Paradiso (108 page)

138.
   See Tulone (Tulo.2000.1) for a review of the problem caused by the phrase
invidiosi veri
(enviable truths). Tulone’s hypothesis is that Dante’s text refers to the envy of those who hypocritically oppose Siger’s sound doctrinal teaching by claiming it is other than Christian. And see Mazzotta (Mazz.2003.1), p. 155, who is of the opinion that
invidiosi
means “not logically evident or demonstrable,” on what grounds it is difficult to say. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 133–138) distinguishes between the words
invidiosus
and
invidus
as follows: “invidiosus enim est ille cui invidetur propter suam felicitatem: et sic capitur in bona parte; invidus vero est ille qui invidet alteri; et sic capitur in mala parte” (for the man who is
invidiosus
is one who is envied because of his happiness, and the word is then understood positively; the man who is
invidus
, on the other hand, is one who is envious of another, and the word is then understood negatively). Curti (Curt.2002.1), p. 162, while not referring to Benvenuto, may have cited one of the fourteenth-century commentator’s sources: Isidore of Seville (
Etym
. X.134): One who is
invidus
envies the happiness of another, while the man who is
invidiosus
suffers the envy of others. As for the word
silogizzò
(which we have translated as “demonstrated”), from the beginning there has been dispute as to whether it is to be taken negatively or positively. Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 133–138) argues that these syllogisms are untrue, while Benvenuto da Imola (commenting on the same passage) is of the opposite opinion, namely that the syllogisms of Siger’s making are indeed truthful, and for that reason the subject of envy on the part of those who heard and admired them. Over the years a large majority of the commentators are of Benvenuto’s opinion; and see Veglia (Vegl.2000.1), p. 103 and note, for a concordant reflection. That Siger is saved has undoubtedly contributed to the forming of this view; the words themselves might seem far less generous in a different context. See, for example, the second verse of the next canto.
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139–148.
   According to Scott (Scot.2004.2), p. 297, this is the first reference in literature to a mechanical clock. He cites Dronke (Dron.1986.1), pp. 101–2, who suggests that Dante might have seen the one built in Milan in 1306 when he was there for the coronation of Henry VII (in 1310). And see Moevs (Moev.1999.2) for the nature and location of clocks in Dante’s time.
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144.
   
For
turge
see Pertile (Pert.2005.2), pp. 173–76, pointing out, with numerous examples, that the word has never before been used, in Latin, with a sexual denotation, a meaning it acquired only later on. Dante, having conflated love and intellect, at least by the opening of this canto, can use the vocabularies interchangeably, or substitute the former for the latter, as he does here. Psychologists refer to another version of this process as sublimation, an attempt to skirt a painful awareness of sexual desire by replacing it with a more “acceptable” activity. In Jesus’ teaching (e.g., the wise virgins preparing for the arrival of the bridegroom [Matthew 25:1–13]) we can see a more positive sense of sexuality, if it is also simultaneously seen as the basis for its own supersession, taking carnal pleasure past its physical expression and its physical limits. For example, “If you enjoy the thought of consummating a marriage, oh, will you enjoy the kingdom of Heaven!” It would seem likely that Dante’s transposition of terms generally associated with sexual desire to descriptions of the longing for God, as innovative as it may seem to be, is in fact a continuation of a highly similar practice in Jesus’ teaching, as is found with some frequency in the Gospels.
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1–12.
   In sharp contrast to both the opening six and concluding nine verses of the preceding canto, with their visionary taste of a trinitarian and ordered love and then the sound made by the singing souls in the Sun (compared to the harmonious chiming of matins calling monks to prayer), the opening nine verses of this canto summon images of ceaseless and futile human activity, from which Dante is happy to have been, at least temporarily, liberated.
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1.
   Dante’s reflection of the opening verse of Persius’s
Satires
(
“O curas hominum
, o quantum est in rebus inane” [O wearisome cares of men, o emptiness of the things we care for]) had an early-twentieth-century notice in Bertoldi (Bert. 1903.1), p. 7. However, it was first observed in the late fourteenth century by the author of the
Chiose ambrosiane
.
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2.
   Depending on whether we have read verse 138 of the previous canto
in bono
or
in malo
, that is, whether we have thought Dante meant to praise or blame Siger’s “syllogizing,” we decide that the noun form of that word is here used oppositionally or with the same intonation. See the note to
Paradiso
X.138 for reasons to prefer the first alternative; where Siger is admirable for his powers of reasoning, the normal run of men is not, using reason merely to advance their cupidinous designs.
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3.
   The metaphor of lowered wings suggests that we mortals, born worms but with the ability to be transformed into angelic butterflies (according to
Purg.
X.124–125), nevertheless choose to direct our cares to the things of this world, lowering the level of our desires.
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4–9.
   Dante’s list of vain human activities starts out with law (whether civil or canonical); medicine (identified by one of the earliest known doctors, Hippocrates, author of the medical text that bore the title
Aphorisms
); priesthood (as a position rather than as a calling); political power (whether achieved by force or guile).
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5.
   Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) point out that Dante’s word
sacerdozio
for “priesthood” has the sense of an ecclesiastical office that yields a good living to its holder, and refer to Dante’s previous attack on those religious (almost all of them, Dante has previously said) who study only in order to gain wealth or honors (see
Conv
. III.xi.10).
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10–12.
   
