Second Part — The Astronomy of Dante — Dante and the Early Astronomers by M. A. Orr

Second Part. — The Astronomy of Dante

I — Popular Astronomy in Italy in Dante’s Time

In the first part of this book we have sketched the story of man’s thoughts about the stars, from primitive days until the thirteenth century of our era. We have seen what a wealth of imagination and invention the Greeks brought to bear on the purely empirical science of Egypt and Babylon and Homeric Greece, and how out of all the systems devised by them between 600 b.c. and 100 b.c. one survived, which was completed and expounded by Ptolemy in the second century after Christ in his great Syntax or Almagest. Its fundamental principles were that Earth is a sphere, at rest in the centre of the Universe, surrounded on all sides by spherical heavens, and that the movements of all the heavenly bodies are explained by a combination of uniform circular movements.

In the succeeding centuries there were few who could appreciate his work, and during the Dark Ages it was scarcely known in Europe, but was preserved by Nestorian Christians in schools and monasteries of Persia, whence it was unearthed by Mahomedan princes, five centuries after Ptolemy’s death; and when another five centuries had passed it was brought back to Europe, tinged with Oriental thought, and almost immediately became immensely popular among scholars.

Then there arose one of the world’s greatest poets, and, a thousand years after Ptolemy’s death, immortalized his work, writing in a tongue unknown to Ptolemy, and for nations which in his day were only just struggling into existence. As Homer reflects to us man’s primitive conceptions of the Universe, so Dante reflects the ideas of Ptolemy and his school.

And because he lived just at this time he was able to write with perfect confidence, quoting Ptolemy and the Catholic Faith side by side as infallible authorities in astronomy. Had he lived in the early Christian centuries he would have been obliged to choose between classical and orthodox views; had he been born three centuries later, he would have found Copernicus and Galileo ranged against Ptolemy and the Church. Even Milton writing a hundred years after the death of Copernicus, could not make up his mind which system to adopt, and the astronomy of Paradise Lost is a curious jumble of ancient, modern, and transitional ideas. He describes the Primum Mobile as a “firm opacous globe”71 on which Satan alights and walks about, yet later on tells us that we need not believe in its existence if Earth is turning on her axis;72 the archangel Raphæl describes to Adam the Creation, at which he was present, yet declares that he himself does not know whether the sun circles round Earth, or Earth round the sun. This the great Architect had wisely concealed from man and angel,

“perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide,
Hereafter when they come to model heaven,
And calculate the stars, how they will wield
The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive,
To save appearances; how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.”73

Such inconsistencies are not found in Dante’s work, and nothing could have been further from his thoughts than to imagine the Creator mocking at man’s mistakes and ignorance. Like the angelic doctor, Thomas Aquinas, he considered man’s desire for knowledge as one of his highest attributes, and believed that it had been given to him in order to be satisfied.

But before we examine Dante’s writings, it will be interesting to form an idea of the spirit in which astronomy was generally regarded by his fellow-countrymen, and what were his opportunities of studying it.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in or about the year 1265, and died in 1321. There can be no doubt that the part of star-lore which appealed most to the general public in Italy at this time, educated and ignorant alike, was the art of the astrologers. The movements of the heavenly bodies were regarded not merely as omens, but as the actual instruments by which every event on Earth was brought to pass. Every class of plants, every race of animals, was thought to be under the protection of some planet or constellation; so if it was a bad year for certain fruits, or if an epidemic broke out among the cattle, this was because the guardian planet was unfavourably placed, or an evil planet was in the protecting constellation. Floods and drought, prosperity and death, properties of minerals such as the lodestone’s attraction for iron or the emerald’s alleged power of blinding serpents, the instincts of animals and the impulses of men, all were subject to the influences of the stars; and naturally the men who understood and interpreted their movements were held in great repute.

Some of them were unscrupulous quacks, like the one-eyed prophet of Brescia, mentioned by the gossiping friar Salimbene.74 He “called himself an astrologer and diviner,” and received daily “ten great pennies of silver, and nightly three great Genoese candles of the purest wax” from a political party in Modena, as a recompense for advising them how to act. On one occasion he prophesied a victory for them, but he had little faith in his own words, for being threatened with violence if his prophecy should fail, he “carried off all that he had gained and went his way without saluting his hosts.” “Then,” adds the friar, “the men of Sassuolo began to mock them, as men who sacrifice to devils and not to God, as it is written in Deuteronomy.”

But most of these men, like Asdente of Parma, sincerely believed in their own ability to foretell events, and they usually combined some other favourite forms of soothsaying, as well as a little alchemy, with astrology. Asdente is described by Salimbene as “a poor working cobbler, pure and simple, and fearing God, and courteous and urbane; illiterate, but with great illumination of mind.” His proper name was Master Benvenuto, but he was “commonly called Asdente, that is, toothless, by way of contrary, for he hath great and disordered teeth and an impediment in his speech, yet he understands and is understood well. He dwells at the bridge-head of Parma, hard by the city moat and the well, along the street which goes to Borgo San Donnino.” This humble prophet was said by Dante to be the best known citizen of all Parma (Conv., IV. xvi. 65-71): he was asked to dinner by a bishop, and consulted by the warring factions of Reggio and Parma. He was said to have foretold the death of two popes, and a naval defeat of Pisa by Genoa.

The greatest generals of the day governed their tactics by the advice of astrologers who regularly accompanied them to the field and the camp. The famous Ghibelline, Guido of Montefeltro, who is called by Villani the cleverest soldier of his times 75 retained Guido Bonatti 76 in his service and was believed to have gained his great victory at Forli (in 1282) through the advice of this astrologer. Bonatti is diversely described as a tiler and a lawyer, but whatever his original occupation may have been he found that the position of private astrologer brought him both more fame and more money. He wrote a book on Judicial Astronomy, and Vincent de Beauvais describes him as celebrated throughout the western world for his knowledge of the art.

But Bonatti’s fame was faint and fugitive compared with that of the wizard Michael Scot. He is one of the picturesque figures of the thirteenth century, round whom so many legends have gathered that the facts of his life are difficult to glean. It seems that he was born in Fifeshire of a noble Scottish family, at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century, that he studied in Oxford and Paris, and then spent some time in Toledo. Here he learned Arabic, and probably also astrology, for it was so commonly practised there, especially among the Arabs and the Jews, that it was sometimes called the Toletan art. Afterwards he went to Germany, and was discovered by Frederick II., who took him to Italy. His great learning earned the admiration of Pope Gregory IX., who speaks of him quite affectionately in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is said that Honorius II. would have liked to make him an archbishop. But Sir Michael the Scot found Frederick’s court more congenial. The Emperor, who was himself a poet, was a munificent patron of literature and art, and attracted to himself men of talent from all parts of the world. The culture of both East and West met at that brilliant Sicilian court 77 which was his for fifteen years before the title of Emperor was added to that of King of Naples and Sicily. Indeed it was his “fellowship with Saracens”78 which was one great reason for the accusation of heresy on account of which Dante placed him among the Epicureans in the Inferno. He knew Arabic, as well as French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Michael Scot’s acquaintance with Moorish literature and language was a bond of sympathy between them; he became astrologer to Frederick, and at the Emperor’s wish he superintended a new translation of Aristotle’s works from Arabic into Latin. His taste for astronomy is evidenced by the fact that out of these he chose to translate the De Cœlo himself.

An absurd story is told by Salimbene about Frederick and Michael Scot, which, however, shows what was believed of his capabilities as an astronomer. The Emperor one day asked him, when they were in the palace together, how far they were from the sky, and the astrologer told him the distance. They then took a long journey together, during which the palace was secretly lowered, and on their return Frederick asked casually whether the sky could really be so distant as Michael had said. “Whereupon he made his calculations, and made answer that certainly either the sky had been raised or the earth lowered; and then the Emperor knew that he spake truth.”

Michael Scot is said to have warned Frederick that he would die in Florence, for which reason the Emperor would not enter that city; but having thoughtlessly gone to a town called Florentiola he died there; “for this,” adds the historian, “is almost always the way, the devil tricks one by a play upon words.” It is curious to contrast this remark, attributing Michael’s prophecy to the evil powers, with Salimbene’s quotation from him, in exactly the same spirit as if he were quoting from an Old Testament prophet:—“that the word of Michael Scot may be fulfilled in them, which he wrote in his verses wherein he predicted the future, ‘And the factions at Reggio shall hold ill words together.’” The same author brackets him with others who have foretold the future, in a list which reads curiously to us—“Abbot Joachim, Merlin, Methodius and the Sybil, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Daniel, and the Apocalypse, and Michael Scot who was astrologer to the deposed Emperor Frederick II.”

Besides these prophetic verses, Michael wrote several books which treat almost exclusively of astrology, alchemy, and other occult “sciences,” and even in the fifteenth century it was said that his magic books could not be opened without danger, because of the fiends who were thereby invoked! He seems to have returned to his native Scotland to die, but the date is very uncertain. We do not know whether Dante’s picture of him is drawn from memory, or hearsay of some who had seen the lanky Scotsman among the southerners, by nature taller and thinner than they, and worn by his prolonged studies.

“Quell’ altro che ne’ fianchi è così poco
Michele Scotto fu, che veramente
Delle magiche frode seppe il gioco.”79
(Inf. xx. 115-117).

It was perhaps the winning personality or the prudence of the canny Scot which enabled him to bring a brilliant career to a peaceful close, favoured by the Church as well as by the excommunicated Emperor, although his studies were of so dubious a nature, and he was intimate with heretic Mahomedans and Jews. Cecco d’Ascoli was not so fortunate. This learned Italian received the high and honoured post of professor of astrology in Bologna, where he lectured and cast horoscopes for his students. He was well versed in natural science, but the shady side of astrology had a fatal attraction for him: he fell under suspicion as a sorcerer, was condemned, and burned at the stake in Florence in 1327 (six years after Dante’s death).

The reputations achieved by these and other thirteenth-century astrologers in Italy, belonging to such different ranks of life, show what an immense importance was attached to their art by the general public. Yet we shall be greatly mistaken if we think that it was only to acquire skill in this fascinating pursuit that men thronged to hear Cecco lecture, or pored over Latin manuscripts. The intense ardour for knowledge which marks this period made them eager to understand the world around them and the sky above their heads.

It would be a shame, writes one, to live in a house and not know how it is built or what shape it has, never to examine the walls, and floors, and ceilings, nor to consider the use of the wooden beams used in its construction. In like manner we should not be content without understanding the form and structure of the Universe in which we live. Man, with his upright attitude and his head held high, unlike the animals, was designed by his Creator to look and listen, to know and comprehend this marvellous Universe, and especially that noblest part of it above him, the heavens and their wonderful movements. For thus alone can he learn to know God Himself, the great Architect of the World.

In writing thus, Ristoro, the monk of Arezzo, was not only echoing the thoughts of Plato and Cicero, he was expressing the feeling for astronomy as a noble and elevating study which was general among thoughtful men of his time. It was expressed also in contemporary art. Visitors to the “Spanish Chapel” in the cloisters of a Florentine church will remember seeing on the frescoed walls the figure of Astronomy as she was personified in Tuscany in the fourteenth century. She sits among her peers, the sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, the only one who wears a crown; her fair hair frames a spiritual face, one hand is lifted heavenwards, the other holds a celestial sphere, on which the broad band of the zodiac crosses the “equator of the day.” At her feet sits a kingly figure in flowing robes, also crowned, and with a face of singular beauty and refinement; he gazes up into the skies with a rapt expression, and on his knee is a book in which he writes what he sees.

This nameless figure was identified doubtfully by Ruskin as Zoroaster, who was considered by many as the inventor of astrology, but surely it can be no other than Ptolemy with his Almagest. For Ptolemy, the prince of astronomers, was often and naturally confused with the royal race who had patronized astronomy at Alexandria; as for instance by Omons, a thirteenth-century writer, who says in his Image du Monde that “Ptolemy king of Egypt” wrote the Almagest. The curious mode of dressing the hair and beard may have been thought by the artist to represent an ancient Egyptian fashion.

Ptolemy, we know, was universely acknowledged at the time to be “Master of Astronomy,” as Brunetto Latini calls him. His Almagest was only known indirectly, but it was believed to contain all that could be known about the movements and the nature of the heavens. Some minor additions and corrections had been made, as we have seen, by the Arab astronomers, but the system was accepted as a complete and satisfactory explanation of all celestial phenomena. Hence no professional astronomer was expected to make discoveries; he was simply well versed in the work of those who went before him, skilful in the use of a few simple instruments and tables, and practised in applying the principles of astrology.

A general notion of the Ptolemaic system was widely diffused. For those who could not read Latin there were encyclopædic works written in the vernacular and in a popular style, such as the Trésor of Brunetto Latini, and these always contained a section on astronomy. The average educated man probably had only vague ideas about epicycles and eccentrics, and perhaps had never heard of the Arab estimates of the sizes of the planets; but he would know that astronomy taught that Earth is a globe, motionless at the centre of the universe, and smaller than any of the stars; he would know the names of the seven planets (including among these the sun and moon), and probably also their colours, their periods, and their astrological significance; the zodiacal constellations would be familiar, especially as they were often used decoratively; and he would believe that stars and planets are set in crystalline transparent spheres.

Moreover, he would often be more of an astronomer than he knew, for he would learn almost unconsciously many things of which modern men are ignorant. The ill-lighted streets and the dangers of night journeys would force him to be better acquainted with the motions and phases of the moon than most of us are to-day; he would know when and where to look for different stars; and the want of a watch would make it necessary for him to be able to take his time from the sun at any season of the year. He could, however, sometimes consult a sundial on a church wall or in a private garden, and the church chimes rang out at tierce, and nones, and vespers. These were heard at intervals which were much longer in summer than in winter, for the system of “temporary hours” was used by the Church, and the service of tierce was held halfway between sunrise and noon (or nones), and vespers was halfway between noon and sunset.

II — Dante’s Studies

Dante was far above the level of the average educated man. Not that his scientific ideas were in advance of his age: on the contrary, one special interest that they have for us is that they illustrate, like his political and religious views, the beliefs and feelings of the period. His authorities were the authorities of all, but he had studied them and made their thoughts his own, as few others did, except some churchmen and professed scholars. The extent and depth of his reading is evident from his own writings, and his great learning is noted with admiration by all his biographers. Giovanni Villani, in the earliest account we possess of Dante, says that he was “a great scholar in almost every branch of learning, although he was a layman.” Boccaccio would have us believe that while still a child, so young that he might be expected to spend his time playing with other children or sitting on his mother’s knee, he gave the whole of his time to reading and learning. Lionardo Bruni, however, assures us that though he was an ardent student, and showed unusual powers at an early age, he by no means tried to “sever himself from the world, but living and moving about amongst other young men of his age, he approved himself gracious and skilful in every youthful exercise.” It was wonderful, he says, how Dante maintained all his social and civic intercourse while he pursued his studies so fervently.

In truth, the poet’s troubled life was far removed from that life of calm retirement which one thinks suitable for a scholar. In his early youth he experienced a passionate love and sorrow; a year before the death of Beatrice he was fighting for Florence in the great battle of Campaldino, nor was it the first time he had borne arms; in 1296 he spoke in the council of the Hundred; in 1300 he was ambassador for the Tuscan League to San Gemignano, and was elected to the highest office a citizen could hold in his native city, that of Prior; in 1301 he was ambassador to the Pope in Rome, and in the year following he was exiled. After this he was always wandering, often in great poverty, dependent on first one patron and then another, always hoping that some turn of affairs would restore him to Florence, always taking a keen and active interest in Italian politics, until he died, still in exile, at Ravenna. Add to this the difficulties common to all scholars of his day, viz. absence of printed books, public libraries, and journals, etc., and we must marvel how he ever found the opportunities and the serenity of mind for his prolonged studies.

Boccaccio adds another obstacle—his wife! To console him for the death of Beatrice, his friends and relatives persuaded him to marry a wife of their choosing with melancholy results:—

“Dante formerly had been used to spend his time over his precious studies whenever he was inclined, and would converse with kings and princes, dispute with philosophers, and frequent the company of poets.... Now, whenever it pleased his new mistress he must at her bidding quit this distinguished company, and bear with the talk of women, and to avoid a worse vexation must not only assent to their opinions, but against his inclination must even approve them. He who, whenever the presence of the vulgar herd annoyed him, had been accustomed to retire to some solitary spot, and there to speculate on the motions of the heavens, or the source of animal life, or the beginnings of created things, or may be to indulge some strange fancy, or to compose somewhat which after his death should make his name live into future ages, he now, as often as the whim took his new mistress, must abandon all such sweet contemplation, and go in company with those who had little mind for such things.”80

However, after a long tirade against wives, Boccaccio owns that as far as concerns Dante the picture is entirely imaginary. He believes the marriage was an unhappy one, because after his exile Dante and his wife never met again, but we have no evidence whatever that while they were together their life was as Boccaccio depicts it. Doubtless family life and the care of four children interfered to some extent with Dante’s studies, but the one detail Boccaccio affirms as fact among his fancies, namely that the poet refused for nineteen years to see his wife, seems rather to imply that one thing poor Gemma did know how to do was to leave her husband in peace when he did not desire her company.

When and where Dante began to study astronomy seriously it is not easy to say. His favourite study in his youth was poetry, but his parents (says Bruni) gave him a good general education, engaging such teachers as could be found in Florence, where as yet there was no university. But seeing how clever the boy was, his relatives and friends helped and encouraged him, and among the latter Bruni mentions Brunetto Latini.

This famous Florentine was a very learned lawyer, who during Dante’s infancy and boyhood held high offices of state in the city. It is not possible, therefore, that he should have had pupils at this time, and he cannot have been Dante’s master in any strict sense of the word, as Vasari affirms, and as many commentators have assumed on the strength of the moving interview between these two in the Inferno.81 Dante’s affectionate greeting mingled with reverence, and the fatherly solicitude of Brunetto, suggest just such a connection as Bruni indicates. The elderly man had taken an interest in the budding genius of the boy, and had held inspiring conversations with him from time to time on serious subjects, and by his own example had encouraged the youth to win fame through his pen. For Dante was no doubt well acquainted with Brunetto’s Tesoretto, and his more ambitious and voluminous Trésor, which Brunetto specially commends to his care.82 This was a compendium of knowledge, a small part of which was devoted to the elements of astronomy, and it may well be that this short epitome was Dante’s first introduction to the science.

Some have thought that Brunetto’s advice to Dante to follow his star “Se tu segui tua stella...,”83 indicates that he had cast the poet’s horoscope; but there is no evidence that Brunetto had ever practised astrology, or even that he took special interest in it above other branches of learning.

Villani and other biographers tell us that after his banishment from Florence, therefore in middle age, Dante went to the University at Bologna, but they seem to have made this statement rather because of its probability than because they knew it for fact. It is, however, quite possible that he spent a couple of years there, between 1304 and 1306. He probably left his “primo rifugio”84 at Verona when Bartolommeo della Scala 85 died in March 1304, and we know nothing of his whereabouts till August 1306, when he was in Padua, as is proved by a fifteenth century document.86 Now in 1306 a number of Ghibelline students and professors left Bologna for Padua; and we know that Dante had friends among the Bolognese professors, for later on he seems to have corresponded with Cecco d’ Ascoli,87 and Del Virgilio entreated him to come and receive the laurel crown, an invitation which the poet refused in one of his Latin Eclogues. Bologna and the Bolognese are referred to several times in Dante’s works, and the friar Catalano is no doubt alluding to the school of theology at the University when he says in Inf. xxiii. 142-144 that he used to hear at Bologna much about the wickedness and the lies of the Devil. One vivid passage can hardly be anything but a personal reminiscence of the Carisenda, the leaning tower at Bologna. The poet compares his fear when he saw the giant Antæus stooping over Virgil and himself to the sensation of looking up at the Carisenda from beneath the leaning side, when a cloud is passing over it, and the spectator feels that the tower is about to fall upon him.88 (The tower was much higher in Dante’s day than it is now, part having been pulled down in the middle of the fourteenth century).

The University at Padua was also famous, and as it was originally an offshoot from Bologna and modelled on the same plan, it is sure to have included astronomy in its curriculum. But Dante does not seem to have stayed here more than a few months.

There is also a tradition that he went to Paris, the greatest intellectual centre of his times, and that he himself heard those lectures of Sigieri, the philosopher, in the Street of Straw, of which he makes mention in Par. x. 137. This is possible, but quite uncertain; the allusion to Sigieri is no proof, since it has lately been discovered that he died in Italy, and his story was well known there.

After sifting all the evidence available, we can only echo Boccaccio, and say of Dante that “As it was at divers ages that he studied and learned the divers sciences, so likewise it was at divers places of study that he mastered them under divers teachers.”

III — Books on Astronomy — Used by Dante

We shall probably be right if we conclude that Dante’s knowledge of astronomy was principally gained from independent reading, and from conversation and discussion with learned men. Like a true scholar, he was learning all his life, for in the Paradiso he corrects the opinion expressed earlier in the Convivio about the origin of the markings in the moon.

Boccaccio’s description of his planning out a course of study and attacking some subjects alone in his youth agrees with his own account of his lonely struggles with Latin authors;89 and it is quite credible that he suffered heat and cold, and went without food and sleep in his eagerness to learn, since he himself mentions quite casually that at one time he injured his sight by constant reading, so that the stars appeared blurred to him, until by rest and bathing with cold water it became strong again.90

His diligence must have been great, and his memory wonderful, judging from the numerous quotations from classical and contemporary authors to be found in his writings. They seem to be chiefly from memory, and it is not likely that he can often have had many books by him when writing. If he gives a reference it is often a vague one, and occasionally wrong: his authorities on astronomical questions are sometimes “the mathematicians,” “the astrologers,” or “the sages of Egypt,” by whom he means the Alexandrian astronomers.

One does not, of course, expect mediæval writers to verify their references, or to have our modern scruples about quoting other authors without acknowledgement: in those days they were only too glad to get their information wherever they could, often at second or third hand, and to make it their own by storing it in their memories. Nevertheless, from a careful study of Dante’s direct quotations, and his allusions and reminiscences, which are sometimes unconscious, a good idea may be gained of his range of reading, and of the books and authors on whom he chiefly relied for his astronomical data.

His supreme authority was of course Ptolemy. But it would only be by a rare chance that he could see the Almagest, even in a translation, and all the evidence that we can find in his own writings points to its being entirely unknown to him. On each of the three occasions that he quotes Ptolemy’s opinion on subjects dealt with in the Almagest he is wrong: once it is Ptolemy’s view on the physical nature of the Galaxy,91 as to which none had been expressed, although its appearance was carefully described; in another case he implies that Ptolemy discovered precession, and says that he added a ninth heaven to account for it,92 and this double mistake was apparently copied from Albertus Magnus or Averroës.93 As we know, it was Hipparchus who discovered precession, and Ptolemy gives him the credit for in the Almagest; it was the Arabian astronomers who added the ninth sphere.

On the other hand Dante quotes twice quite correctly from the Tetrabiblios, which was more widely known.94 He may, therefore, possibly have read it, and he alludes to it in the Convivio, though by a curious slip he does not give its name, thinking he has done so already: “Tolommeo dice nello allegato libro....”95 This is in the fourteenth chapter of the second treatise, but so far from having just quoted any special work by Ptolemy he has said nothing at all about him since the third chapter, and then it was only his opinion and name that were mentioned. I have not been able to trace the quotation given in the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra (xxi. 29-31), where Ptolemy is said to have asserted that things on earth resemble things in heaven, but this probably comes also (or was supposed to come), from the “judicial astronomy” of the Tetrabiblios. It is not taken from the Almagest.

The elements of Ptolemy’s system, however, could be learned indirectly, and it seems that Dante had recourse to the excellent epitome of the Arab astronomer Alfraganus. It is true that his name is only mentioned once, and his book once; but nearly all Dante’s astronomical data appear to have been taken from him, and his very expressions are sometimes repeated.

One of the most striking examples of borrowing from the Elementa Astronomica of Alfraganus occurs in the Paradiso, where Dante likens twenty-four spirits to as many brilliant stars.96 He makes up the number by taking fifteen specially bright stars from different parts of the sky, and adding to them the stars of Ursa Major and two stars of Ursa Minor. The seven chief stars of Ursa Major are well known, but Beta and Gamma Ursæ Minoris are not conspicuous nor specially familiar; and why, if he takes fifteen unnamed, should he name any of the twenty-four? Turning to chapter 19 of Alfraganus’ book, we find that he follows Ptolemy in enumerating fifteen first-magnitude stars in different parts of the sky, and then he gives as examples of the second magnitude (i.e. next in brightness) Benet Naax and Alfarcatein, Arab constellations which correspond with the tail of Ursa Major, and Beta and Gamma of Ursa Minor.

There is no reason to suppose that Dante knew Arabic, but there were several versions of Alfraganus in Latin, and it is even possible to determine with some certainty which of them he used. Speaking of the movements of the planet Venus, he says that they may be found, summarized from the best demonstrations of the astrologers, in the Book of the Collection of the Stars:—

“Li quali, secondochè nel Libro dell’ Aggregazione
delle Stelle epilogato si trova, dalla migliore dimostrazione
degli astrologi....”

(Conv. II. vi. 133-136).

Although the usual name for the book of Alfraganus in Latin was Elementa Astronomica, the version for which mediæval students were indebted to the indefatigable translator Gerard of Cremona bears in the MSS. the title Alfragani liber de aggregationibus Scientiæ Stellarum et de principiis cœlestium motuum. It is this book, therefore, that Dante means, though he has translated the title somewhat inaccurately.97

There were several other books known to Dante from which he must have gleaned information about Ptolemy’s system, but Alfraganus we may regard as his standard reference book. Many versions of Alfraganus are still extant, and it is pleasant to feel that we can hold in our own hands Dante’s text-book on astronomy. The best known is the printed edition of Golius, published in Amsterdam in 1669: it is in both Latin and Arabic, and opening in the middle we may turn the pages backwards to see the beautiful Arabic letters of Alfraganus’ own language, which is written from right to left, or forwards to look at the Latin in which he became known to Dante.

Next in importance to Alfraganus among Dante’s authorities on astronomy was Aristotle. We have seen how overwhelming his authority became in natural science in the second half of the thirteenth century, and how for some time scholars failed to distinguish between the system of spheres devised by Eudoxus, which was the scheme upheld by Aristotle, and the epicycles and eccentrics of Ptolemy. Among all Aristotle’s admirers none was more devoted than Dante: for him Aristotle is not only “Il Filosofo,” the Philosopher par excellence, as he was generally called in that age; he is “quello glorioso filosofo al quale la Natura più aperse li suoi segreti,” his intellect was “quasi divino,” and his words are of “somma e altissima autoritade.”98 Throughout Dante’s own writings his references to Aristotle are so frequent that Dr. Moore observes: “The amount and variety of Dante’s knowledge of the contents of the various works of Aristotle is nothing less than astonishing.”99

He does not, however, consider Aristotle infallible as regards the details of astronomy, for in these the philosopher was only following the observers and mathematicians;100 but in all matters which depend upon first principles, in which Dante would include the form of the earth, Aristotle’s authority may not be called in question.101 In cosmical physics, such as the doctrine of the four elements, and in meteorology, Dante follows “il mio Maestro”102 implicitly, and it is also largely from the De Cælo that he gained his knowledge of early Greek speculations regarding the universe.

Dante knew little more of Greek than of Arabic. His occasional use of Greek words is enough to prove this—for example when he discusses the Pythagorean theory of “Antictona,” using the accusative as if it were a nominative.103 In several passages he implies that the language was not known to him, and he distinctly states that he used translations of Aristotle’s works. Here again we are able to identify the versions he used. In Conv. II. xv. 59-73 he complains that it is impossible to know what Aristotle believed about the Milky Way, because in the “old translation” he is made to say one thing, and in the “new translation” quite another. From his quotations of these two conflicting opinions, we are able to deduce that the “old translation” was that which Michael Scot made from the Arabic, and the “new translation” that of Aquinas, which was made direct from the Greek.

He had access, therefore, to more than one Latin translation of Aristotle; and beside this, his quotations seem to have been often taken from commentators and compilers of his own times, especially Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. This was frequently the case with the Meteorologica of Aristotle, for the De Meteoris of Albertus Magnus seems to have been much used by Dante in place of Aristotle’s own work. Dante quotes it by name as Meteora in Conv. II. xiv. 169, and also in Conv. IV. xxiii. 125-126, where he mentions “Alberto” as the author.

These two, then, the Arab Alfraganus and the Greek Aristotle, were Dante’s chief authorities in astronomy, both in Latin translations.

Besides these, there is evidence in his writings that he was familiar with several classical authors who treated of astronomy. He quotes frequently from many of Cicero’s works, and we find echoes, in two passages, of the Dream of Scipio,104 which he is almost certain to have read, since it was a favourite book in his time. There are several references to Seneca, but the only time that an astronomical phenomenon recorded by him is mentioned 105 Dante is evidently quoting at second-hand from Albertus Magnus. With all the works of Virgil, and with the Metamorphoses of Ovid (from which he took his astronomical myths)106 he was evidently very familiar; and Lucan is one of his authorities for the position of the earth’s equator. In this case the name of the author and the number of the book are precisely stated.107

Dante had a great reverence for Plato, whom he calls “uomo eccellentissimo,”108 and of whom he repeats the mediæval legend that he was a prince who gave up all for the sake of acquiring wisdom.109 Of his writings he only knew the Timaeus, probably the Latin translation and commentary of Chalcidius, which was widely known. Or he may have been acquainted with Aquinas’ commentary, which has since been lost. He also knew something of Plato’s teachings through Aristotle and Cicero, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas, and perhaps St. Augustine. When he feels obliged to dissent from the great philosopher’s doctrine that the souls of men come from the stars, he does so with reluctance and great gentleness.110

Among other Greek philosophers who speculated on astronomy, Dante mentions Thales 111 and Pythagoras. The date when the latter flourished he takes (he tells us) from Livy, and his theory that the Universe is governed by the principle of number from Aristotle’s first book of Metaphysics. The astronomical theories of his school are also doubtless taken from Aristotle. Dante tells the story of Pythagoras that he was the first man to be called “philosopher,” because when asked if he considered himself a wise man, he replied, “No, but only a lover of wisdom.”112 Dionysius the Academician and Socrates are referred to for their opinions on the influence of the stars upon human souls;113 and Anaxagoras and Democritus for their galactic theories,114 which Dante obtained from Albertus Magnus.

Except for Alfraganus, Dante refers but seldom to Arab astronomers. He does not seem to have known Albategnius. The De Substantia Orbis of Averroës is quoted in the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra,115 and it is possible that from this book Dante derived a theory about the moon which he expounds in the Convivio. He quotes Alpetragius on circular existence (dependent on the spheres),116 Avicenna on the Galaxy, and again with Algazel on the influence of the spheres,117 and Albumassar on meteors.118 The quotation from the latter, however, is second-hand from Albertus Magnus, and is a mistake, for the passage is not to be found in that astronomer’s works. He was born in Turkestan, in 805.

We may here remind our readers that the three Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan, were among the world’s five greatest poets met by Dante in Limbo; that next to Aristotle among the philosophers stood Socrates and Plato, and near these were Democritus, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Cicero and Seneca, Ptolemy, Avicenna and Averroës.119

Among Christian writers, Dante may have gathered some information about ancient Greek speculations from St. Augustine and Peter Lombard; and Orosius, the Spanish friend of Augustine, was his chief authority for that geographical system which, in connection with astronomy, plays an important part in the time-indications of the Divina Commedia. Orosius had a great reputation among geographers and map-makers. He had travelled much between Spain, Africa, and Palestine, and he devotes a chapter to describing the different parts of the earth in his history Adversus Paganos, which he wrote to prove that Christianity had not injured but benefitted the countries in which it had been accepted. This fifth century geography seems to have been largely based on the first-century geography of Strabo, who quotes Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and Hipparchus among his authorities. Orosius states that the land is entirely surrounded by Ocean, and is divided into three continents—Asia, with the mouths of Ganges in the middle of its eastern coast, Europe stretching vaguely very far to the north-east, and Africa a narrow and long strip from east to west between the Mediterranean and the southern ocean. This chapter is quoted in De Mon. II. iii. 87-90 and Qu. xix. 43; and Orosius is almost certainly “quell’ avocato dei tempi cristiani,”120 seen by Dante among the learned doctors in the Heaven of the Sun.

The speaker who points him out in these words also mentions his own name and that of the spirit nearest to him:—

“Questi che m’è a destro più vicino
Frate e maestro fummi, ed esso Alberto
È di Cologna, ed io Thomas d’Aquino.”121

These two, so near in heaven, had been close companions on earth. The youthful Thomas, son of Count d’Aquino in southern Italy, after six years’ study at the University of Naples joined the Dominican Order, and went to Cologne to learn from Albert, who was also of noble family but born in Suabia on the Danube. Together they went to Paris, together returned to Cologne, but after six more years there their paths separated: Albert rose to be Bishop of Ratisbon; Aquinas, after lecturing in Paris, Rome, and Bologna, became a professor at Naples, and died in Italy in 1274. His master survived him by six years, dying at Cologne at the advanced age of eighty-seven in 1280.122

These two are in the foremost rank among authors of his own time who influenced Dante. He quotes both writers and several of their books by name,123 and though he never mentions it he was very familiar with the Summa Theologica of Aquinas. To the works of these famous authors he was frequently indebted for astronomical facts, theories, and history, as already noted. Besides this, his reverence for Aristotle, his belief in the essential harmony between religion and science, and his whole attitude towards knowledge, are greatly due to the influence of St. Thomas and his “brother and master,” Albert of Cologne.

There are also three of Dante’s own fellow-countrymen and contemporaries whose books he is most likely to have read, although he does not mention them:—Brunetto Latini the Florentine, Cecco d’ Ascoli, professor at Bologna, and Ristoro the monk of Arezzo.

Brunetto Latini is only mentioned once in Dante’s works, besides the passage in the Inferno already referred to. In the De Vulgari Eloquentia Brunetus Florentinus is mentioned with admiration as a distinguished man of letters, but blamed with other Tuscans for writing in his own local dialect.124 Brunetto, who was born in Florence about 1210, was sent on an embassy in 1260 to Alfonso X. of Castile, the learned king under whose guidance the famous astronomical Tables had been drawn up. But on his way back to Florence he was met by the news that the Florentine Guelphs had been defeated at the disastrous battle of Montaperti,125 and expelled from Florence; and as he belonged to this party he took refuge in France, first at Montpellier and afterwards in Paris. When the Guelphs had regained the ascendancy through their victory at Benevento in 1266 (where Manfred lost his life),126 Brunetto returned to Florence, and his name subsequently appears in no less than thirty-five public documents as having been consulted by the government of his native city on various important matters. For the most part, moreover, it is recorded that his advice was followed. He died at a venerable old age in Florence in 1294, and was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

It was while exiled in France that Brunetto wrote the Italian poem Il Tesoretto, in which he represents himself as a pilgrim on an allegorical journey; and from this Dante perhaps derived some suggestions for his Vision. The poem is incomplete, and breaks off at a tantalizing point, for Brunetto has just met Ptolemy on Mount Olympus, and has put a question to him: Ptolemy “rispose in questa guisa”127—and here the poem ends!

In France also he wrote Li Louvres dou Trésor, a great compendium of learning, in French prose. The first part treats of the Creation and Biblical history, and of the natural sciences; the second of ethics, rhetoric, and politics. In the section on astronomy which is included in the first part, Brunetto gives a very brief account of Ptolemy’s system, and the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies as estimated by the Arabs: it seems to be based chiefly on Alfraganus. But beside the periods of the planets he adds in each case their astrological properties, as for instance:—

“Saturnus, qui est le souverain sor tous, est cruex et felons et de froide nature... Jupiter... ast dous et piteus et plains de biens.... Mars et chaus et bataillereus, et mauvais, et est apelez Diex de batailles.”128

When speaking of the two principal movements of the skies, he quotes a curious old idea which had been mentioned by Isidore of Seville, that they are in contrary directions because the tremendous speed of the diurnal motion would shake the whole universe to pieces if it were not that the seven planets go as it were to meet it, and soften its vehemence:—

“Li firmamenz court de orient en occident entre jor et nuit une fois, si roidement et si fort que sa pesanteur et so grandor la feroient tout tressaillir, se ne fussent les VII. planetes qui vont aussi comme a l’encontre dou firmament, et atemprent son cours selonc son erre.”129

The Acerba of Cecco d’Ascoli was another encyclopædic work, but in Italian verse. It was very much the fashion in those days to undertake a compilation of all kinds of knowledge, and this was doubtless very useful when few books could be owned by any single reader. Cecco had a considerable knowledge of natural science, and astrology was of great importance in his eyes. Though Dante never mentions him or his work, he can hardly have been ignorant of it, especially as he himself is mentioned in it.

Nor does he mention Ristoro of Arezzo, yet we find many ideas and expressions in Dante’s writings which are also in the Composizione del Mondo. Even if he did not borrow from it, the book is worth study by anyone interested in the popular astronomy of the thirteenth century. We learn from the author that he wrote his book in Arezzo, finishing it in the year 1282, that is about thirty years before Dante’s Convivio appeared. The opening words run:—

“Incominiciasi il libro della Composizione del Mondo colle sue cagioni: composto da Ristoro di Arezzo in quella nobilissima città... etc.”130

and the closing words are:—

“Compiuto e questo libro sotto li anni di Cristo nel mille dugento ottantadue. Ridolfo imperadore aletto. Martino quarto papa residente. Amen.”131

We learn further that he was a monk and a native of Arezzo in an interesting passage where he describes a total eclipse of the sun seen by himself from his monastery: the sky was very clear, and it must have been a specially dark eclipse, for besides Mercury he saw many stars; totality lasted for as long as a man could easily walk 250 steps; there was a feeling of chill, and birds and wild animals were so frightened that they allowed themselves to be caught. Fra Ristoro made a calculation and found that on that day sun and moon were in the same position in the sky. It was perhaps this event which induced him to study astronomy.

The extent and depth of Ristoro’s reading evidently bore no comparison to Dante’s, but he was able to sit writing in his quiet cell, day after day, and had such books as he wanted at hand. The monastery seems to have been furnished with astronomical tables, a celestial globe, and the books of Alfraganus and other Arab writers. All these he had studied, and he was something of an observer too. Alfraganus must have been always at his elbow when writing, for he turns to it constantly, quoting (unlike Dante) the chapter referred to:—

“Alfragano pose nell’ ottavo capitolo;” “è testimonio l’Alfragano nelli venti e due capitoli del suo libro;”132

one chapter is avowedly taken whole from Alfraganus, and where the opinions of “il grande Tolommeo”133 are quoted they are evidently copied from the same source. Other Arab writers are quoted once or twice, for instance, Albumassar,

“il quale fu altissimo maestro d’astrologia,”134

and several lines are copied from a Latin translation of Algazel,135 giving some astrological jargon about the twelve zodiacal signs.

We have already quoted from Ristoro’s preface, showing the high opinion he held of astronomy. But it is disappointing to find that the greatest part of his book is devoted to the “cagioni,” that is, to purely fanciful “reasons,” for all the facts and fallacies concerning nature which he has here brought together.

He gravely argues about the constellation figures as if they were real pictures of animals and things pricked out by nature in stars on the vault of heaven, and not a human convention. He notes their paucity in the southern hemisphere, and that nearly all have their heads towards the north, and from this he draws the conclusion that the northern part of the sky is the nobler, for we can see it is the upper side, just as we know the top side of a book by the position of its letters.

It is for this reason, he thinks, that only the northern hemisphere of the earth contains land and is inhabited. Some, especially the great Averroës, had indeed held that there is inhabited land south of the equator, because the sun goes there. But this is because his movements of recession and approach are necessary to produce the seasons, and hence the growth of plant life, in the north. The constellations are upside down for the south, so they can have no effect there, therefore, there are no animals there (since every race of animals is under the protection of a constellation); therefore no plants, since they exist for animals, and therefore, Ristoro concludes his chain of argument triumphantly, there are no men, and no lands, for land without life would be useless.

Ristoro reproduces Alfraganus’ description of the sun’s movements as seen in different latitudes, quotes him as saying that the equatoral regions are inhabited, and Avicenna that the temperature there is equable because days and nights are always equal. The city Arym which is exactly on the equator has a perfect climate, and as it has two summers and two winters there are two harvests; moreover, all the stars in the sky are visible at the equator; therefore, the best astronomers, and the wisest and richest men, ought to live there, says Ristoro. When writing thus, he seems to have had before him one of the “climate maps” which were common in Europe in the eleventh and following centuries, having been introduced by Arab cartographers, who adopted the idea from Greek maps. For he goes on to point out that the first “climate” is much the longest, and that the others diminish gradually towards the pole, all the “terra scoperta”136 being thus contained in one quarter of the earth, and having the shape of the moon when we see it half full.137

The accompanying climate map shows all these features, the famous city Arym—occupying nearly half the space, although it is supposed to be merely on the equator—the seven climates, and the region beyond the seventh, near the north pole, marked as uninhabitable through the cold. The half-moon shape of Earth’s habitable quarter is obvious. The map betrays Arab influence in the orientation, the south being at the top; and Arym, or Aren, was an Arab myth, perhaps derived from the Mount Meru of the Hindus, which is said in the Vedas to be “in the middle of the earth.”

According to Ristoro, the positions of the constellation figures do not only explain why one hemisphere of earth has land and the other none; they also explain the movements of the skies. For the figures of the zodiac face west (those that have faces), and this is why the diurnal movement of the whole heaven is towards the west, so that the constellations may move straightforward, in the natural way. On the other hand, the planets move in the opposite direction because it would not be seemly for them to pass each figure of the zodiac arriving first at the back and moving on to the head. This is the true reason of the contrary direction of the two principal celestial movements. Ristoro does not approve of the solution quoted by Brunetto Latini. He adds that the width of the zodiac was designed to contain the figures of the animals!

After this, we are not surprised to hear that the red colour of the planet Mars is the cause of its martial nature (not the reason for which such a nature is attributed to it). The markings on the moon Ristoro explains by saying that some body must exist in the World which is neither polished and shining all over, like the stars, nor altogether rugged and dark, as the earth was supposed to be, but partaking of both natures; and this body must be the moon, because of her intermediate position between the earth and the nearest of the other planets (Mercury).

Of the influence of the heavens on the earth Ristoro has very much to say, from general statements such as that the spheres impress their influence on things of Earth, just as a seal impresses wax, down to details about the births of horses. If the moon is strong in Aries, and Aries is powerful, then, because the moon signifies white among the colours and Aries signifies the head, the horse will be born with a white mark on its head, and if the influence is very strong it will be a beautifully-shaped mark. Again and again he tells us about the various properties and “virtues” of the seven planets, but he does not omit to mention that the powers which move the planets and cause them to influence Earth are spirits, which we call Angels, and the philosophers call Intelligences. These have their several dwelling-places in the spheres, and the nobler their nature the higher is the sphere which they inhabit.

From these quotations the reader may judge of the general trend of the eight books comprised in La Composizione del Mondo colle sue Cagioni: we shall have occasion to refer to it again, by way of comparison and contrast, when dealing with Dante’s works in detail.

It is rather curious that there is no trace in Dante’s writings of acquaintance with the great Roger Bacon, or with Sacrobosco, especially as Brunetto Latini knew the former personally, and Cecco d’Ascoli wrote a commentary on the latter, but Dante may have known them, and also the works of Isidore and Bede, who are both mentioned in Par., x. 131, as well as other books which are now completely lost. Those we have described above would, however, be enough to supply him with all the astronomical data, except one, which we find in his writings. It is now time to examine these, and see what use he made in literature of the knowledge he possessed.

IV — Astronomy in Dante’s Writings

If we except the seven Penitential Psalms and the Profession of Faith, which are only paraphrases, and are very doubtfully ascribed to Dante, no work of his can be mentioned which does not contain some reference to the heavenly bodies.

When writing the Vita Nuova, that story of his love for Beatrice which he calls the work of his boyhood,138 he was haunted by the sublime idea of the rolling spheres. Beatrice at her first appearance as a little girl of eight, and Beatrice when she died, suggested thoughts of the nine heavens;139 almost the first words of the book allude to the circling spheres of the sun and of the stars:140 and the last sonnet soars beyond them all to the Empyrean.141 Already he seems to have read Alfraganus, for he takes a suggestion which occurs in the first chapter of the Elementa Astronomica et Chronologica. Alfraganus there describes the different methods of reckoning days, months, and years, in use among different nations, and gives a special list of the Syrian months with their corresponding Roman months; and Dante, by using the Arabian system of days and the Syrian months, is able to prove to himself that the day and the month when Beatrice died were both at the sacred number of nine.142 According to our method of reckoning, the time was sunset on the eighth of June, but this was the first hour of the ninth day according to Arabian usage, and our sixth month corresponds with the ninth of the Syrians.

Dante had also read at this time Aristotle’s doctrines about the spheres and their Movers, for he quotes from the Metaphysics,143 and this is the work in which they are found.

Yet a familiarity with Alfraganus and Aristotle so early as this is hardly consistent with the difficulty he says he found in understanding Latin books of philosophy some time after the death of Beatrice.144 Perhaps the latter part of the Vita Nuova was written a good deal later; or it may be not altogether frivolous to suggest that in his youth Dante had read the first chapters of Alfraganus, which are easy, but did not master the rest of the book till later.

Out of his fifty-three short poems (including all in Moore’s Oxford Edition, except those which form part of the Vita Nuova or Convivio), twelve, or nearly a quarter, contain some reference to sun, moon, or stars, planets, or spheres; and from these alone we could form some idea of Dante’s acquaintance with astronomy. He speaks of the sun as measuring time,145 and giving light to the stars 146 (according to the general belief); the moon 147 and each of the planets 148 is mentioned, some of the constellations also,149 especially with reference to the seasons; the theory of the several heavens and their First Mover,150 and the supposed influences of the stars and planets are alluded to.151 These poems were written at different times, and some belong to a much later period than the Vita Nuova.

It is when we come to examine the Convivio, the work of his manhood,152 that we find the clearest evidence of Dante’s careful study of astronomy. This book was written with the professed intention (as one of its aims) of sharing with others the learning he had been happy enough to acquire—not indeed as one of the guests at the Table of Wisdom, but as one sitting at their feet and gathering up the crumbs.153 The thread which connects his discourse is a collection of his own Odes, on each of which he had intended to write a treatise or commentary, but the book never advanced beyond the fourth treatise. These Odes were nearly all love-poems, but the poet explains that they are a figurative expression of his devotion to Philosophy, and the whole book is a glorification of the pursuit of knowledge. In the opening sentences, with the reference to Aristotle, the manner of reasoning, the assumptions of our innate desire for absolute knowledge and the bliss brought by its attainment, Dante is the spokesman of his period.

“Siccome dice il Filosofo nel principio della Prima Filosofia, Tutti gli uomini naturalmente desideranno di sapere: La ragione di che puote essere, che ciascuna cosa, da providenza di propria natura impinta, è inclinabile alla sua perfezione. Onde, acciochè la scienza è l’ultima perfezione della nostra anima, nella quale sta la nostra ultima felicità, tutti naturalmente al suo desiderio siamo soggetti.”154

And from a study of the Convivio we may learn much of the authors most esteemed, the methods of study pursued, and the results obtained, by thirteenth-century scholars seeking to gain the ultimate perfection of the soul.

Astronomy is frequently introduced, especially in the second and third treatises. The Ode which forms the text of the second treatise is that which is quoted by Charles of Hungary in Par. viii. 37—“Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete,”155 and it gives Dante the occasion to speak first of the heaven of Venus, explaining Ptolemy’s system of epicycles, and later of all the heavens in their order, and the celestial bodies contained in them. The ode of the third treatise contains the line “Non vede il Sol, che tutto il mondo gira...”156 and upon this he hangs a complete little essay describing the movements of the sun, and how they appear from different parts of the earth, as well as a short dissertation on the question whether it is Sun or Earth which actually moves.

