Dantedì: celebrating the father of the Italian language
March 25th is Dantedì, Dante Day! Dante Alighieri is a must-read for anybody interested in the Italian language and culture. This date was chosen since it is the beginning of Dante’s journey, according to historians.
But why are the Italian author Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy so important? Let’s find out together!
Dante Alighieri
Dante, in full Dante Alighieri, (born c. May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence [Italy]—died September 13/14, 1321, Ravenna), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy).
Dante’s Divine Comedy, a landmark in Italian literature and among the greatest works of all medieval European literature, is a profound Christian vision of humankind’s temporal and eternal destiny. On its most personal level, it draws on Dante’s own experience of exile from his native city of Florence. On its most comprehensive level, it may be read as an allegory, taking the form of a journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise.
The poem amazes for its array of learning, its penetrating and comprehensive analysis of contemporary problems, and its inventiveness of language and imagery.
By choosing to write his poem in the Italian vernacular rather than in Latin, Dante decisively influenced the course of literary development (he primarily used the Tuscan dialect, which would become standard literary Italian, but his vivid vocabulary ranged widely over many dialects and languages).
Not only did he lend a voice to the emerging lay culture of his own country, but Italian became the literary language in western Europe for several centuries.
Early life
Most of what is known about Dante’s life came from Dante himself. He was born in Florence in 1265 under the sign of Gemini (between May 21 and June 20) and remained devoted to his native city all his life.
Dante’s life was shaped by the long history of conflict between the imperial and papal partisans called, respectively, Ghibellines and Guelfs. Following the middle of the 13th century the antagonisms were brutal and deadly, with each side alternately gaining the upper hand and inflicting gruesome penalties and exile upon the other. Dante describes how he fought as a cavalryman against the Ghibellines, that supported the imperial cause.
In 1260 the Guelfs, after a period of ascendancy, were defeated in the Battle of Montaperti (Inferno X, XXXII), but in 1266 a force of Guelfs, supported by papal and French armies, was able to defeat the Ghibellines at Benevento, expelling them forever from Florence.
This meant that Dante grew up in a city brimming with postwar pride and expansionism, eager to extend its political control throughout Tuscany. Florentines compared themselves with Rome and the civilization of the ancient city-states.
Political Life
Dante Alighieri was the son of a moderately wealthy landowner. His mother died when he was just seven years old and his father when he was a teenager. As a young knight, Dante actively participated in the 1289 Battle of Campaldino between the rival cities of Florence and Arezzo and their respective allies. The two sides in this battle were divided over their support for either the Pope (the Guelphs) or the Holy Roman Emperor (the Ghibellines), a rivalry that would cause a chasm in Florentine politics that lasted over half a century.
Back in Florence, Dante worked as a municipal official and was involved in politics between c. 1295 and 1302. Contrary to the government of Florence, Dante wanted to see his city free from papal interference, which he saw as a morally corrupt institution.
He was further disillusioned with Rome following the Pope’s enforced exile to Avignon in 1309. Dante began to support, instead, the ambitions of the Holy Roman Emperor, although his political allegiance shifted depending on circumstances. Dante nurtured hopes that the Holy Roman Empire would restore Christian order to Europe. In this he was hopelessly wrong, but he did at least correctly predict that the bickering between the different Italian city-states would only lead to the downfall of all.
The Divine Comedy
Written between 1304 and 1319 but not printed widely until 1472, the name ‘comedy’ derives from the label used for a genre where works have a positive ending (or in this case not a negative one, at least). ‘Divine’ was added to the title in the mid-16th century because of the high esteem the work continued to command.
Dante is himself the central character of his work as he embarks on a “journey through a civic Hell, a rural, mountainous Purgatory, and a mystical astral Paradise”. The story is set in 1300 at Easter time, and Dante describes the characters he meets along the way on his pilgrimage, usually real historical people, and their deeds when alive.
Dante’s afterlife: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso
Each part is comprised of 33 canti or episodes, and there is one introductory canto, bringing the total to a perfect 100. Each of the 14,233 lines therein consists of precisely eleven syllables and the rhyme follows the following pattern over each group of three lines: aba, bcb, cdc, etc. The structure of the work alone is a remarkable creation of symmetrical poetic architecture.
