Transcript Slide 1

Dante: The Divine Comedy
Dante
Alighieri:
His Life &
Times
Dante: The Political Background
Two entities battled for
control of Italy:
1. The Holy Roman Empire
2. The Papacy/Papal States
Ahi, Costantin, di quanto
mal fu matre...
The Donation of Constantine: A forged document of Emperor
Constantine the Great (4th c. AD), by which large privileges and
rich possessions were conferred on the pope (Sylvester I) and the
Roman Church. It first appears during the Middle Ages and is
used by the papacy to claim temporal power in Italy, especially
against the advances of the Holy Roman Empire.
Strife in Florence
Guelphs: Supporters of Florentine independence from the Holy
Roman Empire
Ghibellines: Noble families who supported the Holy Roman
Empire’s interests in Northern Italy.
In Florence, the Guelphs triumphed; Dante was a Florentine
Guelph. His political views later in life, however, would
dispose him to favor the Holy Roman Empire in its
opposition to a grasping papacy.
Dante in
Exile
In about the year 1300, the Florentine
Guelphs splintered into Blacks and
Whites, with the White Guelphs
gradually feeling that the papacy, not
the Holy Roman Empire, was the
greater threat to Italy. Dante was one
of these White Guelphs who strongly
opposed papal intervention in secular
affairs.
In 1302, the Black Guelphs exiled Dante
while he was away on a diplomatic
mission. Dante never returned to
Florence, and the city’s relationship to
his legacy is a complicated one.
Dante’s politics figure prominently in the
Divine Comedy, and his exile can be
discerned in the themes of wandering
and searching for a home.
Dante the Pilgrim vs. Dante the Poet
The mosaic ceiling of the Baptistry in Florence.
Trinitarian Imagery
in the Divine Comedy
3 canticles: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
Inferno: 1 introductory canto and 33 Inferno cantos proper.
Purgatorio: 33 cantos.
Paradiso: 33 cantos.
Terza rima: The interlocking rhyme scheme of the Divine
Comedy: aba bcb, cdc, etc.
11 syllables per line; 3 lines in a tercet=33 syllables.
Many other multiples of 3 (e.g., 9 circles of Hell).
A
B
A
B
C
B
C
D
C
D
E
D
Dante & Structure: Fearful and Sacred Symmetry
Fictional Time and the Role of Prophecy
Dante probably began the Divine Comedy
around 1307 and worked on it until his
death in 1321.
However, he sets his Divine Comedy during
Easter Week in the year 1300.
CQ: Why might Dante have chosen to set
the Divine Comedy during Easter
Week?
1.
Easter week reinforces the Christian
treatment of death and renewal.
2.
Dante is able to “prophesy” events to
which he already knows the outcome; he
and other characters thus seem to have
prophetic power in the Divine Comedy.
A Divine Comedy timeline:
•Good Friday: Dante’s descent into the Inferno
•Dawn, Easter Sunday: Dante arrives at Mt.
Purgatory. He spends 3 nights there.
•Noon Wednesday of Easter Week: Dante
ascends into Paradise.
Dante dies in Ravenna
Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy:
Inferno
Inferno 1
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che le diritta via era smarrita
Dante is 35 and is lost.
The allegory of the "selva
oscura"; temptation in the
wilderness.
Dante’s Beasts: Symbolism of Sin
Leopard=Lust
Lion=Pride
Wolf=Covetousness
Leopard=Fraud
Lion=Violence
Wolf=Incontinence
Jeremiah 5:5
I will get me unto the great men, and will
speak unto them; for they have known the
way of the LORD, [and] the judgment of their
God: but these have altogether broken the
yoke, [and] burst the bonds.
Jeremiah 5:6
Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay
them, [and] a wolf of the evenings shall spoil
them, a leopard shall watch over their cities:
every one that goeth out thence shall be torn
in pieces: because their transgressions are
many, [and] their backslidings are increased.
Dante’s Hound: Political
Prophecy in the Divine Comedy
Dante desperately hoped for a unifier/redeemer of Italy to restore
the land to the kind of unity it enjoyed during the Roman Empire.
