by Dante
94–96. Dante’s reference to a late-thirteenth-century political disaster in Mantua probably seems gratuitous to the modern reader. Given the poet’s concern with the condition of his own Florence, however, we can appreciate his interest in the dramatic events resulting from when the Guelph leader of Mantua, the Count of Casalodi, allowed himself to be tricked by the Ghibelline Pinamonte Bonacolsi, who apparently convinced him to expel many of the nobles in order to mollify the populace, angered by his having come from Brescia to rule in 1272. Foolishly exiling even members of his own party, he was in time bereft of supporters; in 1291, Pinamonte led a popular revolt that sent the count into exile and killed the remaining noble families. The tercet offered Dante a moment’s bitter reflection upon his own condition as exiled Guelph, brought about by the similar folly of his fellow citizens. [return to English / Italian]
97–102. Capping his (to us absurd yet amusing) contradiction of the details of the founding of Mantua published in his own poem, Virgil now gets Dante to swear that he will regard only the current version of that history as truthful, and that he will consider any other version, i.e., the Roman poet’s own, as nothing other than a lie. The protagonist dutifully assents. Thus is Virgil made to remove the stain of divination from his poem and from himself. The result is eventually quite different from what the tactic might have been intended to secure, i.e., Virgil’s poem is seen precisely as associated with this fault. See Barolini (Baro.1998.1), pp. 283–84. [return to English / Italian]
106–114. “Eurypylus, augur sent by the Greeks to consult the oracle of Apollo as to their departure from Troy; he brought back the reply that, as their departure from Greece had cost them a bloody sacrifice in the death of Iphigenia, so by blood must they purchase their return (Aen. II.114–119). Dante, who describes Eurypylus as having a long beard,…makes Virgil say (vv. 110–113) that Eurypylus was associated with Calchas in foretelling the time of the sailing of the Greek fleet from Aulis; but there is no mention of this fact in the Aeneid” (T). Toynbee’s version is not exactly correct. Not even in Sinon’s lying account of these events, to which the text refers, is Eurypylus said to be an augur: the message that he brings back from Apollo’s shrine is then interpreted by Calchas, the “true” augur in the Aeneid, to mean that Sinon must be sacrificed. We should reflect that Dante must have realized that none of what Sinon says is truthful. Yet he nonetheless uses this material in order to concoct his own still more inauthentic version of events. See Holl.1980.1, pp. 200–3.
The phrase with which Virgil indicates the Aeneid, “l’alta mia tragedìa,” has caused only some debate, as most commentators believe that, for Dante, with regard to its plot, Virgil’s epic was a “comedy” because it begins in difficulty (the shipwreck that initiates the action) and ends in happiness (the impending marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia; the impending foundation of Rome). Its style, on the other hand, is generally seen as lofty, and thus, in Dante’s understanding of such things, “tragic” (see, for example, Inf. XXVI.82, where Virgil also refers to epic writing as being in the high, or tragic style: “quando nel mondo gli alti versi scrissi” [when, in the world, I wrote my lofty verses]). For an attack on the usual understanding, beginning with the view that Virgil’s phrase would then be pleonastic (“l’alta mia tragedìa” would need to be understood as having the sense of “my lofty high poem,” twice referring to the stylistic level of the work), and arguing that both for a few early commentators and in Dante’s own views the plot of the Aeneid is indeed tragic, see Holl.1980.1, pp. 214–18; Holl.1983.1, pp. 130–34; Holl.1993.2, pp. 19, 62–66. According to this reading, the meaning of Virgil’s phrase is that his poem is lofty in style and unhappy at its conclusion, the death of Turnus at the hands of Aeneas, who gives over the ideal of clemency when he kills his enemy. [return to English / Italian]
