by Dante
29. See Pecoraro (Peco.1968.1), pp. 745–49, for a discussion of this scaleo, which eventually settles on the traditional interpretation; the ladder, built of rungs of humility, leads to the contemplation of God. Pecoraro takes an interesting detour through the writings of Paolo Amaducci, a neglected figure in Dante studies, who effectively was the first modern critic (Filippo Villani was arguably the first ancient one) to apply the fourfold method of Scriptural exegesis to interpreting Dante (for Amaducci, without reference to Pecoraro’s earlier notice, see Hollander [Holl.1976.1, pp. 128–29, n. 49, and Holl.2001.1, p. 187, n. 45]). (Pecoraro discusses only one of his five studies of Dante’s supposed reliance on Peter Damian [Amad.1921.1].) [return to English / Italian]
31–33. It is eventually clear (e.g., vv. 64–66) that all these spirits (compared to all the stars in the nighttime sky), descending, are coming from the Empyrean for the sole purpose of welcoming Dante to his higher degree of contemplative awareness; that they, like all the spirits we see in the heavens, are only temporary visitors to these realms; that all the saved souls and the angels populate the Empyrean (as far as we can tell, they have never manifested themselves to anyone in a lower heaven before Dante’s most extraordinary visit to the heavens that concludes his journey through the afterworld).
Jacob saw angels on the ladder in his dream, ascending and descending. Dante sees the souls of the blessed only descending, at least for now. [return to English / Italian]
34–42. This is the sole “classical” simile in these two cantos devoted to the monastic sphere of Saturn (but see Par. XXII.1–6) and perhaps represents the only joyous moment in them. It describes those souls who descend from the Empyrean, where such behavior is not only appropriate but natural, for it is the realm of everlasting joy.
This fairly extended simile is complex enough to have caused considerable difficulty. For an interesting and original interpretation, see Carroll (comm. to these verses). He argues that Dante has carefully followed Thomas Aquinas (ST II–II, q. 180, a. 3–6) for every detail of this passage (Torraca [comm. to these verses] will later cite the same passage without treating it as fully). Here is an abbreviated version of Carroll’s argument: Thomas is responding to Richard of St. Victor’s six steps of contemplation, reduced by Richard himself to three: Cogitatio, Meditatio, Contemplatio. When the descending spirits, the jackdaws in the simile, reach a certain step, groups of them begin moving in one of three ways (about which there will be more shortly). That step, Carroll says, represents Richard’s second step, Meditation, or speculation, an intellectual activity that draws, in Aquinas’s treatment here, on the image of mirroring (as Carroll points out Dante has done in vv. 17–18). The descending spirits, we must remember, are used to seeing in the third way, Contemplation. Now, reentering the protagonist’s realm of experience, which necessarily falls short of seeing face-to-face (as even he will be able to do shortly, once he enters the Empyrean), these saved souls behave in three different ways. Carroll associates each of these behaviors in turn with Thomas’s discussion of Richard of St. Victor’s three modes of intellectual activity: “Some of the souls ‘go away without return,’ that is, without doubling back: they represent the straight motion which goes direct from things of sense to things of intellect. Some ‘turn back to where they started from’—to the certain step from which their flight began: they represent the oblique motion, which is composed, says Aquinas, of a mixture of straight and circular, of reason and divine illumination. And some, ‘wheeling, make a sojourn’: they represent the circular motion,—that perfect movement by which the intellect turns uniformly round one centre of Divine truth, the ‘sojourn’ signifying the immobility of this motion, as of a revolving wheel that sleeps upon the axle.”
