Appendix III — Dante the Poet
Benedetto Croce’s382 contention is, of course, fundamentally true, that Dante is first and last a Poet, and that it is the magnetism of his poetic genius that attracts interest to all the varied subjects which he touches. If he had not been a Poet, these essays would never have been written; and the writer hopes that the poetic quality of his hero will have been felt as a background all through the book. His lyrical power is the driving force of his many-sided message. To the struggling patriot, whether of 1848 or of 1918, he is a Tyrtaeus; to the artist in poetry, a Horace (although he never saw the Ars Poetica); to the lover, a Christian Anacreon; to the religious devotee, a Psalmist and Prophet in one; to the student of human nature in its detail and its large epic aspect, a Homer and a Virgil; in every aspect a supreme poet. The very magnetism of his lyrical appeal will, however, continue to keep countless disciples busy, in the future as in the past, exploring the by-ways and investigating the by-products of his genius; gloating over his obscurities, and glorying in everything, big or little, that Dante has touched. Those “questioni dantesche” on the more puerile of which Croce rightly pours his scorn,383 will emerge to the end of the chapter—a lush growth of mingled flowers and weeds witnessing to the extraordinary fertility of the soil.
And we may go on to ask, what, exactly, is the value, or the nature of that “lyrical quality” which Croce justly exalts if it is entirely divorced from its content, its subject-matter?
True, Beauty has a value of its own, as Dante himself saw. In theory, indeed, he makes Poetry a humble gilding of the didactic pill, on the Horatian principle of miscere utile dulci; a beauteous fiction for a moral purpose—“una verità ascosa sotto bella menzogna”384 a “clumsy device,” as Professor Foligno puts it, “to rivet the attention of readers while the lessons of virtue and truth were expounded.”385 In practice, however, the author of the Convivio “spoke as Love dictated”386—nay, even in the Convivio itself (as Prof. Foligno points out), in the envoi of the first Canzone,387 he bids his poetry, if its argument prove unintelligible, take heart of grace and draw attention to its own sheer beauty—
Allor ti priego che ti ricomforte,
Dicendo lor, diletta mia novella.
“Ponete mente almen com’ io son bella!”
But lyrical form cannot exist as a mere abstraction. It must needs express itself in words that have a meaning—in “subject-matter.” The Poet sings of what is in his heart, and sings—
... A quel modo
Ch’ e’ ditta dentro;
he sings because he must. And Dante has this irresistible impulse of the artist to express himself. He tells us in the XIXth chapter of the Vita Nuova the story of the birth of his canzone, “Donne ch’ avete intelletto d’ amore,” the famous song by which Bonagiunta knew him in Purgatory.388 First, a great desire for utterance, then a pondering over the appropriate mode, and finally, “I declare,” he says, “my tongue spake as though by its own impulse and said—
Donne ch’ avete intelletto d’ amore.”389
That is the artistic impulse to create, and represents, indeed, the sum total of his “Message” as conceived by many an artist. But Dante took his message and his mission seriously; and unless we recognise as a factor in his poetry this sense of responsibility for the gift, and for the use of it—in however exalted a sense—as the handmaid of Religion, we surely misconceive him. He is essentially (not accidentally) didactic, prophetic, a conscious and purposeful inspirer of his own generation and of those to come.
From the point of view of purely aesthetic criticism his “Theological Romance,” his “Epic of man’s freewill,” with its massive architectural framework and its recurring theological, philosophical, political and otherwise didactic passages may be entirely secondary—may be, in fact, so much awkward and obstructive material which the poet only reduces to order and dominates by force of titanic genius.390
Dante certainly rises superior in fact to the contemporary theory of the Art of Poetry which he repeats in the Convivio and the De Vulgari Eloquentia.391 It is this which makes his verse to be, as we have called it, the driving power of his message. But this homage to the traditional theory is not mere lip-service. Supreme poet as he is, he deliberately makes his sublime verse the instrument of spiritual teaching. And in so doing only renders it the more sublime.
Footnotes
1 See esp. Inf. ix. 113; xx. 61: “Dante and the Redemption of Italy,” p. 15.
2 1865: See ib. p. 19.
3 Par. xxv. 1, 2.
4 “Dante and Educational Principles,” pp. 83 sqq.
5 Nos. III and VI.
6 Nos. I, II, IV, and VIII.
7 Prof. Foligno has, of course, no responsibility for the opinions set forth in this volume.
8 Le opere di Dante: testo critico della Società dantescha italiana, etc. Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio. MCMXXI. Cited in the notes as “Bemporad.” In the case of quotations from the prose works, an attempt has been made to consult the convenience of English readers by the reference to the paging of Dr. Moore’s Oxford Edition as well as to that of the Testo critico (Bemporad).
