Paradiso (2 page)

2.  Commentators on the
Commedia
. These seventy-three texts are all currently available in the database known as the Dartmouth Dante Project (
http://dante.dartmouth.edu
). Dates, particularly of the early commentators, are often approximate. The order followed here is that found in the DDP, which at times seems to violate chronology, and sometimes does so, in order to keep various versions of the same commentator (e.g., Pietro Alighieri) or teacher and pupil (e.g., Trifon Gabriele and Bernardino Daniello) next to one another.

Jacopo Alighieri (1322) (
Inferno
only)

Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli (1324) (Latin) (
Inferno
only)

Jacopo della Lana (1324)

Anonymus Lombardus (1325[?]) (Latin) (
Purgatorio
only)

Guido da Pisa (1327) (Latin) (
Inferno
only)

L’Ottimo (1333)

Anonimo Selmiano (1337) (
Inferno
only)

Pietro Alighieri (1) (1340–42) (Latin)

Pietro Alighieri (2) (1344–55[?])

Pietro Alighieri (3) (1359–64[?])

Codice cassinese (1350–75[?]) (Latin)

Chiose ambrosiane (1355[?])

Guglielmo Maramauro (1369–73)

Chiose cagliaritane (1370[?])

Giovanni Boccaccio (1373–75) (
Inferno
I–XVII only)

Benvenuto da Imola (1380) (Latin)

Francesco da Buti (1385)

“Falso Boccaccio” (1390[?])

Anonimo Fiorentino (1400)

Filippo Villani (1405) (
Inferno
I only)

Giovanni da Serravalle (1416) (Latin)

Guiniforto Barzizza (1440) (
Inferno
only)

Cristoforo Landino (1481)

Alessandro Vellutello (1544)

Pier Francesco Giambullari (1538–48)

Giovan Battista Gelli (1541–63)

Benedetto Varchi (1545) (
Paradiso
I & II only)

Trifon Gabriele (1525–41)

Bernardino Daniello (1547–68)

Torquato Tasso (1555–68)

Lodovico Castelvetro (1570)

Pompeo Venturi (1732)

Baldassare Lombardi (1791–92)

Luigi Portirelli (1804–5)

Paolo Costa (1819–21)

Gabriele Rossetti (1826–40) (
Inferno & Purgatorio
only)

Niccolò Tommaseo (1837)

Raffaello Andreoli (1856)

Luigi Bennassuti (1864)

Henry W. Longfellow (1867) (English)

Gregorio Di Siena (1867) (
Inferno
only)

Brunone Bianchi (1868)

G. A. Scartazzini (1874; but the 2nd ed. of 1900 is used)

Giuseppe Campi (1888)

Gioachino Berthier (1892)

Giacomo Poletto (1894)

Hermann Oelsner (1899) (English)

H. F. Tozer (1901) (English)

John Ruskin (1903) (English; not in fact a “commentary”)

John S. Carroll (1904) (English)

Francesco Torraca (1905)

C. H. Grandgent (1909) (English)

Enrico Mestica (1921)

Casini/Barbi (1921)

Carlo Steiner (1921)

Isidoro Del Lungo (1926)

Carlo Grabher (1934)

Ernesto Trucchi (1936)

Luigi Pietrobono (1946)

Attilio Momigliano (1946)

Manfredi Porena (1946)

Natalino Sapegno (1955)

Daniele Mattalia (1960)

Siro A. Chimenz (1962)

Giovanni Fallani (1965)

Francesco Mazzoni (1965–85) (
Inf.
I–VI, XI;
Purg.
XXXI;
Par.
VI)

Giorgio Padoan (1967) (
Inferno
I–VIII only)

Giuseppe Giacalone (1968)

Charles S. Singleton (1973) (English)

Bosco/Reggio (1979)

Pasquini/Quaglio (1982)

Robert Hollander (2000–7) (English)

Nicola Fosca (2003–6) (
Inferno
&
Purgatorio
)

NB: The text of the
Paradiso
is that established by Petrocchi,
Dante Alighieri: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata
, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994 [1966–67]), vol. IV. (This later edition has two minor changes to the text of this
cantica
, which is thus essentially identical with the earlier text.) All references to other works are keyed to the List of Works Cited found at the back of this volume (e.g., Adve.1995.1), with
the exception of references to commentaries contained in the Dartmouth Dante Project. Informational notes derived from Paget Toynbee’s
Concise Dante Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1914) are followed by the siglum
(T)
. References to the
Enciclopedia dantesca
, 6 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–78) are indicated by the abbreviation
ED
. Commentaries by Robert Hollander are (at times) shorter versions of materials found in the Princeton Dante Project, a multimedia edition of the
Commedia
. Consultation (without charge to the user) is possible at
www.princeton.edu/dante
.

