“O Padre nostro, che ne' cieli stai,
non circunscritto, ma per più amore
ch'ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai,
laudato sia 'l tuo nome e 'l tuo valore
da ogne creatura, com' è degno
di render grazie al tuo dolce vapore.
Vegna ver' noi la pace del tuo regno,
ché noi ad essa non potem da noi,
s'ella non vien, con tutto nostro ingegno.
Come del suo voler li angeli tuoi
fan sacrificio a te, cantando osanna,
così facciano li uomini de' suoi.
Dà oggi a noi la cotidiana manna,
sanza la qual per questo aspro diserto
a retro va chi più di gir s'affanna.
E come noi lo mal ch'avem sofferto
perdoniamo a ciascuno, e tu perdona
benigno, e non guardar lo nostro merto.
Nostra virtù che di legger s'adona,
non spermentar con l'antico avversaro,
ma libera da lui che sì la sprona.
Quest' ultima preghiera, segnor caro,
già non si fa per noi, ché non bisogna,
ma per color che dietro a noi restaro.”
Così a sé e noi buona ramogna
quell' ombre orando, andavan sotto 'l pondo,
simile a quel che talvolta si sogna,
disparmente angosciate tutte a tondo
e lasse su per la prima cornice,
purgando la caligine del mondo.
Se di là sempre ben per noi si dice,
di qua che dire e far per lor si puote
da quei c'hanno al voler buona radice?
Ben si de' loro atar lavar le note
che portar quinci, sì che, mondi e lievi,
possano uscire a le stellate ruote.
“Deh, se giustizia e pietà vi disgrievi
tosto, sì che possiate muover l'ala,
che secondo il disio vostro vi lievi,
mostrate da qual mano inver' la scala
si va più corto; e se c'è più d'un varco,
quel ne 'nsegnate che men erto cala;
ché questi che vien meco, per lo 'ncarco
de la carne d'Adamo onde si veste,
al montar sù, contra sua voglia, è parco.”
Le lor parole, che rendero a queste
che dette avea colui cu' io seguiva,
non fur da cui venisser manifeste;
ma fu detto: “A man destra per la riva
con noi venite, e troverete il passo
possibile a salir persona viva.
E s'io non fossi impedito dal sasso
che la cervice mia superba doma,
onde portar convienmi il viso basso,
cotesti, ch'ancor vive e non si noma,
guardere' io, per veder s'i' 'l conosco,
e per farlo pietoso a questa soma.
Io fui latino e nato d'un gran Tosco:
Guiglielmo Aldobrandesco fu mio padre;
non so se 'l nome suo già mai fu vosco.
L'antico sangue e l'opere leggiadre
d'i miei maggior mi fer sì arrogante,
che, non pensando a la comune madre,
ogn' uomo ebbi in despetto tanto avante,
ch'io ne mori', come i Sanesi sanno,
e sallo in Campagnatico ogne fante.
Io sono Omberto; e non pur a me danno
superbia fa, ché tutti miei consorti
ha ella tratti seco nel malanno.
E qui convien ch'io questo peso porti
per lei, tanto che a Dio si sodisfaccia,
poi ch'io nol fe' tra ' vivi, qui tra ' morti.”
Ascoltando chinai in giù la faccia;
e un di lor, non questi che parlava,
si torse sotto il peso che li 'mpaccia,
e videmi e conobbemi e chiamava,
tenendo li occhi con fatica fisi
a me che tutto chin con loro andava.
“Oh!” diss'io lui, “non se' tu Oderisi,
l'onor d'Agobbio e l'onor di quell' arte
ch'alluminar chiamata è in Parisi?”
“Frate,” diss' elli, “più ridon le carte
che pennelleggia Franco Bolognese;
l'onore è tutto or suo, e mio in parte.
Ben non sare' io stato sì cortese
mentre ch'io vissi, per lo gran disio
de l'eccellenza ove mio core intese.
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio;
e ancor non sarei qui, se non fosse
che, possendo peccar, mi volsi a Dio.
Oh vana gloria de l'umane posse!
com' poco verde in su la cima dura,
se non è giunta da l'etati grosse!
Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,
sì che la fama di colui è scura.
Così ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà del nido.
Non è il mondan romore altro ch'un fiato
di vento, ch'or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato.
Che voce avrai tu più, se vecchia scindi
da te la carne, che se fossi morto
anzi che tu lasciassi il 'pappo' e 'l 'dindi,'
pria che passin mill' anni? ch'è più corto
spazio a l'etterno, ch'un muover di ciglia
al cerchio che più tardi in cielo è torto.
Colui che del cammin sì poco piglia
dinanzi a me, Toscana sonò tutta;
e ora a pena in Siena sen pispiglia,
ond' era sire quando fu distrutta
la rabbia fiorentina, che superba
fu a quel tempo sì com' ora è putta.
La vostra nominanza è color d'erba,
che viene e va, e quei la discolora
per cui ella esce de la terra acerba.”
E io a lui: “Tuo vero dir m'incora
bona umiltà, e gran tumor m'appiani;
ma chi è quei di cui tu parlavi ora?”
“Quelli è,” rispuose, “Provenzan Salvani;
ed è qui perché fu presuntüoso
a recar Siena tutta a le sue mani.
Ito è così e va, sanza riposo,
poi che morì; cotal moneta rende
a sodisfar chi è di là troppo oso.”
E io: “Se quello spirito ch'attende,
pria che si penta, l'orlo de la vita,
qua giù dimora e qua sù non ascende,
se buona orazïon lui non aita,
prima che passi tempo quanto visse,
come fu la venuta lui largita?”
“Quando vivea più glorïoso,” disse,
“liberamente nel Campo di Siena,
ogne vergogna diposta, s'affisse;
e lì, per trar l'amico suo di pena,
ch'e' sostenea ne la prigion di Carlo,
si condusse a tremar per ogne vena.
Più non dirò, e scuro so che parlo;
ma poco tempo andrà, che ' tuoi vicini
faranno sì che tu potrai chiosarlo.
Quest' opera li tolse quei confini.”
"Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens,
Not circumscribed, but from the greater love
Thou bearest to the first effects on high,
Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence
By every creature, as befitting is
To render thanks to thy sweet effluence.
Come unto us the peace of thy dominion,
For unto it we cannot of ourselves,
If it come not, with all our intellect.
Even as thine own Angels of their will
Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing,
So may all men make sacrifice of theirs.
Give unto us this day our daily manna,
Withouten which in this rough wilderness
Backward goes he who toils most to advance.
And even as we the trespass we have suffered
Pardon in one another, pardon thou
Benignly, and regard not our desert.
Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome,
Put not to proof with the old Adversary,
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver.
This last petition verily, dear Lord,
Not for ourselves is made, who need it not,
But for their sake who have remained behind us."
Thus for themselves and us good furtherance
Those shades imploring, went beneath a weight
Like unto that of which we sometimes dream,
Unequally in anguish round and round
And weary all, upon that foremost cornice,
Purging away the smoke-stains of the world.
If there good words are always said for us,
What may not here be said and done for them,
By those who have a good root to their will?
Well may we help them wash away the marks
That hence they carried, so that clean and light
They may ascend unto the starry wheels!
"Ah! so may pity and justice you disburden
Soon, that ye may have power to move the wing,
That shall uplift you after your desire,
Show us on which hand tow'rd the stairs the way
Is shortest, and if more than one the passes,
Point us out that which least abruptly falls;
For he who cometh with me, through the burden
Of Adam's flesh wherewith he is invested,
Against his will is chary of his climbing."
The words of theirs which they returned to those
That he whom I was following had spoken,
It was not manifest from whom they came,
But it was said: "To the right hand come with us
Along the bank, and ye shall find a pass
Possible for living person to ascend.
And were I not impeded by the stone,
Which this proud neck of mine doth subjugate,
Whence I am forced to hold my visage down,
Him, who still lives and does not name himself,
Would I regard, to see if I may know him
And make him piteous unto this burden.
A Latian was I, and born of a great Tuscan;
Guglielmo Aldobrandeschi was my father;
I know not if his name were ever with you.
The ancient blood and deeds of gallantry
Of my progenitors so arrogant made me
That, thinking not upon the common mother,
All men I held in scorn to such extent
I died therefor, as know the Sienese,
And every child in Campagnatico.
I am Omberto; and not to me alone
Has pride done harm, but all my kith and kin
Has with it dragged into adversity.
And here must I this burden bear for it
Till God be satisfied, since I did not
Among the living, here among the dead."
Listening I downward bent my countenance;
And one of them, not this one who was speaking,
Twisted himself beneath the weight that cramps him,
And looked at me, and knew me, and called out,
Keeping his eyes laboriously fixed
On me, who all bowed down was going with them.
"O," asked I him, "art thou not Oderisi,
Agobbio's honour, and honour of that art
Which is in Paris called illuminating?"
"Brother," said he, "more laughing are the leaves
Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese;
All his the honour now, and mine in part.
In sooth I had not been so courteous
While I was living, for the great desire
Of excellence, on which my heart was bent.
Here of such pride is paid the forfeiture;
And yet I should not be here, were it not
That, having power to sin, I turned to God.
O thou vain glory of the human powers,
How little green upon thy summit lingers,
If't be not followed by an age of grossness!
In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim.
So has one Guido from the other taken
The glory of our tongue, and he perchance
Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both.
Naught is this mundane rumour but a breath
Of wind, that comes now this way and now that,
And changes name, because it changes side.
What fame shalt thou have more, if old peel off
From thee thy flesh, than if thou hadst been dead
Before thou left the 'pappo' and the 'dindi,'
Ere pass a thousand years? which is a shorter
Space to the eterne, than twinkling of an eye
Unto the circle that in heaven wheels slowest.
With him, who takes so little of the road
In front of me, all Tuscany resounded;
And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena,
Where he was lord, what time was overthrown
The Florentine delirium, that superb
Was at that day as now 'tis prostitute.
Your reputation is the colour of grass
Which comes and goes, and that discolours it
By which it issues green from out the earth."
And I: "Thy true speech fills my heart with good
Humility, and great tumour thou assuagest;
But who is he, of whom just now thou spakest?"
"That," he replied, "is Provenzan Salvani,
And he is here because he had presumed
To bring Siena all into his hands.
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest
E'er since he died; such money renders back
In payment he who is on earth too daring."
And I: "If every spirit who awaits
The verge of life before that he repent,
Remains below there and ascends not hither,
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,)
Until as much time as he lived be passed,
How was the coming granted him in largess?"
"When he in greatest splendour lived," said he,
"Freely upon the Campo of Siena,
All shame being laid aside, he placed himself;
And there to draw his friend from the duress
Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered,
He brought himself to tremble in each vein.
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly;
Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbours
Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it.
This action has released him from those confines."