9 Nos. V and VII.
10 This Sermon was preached in Lincoln Cathedral on Aug. 14th, 1921 (Twelfth Sunday after Trinity).
11 Par. i. 6-8.
12 See Osservatore Romano, May 4th, 1921. And cf. Appendix II.
13 Par. xvii. 55.
14 Purg. xxiv. 52-4.
15 Cf. A. G. Ferrers-Howell, “Dante and the Troubadours,” in the Memorial Volume, Dante, Essays in Commemoration, 1321-1921, London Univ. Press, 1921.
16 Purg. xxiv. 57.
17 Inf. iii. 5, 6.
18 Purg. xvii. 103-105.
19 Inf. i. 118-20.
20 Purg. xxiii. 71-74.
21 Par. iii. 70-72, 85.
22 Par. xxxiii. 145.
23 The Spiritual Message of Dante, Williams & Norgate, 1914, p. 225.
24 1 John iv. 16.
25 Par. xxx. 133-7.
26 Purg. xx. 43.
27 Purg. i. 1.
28 Par. xxv. 5.
29 A pathetic episode connected with this Celebration is related in Appendix I, p. 165.
30 Giornale, p. 215: Art. “Firenze e Italia nel concetto e nel cuore di Dante.”
31 Giornale, p. 344.
32 A similar chorus of reverent homage to Dante as the good genius of Italy’s fortunes, was evoked by the war, in the shape of “Dante e la Guerra,” Nos. 6-9 of Nuovo Convito, June-Sept., 1917.
33 Par. ix. 27.
34 “To the Defenders of the Piave: November, 1917, to November, 1918.” Art. in Anglo-Italian Review, Nov., 1918, p. 244.
35 Purg. xxvii. 142.
36 Il Purgatorio, p. 58.
37 Par. xxxi. 85-89.
38 Inf. i. 31-34.
39 Loc. cit.
40 Italy is likened by Dante to a wood (silva) in V.E., I, xi.
41 Purg. vi. 76-fin.
42 Purg. vi. 91 sqq.; Mon. I, xii.
43 Purg. v. 61.
44 See Mon. II, v. 132 sqq.; 159 sqq., quoted below; pp. 355 sq., Oxf. Ed.; p. 379, Bemporad.
45 Inf. xii. 1-21.
46 Defensor Pacis written c. 1324 (three years after Dante’s death) to support the claims of the Emperor Lewis IX (of Bavaria) against Pope John XXII, starts, as Dante does, from Aristotle and Holy Scripture, but carries the relentless exposure of papal pretensions much further, and strikes the note of appeal to a General Council which was one of the watchwords of the Reformation.
47 This theme he took up earlier in the Fourth Treatise of the Convivio, chaps. iv. and v.
48 Cf. especially his quotations from the Aeneid in Conv. IV, iv. (Bemp., 252) and Mon. II, vii. 70 sqq. (Bemp., 381); the Divine injunction is taken by Dante, almost as though the Aeneid were ‘Scripture’!
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, momento,
Hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem;
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
—Aen. vi. 852-4.
49 Inf. i. 82.
50 vi. 34-96.
51 W. W. Vernon, Readings on the Paradiso, Vol. I, p. 199.
52 Par. vi. 103-104.
53 Purg. vii. 94; vi. 97.
54 Purg. xvi. 106 sqq.; 127 sqq.
55 Purg. vi. 76 sqq.
56 Purg. vi. fin.
57 Ep. vii.
58 Cf. Purg. x. 35.
59 Ep. vii. 44, p. 410, Oxf. Ed.; p. 427, Bemporad.
60 I. xii. 58; Oxf. Ed. p. 347; p. 365, Bemporad.
61 Purg. i. 75.
62 II, v. 158 sqq.; Oxf. Ed. II, v. 17; p. 379, Bemporad.
63 Cf. Mon. I, xi. Bemporad, pp. 362-364.
64 Mon. I, v.
65 Od. ix. 114-115. θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος Παίδων ἠδ’ ἀλόγων....
66 οὐδ’ ἀλλήων ἀλέγουσιν.
67 Pol. i. 2.
68 It is interesting to note, in this connection, that when Dante, in his work on “The Vulgar Tongue,” is seeking a Literary Tribunal—a sort of Academy of Letters—he asserts that where there is no Prince, his presence may be supplied by ‘the gracious light of reason.’ There is no king, he says, in Italy, as there is in Germany, to gather to his court poets and literati and form in his own person the centre of a brilliant literary circle; but the members of such a court—the elements of such a circle—are there, though scattered, and they have a bond of union in the gratioso lumine rationis.—V.E. I, xviii. fin; Oxf. p. 389; Bemporad, p. 336.
