus et anima rationalis conveniunt in unum hominem - , quoniam aliter fieri nequit, ut idem ipse sit perfectus deus et perfectus homo.' I cite Anselm's CurDeus Homo from Sancti Anselmi Cantuariertsis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. F.S. Schmitt, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946-51), 102; and the translation by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 3 (Toronto and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1976). 6 Giuliana Carugati connects the shifting appearance of the Griffin in Purgatorio 31 to the transformations of the thieves in hell, noting that both episodes are characterized by wonder (Dalla menzogna al silenzio: la scrittura mistica delta 'Commedia' di Dante [Bologna: II Mulino, 1991], 83). I see this parallel as Dante's way of marking the movement from false images of incarnational union - for example, the human-reptilian transformations of the thieves, divided and doubled sinners, human-animal hybrids (Minotaur, Centaurs, and Harpies) - to a true if oblique representation of the mysterious union of humanity and the divine in the two emblematic natures of the Griffin that are simultaneously 'una person' (Purg. 31.81). 7 Although Cacciaguida actually performs this role (Paradiso 17), it is under

212

8

9

10

11

12

Notes to pages 72-6

Beatrice's guidance that Dante travels through the spheres and is able to encounter his venerable ancestor. Virgil also defers to Beatrice on matters of theology and faith when he discusses divine economics (the unlimited resource of divine good; Purg. 15.76-8) and the interrelations of love and free will (Purg. 18.46-8; 18.73-5). Giuseppe Mazzotta describes this ritual in Scriptural terms as 'the Pauline rite depassage from the condition of the old man to the redeemed new man' (Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the 'Divine Comedy' [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979], 114). RicardoJ. Quinones, in Foundation Sacrifice in Dante's 'Commedia' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), looks at this initiation rite from Virgil's perspective: 'It is Virgil's own initiatory role as guide and leader that makes all the more painful the drama of his own insufficiency' (93). Rene Girard discusses rites of passage (such as initiation rites) as potentially disruptive but gradually transformed through repetition into primarily symbolic functions (Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977], 280-6). His observation that in certain traditions the initiate 'must endure hardship, hunger, even torture, because these ordeals were part of the original experience' (283) is suggestive of how the purgatorial trials constitute an elaborate initiation rite. 'Virgil Sweet Father,' in Dante among the Moderns, ed. Stuart Y. McDougal (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 3-10, quotation on 7. See also 'Manfred's Wounds and the Poetics of the Purgatorio,' reprinted in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 195-208. The three Virgilian passages are a lament for the foreseen death of the young Marcellus in Aeneid 6.883 (cited in Purg. 30.21), Dido's incipient desire for Aeneas in Aeneid 4.23 (translated in Purg. 30.48), and Orpheus's threefold repetition of Eurydice's name in Georgics 4.525-7 (imitated in Purg. 30.49-51). Rachel Jacoff discusses these (and other) Virgilian references as part of'a series of reversals' in 'Models of Literary Influence in the Commedia,' in Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers, ed. Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 158-76, in particular 168-74. Franco Masciandaro views Dante's emphasis on the wayfarer's apparent solitude in the divine forest as a way to recreate the 'pristine time' of the earthly paradise (Dante as Dramatist: The Myth of the Earthly Paradise and Tragic Vision in the 'Divine Comedy' [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991], 189). Quinones observes that, as these later cantos of the Purgatorio bring Dante

Notes to pages 77-80

213

and the reader closer to Beatrice, they 'are filled with the recovery of Dante's own self (Foundation Sacrifice, 94). 13 See, for example, Augustine's comparison of the soul's apprehension of time as an individual recites a psalm to the passage of time in the life of a single human being and through all the ages of humankind (Con/ 11.28). Eugene Vance discusses this aspect of Augustine's thought in Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 34-50. 14 Although the planetary spheres are part of the material universe, in the Paradiso they also stand for the divine realm insofar as they function as projections of the immaterial heaven of glory. 15 A full treatment of Dante's complex use of the term ombra, pointing both to 'shadows' and 'shades,' is beyond the scope of this book. As part of his discussion of Dante's eclipses, John Kleiner examines the poet's use of shadow in the Paradiso ('The Eclipses in the Paradiso,' Stanford Italian Review9.l-2 [1990]: 5-32, particularly 5-8). 16 This subject is explored by Richard Kay, Dante's Christian Astrology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). 17 Similarly, Dante refers to Mercury in the Convivio as the sphere that 'piu va velata delli raggi del Sole che null'altra stella' [is veiled by the rays of the sun more than any other star] (2.13.11). Bernardus Silvestris, in the Cosmographia, places the idea of a shadow arising from excessive brilliance in a divine context when he describes the 'radiant splendor' emanating from Tugaton, the supreme deity and Platonic 'good' (2.5.3): 'This inaccessible brilliance so strikes the eyes of the beholder, so confounds his vision, that since the radiance shields itself by its very radiance, you may perceive that the splendor produces of itself an obscuring darkness.' I cite Winthrop Wetherbee's translation (1973; New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 181 am indebted to Kleiner for this observation ('The Eclipses in the Paradiso,' 6). 19 Dante alludes to the eclipse at the moment of Christ's death in Paradiso 27.34-6 and 29.97-102. 20 According to Massimo Miglio's entry on Alfraganus in the Enciclopedia dantesca, Alfraganus's Elementa astronomica (one of several manuscript titles for his work) was diffused in the West more than any other astronomical text produced in the Islamic world (1:122). Olaf Pederson provides a useful overview of astronomy in the Middle Ages, including the transmission of Ptolemy's Almagestand the work of Alfraganus ('Astronomy,' in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. David C. Lindberg [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978], 303-37). Paget Toynbee demonstrates Dante's reliance on Alfraganus

214 Notes to pages 81-3

21

22 23 24 25

26

27 28

for technical information, including numerical data concerning the conical umbra (Dante Studies and Researches [London: Methuen, 1902], 56-77). Edward Moore also summarizes the astronomical background for Dante's allusion to the earth's shadow (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [1903; reprinted New York: Haskell House, 1968], 30). 'Longitude autem umbre a facie terre usque dum deficiat, secundum probationem Tholomei, est similis dimidio diametri terre 268 vicibus.' I cite the edition of Francis J. Carmody, Alfragani Differentie in quibusdam collectis scientie astrorum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943). Carmody's edition is based primarily on John of Seville's Latin translation. Ptokmy's Almagest, trans. GJ. Toomer (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984), 257. 542,000 and 3,640,000 miles respectively, according to Alfraganus's calculations (21.7). 'Et cum fuerit sol maior terra, necesse est ut sit umbra terre extensa in acre tornatilis et minuatur in rotunditate atque reddatur subtilior donee deficiat.' 'li ombres de la terre si apetice tozjours, tant com ele s'esloingne, por ce k'ele est maindre que li solaus et k'il mande ses rais tot environ.' I cite the edition of Francis J. Carmody, Li livres dou Tresor de Brunetto Latini (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948), and the translation by Paul Barrette and Spurgeon Baldwin, The Book of the Treasure (New York: Garland, 1993). In Aristotelis libros meteorologicorum expositio, ed. R.M. Spiazzi (Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1952), 1.12. Jacobus Golius's seventeenth-century translation of Alfraganus explicitly describes the shadow's shape as 'coni effigie.' See Toynbee for the relevant passage (Dante Studies and Researches, 76). Roger Bacon, following al-Kindi, explains that when the light source is larger than the illuminated body the resulting shadow 'is narrowed in the form of a pyramid' [umbra coangustatur in pyramidalem figuram] (De multiplicatione specierum 2.9.12-13). I cite David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon's Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of'De multiplicatione specierum' and 'De speculis comburentibus'(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). I cite Albert's text from volume 4 of the Opera omnia edition of Auguste Borgnet (Paris: Vives, 1890). Lynn Thorndike, The 'Sphere' of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 141.1 cite the Tractatus desphaera, in Latin and English, and the commentaries from this edition. The Latin reads: 'deficiat in superficie circuli signorum inseparabilis a nadir solis. Est autem nadir punctus directe oppositus soli in firmamento' (115). Macrobius, who describes the shape of the shadow cast by the earth as 'conus' (1.15.11), also

Notes to pages 83-5

29 30

31 32

33

34

35 36

215

thinks that the length of the shadow extends to the circle of the sun's path (1.20.18). See Commentary on the Dream ofScipio by Macrolnus, trans. William Harris Stahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 150 and 171-2. The 'Sphere' of Sacrobosco, 339. The anonymous commentary substitutes the phrase 'deficit in celo' ('ends in the heavens') for 'deficit in cono' (442). Commentary on the Dream ofScipio by Macrobius, 163. This idea is repeated and embellished upon by later medieval writers, such as Alan of Lille: '[Prudence] sees by what bond, law and covenant Lucifer [Venus] and Cyllenius [Mercury], the attendants of our Sun, are joined as they follow their courses' (Anticlaudianus, trans. James J. Sheridan [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973], 70-1). M.A. Orr, Dante and the Early Astronomers (London: Gall and Inglis, 1913), 460. Victoria Kirkham describes the first three spheres as 'a sort of vestibule to the other reaches,' 'an invisible gateway' corresponding to the entrances of Inferno 9 and PurgatorioQ ('A Canon of Women in Dante's Commedia,' Annali d'italianistical [1989]: 16-41, quotations on 28). Dante therefore repeats the architecture of his otherworld in the architecture of his poem by symmetrically placing these thresholds in the ninth cantos of the three cantiche. In terms congenial with my notion of incarnational dialectic, Teodolinda Barolini argues that Dante 'works to create a text that encompasses the illusion of the one and the many as coexistent and simultaneous' (The Undivine 'Comedy': Detheologizmg Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], 174). Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy, 6 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-75), Paradiso: Commentary, 172. Edmund G. Gardner expresses the harsher view that the lives of these spirits 'were marred by earthly failings' (Dante's Ten Heavens: A Study of the 'Paradiso' [1898; reprinted New York: Haskell House, 1970], 14). For Richard Kay, the earth's shadow signals a 'qualitative change' in the astrological allusions in the Paradiso, 'for the power of the planets that are within the scope of the earth's shadow is more material, while the benefits conferred by the higher planets are increasingly more spiritual, the closer they are to God' (Dante's Christian Astrology, 253-4). Maria Francesca Rossetti, A Shadow of Dante (1871; reprinted London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1914), 202. 'In the Earth's Shadow: The Theological Virtues Marred,' Dante Studies 100 (1982): 77-92, quotation on 90. Completing the pattern, Ordiway associates the 'perfected' cardinal virtues with the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and the 'perfected' theological virtues with the Fixed Stars.

216 Notes to pages 86-91 37 Dante's Poets: Textuality and Truth in the 'Comedy' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 68. 38 Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (1969; reprinted Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1989), 106-7. 39 Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 105. On Hegel's aufheben, see also Andries Sarlemijn, Hegel's Dialectic, trans. Peter Kirschenmann (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975), 83-90; Howard Williams, Hegel, Heraclitus and Marx's Dialectic (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), 115-37; and Alan Bass's note to Derrida's use of the Hegelian concept in 'Difference' (Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982], 19-20, note 23). 40 Ritamary Bradley remarks that the image of Christ as a mirror dates to the first century ('The Speculum Image in Medieval Mystical Writers,' in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, ed. Marion Glasscoe [Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1984], 9-27). 41 For a detailed overview of medieval optics, see David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), particularly 'The Optical Synthesis of the Thirteenth Century,' which treats the tradition familiar to Dante (104-21). Dante's use of optics is treated by Alessandro Parronchi in 'La perspettiva dantesca' (Studi danteschi 36 [1959]: 5-103) and 'Perspectiva' (Encyclopedia dantesca 4:438-9); and by Monica Rutledge in 'Dante, the Body and Light' (Dante Studies 113 [1995]: 151-65), who observes, in terms congenial with my incarnational argument, that in optical science Dante found 'the exquisite, intricate interweaving of flesh and spirit...' (164). For a discussion of Dante's specular imagery through the lens of the Pauline dictum 'per speculum in aenigmate' (1 Cor. 13:12), see Edward Peter Nolan, Now Through a Glass Darkly: Specular Images of Being and Knowing from Virgil to Chaucer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 105-14. 42 'Perspectiva' (439) and'La perspettiva dantesca' (43-4). Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde (Dante's Lyric Poetry, 2 vols. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967]) follow Parronchi in their commentary on the canzone (2:194-6). 43 Lindberg, Theories of Vision, 116. Other important contributors to medieval optical knowledge includes Robert Grosseteste (for the Platonic tradition) and the Aristotelian duo of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. 44 Beniamino Andriani, Aspetti della scienza in Dante (Florence: Le Monnier, 1981), 174-5. 45 I quote part 4 of Bacon's Opus mains from the edition of John Henry Bridges, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, 3 vols. (London: Clarendon Press,