As Singleton points out in his gloss (comm. to vv. 1-21), this is the only complete prayer recited in the entire poem. And, as Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to these lines) the three forms of expiation that are found on every terrace are prayer, suffering, and meditation (upon examples of their vice's opposing virtue and the vice itself). In this way the penitents attempt to accomplish their 'satisfaction' (see the note to Purg. XI.70-72) before God for each particular offense into which they have fallen. (It will eventually become clear [e.g., at Purg. XXIII.90] that not every sinner must purge every sin, although it is certainly possible that any given sinner would have sinned not only intrinsically but in fact in all seven categories.)
Dante's version of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is, as examination of the Vulgate reveals, an amalgam of the two passages, adapted so as to be particularly fit for the souls of those who are in essence saved but needful of purgation (as is made clear by vv. 22-24). It is clear that Dante is siding with those who have been involved in the vernacularization of the Bible, an activity fraught with danger in the late middle ages and early Renaissance. It is perhaps not coincidental that the prayer is composed of seven sentences in Matthew (six in Luke) to match the seven tercets devoted to its longer paraphrase in Dante. (The questions of the text of the Bible known to Dante and of his access to that text remain vital – and unanswered [see Angelo Penna, 'Bibbia' (ED.1970.1), pp. 626-27].)
Giacalone (comm. to these verses) was perhaps the first Italian glossator to point out that Dante's phrasing here ('laudato sia' [let your name be praised]... 'da ogne creatura' [by every creature]) is not a translation from the Gospels but rather reflects the refrain of Francis of Assisi's Laudes creaturarum. Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 159, cites Hermann Gmelin's commentary to this tercet (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]) for 'Laudato sie, mi' Signore, con tucte le tue creature' as reason for Dante's deformation of the Beatitude here. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 2-6 and 4-6) also point this out with some insistence, apparently unaware of Gmelin's or Giacalone's earlier observations. For possible earlier citations by Dante of Francis's poem see the note to Inferno I.26-27.
There is debate as to whether or not the Father is addressed as the Trinity or as Himself. Those who take the former position have apparent support in the word vapore (breath), which is often the sign of the Holy Spirit. Here, as some commentators, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 6) believe, Dante is thinking along the lines found in Wisdom (Sap. 7:25) where wisdom is described as 'vapor... virtutis Dei' (aura of the power of God). Since the prayer is, indeed, the Paternoster, it is only natural that it be addressed to the Father, with whatever (inevitable) trinitarian overtones.
According to St. Augustine (De doctrina II.xi), osanna and other Hebrew words of exclamation are never translated in the Latin Bible. (See Isidore of Seville on the untranslatability of interjections in the note to Purg. XXX.21.) This is the Hebrew word, used for a cry of joyful praise, most present in the Commedia, found a total of seven times (here and in Purg. XXIX.51; Par. VII.1; Par. VIII.29; Par. XXVIII.94 [in a verbal form]; Par. XXVIII.118; Par. XXXII.135).
The word cotidiana, a hapax, is clearly drawn from Luke (11:3): 'panem nostrum quotidianum' (our daily bread), and not from Matthew (6:11), where our bread is 'supersubstantialem' rather than 'quotidianum.'
We have heard (Purg. VII.58-60) that even souls in grace are capable of going downward and, while knowing that they will not as a result be 'unsaved,' nonetheless simply do not wish to move in a retrograde direction. Here the penitents of pride express a similar desire.
This last part of the adaptation is sung on behalf of earthly sinners, since those already on the mountain can no longer be overcome by Satan, as their earthly brethren all too easily are.
It is fair to say that no one is certain what the root of the word ramogna (translated here as 'safe haven') is or what it really means; see Manfredi Porena, “La parola più misteriosa della Divina Commedia,” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rendiconti, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 8, 1 (1946 [1947]), pp. 387-95, and Francesco Vagni's entry for the word (ED.1973.4, pp. 848-49). The early commentators mainly believed it meant a good journey, but on what authority one does not know. A plurality of modern commentators believe it means 'good wishes,' but it seems strange to argue that the souls are praying for good wishes, for that would come close to being a mere tautology. Our translation offers a variant of the earlier understanding.
The brief comparison equates the rocks carried by the penitents and our dreams of the incubus. The text of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) gives a passage in Virgil (Aen. XII.908-12) as offering an example of dreaming of suffocation under an enormous weight.
The souls are 'unequally distressed' because they carry variously weighted burdens.
This is, as it were, an indirect address to the reader, hoping that all of us 'whose wills have roots in good' will pray for these penitents as they indeed pray for us.
Virgil's single speech in this canto begins with a reprise of Trajan's climactic declaration of his willingness to help the widow, 'giustizia vuole e pietà mi ritene' (justice wills it and compassion bids me stay), at Purgatorio X.93. It is as though Virgil, remembering the 'visible speech' from the representation of Trajan's humility, had assumed these words worked wonders on Christian hearts, and now puts giustizia and pietà (found in the same verse only in these two scenes) to work on his and Dante's behalf.
The source of the words heard by the travelers is necessarily obscure, since the faces of all these souls are covered by the rocks that they bear upon their backs. At the same time it is morally appropriate that a penitent in pride must speak without identification, since pride is an insistence on the self, while this anonymity erases it. However, to argue that all are speaking together, as some do, is to miss the patent fact that only one soul is speaking (Purg. XI.52).
Stiffnecked pride was a frequent complaint about the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, particularly in Exodus (32:9, 33:3, 33:5, 34:9) and Deuteronomy (9:6, 9:13, 10:16, 31:27).
The speaker is Omberto Aldobrandesco, second son of Guglielmo Aldobrandesco (dead by 1256), count of Santafiora (see Purg. VI.111) and head of this powerful Ghibelline family. Omberto was murdered by Sienese Guelphs outside his fortified castle in 1259. He lays the fault for his death and the need for his current penance on his family's pride in its name, which made the Aldobrandeschi consider themselves better than others merely by fact of being Aldobrandeschi.
The reference to every fante in Campagnatico, Omberto's feudal holding with its castle where he died in battle, is variously interpreted. The word in Dante's Italian may mean (1) infantryman, (2) any man at all, especially one of the lower class, (3) a very young child. Most commentators support the third view (and we have followed them), but all three are potentially valid.
For the notion that this eleventh canto of the cantica is part of a program that is built on the number eleven's numerological significance as trangression (because it exceeds the Decalogue – the formulation is St. Augustine's), see Victoria Kirkham (“Eleven Is for Evil: Measured Trespass in Dante's Commedia,” Allegorica 10 [1989]), pp. 40-42.
Omberto is the first penitent in purgatory proper who speaks to the travelers (we have only heard penitential prayer until now) and his last words clearly identify the purpose of purgation in the process of absolution (for Dante, necessarily preceded by confession, contrition, and satisfaction – see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). What seems to be the case is that all those who have penance to perform on any particular terrace need precisely to give satisfaction (see the verb sodisfaccia in verse 71 [as Tozer in his prefatory note to this canto duly noted]) before God for their transgressions on earth. This implies that others, those who do not need to do penance on a particular terrace, either were without that sin or else had given satisfaction while they were still alive. This is the view taken by Nicola Fosca in his unpublished commentary, portions of which he has kindly made available to this writer.
Porena (comm. to Purg. IX.112-114) also says that the penitence observed on the mountain is the form that satisfactio operis takes in these eventually redeemed souls.
Dante's bending down his face is a natural action taken in order to see his interlocutor's face, yet it, too, reveals a moral significance (see the note to vv. 46-48), as the protagonist's own words will later confirm (Purg. XIII.136-138), when he will admit that, once he returns to the mountain in the next life, his head will be lowered under the same load he now is able to observe upon the backs of others.
The next penitent is apparently less heavily weighted (and thus less burdened by pride) than Omberto, since he is able to move a little under his rock and thus twist his neck enough to get a glance at the features of Dante, now conveniently lowered by his desire to make out Omberto. As a result, Dante recognizes him.
Where the first penitent was still deeply involved in the feelings of the family pride that had afflicted him so greatly on earth, the next will represent all those who are prideful in their accomplishments (in this case, artistic ones); and we will see that he is more advanced in his penitence than Omberto.
Oderisi d'Agobbio (contemporary Gubbio) is praised by Dante as the great Italian master of the art of illuminating manuscripts, an art particularly associated with the French and with Paris.
Oderisi deflects Dante's compliment, thus showing that his pride is at least greatly abated (if not utterly vanquished – see verse 84). What is at stake here is artistic merit, not the cry of the vulgar, a subject that will be before us within ten lines. What Oderisi can now admit is that, as good as he was at illuminating, in his own opinion Franco of Bologna was superior to him in his craftsmanship – a truth that he knew but never would have permitted himself to admit during his emulous life on earth. It is interesting that Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 82-88) says that, from the examples he has seen, Franco really was a better illuminator. By being willing to share the honor with Franco (this is exactly the burden of Purg. XIV.86-87, the words of Guido del Duca: 'O race of men, why do you set your hearts / on things that of necessity cannot be shared?'), Oderisi shows himself now different from the man bent on his own excelling to the cost of all others.
Little is known of Franco, who apparently lived until about 1310.
If Oderisi was known by Dante to have died in 1299, he certainly had made his way up the mountain quickly, apparently spending very little time in ante-purgatory. Compare the case of Forese (Purg. XXIII.76-90), the most detailed information we are given in this cantica about passing over certain terraces on the way toward the summit. And see the note to Purgatorio XI.127-132.
Oderisi, nonetheless, must have reformed his ways very early, since the late-repentant spend equal time in ante-purgatory as they did while they were unrepentant on earth. Or perhaps Dante thought or knew that he had died earlier than we think.
Oderisi's outburst subtly changes the topic of his discourse from human talent and ability to its reception among other human beings. Where before he had spoken of Franco's honor, he now bewails the emptiness of these same talents as recipients of the praise conferred by fame.
The phrase 'com' poco verde in su la cima dura' (literally: how briefly lasts the green upon the top) has never been adequately explained. What object does the poet have in mind for the noun cima? Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994], pp. 35-48) has argued, citing its next use in the poem, Purgatorio XV.13, where it refers to Dante's forehead, the space above his eyebrows, that it refers to exactly that part of our physiognomy here and that the green is the green of the laurel. The language of the passage, which addresses the question of the brief limits of fame unless a 'dark age' allows fame to continue for longer than it usually does (by not producing other 'winners' quickly), seems clearly to reflect exactly such a concern – one that was not far, as we know from Paradiso XXV.1-9, from this poet's mind.