The number 3 (and its multiples) is a recurring number in the Commedia (3 Cantiche, 33 Cantos, 9 Circles of Hell, 3 Wild Animals, 3 Guides…) and has a deep meaning: it represents the Divine Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
Hell
Dante’s guide through the various levels of Hell is the Roman author Virgil, chosen perhaps because he represents classical reason and because he, too, foresaw the rise of Rome, a blossoming that Dante hoped to see happen in Europe under the Holy Roman Empire. Also finding themselves in the quagmires of Inferno are, of course, sinners of all kinds, and, besides popes, more expected villains like Cain, the first murderer, and the assassins of Julius Caesar (c. 100-44 BCE).
Hell is without a doubt the most impressive of the three realms. It is made up of 9 concentric circles that represent the severity of sin as it progresses. The nine circles of hell, as well as their sinners and punishments, are listed below:
- Limbo, a place where the righteous of paganism wait for the Last Judgment without fearing the punishments of hell.
- Circle: The sinners of lust, whipped by terrible hurricanes.
- Circle: Showered by cold rain, the sinners of gluttony drag themselves through excrement.
- Circle: The miserly and profligate roll howling loads of stones.
- Circle: The fifth circle of hell is formed by the Stygian Swamp, in whose fetid waters the wrathful tear each other apart.
- Circle: Heretics lie in fiery graves.
- Circle: Various kinds of violent people.
- Circle: Different kind of deceivers.
- Circle: Various kinds of traitors. The three greatest traitors and sinners, Judas, Brutus and Cassius, will each be eternally mangled in one of the three mouths of Lucifer.
Purgatory
Dante moves on to Purgatory, the Christian waiting room of the afterlife, where those not evil enough to be detained in Hell nurture hope of one day reaching Heaven. Here, Dante the character begins his process of spiritual rehabilitation while Dante the writer continues to show a breathtaking conceit in placing his villains and his heroes where he thinks they belong according to their deeds in this life.
It is a ruthless attack on Dante’s political rivals and the poor political and moral health of Italy at the time of writing. However, in the end, it does not really matter if Dante’s assessments are accurate, the point of this section is really for the reader to more clearly identify the consequences in eternity of one’s actions in this life.
People (or souls of people) who have sinned are housed in both hell and purgatory. What is the distinction between these two worlds?
Those who have tried to justify their sins and are not repentant will spend eternity in Hell. They are condemned for all eternity and have no chance of salvation.
People who have sinned but asked for forgiveness before death are found in Purgatory, where they struggle to be free of their sins.
People who have sinned but asked for forgiveness before death are found in Purgatory, where they struggle to be free of their sins.
Paradise
After an initial ascension, Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology.
While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based on different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.
The seven lowest spheres of Heaven deal solely with the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice and Temperance.
The first three spheres involve a deficiency of one of the cardinal virtues:
- The Moon, containing the inconstant, whose vows to God waned as the moon and thus lack fortitude;
- Mercury, containing the ambitious, who were virtuous for glory and thus lacked justice;
– Venus, containing the lovers, whose love was directed towards another than God and thus lacked Temperance.
The final four are positive examples of the cardinal virtues, all led on by the Sun, containing the prudent, whose wisdom lighted the way for the other virtues.
Mars contains the men of fortitude who died in the cause of Christianity; Jupiter contains the kings of Justice; and Saturn contains the temperate, the monks who abided by the contemplative lifestyle.
The seven, all subdivided into three parts, are raised further by two more categories: the eighth sphere of the fixed stars that contain those who achieved the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, and represent the Church Triumphant – the total perfection of humanity, cleansed of all the sins and carrying all the virtues of heaven; and the ninth circle, or Primum Mobile (corresponding to the Geocentricism of Medieval astronomy), which contains the angels, creatures never poisoned by original sin. Topping them all is the Empyrean, which contains the essence of God, completing the 9-fold division to 10.
Dante meets and converses with several great saints of the Church, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Saint Peter, and St. John. The Paradiso is consequently more theological in nature than the Inferno and the Purgatorio. However, Dante admits that the vision of heaven he receives is merely the one his human eyes permit him to see, and thus the vision of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante’s personal vision.
The Divine Comedy finishes with Dante seeing the Triune God. In a flash of understanding that he cannot express, Dante finally understands the mystery of Christ‘s divinity and humanity, and his soul becomes aligned with God’s love.