Cangrande della Scala:
Powerful Ghibelline
from Verona and
patron/protector of
Dante.
Cantos 1 & 2: Virgil
CQ: Why do you think
Dante made this preChristian writer his guide
through the Inferno?
Aeneas founded Rome, and Rome
(under Augustus) subdued the
Mediterranean world so that Christ
could be born during an auspicious
age (the Pax Romana). Moreover,
Rome became the seat of the Church.
Dante’s idea is that Aeneas and
Augustus Caesar were unwittingly
used by God for sacred purposes.
Dante longs for the time when Italy
can be unified again; see 2.10 ff.
“But I will come to visions and revelations of the
Lord: I know a man in Christ fourteen years
ago (whether in the body, I know not; or out
of the body, I know not, God knoweth)
snatched up in this manner to the third
heaven: and I know such a man, whether in
the body or out of the body I know not, God
knoweth; how that he was snatched up into
Paradise and heard secret words which it is
not lawful for men to speak; on behalf of such
a one will I glory; but on mine own behalf I
will not glory, save in my infirmities.”—2 Cor.
12:1-5.
See also the fourth-century apocryphal Visio Pauli,
section 31 ff.
Canto 2: Beatrice
Note the Trinitarian imagery; the three
ladies.
Dante was born in Florence in 1265,
meets Beatrice Portinari in 1274.
BVM
Lucia
Beatrice
Beatrice (1266–1290) dies fairly young at
the age of 25.
Virgil
Images of
Florence…
The small church where
Dante’s Beatrice is buried.
Dante undoubtedly walked this
street and spent time here.
Dante’s Hell and the Hierarchy of Sin
Canto 3: Ante-Inferno.
"Abandon every hope . . . ."
•The entrance to Hell.
•"The good of the intellect"
and Dante’s hierarchy of sin.
•Ante-Inferno. Be ye not
lukewarm!
He who made the great refusal: Celestine V? Pilate?
The "hermit pope”
Celestine V.
•The Legend of
Boniface VIII’s trick.
“All sorts of rumors followed [Celestine
V ‘s] resignation. [Celestine] had built
himself a hut in the Vatican where he
could live like a hermit. Supposedly
[Boniface VIII] thrust a reed through
the wall of the hut and pretended he
was the voice of God ordering
Celestine to resign. Since his mind
was undecided as to his proper
course, this trick is said to have
convinced him.”
•Charon and the epic
simile of the leaves,
3.109 ff.
Canto 4: Limbo, the first circle
"And if they lived before Christianity,
They did not worship God in fitting ways;
And of such spirits I myself am one.
For these defects, and for no other evil,
We now are lost and punished just with this:
We have no hope and yet we live in longing."
Wailing babies in Hell? A new, more grace-filled vision:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article598134.ece
The “virtuous pagans” Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Virgil.
CQ: How do these poets receive Dante? How does Dante
seem to view himself here?
Roll Call of Virtuous Pagans
Greco-Roman literary heroes.
Note that Muslims Saladin, Avicenna, and
Averroes are in Limbo.
•
•
•
Avicenna: Arab physician and
commentator on Aristotle.
Averroes: Another Arab commentator
on Aristotle.
Saladin: Great Muslim opponent of
Christian crusading forces.
CQ: What does the presence of these men
amid the virtuous pagans suggest
about Dante’s vision of Hell and those
who populate it?
http://www.kingdomofheavendvd.com/mainframe.htm
The Harrowing of Hell; 4.52 ff.
The Harrowing of Hell, from the
Tiberius Psalter (mid 11th c.). Possibly
suggested by 1 Peter 3:18-20:
"18 For Christ also hath once
suffered for sins, the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to
God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By
which also he went and preached
unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which
sometime were disobedient, when
once the long-suffering of God
waited in the days of Noah . . . ."
A tradition developed that during the
three days between Christ’s Crucifixion
and Resurrection, Christ descended into
Hell, bound Satan, and freed the souls
of the virtuous who died before Christ
could effect their redemption.