Giovanni Cimabue (1240 ca.-1308) was a highly praised Florentine painter. His pupil, Giotto di Bondone (1267 ca.-1337), is given credit by art historians for changing the nature of Italian painting, moving from the 'flat' tradition to 'roundness,' representations that seemed more realistic than anything seen before him. (In this vein see Boccaccio's treatment of him in Decameron VI.v.5)
The notion that Dante is in this passage putting Giotto's art ahead of Cimabue's is baseless, though widespread. Dante may himself have admired Giotto's painting more than Cimabue's, but that is not the point here. All that Oderisi is saying is that, in accord with what he has just said about fame being brief unless a dark age assures the last 'laureate' his continuing green reward, Cimabue had the public's cry but now Giotto has it. There is no evaluation of the relative worth of the work of these two masters stated or implied (see Hollander [“Dante's Self-Laureation (Purgatorio XI, 92),” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 (1994)], pp. 41-42).
Moving his attention from painting to poetry, Oderisi says the same thing about Guido Guinizzelli (1225 ca.-1276) and Guido Cavalcanti (1250 ca.-1300): one held the highest place in the public's esteem until the other displaced him. A problem here arises from Dante's use of the noun gloria, which can mean 'reputation, fame' in the vulgar sense, or 'just renown for great deeds,' or 'heavenly glory' (as in the experience of paradise). The word occurs some 22 times in the poem and has this first meaning less frequently than it has either of the other two, e.g., in Inferno III.42, where it is explained that the neutral angels are not in hell lest they be placed lower than the rebel angels, who might then have 'boasting rights' over them. But the word has just been used in its most negative form seven lines earlier: the 'vana gloria' that prompts our desire for fame. In this reading, the more recent Guido (Cavalcanti) has taken the public's laurel from Guinizzelli.
For those, beginning with Guido Di Pino (“Il canto dantesco dei due Guidi,” in Studi in onore di Alberto Chiari [Brescia: Paideia, 1973], pp. 419-35), who believe that the first of the two Guidos is the poet Guittone d'Arezzo (1240 ca.-1294) and the second Guido Guinizzelli (1230 ca.-1276), see Marcello Ciccuto (“Dante e Bonagiunta: reperti allusivi nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” Lettere Italiane 34 [1982]), pp. 390-91, for discussion and bibliography. See also Picone («Vita Nuova» e tradizione romanza [Padova, Liviana, 1979]), p. 32n., accepting Di Pino's hypothesis, and then supporting it still more strongly on the heels of Guglielmo Gorni, “Guittone e Dante,” in Guittone d'Arezzo nel settimo centenario della morte: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Arezzo (22-24 aprile 1994), ed. M. Picone (Florence: Franco Cesati, 1995), pp. 326-34. This argument needs to confront at least one major problem: Dante twice refers to Guittone by name in the Commedia (Purg. XXIV.56 and Purg. XXVI.124); for him to have chosen to do so under another (and Latinate) form of that name (Guido), as they contend, is a proposition extremely difficult to accept. For still other reasons not to believe that the reference is to Guittone see Barolini (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), p. 128n., and, still more tellingly, Durling (“'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 320 (n. 44). It is also difficult to believe that the older poet had chased the younger 'from the nest,' for even if they were no more than ten years apart in age, Guido is generally thought of as the elder of the two, both literally and morally.
While there is still some dispute about the reference, most now agree that Dante is clearly pointing to himself as the one who will in turn replace Cavalcanti in the 'nest' of the public's admiration.
Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 163, thinks Oderisi predicts Dante's 'triumph' here and believes that Dante meant us to take from his words the understanding that he believes pride a necessary and positive aspect of his own ingegno and not entirely to be dispraised. To medieval readers this would surely have seemed an inappropriate reading. On the other hand, recent modern readers, with whose work Stierle seems not to be acquainted, have tried to make essentially the same case: Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 133-37, and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 135-78. For a response see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), pp. 35-48.
Oderisi's moralizing is pungent and clear: earthly fame is not worth even a moment's affection. It is difficult to justify any positive role for earthly fame in light of these forceful words. For the relationship blink of an eye:completion of a Great Year (36,000 years)::one thousand years:eternity, which yields a rough trillion one hundred and thirty-five billion years of Dante's eternally being forgotten, see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), p. 47.
These are babytalk words for bread (pappo = pane) and money (dindi = denaro).
Without as yet naming him, Oderisi tells the cautionary tale of Provenzan Salvani, 'prominent Ghibelline of Siena, born c. 1220. His family, the Salvani were descendants of the Cacciaconti, feudal lords of Scialenga. Provenzano's father, Ildebrando, and his paternal grandfather, Salvano (who gave his name to his descendants), were both prominent Ghibellines. Provenzan himself begins to appear in the records in 1247..., and from 1249 his political activities can be followed fairly well. After the Battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260) he was virtual dictator of Siena, and it was he who at the Council of Empoli after the battle advocated the destruction of Florence, which was averted by the firmness and patriotism of Farinata (Inf. x.91). He was podestà of Montepulciano in 1261 and was elected podestà of Arezzo in 1262-1263, but did not serve; but after the Battle of Benevento (Feb. 1265/6) his power, along with that of the Ghibellines generally, was on the wane. He met his death in an engagement with the Florentines at Colle, in Valdelsa, June 11, 1269, when he was taken prisoner and beheaded' (Toynbee, “Provenzan Salvani” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is curious that, of these two great Ghibelline leaders, Dante has condemned Farinata (who saved the city) to hell and saved Provenzan (who wanted to destroy it).
For the biblical passages that underlie this image of the fleetingness of grass as being similar to human ambitions in this life, see the Old Testament (Isaiah 28:4, 38:27, 40:6; Psalm 89:6 [90:5-6]), as noted by Tommaseo in his commentary to these verses.
This is Dante's first and not last (see Purg. XIII.133-138) admission of his pridefulness.
Here again is the word sodisfar. See the note to Purgatorio XI.70-72. Provenzan is completing his satisfactio operis before Dante's eyes, so intent on it that he is not allowed a speaking part, but has Oderisi as his mouthpiece.
If Provenzan died in 1269 and was (as is obvious) more than 31 years old when he died, the protagonist wants to know how, if the sentence in ante-purgatory is a year for each year spent in failure to repent and if Provenzan apparently, from Oderisi's narrative, died in his presumption, he can have come up here so quickly. We should remember that Dante was not surprised (see the note to Purg. XI.88-90) at Oderisi's quick advent (perhaps less than a year separating his death and his arrival), somehow understanding that Oderisi had purged his pride quite early in his life and chosen to live for God. Why Dante might have thought so is not known.
Oderisi's third speech, devoted to Provenzan, shows Dante that, in his lifetime, Provenzan had come to grips with his pride.
The phrasing here has its roots in – is indeed a translation of – a passage in Bonaventure's life of St. Francis, the Legenda maior (II.7), 'omni deposita verecundia,' where Francis, setting aside all shame, becomes a mendicant. The attribution, which seems undeniable, has made its way into the commentary tradition over the last one hundred years, often unassigned, although some trace it back to Panzacchi's lectura of 1901. However, Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 121-142) and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), p. 177 (n. 55), give credit to Passerini in 1898.
And just as Provenzan humbled himself in public by his own volition, Dante will have humility thrust upon him by his own people when the Black Guelphs will exile him from Florence in 1302. For the predictions of Dante's personal fortunes in the poem see the note to Inferno VI.64-66.
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“O Padre nostro, che ne' cieli stai,
non circunscritto, ma per più amore
ch'ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai,
laudato sia 'l tuo nome e 'l tuo valore
da ogne creatura, com' è degno
di render grazie al tuo dolce vapore.
Vegna ver' noi la pace del tuo regno,
ché noi ad essa non potem da noi,
s'ella non vien, con tutto nostro ingegno.
Come del suo voler li angeli tuoi
fan sacrificio a te, cantando osanna,
così facciano li uomini de' suoi.
Dà oggi a noi la cotidiana manna,
sanza la qual per questo aspro diserto
a retro va chi più di gir s'affanna.
E come noi lo mal ch'avem sofferto
perdoniamo a ciascuno, e tu perdona
benigno, e non guardar lo nostro merto.
Nostra virtù che di legger s'adona,
non spermentar con l'antico avversaro,
ma libera da lui che sì la sprona.
Quest' ultima preghiera, segnor caro,
già non si fa per noi, ché non bisogna,
ma per color che dietro a noi restaro.”
Così a sé e noi buona ramogna
quell' ombre orando, andavan sotto 'l pondo,
simile a quel che talvolta si sogna,
disparmente angosciate tutte a tondo
e lasse su per la prima cornice,
purgando la caligine del mondo.
Se di là sempre ben per noi si dice,
di qua che dire e far per lor si puote
da quei c'hanno al voler buona radice?
Ben si de' loro atar lavar le note
che portar quinci, sì che, mondi e lievi,
possano uscire a le stellate ruote.
“Deh, se giustizia e pietà vi disgrievi
tosto, sì che possiate muover l'ala,
che secondo il disio vostro vi lievi,
mostrate da qual mano inver' la scala
si va più corto; e se c'è più d'un varco,
quel ne 'nsegnate che men erto cala;
ché questi che vien meco, per lo 'ncarco
de la carne d'Adamo onde si veste,
al montar sù, contra sua voglia, è parco.”
Le lor parole, che rendero a queste
che dette avea colui cu' io seguiva,
non fur da cui venisser manifeste;
ma fu detto: “A man destra per la riva
con noi venite, e troverete il passo
possibile a salir persona viva.
E s'io non fossi impedito dal sasso
che la cervice mia superba doma,
onde portar convienmi il viso basso,
cotesti, ch'ancor vive e non si noma,
guardere' io, per veder s'i' 'l conosco,
e per farlo pietoso a questa soma.
Io fui latino e nato d'un gran Tosco:
Guiglielmo Aldobrandesco fu mio padre;
non so se 'l nome suo già mai fu vosco.
L'antico sangue e l'opere leggiadre
d'i miei maggior mi fer sì arrogante,
che, non pensando a la comune madre,
ogn' uomo ebbi in despetto tanto avante,
ch'io ne mori', come i Sanesi sanno,
e sallo in Campagnatico ogne fante.
Io sono Omberto; e non pur a me danno
superbia fa, ché tutti miei consorti
ha ella tratti seco nel malanno.
E qui convien ch'io questo peso porti
per lei, tanto che a Dio si sodisfaccia,
poi ch'io nol fe' tra ' vivi, qui tra ' morti.”
Ascoltando chinai in giù la faccia;
e un di lor, non questi che parlava,
si torse sotto il peso che li 'mpaccia,
e videmi e conobbemi e chiamava,
tenendo li occhi con fatica fisi
a me che tutto chin con loro andava.
“Oh!” diss'io lui, “non se' tu Oderisi,
l'onor d'Agobbio e l'onor di quell' arte
ch'alluminar chiamata è in Parisi?”
“Frate,” diss' elli, “più ridon le carte
che pennelleggia Franco Bolognese;
l'onore è tutto or suo, e mio in parte.