Notes to pages 92-5

46

47

48

49

50

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1897) and from the translation (with occasional modifications) by Robert Belle Burke, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928). For convenience, I cite passages by volume and page since neither Bridges nor Burke includes line numbers. Theories of Vision, 98-9. 'Deinde de spiritualibus rebus exprimendis per res geometricas pono exernplum in gratia et gloria et salvandis ac damnandis, ut videamus quomodo lineae rectae, fractae, et reflexae, valeant hujusmodi spiritualibus adaptari. Et cum gratiae infusio maxime manifestatur per lucis multiplicationem, expedit per omnem modum ut per multiplicationes lucis corporales manifestentur nobis proprietates gratiae in bonis, et repulsa ejus in malis. Nam in bonis perfectis infusio gratiae comparatur luci directe incident! et perpendicular!, quoniam non reflectunt a se gratiam, nee frangunt per declinationem ab incessu recto, qui attenditur secundum viam perfectionis vitae. Sed infusio gratiae in imperfectos, licet bonos, comparatur luci fractae; nam propter imperfectiones eorum non tenet gratia in eis incessum omnino rectum. Peccatores autem, qui sunt in peccato mortali, reflectunt et repellunt a se gratiam Dei, et ideo gratia apud eos comparatur luci repulsae sen reflexae' (1:216-17). 'Nam rectitude visionis Deo debetur; declinatio a rectitudine per fractionem, que debilior est, angelice nature convenit; reflexiva visio, que est debilior, homini potest assignari' (3.3.2.115-17). I quote this section of Bacon's work according to part, distinction, chapter, and line(s) from the recent edition and translation by David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon and the Ongins of 'Perspectiva' in the Middle Ages: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Bacon's 'Perspectwa' with Introduction and Notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). Michio Fujitani underscores the symmetrical implications - textual, spatial, and temporal - of Dante's use of the optical law of reflection at this point in the poem/journey: the fifteenth canto of the Purgatorio describes the wayfarer's arrival in the fifteenth region of the otherworld (counting from the vestibule of hell to the third terrace of the mountain) at the fifteenth hour (three o'clock in the afternoon) ('Dalla legge ottica alia poesia: la metamorfosi di PurgatonoKV 1-27,' Studidanteschi 61 [1989]: 153-85, in particular 183-5). I agree that the light emanating from the angel reflects off the floor of the terrace in front of the wayfarer (173). For more detailed analysis of Dante's light metaphysics, see Patrick Boyde, Dante Philomythes and Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 207-14; and Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's 'Comedy' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), chapters 2-3. I would therefore qualify Parronchi's straightforward characterization of the

218 Notes to pages 96-104 reflection of Paradiso 1.49-51 as 'perpendicular on a level mirror' ('Perspectiva,' 438), an interpretation which he develops in 'La perspettiva dantesca' (68-71) and which Foster and Boyde find convincing (Dante's Lyric Poetry 2:196). Singleton offers a similarly univocal gloss, asserting that 'it is clear that the reflector must be conceived as being horizontal, the "second" or reflected ray thus rising back up' (Paradiso: Commentary, 16). 51 Siro A. Chimenz, 'Per il testo e la chiosa della Divina Commedia,' Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 133.2 (1956): 161-88, in particular 180-5. 52 Brunette Latini writes that the eagle's 'nature is such that it looks at the rays of the sun' (The Book of the Treasure 1.145), an ability which Dante's eagle in the sphere of Jupiter similarly ascribes to mortal eagles (Par. 20.31-2). Latini also relates the two meanings of pelegrinwhen he explains that the peregrine falcon is so named 'because no one can find its nest, rather he is caught as if on a pilgrimage' (1.149). 53 While the eagle of the wayfarer's dream in Purgatorio9.l9-33 also descends, Jove's bird swoops down precisely in order to snatch up the wayfarer (compared to Ganymede) and carry him to the fiery heavens. 54 Describing Folco's ability to read his mind, Dante recognizes the specular relationship existing between the spirit and God: 'Dio vede tutto, e tuo veder s'inluia' [God sees all, and into Him your vision sinks] (Par. 9.73). The wayfarer continues with a pair of reflexive neologisms that suggests, if only hypothetically, a specular arrangement between Folco and himself: 'Gia non attendere' io tua dimanda, / s'io m'intuassi, come tu t'inmit [Surely I should not wait for your request, were I in you, even as you are in me] (80-1). 55 See also Confessions 4.12, where Augustine explicitly states the paradoxical relationship of descent and ascent that derives from the equally paradoxical Incarnation: 'Descend again that you may ascend, and ascend to God. For fallen you are, by ascending against God.' I cite Augustine's Confessions, with modifications (for clarity and modern usage) in the translation, from the Loeb edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). 56 However, insofar as he turns with the spheres, Dante traces a spiral in the heavens, as well. He calls attention to this passive, circular wheeling during his stay in the Fixed Stars (Par. 27.79-87). For Dante's spiralling journey through the first two realms, see John Freccero, 'Pilgrim in a Gyre,' in Poetics of Conversion, 70-92. 57 I cite Aquinas, in Latin and English, from the Blackfriars edition, 61 vols (New York: McGrawHill, 1964-81). 58 Within the lunar episode itself, Beatrice, who had previously illustrated the workings of divine providence with an archery image (Par. 1.119-26), uses a comparable metaphor to Christianize Plato's myth (from the Timaeus) of

Notes to pages 104-6 219 souls returning to their stars: 'S'elli intende tornare a queste ruote / 1'onor de la influenza e '1 biasmo, forse / in alcun vero suo arco percuote' [If he means that the honor of their influence and the blame returns to these wheels, perhaps his bow hits some truth] (Par. 4.58-60). 59 In Alan's-Antidaudianus the seven arts construct the chariot that will carry Prudence through the heavens. Restore states that each planet has its own art, and he proceeds to assign grammar to the Moon, dialectic to Mercury, and music to Venus (2.8.6.9). He does not specify the remaining pairings. See La composizione del mondo colle sue casaoni, ed. Alberto Morino (Florence: L'Accademia della Crusca, 1976), 202-3. Helene Wieruszowski documents additional literary and artistic examples - and introduces a rhetorical one possibly behind Dante's mapping of the arts and sciences onto the heavens ('An Early Anticipation of Dante's "Cieli e Scienze,"' in Politics and Culture in Medieval Spain and Italy [Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1971], 503-14). 60 'Gramma enim littera vel linea est, et inde litteralis eo quod litteras doceat, quo nomine tarn simplicium vocum figurae quam elementa id est voces figurarum intelliguntur; aut etiam linearis est, eo quod sicut in magnitudinis incremento dirnensio lineae prima occurrit, et quasi quaedam materia est superficiei aut corporis, sic aspirantibus ad profectum sapientiae disciplina haec prima succurrit, quae linguam erudit et tam per aures quam per oculos ut sic procedat oratio sapientiam introducit.' I cite the Metalogicon in Latin from the Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 98 , ed. J.B. Hall (Turnholt: Brepols, 1991), and in English from The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivtum, trans. Daniel D. McGarry (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1955). 61 John adds writing - scnbendique- to Isidore's definition of grammar as 'scientia recte loquendi, et origo et fundamentum liberalium litterarum' (Etymologiarum snn originum libri xx, 2 vols., ed. W.M. Lindsay [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911], 1.5.1). 62 Vance, Mervelous Signals, 238; R. Howard Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 53. Paul F. Gehl's study of grammar in late medieval and early modern Florence shows how the rectilinear art of grammar was considered an appropriate vehicle for teaching rectitude (A Moral Art: Grammar, Society, and Culture in Trecento Florence [Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993]). 63 See Barolini, Undivine 'Comedy,' for an overview of the critical debate surrounding the role of Ulysses' 'folle volo' in his damnation as well as her own

220

Notes to pages 106-12

argument that, while Ulysses functions in opposition to the pilgrim, 'the poet's voyage runs not counter to Ulysses' but parallel to it' (48-73, quotation on 57). 64 Quinones, Foundation Sacrifice, 74. 65 Focusing on Mercury as the sphere of dialectic, Gustavo Costa views Justinian as 'the type of the good dialectician guided by Prudence' in opposition to Ulysses, who - like Guido Cavalcanti and Guido da Montefeltro - was 'mis led by the unbridled dialectic of radical Averroism' ('Dialectic and Mercury [Education, Magic, and Religion in Dante],' in The Divine Comedy and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences, ed. Giuseppe Di Scipio and Aldo Scaglione [Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1988], 43-64, quotation on 58-9). 66 By 'the centre of the earth's shadow' I mean that Mercury is the second of three subsolar spheres. 67 Bonaventure employs a similar image of collective veering - 'lo popol disviato' - to describe a condition requiring divine intervention in the form of Francis and Dominic (Par. 12.43-5). 68 For the relevant passage from the commentary of the Anonimo Florentine, see Singleton's note (Paradiso: Commentary, 163-4). 69 The second reference to Christ as the Word occurs in the sphere of the Fixed Stars when Beatrice exhorts Dante to shift his gaze from her to Mary, 'la rosa in che '1 verbo divino / carne si fece' [the Rose wherein the Divine Word became flesh] (Par. 23.73—4). In the corresponding verses from the second cantica, Purgatorio 23.73-5, Forese refers to the crucifixion of Christ. 70 For an excellent account of Augustine's incarnational theology, see Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge, rev. ed. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 7-54. 71 Robert Hollander writes that 'the Word of God is a vocable but has the peculiarity of being also a thing, of having actual historical existence' (Allegory in Dante's 'Commedia' [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], 21). 72 Jacques Lacan, Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, trans. Anthony Wilden (1968; reprinted Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 39. According to Isidore of Seville's conception of etymology, knowledge of the name of a thing is essential for knowledge of the referent in the first place: 'Nisi enim nomen scieris, cognitio rerum peril' (Etym. 1.7.1). 73 I am convinced, in fact, that names are an important part of Dante's motivation for choosing certain characters in the first place. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the self-identification of Sapia on the terrace of envy: 'Savia non fui, awegna che Sapia / fossi chiamata' [Sapient I was not, although Sapia was my name] (Purg. 13.109-10). Ernst Robert Curtius outlines the major contributions to the Classical and medieval traditions of the interpre-

Notes to pages 112-14 221 tation of names, up to and including Dante (European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask [New York: Harper and Row, 1963], 495-500). For an extensive list of proper names in the Commedia with possible semantic or thematic resonances, see Remo Fasani, 'I nomi propri nella Divma Commedia,' Studi eproblemi di cntica testuak^l (1993): 19-38. 74 Of course, as representatives of one of the shadowed spheres, both Piccarda and Costanza are marked by what they failed to do even in the face of extenuating circumstances. When we compare their stories, as Beatrice does (Par. 4.82-7), with those of Saint Lawrence (a Christian martyr) and Muscio (an intrepid defender of Rome), then we are struck by 'how the name "Costanza" calls attention to the downright reversal of its sense' (Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 36). 75 Fulgo, a less common form offulgeo, is related to the noun fulgur (Dante's fulgorefrom Par. 33.141), a flash or stroke of lightning. 76 Nardi's essays are reprinted in Dante e la cultura medievale (1942; reprinted Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1983), 173-8. Maria Cord, who also identifies Justinian's Corpus luns as Dante's source, lists 'consequentia nomina rebus esse' and 'nornina sunt consequentia rebus' as two of the juridical phrases behind Dante's formulation (Dante a un nuovo crocevia [Florence: Libreria Commissionaria Sansoni, 1982], 71). 77 Hermann Kantorowicz, 'Note on the Development of the Gloss to the Justinian and the Canon Law,' in Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), 36-9. 78 Dante's Vision, 104-5. 79 Bloch traces the debate between naturalism and conventionalism in the Middle Ages, with attention to the modifications and exceptions that inevitably resulted (Etymologies and Genealogies, 44—63). 80 I cite Boethius's De dnnsionefrom the edition of Lorenzo Pozzi, Trattato sulla divisione (Padua: Liviana, 1960). 81 I cite Augustine's De magistro from the Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 29, ed. Klaus-Detlef Daur (Turnholt: Brepols, 1970), and the translation by Joseph M. Colleran, St. Augustine: The Greatness of the Soul, the Teacher (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1950). 82 I cite the Dedoctnna Christiana from the Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 32, ed. Joseph Martin (Turnholt: Brepols, 1962), and the translation by D.W. Robertson, Jr, On Christian Doctrine (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958). On Augustine's contribution to the naturalist interpretation of Hebrew names, see Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies, 36-7. On his conventionalism, see Vance, Mervelous Signals, 39-41; and, again, Bloch, 47-50.

