Paradiso (126 page)
Authors: Dante
94–99.
Carroll: “[These lines] refer to the Cerchi (see note [in Carroll’s comm. to vv. 58–66]). Their houses were above the Porta San Piero, and had been acquired by this wealthy family from the Conti Guidi, who sprang from the ancient house of the Ravignani, the head of which was the
Bellincion Berti of
Par.
XV. 112. The
fellonia
or treason charged against the Cerchi seems to be their failure as leaders of the Whites to defend the city against the Blacks in Nov. 1301. Dino Compagni says ‘their hearts failed them through cowardice’: the Priors gave them orders to prepare for defense and urged them ‘to play the man.’ But ‘from avarice’ they refused to pay the hired troops, made practically no preparations, and so handed over the city to six terrible days of outrage and pillage. The exile of the Whites which followed is the ‘lightening of the barque’ to which Dante refers in line 96. For a full account of this disastrous struggle between the Bianchi and the Neri, see Dino Compagni’s
Chronicle
, Bk. II, and Villani’s, VIII.38–49.”
These six lines have been the cause of a certain confusion and of considerable debate; Carroll’s view, however, seems sensible. For an English translation of Dino Compagni’s chronicles of Florence in Dante’s time, written by one of his contemporaries, see Compagni (Comp.1986.1).
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101–102.
As knights, members of the Galigaio family had, as their emblem, the gilded hilt and handle of a sword.
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103.
The Pigli had a stripe of squirrel-fur on a red field as their insignia.
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105.
For Dante’s earlier reference to corrupt procedures in Florentine weights and measures, see
Purgatorio
XII.105 and the last paragraph in the note to XII.100–108.
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109–111.
Carroll: “Those ‘undone by their pride’ are the Uberti, the great Ghibelline family, banished in 1258, and never allowed to return. Farinata, who saved Florence after Montaperti (1260), belonged to it (
Inf.
X.22 ff.). The other family, referred to by its coat of arms, the ‘balls of gold,’ is the Lamberti. To it belonged Mosca, whose famous phrase,
Cosa fatta capo ha
, sealed Buondelmonte’s fate—and his own (
Inf.
XXVIII.103 ff.).”
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112–114.
Carroll: “The reference is to the Tosinghi and the Visdomini, whom Villani (IV.10) calls ‘patrons and defenders of the Bishopric.’ During a vacancy, they enjoyed the use of the Bishop’s palace until a successor was appointed, and apparently they did not spare the larder.”
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115–120.
Carroll: “A bitter stroke at the Adimari,—dragons to the timid, but to men with teeth or purse, lambs. Dante’s bitterness is not unnatural when we remember that, according to early commentators, one of this family, Boccaccino, gained possession of the poet’s property, and therefore
opposed strenuously his recall from exile. This might account also for his scorn of Filippo Argenti (
Inf.
VIII.31–64), who belonged to a branch of the Adimari.”
The wife of Ubertino Donati, a member of the twenty-second family referred to in Cacciaguida’s social registry of ancient Florence, was a daughter of Bellincion Berti; Ubertino was displeased when Bellincione, his father-in-law, arranged for the marriage of another of his daughters to a member of the Admiari clan, thus making Ubertino their kinsman.
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124–126.
Carroll: “That one of the gates of ‘the small circuit’—the first city-wall—viz., the Porta Peruzza, was named after the Della Pera family might seem incredible for various reasons that have been suggested: (a) how small the circuit must have been when this was one of the city-gates; or (b) how free of jealousy ancient Florence must have been when one of its gates was named after a private family; or (c) how hard to believe that a family so forgotten now was so ancient that a gate in the earliest circuit of walls was named after it. The drift of the comments on the other families favours the last interpretation.”
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127–132.
Carroll: “ ‘The great baron’ was the Marquis Hugh of Brandenburg, viceroy in Tuscany of Otho III. Villani says he knighted five Florentine families, who for love of him bore his arms. One of these, the Della Bella, is here referred to as having surrounded the arms with a border of gold. It was a member of this family, the famous Giano della Bella, who in 1293 proposed the
Ordinances of Justice
, in order to curb the lawlessness of his own order, the nobles, and it is probably he who is referred to as having ‘joined himself with the people.’ How the Marquis Hugh was converted, built the Badia, died on S. Thomas’ Day, and was buried in the monastery, will be found in Villani, IV.2.”
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133–135.
While both families, the Gualterotti and the Importuni, were Guelph in the views of the local chroniclers (Villani, Compagni, Malispini), according to other documents, as reported by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 133), the Gualterotti were in fact Ghibellines. Bosco/Reggio suggest the contradiction may be explained by the diverse political sympathies found in diverse branches of the family.
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136–150.
This is Cacciaguida’s rueful contemplation of the wrack and ruin caused by a single event. Here is Carroll (comm. to
Par.
