Late at night Dante dreams of an ugly Siren. The more he stares at her, the more beautiful she becomes, until a holy lady arrives who calls Virgil to awaken him. Virgil rips away the Siren’s clothing down to her waist and a terrible stench from her awakens Dante. Later, an angel shows them the way to the stairs and soon they arrive at the fifth terrace where the sin of avarice is punished. Virgil explains that the Siren represents the sins punished higher up on the mountain. Dante has a conversation with Pope Adrian V, who explains the nature of his punishment.
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It was far after midnight, when the heat of the day was replaced by the cold rays of the moon–and the cold light of Saturn, too. It was also that time of night when geomancers watch the stars of Fortuna Major rise in the east where soon they will be followed by the rising sun.[1]The previous canto ended near midnight, with Dante allowing his thoughts to wander and turn into dreams. He now sets the stage for the first part of this canto in which the second of his three dreams … Continue reading
Dreaming, I saw a hideous woman approach me, stammering, cross-eyed, stumbling on her crooked feet, with mangled hands and ugly skin. But it seemed that my prolonged staring at her worked a change upon her so that her tongue was loosened, her misshapen body was straightened, and her pale, blemished face became warm and lovely to look at.
With her tongue now freed from its impediment by my staring, she began to sing–singing in such a way that I was completely captivated by her and could not break free. “I am,” she sang, “I am that sweet Siren whose song charms the sailors at sea, enchanting them. It was my songs that made Ulysses stray off course. I satisfy so well that whoever stays with me rarely leaves.”[2]First, we must remember that we are still on the Terrace of Sloth. Dante’s initial description of the Siren who appears to him in his dream needs no further explanation except that his staring at … Continue reading
But no sooner had she finished her song than there appeared at my side a saintly lady standing ready to ruin that Siren’s scheme. She cried out indignantly: “O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?” Keeping an eye on that holy lady, he moved forward, grabbed that Siren roughly, tore at her tunic, and exposed her down to her belly. At that moment, such a stench came off her that I was jolted awake!
As I looked at Virgil sleepily, he said: “At least three times I’ve called you. Get up now. Let’s find the stairs where you can ascend.”[3]Contrary to the Siren, the “saintly lady” is not identified, though she is definitely heaven-sent. She sharply summons Virgil (symbolizing Reason) to rescue Dante who was being seduced by the … Continue reading
It was broad daylight now, and with the sun at our backs all the circles on that sacred mountain were brightly lit as we walked along. I must have looked like part of an arch as I followed Virgil, bent over with my thoughts. But suddenly I heard a voice: “Come this way; here are the stairs,” it said in tones we would never hear on earth.
Then I saw the angel’s wings, outstretched like a graceful swan. He showed us to the place where the stairs rose upward between two high walls of stone, and then moved his wings over us declaring those who mourn–qui lugent–to be blest.[4]After such a night, it’s no wonder that Dante and Virgil slept late. The third section of this canto finds them walking westward (with the sun behind them) along the same Terrace of Sloth, looking … Continue reading
“You are bothered by something,” Virgil said to me as we climbed upward past the angel. “Why do you look down like that?”
“I’m haunted by that strange dream,” I said. “It fills me with dread and I can’t seem to get it out of my mind.”
“What you saw,” he replied, “was that ancient witch who makes the souls above us weep. And you also saw how to escape from her enchantments. This is all you need to know for now, so let’s quicken our pace. Instead of looking downward, look up and be enthralled at the heavens laid out for us by the Eternal King.”
And so I was the falcon who had been staring at his feet, but hearing the call, stretched out its wings and flew to his food.[5]In this dialogue, Dante reveals to Virgil how unsettling his dream was; its effects still weighing him down. Thereupon, Virgil explains it by subtly linking the “ancient witch”–the Siren–with … Continue reading
I pressed onward to reach the top step and begin exploring the next terrace. Once there at that fifth level, I stopped to look around and saw that the path was strewn with souls lying face-down upon the ground, all of them weeping. I heard the Psalm, Adhaesit pavimento anima mea, sung with great sighs that made it hard to hear the words.[6]Emerging from the narrow stairway, Dante arrives at the Terrace of Avarice. Looking around, he sees penitent, weeping souls, lying everywhere, face-down on the ground. At the same time, he hears … Continue reading
“O elect of God, you whose sufferings are made easier by justice and hope, please tell us how to reach the next stairs.”