222 Notes to pages 114-21 83 See Vance, Mervelous Signals, 6-11. In De doctrina Christiana Augustine again cites the Pauline dictum as a warning against taking figurative expressions literally (3.5.9), but he also establishes criteria for literal as well as figurative interpretations of Old Testament stories (3.22.32). Augustine develops these ideas further in his De spiritu et littera, in which he explicitly compares the Law of Moses to the New Law predicated on grace (ed. William Bright [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914], chapters 17-18). 84 European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 499. 85 Quinones, Foundation Sacrifice, 112. 86 Roger Dragonetti sees evidence of attention to 'the consonance of names and their meanings' in Dante's presentations of Frederick n, Pier della Vigna, and Constantine in addition to those of Costanza and Justinian ('Dante and Frederick n: The Poetry of History,' trans. Judith P. Shoaf, Exemplaria 1.1 [1989]: 1-15, quotation on 4). Francesco Mazzoni notes Dante's use of interpretatio nominis- relating 'giustizia' to 'Giustiniano' - in sonnet 110 of the Fiore ('II canto vi del Paradiso,' Letture dassensi 9-10 [1982]: 11959, in particular 156-7). 87 See Mazzoni, Tl canto vi del Paradiso,' 157-8. Dante laments his own status as exul immeritus in salutations to Epistole 3, 5, 6, and 7. 88 Scevola Mariotti, 'II canto vi del Paradiso' in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. 5 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1972), 375-404, in particular 403-4. 89 Saverio Bellomo also identifies Romeo with pilgrims who visit Rome ('Contribute all'esegesi di Par. vi,' Italianistica: rivista di letteratura italiana 19.1 [1990]: 9-26, in particular 19). 90 I am indebted to Rebecca S. Beal for suggesting this additional significance of Romeo's full name. 91 For an overview of Dante's poetics in the Paradiso, in particular his use of neologisms, homonym rhymes, and repetitions, see Joan M. Ferrante, 'Words and Images in the Paradiscr. Reflections of the Divine,' in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. Aldo S. Bernardo and Anthony L. Pellegrini (Binghampton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983), 115-32. 92 There are three other instances of equivocal or identical rhyme in Paradiso 9: fermi (16, 18), torna (104, 108), and pianta (127, 129). 93 For a brief treatment of medieval Monophysitism, now considered more of a schism than a heresy, see the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York and London: Garland, 1990), 620-2. 94 'Dante and Frederick n,' 13. Mariotti also identifies Dante's binary poetics in the canto ('II canto vi del Paradiso,' 392), and James Finn Cotter interprets several thematic and linguistic doublings from cantos 5-7 in terms of

Notes to pages 121-5 223

95

96

97

98

Christ's two natures ('Dante and Christ: The Pilgrim as "Beatus Vir,"' Italian Quarterly 28.107 [1987]: 5-19, in particular 8). Cesare Galimberti also discusses the incarnational structure and syntax of Paradiso 7 ('Canto vn,' in LecturaDantis Scaligera, vol. 3 [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], 217-52, particularly 240-2). Paradiso 7.6 presents a formidable challenge for critics and translators alike. Francesco Mazzoni offers an interpretation of Justinian's 'double light' in line with my incarnational reading by tracing the iconographic tradition of the Christlike emperor whose imperial crown is inscribed within a halo ('II canto vi del Paradiso,'' 141-2). Other interpretations include: 'natural intelligence and illuminating grace' (Singleton), 'legislator and warrior' (Bosco-Reggio), and emperor and lawgiver (Sayers). English translations of 'sopra la qual doppio lume s'addua' include: Twin-lustred with his two-fold luminance' (Sayers); 'above whom double lights were twinned' (Mandelbaum); 'Each of a double glory doubles each' (Fletcher); 'With fourfold lustre to its orb again' (Gary); and 'twin / lights fused, en-two-ed into one aureole' (Musa). Thus Limentani terms the canto-length monologue a 'peculiarity,' Ferrante remarks that it 'befits the highest ranking spokesman for the empire,' and Sabbatino attributes Justinian's singular narrative role to his authoritative status as an emperor-legislator invested with the divine knowledge of the blessed. See Uberto Limentani, Dante's 'Comedy': Introductory Readings of Selected Cantos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 132; Joan M. Ferrante, The Political Vision of the 'Divine Comedy' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 267; and Pasquale Sabbatino, L'Eden della nuovapoesia: saggi sulla 'Dnnna Commedia' (Florence: Olschki, 1991), 185. Barolini remarks that 'if Beatrice "begins" canto 5, so Justinian "begins"and "authors" - canto 6' (Undivine 'Comedy,' 190). The responses to Paradiso 5.16 of other commentators range from silence (Scartazzini-Vandelli, Mandelbaum) and negative judgments (Bosco-Reggio) to a reminder of the 'aesthetic of the journey' (Musa) and an outright refusal to entertain the possibility that Dante in fact means that Beatrice began the canto (Momigliano). Galimberti interprets the tonal contrast between Beatrice's 'supernatural majesty" and the informal sounds evoking her name as a linguistic representation of Christ's two natures ('Canto vn,' 245).

3: Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission 1 For a full exploration of Dante's poetics of martyrdom in the cantos of Mars, with special attention to the role of Christ's Transfiguration, see Jeffrey T.

224

2

3

4

5

6

7 8 9

10

11

Notes to pages 127-31

Schnapp, The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante's 'Paradise' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). Interpretation and Overinterpretation: UmbertoEco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), in particular 29-66. I cite Macrobius from the edition of James Willis (Leipzig: E.G. Teubner, 1963) and the translation by William Harris Stahl (Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius [New York: Columbia University Press, 1990]). Like Macrobius, Dante cites the myth of Orpheus as an example of the allegorical mode in which truth ('una veritade') is concealed beneath the covering ("1 manto') of poetry (Conu 2.1.4). Milan: Bompiani, 1988; translated by William Weaver (Foucault's Pendulum [San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989]). I discuss Eco's conception of Dantean hermeneutics in relation to hermetic semiosis in 'Eco and Calvino Reading Dante,' Italica 73.3 (1996): 388-409, in particular 390-6. 'Medusa: The Letter and the Spirit,' in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 119-35, quotations on 134—5. Advent at the Gates: Dante's 'Comedy' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), 66. William Franke, Dante's Interpretive Journey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 86. Inf. 2.32. I refer in particular to Freccero and Vance, who at times superimpose Augustine and Paul onto Dante to such a degree that the reader loses sight of crucial distinctions between them and the poet. Harold Bloom similarly argues against Auerbach, Singleton, and Freccero for 'their rigorous insistence upon functioning wholly within Pauline interpretive categories of the letter and the spirit' (Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987], 39). Such apostolic irreverence on Dante's part is, of course, not unprecedented in the Commedia: when he takes John's account over Ezekiel's as to the number of wings of the four beasts of the Apocalypse, Dante states that John agreed with him - 'Giovanni e meco' (Purg. 29.105) - and not the other way around. On this verse, see Peter S. Hawkins, Dante's Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 54—71, particularly 64-8. Drawing parallels with the 'woman clothed with the sun' [mulier amicta sole] of Apocalypse 12 as this figure is depicted in illuminated manuscripts, Rebecca S. Beal argues that the 'crown' of solar spirits surrounding Beatrice is 'an image inviting meditation on Christ whose incarnation crowns the spe-

Notes to pages 131-5

12 13

14

15

16

17

18 19

20

225

cial revelation of Scripture' ('Beatrice in the Sun: A Vision from Apocalypse,' Dante Studies 103 [1985]: 57-78, quotation on 72). Transfiguration of History, 150. 'medium omnium scientiarum.' I cite the Latin from Opera omma (Ad Claras Aquas [Quaracchi]: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902), vol. 5, and the translation by Jose de Vinck, Collations on the Six Days, vol. 5 of The Works of Bonaventure: Cardinal, Seraphic Doctor, and Saint (Patterson: St Anthony Guild Press, 1970). Bonaventure delineates Christ's sevenfold centrality: metaphysical, physical, mathematical, logical, ethical, political (or juridical), and theological (1.11-39). See 'The Heaven of the Sun as a Meditation on Narrative,' chapter 9 of Teodolinda Barolini's Undivine 'Comedy':DetheologizingDante (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), for an important discussion of the narratological and allegorical complementarity of the two biographies, including an outline of their rhetorical repetitions and differences (217). Gustavo Costa views Thomas and Siger, representing ecclesiastical and imperial authority respectively, as 'symbols of dialectic opposition' ('Dialectic and Mercury [Education, Magic, and Religion in Dante],' in The 'Divine Comedy' and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences, ed. Giuseppe Di Scipio and Aldo Scaglione [Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1988], 43-64, particularly 59-60). Thomas and Bonaventure thus take their place in a line of blessed souls who give more bite to Dante's socio-political critiques - a line that continues through to the poet's parting shot at the corrupt papacy - Boniface vm and Clement v - with Beatrice's final words in the poem (Par. 30.142-8). Congenial with my incarnadonal reading of Francis and Dominic is Ricardo ]. Quinones's argument for the 'coordinated human powers' of love and knowledge joined in the figures of the two saints (Foundation Sacrifice in Dante's 'Commedta' [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994], 118). The Cmto-rhymes of Paradiso 12.71-5 occur within a passage describing Dominic's precocious devotion to Christ. See, for example, the comments of L'Ottimo (Par. 1.42) and Benvenuto da Imola (Par. 1.37-42) in the data base of the Dartmouth Dante Project (DDP). For a technical explication of this astronomical passage, see Alison Cornish, Reading Dante's Stars (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 87-92. Dante designates the arrangement of the solar souls with a rich array of circular terms: corona (10.65), ghirlanda/ghirlande (10.92; 12.20), gloriosa rota (10.145), cerchio/santi cerchi/minor cerchio (11.14; 14.23; 14.35), santa

226

Notes to pages 135-7

mold (12.3), doppia danza (13.20), Vuno e I'altro coro (14.62), and due circunferenze (14.75). Richard H. Lansing, in From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante's 'Commedia' (Ravenna: Longo, 1977), charts a progression from static linear to dynamic circular formations in the first four spheres (155-61). 21 John Freccero, in 'The Dance of the Stars: Paradiso x,' documents important examples of this Christianization of the Platonic sign to support his interpre tation of Dante's circular conception of the Trinity and the solar spirits in light of the Timaeus (Poetics of Conversion, 221-44, particularly 240-4). 22 Schnapp, from whom I borrow the felicitous '"chi" in the sky' (Transfiguration of History, 67), logically emphasizes the sacrificial and redemptive dimensions of the cross in his study of martyrdom as 'the crux of Dante's narrative fiction and poetics in the Commedia' (203). John Kleiner contrasts the Platonic and Christian crosses precisely because the latter 'remains a sign of horrible suffering and unspeakable cruelty' (Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's 'Comedy' [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994], 114). 23 I cite Chalcidius's Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus from the edition of J.H. Waszink, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus, vol. 4 of Plato Latinus, ed. Raymond Klibansky (London: The Warburg Institute; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962), and the English text from Francis M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957). 24 This passage appears in chapter 44 of Beleth's treatise (PL 202.13-66). The incarnational symbolism of the Latin initials is even stronger in Italian, with D= Dzoand V= U= Uomo. 25 For fuller documentation, to which I am indebted for my discussion of this monogram and its incarnational significance, see R.E. Kaske, 'Dante's "DXV" and "Veltro,"' Traditio 17 (1961): 185-254; and Gian Roberto Sarolli, '"DXV" e "Veltro": simboli cristomimetici,' in Prolegomena alia 'Divina Commedia' (Florence: Olschki, 1971), 247-73. 26 See the entry on 'chiasmus' in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger et al., enlarged edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 116-17. The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968) thus defines the Latin verb decussare. 'To arrange crosswise; to mark with a cross.' 27 I cite Cicero's Timaeus from vol. 8 of M. Tullii Ciceronis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. J.G. Baiter and C.L. Kayser, 11 vols. (Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1860-69). 28 Dante's circular conception of chiasmus in the Sun is consistent with what Victor Castellani has called the episode's 'telling concentricity of internal

Notes to pages 138-41 227

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36 37

structure' ('Heliocentricity in the Structure of Dante's Paradiso,' Studies in Philology 78.3 [1981]: 211-23, quotation on 223). Schnapp, Transfiguration of History, 67. Also informing my argument for a solar cross is the eschatological prefiguration of Christ as Sol mstitiae (Malachi 4:2), which allows Dante to imagine, in Schnapp's words, a 'unique association of cross with sun, and substitution of cross/sun for Christ' (186). Peter Dronke suggestively interprets Dante's third circle as a composite image of spiritual and socio-political renovatio based on Joachim's theology of history and Siger's Averroist notion of the unity of the possible intellect ('"Orizzonte che rischiari": Notes towards the Interpretation of Paradiso xiv,' Romance, Philology 29 [1975]: 1-19, particularly 11). On Dante and Joachim, see also Marjorie Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, 'Joachim's Figurae and Dante's Symbolism,' in The 'Figurae' of Joachim ofFiore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 317-29. Expositio in Apocalypsim (Venice, 1527; reprinted Frankfurt a. Main: Minerva, 1964), fol. 5r. Following Dronke, whose translation of this passage I cite ('"Orizzonte che rischiari,"' 11), I have slightly altered the punctuation for clarity. Similarly, Dante compares the outer and inner circles in the heaven of the Sun to arcs of a double rainbow, 'parallel! e concolori,' the outer arc repeating the inner one like the repeated sounds of Echo's voice (Par. 12.10-15). As Joan M. Ferrante aptly puts it, the martian spirits 'appear in a cross within a circle, as if they somehow came out of the previous sphere' (The Political Vision oj the 'Divine Comedy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984], 280). See Charles S. Singleton, whom I follow in interpreting Christ's 'sign of victory' as the cruciform nimbus, for an illustration of the figure from medieval iconography (TheDivine Comedy, 6 vols. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-75], Inferno: Commentary, 60 and facing plate). '"Per misurar lo cerchio" (Par. xxxm 134) and Archimedes' DeMensura Circuit. Some Thoughts on Approximations to the Value of 71,' in Dante e la scimza, ed. Patrick Boyde and Vittorio Russo (Ravenna: Longo, 1995), 265-335, particularly 301-2. Hart conveniently reproduces one such image from S. Apollinare in Classe (302). Chapter 5 of Schnapp's Transfiguration of History is a systematic study of thematic and iconographic correspondences between the apsidal mosaics of S. Apollinare in Classe and the cantos of Mars. 'Number and Geometrical Design in the Divine Comedy,'1 ThePersonalist 16 (1935): 310-30, particularly 326-7. In the sonnet addressed to these pilgrims, Dante retains the image of their movement 'per lo mezzo' of the grieving city (40.6).