“He carried off the shade of our first father…”
San Marco Anastasis, Venice
Inferno 5: The Lustful
Minos, Judge of Hell.
5.22 ff.; God’s presence even in Hell.
Symbolic Retribution: The notion that the
punishment for various sins somehow
relates to the sin itself in Dante’s Inferno.
This concept is also called contrappasso.
CQ: How does this concept operate in this
circle of Hell?
Dido, Helen, Cleopatra. CQ: Why isn’t Dido
in the circle of the suicides (Seventh circle;
Canto XIII; the Violent Against
Themselves)?
Paolo & Francesca; 5. 89 ff.; Francesca's
courtly speech; their adultery. Dante’s
palinode?
Minos: A later reflex
Michelangelo and Biagio da Cesena
Biagio criticized the nudity in
Michelangelo's art, so Michelangelo
painted him in the Sistine Chapel as a
foolish, ass-eared Minos with a
serpent gnawing at his genitals!
Paolo & Francesca in the Arts
Anselm Feuerbach
J. Ingres
Paolo & Francesca in the Arts
Amos Cassioli
Marie-Phillippe Coupin de la Couperie
Paolo & Francesca in the Arts
Alessandro Kokocinski;
Ary Scheffer
Silent Film: L'Inferno - Giuseppe de Liguoro (1911)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrI1VAQEos8
Paolo & Francesca
“These young lovers are here because they committed adultery, and the winds
that blow them about are an infernal version of the gusts of desire that
drove them in life. But if we stop here we will make the same mistake as
does the pilgrim Dante, who feels for them exactly the wrong sort of
pity. For Francesca’s punishment is not to whirl about endlessly, locked in
the arms of her beloved: after all, is that really a punishment? No, her
punishment is to repeat throughout eternity the act of seduction that
brought about her damnation; and Paolo’s punishment is to watch her as
she works her wiles. It is no accident that in the conversation with Dante
and Virgil Paolo says not a word but only sobs; indeed, Francesca refers to
him only once, with the contemptuous demonstrative pronoun questi, ‘this
one, who never shall be parted from me.’ And whom does Francesca
seduce? After listening to her tell her carefully crafted tale of love—one
that incorporates within it lines from the kind of lyric poetry that Dante
himself had written as a youth—Dante falls to the ground with pity.
Indeed, his description is painfully apt: ‘And then I fell as a dead body
falls’—an act all too appropriate for a man in Hell.”
Paolo & Francesca
“Nor does Francesca’s power stop
at Dante, for it has worked its
magic on generations of readers.
The challenge of this scene is to
remember its deep significance—
that this woman is in Hell, that
she is currently repeating the very
sin that put her there—while she
does everything in her power to
make you forget.”—NAWM
Headnote
Inferno 19: The Simonists
Simony: The buying and selling of church offices or any
other spiritual good.
Acts 8:9-24
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in
the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of
Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:
…..
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the
apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them
money,
Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay
hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.
But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee,
because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be
purchased with money.
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not
right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if
perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and [in] the
bond of iniquity.
Inferno 19: The
Simonists
Along the sides and down along the bottom,
I saw that livid rock was perforated:
The openings were all one width and round.
They did not seem to me less broad or more
Than those that in my handsome San Giovanni
Were made to serve as basins for baptizing
Pope Nicholas III.
Prediction of Boniface VIII’s damnation.
Dante’s respect for the papal office: 19.100 ff.
The Donation of Constantine: 19.115.
Dante’s heart begins to harden, as it should.
http://youtu.be/3fh04bxcsgU?t=2m1s
Clement V & the “Babylonian Captivity”
“Babylonian Captivity”: In
Church history, the
Babylonian Captivity or
“Avignon Papacy” was the
period from 1305 to 1378
during which the Pope lived
in Avignon (now a part of
France) rather than in Rome.