“If you are excused from our prostration here, and seek the quickest way to the stairs, keep moving with your right side toward the ledge.”[7]It is Virgil who speaks first here, and with great respect. These are the same words he used to address the crowd of souls he and Dante encountered in Canto 3 as they were looking for the place to … Continue reading
Thus I heard a nearby soul reply to Virgil’s query–so close was he that I could tell which one he was, though his face was against the ground. Seeing the happy approval of my desire in Virgil’s face, and now free to do what I had wished, I went forward and stood near the head of that soul who had just spoken to us.
“O spirit,” I said, “whose tears are making good your repentance, allow me to interrupt this holy labor of yours. Please tell me who you were, and why all of you here lie with your faces to the ground. Alive as I am, perhaps there is some way I can help you when I return to the world.”[8]Dante, more attentive now than he had been at the end of the previous canto, perhaps more mature because of his experiences on the Mountain so far, quickly locates the soul who just spoke to Virgil. … Continue reading
“In a moment you will understand why Heaven makes us turn our backs to it,” that spirit replied, “but first, scias quod ego fui successor Petri. Between Sestri and Chiaveri a river flows from which my family derives its noble name. I was pope for only a month before I realized how heavy the great mantle weighs on him who would keep it clean. Compared to it, anything else is like a feather![9]Before the speaker begins to answer Dante’s questions, he tells him in Latin that he was the successor of Peter. He is the soul of Pope Adrian V. The cities he mentions that were connected with his … Continue reading
“Unfortunately, it was only when I was made the Shepherd of Rome that I came to realize the emptiness of the world. The restless heart, the endless striving for more–these taught me to love the life above. Before that, I was a miserable slave to the avarice that separated me from God. In this place, as you can see, I pay for my sins. You see, this punishment is perfectly fitting for the avaricious soul. And I tell you this: there is no more severe punishment to be found on this mountain.[10]Pope Adrian’s candor here is truly redemptive, and his humble admission of the earlier state of his soul is evidence that his purgation on this terrace is working effectively. His restless heart … Continue reading
“When we were alive, we were so attached to the things of the world that we never bothered to look up to Heaven. Thus, divine Justice forces us to look at the ground. Any consideration of good works was lost in our continual grasping for more, and so here we are bound tight by the bonds of justice. We lie here, as you see, facing the ground until God will be pleased to bring us into his eternal realm.”[11]Now Pope Adrian explains the nature of the punishment meted out on this terrace. Earlier, in Canto 13, we encountered sinners with their eyes sewn shut, purging the sin of envy–a sin of the eyes. … Continue reading
Well, by now, I was already on my knees, and he could sense my respect by the tone of my words.
“But why are you kneeling there beside me?” he asked.
“Because of the honor your office demands. I could not, in good conscience, remain standing.”[12]In the Italian, Dante addresses Pope Adrian using the plural word voi (your) out of respect instead of the singular form, tu. He uses this form only seven times in the Poem. Note also … Continue reading
“No, my dear brother,” he replied, “do not kneel for me, because I, like you and everyone else, am just a servant of that One Power in Heaven. If you understand the gospel passage that tells us, Neque nubent, then you will also understand what I just told you. But please leave me now because our conversation interrupts my tears of repentance. On earth, I have a niece called Alagia. She is good, and I hope she will not be tainted by the bad example of my family. She is all that is left to me there on earth.”[13]Here, Pope Adrian gives Dante (us) further evidence of the workings of his purgation, reminding him that in the next life there is no hierarchy among the souls–we are all servants of God. That he … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | The previous canto ended near midnight, with Dante allowing his thoughts to wander and turn into dreams. He now sets the stage for the first part of this canto in which the second of his three dreams in Purgatory take place. (The first was in Canto 9 where he was snatched by an eagle from the Valley of the Princes and left near the Gate of Purgatory. The third dream will occur in Canto 27.) The stage here is set for dreaming: cold moonlight and cold planetary light from Saturn which probably sat near the horizon on that night. It is that hour before sunrise when, so claimed the ancients, prophetic dreams occurred, and geomancers watched the stars in the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces.
