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DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
A FEW PRESS OPINIONS
"As a help to the minuter study not of Dante only,
but of what has always been regarded as the most ob-
scure part of Dante's writings, it is hardly too much to
say that no more valuable work has appeared in English."
— AtJietueum.
"The very careful and admirable study which Mr.
Gardner has made of the Paradiso is peculiarly welcome.
We have read it with the deepest Interest, and we believe
that it will be found most helpful by all students of the
immortal Tuscan poet." — Spectator.
" Mr. Gardner's work is one of the most solid and in
a sense one of the most original that the study of Dante
has produced in England for a long time." — Bookman.
'■ Mr. Gardner has given us a fascinating and masterly
book. To a command of excellent English he adds a
thorough knowledge of Dante's Tuscan, and he is
equipped with the requisite knowledge of mediaval
thoughts, things and \.\mti." —Daily Chronicle.
THE CHRONICLE OF
VILLANI
Translated by Rose E. Selfe.
Edited by the Rev. P. H. Wicksteed.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
" Perhaps no one book is so important to the student
of Dante as the chronicle of his contemporary Villani."—
A Uutueum.
DANTE'S TEN
HEAVENS
A Study of the
Paradiso
BY
EDMUND G. GARDNER, M.A
AUTHOR OF "dukes AND POETS IN FERRARA."
" The incredible excess of unsensed sweet,
And mystic wall of strange felicity."
Francis Thompson
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. LTD.
1904
SECOND EDITION REVISED
To
MY MOTHER
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
Contents
CHAP. PAGE
I Dante's Paradise 1
II Within Earth's Shadow 53
III Prudence and Fortitude 103
IV Empire and Cloister 147
V Above the Celestial Stairway .... 187
VI The Empyrean 241
VII Dante's Letters 287
Appendix 331
Index 341
Preface to the Second Edition
THESE seven Essays are intended to serve as an
Introduction to the study of Dante's Paradiso ;
six of them deal directly with the Paradiso itself,
while the seventh touches upon certain of Dante's
Letters, which illustrate his frame of mind in that
epoch of his life during which the Divina Commedia
was composed, or, at least, took final shape.
They were originally partly based upon the medi-
seval commentaries of the author of the Ottinio
Commento (1334), and Benvenuto da Imola (1379) ;
and upon the modern works of Scartazzini, Lubin,
and Cornoldi. They are also largely indebted to Mr.
A. J. Butler's edition of the Paradiso ; Hettinger's
Scope and Value of the Divina Commedia, edited by
Father H. S. Bowden ; the Rev. J. S. Lupton's Joan-
nes Coletus super Opera Dionysii ; Longfellow's trans-
lation of the Divina Commedia ; Fraticelli's and
Giuliani's editions of Dante's Minor Works ; Mr. F. J.
Church's translation of the De Monarchia ; Father
J. Rickaby's Aquinas Ethicus ; Cornoldi's Physical
System of St. Thomas, translated by Mr. E. H.
Dering. In this second edition I am also much
indebted to Dr. Moore's invaluable Oxford Dante.
Were I now to rewrite my book, I should most cer-
ix
PREFACE
tainly have to acknowledge an additional debt to
Professor T. Casini's edition of the Divina Commedia
and to Mr, Paget Toynbee's Dante Dictionary. I was
not acquainted with the former work when these
essays were written, and the Dante Dictionary has
only appeared since.
In this second edition portions have been largely
revised, but the work as a w^hole remains the same.
I have mainly followed Witte's text of the Divina
Commedia, though not invariably. The Minor Works,
with the exception of one or two passages from the
Canzoni, are quoted from the Oxford Dante. The
translation of the De Monarchia quoted is always
Mr. Church's ; that of the Divina Commedia is for
the most part Longfellow's, excepting where no name
is appended. The Convivio is my own, though it
owes much to Miss Hillard's version, which I had
adopted in the first edition. For the Second Part of
the Summa Theologica I have frequently availed
myself of the abbreviated version in Aquinas Ethi-
cus. The appended list of books is not a complete
bibliography, but merely represents the works more
frequently consulted or found more helpful.
I have modified my standpoint in one or two
matters with reference to the Letters. And, notwith-
standing Professor Michele Barbi's publication of the
text of the Provision of June 2nd, 1316, I have felt
compelled, on mature consideration, to partly aban-
don my scepticism vsdth respect to the authenticity of
the famous Letter to a Florentine Friend. In Chapter
vii. I am indebted to various recent writers upon
the subject of the Letters in the Bullettino delta
Societa Dantesca Italiana.