The Latin works, De Monarchia, De Vulgari Eloquentia, the Eclogues, and the Letters, do not give much scope for astronomical references; yet there are many similes drawn especially from the sun and moon, and the thought of the spheres as instruments of God’s Will in bringing about events on earth is constantly recurring. In the curious work Quæstio de Aqua et Terra, Dante argues learnedly about the spheres, the orbit of the moon, and her effect on the tides, and the influences of the stars. The book purports to have been written at Verona in 1320 as the outcome of a discussion in which Dante had taken part as to the respective heights of land and ocean, a problem which had been dealt with by Ristoro d’ Arezzo some forty years earlier. Its authenticity has been questioned, partly under the mistaken idea that facts such as gravity, the spherical form of Earth, and the connection of tides with the moon were not known until much later; but as a matter of fact the discussion is quite in the manner of Dante’s day, and no facts or theories are put forward which he could not have learned from books with which we believe he was acquainted.157 The internal evidence of his authorship is strong, and belief in it seems to be gaining ground among experts.158

Finally, the Divine Comedy, the work of Dante’s maturity, which took him so many years to write, and for which he had studied ever since he closed the Vita Nuova with the resolve to write more worthily one day of Beatrice,159 focuses in one unique and finished work the thoughts and ideals, the knowledge and fancies, of the poet and his age. The subject of the poem, taken in its literal sense, is cosmical, for it describes a journey in which the author penetrates to the centre of the universe, and passes from planet to planet until he reaches the outermost sphere. Moreover, the journey is assumed to take a definite space of time, and the passing of the hours by day and by night is indicated by the successive positions of sun or stars, and the phases and movements of the moon. The Divine Comedy contains more than twice as many allusions to the heavenly bodies as all the other works of Dante put together.

But we must discriminate in drawing conclusions from these astronomical references so freely distributed in all Dante’s writings. If he wrote the Quæstio, it is his only professedly scientific work, written for scientific men, and astronomy is only brought in incidentally. The Convivio, in which astronomical facts and theories are set forth in much greater detail and fulness than elsewhere, was a popular work meant for those who had no inclination, or else no opportunity, for prolonged serious studies. We expect, therefore, that technical details will be avoided. Still more will they be omitted in the Divine Comedy and other poetical works, where difficult problems and pedantical accuracy would be most unsuitable. We can infer the knowledge which lay in Dante’s mind, behind his popular use of it in literature; and we can often find an explanation in the prose of the Convivio for a slight allusion in the poetical works; but we must not deal with any as if they were text-books, and set forth precisely and completely all that Dante knew of his favourite science. It is the poet’s artistic use of the astronomy of his day which merits our admiration quite as much as the scholar’s proficiency.

This being premised, we may now proceed to quote from his works, showing how he has dealt with first the facts, and secondly the theories, of astronomy. Finally we shall be able to form a clear mental picture of the universe as it was believed to exist by Dante, and not only by his contemporaries but by his successors for many generations.

V — Observational Astronomy

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.”

1. Movements of the Moon

Of all the seven sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, Astronomy, Dante thought, was the noblest, and for two reasons. Aristotle had said that a science is noble in proportion to the nobility of its subject, and the certainty of its conclusions; and in both of these Astronomy excels. Its subject is the Movement of the Heavens, and its certainty is perfect. “E nobile e alta per nobile e alto suggetto, ch’è del movimento del cielo: è alta e nobile per la sua certezza, la quale è senza ogni difetto.”160 If astronomers are sometimes mistaken, the fault lies in them, as Ptolemy said, and not in the science.

This quotation from Ptolemy is from his book on “judicial astronomy,”161 and it may be that Dante was partly thinking of astrological predictions, as he almost certainly was in the passage that follows, where he adds that astronomy takes a long time to learn, not only because of its great range, but because experience is necessary to form a correct judgment. Nevertheless, it is probable that by its flawless certainty he meant that unchanging laws govern the celestial phenomena, so that they may always be predicted without error when the laws are known.

His definition of astronomy was accurate, for it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that physical astronomy began to take its place beside the old “astronomy of position,” and in Dante’s day practically the only subject open to research concerning the heavenly bodies was their movements. Of these, and especially the “prime motion” of the diurnal revolution, he was vividly conscious. His favourite name for the heavens is “wheels”—“le ruote magne,” “eterne ruote,” “stellate ruote”;162 and he often refers to them as a standard of motion. Thus when with Beatrice he was rapt from the summit of Mount Purgatory, to express the swiftness of their flight he says it was almost as rapid as the movement of the sky—“veloci, quasi come il ciel vedete.”163 Constantine moving the capital of the Roman Empire eastwards is described as turning the Roman Eagle contrary to the course of the sky—“contra il corso del ciel,”164 and the sky itself is described as a sphere which is ceaselessly at play like a lively child:—

... “la spera,
Che sempre a guisa di fanciullo scherza.”165

To Dante, as to the Greeks, it is not the unusual or startling that appeals, but the unfailing harmony of the regular celestial movements. Comets he mentions only twice, and shooting stars twice, eclipses seven times; but there are scores of allusions to the rhythmical progression of Sun and stars, Moon and planets. The skies were familiar to him in all their daily aspects—sunset and dawn and radiant noons; cloudy nights “sotto pover cielo,”166 brilliant starlit nights, nights of clear moonlight. He had seen the stars fade one by one, till at last even the brightest vanished in the glow of dawn:—

“E come vien la chiarissima ancella
Del sol più oltre, così il ciel sì chiude
Di vista in vista, infino alla più bella.”167

he had watched for their first appearance in the evening twilight:—

“E sì come al salir di prima sera
Comincian per lo ciel nuove parvenze,
Sì che la vista pare e non par vera....”168

Numberless other passages and expressions will occur to every Dante reader, proving how keenly he felt the beauty of the skies.

But they prove more than this. Other authors have felt and have described poetically the beauties of the skies, but they often remember imperfectly what they saw, or draw upon their imagination without any knowledge of the celestial movements, and so fall into absurd mistakes. The moon especially is a stumbling-block, and it is quite a rare thing for a modern novelist to introduce one without making it do something impossible. A new moon will rise at midnight, or a waning moon at sunset; she has even been known to rise and then to set in the dark hours of one short midsummer night;169 and a well known author sees her in two phases at the same moment: “the full moon rose, yellow and gibbous!”170

Dante’s moon does indeed give us a little trouble once or twice, but he never makes flagrant mistakes of this kind. His consistency and truth of description prove his knowledge of astronomy, and also imply intelligent thoughtful watching of the celestial movements; for it is notorious that book-knowledge, if unassisted by acquaintance at first-hand with the facts of a subject like astronomy, will not save a writer from glaring inaccuracies.

His allusions to the motions of the moon, both diurnal and monthly, show plainly that he understood them well. His new moon appears in the evening, his waning moon rises late at night and sets in morning sunshine,171 and his full moon comes on the meridian at midnight, for when he wishes to describe her at her brightest, as a comparison with a very brilliant light, he places her in a clear sky at midnight in her mid-month.172 In the middle of a lunar month the moon is full, and being exactly opposite the sun will reach the meridian at midnight: this therefore is the time when she gives all the light she possibly can. In the Quæstio173 Dante mentions that the moon does not move in the celestial equator, but sometimes north of it, and sometimes an equal amount south; in the Convivio he indicates the length of her period, and briefly describes her phases and their cause—“Ora luce da un lato, e ora luce dall’ altro, secondo che ’l sole la vede.”174

Her position in the zodiac is mentioned several times. In one passage he indicates a very brief space of time in the following curious way:—

“Quando ambo e due i figli di Latona,
    Coperti del Montone e della Libra,
    Fanno dell’ orizzonte insieme zona,
Quant’ è dal punto che il zenit inlibra.
    Infin che l’uno e l’altro da quel cinto,
    Cambiando l’emisperio, si dilibra,
Tanto, col volto di riso dipinto,
    Si tacque Beatrice.”175

That is to say, when Sun and Moon (the children of Latona) are both on the horizon, but one being in Aries and the other in Libra they are opposite one another, the zenith for a moment holds them, as it were, in balance; but the next moment one will drop below the horizon while the other rises above it, thus changing from the visible to the invisible hemisphere and vice versa, as each frees itself (“si dilibra”) of the common horizon that girdled them. The pause of Beatrice was as brief as the time during which sun and moon would thus hang in the balance.

Yet, though Dante shows that he was familiar with the movements and appearances of the moon, his allusions to her are cold and comparatively rare. Unlike modern poets, moonlight does not seem to have had any great fascination for him. In all his works there are only fifty-one references to the moon, and far the greater number of these are remarks about the measurement of time, or else her phases, her markings, her share in causing eclipses etc. In all his short poems (including those of the Vita Nuova and Convivio) there are but two references, and those as dry as possible. “Più lune”176 is once used, meaning several months, and in a sonnet which describes the influences of each heaven on his lady, all he can find to say of the moon’s is “E ’l primo ciel di sè già non l’è duro.”177

The chill of moonlight is spoken of as with a shudder on the hill of Purgatory;178 and its usefulness is recognized rather grudgingly when Virgil remarks that yesternight the moon was full, and adds that Dante must remember it, since it did him no harm in the depths of the Forest.179 It is true there is some beauty in the description of the aurora which preceded moonrise 180 on the first night in Purgatory, but Dante gives it an ugly name, and the waning moon when seen on the following night, four days after full, is oddly compared to a bucket in shape. Dante did not admire this gibbous form, for he instances the outline of the moon when not quite full as an ignoble curve, contrasting it with the beauty of a perfect circle.181

Hardly ever does he find a beautiful epithet for her: she is ruler of Hell,182 Cain and the Thorns 183 (in reference to the legend which sees this figure in her dark markings); or she is simply Delia,184 Trivia,185 the daughter of Latona,186 or with a little warmth the sister of the sun,187 and with the sun one of the two Eyes of Heaven.188 One exception to this harsh treatment is in the beautiful description of reaching the heaven of the moon,189 for there she is the first star, the eternal pearl; and the sudden burst of eloquence in the midst of a grave argument in De Monarchia startles us doubly when we find that Justice is compared to the moon—not, as one might expect, resplendent in a dark sky, but Phœbe gazing at her brother opposite, in the purple of the morning calm.190 The passage from Par. xxix. quoted above helps us to understand why the moon in this position should symbolize Justice, for here again is suggested the perfect balancing of the two great orbs, as the sun rises and the full moon sets.

Add to these passages two similes drawn not indeed from the moon itself but from the halo surrounding her,191 and two descriptions of brilliant moonlight nights,192 and we have all that Dante has written in praise of the moon. It is true that throughout the Inferno and Purgatorio the sun typifies Divine Grace, and the moon is his opposite, but this cannot altogether explain the difference in their treatment, even in the Divine Comedy. A deeper reason seems to be Dante’s true southerner’s love of the sun; and he doubtless had the astronomer’s feeling that moonlight always means loss of starlight, which he dearly loved (see Purg. xviii. 76, 77). Perhaps too the astrological views of the moon influenced him, consciously or not. According to Ristoro, the moon represents the poorest and lowest classes of people, who are servants and messengers to the rest; and as all the planets were supposed to be either masculine or feminine, he ungallantly adds—“E questa Luna, a cagione di sua viltà, potemo dire per ragione ch’ella sia femmina.”193 Her only house, too, which is Cancer, is also poor and base. The moon, moreover, is nearer Earth than any other planet, and shows by her dark markings that she is less pure than the rest.

2. Movements of the Sun

Whatever the reason, Dante’s fifty-one references to the moon are in strong contrast to his allusions to the sun. These are four times as many, and they include warm expressions of admiration and delight, and beautiful epithets and similes. The sun is Titan with his chariot and horses,194 he is a Mirror, a Car of Light, the Lantern of the World, the Prince of the Stars, the Father of all mortal life.195 His beautiful form is admired, “la perfetta sua bella figura,”196 and his intense brilliance often noted.197 He is the guide that leads all aright,198 to whom Virgil appeals:—

“O dolce Lume, a cui fidanza i’ entro
Per lo nuovo cammin, tu ne conduci.”199

Under his rays the rose expands, the air is gladdened, mists are dispelled, snow melts, and all things are quickened into life.200 Unlike the moon, the sun is the bringer of warmth and comfort, chasing away cold and darkness,201 sunrise is the hour of renewed hope and confidence,202 it strengthens our limbs, paralysed by the cold of night,203 it is eagerly awaited through the darkness by the little bird on her nest;204 and delicate flowers, bowed and closed during the cold night, rise upright on their stems and open as soon as the sun shines once more upon them.205 The exquisite sunsets and sunrises of the Purgatorio are favourite passages with all readers.

Love is compared with the summer sun,206 the generosity of a noble nature resembles “the great planet.”207 The Emperor Henry VII., from whom Dante expected the regeneration of Italy and the whole Christian world, is likened to the rising sun;208 the birth of St. Francis is described as “nacque al mondo un sole,”209 and his birthplace ought rightly to be called not Assisi but Orient.210 Virgil is addressed as “O Sol che sani ogni vista turbata;”211 Beatrice is “Il sol degli occhi miei.”212 Finally the sun is the best symbol of God,213 and so it is used many times in the Divine Comedy: “Il Sol degli angeli,”214 “Il Sol che raggia tutto nostro stuolo;”215 a spirit turns to “il Sol che la riempie,”216 and when Virgil laments that he is shut out of heaven it is in these words: “Ho i’ perduto Di veder l’ alto Sol che tu disiri.”217

But we may not dwell on those thoughts of the sun as the typical giver of light and life; we must ask what Dante says about his movements, since this was the chief subject-matter of mediæval astronomy.

His daily course, “il cammin del Sole,”218 is often spoken of, and is indicated both by his position in the sky, and the length and direction of shadows. The second Eclogue begins with a description of a breathlessly hot midday, when objects, which are usually shorter than their own shadows, now surpassed them in length.

“Resque refulgentes, solitae superarier umbris,
Vincebant umbras.” Ecl. ii. 5, 6.

At this time the sun appears most brilliant, and seems to move most slowly, since he is scarcely changing his position with regard to the horizon.

“E più corrusco, e con più lenti passi,
Teneva il sole il cerchio di merigge.”219

The greatest number of references to the sun’s daily journey occur in the Purgatory, and we shall quote them in a later chapter.

His yearly journey through the zodiac is also very often referred to. When relating his first meeting with Beatrice, Dante names his age, not by simply saying that he was nearly nine years old, but by counting the number of the times that the “heaven of light,” that is, of the sun, had returned to the same point since his birth:—

“Nove fiate già, appresso al mio nascimento, era tornato lo cielo della luce quasi ad un medesimo punto, quanto alla sua proprio girazione.”220

The sun’s “own revolution” is of course its apparent yearly movement, as distinct from the diurnal movement which it shares with all the heavenly bodies.

The same thought is expressed in a sonnet:

“Io sono stato con Amore insieme
Dalla circolazion del Sol mia nona.”221

We know further that Dante was born in either May or June, because he says, when he finds himself among the stars of Gemini, that the sun was rising and setting in this sign at the time of his birth.222

“O gloriose stelle
Con voi nasceva e s’ascondeva vosco
Quegli ch’è padre d’ogni mortal vita,
Quand’ io senti’ da prima l’ aer tosco.”223

Boccaccio tells us that a Mayday feast, given by the father of Beatrice, was the occasion of Dante’s first meeting with her, and also that not long before his death in Ravenna he told a friend that he had completed his fifty-sixth year in the preceding May, so we may conclude that May was the month of his birth.

Dante seems to have taken some trouble to find out the exact period of the sun’s revolution. His text-book, the Elementa of Alfraganus, only gives it as 365¼ days nearly:—“Sol... orbem confecit diebus 365 et propè ¼.” Ristoro d’Arezzo and Brunetto Latini were content to repeat this rough estimate, and call the year 365 days 6 hours, but Dante wished to be more exact, and somehow contrived to obtain a value which was much nearer the modern estimate of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. We know this from two passages. In the Convivio he gives the half period as less than 182 days 15 hours; and in the Paradiso Beatrice says that January will in time cease to be a winter month, because of a neglected fraction of time.

“Prima che gennaio tutto si sverni
Per la centesma ch’ è laggiù negletta.”224

January was in fact receding from the winter, and steadily though slowly advancing towards the spring, because the Julian year (as we saw, p. 171) was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the true solar tropical year. When Julius Cæsar reformed the Calendar, March 25 was made (as of old) to coincide with the spring equinox, but by Dante’s time this date was 13 days late, and the true equinox fell on March 12. Consequently though the day called January 1 still came 84 days before March 25, it was only 71 days before the spring equinox.

If Beatrice meant to speak with scientific precision, and was correct in her hundredth part of a day per annum, that is, if the difference between the astronomical and the Julian year was one day in a hundred years, it would be 7100 years before the first of January came to coincide with the spring equinox, and January became a spring month. But the error quoted is really rather too large, for a hundredth part of a day is 14 minutes 24 seconds, and it was in fact only 11 minutes 14 seconds.

It would be interesting to know where Dante found this value, which is practically the only astronomical datum not given in Alfraganus. Ptolemy, following Hipparchus, had given the tropical year as ¹/₃₀₀ part of a day less than 365¼; Albategnius gave a more accurate figure, and one which agrees well with the “centesma,” for his tropical year differs from the Julian by a little less than ¹/₁₀₆ of a day; but he also improved the value of precession, and Dante does not seem to have known this, so he was probably not acquainted with this astronomer’s work. The Alfonsine Tables gave a value which was very close indeed to the correct one, making the tropical year only 30 seconds longer than the modern value, and the difference between the Julian and true year ¹/₁₃₄ of a day. (The correct value is ¹/₁₂₈). Either of these figures may have been known to Dante indirectly: perhaps he had obtained the Alfonsine value in conversation with Brunetto Latini, who had visited Alfonso’s court. His fraction was evidently only approximate, but it is interesting to know that he had found out more than popular books could tell him about the period of the sun’s revolution, and that he had been sufficiently struck by the small difference between the calendar and astronomical years to mention it in a picturesque way in his poem. It is possible that he had heard of Roger Bacon’s appeal to the Pope in 1267 to correct the calendar because the date of the spring equinox was of importance in connection with the observation of Easter.

It is hardly necessary to remind my readers that this was done by another Pope three hundred years later, before January had made much more advance towards becoming a spring month. The hundredth part of a day, of which Beatrice complained, is now subtracted from the year by omitting to make century years leap years; but as the error was really not quite so great as she said, an exception is made for century years divisible by 400. Thus 1600 was a leap year, but not 1700, 1800, or 1900.

Dante seems to have connected any season of the year with the sun’s path in the zodiac as readily as with the name of a month. The sun’s yearly course through the signs is shown diagrammatically in figure 40, and a glance at this will make clear a number of allusions without any explanation.

Starting from the first point of Aries at the spring equinox, which in Dante’s time fell in the middle of March, and taking one-twelfth of the year to traverse each sign, it is evident that during the end of March and beginning of April the sun was in Aries; he entered Cancer and reached the summer solstice in June, the autumnal equinox in Libra in September, and the winter solstice when he entered Capricornus in December. The six signs above the horizontal line are northern, the six below are southern.

The following are a few typical examples.

When Dante wishes to express the transition of his feelings from despondency to courage, at seeing the stern and troubled face of his guide melt suddenly to a smile, he compares himself to a poor shepherd who wakes early and sees the fields covered, as he thinks, with snow, but in a short time finds that it is only hoar-frost which has put on the semblance of her white sister, and seeing the face of the world changed he gladly leads out his sheep to pasture. The time at which this may happen is

“Quella parte del giovinetto anno,
Che il sole i crin sotto l’Aquario tempra,
E già le notti al mezzodì sen vanno.”225

That part of the youthful year when the sun cools his locks beneath Aquarius is clearly the end of January or beginning of February, but the last line may bear one of two meanings. If we translate “mezzodì” as “half the day” it means that the nights are growing shorter, and very soon (in March) when the sun will have reached the equinox, they will be just twelve hours long. If we take “mezzodì” as meaning “the south,” we must interpret the passage in the light of others in the Divine Comedy where Night is personified, and considered as circling in the zodiac always opposite to the sun. For instance in Purg. ii. 1-6 (a passage which will be more fully explained later) Night is described as circling opposite to the sun, “La notte, che opposita a lui cerchia,”226 and as the sun at that time was in Aries, Night was in Libra, “le Bilance.” Henceforth for six months the sun will be in the northern signs, and the days longer than the nights, but as soon as Night begins to assert her supremacy, and the nights begin to be longer than the days, the sun enters Libra and then it is not visible all night. This is the meaning of

“le Bilance,
Che le caggion di man quando soverchia.”227

When Night becomes dominant, the Scales fall from her hand, for the sun is in that sign.

Applying this idea to the passage quoted above, it will mean “The nights are going southward,” for the sun in Aquarius is not far from the point where he crosses the equator to the north, therefore Night circling opposite to him is nearing the point where she goes south. Either interpretation is faithful to fact, but perhaps the circumstance that the plural noun is used favours the first.

Conrad Malaspina prophesied to Dante that his favourable opinion of the Malaspina family would be justified “before the sun had come to rest again seven times in the bed which the Ram covers and bestrides with his four feet.”

“Ed egli: Or va, che il Sol non si ricorca
Sette volte nel letto che il Montone
Con tutti e quattro i pie copre ed inforca
Che cotesta cortese opinione...”228

The sun was at the time in the Ram, and Malaspina means that less than seven years would elapse, before his prophecy was fulfilled. The aptness of the description may be seen by the figure of Aries as portrayed in an old seventeenth century book in which the Ram is uncomfortably trying to sit on the ecliptic.

Another instance is in the beautiful midwinter Ode, “Io son venuto al punto della rota.”229 Each stanza pictures a feature of a severe winter—snow and rain, the absence of summer birds, bare trees and dead flowers, the favourite walk become a torrent; but the first describes the position of stars and planets. When the sun sets, the Twins appear on the eastern horizon, hence we know at once that the sun is in Sagittarius and the time is November or December. To confirm his melancholy, the poet adds that the Star of Love (Venus) is hidden from us by the sun’s rays which now shine athwart her, and that the planet which strengthens the cold (Saturn, the “frigida stella” of Virgil) displays himself in that arc of the sky in which all the seven planets cast the shortest shadow;230 that is, either he is on the meridian at sunset, or he is in the most northerly part of the zodiac, in Gemini or Cancer. A planet in this place, as for instance the sun at midsummer, is visible longer, describes a longer arc, and casts shorter shadows, than in any other part of the zodiac. And as this is the part which rises over the eastern horizon as the sun sets, Saturn would also rise at that time and remain visible all night.

The opening lines of the Ode run thus:—

“Io son venuto al punto della rota,
Che l’orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca,
Ci parturisce il geminato cielo;
E la stella d’amor ci sta rimota
Per lo raggio lucente, che la ’nforca
Sì di traverso, che le si fa velo;
E quel pianeta che conforta il gelo
Si mostra tutto a noi per lo grand’ arco,
Nel qual ciascun de’ sette fa poca ombra.”231

It is astonishing that Giuliani should so completely miss the point of the “twinned sky,” that he substitutes “ingemmato” for “geminato,” and reads—

“... la rota,
Ch’ all orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca,
Ci parturisce l’ingemmato cielo.”232

He understands the hour of evening to be meant, when the Wheel of Day and Night brings a jewelled, i.e. starry sky on the horizon as the sun sets. But it is not only on the horizon that stars appear at sunset; and the mention of Gemini to indicate the time of year is thoroughly characteristic of Dante. The Wheel is the revolving year which has carried the sun into Sagittarius.

Angelitti remarks that the whole description was literally true for December 1296, since Venus was then in conjunction with the sun, and Saturn in Cancer;233 and as this poem is a complaint of the hardness of his lady, to whom the poet is nevertheless wholly devoted, it may well have been written in that time when the lady Philosophy refused to smile upon her lover.234

Further on in the same poem the effects of the sun in spring, when he is in the sign of Aries, are alluded to as “the virtue of Aries”:—

“Passato hanno lor termine le fronde,
Che trasse fuor la virtù d’Ariete,
Per adornare il mondo, e morta è l’ erba.”235

Contrast with this the passage in the Paradiso where “nocturnal Aries” is used as a synonym for autumn.

“Questa primavera sempiterna
Che notturno Ariete non dispoglia.”236

For although Aries may be seen during some part of the night in the greater part of the year, it is most emphatically a noctural sign when it rises as the sun sets, and remains above the horizon until he rises; this happens when the sun is in the opposite sign of Libra, which he enters at the autumnal equinox.

A rather curious passage in the Paradiso is incomprehensible unless we think of the sun’s path in the zodiac, and realize that Dante is comparing the brightness of the spirit of St. John in an indirect way with the brightness of the sun.

“Poscia tra esse un lume si schiarì,
Sì che, se il Cancro avesse un tal cristallo,
L’inverno avrebbe un mese d’un sol dì.”237

If a light as dazzling as this spirit were to shine forth in Cancer, there would be perpetual day for a whole month in winter. For when the sun entered Capricornus, which he does in December, he would be exactly opposite, so that as one light set the other would rise, and there would be no darkness until the sun passed into another sign.

To many similar instances the diagram (p. 276) will be found to supply a key, and some we shall have occasion to notice presently in another connection.

3. The Stars

If our poet did not love moonlight, there is no doubt that starlight was very dear to him. Never are stars spoken of as cold, or placed in antithesis to the sun. Rather are they classed together, as in the pathetic letter, written when he heard of the possibility that the Florentines might receive him again if he would consent to return as a disgraced but pardoned criminal. If this is the only path to Florence, never will he re-enter the beloved city. “What then?” he cries. “Can he not see the mirrors of the sun and of the stars, wherever he may be? can he not meditate on precious truths under any sky?”238

He describes the Inferno as bereft of stars as well as of sun;239 he hopes to escape those dark abysses to see the beautiful stars again,240 and the terror of the sounds of weeping and crying is heightened indescribably by the simple words:—“risonavan per l’aer senza stelle.”241 When he does at length come forth to see “le cose belle che porta il ciel”242 how eagerly he gazes, not only at Venus, but at the new stars in the south! how his “greedy eyes”243 seek the same region as soon as dusk begins to fall! and how radiantly the stars look down upon him on that last night on the rocky slopes of the Mountain, near the summit!244

This is all allegorical, no doubt, but it is because of Dante’s feeling for the real “belle stelle”245 that he uses them as symbols of truth and holiness, and concludes each Cantica of the Divine Comedy with their name:—

“E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”246
“Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”247
“L’Amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.”248

Here “stelle” has the wider meaning of the French “astres,” for which we have no equivalent in English except the clumsy “heavenly bodies;” but most of Dante’s hundred references are to stars in the more special sense, and often to particular stars or constellations. Over eighty occur in the Divine Comedy.

Stars are jewels, torches, flames, immortal nymphs adorning every region of the sky.249 Heaven is made beautiful by their light, and the joy of the angels is expressed in their shining, as mortal joy shines forth in human eyes.250 If the spirits in the fourth heaven are described as glowing suns,251 the “splendours” that descend upon the golden ladder in the seventh, make Dante think that all the stars in the sky are gathered together there.252

The eyes of Beatrice shone brighter than stars;253 light comes as from many stars in reading the sacred books;254 faith gleams like a star in the sky;255 and truth appears in a mind cleared of falsehood and error like the radiance of stars in a sky which has been wholly swept of cloud and mist by a north wind.

“Come rimane splendido e sereno
    L’emisperio dell’ aer, quando soffia
    Borea da quella guancia ond’ è più leno,
Perchè si purga e risolve la roffia
    Che pria turbava, sì che il ciel ne ride
    Con le bellezze d’ogni sua paroffia:
Così fec’ io, poi che mi provvide
    La Donna mia del suo risponder chiaro,
    E come stella in cielo il ver si vide.”256

Stars, as well as the sun, are used as symbols for the objects of Dante’s deepest reverence; for the Blessed Virgin is called “la viva stella,”257 and the Final Vision in which the redeemed find their ultimate bliss is a Trinal Light seen as a single star:—

“O trina Luce, che in unica stella
Scintillando a lor vista sì gli appaga,
Guarda quaggiù alla nostra procella.”258

The diurnal motion of the stars is referred to many times. As Dante watched the mystical procession in the Earthly Paradise, and saw one group follow in the footsteps of another across the flowers and the grass, he thought of the stately procession of stars which we see here by night, star following star across the sky.259 Their movement marks for him the passage of time, as we see in the first sonnet of the Vita Nuova:—

“Già eran quasi ch’ atterzate l’ ore
Del tempo che ogni stella è piu lucente.”260

and in the Inferno, where Virgil hastens Dante, saying that all the stars are sinking which were rising when he started on his long journey.261

The motion of those stars which neither rise nor set, but are always seen circling round the pole, is clearly described. In the heaven of the sun, spirits gather round Dante and Beatrice, and circle round them, “Come stelle vicine ai fermi poli;”262 and the motion of the stars near the pole is said to be slow, like the part of a wheel which is near the axle.263 We may compare these descriptions with the statement of Alfraganus:—“Eæ stellæ (i.e. the northern circumpolar) vertuntur omnes circa idem punctum. Et quei ex iis puncto huic est vicinior, minorem conficit circulum: motusque ejus appâret lentior.”264 Dante assumes that his readers understand this motion when he describes himself as seeing unknown stars near the South Pole. The Mount of Purgatory is supposed to be situated in the southern hemisphere, and at his first arrival, before dawn, he turns to the right, after looking at Venus in the east, therefore to the south, and sees near the pole four stars so brilliant that the whole sky seems to rejoice in their radiance, and he pities the “widowed” northern hemisphere because they are invisible there.265 In the evening, as soon as it begins to grow dark, although he is engaged in an interesting discourse with a friend with whom he had exchanged warm greetings, he looks eagerly once more towards the pole (note the intensity expressed by the repeated “pure”)—

“Gli occhi miei ghiotti andavan pure al cielo,
Pur là dove le stelle son più tarde,
Sì come rota più presso allo stelo.”266

He now sees three bright stars which make this pole glow with light, and Virgil says that the stars he saw in the morning are low, while those now visible have risen higher to take their place.

“Ed egli a me: Le quattro chiare stelle
Che vedevi staman son di là basse,
E queste son salite ov’ eran quelle.”267

The diurnal movement of the starry heaven is also alluded to in the Convivio, and contrasted with that immensely slow movement which was discovered by Hipparchus, and is called by us Precession. The starry heaven, says Dante, displays one of its poles to us, and keeps the other hidden; and in like manner it displays only one movement to us, and keeps the other almost hidden. By the first, it revolves once in every day from east to west; the other is nearly insensible, being only one degree in a hundred years, and it is from west to east.268 This is the value of precession as given by Alfraganus, following Ptolemy.

It was this stupendous and mysterious cycle which was used by Dante to measure the age of Beatrice, though for his own he used (as we saw) the ordinary measure of the sun’s period. When he first saw “la gloriosa donna”269 she had only been in this life so long that the starry heaven had moved towards the east one-twelfth part of a degree. Therefore, she was one-twelfth of a hundred years old, or 8 years 4 months, “so that it was near the beginning of her ninth year that she appeared to me, and I saw her nearly at the end of my ninth.”270

Dante tells us how many stars had been counted by “the sages of Egypt,” by whom he means Ptolemy and the other Alexandrians: he did not know that the star catalogue of the Almagest was originally made by Hipparchus of Rhodes.

“Dico ch’ il cielo stellato ci mostra molto stelle; chè, secondochè li savi d’Egitto hanno veduto, infino all’ultima stella che appare loro in meridie, mille ventidue corpora di stelle pongono, di cui io parlo.”271

It will be noted that he carefully avoids saying that this is the number of all the stars visible from the whole earth. Had he, like Ristoro, run away with the idea that a blank space on the globe meant a blank in the sky, his night sky seen from Purgatory would have been strangely bare and dull! Yet both writers used the same text-book. Dante is here following Alfraganus closely, for he had written in his nineteenth chapter:—

“Sciendum itaque sapientes inivisse mensuram stellarum fixarum omnium, quoad instrumentis observari eæ potuerunt, extremam usque meridiei partem, in tertio climate ipsis conspicuam.... Stellæ universae quarum agi mensura potuit sunt mille viginti duæ.”272

Both in the Quæstio and the Paradiso Dante notes how stars differ, not only in their brightness or “magnitude,” but also in the quality of their light, by which he probably means their colour:—

“Videmus in eo [sc. cœlum stellatum] differentiam in magnitudine stellarum et in luce.”273

“Lumi, li quali nel quale e nel quanto
Notar si posson di diversi volti.”274

It seems as if it were the beauty and the movement of the starry sky as a whole which appealed to Dante, rather than the distinguishing of special stars and constellations. Those which he mentions are almost all either in the zodiac, and used to denote the hour, the season, or the position of one of the seven planets; or else they are near one of the poles and illustrate the circumpolar motion.

All the zodiacal constellations are mentioned except Virgo and Sagittarius. Besides the ordinary names of “Ariete,” “Libra,” etc., Aries is called “il Montone;”275 Gemini “il segno che segue il Tauro,” “gli eterni Gemelli,” and “il bel nido di Leda,”276 in reference to the mother of Castor and Pollux, its two brightest stars; Libra is “le Bilance”;277 Scorpio “il freddo animale”;278 Capricornus is “il Capra del ciel”;279 and Pisces “la celeste Lasca.”280

In one place Castor and Pollux are mentioned, but merely as a synonym for the whole constellation of Gemini.281 “Il petto del Leone ardente”282 is perhaps Cor Leonis, the Heart of the Lion, for this is the name given to Regulus by both Ptolemy and Alfraganus. The “Maggior Fortuna”283 of Purg. xix. 4, is a group of stars belonging to the two constellations of Aquarius and Pisces, in which the geomancers, who told fortunes by means of certain points traced at random, thought they saw a special series of these points,-:::..

It is generally agreed that the “gemme” of Purg. ix. 4, “poste in figura del freddo animale, Che con la coda percote la gente,”284 are some stars of Scorpio which were shining on the eastern horizon just before the moon rose on the first night in the Island of Purgatory.

The zodiacal constellations in general are spoken of as “all the lights of his [the sun’s] path:” “Tutti i lumi della sua strada.” (Par. xxvi. 121, 122).

The pole star is described as the point of the axle round which the first sphere revolves.285 The first sphere (or wheel, as it is called, with reference to its circling motion) is here the Primum Mobile, which was thought to cause the diurnal motion. This unique position gains for the pole star the name of “the star,” as for instance in Conv. III. v. 84, 85, where Dante says that a man standing at the north pole would have “la stella” directly over his head. And in Paradise he hears a voice among the spirits which makes him turn in its direction as the needle turns to the star—

“Voce, che l’ago alla stella
Parer mi fece in volgermi al suo dove.”286

This property of the magnet was known in Dante’s day, as well as its power of attracting iron, though only the latter had been known to Ptolemy and the classical world. Whether the discovery came from China, where it is said that some form of compass has been used since the second century a.d., or whether it had been discovered independently by Arab or Italian navigators, we do not know: but scholars and poets in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries write of the “ugly brown stone” used by sailors to make an instrument that cannot lie. For a needle, rubbed by it and run through a straw, when floated on water turns so surely to “the star” that one need never doubt its guidance. Thus writes Guyot, the poet of Languedoc, about 1200:—

“Un art font qui mentir ne puet,
Par la vertu de la manete,
Une pierre laide et brunete,
Ou le fers volentiers se joint,
Ont: si esgardent le droit point,
Puis c’une aiguile i ont touchie,
Et en un festu l’ont couchie,
En l’eve la metent sanz plus,

Puis se torne la pointe toute
Contre l’estoile si sanz doute,
Que ja nas hom n’en doutera.”

And thus Ristoro:—

“L’angola, che guidi li marinari, chè per la virtu del cielo è tratta e rivolta alla stella la quale è chiamata tramontana.”287

Albertus Magnus speaks of it in the same way, as something well known to mariners.

It seems strange to us how Dante and his contemporaries failed to see the importance of this discovery; Brunetto Latini, when the ugly stone was shown to him on his visit to Roger Bacon at Oxford, even professing to regard it as a mere toy, of no practical use. Dante discusses the number of the stars known to Ptolemy, and describes the last mad voyage of Ulysses, who saw all the stars of the other pole, while ours sank low on the ocean floor;288 but he does not seem to guess that the new toy would make possible even longer voyages than these, and that in time the blank in his celestial globe would be filled.

Yet even in his own life-time plucky little Genoa fitted out two galleys which ventured through the forbidden Straits, with intent to circumnavigate Africa and find a new route to India. And meanwhile, travelling by old overland or coasting routes, Italian missionary monks, and Italian traders, were visiting southern countries and describing southern skies. Friar Giovanni de Monte Corvino, who was in South India with Nicolo of Pistoia, writes home in 1291, telling of his disappointment that he had never been able to see “the other pole star” (l’altra tramontana), though he saw new stars moving round and evidently near to it, close to the southern horizon. A few years later Marco Polo the Venetian was dictating the story of his travels to a Pisan in Genoa: he had been further south than the missionaries, for in a certain island (probably Sumatra) he had seen the south pole “a spear’s length” above the horizon; and in the land of Zinzi (Zanzibar?) he had seen a marvellous star as big as a sack (which was evidently the Greater Magellanic Cloud). This he drew a picture of with his own hand.

Dante’s silence, and probable incredulity, regarding these experiences of his own countrymen and contemporaries is characteristic of his age; for scholars were too eager to explore the precious classical lore lately recovered from oblivion, to realize that they were on the threshold of a new era in knowledge, of which these men were pioneers.

It is sometimes thought, however, that Dante made use of contemporary observations of southern skies in his description of the stars he feigned himself to have seen when the Wain disappeared under his northern horizon.289 Quite correctly, he does not place any single bright star to mark the south pole; his two constellations, one of four bright stars seen above the pole in the morning,290 one of three which takes its place after sunset,291 are these real or fictitious?

It is a fact that there are four bright stars in the form of a cross, lying between 56° and 63° south: are these Dante’s “quattro chiare stelle,” “quattro luci sante?”292 They were not recognized as a separate constellation until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Amerigo Vespucci described them in his letters about his southern voyages, and the Florentine Andrea Corsali wrote about the marvellous Cross which was so beautiful that in his opinion no other constellation in the sky was worthy to be compared with it. This, he believed, was the very cross of which Dante had spoken in a prophecy.

Even among Dante’s most enthusiastic admirers, I suppose none will be found to-day to support this view; but many think that he must have heard of the Cross from travellers. True, these stars are visible during at least part of the year in all places south of 34° north, and therefore in North Africa, and they had been catalogued by Ptolemy as part of the Centaur, so that no astronomer could take them to be a newly-found constellation, but might not some unscientific traveller like Marco Polo have brought a vague report of their position?

To this we might reply that Dante never says his four stars were in the form of a Cross; that there had to be four to represent the four Pagan virtues, the other constellation of three representing the three Christian virtues (compare the group of four handmaidens who sing, “Noi siam qui ninfe, e nel ciel siamo stelle,”293 and are followed by a group of three);294 and that this other constellation was certainly imaginary, since there is no group of three bright stars anywhere near the south pole.

But the fact is that conjectures and arguments are unnecessary, since Dante has expressly said that his four stars had never been seen before by anyone except the first people—“non viste mai fuor che alla prima gente,” (Purg. i. 24)—that is, our first parents, in that Eden of his imagining which was in the southern hemisphere, and on the island where he was then standing in his vision.

As a matter of curiosity I have included a map showing what stars would have been really visible to Dante at the supposed latitude of Purgatory, when Pisces was on the eastern horizon, as described in Purg. i. It will be seen that the Southern Cross is low, and would have been hidden behind the Mountain of Purgatory at five o’clock in the morning.295

Among northern constellations, Ursa Major is frequently spoken of by Dante, under different names, but always with reference to its high northern latitude. As the Wain, “il Carro,” it is said to be lying in the north-west when Pisces is on the eastern horizon, and to have disappeared from view in the southern hemisphere.296 The wain-pole or shaft is pictured as sweeping round in the diurnal revolution, but always remaining above our horizon day and night, throughout its turning:

“Quel Carro, a cui il seno
Basta del nostro cielo e notte e giorno,
Sì ch’ al volger del temo non vien meno.”297

The same idea is expressed in the Midwinter Ode, where the constellation is called the Seven Frosty Stars, never lost to sight in Europe:—

“Fuggito è ogni augel che ’l caldo segue
Dal paese d’Europa, che non perde
Le sette stelle gelide unquemai.”298

This is a reminiscence of some lines of Boëthius quoted by Dante in De Monarchia, in which the northern nations are described as under the sway of the “septem gelidi triones.”299 The Septem Triones, the Seven Ploughing Oxen, was one of the Latin names for Ursa Major, whence comes “septentrional” for North. This name also is used by Dante in Purg. xxx. 1, where the Seven Candlesticks of the mystic procession seen in the Garden of Eden are likened to these seven stars, and are named the Septentrion of the First Heaven (the Empyrean). This divine Septentrion was guiding the Procession, as the starry Septentrion of a lower heaven guides the mariner into port:

“faceva lì ciascuno accorto
Di suo dover, come il più basso face
Qual timon gira per venire a porto.”300

Like the seven stars, also, the heavenly Septentrion is said figuratively to know neither setting nor rising, but unlike them it knows no cloud except of sin.301 Because it is spoken of as guiding mariners, some commentators have taken the above to refer rather to Septentrio Minor (Ursa Minor), which also has seven chief stars, and is a better guide because nearer the Pole, as Thales taught; but the comparatively faint stars of the Little Bear would not be so apt a comparison with the celestial lights.

By the name of the Bears, both Ursa Major and Minor are referred to as guides at sea in Par. ii. 9. In the strange new seas on which Dante warns his readers he is about to enter, Minerva will blow a favouring wind, Apollo will steer the barque, and the nine Muses will guide his course by the Bears. They are also spoken of together in Purg. iv. 65, to indicate the northern part of the sky.

A fifth name for Ursa Major is derived from the fable (known to Dante probably from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) of the nymph Helice, who was turned into a she-bear by Juno, and was hunted by her own son, Orcas. Jupiter transformed them into Ursa Major and Boötes.

“Se i barbari, venendo di tal plaga
   Che ciascun giorno d’Elice si copra,
   Rotante col suo figlio ond’ ell’ è vaga,
Vedendo Rome e l’ ardua sua opra,
   Stupefaciensi....”302

Here we have the same idea as of the Wain wheeling round but never setting, with the addition of a neighbouring constellation describing a circle in the same time.

The Barbarians who lived in a region always dominated by Ursa Major, and came to marvel at the mighty buildings of ancient Rome, are probably the races of northern Europe in general; and this reminds us again of the lines of Boëthius quoted above, for it is among the peoples ruled by Rome that he mentions “quos premunt septem gelidi triones.”303 If, however, Dante meant a country where the seven stars pass exactly overhead, the barbarians must have inhabited Scotland, or southern Scandinavia, or central Russia. If he means that Boötes also remained always above the horizon, they must have come from within the Arctic Circle, but this is not likely.

In one of the passages just quoted other constellations and stars are mentioned together with Ursa Major. In Par. xii. Dante has compared the two circles of spirits which surround Beatrice and himself to a double rainbow, and to two garlands of immortal roses. In the next canto he finds a new simile: in imagination he takes some of the brightest and most familiar stars from our sky, and makes of them two new constellations in the form of two crowns. The stars are these: fifteen from different parts of the sky, which are so brilliant that they shine through air dense enough to quench lesser orbs; the Wain, which never sets in our sky; and the mouth of the horn whose tip is the axis on which the Primum Mobile revolves. That is to say, as we have before remarked, Dante takes the fifteen first-magnitude stars and the stars instanced by Alfraganus as of second magnitude. Ursa Minor is aptly compared to a horn, the wide mouth of which is formed by its two bright stars Beta and Gamma,304 while the narrow end is Alpha, the Pole Star. These twenty-four bright stars we must then imagine to group themselves into two constellations like that into which Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, was changed when she died; this is Corona Borealis or the Northern Crown, otherwise called Ariadne’s Crown, which suggests a circle, though it is not a perfect one. Dante uses the word “segni” for any constellations, a custom we find in Ristoro also, although the modern usage is to restrict “signs” to mean only divisions of the zodiac.

The star-like spirits, thus grouped into a surpassingly brilliant double constellation, begin to sing their ineffable heavenly song, and to circle round the centre where Dante stands, in a marvellous dance, whose swiftness, when compared with anything known on earth, is as the movement of that swift heaven which carries with it all the rest, when compared with the flowing of the sluggish river Chiana.305

This passage helps us to understand expressions which often strike one as very strange, describing the circling movements of the spirits in Paradise. For the likeness to stars is clear throughout. Their brightness is an expression of their happiness,306 and increases in each succeeding heaven. Only in the lowest can Dante see the forms and features of Piccarda and the other blessed spirits; in the next they clothe themselves in light, and although at first the radiant eyes of Justinian are seen, the first words addressed to him cause him to shine more brilliantly than before, and as the sun conceals himself by his own light, so the spirit conceals himself by the splendour which grows with his joy.307 In the third heaven the spirits shine in the star of Venus like sparks seen in flame;308 in the fourth they are called suns, and surpass the sun in brilliancy;309 in the fifth they are compared with the Galaxy 310 and with shooting stars,311 in the seventh and eighth with stars 312 and with spheres of light, turning on fixed poles and flaming like comets.313

In like manner the swiftness of their motion increases in proportion to the clearness with which each beholds eternal truth.314 The almost incredible speed with which Dante himself soars from sphere to sphere, and with which the spirits move—whether in coming towards him, impelled by Divine charity, in returning to the heaven of heavens, or in circling with one another in mystic dance—is frequently dwelt upon, and illustrated by many striking similes. The dance is always a circling or wheeling movement (“il giro,” “la rota,” Par. viii. 20 and 26; ix. 65). And besides this, individual spirits turn with a rapid motion, remaining on the same spot. Descending the celestial Ladder in the heaven of Saturn, step by step, they revolve:—

“Vid’ io più fiamelle
Di grado in grado scendere e girarsi,
Ed ogni giro le facea più belle.”315

Now these two things, their light and their movements, were all the facts concerning the stars which mediæval astronomers could observe; and the movements were thought to be in circles and inconceivably rapid. Motion in circles, and especially the movement of rotation on an axis, remaining in the same place, had been said by Aristotle to be the most noble form of motion, and the fittest for celestial bodies. Therefore, when Dante represents the redeemed and the angels as expressing their bliss by radiance and marvellously rapid motion in circles, he makes them resemble the heavenly spheres and stars among which they manifest themselves to him. The motions are directly compared with those of stars in the passage already quoted:—

“Poi, sì cantando, quegli ardenti soli
Si fur girati intorno a noi tre volte,
Come stelle vicine ai fermi poli.”316

Remembering this significance of circular motion we shall feel a little less strange the similes of a mill and a top applied to the spirits of Paradise.317

A third way in which the spirits express their joy is by the sweetness of their song,318 and here also they resemble the heavenly bodies, which make sweet music as they circle. This doctrine of Pythagoras was very popular throughout the Middle Ages.

4. The Galaxy

The Galaxy or Milky Way is twice referred to in the Divine Comedy. In Inf. xvii. 106-108, it is in connection with the myth of Phaeton, who being allowed by his father Jove to drive the chariot of the sun for one day, lost control of his chargers, and going all astray, burned the sky in a part which still shows signs of this catastrophe, i.e. the Milky Way.

“Quando Fetòn abbandonò li freni,
Per che il ciel, come pare ancor, si cosse.”319

This of course is only a poetical myth. But in the Paradiso, in three lines the appearance, colour, and approximate position of the Galaxy are described, and allusion is made to the difference of opinions between learned men with regard to the puzzling question of its nature. Dante is in the heaven of Mars. He sees the soldier saints, star-like and fiery red, some larger and some less, thronging thick in two great bands, which, crossing one another in the depths of the planet, form a marvellous Crucifix. The crowded lights make him think of the Galaxy, with its multitudinous points of light, differing in brightness, although that is white, and lies in a great circle between the celestial poles.

“Come, distinta da minori e maggi
   Lumi, biancheggia tra i poli del mondo
   Galassia sì che fa dubbiar ben saggi,
Sì costellati facean nel profondo
   Marte quei rai il venerabil segno
   Che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo.”320

If we now turn to the fifteenth chapter of Treatise II. of the Convivio, we shall find the Phaeton myth and the various theories about the Milky Way set forth in due order, and shall learn which of these Dante considered to be true.

He is comparing the two sciences of Metaphysics and Physics with the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, and takes the opportunity to tell us some of the most important facts known about it. Here he calls the Galaxy a circle:—“La Galassia, cioè quello bianco cerchio che il vulgo chiama la Via de Santo Jacopo.”321 This popular name perhaps arose through a confusion of Galaxy and Galicia, where was a famous shrine of St. James, and hence came the belief in Italy that the Galassia was a sign by night to guide pilgrims on their way to this shrine at Compostella in Galizia.