While Dante drops the word into his text and moves on, geomancy (practiced by geomancers) was a complex practice of divination that was very popular in Europe in the Middle Ages. Practitioners of geomancy foretold the future by attempting to match random marks on the ground or some other surface with configurations of stars. There are sixteen geomantic patterns of marks, and Fortuna Major (Greater Fortune, or good luck) is the most favorable sign in the geomantic system. It involves a pattern of the last few stars in the constellation of Aquarius and the first stars of Pisces. The pattern would look something like this: ** ** * * which would/could be associated with the four prime elements (earth, air, fire, water) or parts of the body, etc. In fact, this particular pattern of stars in these two constellations would have appeared in the east before sunrise on the morning Dante writes about here. |
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| ↑2 | First, we must remember that we are still on the Terrace of Sloth. Dante’s initial description of the Siren who appears to him in his dream needs no further explanation except that his staring at her seems to work a kind of magical transformation so that she becomes the exact opposite of what she first appeared to be. Observe how he stares at her and she is transformed, then she sings to him and he is almost transformed. We have here an image of the gradual seduction of the inattentive soul. Something inherently evil can gradually become falsely beautiful–and loved–if we aren’t careful, allowing ourselves to be taken in by it.
As she sings, Dante becomes her captive and she identifies herself. Ronald Martinez notes that the double “I am” is a possible parody of God’s self-identification to Moses on Mount Sinai in the Book of Exodus. In this case, we have non-being (the Siren) posing as Being Itself. Moreover, and to emphasize the danger of her power, she tells the Poet that it was her singing that led Ulysses off course into near destruction in Homer’s Odyssey (12:39-200). Of course, we know that Dante never read Homer. His resource for Ulysses, among others, was Cicero’s De Finibus (On the ends of good and evil) (5:18), where the famed Roman writes about Ulysses and the Sirens. Cicero’s point is fascinating, though, because he suggests that it wasn’t their songs that attracted and enchanted passing voyagers. Rather, it was that the Sirens possessed knowledge, and it was this knowledge “that kept men rooted to their rocky shores.” Ulysses in Homer, of course, escapes. In Cicero’s sense, and in Homer’s, Dante is like their Ulysses. He is in search of the ultimate knowledge–salvation, and he is a traveler on an epic journey. In both cases, he needs to keep his wits about him and focus clearly on his goal. Recall that he refers, at times, to his Poem as a ship, and he (the soul) needs to navigate the waters of life carefully. In his commentary here, Ronald Martinez offers the reader a useful series of comparisons: “The early commentators correlated her defects with the specific vices purged on the three upper terraces, but it seems rather that the defects are to be ascribed to fleshly vice in general; she stutters: vice loses the capacity for effective speech; she is cross-eyed: vice does not see the good accurately; she is lame: vice cannot move toward true goals; she has stunted hands: vice cannot accomplish good works; she is pallid: red is the color of love. Her defects are associated with cold and night. Virgil will call the Siren ‘ancient,’ giving her mythic status: her power is as old as humanity itself.” |
| ↑3 | Contrary to the Siren, the “saintly lady” is not identified, though she is definitely heaven-sent. She sharply summons Virgil (symbolizing Reason) to rescue Dante who was being seduced by the Siren’s outward beauty. He, in turn, rushes forward, boldly tears open the Siren’s clothes, and reveals the horror of her ugliness–evil and sin symbolized by the terrible stench. Note that during this wild scene, Virgil never takes his eyes off the saintly lady. In a sense, she is his protection from what has just happened to Dante. Ronald Martinez, in his commentary, suggests a parallel with Perseus killing Medusa. He avoided being petrified by looking at her on the mirror-like surface of his shield. The “saintly lady,” by the way, is not Beatrice.
Robert Hollander notes the similarity between Dante’s Siren here and Virgil’s Harpies in the Aeneid (3:216ff): “…maidenly of countenance, yet winged; most foul the discharge of their bellies; their hands taloned; their faces always pale with hunger.” He continues: “A further similarity lies in the purpose both creatures have in the works that contain them, which is to draw the hero away from his task, whether from proceeding to Italy or from pursuing Beatrice to a destination in Christ.” Finally, there is something to be said about Virgil’s three calls to awaken Dante from his dream. The Poet may have had in mind that pivotal scene in the Garden of Gethsemane just before Jesus’ arrest (Mt 26:36-46). Three times he left his disciples to go off and pray by himself. Three times he came back and woke them because they had fallen asleep. Finally rousing them from their slumber he says: “Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.” Jesus was betrayed by Judas, one of the disciples who had been part of his inner group. Likewise, Dante was in the process of betrayal by the Siren. |
| ↑4 | After such a night, it’s no wonder that Dante and Virgil slept late. The third section of this canto finds them walking westward (with the sun behind them) along the same Terrace of Sloth, looking for the stairs. Before words are exchanged, Dante paints an imaginative picture of himself, stooped over, lost in thought, and looking like part of an arch.
