In celebration of the completion of Adam's “education” of Dante in the eighth sphere, where Dante spends six hours (see Par. XXII.152, XXVII.79-81, and cf. Adam's six hours in Eden) and six cantos, the longest time spent in any sphere, the entire consistory of heaven, first seen in Paradiso XXIII.19-33 and 82-139, now sings the Gloria to the Trinity. Bosco/Reggio point out that the poem contains the “great prayers” of the Church: Paternoster (Purg. XI.1-24), Credo (Par. XXIV.130-41), Ave Maria (Par. XXXIII.1-21), Te Deum (Purg. IX.139-41; Par. XXIV.112-14), and Sanctus (Par. XXVI.69). Here once again the souls sing in Italian. It seems possible that the blessed and the angels use Latin when they sing to one another and that, when they sing of Dante, their language is Italian. For the songs heard in this canticle, see the note to Paradiso XXI.58-60.

Daniello (comm. to vv. 1-6) points out that the Gloria was sung in church after the congregation sang a hymn.

For Dante's “drunkenness” see Jeremiah 23:9, “quasi vir ebrius” (like a man who is drunk); but see also, as Bosco/Reggio cite Consoli as noting, Vita nuova III.2, where Dante, upon first hearing Beatrice's voice, was taken by “tanta dolcezza, che come inebriato mi partio da le genti” (became so ecstatic that, like a drunken man, I turned away from everyone [tr. M. Musa]). He has come full circle.

Insisting on his “drunkenness,” the poet now says that to the first cause (the singing) was added a second inebriant, what seemed to him no less than a smile of universal proportion.

The five conditions apostrophized by the poet (happiness, joy, love, peace, riches) are all usually associated with life in this world. Here they are all rather imagined in their transmuted spiritual forms.

The word brama occurs six times in the poem and is always associated with a low longing, especially for wealth; in fact, it is twice associated with wolves (Inf. I.49; Par. IV.4). Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 9) cite Convivio III.xv.3: “[il desiderio] essere non può con la beatitudine, acciò che la beatitudine sia perfetta cosa e lo desiderio sia cosa defettiva” (desire is something that cannot coexist with blessedness, since blessedness is something perfect and desire something defective – tr. R. Lansing).

Peter, about to reenter the action as the primus inter pares yet again, has his flame turn from white to red. The pseudo-simile has it that Peter went from white to red as would Jupiter were he to exchange plumage with Mars; against those who find the figure of speech “strange” or “forced,” Chiavacci Leonardi (Paradiso, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1997], p. 743) points out that an ancient tradition of representation presented the planets as birds, with rays as their feathers. John Scott, in his essay “Su alcune immagini tematiche di Paradiso XXVII” (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977], pp. 195-237), demonstrates the precision of Dante's apparently forced figure: The just God (Jove) will demonstrate His justness by righteous indignation (i.e., Mars-like – pp. 196-202).

Tozer (comm. to vv. 16-17) explains the reference as being to that aspect of Providence “'which in Heaven assigns to each his fitting time and part'; vice is the occasion when this or that person is to act, offizio the function which he is to perform. For the general principle which is here expressed, cp. Par. XXI.67-72” [i.e., Peter Damian expressing his subservience to God in accepting his mission to Dante].

Peter looks ahead to the transmogrification of every member of the Church Triumphant, reddening with righteous anger, when he unleashes his harsh words. Significantly enough, this is treated as occurring only after his reference to Satan in verse 27.

Despite Peter's vehemence about Rome's centrality to the papacy, it is good to keep in mind the observation of V.H.H. Green (cited by Scott [“Genesi e sviluppo del pensiero politico di Dante,” in Le culture di Dante. Atti del quarto Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone et al. {Florence: Cesati, 2004}, p. 253n.]) that between 1100 and 1304 (and we should be aware of Dante's insistence on the rightness of their being there), the popes were more absent from Rome than present, 122 years vs. 82 years. Further, for Dante, Boniface was both a bad pope and an improperly elected one. On either (or both) of those grounds, he may have considered the Papal See “vacant” in 1300, and thus felt he could represent Satan's particular pleasure in Boniface's improper stewardship. However, it seems likely that the passage is also meant to reflect the scandalously long period between the death of Bertrand de Got, Pope Clement V (20 April 1314) and the election of yet another Frenchman, Jacques d'Euse, as Pope John XXII (5 September 1316). On the other hand, it also seems probable that, to Dante's eyes, if Boniface had left the papacy “vacant” because of his various shortcomings, both of his successors, one having moved the papacy to France and the other having kept it there, had left its true seat, in Rome, vacant. (Scartazzini [comm. to vv. 10-27] is of a somewhat different opinion, believing that Dante considered the Papal See “vacant” when John XXII, a simoniac pope if ever there were one, ruled the Church; half a dozen more recent commentators are also of this opinion.)

Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 22-24) was apparently the first to point out that the repeated phrase “il luogo mio” recapitulates Jeremiah 7:4, the thrice-repeated “templum Domini” (the Lord's temple). He is seconded by a number of other commentators between Poletto and Fallani, but then the commentaries go silent on this ascription. More recently, Rachel Jacoff (“Dante, Geremia e la problematica profetica,” in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], pp. 114-115) repeats this citation, apparently without realizing that she does so.

Peter's triple repetition, not quite unique in the poem (see the santo, santo, santo of Par. XXVI.69), is nonetheless notable, perhaps reminding the reader of the Trinity as well as of the triple-tiered tiara worn by the pope.