Dante proceeds as follows with his comparison:—

“E per la Galassia, ha questo cielo grande similitudine colla Metafisica. Perchè è da sapere che di quella Galassia li filosofi hanno avuto diverse opinioni. Chè li Pittagorici dissero che ’l sole alcuna fiata errò nella sua via, e, passando per altre parti non convenienti al suo fervore, arse il luogo, per lo quale passò; e rimasevi quell’ apparenza dell’ arsura. E credo che si mossero dalla favola di Fetonte, la quale narra Ovidio nel principio del secondo di Metamorfoseos. Altri dissero (siccome fu Anassagora e Democrito) che ciò era lume del sole ripercosso in quella parte. E queste opinioni con ragioni dimostrative riprovarono. Quello che Aristotile si dicesse di ciò, non si può bene sapere, perchè la sua sentenza non si trova cotale nell’ una traslazione come nell’ altra. E credo che fosse l’errore de’ traslatori; che nella Nuova par dicere che ciò sia uno raunamento di vapori sotto le stelle di quelle parte, che sempre traggono quelli; e questa non pare avere ragione vera. Nella Vecchia dice, che la Galassia non è altro che multitudine di stelle fisse in quella parte, tanto picciole che distinguere di quaggiù non le potemo, ma di loro apparisce quello albore il quale noi chiamiamo Galassia. [E puote essere che il cielo in quella parte è più spesso, e però ritiene e ripresenta quello lume] e questa opinione pare avere, con Aristotile, Avicenna e Tolommeo. Onde conciossiacosachè la Galassia sia uno effetto di quelle stelle le quali non potemo vedere, se non per lo effetto loro intendiamo quelle cose, e la Metafisica tratta delle prime sustanze, le quali noi non potemo simigliantemente intendere se non per li loro effetti; manifesto è che ’l cielo stellato ha grande similitudine colla Metafisica.”322

This characteristic passage is interesting for several reasons. It illustrates the mediæval fondness for allegory, the reluctance to believe that Aristotle could ever be wrong, and the interest in ancient Greek speculations, in all of which Dante expresses the feelings of his age: and it brings vividly before us the methods and the difficulties of mediæval authors. For Dante is repeating from Albertus Magnus all these ancient speculations: the officious copyist who altered Aristotle’s words, the fact that Aristotle could only be read in Latin, and the variety of translations, were all everyday obstacles to study; and Dante’s own book has suffered from one of them in this very passage. The words placed between brackets are evidently an interpolation (as Mr. Wicksteed observes in the “Temple” Convivio): without them the passage goes on smoothly and logically to its end. On the assumption that the Galaxy is composed of a multitude of small stars, but not that the sky is denser in that part, the parallel with Metaphysics holds good.

Dante therefore held the true opinion about the Milky Way, but he was mistaken in thinking that he had the support of Aristotle. It was the “New Translation” (made by Aquinas from the Greek) which gave his opinion correctly; in the “Old” (made by Michael Scot from the Arabic) his statement had been apparently changed without comment into one which seems to Dante—and also to us—to represent the truth about the Galaxy.

5. The Planets

All the planets which were known before the days of the telescope are mentioned by Dante several times. Each has its peculiar beauty, but “la lucentissima stella di Venere”323 is brighter and more beautiful than any other. He speaks of “la chiarezza del suo aspetto, ch ’è soavissima a vedere più che altra stella.”324

No reader of the Purgatorio can ever forget that matchless morning on which Dante, escaping at last from the murky gloom of the Inferno, sees the sky once more, pure blue even to its furthest limits, and the planet of love shining in the east.

“Dolce color d’oriental zaffiro,
   Che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto
   Dell’ aer, puro infino al primo giro,
  Agli occhi miei ricominciò diletto,
   Tosto ch’ i’ uscii fuor dell’ aura morta,
   Che m’avea contristati gli occhi e il petto,
Lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta
   Faceva rider tutto l’oriente,
   Velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.”325

Strange to say, the beginning of the above beautiful passage which conveys so direct and vivid an impression of blue sky and pure air, presents some difficulties when one comes to translate it word by word, especially as the texts offer more than one reading. By some commentators the “primo giro”326 has been understood to mean the sphere of the moon,327 or even the highest sphere (the Primum Mobile); but this is certainly inadmissible, as Dante supposed the atmosphere to reach only as far as the sphere of Fire, which came between it and the moon. The prime circle is here evidently the horizon, the fundamental circle of observers, the First Circle of the astrologers, from which they reckoned all the rest. It is here that the sky usually becomes pale and misty, however blue and clear it may be above. The colour was gathering and deepening,328 especially in the east, where Dante was looking, as dawn began to appear in a perfectly cloudless sky; for during the darkness of the night it would have appeared almost black.

Dr. Moore thinks the authority better for a different reading, viz. “Dal mezzo”329 instead of “Dell’ aer.”330 In this case, we must take “mezzo puro” to mean mid-heaven, that is the zenith, “puro” being used as a noun, and meaning a cloudless sky (like “sereno” in Purg. v. 38); and “il sereno aspetto” must mean “the quiet scene.”

Venus appears again in the Purgatorio, shining upon the Mountain from the east before sunrise; and this time she is called Cytherea, after the island near which she was fabled to have risen from the sea, and in which she received a special worship.

“Dell’ oriente... raggiò nel monte Citerea,
Che di foco d’amor par sempre ardente.”331

The position of Venus in her course through the zodiac is indicated in the previous passage by the expression “velando i Pesci.”332 The oscillating motion, by which she appears first on the morning and then on the evening side of the sun is referred to several times. In prose Dante speaks of her two apparitions, the morning and the evening: “la sua apparenza, or da mane, or da sera;”333 in poetry, he describes her as wooing the sun, first following and then facing him:—

“la stella
Che il sol vagheggia or da coppa or da ciglio.”334

Mercury and Venus (called rather oddly after their mothers), are said both to move closely round the sun:—

... “vidi com’ si move
Circa e vicino a lui Maia e Dione.”335

“Quel bel pianeta di Mercuro”336 keeps closest, for he is more hidden than any other in the rays of the sun. Here again the fact is expressed in simple prose in the Convivio:—

“Mercurio... più va velata de’ raggi del sole che null’ altra stella.”337

which explains (if necessary) the more poetical language of the Paradiso:—

“La spera,
Che si vela ai mortal con altrui raggi.”338

In the same way we may compare the descriptions of Mars in the Paradiso with a statement in the Convivio:—

“Questo fuoco,”339 and “l’affocato riso della stella,”340 and “Marte rosseggia,”341 with

“Esso Marte... il suo calore è simile a quello del fuoco;... esso appare affocato di colore.”342

The famous occultation of Mars by the moon, seen by Aristotle, is quoted by Dante in Conv. II. iii. 59-65.

Jupiter is the “dolce stella”343 and the “giovial facella.”344 He is silvery white, the whitest of all the stars:—“Intra tutte le stelle bianca si mostra, quasi argentata.”345

Therefore when Dante saw the planet filled with brilliant spirits, he says: “Giove pareva argento lì d’ oro distinto.”346 Comparisons between the colours of Jupiter and Mars are made in Par. xviii. 64-69, and xxvii. 13-15.

Finally Saturn is the slowest and the most distant of all the planets. These two characteristics are thus described in the Convivio:—

“L’una si è la tardezza del suo movimento per li dodici segni; chè ventinove anni e più, secondo le scritture degli astrologi, vuole di tempo lo suo cerchio: l’altra si è che esso è alto sopra tutti gli altri pianeti.”347

In the Paradiso Saturn is called a Mirror,348 a Crystal,349 a splendour;350 his circling motion is alluded to, and his position at the time in the zodiac:—

“Cerchiando il mondo.”351
“Sotto il petto del Leone ardente.”352

Some of the most beautiful similes in the Divine Comedy are drawn from the planets. The angel-pilot of Purgatory, when first seen far off over the sea, is likened to the planet Mars, glowing red through morning mists, low in the west above the ocean floor;353 and the angel that welcomes the poet to the second circle on the Mountain is beautiful as the Morning Star.

“A noi venia la creatura bella,
Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale
Par tremolando mattutina stella.”354

Although any of the planets when rising just before the sun may be called a morning star, Venus is probably intended here, as also where St. Bernard, in his devotion to the Virgin, is compared with the Morning Star which takes its beauty from the sun:—

“Colui ch’abbelliva di Maria,
Come del sole stella mattutina.”355

All the seven planets (that is, including sun and moon), are occasionally mentioned together, “tutti e sette,”356 and their movement in the ecliptic is referred to in Par. x, 14: “L’obbliquo cerchio che i pianeti porta.”357 In the 14th and 15th chapters of the second treatise of the Convivio, already so often quoted, Dante draws an elaborate comparison between the seven planets and the seven sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium. The moon is Grammar, Mercury Dialectic, Venus Rhetoric, the Sun Arithmetic, Mars Music, Jupiter Geometry, and Saturn Astrology. The reasons given for the latter are the slow movement and the height (i.e. distance from Earth) of Saturn, which Dante compares with the length of the time taken in learning astronomy, and the loftiness of its subject.

In the same way the star sphere is said to resemble Physics and Metaphysics, the Primum Mobile Ethics, and the Empyrean Theology. The argument is very fanciful, but just what would appeal to readers of Dante’s day, who loved to find allegories everywhere; and it gives him an opportunity of instructing them very simply in his beloved science.

He sometimes uses the planetary periods as divisions of time (as Plato said they should be used), for computing earthly events, and in him this does not seem affectation, as it would with almost anyone else. It seems quite natural that Cacciaguida, when speaking in the heaven of Mars, and answering a question regarding the date of his birth, should count the time not by solar but by Martian years, saying that from the beginning of the Christian Era to the day of his birth, Mars had returned to his Lion (the constellation of Leo) five hundred and eighty times.358 The length of the Martian year according to Alfraganus is 1 Persian year, 10 months, and 22 days nearly. The Persian year (as he tells us in the first chapter of the Elementa) consists of 12 months of 30 days each plus 5 extra days, making 365 days exactly (not 365¼ days like the Roman), so the Martian year is 687 days (the modern estimate is 686·9). 687 days × 580 gives us 1091 a.d. as the date of Cacciaguida’s birth. This is consistent with the date of his death, for he had just told Dante that he fell in the Crusade to which he followed the Emperor Conrad, and we know that this was fought in the year 1147.

Some commentators think that Dante did not intend the Martian year to be taken so precisely, but only as approximately two solar years, since he gave it thus in Conv. II. xv. 145. But there he specially states that he is quoting an approximate figure only (“uno anno quasi”359 is half the period of Mars) whereas in the Paradiso it is used to fix a date. Since by taking 580 × 2 years we get 1160, an impossible date of birth for a man who died in 1147, the only way to support this theory that Dante was speaking loosely here is to adopt another reading of the passage, and substitute “tre” for “trenta.”360 Then 553 (instead of 580) × 2 years would give the date 1106; but the reading is not supported by good authority.

The period of Venus is used with equal appropriateness when Dante is relating how love for the Gentil Donna found a way to his heart, coming on the rays of Venus,361 the star of love.

“La stella di Venere due fiate ere rivolta in quello suo cerchio che la fa parere serotina e mattutina, secondo i due diversi tempi, appresso lo transpassamento di quella Beatrice beata, che vive in cielo con gli angioli e in terra colla mia anima, quando quella Gentil Donna, di cui feci menzione nella fine della Vita Nuova, apparve primamente accompagnata d’Amore agli occhi miei, e prese alcuno luogo nella mia mente.”362

Venus runs through her changes, appearing first as Evening and then as Morning star, in 584 days; and, as the reader will remember, this movement was ascribed by Ptolemy to her epicycle (“quello suo cerchio,” “that circle of hers”). Dante would find 584 days given for it in his Alfraganus.363 Twice 584 is 1168 days, or three years and a little more than 2 months. Therefore, since we know from V. N. xxx. that Beatrice died in June 1290, Dante wishes to say that he first saw the Lady of Pity in August 1293.

The period has been taken by some modern commentators to refer to the 225 days in which Venus revolves round the sun, but this period has no place in the Ptolemaic system. We cannot here discuss Dante’s allegory of the Gentle Lady and Philosophy, but in this passage he has stated without ambiguity or uncertainty the date of her first appearance.364

6. Eclipses

We find solar eclipses mentioned six times in Dante’s works. As in all old records, there is no allusion to the features which chiefly strike modern astronomers—the pearly corona, and the blood-red prominences standing out like flames round the black disc. The terror of the sudden darkness, even when foreseen, seems to have absorbed all attention, and only the appearance of stars in the daytime and the frightened behaviour of animals was noted by Ristoro, and by others until quite modern times.

In his letter to the Cardinals of Italy, Dante speaks of the shameful and grievous removal of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon as an eclipse of the sun.365 In his dream of the death of Beatrice, he sees the sun so darkened that the stars appear, to his great terror:—

“Poi mi parve vedere appoco appoco
Turbar lo Sole ed apparir la stella.”366

He also refers to the disputed idea that the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion was caused by an eclipse of the sun,367 and to the figurative eclipse which then took place in heaven.368

If he had ever seen one in reality, it would have made more impression upon him, and we should surely have found it referred to several times and vividly described. The only suggestion of a personal experience is where he temporarily loses the power of sight by gazing too fixedly upon the spirit of St. John; and he compares this to a man who looks so intently at the sun, just before an eclipse, that he becomes incapable of seeing it at the critical moment.369 This incident may have been told him by an observer of the total eclipse of June 1239, which was visible in Italy, and seems to be the one described by Ristoro.

Lastly, he mentions the discovery that the moon comes between us and the sun, which we have learned from eclipses, as an example of the proper method of reasoning: for we must first ask whether a thing is, and afterwards why it is. Thus man’s wonder leads him to knowledge.370

The eclipsed moon is only once mentioned, viz. in De Mon. III. iv. 140-142, where she is described as not wholly dark. With his usual indifference to her Dante fails to note the often extraordinary beauty of her colouring when the eclipse is total.

7. Comets and Meteors

The connection between these two classes of heavenly bodies seems to be real, though its exact nature is still a mystery. In old days little or no distinction was drawn between them, so that it is sometimes difficult to know whether a writer is describing a large meteor, or a comet, or a shower of falling stars.

Dante only mentions comets once, very briefly, when he describes spirits in Paradise as “fiammando forte a guisa di comete.”371 He says nothing of the magnificent comet described by Ristoro, which rose at three o’clock in the morning, huge as a mountain, and with great rays like a mane; but travelling always towards the south grew gradually fainter, and disappeared after 60 days. Yet it was seen in Tuscany shortly before Dante’s birth, and it was thought to herald the death of the Pope (Urban IV. in 1264) and the terrible war in which first Manfred and afterwards Conradin were slain. These events are familiar to every reader of the Divine Comedy,372 but there is never any mention of the comet.

Nor does he describe in any detail the fiery cross which was seen in the sky above Florence “in the beginning of her destruction,” which does not mean, as one might think, the legendary sack of the city by Totila, but the treacherous entry of Charles of Valois, “Totila secundus,”373 in November 1301. This portent was of course considered as of ill omen for the Republic, and although Dante was still absent on his embassy to Rome, and cannot have seen it himself, it is rather remarkable that he says so little about it. It is described by an eye-witness, “Io, che chiaramente la viddi”374 as a red cross which appeared in the evening over the Priors’ Palace; the vertical arm seemed to be 20 ells long, the transverse one a little shorter, and it remained visible for as long as it would take a horse to gallop two furlongs. Villani the historian describes it as like a comet with an immense trail, as of smoke, behind it. Dante merely mentions it, together with the ball of fire seen by Seneca at the death of Augustus, which, judging by Seneca’s own words, was also a large meteor, for he describes it as flashing into sight and moving very rapidly, disappearing as it moved.375

Dante calls meteors “kindled vapours,”376 in accordance with the doctrines of Aristotle, but the popular idea of them is shown by his observation that they might be taken for stars in motion, only that no star vanishes from its place, and they are only seen for a short time.377 Ristoro d’Arezzo had already alluded to this fallacy:—

“Alquanti non savi credono ch’elle sieno stelle, che caggino del cielo e vengano meno.”378

He gives the same reason as Dante for disbelieving this, and Seneca had expressed it more forcibly, saying that if true there would be no more stars in the sky, for some meteors are seen every night.

Albertus Magnus, who seems to have had a genius for mistaking his authorities, quotes Alfraganus as stating that shooting stars are most frequent in evening twilight, though nothing of the kind is said in the Elementa. Dante perhaps accepted the statement, though it is by no means necessarily implied in his “di prima notte:”379 moreover there is some authority for the alternative reading of “mezza notte.”380 Wherever the idea originated, its sole foundation must have been the circumstance that more persons are awake in the early than in the late hours of the night: the fact is that more meteorites are captured by the morning side of the earth, which is turned in the direction towards which she is moving in her orbit.

Shooting stars were necessarily familiar to a lover of starry skies, and Dante has given us an exquisite description of the suddenness with which they startle quiet eyes, while their brilliancy and swiftness of flight provides him with two beautiful similes.

In the first he compares them, and also flashes of summer lightning, with messenger spirits in Purgatory hastening to bring their friends to him:—

“Vapori accesi non vid’ io sì tosto
   Di prima notte mai fender sereno,
   Nè, sol calando, nuvole d’agosto,
   Che color non tornasser suso in meno,
   E giunti là, con gli altri a noi dier volta.”381

The second illustrates the brightness and beauty, as well as the movement, of the star-like spirits in Mars:—

“Quale per li seren tranquilli e puri
   Discorre ad ora ad or subito foco,
   Movendo gli occhi che stavan sicuri,
   E pare stella che tramuti loco,
   Se non che dalla parte ond’ ei s’ accende
   Nulla sen perde, ed esso dura poco...”382

8. The Sun’s Path in the Sky Seen From Different Parts of the Earth

We have now seen how familiar Dante was with the aspects of the skies above his head. His writings show also that he had pictured clearly to himself what they must be in other parts of the world—in regions far east or west, in the southern hemisphere, at the equator, and at either pole. Science could not tell him all that he would have liked to know about the stars, so that although he can speak of regions where Ursa Major passes overhead, and where it sinks out of sight below the horizon, he has to fall back upon his imagination and invent new constellations for the southern hemisphere.

But astronomy could tell him, and his habit of accurate thought, as well as his imagination, helped him to grasp how the sun would appear at any latitude on the earth, and what would be the results on the length of day and night, and on the seasons. A very interesting little disquisition on this subject is found in the Convivio, in illustration of some lines in one of his Odes, which speak of the sun circling the whole world. In order to understand this completely, Dante says, we must know exactly in what way the sun circles the world. The chief point to bear in mind while reading his description is that the sun, besides the simple daily motion in a circle, has a constant slow motion north or south, and therefore his path in the sky, as we see it day after day, is really spiral.

The passage is much too long to quote in full, but if the reader will follow me, taking his Convivio and opening it at chapter v. of Treatise III. and beginning at line 66, I will give a résumé which will form a running commentary on the text, and an explanation of any points which may not at once be clear.

We see the sky, says Dante, continually revolving round Earth as centre; and it has two fixed poles of revolution—the northern, which is visible to nearly all the land not covered by sea, and the southern, which is hidden from nearly all of it. And the circle which is equi-distant from these two poles [the celestial equator] is that part of the sky in which we see the sun when he is in Aries and in Libra.

Now if a stone could be dropped from this pole of ours [the northern], it would fall far away yonder in the ocean just where, if a man were standing, he would always have the Pole Star exactly overhead. [“La stella”383 is the Pole Star, see p. 291]. And I believe (Dante says) that from Rome to the north pole, in a direct line, is a distance of about 2,700 miles. To fix our ideas, let us imagine that at this spot there is a city called Maria, and let us imagine another city, called Lucia, at the spot exactly opposite, where a stone would fall if dropped from the other pole. And I believe that from Rome southwards to this second place would be a distance of about 7500 miles. Thus the distance between the two cities, in whatever direction the measuring cord be stretched, would be 10,200 miles, that is, half the circumference of the globe,384 and the inhabitants of Maria would have their feet opposite the feet of those of Lucia. [If any two spots on a sphere are exactly antipodal, but in no other case, the distance may be measured in an infinity of directions, and always come out the same.]

Lastly, let us imagine a circle on the globe, which will be at equal distances everywhere from Maria and Lucia [the equator]. According to the opinions of the astrologers, if I understand them aright, and according to what is said by Albertus Magnus and by Lucan, this circle would divide the dry land from the ocean there in the south, approximately along the extremity of the First Climate, where amongst others live the Garamantes, who go almost always naked, to whom Cato went when fleeing from Cæsar.

“Approximately,” because the southern extremity of the First Climate, according to Alfraganus, lay a little north of the equator, although land extended, and was sparsely inhabited, as far the equator (see p. 186).

Dante speaks again of these extra-climatal races in De Mon. I. xiv. 43-51, where he contrasts the Scythians who live beyond the seventh climate, and therefore endure extreme inequality of days and nights, and suffer almost intolerable cold, with the Garamantes who live under the equator, where days and nights are always equal, and the heat is so intense that they can scarcely bear any clothing. Since “the astrologers who determine the climates”385 had fixed their northern limit at 50½°, nearly the whole of Britain also lay, like barbarous Scythia, in this scarcely habitable region of long nights and bitter cold!

When we have marked these three places on the globe, i.e. the two poles and the equator, it is easy (Dante goes on) to see how the sun circles. I say then, that the heaven of the sun turns from west to east, not directly against the diurnal movement—that is, the movement which produces day and night—but obliquely against it, and so that its middle circle, which is similarly between its two poles, and on which is the body of the sun [i.e. the ecliptic], cuts in two opposite points the circle of the two first poles [the equator], that is, at the beginning of Aries and the beginning of Libra; it diverges from that circle in two arcs, one north and the other south. The highest points of these arcs are equally distant from the first circle in either direction, being 23 degrees and a little more; and the one summit is at the beginning of Cancer, and the other at the beginning of Capricorn.

Therefore, when the sun is in the beginning of Aries, travelling in the mid-circle of the first poles [the equator], Maria will see this sun circling the world, low down on the ground, or on the sea, like a mill-stone only half of which is seen, and day after day he will be seen to rise, like the screw of a press, until he has performed about ninety revolutions, or a little more. When these revolutions are accomplished, he will be as high in the sky above Maria as he stands in the sky of the Garamantes at middle-tierce at the time of equal days and nights.386

[From Conv. IV. xxiii. and III. vi., where Dante explains the use of temporal hours, we learn that mid-tierce on the day of the equinox is an hour and a half after sunrise, or 7.30 a.m. Since the sun moves through 360 degrees divided by 24, that is 15 degrees, in an hour, and his motion is vertical in equatorial countries at the equinox, it would bring him in 1½ hours to 22½ degrees above the horizon. His greatest height above the horizon at the pole is only one degree more than this, for it is obviously equal to the greatest distance between the equator and the ecliptic, i.e. 23½ degrees, since at the pole the equator coincides with the horizon. This gives a good idea, therefore, of the appearance of the sun in the sky to the people at Maria, and is a striking illustration of the difference between the polar sun and the equatorial. For at the time mentioned, the sun has only a quarter the height which it will attain at noon, when it will pass through the zenith of the Garamantes; yet this is the highest position in which the inhabitants of Maria can ever see it].

If a man stood upright in Maria, and kept turning his face to the sun, he would see it move to his right [as we do].

After reaching his greatest height in the sky, the sun would begin to descend again, in the same spiral way like a screw turning, for another ninety revolutions or so, until once more he was circling down on the horizon, only half his body visible.

Then he would be lost to sight altogether, and would begin to be seen in Lucia, where he would rise and descend in just the same way as in Maria. But if a man faced the sun in Lucia, he would see it moving to his left [as one does in Australia where it goes north at noon].

We see, then, that these places have one day in the year which is six months long, and one night of equal length, and when it is day with one, it is night with the other.

Now on the circle on the globe where the Garamantes live [the equator], the sun when in Aries goes exactly overhead, not circling horizontally like a mill-stone, but vertically like a wheel, and exactly half of this wheel is visible above the horizon.

After this, the sun is seen to depart and go towards Maria for about 91 days; then in about the same time it returns, and enters Libra; then it goes towards Lucia for about 91 days, and in the same period returns. And this place, which circles the entire globe, always has equal day and night, on whichever side of it the sun is; and twice in the year it has a very hot summer, and twice a mild winter.

The regions which are between the two imaginary cities and the mid-circle, see the sun in different ways, according to their distance from these places, but the details, our author says, he will leave to the ingenious reader,

“Siccome omai, per quello che detto è, puote vedere chi ha nobile ingegno, al quale è bello un poco di fatica lasciare.”387

He draws attention to the interesting fact, which follows from the above, that in the course of a year (when the heaven of the sun has made a complete revolution and returned to the same place), every part of this globe on which we live has received an equal amount of daylight. And the essay ends in an apostrophe which recalls the reproof of Virgil to those who will not look up to the skies:388

“O ineffabile Sapienza che a così ordinasti, quanto è povera la nostra mente a Te comprendere! E voi, a cui utilità e diletto io scrivo, in quanta cecità vivete, non levando gli occhi suso a queste cose, tenendoli fissi nel fango della vostra stoltezza.”389

It is interesting to compare this passage with the parallel passages in Alfraganus and Ristoro. The astronomer is concise and clear; the monk is diffuse and apt to repeat himself; the poet is quaintly picturesque. Both the Italians evidently draw the main facts from the Arab, and all use the illustration of a mill-stone to explain the horizontal motion of the heavens at the pole: here are the three corresponding passages:—

“Coelumque molæ trusatilis instar gyrum vertitur.”390

“Lì si volgera il cielo attorno con tutte le sue stelle, in modo di macina.”391

“Conviene che Maria veggia... esso sole ‘girare il mondo’... come una mola.”392

Dante alone uses the figure of a wheel to illustrate the vertical motion at the equator; he perhaps takes from Ristoro the idea of the spiral. For the latter describes the path of the sun as a “via tortuosa, la quale i savi chiamano spira;”393 but he explains it as like a string wound round a stick, Dante like the screw of a press. Dante is dealing only with the sun, and does not enter into details about the visibility of the zodiacal signs like the other two authors; but on the other hand he goes south to the other pole, which apparently does not interest the others, perhaps because the southern hemisphere was thought to be uninhabited. But the poet has added life to his description by supposing both poles inhabited, placing there his imaginary, mysteriously-named cities of “Maria” and “Lucia.” On the equator, where Ristoro has the mythical city of Arym, whose wise and prosperous citizens enjoy a perfect climate, Dante, relying more on the classics, lets his barbarous Garamantes run about naked most of the year, under the fierce equatorial sun.

Needless to say, his little homily in conclusion is all his own; it is more interesting to find that he alone mentions the opposite movements of the Sun, to right and left respectively in the north and south hemispheres,394 and the fact that every part of the earth receives the same amount of sunlight in a year. This may have been suggested by someone else, but one would like to think he arrived at it independently, when thinking over the facts.

In the light of this treatise, which describes so truthfully the path of the sun, and its effect on the seasons in different latitudes, we may explain two rather puzzling passages in the Divine Comedy.

One is at the beginning of the tenth canto of the Paradiso, where Dante wishes his readers to realize the position of the sun when he entered it with Beatrice, and the great importance of this position. “Lift your eyes with me, reader,” he says, “to that place in the lofty heavens where the one motion meets the other, and see how the oblique circle which carries the planets branches off from that point.” The reader is now familiar with the “two chief motions,” and knows that one is the diurnal, from east to west, the other the planetary periodical motions in the opposite direction; they meet at the equinoxes, where the ecliptic cuts the equator. It is the spring equinox which Dante is speaking of, for a little further on he says that the sun, situated in the place above-mentioned, was circling in those spirals which bring him to us earlier every day (lines 31-33). Now if the path of the planets were not thus oblique, he continues, much virtue in heaven would be lost, and almost every earthly power dead. Even if the obliquity were merely less or more, the universal order of both heaven and earth would suffer greatly. But why this should be so he leaves his readers to think out for themselves, having a greater matter in hand which demands all his attention.

It is easy to see that if the sun always moved in the equator, without departing from it either north or south, he would rise every day to the same height in the sky, and there would be no change of seasons anywhere on the earth; he would always be overhead at noon to Dante’s Garamantes, living on the equator, and always just on the horizon, day and night, to the people of “Maria” and “Lucia” at the Poles. If the ecliptic made a greater angle with the equator the seasons would be more marked, and the sun would rise higher in summer in high latitudes. If the angle were less, the reverse would be the case. Moreover if sun and moon and all the planets followed the same track, they would be constantly eclipsing one another.

But if we would understand the full meaning of—

“Se la strada lor non fosse torta,
Mota virtù nel ciel sarebbe in vano,
E quasi ogni potenza quaggiù morta.”395

we must turn to thirteenth-century Ristoro of Arezzo, who has set forth in detail the results which he believed would follow from a change in the ecliptic. If all the seven planets moved in the same narrow path, there would be much less variety in their “aspects,” and therefore in their influences upon the earth; and in the frequent eclipses one would prevent the other from looking at the earth (“impedimenterebbe l’uno l’altro a guardare la terra”), and so hinder its action. And since it is the northward movement of the sun which causes our plants to blossom, and later to bear fruit, if there were no such motion we should see no renewal of life. He argues further that if the obliquity of the ecliptic were greater, countries in high latitudes would have too severe a winter to be inhabited; while if it were less, the summer there would not be warm enough for the ripening of harvests; therefore in whichever way it differed from the actual value, a smaller part of the earth would be habitable.

“Or ti riman, lettor, sopra il tuo banco,
Dietro pensando a ciò!”396

How much of this was in Dante’s mind it is hardly possible to say, but it is evident that the “via tortuosa” of the seven planets, and its effects on the earth, was a favourite subject for thought in his time.397

But the most famous passage relating to the sun’s path and its aspect in strange latitudes is Purg. iv. 52-84.

Here Dante is able at once to understand the startling appearance of the sun travelling to his left instead of his right, as seen on the first morning in Purgatory, for he grasps the full meaning of Virgil’s explanation, and caps it, in a way which seems astonishingly quick-witted to unastronomical readers!

The two poets had begun to climb the mountain just at sunrise, and sat down to rest on a ledge at about half-past nine, looking east. Dante at first looked down at the shore, whence he had so painfully climbed, then raised his eyes to the sun, and was amazed to find that its rays struck him on the left shoulder.

Virgil, seeing his astonishment, explains why the sun is going north instead of south as it climbs the sky. The sun is now in Aries, and therefore on the equator, as we know from several passages, but Virgil begins by saying that if it were in Gemini [a more northerly sign] and kept to its ancient path, Dante would see it travelling still further northwards in its daily course. “If Castor and Pollux [stars in Gemini] were in company with that Mirror [the sun] which carries his light up and down [i.e. goes north and south alternately], you would see the glowing zodiac [that part in which the sun is] revolving still closer to the Bears.” Gemini is literally nearer to the constellations of the Bears than Aries, but this is not the sense of Virgil’s statement: he means merely to indicate the north in general (see Ptolemy, p. 157). “To understand why the sun goes north,” Virgil says, “you must know that this mountain and Zion [Jerusalem] are so situated on the earth that one is precisely antipodal to the other; and so, the sun’s path being between them, when he is viewed in one direction from Jerusalem, he is viewed in the opposite direction from Purgatory. If you turn from the east to your right to see him from Jerusalem, you must turn to your left in Purgatory.” Virgil speaks of the sun’s path or the ecliptic as the path which Phaëton was not able to keep, and he describes the two antipodal places as having one and the same horizon but two entirely different hemispheres.

“Certainly,” replies Dante, “I have never seen anything so clearly as I now perceive what at first puzzled me. For the middle circle of the celestial motion,398 which is called the equator in a certain art [astronomy], and which always remains between the sun and winter, [the sun crosses it departing from us in either hemisphere at the autumnal equinox], here lies to the north of us, for the reason you have given [namely, that we are in the southern hemisphere], whilst the Hebrews [inhabitants of Jerusalem] see it towards the hot region [the south].”

Observe that the expression used of the equator “che sempre riman tra il sole e il verno,”399 distinctly suggests the reversed seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres, so that Dante has no intention, as Dr. Moore suggests, of assuming by a poetic licence that it is spring in Purgatory as well as in Italy.400 It is autumn in the southern hemisphere, but this need not distress us: the holy Mountain knows no inclement weather,401 and in the Garden of Eden on its summit spring flowers and autumn fruits eternally flourish together.402

An allusion is made to a tropical summer in “la terra che perde ombra.”403 Tropical Africa is intended, where the sun at certain times passes directly overhead, and therefore casts no shadows, as the Alexandrian astronomers had observed (see p. 117).

Did Dante believe that no land exists anywhere in the southern hemisphere? There are some indications that he thought it possible to push the limits of the habitable earth a little beyond the equatorial boundary of Alfraganus. There would be no heresy in lengthening the southward extremities of Africa or Asia, because all that the Church forbade was to plant another land in the south, separated from us by a vast ocean or impassable torrid zone, and to people it with inhabitants, who could not therefore be descendants of Adam or have the Gospel preached to them. Nor would there be any inconsistency with the poet’s own description of our hemisphere as that covered by “la gran secca,”404 or with the voyage of Ulysses, on which he saw no land but the Mountain of Purgatory; for he sailed south-west, not due south, and the “mondo senza gente”405 was “diretro al Sol.”406

The indications are as follows:—

(1) The passage quoted above, where it is said that the equator “divides the uncovered land from the ocean”407 is ambiguous in the original, and might mean “divides the land uncovered by Ocean.”

(2) Shortly before, he has distinctly admitted that there is some land in the southern hemisphere, by saying that the north celestial pole is visible to nearly all the land not covered by sea, and the south is hidden from nearly all of it. The first is true in any case, since though the pole is theoretically visible as far as the equator, it is often hidden by mist or rising land on the northern horizon; but unless the second “nearly” has been added by a (somewhat natural) mistake of a copyist, it can only apply to lands in the southern hemisphere.408

(3) There is a stanza in Canzone XV. which suggests that Dante believed Ethiopia to be on the south side of the equator. Classical and mediæval cosmographers had very vague ideas about the extent and position of this country. Dante describes a wind raised in its deserts by the sun, which now is heating it (implying the time of summer?); but the same wind, crossing the sea to Europe, darkens all this hemisphere, bringing clouds which fall in snow.

“Levasi della rena d’Etiopia
  Un vento pellegrin, che l’ aer turba,
  Per la spera del sol, ch’ or la riscalda,
  E passa il mare, onde n’adduce copia
  Di nebbia tal, che s’ altro non la sturba
  Questo emisperio chiude tutto, e salda;
  E poi si solve, e cade in bianca falda
  Di fredda neve, ed in noiosa pioggia.”409

However, it may be said that “or la riscalda”410 means merely that it is always hot in the tropics, even when we have winter, and that “questo emisperio”411 cannot possibly mean the whole of the terrestrial northern hemisphere from equator to pole, but simply describes the appearance of the hemispherical sky,412 completely covered with cloud.

These doubtful passages are not strong enough to set against the explicit statement in the Quæstio that the habitable earth extends from the equator to the Arctic circle and no further.413 Letters and reports from missionaries and traders, none of them scientific, did not shake Dante’s faith in the limits laid down by Ptolemy and Alfraganus. His geography was utterly wrong, but his astronomy was right; and therefore, although he had no idea of what he would see on our globe in untravelled latitudes, he knew exactly, and has described vividly, what he would see in the sunny sky.

9. Celestial Phenomena and Time

The foregoing quotations have shown how well Dante understood the changing appearances of the celestial phenomena as viewed from different latitudes: it now remains to be seen what were his conceptions of longitude.

A difference in longitude between two places makes no difference in the stars, nor in the apparent paths of the heavenly bodies, but they come to the meridian sooner in the more easterly place; and as it is the meridian passage of the sun which determines local time, this will vary in exact proportion to the distance east. When it is early morning in England, it is noon in Burmah, and evening in Fiji. As Alfraganus had observed (following Ptolemy), a celestial phenomenon such as a lunar eclipse, which is caused by an actual darkening of the moon’s surface when immersed in Earth’s shadow, is visible in every place where the moon is above the horizon, though the local hour differs.

It is otherwise with a total solar eclipse, for this is only visible from the very small portion of Earth on which the moon’s shadow falls as she passes between us and the sun (see fig. 44); and as this shadow moves on, owing to her own motion and the diurnal revolution combined, the eclipse becomes visible successively from different parts of the earth. Dante realized this when he quoted the argument of some theologians that the miraculous three hours’ darkness described in the Gospels could not have been caused by an eclipse of the sun, as Aquinas and others had suggested, because it was visible all over the earth at the same absolute time, that is, during the Crucifixion.414 Some said, he tells us, that the moon went back and placed herself between us and the sun (for the moon at Passover time was always full, and therefore opposite the sun), so that the sun’s light should not come down (to us on the earth); others, that the sun hid itself, for a corresponding eclipse was seen by Spaniards and Indians as well as Jews.415 Spaniards and Indians were supposed to live at the extreme western and eastern limits of the habitable earth: they were 180° in longitude, or 12 hours in time, apart, and Jerusalem was midway between them. Therefore the sun would be visible to all, though only just rising in India and just setting in Spain;416 but it could not have been an eclipse that darkened it to all at the same time.

This passage shows that Dante was entirely orthodox and conservative in his geography, as far as longitude was concerned, and confirms us in the conclusion that he was so also with regard to latitude, and was not likely to accept contemporary evidence about lands south of the equator, or stars unknown to Ptolemy. In the Divine Comedy there are several passages which refer to the same system, as for instance where Night is described as covering the whole region from “the Shore” to Morocco,417 or where the time is stated to be noon on the Ganges, sunrise at Jerusalem, and midnight in Spain.418 And in the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra the system is thus clearly explained:—

“As all these agree in believing [the naturalists, the astrologers, and the cosmographers], this habitable earth extends in longitude from Gades, which lies on the western boundaries of Hercules, as far as the mouths of the Ganges, as Orosius writes.419 That longitude is such that at the equinox the sun is setting upon those who are at one of these boundaries, while it is rising upon those who are at the other, as astrologers have discovered by eclipses of the moon. Therefore the aforesaid boundaries must be 180 degrees distant in longitude, which is half the distance of the whole circumference.”420

Gades is not the city of Cadiz, but two islands (the “Gades Insulæ” of Orosius), on which Hercules was said to have set up his Pillars, as a sign that no one should venture further; and they were thought to lie in the mouth of what we call the Straits of Gibraltar:421—

“quella foce stretta,
Ov’ Ercule segnò li suoi riguardi,
Acciochè l’uom più oltre non si metta.”422

Through these Ulysses sailed, never to return.423

It is difficult to believe that a lunar eclipse had ever been observed simultaneously, and the local time compared, on the Ganges and at Gibraltar, as the above quotation from the Quæstio declares: and if it had been, the astrologers, the cosmographers, and the naturalists would have found out that they were greatly mistaken, for the distance is little more than half what they thought. All that Ptolemy had said was that this was the right method for calculating longitudes, and he gave as an example an eclipse which had been seen at Arbela at the fifth hour and at Carthage at the second hour.424 It was, in fact, an excellent method, and the only one before the day of chronographs and telegraphs; and it seems to have been assumed that Ptolemy’s guess of 180° for the extent in longitude of the inhabited earth was based upon it.

Then this 180° was considered, in the Middle Ages, as divided into two equal parts, the western half containing Europe and Africa, the eastern containing Asia. On the western front of Asia lay Jerusalem, thus holding the central position in the inhabited earth which was thought to be her right, on the authority of certain Scripture texts, as we saw.425 This gave the Mediterranean a length of 90°, which of course is vastly too great. Even Ptolemy had only estimated it at 62°, and the Alfonsine Tables made it 52°, while the true distance is only about 42°.

Latitude, however, was much more easily measured than longitude, for it was only necessary to take the height of the pole star above the horizon with an astrolabe; and the latitude of Jerusalem is really just about midway between the supposed limits of the habitable earth, the equator and arctic circle, for it is nearly 32° north.

Some daring spirits ventured to suggest that the dry land stretched much further round the globe than was commonly supposed, so that one might sail from Spain to Asia in quite a short time, and they sheltered themselves behind the great names of Aristotle, Seneca, Pliny, and Esdras.426 Albertus Magnus quotes Aristotle to this effect, although in another part of the same book (his De Cælo et Mundo), he repeats the usual phrase about the habitable Earth being all contained within one of the northern quadrants of earth. Roger Bacon expresses himself more boldly, and it is possible that he was impressed by the long journey of the Franciscan friar Rubruquis, on his mission to Central Asia, from St. Louis of France to the Emperor of the Mongols. Besides relating the story of this journey, Bacon speaks of men who were known to live in tropical Taprobane (Ceylon), and if there, why not also south of Capricorn? There may be delightful countries there, since it is the better and nobler part of the world, as Aristotle and Averroës taught.

Moreover, Dante’s own countryman, the learned Pietro d’Abano, maintained that there are habitable lands on, and even beyond the equator, and did not hesitate to quote conversations with Marco Polo as evidence, although this “most extensive traveller and most diligent enquirer” was accounted a romancer by most of his contemporaries. Had not Messer Marco told him that in islands south of the equator he had seen not only great rams with coarse stiff wool like the bristles of pigs, but human beings?427

Roger Bacon was banished from Oxford on a charge of heresy and witchcraft: Pietro d’Abano escaped the Inquisition by dying, in 1316. Men such as these belonged to the new age that was coming, the age that would throw away the old lesson-books, and begin to discover for itself—and they suffered in consequence. Dante belonged heart and soul to his own era, and clung passionately to its ideals and traditions. For him the Ganges still flowed into the all-surrounding ocean on the east coast of Asia, 90 degrees from Jerusalem, as Orosius had pictured it, and there is not the faintest echo in his writings of the voyages of his countrymen, Corvino and his bishops, or Polo and his companions,428 between “Greater India” and “Zayton” (Amoy harbour), although they surely must have recognized, when they praised the great rivers of China, that these flowed into a sea many days’ journey beyond that into which the Ganges rolled its waters. Nor is there, on the other hand, any hint of the monstrous races with which Dark-Age superstition had peopled the remote regions of the earth, although they were regularly represented on the maps of that time. It is true that the “portolani,” or handy charts, of which the earliest known date from Dante’s life-time, showed none of these things, but depicted the coast-lands of the Mediterranean and Black Seas with marvellous accuracy: but they were only for pilots and merchant captains, and had nothing to do with scholars. The maps Dante would see were hung on church or monastery walls, or illustrated learned books; and the mappe-monde of Cardinal Heinrich of Mainz may be taken as typical of them all. It much resembles our great Hereford Map of the World, and was probably copied from the same original design.

It is two hundred years older than Dante, but so stationary was geography throughout the Middle Ages that it might have been executed in his day, or, except for a few details, several centuries earlier.

Mediæval maps are as fascinating as a fairy tale, which indeed they much resemble. The shape is conventional, and not supposed to represent the true shape of the habitable earth; it is sometimes circular, sometimes quadrilateral, occasionally oval, as in the present instance. The east is here, as usual, at the top, and there we see the Paradise of Adam and Eve, and close beside it, to the north, the River Ganges, flowing into the great ocean which surrounds all the land. At the opposite or western extremity are the Pillars of Hercules, which two angels appear to be guarding. In the centre, but not so exactly or conspicuously central as in some other maps, we find “Hierusalem.” Along the south is the long narrow continent of Africa, with the Atlas and Ethiopian mountains; and the Nile, rising far in the south-west, after mysterious submergences and reappearances, finally flows into the Mediterranean, past the pictured Pyramids, here strangely called (according to Dark-Age myth) the Barns of Joseph. In the north another Angel points to the country where dwell the Gog-Magogs, and not far off are the lands of the Hyperboreans, here described as untroubled by disease or discord, of the “most wicked” Gryphons, and of the Dog-headed folk, adjoining the Arctic Ocean.

Italy is a very large country, roughly triangular, and in the Mediterranean to the south lie Sicily, the whirlpool Charybdis, the rock Scylla, Sardinia, Corsica, and other islands. Rome is figured as a battlemented city, about halfway between Jerusalem and the Pillars of Hercules.

This is where Dante also places the imperial city, for in his system it is about 45°, or 3 hours, east of Gades and west of Jerusalem. He tells us in one place that it was vespers in Naples when the sun rose in Purgatory,429 and in another that when it was vespers or three o’clock in the afternoon in Purgatory, it was midnight “here”430 which may mean Florence or Italy in general; both these statements indicate a difference of nine hours or 135° between Italy and Purgatory. Purgatory in the Divine Comedy is exactly antipodal to Jerusalem, and therefore twelve hours distant in time;431 and for the sake of his allegory Dante has so far departed from tradition as to place the Earthly Paradise here also.432 These five places may therefore be diagramatically represented thus:—

With this key, Dante’s fondness for describing the time at one place by mentioning one of the others need be no stumbling-block, as it is to many readers.

The fact is that though Dante had none of our opportunities for changing time-reckoning by long journeys, nor for communicating with friends at the other side of the world, who wake while we sleep, the marvellous daily revolution of the skies had a fascination for him, and he delighted to picture a glorious sunrise taking place in one country while in another it was high noon, or the middle of the night. Thus, the beautiful description of the stars fading in the growing light of dawn, which we quoted above, is preceded by a picture of the sun glowing on the meridian some 6000 miles away (rather more than a quarter the circumference of the globe), while with us Earth’s shadow has sunk almost to a level plane.433

Again, Folco of Marseilles, when describing his birthplace, says that the greatest of all the seas (the Mediterranean) except the ocean which encircles all the habitable earth, stretches so far against the sun (i.e. from west to east), that the line of sky which is on its horizon at one end is on its meridian at the other.434 If the sun were seen just rising on the eastern horizon at Gades, it would be on the meridian at Jerusalem and the time would there be noon.

Dante’s hours are always reckoned from sunrise, and they are the “temporary” or Church hours. He defines both kinds in the Convivio. The same lines of his Ode which provided him with a text whereon to discourse of the sun’s movements, give him occasion to treat of the division of each day into hours, thus:—

“I say that the sun, in circling round the world, ne’er beholdeth aught so noble as this lady, from which it follows that she is, as the words affirm, the most noble of all the things on which the sun shines. And I say in that hour, etc. Wherefore we must know that the hour is understood in two senses by astrologers. One sense is employed when they assign twenty-four hours to the day and night, that is, twelve to the day and twelve to the night, however long or short the day may be. And these hours become short or long in the day and in the night, according as the day and night wax and wane. And the Church uses hours in this sense when she speaks of Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None; and these are called temporal hours. The other sense is employed when, of the twenty-four hours alloted to the day and night, the day has sometimes fifteen and the night nine, and sometimes the night has sixteen and the day eight assigned to it, according as the day and the night wax and wane; and these are called equal hours. And at the equinox these latter are always one and the same with those which are called temporal; for it must needs be so when the day and the night are of the same length.”435

The choice of these two examples of unequal days and nights seems to be another instance of Dante’s dependence upon Alfraganus, for in Chapter VIII. of the Elementa Astronomica we read that the middle of the seventh climate (in which the inequality is greatest) has a longest day of 16 hours, and the middle of the fifth, of 15 hours; and in chapter IX. we find that Magna Roma is situated in the fifth climate.

In the fourth treatise of the Convivio, Dante returns to the same subject, and enters into further detail about Church hours and divisions of the day.436 Our lives, like the arch of heaven which is always above us, consist of a rise and a decline, with a culminating point, and this point he fixes as normally reached at a man’s 35th year, as Ristoro had also done.437 In the same way the day rises and declines, and culminates at the sixth hour; and it is the most noble hour of the day and the most virtuous (in the old Latin sense of virtue as strength, efficacy).

“La sesta ora, cioè il mezzo del dì, è la più nobile di tutto il dì, e la più vertuosa.”438

This means the whole of the sixth hour (as we should say, from 11 to 12 o’clock): the beginning of the seventh hour is the exact moment of noon, after which the day begins to decline. It was for this reason, Dante believes, that Christ chose to die during the sixth hour,439 and during his 34th year, for then the day and his human life were both at their culmination, and had not begun to decline.