The first to speak, though, is not Virgil. It’s the Angel of Zeal. That he speaks in tones not heard on earth is a waking spiritual reminder, after last night’s dream, that the soul, on the path to salvation, must ever strive to be in tune with the voice of virtue rather than the voice of evil. Waving its beautiful wings over them, the angel shows them the stairs and anticipates the punishment on the next terrace with a line from the Beatitudes in St. Matthew’s Gospel (5:4): “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” At the same time, this verse is subtly fitting as we leave the Terrace of Sloth. In his commentary here, Mark Musa writes: “An understanding of the appropriateness of this beatitude comes from the realization that inaction is caused by self-doubt, which in Christian terms is not loving enough. The accidiosi [slothful] cannot get moving because they see no hope, because of their fear of pain, because no goal is of sufficient worth to motivate them, because it is easier to dream than to act. Mourners bury their dead; accidiosi feed on them. The disciples mourned after the death of Christ, took on his pain, and went forth. The psychological rightness of this beatitude is very clear in context. Singleton cites Aquinas and comments: ‘Thus this beatitude praises those who, unlike the slothful, have the fortitude to endure pain’.” All the while, the fourth P has been removed from Dante’s forehead. |
| ↑5 | In this dialogue, Dante reveals to Virgil how unsettling his dream was; its effects still weighing him down. Thereupon, Virgil explains it by subtly linking the “ancient witch”–the Siren–with the sins punished on the next three levels as the sins of the flesh: she is the personification of Avarice/Prodigality, Gluttony, and Lust. John Ciardi (as though he might be speaking for Virgil) notes in his commentary: “Dante’s description of the Siren tells all the rest: she is deformed and hideous in herself but grows beautiful in our eyes, and few of those she lures to her pleasures ever stray from the kind of satisfaction she gives them. Only when a Heavenly Voice (the unidentified Saintly Lady) summons Reason to strip Sensual Abandon of its false trappings, do we waken from our dream to realize what abomination has entranced us.”
Virgil’s rather curt “this is all you need to know for now,” and his urging Dante to look up into the glorious heavens harkens back to the opening lines of this canto where the Poet noted how geomancers seek signs from the stars. I noted there that it was often believed in ancient times that prophetic dreams occurred before sunrise. Dante’s dream of the Siren and Virgil’s explanation take him and us forward and upward through the next three levels of Purgatory. Urging Dante to look upward and be enthralled by the heavens, Virgil spurs Dante to think of himself as a falcon at rest and then released to fly after its prey. It returns when the falconer whirls his lure. Virgil is really telling Dante to look up instead of down and be enthralled by God the Falconer who whirls his own lures–the heavens above–and draws him upward to Paradise (and through the rest of Purgatory) where he will dine on everlasting food. |
| ↑6 | Emerging from the narrow stairway, Dante arrives at the Terrace of Avarice. Looking around, he sees penitent, weeping souls, lying everywhere, face-down on the ground. At the same time, he hears their muffled singing from Psalm 119, verse 25: “My soul clings to the dust.” Over the years, commentaries on this verse have presented it as a warning against worldly attachments, and the conjoined word, adhaesitpavimento, came to be the term used for the posture of a person laying on the ground in a prayer of supplication. |
| ↑7 | It is Virgil who speaks first here, and with great respect. These are the same words he used to address the crowd of souls he and Dante encountered in Canto 3 as they were looking for the place to begin climbing the Mountain. That Virgil mentions the justice and hope that make the souls’ suffering easier here may be a reflection of his and the other souls’ condition in Limbo, which is quite the opposite–so notes Robert Hollander. There they long for what these souls are assured of–“…hope in the justice of God for eventual salvation.”
Thinking that Virgil’s purgation is finished because he’s standing up, a nearby soul directs him to the stairs. Several commentators, following Charles Singleton, note that this is the first time we get an indication that souls in Purgatory don’t necessarily have to spend time on each of the seven terraces. Thinking that the travelers are penitential spirits, the soul who directs them here assumes that they are not guilty of avarice and are on their way to a particular terrace higher up. Also, he doesn’t realize that Dante is alive. And note how Dante reminds us here of the general orientation he and Virgil follow on the Mountain–counterclockwise. |
| ↑8 | Dante, more attentive now than he had been at the end of the previous canto, perhaps more mature because of his experiences on the Mountain so far, quickly locates the soul who just spoke to Virgil. Sensing his mentor’s approval, he proceeds to question the soul in a manner similar to his previous interrogations. Like Virgil, Dante’s words are gracious as he begs pardon for interrupting the soul’s “holy labor.” His deference here anticipates his discovery moments later of the soul’s identity. And revealing now that he is alive, he generously offers to assist this soul when he returns from his journey.
