32. Latin for “Names are the consequences of things”: a common gloss on civil law. Cf. Genesis 2:19-20.
33. Another military term, common to the troubadour lyric. Cf. “foe” and “defense” in XIII.
34. Weddings were regulated by the city of Florence, whose rules allowed an invited guest to bring a friend.
35. Cf. II, XI. He was unable to see Beatrice except through the eyes of Love.
36. On the verge of the Unknown. Cf. Inferno XXVI, 90-142, Ulysses’s account of going to his death beyond the gates of Hercules; Hamlet, III, 1: “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.”
37. This passage is notable for its terms of warfare, a convention for the lover being tested in his loyalty.
38. A poem of Provencal origin consisting of a number of stanzas identically structured. Dante considered it the noblest form of poetry and wrote of it in detail in his De vulgari eloquentia (II). It was later diversified and perfected by Petrarch. This canzone (“Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore”) is Dante’s most famous because of its mention in Purgatory XXIV, 49-63, as a model of the “dolce stil novo.”
39. Several interpretations of this controversial line arc offered: He expects not to be saved; he anticipates the death of Beatrice and his subsequent languishing in a hell on earth without her; he anticipates his descent into hell in a future work of imagination, like the Divine Comedy.
40. The color of dawn, denoting ideal perfection in a philosophic sense.
41. The flame of desire is struck in the eyes; its goal is the mouth from which issues the greeting of the lady. Cf. Convivio III 8.
42. The final stanza serves as messenger, technically named an envoi, congedo, or commiato.
43. Professing to aim to a select audience was a common stance in troubadour poetry.
44. Dante here echoes the first line of Cavalcanti’s most famous canzone, “Donna mi prega.”
45. Guido Guinizzelli, the forerunner of Dante, who formulated the doctrine of the gracious heart in his most famous canzone “Al cor gentil ripara sempre Amore.” Guinizzelli like Dante changed his style from describing conventionally the sensual effects of love to exploring the intellectual aspects of it originating in nobility of character. Dante refers to Guinizzelli in De Vulgari Eloquentia I, 15; Convivio IV, 20; Purgatory XXVI, 97-99; he echoes this canzone again in Inferno V, 100.
46. Of Idea —eternal form. Cf. Convivio II, I and III, 7.
47. Cf. the Aristotelian principle of causation from De anima II, 2: The perfection of the thing is its realization in nature (entclechy) in virtue of which it attains its fullest function. According to Guinizzelli’s poem, the phenomenon is like a bird finding its home and renewing itself in the greenness of the woods.
48. The father of Beatrice, usually identified as Folco Portinari, who died in 1289 leaving six daughters and five sons, all of whom were mentioned in his will, including Beatrice.
49. The two sonnets together, question and answer, form a contrasto.
50. These phenomena are reminiscent of events that accompanied the death of Christ (Matthew 27:51-54; Luke 23:44), and of Revelation 6:12-14.
51. Latin for “Hosanna in the highest,” the greeting given to Christ when he entered Jerusalem. Cf. Mark 11:10; Matthew 21:9; Purgatory XI, 11; XX, 136.
52. Said below to be a “close relative,” perhaps a younger sister.
53. The longest poem in the Vita nuova, this is the centerpiece of the work; i.e., it is preceded by fifteen poems and followed by fifteen and is separated from the other two canzoni by four poems each. The six stanzas each have fourteen lines, lines 9 and 11 being settenary. There is no commiato.
54. Guido Cavalcanti; cf. III and XXX. No Joan (Giovanna) has been found in the poems of Cavalcanti, although a ballata begins “Fresca rosa novella, piacente Primavera.”
55. Latin for “I am the voice crying in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Cf. Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23.
56. The familiar name of Beatrice. This is the only time Dante names her while she is alive. A fictitious name to conceal the identity of the lady was called a senhal in troubadour poetry.
57. He speaks also of Beatrice, just identified as Love. This passage is extremely important as an example of early literary criticism.