My grateful thanks are due to the Rev. George
Tyrrell, S.J., who kindly read through the proofs of
PREFACE
the first edition of this book, and aided me with his
suggestions and criticism ; and to the Rev. P. H.
Wicksteed, M.A., for many valuable suggestions upon
the first two chapters, which were either incorporated
in the text or have led me to modify my judgments
upon special points in question. In this second
edition I have the further pleasant duty of thanking
my generous critics and reviewers, who have enabled
me to correct not a few errors and inaccuracies
which would otherwise have escaped my notice.
E. G. G.
Florenxe
December 8th, 1899
XI
List of Works Chiefly Used and Consulted
S. Thomae Aquinatis, Summa Theologica, 6 vols., Rome, 1886.
S. Thomas Aquinatis, Summa contra Gentiles, Eome, 1888.
Agnelli, G., Topocronografia del Viaggio Dantesco, Milan, 1891.
d'Ancona, Alessandro, La Vita Nuova illustrata ccni note, etc.,
Pisa, 1884.
Bambaglioli, Graziolo de', Commento air Inferno, edited by
A. FiAMMAZZO, Udine, 1892.
Barelli, v., V Allegoria delta Divina Co7nmedia di Dante Ali-
ghieri, Florence, 1864.
Bartoli, a., Storia delta Letteratura Italiana, Florence, 1878-84.
Benvenuti de Eambaldis de Imola, Comentum super Dantis
Aldigherii Conuediam, Vernon & Lacaita, 5 vols., Florence,
1887.
S. Bernardi opera omnia, ed. Migne, Paris, 1854.
Breviarium Bomanum, translated by the Marquess of Bute,
Edinburgh and London, 1879.
S. Bonaventura, Vita di S. Francesco d' Assisi, ed. Amoni, Rome,
1888.
Bidlettino delta Societd Dantesca Italiana, diretto da M. Barbi,
Florence.
Butler, A. J., Dante^s Paradise, edited with translation and
notes, London, 1885.
Butler, A. J., A Companion to Dante, from the German of G. A.
ScARTAZZiNi, London, 1893.
Capponi, G., Storia delta Bepubblica di Firenze, vol. I., Florence,
1888.
Carducci, Giosue, Studi Letterari, Leghorn, 1874.
Casini, T., La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, con intra-
duzione e commento, Florence, 1896.
Church, R. W., Dante, with a translation of the De Monarchia
by F. C. Church, London, 1878.
• • •
Xlll
LIST OF WORKS
CoRNOLDi, G. M., La Divina Commedia con commento, Eome, 1887.
CoRNOLDi, a. M., The Physical System of St. Thomas, translated
by E. H. Dering, London, 1893.
Bollinger, Studies in European History, translated by M.
Warre, London, 1890.
Fraticelli, p., La Divina Commedia con commento, Florence,
1860, etc.
Fraticelli, P., Opere Minori di Dante Alighieri, 3 vols., Florence,
1856, etc.
Giuliani. G., Le Opere Latine di Dante Alighieri, 2 vols, Florence,
1878^82.
Giuliani, G., Metodo di commentare la Commedia, Florence, 1861.
St. Gregory the Great, The Dialogues, an old English version
edited by H. J. Coleridge, London, 1874.
Hettinger, Dante's Divina Commedia, its Scope and Value,
edited by H. S. Bowden, London, 1887.
HiLLARD, K., The Banquet of Dante Alighieri, London, 1889.
S. IsiDORi Hispalensis episcopi opera, ed. Migne, Paris, 1850.
Latham, C. S., Dante's Letters, translated with notes, etc., Boston
and New York, 1891.
Longfellow, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.
LuBiN, A., Commedia di Dante Alighieri, preceduta dalla vita,
etc., Padua, 1881.
LUNGO, I. del, Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica, Florence, 1879,
etc,
LuNGO, I. DEL, DelV Esilio di Dante, Florence, 1881.
LUPTON, J. H., Joannes Coletus super opera Dionysii, London,
1869.
Moore, E., Tutte le Opere di Dante Alighieri, nuovamente rivedute
nel testo, Oxford, 1895, etc.
Moore, E., Time References in the Divina Commedia, Oxford,
1887.
Moore, E., Studies in Dante, series I. and II., Oxford, 1896-99.
VOttimo Commento delta Divina Commedia, testo Inedito d'un
contemporaneo di Dante, 3 vols., Pisa, 1827-29.
Pastor, L., History of the Popes from the close of the Middle
Ages, vol. I., edited by F. L. Antrobus, London, 1891.