Punning on the first noun in
Paradiso
, the glory (
la gloria
) of God, Dante separates himself from the eight activities he has just catalogued by noting his freedom from such preoccupations as are caused by them and enjoying his presence here in the Sun, welcomed by these souls who live, still higher above,
in gloria
with God.
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13–18.
   The spirits moving in this first solar circle, having surrounded Beatrice and Dante, become fixed, like candles on their holders, and one of them (Thomas) speaks.
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19–21.
   Dante here gives Thomas one of the relatively few similes allowed to a speaker in the poem. One feels compelled to wonder what, had he been able to read these cantos of
Paradiso
, he would have thought of his inclusion in them. See the note to
Paradiso
X.86–96.
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22–27.
   Perhaps we are meant to be amused that Thomas’s eulogy of Francis begins as a gloss on two difficult passages on his own “poem” (see
Par.
X.96 and X.114), the veiled speech that made the historical Thomas distrust poetry.
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28–36.
   This convoluted and difficult passage may be paraphrased as follows: “God’s foresight, with such deep wisdom that none may fathom it, selected two guides for the Church so that she, married to Him at the moment when Christ cried out in pain on the Cross [Daniello, comm. to vv. 28–34: See Luke 23:46] and shed His blood to wed her [Lombardi, comm. to vv. 31–34: See Acts 20:28], might proceed joyously, and with greater confidence and faith, following Him.” Thus Francis and Dominic, the first of whom was indeed often portrayed as a “second Christ” (see, among others, Auerbach [Auer.1944.2], p. 85), each takes on the role of Christ in husbanding the Church through her many tribulations both in his lifetime and thereafter, by instrument of the mendicant order that he, having founded, left behind him.
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34–39.
   See Cosmo (Cosm.1936.1), pp. 123–25, for the view that Dante nourished his hopes for the Church’s renewal with the writings of Ubertino da Casale, particularly his
Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu
.
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37–42.
   The complementarity of the founders of the two orders is insisted on here, not their distinguishing features. Thus before we hear a word about either Francis or Dominic, respectively associated with the Seraphim (the highest angelic order) and love and with the Cherubim (the
next order down) and knowledge, we are informed in no uncertain terms that we should not rank one higher than the other. See the note to
Paradiso
XII.46–57. And see Carroll (comm. to vv. 37–39) for a similar attempt to bridge what he refers to as “mysticism” and “scholasticism.”

It may have been Bernardino Daniello (comm. to vv. 40–42) who first brought historical fact into play in interpreting this part of the canto. It was a matter of record, he reports, that on Francis’s feast day (4 October) one of the friars of his order would preach the virtues of Dominic, while on the feast of Dominic (8 August), a Dominican would do the same for Francis. Daniello suggests that this practice lies behind Dante’s here. As many have ruefully noted, that spirit of fraternity between these two groups of friars did not present an accurate picture of the relations, in fact emulous, between these two mendicant orders in Dante’s time.
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37–39.
   For a likely source in the
Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu
of Ubertino da Casale for Dante’s making Francis seraphic and Dominic cherubic, see Mineo (Mine.1992.1), p. 273.
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43–117.
   Here begins Dante’s
Vita Francisci
. On Dante’s sense of the life of Francis as a model for his once prideful and now exiled self, see Herzmann (Herz.2003.1), p. 323. For a brief essay on the canto as a whole, see Bruno Nardi (Nard.1964.1); for a much longer treatment, see Mineo (Mine. 1992.1). For bibliography, see Stanislao da Campagnola, “Francesco di Assisi, santo,”
ED
III (1971). For the various lives of Francis known to Dante, see da Campagnola’s article (Daca.1983.1). And for the relationship between the historical Francis and Dante’s portrait of him, see Mellone (Mell.1987.1). For some more recent bibliography, see Barolini (Baro. 1992.1), p. 334, n. 6.
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43–51.
   These three tercets of Thomas might be paraphrased as follows: “Between the Topino and the Chiascio, which flows down from Gubbio, perched on a fertile slope on mount Subasio, whence Perugia, some twelve miles to the west, feels both cold air from the mountains and the heat of the easterly sun, sits Assisi, while further to the east the towns Nocera and Gualdo suffer both from the cold and from being misgoverned by the Guelph Perugians. From here, where the mountain is least steep, arose a sun, just as the Sun we are in rises from Ganges in summer (when it is brightest).”
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44.
   The “blessed Ubaldo,” canonized in 1192, was born Ubaldo Baldassini in 1084 and served as bishop of Gubbio (1129–60). Before he allowed himself an ecclesiastical life, he lived as a hermit on a hill near that town, along the stream named Chiascio.
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47.
   Before it was destroyed, Porta Sole was one of the city gates of Perugia. Located on the southeast side of the city, it faced Assisi.
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48.
   Nocera is a town in Umbria, some fifteen miles northeast of Assisi; Gualdo Tadino is also in Umbria and like it on the eastern slope of Mt. Subasio. The two towns “mourn beneath their heavy yoke” perhaps in two senses: Literally, they are beneath the peaks of the Apennine Range (and thus overshadowed by them); metaphorically, they suffer under Guelph rule.
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51.
   The Ganges, about which we will hear again in
Paradiso
XIX.71, was for Dante the defining eastern limit of his world. (Seville [
Inf.
XX.126 and XXVI.110] was close to the western limit, as Ulysses discovered]). For earlier reference to the Ganges, see
Purgatorio
II.5 and XXVII.4.
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