Ben non sare' io stato sì cortese
mentre ch'io vissi, per lo gran disio
de l'eccellenza ove mio core intese.
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio;
e ancor non sarei qui, se non fosse
che, possendo peccar, mi volsi a Dio.
Oh vana gloria de l'umane posse!
com' poco verde in su la cima dura,
se non è giunta da l'etati grosse!
Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,
sì che la fama di colui è scura.
Così ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà del nido.
Non è il mondan romore altro ch'un fiato
di vento, ch'or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato.
Che voce avrai tu più, se vecchia scindi
da te la carne, che se fossi morto
anzi che tu lasciassi il 'pappo' e 'l 'dindi,'
pria che passin mill' anni? ch'è più corto
spazio a l'etterno, ch'un muover di ciglia
al cerchio che più tardi in cielo è torto.
Colui che del cammin sì poco piglia
dinanzi a me, Toscana sonò tutta;
e ora a pena in Siena sen pispiglia,
ond' era sire quando fu distrutta
la rabbia fiorentina, che superba
fu a quel tempo sì com' ora è putta.
La vostra nominanza è color d'erba,
che viene e va, e quei la discolora
per cui ella esce de la terra acerba.”
E io a lui: “Tuo vero dir m'incora
bona umiltà, e gran tumor m'appiani;
ma chi è quei di cui tu parlavi ora?”
“Quelli è,” rispuose, “Provenzan Salvani;
ed è qui perché fu presuntüoso
a recar Siena tutta a le sue mani.
Ito è così e va, sanza riposo,
poi che morì; cotal moneta rende
a sodisfar chi è di là troppo oso.”
E io: “Se quello spirito ch'attende,
pria che si penta, l'orlo de la vita,
qua giù dimora e qua sù non ascende,
se buona orazïon lui non aita,
prima che passi tempo quanto visse,
come fu la venuta lui largita?”
“Quando vivea più glorïoso,” disse,
“liberamente nel Campo di Siena,
ogne vergogna diposta, s'affisse;
e lì, per trar l'amico suo di pena,
ch'e' sostenea ne la prigion di Carlo,
si condusse a tremar per ogne vena.
Più non dirò, e scuro so che parlo;
ma poco tempo andrà, che ' tuoi vicini
faranno sì che tu potrai chiosarlo.
Quest' opera li tolse quei confini.”
"Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens,
Not circumscribed, but from the greater love
Thou bearest to the first effects on high,
Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence
By every creature, as befitting is
To render thanks to thy sweet effluence.
Come unto us the peace of thy dominion,
For unto it we cannot of ourselves,
If it come not, with all our intellect.
Even as thine own Angels of their will
Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing,
So may all men make sacrifice of theirs.
Give unto us this day our daily manna,
Withouten which in this rough wilderness
Backward goes he who toils most to advance.
And even as we the trespass we have suffered
Pardon in one another, pardon thou
Benignly, and regard not our desert.
Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome,
Put not to proof with the old Adversary,
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver.
This last petition verily, dear Lord,
Not for ourselves is made, who need it not,
But for their sake who have remained behind us."
Thus for themselves and us good furtherance
Those shades imploring, went beneath a weight
Like unto that of which we sometimes dream,
Unequally in anguish round and round
And weary all, upon that foremost cornice,
Purging away the smoke-stains of the world.
If there good words are always said for us,
What may not here be said and done for them,
By those who have a good root to their will?
Well may we help them wash away the marks
That hence they carried, so that clean and light
They may ascend unto the starry wheels!
"Ah! so may pity and justice you disburden
Soon, that ye may have power to move the wing,
That shall uplift you after your desire,
Show us on which hand tow'rd the stairs the way
Is shortest, and if more than one the passes,
Point us out that which least abruptly falls;
For he who cometh with me, through the burden
Of Adam's flesh wherewith he is invested,
Against his will is chary of his climbing."
The words of theirs which they returned to those
That he whom I was following had spoken,
It was not manifest from whom they came,
But it was said: "To the right hand come with us
Along the bank, and ye shall find a pass
Possible for living person to ascend.
And were I not impeded by the stone,
Which this proud neck of mine doth subjugate,
Whence I am forced to hold my visage down,
Him, who still lives and does not name himself,
Would I regard, to see if I may know him
And make him piteous unto this burden.
A Latian was I, and born of a great Tuscan;
Guglielmo Aldobrandeschi was my father;
I know not if his name were ever with you.
The ancient blood and deeds of gallantry
Of my progenitors so arrogant made me
That, thinking not upon the common mother,
All men I held in scorn to such extent
I died therefor, as know the Sienese,
And every child in Campagnatico.
I am Omberto; and not to me alone
Has pride done harm, but all my kith and kin
Has with it dragged into adversity.
And here must I this burden bear for it
Till God be satisfied, since I did not
Among the living, here among the dead."
Listening I downward bent my countenance;
And one of them, not this one who was speaking,
Twisted himself beneath the weight that cramps him,
And looked at me, and knew me, and called out,
Keeping his eyes laboriously fixed
On me, who all bowed down was going with them.
"O," asked I him, "art thou not Oderisi,
Agobbio's honour, and honour of that art
Which is in Paris called illuminating?"
"Brother," said he, "more laughing are the leaves
Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese;
All his the honour now, and mine in part.
In sooth I had not been so courteous
While I was living, for the great desire
Of excellence, on which my heart was bent.
Here of such pride is paid the forfeiture;
And yet I should not be here, were it not
That, having power to sin, I turned to God.
O thou vain glory of the human powers,
How little green upon thy summit lingers,
If't be not followed by an age of grossness!
In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim.
So has one Guido from the other taken
The glory of our tongue, and he perchance
Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both.
Naught is this mundane rumour but a breath
Of wind, that comes now this way and now that,
And changes name, because it changes side.
What fame shalt thou have more, if old peel off
From thee thy flesh, than if thou hadst been dead
Before thou left the 'pappo' and the 'dindi,'
Ere pass a thousand years? which is a shorter
Space to the eterne, than twinkling of an eye
Unto the circle that in heaven wheels slowest.
With him, who takes so little of the road
In front of me, all Tuscany resounded;
And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena,
Where he was lord, what time was overthrown
The Florentine delirium, that superb
Was at that day as now 'tis prostitute.
Your reputation is the colour of grass
Which comes and goes, and that discolours it
By which it issues green from out the earth."
And I: "Thy true speech fills my heart with good
Humility, and great tumour thou assuagest;
But who is he, of whom just now thou spakest?"
"That," he replied, "is Provenzan Salvani,
And he is here because he had presumed
To bring Siena all into his hands.
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest
E'er since he died; such money renders back
In payment he who is on earth too daring."
And I: "If every spirit who awaits
The verge of life before that he repent,
Remains below there and ascends not hither,
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,)
Until as much time as he lived be passed,
How was the coming granted him in largess?"
"When he in greatest splendour lived," said he,
"Freely upon the Campo of Siena,
All shame being laid aside, he placed himself;
And there to draw his friend from the duress
Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered,
He brought himself to tremble in each vein.
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly;
Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbours
Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it.
This action has released him from those confines."
As Singleton points out in his gloss (comm. to vv. 1-21), this is the only complete prayer recited in the entire poem. And, as Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to these lines) the three forms of expiation that are found on every terrace are prayer, suffering, and meditation (upon examples of their vice's opposing virtue and the vice itself). In this way the penitents attempt to accomplish their 'satisfaction' (see the note to Purg. XI.70-72) before God for each particular offense into which they have fallen. (It will eventually become clear [e.g., at Purg. XXIII.90] that not every sinner must purge every sin, although it is certainly possible that any given sinner would have sinned not only intrinsically but in fact in all seven categories.)
Dante's version of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is, as examination of the Vulgate reveals, an amalgam of the two passages, adapted so as to be particularly fit for the souls of those who are in essence saved but needful of purgation (as is made clear by vv. 22-24). It is clear that Dante is siding with those who have been involved in the vernacularization of the Bible, an activity fraught with danger in the late middle ages and early Renaissance. It is perhaps not coincidental that the prayer is composed of seven sentences in Matthew (six in Luke) to match the seven tercets devoted to its longer paraphrase in Dante. (The questions of the text of the Bible known to Dante and of his access to that text remain vital – and unanswered [see Angelo Penna, 'Bibbia' (ED.1970.1), pp. 626-27].)
Giacalone (comm. to these verses) was perhaps the first Italian glossator to point out that Dante's phrasing here ('laudato sia' [let your name be praised]... 'da ogne creatura' [by every creature]) is not a translation from the Gospels but rather reflects the refrain of Francis of Assisi's Laudes creaturarum. Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 159, cites Hermann Gmelin's commentary to this tercet (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]) for 'Laudato sie, mi' Signore, con tucte le tue creature' as reason for Dante's deformation of the Beatitude here. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 2-6 and 4-6) also point this out with some insistence, apparently unaware of Gmelin's or Giacalone's earlier observations. For possible earlier citations by Dante of Francis's poem see the note to Inferno I.26-27.
There is debate as to whether or not the Father is addressed as the Trinity or as Himself. Those who take the former position have apparent support in the word vapore (breath), which is often the sign of the Holy Spirit. Here, as some commentators, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 6) believe, Dante is thinking along the lines found in Wisdom (Sap. 7:25) where wisdom is described as 'vapor... virtutis Dei' (aura of the power of God). Since the prayer is, indeed, the Paternoster, it is only natural that it be addressed to the Father, with whatever (inevitable) trinitarian overtones.
According to St. Augustine (De doctrina II.xi), osanna and other Hebrew words of exclamation are never translated in the Latin Bible. (See Isidore of Seville on the untranslatability of interjections in the note to Purg. XXX.21.) This is the Hebrew word, used for a cry of joyful praise, most present in the Commedia, found a total of seven times (here and in Purg. XXIX.51; Par. VII.1; Par. VIII.29; Par. XXVIII.94 [in a verbal form]; Par. XXVIII.118; Par. XXXII.135).
The word cotidiana, a hapax, is clearly drawn from Luke (11:3): 'panem nostrum quotidianum' (our daily bread), and not from Matthew (6:11), where our bread is 'supersubstantialem' rather than 'quotidianum.'
We have heard (Purg. VII.58-60) that even souls in grace are capable of going downward and, while knowing that they will not as a result be 'unsaved,' nonetheless simply do not wish to move in a retrograde direction. Here the penitents of pride express a similar desire.
This last part of the adaptation is sung on behalf of earthly sinners, since those already on the mountain can no longer be overcome by Satan, as their earthly brethren all too easily are.