XIV. 79–87) on this pivotal moment in the history of Florence: “The reference is to
the well-known story of the murder of Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti in 1216. This young nobleman was betrothed to a lady of the Amidei family, but forsook her for a daughter of the house of the Donati. The kinsmen of the insulted lady waylaid and slew him at the foot of the statue of Mars, ‘that mutilated stone,’ as he rode into the city on Easter Day [Villani,
Chron
. V.38; Dino Compagni, 1.2]. Well for the city, says Cacciaguida, if the first time he came to it he had been drowned in the little stream of the Ema which flows through the Valdigreve, a little south of Florence, where his castle lay. The murder was generally regarded as the beginning of the feuds of Guelphs and Ghibellines of which Dante himself was a victim; although, as Villani admits, ‘long before there were factions among the noble citizens, and the said parties existed by reason of the strifes and questions between the Church and the Empire’ [
Chronicle
V.38].”
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136–138.
The Amidei are portrayed as justly angered by the snub to their name revealed in Buondelmonte’s behavior; it is from their rage that originated the current sorrow of the city.
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145–147.
It is difficult to imagine a more “operatic” or fitting symbol of the end of the era of peace in Florence than Buondelmonte’s body, lying where it fell, at the feet of the statue of Mars, on Easter Sunday 1216. Mars as the pagan god of war is in this canto deployed against the Christian militancy that typifies the crusading spirit. See Borsellino (Bors.1995.1), p. 46, on the ambiguity of the sign of Mars in this canto, representing, in different contexts, both Heaven-approved crusading and damnable internecine broils.
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148.
For the question of the actual number of noble families in Florence in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 59–154). Villani (
Cron
. V.39) accounts for seventy noble families in 1215. (He also reports on the numbers for 1015 [
Cron
. IV.10–13].) The discrepancies between Dante’s figures and Villani’s lead Scartazzini to think that Dante is not to be relied on for particulars of this kind. However, in this verse Dante has Cacciaguida say that there were more than these forty famous families that he has mentioned flowering at that time.
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152.
This verse will be remembered at
Paradiso
XXXI.39. See the note to that passage.
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153–154.
Cacciaguida takes pride in the fact that Florence, in his day, never lost a battle. The image of the flag reversed upon its staff is apparently a reference to the following practice: Members of the victorious army would drag the losers’ battle-flags upside down over the field of combat.
In 1251 the Guelphs changed the design of the Florentine flag from a white lily on a red field to a red lily on a white field, while the ousted Ghibellines retained the traditional arrangement (according to Villani,
Cronica
, VI.43). As Stephany (Step.1973.1) points out, the original flag mirrors Cacciaguida’s situation in the fifth heaven, red Mars quartered by a white Greek cross.
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154.
Fachard (Fach.2002.1), p. 231, points out that the first and last lines of this canto, so involved with the concepts of the nobility of bloodlines and the (at times consequent) spilling of human blood, both end with words for blood or bleeding.
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1–12.
We have come to the midpoint of
Paradiso
. See, for a reading of this central canto, Brugnoli (Brug.1995.1), pointing out, among other things, that the poet has underlined numerically this mathematical fact. Brugnoli demonstrates that the central cantos of the last canticle, XI–XXIII, are arranged, at least in terms of the number of verses that they contain, in a pattern, as follows (the two bordering cantos, excluded from the pattern, are listed, in the table below, in
italics
, only to indicate how noticeably they break it):
Apparently Brugnoli did not know the work of John Logan (Loga.1971.1), pp. 95–98, who had already made the identical observation, also pointing out that this pattern mirrored the pattern found in the line lengths of the central thirteen cantos of
Purgatorio
precisely. (For treatments of the numerical center of the whole poem, see the reference at the conclusion of the note to
Purg.
XVII.124–125.)
For another and more recent attempt to deal with the “centers” of the three canticles, see Ambrosini (Ambr.2002.1), pp. 253–54. His discussion begins and ends with Singleton (Sing.1965.2), but is without reference to the work of Logan and (still more surprisingly) of Brugnoli.
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1–6.
Phaeton sought reassurance from his mother, Clymene, against the denial (on the part of his “half-brother in divinity,” as it were, Epaphus, a
son of Io by Jove) of his origin from divine Apollo’s seed (see
Metam.
I.747–789 [setting up the lengthy narrative of Phaeton’s disastrous chariot-ride,
Metam.
II.1–400]). So now does Dante wish to be enlightened about the nature of the ills that will afflict him after 1300, ills that he has heard prophesied in Hell and in Purgatory (for all those prophetic passages [three of the last four are positive, not worrisome], see the note to vv. 43–99), even if he is assured of his eventual salvation. Beatrice and Cacciaguida share the role of a wiser Apollo, confirming his purpose without destroying him by allowing a runaway journey through the heavens. In Ovid’s “tragic” narrative, Phaeton is, we remember, allowed to destroy himself through overenthusiastic evaluation of his own capacities as rookie sun-driver; in Dante’s comically resolved tale of his journey through the heavens, we see the protagonist as a wiser (and better-aided) version of Phaeton.
See Moore (Moor.1896.1), p. 175, comparing Cacciaguida’s assurance that Dante will survive his troubles to the Sibyl’s similar gesture toward Aeneas (
Aen.
VI.95–96); Moore goes on to mention both heroes’ calm acceptance of their fates (cf.
Aen.
VI.103–105). And see Schnapp (Schn.1991.2), pp. 217–19, and Picone (Pico.1994.1), pp. 181–82, for two particularly interesting responses to these verses. Also see Brownlee (Brow.1984.1) for the “Phaeton program” in the
Commedia
.
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