228

Notes to pages 142-5

38 Comparing Dante's Malebolge to medieval labyrinths, Penelope Reed Doob raises the possibility that it is 'stamped with the cross' (The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages [Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990], 282, note 22). 39 Guiniforto, commentary on Inferno 18.100-8 (DDP). 40 Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1990), 12-13. 41 Ronald B. Herzman and Gary W. Towsley, 'Squaring the Circle: Paradiso 33 and the Poetics of Geometry,' Traditio49 (1994): 95-125, quotation on 114, note 48. See Hart for a detailed presentation of the technical, historical background to the problem and its importance for Dante's compositional design - based on the proportionality of the circle - in the Commedia ('"Per misurar lo cerchio,"' 284-305). 42 PL 210.577-80. Peter Dronke believes that 'a direct link seems extremely possible' between the two passages (Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in MedievalPlatonism [Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1974], 152-3, note 1). 43 Giuseppe Mazzotta paraphrases Alan's poem to illustrate how the Incarnation, for both Alan and Dante, 'shatters the possibility of logical and grammatical order, for Christ, the verbum and the copula between contingency and permanence, is outside of all rules' (Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 213). 44 'Number and Geometrical Design,' 321. 45 C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures and a Second Look (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964). Rorty remarks that the rift separating the two cultures is 'even deeper and more important than Snow thought it' (Consequences of Pragmatism [Essays: 1972-1980] [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982], xlvii), and Eco acknowledges that 'the negative myth of two cultures' is still more the rule than the exception ('In Memory of Giorgio Prodi: A Challenge to the Myth of Two Cultures,' trans. Marina Johnston, in Lo studio bolognese: campi di studio, di insegnamento, di ricerca, di divulgazione, ed. Leda Giannuzzijaworski [Stony Brook: Forum Italicum, 1994], 75-8, quotation on 75). 46 DDP, Paradiso 33.133-8. 47 Paradiso: Commentary, 584. Singleton continues: 'And the amazement of the modern reader must arise from the abstractness, the geometrical nature, of the vision of God that terminates so long a journey.' 48 This is the thesis of James T. Chiampi, who contends that Dante's geometry, like the other artes liberates, is a stage in the exercitio animi demanded of the reader of the Paradiso ('Dante's Paradiso from Number to Mysterium,' Dante Studies 110 [1992]: 255-78, particularly 256-9).

Notes to pages 145-50 229 49 On the importance of the Timaeus in the Middle Ages, see Raymond Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages (1939; reprinted Munich: Kraus International, 1981). 50 Lon R. Shelby, 'Geometry,' in The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages, ed. David L. Wagner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 196-217, quotation on 206. 51 I cite David Carr's translation of Husserl's text from Jacques Derrida, Edmund Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry': An Introduction, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 157-80. 52 An Introduction, 72. 53 In 1882 Ferdinand Lindemann used number theory to prove unequivocally that the circle cannot be squared (Dunham, Journey through Genius, 23-6). 54 Repeated almost verbatim in Mark 8:34-5 and Luke 9:23-4. 55 Echoed in Luke 14:27. 56 Transfiguration of History, 48. On Cacciaguida as a Christ figure and model for Dante's own imitatio Chnsti, see also 90, 149, 194, 200-3, and 238. Robin Kirkpatrick similarly posits Cacciaguida as an example of'heroic martyrdom' to be emulated by Dante (Dante's 'Paradiso' and the Limitations of Modern Criticism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978], 82-4). On the ChristCacciaguida-Dante nexus, see also A.C. Charity, Events and Their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Chnstian Typology in the Bible and Dante (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 240-5. 57 Marguerite Mills Chiarenza discusses the medieval Christianization of Hippolytus ("rime and Eternity in the Myths of Paradzsoxvn,' in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singkton, ed. Aldo S. Bernardo and Anthony L. Pellegrini [Binghampton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], 133-50, particularly 144—6). See also Schnapp, Transfiguration of History, 55-6, note 30; and Quinones, Foundation Sacrifice, 122. 58 See the entries in the Enadopedia dantesca (Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970) on 'Cicerone' (Ronconi, 1:991-7, in particular 995) and 'Macrobio' (Rabuse, 3:757-9). 59 Dante similarly includes Scipio's defeat of Hannibal in 202 B.C.E. as an example of how the Romans rightfully earned universal rule through 'war waged in the form of a duel' (De monarchia 2.9.18). 60 Singleton, however, thinks this 'Affricano' refers to Scipio the Younger, who was honoured with a triumph in Rome for his victory over Carthage, thereby receiving the surname Africanus already inherited from his adoptive grandfather (Paradiso: Commentary, 719-20). With 'Affricano,' of course, Dante might well indicate both Scipios.

230 Notes to pages 150-4 61 Justinian's subsequent identification of Fiesole in relation to the wayfarer's Florence - 'e a quel colle / sotto '1 qual tu nascesti parve amaro' [and to that hill beneath which you were born it showed itself bitter] (Par. 6.53-4) - signals an event of paramount importance to Cicero's political career, the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy. 62 In Epistole 11, addressed to the Italian cardinals in 1314, Dante likewise contrasts the example of both Scipios with the shortcomings of church leaders when he laments the animosity of the Roman clergy toward their country (25). 63 'The meeting, in the highest sphere, of the younger Scipio with his grandfather, who prophesies his future life to his descendant, gave Dante the suggestion for his Cacciaguida episode' (European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask [1948; New York: Harper and Row, 1963], 360). Only in a footnote does Curtius acknowledge the presence of Aeneid 6 in these cantos. C.S. Lewis also notes a parallel with Cacciaguida in his discussion of the political prophecies in the Somnium (TheDiscarded Image [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964], 24). Phillip Damon states that 'a warlike ancestor in the skies could hardly fail to evoke the image of Scipio Africanus in the Milky Way' ('Geryon, Cacciaguida, and the Yof Pythagoras,' Dante Studies 85 [1967]: 15-32, quotation on 28). Rabuse identifies the Cacciaguida episode as one of the repositories of 'the traces of the Somnium Scipz'onwleft in the Commedid ('Macrobio,' 758). 64 'Narrative Design in Dante's Earthly Paradise,' Dante Studies 112 (1994): 101-13, quotation on 110. 65 Thus Quinones appropriately begins his insightful discussion of fatherhood and foundation sacrifice in the central cantos of Paradisoby recognizing the framing role of Aeneas's encounter with father Anchises (Foundation Sacrifice, 123-4). 66 Chiarenza, 'Time and Eternity,' 134-5. 67 Transfiguration of History, 59. See also 13, 30-1, 60-2, 83-4, 89, and passim. 68 Albert the Great, for example, describes the white appearance of stars as 'sort of milky-white, similar to the so-called Milky Way, also called the Galaxy' [quasi lactea, sicut est via, quae lactea vocatur, quae galaxia dicitur] (De caelo et mundo2.1.2; my translation). I cite the edition of Paul Hossfeld, vol. 5, pt. 1 of Opera omnia, ed. B. Geyer (Aschendorff: Monasterii Westfalorum, 1971). 69 I cite Cicero's Latin text from Macrobius's Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. James Willis (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1963), and the English translation by William Harris Stahl, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 70 Cronica 2.19, in Cronisti del Trecento, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Milan and

Notes to pages 155-7

231

Rome: Rizzoli, 1935), 79-80. For English renderings, I follow Daniel E. Bornstein, Dino Compagni's Chronicle of Florence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986). See Schnapp for additional analysis of this connection between Dante's two crosses (Transfiguration of History, 129). 71 'Indi, tra 1'altre luci mota e mista, / mostrommi 1'alma che m'avea parlato / qual era tra i cantor del cielo artista' [Then, moving and mingling among the other lights, the soul which had spoken with me showed how great an artist it was among the singers of that heaven] (Par. 18.49-51). 72 De caelo 2.9.290bl2-291a28. For Aristotle's argument, along with Thomas's commentary, see In libros Aristotelis de caelo et mundo expositio 2.14, ed. R.M. Spiazzi (Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1952), 209-13. 73 De nuptus Philologiae et Mercurii, ed. James Willis (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1983), 27 and 922. For the English I cite The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, trans. William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, vol. 2 of Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). I cite according to Willis's section numbers (1-1000), which are included parenthetically in Stahl. 74 Alan also mentions musica mundanam 3.415-18 before treating musica hum.ana and musica instrumentalis in greater detail. I cite the translation by James J. Sheridan, Anticlaudianus, or the Good and Perfect Man (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973). 75 Lacking the specificity of Cicero's passage, Dante's verses, as Singleton indicates (Paradiso: Commentary, 20-1), are nonetheless stamped with the Sommum through verbal echoes of Cicero's blending of different tones (distinctis/dtscerm; temperans/temperi). Justinian later uses the musical harmony of the spheres as a metaphor for the harmonious arrangement of the celestial spirits: 'Diverse voci fanno dolci note; / cosi diversi scanni in nostra vita / rendon dolce armonia tra queste rote' [Diverse voices make sweet music, so diverse ranks in our life render sweet harmony among these wheels] (Par. 6.124-6). 76 Inferno fi (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 87-9, quotation on 89. See also Ferrante, Political Vision, 282, note 33. Antonino Pagliaro uses Cacciaguida's thanksgiving to God for being 'cortese' to his progeny (Par. 15.48) as a gloss on Inferno 2.16-17, where the wayfarer explains how it was fitting for God to be 'cortese' to Aeneas (Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla TJivina Commedta,' 2 vols. [Messina-Florence: G. D'Anna, 1967], 1:90-1). 77 Ruin the Sacred Truths, 38-50, quotation on 49. 78 Doob discusses ambages, related to ambiguitas ('equivocation'), as the term regularly used to indicate the 'circuitous labyrinthine process' (Idea of the Labyrinth, 53).

232

Notes to pages 158-66

79 Edward Moore, Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903), 59-60. Both Moore and Singleton (Paradiso: Commentary, 258-9) document confusion concerning the martian revolution - Brunette's approximate two years (followed by Dante in Convivio 2.14.16) with the resultant variant of 'tre' for 'trenta' in verse 38 or Alfraganus's more precise 687 days - and date Cacciaguida's birth to 1091. 80 I make the case for this common age in greater detail in 'Enigmatic 56's: Cicero's Scipio and Dante's Cacciaguida,' Dante Studies 110 (1992): 121-34. Dante's own death at the prophetic age (1265-1321) is an eerie case of life imitating art. 81 On the transmission of Hindu-Arabic numbers, see Graham Flegg, ed., Numbers through the Ages (London: Macmillan, 1989), 116-30; and Karl Menninger, Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers, trans. Paul Broneer (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), 424-31. Menninger mentions the Florentine article banning Hindu-Arabic numbers (426-7), as does Beniamino Andriani (Aspetti della scienza in Dante [Florence: Le Monnier, 1981], 118-19). 82 Schnapp also notes the 'mysterious nines' ('per la novella, eta, che pur nove anni' [17.80]) in Cacciaguida's report of Cangrande's age at the time of the wayfarer's journey (Transfiguration of History, 66). 83 For Boccaccio's Trattatello (first and second redactions), I cite the edition of Pier Giorgio Ricci, in vol. 3 of Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. Vittore Branca, 12 vols. (Milan: Mondadori, 1974), and the translation (first redaction) by James Robinson Smith, in The Earliest Lives of Dante (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1901). 84 I am indebted to Ronald L. Martinez for sharing his view that Boccaccio here paraphrases Cicero's Somnium 2.2. 85 Tommaseo (1837) is the only commentator in the data base of the Dartmouth Dante Project (DDP) who glosses Dante's insidievtith Cicero's insidiarum a meis. 86 Benvenuto da Imola glosses Dante's 'selva oscura' of Inferno 1.2 in this Augustinian key: 'Sicut enim sylva est locus incultus, plenus insidiarum... ita in ista vita inculta sunt diversas genera viciorum ..." (DDP). 87 I have slightly modified Sheridan's translation for clarity. I cite Alan's Latin from the edition of R. Bossuat (Paris: J. Vrin, 1955). 88 Appended to G. Friedlein's edition of Boethius's De institutions arithmetica and De institutione musica (Leipzig: Teubner, 1867), 416. 89 Dante discusses this Aristotelian analogy between souls and geometric figures in Convivio 4.7.14-15. He defines 'pentangulo' as a five-sided figure and adopts 'quadrangulo' in place of tetragono to indicate a quadrilateral.