In his commentary here, Mark Musa points us to Dante’s clever use of words as he speaks with the soul we will soon learn was Pope Adrian V–a successor of St. Peter: “It is significant that Dante, in making his offer to beseech prayers for this soul, uses a verb with two meanings, impetrare, whose other sense is “to turn to stone” and whose root is petra (“rock”), the name given Cephas (St. Peter) by Christ.” |
| ↑9 | Before the speaker begins to answer Dante’s questions, he tells him in Latin that he was the successor of Peter. He is the soul of Pope Adrian V. The cities he mentions that were connected with his family indicate that he was of the noble family of the Fieschi in Genoa and the Counts of Lavagna (also the name of the river that flows between Sestri and Chiaveri). Before he became Pope he had been made a cardinal by his uncle, Innocent IV, and acted as a papal legate to England, restoring peace among the warring barons. He also preached the Crusade of 1270. He was elected Pope on July 11, 1276 (Dante would have been 11 years old) and died 38 days later on August 18.
Remarking rather pointedly on “the great mantle,” Robert Hollander notes here: “It is perhaps by design that the first saved pope whom we meet in the poem (there will be more) should be distinguished by having died shortly after his election and thus without having served ‘officially’ at all.” And note how, in Canto 19 of the Inferno, Pope Nicholas also referred to “the great mantle.” |
| ↑10 | Pope Adrian’s candor here is truly redemptive, and his humble admission of the earlier state of his soul is evidence that his purgation on this terrace is working effectively. His restless heart and his striving for more is an echo of St. Augustine’s famous invocation: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (Confessions 1:1).
At the same time, Charles Singleton writes in his commentary that: “No historical evidence has been found to bear out either Pope Adrian’s avarice or his conversion in so brief a time in office. Dante appears to have attributed to Adrian V words which John of Salisbury had put in the mouth of Pope Adrian IV (1154-59). In Policraticus VIII, 23, 814b-c, John of Salisbury writes: ‘He said that the chair of Peter was very uncomfortable; the cope is completely studded with spikes, and it is of such a weight that it presses upon, wears away, and breaks down even the strongest shoulders.’ He continues: ‘…as he rose, step by step, from cloistered monk through various positions until he finally became pope, his rise never added one whit to the happiness or peace of his former life.’ The passage in the Policraticus was known to Dante by an indirect tradition, even as it was to Petrarch, who at first made the same confusion of the two popes, but later corrected it.” It’s fascinating to discover later that Dante’s sources were sometimes inaccurate, like this one, or incomplete, like his reliance on Cicero for information about Ulysses in the previous canto because he didn’t read Greek. Nevertheless, the Poem isn’t damaged in the least. Pope Adrian’s (Dante’s) description of how the sin of avarice affected him makes perfect sense. And the fact that he waited till near the end of his life to repent and is still saved is borne out by the various souls we met in Ante-Purgatory–where he may have been before coming to this terrace. Moreover, the contrapasso for avarice is not only fitting, but, as Adrian declares, it is the worst punishment in the whole of Purgatory! Mark Musa, commenting on this statement, gives us some perspective: “Every true penitent is apt to believe that his besetting sin is worse than that of others; and if his punishment is to recall vividly that sin he will consider the punishment to be most bitter. The Avaricious in life had refused to look up at God’s heavens, preferring to look down and keep their eyes fixed on the things of this earth [recall Virgil’s earlier urging that Dante look upward]. Thus, the physical position they are forced to maintain on their terrace is an imitation, hence, a most painful reminder, of their sin.” |
| ↑11 | Now Pope Adrian explains the nature of the punishment meted out on this terrace. Earlier, in Canto 13, we encountered sinners with their eyes sewn shut, purging the sin of envy–a sin of the eyes. Avarice, as Pope Adrian describes it is, in a sense, also a sin of the eyes. We see the material things of this world in a way that blinds us to their inner good, and we forget to look up to God, the Author of all created things. The sinners’ continual, almost blind, grasping for more is countered here on this terrace by the ropes is justice, and because they failed to look upward to acknowledge the beneficence of God, they are now forced to lie face down on the ground. Thus the contrapasso.