(1)  Paradiso:
An Impossible Poem.

It is difficult to imagine what life must have been like for Dante, having to manage the details of everyday existence in his exile while his mind was occupied with details of quite another sort. Indeed, the subjects treated in the last
cantica
represent both implausible and daring choices for a poet (an awareness reflected in the title of the three-part Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s series for radio in 2002,
Dante, Poet of the Impossible
). In fact, it seems almost beyond human capacity to have written the
Comedy
. The whole poem might be considered an experiment in pushing back the boundaries of human expression, at times surprising even its creator. What is most surprising (and, to some, offensive) is the incorporation of subjects previously reserved exclusively for prose in an Italian poem: for example, moral philosophy (
Inf
. XI and
Purg
. XVI) and biology (
Purg
. XXV). However, this tactic becomes most noteworthy in
Paradiso
. There we find astronomy (
Par
. II, where Dante takes on the task of a Ptolemy or an Alfraganus); free will (Canto V, where he rehearses this topic so dear to Augustine); the theology of history (VI, Orosius); municipal politics (XVI, Cicero and Brunetto Latini); and angelology and its relation to astronomy (XXVIII–XXIX, the Pseudo-Dionysius). If the entire project of the
Divine Comedy
must have caused its author understandable anxiety, the choice of a strategy for making the part of the poem that is called
Paradiso
must have caused its author considerable effort in wrestling with weighty concerns. If Giorgio Petrocchi’s work to establish the dates of composition for the various parts of the poem is correct (and it must be considered a provisional, if still the most convincing, attempt), Dante spent the years 1313 to 1317 revising
Inferno
and
Purgatorio
, and planning
Paradiso
(see Petrocchi [Petr.1957.1 and Petr.1969.1]). Perhaps because of
the time he took for revision, only occasionally in the first two
cantiche
does one sense Dante laboring under his load (as, one might suggest, is apparent in the opening fifty or so verses of
Inferno
I). There is a “finished” quality to the first two
cantiche
that
Paradiso
sometimes does not have. To take a single example, the text of Canto III clearly suggests that Dante originally planned to portray the souls of the saved as dwelling in the stars (indeed, any number of commentators forget themselves from time to time and display a similar misunderstanding), while Canto IV makes it plain that they are ordinarily to be found in the Empyrean [pronounced em-PEER-ian] and only on this very special occasion manifest themselves to a celestial visitor in each of the first eight heavens. Further, a passage in Canto IX seems to drop back into the same mistake overruled in Canto IV. It is possible that a later revision of the poem would have done a better job ironing out this rather alarming inconsistency. And the issue seems worth raising. Are we reading, in
Paradiso
, less finished work than we found in the first two
cantiche
? Given the near-total absence of any hard evidence (there is anecdotal reference, narrated by Boccaccio in his biography of Dante, to the discovery of the last thirteen cantos by the poet’s sons only after his death), a resolution of this question is probably not possible.