69 Mon. I, xi. 78-110. Oxf., p. 346; Bemp., pp. 363 sq.
70 Ep. vii.
71 Par. xxx. 133 sqq.
72 At the last moment before going to press, it is cheering to find this contention (treated more fully by the present writer in an article in the Anglo-Italian Review, Dec., 1918), corroborated by Prof. A. J. Grant, who, in an article on “Dante’s conception of History” (History, Vol. VI, Jan., 1922), speaks thus of the Poet’s praise of the Empire: “It is a demand for a world-order resting on laws that are sensible and generally known, and which control the lives of states as well as of individuals. It is little exaggeration to say that it is a plea for a League of Nations; and the De Monarchia is not a bad handbook for those who are called upon to speak for the League” (p. 229).
73 Par. xxii. 151.
74 Mon. iii. 16; Oxf., p. 376; Bemp. p. 411.
75 Mon. I, xi; Oxf. p. 345; Bemporad, p. 364.
76 Mon. I, xi., ut supra.
77 Mon. I, xi.
78 III, iv. init. Oxf., p. 365; Bemporad, p. 394. Dante combats and refutes the traditional argument in vogue in his day, which assumed that the creation of sun and moon in Gen. i. had a mystical reference to the Spiritual and Temporal powers respectively and argued that therefore, because the moon derives her light from the sun, the Temporal must owe its authority to the Spiritual; but, later in the chapter (Oxf., p. 366 sq.; Bemporad, p. 396), he seems to admit a workable analogy between the luminaries and the authorities.
79 Purg. xvi. 106 sqq.
80 Par. vi. 121 sq.
81 2 Cor. iii. 17.
82 Inf., i. p. 124.
83 Cf. V.E., I, vii. 28; p. 382, Oxf.; p. 324, Bemporad. Ipsum naturantem, qui est Deus.
84 Par. xxxiii. 145.
85 Oxf. Ed., p. 282; Bemporad, p. 222.
86 Gerusalemme Liberata, xvii. 63.
87 The best spirits among our late enemies have already begun to reap the reward of their deadly earnestness in a wider and saner point of view: a realisation of variety of national characteristics and an appreciation of them; a longing to clear away misapprehensions, and “openly to call injustice injustice—to forgive and to expect forgiveness.” See an excellent article by Hedwig von Saenger in Student Movement, Oct., 1921.
88 Il comico, l’ umorismo e la satira nella Divina Commedia. Da Enrico Sannia. 2 vols. Milan, 1909.
89 Vita, s. 8.
90 Mag. Mar. i, 31, 1193. εὐτραπελία δ’ ἐστὶ μεσότης βωμολοχίας καὶ ἀγροικίας. ὅ τε γὰρ βωμολόχος ἐστὶν ὁ πάντα καὶ πᾶν οἰόμενος δεῖν σκώπτειν, ὅ τε ἄγροικος ὁ μήτε σκώπτειν βουλόμενος, μήτε σκωφθῆναι, ἀλλ’ ὀργιζόμενος. ὁ δ’ εὐτράπελος ἀνὰ μέσον τούτων, ὁ μήτε πάντας καὶ παντῶς σκώπτων, μητ’ αὐτὸς ἄγροικος ὤν. ἔσται δ’ ὁ εὐτράπελος διττῶς πως λεγόμενος. καὶ γὰρ ὁ δυνάμενος σκῶψαι ἐμμελῶς, καὶ ὃς ἂν ὑπομείνῃ σκωπτόμενος.
91 De divinatione per somnum ii. (464ᵃ 33) οἱ δὲ μελαγχολικοὶ διὰ τὸ σφόδρα, ὥσπερ βάλλοντες πόρρωθεν, εὔστοχοί εἰσιν. Cf. Eth. Nic. vi. 10 (1142ᵇ 2), where εὐστοχία is distinguished from βούλευσις as “swift and wordless”; ἄνευ τε γὰρ λόγου καὶ ταχύ τι ἡ εὐστοχία. And a little further on it is said that ἀγχίνοια—“ready wit,” “shrewdness,” is a kind of εὐστοχία.
92 Rhet. iii. II, 1412ᵃ. εὐστοχία sees analogies, like Archytas, who says “a διαιτητὴς is like an altar”—for to both the injured flee!
93 Eth. Eud. vii. 5, 1240ᵃ 2.
94 Cf. Ps. cxv. 4-8. Esp. Isaiah xliv. and xlvi.
95 A recent writer, H. McLachlan (St. Luke, the Man and his Work, Manchester Univ. Press, 1920), has drawn attention to the humorous gift of the third Evangelist, and entitles one of his chapters “Luke the Humorist.” See also the present writer’s St. Luke (Westminster Commentaries, Methuen, 1922, Introduction, pp. xxix. sq.).
96 Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam (Ed. Holder-Egger, Hanover, 1905-1913), pp. 77 sqq. “Florentini... trufatores maximi sunt.”