Notes to pages 166-70 233 90 I cite the edition of G. Friedlein (Leipzig: Teubner, 1867), translated by Michael Masi, Boethian Number Theory: A Translation of the 'De Institutione Arithmetica' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1983). 9 1 1 cite the supplement to the tertia pars of the Summa theologiae, not included in the Blackfriars series, from the edition of the Instituti Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis, vol. 5 (Ottawa: College Dominicain d'Ottawa, 1941). 92 I cite the edition of Peter Dronke (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), and I have modified Winthrop Wetherbee's translation to restore the geometric terminology of the Latin original (The 'Cosmographia' of Bernardus Silvestris [New York: Columbia University Press, 1990]). 93 Sermo in natah sancti Augustini, ed. Marie-Therese D'Alverny, in Alain de Lille: textes inedits (Paris: J. Vrin, 1965), 262-7, quotation on 265. 94 I cite both Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, in the Latin translation by William of Moerbeke, and Thomas's commentary from In decent libros ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nichomachum expositio, ed. R.M. Spiazzi (Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1949). For English renderings, I follow Martin Ostwald's translation of the Nichomachean Ethics (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962) and C.I. Litzinger's translation of Thomas's Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964). I include both section and page numbers from the cited volumes. Aristotle mentions the 'foursquare' man in his Rhetoric as an example of a metaphor that does not suggest activity (3.11). 95 Mauda Bregoli-Russo, 'II Canto xvn del Paradiso e i commentatori del Cinquecento,' Italica 70.1 (1993): 60-8, particularly 63-4. 96 Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, trans. Hugh Bredin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), particularly 34-6. 97 // nomedella rosa (1980; Milan: Bompiani, 1988), translated by William Weaver, The Name of the Rose (1983; New York: Warner Books, 1984). 98 Commentary on Paradiso 17.23-4 (DDP). Pietro also cites Aristotle's passage to gloss Inferno 15.91-3. 99 Benvenuto defines the tetragonus as Tigura quadrata' (DDP, Par. 17.19-24), and Daniello mentions its 'forma quadrangulare' (DDP, Par. 17.24). 100 See, for example, the DDP glosses of Costa (Par. 17.24) and Tommaseo (Par. 17.22-4), two nineteenth-century commentators. 101 '"Ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura,"' Bullettino della SocietdDantesca Italiana 19 (1912): 134-7. 102 See the entry for 'tetragono' by Emilio Pasquini in the Enciclopedia dantesca (5:601); the commentaries, ad locum, by Attilio Momigliano (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1964) and Mark Musa (New York: Penguin, 1986); and the translation by Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam, 1986).

234 Notes to pages 170-4 103 Bregoli-Russo, 'II Canto xvn del Paradiso,' 62. 104 The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (1956; rev. ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 26-9, quotation on 27. 105 For information on Thierry and Clarembald, I am indebted to Nikolaus M. Haring's introduction to Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras: A Twelfth-Century Master of the School of Chartres (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1965). I also cite Clarembald's texts from this volume. I cite Thierry's works from Haring's Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971). 106 I cite the Metalogicon from the Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 98, ed. J.B. Hall (Turnholt: Brepols, 1991); translated by Daniel D. McGarry, The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1955). 107 Quoted in Wetherbee, The 'Cosmographia' ofBernardus Silvestris, 144. 108 Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), 149. 109 Brian Stock appropriately remarks that the 'overall impression' of the work 'is not of a commentary, but of an original theological cosmology that uses Scripture as its point of departure' (Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Bernard Silvester [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972], 244). 110 'The Creation and Creator of the World According to Thierry of Chartres and Clarenbaldus of Arras,' Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen dge22 (1956 for 1955): 137-82, quotation on 147. 111 J[oseph] M[arie] Parent, La doctrine de la creation dans I'ecole de Chartres: etude et textes (Paris: J. Vrin; Ottawa: Institut d'Etudes Medievales, 1938), 76. 1121 cite the text of De doctrina Christiana from the Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 32, ed. Joseph Martin (Turnholt: Brepols, 1962); translated by D.W. Robertson, Jr, On Christian Doctrine (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958). Alan of Lille closely follows Augustine's trinitarian theory in his Sermo de Trinitate (ed. D'Alverny, Alain de Lille: textes inedits, 252-62, particularly 254) and adopts it as the fourth rule of his Regulae theologicae (PL 210.621-84, col. 625). 113 PL 199.945-64, quotation on 961. Migne assigns authorship of this work to John of Salisbury, Thierry's younger contemporary, who became Bishop of Chartres. 114 This work is titled Commentum super Boethii librumDe Trinitate in Haring's volume. 115 Clarembald, who repeats Thierry's argument for this tetragonal Christ

Notes to pages 174-80 235

116

117 118

119

120 121

122

123

124

almost verbatim (Tractatus super librum Boethii De Trinitate 34-8), here adds that the Son is the primus tetragonus, not in the actual work of creation, but in 'power and nature' [potestate et natura] (37). Thierry's ideas were surely known at the University of Paris, where, according to Charles T. Davis, the major figures in the religious schools in late thirteenth-century Florence - Petrus lohannis Olivi and Ubertino da Casale at Santa Croce, Remigio de' Girolami at Santa Maria Novella - had studied (Dante's Italy and Other Essays [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984], 146). Haring, Commentaries on Boethius, 24. Marianne Shapiro argues that because this cross of Mars is 'not the cross of the Passion but the equal-armed symbol of qua tern ity,' the wayfarer's tetragonal aspirations will enable him to become 'a genuine militant of Cacciaguida's true lineage' ('Paradisoxvn,' Lectura Dantis 16-17 [1995]: 24665, quotations on 249-50). 'All equality, whether intelligent or intelligible, rational or perceptible, whether essential, natural, or willed, is transcendentally contained beforehand as something unified in him and as a super-abundant power which originates everything equal' (The Divine Names 9.10). I cite the translation by Colin Luibheid in The Complete Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). I cite the Loeb edition of The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. SJ. Tester (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). Edgar de Bruyne, Etudes d'esthetique medievale, 3 vols. (1946; reprinted Geneva: Slatkine, 1975), 2:360. He elsewhere describes the homo quadratus, the figure formed from the extension of the human limbs 'en forme de rroix' ( 1:259), as the basis for the cruciform design of medieval churches (2:344). De Bruyne, who accepts the conventional interpretation of Dante's 'ben tetragono' solely in relation to Aristotle's 'four-square man' as elaborated by Thomas, also mentions Thierry's tetragonus (2:359-61). Gopnik's review essay treats the memoirs of Roy Jenkins (A Life at the Center], a prominent British politician in the 1960s and '70s (TheNew Yorker, 29 March 1993: 89-96, quotation on 94). I follow Jacoff and Stephany in describing Boethius and Cacciaguida as 'rhymed' (Inferno //, 88). Schnapp (Transfiguration of History, 48-9, note 21, and 223) and Quinones (Foundation Sacrifice, 128) focus on these doubled figures as models of martyrdom for Dante. For the theological tradition of the two lives, particularly the thought of Augustine, Gregory, and Thomas, see Mary Elizabeth Mason, Active Life and Contemplative Life: A Study of the Concepts from Plato to the Present (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1961). Thomas treats the issue in Summa theolo-

236 Notes to pages 181-8 gzae2a2ae. 179-82 and in his commentary on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics 10.7-8 (lectures 10-12). 125 Pagliaro, Ulisse, 1:16, note 10. 126 For Dante's treatment in Saturn of the inextricability of contemplation and action, see Mazzotta, Dante's Vision, 154-73, in particular 165. 127 Contra Faustum 22.52: 'una temporalis in qua laboramus, alia aeterna in qua delectationem Dei contemplabimur' (PL 42.432). I cite the translation by Mason, Active Life and Contemplative Life, 32. 128 Sermones adpopulum 104.2: 'In principio erat Verbum; ecce quod Maria audiebat. Verbum caro factum est; ecce cui Martha ministrabat' (PL 38.616-18, quotation on 617). I cite Augustine's text - as quoted by Thomas - and the translation from the Blackfriars edition of Summa theologiaeZaZae.182.1. 129 PL 76.467. 130 After Boethius laments the misery wrought by his adherence to Plato's ideal (l.Pr.4), Philosophy accuses him of having strayed - or having driven himself- from his 'native country,' the divine realm where no citizen 'need ever fear the punishment of banishment: but whoever ceases to desire to live there has thereby ceased to deserve to do so' (l.Pr.5.6-20). 131 I therefore follow Schnapp, who labels the poet's call 'an activist call' ('"Si pia 1'ombra d'Anchise si porse": Paradiso 15.25,' in The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's 'Commedia,' ed. Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey Schnapp [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], 145-56, quotation on 153). Ferrante goes even further, actually reversing the usual hierarchy of action and contemplation, when she writes, 'for Dante, it is better to fight against the iniquities of the world, as Cacciaguida did, than to learn to rise above them in the mind' (Political Vision, 281). 132 Marx cites Dante at the end of his preface to the first German edition of Das KapitaL See vol. 1 of Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: International Publishers, 1967), 11. 133 For a theoretical discussion of self-commentary in the poem, exemplified by the doubling of Inferno 15 with Purgatorio 11, see Amilcare A. lannucci, Forma ed evento nella 'Divina Commedia' (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), 83-114. 134 Inferno 15.91-3 (DDP). See also L'Ottimo (1333) on Paradiso 17.46-8 and Castelvetro (1570) on Inferno 15.70-2. 135 Thus Davis views these three central figures as Dante's chief political spokesmen (Dante's Italy, 194), and Quinones discusses them as the poet's central panel of father-figures (Foundation Sacrifice, 15, 67, 105, and 124). 136 Erich Auerbach, 'Figura,' trans. Ralph Manheim, in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature: Six Essays (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 11-76: 'Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or

Notes to pages 188-91 237 persons, the first of which signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second encompasses or fulfills the first' (53). I am here applying Auerbach's reading of the Commedia, in which historical figures - for example, Cato, Virgil, Beatrice - are fulfilled sub specie aeternitatis as characters in the poem, to two characters within the poem's own 'historical' unfolding. 137 I agree with Robert M. Burling and Ronald L. Martinez that to limit the references to glory and eternity in Inferno 15 'exclusively to the quest for secular fame is an impoverishment of the episode' (The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighien, vol. 1: Inferno [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996], 243). 138 Instead of 'confirming the vanity of literary immortality,' the Cacciaguida cantos, as Barolini argues, 'recast Brunette's message, empowering the poet to live in his words, among those "che questo tempo chiameranno antico"' (Undivme 'Comedy,' 140). 139 For the salient parts of Villani's obituary for Brunette, as well as an English translation, see Singleton, Inferno: Commentary, 32. 140 The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 141 Andre Pezard, Dante sous lapluie defeu (Paris: J. Vrin, 1950); Richard Kay, Dante's Swift and Strong: Essays on 'Inferno'xv (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978) and The Sin(s) of Brunetto Latini,' Dante Studies 112 (1994): 19-31; Peter Armour, 'Dante's Brunetto: The Paternal Paterine?' Italian Studies 38 (1983): 1-38, and 'Brunetto, the Stoic Pessimist,' Dante Studies 112 (1994): 1-18. These views and others are usefully summarized by Deborah Contrada, 'Brunette's Sin: Ten Years of Criticism (1977-1986),' in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. Charles Franco and Leslie Morgan (Stony Brook: Forum Italicurn, 1995), 192-207. 142 Eugene Vance, Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 230-55; Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante's Vision, particularly 29-33 and 174-6; John Freccero, 'The Eternal Image of the Father,' injacoff and Schnapp, eds, Poetry of Allusion, 62-76. 143 See especially Charles S. Singleton, 'The Vistas in Retrospect,' MZJV81 (1966): 55-80. 144 Stressing that 'not everything in the ironic plan of Inferno is ironic,' Marianne Shapiro similarly challenges the scholarly search for new or additional vices in the historical and literary lives of such characters as Virgil, Francesca, Farinata, Brunetto, Ulysses, and Ugolino (Dante and the Knot of Body and Soul [New York: St Martin's Press, 1998], 141-8). 145 'Brunetto Latini and Dante,' Studi medievali 3rd sen 8.1 (1967): 421-50; reprinted in Dante's Italy, 166-97, quotation on 194.

238 Notes to pages 191-3 146 Joseph Pequigney, 'Sodomy in Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio,' Representations 36 (1991): 22-42; John E. Boswell, 'Dante and the Sodomites/ Dante Studies 112 (1994): 63-76. See also John Ahern, Troping the Fig: Inferno xv 66,' Lectura Dantis 6 (1990): 80-91; and Robert M. Durling's note, 'Dante and Homosexuality,' in Durling and Martinez, eds, Inferno, 559-60. 147 Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 15. 148 If we underscore the you of the wayfarer's interrogative exclamation - 'Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?' [Is that you here, ser Brunetto?] (Inf. 15.30) - the presumed surprise may also reflect both the difficulty in recognizing Brunetto under his baked features and the horror his physical appearance elicits. 149 I cite Cicero's text from the Loeb edition, De inventione, De optima genere oratorum, Topica, trans. H.M. Hubbell (1949; reprinted Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1960). 150 For the extensive medieval uses, including Brunette's, of Cicero's De inventione, see James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 106-23; and John O. Ward, Ciceronian Rhetoric in Treatise, Scholion and Commentary (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995). Wayne A. Rebhorn discusses the ideological implications of the foundational myth of rhetoric Cicero's version in particular - in the Renaissance (The Emperor of Men's Minds: Literature and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric [Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995], 23-9). 151 La rettorica, ed. Francesco Maggini (Florence: Le Monnier, 1968). I cite the text according to Maggini's pagination. 152 In Ciceronis Rhetoricam, in Rhetores Latini Minores, ed. Karl Halm (B.G. Teubner: Leipzig, 1863; reprinted Frankfurt a. Main: Minerva, 1964), 153-304. While Victorinus most often uses the verb miscere (i.e., mixta) to indicate the union of 'eloquentia' and 'sapientia,' he occasionally anticipates Brunette's preferred term (e.g., iungendam [159], iuncta [163], coniungamus [169]). Similarly, Thierry of Chartres, in his popular twelfth-century Latin commentary, expresses this union as 'eloquentiam iunctam sapientiae' (Commentarius super Libros De Inventione, in The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres, ed. Karin M. Fredborg [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988], 45-215, quotation on 62). 153 Ronald G. Witt, 'Brunetto Latini and the Italian Tradition of ArsDictaminis,' Stanford Italian Review 3.1 (1983): 5-24, in particular 6, note 3, and 10. 154 The Theological Tractates (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1973), 94; see also Augustine's incarnational use of the verb coniungere'm De

Notes to pages 193-4

239

Trinitate 13.17. Dante fittingly uses congiunto to emphasize the wayfarer's union with Virgil (Par. 17.19). 155 Although I do not view Brunetto himself as the 'target' of the poet's polemic, I agree with Mazzotta that Dante undercuts Ulysses' claims to wisdom by 'coupling' the Greek hero with Brunette's conception of rhetoric (Dante, Poet oftheDesert: History and Allegory in the 'Divine Comedy' [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979], 73-82). 156 Augustine cites Cicero's De inventione and discusses the importance of eloquence joined with wisdom for the Christian orator in book 4 of De doctrina chnstiana. 157 The orator is often depicted as a soldier or athlete. In addition to Cicero's De inventione 1.1, see Quintilian's description of the practice of rhetoric as a Tight' (pugnam) or a military operation (Institutio 0ratona5.12.l7; 5.12.22; 10.1.33 [London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1921-2]). This figuration connects Brunetto to the athletic warriors who appear together among the sodomites (Inf. 16) as well as to Cacciaguida in Mars. 158 Francesco De Sanctis, Lezioni sulla 'Divina Commedia' (1854; reprinted Bari: Laterza, 1955); Benedetto Croce, Lapoesia di Dante, 2nd ed. (Bari: Laterza, 1921).