It is fair to say that no one is certain what the root of the word ramogna (translated here as 'safe haven') is or what it really means; see Manfredi Porena, “La parola più misteriosa della Divina Commedia,” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rendiconti, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 8, 1 (1946 [1947]), pp. 387-95, and Francesco Vagni's entry for the word (ED.1973.4, pp. 848-49). The early commentators mainly believed it meant a good journey, but on what authority one does not know. A plurality of modern commentators believe it means 'good wishes,' but it seems strange to argue that the souls are praying for good wishes, for that would come close to being a mere tautology. Our translation offers a variant of the earlier understanding.
The brief comparison equates the rocks carried by the penitents and our dreams of the incubus. The text of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) gives a passage in Virgil (Aen. XII.908-12) as offering an example of dreaming of suffocation under an enormous weight.
The souls are 'unequally distressed' because they carry variously weighted burdens.
This is, as it were, an indirect address to the reader, hoping that all of us 'whose wills have roots in good' will pray for these penitents as they indeed pray for us.
Virgil's single speech in this canto begins with a reprise of Trajan's climactic declaration of his willingness to help the widow, 'giustizia vuole e pietà mi ritene' (justice wills it and compassion bids me stay), at Purgatorio X.93. It is as though Virgil, remembering the 'visible speech' from the representation of Trajan's humility, had assumed these words worked wonders on Christian hearts, and now puts giustizia and pietà (found in the same verse only in these two scenes) to work on his and Dante's behalf.
The source of the words heard by the travelers is necessarily obscure, since the faces of all these souls are covered by the rocks that they bear upon their backs. At the same time it is morally appropriate that a penitent in pride must speak without identification, since pride is an insistence on the self, while this anonymity erases it. However, to argue that all are speaking together, as some do, is to miss the patent fact that only one soul is speaking (Purg. XI.52).
Stiffnecked pride was a frequent complaint about the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, particularly in Exodus (32:9, 33:3, 33:5, 34:9) and Deuteronomy (9:6, 9:13, 10:16, 31:27).
The speaker is Omberto Aldobrandesco, second son of Guglielmo Aldobrandesco (dead by 1256), count of Santafiora (see Purg. VI.111) and head of this powerful Ghibelline family. Omberto was murdered by Sienese Guelphs outside his fortified castle in 1259. He lays the fault for his death and the need for his current penance on his family's pride in its name, which made the Aldobrandeschi consider themselves better than others merely by fact of being Aldobrandeschi.
The reference to every fante in Campagnatico, Omberto's feudal holding with its castle where he died in battle, is variously interpreted. The word in Dante's Italian may mean (1) infantryman, (2) any man at all, especially one of the lower class, (3) a very young child. Most commentators support the third view (and we have followed them), but all three are potentially valid.
For the notion that this eleventh canto of the cantica is part of a program that is built on the number eleven's numerological significance as trangression (because it exceeds the Decalogue – the formulation is St. Augustine's), see Victoria Kirkham (“Eleven Is for Evil: Measured Trespass in Dante's Commedia,” Allegorica 10 [1989]), pp. 40-42.
Omberto is the first penitent in purgatory proper who speaks to the travelers (we have only heard penitential prayer until now) and his last words clearly identify the purpose of purgation in the process of absolution (for Dante, necessarily preceded by confession, contrition, and satisfaction – see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). What seems to be the case is that all those who have penance to perform on any particular terrace need precisely to give satisfaction (see the verb sodisfaccia in verse 71 [as Tozer in his prefatory note to this canto duly noted]) before God for their transgressions on earth. This implies that others, those who do not need to do penance on a particular terrace, either were without that sin or else had given satisfaction while they were still alive. This is the view taken by Nicola Fosca in his unpublished commentary, portions of which he has kindly made available to this writer.
Porena (comm. to Purg. IX.112-114) also says that the penitence observed on the mountain is the form that satisfactio operis takes in these eventually redeemed souls.
Dante's bending down his face is a natural action taken in order to see his interlocutor's face, yet it, too, reveals a moral significance (see the note to vv. 46-48), as the protagonist's own words will later confirm (Purg. XIII.136-138), when he will admit that, once he returns to the mountain in the next life, his head will be lowered under the same load he now is able to observe upon the backs of others.
The next penitent is apparently less heavily weighted (and thus less burdened by pride) than Omberto, since he is able to move a little under his rock and thus twist his neck enough to get a glance at the features of Dante, now conveniently lowered by his desire to make out Omberto. As a result, Dante recognizes him.
Where the first penitent was still deeply involved in the feelings of the family pride that had afflicted him so greatly on earth, the next will represent all those who are prideful in their accomplishments (in this case, artistic ones); and we will see that he is more advanced in his penitence than Omberto.
Oderisi d'Agobbio (contemporary Gubbio) is praised by Dante as the great Italian master of the art of illuminating manuscripts, an art particularly associated with the French and with Paris.
Oderisi deflects Dante's compliment, thus showing that his pride is at least greatly abated (if not utterly vanquished – see verse 84). What is at stake here is artistic merit, not the cry of the vulgar, a subject that will be before us within ten lines. What Oderisi can now admit is that, as good as he was at illuminating, in his own opinion Franco of Bologna was superior to him in his craftsmanship – a truth that he knew but never would have permitted himself to admit during his emulous life on earth. It is interesting that Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 82-88) says that, from the examples he has seen, Franco really was a better illuminator. By being willing to share the honor with Franco (this is exactly the burden of Purg. XIV.86-87, the words of Guido del Duca: 'O race of men, why do you set your hearts / on things that of necessity cannot be shared?'), Oderisi shows himself now different from the man bent on his own excelling to the cost of all others.
Little is known of Franco, who apparently lived until about 1310.
If Oderisi was known by Dante to have died in 1299, he certainly had made his way up the mountain quickly, apparently spending very little time in ante-purgatory. Compare the case of Forese (Purg. XXIII.76-90), the most detailed information we are given in this cantica about passing over certain terraces on the way toward the summit. And see the note to Purgatorio XI.127-132.
Oderisi, nonetheless, must have reformed his ways very early, since the late-repentant spend equal time in ante-purgatory as they did while they were unrepentant on earth. Or perhaps Dante thought or knew that he had died earlier than we think.
Oderisi's outburst subtly changes the topic of his discourse from human talent and ability to its reception among other human beings. Where before he had spoken of Franco's honor, he now bewails the emptiness of these same talents as recipients of the praise conferred by fame.
The phrase 'com' poco verde in su la cima dura' (literally: how briefly lasts the green upon the top) has never been adequately explained. What object does the poet have in mind for the noun cima? Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994], pp. 35-48) has argued, citing its next use in the poem, Purgatorio XV.13, where it refers to Dante's forehead, the space above his eyebrows, that it refers to exactly that part of our physiognomy here and that the green is the green of the laurel. The language of the passage, which addresses the question of the brief limits of fame unless a 'dark age' allows fame to continue for longer than it usually does (by not producing other 'winners' quickly), seems clearly to reflect exactly such a concern – one that was not far, as we know from Paradiso XXV.1-9, from this poet's mind.
Giovanni Cimabue (1240 ca.-1308) was a highly praised Florentine painter. His pupil, Giotto di Bondone (1267 ca.-1337), is given credit by art historians for changing the nature of Italian painting, moving from the 'flat' tradition to 'roundness,' representations that seemed more realistic than anything seen before him. (In this vein see Boccaccio's treatment of him in Decameron VI.v.5)
The notion that Dante is in this passage putting Giotto's art ahead of Cimabue's is baseless, though widespread. Dante may himself have admired Giotto's painting more than Cimabue's, but that is not the point here. All that Oderisi is saying is that, in accord with what he has just said about fame being brief unless a dark age assures the last 'laureate' his continuing green reward, Cimabue had the public's cry but now Giotto has it. There is no evaluation of the relative worth of the work of these two masters stated or implied (see Hollander [“Dante's Self-Laureation (Purgatorio XI, 92),” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 (1994)], pp. 41-42).
Moving his attention from painting to poetry, Oderisi says the same thing about Guido Guinizzelli (1225 ca.-1276) and Guido Cavalcanti (1250 ca.-1300): one held the highest place in the public's esteem until the other displaced him. A problem here arises from Dante's use of the noun gloria, which can mean 'reputation, fame' in the vulgar sense, or 'just renown for great deeds,' or 'heavenly glory' (as in the experience of paradise). The word occurs some 22 times in the poem and has this first meaning less frequently than it has either of the other two, e.g., in Inferno III.42, where it is explained that the neutral angels are not in hell lest they be placed lower than the rebel angels, who might then have 'boasting rights' over them. But the word has just been used in its most negative form seven lines earlier: the 'vana gloria' that prompts our desire for fame. In this reading, the more recent Guido (Cavalcanti) has taken the public's laurel from Guinizzelli.
For those, beginning with Guido Di Pino (“Il canto dantesco dei due Guidi,” in Studi in onore di Alberto Chiari [Brescia: Paideia, 1973], pp. 419-35), who believe that the first of the two Guidos is the poet Guittone d'Arezzo (1240 ca.-1294) and the second Guido Guinizzelli (1230 ca.-1276), see Marcello Ciccuto (“Dante e Bonagiunta: reperti allusivi nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” Lettere Italiane 34 [1982]), pp. 390-91, for discussion and bibliography. See also Picone («Vita Nuova» e tradizione romanza [Padova, Liviana, 1979]), p. 32n., accepting Di Pino's hypothesis, and then supporting it still more strongly on the heels of Guglielmo Gorni, “Guittone e Dante,” in Guittone d'Arezzo nel settimo centenario della morte: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Arezzo (22-24 aprile 1994), ed. M. Picone (Florence: Franco Cesati, 1995), pp. 326-34. This argument needs to confront at least one major problem: Dante twice refers to Guittone by name in the Commedia (Purg. XXIV.56 and Purg. XXVI.124); for him to have chosen to do so under another (and Latinate) form of that name (Guido), as they contend, is a proposition extremely difficult to accept. For still other reasons not to believe that the reference is to Guittone see Barolini (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), p. 128n., and, still more tellingly, Durling (“'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 320 (n. 44). It is also difficult to believe that the older poet had chased the younger 'from the nest,' for even if they were no more than ten years apart in age, Guido is generally thought of as the elder of the two, both literally and morally.
While there is still some dispute about the reference, most now agree that Dante is clearly pointing to himself as the one who will in turn replace Cavalcanti in the 'nest' of the public's admiration.
Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 163, thinks Oderisi predicts Dante's 'triumph' here and believes that Dante meant us to take from his words the understanding that he believes pride a necessary and positive aspect of his own ingegno and not entirely to be dispraised. To medieval readers this would surely have seemed an inappropriate reading. On the other hand, recent modern readers, with whose work Stierle seems not to be acquainted, have tried to make essentially the same case: Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 133-37, and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 135-78. For a response see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), pp. 35-48.