There was some difference in the methods of reckoning the hours for Church offices, but Dante tells in this same passage which of them he considered right, and he follows it consistently in his works. The Church day was divided into four parts, viz.:—

		At the equinox=
Tierce,	Sunrise to the end of the third hour	6 to 9 a.m.
Sext,	Fourth to end of sixth hour	9 a.m. to 12 noon
Nones,	Seventh to end of ninth	12 noon to 3 p.m.
Vespers,	Tenth hour to sunset	3 to 6 p.m.

Two of the Church offices were to be said at the beginning, and one at the end, of these periods, as follows:—

Tierce,	at the end	i.e. 9 a.m. at the equinox.
Nones,	at the beginning	i.e. 12 noon.
Vespers,	””	i.e. 3 p.m. at the equinox.

Thus sext is omitted altogether, and Dante says that the reason for the arrangement is to approximate in every case to that hour which is the noblest of the whole day, the sixth.

Mid-tierce was halfway through the period from sunrise to the end of the third hour, that is, 7.30 a.m. at the time of the equinox; and mid-nones and mid-vespers were counted in the same way.

As an instance of reckoning hours by the sun, we may quote the reply of Adam when Dante desired to know how long time he had spent in Eden:

“Dalla prim’ ora a quella che seconda,
Come il sol muta quadra, l’ora sesta.”440

Just as the time of day may be told, if one is accustomed to watch the sun, by noting how much of the daily course has been run, so the time of day or night (according to her phase) may be told by the moon; only with her we must take into consideration the rapid and variable motion eastwards in the zodiac. Alfraganus says that her mean daily motion in longitude is 13° and nearly 11 minutes,441 but that a small amount must be added or subtracted every day in order to find her true motion. As a clock, therefore, for use in daily life, she leaves much to be desired. This daily motion makes her fall constantly behind the sun, so that she loses time every day, and not even the same amount of time; for though she crosses the meridian on an average 50½ minutes later each day, the interval is sometimes only 38 minutes and sometimes as much as 66 minutes. And her times of setting and rising are even more variable.

This is easily understood if we remember how much the sun’s time of setting varies throughout the year, according to the part of the zodiac in which he is travelling, and consider that what the sun does in a year the moon does in a month. And in her case the effect is sometimes exaggerated, sometimes diminished, for her path in the zodiac is inclined to the sun’s path; moreover, her greatest departure from it to north and south takes place in different parts of the zodiac at different times. These facts were well known to Ptolemy and to mediæval astronomers, and everyone who watches the moon must have noticed how variable are the intervals between one moonrise or one moonset and the next.

The extent of variability also depends upon our latitude (just as with sunrises and sunsets); and in Florence the retardation in one day may sometimes be only twenty minutes, sometimes an hour and twenty minutes. The difference would be less in Dante’s Purgatory, since this was in latitude 32° south, and the intervals between moonset and moonset become less variable in length as we approach the equator, just as the days become less unequal all the year round. Still, they would vary a good deal, so we must conclude that Dante only means to indicate the time quite roughly when he uses the moon as a clock. As a matter of fact, he seldom does so in the Divine Comedy without giving us another clue to the time as well.

These passages all belong to a most interesting series of time indications, which we may now proceed to examine.

VI — Dante’s Journey Through the Three Realms

INDICATIONS OF TIME AND DIRECTION BY MEANS OF THE SKIES.

1. Time References in the Divine Comedy

The plan of the universe through which Dante feigns himself to have journeyed is familiar to all readers of the Divine Comedy. Hell, as the Fathers taught, was a subterranean cavity, and Dante pictures it as an inverted cone, whose apex reaches the exact centre of Earth and therefore of the universe. It is situated vertically underneath Jerusalem, the centre of the inhabited Earth. He departs from the Fathers, however, in removing Purgatory from these dim regions, and placing it on an island in the midst of the ocean of the uninhabited hemisphere, exactly at the antipodes of Jerusalem. On this island rises a mountain whose immensely lofty summit reaches the upper regions of the atmosphere, and upon the summit is the Eden of our first parents. This original conception is an extraordinary gain, both from the artistic and the allegorical points of view; and it is in harmony with the idea of Aristotle, and of many mediæval writers, that the southern hemisphere was the “nobler” part of Earth. Here, then, man was permitted to dwell before the Fall, and hither come repentant souls, saved from Hell, but not yet pure enough to enter Heaven. Paradise consists of all the spheres of mediæval astronomy, and the poet rises from one to another until he finally reaches the all-embracing Empyrean, where his vision ends.

Nowhere does he describe this scheme in full, but it was evidently clear in his own mind, and by following him step by step in his journey it is easily reconstructed, and is represented in the accompanying diagram.

In the same way he never states how long a time he spent on this visionary journey, yet this also he had definitely determined, and in each Cantica he refers once to the period of time alloted to each realm.

In the last Circle but one of the Inferno, he is warned by Virgil that the time allowed is drawing to a close;442 in the last but one of the Purgatorio Virgil urges him to make the best use of the time appointed;443 and in the Paradiso, just before the final vision, St. Bernard tells him that the time of his trance is nearly over.444

In the first Canto, which is introductory to the whole Commedia, he mentions the time at which he assumes that his vision began. It was “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”445 which may mean simply that he was middle-aged, or comparing it with the passage in the Convivio quoted earlier (see p. 347), we may suppose it to mean that he was exactly in his 35th year. The season was spring—“la dolce stagione,”446 and when night was over the sun rose among those stars which were with him at the Creation, which was believed to have taken place at the vernal equinox some sixty-five centuries before.

“Il Sol montava su con quelle stelle
Ch’ eran con lui quando l’Amor Divino
Mosse da prima quelle cose belle.”447

The expression “quelle stelle,”448 however, shows us that Dante does not intend to be pedantically accurate, which would indeed be inartistic in a poem. He speaks several times of the supposed slow motion of the star sphere,449 and although he never mentions its effect in shifting the place of the equinox continually among the stars, we can hardly imagine that he failed to understand this. He knew quite well, therefore, that the stars which accompanied the sun in that first springtime of the world could not be the same stars which rose with him now. But astronomers had agreed to call the part of the sky which contains the vernal equinox by its old name, and it would be exceedingly tiresome if he were to distinguish, every time he mentioned them, between the zodiacal constellations and the zodiacal signs; there shall be no occasion, therefore, to stop and consider which he means, and no ambiguity: he assumes once for all that they always have been and always are identical, that the “first point of Aries” or vernal equinox is now and always at the beginning of the constellation Aries. To this assumption he is consistent throughout.

Another important point to notice is that, since it is the time of the equinox, there is no difference between “temporary” and “equal” hours.450 Days and nights are of equal length; sunrise and sunset are nearly at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., according to our modern method of reckoning.451 In this way also, and without any sacrifice of astronomical accuracy, the poet has simplified his time references for his readers.

We must observe, however, that the day is as uncertain as the year; for, although it is certainly near the equinox, “quelle stelle” may mean exactly the first point of Aries or only the constellation Aries in general. From this Canto alone, therefore, we cannot be sure of the exact date.

From other allusions of various kinds, scattered throughout the Divine Comedy, we gather that Dante did intend a definite date to be understood, but unfortunately the data by which he means to fix it are themselves so ambiguous that commentators differ as to the day, the month, and the year. The question has so direct a bearing on Dante’s astronomy that we cannot shirk it; but for the present, leaving it aside, let us deal merely with the hour, which is distinctly stated from the first, and indicated in a number of passages so clearly that readers with an elementary knowledge of the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies can find little difficulty in following Virgil and Dante through their journey, seeing exactly how many days it required, and frequently at what hour of day or night they were in a particular spot. If my readers are not now in possession of this elementary knowledge, this book has been written in vain.

I give below a list of all the hour-indications, astronomical and others, for the sake of clearness and completeness; but I omit for the present those that indicate only the date, and merely call the days the first, second, etc. These passages, though they are only to be understood in a popular sense, prove quite as clearly as the elaborate astronomical explanations in the Convivio how deep an interest Dante always took in astronomy; and a study of them shows that he had carefully considered the positions of the heavenly bodies and their movements during the progress of the action in his poem.

TIME REFERENCES IN
THE DIVINE COMEDY

Night. In the Forest. Moon full

(see below, Inf. xx. 127-129, and Purg. xxiii. 118-121).

“La notte ch’ i’ passai.”

Inf. i. 21.

“The night that I had spent.”

1st day. Just before sunrise.

At the foot of the Hill.

“Ma poi ch’ io fui al piè d’un colle giunto,

Guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle

Vestite già de’ raggi del pianeta

Che mena dritto altrui per ogni calle.”

Inf. i. 13-18.

“But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders

Vested already with that planet’s rays

Which leadeth others right by every road.”

Sunrise 6 a.m. 452

Climbing the Hill.

“Tempo era dal principio del mattino,

E il sol montava su con quelle stelle

Ch’eran con lui quando l’ Amor divino

Mosse da prima quelle cose belle.”

Inf. i. 37-40.

“The time was the beginning of the morning,

And up the sun was mounting with those stars

That with him were, what time the Love Divine

At first in motion set those beautous things.”

Evening twilight.

At the Gate of Hell.

“Lo giorno se n’andava, e l’ aer bruno....”

Inf. ii. 1.

“Day was departing, and the brown air....”

Midnight.

Crossing the fourth circle.

“Già ogni stella cade, che saliva

Quando mi mossi.”

Inf. vii. 98, 99.

“Already sinks each star that was ascending

When I set out.”

2nd day. About 2 hrs. before sunrise (4 a.m.)

On the edge of the cliff, preparing to descend to the 7th circle.

“I Pesci guizzan su per l’ orizzonta,

E il Carro tutto sovra il Coro giace.”

Inf. xi. 113, 114.

“Quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,

And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies.”

(Dante refers to the previous day.)

In the 7th circle.

“Mi smarri’ in una valle.

Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle.”

Inf. xv. 50-52.

“I lost me in a valley.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it.”

After sunrise, between 6 and 7 a.m.

Leaving the 4th Pit of Circle VIII.

(Virgil reminds Dante of the night before last, spent in the Forest.)

“Già tiene il confine

D’ ambedue gli emisperi e tocca l’ onda

Sotto Sibilia Caino e le spine;

E già iernotte fu la luna tonda;

Ben ten dee ricordar, chè non ti nocque

Alcuna volta per la selva fonda.”

Inf. xx. 124-129.

“... Already holds the confines

Of both the hemispheres, and under Seville

Touches the ocean-wave, Cain and the thorns;

And yesternight the moon was round already;

Thou shouldst remember well: it did not harm thee

From time to time within the forest deep.”

7 a.m.

On the bridge over the 5th Pit.

“Ier, più oltre cinq’ ore che quest’ otta,

Mille dugento con sessanta sei

Anni compiè che qui la via fu rotta.”

Inf. xxi. 112-114.

“Yesterday, five hours later than this hour,

One thousand and two hundred sixty-six

Years were complete that here the way was broken.”

About 1 p.m.

Leaving the 9th Pit.

“E già la Luna è sotto nostri piedi,

Lo tempo è poco omai che n’è concesso.”

Inf. xxix. 10, 11.

“And now the moon is underneath our feet.

Henceforth the time allotted us is brief.”

Nightfall.

At the bottom of the world.

“La notte risurge; ed oramai

È da partir, chè tutto avem veduto.”

Inf. xxxiv. 68, 69.

“Night is reascending, and ’tis time

That we depart, for we have seen the whole.”

3rd day. (no night intervening) 7.30 a.m.

In the new hemisphere

“Già il sole a mezza terza riede.”

Inf. xxxiv. 96.

“And now the sun to middle-tierce returns.”

4th day. About an hour before sunrise (5 a.m.).

On the island of Purgatory.

“E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”

Inf. xxxiv. 139.

“Thence we came forth to see again the stars.”

“Lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta

Faceva tutto rider l’ oriente,

Velando i Pesci ch’ erano in sua scorta.”

Purg. i. 19-21.

“The beauteous planet that to love incites

Was making all the orient to laugh,

Veiling the Fishes that were in her escort.”

Dawn.

“Lo sol vi mostrerà, che surge omai.”

Purg. i. 107.

“The sun, which now is rising, will direct you.”

“L’ alba vinceva l’ ora mattutina.”

Purg. i. 115.

“The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour.”

Sun just below east horizon.

On the Shore of the Island.

“Già era il sole all’ orizzonte giunto

Lo cui meridian cerchio coperchia

Jerusalem col suo più alto punto;

E la notte, che opposita a lui cerchia,

Uscia di Gange fuor con le bilance

Che le caggion di man quando soperchia;

Si che le bianche e le vermilie guance,

Là dove io era, della bella Aurora,

Per troppa etate divenivan rance.”

Purg. ii. 1-9.

“Already had the sun the horizon reached

Whose circle of meridian covers o’er

Jerusalem with its most lofty point;

And night, that opposite to him revolves,

Was issuing forth from Ganges, with the scales

That fall from out her hand when she exceedeth;

So that the white and the vermilion cheeks

Of beautiful Aurora, where I was,

By too great age were changing into orange.”

Sun risen.

“Da tutte parti saettava il giorno

Lo sol, ch’avea con le saette conte

Di mezzo il ciel cacciato il Capricorno.”

Purg. ii. 55-57.

“On every side was darting forth the day

The sun, who had with his resplendent shafts

From the mid-heaven chased forth the Capricorn.”

Soon after sunrise.

Walking westward, towards the Mountain of Purgatory.

“Lo sol che retro fiammeggiava roggio.”

Purg. iii. 16.

“The sun that in our rear was flaming red.”

Shortly after 6 a.m. (3 p.m. in Italy).

“Vespero è già colà dov’ è sepolto

Lo corpo dentro al quale io facea ombra.”

Purg. iii. 25, 26.

“’Tis vespers there already where is buried

The body within which I cast a shadow.”

About 9.30 a.m.

At the foot of the Mountain.

“Ben cinquanta gradi salito era

Lo sole.”

Purg. iv. 15, 16.

“Fifty full degrees uprisen was

The sun.”

Midday.

On a ledge of the Mountain (Anti-purgatory).

“Vedi ch’è tocco

Meridian dal sole, e dalla riva.

Copre la notte già col piè Morrocco.”

Purg. iv. 137-139.

“See, the sun has touched

Meridian, and from the shore the night

Covers already with her foot Morocco.”

Afternoon.

Climbing the eastern slope of the Mountain.

“Vedi omai che il poggio l’ ombra getta.

Prima che sii lassù tornar vedrai

Colui che già si copre della costa,

Sì che i suoi raggi tu romper non fai.”

Purg. vi. 51-57.

“See, e’en now the hill a shadow casts.

Ere thou art up there, thou shalt see return

Him, who now hides himself behind the hill,

So that thou dost not interrupt his rays.”

Evening.

“Vedi già come dichina il giorno.”

Purg. vii. 43.

“See already how the day declines.”

Sunset (6 p.m.).

In the Flowery Valley, on the Mountain-side.

“Era già l’ora che volge il disio

Ai naviganti e intenerisce il core,

Lo di ch’han detto ai dolci amici addio;

E che lo nuovo peregrin d’ amore

Punge, se ode squilla di lontano

Che paia il giorno pianger che si more.”

Purg. viii. 1-6.

“’Twas on the hour that turneth back desire

In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,

The day they’ve said to their sweet friends farewell;

And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,

If he doth hear from far away a bell

That seemeth to deplore the dying day.”

Evening twilight.

“Tempo era già che l’ aer s’annerava.”

Purg. viii. 49.

“Already now the air was growing dark.”

(Dante refers to the morning of the same day.)

“Per entro il lochi tristi

Venni stamane.”

Purg. viii. 58, 59.

“Through the dismal places

I came this morn.”

Early night: about 7 p.m.

“Le quattro chiare stelle

Che vedevi staman, son di là basse,

Equeste son salite ov’ eran quelle.”

Purg. viii. 91-93.

“The four resplendent stars

Thou sawest this morning are down yonder low,

And these have mounted up to where those were.”

Shortly before moonrise, between 8 and 9 p.m.

“La concubina di Titone antico

Già s’imbiancava al balco d’oriente,

Fuor delle braccia del suo dolce amico;

Di gemme la sua fronte era lucente,

Poste in figura del freddo animale

Che con la coda percote la gente;

Ela notte de’ passi con che sale

Fatti avea due nel loco ov’ eravamo,

E il terzo già chinava in giuso l’ ale.”

Purg. ix. 1-9.

“The concubine of old Tithonus now

Gleamed white upon the eastern balcony,

Forth from the arms of her sweet paramour;

With gems her forehead all relucent was,

Set in the shape of that cold animal

Which with its tail doth smite amain the people;

And of the steps with which she mounts the Night

Had taken two in that place where we were,

And now the third was bending down its wings.”

5th day. Dawn.

At the Gate of Purgatory.

“Nell’ ora che comincia i tristi lai

La rondinella presso alla mattina.”

Purg. ix. 13, 14.

“Just at the hour when her sad lay begins

The little swallow, near unto the morning.”

(See also ix. 52 “nell’ alba che precede al giorno,”

and ix. 59 “come il di fu chiaro.”)

(See also “At dawn, which doth precede the day.”

and “As day grew bright”).

More than 2 hours after sunrise (after 8 a.m.).

“Il sole er’ alto già più che due ore.“

Purg. ix. 44.

“And now the sun was more than two hours high.”

About 9.30 a.m.

On the 1st Cornice of the Mountain.

“Pria lo scemo della luna

Rigiunse al letto suo per rícorcarsi,

Che noi fossimo fuori di quella cruna.”

Purg. x. 14-16.

“Sooner had the moon’s decreasing disc

Regained its bed to sink again to rest.

Than we were forth out of that needle’s eye.”

12 noon.

Ascent to the 2nd Cornice.

“Più era già per noi del monte volto,

Edel cammin del sole assai più speso

Che non stimava l’animo non sciolto.

... Vedi che torna

Dal servigio del dì l’ancella sesta.”

Purg. xii. 73-81.

“More of the mount by us was now encompassed,

And far more spent the circuit of the sun,

Than had the mind preoccupied imagined.

... Lo, returning is

From service of the day the sixth handmaiden.”

3 p.m. (midnight in Italy).

Ascent to the 3rd Cornice.

“Quanto tra l’ultimar dell’ ora terza

E il principio del dì par della spera

Che sempre a guisa di fanciullo scherza,

Tanto pareva già in ver la sera

Essere al sol del suo corso rimaso;

Vespero là, e qui mezza notte era.

E i raggi ne ferian per mezzo il naso,

Perchè per noi girato era si il monte,

Che già dritti andavamo in ver l’occaso.”

Purg. xv. 1-9.

“As much as ’twixt the close of the third hour

And dawn of day appeareth of that sphere

Which aye in fashion of a child is playing,

So much, it now appeared, towards the night

Was of his course remaining to the sun;

There it was evening, and ’twas midnight here.

And the rays smote the middle of our faces,

Because by us the mount was so encircled,

That straight towards the west we now were going.”

Evening.

On the 3rd Cornice.

“Noi andavam per lo vespero, attenti

Oltre, quanto potean gli occhi allungarsi

Contra i raggi serotini e lucenti.“

Purg. xv. 139-141.

“We passed along athwart the twilight, peering

Forward, as far as ever eye could stretch

Against the sunbeams serotine and lucent.”

Sunset at sea-level, 6 p.m.

“Io rividi

Lo sole in pria, che già nel corcare era.”

Purg xvii. 8, 9.

“I saw again

The sun at first, that was already setting.”

On the 3rd Cornice.

“I raggi, morti già, nei bassi lidi.“

Purg. xvii. 12.

“Rays already dead on the low shores.”

Ascent to the 4th Cornice.

“Procacciam di salir pria che s’abbui.”

Purg. xvii. 62.

“Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark.”

Sunset on the Mountain, shortly after 6 p.m.

On the 4th Cornice.

“Già eran sopra noi tanto levati

Gli ultimi raggi che la notte segue,

Che le stelle apparivan da più lati.”

Purg. xvii. 70-72.

“Already over us were so uplifted

The latest sunbeams which the night pursues,

That upon many sides the stars appeared.”

Towards midnight.

“La luna, quasi a mezza notte tarda,

Facea le stelle a noi parer più rade,

Fatta com’ un secchione che tutto arda;

E correa contra il ciel per quelle strade

Che il sole infiamma allor che quel da Roma

Tra i Sardi e i Corsi il vede quando cade.”

Purg. xviii. 76-81.

“The moon, belated almost unto midnight, 453

Now made the stars appear to us more rare,

Formed like a bucket that is all ablaze;

And counter to the heavens ran through those paths

Which the sun sets aflame when he of Rome

Sees it ’twixt Sardes and Corsicans go down.”

6th day. Nearly 2 hours before sunrise, about 4 a.m.

On the 4th Cornice.

“Nell’ ora che non può il calor diurno

Intepidar più il freddo della luna,

Vinto da terra, o talor da Saturno;

Quando i geomanti lor Maggior Fortuna

Veggiono in oriente, innanzi all’ alba,

Surger per via che poco le sta bruno.”

Purg. xix. 1-6.

“It was the hour when the diurnal heat

No more can warm the coldness of the moon,

Vanquished by Earth, or peradventure Saturn;

When geomancers their Fortuna Major

See in the orient, before the dawn,

Rise by a path that long remains not dim.”

Early morning.

Ascent to 5th Cornice.

“Su mi levai, e tutti eran già, pieni

Dell’ alto dì i giron del sacro monte,

Ed andavam col sol nuovo alle reni.”

Purg. xix. 37-39.

“I rose, and full already of high day

Were all the circles of the sacred mountain,

And with the new sun at our back we went.”

About 10 a.m.

On the 6th Cornice.

“E già le quattro ancelle eran del giorno

Rimase addietro, e la quinta era al temo,

Drizzando pure in su l’ ardente corno.”

Purg. xxii. 118-120.

“And four handmaidens of the day already

Were left behind, and at the pole the fifth

Was pointing upwards still its burning horn.”

(Dante refers to “the other day” when he began the journey.)

“Di quella vita mi volse costui

Che mi va innanzi, l’ altr’ ier, quando tonda

Vi si mostrò la suora di colui—

E il sol mostrai.”

Purg. xxiii. 118-121.

“Out of that life he turned me back who goes

In front of me, some days agone, when round

The sister of him yonder showed herself—

And to the sun I pointed.”

Between 2 and 4 p.m.

Ascent to the 7th Cornice.

“Il sole avea lo cerchio di merigge

Lasciato al Tauro, e la notte allo Scorpio.”

Purg. xxv. 2, 3.

“The sun bad his meridian circle

To Taurus left, and Night to Scorpio.”

Evening.

On the 7th Cornice, west side of the Mountain.

“Feriami il sole sull’ omero destro,

Che già, raggiando, tutto l’ occidente

Mutava in bianco aspetto di cilestro.”

Purg. xxvi. 4-6.

“On the right shoulder smote me now the sun,

That, raying out, already the whole west

Changed from its azure aspect into white.”

Sunset at sea-level, 6 p.m.

About to cross the zone of fire.

“Sì come quando i primi raggi vibra

La dove il suo Fattore il sangue sparse,

Cadendo Ibero sotto l’ alta Libra,

E l’ onde in Gange da nona riarse,

Sì stava il sole; onde il giorno sen giva.”

Purg. xxvii. 1-5.

“As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays

In regions where his Maker shed his blood,

The Ebro falling under lofty Libra,

And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,

So stood the sun; hence was the day departing.”

Sun about to set on the mountain heights.

At the foot of the last stairway.

“Lo sol sen va, soggiunse, e vien la sera.”

Purg. xxvii. 61.

“The sun departs, it added, and night cometh.”

Sun sets.

Climbing the last stairway.

“Io toglieva i raggi

Dinanzi a me del sol ch’era già basso.

Il sol corcar, per l’ ombra che si spense

Sentimmo.”

Purg. xxvii. 65-69.

“I cut off the rays

Before me of the sun, that now was low.

By the vanished shadow the sun’s setting

Behind us we perceived.”

Night.

On the last stairway.

“Vedev’ io le stelle.”

Purg. xxvii. 89.

“I beheld the stars.”

7th day. About 4 a.m.

“Nell’ ora, credo, che dell’ oriente

Prima raggiò nel monte Citerea.”

Purg. xxvii. 94, 95.

“It was the hour, I think, when from the east

First on the mountain Cytherea beamed.”

Dawn.

“E già per gli splendori antelucani

Le tenebre fuggian da tutti i lati.”

Purg. xxvii. 109-112.

“And now before the antelucan splendours

The darkness fled away on every side.”

Early morning.

In the Earthly Paradise.

“Vedi là il sol che in fronte ti riluce.”

Purg. xxvii. 133.

“Behold the sun that shines upon thy forehead.”

“L’ ôre prime.”

“The hours of prime.”

Midday.

By the fountain of Eunoë.

“Teneva il sole il cerchio di merigge.”

Purg. xxxiii. 104.

“The sun was holding the meridian circle.”

Ascent to Paradise.

“Fatto avea di là mane e di qua sera

Tal foce quasi, e tutto era là bianco

Quello emisperio, e l’ altra parte nera.”

Par. i. 43-45.

“Almost that passage had made morning there

And evening here, and there was wholly white

That hemisphere, and black the other part.”

8th day.

A lapse of 6 hrs. since entering the 8th heaven.

(Cf. Par. xxii. 151-153).

Sunset in Jerusalem (sunrise in Purgatory).

In the eighth heaven among the stars of Gemini.

“Dall’ ora ch’io avea guardato prima

Io vidi mosso me per tutto l’arco

Che fa del mezzo al fine il primo clima;

Si ch’io vedea di là da Gade il varco

Folle d’Ulisse. e di qua presso il lito

Nel qual si fece Europa dolce carco;

E più mi fora discoperto il sito

Di questa Aiuola, ma il sol procedea

Sotto i miei piedi un segno e più partito.”

Par. xxvii. 79-87.

“Since the first time that I had downward looked

I saw that I had moved through the whole arc

Which the first climate makes from midst to end;

So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses

Past Gades, and this side well nigh 454 the shore

Whereon became Europa a sweet burden;

And of this threshing-floor the site to me

Were more unveiled, but the sun was preceding

Under my feet, a sign and more removed.”

2. The Inferno

Using the above table as a guide, we may now see how Dante uses the movements of the heavenly bodies both for time and direction, and we shall discover how long his journey takes.

Dante has spent a night in a dark forest. The moon was then full; but we only learn this later, when Virgil reminds him of it, and he himself mentions it to Forese, when talking in the Purgatorio. At dawn he finds himself at the foot of a hill on which are already shining the first rays of the morning sun—the planet which leads all aright by every path. The sun rises: it is in Aries, consequently the moon, being full, must be in Libra, and must have set as the sun rose, i.e. at about 6 a.m. Virgil appears, rescues the poet from three terrible beasts, and announces that he has come to conduct him through Hell and Purgatory, and to lead him to Beatrice, who will guide him to Paradise.

On the evening of the same day, at twilight, the poets enter the Inferno. This great subterranean cavity, shaped like an inverted cone (see fig. 45), is divided into nine circles, in which the different classes of sinners are punished. In this blind world of eternal darkness no star shines, and the sun is never once mentioned as timegiver; when Virgil wishes to remind Dante that they must hasten, he refers to the position of moon or stars, and the former is called “La Donna che qui regge.”455

After passing through four circles, Virgil says that every star is now sinking which was ascending when he started, indicating that it is now six hours since they entered the Inferno, or soon after midnight. He does not mean that all these stars are setting, but that they have crossed the meridian, and are at some point of their descent towards the west. Strictly speaking this does not apply to stars north of the equator, since they take more than six hours to reach the meridian, being above the horizon for more than twelve. Perhaps Virgil is thinking chiefly of the constellations of the zodiac.

The poets cross the fifth circle, enter the “basso Inferno”456 or city of Dis, and on the edge of the precipice which borders the circle of the Heretics they sit while Virgil explains the system of the several circles. Then he expresses a wish to continue the journey, for the Fishes (of the zodiac) are quivering on the horizon, and the Wain lies to the north-west. As it is the time of the Vernal Equinox, and the sun is in Aries, Pisces is the zodiacal sign immediately preceding the sun, and begins to rise about four in the morning. The part of Ursa Major called the Wain is somewhat less than 180° distant from Pisces; hence when the latter appears on the eastern horizon the former will be in the west (and of course always in the north). The “Caurus” of the Latins was the wind from the north-west.

They descend a cliff over loose stones which roll under the unaccustomed weight of Dante’s living feet. Virgil tells him that both here and elsewhere in Hell the ancient rocks were riven by an earthquake which immediately preceded the triumphant descent of Christ after His crucifixion. So mighty was the shock that he thought the universe was dissolving into chaos by the force of love, as Empedocles had said must happen periodically. At the base of the cliff they cross the river Phlegethon, then pass through the wood of the Harpies, and walk along the stone banks of a conduit which afterwards falls with thunderous roar down a steep precipice. On the burning sand through which the conduit runs, Dante sees Brunetto Latini, and tells him that it was only yesterday that he escaped from the Forest. The monster Geryon carries them down the precipice, and they reach the ten Pits of Malebolge, which like so many moats surround the central Depth.

When looking down upon the astrologers in the fourth Pit, Virgil again hastens Dante on, telling him that now Cain and the thorns—by which he means the moon, alluding to the legend 457—is on the boundary of the two hemispheres, and already touching the waves below Seville. The two hemispheres are those of the habitable earth whose centre is Jerusalem, and the uninhabitable with Purgatory at its centre: the moon, therefore, is just setting as seen from Jerusalem, and in the Inferno the time is Jerusalem time. It is here that Virgil adds, “And yesternight the moon was full:” did we not know this, the fact that she was setting would give no clue to the time. When full, she set as the sun rose, that was at 6 a.m.; now, therefore, she is setting after sunrise, between six and seven in the morning;458 and this is how Virgil tells Dante, without mentioning the sun, that a new day has begun.

The poets accordingly hasten on to the bridge above the next Pit, the fifth, and here the demons treacherously mislead them by assuring them that the next bridge directly on their way is broken down, but the one to the left is standing. The anniversary of the catastrophe is precisely determined by Malacoda, the chief demon of the band, as five hours later than the present hour on the preceding day. There can be no doubt that he refers to the same earthquake as Virgil described when descending the stony cliff, and all commentators are agreed to this. The time now, therefore, is five hours before midday, i.e. 7 a.m., since it was at midday that Dante believed Christ to have died.459

The scenes with the demons follow, the breathless escape into the next Pit, of the Hypocrites, and the horrors of the Pit of the Thieves.

Then for a short space, when the suffering and the murk of Hell is becoming almost intolerable, we are suddenly lifted into the upper air by the narrative of Ulysses—into the pure air and the vast spaces of the southern ocean, and we see once more the skies. We follow the adventurers to the regions beyond the sun, the world where no one lives; we see all the stars of the other pole, and the moon shines down upon us. Too soon comes the tragic end of the story, and the waters close over the ship; the shade of Ulysses passes on, and we are once more in the “buio d’ inferno.”460

At the next Pit, that of the Schismatics, as Dante stands ready to weep for pity on the bridge above it, Virgil reproaches him for delaying, for little remains now of the time permitted for seeing the Inferno, and already the moon is beneath their feet. This is about an hour after midday; for if the moon were full she would be just opposite the sun, hence under our feet when the sun is on the meridian, i.e. at noon; but this is one day after Full Moon, and therefore she does not reach the position till about an hour later.

The tenth and last Pit is traversed, and when the giant Antæus has lifted them down into the sorrowful pit towards which all the rest of Hell converges, the poets have nearly reached the centre of the earth. For they have been descending continually, finding a slight fall between each circle, and between the great divisions of different classes of sin, three sharp steep falls—the cliff descending to the River of blood and other circles of the violent, the precipice down which Geryon carried them to the Malebolge of Fraud, and the Dark Pit to the bottom of which Antæus conveyed them, where in the Frozen Lake treachery was punished. Last of all, at the very centre and bottom of the whole “dolorous kingdom” of Lucifer, they see its King, and Virgil says all has been seen, and it is time to depart, for Night is rising again.

Thus we see that the journey through the Inferno has taken exactly the time from one sunset to another, twenty-four hours.

Now Virgil seizes the shaggy side of the fiend, while the monstrous wings are raised, and with Dante clinging to him climbs down the side, as far as the hip; here with difficulty and labour the master turns round, so that his head is where his feet were, and climbs up, panting, so that Dante thinks they are returning. But when the ascent has been made, and both poets sit down to rest, Dante sees to his astonishment that the frozen lake is gone, the head and wings of Lucifer are gone, they are looking down upon him, and see only his legs which are directed upwards! To add to Dante’s bewilderment, Virgil now says, “Rise, for the way is long and the road is bad, and the sun has already returned to middle-tierce,” which, as we have seen, means at the time of the equinox 7.30 in the morning. Night was just beginning in the dreadful place they have so recently left, but now for the first time Virgil mentions the sun as giving them the time, and it is early morning.

The explanation is that the point which they passed with so great an effort is the exact centre of the world; they are now on its further side, and above them is the other hemisphere, where all is ocean save the island of Purgatory. Virgil explains how it was through the fall of Lucifer from Heaven that all the land except Purgatory is in one hemisphere, and that there is a cavity through which they may now climb to the opposite hemisphere. When Lucifer fell, all the land which then existed in the unknown hemisphere fled for fear of him, sinking under the sea, and then escaping round the globe settled in the inhabited hemisphere. It may be, he adds, that then the earth in the interior fled away from him upwards to form land in this hemisphere (Purgatory) and thus an empty space is left here. Up this, which is the same length as the tunnel of the Inferno, they climb, guided through the darkness by the sound of a little brook which has worn its winding way down the rock. On this route there is nothing to detain them, for they are alone in the darkness, but it presumably takes much longer to ascend than it did to descend, for climbing without a pause it takes about twenty-three hours (from the centre) to reach that round hole in the rocks through which at last they once more see the stars, just before the dawn of a new day.

3. Purgatory

Leaving Earth’s centre at sunset by Jerusalem time, sunrise by Purgatory time, the poets emerge next morning by starlight when the morning star is making all the orient smile. Henceforth Dante does not need to be told how moon or stars are standing in the sky: he has but to look up, and see the sun and sometimes the moon by day, the stars and sometimes the moon by night. The Inferno was like one long dark night, Paradise will be one brilliant day; in Purgatory the sun rises four times and sets three times, before Dante reaches the summit, and thence rises to Paradise with Beatrice.

“Lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta”461 is of course Venus: if there were any doubt about this, the words used concerning the dawn of the last morning on the Mountain would solve it, for there “Cytherea” is spoken of as shining in the east on the mountain. She is in Pisces, the sign which rises about two hours before Aries, or 4 a.m. at this season, and as the stars are still clearly visible, it is about 5 a.m. The poets have evidently come up from the subterranean passage facing east, for they see Venus first, then Dante turns to his right (south) and sees the four brilliant stars near the south pole, then turning towards the north pole he sees that the Wain has disappeared beneath the horizon, and close beside him he finds Cato, on whose face the Four Stars are shining. Cato tells them that the sun, which is about to rise, will be their guide to reach the Mountain, and as they first go down to the shore, following his instructions, daylight begins to appear.

While they are still on the shore the sun reaches the point just below the horizon, for he is described as just touching the western horizon of the other hemisphere, whose zenith is above Jerusalem, and night is just rising on the eastern horizon of that hemisphere. Where the poets are the rose colour in the east is turning to orange, just before the sun rises. It rises over their horizon while they are watching a light far over the sea, which with almost incredible rapidity draws near, becomes visible as a vessel, touches land, the spirits disembark, and the celestial pilot “sen gì, come venne, veloce.”462 The sun has now driven Capricorn from the mid sky with his bright beams, that is, the stars have become invisible in bright daylight, and fig. 46 shows that when Aries rises over the eastern horizon Capricorn will be overhead. But the sun is still very low, so swift was the coming of the spirits, for Dante’s shadow is not yet visible to them: it is by his breathing that they perceive he is a living man. It is only after the meeting with Casella, and the dispersal of the spirits by Cato, that the sun, still red with sunrise tints, makes Dante’s shadow fall in front of him as the poets are walking westward towards the mountain. He is alarmed not to see Virgil’s shadow on the ground beside it, and is told that the body within which Virgil once had cast a shadow lies buried in a country where it is now the time of vespers. That is, in Italy it is three o’clock in the afternoon: hence in Purgatory, where they now are, it is six in the morning.

At the foot of the mountain they are joined by a band of spirits, and walking very slowly with them, conversing with Manfred, so much time passes that to Dante’s surprise, when they reach the place where the ascent is to be made (still on the eastern side), the sun has travelled fully fifty degrees since rising. As the sun passes over 360° in 24 hours, this indicates about 3½ hours after sunrise, or 9.30 a.m.463 The climb to the first ledge is slow and very arduous, for as Virgil explains, the lower slopes are the most difficult, since the act of climbing becomes more and more easy as the ascent is made. Resting on a ledge, they look back and at the sun, and note how it has travelled north, so that it now strikes their left shoulders; and after a conversation with Belacqua Virgil begins to mount again, saying that it is noon. The other hemisphere consequently is all in darkness, from Ganges (“la riva”464) to Morocco.

Other spirits have been met and spoken with, and they are still climbing when evening comes, and Dante, thinking he is to reach the summit of the mountain and see Beatrice that day, entreats Virgil to hasten. “See,” he says, “how the mountain now casts a shadow.” For the sun has travelled round to the west, and the poets, still on its eastern side, are in deep shadow: this explains how, when they meet Sordello, he does not recognize that Dante is a living man, as all the spirits until now have done. But Virgil assures him that the way is longer than he knows: before they reach the summit, the sun, now hidden behind the mountain and not causing Dante to cast any shadow, will return again to the east.

Immediately after this, they meet with Sordello, who tells them that it is impossible to climb even one step on the mountain after sunset, and leads them to a flowery valley, in which to rest for the night. The spirits in the valley sing the evening hymn while the sun sets; and it begins to grow dark while Dante is talking with judge Nino, explaining whence he came that morning. As soon as the stars become visible, his eyes seek the southern pole, and fix themselves on three brilliant stars which have taken the place of that constellation of four which he saw some fourteen hours before. The latter have travelled to the south-west, and are hidden behind the mountain, and the new constellation is above the pole towards the east.

Night has risen two steps and part of a third in this place when Dante falls asleep, and the most natural meaning of this is that it is somewhat more than two hours after sunset, or after 8 o’clock, in Purgatory. The moon has not yet risen, since she is like a clock which loses on an average 50 minutes every day.

Since the first morning in the Forest, when she was exactly 12 hours behind the sun and set at six o’clock, three whole days have elapsed,465 and if she has lost 3 times 50 minutes, or 2½ hours, she will rise 14½ hours after the sun rises, that is 2½ hours after sunset, or at about 8.30. As the retardation varies much, let us say simply that she rises to-night between eight and nine o’clock. She has also moved among the stars, about 13 degrees each day, and as 3 × 13 = 39, and there are 30° in a zodiacal sign, she has passed out of Libra and is in Scorpio. Libra begins to rise at 6 p.m., and Scorpio at a little before 8, therefore part of Scorpio is now above the horizon.466 This, then, is the meaning of the first two stanzas of Canto ix.: the mistress of Tithonus is the aurora before moonrise (the solar aurora being his wedded wife, according to classical mythology), and this pale aurora is showing white in her balcony of the eastern sky, while on her forehead shine the stars of Scorpio, the cold creature with the stinging tail.

This curious passage has been otherwise interpreted by some commentators, and Scartazzini calls it “oscuro al superlativo,”467 a riddle which still waits its Œdipus. According to him, “Titone” should be read “Titan,” the sun-god, and his mistress is Tethys the ocean, which is now shining not under his rays (“fuor delle braccia del suo dolce amico”468) but under the rays of the rising moon. This seems far-fetched, and the reading doubtful. In any case, it would indicate the same hour and the same phenomenon (moonrise).

Others think that the solar aurora is intended, and explain the “freddo animale”469 as Pisces, and the “steps” as the watches of the night. But why a terrible tail should be ascribed to a fish is not clear, nor is it easy to see how the third step with which Night ascends could be the hour of dawn. Night, which circles opposite to the sun, surely reaches the culminating point and begins to descend at midnight, just as midday is “il colmo del dì.”470 Moreover, the third watch would bring us at latest to a little before 3 a.m. To make the “steps” signs of the zodiac is no better; for if Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius have risen, it is midnight; what then can be shining in the east? and on whose forehead are the stars of Scorpio glittering?

On the other hand, all accords well if we accept the first interpretation—the light of the moon just about to rise whitening the eastern sky, some brilliant stars of Scorpio shining there, and Dante falling asleep at the third hour of the night, wearied after his sleepless nights, and the hardest day’s climb that he will have. We need not grudge him his long sleep of nearly twelve hours, as those do who take this passage to indicate midnight or early morning.471

When Dante wakes the sun has already been up for more than two hours, but a dream which had come to him in the early dawn, at the time when the swallow begins to twitter, has had its counterpart in the truth, that the lady Lucia came at that time and carried him up the mountain side, leaving him outside the Gate of Purgatory when the day was bright.

When this Gate has been passed through, a narrow chasm between the rocks has to be climbed, and the passage is so difficult that it is at least an hour before the poets emerge on the open space of the First Cornice. For the waning moon has already set, and as she has lost another half hour or so during the night, the time of her setting this morning was about 9 a.m.

When Dante next notices the position of the sun, which he is too intent to do for some time, they have travelled some distance along the First Cornice, with its outer edge on their right, and the sixth handmaid is returning from the service of the day, that is, the sixth hour is ended: it is midday, and they have spent nearly three hours here, looking at the rock sculptures and conversing with the spirits.

The ascent to the Second Cornice is made with marvellously little fatigue, as Virgil had promised. There they at first find no one to direct them, so Virgil looks at the sun, and turns westward towards it, taking it as their guide, and they walk for about a mile before encountering any spirits in this circle.

The stairway to the next Cornice is reached at the time of vespers, that is, 3 p.m.; and Dante describes the position of the sun by saying that the portion of sky which it still had to traverse before evening was equal to the portion which is brought into view between the beginning of the day and the end of the third hour, that is, it was three hours before sunset; and he compares this ceaseless motion of the sky, which according to the Ptolemaic system caused the motion of the sun, to an ever-playing child. We need not particularly enquire whether he is thinking of the heaven of the sun, or the Primum Mobile: it may be either, but is most likely simply the diurnal movement in general, made strikingly evident by the sun. The sun’s rays now strike their faces, for they have so far circled the mountain that they are walking towards the west; “Vespero là”472 means in Purgatory, and “qui”473 is Italy, where it is midnight now.

The sun is low when they reach the third Cornice, and when they emerge from the dense cloudy fog which here envelopes the spirits, Dante gradually sees the ball of the sun as when mists clear away, and he sees that it is just about to set. In fact the low shores at the foot of the mountain are already in shadow. Virgil urges that they make the ascent to the next Circle before darkness comes, and, as each ascent is easier than the last, they are able just to reach the summit before the sun is quite gone. Here Dante sees the stars begin to appear, while he is wondering at the strange law which robs him of power to proceed (as Sordello had warned them) after the sun has set.

They employ this time of forced inaction by talking of the sins which are punished in the several Circles, until all Dante’s questions are answered, and he is beginning to fall asleep. It is at this moment that he first mentions the moon: she is glowing, shaped like a bucket in her present phase, and the stars are paled by her light. She is “belated almost till midnight,” if the epithet “tarda” belongs to her; if it applies to “mezza notte,” then it is almost late midnight when she is seen paling the stars. She ought to have risen about ten o’clock, but Dante does not speak of her rising, so this may mean simply that it was moonlight and starlight at the time of which he is about to speak, viz. nearly the late hour of midnight; or else that since he is now on the northern slope of the mountain, and the moon is in a southern sign, she did not become visible to him till towards midnight. In any case, the “quasi” shows that he is only giving us a rough idea of the time.

But in what sign was she? Her position in the zodiac is described in a peculiarly round-about fashion. Dante says that her course against the sky, that is, her monthly motion which is contrary to the diurnal, had taken her to that part of her track in which the sun is when from Rome he is seen to set between Sardinia and Corsica. The straits between these islands lie west and a little south of Rome, therefore the sun sets in that direction when he is going south after passing the autumnal equinox in Libra, and this is just what the moon is doing now. (The sun passes the same point again when coming north, before entering Aries at the spring equinox, but Dante has either forgotten this, or considers it obvious that the first position is meant here).

This is probably all that he means to convey, and if we ask for more exact information, it is almost impossible to tell what degree or even what sign in the zodiac he intends us to understand; for as the straits are nearly two hundred miles from Rome they are quite invisible thence, and we do not know what he thought was their precise direction. The mediæval commentator Benvenuto da Imola says that the position intended is in Scorpio; the moderns usually say Sagittarius, but without explaining how they draw this conclusion. Benvenuto’s is probably simply the position which he thought the moon ought to have in order to agree with what Dante says about her, just as he states that Venus was in Pisces in March 1300, although this was not the case at all, as we shall presently see.

A calculation based on the difference in latitude between Rome and the Straits shows that they are only about 9° south of west, and that the sun, when setting in this direction is about 6° south of the equator: this is the case 15 days after the equinox, which in the beginning of the fourteenth century fell on September 14. Therefore the date at which the sun was seen from Rome setting in the direction between Sardinia and Corsica was the 29th of September, and its position in the zodiac was then the middle of the sign Libra. (Owing to precession, it would be in the constellation Virgo, but we have seen that Dante ignores precession in these references.)

But the moon ought now, on this second night in Purgatory, to have reached at least the last degrees of Scorpio, since on the previous night she rose when the first part was already above the horizon. Dante has therefore made a flagrant mistake with his moon, running her back into Libra again, and falsifying all his previous descriptions—if he knew as much about geography as we do now. But it is only necessary to glance at the map of Henry of Mainz to see that such a supposition would be grotesque. The portolan maps did indeed show the relative positions of Rome, Sardinia, and Corsica, with remarkable accuracy;474 but as we have already said, it is not in the least likely that Dante had ever seen one of these sailing charts. It was on the classics, and especially on Orosius, that he relied for his geography,475 and the suggestion of Dr. Moore seems most plausible, that he was here thinking of the Spaniard’s description of Sardinia:—“Habet ab oriente et borea Tyrrenicum mare quod spectat ad portum urbis Romae.”476 This implies that Sardinia lay south-west of Rome, in a direction such as the sun might have had when setting in November, in Scorpio or Sagittarius.

Or possibly, when the poet was in Rome in 1301, he may have been watching a sunset in the second week in November, and may have been told, among other pieces of misinformation which are so readily given to visitors to great cities, that he was looking towards the straits which separate Sardinia from Corsica. We can imagine his replying, or thinking: “Then the sun sets behind them when he has nearly finished his course in Scorpio, and is about to yoke his steeds under another star!”477

It is while the moon is shining on this Cornice that the spirits who purge their sins on it appear, rushing past in haste. Then at last Dante sleeps, and dreams again in the cold moonlit dawn when Aquarius and Pisces are on the horizon (see p. 290).