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Index

Abrains, Richard, 210-lln79 Accursius, 113 active and contemplative lives: Dante's incarnational response to, 125; Leah and Rachel, 181-2; Martha and Mary, 181; union of Boethius and Gar.ciaguida, 182, 185-6 Adam, 2()ln33; and Eve, 58, 134 address to the reader: and veil of allegory, 128; before encountering Lucifer, 62; wonder of the Griffin, 71 Aeneas. 156 Ahem, John, 238nl46 Alan of Lille: on celestial music, 156; on Christ's exile, 165; on Incarnation and quadrature, 144; and incarnational theology, 5-6; on liberal arts and planets, 104, 219n59; on mathematical tetragonus, 166; on Mercury and Venus, 215n30; on perfection of tetragonus, 167; and trinitarian theory, 234nll2 Albert the Great: on earth's shadow, 82; on Milky Way. 230n68; and optics, 216n43

Alberti brothers (familial traitors), 46-7, 133 Albertus Magnus. See Albert the Great Alfraganus, 80-2, 158 Alhazen. Seelbn al-Haytham Ali, 64 allegory: Dante's conception of, 114; of life and afterlife, 80; and metaphor and metonymy, 36-7, 114, 204n26; of poets, 128; and Scriptural exegesis, 179; of theologians, 128 Anastasius, Pope, 108 Andriani, Beniamino, 232n81 angels, fallen, 57, 61,73 Annunciation, 134 Anselm of Canterbury: and deicidal argument, 200n28; incarnational theology, 5, 42, 70; incarnational theology compared with Dante's, 11-14; master of dialectical reasoning, 132; and 'ransom' theory, 13; wonder of Incarnation, 6 Antaeus, 57, 62, 150, 210n73 archery (arrows), 102-4, 218-19n58 Argenti, Filippo, 48-9, 208n56 Aristotle, 19; as authority, 126; on

242 Index earth's shadow, 82; on language and meaning, 113; and optics, 90; on perfection of tetragonus, 167-8 Armour, Peter, 190, 211 n4 astrology, 78 astronomy: intersection of circles and crosses, 135; Milky Way, 153; and Platonic chi, 135-6; zodiac, 109 Auerbach, Erich: figural interpretation, 188, 236-7nl36; Hegelian dialectic and Dante, 9; the Incarnation and the Commedia, 4 Augustine, Saint: Confessions, 16; on coniungere, 238-9nl54; conversion and new life, 36; on descent and ascent, 100, 218n55; on eloquence and wisdom, 193, 239nl56; 'Journey of the mind into God,' 26; on language and meaning, 113-14; on Letter and Spirit, 114, 127; Monica's death, 160; on Nimrod, 57, 210n70; 'region of unlikeness,' 60; on sin and swerving, 100; on Spirit and Letter, 222n83; struggle with heresy, 109; on temptation, 163; on time and language, 77, 213nl3; on the tower of Babel, 57; on the Trinity, 172; on two lives, 182 Austin, H.D., 140-1 Avicenna, 90 Babel, tower of, 57-8 Bacon, Roger, 18; on direct and oblique light rays, 91-2; on earth's shadow, 214; on perpendicular light rays, 100; theological optics of, 90,92, 96 baptism, 53 Bararisky, Zygmunt G., 211n3 Barbi, Michele, 28

Barolini, Teodolinda, 201n33, 215n33; on Brunette and Cacciaguida, 237nl38; on Dante and dialectic, 6-7; on dialectic in the earth's shadow, 85-6; on Farinata, 209n62; on Giants, 209n67; on heaven of the Sun, 225nl4; on mutareand trasmutare, 206n35; on overreachers, 58; on representation, 116; on Ulysses, 219-20n63 Beal, Rebecca S., 206n34, 224-5nll Beatrice: arrival of, 76; as author, 123; beginning of incarnational poetry, 23; centrality in paradise, 130; at the centre of the Vita nuova, 30; Christlike mediation of, 16; death of, 26-7,116; death of father, 25; as eagle, 96-7; final words of, 225nl6; and the Griffin, 70-1; incarnational significance of, 24-5, 141; and incarnational theology, 11-15; as incidental light, 95; mediating function of, 71, 97-8; name as motivation, 72-3; and number nine, 26, 27; reflecting eyes of, 88, 96; in the terrestrial paradise, 68-71 Belethjohn, 136 Bellomo, Saverio, 222n89 Benvenuto da Imola, 144, 170, 232n86; on Farinata's pride, 49 Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 174 Bertran de Born: and contrapasso 64; divided and doubled figure, 17, 65-6 Bible: Apocalypse, 56; Christian allegory of, 114; 1 Corinthians, 46, 94, 109, 216; 2 Corinthians, 114, 127, 129, 130, 156; Ecclesiasticus, 39; Exodus, 206n40; Genesis, 45, 56,

Index 57,58, 134, 163, 172; Hebrews, 173; Isaiah, 100; John, 91, 110, 122; Joshua, 78; Lamentations, 28; Luke, 25, 48, 181, 229nn54-5; Malachi, 227n29; Mark, 229n54; Matthew, 25, 29, 115, 125, 138, 147-8, 157; 2 Peter, 205n30; Psalms, 51; 1 Timothy, 36; Wisdom, 89 Biow, Douglas, 2()8n56 Bloch, R. Howard, 104, 221nn79, 82 Bloom, Harold, 157, 224n9 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 161, 186 Boethius, 198n8; bias toward contemplation, 183, 236nl30; and equality, 177; on Incarnation, 193; on language and meaning, 113; and martyrdom, 135; on mathematical tetragonus, 166; on square numbers, 166-7; on wonder of Incarnation, 6. See also Cacciaguida: doubling with Boethius Bonaventure, Saint, 26, 131, 220n67, 225nl3 Boniface vm, 162; present absence, 59; prophesied entombment of, 53; violence against church, 49 Boswelljohn E., 191 Botterill, Steven, 203nI4 Bovde, Patrick, 2()4n23. 216n42, 217n49 Bradley, Ritamary, 216n40 Bregoli-Russo, Mauda, 234nl()3 Briareus, 60 Bruvne, Edgar de, 235nl21 Cacciaguida: birth date of, 158; Dante's identification with, 19; and Dante's mission, 151-2; doubling with Boethius, 20, 180; doubling with Brunetto Latini, 20, 126, 179,

243

187-9; identification with Christ, 157; and second crusade, 174 Caiaphas, 76, 142 Campbell,Joseph, 10 Cangrande della Scala, 151 Capaneus, 40, 48, 57, 205n34, 208n56 Camgati, Giuliana, 211n6 Cassell, Anthony K., 208n51; 210n79 Castellani, Victor, 226-7n28 Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, 50, 209n61 Cavalcanti, Guido, 26, 50 Cecco d'Ascoli, 83 Centaurs, 49. See also Chiron Cerberus, 38 Cervigni, Dino S., 201n2, 203nl3 Cestaro, Gary P., 7 Chalcedon, Council of, 5, 120 Chalc.idius: on celestial music, 155; on chi, 137; on geometry, 145 Charity, A.C., 9 Charles of Valois, 154, 162 Chiampi, James T., 207n42, 228n48 Chiarenza, Marguerite Mills, 229n57 Chimenz, Siro A., 96 Chiron, 38, 44, 205n30 Christ: as centre, 131; Dante's imitatio Chnsti, 149, 157; equality of unity, 173; Imago fnetatis ('Man of Sorrows'), 49; 'the Light,' 91; presence in hell, 23, 67; primus tetragonus, 170-1, 174; 'seamless garment' worn by, 122; three advents of, 128; Wisdom, 46; 'Word of God,' 110. See also Annunciation; crucifixion; Final Judgment; harrowing of hell; Incarnation; Resurrection Cicero, 19, 12.5-6, 149-50; dangerous orators, 46; and Dante's incarnational poetry, 152-3; De inventions, 192-3; and Fiesole, 230n61; on

244 Index Mercury and Venus, 83; on Timaeus, 137; value of active life, 183. See also rhetoric; Somnium Stipionis circles: concentric rings of solar spirits, 127, 129, 135; Same and Different, 136; of Trinity, 138; terms for solar rings, 225-6n20 Clarembald, Archdeacon of Arras, 20, 171,234-5nll5 Clement v, 53, 55, 151 Cogan, Marc, 205n32 Cole, Bruce, 203nl8 Colish, Marcia L., 4, 220n70 Corn-media (Dante): central episodes of, 188; Dante's greatest reward, 164; dialectical approaches to, 6-9; double-start to journey, 37; and mirror of knowledge, 89; reciprocity of words and things, 111-12; representational claim of, 44; symmetrical thresholds in, 215n32; symmetry and closure in, 88; system of self-commentary in, 186-7; work of poet and theologian, 65-6. See also Inferno', Paradiso; Purgatorio Compagni, Dino, 154 conical umbra. See shadow, earth's Contrada, Deborah, 237nl41 contrapasso, 23, 64 Convivio (Dante): on allegory, 224n4; on circular forms, 204n20; and Consolation of Philosophy, 179; on Dante's education, 174; on Dante's eyesight, 90; on dialectic and Mercury, 8, 10; on direct light rays, 101-2; on earth's radius, 81; on geometric figures, 232n89; on Incarnation, 201n3; on liberal arts and planets, 104; on lunar marks, 117; on Mars and music, 153-4; on

Mercury, 213nl7; on Milky Way, 153; on Moon and grammar, 104-5; on quadrature, 144; on Scipio Africanus the Elder and Scipio Africanus the Younger, 149-50; on two lives, 180-1; on unjust exile, 165; on wisdom, 89 Cornish, Alison, 225nl9 Corti, Maria, 221n76 Costa, Gustavo, 199nl8, 220n65, 225nl5 Costanza ('Constance'), 17, 221n74 Cotter, James Finn, 205n28, 208n53, 222-3n94 Croce, Benedetto, 9, 194 cross: and chiasmus in the Sun, 137-8; dialectical structure of, 148; and equality of square, 175; over Florence, 154; incarnational interpretation of, 136-7; and liturgical shorthand, 136-7, 148; of martyred warriors, 127, 129; and Platonic chi, 135-6; structure of, 142 cross-in-circle. See geometry: cross-incircle crucifixion, 220n69; blood sacrifice of, 135; Christ and Romeo, 115; and darkness, 80; and death of Beatrice's father, 25; both just and unjust, 12, 124, 132; and martyrdom in Mars, 125; and punishment of Caiaphas, 142; and tetragonus, 177 crusade, second, 174 Cunizza, 12-13 Cur Deus Homo. SeeAnselm of Canterbury Curio, 64 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 114, 152, 220-ln73

Index Damon, Phillip, 230n63 Daniello, Bernardino, 170 Dante: as Aeneas and Paul, 156-7; and ascent to paradise, 110; centred in the Sun, 131, 139-40; decentred in the Vita murua, 31-2; as falcon, 96-7; and fear during the journey, 37, 45, 57, 59, 61-3, 73; as figura Cacaaguidae, 149, 174; and flawed state in purgatory, 93-4; identification with Boethius, 177; incarnational theologus-poeta, 14; and intellectual action, 186; as reflected light, 95; surpassing Paul and Augustine, 129; turning from the straight path, 107; as union of wisdom and action, 180; as victim and victor, 19 Davis, Charles T., 191, 235nll6, 236nl35 De monarchia (Dante): on Christ's 'seamless garment,' 122-3; on quadrature, 143; on Scipio Africanus the Klder, 229n59 De Rohertis, Domenico, 204n23 De Sanctis. Francesco, 9, 194 Denulgari eloquentia (Dante): Dante as poet of rectitude, 101; on Nimrod and the tower of Babel, 57 Deleuze, (lilies, 200n24 Derrida, Jacques, 146, 200n24 dialectic: of Brunette and Cacciaguicla. 193-4; of contemplation and action, 179; of contradiction, 12-13, 25, 27-8, 32, 36, 202; contrast and complementarity, 50; of Dante's prophesied future, 148, 164; in the liberal arts, 8; and Mercury, 10; of opposition and fulfilment, 126; of paradox, 9-11, 16,