58. Aristotle, known to Dante through Latin translations and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
59. Didactic poets who disseminated their ideas through the medium of love poetry, writing in the learned tongue.
60. Dante argues from a Scholastic position for poetic license in the formation of vernacular verse, composed within certain limitations (secundum aliquant proportionem). Unless writing in Latin grammar and meter, a poet technically was not called a poet.
61. ’In lingua d’oco e in quella di si,’ referring to Languedoc and the Italian vernacular. Dante understood Provençal (Languedoc) to be that language spoken in southern Europe, which used the Latin hoc for the word “yes.” Old French (langue d’ oïl), spoken in northern France, used oil (hoc + ille). Italian used si from the Latin sic. Cf. Inferno XXXIII, 80.
62. Dante later expanded his categories to include the defense of the community, virtue, and morality. Cf. De Vulgaris Eloquentia II, 2.
63. Latin for “Aeolus, for to you.”
64. Latin for “Yours, O queen, is the task of determining your wishes; mine is the right to obey orders,” speaking of Juno (Aeneid I, 65, 76-77).
65. Latin for “You hardy Trojans” (Aeneid III, 94); Phoebus is speaking in his role as the sun.
66. Latin for “Much, Rome, do you owe, nevertheless, to the civil war” (Pharsalia I, 44); addressed in the original to the emperor.
67. Latin for “Tell me, Muse, of the man” (Ars Poetica 141-142). In this passage, Horace translates the first two verses of Homer’s Odyssey, making his memory of Homer’s words the object of his speech.
68. Latin for “Wars against me I see, wars are preparing, he says” (Remedia Amoris 2). For a mention of all four of these poets together, see Inferno IV, 79-90.
69. Dante invites us to find this meaning not only in his own figures or personifications but in the way they link with the figures of the four poets cited.
70. “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare,“ Dante’s most famous sonnet, in which Love’s personification in Beatrice brings out her miraculous curative powers. Cf. Convivio III, 7.
71. Some editions begin a new chapter here, adding one more to the total.
72. But for one seven-syllable line (11), this poem could be a sonnet, being made up of one stanza of fourteen verses. According to the Vita nuova’s symmetrical scheme, a sonnet is called for in this position.
73. Latin for “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How has she become a widow, she that was great among the nations!” from the Lamentations to Jeremiah 1:1.
74. In order to make a connection between Beatrice’s death and the number nine, Dante used his knowledge of the Ptolemaic-based work Elementa Astronomica by Alfraganus (cf. Convivio II, 5), which revealed that for Arabs, day began at sunset rather than sunrise. Beatrice died on June 8, 1290; according to the Arabian system the first hour of the night in Italy was the first hour of day June 9.
75. June would be the ninth month in the Syrian system, Tixryn, a two-month period the first part of which corresponded to the Roman October.
76. No foreign calendar was required to make the connection between 1290 and the number nine. It had been reached ten times (ten being the perfect number according to St. Thomas) in the thirteenth century of the Christian era.
77. Cf. Convivio II, 3. In Ptolemy’s system the ninth heaven is the primum mobile. The tenth heaven (corresponding to the perfect number) is the motionless Empyrean.
78. As they were at the birth of Christ. Cf. Paradise VI, 55-56.
79. Florence. By “princes of the land” Dante may mean Florentines or he may have been addressing a wider audience. A 1314 letter addressed
to the Italian cardinals meeting in Carpentras uses the same quotation from Jeremiah.
80. Latin for “How doth the city sit solitary.”
81. Dante’s letter, the first part of which is quoted in the Latin of the Vulgate (from Lamentations of Jeremiah) was all in Latin.
82. Guido Cavalcanti. Cf. III, XXIV. Dante implies that it was Cavalcanti who encouraged him to turn to the vernacular Italian for literary purposes.
83. An attribute of the Virgin Mary. Cf. Luke 1:28; Petrarch, canzone 366, 40-42.
84. The other canzoni.
85. Believed to be the brother of Beatrice (cf. XXXIII: “grieves as a brother”).
86. Cennino Cennini in II libra dell’arte described these tavolette as wooden or parchment, six inches square, used by beginners for exercises in drawing.
