Purgatorio (85 page)
Authors: Dante
28–33.
Dante’s leading question puts Virgil on the spot. In
Aeneid
VI.376 the Sibyl answers Palinurus’s request of Aeneas that he have his unburied corpse laid to rest by denying him such a hope: “desine fata deum flecti sperare precando” (cease hoping that decrees of the gods may be turned aside by prayer). Does this answer compel us to believe that the penitents are deluded in their hope for the efficacy of prayer? Dante’s question is a necessarily tricky one for Virgil to have to deal with. See Hollander (Holl.1983.1), pp. 113–15.
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34–42.
Virgil’s response seems casuistic, at least in part. In order not to deny Christians’ belief in the efficacy of prayer, he first of all examines the notion that God’s will has been bent by the desires of others if such prayer be acted upon. If God’s will is won over in an instant by the loving prayer of others, that is as He wills, and there is only an apparent inconsistency. He has merely accepted in immediate payment the “sum” offered on behalf of the guilty party rather than insisting on an extended time of solitary penance. It is a bit difficult to reconcile this formulation, however, with the actual words in the
Aeneid
, which seem far less accommodating than this explanation of them. When Virgil goes on to explain that, in any case, Palinurus was not praying to the true God in the passage referred to in Book VI, our credulity is still more gravely tested. The statement of the Sibyl is totalizing, while Virgil now reconstructs it to have a meaning that it never could have had, i.e.,
some
prayer is effective, some not. We witness another case in which the pagan author is forced to pay for his error in rather ungainly ways. Here Virgil confidently attacks inadequate Christian readings of the
Aeneid
as though
they
were the source of the poem’s theological failure. “Plain is my writing” indeed!
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43–48.
Virgil, having failed to develop a convincing case for his own expertise, now turns to Beatrice’s authority in this matter.
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61–63.
This figure will shortly (at verse 74) reveal himself to be Sordello, the thirteenth-century Italian poet, who wrote in Provençal. “Sordello was born (c. 1200) at Goito, village on the Mincio, about 10 miles NW of Mantua; shortly after 1220 he was resident at the court of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazio of Verona, who had married (c. 1222) Cunizza, daughter of Ezzelino II da Romano (
Par
. IX.32). In or about 1226, Sordello, with the connivance of her brother, Ezzelino III (
Inf
. XII.109–110), abducted Cunizza, and took her to Ezzelino’s court. Later he formed a liaison with her, and, to escape her brother’s resentment, was forced to take refuge in Provence, where he made a lengthy stay at the court of Count Raymond Berenger IV (
Par
. IV.134). There he became acquainted with the Count’s seneschal, Romieu de Villeneuve (
Par
. VI.128). While in Provence (c. 1240) Sordello wrote one of his most important poems, the lament for Blacatz, one of Count Raymond’s Provençal barons, from which Dante is supposed to have taken the idea of assigning to Sordello the function of pointing out the various princes in Ante-purgatory (
Purg
. VII.49–136). After Count Raymond’s death (1245) Sordello remained for some years at the court of his son-in-law, Charles of Anjou (
Purg
. VII.113). When the latter in the spring of 1265 set out on his expedition to Italy to take possession of the kingdom of Sicily, Sordello followed him.… Sordello was among those who shared in the distribution of Apulian fiefs made by Charles to his Provençal barons after his victories over the Hohenstaufen at Benevento and Tagliacozzo, to Sordello and his heirs being assigned several castles in the Abruzzi, under deeds dated March and June, 1269. No further record of Sordello has been preserved, and the date and place of his death are unknown.… Of Sordello’s poems some forty have been preserved, besides the lament for Blacatz already mentioned, is a lengthy didactic poem, the
Ensenhamen
, or
Documentum Honoris
”
(T)
.
Beginning perhaps with Torraca (1905), commentators have seen elements of Virgil’s Elysian fields and the guide therein, the poet Musaeus (
Aen.
VI.666–678), in Dante’s presentation of Sordello. See Hollander (Holl.1993.1), p. 302.
For Sordello’s “scandalous love life” see Bara´nski (Bara.1993.2), pp. 20–23 and notes (for bibliography).
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64–65.
The intensity of the first four sets of encounters on the mountain has varied: the intense personalness of Manfred was countered by the quizzical distance of Belacqua, which in turn was balanced by the three intense self-narratives of Jacopo, Buonconte, and Pia. Sordello begins with a Belacqua-like reserve, only to be roused to a pitch of excitement by Virgil’s revelation of his Mantuan homeland.
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66.
Sordello’s pose may recall Genesis 49:9, where Judah, in Jacob’s dying blessing, is described as a couching lion. Tommaseo was the first commentator to make this suggestion.
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70.
As Scartazzini (1900) pointed out, Sordello is unable to discern that Dante is here in the flesh because the sun is behind the mountain (see vv. 55–57) and he does not cast a shadow.
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72.
The word “Mantua” may have been intended, according to Benvenuto da Imola (followed by John of Serravalle), as the first word of Virgil’s own Latin epitaph, “Mantua me genuit.…” See notes to
Purgatorio
III.27 and V.134.
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73–75.
The civic patriotism of Sordello is awakened when Virgil mentions their common homeland. Their resulting embrace has been, when coupled with Dante’s failed attempt to embrace Casella (
Purg.
II.76–81), the source of considerable puzzlement when it is considered along with the decision not to embrace arrived at by Statius and Virgil. See note to
Purgatorio
XXI.130–136.
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76–77.