Perez, P., Delle Frayranze onde V Alighieri profuma il Pur-
gatorio e il Paradiso, Intra, 1867 (Reprinted with / sette
cerchi del Purgatorio, Milan, 1896).
xiv
LIST OF WORKS
Petri Allegherii super Dantis ipsius genitoris Como&diam
Cortimentarium, Florence, 1845.
Plumptre, E. H., The Commedia and Canzoniere of Dante
Alighieri, vol. II., London, 1892.
EiCHARDi A Sancto Victore, opcva omnia, ed. Migne, Paris,
1855.
EiCKABY, Joseph, Aquinas Ethicus, 2 vols., London, 1892.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, Dante and his Circle, London, 1861
etc.
Rossetti, F. M., A Shadow of Dante, London, 1871, etc.
Scartazzini, G. a.., La Divina Commedia, 3 vols, Leipzig
1874-90.
Scartazzini, G. A., Prolegomeni, Leipzig, 1890.
Scartazzini, G. A., La Divina Commedia, edizione minore,
Milan, 1893 and 1896.
Selmi, F., II Convito, sua cronologia, etc., Turin, 1865.
ToYNBEE, Paget, A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable
Matters in the Works of Dante, Oxford, 1898.
Vaccheri & Bertacchi, La Visione considerata nello spazio e
net tempo, Turin, 1881.
Vaughan, R. B., The Life and Labour's of St. Thomas of Aquin,
London, 1872, 2 vols.
Vernon, W. W., Readings on the Inferno, chiefly based on the
Commentary of Benvenuto da Imola, 2 vols., London, 1894.
ViLLANi, Istorie Fiorentine, Milan, 1802-03.
ViLLANi, Selections from the first nine books of the Croniche
Fiorentine, translated by R. E. Selfe, and edited by P. H.
Wicksteed, Westminster, 1896.
ViLLARi, Pasquale, 37ie First Two Centuries of Florentine His-
tory, translated by Linda Villari, 2 vols., London, 1894
and 1895.
Wicksteed, T.K., A provisional translation of the Early Lives
of Dante, and of his poetical correspondence with Giovanni
del Virgilio.
Witte, K., La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri : Berlin,
1862 ; Milan, 1864.
Witte, K., Essays on Dante. Selected, translated, and edited
[from the Dante-Forschungen], with Introduction, Notes and
Appendices, by C. M. Lawrence and P. H. Wicksteed,
London, 1898.
XV
CHAPTER I
DANTES PARADISE
ANIMA JUSTI
" Cselum est anima iusti, sicut Domiuus per proplietain
elicit : Ceelum mihi sedes est." St. Bernard, Liber de
modo bene vivendi.
BENYENUTO DA IMOLA commences his com-
mentaiy on the Paradiso by quoting a sentence
of the Arabian philosopher Averrhoes : Bomim est
crlhrare modium sabuli ut quis inveniat unain inar-
garitam, — it is good to sift a measure of sand to
find a pearl. And Benvenuto goes on in his quaint
mediaeval fashion to explain how Dante, this curi-
osisshnus indagator, performs this operation in his
divine poem. The first measure of sand, the Inferno,
gave him the disposition of escaping from endless
woe ; a second measure, the Purgatorio, showed him
the true and arduous way to come to this pearl
of great price ; and now, finally, he sifts a third
measure of sand, the Paradiso, and here he finds
that most precious pearl, the reward of all his
labours, eternal glory in the fruition of God.
The description of this eternal glory and the \y
mediaeval conception of Paradise, as the mystical
union of the soul with the First Cause in vision,
love and enjojnnent, and the comprehension of
the most sublime and secret things of the celestial
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
mysteries — this is what we seek and find in Dante's
Paradiso. It is, perhaps, still the least popular,
the least generally intelligible part of the Divine
Comedy. Ruskin has somewhere spoken of the
difficulty of having " nobility enough in one's own
thoughts to forgive the failure of any other human
soul to speak clearly what it has felt of the most
divine." Perhaps in the Inferno the dramatic side
of Dante's genius is more obvious, in those clear
and terrible pictures of human passion and suffer-
ing against a background of lurid flame. In the
Purgatorio Dante seems more the spokesman and
poet of all humanity ; his teaching in that second
canticle, even for non-Catholics who reject the
doctrine of Purgatory, seems to be of more general
and universal application, corresponding to some-
thing in the heart and conscience of man. In the
Paradiso Dante appears as essentially the man of
the Middle Ages. Here, perhaps more than in any
other part of the poem, does Dante show himself
in thorough sympathy with his age, its doctrines
and rudimentary science, its yearning for knowledge,
its delight in the beauty of intellectual satisfaction.