87. The events recounted in XXXV-XXXIX are further treated in Convivio II and in the canzone “Voi che ‘ntendendo il terzo ciel movete.” In Convivio II, 12, Dante gives an “allegorical and true exposition” of this compassionate lady as a symbol of Philosophy. In the light of this interpretation (which follows Dante’s demonstration of her “literal” coming into his life) controversy has arisen about the existence of both Beatrice and this donna gentile as real women. The Convivio presumably was written some years after the Vita nuova when Dante sought poetic ways to universalize his real experience, finding hidden reasons for what happened.
88. In Provençal poetry such a prose account was called “razo” perhaps given orally when the poem or song was recited. Boethius also alternated prose and verse in his Consolation of Philosophy, a work Dante cites in Convivio II as his first investigation into philosophy.
89. Ecclesiastically the period between noon and 3 P.M. (the 7th, 8th, and 9th hours of the day). Cf. III and XII.
90. In the prose account, “a purple color.”
91. The exact time of the event described here is not clear, and some commentators have considered the chapter to be out of order, more appropriately occurring soon after the death of Beatrice than after the battle between his heart and his reason. Others date it much later, for example in the Jubilee year 1300.
92. The cloth called Veronica, imprinted with the likeness of Christ’s features when he wiped his face with it while carrying the Cross to Calvary, preserved at St. Peter’s in Rome and displayed to the faithful from time to time. Cf. Paradise XXXI 103-108; Petrarch, sonnet 16.
93. Florence, although never named in the Vita nuova.
94. After his death at the order of Herod (cf. Acts 12:2) the body of the apostle James was said to have been transported miraculously to Galicia in northwestern Spain. The burial place at Santiago de Compostela—pointed out by a star in the ninth century—was a frequent destination for pilgrims in the Middle Ages. Cf. Paradise XXV, 17-18; Convivio II, 14.
95. This sonnet appears in XXXII.
96. Here “Helios” is God.
97. Aristotle’s work, which Dante knew from reading St. Thomas Aquinas. The analogy of the eye and the sun is St. Thomas’s
98. After a period of intense study to write of his vision of Beatrice in a more worthy manner; i.e., in the Divine Comedy. Cf. Conuiuio II.
99. Latin for “who is through all ages blessed.”
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE NEWEST AND MOST AUTHORITATIVE Italian edition of Dante’s Comedy is by Giorgio Petrocchi (La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata in 4 vols., Milano: Mondadori, 1966-67). For the text of the Vita nuova see the edition by Domenico De Robertis (Vita nuova, Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1980).
Among the most useful general introductory studies on Dante are those by Thomas Bergin (Dante, Westport, Conn., 1976), Francis Fcrgusson (Dante, London and New York, 1966), Michele Barbi (Life of Dante, Berkeley, Calif., 1954; London, 1955).
Of the many prose translations of the Commedia the two outstanding ones are the Modern Library edition by Carlyle-Wickstead and the John Sinclair version (New York, 1961) which is straightforward and faithful to the original.
Important reference and bibliographical sources include Umberto Bosco (Handbook to Dante Studies, Oxford, 1950); the journal Dante Studies with a thorough, descriptive bibliography of Dante scholarship in the United States (edited by Anthony L. Pellegrini for many years and now by Christopher Kleinhenz, published by the State University of New York at Binghamton); Charles Dinsmore (Aids to the Study of Dante, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1903); the Encidopedia Dantesca edited by Umberto Bosco (6 volumes, Rome, 1970); the most useful bibliographical reference book in Italian is by Enzo Esposito (Bibliografia analitica degli scritti su Dante, 1950-70, Firenze: Olschki, 1990); Edmund Gardner (Dante, London, 1985); Paget Toynbcc (A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante, revised by Charles S. Singleton, Oxford, 1968); and E. H. Wilkins, T. G. Bergin, et al. (A Concordance to the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligbieri, London and Cambridge, Mass., 1965).