115–117. “Michael Scot, who perhaps belonged to the family of the Scots of Balwearie in Fifeshire, was born ca. 1175; after studying at Oxford and Paris, he spent some time at Toledo, where he acquired a knowledge of Arabic, and thus gained access to the Arabic versions of Aristotle, some of which he translated into Latin at the instigation of the Emperor Frederick II, at whose court at Palermo he resided for several years; he died before 1235. His own works, which deal almost exclusively with astrology, alchemy, and the occult sciences in general, are doubtless responsible for his popular reputation as a wizard. Many of his alleged prophecies are recorded by the commentators, and by Villani, Salimbene, and others” (T). For a description of his Liber astronomicus see Lynn Thorndike (Thor.1923.1), vol. 2, pp. 826–35. [return to English / Italian]
118. “Bonatti, who was a tiler by trade, seems to have acted as domestic astrologer to Guido da Montefeltro; it is said to have been by his aid that the latter won his decisive victory over the French papal forces at Forlì, May 1, 1282. Bonatti wrote (ca. 1270) a work on astrology (Decem tractatus Astrologiae), which was printed at Augsburg in 1491” (T). [return to English / Italian]
118–120. “Maestro Benvenuto, nicknamed Asdente (i.e., toothless), a shoemaker of Parma who was famed as a prophet and soothsayer during the latter half of Cent. XIII…; referred to, as ‘il calzolaio di Parma,’ as an instance of an individual who would be noble, if notoriety constituted nobility (Conv. IV.xvi.6)” (T). [return to English / Italian]
121–123. Dante’s eight astrologers have moved from classical through thirteenth-century exemplars, the recent ones in descending nobility and literacy. His list now declines to an anonymous plurality of commonfolk, women who practice witchcraft through brewing magic potions and making images of their clients’ enemies. [return to English / Italian]
124–126. The moon is setting over the point that demarcates the border of the hemisphere of land (with its center, in the medieval and moralized cartographical conception, at Jerusalem) and that of water. The moon is setting in the ocean west of Seville and the sun is about to rise, from the perspective of one watching at Jerusalem. Medieval legend has it that what is often referred to in our time as “the man in the moon” was the image of Cain carrying a bundle of thorns. For a study of this tradition see Prato’s book (Prat.1881.1). For the astronomical and cartographical ramifications of the passage see Gizzi (Gizz.1974.1), vol. 2, pp. 113–36. [return to English / Italian]
127–129. Once again (see, for example, Inf. XVI.106–108) Dante adds a detail to an earlier scene in the poem, the prologue, the action of which takes place on this earth. There is no mention of the moon in the first canto. It is also not possible that Virgil means yesterday night, as some propose, for Dante and Virgil were then already in hell, having begun their descent on Friday evening after Dante spent his night in the wood on Thursday: “ ‘yesternight,’ i.e. the night before last, it being now early morning” is the explanation offered in Tozer’s gloss on this verse. [return to English / Italian]
130. Having proscribed the word introcque from the illustrious vernacular in De vulgari eloquentia (Dve I.xiii.2), Dante here employs it. It is a latinism (derived from inter hoc) and means, roughly, “meanwhile.” That is how Dante uses it as an example of crude Florentine “municipal” speech in De vulgari: “Since we ain’t got nuthin’ else to do, let’s eat” would be a colloquial American equivalent of the example he gives. If writers of the illustrious vernacular are to avoid such expressions, we are perhaps forced to reflect that Dante’s Comedy, unlike Virgil’s lofty Tragedy, is written in the low style (and has a “happy ending”). For discussions in this vein see Barberi Squarotti (Barb.1972.1), p. 281, and Hollander (Holl.1980.1), pp. 214–18. [return to English / Italian]
INFERNO XXI
1–3. What is the subject under discussion as the travelers leave the fourth bridge and reach the midpoint of the fifth? Most commentators simply avoid the issue, which probably must remain moot, as Conrieri argues (Conr.1981.1, pp. 1–2).