245

87, 194; perspective-dependent, 12-13, 132; in philosophy and criticism, 8-10; and scholastic method, 131-2 dialectic, incarnational, 4, 21, 25, 66, 191, 194; of action and contemplation, 186; as continuity and reversal, 69; and Dante as tetragonus, 178; and Dante's direct flight, 100-1; of defeat and triumph, 126; flexibility of, 116; of martyrdom and mission, 148; of purgatory, 94; in purgatory and the earth's shadow, 68; of sameness and difference, 133; of shadowed spirits, 109; trinitarian basis for, 140; and union of Dante and Virgil, 38; of unity and difference, 117; of words and the world, 112 difference, 10, 84, 200n24 Dionysius the Areopagite, 176 Dis, city of, 57,61, 73,84 division: Dante's poetics of, 63-5; and destruction, 45; and heresy, 51; as tear in social fabric, 122-3. See also strozio Dominic, Saint: union with Francis, 19, 132-4, 178; name as interpretive key, 112 Doob, Penelope Reed, 205n31, 228n38, 231n78 Dragonetti, Roger, 121, 222n86 Dronke, Peter, 227n30, 228n42 Dunham, William, 143 Dunning, Stephen N., 9-10, 202n5 Durling, Robert M.: 'Christ in Hell,' 201nl; on Dante and homosexuality, 238nl46; dialectic and the rime petrose, 7; on Gemini and duality, 208n53; on Infenio 15, 237nl37; on

246 Index Neoplatonic mediations, 201n34; on procession and return in the Vita nuava, 201n3 eagle, dream of, 218n53 eclipse, 213nl9 Eco, Umberto: on Gabriele Rossetti, 202n8; and hermetic semiosis, 127; on Mercury-Hermes, 11; II name dellarosa, 169; Rpendolo diFoucault, 128; on perfection of tetragonus, 169; on Two Cultures,' 144-5, 228n45 envy: and Antaeus, 210n73; defined in Purgatorio, 59-60; location in hell, 205n32; and pride, 59-60 Ephialtes, 57, 60, 61 Epistolell (Dante), 230n62 Eucharist, 208n54 Euclid, 90, 146 Eve: and Adam, 58,134; disobedience of, 75 exile: and Christ, 165; cross of, 125; and Dante's ambivalence toward the past, 36-7; injustice and vindication of, 116; and political logic of exclusion, 51; prophesied in the Corn-media, 72, 162 Farinata, 48, 56; and Dante's exile, 72; divided figure, 49, 64; 'magnanimo,' 51-2, 55; at Montaperti, 48-9; patriotism of, 66; pride of, 49-50, 62 Fasani, Remo, 221n73 Ferrante.Joan M., 204n27, 222n91, 223n96,227n33, 236nl31 Final Judgment, 70 Florence: baptistery in, 53; cross-incircle figuration of, 141; and

Hindu-Arabic numbers, 160; pilgrim passing through, 25; politics of, 51; saved by Farinata, 52 Folco of Marseilles, 18, 218n54 Foster, Kenelm, 204n23, 216n42 Francesca: and Beatrice, 69; challenges Dante, 66; as Dante's Eve, 45; and Paolo, 16, 45, 58, 133, 207n47; passion of, 66; pride of, 58; in Web of Pride, 64 Francis of Assisi, Saint: and Dominic, 19, 132-4, 178; and martyrdom, 135 Franke, William, 8 Freccero.John: on Brunetto Latini, 190; and conversion perspective, 191, 224n9; and Dante and dialectic, 9,199n22; on Dante's spiralling movement, 218n56; on the Incarnation and the Commedia, 4; on Inferno 9, 128; on Platonic chi, 226n21; on the Ugolino episode, 208n54; on Virgil's textual departure, 74 Fucci, Vanni, 39-40, 42, 205-6n34 Fujitani, Michio, 217n48 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 86 Galimberti, Cesare, 223nn95, 98 Gehl, Paul F., 219n62 Gemini, 47, 208n53 geometry: cross-in-circle, 19, 140-2; fountainhead of knowledge, 145-6; ideal objectivity of, 146-7; quadrature of the circle, 143-5 Gerard of Cremona, 80 Geryon, 97, 205n29 Ghibelline party, 51, 119-20 Giants: Christological interpretation of, 56-7; compared to Lucifer,

Index 247 55-6; divided figures, 56-7; and envy, 60, 210; pride of, 55-62, 209n67; in Web of Pride, 64. See also Antaeus; Briareus; Ephialtes; Nimrod Gilson, Etienne. 171 Ginsberg, Warren, 199nl8, 206n40 Giotto, 31, 203nl7 Girard, Rene, 212n9 Godzich, Wlad, 200n24 Golius, Jacobus, 214n26 Gopnik, Adam, 235nl22 Gorni, Guglielmo, 203nl3 grace, 3, 15 grammar, 104-5, 219n62 Gregory the Great, 182 Griffin, 17, 21, 88; approximate incarnational image, 77: incarnational symbolism of, 69, 70, 96, 211n4 Gross, Kenneth, 205n28 Grosseteste, Robert, 216n43 Guelf party, 51, 119-20 Guido da Pisa. 209n61 Hannibal, 150 Haring, Nikolaus M., 172, 2S4nl05 Harpies, 38 Harrison, Robert Pogue, 203nI2, 204n22 harrowing of hell, 78, 158 Hart, Thomas E., 228n41 Hawkins, Peter S., 8. 224niO Hegel, G.W.F., 11, 200n24; on Dante, 8-9, 199nl9; 'sublation' (Aufliebung),9, 18,86 Henry vn, 151 heresy, 51; of Photinus, 108-9; related to simony. 52-4; and schism, 209n64 hermeneutics: both opposition and

continuity, 179, 189; Christian, 127; dialectical, 194; figural, 129, 188, 236-7nl36; incarnational, 126; oppositional and dialectical, 20-1 hermetic semiosis, 127-8 Herzman, Ronald B., 228n41 Hippocrates of Chios, 143 Hirsch-Reich, Beatrice, 227n30 Hollander, Robert, 220n7l Husserl, Edmund, 146 Hutcheon, Linda, 10, 200n25 lannucci, Amilcare A., 2 1 ) n l , 236nl33 Ibn al-Haytham, 90 Incarnation: Anselm's conception of, 70; descent into humanity, 100, 127; dialectical process and product, 15, 98; epistemological importance of, 4; humility of (exinantio), 39, 202n3; and light rays, 92; mocked by hybrids in hell, 38; mocked by thieves, 117; negatively embodied in hell, 23, 21 In6; orthodox view of, 5; paradoxical logic of, 5, 13; parodied by doubled and divided shades, 178; parodied by sowers of discord, 65; parodied by thieves, 42-3; poetically inscribed in Paradise 5-7, 120-3; and quadrature, 144-5; representational foundation of the Commedia, 18; struggle to conceive and represent, 21; temporal obstacles in representing, 77; trinitarian context for, 137-8; union of man-god and Word, 124; union of the word and the world, 111; vision of, 3, 77,127, 139; way of writing and being, 194; 'Word made flesh,' 18, 110, 123, 220n69

248 Index ineffability, rhetoric of, 64, 142 Inferno (Dante): canto 1, 37, 46, 69, 71, 72, 100; canto 2, 16, 37, 38, 45, 54, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 129,130,156; canto 3, 23, 46, 194; canto 4, 140; canto 5, 45, 66, 69, 133, 207n47; canto 6, 115; canto 7, 48; canto 8, 48, 208; canto 9, 52, 128; canto 10, 49, 50, 52, 72, 152; canto 11, 51, 108, 190; canto 12, 38, 44; canto 13, 38 208n56; canto 14, 40, 57, 205n34, 208n56; canto 15, 72, 152, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192, 238nl48; canto 16, 239nl57; canto 17, 97,142; canto 18, 142; canto 19, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 61, 63; canto 20, 64; canto 21, 158; canto 23, 40, 41, 76; canto 24, 41, 42, 43, 44; canto 25, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 123, 205-6n34, 207n44, 208n56; canto 26, 45, 46, 66, 106, 107, 133, 207n49; canto 27,158; canto 28, 64, 65; canto 31, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 150, 210n73; canto 32, 47, 133; canto 33, 60; canto 34, 39, 40, 54, 56, 62, 63, 67, 88, 210n76; cross-incircle design of hell, 141-2; divided shades as incarnational parody, 48-64; doubled shades as incarnational parody, 44-8 Isidore of Seville, 104, 219n61, 220n72 Jacoff, Rachel, 156, 212nlO, 235nl23 Jakobson, Roman, 204n26 Jerusalem, 12, 116 Joachim of Flora, 132, 139 John of Holywood, 82-3 John of Salisbury, 104, 171, 219n61 John of Seville, 80

Jordon, Mark D., 190 journey, metaphor of, 123 Judas, 62, 67 Justinian, 11, 18, 201n32; alleged heresy of, 79, 108; compared to Ulysses, 106-7; and 'double light,' 178, 223n95; embodiment of justice and law, 120; last 'shade,' 79; and Roman law, 13, 106, 113 Kaske, R.E., 136-7 Kay, Richard, 190, 215n34 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 11 Kindi, al-, 90 Kirkham, Victoria, 215n32 Kirkpatrick, Robin, 229n56 Kleiner, John, 7, 202n4, 213nl5, 226n32 Kleinhenz, Christopher, 208n55, 209n68 Klibansky, Raymond, 229n49 Kuhn, Thomas, 10 Lacan,Jacques, 111 language: Dante's incarnate words, 110—11, 116; doubles and repetitions, 120-1; naturalist and conventionalist views of, 113-14; and the referential world, 111; 'singlenatured' canto, 122-3; source of divisiveness, 65 Lansing, Richard H., 152, 226n20 Latini, Brunetto: as Cacciaguida'syigura, 188; on Cicero's foundation myth, 126; and dangerous orators, 46; and Dante's exile, 72; on eagle and pelegrin, 218n52; on earth's shadow, 82; on eloquence and wisdom, 192-3; figurative or substitute sin of, 190-1; as unrepentant sod-

Index omite, 189, 191. See also Cacciaguida: doubling with Brunette Latini law: medieval study of, 113; Mosaic, 114; Roman, 106; union of language and the world, 114; of the villa nova, 116 Letter to Cangrande (Dante?), 44 Lewis, C.S., 230 liberal arts, 104, 144 lightning, 103, 105 Limentani, Uberto, 223n96 Lindberg, David C, 91, 216n41 Lindemann, Ferdinand, 229n53 Lodge, David, 204n26 logic, 1 18, 199nl8 Lucan, 43, 44, 150 Lucifer, 62; divided figure, 49, 63; entombment of, 54; great size of, 55-6; as incarnational parody, 67; as parody of Trinity, 38; pride of, 39; in Web of Pride, 64 Lund-Mead, Carolvnn, 201n3 Macrobius: on celestial music, 155-6; on cube, 169; on earth's shadow, 214—15n28; on herrnerieutic veil, 127-8; on Mercury and Venus, 83; and union of action and contemplation, 183-5 Malacoda, 40, 76, 158 Malebolge, 142 Malebrartche, 40,61 Mandelbaum, Allen, 233nl02 Marco Lombardo, 107-8 Mariotti, Scevola, 115, 222n94 marriage, metaphor of, 133-4, 135 Mars, 153-5 Martel, Charles, 18 Martianus Capella, 156, 166 Martinez, Ronald L.: on Beatrice's

249

humility, 201-2n3; dialectic and the rimepetrose, 7; on Gemini and duality, 208n53; on Inferno 15, 237nl37; on Neoplatonic mediations, 201n34; on procession and return in the Vita nuova, 201n3 Marx, Karl, 186-7, 194 Mary (Virgin), 16, 134, 157 Masciandaro, Franco, 212nll Mason, Mary Elizabeth, 235nl24 Matelda, 70, 75 Mazzaro, Jerome, 203nl5 Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony, 217n49 Mazzoni, Francesco, 222n86, 223n95 Mazzotta, Giuseppe: on Brunetto Latini, 190; on Brunetto Latini and Ulysses, 207n50, 239nl55; on contemplatives, 236nl26; on Costanza, 221n74; Dante and dialectic, 6-7, 198nl 1; on Dante's rite of passage, 212n9; on exile, 165; on the Incarnation and dialectic, 199nl8; on the Incarnation and rules, 228n43; on medieval legal theory, 113; on Pentecostal echoes, 208n51; on the Vita nuova, 203nl6 McKenzie, Kenneth, 202n 11 Menninger, Karl, 232n81 Menocal, Maria Rosa, 203nl2 Mercury: sphere of dialectic, 220n65; sphere of the Incarnation, 10-11; veiled by the sun, 79, 213nl7 Miglio, Massimo, 213n20 Minos, 38, 205n31 Minotaur, 38, 205n31 mirror: Beatrice's eyes as, 97; Dante's speculum mundi, 93; as metaphor for wisdom, 89 Moevs, Christian, 201n34 Mohammed, 64