Oderisi's moralizing is pungent and clear: earthly fame is not worth even a moment's affection. It is difficult to justify any positive role for earthly fame in light of these forceful words. For the relationship blink of an eye:completion of a Great Year (36,000 years)::one thousand years:eternity, which yields a rough trillion one hundred and thirty-five billion years of Dante's eternally being forgotten, see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), p. 47.
These are babytalk words for bread (pappo = pane) and money (dindi = denaro).
Without as yet naming him, Oderisi tells the cautionary tale of Provenzan Salvani, 'prominent Ghibelline of Siena, born c. 1220. His family, the Salvani were descendants of the Cacciaconti, feudal lords of Scialenga. Provenzano's father, Ildebrando, and his paternal grandfather, Salvano (who gave his name to his descendants), were both prominent Ghibellines. Provenzan himself begins to appear in the records in 1247..., and from 1249 his political activities can be followed fairly well. After the Battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260) he was virtual dictator of Siena, and it was he who at the Council of Empoli after the battle advocated the destruction of Florence, which was averted by the firmness and patriotism of Farinata (Inf. x.91). He was podestà of Montepulciano in 1261 and was elected podestà of Arezzo in 1262-1263, but did not serve; but after the Battle of Benevento (Feb. 1265/6) his power, along with that of the Ghibellines generally, was on the wane. He met his death in an engagement with the Florentines at Colle, in Valdelsa, June 11, 1269, when he was taken prisoner and beheaded' (Toynbee, “Provenzan Salvani” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is curious that, of these two great Ghibelline leaders, Dante has condemned Farinata (who saved the city) to hell and saved Provenzan (who wanted to destroy it).
For the biblical passages that underlie this image of the fleetingness of grass as being similar to human ambitions in this life, see the Old Testament (Isaiah 28:4, 38:27, 40:6; Psalm 89:6 [90:5-6]), as noted by Tommaseo in his commentary to these verses.
This is Dante's first and not last (see Purg. XIII.133-138) admission of his pridefulness.
Here again is the word sodisfar. See the note to Purgatorio XI.70-72. Provenzan is completing his satisfactio operis before Dante's eyes, so intent on it that he is not allowed a speaking part, but has Oderisi as his mouthpiece.
If Provenzan died in 1269 and was (as is obvious) more than 31 years old when he died, the protagonist wants to know how, if the sentence in ante-purgatory is a year for each year spent in failure to repent and if Provenzan apparently, from Oderisi's narrative, died in his presumption, he can have come up here so quickly. We should remember that Dante was not surprised (see the note to Purg. XI.88-90) at Oderisi's quick advent (perhaps less than a year separating his death and his arrival), somehow understanding that Oderisi had purged his pride quite early in his life and chosen to live for God. Why Dante might have thought so is not known.
Oderisi's third speech, devoted to Provenzan, shows Dante that, in his lifetime, Provenzan had come to grips with his pride.
The phrasing here has its roots in – is indeed a translation of – a passage in Bonaventure's life of St. Francis, the Legenda maior (II.7), 'omni deposita verecundia,' where Francis, setting aside all shame, becomes a mendicant. The attribution, which seems undeniable, has made its way into the commentary tradition over the last one hundred years, often unassigned, although some trace it back to Panzacchi's lectura of 1901. However, Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 121-142) and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), p. 177 (n. 55), give credit to Passerini in 1898.
And just as Provenzan humbled himself in public by his own volition, Dante will have humility thrust upon him by his own people when the Black Guelphs will exile him from Florence in 1302. For the predictions of Dante's personal fortunes in the poem see the note to Inferno VI.64-66.
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“O Padre nostro, che ne' cieli stai,
non circunscritto, ma per più amore
ch'ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai,
laudato sia 'l tuo nome e 'l tuo valore
da ogne creatura, com' è degno
di render grazie al tuo dolce vapore.
Vegna ver' noi la pace del tuo regno,
ché noi ad essa non potem da noi,
s'ella non vien, con tutto nostro ingegno.
Come del suo voler li angeli tuoi
fan sacrificio a te, cantando osanna,
così facciano li uomini de' suoi.
Dà oggi a noi la cotidiana manna,
sanza la qual per questo aspro diserto
a retro va chi più di gir s'affanna.
E come noi lo mal ch'avem sofferto
perdoniamo a ciascuno, e tu perdona
benigno, e non guardar lo nostro merto.
Nostra virtù che di legger s'adona,
non spermentar con l'antico avversaro,
ma libera da lui che sì la sprona.
Quest' ultima preghiera, segnor caro,
già non si fa per noi, ché non bisogna,
ma per color che dietro a noi restaro.”
Così a sé e noi buona ramogna
quell' ombre orando, andavan sotto 'l pondo,
simile a quel che talvolta si sogna,
disparmente angosciate tutte a tondo
e lasse su per la prima cornice,
purgando la caligine del mondo.
Se di là sempre ben per noi si dice,
di qua che dire e far per lor si puote
da quei c'hanno al voler buona radice?
Ben si de' loro atar lavar le note
che portar quinci, sì che, mondi e lievi,
possano uscire a le stellate ruote.
“Deh, se giustizia e pietà vi disgrievi
tosto, sì che possiate muover l'ala,
che secondo il disio vostro vi lievi,
mostrate da qual mano inver' la scala
si va più corto; e se c'è più d'un varco,
quel ne 'nsegnate che men erto cala;
ché questi che vien meco, per lo 'ncarco
de la carne d'Adamo onde si veste,
al montar sù, contra sua voglia, è parco.”
Le lor parole, che rendero a queste
che dette avea colui cu' io seguiva,
non fur da cui venisser manifeste;
ma fu detto: “A man destra per la riva
con noi venite, e troverete il passo
possibile a salir persona viva.
E s'io non fossi impedito dal sasso
che la cervice mia superba doma,
onde portar convienmi il viso basso,
cotesti, ch'ancor vive e non si noma,
guardere' io, per veder s'i' 'l conosco,
e per farlo pietoso a questa soma.
Io fui latino e nato d'un gran Tosco:
Guiglielmo Aldobrandesco fu mio padre;
non so se 'l nome suo già mai fu vosco.
L'antico sangue e l'opere leggiadre
d'i miei maggior mi fer sì arrogante,
che, non pensando a la comune madre,
ogn' uomo ebbi in despetto tanto avante,
ch'io ne mori', come i Sanesi sanno,
e sallo in Campagnatico ogne fante.
Io sono Omberto; e non pur a me danno
superbia fa, ché tutti miei consorti
ha ella tratti seco nel malanno.
E qui convien ch'io questo peso porti
per lei, tanto che a Dio si sodisfaccia,
poi ch'io nol fe' tra ' vivi, qui tra ' morti.”
Ascoltando chinai in giù la faccia;
e un di lor, non questi che parlava,
si torse sotto il peso che li 'mpaccia,
e videmi e conobbemi e chiamava,
tenendo li occhi con fatica fisi
a me che tutto chin con loro andava.
“Oh!” diss'io lui, “non se' tu Oderisi,
l'onor d'Agobbio e l'onor di quell' arte
ch'alluminar chiamata è in Parisi?”
“Frate,” diss' elli, “più ridon le carte
che pennelleggia Franco Bolognese;
l'onore è tutto or suo, e mio in parte.
Ben non sare' io stato sì cortese
mentre ch'io vissi, per lo gran disio
de l'eccellenza ove mio core intese.
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio;
e ancor non sarei qui, se non fosse
che, possendo peccar, mi volsi a Dio.
Oh vana gloria de l'umane posse!
com' poco verde in su la cima dura,
se non è giunta da l'etati grosse!
Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,
sì che la fama di colui è scura.
Così ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà del nido.
Non è il mondan romore altro ch'un fiato
di vento, ch'or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato.
Che voce avrai tu più, se vecchia scindi
da te la carne, che se fossi morto
anzi che tu lasciassi il 'pappo' e 'l 'dindi,'
pria che passin mill' anni? ch'è più corto
spazio a l'etterno, ch'un muover di ciglia
al cerchio che più tardi in cielo è torto.
Colui che del cammin sì poco piglia
dinanzi a me, Toscana sonò tutta;
e ora a pena in Siena sen pispiglia,
ond' era sire quando fu distrutta
la rabbia fiorentina, che superba
fu a quel tempo sì com' ora è putta.
La vostra nominanza è color d'erba,
che viene e va, e quei la discolora
per cui ella esce de la terra acerba.”
E io a lui: “Tuo vero dir m'incora
bona umiltà, e gran tumor m'appiani;
ma chi è quei di cui tu parlavi ora?”
“Quelli è,” rispuose, “Provenzan Salvani;
ed è qui perché fu presuntüoso
a recar Siena tutta a le sue mani.
Ito è così e va, sanza riposo,
poi che morì; cotal moneta rende
a sodisfar chi è di là troppo oso.”
E io: “Se quello spirito ch'attende,
pria che si penta, l'orlo de la vita,
qua giù dimora e qua sù non ascende,
se buona orazïon lui non aita,
prima che passi tempo quanto visse,
come fu la venuta lui largita?”
“Quando vivea più glorïoso,” disse,
“liberamente nel Campo di Siena,
ogne vergogna diposta, s'affisse;
e lì, per trar l'amico suo di pena,
ch'e' sostenea ne la prigion di Carlo,
si condusse a tremar per ogne vena.
Più non dirò, e scuro so che parlo;
ma poco tempo andrà, che ' tuoi vicini
faranno sì che tu potrai chiosarlo.
Quest' opera li tolse quei confini.”
"Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens,
Not circumscribed, but from the greater love
Thou bearest to the first effects on high,
Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence
By every creature, as befitting is
To render thanks to thy sweet effluence.
Come unto us the peace of thy dominion,
For unto it we cannot of ourselves,
If it come not, with all our intellect.
Even as thine own Angels of their will
Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing,
So may all men make sacrifice of theirs.
Give unto us this day our daily manna,
Withouten which in this rough wilderness
Backward goes he who toils most to advance.
And even as we the trespass we have suffered
Pardon in one another, pardon thou
Benignly, and regard not our desert.
Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome,
Put not to proof with the old Adversary,
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver.
This last petition verily, dear Lord,
Not for ourselves is made, who need it not,
But for their sake who have remained behind us."
Thus for themselves and us good furtherance
Those shades imploring, went beneath a weight
Like unto that of which we sometimes dream,
Unequally in anguish round and round
And weary all, upon that foremost cornice,
Purging away the smoke-stains of the world.
If there good words are always said for us,
What may not here be said and done for them,
By those who have a good root to their will?
Well may we help them wash away the marks
That hence they carried, so that clean and light
They may ascend unto the starry wheels!