97 Rhet. ii. 1389ᵇ 10. οἰ νέοι... φιλογέλωτες, διὸ καὶ εὐτράπελοι; ἡ γὰρ εὐτραπελία πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις ἐστίν.
98 Purg. x. 130-3.
99 Nino Tammassia, S. Francesco d’ Assisi e la sua Leggenda, Padova, Drucker, 1906. (Eng. Tr. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
100 D. G. Rossetti, The Early Italian Poets, etc.
101 Purg. xxiii. 115 sqq.
102 Op. cit. pp. 55-6.
103 Conv. III, viii. 70; Oxf., p. 282; Bemporad, p. 222.
104 Portraits of Dante from Giotto to Raffael: a critical study, with a concise iconography, by Richard Thayer Holbrook. London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911.
105 Holbrook, l.c. pp. 68-72.
106 Holbrook, op. cit. p. 102 and illustration opposite p. 98.
107 Vita, § 8. Ne’ costumi domestici e publici mirabilmente fu ordinato e composto, e in tutti più che un altro cortese e civile.
108 Hist. ix. 136. Per lo suo sapere fu alquanto presuntuoso e schifo e isdegnoso, e quasi a guisa di filosofo mal grazioso. Non bene sapea conversare co’ laici.
109 Cf. Toynbee, Dante Alighieri, Methuen, 3rd ed., 1904, p. 176 sqq.
110 This is quoted from C. Bruni’s excellent Guida al Casentino, p. 167. B. does not specify his authorities, but says in a footnote: “Questo aneddoto è così riferito da varii scrittori danteschi.”
111 Dante and His Italy, pp. 141, 2.
112 Inf. xxii. 118.
113 Inf. xxiii, 4 sqq.
114 Sannia not inappropriately describes this passage as “il comico populare della D.C.” (p. 193).
115 Inf. xxii. 25.
116 Inf. xxii. 41, 57, 60, 72, cf. xxi. 55 sqq.
117 Inf. xxi. 7-15.
118 Inf. xxii. 130.
119 Inf. xxiii. 37.
120 Inf. xxi. 31, 88 sqq., 127 sqq.; xxii. 31.
121 Inf. xxx. 103.
122 Inf. xxx. 131, 2.
123 Inf. xiii. 120 sqq.
124 Inf. xix. 52 sqq. Cf. Boccaccio, Vita, § 17.
125 Inf. xix. 72.
126 Purg. vi. 149 sqq.
127 Purg. vi. 141.
128 Par. xxi. 130 sqq.
129 Par. xxi. 134.
130 Par. xxix. 34 sqq.
131 Par. xxix. 110.
132 Purg. xx. 108.
133 Purg. xix. 72, 124.
134 Purg. xx. 116-17.
135 Purg. xxii. 67-9.
136 Purg. xxviii. 139.
137 Purg. xxviii. 145.
138 Par. xxiii. 22.
139 Par. xxvii. 4.
140 Par. xxviii. 137-8.
141 Essay on Richter, cited by Glover, Virgil, Methuen, 1920, p. 27.
142 Eth. Eud. iii. 1234ᵃ 17.
143 Conv. III, viii., 95 sqq. p. 282, Oxf.; p. 222, Bemporad.
144 Oxf. Ed. p. 248; Bemporad, p. 165.
145 Oxf. Ed. p. 249; Bemporad, p. 166; Toynbee, In the Footprints of Dante, p. 303.
146 (vi.) Oxf. Ed. p. 259; Bemporad, p. 183.
147 xi. 60 sqq.; p. 263, Oxf. Ed.; (x.) p. 190, Bemporad.
148 xi. 100 sqq.; p. 287, Oxf. Ed.; p. 230, Bemporad.
149 IV, xxviii. 70 sqq.; p. 335, Oxf. Ed.; p. 311, Bemporad.
150 IV, xvi. 69; p. 318, Oxf. Ed.; p. 283, Bemporad. Salimbene (ed. cit.), pp. 457, 512, 530 sqq.
151 IV, xiv. 105; p. 315, Oxf. Ed.; p. 278, Bemporad.
152 IV, xv. 135; p. 316, Oxf. Ed.; p. 280, Bemporad.
153 I, xiv.; p. 387, Oxf. Ed.; pp. 329, 332, Bemporad.
154 p. 385, Oxf. Ed.; p. 329, Bemporad.
155 V.E. I, xiii. fin.; p. 387, Oxf. Ed.; p. 331, Bemporad.
156 “Quid nunc personat tuba novissimi Frederici? quid tintinabulum secundi Caroli? quid cornua Iohannis et Azzonis marchionum potentum? quid aliorum magnatum tibiae? nisi Venite carnifices, etc.,” p. 386, Oxf. Ed.; p. 330, Bemporad.