The mountain is full of daylight when Virgil wakes him, and the newly-risen sun shines behind them as they continue their journey, for they had reached the north point of the circle, and are walking now due west. They mount almost immediately to the Fifth Cornice, where presently they are startled by a violent trembling of the mountain followed by a mighty shout of “Gloria in excelsis” from all the spirits. Statius joins them, and from him they learn that this was no earthquake, for since passing the gate of Purgatory they are in a region too lofty for such disturbances to be felt, or for rain or snow or dew to fall; the mountain trembles, and the shout of praise follows, when a soul rises, purified and ready to ascend to Paradise. With Statius they climb to the Sixth Cornice, and then, looking round, they see that the fifth handmaid of the sun’s chariot is directing its upward course, that is, it is the fifth hour, or between 10 and 11 a.m. As usual, they walk on with the outer edge of the circle on their right. It is here that we are reminded, as once in the Inferno, that only a certain time is allowed, for while Dante is looking eagerly at the first mysterious tree Virgil gently urges him onward:—

“Lo più che padre mi dicea, Figliuole,
Vienne oramai, chè il tempo che c’ è imposto
Più utilmente compartir si vuole.”478

It is here also that Dante informs his old friend Forese Donati and other spirits, who are all astonished at the sight of his shadow, that he is a living man who was rescued by Virgil some days ago, when the sister of the sun was round (referring of course to the full moon in the forest), and he points to the sun. Now a curious question arises: Dante was in sunshine in the early morning; he is in sunshine now, and has been walking all morning in the same direction in which the sun was moving; how is it then that Statius did not notice his shadow, but had to be told that he was not a spirit?479 If the Mountain had been a small hill, it would have been quite easy to walk so large a part of a circle round it, in a short time, that the poets would have been in shadow until the sun caught them up again when they lingered talking on the Sixth Cornice; but the Mountain was so large that a whole day’s walking only brought them a quarter of the way round, i.e. from the east side to the north, and it was evidently a distance of many miles.480 It is difficult to believe that Dante has forgotten, because he is so careful throughout to mention the surprise of the spirits except when his shadow could not be seen for one reason or another. It is true that in the latitude of Purgatory (32° south, as that of Jerusalem is 32° north), the sun rises rather steeply, which makes it easier to get into the shade in the early morning while circling a mountain.481 On the other hand a simpler solution offers itself in the text. Statius approaches Dante and Virgil from behind, and they only stop and turn their faces to him for a few moments while Virgil returns his greeting, then walk on quickly while Statius makes his surprised reply: “What! if you are spirits....” If he has not yet quite overtaken them he cannot see Dante’s shadow, which Dante himself is screening from view as it falls in front of him, the morning sun being still at his back, and Virgil explains at once that his companion is a living man.

In spite of their haste, the three poets remain about four hours in this sixth Cornice; and when they reach the ascent to the next it was indeed time to climb without any delay, for the sun had left the meridian to the sign which follows Aries, viz. Taurus, and Night, “che opposita a lui cerchia,”482 had left the meridian of the opposite hemisphere to Scorpio. Aries at the time of the equinox begins to cross the meridian at midday, Taurus at two o’clock, and Gemini at four 483: therefore it is now between two and four in the afternoon. The three poets hasten therefore (Statius still accompanying Virgil and Dante), like men who pause for nothing on their way, whatever the road be like; and a question Dante is longing to ask with regard to the form of purgation last seen is put and answered as they follow one another up the narrow stair; as soon as they reach the top, they turn to the right, as usual, without hesitation or delay. As Dante walks cautiously between the outer edge of this Cornice and the fire which bursts forth from the inner wall of rock, all the blue of the western sky is already changing into ash-white, and he has come so far round the Mountain that the evening rays strike his right shoulder. With one of the many touches which show Dante’s close observation and his vivid realization of the scene he is describing, he says here that his shadow falling on the flame makes it appear a deeper red, and this is observed by the spirits. When they reach the spot where, on the further side of the flames, the chanting Angel guides them across to the last ascent, the sun is very near to its setting. Its burning noonday beams are shining on the waves of Ganges, its first morning beams quiver over Jerusalem, and Spain lying under Libra is wrapped in midnight gloom; hence it is beginning to set at sea-level in Purgatory. High on the Mountain it still shines, but when the poets have crossed the flames, the voice of the Angel persuades them to hasten their steps before the darkness comes. The stair mounts through the rock on the west side of the Mountain so that the low sun casts Dante’s shadow in front of him as he climbs. And he has only climbed a few steps when they are all aware that the sun has completely set because the shadow disappears. Before the colour has all faded from the west, and the whole vast range of the horizon seen from this height has become one uniform tint, each of the three makes a bed of one step, and between the high and narrow enclosing rocky walls Dante sees the stars come out, much brighter and much larger than he has ever seen them before. No moonlight dims them, for moonrise will be late to-night, long after Dante has fallen asleep.

Once again, for the third and last time, he has a prophetic dream in the early dawn; and if we compare these three parallel passages, we find that each begins with the same words “Nell’ ora.”484 The first time the ideas connected with the time are wholly sorrowful, for it is said to be the hour when the swallow begins to twitter, perchance in memory of her former woes—alluding to the tragic tale of Procne and Philomel. The second is a depressing time, for it is the cold hour when, the day’s heat being all spent, the chilled earth cannot overcome the influence of the cold planets such as the moon or Saturn, but there is a thought of hope in the stars of the Greater Fortune seen rising in the east, in a sky which is now scarcely dark to them. The third is all joy, for it is the hour when Cytherea (the planet Venus), burning ever in the fire of love, shines first upon the mountain. Dante’s sleep flees from him as the shades of darkness flee on all sides, chased by the brightness before sunrise; and when Virgil tells him that to-day he shall reach the goal of his desires, he speeds up the remaining steps of the stair, almost as if on wings.

The poets arrived on the shores of Purgatory, as we saw, facing east, and now that they have attained the summit of the mountain, coming up the western slope, they again face east, and the just risen sun shines in their faces. Dante walks towards it: a breeze fans his forehead and causes all the trees to bend in the direction of the shadow thrown at sunrise by the Mountain (i.e. westwards), and the murmur of this gentle wind in the branches forms a bass to the treble of the singing birds who are greeting the morning hours. For a few steps the stream of Lethe stays his steps in this direction, but he soon reaches a bend, and once more “a levante mi rendei.”485 The symbolical procession which accompanies Beatrice comes towards him from the east, and after he has crossed the river Lethe and joined the procession beside the Car in which Beatrice is throned, all turn to the sun, which by this time must have travelled some distance towards the north. After the vision of the disasters which befell the holy Car, and after Beatrice has spoken with Dante again, they reach the fountain whence Eunoe flows, and now the sun is on the meridian and it is noon, though (as Dante reminds us) different places have different meridians, so that it is not noon everywhere else. He is bathed in the holy waters, and thus, all having been accomplished for which he has visited these regions, he is “puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”486

Hell was entered at twilight, Purgatory at dawn, the ascent to Paradise is made at noon, “il colmo del dì.”487 The time spent in Purgatory is three days and the morning of a fourth, which is the seventh from the beginning of the vision.

4. Paradise

That the time of ascent to the spheres was noon is again stated in the opening Canto of the Paradiso, where Dante says that the sun had brought morning there (Purgatory) and evening here (the inhabited hemisphere), and that now the whole of that hemisphere was bright while the whole of this was dark.488 The sun is therefore now due north. While Beatrice stood beside the waters of Eunoe, after walking towards the sun, it had moved to her left, so she now turns in that direction to gaze upon it.489 She, like Virgil, takes as her guide that sun which Dante has said is the fittest symbol of God, and it is through the power of this heavenly light that he is raised from earth. Compare

“Amor che il ciel governi
... col tuo lume mi levasti.”490

He is not conscious of any effort, or even movement, but is astonished by a great light and strange music, and learns that he is in the sphere of fire and listening to the harmony of the spheres. His soul, freed from all that bound it to earth, is soaring towards its natural goal, as fire mounts up and rivers run down.

The upward gaze to the sun or to the skies, and its power to raise them, is again described in Par. i. 142: Beatrice “rivolse inver lo cielo il viso,”491 and in ii. 22, “Beatrice in suso ed io in lei guardava.”492 Thus they rise to the First Heaven, of the moon. In answer to an eager question of Dante’s about the markings of the moon, Beatrice is led to discourse on the spheres and their movers. Spirits appear, and Dante learns that although all the redeemed dwell in the Empyrean, those of different degrees of blessedness will manifest themselves to him in each sphere. After explaining this and other things, Beatrice once more

“si rivolse tutta disiante
A quelle parte ove il mondo è più vivo,”493

and swift as an arrow that strikes its mark before the cord has ceased to quiver, they ascend to the Second Heaven, of Mercury. To understand the above lines we must remember that the sun, as Dante told us in the introductory Canto,494 is at the equinox, or near it, and therefore on the equator; also that the equator of a sphere, where motion is quickest, is its most living part.495 Beatrice is therefore looking again at the sun. Some understand “quella parte”496 to refer directly to the sun, “quegli ch’ è padre d’ogni mortal vita,”497 some to the equinoctial point;498 others think that the east is meant; others the Empyrean, in which is the true life of all the Universe.

Equally swiftly and unconsciously, Dante ascends to the successive heavens of Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, finding himself always in the planet which occupies each sphere. Mounting the mysterious golden ladder which is set up in Saturn, with a rapidity inconceivable on earth, the poet finds himself in the Heaven of Stars, in the constellation of Gemini. Now that he is so near the final blessedness his eyes are clear and keen, and that his heart may be filled with joy Beatrice bids him look down and see how much of the universe is already beneath his feet. There lie the seven spheres, and there is the little globe of Earth, so small that, like Scipio, he smiles at its paltry appearance; there is the moon, showing him the face turned away from Earth, which has no dark markings: there is the sun, at which for once he is able to gaze; and near it circle Mercury and Venus; the temperate Jupiter moves between his father Saturn and his son Mars; with a new power of vision Dante can grasp all their sizes and distances and the various speeds of their movements; and the poor little disc of the earth, small and round as a threshing floor,499 about which we quarrel so fiercely, is all visible to him at a glance, its highest hills and its lowest river-valleys running down to the sea. He turns away his eyes to look into the beautiful eyes of his guide. She is standing, erect, intent, watching eagerly for that glorious Procession, whose coming is making a growing brightness in the sky.

“La donna mia si stava eretta
Ed attenta, rivolta inver la plaga
Sotto la quale il sol mostra men fretta.”500

No other intimation is given as to the direction from which the Procession comes. The sun’s daily motion appears slowest on the meridian, as Dante remarked in Purg. xxxiii. 103, 104, because he is scarcely changing his position with regard to the horizon; or in the south (where we in this hemisphere see him when on the meridian); he shows least haste to leave us in the long summer days, near the solstice. If the Procession descends from the heaven of heavens to show itself here symbolically to Dante, as we know that the spirits in other heavens did,501 then Beatrice was gazing upwards, and the meridian may be meant, particularly that part of it which passes directly overhead. If the Procession came from the east, like the Procession in Eden,502 the summer solstice in Cancer is meant, which lies east of Gemini. It is difficult to see any special meaning in its coming from the south, for although some commentators say that this suggests the consummate glory of the midday sun, the same idea is conveyed by the meridian. A constellation like Cancer perhaps corresponds better than a circle like the meridian with the expression “plaga,”503 and the idea of the east makes more perfect the beautiful simile which the poet has just drawn between the little bird on the spray beside its nest waiting for the sun to rise, and Beatrice watching for the advent of Him who is likened to a sun among the starry company of His saints.504

When this glorious company has at length vanished, she bids him look down once more, this time that he may realise how he has been revolving with the spheres, the little earth lying immoveable at his feet. He looks down, and notes what parts of Earth are lighted by the sun, and what parts are wrapped in darkness, for now he is able to see what he had often imagined, the shadow of night sweeping westward over the globe. The Atlantic Ocean, where Ulysses sailed beyond Gades, is all in daylight, and so is the Mediterranean, but the sun is setting over Jerusalem, for he says that its position prevents him from seeing beyond the coast whence Europa was carried (i.e. Phœnicia or Palestine). It must therefore be midday at Gades, and the sun is on the meridian there; it is “a sign and more,” or something between 30° and 60°, advanced to the west beyond the meridian over which Dante stands.

He does not define his own position more exactly than this, but we may conjecture that he was 45° (a sign and a half) east of the sun, since this would be the meridian of Rome, and there would be a peculiar fitness in such a position at such a moment, when he has just received a message of warning and prophecy from St. Peter to bear to this city.505

Fig. 49 shows these positions of Dante and the sun, and the consequent limits of his vision. Jerusalem is “near,” in comparison with the much more distant sunlit space of ocean in the opposite direction. We place the sun in the middle of Aries, because we shall see presently (when discussing the date) that this is its most probable position, and Dante in the first degree of Gemini because this is 45° east of the sun, and also because the fact that he is above Earth’s “first climate” suggests that he is in the beginning of this sign. For the northern limit of the first climate was 20½°, according to Alfraganus, and the ecliptic in the sign of Gemini rises gradually from 20° north of the equator to 23½° at its end, where it adjoins Cancer.

Since the time when he looked down before, he sees that he has revolved over an arc equal to half the climate, that is 90°, for the climates only extended over the habitable earth, which was 180° in longitude. His former position, then, must have been 90° further east, halfway between Jerusalem and Ganges; and it was then noon at Jerusalem, while all the ocean east of Ganges lay in the black darkness of night. Fig. 48 shows this position.

In this interpretation of a difficult passage, the meaning given to the first lines seems a little forced; but if we take them in the more natural sense that Dante had moved from above the centre to the end of the climate, that is, from the meridian of Jerusalem to Gades, we are met by a difficulty in the following lines. For to say that he is standing over Gades, and in the same breath that the sun is more than 30° further to the west, means that it is setting more than 30° west of Jerusalem: he cannot therefore possibly see Jerusalem, nor is it “near” him. It does not help us to take “presso” in its alternative meaning, and say that he could see “nearly as far as” Jerusalem, for however little more than 30° “a sign and more” may mean, it brings the “terminator” (as astronomers call the dividing line between light and darkness on a planet) a long way from Jerusalem and much nearer Italy, according to Dante’s reckoning of distances in the Mediterranean. This is shown on fig. 50, where the data are made as favourable as possible, by putting the sun at the very end of Aries.

On the whole, it is easier to accept a round-about expression in the first lines than an inaccurate one later. The former is quite characteristic of Dante, and we have already met some like it in the Divina Commedia in descriptions of the positions of heavenly bodies.506

Looking back to the earlier position, as described in Canto xxii., we find no light thrown on the question; for here he does not mention any particular place as visible, nor say where the terminator lay. His words are:—

“L’aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
Volgendom’ io con gli eterni Gemelli,
Tutta m’apparve dai colli alle foci.”507

This seems to express simply a bird’s eye view of Earth, as it lay stretched out like a map below the observer.

It is, however, often taken to mean that the whole habitable earth was visible. This could never be unless the sun, as well as Dante, was over the meridian of Jerusalem, which is obviously impossible while one is in Aries and the other in Gemini; and as he refers back to the first passage from the second he cannot have forgotten this.508

A book which aims at explaining Dante’s Paradiso to young people 509 suggests an original way of reconciling the two passages, for the author gravely asserts that the sun was at first below Dante’s feet in Gemini, but that by the time he looked down again it had moved a good distance onward, and was then in the sign of Taurus! According to this, a whole month must have elapsed, and time had gone backwards, from May to April!

A suggestion much more worthy of attention is that of Professor Rizzacasa d’Orsogna, who thinks the key is to be found in the line, “Volgendom’ io con gli eterni Gemelli.” This, he suggests, is in anticipation of the second passage, for although Dante could not see the whole habitable earth at any one time, his change of position, as he revolved with the Twins, enabled him to do so in the course of time which elapsed between his two views. A comparison of figures 48 and 49 will make this clear.

One more suggestion may perhaps be made, though it is rather a hazardous one. “Dai colli alle foci”510 may mean from the Apennine Hills to the mouths of Ganges. This would be decisive for the correctness of the explanation illustrated by our diagram. (See fig. 48).

In any case, the points which Dante specially wishes us to understand are clear and simple: at the first glance he was struck by the insignificance of the Earth; at the second, he became conscious that he was moving with the spheres, having passed over 90° of arc, or a quarter of the diurnal revolution, and he saw that it was now sunset at Jerusalem.

He next ascends to the Primum Mobile, though he cannot tell us to which part of it Beatrice chose to lead him, since it is perfectly uniform throughout. Beatrice explains that this most swift and living sphere, although it contains no star by which its motion is made visible, causes the (diurnal) motion of all the lower spheres; and thus it is like a flower-pot in which are hidden the roots of Time, while in the others we see the leaves. Here he sees the nine hierarchies of angels who direct the nine moving spheres; and finally he soars to the Empyrean, where Beatrice returns to her seat among the blessed spirits who form the Celestial Rose, and St. Bernard encourages him to lift his eyes to “L’Amor che move il sole e l’ altre stelle.”511 This is the end and consummation of the Vision.

The reader will have observed that although there are several indications of direction in Dante’s journey through Paradise, all referring to the heavenly bodies, there are no time references after he has left Earth and entered the regions of eternity, except the passage discussed above, which indicates a period of six hours spent in the eighth heaven, since 90° of the diurnal revolution correspond with six hours of time. But it tells us also that at the close of this period the sun was setting over Jerusalem: consequently another morning was dawning in Purgatory. Eighteen hours have passed, therefore, since Dante left the Earthly Paradise at noon; and he rises to the Primum Mobile and thence to the Empyrean on the eighth day of his Vision.

The whole Vision, therefore, occupied an octave, or eight days.

5. Positions of Sun, Moon, and Planets Among — The Stars During Dante’s Vision

The allusions to sun, moon, and stars in the Divine Comedy, when thus brought together, are seen to follow one another according to a regular scheme, and they form a very good guide by which to time Dante on his journey. There is a little inaccuracy in one passage about the stars, and the moon is ambiguous once, but quite explicable. Taking the allusions in a simple popular sense, as he seems to intend us to do, assuming that the signs and the constellations of the zodiac are identical, and that the moon, which at first is opposite the sun, traverses about 13° in the zodiac daily, and loses about an hour of time more or less, there is very little difficulty in following him. It is quite enough to know that the sun is somewhere in Aries throughout, and that the moon is therefore in Libra at the beginning.

But if we wish to know a little more accurately the positions of sun and moon among the stars, we must carefully compare the passages bearing on this question. Commentators differ so much that while some think the sun’s annual motion is ignored, and it is assumed to be at the equinox all the time, others maintain that it was at the equinox on the first day and moved on through Aries at the rate of about one degree a day (as it should do, since there are 365 days in a year and 360° in the circumference of the sphere);512 while others again say that it was merely somewhere in Aries from the beginning.

What are the actual indications of its position? No one questions that it was in Aries throughout the Vision, for this is often indicated, sometimes directly, as in Inf. i. 38-40, sometimes by mentioning Taurus as the sign following the sun,513 or Pisces as the sign preceding.514

There are four detailed descriptions:—

(1) On the first morning, the sun rose among those stars which were with him at the Creation.515 As we have seen, this may mean merely some point in Aries, or the first point of Aries, at which the sun was thought to have been placed when created.

(2) On the seventh day it rose near a point where three crosses are formed by the intersection of four circles.516 One naturally thinks of the horizon as one of these circles; the equator and ecliptic, whose intersection define the equinox, suggest themselves as two more; the fourth is doubtless the colure which passes through the equinoctial points and the poles, although curiously enough this is not mentioned by Ptolemy or Alfraganus, who only speak of the solstitial colure. Fig. 51 shows how the horizon makes a cross with each of the other three when the equinox is upon it. The sun is at the point of intersection when rising with the equinox, and it was near there when it rose this morning—“quasi.” It was therefore near, but not exactly at the equinox, and we know that it was the vernal, not the autumnal equinox, from the many allusions to Aries.

(3) When Dante rises to the sun (on the same day) he directs our attention once more to this point where “the one motion strikes the other,” that is, where the ecliptic—the oblique circle which bears the planets—branches off from the equator, and he reminds us of the supreme importance of this divergence. The sun, he says, was in this place. He does not mean at the exact point of intersection, or this passage would be in flat contradiction to the last: “quella parte”517 is no more precise than “quelle stelle,”518 and means only this part of the sky, or the constellation of Aries. The words which follow not only specify that it was the spring equinox, but suggest that the sun had already traversed several of those spirals which bring him to us earlier each morning, i.e. it was several days after the equinox.519

(4) On the same day the sun was “one sign and more” removed from some point in Gemini.520 This is very vague, but at least the sun cannot now have been at the first point of Aries, or it would have been two whole signs from even the first degree of Gemini.

It seems, then, that we cannot possibly agree that the sun was at the equinox throughout the poem. It is clear that it was past the equinox towards the end; but from these four passages we cannot be sure whether it was there on the first morning, or whether it moved through some undefined part of Aries during the Vision.

One consideration gives us some help, however. We know from Inf. xxi. 112-114 that the first day was either March 25, which was believed in the Middle Ages to be the true anniversary of the Crucifixion, or Good Friday, which was kept by the Church as such. March 25 is four days after the date which the Church still kept as the day of the Equinox (March 21), and 13 days after the true equinox, which at this time fell on March 12. Good Friday also almost inevitably must fall after the equinox, since Easter follows the full moon which follows the equinox. It is true that some of Dante’s readers may still have regarded the old traditional date of March 25 as the true day of the equinox, and possibly it was to suit all shades of knowledge that he left the sun’s position vague; but he himself certainly knew better, and probably had March 12 in his mind. Then those who held to March 25 might consider the sun as exactly at the equinox on the first day of the Vision, but all better-informed readers and Dante himself must have regarded it as somewhat past this point. If we take it that, e.g., it was a week past the equinox, the sun was in about 7° of Aries, and this position agrees with the four crucial passages mentioned above. The stress laid on the equinox seems to demand that the sun should be at least as near it as this on the first day; and a week later it would have reached the middle of Aries, which is the position we assigned to it from a discussion of Par. xxvii. 86, 87.

This also agrees well with the course of the moon in the zodiac, which must depend upon the sun’s. We have seen that she was opposite the sun on the first morning, that her light paled the first-risen stars of Scorpio while she was yet beneath the eastern horizon three days later, and that she was proceeding south on the following night. If the sun was in the 7th degree of Aries on the first morning, the moon must have been in the 7th degree of Libra; her mean daily motion of 13° would bring her to the 16th degree of Scorpio three days later and to the last degree on the day following; so even if we allow a deviation of a few degrees from the average, she was just where she should have been on each occasion. We have assumed for convenience that she became full and was opposite the sun just as she set on the first morning, but this may have happened at any time during the previous night (in the Forest): Dante has not specified the hour, and it is of no consequence, since the indications of time by the moon must necessarily be vague.

The time of sunrise will still differ little from 6 o’clock, a week after the equinox. In London it is a quarter of an hour earlier, but the difference is less in Italy, and still less in the latitude of Jerusalem.

Besides the sun and moon, two of the planets are mentioned as in a particular place among the stars.

Venus, before sunrise on the fourth morning, is seen among the stars of Pisces;521 and she is also mentioned as a morning star before sunrise on the seventh day.522

Saturn is in Leo. “Il petto del Leone”523 may mean the western part of the Lion, the part which first rises and contains the head and breast, or it may refer to the star Regulus, which is called by Ptolemy and Alfraganus “Cor Leonis.”524 “Sotto il petto”525 may mean the position of the planet as seen projected in the sky or a map, that is, a little south of this part of the constellation; more probably, perhaps, Dante is thinking of the supposed position of Saturn’s sphere below that of the stars.526

Mars is spoken of as having returned to his own Lion a number of times: “al suo Leon... venne,”527 but this does not necessarily imply that he was in that constellation at the time.

Mercury and Jupiter are not noted as seen anywhere in the sky, nor does Dante say in what constellation they were when he entered them with Beatrice.

There are a number of pitfalls into which Dante might have stumbled, with this disposition of the skies, and the change to the southern hemisphere; and that he has avoided all is as clear a proof of his familiarity with astronomical phenomena as the positive evidence of his truthful, consistent descriptions. For instance, he might very well have represented the cold planet Saturn as actually aiding the cold moon in driving away the heat of the day during the night, in Purg. xix. 1-3, instead of only saying “talor da Saturno;”528 but if so, this would have been inconsistent with the position of Saturn in Leo, since Leo was below the horizon when dawn was drawing near and Pisces was rising. Again, we have already mentioned that he evidently did not forget that it was autumn in the southern hemisphere. He never suggests that it was spring in Purgatory, and in the passage quoted above, where he describes sunrise at the March equinox, saying that the sun then moves “con miglior corso e con migliore stella,”529 this happiest effect on the world is restricted to “mortals,” who as he thought all dwelt in the northern hemisphere, “surge ai mortali.”530 I do not mean that the expression was used for this reason, but it is an example of how instinctively he avoided mistakes into which any other author would almost certainly have fallen.

6. The Assumed Date of the Vision

Even among Dante enthusiasts there must be many who are astonished at the warmth of the controversy concerning the assumed date of his Vision. To know whether he feigned himself to have entered the Inferno with Virgil in March or in April, in the year 1300 or in 1301, really does not help us to appreciate the music of his verse nor the depth of his thought; yet a wealth of learning and research has been poured out upon this problem, and some commentators seem ready to defend their opinions with their lives, if that would avail to convince their readers!

The date is indeed intimately connected with the narrative of the Divine Comedy, since there are constant allusions to current events. By choosing a year earlier than the time at which he was writing, Dante is able not only to tell the spirits what is passing on the earth they have left, but to endow them with the power of prophesying to him events which are to come.531 The peculiar interest of the problem for us just now is that astronomy has been called in to solve it. We have seen that the positions and movements of the heavenly bodies are all consistent with one another in his poem, but it is interesting to ask whether they are merely a consistent fiction or whether they correspond with facts. Did Dante arrange his moon and planets according to his feeling for scenery and the convenience of his time references, or did he take the positions as they really were at some particular date? If so, the full moon, Venus a morning star in Pisces, and Saturn in Leo, all together near a spring equinox, ought to help to fix that date.

The year which is almost universally accepted, by the oldest as well as the most modern commentators, is 1300, chiefly on the authority of Inf. xxi. 112-114. Here Malacoda says that yesterday (the day of Dante’s entering the Inferno) it was 1266 years since the earthquake which accompanied the Crucifixion (see p. 370). Adding to this the 34 years which Dante has told us he believed to have elapsed between the Nativity and the Crucifixion,532 we get 1266 + 34 = 1300. And the day is either the Church Festival commemorating the Crucifixion, i.e. Good Friday, which in 1300 fell on April 8, or March 25, which was believed to be the actual anniversary.

If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April 4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on about the 9th of April.

These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant; Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.

If the anniversary of the Crucifixion means Good Friday, the day would be March 31 in 1301, and the moon would be wrong, but March 25 has some claims to be considered the more probable date. A fixed calendar date is more appropriate to use for calculating an exact number of years than a changing festival, which might rather be regarded as an “ideal date.”533 Moreover, March 25 is suggested by the allusion to the Creation in the opening Canto; this day was also the traditional date for the spring equinox,534 and it was one of the most important days in the year to Florentines, being their New Year’s Day as well as Lady Day.

We know that the idea of writing his great work was in Dante’s mind even when he wrote the last words of the Vita Nuova,535 and we need only suppose that he was thinking of it when he looked at the sky on the evening before Lady Day in 1301, that he saw the full moon, and the two bright planets Mars and Saturn making a striking asterism with Regulus; also that in the early dawn about the same time he rejoiced in the sight of Venus veiling the Fishes in the east.

But is this attractive theory admissible? Can we take Dante’s words elsewhere as referring to the year 1301?

Take first the one passage in which he explicitly states the day and year, the words of Malacoda quoted above. This is usually taken to indicate the year 1300, as shown above (p. 410), but it is easy to interpret it another way—thus: 1300 years had been completed since the Nativity on the day Dante entered the Inferno. Now the year 1 is not one year after the Nativity, but the year of the Nativity itself; hence the year 2 is one year after, the year 3 two years after,... the year 1300 is 1299 years after, and the year 1301 is 1300 years after. The year 1300 was completed on March 25,536 and the date then changed, according to Florentine usage, to 1301. (It had already been called 1301 for three months, according to Roman usage, so fortunately for us, there is no disagreement between the two calendars from this part of the year).

It must also be noted that in several old MSS., considered authoritative by some of the very early commentators, the passage reads:—“Mille dugent ’uno con sessanta sei.”537 Although it is impossible to believe that Dante wrote such a faulty line, this shows that some early copyist felt a difficulty either in accepting the date 1300 or in understanding how Dante arrived at it by Malacoda’s computations. This passage, therefore, is inconclusive for 1300 or 1301.

Then there is the first line of the Divina Commedia “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”538 which is usually taken to mean that Dante was in his 35th year, since in Conv. IV. xxiv. 30, 31, and xxiii, 88-94, he says that in normal natures the “punto sommo,” the “colmo,”539 of the Arch of Life is reached at this age. But is it to be taken as indicating a precise year? If so, it points to one which has never been suggested for the Vision, so far as I know, for in another passage of the Convivio he says when speaking of his exile, that he had lived in Florence “fino al colmo della mia vita,”540 and we know that the year of his exile was 1302. But if we look again at the discussion concerning the arch of human life, we find that the whole period of “gioventute,”541 which is from the 25th to the 45th year “veramente è colmo della nostra vita”542 (Conv. IV. xxiv. 22, 23). If, nevertheless, it is said that the “mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” means Dante’s 35th year, we must know the date of his birth with certainty before we can deduce the year at which he had reached this age. And this is not quite easy. This very line is used indifferently to show that he was born in 1265 because the date of the Vision was 1300, or that the date was 1300 because he was born in 1265! No registers of births or baptisms were kept in those days. Most of the old biographers give 1265 for the date, but not all, and some of those who do betray ignorance or confusion in the matter: Boccaccio says the year 1265, when Urban the Fourth was Pope, yet Urban we know died in 1264; Lionardo Bruni says “1265, a little after the return to Florence of the Guelfs, who had been in exile by reason of the defeat of Montaperti,” but this return was in September 1266! Dante himself says that his ancestors shared in this exile,543 and as he also often refers to the fact that he was born in Florence,544 it is difficult to see how that could have been in 1265.

Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old when he was nearly nine),545 that she died in June 1290,546 and was then on the threshold of her “second age,”547 that is in her 24th year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295, and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in 1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been lowered before 1295.548 There remains the story told by Boccaccio, that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was born in 1265.

On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain that he reached that age in 1300.

Another passage which is often quoted as clearly indicating the year of the Jubilee, 1300, for the assumed date of the Vision is Casella’s explanation of his late arrival in Purgatory.549 Dante is surprised to witness this arrival, knowing that it is some time since his friend’s death; and Casella replies that the Angel of the Passage had refused many times to bring him, until three months ago, when every one who wished to come had been graciously received. This is believed to refer to the Bull of Pope Boniface published at Christmas 1299, that is just three months before March 1300. But this Bull gave no indulgence to the dead; it was in favour of those who performed certain spiritual exercises in the churches of Rome during the Jubilee year. On the other hand, there was a Bull published just a year later, which was for the benefit of departed souls: it extended the indulgences to those who had died on their way to Rome, or before the spiritual exercises were completed there. We do not know when Casella died, but if it was some time in 1300, with his purpose of gaining the indulgence unfulfilled, the Angel’s refusal at first, and acceptance afterwards—after December 1300—and his arrival in Purgatory in March 1301, would be explained. The fact that his arrival was still three months after the Bull, and that all without exception were welcomed by the Angel, are difficulties which apply to both interpretations. But perhaps that just given is a little too clever. It is most natural to consider the Indulgence as the famous one of 1300, and to understand that in the Jubilee year the way of salvation was made easier for all souls, living or dead.550

If however these, and many other passages quoted in the controversy, are unconvincing, the same cannot be said of Cunizza’s “Questo centesim’ anno.”551 Prof. Angelitti’s suggestion that she was reckoning by the Easter year, which was used in some parts of France and Italy, so that the date was still 1300 for her, though for most Italians it was 1301, is too ingenious; and it is hard to believe that she means “this century year” applying it to 1301. Though this might be correct, it is clear that 1300 was regarded as the century year, because the words “centesimo anno” occur in the Bull of Boniface VIII. with reference to the year 1300. This then speaks strongly and clearly against our astronomical theory of 1301.

The historical events alluded to in the Divine Comedy are so often of unknown date to us, that few of them help as much as might be expected. Judge Nino’s widow remarried on June 24, 1300, and as he speaks of her as having already put off her widow’s weeds,552 this might indicate that we are in 1301, but it is not conclusive, since they would probably be discarded three months before she was actually the wife of another. On the other hand, Can Grande della Scala, who is said in a fourteenth century chronicle to have been born on March 9, 1291, is described as only nine years old.553 Dante might possibly have been mistaken by a year in the date of his birth, but he cannot have been ignorant of the death of his friend Guido Cavalcanti. The cry of anguish from Guido’s father will be remembered by all readers of the Inferno, after Dante has spoken of his friend in the past tense:—

“Di subito drizzato gridò: Come,
Dicesti egli ebbe? Non viv’ egli ancora?
Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome?”554

And as Dante hesitates a little, Cavalcante sinks back into his tomb of punishment, and does not reappear. Before Dante leaves the place, feeling compunction, he charges Farinata to tell the father that his son is still among the living, and that the sinister hesitation was due to another cause than he thought. Now it is beyond dispute that Guido died in August 1300, for he was buried in the cemetery of St. Reparata in Florence on August 29, 1300, according to official records still extant;555 and Dante had a share in banishing him amongst other exiles to the unhealthy place where he contracted the illness of which he died. The year 1300, in which Dante held the official position which obliged him to do this, was burned into his mind, as we see in his letter, mentioned by Lionardo Bruni, in which he says that all his misfortunes sprang from the time of his priorate.

How then can we believe that he here imagines himself speaking in the spring of 1301, unless we assume that Cavalcanti had really guessed the true cause of his hesitation, and that what Dante said afterwards was a kindly lie? Is this in character with his uncompromising, even ruthless straightforwardness? Unless therefore some really satisfactory way of escape can be found from this incident and the “centesim’ anno” I fear we must reluctantly abandon the theory of 1301, championed so skilfully by Angelitti and others, and must agree with the majority that Dante means us to understand the year 1300.

The early commentators seem to have taken for granted that Dante was correct in his astronomical data, without taking any particular trouble to verify them. Jacopo della Lana in commenting Par. xxi. 14 says that in 1300 in the month of March Saturn was in Leo, and was in the 8th degree of that sign; and in order that we should know what was the disposition of the whole sky at that time he further informs us that Jupiter was in Aries in the 24th degree, and Mars in Pisces in the 11th degree, that the sun was near the beginning of Aries, and Venus in Pisces (these two are evidently taken simply from Dante). Mercury was in Virgo (with the sun in Aries! in this case Mercury would have been visible nearly the whole night), and the moon in. Here there is said to be a blank in all the MSS. The moon was too much for Della Lana, whether the difficulty was in finding her position or in reconciling it with that given by Dante. The Ottimo and Benvenuto da Imola copy Della Lana with little change, both giving the positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in degree and sign, but the sun only as near the beginning of Aries, Venus in Pisces, and Mercury in Virgo. (It is astonishing that neither should have noticed this gross error.) Benvenuto boldly adds that the moon was in Libra, doubtless because Dante’s description so required it at the beginning of his poem.

Nor do these early commentators seem to feel any difficulty about the date on which the Vision began. From Inf. i. 38-40 they generally conclude that it was the day of the equinox, which they say vaguely fell in the middle of March “mezzo Marzo,” and from Inf. xxi. 112-114 all except Boccaccio (who interprets March 25) take it to be Good Friday.556 No discrepancy seems to have been felt here: they merely remark that in 1300 Easter fell in March, and more than two hundred years passed before anyone pointed out that this was wrong.

At last a work appeared in 1554, called “Del Sito, Forma, et Misure dello Inferno di Dante,” in which the author, Giambullari, remarked that according to astronomical calculations the Paschal Moon was not full on the night between Thursday and Good Friday in 1300, but on the morning of April 5th. This excited a good deal of interest, and many theories have since been put forth to reconcile Dante’s astronomical data with the facts of the year 1300.

Dr. Moore thinks the date of entering the Inferno was Good Friday, April 8, 1300, but that Dante uses instead of the real moon the ecclesiastical moon, which, as we know, is a conventional body revolving according to Meton’s cycle, and sometimes appearing on tables as full two or three days before or after the real Full Moon. Dr. Moore finds that this ecclesiastical moon, was full on April 7, 1300.557 But would Dante trouble about the ecclesiastical moon, and would his readers know anything about it? Its only use was for determining Easter, and this was done for the people by the Church. The real moon was extremely important for astrologers, for whose benefit Tables and Almanachs were chiefly drawn up; the real moon was useful to everyone as light-giver and time recorder. It is surely inconceivable that a Florentine who wished to arrange a midnight festival, or to start on a night-journey, would consult a calendar to find out on what date the ecclesiastical moon would be full! And the ecclesiastical moon does not alter the position of Venus.

According to another suggestion, Dante followed a tradition as to the position of all the “seven planets” at the Creation, and for this reason not only was his sun in Aries, but the moon full and opposite, and Venus in Pisces. Venus is said to have this position in a picture of the Creation in a Church at San Gemignano.558 Compare also Milton’s moon at her creation:—

“... Less bright the moon,
But opposite in levelled west, was set,
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him.”559

Or again, it is sometimes held that the day and all the celestial positions are ideal. Dante means us to understand that the first day of his Vision was Good Friday, but without troubling as to what day it fell on in 1300; the equinox and the full moon are naturally connected with Good Friday, since they determine Easter; Venus is connected with the idea of dawn, and when the Sun is in Aries the morning star may well be in Pisces.

Either of these views might be correct, and no one will dispute a poet’s right to arrange his skies as he thinks fit, if he is consistent with them, as Dante was. But how did these positions, if they are purely imaginary, come to coincide exactly with the real positions of 1301?

If we examine the positions of 1301, and accept nothing that is doubtful in Dante’s own words, what does the coincidence amount to? Saturn was near Regulus, but he was also in the forepart of Leo in 1300, and we are not sure that Dante means more than this; Mars was in Leo, but we are not sure that Dante wanted him there;560 the moon was full on the morning of March 25, but we are not sure whether Dante means March 25 or Good Friday. Venus was a morning star in Pisces, and this till very lately was the one astronomical fact incontestably in favour of 1301 and against 1300.

But in 1908 there was printed in Florence, for the first time, a mediæval Almanach, which suggests so simple an explanation of this most striking coincidence that it seems to leave nothing more to be said for the 1301 hypothesis. This Almanach, which has been published under a title which perhaps takes things a little too much for granted—Almanach Dantis Aligherii—was compiled by a learned Jew, Jacob ben Machir ben Tibbon, who was born in Marseilles about 1236, and died at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Using the Toledan Tables, he constructed this so-called perpetual almanach, which gives the positions of sun, moon, and planets, at intervals of a few days for whole cycles of years. Each has a cycle of a different length, that of Venus for instance being 8 years, as on the Babylonian tablets of ephemerides; and at the end of each cycle nearly the same positions come over again. It was written in Hebrew, and translated into Latin by an unknown author, and must have been popular, since there were an immense number of Latin MSS. in the fourteenth century. In the original, all the cycles begin in 1301, but in the Latin they begin in 1300, except the cycles of Venus and the sun, which begin in 1301. Yet 1301 is not written over the first column for Venus, but merely 1, or nothing at all, or even in some copies 1300, and in both the Hebrew and Latin prefaces the beginning of all the cycles is stated to be 1300.561

If, therefore, Dante looked up the position of Venus in this almanac, he would very naturally take the 1301 positions for 1300, and he would find that Venus was in Aquarius throughout March, until the 27th, when she passed into the sign of Pisces, and therefore was a morning star during the whole month and also in April. And he would find that Saturn was in the 7th and 8th degrees of Leo in March and April 1300 (which was very nearly correct).562

It appears then that while certain expressions used in the Divine Comedy prove clearly that 1301 is not the year assumed as the date of the Vision, the astronomical argument in favour of it is not strong enough to be convincing, especially in the light of this recent discovery.

Granting that 1300 was the year, what was the day? Probably not March 25, for the early commentators, excepting only Boccaccio in one passage, are all in favour of Good Friday, and Dante might see in the Almanac that the moon was not full on that date. But neither was she full on the actual date of Good Friday, which fell on April 8 in 1300; moreover the sun was then so far advanced in Aries that seven days later, when Dante describes it as a little past the equinox, it would really have been in Taurus. The third and only possibility is to accept the theory that his moon and his day were ideal; that is, he simply assumed Good Friday and a full moon to occur together soon after the equinox, with which both are so intimately associated. The date of Easter is not given in the old almanac, and we have seen that the early commentators who knew that the equinox fell in “mezzo Marzo”563 were content to accept Easter as falling in that month also. We must not forget the convenience of an equinox and a full moon for simplifying the time references also.

We conclude, then, that the year chosen by Dante was 1300 (as has been most generally believed), and the day Good Friday, which he assumes to have fallen about a week after the equinox, and at a time of full moon. Saturn in his poem, and also in fact, was in Leo; Venus was not actually a morning star, nor in Pisces, but he may have been led to assign this position to her through an error in a contemporary almanac.

I must confess to a great feeling of disappointment in coming to the conclusion that Prof. Angelitti’s enticing theory must be rejected, but a careful study of Dante’s own words, and Prof. Boffito’s discovery of the “Almanach perpetuum ad annum 1300 inchoatum” seem to leave no other choice. Last April,564 when helping to photograph Halley’s Comet in beautiful early dawns, this problem was much in my mind. Venus once more had the Fishes in her train, and oddly enough Good Friday had fallen on March 25! I could not help wishing that these things had happened in 1300 as well as in 1910!

If in spite of all arguments to the contrary, any readers are convinced that Dante’s celestial positions were taken from the real skies, it remains to them to imagine that he saw them in March of 1301 and wove them into the narrative of his poem, although for some reason he adopted another date.

The following tables (pp. 425-26) summarize the foregoing pages. It will be noted with what appropriate symbolism Dante enters Hell on the evening of Good Friday, spends that night and the whole of Saturday in the depths, and rises out of them on Easter Day before the dawn.

For although he reaches Earth’s centre on Saturday evening by Jerusalem time, the change of hemisphere there makes his time suddenly go back twelve hours, so that it is again Saturday morning, and he spends the day and night of Saturday (Purgatory time) in climbing to Earth’s surface.

DAYS OF THE VISION AND POSITIONS OF
THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS.

Dante’s Journey.	Jerusalem Time.	Purgatory Time.	Positions of Sun, Moon and Planets in Zodiac.	References.
	Night		Moon full in Libra, about 7th degree	Inf. xx. 127.
Forest	Day I. Good Friday (1300)		Sun in Aries, about 7th degree	Inf. i. 38-40.
	Night
Inferno	Day II. Saturday
	Night	Day III. Saturday
Earth’s	Day	in
Interior	(Sunday)	Purgatory
	Easter Day	Night
		Day IV. (Sund.)	Venus in Pisces at dawn	Purg. i. 19-21.
		Easter Day in Purgatory
		Night	Moon in the middle of Scorpio	Purg. ix. 1-6.
Purgatory		Day V. (Mond.)
		Night	Moon at end of Scorpio or beginning of Sagittarius	Purg. 79-81.
	Day VI. (Teus.) Night
Earthly Paradise,		Day VII.	Sun in the middle	Par. i. 37-44;
planetary &		(Wed.)	of Aries	x. 7-33;
stellar spheres			Saturn in Leo	xxvii. 86,87.
Primum Mobile		Day VIII.		Par. xxi. 13-15.
and Empyrean		(Thur).

Summary.

Arguments for 1300 or 1301.
From Expressions and Incidents in the D.C.

Malacoda.	Inconclusive: method of reckoning uncertain.
Inf. xxi. 112-114.
“Nel mezzo del cammin.”	Inconclusive: a precise year possibly not indicated,
Inf. i. 1.	and date of Dante’s birth not certainly known.
Casella.	Inconclusive: may refer to Bull of 1299,
Purg. ii. 98-99.	but possibly of 1300.
Can Grande.	For 1300: Can Grande 9 years old in March 1300.
Par. xvii. 80, 81.
Cunizza.	For 1300: “questo centesim’ anno” can only mean 1300.
Par. ix. 40.
Nino’s widow.	Inconclusive: might put off widow’s weeds
Purg. viii. 74.	before re-marriage.
Guido Cavalcanti.	For 1300: Guido, Dante’s intimate friend,
Inf. x. 111.	died in August 1300.

The Astronomical Data.

(True Equinox, March 12. Ecclesiastical, March 21. Traditional, March 25).

In D.C.	On Good Friday, 1300.	On March 25, 1301.
SUN near Equinox.	Day assumed to fall soon after equinox (actually April 8.)	Date of traditional equinox (13 days after true equinox).
MOON full on first day.	Assumed full, since Easter associated with equinox and full moon. (Actually full March 5, and April 4.)	Full.
VENUS in Pisces on 4th day.	Supposed in Pisces from error in contemporary almanac, confounding 1301 with 1300.	Entered Pisces March 27.
SATURN “on the Lion’s breast.”	In forepart of Leo, 8th degree of the sign.	In Leo, 21st degree of the sign, lose to Regulus.
MARS possibly intended to be in Leo.	Not near Leo.	In Leo.
Early commentators understand Good Friday, not March 25.

VII — Theoretical and Speculative Astronomy

“Thou shalt learn the burning nature of the pure clear sun, thou shalt hear the wandering nature of the round-eyed moon, and thou shalt learn of the surrounding heaven, whence it arose, and how Necessity guiding it compelled it to hold fast the bounds of the stars.”

Parmenides.

1. The Spheres

Dante’s astronomical phenomena, though they are just the same that are familiar (or ought to be familiar) to us, have led us into some strange by-ways, because they are so intimately connected with his works of imagination. His astronomical theories, by which these phenomena were explained, will also take us into paths which are now seldom trodden by astronomers or others, because mediæval astronomy was mingled with magic, with metaphysics, and with religion, in a way which seems very strange to us.

The second treatise of the Convivio has for its text the Ode which is quoted in Paradiso viii. 37, “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete.”565 When speaking of the literal meaning of this Ode, Dante takes the occasion to discourse on the system of astronomy which he had learned, and describes how all the apparent movements of the heavens are explained by postulating the existence of spheres and epicycles, entering with special detail into the system of Venus, the third heaven; and later on, when expounding the allegorical meaning of the Ode, he draws an elaborate comparison between the spheres and the different branches of science and philosophy, in which he incidentally gives his readers a good deal of information about the heavens.

From this interesting treatise, therefore, as well as from many scattered passages in all his works, we learn what Dante thought were the real movements of the heavenly bodies, their dimensions, their nature, and the forces which move them; and it forms a valuable commentary on the Paradiso, in reading which he supposes us to understand the elements of the Ptolemaic system, and the ideas of the philosophers and the Fathers of the Church concerning the organization of the Universe.

Of these ultimate truths concerning the heavens, Dante says, very little can be known, but the little which is within the reach of human reason, gives more delight (as Aristotle says) than the abundance and the certainty of other things easier to be understood.566 This thought finds an echo in the Paradiso, where the poet reminds us of the beautiful order to be found throughout the universe, and invites us to contemplate the skill of the architect as shown in the movements of the planets.567

Dante knew that great men in ancient days had speculated on the possibility that it was Earth, and not the skies, that moved in the diurnal period, but the balance of authority was against them, and they had been confuted by the Master of those who KNOW,568 that glorious philosopher to whom Nature most fully revealed her secrets,569 Aristotle. In Treatise III. of the Convivio he gives a clear and concise account of the theory of Philolaus, and of what he understood to be the theory of Plato.570 In the former he seems to have been struck with the deduction that, if Fire were at the centre of the Universe, the real motion of fire on Earth, which to us appears always to ascend, would in reality be a descent towards its own place at the centre.

Both these hypotheses he had evidently learned from Aristotle’s De Cælo,571 and when thus presented they seem entirely fanciful; so although Dante had reverence for both Pythagoras and Plato it is not surprising that he rejected the systems of both. He adds that it is not his intention to recount here the arguments by which Aristotle confutes them and establishes the truth: it is enough for his readers to know, on so great an authority, that the earth is fixed, and does not revolve, and is at the centre of the World.

Dante has to confess reluctantly that Aristotle made two mistakes in his astronomy: he said that there were only eight spheres, those of the seven planets, and that of the stars, “e che di fuori da esso non fosse altro alcuno;”572 also he placed the heaven of the sun immediately above that of the moon, that is to say second in order, counting from Earth outward. Aristotle’s loyal admirer hastens to add that these serious mistakes “questa sua sentenza così erronea”573 are explicable and excusable because, as Aristotle himself shows in the Metaphysics, when he treated of astrology he was merely following the opinions of others. That is to say, he took his facts from others, and they cannot all be depended upon, but his philosophical deductions are his own, and are never in error. In the above question of the possible movements of Earth, we saw (pp. 101-2) that Aristotle’s arguments were almost entirely drawn from metaphysics.