"Ah! so may pity and justice you disburden
Soon, that ye may have power to move the wing,
That shall uplift you after your desire,
Show us on which hand tow'rd the stairs the way
Is shortest, and if more than one the passes,
Point us out that which least abruptly falls;
For he who cometh with me, through the burden
Of Adam's flesh wherewith he is invested,
Against his will is chary of his climbing."
The words of theirs which they returned to those
That he whom I was following had spoken,
It was not manifest from whom they came,
But it was said: "To the right hand come with us
Along the bank, and ye shall find a pass
Possible for living person to ascend.
And were I not impeded by the stone,
Which this proud neck of mine doth subjugate,
Whence I am forced to hold my visage down,
Him, who still lives and does not name himself,
Would I regard, to see if I may know him
And make him piteous unto this burden.
A Latian was I, and born of a great Tuscan;
Guglielmo Aldobrandeschi was my father;
I know not if his name were ever with you.
The ancient blood and deeds of gallantry
Of my progenitors so arrogant made me
That, thinking not upon the common mother,
All men I held in scorn to such extent
I died therefor, as know the Sienese,
And every child in Campagnatico.
I am Omberto; and not to me alone
Has pride done harm, but all my kith and kin
Has with it dragged into adversity.
And here must I this burden bear for it
Till God be satisfied, since I did not
Among the living, here among the dead."
Listening I downward bent my countenance;
And one of them, not this one who was speaking,
Twisted himself beneath the weight that cramps him,
And looked at me, and knew me, and called out,
Keeping his eyes laboriously fixed
On me, who all bowed down was going with them.
"O," asked I him, "art thou not Oderisi,
Agobbio's honour, and honour of that art
Which is in Paris called illuminating?"
"Brother," said he, "more laughing are the leaves
Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese;
All his the honour now, and mine in part.
In sooth I had not been so courteous
While I was living, for the great desire
Of excellence, on which my heart was bent.
Here of such pride is paid the forfeiture;
And yet I should not be here, were it not
That, having power to sin, I turned to God.
O thou vain glory of the human powers,
How little green upon thy summit lingers,
If't be not followed by an age of grossness!
In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim.
So has one Guido from the other taken
The glory of our tongue, and he perchance
Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both.
Naught is this mundane rumour but a breath
Of wind, that comes now this way and now that,
And changes name, because it changes side.
What fame shalt thou have more, if old peel off
From thee thy flesh, than if thou hadst been dead
Before thou left the 'pappo' and the 'dindi,'
Ere pass a thousand years? which is a shorter
Space to the eterne, than twinkling of an eye
Unto the circle that in heaven wheels slowest.
With him, who takes so little of the road
In front of me, all Tuscany resounded;
And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena,
Where he was lord, what time was overthrown
The Florentine delirium, that superb
Was at that day as now 'tis prostitute.
Your reputation is the colour of grass
Which comes and goes, and that discolours it
By which it issues green from out the earth."
And I: "Thy true speech fills my heart with good
Humility, and great tumour thou assuagest;
But who is he, of whom just now thou spakest?"
"That," he replied, "is Provenzan Salvani,
And he is here because he had presumed
To bring Siena all into his hands.
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest
E'er since he died; such money renders back
In payment he who is on earth too daring."
And I: "If every spirit who awaits
The verge of life before that he repent,
Remains below there and ascends not hither,
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,)
Until as much time as he lived be passed,
How was the coming granted him in largess?"
"When he in greatest splendour lived," said he,
"Freely upon the Campo of Siena,
All shame being laid aside, he placed himself;
And there to draw his friend from the duress
Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered,
He brought himself to tremble in each vein.
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly;
Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbours
Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it.
This action has released him from those confines."
As Singleton points out in his gloss (comm. to vv. 1-21), this is the only complete prayer recited in the entire poem. And, as Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to these lines) the three forms of expiation that are found on every terrace are prayer, suffering, and meditation (upon examples of their vice's opposing virtue and the vice itself). In this way the penitents attempt to accomplish their 'satisfaction' (see the note to Purg. XI.70-72) before God for each particular offense into which they have fallen. (It will eventually become clear [e.g., at Purg. XXIII.90] that not every sinner must purge every sin, although it is certainly possible that any given sinner would have sinned not only intrinsically but in fact in all seven categories.)
Dante's version of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is, as examination of the Vulgate reveals, an amalgam of the two passages, adapted so as to be particularly fit for the souls of those who are in essence saved but needful of purgation (as is made clear by vv. 22-24). It is clear that Dante is siding with those who have been involved in the vernacularization of the Bible, an activity fraught with danger in the late middle ages and early Renaissance. It is perhaps not coincidental that the prayer is composed of seven sentences in Matthew (six in Luke) to match the seven tercets devoted to its longer paraphrase in Dante. (The questions of the text of the Bible known to Dante and of his access to that text remain vital – and unanswered [see Angelo Penna, 'Bibbia' (ED.1970.1), pp. 626-27].)
Giacalone (comm. to these verses) was perhaps the first Italian glossator to point out that Dante's phrasing here ('laudato sia' [let your name be praised]... 'da ogne creatura' [by every creature]) is not a translation from the Gospels but rather reflects the refrain of Francis of Assisi's Laudes creaturarum. Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 159, cites Hermann Gmelin's commentary to this tercet (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]) for 'Laudato sie, mi' Signore, con tucte le tue creature' as reason for Dante's deformation of the Beatitude here. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 2-6 and 4-6) also point this out with some insistence, apparently unaware of Gmelin's or Giacalone's earlier observations. For possible earlier citations by Dante of Francis's poem see the note to Inferno I.26-27.
There is debate as to whether or not the Father is addressed as the Trinity or as Himself. Those who take the former position have apparent support in the word vapore (breath), which is often the sign of the Holy Spirit. Here, as some commentators, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 6) believe, Dante is thinking along the lines found in Wisdom (Sap. 7:25) where wisdom is described as 'vapor... virtutis Dei' (aura of the power of God). Since the prayer is, indeed, the Paternoster, it is only natural that it be addressed to the Father, with whatever (inevitable) trinitarian overtones.
According to St. Augustine (De doctrina II.xi), osanna and other Hebrew words of exclamation are never translated in the Latin Bible. (See Isidore of Seville on the untranslatability of interjections in the note to Purg. XXX.21.) This is the Hebrew word, used for a cry of joyful praise, most present in the Commedia, found a total of seven times (here and in Purg. XXIX.51; Par. VII.1; Par. VIII.29; Par. XXVIII.94 [in a verbal form]; Par. XXVIII.118; Par. XXXII.135).
The word cotidiana, a hapax, is clearly drawn from Luke (11:3): 'panem nostrum quotidianum' (our daily bread), and not from Matthew (6:11), where our bread is 'supersubstantialem' rather than 'quotidianum.'
We have heard (Purg. VII.58-60) that even souls in grace are capable of going downward and, while knowing that they will not as a result be 'unsaved,' nonetheless simply do not wish to move in a retrograde direction. Here the penitents of pride express a similar desire.
This last part of the adaptation is sung on behalf of earthly sinners, since those already on the mountain can no longer be overcome by Satan, as their earthly brethren all too easily are.
It is fair to say that no one is certain what the root of the word ramogna (translated here as 'safe haven') is or what it really means; see Manfredi Porena, “La parola più misteriosa della Divina Commedia,” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rendiconti, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 8, 1 (1946 [1947]), pp. 387-95, and Francesco Vagni's entry for the word (ED.1973.4, pp. 848-49). The early commentators mainly believed it meant a good journey, but on what authority one does not know. A plurality of modern commentators believe it means 'good wishes,' but it seems strange to argue that the souls are praying for good wishes, for that would come close to being a mere tautology. Our translation offers a variant of the earlier understanding.
The brief comparison equates the rocks carried by the penitents and our dreams of the incubus. The text of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) gives a passage in Virgil (Aen. XII.908-12) as offering an example of dreaming of suffocation under an enormous weight.
The souls are 'unequally distressed' because they carry variously weighted burdens.
This is, as it were, an indirect address to the reader, hoping that all of us 'whose wills have roots in good' will pray for these penitents as they indeed pray for us.
Virgil's single speech in this canto begins with a reprise of Trajan's climactic declaration of his willingness to help the widow, 'giustizia vuole e pietà mi ritene' (justice wills it and compassion bids me stay), at Purgatorio X.93. It is as though Virgil, remembering the 'visible speech' from the representation of Trajan's humility, had assumed these words worked wonders on Christian hearts, and now puts giustizia and pietà (found in the same verse only in these two scenes) to work on his and Dante's behalf.
The source of the words heard by the travelers is necessarily obscure, since the faces of all these souls are covered by the rocks that they bear upon their backs. At the same time it is morally appropriate that a penitent in pride must speak without identification, since pride is an insistence on the self, while this anonymity erases it. However, to argue that all are speaking together, as some do, is to miss the patent fact that only one soul is speaking (Purg. XI.52).
Stiffnecked pride was a frequent complaint about the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, particularly in Exodus (32:9, 33:3, 33:5, 34:9) and Deuteronomy (9:6, 9:13, 10:16, 31:27).
The speaker is Omberto Aldobrandesco, second son of Guglielmo Aldobrandesco (dead by 1256), count of Santafiora (see Purg. VI.111) and head of this powerful Ghibelline family. Omberto was murdered by Sienese Guelphs outside his fortified castle in 1259. He lays the fault for his death and the need for his current penance on his family's pride in its name, which made the Aldobrandeschi consider themselves better than others merely by fact of being Aldobrandeschi.
The reference to every fante in Campagnatico, Omberto's feudal holding with its castle where he died in battle, is variously interpreted. The word in Dante's Italian may mean (1) infantryman, (2) any man at all, especially one of the lower class, (3) a very young child. Most commentators support the third view (and we have followed them), but all three are potentially valid.
For the notion that this eleventh canto of the cantica is part of a program that is built on the number eleven's numerological significance as trangression (because it exceeds the Decalogue – the formulation is St. Augustine's), see Victoria Kirkham (“Eleven Is for Evil: Measured Trespass in Dante's Commedia,” Allegorica 10 [1989]), pp. 40-42.
Omberto is the first penitent in purgatory proper who speaks to the travelers (we have only heard penitential prayer until now) and his last words clearly identify the purpose of purgation in the process of absolution (for Dante, necessarily preceded by confession, contrition, and satisfaction – see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). What seems to be the case is that all those who have penance to perform on any particular terrace need precisely to give satisfaction (see the verb sodisfaccia in verse 71 [as Tozer in his prefatory note to this canto duly noted]) before God for their transgressions on earth. This implies that others, those who do not need to do penance on a particular terrace, either were without that sin or else had given satisfaction while they were still alive. This is the view taken by Nicola Fosca in his unpublished commentary, portions of which he has kindly made available to this writer.
Porena (comm. to Purg. IX.112-114) also says that the penitence observed on the mountain is the form that satisfactio operis takes in these eventually redeemed souls.