157 V.E. II, vi. 42-6; p. 394, Oxf. Ed.; p. 343 sq., Bemporad.
158 Hor. Ep. I., xiv, 43.
159 No. 616.
160 Dr. Reid, in an article on “Humour” (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. VI, p. 272), which had not yet appeared when these lines were written, describing the gift as follows: “Humour is invariably associated with alertness and breadth of mind, a keen sense of proportion, and faculties of quick observation and comparison. It involves a certain detachment from, or superiority to, the disturbing experiences of life. It appreciates the whimsicalities and contradictions of life, recognises the existence of what is unexpected or absurd, and extracts joy out of what might be a cause of sadness....”
161 Op. cit. p. 51.
162 Inf. xx. 61-3.
163 Vol. II, p. 534.
164 Par. i. 1 sqq., 103 sqq.
165 Inf. iii. 16-18.
166 Cf. e.g., the legend of St. Gregory alluded to in Purg. x. 75.
167 Inf. iv. 131.
168 See above, pp. 28 sqq. and “Dante and A League of Nations,” Anglo-Italian Review, December, 1918, pp. 327-335.
169 Purg. i. 7 sqq.; Par. i. 13 sqq.; cf. Inf. ii. 7.
170 Purg. vi. 118.
171 Mediaeval Mind, Vol. II, p. 544.
172 Inf. xxxi.
173 Inf. iv. 144.
174 Mediaeval Mind, Vol. II, p. 541, note.
175 Par. xxv. 3.
176 Conv. III, ix., fin.; p. 285, Oxf. Ed.; p. 227, Bemporad.
177 Croce on the contrary urges with perhaps too great a bias in the other direction, that if Dante were not so great as a Poet, little would be thought of his achievements in other lines: “Se Dante non fosse, com’ è, grandissimo poeta, è da presumere che tutte quelle altre cose perderebbero rilievo.”—Poesia di Dante, p. 10.
178 “On Dante the Poet,” see an admirable lecture delivered before the British Academy on May 4th, 1921, by Professor Cesare Foligno. (Humphrey Milford, 1/6 net). See also Appendix III.
179 Osservatore Romano, May 4th, 1921. See Appendix II.
180 La Poesia di Dante, Laterza, 1921.
181 Id., pp. 9, 10.
182 Id., p. 27.
183 Cf. Statius’ words in Purg. xxii. 76—
Già era ’l mondo tutto quanto pregno
De la vera credenza, seminata
Per li messaggi dell’ etterno regno.
184 See The New Teaching, edited by Prof. John Adams (Hodder and Stoughton, 1918, 10/6), pp. 9, 11. This work came into the writer’s hands after the virtual completion of the present essay; but it sums up so compactly the point of view of the modern principles he desired to illustrate, that he has found occasion to refer to it with some frequency.
185 Cf. The New Teaching, p. 64, where Prof. J. Adams says of the study of English Literature: “the radical difference between the old teaching and the new is that we have passed from books about books to the books themselves.”
186 See La Poesia di Dante, pp. 14, 15.
187 See H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind. Mr. Taylor heads his 43rd and last chapter “The Mediaeval Synthesis: Dante.” See Vol. II, p. 534; and Dante and Mediaeval Thought, in the present volume, p. 80.
188 Par. xxv. 3; Conv. III, ix. 146 sqq.; p. 285, Oxf. Ed.; p. 226 sq., Bemporad.
189 Federzoni, Vita di Beatrice Portinari, 2nd Ed., p. 14; and below Dante and Casentino, pp. 148 sq.
190 Inf. xv. 82-85.
191 Conv. II, xiv. (xiii.), pp. 265-7, Oxf. Ed.; pp. 193-7, Bemporad.
192 Benedetto Croce (op. cit.) has much to say on the power of Dante’s poetic genius to transmute the intractable and unpoetical scholastic and didactic matter. See esp. pp. 67, 161.
193 Dante and Aquinas, p. vii; cf. and pp. 226 sqq., and esp. p. 232.
194 Wicksteed, loc. cit.
195 Purg. xxvii. 140, 142. The English renderings are mainly from Tozer’s Translation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
196 Epist. x. (xiii.), p. 416, Oxf. Ed.; p. 439, Bemporad. “Locutio vulgaris in qua et muliercule communicant.”
197 Epist. x. (xiii.) 265 sqq.; p. 417, Oxf. Ed.; p. 440, Bemporad.
198 Inf. i. 113 sq.
199 Inf. i. 118-120.
200 See esp. Luke vii. 18-23, where, in answer to a question from the Baptist’s disciple, He gives a “demonstration” of Messianic works, and says “Go and describe what you have seen.”
201 Not only in the formally “didactic passages” does he act—in Croce’s words, “like a master who knows, and is bent on making it clear to the pupil.” Op. cit., p. 121.