There have been many opinions regarding the number and the positions of the spheres, Dante says, but the truth about them has at length been found. The scheme which he expounds is that of Ptolemy, modified by the Arabs and adapted to the doctrines of the Church by Christian writers. In the Vita Nuova he almost seems to imply that the nine moving spheres form an article of faith. “Secondo Tolommeo e secondo la Cristiana verità, nove siano li cieli che si muovono.”574

Quoting from Albertus Magnus, or Averroës, he apparently credits Ptolemy with the discovery of precession, for he says that it was Ptolemy who added a ninth sphere to the eight of Aristotle, because he perceived that otherwise the outer sphere would have a double movement, and so he felt obliged to assume a sphere beyond the star sphere which should have only the one simple motion of the diurnal east to west revolution. The period of this revolution (the sidereal day) Dante gives as 23 hours and ¹⁴/₁₅ths of an hour, “grossamente assegnando,”575 i.e. 23 hours 56 minutes, which is the correct value ignoring the 4 seconds. We know that it was not Ptolemy in fact who thought it necessary to add a ninth sphere; he was not sufficiently interested in spheres, since to him they were only mathematical abstractions: but the Arabs of Baghdad noted that he had added another movement, the discovery of Hipparchus; and they, accepting the spheres as material instruments of celestial motions, felt obliged to assume the existence of the Primum Mobile or 9th sphere.

That Dante should believe the spheres to exist as actual entities was inevitable, for his principal authorities, Greek, Arab, and Christian, all taught this. And there is abundant evidence that he did think of them thus. He calls them bodies:—“omnia corpora,”576 “questi corpi grandi,”577 “cerchi corporai,”578 “il maggior corpo,”579 etc. They are transparent, one sphere not obstructing the light from another;580 and composed of æther, “questo etera tondo.”581 They have a certain thickness, and would be visible if near enough, for Dante speaks of the inner margin of the Primum Mobile, and says that it was too far above him for him to have seen it yet, when he was in the Star Sphere.582

He gives the order of the eight heavens as in Ptolemy, and adds the ninth, which is only perceived by the diurnal movement of which it is the cause; and it is called by many the Crystalline, that is, the diaphanous or completely transparent Heaven.583 The order of these spheres has been discovered by observation and reasoning, with the use of the principles of Perspective, Arithmetic, and Geometry. Dante gives as an instance the experience of Aristotle, who with his own eyes saw the moon pass below Mars, and so hide it for some time; and he mentions also how in eclipses it is evident that the moon is below the sun (i.e. nearer to us).584

To these nine spheres of the astronomers, the Catholic Church, “which cannot lie,” adds a tenth, the Empyrean Heaven, which means the heaven of flame or light, and is the abode of the blessed spirits and of God Himself.585 And here Dante is able to give himself the pleasure of adding that Aristotle seems to have been of this opinion also; “Ed anco Aristotile pare ciò sentire, a chi bene lo intende, nel primo Di Cielo e Mondo.”586 He is no doubt alluding to what Aristotle says about the existence beyond the finite universe.587 The whole passage is thus translated in the “Temple” Dante:588 “Nor is there any change of any of those things which are ranged above the outmost rotation, but they are unchangeable and passionless, enjoying the superlative existence, and passing in absolute self-sufficiency their eternal life.”

The ninth sphere rotates on two poles, which are absolutely fixed, “fermi e fissi e non mutabile, secondo alcuno rispetto,”589 the eight within it have each two poles which are only relatively fixed (for they move with the movement of the Primum Mobile), and every sphere has an equator, every point on which is equally distant from the two poles of rotation, as anyone may see who will turn round an apple, or any other spherical thing. Any point on the equator moves more quickly than any other point on the sphere, and each part moves more quickly the nearer it is to the equator, more slowly as it is far from it and nearer to the pole, since all the circling is done in the same time, and some parts have a greater, and some a less distance to go, according to their distance from the equator. Dante adds that the nearer any part of a heaven is to its equator, the nobler it is compared with its poles, for it has more movement, and more actuality, more life, and more form, and it touches more of the heaven just above, and in consequence is more noble.590

Besides these ten heavens there are others which, strictly speaking, should be included in the number: these are the little spheres which are called “epicycles” by astronomers, and they also have equators and poles of rotation, and are fixed on the large spheres, or heavens. Dante does not enter into any particulars about these, but only mentions (as belonging specially to the subject in hand) that the brilliant star of Venus is carried “on the back” of an epicycle, which is itself fixed on the back of the third Heaven.591 The apparent movement of Venus is therefore compounded of no less than four movements: that of her epicycle, of her whole heaven (the “deferent” Dante does not name, probably as introducing too technical a word), of the west to east motion of the star sphere (precession), and the diurnal. The epicycle of Venus is also called in this treatise, as we have already seen, “quello suo cerchio che la fa parere serotina e mattutina, secondo i due diversi tempi,”592 and the “terzo epiciclo”593 is referred to in Par. viii. 3.

A little further on in the same treatise, Dante tells us the periods in which all these nine spheres revolve. It is an interesting passage, and illustrates the poet’s vivid way of bringing home to his own mind and those of his readers the effects of the different celestial motions.594 The ninth sphere, which is the Crystalline or Primum Mobile, causes by its daily revolution the daily revolution of all the other spheres, which are within it; it is, as Beatrice says, “costui, che tutto quanto rape l’altro universo seco.”595 Therefore if we imagine it possible for the motion of this Crystalline Heaven to cease, what will be the effect on the motions of the other heavens? Obviously their diurnal movement from east to west will cease, and we shall only see them revolving, each in its own period, from west to east. There will be no alternation of day and night, or rather, there will be one long day of six months, and one long night of the same length, in any given place all over the earth. In the same way the moon will be invisible for half the month; and all the planets will be invisible to us for half their periods; and as Dante believed only the known hemisphere of Earth to be inhabited, he could say that during one half of each period no one would see the planet at all. He enumerates the half period in each case, as follows:—

“Planets.”	Half Period (approximate) given by Dante.	Whole Period given by Alfraganus (El. Ast. ch. xvii.)
“Planets.”	Half Period (approximate) given by Dante.	Years	Months	Days
Saturn	14½ years	29	5	8
Jupiter	6”	11	10	14½	about.
Mars	about a year	1	10	22	nearly.
Sun	182 days, 14 hrs.	...		365¼	nearly.
Venus	{about the same { as the sun.	...		″
Mercury	””	...	...	″
Moon	14½ days	...	(nearly) 27, 7¾ hrs.
		(Paris edition, 29 days, 12¾ hrs.)

If we compare these with the zodiacal periods given by Alfraganus, we see that Dante has taken those of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars at the nearest whole number of years and halved them, but with the sun he seems to have used that more exact value with which we have already seen that he was acquainted. For to divide the 365¼ days of Alfraganus by 2 would have given him exactly 182 days 15 hours; but dividing 365 days 5 hours, and neglecting minutes gives 182 days 14 hours. The large oscillations of Venus and Mercury would make their periods of visibility very irregular, but the mean period would be, as Dante says, about the same as that of the sun. He has made a slip with the moon, for of course it is her sidereal period of 27 days 7¾ hours which he should have taken, giving a half period of less than 14 days, whereas he has evidently taken the mean synodic period of 29 days 12¾ hours, and ignored the hours. All the printed editions of Alfraganus give the sidereal period in this passage, except the Paris edition of 1546; but that gives the synodic,596 so it doubtless appeared on some mediæval MSS. Dante must have had the misfortune to possess or consult one of these.

As for the stars, one third of their sphere would not yet have been seen. This is not difficult to understand if we remember what the movement of the star sphere was supposed to be, and how long it was since man had first begun to look upon it, according to Dante’s chronology. The movement which makes the equinoctial point shift its place among the stars was thought to be a movement of revolution of the whole star sphere, and its rate to be one degree in a century; the age of the world, we learn from Par. xxvi. 118-123, was over sixty centuries when Dante wrote. For Adam said that he had spent 930 years on Earth and 4302 in the Limbo, so that Dante evidently counted 5232 years from the Creation to the Crucifixion, that is (5232-33 =) 5199 to the beginning of our era at the birth of Christ, which is the date given by Orosius; adding 1300 years to this, we find that the age of the world in Dante’s day was more than 6000 years. Therefore the star sphere had revolved, since the beginning of the world, through more than 60 degrees.

The first inhabitants of this earth saw half the starry sky or 180°, and since then it had revolved through 60°, which together is equal to 240°; therefore there would still remain 120°, or one third of a revolution, to be made to complete the whole 360°, and bring every part of the star sphere into view. Just before this passage Dante had expressed the same idea in another way. This movement proper to the star sphere, he says, will never have an end, for the end of a revolution is to return to the same point; and this heaven will never do so, for since the beginning of the world it has turned through a little more than the sixth part of its whole revolution (60° = ⅛ of 360°), and we are already in the last age of the world, and indeed are awaiting the consummation of the celestial motion.597

If the premises be granted, the conclusions are correct. As regards sun, moon, and planets, they are correct even from the point of view of modern knowledge. For if the diurnal motion (that is Earth’s rotation) were to cease, while her other motions, and those of the rest of the solar system remained as at present, her motion round the sun would cause it to rise and set once in a year, and the appearance of moon and planets also would be as described. The vastly distant stars would have no appreciable motion, save that caused by precession, for if the earth revolved round the sun without turning on her axis, the same stars would always remain on the meridian at any given place. Precession, however, would not have the result which Dante supposed. He considered it to be a rotation of the star sphere, but we know that it is merely a nodding. Hence at any given place a star at the pole would describe, in the course of centuries, a small circle in the sky, and those at the equator would move in short lines first north and then south, while stars between would move in ellipses which become narrower as they approach the equator. All round the horizon, therefore, there would be slight very slow changes, bringing a few fresh stars into view, and causing others to disappear. The whole amount of the sky actually seen would vary but little, even if the world should last much longer than Dante expected.

Dante evidently took his value of precession from Alfraganus, for he was one of the few Arab astronomers who accepted Ptolemy’s erroneous figure.

In the Paradiso, as the poet mounts with Beatrice from sphere to sphere he mentions the number of each one in its order. The moon is “la prima stella,”598 Mercury “il secondo regno,”599 Venus “il terzo ciel,”600 the spirits met in the sun are “la quarta famiglia,”601 Mars is “questa quinta soglia,”602 and “più levato”603 than the last heaven, Jupiter is the “stella sesta,”604 Saturn “il settimo splendore.”605 The starry heaven is alluded to as “la spera ottava.”606 The Primum Mobile is “il ciel velocissimo,”607 “il maggior corpo.”608 The Empyrean, “il ciel ch’ è pura luce,”609 is called “l’ultima spera,”610 but this has no limits and no movement, and therefore no poles:—

“... In quella sola
E ogni parte là dove sempr’ era;
Perchè non è in loco, e non s’impola.”611

In Conv. II. iv. 35-39 it is thus described:—

“Questo è il sovrano edificio del mondo, nel quale tutto il mondo s’inchiude; e di fuori dal quale nulla è; ed esso non è in luogo, ma formato fu solo nella Prima Mente, la quale li Greci dicono Protonoe.”612

We must remember, however, that the spheres are sometimes counted in the other direction, from the outermost to the innermost or lowest, and therefore this “ultima spera”613 is elsewhere spoken of as “il primo cielo,”614 “il primo giro,”615 “cœlum primum.”616

2. The Spheres and the Four Elements

The pure region of the spheres, “il paese sincero,” is immortal as the spirits themselves;617 but below the lowest celestial sphere (“la celestial c’ha men salita” Par. iv. 39) all is mortal and transitory, as the Greeks and the Latin poets had said. This is expressed in the Letter to Can Grande, when Dante contrasts the spheres (cœlum) and the elements, and says: “illud incorruptibile, illa vero corruptibilia sunt.”618 It is also implied in Virgil’s address to Beatrice:

“O donna di virtù, sola per cui
L’umana specie eccede ogni contento
Da quel ciel che ha minor’ li cerchi sui.”619

It is only through the spiritual teaching which Beatrice symbolizes that the human race can rise above all that is comprised within the heaven of the smallest sphere. And it is taught by Beatrice herself when, in the heaven of Mercury, she discourses on the mysteries of the creation and redemption. The angels, the souls of men, and the spheres, were created directly by God, she says, and are therefore immortal, but the elements, water, fire, air, earth, and all things that are formed out of them, also the souls or living principles of all animals and plants, were created through intermediate instruments and are mortal. These intermediate instruments are the heavenly bodies. Pure or inchoate matter was created at the beginning by God, and a power infused into the stars to give it form.620

Dante follows the classics and agrees with his contemporaries in arranging the four elements in four spheres, which are below the celestial spheres. The sphere of Fire is immediately within that of the moon, below this comes Air, then Water, and lastly the solid sphere of Earth. The contrast between Fire which constantly tends to rise towards the moon, and Earth which sinks towards the centre of the universe, is a favourite thought with him;621 and lightning striking the earth is described as fleeing its proper place.622 Aristotle seems to have regarded the four elements as flowing into one another, so that these lowly spheres beneath the moon were not sharply divided, but his mediæval disciples, following the Greek idea to its logical conclusion, conceived them with boundaries as definite as those of the celestial spheres. “Exhalations” could pass from one to another, but each particle of every element tended always to revert to its own place, which was distinct from the others.

And here they encountered a serious difficulty. If the sphere of water is naturally higher than that of earth, how comes it that in one quarter of the globe land rises above the ocean? It was recognised as necessary that this should happen in some part of the world, in order for an opportunity to be given for the elements to combine and to form all those substances and all those living creatures, including man, for which this earth was prepared; it was also agreed that the celestial spheres were the agency by which the Creator had first chosen to “let the dry land appear,” and by which it was maintained above the ocean; but the exact nature of this force and the way in which it acted was a question sometimes discussed. Albertus Magnus was of opinion that the rays of the sun and the stars, which had more power in the temperate and tropic zones than in the arctic, had here dried up the ocean, and he quotes Albumassar’s statement that this proves the existence of land on the southern side of the equator also. Ristoro, on the other hand, believed that the waters had been drawn up and rolled back from the habitable earth, and he attributes the elevating force to the stars of the north, bringing in his favourite theory that in this hemisphere they are far more numerous, and the constellations, from their upright position, are far more powerful than in the south.

He compares this lifting force of the stars to the attractive power of a magnet over iron, and argues that it must be the waters which are drawn away from the earth, not the earth which is lifted above the water, because the starry influence in its downward course would meet first the sphere of water, and moreover it is lighter and easier to move than Earth. He also thinks that the presence of springs on mountain tops is to be explained by the fact that the ocean is preserved at a higher level, hence water percolating through the porous land, as through a sponge, is forced up to its utmost height.

It does not seem as if Dante had paid much attention to this problem when he was writing the Convivio, for although he calls the habitable part of the earth “the uncovered land,” “la terra discoperta” (Conv. III. v. 73), he speaks of Earth and ocean as if they formed a globe together, “Questa terra... col mare è centro del cielo,”623 in the manner of Alfraganus, “Inter sapientes convenit, terram unà cum aqua globosam esse.”624 But if we may believe that Dante is the author of the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra—a belief shared by many experts—he became greatly interested in the problem later on. According to the introduction and the final colophon, he attended a discussion on the subject and joined in it himself, when in Mantua, and afterwards in Verona less than two years before his death he wrote and read in public a Latin treatise in which his arguments and conclusions are set forth.

He seems to have had in mind Ristoro’s book, and while refuting some of the conclusions agrees with others. As a thirteenth century scholar he admits, as a matter of course, that the centre of the earth is the centre of the Universe and the goal towards which all heavy things tend; that earth as the heaviest element ought to be everywhere nearest this centre, while water ought to occupy the nobler place above it, that is, nearer to the most noble sphere of all which envelops all the others (the Empyrean). He also reasons, in true Dantesque and true mediæval fashion that there must be some place in the universe where all the elements may meet and mingle so that all potential forms of matter may be realized; otherwise the Mover of heaven, in whom all these forms (Plato’s Ideas) actually exist, would fail to give complete expression to his goodness, which is impossible.625

The author of the Quæstio denies, however, that this was accomplished by the removal of part of the sphere of water from the underlying earth. The ocean cannot have been drawn away and heaped up, he says, for water would always flow down again, being fluid and naturally seeking its own level; nor can the sphere of water be eccentric to that of Earth so that the latter emerges from it in one part. The reason for this is interesting since it implies a curious and apparently novel theory of gravity. Aristotle’s theory was that all heavy things tend by a natural law towards the centre of the universe, and therefore necessarily range themselves in spheres round it; the writer might therefore have made short work of Water’s eccentric sphere by stating briefly that it could not exist; instead of this, however, he suggests a new law of gravity, apparently invented on the spur of the moment, according to which everything which has weight tends towards the centre of its own circumference. If then earth and water had two separate centres, they would fall naturally in different directions, or as he puts it “to different downs.” Yet we know that the law of gravity is the same for both, and therefore their spheres must be concentric. The centre of the universe must be also the centre of the sea.626 It had apparently been urged (perhaps in the discussion at Mantua) that since water follows the moon in the tides, its sphere may also imitate hers in being eccentric, but although Dante takes for granted that a connection between moon and tides is proved (and indeed it had been noted by the Greeks),627 he replies that imitation in one particular need not imply imitation in all. Again, if the sphere of earth emerged from the sphere of water in the way proposed, the outline of the emergent earth must be circular, instead of which it is that of a half-moon, or nearly so, its width from east to west being much greater than its length from north to south.

Dante has been blamed for assigning this shape to the emergent earth, but the comparison of Earth’s habitable quadrant with the illuminated quadrant of the moon is perfectly just, as we saw with Ristoro,628 from whom Dante is perhaps quoting here. The qualifying “vel quasi”629 is added because the truly habitable regions did not extend over the whole quadrant, but stopped short at the arctic circle.

The existence of springs on mountain tops is explained by the fact that water rises thither not in the form of water but of vapour. Another upholder of Ristoro’s theory that Water was rolled away from Earth seems to have brought forward as evidence that sailors can see distant land from the mast which is invisible from the deck, and that therefore it evidently lies below the ocean; but this is confuted by the true and well known explanation that it is the convex shape of the sea which hides the distant land. Our author adds to his other arguments, in the curiously casual way so characteristic of his age, the ordinary observation which would be the first to occur to us, and quite sufficient in itself, viz. that instead of seeing a great wall of ocean rising above our sea-coasts, we invariably see the coast rising above the sea.

His own idea is that though the sphere of Water in general rises above Earth, in one part of the northern hemisphere Earth has been drawn up above the ocean. Earth must be subject to an uplifting influence, as well as to the downward drag of gravity, just as man is susceptible to the influence of reason as well as to the sway of his lower passions. This uplifting influence is not inherent in Earth herself, an upward impulse would be contrary to her own nature; nor can it be in water, or air, or fire, since all these are homogeneous bodies, and their virtue is evenly distributed, so that they could not cause a local and partial effect. It must be therefore in one of the heavens, and it remains for us to enquire which.

It cannot be in the heaven of the moon, for in the moon herself resides whatever influence comes from her sphere;630 and she goes as far south of the equator as she does north: therefore she would raise land beyond the equator as well as on this side, but this is not so.

Then follows a passage of which commentators can make nothing as it stands:—

“Nec valet dicere quod illa declinatio non potuit esse propter magis appropinquare terræ per excentricitatem; quia si hæc virtus elevandi fuisset in luna, (quum agentia propinquiora virtuosius operentur) magis elevasset ibi quam hic.”631

Mr. Wicksteed suggests reading “elevatio” instead of “declinatio,” and apparently deletes the “non,”632 and Dr. Moore seems to read the same way,633 for both agree in interpreting as follows:—the author is stating an argument that the elevation of land (in only one hemisphere) might be due to the moon’s coming nearer to Earth in one part of her orbit, owing to its eccentricity; to which he replies that if that were the cause the elevation would be greater in the south than here in the north, because the moon is nearer to the earth when she goes south.

This is supposed to imply a belief that the moon is always in perigee 634 when south of the equator, whereas the fact that her perigee revolves all round the zodiac was as well known to Ptolemy and Alfraganus as it is to modern astronomers. The interpretation therefore convicts the author of the Quæstio of so serious and inexplicable a blunder that these commentators find themselves obliged to consider it as evidence either that it was not written by Dante, or that his knowledge of astronomy was much less extensive than has been supposed. It is suggested that there may have been a popular fallacy in his time that the moon was like the sun in this respect—although to know that the sun has a perigee, and that it is situated in the south, requires some acquaintance with astronomy! However, Dr. Moore has searched Alfraganus and other works in vain to find a suggestion of this kind.

Yet an explanation and a source of this statement is not far to seek, and instead of proving ignorance it indicates that the author of the Quæstio knew his Alfraganus well. The passage is evidently slightly corrupt, but the clue to its meaning lies in the word “eccentricity.” In two other places of the Quæstio the moon’s eccentric “orbis” is alluded to,635 but if we translate this as “orbit” we shall be introducing modern ideas which meant nothing to Dante or his contemporaries. According to Alfraganus and Ptolemy the moon’s orb or sphere 636 was eccentric, but this was not the main cause of her varying distance from Earth. It was the revolution of her epicycle round its centre C, which caused her to move continually from apogee M to perigee P; and as the whole epicycle was meanwhile revolving on the deferent round C, and these two periods were not quite equal, the moon was as often in the perigee of her epicycle when it was south as when it was north. But besides this, the deferent, being eccentric to Earth, had also a perigee and apogee; and Alfraganus says that the perigee of the eccentric is always in the south. “Saturnus, Jupiter, atque Mars eccentricorum suorum absidas summas et imas habent declinatas a zodiaco, illas ad boream, hasce ad austrum, secundum eandem semper deflexus mensuram: quedadmodum res in Luna obtinet.”637

The upper and lower apsides are defined in chapter xii. as the positions of apogee and perigee respectively.638

In this quotation the word “declinatas” also supplies us with the meaning of Dante’s “declinatio,” which need not be changed for “elevatio.” He is using it in the astronomical sense of position north or south, like Alfraganus and modern astronomers, and it refers here to the “declinet” of five lines earlier. “Luna... tantum declinet per zodiacum ab æquinoctiali versus polum antarcticum quantum versus arcticum.”639

It is only necessary to delete “quod” and “non potuit,” and the whole passage becomes clear and, from the point of view of mediæval astronomy, correct. The author has shown that the moon cannot be supposed to exert any preponderating influence in the northern hemisphere, because her declination south is equal to that in the north. Nor is it of any use, he adds, to say that this declination (south) results from her approaching the earth more nearly on her eccentric orb (see diagram);640 for (although this does imply an unequal influence) if the elevating influence came from the moon, it would act more powerfully in the south than here in the north, since the nearer an agent is the more powerfully it acts.

He goes on to say that the same reasoning rules out the planetary spheres, and here Alfraganus still supports him, for Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are said to have the perigees of their eccentrics in the south, just like the moon, while those of Venus and Mercury are continually changing.641

As for the Primum Mobile, or ninth sphere, it is uniform throughout, and consequently quite uniform in virtue, therefore there is no reason why it should elevate land here rather than elsewhere. Since, then, there are no more moving bodies except the star sphere, or eighth heaven, it must be from this that the lifting power proceeds. And it is specially adapted to exercise such an influence since it contains a number of stars, all of which have different “virtues.” Without repeating Ristoro’s naïve assertions about the greater number and the upright positions of the northern constellations, our author bids us remark that star differs from star, constellation from constellation, and that their influences are also diverse, so that those in the north have different virtues from those in the south. The lifting virtue which raises the land must reside in those stars which are between the equator and 67° north, since those are above the habitable earth; but we do not know the nature of the force they exercise, whether it attracts the land as a magnet attracts iron, or forces it up by generating underground vapours, such as have raised some mountains (Aristotle had said in his Meteorologica that volcanic hills were formed by pent-up winds beneath them).

After so elaborate a search for a power capable of raising land only in the north and not in the south, we naturally inquire why in the east and not in the west? But to this we only receive the reply that there was not enough material to go round, and that we must not ask presumptuous questions. Let us seek to approach divine and immortal things as nearly as is possible to human nature, but leave those which are too high for us.

This somewhat lengthy description of the contents of the Quæstio has been given because, even if it is not Dante’s work, it illustrates well the current ideas concerning the Cosmos, its form and forces. So many of the ideas, however, and even the expressions find parallels in the unquestioned writings of Dante, that the internal evidence for its genuineness is strong.642

In his poems Dante is faithful to his own descriptions of the universe in prose, and in the visionary journey of the Divine Comedy he passes successively through all the spheres which are enumerated in the Convivio and the Quæstio. The central sphere of earth, the lowest of all the elements, “il suggetto dei vostri elementi,”643 is completely traversed, from side to side, and on the further side is seen the vast sphere of ocean which envelopes three-quarters of the earth. The Mountain which the poet has placed here (his only innovation) rises out of the water towards the heavens higher than any other, “inverso il ciel più alto si dislaga,”644 and in climbing it he reaches that region in the sphere of air into which no cold exhalations can rise from earth or sea, neither the “secco vapor”645 which causes wind and earthquake, nor the “esalazion dell’ aqua”646 from which are formed rain and hail, cloud and dew. Hot exhalations ascend to the sphere of fire, there to become meteors or comets (see p. 103); but the cold vapours rising as high as they can towards the sun which draws them up (“retro il calor”647), are unable to ascend beyond the Gate of Purgatory.648 Therefore Purgatory is exempt from all changes except those caused by that which heaven receives from itself into itself. This was ingeniously conjectured by Venturi to be light, since there is change of day and night in Purgatory; but from the context it seems clear that human souls are meant. Souls come forth from their Creator, whose special abode is the heaven of heavens, and return thither after purification. And it was the rising of the purified soul of Statius, ready to return to heaven, which had been the cause of that trembling of the Mountain of which he is here speaking.

After learning this, Dante is surprised to find, on the summit of the Mountain, that his brows are caressed by a gentle breeze which comes from the east and bends all the trees of the Forest in one direction. Matilda tells him that it is true no atmospheric changes are felt on this Mountain, and it was for this that it was made to rise so high, so that man in the Garden of Eden, on the top of the Mountain, should be untroubled by the disturbances which occur lower down: what he feels now is no fluctuating wind. On this lofty mountain, remote from any other land in the midst of the hemisphere of sea, he feels for the first time the revolution of the atmosphere uninterruptedly following the movement of the celestial spheres.

The idea that Eden was on a lofty mountain, secure from stormy weather, and inaccessible to fallen man, was a familiar one with mediæval writers: it was sometimes located on Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, and Bede thought it might rise as high as the moon, but Albertus Magnus says this was only meant figuratively. But the connection with Purgatory, and the thought that here the movement of the heavens might be felt as a soft breeze, is, so far as I know, all Dante’s own.

In all the Divine Comedy there is no more beautiful allegory than this. Man in the age of innocence, man to-day when purified from sin, is already partly in heaven, though he still walks the earth. And like many another allegory of Dante’s, it follows naturally from the science of his day. Aristotle had said that the upper air “flows in a circle, because it is drawn along with the circulation of the Whole,” and Aquinas:—

“Thus the air which exceeds the greatest altitude of the mountains flows round, but the air which is contained within the altitude of the mountains is impeded from this flow by the immoveable parts of Earth.”

Purg. xxviii. 103-108 is almost a poetical paraphrase of this:—

        “... In circuito tutto quanto
  L’aer si volge con la prima volta,
  Se non gli è rotto il cerchio d’alcun canto:
In questa altezza, che tutta è disciolta
  Nell’ aer vivo, tal moto percote
  E fa sonar la selva, perch ’è folto.”649

The whole body of the air, everywhere in the world, is turning with the First Revolution (the Primum Mobile), wherever it is not interrupted by any obstruction (of hills etc.); and as at this height the Mountain is altogether free and open to the pure air, this motion strikes the thick forest and makes it murmur.650

From this region of pure air, Dante rises with Beatrice through the sphere of Fire, into which already in a dream he had been rapt, on the first night in Purgatory, by the Eagle with golden feathers, when the burning heat of the dream-fire roused him from his sleep.651 Now he feels no heat, but is amazed at the vast extent of light, greater than any river or lake ever seen on earth, and at the same moment he begins to hear the music of the eternal spheres,652 for he is approaching the heaven of the moon.

In each one he hears it until the seventh is reached, but here, in pity for his mortal senses, which are not yet strong enough to bear so much divine beauty, not only does Beatrice forbear to smile, but the sweet symphonies of heaven are silent.653

Did Dante then, in spite of Aristotle, believe in the music of the spheres? Perhaps the fact that only the Commedia, of all his works, makes mention of it indicates that he only thought of it as a poetical fiction, an allegory? Yet it was fully believed in by many in his day, although opinions varied greatly as to what note each planet sang. The favourite idea among Greek and Latin writers seems to have been that the notes made up a musical scale, the lowest sphere sounding forth the lowest note, and the star sphere its octave; but others thought that only the seven planets took part in the harmony, corresponding with the seven strings of the lyre: the moon being at the shortest distance from Earth, was the shortest string and gave the highest note, Saturn was the longest and gave the deepest.

Our own Milton, when he prays, “Ring out, ye crystal spheres,” bids the Primum Mobile join in, as well as the star sphere:

“And with your nine-fold harmony
Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.”654

And Shakespear lets every separate star swell the chorus:

“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.”655

In the same spirit, but more literally perhaps than these, are we to understand the music of Dante’s spheres, which accompanies the singing of the angels:—

“Il cantar di quei che notan sempre
Dietro alle note degli eterni giri.”656

3. Dimensions and Physical Nature of the Universe

We have seen that Dante believed the circling of the nine moving spheres and their epicycles to be the immediate cause of the movements which he saw in stars and planets. If we ask what were his ideas with regard to their sizes and distances the question is easily answered.

It is a curious fact that although our ideas about the size of anything we see depend upon the distance at which it appears to be, and no one can say how far away the sun looks, most of us nevertheless have a quite definite idea as to how large it looks, about the size of a dinner-plate, a cart-wheel, &c. Cleomedes, in the days of Augustus, quotes Lucretius and the Epicureans as believing that the sun is no larger than it looks, that is a foot in diameter; and he rightly remarks, amongst other arguments to the contrary, that if it were only that size it would be invisible unless nearer than the tops of the mountains, yet we see islands and hills projected against it when rising, which shows that its distance is greater. Dante twice quotes the same fallacy, as an instance of the folly of trusting to the impression of our senses, when not corrected by reason, and he tells us what he believes the true size of the sun to be.

In Conv. IV.657 he says:—

“Thus we know that to most people the sun appears to be a foot wide in diameter; and this is so utterly false that according to the investigation and discovery made by human reason with her attendant arts, the diameter of the sun’s body is five times that of the earth’s, and a half besides. For whereas the earth has a diameter of six thousand five hundred miles, the diameter of the sun, which when measured by sense-impressions seems to be a foot in extent, is thirty-five thousand, seven hundred and fifty miles.” (See also Ep. x. 42-46).

When speaking of the planet Venus he says she is “far off from us, being distant even when she is nearest to us one hundred and sixty-seven times the distance of the distance of the centre of the earth from us, which is three thousand two hundred and fifty miles.”658

Mercury is spoken of in the Paradiso as a small star, “Questa picciola stella,”659 and in Conv. II.660 Dante says:—“Mercury is the smallest star in the sky; for the length of its diameter is not more than 232 miles, according to Alfraganus, who says that it is one twenty-eighth of the diameter of the earth,661 which is six thousand five hundred miles.”

It is only in the last passage that our poet quotes his authority, but in the others also the diameter or the semi-diameter of the earth is used as the unit of measure, and it is the same as that given by Alfraganus; so are the sizes of Mercury and the Sun, and the least distance of Venus is the value given by Alfraganus for the greatest distance of Mercury, which he asserted to be equal. It seems quite clear, therefore, that the figures given in the tables on pp. 189-90 represent Dante’s belief as to the dimensions of the Universe. These passages also are another proof that Dante had not studied Ptolemy’s own work, for Ptolemy had said that the distances of Venus and Mercury could not be accurately known.662

We do not expect exact measures of distance in Dante’s descriptions of his soaring flight through the spheres, but he so constantly speaks of the marvellous speed with which he passes from star to star that we are not required to ignore the stupendous distances between. The one indication he does give us of the space which separates him from earth is full of poetry and symbolic meaning: I refer to Folco’s words in the heaven of Venus:—

“Questo cielo, in cui l’ombra s’appunta
Che il vostro mondo face”...663

This is the last of the three heavens in which Dante has met spirits whose lives did not reach the perfection of the saints in higher heavens, but were marred by broken vows, earthly ambition, earthly love; and here he is reminded that he has not yet soared high enough to be beyond reach of the cone of shadow thrown by the earth. This is another allegory resting on what was to the poet an astronomical fact. For Earth’s shadow was said by Ptolemy and Alfraganus to extend to 268 times the distance of her semi-diameter, and the distance of Venus from Earth varied, according to Alfraganus, between 167 and 1120 times this unit, while the next planet, the sun, at his least distance was 1120 units distant (the same as Venus’ greatest). Therefore the spheres of Venus and the two nearer planets Mercury and the Moon, were all within reach of Earth’s shadow, but the sun and the rest were far beyond it.664 Venus and Mercury themselves never could be actually touched by the shadow like the moon, however, because they keep too near the sun for Earth to interpose herself between them and the source of light.

(Though the length of the shadow thrown by Earth is nearly accurate, see pp. 191-92, the planets are a great deal further than Alfraganus supposed; for the least distance of Venus is nearly 6000 times Earth’s semi-diameter, and the least distance of Mercury 12,000).

Except for this we have only the passage in the Paradiso already referred to, where Dante, standing among the stars of Gemini, found the sphere above him too distant to be seen, but turning his gaze downwards was able to survey all the planets and the earth at the centre of the World. He knew very well that at a distance from Earth 20,000 times her own semi-diameter it would be impossible to see her as a disc,665 far less to distinguish oceans and continents, hills and river-mouths. It would in fact be like looking at an object one foot in diameter at a distance of two miles. But as we have before observed, his power of vision here was more than human: at every step in this marvellous journey it had grown clearer and stronger, and in the fourth heaven he had been able to look on spirits which shone in the sun more brilliantly than the sun itself, although on earth no eye can look upon the sun.666

In the Empyrean, distinctions of space, and impediments to vision vanished altogether.667

With regard to the physical nature of the heavenly bodies, Dante and his contemporaries had no means whatever of investigation, and could only profess ignorance or accept one or other of the guesses of their predecessors. Some of the Greek philosophers, as we saw, guessed that the planets were worlds somewhat like the earth, others thought they were composed of fire or of air. But the general belief in the thirteenth century was that planets and spheres alike were composed of a kind of celestial matter, called by Aristotle and the Greeks “æther,” by the Arabs “al-acir,” an immortal substance which had neither heaviness nor lightness, and was altogether distinct from any of the four elements existing below the sphere of the moon. Beatrice speaks of “this sphered ether,” “questo etera tondo.” Par. xxii. 132.

Dante’s description of this celestial substance when he first enters the ethereal world is one of the finest instances of his faithfulness to the teachings of astronomy as he had learned it, combined with poetical imagination, and at the same time his power of using material facts (as he conceived them) to present an allegory of the deepest religious mysteries. If we merely listen to the magic of the words, an impression is conveyed of something mysteriously beautiful and dazzling, unlike anything known on earth; but if we look into the meaning, we find that the globe of the moon has just those strange, contrasting qualities, just the colour and the form which a sphere of ether may be imagined to have. It is white and rounded like a pearl, “polished” as Plato said of the universal orb, it is thick and shining, soft as cloud but hard as diamond; and it offers no more resistance to Dante as he enters into it than does water to a ray of light.668

Then follows a discussion concerning the substance not only of the moon but of all the heavenly bodies. On hearing that he has reached the boundaries of the immortal world, and has entered “la prima stella,”669 Dante eagerly enquires of Beatrice what are those dark markings in the body of this planet which are seen from Earth and have given rise to the fable of Cain. She smiles a little, and bids him tell her first what is his own opinion. He advances the theory which he had taught in the Convivio, viz. that the parts of the moon which look dark to us are less dense than the rest, and therefore the rays of the sun when striking them are not stopped and reflected back to us; hence the brightness is less than in other parts of her surface.

“L’ombra ch’ è in essa,... non è altro che rarità del suo corpo, alla quale non possono terminare i raggi del sole e ripercuotersi così come nell’ altre parti.”670

This explanation seems to have been first suggested by Averroës, the Arab philosopher and astronomer of Cordova, who was known in the Middle Ages as “The Commentator,” from his famous commentary of Aristotle. The suggestion occurs in his De Substantia Orbis, and as it follows a quotation from Aristotle (to the effect that the moon is more nearly related to Earth in her nature than to the stars), it was believed by many to be originally due to Aristotle himself.

The strange circumstance that the moon alone, among all the heavenly bodies, appeared to have dark shadows on her bright face, had roused much curiosity already among the Greeks; and Plutarch, in his dialogue “On the Face in the Moon,” mentions the different explanations suggested in his day. Some thought that the polished surface of the moon reflected, like a mirror, parts of the earth; the Stoics said that air was enclosed within her globe of fire and obscured it in certain places, but this view was rejected with contumely by Plutarch.

“It is a slap in the face to the moon when they fill her with smuts and blacks, addressing her in one breath as Artemis and Athena, and in the very same describing a caked compound of murky air and charcoal fire, with no kindling or light of its own, a nondescript body smoking and charred like those thunderbolts which the poets address as lightless and sooty!”671

The third hypothesis, which was favoured by most of the speakers in the dialogue, was that the moon was not a star at all, but a kind of more beautiful Earth; and it was even suggested that men might dwell on her who thought their world the only place fit for human beings, looking down with contemptuous pity on our Earth, as a sort of sediment and slime of the Universe, appearing through damps and mists and clouds, a place “unlighted, low, motionless,” entirely incapable of supporting moving breathing warm-blooded animals!

This was not a view which could possibly be held by mediæval Christians, and in a treatise on Aristotle’s De Cœlo, attributed to Albert of Saxony, we find others put forward. The author disproves the old theory of a mirror-like moon reflecting parts of Earth, and also another that the moon draws up cold vapours which are seen like clouds on her surface, and upon which she is nourished—for how should an eternal heavenly body need nourishment?—and finally he expounds the theory of “The Commentator,” with which he agrees. The markings are rare parts of the moon’s substance, which cannot shine so brightly as the denser parts, and this varied surface he compares with alabaster, in which “the dense and not translucent part is very white, while that which is translucent like glass is obscure and tends to blackness. And if,” he adds, “it is asked why the moon is thus dissimilar in her parts, the reply is that this is her nature.”672

This theory was perhaps the most popular one with mediæval scholars, though there was some difference of opinion as to whether the dense or the rare parts of the moon were those that showed dark. Ristoro perhaps alludes to it, in the passage where he speaks of the moon’s markings, but in a very confused way, and the contrast of “polished” and “rugged” surface is what he chiefly lays stress upon.

After upholding this theory in the Convivio, Dante rejects it in the Paradiso: perhaps because it was more or less bound up with the idea that the moon was partly of an earthy nature, and this was inconsistent with the other theory of Aristotle, so popular among classical writers, that all within and above the sphere of the moon was eternal and heavenly. He is evidently very anxious to convince us of the falsity of his old belief, for he is not content with a simple assertion, but lets Beatrice reason like a learned doctor, using arguments which would appeal to his readers, drawn now from experiments which might be used in a school, and now from the accepted astrological beliefs of the day.

First she reminds him that the numerous stars scattered over the surface of the eighth sphere differ in brightness, like the different parts of the moon’s surface, but they differ in the quality (colour?) of their light, as well as the quantity, and we know that there are essential differences between them, because their “virtues” are different. It cannot be, therefore, that they differ simply in density or rarity of their substance.

Then she shows that in no circumstances is the theory of varying density in different parts of the moon capable of explaining the observed variety of brightness. For if the parts which look dark are less dense than others, either they must be so right through the planet, or there must be an alternation of dense and rare matter in those parts, like fat and lean in a material body, one behind the other like pages in a book. (The double metaphor is characteristic of Dante.) Now if the first be true, the sunlight would shine through the moon is those parts, during an eclipse;673 and if the second, the sun’s rays must penetrate to the lower-lying denser part, and be reflected thence just as from the dense parts of the moon’s surface. A possible objection that in that case the reflecting surface would be further away, and therefore appear fainter, may be disproved by an experiment. Take two mirrors and place them at an equal distance from you; place a third between them but further away, face the three mirrors, and place a light behind you so that it may be reflected from them all: the distant one will appear smaller, but no less bright than the two near ones. This reasoning is perfectly sound.

Then follows the explanation for which all this is a preparation. It involves an exposition of ultimate causes which we need not enter into here: for the present we need only say that difference of brightness is not caused by differences of much or little of the same substance. There are intrinsic differences between star and star, and between different parts of the moon,674 but all are manifestations of divine intelligence; just as the different members and faculties of a human body are manifestations of a human soul.

The diversity of the celestial matter is also touched upon in the Convivio, where it is said that the epicycle of Venus is “not of the same essence as that which carries it [the deferent or large sphere], although it is more nearly of one nature with it than with the rest.”675 Differences of colour are indicated in the glowing masses of the planets, which are entered by Dante and Beatrice. As with the moon, they do not merely alight upon the surface, but penetrate the planetary ether. “Quel ch’ era dentro al sol,”676 “Nel profondo Marte,”677 “La temprata stella sesta, che dentro a sè m’avea ricolto.”678 Mercury is called a pearl—“la presente margarita”679—while Mars is “questo fuoco,”680 and the astronomer poet says he knew the planet by its burning smile, for it seemed to him even more ruddy than its wont.

“Ben m’ accors’ io ch’ io era più levato,
Per l’affocato riso della stella,
Che mi parea più roggio che l’usato.”681

And when, without being conscious of any movement, he found that the red light shining on Beatrice had turned to purest white, like a blush fading from a fair face, he knew that the sixth star (Jupiter) had received him within itself.

“E quale è il trasmutare in picciol varco
   Di tempo, in bianca donna, quando il volto
   Suo si discarchi di vergogna il carco,
Tal fu negli occhi miei, quando fui volto,
   Per lo candor della temprata stella
   Sesta, che dentro a sè m’avea ricolto.”682

This contrast between the colours of Jupiter and Mars is referred to more than once. In Par. xxvii., the flaming spirit of St. Peter, flushed with righteous indignation, becomes brilliant as the planet Jupiter, and red as Mars:—

“E tal nella sembianza sua divenne,
Qual diverrebbe Giove, s’egli e Marte
Fossero augelli, e cambiassersi penne.”683

And when Dante looks down upon the seven planets he sees

“il temperar di Giove
Tra il padre e il figlio.”684

To understand which we must turn to the oft-quoted fourteenth chapter of the second treatise in the Convivio. Here we find that Jupiter “moves between two heavens” which “are antagonistic to its excellent temperateness, that is to say the heavens of Mars and that of Saturn,”685 and Dante quotes Ptolemy as saying that Jupiter is a star of temperate constitution, between the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars.

It seems that these ideas of cold and heat, as applied to the planets, were taken literally, not merely as poetical descriptions of colour, nor of astrological significance; for Dante says explicitly in the same chapter of the Convivio that Mars is hot like fire, that this is the cause of his colour,686 and that he dries up and burns things.687

Similarly he appears to have believed that Saturn and the moon were literally of a cold nature. “Quel pianeta che conforta il gelo,”688 in Canzone xv. is doubtless Saturn; and the chill of the hour before dawn is described as due not only to loss of heat by the earth but sometimes also to the influence of the cold moon or of Saturn.689

Besides her shadowy markings, the moon had another peculiarity which distinguished her from all other heavenly bodies, for she was the only planet then known to vary in apparent size and shape “according to the way in which the sun looks upon her.”690 She was therefore a very dark body, though it was believed that she had some light of her own, and Dante argues in favour of this that she does not become totally invisible during an eclipse.691 This was a very natural conclusion: it would not readily occur to anyone that the reddish light of the eclipsed moon is sunlight refracted (i.e. bent out of its direct course) in passing through the earth’s atmosphere.

The sun, although the astrologers made him not very much larger than the brightest fixed stars and the largest planets, was much brighter and hotter than any, and it was universally agreed that all obtained their light from him. Even if, like the Moon, they had some light of their own, and did not only reflect like mirrors, this inherent light had originally come from the sun and was but absorbed sunlight.692 We meet constantly with this idea in Dante’s works. In one of his Odes the sun is said to “donar luce alle stelle;”693 in the Convivio he says, “Il sole... di sensibile luce sè prima, e poi tutti i corpi celestiali ed elementali allumina.”694 The Morning Star is described as deriving her beauty from the sun;695 and after the sun has set he shines forth again in the light of all the stars.696

So also says Brunetto Latini, “Sans faille li solaus est fondemenz de toutès lumieres et de toute chalor.”

4. Influence of the Spheres on Human Affairs

If we are to believe a fifteenth century biographer, we have so far omitted to mention Dante’s greatest claim to be considered a proficient in astronomy. “He foretold,” says Filelfo, “many of the calamities of Florence, the wars of Italy, and other political changes, all of which would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of the movements of the celestial bodies.”

Filelfo was a poet, and his authority for this surprising statement can be no other than that on which, Dr. Moore says, he mainly depends, and which seldom or never fails him, “his own most airy and lively imagination unembarrassed by any references to documents.”697 The prophecies of the Divina Commedia are obviously written after the events, and in no single instance are they supposed to have any connection with the art of the astrologers. On the contrary, it is remarkable how very little we find in Dante’s writings about the fate-predicting and character-reading which passed as the chief part of astronomy with the large majority of his contemporaries, and played a considerable part even in the scientific writings of his fellow authors.

Not that he disbelieved in the art: it would have been almost a miracle if he had. The astrologers in the fourth Bolgia were punished with other soothsayers not because they deceived credulous clients, but because they had desired to look too deeply into the future,698 which was impiety. For this reason the learned Michael Scot, the honoured of Popes, was there, as well as poor Asdente, and Guido Bonatti, and Aruns who from his solitary cave had watched the stars, and prophesied the victories of Cæsar over Pompey.699 This orthodox sentiment that “judicial astronomy,” was apt to be a snare, and lead to practices condemned by the Church, may have been one reason for Dante’s avoidance of it; but we cannot read his works without feeling that it was the beauty of the skies, and the keen desire to understand the structure of the universe which inspired him to study astronomy, and that he had no superstitious fear of the heavenly bodies, no greedy wish to make use of his knowledge to pry into the future. There is no evidence that he was acquainted with the details of astrology. The few allusions made in his works to special effects of certain stars or planets are only to those most familiarly known, and parallel instances might be found to many of them in modern poems. With this difference, however, that to-day they are figures of speech: with Dante they represented facts. Venus was to him in serious truth “la stella d’amor,”700 “lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta,”701 and exercised a real power over Folco 702 and Cunizza,703 and his own heart.704 He even tells us, in serious prose, that it is the planet and not the whole sphere, which is the source of this influence, and that it is borne to us upon her rays.705 So also the moon has a special influence, which is communicated by her rays.706

To the strong star of Mars the noble warlike nature of Can Grande was partly due;707 Jupiter is a temperate star, not only in the purity of his colour, but his influence is felt where justice is worked on earth.708 Saturn’s influence is modified when he shines in Leo,709 the sun has special powers in Aries,710 and to his presence in Gemini at the time of Dante’s birth the poet attributes his literary gift.711 In Inf. xxvi. 23, he again suggests that his mental powers may be due to the influence of a good star, and Brunetto Latini bids him follow his star.712

Dante also quotes Albumassar, and Seneca, and the events of his own day, to show that those fiery vapours, meteorites, portend the death of kings and the downfall of states, adding that this is because they are effects of the sovereignty of Mars.713 This passage explains why the warrior Malaspina is called a vapour drawn by Mars from Valdimagra, which in the tempest of battle at Piceno shall suddenly split the clouds and deal death to the combatants.714

The results of the right disposition of sphere with sphere are spoken of in Canz. xix. 77-79; all the nine were in perfect accord when Beatrice, herself a nine or miracle of perfection, was to be born;715 and every star rained its light and its virtue into her beautiful eyes.716 There is also a charming sonnet, in which the poet tells us how all the seven planets influence his lady.