Here, Charles Singleton quotes from a sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus: “Though gold is naturally heavy, avarice makes it heavier still; consequently it weighs more heavily on the one who owns it than on one who merely carries it, and it is a greater burden to the heart than to the body….It always submerges the highest aspirations of the mind in worldly things.” Mark Musa also offers an explanation of the humiliation that accompanies Pope Adrian’s posture: “The pain of his remorse is made more grotesque by the fact that his face is pressed to the dust and his rump directed to heaven.” |
| ↑12 | In the Italian, Dante addresses Pope Adrian using the plural word voi (your) out of respect instead of the singular form, tu. He uses this form only seven times in the Poem.
Note also the remarkable difference between Dante’s reverential response to Pope Adrian here as compared with his ranting response to Pope Nicholas in the Inferno (both in Cantos 19). Obviously, Pope Adrian, as sinful as he may have been, was able to pull himself back from the brink of Hell, while Pope Nicholas seems willfully to have flung himself over long before he died! |
| ↑13 | Here, Pope Adrian gives Dante (us) further evidence of the workings of his purgation, reminding him that in the next life there is no hierarchy among the souls–we are all servants of God. That he uses the word “servants” is significant because one of the formal titles of the Pope is “Servant of the Servants of God.” Furthermore, Dante heightens the significance of this theme with a hapax–a word used only once in a work: the word conservo, a servant like you.
In highlighting the servant theme here, Dante may also have had in mind a passage in chapter 19 (v9f) in the Book of Revelation and an exchange between an angel and St. John: “Then the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These words are true; they come from God.’ I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘Don’t! I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brothers who bear witness to Jesus.’” To amplify the servant theme even more, Pope Adrian quotes a phrase from St. Matthew’s Gospel (22:30), neque nubent, where Jesus responds to a question about life after the resurrection: “…they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” The implication, again, is that in heaven, all will be equal and share equally in the eternal banquet. As Charles Grandgent notes here: “…earthly relations are not preserved in the spiritual world.” Dorothy Sayers, in her commentary here, adds another dimension to this that readers might not be aware of: “Every bishop, including the Pope, is ceremonially wedded to his see (which is why he wears a ring and changes his name to that of his diocese). But this marriage, like any earthly marriage, is dissolved in Heaven, together with all legal and official ties and all earthly rank and privilege. This holds good, despite the sacramental nature of the ties of marriage, orders, and unction: for in Heaven there is no longer any need of sacraments.” And so, Pope Adrian, in a hurry to resume his penance, dismisses Dante by addressing the third of the Poet’s earlier questions: can I help you in some way when I return from my journey? The Pope tells him that he has a niece, Alagia, who is good and virtuous. Sadly, she is all he has on earth, he tells Dante, and he hopes that she will not be affected by the bad reputation of his family. Apparently, the women of the Fieschi family were, as Benvenuto da Imola notes, “noble prostitutes.” Interestingly enough, Alagia was married to Moroello Malaspina, a nobleman and friend of Dante’s in the Lunigiana region to the west of Florence. He invited Dante to stay with him in the early years of his exile, as noted by Boccaccio and several other early commentators on Dante. In his Life of Dante, Boccaccio relates that after Dante was condemned, his family gathered a cache of important papers and documents and put them away safely. Later, when the political strife in Florence had abated somewhat, Dante’s wife, Gemma, sent her nephew, Andrea, to get the box containing her husband’s papers. Among them he found the first seven cantos of the Inferno. Andrea gave these to a scholar named Dino Frescobaldi who, in turn, passed them along to Moroello Malaspina, begging him to press Dante into finishing what he had begun before his exile. It is said that Dante was stunned when presented with his work, saying that he believed he would never have seen it again. Thereupon, he took up the work at the eighth Canto. Obviously, this last part of Canto 19 is intended by Dante as a tribute to Moroello and his wife, Alagia. In a sense, it is thanks to Moroello that we have the Divine Comedy! About Alagia, the Anonimo fiorentino writes: “She had the reputation…of being a person of great merit and goodness. The author, who spent quite some time in Lunigiana with this Moroello Malaspina, became acquainted with her. He saw that she continually and generously gave alms, and devotedly had masses and orations said for her uncle. This is why the author, who heard, saw, and knew her good reputation, rendered her this testimonial.” |