202 Purg. i. 71.
203 Purg. v. 61 sqq.
204 Purg. xxvii. 142.
205 Par. xxxi. 85.
206 Purg. xxvi. 13.
207 Purg. xxiii. 73 sqq.
208 Purg. xxi. 61 sqq.
209 Mme. Montessori’s earlier utterances were justly criticised for a too thoroughgoing individualism that claimed to have rung the death-knell of the “class system.” The individualist attitude and the collective have each a place in the New Teaching, though the former tends to be emphasised most. The characteristic Montessorian expression of the social instinct is the “Silence Game.” See The New Teaching, pp. 15, 16, 22.
210 Op. cit., p. 234.
211 Purg. x. 31 sqq.
212 Purg. xii. 16 sqq.
213 Very little transpires as to the office and function of those Angels except in the matter of removal of the P’s from the forehead of penitents as they mount up to the successive Terraces. In Purg. xvi. 142-5, there is a glimpse of their usefulness, where Marco Lombardo is reminded of the boundary of his “beat” by the nearness of the Angel of the Anger-Terrace. “L’Angelo è i’vi!”
214 Purg. ii. 30.
215 Purg. xvi. 76-78. For this reference and several others the writer is indebted to an illuminating article on “La Pedagogia in Dante Alighieri,” by Sac. Dott. Fernando Cento in Il VIº Centenario Dantesco, March, 1916.
216 Purg. iv. 88-95.
217 Purg. xii. 110; xv. 38; xvii. 68 etc.
218 Inf. xxx. 136 sqq.
219 Par. xxxiii. 58 sqq.
220 Purg. xviii. 141.
221 Purg. xix. 1 sqq.
222 Purg. xix. 28.
223 Purg. xxvii. 88 sqq.
224 As in the case last quoted, or e.g. in Purg. xvii. 40 sqq.: Come si frange il sonno, etc., where the sleep is broken by the sudden striking of a light upon the sleeper’s eyes.
225 Purg. xxvii. 112.
226 Inf. xxvi. 7.
227 See pp. 95 sqq.
228 p. 120 sq.
229 p. 121. He goes on: “Perciò i concetti esposti vi si rivestono d’immagini corpulenti e fulgidissimi.”
230 Croce, p. 135.
231 Par. i. 100.
232 Strictly, from Inf. i. 112 to Purg. xxvii. 142; Virgil disappears, Purg. xxx. 49.
233 Purg. xxi. 33.
234 Purg. xxi. 103; cf. i. 125; xix. 85 sqq., etc.
235 Gerus. Lib. xvii. 63.
236 Purg. xvi. 77.
237 Inf. ii. 1-5.
238 Inf. i. 77-78; Purg. xxvii. 35-36.
239 Op. cit., p. 37.
240 Inf. xvii. 79 sqq.
241 Purg. xxvii. 22 sqq.
242 Homer, Od. xx. 18. Dante, Inf. xxvi. 56 sqq.; Purg. xix. 22; Par. xxvii. 83.
243 Purg. iv. 89 sqq.
244 Inf. xi. 10-66; xii. init.
245 Purg. xvii. 88-139.
246 Cf. The New Teaching, p. 40, where Prof. Adams remarks, “The postponing of grammar studies to a comparatively late stage in school life is one of the most striking recognitions of the elementary psychological truths that underlie the principles of teaching.”
247 Purg. xviii. esp. 40-43.
248 Acts i. 1.
249 Inf. iv. 13-15; cf. Inf. xvii. 79 (above), and Purg. xxvii. 46.
250 Inf. iv. 14.
251 Purg. iii. 7-9.
252 New Teaching, p. 153 (Dr. Rouse).
253 Inf. xiii, 28 sqq.; Aen. iii. 22 sqq.
254 Inf. xii. 114.
255 Purg. xxv. 25 sqq.
256 Purg. xv. 76-78. Cf. Purg. xviii. 46-48.
257 Purg. xxvii. 139 sqq.
258 Inf. i. 122 sqq.
259 The New Teaching, pp. 20, 26 (Prof. Adams).
260 Purg. xxvii. 139-142.
261 There is some reason (see below, pp. 121 sqq.) for attributing to a common origin some of the points of resemblance which are noted in the body of this Essay. Professor Foligno, however, like Dr. Parodi (see below, pp. 133 sq.) is convinced of the fallaciousness of all arguments hitherto adduced in favour of direct contact of Dante with Moslem sources—and, in particular, of the reasoning of Professor Asín (p. 133).
262 The Gospel of Barnabas. Edited and translated from the Italian MS. in the Imperial Library at Vienna by Lonsdale and Laura Ragg. Oxford: 1907.
263 On this subject, see below, pp.
[264] See Introduction to Oxford Ed., pp. xiii. sq. and xliii.
265 As for instance in his definition of the word “Pharisee,” “farisseo propio uolle dire cercha DIO nella linggua di chanaam” (Barnabas, 157ᵇ).