Dante's bending down his face is a natural action taken in order to see his interlocutor's face, yet it, too, reveals a moral significance (see the note to vv. 46-48), as the protagonist's own words will later confirm (Purg. XIII.136-138), when he will admit that, once he returns to the mountain in the next life, his head will be lowered under the same load he now is able to observe upon the backs of others.
The next penitent is apparently less heavily weighted (and thus less burdened by pride) than Omberto, since he is able to move a little under his rock and thus twist his neck enough to get a glance at the features of Dante, now conveniently lowered by his desire to make out Omberto. As a result, Dante recognizes him.
Where the first penitent was still deeply involved in the feelings of the family pride that had afflicted him so greatly on earth, the next will represent all those who are prideful in their accomplishments (in this case, artistic ones); and we will see that he is more advanced in his penitence than Omberto.
Oderisi d'Agobbio (contemporary Gubbio) is praised by Dante as the great Italian master of the art of illuminating manuscripts, an art particularly associated with the French and with Paris.
Oderisi deflects Dante's compliment, thus showing that his pride is at least greatly abated (if not utterly vanquished – see verse 84). What is at stake here is artistic merit, not the cry of the vulgar, a subject that will be before us within ten lines. What Oderisi can now admit is that, as good as he was at illuminating, in his own opinion Franco of Bologna was superior to him in his craftsmanship – a truth that he knew but never would have permitted himself to admit during his emulous life on earth. It is interesting that Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 82-88) says that, from the examples he has seen, Franco really was a better illuminator. By being willing to share the honor with Franco (this is exactly the burden of Purg. XIV.86-87, the words of Guido del Duca: 'O race of men, why do you set your hearts / on things that of necessity cannot be shared?'), Oderisi shows himself now different from the man bent on his own excelling to the cost of all others.
Little is known of Franco, who apparently lived until about 1310.
If Oderisi was known by Dante to have died in 1299, he certainly had made his way up the mountain quickly, apparently spending very little time in ante-purgatory. Compare the case of Forese (Purg. XXIII.76-90), the most detailed information we are given in this cantica about passing over certain terraces on the way toward the summit. And see the note to Purgatorio XI.127-132.
Oderisi, nonetheless, must have reformed his ways very early, since the late-repentant spend equal time in ante-purgatory as they did while they were unrepentant on earth. Or perhaps Dante thought or knew that he had died earlier than we think.
Oderisi's outburst subtly changes the topic of his discourse from human talent and ability to its reception among other human beings. Where before he had spoken of Franco's honor, he now bewails the emptiness of these same talents as recipients of the praise conferred by fame.
The phrase 'com' poco verde in su la cima dura' (literally: how briefly lasts the green upon the top) has never been adequately explained. What object does the poet have in mind for the noun cima? Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994], pp. 35-48) has argued, citing its next use in the poem, Purgatorio XV.13, where it refers to Dante's forehead, the space above his eyebrows, that it refers to exactly that part of our physiognomy here and that the green is the green of the laurel. The language of the passage, which addresses the question of the brief limits of fame unless a 'dark age' allows fame to continue for longer than it usually does (by not producing other 'winners' quickly), seems clearly to reflect exactly such a concern – one that was not far, as we know from Paradiso XXV.1-9, from this poet's mind.
Giovanni Cimabue (1240 ca.-1308) was a highly praised Florentine painter. His pupil, Giotto di Bondone (1267 ca.-1337), is given credit by art historians for changing the nature of Italian painting, moving from the 'flat' tradition to 'roundness,' representations that seemed more realistic than anything seen before him. (In this vein see Boccaccio's treatment of him in Decameron VI.v.5)
The notion that Dante is in this passage putting Giotto's art ahead of Cimabue's is baseless, though widespread. Dante may himself have admired Giotto's painting more than Cimabue's, but that is not the point here. All that Oderisi is saying is that, in accord with what he has just said about fame being brief unless a dark age assures the last 'laureate' his continuing green reward, Cimabue had the public's cry but now Giotto has it. There is no evaluation of the relative worth of the work of these two masters stated or implied (see Hollander [“Dante's Self-Laureation (Purgatorio XI, 92),” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 (1994)], pp. 41-42).
Moving his attention from painting to poetry, Oderisi says the same thing about Guido Guinizzelli (1225 ca.-1276) and Guido Cavalcanti (1250 ca.-1300): one held the highest place in the public's esteem until the other displaced him. A problem here arises from Dante's use of the noun gloria, which can mean 'reputation, fame' in the vulgar sense, or 'just renown for great deeds,' or 'heavenly glory' (as in the experience of paradise). The word occurs some 22 times in the poem and has this first meaning less frequently than it has either of the other two, e.g., in Inferno III.42, where it is explained that the neutral angels are not in hell lest they be placed lower than the rebel angels, who might then have 'boasting rights' over them. But the word has just been used in its most negative form seven lines earlier: the 'vana gloria' that prompts our desire for fame. In this reading, the more recent Guido (Cavalcanti) has taken the public's laurel from Guinizzelli.
For those, beginning with Guido Di Pino (“Il canto dantesco dei due Guidi,” in Studi in onore di Alberto Chiari [Brescia: Paideia, 1973], pp. 419-35), who believe that the first of the two Guidos is the poet Guittone d'Arezzo (1240 ca.-1294) and the second Guido Guinizzelli (1230 ca.-1276), see Marcello Ciccuto (“Dante e Bonagiunta: reperti allusivi nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” Lettere Italiane 34 [1982]), pp. 390-91, for discussion and bibliography. See also Picone («Vita Nuova» e tradizione romanza [Padova, Liviana, 1979]), p. 32n., accepting Di Pino's hypothesis, and then supporting it still more strongly on the heels of Guglielmo Gorni, “Guittone e Dante,” in Guittone d'Arezzo nel settimo centenario della morte: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Arezzo (22-24 aprile 1994), ed. M. Picone (Florence: Franco Cesati, 1995), pp. 326-34. This argument needs to confront at least one major problem: Dante twice refers to Guittone by name in the Commedia (Purg. XXIV.56 and Purg. XXVI.124); for him to have chosen to do so under another (and Latinate) form of that name (Guido), as they contend, is a proposition extremely difficult to accept. For still other reasons not to believe that the reference is to Guittone see Barolini (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), p. 128n., and, still more tellingly, Durling (“'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 320 (n. 44). It is also difficult to believe that the older poet had chased the younger 'from the nest,' for even if they were no more than ten years apart in age, Guido is generally thought of as the elder of the two, both literally and morally.
While there is still some dispute about the reference, most now agree that Dante is clearly pointing to himself as the one who will in turn replace Cavalcanti in the 'nest' of the public's admiration.
Karlheinz Stierle (“Canto XI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 163, thinks Oderisi predicts Dante's 'triumph' here and believes that Dante meant us to take from his words the understanding that he believes pride a necessary and positive aspect of his own ingegno and not entirely to be dispraised. To medieval readers this would surely have seemed an inappropriate reading. On the other hand, recent modern readers, with whose work Stierle seems not to be acquainted, have tried to make essentially the same case: Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 133-37, and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 135-78. For a response see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), pp. 35-48.
Oderisi's moralizing is pungent and clear: earthly fame is not worth even a moment's affection. It is difficult to justify any positive role for earthly fame in light of these forceful words. For the relationship blink of an eye:completion of a Great Year (36,000 years)::one thousand years:eternity, which yields a rough trillion one hundred and thirty-five billion years of Dante's eternally being forgotten, see Hollander (“Dante's Self-Laureation [Purgatorio XI, 92],” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 3 [1994]), p. 47.
These are babytalk words for bread (pappo = pane) and money (dindi = denaro).
Without as yet naming him, Oderisi tells the cautionary tale of Provenzan Salvani, 'prominent Ghibelline of Siena, born c. 1220. His family, the Salvani were descendants of the Cacciaconti, feudal lords of Scialenga. Provenzano's father, Ildebrando, and his paternal grandfather, Salvano (who gave his name to his descendants), were both prominent Ghibellines. Provenzan himself begins to appear in the records in 1247..., and from 1249 his political activities can be followed fairly well. After the Battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260) he was virtual dictator of Siena, and it was he who at the Council of Empoli after the battle advocated the destruction of Florence, which was averted by the firmness and patriotism of Farinata (Inf. x.91). He was podestà of Montepulciano in 1261 and was elected podestà of Arezzo in 1262-1263, but did not serve; but after the Battle of Benevento (Feb. 1265/6) his power, along with that of the Ghibellines generally, was on the wane. He met his death in an engagement with the Florentines at Colle, in Valdelsa, June 11, 1269, when he was taken prisoner and beheaded' (Toynbee, “Provenzan Salvani” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is curious that, of these two great Ghibelline leaders, Dante has condemned Farinata (who saved the city) to hell and saved Provenzan (who wanted to destroy it).
For the biblical passages that underlie this image of the fleetingness of grass as being similar to human ambitions in this life, see the Old Testament (Isaiah 28:4, 38:27, 40:6; Psalm 89:6 [90:5-6]), as noted by Tommaseo in his commentary to these verses.
This is Dante's first and not last (see Purg. XIII.133-138) admission of his pridefulness.
Here again is the word sodisfar. See the note to Purgatorio XI.70-72. Provenzan is completing his satisfactio operis before Dante's eyes, so intent on it that he is not allowed a speaking part, but has Oderisi as his mouthpiece.
If Provenzan died in 1269 and was (as is obvious) more than 31 years old when he died, the protagonist wants to know how, if the sentence in ante-purgatory is a year for each year spent in failure to repent and if Provenzan apparently, from Oderisi's narrative, died in his presumption, he can have come up here so quickly. We should remember that Dante was not surprised (see the note to Purg. XI.88-90) at Oderisi's quick advent (perhaps less than a year separating his death and his arrival), somehow understanding that Oderisi had purged his pride quite early in his life and chosen to live for God. Why Dante might have thought so is not known.
Oderisi's third speech, devoted to Provenzan, shows Dante that, in his lifetime, Provenzan had come to grips with his pride.
The phrasing here has its roots in – is indeed a translation of – a passage in Bonaventure's life of St. Francis, the Legenda maior (II.7), 'omni deposita verecundia,' where Francis, setting aside all shame, becomes a mendicant. The attribution, which seems undeniable, has made its way into the commentary tradition over the last one hundred years, often unassigned, although some trace it back to Panzacchi's lectura of 1901. However, Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 121-142) and Herbert Marks (“Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), p. 177 (n. 55), give credit to Passerini in 1898.
And just as Provenzan humbled himself in public by his own volition, Dante will have humility thrust upon him by his own people when the Black Guelphs will exile him from Florence in 1302. For the predictions of Dante's personal fortunes in the poem see the note to Inferno VI.64-66.
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