It is such works as the Paradiso that enable us to
realise what were the noblest thoughts and aspira-
tions of those ages, whose exceeding light has so
dazzled weak modern eyesight that they have some-
times been called dark ; for in them —
L'occhio si smarria
Come virtu che al troppo si confonda.'
There is a sublime passage in the Sumtna Theologica
which gives a key to the comprehension of this
* Purg. viii. 35. The eye is bewildered as faculty that is
confounded by excess.
4
A STUDY OF THE PARADISO
boundless yearning, boundless but confident, for the
satisfaction of the intellect. Aquinas is discussing
the question concerning the essence of beatitude :
Does the beatitude of man consist in the \asion of
the Divine Essence ? And he answers it thus : —
" The last and perfect happiness of man cannot be
otherwise than in the vision of the Divine Essence.
In evidence of this statement two points are to be
considered : first, that man is hot perfectly happy
so long as there remains anything for him to desire
and seek ; secondly, that the perfection of every
power is determined by the nature of its object.
Now the object of the intellect is the essence of a
thing : hence the intellect attains to perfection so
far as it knows the essence of what is before it.
And therefore, Avhen a man knows an effect, and
knows that it has a cause, there is in him an out-
standing natural desire of knowing the essence of
the cause. If therefore a human intellect knows the
essence of a created effect without knomng aught
of God beyond the fact of His existence, the per-
fection of that intellect does not yet adequately
reach the First Cause, but the intellect has an out-
standing natural desire of searching into the said
Cause : hence it is not yet perfectly happy. For
perfect happiness, therefore, it is necessary that
the intellect shall reach as far as the very essence
of the First Cause." ^
Thus, he adds, the intellect will have its perfection
through being united to God, as to the object in
which alone the beatitude of man consists. United
to the source of all good in this vision of the Divine
^ Summa, I — 2. q. 3. a. 8. (Rickaby, Aquinas Ethieus).
5
v/
\/
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
Essence, the soul is filled ^dth all good things. This
beatitude of man belongs therefore to the in-
tellectual faculty, since by no acti\-ity of sense can
man be united to this uncreated Good. And so
Dante's Paradise is the beatitude of the intellect
in joyful possession of absolute Truth, the supreme
bliss which is reached in the Empj^ean Heaven
of pure light —
Luce intellettual plena d'amore,
Amor di vero ben pien di letizia,
Letizia che trascende ogui dolzore.^
Notwithstanding its essentially mediseval character,
the closest students of Dante are usually agreed in
ranking the Paradiso highest of the three parts of
the Di\'ine Comedy. " It is a perpetual hymn of
everlasting love," wrote Shelley in his Defence of
Poetry : " Dante's apotheosis of Beatrice and the
gradations of his own love and her loveliness, by
which as by steps he feigns himself to have as-
cended to the throne of the Supreme Cause, is the
most glorious imagination of modern poetry." No
less beautiful and true is Shelley's characterisation
of Dante as poet of the Paradiso in his own un-
finished masterpiece, The Triumph of Life, where he
speaks again —
Of him who from the lowest depths of hell
Through every paradise and through all glory
Love led serene, and who returned to tell
the wondrous story
How all things are transfigured except Love.
Knowledge and love are the two supreme and in-
separable themes of Dante's Paradiso: the loA^e of
' Light intellectual full of love, love of true good full of joy,
joy that transcendeth all sweetness. Par. xxx. 40.
6
A STUDY OF THE PARADISO
tlie Vita Nuova and the philosophical devotion of
the Convivio are here united and rendered perfect
in knowledge and love of the Supreme and Un-
created Good.
The Di\'ine Comedy is at once a vision and an
allegory ; a vision of the unseen world beyond the
grave, and, based upon that \'ision, an allegory of
the nature of \dce and of \drtue, of the guidance of
human wisdom and celestial wisdom, reason and
revelation, and of the duties of man towards the
Empire and the Church. It is a vision of the
state of souls after death ; it is an allegory of
how man, whilst still in this life, may use his
free will for good or for evil, and so incur reward
or punishment.
The subject, therefore, of the Paradiso in the
literal sense is the state of the souls of the blessed
after death ; and in the allegory it may be taken as
" the beauty of virtue as shown by the greatness
of the reward," which is practically a deduction
from the words in the Letter to Can Grande : " Man,
in so far as, by meritorious use of free vnW., he is
subject to the justice that rewards." ^ If the Pur-
gatorio is an allegory of the real life of man upon
earth, the Paradiso represents the ideal life whether
passed in action or contemplation. Some of the
early commentators express this twofold meaning
by their distinction between the essential Paradise
of blessed souls after death, and the moral or
spiritual Paradise of virtuous and contemplative
spirits still united to their bodies in this world.