As for the birds themselves, Carroll cites Benvenuto (comm. to these verses) to the effect that they love solitude and choose the desert for their habitation. Pole, according to some commentators, are cornacchie grige (gray crows, or jackdaws), having black wings, silver eyes, and large red beaks encircled by yellow. [return to English / Italian]
34. For costume as “natural instinct” or “inner law,” see the note at its first appearance in the poem, where it also seems to have this sense (Inf. III.73). [return to English / Italian]
37–39. It is perhaps needless to say that there have been several ingenious attempts to explain these three movements of the birds. It is perhaps fair to say that none has seemed ultimately convincing. Carroll’s, based in the texts of Richard of St. Victor and of Aquinas (see the note to vv. 34–42), remains the most interesting. [return to English / Italian]
42. It may be fair to suggest that the significance of this “rung” of Jacob’s Ladder has also escaped even the few who choose to discuss it. It seems unlikely to represent a mere “realistic” detail, for example, the “rung” of the “ladder” that is at a level with the heaven of Saturn. Again, see Carroll’s interesting hypothesis (see the note to vv. 34–42), that this is the “grade” of meditation, the earthly form of divine contemplation, as it were. [return to English / Italian]
43. This soul will eventually identify himself as Peter Damian at verse 121. See the note to vv. 106–126. [return to English / Italian]
46–48. Dante underlines his obedience to Beatrice as the reason he does not respond more fully to Peter Damian’s affection for this special visitor to the sphere of Saturn. This tercet casts her in the role of leader of a monastic community, setting the rules for conversation and all other aspects of the social life of the “monk” under her care, Dante Alighieri. [return to English / Italian]
49–50. Once again we are given to understand that the souls in bliss are able to know all that may be known in their contemplation of the mind of God, the mirror of all creation. The identical nature of such knowledge with its source is suggested by the three uses of the verb vedere in these two lines. [return to English / Italian]
51. Beatrice only now releases Dante to open his mind and heart to Peter. [return to English / Italian]
52–60. From Peter, Dante wants to know two things: why he seemed, by his proximity, so affectionate toward him and why, for the first time in the heavens, song has yielded to silence. [return to English / Italian]
58–60. Saturn is marked by an atmosphere of monastic self-denial. It is the home of the cardinal virtue temperance and of religious meditation. The absence of melody in Saturn is singular thus far in Paradiso, for we and the protagonist have become accustomed to hearing sacred songs as we ascend the spheres: “Ave Maria” in the Moon (Par. III.121–122); an “Osanna” in both Mercury (VII.1) and Venus (VIII.29); the singing of the souls in the Sun is referred to a good half dozen times, but it is only in XIII.25–27 that we are informed that they sing, not of Bacchus nor of Apollo, but of the Trinity; next we learn that the unidentified song in Mars contains the words Risurgi and Vinci (XIV.125) and that the souls in Jupiter sing of God (XVIII.99). Underscoring the uniqueness of the silence of this sphere, the final three heavens are also marked by song: the Starry Sphere by Gabriel’s song for Mary (XXIII.103–108) and by the other members of the Church Triumphant crying out, to the ascending mother of God, “Regina celi” (XXIII.128). In the succeeding sphere, various moments in Dante’s progress among his saintly interlocutors are punctuated by voices raised in song: “Dio laudamo” (XXIV.113), “Sperino in te” (XXV.73), “Sperent in te” (XXV.98), “Santo, santo, santo” (XXVI.69), “Al Padre, al Figlio, a lo Spirito Santo, gloria” (XXVII.1–2); in the Crystalline Sphere the angelic choirs resonate with “Hosannah” (XXVIII.94); in the Empyrean we hear once more the “Ave Maria” (XXXII.95). See the note to Paradiso XXVII.1–3. [return to English / Italian]
59. The adjective dolce (sweet) occurs with some regularity from one end of the poem (Inf. I.43) to the other (Par. XXXIII.63), 106 times in all. [return to English / Italian]
61–63. Peter Damian gives his answer to the second of Dante’s questions first. It is brutally frank: Dante still thinks as the world thinks and is not
yet ready to experience the higher degree of divinity that songs at this level represent. And now we also learn that this was precisely the reason for Beatrice’s withholding of her customary smile as well (see verse 4). [return to English / Italian]
64–72. Peter’s answer to Dante’s first question is more circuitous, but reflects the same problem: Dante’s inability to think beyond the limits of a human comprehension of love. Peter’s affection for Dante is not greater than that felt by any others among the saved in Paradise, that is to say, it is not “personal.” We may remember Casella in Purgatorio II, whose greeting was very personal indeed, as a kind of control for our measurement of this affection. [return to English / Italian]
73–78. Still a slow learner, Dante gets part of the message: In the Court of Heaven, freedom in loving is to follow God’s will, a similar paradox to that developed in Beatrice’s lengthy discussion of free will in Paradiso V.19–33. On the other hand, his follow-up question reveals that he is still eager to understand the reason for the choice of Peter Damian as the deliverer of heavenly greeting. [return to English / Italian]
77. For Aquinas’s distinction (ST I, q. 23, a. 1) between providence and predestination, see Torraca (comm. to these verses). Carroll, in another context (comm. to Par. XX.130–132), cites this same passage in the Summa and paraphrases it as follows: “Hence Predestination is defined as ‘Divine Providence leading rational creatures to their supernatural end, the Beatific Vision,’ the entire process, from beginning to end, having its reason in the Divine will alone. It is not dependent on the foreseen merits of the elect; and the prayers of saints (such as Gregory’s for Trajan) are only part of the second causes by means of which the decree of Predestination is worked out.” Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 78) also cite Thomas (ST I, q. 22, a. 3): “Two things belong to providence—namely, the type of the order of things foreordained towards an end; and the execution of this order, which is called government.” They go on to suggest that Dante was in accord with this view in Paradiso XI.28–30. Their point is that the subject here is not predestination, but divine foreknowledge of the actions of particular individuals.