266 Par. i. 56-7. Cf. Barn. 40ᵃ, sq.
267 Purg. xxviii. 94, etc., cf. Barn. 41ᵇ-43ᵇ.
268 Barn. 189ᵃ, cf. (for angels) Canz. iv. 24, 25, Par. xx. 102.
269 Barn. 189ᵃ, Koran, Surah xlvii. The original source is perhaps Gen. ii. 10 sqq.
270 Purg. xxviii. 25 sqq.
271 Barn. 187ᵃ, 189ᵃ.
272 Purg. xxvii. 134.
273 Purg. xxviii. 36.
274 Purg. xxviii. 41, 42.
275 V.E. i. 7, 10-11. Oxf. p. 382; Bamp. p. 324.
276 185ᵃ.
277 185ᵇ.
278 Par. xxxi. 97; xxxii. 39.
279 Par. xxiii. 71, 72.
280 190ᵃ.
281 Par. xxvi. 64-66.
282 185ᵇ.
283 Par. iii. 70 sqq.
284 Barn. 189ᵇ.
285 Par. iii. 65.
286 Par. iii, 82-85. A reviewer of the Oxford Edition (Guardian, Aug. 21st, 1907) points out a further significant resemblance between Par. xxxi. 7 sqq. and Barn. 56ᵇ, where it is said of the angels that, “chome appe uenirano intorno per circuito dello nontio di DIO.”
287 Barn. 111ᵃ, cf. 190ᵇ.
288 111ᵃ.
289 iiiᵇ, 190ᵇ.
290 190ᵇ.
291 Cf. E. Blochet, Les sources orientales de la Divine Comédie, Paris, 1901, p. 193: “Ce qui distingue surtout la Divine Comédie de toutes les autres formes de la Legende de l’ Ascension, ce qui la rende même supérieure aux livres religieux de toutes les epoques et de tous les pays, c’est que le poête a su décrire aussi completement le bonheur éternel du Paradis que les tortures infinies du Malebolge.”
292 E.g. in the Motalizite Sect (see Encycl. Brit. vol. xvi, p. 592).
293 149ᵇ sqq.
294 146ᵇ-149ᵃ.
295 Studies in Dante, Series II.
296 146ᵇ.
297 147ᵃ.
298 148ᵃ.
299 148ᵇ.
300 43ᵃ.
301 Inf. xiv. 85 sqq.; xxxiv. 130.
302 Inf. ix. 85.
303 Inf. ix. 66 and 76 sqq.
304 149ᵇ.
305 150ᵃ.
306 Barn. 113ᵃ, cf. Inf. xxxii. 22 sqq.
307 Barn. 63ᵃ: Dante, Inf. iii. 103.
308 In 23ᵃ, 81ᵃ, 225ᵇ. It is characteristic of the MS. that the three passages furnish as many different spellings of the last word: bugiari, bugiardi and buggiardi! Cf. Inf. i. 72.
309 Inf. i. 47; Barn. 62ᵇ.
310 85ᵇ and 87ᵃ.
311 A little earlier (76ᵇ) he has what seems to be a quotation from memory of Lev. xxvi. 11, 12; the Law of the Jubilee is to be found, of course, in the chapter immediately preceding.
312 Antiquorum habet (Coqueline, iii. 94).
313 E.g. Cron. Astense (Muratori, R. S. I., tom. xi. p. 192): Jacobus Cardinalis (in Raynald, tom. iv. sub an. 1300): Villani, viii. 36.
314 Another point that might have been adduced is the counsel “habbandonare il perchè,” Barn. 95ᵇ; cf. Purg. iii. 37.
315 Inf. iv. 67 sqq. Here, standing apart, but near the heroes and heroines of ancient Rome, Dante places the Moslem champion Saladin (ib. 129).
316 Inf. xxviii. 35.
317 Prof. N. Tamassia, S. Francesco d’ Assisi e la sua Leggenda, p. 88.
318 Including (38ᵇ) a striking statement of the impossibility of penitence (and therefore of absolution) to one meditating fresh sin: cf. Dante, Inf. xxvii. 118 sq.
319 Introduction to Oxford Edition, p. xxxiv.
320 La Escatologia musulmana en la “Divina Commedia.” Discorso leído en el acto de su recepción, par D. Miguel Asín Palacios... Madrid, Estanislao Maestre, 1919.
321 Les sources Orientales de la Divina Comédie. Paris, E. Blochet. Paris, Maisonneuve, 1901.
322 Koran, chap. xvii. (xv.) init. “Praise be unto him who transported his servant by night, from the sacred temple of Mecca to the further temple of Jerusalem, the circuit of which we have blessed, that we might shew him some of our signs; for God is he who heareth and seeth.” (Sale’s translation). On this passage a most elaborate story was built up by subsequent legend-makers.