Yet the work can never sink to the cold level of a
' Si vero accipiatur opus allegorice, subjectum est " homo, prout
merendo et demerendo per arbitrii libertatem lustitiee praemianti
aut punienti obnoxiiis est." Epist, x. 8.
7
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
mere allegory. In Ibe complicated medigeval system of
fourfold interpretation of the Scriptures, the old law
is the figure of the new law, and the new law, in the
anagogical sense, is the figure of future glory ; and
similarly Jerusalem, in the literal or historical sense
the city of the Jews, admits of a threefold interpre-
tation as the Church, the spiritual life, and anagogi-
cally our heavenly city of Paradise. The anagogical
sense is the signification of those things which are in
eternal glory, it indicates the object of hope and the
goal of yearning upward effort — the quid speres or
quo tendas of the doggerel verses of the schoolmen.^
From the nature itself of the subject matter it is
impossible in Dante's Paradiso to separate this
supreme mystical sense from the literal meaning
and the allegory, since Paradise itself is the reward
vof a righteous use of man's free will —
Ma chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo
Ancor mi scusera di quel ch'io lasso,
Yedendo in quell' albor balenar Cristo.
Par. xiv. 106.^
Thus this supreme mystical sense, this sobria ebrietas
of anagogy, is seldom wholly absent throughout the
Paradiso ; but rests upon and crowns the literal
sense and the allegory, as delight sits upon actiWty.
It is no mere poetical fiction that is signified by the
^ Of the three spiritual meanings in which the Scriptures are
to be understood, the moral or tropological sense is that in which
examples are set for us to follow: Morales quid agas. This
sense exists in the Paradiso too; but is usuallj^ left for the
reader to draw for himself: "This moral sense," Dante says in
the Convivio, " readers should carefully' gather from all writings
for the benefit of themselves and their descendants."
^ But he who takes his Cross and follows Christ will yet excuse
me for what I leave, when he shall see Christ lighten in that
dawn.
8
A STUDY OF THE PARADISO
letter ; Dante believed in the truth of what he sang,
and, though necessarily concealed for a while and
expressed under veils of sensible images, the literal
Paradise of the concluding cantos of his poem is
indeed the consummation of his labours and the
reward he hoped for and strove towards — the signifi-
cation of the things beyond sense, the supernal
things of eternal glory. This is expressed by the
poet himself in his exclamation in Canto xxii. —
S'io torni mai, lettore, a quel devoto
Trionfo, per lo quale io piango spesso
Le inie peccata, e il petto mi percoto.
Par. xxii. lOG.^
Without entering into the question of how far the
political allegories really penetrate the divine poem,
it may safely be concluded that, from the nature of
Dante's views, they cannot hold much place in the
Paradiso. The Emperor himself, the supreme poli-
tical power and temporal authority, he who has to
care for the world and to secure that in this areola of
earth belonging to mortal man — L'aiuola che ci fa
tanto feroci ~ — life may pass in freedom and with
peace, can but guide man in accordance with the
teachings of Philosophy to "the blessedness of
this life, which consists in the exercise of his natural
powers and which is prefigured in the Earthly Para-
dise " {De Monarchia iii. 16). With the attainment
of the Earthly Paradise under the guidance of
Human Wisdom (reason and philosophy and the Im-
perial Power), and then the resignation by Virgil of
his leadership, whatever political allegory there was
* As may I ever return, i-eader, to that devout triumph, for which
I often bewail my sins and strike my breast.
- The little space that maketh us so fierce. Par. xxii. 151.
Aiuola is sometimes translated threshing-floor,
9
\>
■V
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
must in the main have been completed. Such a poli-
tical regeneration of Christendom indicated in the
attainment of the Earthly Paradise, and in the les-
sons inculcated from the history of the Church and
Empire represented in those splendid visionary
pageants that close the Purgatorio, is however re-
garded by Dante as a means and stepping stone to
the moral regeneration and eternal happiness of
mankind as is shown in the Paradiso. Man, having
regained his innocence in the Earthly Paradise and
attained to such an ideal life as that represented by
the seven lower spheres of Paradise, would no longer
need the Imperial Authority " to restrain him in his
course by bit and bridle."^ Though the main poli-
tical part of the allegory is completed, the poet's
political doctrines are still proclaimed as each suitable
occasion arises, and his declaration of the sanctity
of the Empire and his denunciation of the unworthy