250 Index Mornigliano, Attilio, 233nl02 Moon, 104-5 Moore, Edward, 214n20, 232n79 Mosca de' Lamberti, 64 Murphy,JamesJ., 238nl50 Musa, Mark, 128-9, 204n23, 210n76, 233nl02 music, celestial, 155-6 names: and Beatrice, 124; and Costanza, 112; and Dominic, 112; and Folco of Marseilles, 112; and Justinian, 114—15; and Romeo de Villeneuve, 115-16; as reason for choosing characters, 220-ln73 Nardi, Bruno, 113 Nicholas in, 55, 56; entombment of, 53; and Giants, 59; and Lucifer, 63; pride of, 62; violence against the church, 49; in Web of Pride, 64 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 10 Nimrod, 57-8 Nolan, Edward Peter, 216n41 numbers, Hindu-Arabic, 159-60 ombra ('shadow' and 'shade'), 17, 79-80 optics: in 'Amore, che movi tua vertii da cielo,' 90; ancient and medieval sources of, 90; in Convivio, 101-2; Dante's knowledge of, 90. See also Bacon, Roger; reflection, law of Ordiway, Frank B., 85, 215n36 Origen, 181 Orosius, 57, 150 Ovid, 43, 44, 149 Pagliaro, Antonino, 231n76 papacy, critique of, 151, 225nl6 Paradiso (Dante): canto 1, 88-9, 94,

95, 96, 97, 99, 102, 103, 105, 107, 135,156,180,186,218n58; canto 2, 4,21,91,98,103,117, 118; canto 3, 85, 105, 112, 118, 119; canto 4, 175, 219n58, 221n74; canto 5, 79, 104, 120, 121,122,123; canto 6, 11, 13, 18, 106,114,118,119, 120, 121,122,123,124, 150, 201n32, 230n61, 231n75; canto 7,11-15, 39,80,110,121, 124,127,178,189, 201n33, 223n95; canto 8, 101, 112, 135; canto 9, 78, 80, 82, 83, 98,112, 117, 127, 218n54, 222n92; canto 10,86,109,126,129,130,131,133, 135,136,138,154,179,180,198n8; canto 11, 131, 133, 134, 135; canto 12, 112, 132, 133, 134, 137, 139, 198, 220n67, 225nl8, 227n32; canto 13, 25, 130, 132, 134, 135, 140; canto 14, 19, 134, 137, 138, 139,140,142,147,148, 153,154, 155, 175, 180; canto 15, 141, 152, 153, 156, 157, 159, 161, 164, 174, 175, 176, 180, 188; canto 16, 158, 187; canto 17, 148, 157, 160, 162, 164, 165,170, 174,180, 186, 187, 188, 239nl54; canto 18, 98, 148, 164,180,185, 231n71; canto 19, 80; canto 20, 218n52; canto 22, 47; canto 23, 46, 220n69; canto 26, 46, 58,107,158; canto 27,151, 213nl9, 218n56; canto 29, 213nl9; canto 30,225nl6; canto 33, 21, 36, 45,99, 139, 143, 177, 180; astronomy in, 88-9; and celestial music, 156; epistemology in, 117-18; from exposition to ecphrasis, 127; harmonious union in, 178; ineffability of paradise, 116; moral structure of, 85; ontological blurring in, 123; optics

Index in, 94-100; rectilinear images in, 102-5; representational strategy in, 85; unity of text, 123 Parent, J.M., 172 Parronchi, Alessandro, 216n41, 21718n50 Pasquini, Ernilio, 233nl02 Paul: celestial vision of, 129, 156; and figurative veil, 127; on heresy, 109; on Letter and Spirit, 114 Pecham.John, 90 Pederson, Olaf, 213n20 Pelikan.Jaroslav, 200n31, 211n4 Pequigney, Joseph, 191 perivrma, 58 perspectiua. See optics

Peter Lombard, 51 Pezard, Andre, 190 Phaeton, 58 Piccarda, 17, 112, 22In74 Piccolomini, Alessandro, 169 Pier da Medicina, 64 Pier della Vigna, 208n5G Pietrodi Dante, 169-70, 187 Plato: as authority, 19, 126; on celestial music, 155; and cratylism, 113; and geometry. 145; and optics, 90; Parmenides, 11; and philosopherking, 179. 183; Timaeus, 136 pride: ambition and fame, 108; defined in Purgatorio, 59-60; and envy, 59-60; foundational sin, 39; location in bell, 205n32; redeemed in paradise, 188; state of being 'unripe,' 205-6ii34; and violence, 49 Pride, Web of, 16, 38, 56, 178; Dante's place in, 43-4, 123; heuristic device, 2()4-5n28; Nicholas in and the Giants, 59; reversed in the

251

earth's shadow, 87; ruinous consequences of, 64 Priest, Paul, 210n79 prophecy: of age of Holy Spirit, 139; of Dante's future life, 157; 'Five Hundred, Ten. and Five,' 137; of second crusade, 174 Proto, Enrico, 170 Ptolemy, 80, 81-2, 90 Purgatorio (Dante): canto 5, 186; canto 6, 72, 115; canto 8, 128; canto 9, 218n53; canto 10, 108; canto 11, 108, 188, 203nl7, 207n44; canto 12, 39, 45, 58, 141; canto 13, 44, 108, 220n73; canto 15, 91, 93, 94, 212n8; canto 16, 108; canto 17, 59-60; canto 18, 212n8; canto 19, 106; canto 20, 157; canto 23, 72, 108, 220n69; canto 26, 190; canto 27, 73, 74, 182; canto 28, 75; canto 29, 70, 75, 150, 224nlO; canto 30, 69, 107, 212n 10; canto 31, 21, 69, 70, 71, 88, 91, 94, 96, 211n6; canto 32, 116; canto 33, 88, 96, 137; optics in, 92-6; and rites of passage, 212n9 purgatory, mountain of, 67-8 quadrivium, 173 Quinones, RicardoJ.: on the Aeneid and the Cacciaguida episode, 230n65; on Boethius and Cacciaguida, 235nl23; on father-figures, 236nl35; on Francis and Dominic, 225nl7; on Purgatorio, 212-13nl2 Quintilian, 239nl57 Rabuse, Georg, 230n63 Raffa, Guy P., 204n21, 206n36, 224n5, 232n80

252

Index

Rahab, 18,78, 117,127 Ravenna, 140 Rebhorn, Wayne A., 238nl50 Reeves, Marjorie, 227n30 reflection, law of, 91, 93, 94-5, 217n48 Restore d'Arezzo, 104, 219n59 Resurrection, 49, 206n41 rhetoric: foundation myth of, 126, 192; incarnational approach to, 126; and pride, 46 rhyme, equivocal, 41-2, 43, 206n38, 222n92; dialectical structure of, 118-19; and Guelfs and Ghibellines, 119-20; in bono / in malo uses of, 117; and reflection, 95 Richard of St Victor, 5, 198n8, 209n64 Ricoeur, Paul, 10 Rocke, Michael, 238nl47 Rome: as heavenly city, 116; pax romana, 115; pine cone at St Peter's, 59 Romeo de Villeneuve, 18, 116, 201n32 Rorty, Richard, 144, 228n45 Rossetti, Gabriele, 26-7, 202n8 Rossetti, Maria Francesca, 85 Rutledge, Monica, 216n41 Ryan, Christopher, 200n30 Sabbatino, Pasquale, 223n96 Sarolli, Gian Roberto, 136-7 Schaeffer, John D., 199nl7 schism, 209n64 Schnapp, Jeffrey T.: on Aeneid 6 and the Somnium Scipionis, 152-3; on Boethius and Cacciaguida, 235nl23; on Cangrande's age, 232n82; on Christ at centre, 131; on cross in Mars, 226n22; on

Dante's two crosses, 231n70; on dialectic and Purgatorio, 8; on poetics of martyrdom, 223-4nl; on poet's 'activist call,' 236nl31; on sun and cross, 227n29 Scipio Africanus the Elder, 149-52 Scipio Africanus the Younger: compared to Dante, 19, 152, 161-4; prophesied age of death, 159; and union of virtues, 185 Scot, Michael, 83 shadow, 79. See also ombra shadow, earth's: as incarnational sign, 67-8; as optimum incarnational setting, 110, 123; scientific theories of, 80-4; shape of, 82, 214n26; spirits appearing in, 84—7; as threshold in paradise, 17, 78, 84; triangular optics in, 98; as visible allegorical veil, 129 Shapiro, Marianne, 202n7, 235nll8, 237nl44 Shelby, Lon R., 229n50 Shoaf, R.A., 199-200n23, 201n34 Siger of Brabant, 132 Silvestris, Bernardus, 139, 167, 171, 213nl7 simony, 52-4 Simson, Otto von, 170 sin: figurative markers of, 100; marked on Dante's brow (peccatum), 39; original, 14, 201n33 Singleton, Charles S.: on Brunetto, 237nl39; on celestial music, 231n75; on the cruciform nimbus, 227n34; on geometry, 144—5, 228n47; on the Incarnation and the Commedia, 4; on Lucifer's appearance, 210n75; on Paradiso 1, 218n50; and retrospective herme-

Index neutics, 191; on the revolution of Mars, 232n79; on Scipio African us the Younger, 229n60; on the Vita nuova, 26, 27, 202nl 1; on the Vita nuova and the Commedia, 69 siren, dream of, 105-6 Snow, C.P., 144 sodomy, 189-90, 191 SomniumSdpionis (Cicero), 125-6; and Cacciaguida episode, 153-5, 159-64; and celestial music, 155; Dante's likely familiarity with, 149; and Milky Way, 153. See also Scipio Africanus the Younger soothsayers, 64 speculum. See mirror Spengemann, William C., 204n25 stars (stellf), 88 Statius: with Dante and Virgil, 73, 74-5; Thebaid, 47 Stefanini, Ruggero, 210n77 Stephany, William A., 156, 235nl23 Stephens, Walter, 209n67 Slillinger, Thomas C., 7, 203nl4 Stock, Brian, 234nl09 straight way (diritta via): bending away from, 105-6, 107-9; beneficent turning from, 109; Dante's abandonment of, 69; and direct light rays, 101-2; and grammar, 104-5; in medieval imagination, 100 strazio, 48-9, 53 Stump, Eleonore, 199nl8 Sun, heaven of the: complementarity in, 132; incarnational performance in, 132-4 Tarniniaux, Jacques, 200n24 tetragonus (tetragono), 165-7; as cube,

253

168-70; in Encidopedia dantesca, 170; as gloss on Dante's exile, 165; perfection of, 167-70; PlatonicChartrian conception of, 20, 126, 170-4; and square numbers, 166-7 theft: and identity, 41; offence against Incarnation, 40 Theseus, 205n31 Thierry of Chartres: on Christ as 'first tetragon,' 20, 170-1, 173-4; on eloquence and wisdom, 238nl52; on mathematical tetraganus, 173; praise of, 171; trinitarian theory of, 171-3; on unity and division, 45; and Virgil, 172 thieves, transformations of, 42-4 Thomas Aquinas, Saint: and archery metaphor, 103; on earth's shadow, 82; master of dialectical reasoning, 132; on mathematical tetragonus, 166; and optics, 216; on perfection of tetragonus, 168; on square numbers, 167; on two lives, 235-6nl24 Tillich, Paul, 10 Tommaseo, 232n85 Towsley, Gary W., 228n41 Toynbec, Paget, 213-14n20 Trinity: and creation, 172; inseparable from Incarnation, 25, 130; mocked in hell, 38; in opening of Paradise 10, 126; parodied by Lucifer, 63; parody of, 208n55; and 'three blessed women,' 38, 130, 204n27; and three solar circles, 139; and the Vita nuova, 202n7 trivium, 8, 111 Ugolino: parody of Eucharist, 48; rage of, 66; and Ruggieri, 16, 47-8, 62, 133; in Web of Pride, 64

254 Index Ulysses, 48, 56, 201n33; ambition of, 66; challenges Dante, 66; Dante's double, 106; and Diomedes, 16, 46, 133; and eloquence without wisdom, 193;/o//za (madness) of, 14; pride of, 45-6, 58, 62, 207n49; rhetorical prowess of, 46; and siren, 106; in Web of Pride, 64 Vance, Eugene, 104, 190, 213nl3, 221n82, 224n9 Vasta, Edward, 201n2, 203nl3 Vattimo, Gianni, 200n24 veil: between Letter and Spirit, 129; of the earth's shadow, 127, 129, 139; of Moses, 127 Veronica, 25, 141, 142 Victorinus, 238nl52 Villani, Giovanni, 189, 192 Vincent of Beauvais, 89 violence, cycles of, 65 Virgil, 19, 126; Aeneid, 72, 125, 149, 152, 205n29, 212nlO; cites Scripture, 48; completed mission of, 73; final images of, 74-6; 'magnanimo,' 51; as Pastor Bonus (Christshepherd), 55; union with Dante,

16, 38, 40-1, 54-5, 61-2, 68, 76-7; verbal departure of, 71-4 virtues: cardinal and theological, 135; political and and philosophical, 184-5 Vita nuova (Dante): arrangement of poems in, 26-8, 202nll; Beatrice's name, 124; dialectical space of, 87; dichotomized lyrics of, 32-5; divisioniof the poems, 28, 203nl4; incarnational failure of, 16, 32, 35, 130; layout of Florence, 141; Love's instability in, 32; names and things, 111, 113; number nine in, 160; on pilgrims to Rome, 115-16; promise fulfilled in the Commedia, 83-4; prose correspondences in, 28-31, 203nl5; and PurgatmoSO, 69; river walks in, 70; 'tanto gentil e tanto onesta pare,' 24

West, Rebecca, 206n37 Wieruszowski, Helene, 219n59 Williams, Raymond, 8 Witelo, 90 Witt, Ronald G., 238nl53