Dante’s choice of title for his work caused some early commentators difficulty, but not all of them. Guido da Pisa, for instance, nearly certainly echoing the
epistle to Cangrande, says that this work is a comedy because, like other comedies, it begins in misery and adversity and ends in prosperity and happiness (incipiunt a miseria et adversitate et finiunt in prosperitatem et felicitatem). Others see only the stylistic reference of the term, as in the case of Benvenuto, for whom the title simply means “my book in the vernacular” (meus liber vulgaris). But others, like Francesco da Buti, allow that they are puzzled, wondering whether or not Dante should so have entitled it, but then allowing that it was his right to do whatever he chose. For a brief consideration of Dante’s sense of tragedy and comedy see the concluding discussion in the note to Inferno XX.106–114. [return to English / Italian]
7–21. Castelvetro objects that Dante’s wonderfully energetic simile is almost entirely made up of extraneous elements, i.e., he needed only to say that the pitch in the bolgia was as black as that in the arsenal at Venice. Of course, that is the beauty of it, as Dante paints his scene as though he had seen the pictures of Brueghel before they were painted. Trucchi’s gloss points out that the “honest mercantilism” of the Venetians, with all its vitality, stands against the sordid conniving of barrators. The pitch, the punishing agent of this bolgia, is the apt sign of the nature of barrators (whom we today call “grafters”), working in secret and leaving such practitioners enlimed with its sticky sign, attaching to all who practice this kind of fraud. “Barratry, the buying and selling of public office, is the civil equivalent of simony, the buying and selling of church office, the sin punished in the third bolgia” (Singleton’s comment).
Verse 11, “chi fa suo legno novo,” is understood by nearly all the commentators to refer to the construction of new ships. However, the entire context here involves the rebuilding of existent vessels; thus our translation has it that this phrase refers to making an old ship new. [return to English / Italian]
29. This figure introduces the “traditional medieval” devils of plays and festivals to the poem. No other scenes in Inferno are as closely linked to the popular culture of the period as these in the cantos devoted to barratry. [return to English / Italian]
34–36. Benvenuto suggests that this figure, laden with what resembles a slaughtered corpse, reminds us of a butcher taking a carcass to be skinned and sold. Christopher Kleinhenz has indicated another (and parodic) likely source: Christ as the Good Shepherd (the pastor bonus of the Bible and of medieval illustrations), holding a saved lamb on his shoulder (Klei.1982.1, pp. 129–31). [return to English / Italian]
37. The name of this class of devils, Malebranche, fits well the place, Malebolge, and means “Evil Claws,” referring to their hooked hands, and perhaps to their forked prongs. [return to English / Italian]
38. The elders of Lucca were the city’s magistrates, similar in their governance to the priors of Florence. Zita was a young servant woman of the city, dead in the 1270s, to whom were reputed great kindness and numerous miracles. While she was not canonized until 1690, she was reputed a saint shortly after her death, and her cult flourished around her tomb in the church of San Frediano in Lucca.
As for the identity of this nameless Lucchese, Guido da Pisa seems to have been the first commentator to say that he was Martino Bottario (or Bottai). He seems to have shared political (and thus grafting) power with Bonturo Dati, mentioned in v. 41. There is another fact about him that is striking: he apparently died, according to Guido, on 26 March 1300, that is, at least in certain calculations, on the very day that is now unfolding in Dante’s poem. Francesco da Buti confirms his name and also registers the date of his death, now given as the Friday night before Holy Saturday (but only referring to the month of March, strangely, since Good Friday fell on 9 April in 1300). Later commentators, if they refer to this material, all have the death date as occurring on 9 April, even though this is not authorized by the first commentators to claim that Martino is the Lucchese here present. For particulars see Pietro Mazzamuto, ED, vol. 1, 1970, pp. 313–14. [return to English / Italian]