For more on predestination, see the note to Paradiso XX.130–148. [return to English / Italian]
83–90. Peter’s preamble tells Dante how he was filled with divine love for his mission, but not why, as his final point will insist.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses) paraphrase the passage as follows: “The light of grace descends on me, penetrating the light that wraps me round, in whose womb I am enclosed, and its power, conjoined with my intellect, lifts me so far above myself that I can see the supreme essence, God, from whom this light bursts forth. From this sight comes the joy with which I shine, since the splendor of my flame is as great as the clarity of my vision of God.” [return to English / Italian]
84. Muresu (Mure.1996.2), p. 30, reports discomfort at the Dantean coinage inventrarsi on the part of several commentators. Among those he mentions are Tommaseo (comm. to this verse): “non bello” (not beautiful) is his laconic reaction. Andreoli (comm. to this verse) has this to say: The term is “unfit to describe a heavenly spirit speaking of his divine light.” But see Mattalia (comm. to this verse) for an understanding of Dante’s sense of the Scriptural relevance of the word, reflecting the Gospels’ references to Mary’s womb (e.g., Luke 11:27, cited by Virgil, as character, at Inf. VIII.45). As usual, Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) has a lengthy discussion of the variant readings. See also the two appearances of the noun ventre (womb, belly) in this cantica (Par. XXIII.104 and Par. XXXIII.7 and the notes thereto). [return to English / Italian]
90. For the word pareggio, see the note to Paradiso XXIII.67. [return to English / Italian]
91–102. Neither the most exalted soul in Heaven, Peter explains, possibly referring to Mary (see Par. XXXI.116–117), nor one of the most enlightened of the highest order of angels, a seraph, can ever know the reasons for God’s decisions. This is the only limit, then, on even angelic intelligence. All those in the Empyrean can know, in God, all relations among all things, in heaven and on earth, but not the eventual reasons that might explain their causes. The urgency of Peter’s explanation to Dante is clearly aimed past him, to us on earth, who so enjoy imagining that we understand the root causes of events even though our normal sinful disability should probably deprive us of such baseless optimism in this regard. But we are little more mature than babies, forever asking “Why?” See, on this passage, Hawkins (Hawk.1995.1), p. 313. [return to English / Italian]
94–95. The description of providence (God’s foreknowledge, which alone can account for the causes that lie behind the interrelations of things) as an “abyss” suggests a “plurality of worlds,” this universe (known by the angels and the blessed) and the vast inner mind of God that extends (if it may be said to extend) to regions of which we cannot possess even the slightest knowledge nor indeed verify the existence. At least as early as Purgatorio III.37, Dante should have understood that such things were beyond knowing. Virgil then advised him that humans were not behaving rationally when they hoped to know the “why” behind things. Dante is, as we are frequently forced to acknowledge, a slow learner. [return to English / Italian]
103–105. Discouraged from pursuing his quest for knowledge beyond both human and, indeed, angelic potential, Dante contents himself with asking Peter, in the form of his third question, to identify himself. [return to English / Italian]
106–126. The seven tercets dedicated to the life of Peter Damian (1007–72) are reminiscent of the earlier saints’ lives that we have heard in Paradiso. Once again we begin with a geographical indicator (the mountain called Catria, in the Apennines, that rises some five thousand feet above sea level, near the town of Gubbio). Peter’s narrative is brief and self-abnegating (those of Francis [Par. XI] and of Dominic [Par. XII] are considerably more full, but then they are narrated by praiseful others, not by their abstemious selves). Peter’s is modesty itself, concluding with the ironic and bitter reflection on his having been made to give over the life of prayer that truly pleased him for that of “administration.”