323 Ireland is undoubtedly the focus in Europe of legends Persian in origin. Appropriate to our subject are not only the St. Brendan Legend, but also the Purgatory of St. Patrick and the Descent of St. Paul. Blochet, op. cit., p. 117 sqq.
324 Ib. p. 161.
325 Ib. p. 172.
326 Bulletino della Società dantesca italiana, Nov. Ser., fasc. 4, (Dec., 1919), pp. 163-181.
327 See above, p. 131, note 4.
328 Bulletino ut supra, p. 166.
329 Bulletino ut supra, esp. p. 181. Ma il meglio sarà contentarsi di meditare sull’ affinità delle menti umane e sulla verosimiglianza che cause simili producano, in luoghi diversi, effetti non troppo dissimili.
330 Dr. Parodi’s view would probably be like that of Gherardo de’ Rossi about the vision of Alberic, which he quotes on p. 163: that the Miradj “possa aver all’ Omero italiano suggerito l’ idea della Commedia come un pezzo di marmo potrebbe somministrare ad uno scultore l’ idea d’ una statua.”
331 Inf. iv. 129, 143-4.
332 Par. x. 136-8.
333 Par. xxv. 2.
334 Ep. x. (Oxford Ed.), xiii. (Bemporad), 87 sqq. See Sir T. W. Arnold, “Dante and Islam,” Contemp. Review, Aug., 1921, to which the present writer owes most of the substance of this paragraph and what follows.
335 Arnold, p. 205-6.
336 Ib. p. 206-7.
337 Conv. I, iii.; Oxf. Ed., p. 240; Bemporad, p. 151 sq.
338 Purg. xiv. 16 sqq.
339 Inf. xxx. 64 sqq.
340 Purg. xiv. 46 sqq.
341 Villani, v. 37.
342 Inf. xvi. 37.
343 Purg. xiv. 43.
344 Inf. x. 85.
345 Par. xi. 106.
346 Vill. vii. 131; Dino, i. 9.
347 Leonardo Bruni Vita di Dante. Dove mi trovai non fanciullo nelle armi, e dove ebbi temenza molta....
348 Inf. xxx. 37 sqq. Perhaps of English extraction: in a document at Ravenna he is described as “de Anglia.”
349 Inf. iv. 106 sqq.
350 Inf. iv. 48.
351 Inf. iv. 42.
352 Inf. iv. 118.
353 Inf. xxx. 78.
354 It is strange to find even in so recent a work as Mr. Tozer’s Prose Translation of the Divine Comedy, reference still made to the fountain of the name in Siena. The context is all in favour of a spring near Romena.
355 Dino, i. 10.
356 Sacchetti, Nov. clxxix.
357 Purg. v. 116 sqq.
358 Villani, vii. 130-131.
359 Villani, vii. 13-14.
360 Purg. v. 85-129.
361 Purg. v. 97 sqq.
362 Par. xxii. 49.
363 Purg. v. 126 sq.
364 Fioretti: Prima considerazione delle sacre sante stimate.
365 Par. xi. 107-8.
366 Fioretti: seconda considerazione.
367 Inf. xii. 1-45.
368 Fioretti: loc. cit.
369 loc. cit.
370 Ex. xxxiii. 11.
371 Buti, on Inf. xvi. 106. Purg. xxx. 42.
372 Inf. xvi. 106. For further “Franciscan” references see Paget Toynbee, Life of Dante (last Ed.) p. 72 n.
373 Federzoni, Vita di Beatrice Portinari, 2nd Ed., p. 14.
374 Purg. xxx. 41 sq.
375 Par. xi. 106-108.
376 Vol. II, p. 18, (Sept., 1918). Tasso and Shakespeare’s England.
377 Inf. i. 104 sqq. Inf. ix. 133 sqq. and xx. 59 sqq. (See above, pp. 13 sq.)
378 The facts about Maschio are drawn from an article in the Strenna per l’ anno. 1897, of the Venetian Educatorio Rachitici, “Regina Margherita,” by Signor Giuseppe Bianchini.
379 Purg. xxvii. 25.
380 Inf. xix. 16, sqq.
381 Thirteenth in the Testo Critico of 1921 (Bemporad).
382 Benedetto Croce, La Poesia di Dante. Bari: Laterza, 1921, p. 10.
383 Ib. pp. 63, 197 sqq.
384 Foligno, Dante, the Poet, p. 8.
385 Foligno, p. 15.
386 Purg. xxiv. 52-54.
387 Oxford Ed., p. 251; Bemporad, p. 171.
388 Purg. xxiv. 51.
389 V.N., xix. ad init. (Oxf. Ed., p. 215; Bemporad, p. 21).
390 Croce, Poesia di Dante, p. 67.
391 V.E., II, iv. sub init. (Oxf. Ed., p. 393; Bemporad, p. 341; cf. Foligno, p. 8.)