“Da quella luce che il suo corso gira
   Sempre al volere dell’ empiree sarte,
   E stando regge tra Saturno e Marte,
   Secondo che l’astrologo ne spira;
Quella che in me col suo piacere aspira,
   D’essa ritragge signorevol arte:
   E quei che dal ciel quarto non si parte
   Le dà l’effetto della mia desira.
Ancor quel bel pianeta di Mercuro
   Di sua virtute sua loquela tinge,
   E ’l primo ciel di sè già non l’è duro.
Colei, che ’l terzo ciel di sè costringe
   Il cor le fa d’ogni eloquenza puro;
   Così di tutti e sette si dipinge.”717

In more serious vein is the discourse in Par. ii. on the different virtues of the different stars;718 and this should be compared with passages in the Quæstio and the Convivio. “Sciendum quod licet cœlum stellatum habeat unitatem in substantia, habet tamen multiplicitatem in virtute,”719 sounds like an echo of the words of Beatrice:

“Così l’intelligenza sua bontate
Multiplicata per le stelle spiega,
Girando sè sopra sua unitate.”720

And when comparing Nobility with the star-spangled sky, our author says:

“Tante sono le sue stelle che nel cielo si stendono, che certo non è da maravigliare, se molti e diversi frutti fanno nella umana Nobiltà, tante sono le nature e le potenze di quelle, in una sotto una semplice sustanza comprese e adunate, nelle quali siccome in diversi rami fruttifica diversamente.”721

The author goes on to say in the Quæstio that the many and diverse stars which we see in the eighth heaven were placed there in order that it might pour down diverse virtues, and that he who perceives this not, let him know that he is outside the pale of philosophy.722 In another place he tells us that the nearer a star is to the mid-circle of the star sphere, the greater is its virtue:723 he no doubt means, not the celestial equator, but the zodiac (or more exactly the ecliptic), since this was the mid-circle of the star sphere, parallel to which its slow revolution of 36,000 years was made. This would agree with the view of the astrologers, who paid more attention to the constellations of the zodiac than to any others.

But we may search all Dante’s works in vain for any reference to the “houses” or “aspects” of the planets, or for any information about the masculine and feminine, mobile and stable, signs. All such things, which seemed to most writers of his day quite as important as the periods of the planets or the positions of the signs, he entirely ignores. Among the circumlocutions by which he describes the signs, such as “the fair nest of Leda,” or “the sign that follows Taurus,” we never find “the house of Saturn,” or “the sign in which Mars is mildest.” Leo is called Mars’ own Lion, probably because the “leo audax et ferox” of bestiaries agreed with the fiery colour and nature of Mars:724 astrologically, his signs were Scorpio and Aries. It is quite astonishing that among all the characteristics of the planets and spheres mentioned in Convivio II. chapters xiv. and xv., only two relate to astrology, namely, the temperate disposition of Jupiter between the hot Mars and cold Saturn, and the power of Mars to draw up the hot vapours which become meteors and portend the deaths of kings. All the rest—the markings and phases of the moon, the small size and proximity to the sun of Mercury, the beauty of Venus and her appearance alternately as morning and evening star, the brilliance of the sun and his capability of giving light to all the stars, the position of the sphere of Mars midway between those of the other planets, the purity of Jupiter’s colour, the slow movement and distance of Saturn—all these are purely astronomical, to use the modern distinction. So also are the characters of the star sphere—the thousand and twenty-two visible stars, and the indistinguishable stars of the Galaxy, the pole we see and the other which remains hidden, the conspicuously swift diurnal movement and the almost imperceptible secular revolution of 36,000 years. Of the Primum Mobile it is remarked that it controls the movement of all the rest, and of the Empyrean that it is full of peace.

The symbolism of the spheres assigned in Paradise to the different saints is partly drawn from astrological ideas, for in Venus Dante meets the lovers, in Mars the warriors, in Jupiter the just rulers. But those who were not eternally faithful to their vows are in the moon because she has the lowest sphere,725 the contemplative saints are in the highest planet, the theologians who enlightened the faithful are in the sun, and the ambitious are in the little planet which ever keeps closest to the sun. The heaven of “many and diverse stars” shows the poet a host of saints, and the Primum Mobile, which controls the movement of the other spheres, reveals to him the Angels who direct them.

It seems, then, that Dante was not interested in technical astrology, and had never made a study of it; and I think we may adduce this additional evidence that he had not learned astronomy in a university, or under Cecco d’Ascoli. It is only necessary to look at the list of books prescribed at Bologna 726 to feel sure that Dante had not taken a regular course there. The list, it is true, belongs to a somewhat later time, but there is no reason to suppose that astrology became of more importance in the late fourteenth century than at its beginning.

Nevertheless, however little Dante may have cared for the details of astrology, we shall never understand all that the skies meant to him unless we realize that a general belief in their influence on man was deeply rooted in his mind. For him it was a tremendous fact, and one which pervades his writings, that stars and spheres are the instruments of God’s providence, and are ordained by the First Mover to mould the destinies of Earth.727 It is their movements which manifest His Will;728 they are the hammers,729 earth the metal, they are the seals,730 and earth the wax.

Three times the stars are invoked to bring justice and righteousness on earth.731 Through the spheres the elements were evolved out of the first chaotic matter, and everything on earth took form; all life and motion is generated by them.732 Man’s soul is a direct creation by God, but the moving heavens play an important part in the formation of his material body, his mental faculties, and his disposition.733 Were it not for the action of the spheres, children would be precisely like their parents, their whole nature being governed by the law of heredity alone: it is the different influences of the skies that give them different natures.734 This, says Beatrice, is perhaps what Plato meant when he said that souls came from different stars and returned thither: if his meaning was that the influences of the stars is so great that to them is due the praise or blame which we distribute to men, there is some truth in the saying.735

Some truth only—“alcun vero”; for the stars are not independent powers, for good or evil, which men are unable to resist. This view is expressly combated in Purg. xvi. 58-84. Dante has asked the spirit of the courtly Venetian Marco Lombardo why the world is so full of wickedness now, for some say it is the effect of the heavens, and others seek an earthly cause. Marco groans at the blindness of men, who accuse heaven for the results of their own misdeeds: it is true that the heavens influence our lower natures, our instincts, and desires; but the soul is free, and can control them. This is in accordance with the teaching of St. Augustine and Aquinas. In one passage of the De Monarchia, Dante goes even further than this, and asserts that the influences of the spheres are only good, and that evil results from imperfections in the material on which these perfect instruments work.736

Conceptions such as these give us a new idea of mediæval astrology. They may be mistaken, but at least they are grand, and not unworthy of a philosopher and a Christian.

5. The Motive Power

Dante’s ideas regarding the laws and origin of motion in the universe were derived from Aristotelian metaphysics and Church doctrines. He believed that there were three kinds of motion proper to three kinds of bodies: i.e. heavy bodies tended towards the centre of the universe, which is also the centre of the earth; light bodies tended upwards to the region of fire just below the moon; and bodies of ethereal substance—the stars, planets, and spheres—moved eternally in circles round the centre. Thus Beatrice, when speaking of the instinct implanted in all created things, which bears them through the great ocean of being each to his destined haven, says:—

“Questi ne porta il foco inver la luna,

* * * * *
Questi la terra in sè stringe ed aduna.”737

And Virgil:—

“Il foco movesi in altura,
Per la sua forma, ch’ è nata a salire
Là dove più in sua materia dura.”738

That is to say the form of a flame fits it to rise to that place where, being in its own element, it may last longer than on Earth. Conversely, the centre of the earth is described as the bottom of the whole universe, and the point towards which all weights are attracted.739 These opposite forces Dante calls gravity and levity.740

The most interesting illustration of this force of gravity is the description, in the last canto of the Inferno, of passing the centre of the earth, “il punto al qual si traggon d’ogni parte i pesi.”741 Virgil turned here “con fatica e con angoscia,”742 and bid Dante hold him fast, “ansando com’ uom lasso.”743 It was natural to suppose that the force of gravity would increase as one neared the centre, though the fact is that it decreases. In deep mines it is less than at the surface of earth; and if we could go to much greater depths we should find that we could stand in any position, and walk in any direction with almost equal ease, till at the exact centre the sense of weight and of “up” and “down” would vanish altogether. This is because it is the whole mass of the earth which attracts, and when we penetrate beneath the surface the part above is no longer dragging us down, and its effect is annulled. But at the surface gravity acts as if the force were all concentrated at the centre, and falling bodies increase their speed as they approach the surface: before the days of Newton, therefore, it was thought that the whole of the attracting force was actually situated at the centre of the earth. Brunetto Latini speaks of gravity increasing as this point is approached, and Dante, like Aristotle, calls it the goal of gravity.744

Between the physical and the spiritual universe as conceived by Dante, there is a very close correspondence. Souls burdened with the weight of sin fall towards the centre of the universe, sinking deeper the heavier is their guilt, and at the bottom of the whole universe is the personification of all evil. Repentant souls, as they are freed from their sins, rise higher and higher, and the ascent becomes always easier, until at last they soar heavenward as naturally and spontaneously as flames of fire. In Paradise the motion of the pure spirits is inconceivably rapid, and their mystic dances expressive of joy are always in circles.

Motion in circles was the only appropriate kind for the heavenly bodies,745 but the actual force which originated and preserved their motions was intelligence and will. When Dante sang, “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete,”746 he was not addressing beings created merely by his poet’s imagination. His own commentary on the words shows us that they were as real to him as the planets themselves. He can know nothing of them through the senses, yet is as certain of their existence as one with closed eyes is of light.747 These beings move the spheres not through any material contact, but solely by the power of thought: they are immaterial immortal intelligences, commonly called Angels, and Dante identifies them with the Forms of Aristotle, the Ideas of Plato, and the gods and goddesses of the Pagans, “avvegnachè non così filosoficamente intendessero quelle come Plato.”748 As the hammer beats out forms in metal, and thus expresses what is in the mind of the smith, and as he works from the artist’s design, so the movements and “virtues” of the sacred spheres mould earthly events, but these movements and virtues are the expression of controlling angels, and they are carrying out the Will of the First Mover. And as the joy of a happy mortal shines out in the eyes, so the joy of the angels shines out in stars and planets.749

There were nine Orders in the angelic hierarchies, according to the teaching of the Church, the chief authority on this subject being a book De Celestia Hierarchia, supposed to have been written by Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of St. Paul, who had learned from the apostle what he had seen when rapt to the third heaven. Aquinas assigns to one of these nine orders the guidance of stars and planets, and to others the rule over earthly affairs. But since the latter follow the celestial motions, there was no need to separate the two functions, and Dante laid down in the Convivio that a few Angels from each Order preside over the movements of each sphere. With Aristotle, he agreed that there is one Intelligence for each movement, so that for Venus (for instance) there are three movers to direct respectively the circling of the Epicycle, the Deferent, and the movement of Precession which every planet shares with the stars; but whether there is a fourth mover to guide the diurnal motion of Venus or if all the inner spheres are swept along by the motion of the Primum Mobile, he would not presume to decide.750

When he wrote the Paradiso, he no longer thought that a few Angels were set apart for this ministry: he implies that all the angels in each order united in the act of moving a whole heaven and perhaps he means to include the beatified human spirits as well.751 He also slightly changes the correspondence between the angelic orders and their respective spheres.752

Swiftness of motion in a sphere corresponds with fervour of adoration in the Movers: hence the highest and swiftest of the moving heavens, which is the Primum Mobile, is moved by the highest Order, the Seraphim: and the lowest and slowest, which is that of the moon, by the lowest order, the Angels.753

All these movements are a proof of the existence of a First Mover, Himself unmoved, as Aquinas had said, following Aristotle, and the first words of Dante’s confession of faith in Paradise are an echo of this:—

“Io credo in uno Iddio,
Solo ed eterno, che tutto il ciel muove,
Non moto, con amore e con disio.”754

Here, as often elsewhere, Dante identifies the heavens with their Movers, and speaks as if the spheres themselves were moved by love and longing. In the tenth heaven, or Empyrean, this longing was completely fulfilled, hence this heaven was for ever at rest.755

VIII — Mediæval and Modern Views of the Universe

Let us now gather into one picture the details of mediæval astronomy which Dante has taught us, and try to see the universe as it presented itself to men’s minds in his days.

Motionless, at the centre of all things, is the earth, a massive globe 20,400 miles in circumference.756 Only the northern part of one hemisphere is inhabited; the rest is covered by ocean. It is surrounded by air, into which rise the exhalations from land and sea which cause winds, rain, etc. Above the height to which these rise, and above the tops of the highest mountains, the air sweeps uninterruptedly round the earth from east to west, sharing the movement of the skies. Above this again is the region of pure fire: all fire on Earth’s surface tends to rise into it, and hot dry vapours ascending here burst into flame, and are seen from Earth as shooting stars and comets.

Bounding the sphere of fire is the lowest of the celestial spheres, that of the moon; and here we pass abruptly from the world of the four elements, transitory, changing, to the celestial world, eternal, changeless. Sphere rises above sphere, carrying moon and sun and planets, until we reach the vast orb in which are set all the stars.

All these bodies are composed of a mysterious imponderable substance called æther; all are perfectly spherical, and all their movements are circular. The diurnal rotation which we see is caused by an outermost sphere which contains no star: it communicates its own motion to all the spheres within it. The zodiacal motions of sun, moon, and planets, and the precession of the equinoxes, are caused by the proper motion of each sphere, rotating from west to east. The oscillating movements of the five planets and the varying speed of the moon are caused by small rotating spheres called epicycles, on which planets and moon are fixed, the epicycles in their turn being attached to the large spheres.

The distance from the earth to the nearest heavenly body, which is the moon, is 64⅛ times the radius of the earth; the distance of the fixed stars, more than 20,000 times the radius of Earth.

Mercury, the smallest of the heavenly bodies, is only 232 miles in diameter,757 the moon and Venus are both rather more than a quarter the size of the earth, Mars is a little larger than Earth; next in order of size come the stars, from the faintest visible increasing up to those of the second magnitude; Saturn and Jupiter are much larger than Earth, and the fifteen brightest (first-magnitude) stars larger still; the sun is the largest body in the whole universe, having a diameter 5½ times Earth’s diameter. It is immensely bright and hot, is the source of light to the whole universe, and on Earth is the chief giver of light, heat, and life, and the chief measure of time.

The moon and stars are also useful in this way to Earth, and upon her are poured all the influences of the celestial spheres, the sun, moon, and planets: these are the instruments by which every event on Earth is brought to pass.

It is their nature to move in circles, as it is Earth’s nature to remain motionless at the centre of the universe; but all their motions are controlled by the wills of immortal angels, which are subject to the Will of the First Mover.

The sensible universe is eternal, but it is finite and measurable, and of definite form,758 being bounded by a sphere. Beyond this in every direction is infinity.

Such was the mediæval conception of the Universe, as we gather from learned mediæval books, and as we find it vividly pictured in Dante’s glowing verse. How do we conceive it now?

The heavens are the same to our eyes as to Dante’s. The blue dome of the sky still arches over our heads, and in it we may see the stars shine out after the sun has set; we may see Venus making all the orient smile at early dawn, and the light of the moon not yet risen paling the stars of Scorpio. We may also see with our bodily eyes what was only visible to the keen eyes of Dante’s mind, the rising sun travelling to our left, and the southern stars circling round the southern pole, while the stars of the north sink below the ocean floor.759

But to one who knows anything of modern astronomy the ideas suggested are widely different. Most striking is the absence of that sharp contrast between Earth and heaven which our forefathers felt. Earth is not to us small, dark, and inert, made of the basest material and sunk, like the dregs of the Universe, to its lowest depths. Earth is a heavenly body, as the Pythagoreans rightly guessed, a beautiful big planet, shining brightly by reflected sunlight and moving swiftly, like her sister-planets. To Venus she is the brightest star in the sky; to the moon she shows a far larger disc than the moon shows to us, and markings more beautiful and wonderful, brilliant caps of snow at either pole, oceans coloured blue-green, and continents varying in tint, whenever the dazzling white clouds part to reveal her surface.

Earth is the largest planet among her neighbours, Mercury, Venus, and Mars; just as Jupiter is largest among the giant planets—Saturn and the more recently discovered Uranus and Neptune. In the gap between these two groups modern astronomers have discovered hundreds of tiny planets, to which Earth is a monster, for many are only a few miles in diameter. The meteorites which shoot across our view, “startling quiet eyes,” we still regard as a kind of conflagration in our upper atmosphere, but instead of vapours rising from Earth’s surface we recognise them as visitants from inter-planetary space, caught by Earth’s great mass as they pass too near, and flaming up with the heat caused by their sudden rush through the air. They exist in shoals of thousands and millions, some small as pebbles, some like great rocks, but all belonging to our system and pursuing definite paths like planets. The same must be said of comets, which have just as little to do with a hypothetical fire-sphere round Earth, but travel in regular periods, some long, some short; several small ones are seen every year, and occasionally a great splendour like Halley’s draws near to us in its orbit, yet even these seem to consist of very small quantities of matter. Other members of our celestial family are the moons of Mars, Jupiter, and the rest, of which more are still being discovered. The Earth-Moon system is, however, unique in that our satellite is much nearer our own size than the proportionately tiny companions of other planets and the pair must look like a beautiful “double” moving through the stars and continually revolving round one another.

All these bodies are made, not of a mysterious ether, but of something just as wonderful, beautiful, and incomprehensible—the same stuff as Earth. Most probably all developed in long-past ages out of a nebula, or mass of gas which for some unknown reason was intensely hot. Small bodies, like the Moon and Mars, cooled off the most quickly, and have lost or are losing their air and their water; larger bodies, like Jupiter, have still some heat, and are probably in a more or less fluid condition. On the sun an inconceivable heat still rages; everything is in a gaseous state, and this globe which men used to think eternally changeless is the scene of the fiercest turmoil; currents are always ascending and descending, clouds of fire are flung up thousands of miles high, and patches which look black compared with the surrounding surface and indicate a mysterious commotion are constantly forming, developing, and disappearing. The sun is enormously larger than Dante thought, larger than all the planets put together, large enough for our moon’s whole orbit to fit comfortably inside. It is hot enough and brilliant enough to light all the planets: this, which was only a guess of mediæval astronomers, we know as a fact to-day, and the planets which are suitably placed show it to us, when seen in the telescope; Venus, for instance, changing her phase “according as the sun looks upon her,” exactly like the moon. And Earth must show similar phases as seen from Mars.

For Aristarchus was right: the sun is the centre of the planetary movements, including those of the planet Earth.

We saw how Ptolemy’s system hinted at this, in the significant connection between each planet’s movement and the movement of the sun; but a strong argument against it was that if Earth were really moving round the sun we ought to see a yearly displacement in the positions of all the stars. Modern instruments have at last made it possible to perceive this displacement. About a hundred stars, our nearest neighbours, describe a very minute orbit in the sky, which in every case is an exact reflection of the sun’s apparent orbit round the earth. Unless, therefore, we are going to provide all these stars, as well as the planets, with epicycles, which must all revolve in the same period, in the same direction, and in parallel planes, we must conclude that the movement is really Earth’s yearly movement round the sun. These miniature star-orbits also show us the stupendous distances which lie between Earth and the nearest stars, while by far the greater number are too remote to show any displacement at all.

Aristarchus and those other ancient astronomers were also right who thought that Earth was turning on her axis, and thus producing by her own motion the alternation of day and night, and the apparent circling of the stars. When we look now at stars hastening across the sky, they no longer present themselves to our thought as fixed on a sphere with a radius of 20,000 Earth-radii, which is revolving round us at a tremendous speed; we feel that we are looking into space at glowing globes which are at various and almost inconceivable distances from us; also that all those we see, all those that Hipparchus numbered, are but an insignificant fraction of all those now known to exist. All have their own real motions, as well as the apparent motions produced by Earth, but these are in different directions, towards what goal we cannot at present tell. Compared with them, Earth is indeed insignificant, in size and also in brightness, for while she shines with reflected light they glow as the sun does and are his peers.

Nevertheless, with them too we have a feeling of kinship, for analysis of their light shows that they too are made of earth-stuffs: they are not eternal nor changeless, for very many vary constantly in their light, and they are at different stages of development, some appearing very young, while others are beginning to burn dim and low, and some can only be inferred to exist, for they seem to be wholly dark.

More wonderful perhaps than anything else, we find that the force which binds the whole of our sun’s family together is nothing strange and unknown, but the same familiar force of gravity, which the Greeks knew so well but thought only applicable to Earth. Its rule includes the seemingly unruly comets and meteors, and it extends as far as our search can reach, to the uttermost star.

This sense of unity throughout the world, which is always growing stronger, is comforting. And we allow ourselves to wonder whether intelligent life has not developed elsewhere, as well as on this globe that we inhabit. Perhaps each planet that attends our sun is fitted at some period to be the abode of life: surely among the millions of stars many must have attendant planets, and on some of them even now are living, thinking, beings.

Dante’s world was easier to think about than ours. Encompassed by an infinity which gave the imagination free scope, the material universe within was neatly rounded off, as it were, complete, finished. Only in the central spot was any development taking place, and thither were directed all effects of the circling spheres. Our universe is vague, vast, mysterious, without known limits or centre, offering problem after problem to the thinker. Dante’s marvellous moon-substance is simple compared with the baffling nature of our æther; Dante’s Angel-Movers are intelligible compared with the amazing mystery of universal gravitation.

Yet when we lift our eyes from earth to heaven, we share the feeling of our mediæval forefathers, of the ancient Greeks, of the earliest men whenever and wherever they became men. The unerring courses of the stars speak to us, “the unperturbed to the perturbed,” of perfect harmony, untouched by chance or arbitary conflicting wills. Now, however, we do not believe this is because heaven is essentially different from earth: it is because we see there only the grand outlines, only the working of great laws, of a system which includes our own earth. Could we but lose sight of the details here, and view the history of man as we view the stars, the harmony would be as grand.

HYMN TO ZEUS.

Most glorious of the Immortals, many-named, Almighty for ever, Zeus, Ruler of Nature, that governest all things with law, Hail! for lawful it is that all mortals should address thee. For we are thy offspring, taking the image only of thy voice, as many mortal things as live and move upon the earth. Therefore will I hymn thee, and sing thy might for ever. For thee doth all this universe that circles round the earth obey, moving whithersoever thou leadest, and is gladly swayed by thee. Such a minister hast thou in thine invincible hands—the two-edged, blazing, imperishable thunderbolt. For under its stroke all nature shuddereth, and by it thou guidest aright the universal Reason, that roams through all things, mingling itself with the greater and lesser lights, till it has grown so great, and become supreme king of all. Nor is aught done on the earth without thee, O God, nor in the divine sphere of the heavens, nor in the sea, Save the works that evil men do in their folly. Yea, but thou knowest even to find a place for superfluous things, and to order that which is disorderly, and things not dear to men are dear to thee. Thou dost harmonize into one all good and evil things, that there should be one everlasting Reason of them all. And this the evil among mortal men avoid and heed not wretched, ever desiring to possess the good; yet they nor see nor hear the Universal Law of God, which, obeying with all their heart, their life would be well. But they rush graceless each to his own aim, Some cherishing lust for fame, the nurse of evil strife, Some bent on monstrous gain, Some turned to folly and the sweet works of the flesh, Hastening indeed to bring the very contrary of these things to pass. But thou, O Zeus, the all-giver, dweller in the darkness of cloud, lord of thunder, save thou men from their unhappy folly, Which do thou, O Father, scatter from their souls, and give them to discover the wisdom, in whose assurance thou governest all things with justice; So that, being honoured, they may pay thee honour, Hymning thy works continually, as it beseems a mortal man, Since there can be no greater glory for men or gods than this, Duly to praise for ever the Universal Law.

Cleanthes (3rd century b.c.).
Translation by T. W. Rolleston.

Footnotes

1 “The fair things that Heaven holds.” Inferno XXXIV. 137, 138.

2 Greek gnomon, an interpreter. A pole set up in order to show the length of shadow thrown by the sun.

3 Greek planetes, a wanderer. This name was originally given to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and also to sun and moon, for it indicated all the known heavenly bodies which changed their places among the stars. In modern usage it is not applied to the sun, but only to his satellites, of which many more are now known.

4 Fractions omitted.

5 Conv. IV., xxiii. 56, 57.

6 Dr. C. Hose, in “Travel and Exploration,” for Feb. 1910, quoted in “Nature,” Feb. 17, 1910.

7 Journal of the British Astronomical Association, June 24, 1909, report of a lecture on Chinese astronomy by E. B. Knobel, F.R.A.S.

8 Acts, xvii. 28.

9 The Phainomena of Aratos, done into English verse by Robert Brown, lines 1-13.

10 Ibid., 373-382.

11 Ptolemy says he made a few changes, as his predecessors had done. (Delambre, Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne, ii. 261).

12 Origine de tous les cultes, ou Religion universelle, by C. F. Dupuis.

13 Journal of the British Astronomical Association, “The Oldest Astronomy,” July 1898, June 1899, April 1904 May 1909; The Observatory, December 1898; Knowledge, October 1904; and elsewhere.

14 The Phainomena of Aratos, by Robert Brown. See also his Eridanus, River and Constellation; Primitive Constellations, and other works.

15 We are not sure what limits Aratus intended to set in the south to Centaur and Argo, and notably to the River Eridanus, which used to flow beneath the Sea-Monster (Cetus), joining the Water poured out by Aquarius. It changed its bed (like the Euphrates, of which it is perhaps the heavenly counterpart), and now has left the Sea-Monster high and dry, while on its ancient banks a chemist’s furnace and a sculptor’s workshop have been set up.
The Celestial Equator of Aratus fails to agree with the Equator of b.c. 2084, not only in passing over the head of Orion, instead of through his belt, as Brown himself points out, but also in running through the eye of the Bull, instead of his “crouching legs alone,” so this part is altogether too far north. The Equator some 1200 years later agreed better here, and equally well elsewhere, except in the opposite part of the sky where it was then too northerly for Aratus, leaving Corvus to the south of the line. Much the same may be said about the tropical circles. Either Aratus was careless, or the globe from which he took his descriptions was incorrect: in any case, there results an uncertainty of many centuries and many degrees in date and latitude.

16 Epping and Strassmeier, Astronomisches aus Babylon, Kugler’s Babylonische Mondrechnung, and Babylonische Sternkunde. Schiaparelli’s two monographs on Babylonian Astronomy, from which much of the information here given is derived, are chiefly based on these works.

17 King, History of Sumer and Akkad, p. 246.

18 Schiaparelli, L’ Astronomia nell’ Antico Testamento, chap. vii.; Wellhausen, History of Israel, chap. iii.

19 Sayce and Bosanquet identify Dilgan with Capella, not with part of Aries, and consider that a date of about b.c. 2000 is indicated—(Monthly Notices xxxix, 454). But in any case the method of calendar formation is the same.

20 Sayce and Bosanquet understand Capella here also.

21 If Taurus was originally considered the first constellation of the zodiac, instead of Aries, of which there are some indications, the change may well be explained by this change of method. It does not necessarily imply that the equinox was in Taurus when our zodiac was invented. It was near ω Arietis in b.c. 1000.

22 A Babylonian treatise on astronomy recently published by the trustees of the British Museum supports Kugler’s view that truly scientific methods were not adopted before the sixth century b.c. This treatise formed the subject of a lecture given by Mr L. W. King before the Society of Biblical Archæology on Feb. 19, 1913.

23 Gen. i. 6, 7; vii. 11.

24 Ezek. xxxii. 18, 24.

25 De Cœlo I. 3, and II. 1.

26 But see note, pp.75, 76.

27 His life was saved by his illustrious pupil, Pericles, of whom the story is told that on one occasion, just as his army was embarking for an expedition, the sun was eclipsed, and his pilot was terrified. Pericles snatched off his cloak, and held it so as to hide himself from the man’s eyes. “Is that terrible? is that an evil omen?” he cried. “Then do not fear the disappearance of the sun, for it is just the same, only the thing that hides it is larger than my cloak.”

28 Some late followers said that Pythagoras, alone amongst men, could hear the music of the spheres.

29 See Heath’s Aristarchus of Samos, pp. 187-189 and 251, 252. I very much regret that as Mr. Heath’s book was only published this year, I have been unable to make use of it while writing of early Greek astronomy. I can now only advise any readers who may be interested in my brief sketch of this period to read Mr. Heath’s history, where they will find the opinions of modern writers summarized and discussed, and also the full text (in English) of the most ancient and reliable sources of information. It is a great encouragement to find that my statements are in agreement with his in nearly all essential points, but readers will mark the following important differences:—

1. Anaximander’s heavens are said to have been spherical, not hemispherical, and this seems to be clearly proved by the evidence quoted from ancient writers.

2. Anaxagoras, not Thales, is said to have been the first to explain correctly the cause of solar eclipses and of the moon’s phases, viz. that the moon is an opaque body, shining only by reflected sunlight, and periodically hiding the sun from us when she passes in front of it. Mr. Heath regards the authorship of Anaxagoras as conclusively proved: readers will be able to judge of this from his quotations. Personally they seem to me to prove no more than that Anaxagoras agreed with others on this point, and was the first to express it clearly in writing. It is difficult to see why Mr. Heath denies that Parmenides held the same views before Anaxagoras: Parmenides’ own words seem to prove it, and his theory that the moon was composed of air and fire mingled is rather in favour of it than otherwise. He surely meant that the moon was not wholly bright, like the sun; yet that she had some light of her own must have seemed evident from the faint illumination we see during total lunar eclipses and on the part of her surface not lighted by the sun. (See Dante’s views, p. 402 of this book.) The connection between her phases and her distance from the sun in the sky is so extremely obvious that I can hardly think the Greeks drew no inference from it until the fifth century b.c., and I cannot see why we should refuse to credit Thales with the discovery attributed to him that her light came in some way from the sun. Gruppe acutely observes that the reason why Thales’ pupil Anaximander did not accept the true explanation of lunar phases and solar eclipses may have been because he felt it necessary to have a theory which would apply equally well to eclipses of the moon; and as he believed in a flat earth he could not advocate the true explanation here. This was why he invented a new theory (viz. that both sun and moon were fire shining through holes in hollow rings, and that the occasional stopping up of these holes caused both lunar and solar eclipses, and also the lunar phases). But Parmenides had learned the Pythagorean doctrine of Earth’s spherical form, hence he was able to accept the older theory that the moon obtains her light from the sun, and sometimes eclipses the sun by her opaque spherical body, for he could have added that the moon is eclipsed in like manner by the opaque spherical body of the earth.

30 I follow the translation of Jowett.

31 Compare Par. vii. 64-66.

32 See his famous description of the eight spheres, on each of which stands a siren, singing, while the whole system turns upon a diamond spindle, the end of which rests upon the knees of Necessity. This book was not known in the Middle Ages.

33 ειλλομενη.

34 The period in which a planet is seen to revolve round the zodiac, and return to the same star, varies greatly, because complicated by its retrograde movements; but if the average of a sufficient number of periods be taken, it coincides for Mercury and Venus with the sidereal year; for Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, with the period in which each is actually revolving round the sun (its “sidereal period”).

35 Geminus.

36 This varying velocity is due to the fact that all celestial orbits are not true circles, but ellipses, which was first discovered by Kepler (1609 a.d.).

37 De Cœlo II. 10.

38 Thus, (he adds) time also is threefold, for we have Beginning, Middle, and End. Therefore we apply three to Divine things, and also in common speech we call two “both,” and only say “all” when we reach three, following Nature’s law. The Pythagoreans say “The all and all things are bounded by the number three.”—De Cœlo I. 1.

39 Par. iv. 1-3.

40 See p. 75, note.

41 Conv. II. iii. 59-65.

42 It is also mentioned in a compilation of philosophers’ opinions, probably made in the fifth century a.d. by Stobæus, who is very likely quoting Plutarch.

43 See page 101.

44 Indian astronomers also refused to accept the doctrine of Aryabhata. Varâha Mihira (sixth century a.d.) says:—“Others maintain that the earth revolves and not the sphere: if that were the case, falcons and other birds could not return from the ether to their nests.”

45 Spheres all centring in one point.

46 Mahaffy, The Progress of Hellenism in Alexander’s Empire, p. 119.

47 See p. 26.

48 Almagest, Bk. viii.

49 Greek peri near, apo away from, ge Earth.

50 Syntaxis, book VII.; Delambre, Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne Vol. II. page 247 (1817 edition).

51 Venus had passed her “inferior conjunction with the sun” on Sept. 15.

52 It amounts to 5 degrees of longitude in 300 years.

53 This is evident from the way he treats them, picking up an epicycle or a deferent just as best suits the purpose in hand and explaining sometimes that either would answer equally well.

54 Taken from the Almagest catalogue, as given in Delambre’s History.

55 Fifteen stars.

56 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 196.

57 The changing latitudes of the planets, for instance, which gave Ptolemy much trouble, are much more easily explained when it is granted that they partly depend upon Earth’s motion in an orbit whose plane is slightly inclined to the planes of their orbits.

58 It therefore really approached more nearly the sidereal year, although the cycle was based on the tropical year.

59 De Mon. II. vii., “Temple Classics” edition.

60 De Senectute.

61 The average year was the same, 365¼ days, in the old 8-year cycle of the Greeks, and also in the Calippic cycle, which did not come into practical use. The average year of the Metonic cycle was longer, and therefore departed further from the true tropical year.

62 See p. 45.

63 Ezekiel, v. 5.

64 Arabic gib = Latin sinus, a fold; i.e. the chord folded in two.

65 The Arabian mile was equal to 4000 “black cubits,” and if this is the Egyptian and Babylonian cubit, the values are rather too large, being in round numbers 26,500 and 8,500 English miles, instead of 25,000 and 8000.

66 The Catalogue of Hipparchus is said to have contained 1080 stars, but Ptolemy’s has only 1022.

67 Earth’s diameter, and even Earth’s distance from the sun, is too small a unit. Light, travelling 186,000 miles a second, takes 4¼ years to reach us from the nearest star.

68 It is impossible to measure the diameter of any star, even with the help of the most powerful telescopes, but in the case of a double star at a known distance the movement of the components as they travel round their common centre of gravity enables us to determine the gravitational force they exercise on each other, and thus their combined mass; and their spectra give some idea of their density. For instance, the mass of the double star Alpha Centauri is nearly twice that of our sun; and as the components appear to be about equal to each other, and both show a spectrum resembling that of the sun, we may conclude that Alpha Centauri consists of two stars, each of which has about the same diameter as our sun. Arcturus has a diameter far greater, some say ten times, some not less than twenty-five times as great as the sun!

69 The mean length of Earth’s shadow (which varies a little with her distance from the sun,) is 857,000 miles, or 216 times her semi-diameter.

70 It was also translated from Arabic into Latin at Toledo, in 1175.

71 Paradise Lost, II. 418

72 Paradise Lost, VIII. 34-38.

73 Paradise Lost, VIII. 77-84.

74 All quotations from Salimbene’s Chronicle are taken from Coulton’s From Saint Francis to Dante.

75 Croniche Fiorentine, Bk. VII. par. 80.

76 Inf. xx. 118.

77 V. E., I. xii. 20-35.

78 Villani, Croniche Fiorentine, VI. 1 and 24.

79 “That other, round the loins
So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot,
Practised in every sleight of magic wile.”

Carey.

80 Boccaccio’s Vita di Dante; Translation from Toynbee’s Dante Alighieri (Oxford Biographies), pp. 92, 93.

81 Inf. xv. 23 et seq.

82 Inf. xv. 119.

83 “If thou follow thy star,” Inf. xv. 55.

84 “First refuge,” Par. xvii. 70.

85 Par. xvii. 71, 72.

86 Imbriani, Dante a Padova.

87 “Torno a Ravenna e de lì non mi parto (I am going back to Ravenna, and shall not leave it again), is a line in the Acerba which Cecco d’ Ascoli puts into the mouth of Dante, as though from a letter written to himself from the divine poet at the time” (about the year 1319). Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, by Wicksteed and Gardner, p. 84.

88 Inf. xxxi. 136-141.

89 Conv. II. xiii. 22-26.

90 Conv. III. ix. 146-157.

91 Conv. II. xv. 73-77.

92 Conv. II. iii. 36-52, V. N. xxx.

93 Averroës, in his commentary on Aristotle’s De Cœlo, says that the ancients believed the eighth, or starry, heaven, to be the outermost, but that Ptolemy assumed a ninth, “because he said that he had discovered a slow motion along the signs of the zodiac in the fixed stars.” Albertus Magnus, in his De Cœlo et Mundo, Book II., says also that the ancients, including Aristotle, believed that there were only eight heavens, but that Ptolemy, so far as he can understand, believed in ten, on philosophical not mathematical grounds (compare Conv. II. iii. 40, 41). Albertus accepted the theory of “trepidation,” and thought this was the only movement which ought to be assigned to the star sphere; there remained, therefore, two motions, which affect all the planetary spheres and the star sphere, for which two more spheres must be assumed, a ninth sphere for precession, and a tenth, the primum mobile, for the diurnal motion. Outside all was the Empyrean. Dante never mentions trepidation, and evidently did not believe in it: he needed only nine moving spheres, therefore, but counts the Empyrean as a tenth heaven.

94 Conv. II. xiv. 198-202. Ibid. 249-253.

95 “Ptolemy says in the book above cited.”

96 Par. xiii. 1-13.

97 See Schiaparelli’s letter in Lubin’s Dante e gli Astronomi Italiani. The name is, however, also used as a sub-title in the printed edition of Christmann, Frankfort, 1590, which was based not on the translation of Gerard but of Johannes Hispalensis of Seville; and Toynbee thinks that this Frankfort edition represents most nearly the version of Alfraganus used by Dante. It is the only one of the five printed editions which gives the same figure for the diameter of Mercury as that quoted by Dante. See Toynbee, “Dante’s Obligations to Alfraganus” in Romania xxiv. 95, and Moore, Studies in Dante iii. p. 3, note.

98 “That glorious philosopher to whom Nature most fully revealed her secrets,” Conv. III. v. 54-56; “almost divine,” Conv. IV. vi. 133; “supreme and highest authority,” Ibid. 52.

99 Moore, Studies in Dante I. (Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante), from which much of the information in this chapter has been taken.

100 Conv. II. iii. 19-21.

101 Conv. III. v. 62-65.

102 “My master.”

103 Conv. III. v. 32.

104 Inf. ii. 76-78; Par. xxii. 134-138.

105 Conv. ii. xiv. 174-176.

106 Phaëthon, Conv. II. xv. 53-55, Purg. xxix. 118-120; Latona, Purg. xx. 130-132; the Horses of the Sun, Conv. IV. xxiii. 134-139, etc., etc.

107 Conv. III. v. 115-117.

108 “A man of supreme excellence.” Conv. II. v. 21, 22.

109 Conv. III. xiv. 76-79.

110 Par. iv. 22-24, 49-60.

111 Conv. III. xi. 39; Inf. iv. 137.

112 Conv. III. xi. 22-33; II. xiv. 144-147; III. v. 29-44; III. xi. 41-47.

113 Conv. II. xiv. 34, 35.

114 Conv. II. xv. 56.

115 Qu. xviii. 38, 39.

116 Conv. III. ii. 37.

117 Conv. II. xv. 77, II. xiv. 32.

118 Conv. II. xiv. 170-174.

119 Inf. iv. 80, 81, 90, 131-144.

120 “The advocate of the Christian centuries.” (Par. x. 199). Orosius is also mentioned by name in Conv. III. xi. 27; V. E. II. vi. 84; and De Mon. II. ix. 26.

121 “He who is nearest to me on the right
My brother and master was, and he Albertus
Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.”

(Par. x. 97-99).

122 Toynbee, Dante Dictionary; the source also of many other details given in this chapter.

[123] Albert in Conv. III. v. 113-115, vii. 26-28; IV. xxiii. 125-6; Aquinas in Conv. II. xv. 125-6; IV. viii. 3-6, xv. 125-130, xxx. 26-30; De Mon. II. iv. 5-8; and see Purg. xx. 69.

124 V. E., I. xiii. 1-11.

125 Inf., xxxii. 81, and x. 85, 86.

126 Purg., iii. 112-129.

127 “Replied after this fashion.”

128 Li Louvres dou Trésor, Chabaille, Paris 1863.

129 Ibid.

130 “Here beginneth the book of the Composition of the World together with its Causes: written by Ristoro of Arezzo in that most noble city.”

131 “Here endeth this book, in the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and eighty-two. Rudolph Emperor at this date. Martin IV. resident Pope.” Amen.

132 “Alfraganus said in the 8th chapter”; “Alfraganus bears witness in the 22nd chapter of his book.”

133 “The famous Ptolemy.”

134 “Who was a very great teacher of astrology.”

135 “An Arabian philosopher of Baghdad, 1058-1111.”

136 “The uncovered earth,” i.e. not hidden under the ocean.

137 Bk. VI. cap. xi.

138 Conv. I. i. 125, 126. Compare Conv. IV. xxiv. 1-13.

139 V. N. ii. 9-12, xxx. 13-24.

140 V. N. ii. 1-12.

141 V. N. xlii. 47.

142 V. N. xxx. 1-6.

143 V. N. xlii. 30.

144 Conv. II. xiii. 22-26.

145 Son. xxxvi. 2; Canz. xx. 89.

146 Canz. xix. 117; Canz. ix. 16, 17.

147 Canz. xx. 89; Son. xxviii. 11.

148 Son. xxviii.; Canz. xv. 4, 7.

149 Canz. xv. 3, 29, 41.

150 Son. xxviii. 2.

151 Son. xxviii. Canz. xix. 77, Ball. vi. 11, 12, Canz. xv. 41., Son. xxvi. 14.

152 Conv. I. i. 111-113 and 125-127.

153 Conv. I. i. 67-86.

154 “As the Philosopher says at the beginning of the First Philosophy, ‘All men naturally desire to have knowledge.’ The reason of this may be that everything, being impelled by foresight belonging to its own nature, tends to seek its own perfection. Wherefore inasmuch as knowledge is the final perfection of our soul in which our final happiness consists, all men are naturally subject to the desire for it.” Conv. I. i. 1-11.

155 “Oh ye whose intellectual ministry
Moves the third heaven.”

—Carey.

156 “The sun sees not, though circling all the world.”

157 The spherical form of Earth, and the action of gravity at the earth’s surface, were commonplaces with the Greeks, as we have seen in Part I. of this book. Posidonius, Strabo, and other classical writers speak of the tides as following the revolution of the heavens, and having periods similar to those of the moon; Albertus Magnus and Aquinas ascribe them to the influence of the moon, and so does Dante himself in Par. xvi. 83.

158 See Moore, Studies in Dante, II. “The Genuineness of the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra,” for a complete discussion of the question.

159 V. N. xliii. 3-7.

160 Conv. II. xiv. 244-217. “It is noble and lofty because of its noble and lofty subject, which is the movement of the heavens; it is lofty and noble because of its certainty, which is without flaw.”

161 See p. 156.

162 “The great wheels,” “eternal wheels,” “starry wheels.”

163 “Swift, almost as the heaven ye behold.” Par. ii. 21.

164 “Against the course of the sky.” Par. vi. 2.

165 ... “That sphere,
Which aye in fashion of a child is playing.”
Purg. xv. 2, 3. (Longfellow).

166 “Under a poor sky.” Purg. xvi. 2.

167 “And as advances, bright exceedingly,
The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed,
Light after light, to the most beautiful.”
Par. xxx. 7-9. (Longfellow).

168 “As at evening hour
Of twilight, new appearances through heaven
Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried.”
Par. xiv. 70-72. (Carey).

169 In Kenneth Grahame’s delightful book, full of sympathy with Nature, The Wind in the Willows. The moon rose when it was “past ten o’clock,” and “sank earthwards reluctantly and left them” before dawn.

170 H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.

171 Inf. xv. 18, 19; Purg. xviii. 76-81; Purg. x. 14, 15, Cf. ix. 44.

172 Purg. xxix. 53, 54.

173 Qu. xx. 61-63.

174 “Now she shines on one side, and now on the other, according to the way the sun looks upon her.” Conv. II. xiv. 77-79.

175 “At what times both the children of Latona,
    Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales,
    Together make a zone of the horizon,
As long as from the time the zenith holds them
    In equipoise, till from that girdle both
    Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance,
So long, her face depicted with a smile,
    Did Beatrice keep silence.”
          Par. xxix. 1-8.

176 “Many moons.” Canz. xx. 89.

177 “And the first heaven is not grudging to her.”—Sonetto xxviii.

178 Purg. xix. 1, 2.

179 Inf. xx. 127-129.

180 Purg. ix. 1-9.

181 Conv. IV. xvi. 89-93.

182 Inf. x. 80.

183 Inf. xx. 126.

184 Purg. xxix. 78; Ep. vi. 54.

185 Par. xxiii. 26.

186 Par. x. 67; xxii. 139; xxix. 1.

187 Purg. xxiii. 120.

188 Purg. xx. 132.

189 Par. ii. 25-36.

190 De Mon. I. xi. 35-37.

191 Par. x. 67-69; and Purg. xxix. 78.

192 Purg. xxix. 53, 54; and Par. xxiii. 26.

193 “And this moon, because of her inferiority, is rightly called feminine.”

194 Ecl. ii. 1-4.

195 Purg. iv. 62, 63; Purg. iv. 59; and xxix. 117, 118; Par. i. 38; Canz. xix. 114; Par. xxii. 116.

196 “The perfection and beauty of his shape.” Canz. xix. 76.

197 V. N. xlii. 29; Canz. ix. 2; Conv. II. xiv. 126, 127; Purg. xvii. 52, 53; Par. i. 54; and x. 48, etc.

198 Inf. i. 17, 18.

199 “O pleasant light, my confidence and hope!
Conduct us thou,” he cried, “on this new way.”
Purg. xiii. 16, 17. (Carey).

200 Par. xxii. 55, 56; Inf. vii. 122; De Mon. II. i. 37-39; and Par. ii. 106-108; Canz. xi. 37; Conv. III. xii. 59, 60, etc. etc.

201 Canz. ix. 5.

202 Inf. i. 41-43.

203 Purg. xix. 10, 11.

204 Par. xxiii. 1-9.

205 Inf. ii. 127-129.

206 De Mon. II. i. 36-41.; Canz. ix.

207 Canz. xix. 96-114.

208 Ep. v. 10; and vii. 19, 20, 25.

209 “A sun rose upon the world.” Par. xi. 50.

210 Par. xi. 52-54.

211 “O sun that healest all imperfect vision,” Inf. xi. 91.

212 “The sun of my eyes.” Par. xxx. 75 (See also Par. iii. 1-3).

213 Conv. III. xii. 52-63.

214 “The Sun of the angels.” Par. x. 53.

215 “That Sun which enlightens all our company.” Par. xxv. 54.

216 “The Sun which satisfies it.” Par. ix. 8.

217 “I have lost the sight of that high Sun whom thou desirest.” Purg. vii. 25, 26. Compare Par. xxx. 126; xv. 76; xviii. 105.

218 “The path of the sun.” Purg. xii. 74.

219 “Shining more brightly and with slower steps, the sun had gained the circle of midday.” Purg. xxxiii. 103, 104.

220 “Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution.” V. N. ii. 1-4. (Rossetti).

221 “I have dwelt with Love since my ninth revolution of the sun.” Son. xxxvi. 1, 2.

222 See diagram on p. 276.

223 “O glorious stars...
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air.”
Par. xxii. 112-117. (Longfellow).

At this date the sun entered the constellation of Gemini on June 1 (Old Style), but was in the sign from May 11 to June 11, and it is always to the signs that Dante refers in the Divine Comedy. The anonymous fourteenth century commentator known as “l’Ottimo” interprets this passage as indicating the time “between the middle of May and the middle of June.”

224 “Ere January be unwintered wholly
By the centesimal on Earth neglected.”
Par. xxvii. 142-143. (Longfellow).

225 “In that part of the youthful year wherein
The sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,
And now the nights draw near to half the day.”
Inf. xxiv. 1-3. (Longfellow).

226 “Night that opposite to him revolves.” (Longfellow).

227 “The Scales, that from her hands are dropped
When she reigns highest.”
Purg. ii. 5, 6. (Carey).

228 “And he: Now go, for the sun shall not lie
Seven times upon the pillow which the Ram
With all his four feet covers and bestrides.
Before that such a courteous opinion...”
Purg. viii. 133-136. (Longfellow).

229 “I have come to that part of the wheel.” Canz. xv.

230 Like all mediæval writers, Dante includes the sun and moon among the seven planets. The others do not cast perceptible shadows, except Venus and Jupiter at their brightest.