39. The notion that barrators come straight from earth to this point in hell, carried off by a devil, seems to violate the rule that all must cross Acheron with Charon (Inf. III.122–123) and then go before Minos to be judged (Inf. V.7–12). Even the black Cherub who carries off the soul of Guido da Montefeltro is said (by Guido himself) to have carried him only as far as Minos (Inf. XXVII.124). Thus Singleton reasons that the devil at least stops briefly at Minos’s place of judgment in order to allow the formal sentencing to take place. (Must we also imagine that he accompanies barrators from Lucca aboard Charon’s skiff?) It is surely true that Dante is generally precise in honoring the ground rules that he establishes; it is also true that he has written a poem, one that allows him to please his fancy when he chooses. [return to English / Italian]
41–42. Bonturo Dati, who did not die until 1325, was famed for his barratry. A popular tale has it that when Boniface VIII, embracing him at an encounter when Bonturo visited him on an embassy, shook him, Bonturo said, in return, “You have just shaken half of Lucca” (meaning to indicate Martino as the other half). Dante’s devil’s exclusion of him from among the Lucchesi who, suborned by money, will turn an elder’s “no” into a “yes” is indubitably ironic and sarcastic: no one in Lucca is a greater grafter than he. [return to English / Italian]
46–48. The ironic edge of the devils’ remark is variously interpreted, depending on the meaning of convolto. Does this sinner return to the surface with his face now covered with pitch (in which case he resembles the ebony face of Christ on the much-venerated image of the Crucifixion in San Martino, in Lucca)? or is he bent in two, emerging with his backside from the pitch (in which case he looks like a citizen of Lucca kneeling to prostrate himself before the image)? Strong arguments are made for each interpretation, and each is supported by a further text (Inf. XXII.25–28, 19–24), in which the sinners in this bolgia are compared, second to frogs with only their snouts out of water, first to dolphins showing their backs as they move through water. Either meaning is completely possible, but most contemporary commentators prefer the latter, perhaps because it is the more burlesque. [return to English / Italian]
49. The Serchio is the river near Lucca in which citizens swam for refreshment in the days of summer. That the devils address Martino would tend to support the notion that it is his head that has surfaced rather than his rump, i.e., they would seem to be saying “Man, that’s no way to do your imitation of the Holy Visage!” [return to English / Italian]
58–62. Virgil’s self-assurance will shortly prove to be ill-founded. Here begins the longest episode in the Inferno; it will run through Canto XXIII.57, some 290 verses. See Hollander (Holl.1984.3), pp. 85–86. [return to English / Italian]
63. Some Renaissance commentators (e.g., Vellutello and Daniello) insist on the proximity of the word baratta to barratry, which would indicate that the word is likely to indicate a previous scuffle with these very demons—who certainly seem the types to have bothered Virgil on his descent to Cocytus when Erichtho sent him on his mission down there (Inf. IX.22–27). The first commentator in the DDP to try a different tack is Singleton, who argues that the primary reference is to Virgil’s difficulties with the devils at the walls of Dis (see Inf. VIII, 82–130) or to some skirmish that he had with these devils on his previous journey to lower hell (Inf. IX, 22–30). The fact that Virgil is shortly to be found out of his depth in his struggle with the Malebranche, again after exhibiting self-confidence in the face of hostile demons, supports this reading. [return to English / Italian]
67–72. Virgil’s calm assurance is shredded by the attack of the “dogs” who rush out upon him, a poor beggar. The simile is hard on Virgil, who only barely manages to regain control of the situation, which, we remember, is being observed by Dante, squatting in hiding on the bridge. [return to English / Italian]
76–78. The entry on the scene of Malacoda (“Eviltail”), the lead devil of the Malebranche of Malebolge, is perfectly in character, as we shall see. He pretends to be servile, but m
utters under his breath about his sense of Virgil’s futility. [return to English / Italian]
79–84. Virgil’s aplomb, his “high style” contrasting with demonic “vernacular,” serves at once to set him apart from the “low-life” devils and their leader, Malacoda, but also to make him seem slightly ridiculous, since Malacoda, not he, is eventually in control of the situation, as Virgil will only finally realize, to his considerable chagrin, in Canto XXIII.140–141. Virgil’s reference in v. 83 to the fact that he is not alone (“Let us proceed”) for the first time alerts Malacoda and his cohort to Dante’s hidden presence. [return to English / Italian]
85–87. Malacoda’s fearful gesture, letting fall his billhook, is a masterful ploy that succeeds in getting Virgil to lower his guard. See Guyler (Guyl.1972.1), p. 34. [return to English / Italian]