“St. Peter Damian, proclaimed doctor of the Church by Leo XII in 1828; born of an obscure family at Ravenna c. 1007. In his childhood he was much neglected, and after the death of his parents was set by his eldest brother to tend swine. Later on, another brother, named Damian, who was archdeacon of Ravenna, took compassion on him and had him educated. Peter in gratitude assumed his brother’s name and was thenceforth known as Peter Damian (Petrus Damiani). After studying at Ravenna, Faenza, and Parma, he himself became a teacher, and soon acquired celebrity. At the age of about 28, however, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Fonte Avellana on the slopes of Monte Catria, of which in 1043 he became abbot. In this capacity he rendered important services to Popes Gregory VI, Clement II, Leo IX, Victor II, and Stephen IX, by the last of whom he was in 1057, much against his will, created cardinal bishop of Ostia. He appears to have been a zealous supporter of these popes, and of Hildebrand (afterwards Gregory VII), in their efforts to reform Church discipline, and made journeys into France and Germany with that object. After fulfilling several important missions under Nicholas II and Alexander II, he died at an advanced age at Faenza, Feb. 22, 1072.
“Dante represents Peter Damian as inveighing against the luxury of the prelates in his day; the commentators quote in illustration a passage from a letter of his to his brother cardinals, in which he reminds them that the dignity of a prelate does not consist in wearing rare and costly furs and fine robes, nor in being escorted by troops of armed adherents, nor in riding on neighing and mettlesome steeds, but in the practice of morality and the exercise of the saintly virtues” (T). While he was never formally canonized, he was venerated as a saint from the time following his death in several places in Italy and at Cluny. [return to English / Italian]
111. John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 106–111) distinguishes among latrìa (the accent in the poem may be due to the requiremen
ts of rhyme or, as Scartazzini suggests [comm. to this verse], to Dante’s small Greek), dulia, and yperdulia. The first is defined as honoring God alone; the second, those who are virtuous (e.g., the saints); the third, “things excellent” (examples are Mary and the cross). Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 109–111) mentions the appearance of the term in both Augustine (DcD X.1) and Aquinas (ST II–II, q. 81, a. 1). Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 106–111) was the first to cite Isidore of Seville for the term (Etym. VIII.xi.11). [return to English / Italian]
115–117. This tercet contains one (of two) references to “contemplative” intellectual behavior or to those who perform it (see the reference to contemplanti in Par. XXII.46) in the heaven of Saturn. In neither case does it seem to refer to contemplatio Dei, but would rather seem to indicate monastic rumination, or meditation, thoughts that lead to God, but not a direct vision of Him. In fact, of the seven uses of the words derived from contemplare in the poem, beginning in Purgatorio XXIV.132, where Virgil, Dante, and Statius meditate upon Gluttony, only one would clearly seem to indicate contemplation of the highest kind, St. Bernard in Paradiso XXXI.111; but even that may have been contemplation of the Virgin (as his contemplation referred to in Par. XXXII.1 clearly is). [return to English / Italian]
121–123. There has been controversy over the reference of the second Peter in this tercet. Petrocchi’s text has “fu’ ” (fui [I was]). And the logic of the phrasing also indicates a single reference: In place 1, I was called “x,” in place 2, “y.” Later historical certainty, which would make Dante responsible for knowing that there was another Peter, a monk in the monastery to which he has Pietro allude and who died there in 1119, may not apply. Scholars have pointed out that Dante’s knowledge of Peter Damian was itself suspect; he could easily have conflated these two religious of Ravenna in this passage written, one assumes, after his settling in Ravenna circa 1317. However, since Peter Damian died in 1072, nearly fifty years before the death of Pietro Peccatore, Dante’s phrasing would seem quite odd: “In that place (his monastery at Fonte Avellana) I was known as Peter Damian, and Peter the Sinner was (fu, not fu’, abbreviation of fui) in the House of Our Lady …” The syntax and logic seem beyond rescue. The first version may be historically inaccurate, but it does make grammatical sense: “In that place I was (fu’, not fu) known as Peter Damian, and as Peter the Sinner in the House of Our Lady.” This view is in accord with the generally authoritative Michele Barbi (Barb.1941.2), pp. 257–96, and with the later discussion in Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia.1997.1), pp. 596–97 (with updated bibliography).