Even a veteran reader is startled each time he or she begins rereading the third
cantica
of this “theological epic.” For here the usual accoutrements of poetic narrative are downstaged by the language of Scholastic discourse and, finally, of mystical devotion. Dante’s
Paradiso
is surely one of the most daring poetic initiatives we have—perhaps it is simply the most daring. Its extraordinary popular success (in December 2002, Roberto Benigni recited and discussed its final canto before an Italian television audience reported to be more than 12 million in number) is testament to Dante’s stubbornness and to his genius. Its at times endless-seeming theological disquisitions, to be sure, have addled many a reader; one finds few who will claim (or admit) that it is their favorite
cantica
. At the same time, the poetic technique found in it reflects a supreme confidence and, in its greatest moments, attains a sublimity that sweeps all cynicism before it. It is perhaps worth the effort to report on one’s own experience in this regard. The writer has twice offered graduate seminars on
Paradiso
at Princeton (in 1980 and 1986). In both of these, the same thing happened. His students found the going difficult (as did he). They did not look forward to breaking their heads each week over the niceties of Scholastic distinction and other arcana. Nonetheless, once each seminar began, it was as though all present became a single instrument working toward a common understanding (perhaps in unconscious imitation of the speaking eagle in
the heaven of Jupiter). Rarely have seminars flown by so quickly for all involved (or so it was reported even by the students), and rarely have students taught their teacher quite so well.
Paradiso
is certainly the most challenging part of the poem, but may also be the most rewarding for those who give themselves to it and let it do its work on them.

(2)  
A Poem of the Stars.

This poem about a journey through the heavens has little to do with our own notions of astronomy. (For Dante’s astronomy see, in English, at least Moore [Moor.1903.1], pp. 1–108; Orr [Orr.1914.1]; and Cornish [Corn. 2000.2]). Measured in the time that the protagonist is absent from the earth, the
Paradiso
seems to take a little more than twenty-four hours, although the temporal indications are less precise than they have been in the first two
cantiche
. He zooms up from the garden of Eden at noon on Wednesday, March 30 (or April 13, depending on the view of the matter accepted by the reader’s favorite discussant of the problem—see the notes to
Inf
. I.1 and
Inf
. XXI.38) and returns to earth sometime during the evening of the next day. This return is the only temporally unmarked portion of his reported voyage to the three realms of the afterworld, but the rough indications found in crucial passages late in the
cantica
encourage us to believe that the completed adventure, which ostensibly ends with the undescribed reentry of the protagonist, has taken one week, Thursday evening to Thursday evening. Giovanni Agnelli (Agne.1891.1), Table XI, has tried to demonstrate that the time consumed by Dante’s trip through Paradise takes exactly twenty-four hours (with some timeless time allowed for the visionary final four cantos). But even a rough calculation of the duration of time as presented in the text itself would seem to show that the time Dante spent in the heavens, as measured by earthly duration, is somewhat more than twenty-four hours (see the note to
Par
. XXVII.79–81). The first twenty-four hours were spent on earth and began Thursday evening (
Inf
. I and II); the next full day was consumed exploring Hell (
Inf
. III–XXXIV.69); and the next in the ascent to see again the stars (
Inf
. XXXIV.70–139), which brings us to 6 pm on Sunday evening Jerusalem time, or 6 am Sunday morning at the Antipodes, where begins the three-and-one-half-day trip up the mountain (what we call Purgatory) that ended with our hero in the earthly paradise at the propitious time of noon.

The heavens, conceived by Dante and the astronomers of his time as a series of concentric circular spheres, nine in all, surrounding the center of the universe, this our paltry earth, are formed by transparent crystal bodies, the first seven of which each mounts a single gem. These for
Dante are the planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. (In Dante’s eyes, they all shine with their own light alone.) The eighth sphere contains all the other stars (shining with reflected light, once again precisely reversing the understanding of our time). The ninth, the Primum Mobile or Crystalline Sphere, contains no other physical body besides itself, but, by loving God, propels the movement of the entire universe. Strictly speaking, Dante’s physical universe contains only these nine spheres. Surmounting it, existing beyond time and space and yet containing all space and time, is the home of God, of the angels, and of the souls of the saved (with seats reserved for those few yet to come). This placeless place is known as the Empyrean. As we will learn in Cantos III and IV (and the learning is not come by easily), no soul whom we meet in the eight lower spheres actually has a home in them, but has only appeared in a particular sphere to give Dante instruction of a certain hierarchical bent, for while all the blessed are equally blessed (as all the damned are equally damned), there is nonetheless here, as there was in Hell, an order of rank among those present. All the blessed are equally blessed, only some are less blessed than others—or, perhaps better put, some have fewer apparent credentials for salvation than others (e.g., Piccarda the traduced nun, as compared with St. Benedict; or Folco the former lover and poet, with St. John).