DIVINE COMEDY
Auerbach, Erich. Dante: Poet of the Secular World. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Chicago University Press, 1961.
—————. Mimesis. Princeton University Press, 1953.
Barolini, Teodolinda. Dante’s Poets, Textuality and Truth in the “Comedy. ” Princeton University Press, 1984.
—————. The Undivine “Comedy, ” Detheologizing Dante. Princeton University Press,
1992.
Boyde, Patrick. Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos. Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Brandeis, Irma. The Ladder of Vision: A Study of Dante’s Comedy. New York University Press, 1961.
Comparetti, Domenico. Virgil in the Middle Ages. Translated by E. F. M. Benecke. New York, 1895.
Davis, Charles Till. Dante and the Idea of Rome. Oxford University Press, 1957.
Demaray, John I. The Invention of Dante’s “Commedia. ” New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press, 1974.
d’Entrèves, Passerini. Dante as a Political Thinker. Oxford University Press, 1952.
Dunbar, H. Flanders. Symbolism in Medieval Thought and Its Culmination in the Divine Comedy. New York University Press, 1961.
Fergusson, Francis. Dante’s Drama of the Mind, A Modern Reading of the “Purgatorio. ” Princeton University Press, 1952.
Ferrante, Joan. The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy. ” Princeton University Press, 1986.
Fletcher, Jefferson Butler. Dante. Notre Dame University Press, 1965.
Foster, Kenelm. The Two Dantes and Other Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.
Freccero, John. Dante: The Poetics of Conversion. Edited by R. Jacoff. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1986.
Grandgent, Charles H. Companion to the “Divine Comedy. ” Edited by Charles Singleton. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1975.
Haskins, Charles Homer. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1927.
Hollander, Robert. Allegory in Dante’s “Commedia. ” Princeton University Press, 1969.
Lansing, Richard H. From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante’s Commedia. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1977.
Masciandaro, Franco. Dante as Dramatist. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. Structure and Thought in the “Paradiso. ” Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1958.
—————. Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante’s “Divine Comedy. ” Ithaca, N.Y. :
Cornell University Press, 1960.
Mazzotta, Guiseppe. Dante’s Vision and the Circle of Knowledge. Princeton University Press, 1992.
—————. Dante, Poet of the Desert. Princeton University Press, 1979.
Musa, Mark. Advent at the Gates: Dante’s Comedy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974.
—————. Essays on Dante. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.
Nolan, David, ed. Dante Commentaries. New Jersey, 1977.
Orr, M. A. Dante and the Early Ast
ronomers. Rev. ed. London, 1956.
Ruggiers, Paul R. Florence in the Age of Dante. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. Sayers, Dorothy. Introductory Papers on Dante. New York, 1959.
—————. Further Papers on Dante. New York, 1957.
Schnapp, Jeffrey. The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s “Paradise. ” Princeton University Press, 1986. Seznec, Jean. The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art. Translated by B. Sessions. Princeton University Press, 1953.
Singleton, Charles S. Dante Studies I. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1954.
Sowell, Madison, ed. Dante and Ovid, Essays in Intertextuality. Binghamton, N.Y., 1991.
Stambler, Bernard. Dante’s Other World. New York University Press, 1957. Thompson, David. Dante’s Epic journeys. Baltimore, Md. : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.
Vossler, Karl. Medieval Culture. Translated by W. C. Lauxton. New York, 1929.
VITA NUOVA
Barber, Joseph A. “The Role of the Other in Dante’s Vita nuova. ” Studies in Philology 78 (1981): 128-137.
Bigongiari, Dino. “Dante’s Vita nuova. ” In Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture, 65-76. Firenze: Olschki, 1964.
Carruthers, M. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Corsi, Sergio. Il “modus digressivus” nella “Divina Commedia. ” Potomac, Md. : Scripta Humanistica, 1987.
Cro, Stelio. “Vita nuova figura Comoediae: Dante tra la Villana Morte e Matelda. ” Italian Culture 6 (1985): 13-30.