This passage begins what Benvenuto considers the third part of this canto, “a digression against Italy and the principal authors of her desolation.” Dante himself at verse 128 refers to his “digression” here; but no one can possibly imagine that this “digression” is not central to his purpose. (On the subject of Dante’s propensity to digress see Corsi [Cors.1987.1].) The poet will directly address Italy herself, the Church, the uncrowned Habsburg emperor Albert, God, and, finally, Florence.
As has long been noted, the sixth canto of each
cantica
is devoted to the treatment of political issues, those of Florence
(Inf.)
, of Italy
(Purg.)
, of the empire
(Par.)
—though these subjects are intertwined.
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78.
Bernardino Daniello (1568) was apparently the first to notice the now often-cited biblical source for Dante’s phrase “donna di provincie”
(princeps provinciarum)
in the Lamentations of Jeremiah 1:1: “How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and
princess among the provinces
, how is she become tributary!” Jeremiah’s lament for Jerusalem had been a central reference point for the death of Beatrice, recorded in
Vita nuova
XXVIII.1.
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83.
The evident recollection of the central image of Ugolino’s punishment (
Inf
. XXXII.127–132) may owe its deployment here to the earlier concern with the Ugolino-related reference to the “good Marzucco” of Pisa. See note to vv. 16–18.
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88–89.
The language here clearly derives from Dante’s earlier expression of these sentiments, as Andreoli (1856) was perhaps the first to observe, in
Convivio
IV.ix.10: “Thus we might say of the Emperor, if we were to describe his office with an image, that he is the one who rides in the saddle of the human will. How this horse pricks across the plain without a rider is more than evident, especially in wretched Italy, which has been left with no means whatsoever to govern herself” (tr. Lansing).
“Justinian, surnamed the Great, Emperor of Constantinople,
A
.
D
. 527–565. During his reign the great general Belisarius overthrew the Vandal kingdom in Africa and the Gothic kingdom in Italy. Justinian, who is best known not by his conquests but by his legislation, appointed a commission of jurists to draw up a complete body of law, which resulted in the compilation of two great works; one, called
Digesta
or
Pandectae
, in fifty books, contained all that was valuable in the works of preceding jurists; the other, called
Justinianeus Codex
, consisted of a collection of the Imperial constitutions. To these two works was subsequently added an elementary treatise in four books, under the title
Institutiones
; and at a later period Justinian published various new constitutions, to which he gave the name of
Novellae Constitutiones
. These four works, under the general name of
Corpus Juris Civilis
, form the Roman law as received in Europe”
(T)
.
The empty chariot of the empire is reflected in the similarly empty chariot of the Church in the procession of the Church Militant, beset by all its external and internal enemies, in
Purgatorio
XXXII.
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91–96.
The leaders of the Church are accused of having interfered in the civil governance of Italy, trying to guide its affairs by manipulating its “bridle” without having allowed the horse’s rider to seat himself in the saddle. The passage may reflect Dante’s unhappiness either with the intrigues of Pope Boniface VIII, maneuvering to bring about the accession of Albert in 1298, or with those of Pope Clement V, who managed to control the election of the next emperor, Henry VII, after the death of “German Albert” in 1308—or with both pontiffs’ involvements in imperial politics. The language here reflects the biblical text that had greatest currency in the antipapal political arguments of the time, apparently claiming an indisputable right to govern for the monarch, Matthew 22:21: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
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97–102.
“German Albert, i.e. Albert I of Austria, son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, Emperor (but never crowned), 1298–1308; he was elected after having slain his predecessor, Adolf of Nassau, in a battle near Worms, his treason against Adolf having been condoned by Boniface VIII in consideration of the advantages of his alliance against the Pope’s mortal enemy, Philip the Fair of France. Dante … foretells his violent death (which took place on May 1, 1308, when he was assassinated at Königstein, close to the castle of Hapsburg, by his nephew John)”
(T)
. It is also possible that Dante had in mind, as punishment of Albert’s “blood,” the death of his firstborn son, Rudolph, in 1307.
The image of Italy as uncontrolled animal, which has been operative since verse 89, now culminates in Sordello-like invective (see Perugi [Peru.1983.1]) against the Habsburg ruler.
Dante’s
post-eventum
prophecy is clearly written after May 1308, but how much later? The really difficult problem facing anyone who wants to resolve this question involves the identity of Albert’s “successor.” Is the reference simply to
any
successor who will feel compelled by pressure to act in Italophile ways? Or does Dante have Henry VII of Luxembourg, elected in 1308, in mind? Various commentators (e.g., Tozer, Trucchi, Momigliano) argue for a date of composition between 1308 and July 1310, when Henry finally announced his intention of coming to Italy, the “garden of the empire.” If such was the case, Henry had not yet begun his descent into Italy (autumn of 1310) and the rather cool tone of Dante’s appeal for imperial action would make sense. For after the emperor’s advent, Dante’s words about him are, at least at first (Epistle V, composed in the last quarter of 1310) enormously warm and hopeful. We would then have three stages in Dante’s responses to Henry: (1) initial dubiety (1308–10), (2) great excitement as the campaign to put Italy under the governance of a true Roman emperor begins (1310–11), (3) eventual wary enthusiasm (see the two political letters written in the spring of 1311 [Epistles VI and VII]), given the precariousness of Henry’s military and political situation (1311–13). (For Dante’s political epistles see Pertile [Pert.1997.1]; for this view of Dante’s changing enthusiasms about Henry’s Italian mission see Hollander [Holl.2001.1], pp. 133–36.)
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