For a time, two popes sat in
Avignon and Rome—clearly a
problem and sometimes called
the “the "Western schism.”-modified from Wiki, which
you should never cite 
The Papal Palace at Avignon
The 4 Zones of Hell’s Last circle: treachery
1. Caina: Betrayers of kin.
2. Antenora: Betrayers of
country. (Ugolino)
3. Ptolomea: Betrayers of
guests. (Fra Alberigo;
Branca Doria)
4. Judecca: Betrayers of
lords. (Judas, Cassius,
Brutus)
Inferno 33: The treacherous to country:
Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri
“Ugolino was a Ghibelline who sought to save Pisa from
Guelph threats by negotiating with Guelph cities and
giving three castles to them--an action that his enemies
regarded as a kind of betrayal.
Ugolino; Rodin 1881.
Ugolino later feuded with some Guelph powers in Pisa and
was exiled. According to one story, the Ghibelline
Archbishop Ruggieri invited Ugolino back to Pisa and
offered to broker a reconciliation.
Upon Ugolino’s return, however, the Archbishop betrayed
Ugolino, imprisoning him together with his sons and his
grandsons. For nine months they were kept in the tower
of the Gualandi, and in March 1289 the Archbishop
ordered the tower locked up and the keys thrown into the
river.”
Hannibal (2001)
--Adapted from notes by Allen Mandelbaum
Now blind, I started groping over each;
And after they were dead, I called them for
Two days; then fasting had more force than grief
http://youtu.be/3fh04bxcsgU?t=5m31s
Inferno 33:
The treacherous to guests
Fra Alberigo: A Friar who killed his kin at
a banquet. Dante tricks him into telling
his story 33.115; 147.
33.133 ff. The demonic possession of
those treacherous to others.
CQ: Compare and contrast Dante’s
treatment of Fra Alberigo with that of
Francesca in canto V.
Inferno 34:
Judecca: The treacherous to lords
and benefactors
Dis, Satan, Lucifer
Parody of Trinitarian imagery.
•Judas: Betrayer of Christ.
•Brutus: Betrayer of the Roman
Empire as the assassin of Julius
Caesar.
•Cassius: Another assassin of
Julius Caesar.
Inferno 34: Death, Burial, and
Resurrection
Dante begins his journey into the Inferno
on Good Friday, 1300 and emerges on
Easter morning. The time reflects a period
of personal growth as it reflects the events
of the Harrowing.
Mount Purgatory formed from the
displacement of earth when Lucifer fell
from Heaven.
The problem of only reading the Inferno.
From Inferno to
Purgatorio . . . .
My guide and I came on that hidden road
To make our way back into the bright world;
And with no care for any rest, we climbed—
He first, I following—until I saw,
Through a round opening, some of those things
Of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there
That we emerged, to see—once more—the stars.
Silent Film in Full:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo4T3GUL9I0
NOTE: We are
skipping Purgatorio
readings. Dante must
climb the mountain of
Purgatory in order to
be able to ascend
through the spheres
of Paradise.
The
Structure of
Purgatory
The Structure of Paradise
Paradiso: The canticle of the
ineffable.
The Ptolemaic Universe and
the structure of Paradise
Paradiso 33: Dante’s
Mystical Vision of God
•Bernard of Clairvaux and
his Song of Marian
Paradoxes. Remember
Mary’s intercessory role
from the Inferno.
•Trinitarian imagery
continued.
•Circular motion; eternity
and perfection.
•Love as the impetus of all
things.
The vision and “lactation” of
St. Bernard.
Paradiso and the Medieval Idea of Love
“For Dante, as for medieval philosophy
generally, the natural inclination of every
human being is love, a movement toward
something outside the self. The natural and
proper object of love is God, either directly or as
mediated through the created world. Sin occurs
when love is immoderately directed to the
wrong object, when the creature (including the
self) is loved not for but instead of the Creator.” -Allen Mandelbaum and Lee Patterson
“This is a classic statement of the medieval idea
that love is the principle of harmony in the
universe. Divine love established and governs
the changing and potentially discordant
universe; it should also govern the microcosm,
man, in his relations with others.”—Richard
Green
Dante’s Divine Comedy: A love story.
Dante
The Divine Comedy