231 “I to that point in the great wheel have come,
Wherein the horizon, when the sun doth set,
Brings forth the twin-starred heaven to our sight;
And Love’s fair star away from us doth roam,
Through the bright rays obliquely on it met
In such wise that they veil its tender light;
That planet which makes keen the cold of night
Shows himself to us in the circle great,
Where each star of the seven casts little shade.”

(Plumptre).

232 “The Wheel which, when the sun sets, brings forth for us on the horizon the jewelled sky.”

233 Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco p. 90, note.

234 Comparing Conv. II. ii. 12, xiii. 49-52, and IV. i. 60-62, we learn that in August 1293 (vide infra, p. 314), Dante first became acquainted with the Lady Philosophy; that in the early part of 1296 he was completely under her spell; and that some time afterwards she for a while estranged herself from him.

235 “Scattered and faded now is all the foliage
Which had burst forth, beneath the power of Aries,
To beautify the world, the grass is withered.”
Canz. xv. 40-42.

236 “This everlasting spring
Nocturnal Aries never can despoil.”
Par. xxviii. 116-117.

237 “Thereafterward a light among them brightened
So, that if Cancer one such crystal had
Winter would have a month of one sole day.”
Par. xxv. 100-102. (Longfellow).

238 Ep. ix. 46-49.

239 Inf. iii. 23.

240 Inf. xvi. 82, 83.

241 “Resounded through the air without a star.” Inf. iii. 23.

242 “The fair things that heaven holds.” Inf. xxxiv. 137, 138.

243 Purg. viii. 85.

244 Purg. xxvii. 89, 90.

245 “Beautiful stars,” Inf. xvi. 83.

246 “Thence issuing we beheld again the stars.”

247 “Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.”

248 “The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

249 Purg. ix. 4; Purg. viii. 89; Purg. i. 25; Par. xxiii. 26.

250 Par. ii. 130, 142-144.

251 Par. x. 76.

252 Par. xxi. 28-33.

253 Inf. ii. 55.

254 Par. xxv. 70. See also Conv. II. xvi. 4-12, where the writings of Boëthius and Cicero, and all instructive books, are called stars full of light.

255 Par. xxiv. 147.

256 “Even as remaineth splendid and serene
    The hemisphere of air, when Boreas
    Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest,
Because is purified and resolved the wrack
    That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs
    With all the beauties of its pageantry:
Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady
    Had me provided with her clear response,
    And like a star in heaven the truth was seen.”
          Par. xxviii. 79-87. (Longfellow).

257 “The shining star.” Par. xxiii. 92.

258 “O Trinal Light, that in a single star
    Sparkling upon their sight so satisfies them,
    Look down upon our tempest here below!”
          Par. xxxi. 28-30. (Longfellow).

259 Purg. xxix. 91.

260 “Of those long hours wherein the stars above
Wake and keep watch, the third was almost nought.”
V. N. iii. 81, 82. (Rossetti).

261 Inf. vii. 98, 99.

262 “Like unto stars neighbouring the stedfast poles.”
Par. x. 78.

263 Purg. viii, 86, 87.

264 “These stars all revolve round the same point, and the nearer a star is to this point, the smaller is the circle that it makes, and the slower its motion appears.” El. Ast. cap. ii.

265 Purg. i. 22-27.

266 “My insatiate eyes
Meanwhile to heaven had travelled, even there
Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel
Nearest the axle.”
Purg. viii. 85-87. (Carey).

267 “And he to me: The four resplendent stars
    Thou sawest this morning are down yonder low,
    And these have mounted up to where those were.”
          Purg. viii. 91-93. (Longfellow).

268 Conv. II. xv. 10-14, and 96-104.

269 “The glorious Lady.”

270 V. N. ii. 9-15.

271 “I say that the starry heaven displays a multitude of stars to us, for as the Sages of Egypt have perceived, including the last star which appears to them in the south, they reckon one thousand and twenty-two starry bodies, of which I am now speaking.”

Conv. II. xv. 18-22. (Jackson).

272 “You are to know that the Sages measured the places of all the fixed stars as accurately as possible with their instruments, as far south as they could see in the third climate.... The number of all the stars which he was able to measure is one thousand and twenty-two.”

273 “We see in it (the starry heaven) a difference in the magnitude of the stars and in their light.”

Qu. xxi. 19-21.

274 “Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you
Which in their quality and quantity
May noted be of aspects different.”
Par. ii. 65-66. (Longfellow).

275 “The Ram.” Purg. viii. 134; Par. xxix. 2.

276 “The sign which follows Taurus,” Par. xxii. 110, 111; “The eternal Twins,” xxii. 152; “The fair nest of Leda,” xxvii. 98.

277 “The Balance.” Purg. ii. 5.

278 “The cold creature.” Purg. ix. 5.

279 “The Goat of the sky.” Par. xxvii. 69.

280 “The celestial Carp.” Purg. xxxii. 54.

281 Purg. iv. 61.

282 “The burning Lion’s breast.” Par. xxi. 14.

283 “Greater Fortune.”

284 “Gems... set in the shape of that cold animal
Which with its tail doth smite amain the nations.”

(Longfellow).

285 Par. xiii. 11, 12.

286 “A voice,
That made me seem like needle to the star,
In turning to its whereabout.”
Par. xii. 29, 30. (Carey).

287 “The needle which guides mariners, for by the virtue of the heavens it is attracted and turned towards that star which is called the North Star.” Composizione del Mondo, Bk. VII. part iv. ch. 2.

288 Inf. xxvi. 127-129.

289 Purg. i. 30.

290 Purg. i. 26.

291 Purg. viii. 89.

292 “Four bright stars, four sacred lights.”

293 “We are nymphs here, and in heaven we are stars.”
Purg. xxxi. 104-106.

294 Purg. xxxi. 111.

295 Antonelli thinks the four stars were α and β Crucis, α and β Centauri, all of which had been mentioned by Ptolemy, and all lie near the circle which marks the limit of circumpolar stars in the supposed latitude of Purgatory (32° south). The three stars he says were ζ Navis, Canopus, and Achernar:—Antonelli, Accenni alle Dottrine Astronomiche nella Divina Commedia.

296 Inf. xi. 113, 114; Purg. i. 30.

297 “The Wain, that in the bosom of our sky
Spins ever on its axle, night and day.”
Par. xiii. 7-9. (Carey).

298 “Fled is every bird that seeks the warmth,
From European lands which never lose
The seven cold stars.”
Canz. xv. 27-29.

299 “Seven cold oxen.”
De Mon. II. ix. 96.

300 “To duty there
Each one convoying, as that lower doth
The steersman to his port.”
Purg. xxx. 4-6. (Carey).

301 Purg. xxx. 1-3.

302 “If the barbarians coming from some region
  That every day by Helice is covered,
  Revolving with her son whom she delights in,
Beholding Rome and all her noble works
  Were wonder-struck....”
          Par. xxxi. 31-35. (Longfellow).

303 “Those under the sway of the seven cold oxen.”

304 I do not know whether this comparison originated with Dante, but it was well known to Spanish sailors two centuries later. In the Arte of Navigation which was “Englished out of the Spanyshe,” by Richard Eden in 1561, Beta and Gamma of Ursa Minor are referred to as “two starres called the Guardians, or the mouth of the horne.”

305 Par. xiii. 1-28.

306 Par. viii. 52, 53.

307 Par. v. 136, 137.

308 Par. viii. 16.

309 Par. x. 76, 40-42.

310 Par. xiv. 97-101.

311 Par. xv. 13, 14.

312 Par. xxi. 32, 33; xxiii. 26, 27.

313 Par. xxii 23; xxiv. 11, 12.

314 Par. viii. 20, 21; and xxviii. 100-102.

315 “Saw I many little flames
From step to step descending and revolving,
And every revolution made them fairer.”
Par. xxi. 136-138. (Longfellow).

Compare 80, 81 and 39; and Par. xxiv. 10, 11.

316 “As soon as singing thus those burning Suns
  Had round about us whirled themselves three times,
  Like unto stars neighbouring the steadfast poles.”
          Par. x. 76-78. (Longfellow).

317 Par. xxi. 80, 81; xii. 3; xviii. 41, 42.

318 Par. xxiv. 22-24, x. 73, and many others.

319 “What time abandoned Phaëton the reins,
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched.”
Inf. xvii. 107-108. (Longfellow).

320 “Even as, distinct with less and greater lights,
      Glimmers between the two poles of the world
      The Galaxy that maketh wise men doubt,
    Thus constellated in the depths of Mars
      Those rays described the venerable sign
      That quadrants joining in a circle make.”
          Par. xiv. 97-102. (Longfellow).

321 “The Galaxy, that is, the white circle commonly called St. James’s Way.”

322 “And in the Galaxy this heaven has a close resemblance to Metaphysics. Wherefore it must be known that the Philosophers have had different opinions about this Galaxy. For the Pythagoreans affirmed that the sun at one time wandered in its course, and in passing through other regions not suited to sustain its heat, set on fire the place through which it passed; and so these traces of the conflagration remain there. And I believe that they were influenced by the fable of Phaëton, which Ovid tells at the beginning of the second book of the Metamorphoses. Others (as for instance Anaxagoras and Democritus) said that the Galaxy was the light of the sun reflected in that region. And these opinions they confirmed by demonstrative reasons. What Aristotle may have said about it cannot be accurately known, because the two translations give different accounts of his opinion. And I think that any mistake may have been due to the translators, for in the New Translation he is made to say that the Galaxy is a congregation, under the stars of this part of the heaven, of the vapours which are always being attracted by them; and this opinion does not appear to be right. In the Old Translation he says that the Galaxy is nothing but a multitude of fixed stars in that region, stars so small that they are not separately visible from our earth, but the appearance of whiteness which we call the Galaxy is due to them. [And it may be that the heaven in that part is more dense, and therefore retains and reproduces that light] and this opinion Avicenna and Ptolemy appear to share with Aristotle. Therefore, since the Galaxy is an effect of those stars which cannot be perceived except so far as we apprehend these things by their effect, and since Metaphysics treats of primal substances which in the same way we cannot apprehend except by their effects, it is plain that there is a close resemblance between the starry heaven and Metaphysics.” Conv. II. xv. 44-86. (Jackson).

323 “That most brilliant star, Venus.” Conv. II. iv. 88.

324 “The brightness of her appearance, which is more lovely to behold than that of any other star.” Conv. II. xiv. 112, 113.

325 “Sweet colour of oriental sapphire,
  Which was gathering in the serene aspect
  Of the sky, pure even to the first circle,
To my eyes restored delight,
  So soon as I had come forth from that dead air,
  Which had troubled eyes and breast.
The fair planet that inspires love
  Was making all the orient smile,
  Veiling the Fishes which were in her train.”

Alternative rendering of the first three lines:—

“Sweet colour of oriental sapphire,
  Which was diffused over the tranquil scene,
  From mid-heaven even to the first circle.”
          Purg. i. 13-21.

326 First, or prime, circle.

327 Conv., II. iv. 1-3.

328 Literally, “was assembling,” or “was being collected.”

329 “From the middle.”

330 “Of the air.”

331 “From the east there shone upon the Mountain Cytherea, who in the flame of love seems to be always burning.” Purg. xxvii. 94-96.

332 “Veiling the Fishes” (the zodiacal constellation).

333 “Her appearance, now in the morning, and now in the evening.” Conv. II. xiv. 114, 115.

334 “The star
That woos the sun, now following, now in front.”
Par. viii. 11-12. (Longfellow).

335 “I saw how move themselves,
Around and near him, Maia and Dione.”
Par. xxii. 143-144.

336 “That fair planet, Mercury.”
Son. xxviii. 9.

337 “Mercury... as it moves is more veiled by the rays of the sun than any other star.” Conv. II. xiv. 99-100.

338 ... “The sphere
That veils itself from men in alien rays.”
Par. v. 128, 129.

339 “This Fire.” Par. xvi. 38.

340 “The burning smile of the star.” Par. xiv. 86.

341 “Mars shows red.” Purg. ii. 14.

342 “This Mars... his heat is like the heat of a fire...
his colour is as if he were on fire.”
Conv. II. xiv. 162-165.

343 “Sweet star.” Par. xviii. 115.

344 “The torch of Jove.” Par. xviii. 70.

345 “Amongst all the stars it shows white, as if silveredover.” Conv. II. xiv. 202-204.

346 “Jupiter
Seemed to be silver there with gold inlaid.”
Par. xviii. 95-96. (Longfellow).

347 “One is the slowness of its movement through the twelve signs; for twenty-nine years and more, according to the writings of the astrologers, are required for its revolution: the other is that it is high above all other planets.” Conv. II. xiv. 226-231.

348 Par. xxi. 18.

349 Par. xxi. 25.

350 Par. xxi. 13.

351 “Circling the world.” Par. xxi. 26.

352 “Beneath the burning Lion’s breast.” Par. xxi. 14.

353 Purg. ii. 13-15.

354 “Towards us came the being beautiful,
Vested in white, and in his countenance
Such as appears the tremulous morning star.”
Purg. xii. 88-90. (Longfellow).

355 “He who drew beauty from Mary, as the Morning Star does from the Sun.” Par. xxxii. 107, 108.

356 “All the seven.” Son. xxviii. 14, and Par. xxii. 148.

357 “The oblique circle which carries the planets.”

358 Par. xvi. 34-39.

359 “About a year.”

360 “Three,” for “thirty.”

361 Conv. II. vii. 88, 89.

362 “The star of Venus had twice revolved in that circle of hers which makes her appear as evening and morning star, according to her two seasons, since the translation of that holy Beatrice who lives in heaven with the angels and on earth in my soul, when that Gentle Lady, of whom I made mention at the end of the ‘New Life,’ appeared first before my eyes, escorted by Love, and took some place in my mind.” Conv. II. ii. 1-12.

363 “Venus [ambitum epicycli peragit] anno Persico 1, mensibus 7, et diebus prope 9,” that is, the period of Venus on her epicycle is 365 + 210 + 9 = 584 days nearly, according to Alfraganus. The modern mean value is also 584 days.

364 See Lubin’s Dante e gli Astronomi Italiani. The period of 225 days may be easily deduced from Ptolemy’s system, for it is the time in which the epicycle of Venus would make an absolute revolution round its centre, the diameter becoming parallel to its former position. But the Greeks invariably reckoned the period as the time in which it revolved relatively to Earth, that is 584 days.

365 Ep. viii. 158, 159.

366 “The while, little by little, as I thought,
The sun ceased, and the stars began to gather.”
V. N. xxiii. 176, 177. (Rossetti).

See also the prose description just before, lines 35-37.

367 Par. xxix. 97-102.

368 Par. xxvii. 35, 36.

369 Par. xxv. 118-121.

370 Qu. xx. 3-5, 26-29.

371 “Blazing brilliantly like comets.” Par. xxiv. 12.

372 Inf. xxviii. 16-17; Purg. iii. 112-132.

373 V. E. II. vi. 48.

374 “I, who saw it clearly.”

375 Naturales Quæstiones, Bk. I.

376 Conv. II. xiv. 168-171, and Purg. v. 37.

377 Par. xv. 16-18.

378 “Some ignorant people think that they are stars which fall from heaven and vanish.” Comp. del Mondo, VII. v.

379 “Early in the night.”

380 “Midnight.” Purg. v. 38.

381 “Vapours enkindled saw I ne’er so swiftly
      At early nightfall cleave the air serene,
      Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August,
    But upward they returned in briefer time,
      And on arriving with the others, wheeled
      Towards us.”
          Purg. v. 37-41. (Longfellow).

(By “vapours that cleave the clouds of August,” flashes of lightning without thunder are meant. Aristotle believed both these and meteorites to be ignited vapours).

382 “As through the pure and tranquil evening air
      There shoots from time to time a sudden fire,
      Moving the eyes that steadfast were before,
    And seems to be a star that changeth place,
      Except that in the place where it is kindled
      Nothing is missed, and this endureth little.”
          Par. xv. 13-18. (Longfellow).

383 “The star.”

384 As this is the value given by Alfraganus, we must here understand Arabian miles. The distances from Rome to the north and south pole are therefore probably equal to 3500 to 9750 English miles, and both are a little too large, because the half circumference of Earth is too large. The proportion is about right, however, for Rome is nearly three times as far from the south pole as the north, her latitude being 42° N. Alfraganus placed her in the fifth climate, at the northern boundary of which he said the pole was elevated 43½°.

385 Qu. xix. 36.

386 Adopting the reading of Dr. Moore: “nella mezza terra, alla mezza terza,” that is, “at the equator at middle-tierce.” See Studies in Dante III. 107, 108.

387 “For now, after what has already been said, the rest may be understood by whomsoever has a noble mind, to which it is well to leave a little labour.” (Cf. Par. x. 22-25).

388 Purg. xiv. 148-151.

389 “O unspeakable Wisdom who hast thus ordained, how poor is our intellect to understand Thee! And you, for whose benefit and pleasure I am writing, in what blindness you live, not lifting up your eyes to these things, but keeping them fixed on the slough of your folly.”

390 “And the sky revolves like a mill-stone.” El. Ast. ch. vii.

391 “There the sky will revolve, with all its stars,
mill-stone fashion.” Comp. del Mondo. I. xxiii.

392 “It follows that Maria must see this sun ’circling the world’ like a mill.” Conv. III. v. 142-147.

393 “A winding path, which the learned call a spiral.”

394 “Lucan, who was well known to Dante, had observed that shadows cast by the sun in the southern hemisphere travel to the right instead of to the left, and fall southwards when with us they fall to the north.” Moore, Studies in Dante i. p. 239.

395 “If their pathway were not thus inflected,
Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,
And almost every power below here dead.”
Par. x. 16-18. (Longfellow).

396 “And now remain, reader, on your bench, thinking over this!”
Par. x. 22, 23.

397 Thus Petrarch: “Le stelle vaghe e lor viaggio torto.” (“The wandering stars and their winding way.”) Sonetto de Morte di Madonna Laura.

398 Cf. Conv. III. v. 76, 191.

399 “Which always remains between the sun and the winter.”
Purg. iv. 81.

400 Studies in Dante iii. p. 166.

401 Purg. xxi. 46-48; Purg. xix. 38.

402 Purg. xxviii. 143.

403 “The land where shadows are lost.” Purg. xxx. 89.

404 “The great dry land.” Inf. xxxiv. 113.

405 “The unpeopled world.” Inf. xxvi. 117.

406 “Behind the sun.” Ibid.

407 Conv. III. v. 117, 118.

408 Refraction makes the pole visible a little before one reaches the equator, but such refinements need not be considered in dealing with a popular work like the Convivio.

409 “There riseth up from Ethiopia’s sands
A wind from far-off clime which rends the air,
Through the sun’s orb that heats it with its ray.
The sea it crosses; thence, o’er all the lands
Such clouds it brings that but for wind more fair
O’er all our hemisphere ’twould hold its sway;
And then it breaks and falls in whitest spray
Of frozen snow and pestilential showers.”
Canz. xv. 14-21. (Plumptre).

410 “Now heats it.”

411 “This hemisphere.”

412 Just as in Par. xxviii. 80.

413 Qu. xix. 53-57, and repeated in xxi. 36-40.

414 Luke xxiii. 44.

415 Par. xxix. 97-102.

416 Dante believed the death of Christ to have taken place when it was noon in Jerusalem. Conv. IV. xxiii. 105-106.

417 Purg. iv. 137-139.

418 Purg. xxvii. 1-5.

419 Orosius says: “Europæ in Hispania occidentalis oceanus termino est, maxime ubi apud Gades insulas Herculis columnæ visuntur.... Asia ad mediam frontem orientis habet in oceano Eoo ostia fluminis Gangis.”

420 Qu. xix. 38-52.

421 Moore, Studies in Dante iii. p. 124.

422 “The strait pass, where Hercules ordained
The boundaries not to be o’erstepped by man.”
Inf. xxvi. 107-109. (Carey).

423 Inf. xxvi. 106-142.

424 Ptolemy’s Geography, Bk. I.

425 See p. 176.

426 Esdras II. vi. 42.

427 Beazley, Dawn of Geography iii. 28, 29.

428 Corvino and Marco Polo made the voyage in the same year, 1292, but in reverse directions.

429 Purg. iii. 25.

430 Purg. xv. 1-6.

431 Purg. iv. 68-71; xxvii. 1-5.

432 Purg. xxviii. 142. Opinions differed as to its exact site, and some placed it in the ocean beyond the eastern limit of the habitable earth. In V. E. I. viii. 6-10, Dante says that the root of the human race was planted in eastern lands, but this refers to Adam’s home after the expulsion from Paradise.

433 Par. xxx. 1-3.

434 Par. ix. 82-87.

435 Conv. III. vi. 7-32.

436 Conv. IV. xxiii. 50 to end.

437 Comp. del Mondo, I. xxii.

438 “The sixth hour, that is, the middle of the day, is the most noble of all the day, and the most virtuous.”

439 Luke xxiii. 44-46. Dante understands this to mean that death took place at about the sixth hour, not the ninth.

440 “From the first hour to that which cometh next
(As the sun changes quarter) to the sixth.”
Par. xxvi. 141-142. (Carey).

441 It is easily seen that this is correct, if we divide the 360° of the moon’s path through the zodiac by the 27 days and eight hours in which she traverses it, and returns to the same star. Brunetto Latini says “La lune s’esloigne dou Soleil chascun jor xiii degrez po s’en faut,” but he is wrong, having apparently forgotten that the sun is also moving in the same direction, at the average rate of nearly 1° daily.

442 Inf. xxix. 11.

443 Purg. xxiii. 5, 6.

444 Par. xxxii. 139.

445 “Midway in the journey of our life.” Inf. i. 1.

446 “The sweet season.” Inf. i. 43.

447 “Aloft the sun ascended with those stars
  That with him rose when Love Divine first moved
  Those its fair works.”
          Inf. i. 38-40. (Carey).

448 “Those stars.”

449 Purg. xi. 108; Conv. II. xv. 12-14.

450 Conv. III. vi. 28-30.

451 On the day of the spring equinox the sun rises and sets a few minutes after six o’clock, because we set our clocks not by the real sun but the more convenient “mean sun.”

452 The clock-hours in this column are not to be regarded as if taken from a railway time-table! Sunrise is at 6 a.m. within a few minutes only, for the reasons above stated, viz.: our clocks are regulated by the “mean” sun, and it is not necessarily the exact day of the equinox when the vision begins.

453 Or “almost at late midnight.”

454 Or “nigh me:” “presso” may mean either.

455 “The Lady who rules here.” Inf. x. 80.

456 “Lower Hell.” Inf. viii. 75.

457 Cf. Par. ii. 48-51.

458 The retardation is not likely to be more than the average of 50 minutes, and may be less, because the moon is in Libra, and therefore going south. This tends to diminish the interval between one moonset and the next in the northern hemisphere, just as the days get shorter when the sun goes south in autumn.

459 Some think the interval between this reference and the last almost too short, but the words do not indicate that Malacoda spoke on the stroke of seven! and the moon may have set at about 6.30.

460 “Darkness of Hell.” Purg. xvi. 1.

461 “The fair planet which kindles love.”

462 “Departed, as he came, swiftly.”

463 If the meaning is that the sun is now 50° above the horizon, this would indicate a later hour, nearing midday, for the sun does not rise vertically in this latitude, and reaches only 58° at noon at the time of the equinox. But the first explanation is the more probable.

464 “The shore.”

465 See table on p. 361.

466 “We must not assume, as some commentators have done, that the signs rise at equal intervals of two hours, although each circles the star sphere in 24 hours. See fig. 46, where the dotted line shows how e.g. Cancer, circling parallel with the celestial equator, will rise at a point considerably north of east, and having had to traverse more than 90 degrees since Aries rose due east, will not rise until about 7 hours later, i.e. 1 p.m. Conversely Scorpio, following Libra, will rise south of east, and a little less than 2 hours later. The moon’s retardation, therefore, is less in this part of the zodiac than it would otherwise be, and the hour is probably nearer eight than nine.”

467 “Superlatively obscure.”

468 “Out of the arms of her lover.”

469 “Cold creature.”

470 “The climax of the day.”

471 See Moore, Studies in Dante iii. pp. 75-84, for a detailed discussion of this passage. Several commentators have held that lines 1 to 6 describe the dawn of day elsewhere; and it is true that it would be nearly 6 a.m. and Pisces would be on the horizon in Italy when the hour was nearly 9 p.m. in Purgatory.

472 “Vespers there.”

473 “Here.”

474 See for instance the “Carte Pisane,“ and the Central Mediterranean map of Vesconte, dating from about 1300 and 1311 respectively, in Beazley’s Dawn of Geography, iii. Latitudes and longitudes are not given, but from certain centres lines radiate to all points of the compass, like great spiders’ webs.

475 De Mon. II. iii. 87-90. etc.

476 “It is bounded on the east and north by the Tyrrhenian sea, which lies towards the port of Rome,” Moore, Studies in Dante iii. p. 72.

477 Purg. xxxii. 56, 57.

478 “My more than father said unto me, Son,
Come now, because the time that is ordained us
More usefully should be apportioned out.”
Purg. xxiii. 4-6. (Longfellow).

479 Purg. xxi. 20-27.

480 Purg. xiii. 22-23.

481 On an Astronomical Point in Dante’s Purgatorio, by P. H. Cowell, F.R.A.S., The Observatory, December 1906.

482 “That circles opposite to him.” Purg. ii. 4.

483 The signs follow one another on the meridian at intervals of exactly 2 hrs.

484 “At the hour.”

485 “I turned to the east.”

486 “Pure and ready to rise to the stars.” Purg. last line.

487 “The climax of the day.”

488 It has been suggested to read the line Par. i. 44. “Tal foce; e quasi tutto là era bianco,” transferring the “quasi” (almost) so that the meaning should be “almost was wholly white that hemisphere,” and to interpret that it is now morning of the day following the events in the last Canto of the Purgatorio. But if so, Dante would have spent a whole night in the Earthly Paradise without mentioning it, or explaining this long delay after he had become “pure and ready to rise to the stars.” (For the meaning of “foce,” the “passage,” see later, p. 400).

489 Par. i. 46, 47.

490 “Love that rules the heavens,
with thy light Thou didst raise me.”
Par. i. 74, 75.

491 “Turned her eyes again towards heaven.”

492 “Beatrice gazed upwards, and I at her.”

493 “Turned again with yearning
to that part where the world is most living.”
Par. v. 86, 87.

494 Inf. i. 38-40.

495 Conv. II. iv. 52-62.

496 “That part.”

497 “He who is father of all mortal life.” Par. xxii. 116; see also De Mon. I. ix. 6, 7.

498 See Par. x. 7-21.

499 Longfellow says:—“Looking down from the terrace of Monte Cassino upon the circular threshing-floor of stone in a farm lying below, I first felt the aptness of Dante’s phrase. This very scene may have suggested it to him.”

500 “So my lady stood, erect
and intent, turned towards that place
under which the sun shows least haste.”
Par. xxiii. 10-12.

501 See Par. iv. 34-39.

502 Purg. xxix. 12 and 34.

503 “Region.”

504 Par. xxiii. 29, 30.

505 Par. xxvii. 64-66.

506 Compare Purg. xv. 1-5, where the course the sun still has to run between vespers and sunset is described as equal to the space between the third hour and sunrise.

507 “The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
    To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
    Was all apparent made from hill to harbour.”
          Par. xxii. 151-3. (Longfellow).

508 Della Valle boldly assumes that they were over the same meridian, by a poetical licence, although at the same time the sun was in a different sign. Dante only mentions the latter fact, he thinks, in order to show that he was a few degrees north of the sun (Gemini being more northerly than Aries); therefore he could see over the edge, as it were, of the sun-lighted hemisphere of Earth. This is desperately subtle.
It is, however, the only way in which the passages can be reconciled with his further assumption, shared by some other commentators, that Dante, in his flight through the spheres, simply ascended without any movement in longitude except that he was carried round by the daily revolution of the spheres. All the planets, therefore, were ranged one above the other, in the sign of Gemini, and it was always noon on the earth below his feet, since that was the hour at which he ascended from the Earthly Paradise, and his movement was the same as the sun’s. (Here Della Valle is inconsistent, however, for he maintains that the ascent was made in the early morning.) But this is a very artificial conceit, and not indicated by Dante. He implies that Beatrice, in leading him to each sphere, chose the part of it which he was to enter (see Par. xxvii. 102), and he tells us that Saturn was in Leo, Venus in Pisces, and the sun in Aries.

509 Il Paradiso di Dante dichiarato ai giovani, by Angelo de Gubernatis.

510 “From the hills to the river-mouths.”

511 “Love which moves the sun and the other stars.” Par. last line.

512 Alfraganus, as we saw, gives the daily movement of the sun eastward in the zodiac as about 59 minutes of arc. (A degree contains 60 minutes).

513 Purg. xxv. 2, 3.

514 Inf. xi. 113; Purg. i. 21, xix. 4-6.

515 Inf. i. 38-40.

516 Par. i. 38, 39.

517 “That part.”

518 “Those stars.”

519 Par. x. 7-33.

520 Par. xxvii. 86, 87.

521 Purg. i. 21.

522 Purg. xxvii. 95.

523 “The Lion’s breast.” Par. xxi. 14.

524 “The Lion’s Heart.”

525 “Beneath the breast.”

526 Cf. Purg. xxxii. 56, 57, where the sun is spoken of as under another star.

527 “To his Lion has come.” Par. xvi. 37, 38.

528 “Sometimes by Saturn.”

529 “With a better course and better star.” Par. i. 40.

530 “Rises upon mortals.” Par. i. 37.

531 Inf. x. 100-105.

532 Conv. IV. xxiii. 96-98.

533 Moore, Studies in Dante iii. p. 146.

534 See p. 177.

535 V. N. xliii. 1-11.

536 Exactly at midday, moreover, according to one system then in vogue, though it seems to have been more usual to begin the day at sunrise.

537 “A thousand two hundred and one, added to sixty-six.”

538 “Midway in the journey of our life.”

539 “The highest point,” the “summit.”

540 “Until the summit of my life.” Conv. I. iii. 24, 25.

541 “Youth.”

542 “Is in truth the summit of our life.”

543 Farinata alludes to the two Guelf banishments of 1248 and 1260. Inf. x. 42-50.

544 Conv. I. iii. 22-24; Inf. xxiii. 94, 95, etc.

545 V. N. ii. 1-15.

546 V. N. xxx. 4-13.

547 Purg. xxx. 124, 125; Cf. Conv. IV. xxiv. 11-13.

548 Imbriani: Quando nacque Dante? and Che Dante probabilissimamente nacque nei MCCCLXVII.

549 Purg. ii. 91-103.

550 For this point and a full discussion of the date, especially from the astronomical data, see Angelitti’s Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco, and Sull’ anno della Visione Dantesca, and Moore’s “The Date assumed by Dante for the Vision of the ‘Divina Commedia,’” Studies in Dante III.

551 “This hundredth year.” Par. ix. 40.

552 Purg. viii. 74.

553 Par. xvii. 80, 81.

554 “Up starting suddenly he cried out: How
Saidst thou? ‘he had?’ Is he not still alive?
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”
Inf. x. 67-69.

555 Toynbee’s Dante Dictionary, under “Cavalcanti.”

556 Moore, Studies in Dante III. p. 146.

557 “The Astronomy of Dante,” in Studies III., and Time References in the Divina Commedia.

558 Note on Purg. i. 19-21 in the “Temple” edition of Dante.

559 Par. Lost vii. 375-378.

560 See p. 407.

561 Preface to Almanach Dantis Aligherii, Boffito and Melzi d’ Eril.

562 It is important to observe that this suits the description of the “Lion’s breast” better than the 20th and 21st degrees (Almanach positions for 1301), if Dante, as usual in the Divina Commedia, identifies the constellation with the sign.

563 The middle of March.

564 This was written in 1910.

565 “Oh ye whose intellectual ministry
Moves the third heaven.”

(Carey).

566 Conv. II. iii. 8-14.

567 Par. x. 1-12.

568 Inf. iv. 131.

569 Conv. III. v. 54-56.

570 Conv. III. v. 29-52. See Part I. of this book Pythagoras and his Followers, and Plato, for a description of their astronomical systems.

571 See Part I. “Aristotle.”

572 “And that outside the latter there was no other.” Conv. II. iii. 24, 25.

573 “This entirely mistaken opinion of his.” Ibid. 28.

574 “According to Ptolemy and according to Christian Truth, nine is the number of the moving heavens.” V. N. xxx. 16-18.

575 “Roughly speaking.” Conv. II. iii. 36-48.

576 “All bodies.” Ep. x. 445.

577 “These vast bodies.” Par. viii. 99.

578 “Material circles” (here compared with the Angels, who are purely spiritual). Par. xxviii. 64.

579 “The greatest body.” Par. xxx. 39.

580 Purg. iii. 29, 30.

581 “This rounded ether.” Par. xxii. 132.

582 Par. xxiii. 112-117.

583 Conv. II. iv. 1-13.

584 Conv. II. iii. 52-65.

585 Conv. II. iv. 13-16, 30-32. See also Ep. x. 448-452.

586 “And Aristotle also, to one who rightly understands him, seems to mean the same thing, in his first book of The Heaven and the Earth.” Conv. II. iv. 32-34.

587 See p. 97.

588 The Convivio of Dante, “Temple” Edition, note on II. iv.

589 “Firm and fixed and not moveable, from any point of view.” Conv. II. iv. 50, 51.

590 Conv. II. iv. 68-75.

591 Conv. II. iv. 78-104.

592 “That circle of hers which makes her appear as evening and morning star, according to the two different periods.” Conv. II. ii. 3-5.

593 “Third epicycle.”

594 Conv. II. xv. 132-155.

595 “That one which sweeps the whole of the rest of the universe along with it.” Par. xxviii. 70, 71.

596 Toynbee, “Dante’s Obligations to Alfraganus in Vita Nuova and Convivio,” in Romania xxiv. 95.

597 Conv. II. xv. 108-118.

598 “The first star.” Par. ii. 30.

599 “The second realm.” Par. v. 93.

600 “The third heaven.” Par. viii. 37.

601 “The fourth family.” Par. x. 49.

602 “The fifth threshold.” Par. xviii. 28.

603 “More lofty.” Par. xiv. 85.

604 “Sixth star.” Par. xviii. 68, 69.

605 “The seventh splendour.” Par. xxi. 13.

606 “The eighth sphere.” Par. ii. 64.

607 “The swiftest heaven.” Par. xxvii. 99.

608 “The greatest body.” Par. xxx. 39. Compare V. N. xlii. 47. “Oltre la spera che più larga gira,” (“beyond the sphere which has the largest circle).”

609 “The heaven of pure light.” Par. xxx. 39.

610 “The last sphere.” Par. xxii. 62.

611 “... Within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles.”
Par. xxii. 65-67. (Longfellow.)

612 “This is the sovereign edifice of the world, in which all the world is enclosed, and beyond which is naught; and it exists not in space, but received form only in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe.” See also Ep. x. 442-447.

613 “Last sphere.”

614 “The first heaven.” Purg. xxx. 1.

615 “The first circle.” Par. iv. 34.

616 “First heaven.” Qu. iv. 7.

617 Par. vii. 130-132 compared with 67, 68. See also Par. i. 64 and 76.

618 Ep. x. 435-437.

619 “O Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom
The human race exceedeth all contained
Within the heaven that has the lesser circles.”
Inf. ii. 76-78. (Longfellow).

620 Par. vii. 124-143. Compare with Plato’s account of the creation of living beings (Part I., Plato).

621 Par. i. 115, 117; De Mon. I. xv. 38-41; and III. vii. 30, 31, etc.

622 Par. i. 92, 130-134.

623 “This earth, together with the sea, is the centre of heaven.” (Conv. III. v. 63-65.)

624 “It is agreed among learned men that earth and water together form a globe.” (El. Ast. iii.).

625 Qu. xviii. 28-54. This may be compared with Par. xxix. 13-18.

626 Qu. xv. 10, 11.

627 See p. 134.

628 See p. 247.

629 “Or nearly.” Qu. xix. 61-63.

630 Compare with Conv. II. vii. 88-100, where the poet says that the influence from each sphere comes on the rays of the planet in that sphere, also De Mon. III. iv. 139, 140.

631 “Nor does it avail anything to say that that declination could not take place because of approaching nearer the earth through eccentricity; for if this elevating virtue were in the moon, since agents act the more powerfully the nearer they are, she would elevate there rather than here.” Qu. xx. 65-71.

632 Note on this passage in “Temple” Dante.

633 Studies in Dante, ii. p. 339.

634 Nearest Earth.

635 Qu. vii. 4, 6, and xxiii. 52.

636 “Orbis” and “sphæra” are used indifferently by Alfraganus to indicate the celestial spheres: thus, in ch. xii. he says “Orbes, qui stellarum omnes motus complectantur, numero esse octo,” and on the next page, “unamquamque harum sphærarum octo.”

637 “The upper and lower apsides of the eccentrics of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, have a certain declination from the zodiac, the former to the north, the latter to the south, the amount always remaining constant: and it is just the same with the moon.” El. Ast. xviii. par. 6.

638 In the edition of Golius ch. vii. par. 5, the position of greatest distance is called the perigee, of least the apogee, but this mistake is corrected in the next paragraph.

639 “The moon’s declination in the zodiac from the equator towards the south pole is as great as towards the north.” Qu. xx. 61-63.

640 The deferent was the equator of her orb or sphere.

641 Ristoro also defines apogee and perigee (“auge” and “opposito d’auge”) as effects of movements on an epicycle, and says that the deferent is “declined” from the ecliptic (“declinato della via del sole,”) part being north and part south, but he does not say whether its perigee is north or south. Comp. del Mondo. I. xii. xiv., and III. vii.

642 For a thorough discussion of this question see Moore’s Studies in Dante ii. pp. 303-374.

643 “The foundation of your elements.” Par. xxix. 51.

644 “Rises highest towards heaven out of the sea.” Purg. iii. 15.

645 “Dry vapour.”

646 “Exhalations from the water.”

647 “Behind [i.e. following] the heat.”

648 Purg. xxviii. 97-99 and xxi. 52-53. The gate is meant by “i tre gradi” (“the three steps”), and “ove si serra” (“where it is locked”). See Purg. ix. 76, 106-108.

649 “... The universal atmosphere
  Turns in a circuit with the primal motion,
  Unless the circle is broken on some side:
Upon this height, that all is disengaged
  In living ether, doth this motion strike,
  And make the forest sound, for it is dense.”

(Longfellow).

650 Scartazzini takes the passage as referring to Eden only, and interprets that all the air here is moving evenly and noiselessly unless it meets with any obstacle such as this forest, when a murmuring sound results.

651 Purg. ix. 30-33.

652 Par. i. 76-81.

653 Par. xxi. 58-63.

654 Hymn on the Nativity.

655 Merchant of Venice.

656 “The song of those who sing for ever
After the music of the eternal spheres.”
Purg. xxx. 92, 93. (Longfellow).

657 Conv. IV. viii. 51-64.

658 Conv. II. vii. 104-108.

659 “This small star.” Par. vi. 112.

660 Conv. II. xiv. 92-98.

661 The Frankfort printed edition and some Latin MSS of Alfraganus agree with this: the edition of Golius gives ¹/₁₈.

662 Almagest, Bk. IX.

663 “This heaven, where ends the shadowy cone
Cast by your world.”
Par. ix. 118, 119. (Longfellow).

664 Rabbi Abraham ben Chija, in his Sphæra Mundi, written about 1100 a.d., says that Earth’s shadow extends as far as the distance of Mercury, not of Venus (Delambre, Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne, and Dreyer, Planetary Systems); but this does not agree with the figures given by Alfraganus.

665 Her diameter would look no larger than the diameter of Saturn, as we see it when nearest to him; but like Saturn she would be visible as a bright point, because shining by reflected sunlight. Ancient and mediæval astronomers never realized this, however, but thought of Earth as a dark body, receiving light but giving none.

666 Conv. II. xiv. 126, 127; Par. x. 40-42, 48.

667 Par. xxii. 67; xxxi. 19-24; xxx. 118-123.

668 Par. ii. 25-45.

669 “The first star.”

670 “The shadow which is in her is nothing but rare parts of her substance, which cannot stop the rays of the sun and reflect them back like the other parts.” Conv. II. xiv. 72-76.

671 Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon, translation by Prickard.

672 See Paget Toynbee, Le Teorie Dantesche sulle Macchie della Luna, in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, vol. xxvi. pp. 156-161.

673 Albert of Saxony notes this objection, but says the rarity is not sufficiently great to make these parts transparent.

674 This is in agreement with modern belief. Some parts of the moon’s surface reflect sunlight less well than others, and therefore look dark, just as a peaty soil looks darker than limestone.

675 Conv. II. iv. 94-96.

676 “That which was within the sun [sc. the spirits].” Par. x. 41.

677 “In the depths of Mars.” Par. xiv. 100, 101.

678 “The temperate sixth star, which within itself had received me.” Par. xviii. 68, 69.

679 “The present pearl.” Par. vi. 127.

680 “This fire.” Par. xvi. 38.

681 “Well was I ’ware that I was more uplifted
By the enkindled smiling of the star
That seemed to me more ruddy than its wont.”
Par. xiv. 85-87. (Longfellow).

682 “And such as is the change, in little lapse
   Of time, in a pale woman, when her face
   Is from the load of bashfulness unladen,
Such was it in mine eyes, when I had turned,
   Caused by the whiteness of the temperate star,
   The sixth, which to itself had gathered me.”
          Par. xviii. 64-69. (Longfellow).

683 “He in semblance such became
As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds,
And interchanged their plumes.”
Par. xxvii. 13-15. (Carey).

684 “The temperate light of Jove, between his father and his son.” Par. xxii. 145-146.

685 Conv. II. xiv. 196-198.

686 Cf. Ristoro, Comp. del Mondo, III. iii.

687 Conv. II. xiv. 161-165.

688 “The planet that strengthens the cold.” Canz. xv. 7.

689 Purg. xix. 1-3.

690 Conv. II. xiv. 78, 79.

691 De Mon. III. iv. 140-142.

692 See quotations from Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon in Moore’s Studies, iii. p. 45, note.

693 “Bestow light on the stars.” Canz. xix. 117.

694 “The sun illumines first himself and then all celestial and elemental bodies with visible light.” Conv. III. xii. 54-56.

695 Par. xxxii. 107, 108.

696 Par. xx. 1-6; compare xxiii. 28-30.

697 Moore, Dante and his early Biographers, p. 95.

698 Inf. xx. 38.

699 Inf. xx. 115-118, 46-51.

700 “The star of love.” Canz. xv. 4.

701 “The fair planet which incites to love.” Purg. i. 19.

702 Par. ix. 94-96.

703 Par. ix. 32, 33.

704 Conv. II. Canz. 1-6.

705 Conv. II. vii. 88-100.

706 De Mon. III. iv. 139, 140.

707 Par. xvii. 76-78.

708 Par. xviii. 115-117.

709 Par. xxi. 13-15.

710 Par. i. 40-42; Canz. xv. 41.

711 Par. xxii. 112-117. The Ottimo, commenting this passage, says that Gemini “is the house of Mercury, who signifies, according to the astrologers, literature, science, and learning. And in this direction it disposes those who are born when it is in the ascendant, and more powerfully if the sun is in it.”

712 Inf. xv. 55.

713 Conv. II. xiv. 170-180.

714 Inf. xxiv. 145-150.

715 V. N. xxx. 22-24.

716 Ball. vi. 11, 12.

717 “From that bright star which moveth on its way
   For ever at the Empyrean’s will,
   And between Mars and Saturn ruleth still,
   E’en as the expert astrologer doth say,
She who inspires me with her beauty’s ray
   Doth subtle art of sovereignty distil;
   And he whose glory doth the fourth heaven fill
   Gives her the power my longing soul to sway.
And that fair planet known as Mercury
   Colours her speech with all its virtue rare,
   And the first heaven its boon does not deny.
She who the third heaven ruleth as her share
   Makes her heart full of utterance pure and free;
   So all the seven to perfect her agree.”
          Sonnet xxviii. (Plumptre).

718 Par. ii. 64-72, 130 to end.

719 “It should be borne in mind that although the starry heaven has unity in substance it nevertheless has multiplicity in virtue.” Qu. xxi. 12-14.

720 “... E’en so
The intellectual efficacy unfolds
Its goodness multiplied throughout the stars,
On its own unity revolving still.”
Par. ii. 136-138. (Carey).

721 “So many are the stars which spread themselves over her sky, that surely we cannot wonder if they make many and diverse fruits grow on human nobility, so many are their natures and potencies, concentrated and united in one simple substance; and on them as on diverse branches she bears fruit in diverse ways.”
Conv. IV. xix. 45-52. (Jackson).
See also Conv. IV. xxi. 62-66.

722 Qu. xxi. 17-19.

723 Conv. II. iv. 75-77.

724 But see Tozer’s English Commentary on Dante’s Divina Commedia, note on Par. xvi. 37. “In mediæval astrology Mars was one of the Lords of the Lion.”

725 Par. iii. 55-57.

726 See p. 202.

727 De Mon. II. ii. 15-18, 25, 26, 36-38; III. ii. 30-32; xvi. 91-101;
Ep. v. 133-135; Par. ii. 121, viii. 97-99.

728 Ep. v. 124, 125.

729 Par. ii. 127, 128.

730 Par. ii. 130-132; xiii. 73-75; viii. 127, 128; i. 41, 42. Ristoro of Arezzo uses the same expression, Comp. del Mondo, Bk. VII. part I. chapter 2.

731 Purg. vi. 100; xx. 13, 14; xxxiii. 40-45.

732 Par. vii. 133-141; xiii. 65, 66;
Conv. III. xv. 159-161; II. xv. 152-154; IV. xxiii. 50-52.

733 Conv. II. xiv. 28-30; IV. ii. 58-61; Par. xxvi. 128, 129.

734 Par. viii. 127-135.

735 Par. iv. 49-60.
See also Ecl. ii. 16, 17; and
Conv. IV. xxi. 17-19, 25-27.

736 De Mon. II. ii. 21-23; Cf. Par. xiii. 64-78.

737 “This carries fire towards the moon, this compresses and binds Earth together.” Par. i. 115, 117. See also De Mon. III. vii. 30, 31, and I. xv. 38-41; Conv. III. iii. 10-13; Qu. xviii. 11, 12, and many others.

738 “The fire doth upward move
By its own form, which to ascend is born,
Where longest in its matter it endures.”
Purg. xviii. 28-30. (Longfellow).

739 Inf. xxxii. 8, and 74; xxxiv. 110, 111. See also Par. xxxiii. 22, 23; Inf. ix. 28, 29; Qu. iii. 6-9, etc.

740 De Mon. I. xv. 46-48; Qu. xii. 39-42.

741 “The point towards which weights are drawn from every direction.” Inf. xxxiv. 110-111.

742 “Laboriously and painfully.” Inf. xxxiv. 78.

743 “Panting like a tired man.” Inf. xxxiv. 83.

744 Qu. xvi. 54, 55.

745 This is nowhere stated, but everywhere taken for granted, and in Conv. II. xiv. 211 the circle is said to be the most perfect of figures.

746 “Oh ye whose intellectual ministry moves the third heaven.” Conv. II. canzone; and Par. viii. 37.

747 Conv. II. v. 119-126.

748 “Although they did not think of them as philosophically asPlato.” Conv. II. v. 5-37, 94, 95; vi. 154-159.

749 Par. ii. 127-129, 142-144.

750 Conv. II. v. and vi.

751 Par. viii. 34-37.

752 Cf. Par. xxviii. 98 to end, with
Conv. II. vi. 43-55, 106-109.

753 Par. xxviii. 34-39, 64-75.

754 ”In one God I believe,
Sole and eterne, who moveth all the heavens,
With love and with desire, Himself unmoved.”
Par. xxiv. 130-132. (Longfellow).

755 Conv. II. iv. 13-30;
Ep. x. 442-452, and 472-488;
Par. i. 121-123.

756 Probably equal to 26,500 English statute miles.

757 300 English statute miles.

758 Conv. IV. ix. 23-25.

759 Compare with Dante’s accurate descriptions a poem by Kipling in “A School History of England”:—
“South and far south below the line
Our Admiral leads us on.
Above, undreamed-of planets shine.” (!)

Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.

The table “TIME REFERENCES IN THE DIVINE COMEDY” on pages 358-366 has been reformatted from horizontal to vertical inorder to better fit the small-screen format.

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