For a discussion of this penultimate, if intrinsic, assault on Boniface, see Massimo Seriacopi (Bonifacio VIII nella storia e nell'opera di Dante [Florence: Chiari, 2003]), pp. 220-25). The author goes on to describe Dante's general attitude toward this great figure in the history of the papacy as follows: “[Boniface is to Dante] at once the pope and a simoniac; magnificent and yet obtuse; full of energy but arrogant” (p. 226). His book concludes with a helpful review of the varying views of Boniface, found in Dante's margins, put forward by the fourteenth-century commentators (pp. 239-57). For a papal attempt (that of Benedict XV in 1921) to square Dante's poem with the Church's teaching, see Maria Lorena Burlot (“Dante Alighieri y la Iglesia católica. La Divina Comedia y la Enciclica 'In praeclara' de Benedicto XV,” in Mito y religión en la lengua y la literatura italianas: Atti del convegno di italianistica, ed. Gloria Galli de Ortega y María Troiano de Echegaray, Vol. II [Mendoza: Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Univ. Nac. de Cuyo, 2003], p. 551). Benedict is able to discover a Trinitarian reference even in Dante's condemnation of three popes (Celestine V, Boniface VIII, and Clement V). This is to neglect the fact that several other popes are specifically referred to as being condemned to Hell for eternity (see the note to Inf. VII.46-48). (Anyone defending the notion of papal infallibility will probably need to argue for exemptions for popes with literary aspirations. See also Benedict's attempt to find still another “trinitarian” compositional block in the 14,200 verses of the poem, an especially dubious notion in light of the fact that the poem contains 14,233 verses.)

This detail is drawn from Ovid (Metam. III.183-185): Diana's blush as seen by Actaeon. (See Grandgent [comm. to verse 28].) Ovid's phrase adversi solis is pretty obviously recalled in Dante's lo sole avverso. That blush fits the context of the blush of shame attributed to Beatrice in verse 34.

Alessandro D'Ancona (Scritti danteschi [Forence: Sansoni, 1913], p. 460) was among the first to insist (see Steiner [comm. to vv. 31-34], in disagreement) that Beatrice went pale, that is, did not grow red with indignation. (But see Poletto's [comm. to vv. 31-34] earlier report of Giuliani's still earlier and similar interpretation, which he, similarly, does not accept.) This view has, nonetheless, been followed by a number of twentieth-century Dantists. But see Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977], p. 209) for a rebuke of those who so argue. And see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 28-36) for a view similar to his; however, they go on to argue that the reference to the eclipse at Christ's Passion (see Matthew 27:45) reflects not only her darkening, but that of all the saints of the Church Triumphant temporarily gathered here.

What probably makes the passage more difficult than it really should be is the adjective timido, understood by the early commentators as “ashamed” (a word readily associated with blushing), while modern ones think it means “timid” (an adjective more likely associated with facial pallor). The last seems a less likely significance, given the context.

Peter's voice (vv. 19-27) was, we may be surprised to learn, not as angry in that utterance as it is soon to be. When we read back over the passage (vv. 19-39), we realize that the poet has carefully staged the development of this scene: (1) preparation for the change in color (vv. 19-21); (2) the occurrence of that change (vv. 28-36); (3) the further change in the quality of Peter's voice (vv. 37-39). Cf. Dante's own two-stage “drunkenness” in vv. 1-6, first at a sound, then at a sight. Here Peter modulates his appearance first, and then his voice.

Peter begins a list of some martyred popes with himself; he refers to or names six others in all. These may be broken down into three pairs, one from each of the first three centuries of the Church's life (Linus and Cletus, Sixtus and Pius, Calixtus and Urban).

Christ will come in judgment and divide his flock into sheep (those who are saved) and goats (those eternally damned). The sitting pope (in 1300, Boniface VIII) is charged with dividing his people into two political factions, the Guelphs loyal to him (his sheep) and his Ghibelline enemies (the goats). This does not mean that Dante limited his list of papal offenders in this respect to one.

The first four of Peter's complaints (vv. 40-54) about papal misconduct seem both generalizable and yet specific to Boniface's reign (1294-1303). The papacy was often portrayed by Dante as using its temporal power incorrectly; this passage may particularly remember Boniface's “crusade” against the Colonna family, already alluded to in Inferno XXVII.85-90, as Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 49-54) was the first to suggest.

This tercet reflects the sale of ecclesiastical privileges which bore the papal seal, the image of St. Peter.

Now we descend to the lesser ranks of the clergy. See Matthew 7:15 for the warning against wolves in sheep's clothing, applied to those priests who betray their calling (and their parishioners).

See Marina Marietti (“L'agnello al centro,” Letteratura italiana antica 4 [2003]), pp. 435-40) for the way in which Dante considers himself a descendant of the prophet Jeremiah here and throughout the Comedy. And see Sapegno (comm. to these verses) for a citation of the prophet's outcry against those shepherds who harm their flocks (Jeremiah 23:1).

Two French popes, the Gascon Clement V (1305-14 – see the note to Inf. XIX.79-87) and John XXII (1316-34) of Cahors (for that city's association with usury, see the note to Inf. XI.46-51), will attempt to gather wealth from the Church founded by the blood of the first martyred popes, representing the good beginning that will have so foul an end.

A first prophetic utterance, leading into the fuller prophecy at the end of the canto (vv. 142-148): Providence, which sided with Scipio (in 202 B.C. at the battle of Zama) to maintain Rome's glory in the world (and it is clear that the text refers to imperial, and not ecclesiastical, Rome), will soon act to set things straight, as Peter conceives (for the force of this verb, see the notes to Inf. II.7-9, Inf. XXXII.1-9, and Purg. XXIX.37-42).

For Dante's lofty sense of Scipio, see Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986], pp. 65-69). For his persistent presence in Convivio (IV.v), Monarchia (II.ix), and Commedia (Inf. XXXI, Purg. XXIX, Par. VI, and here), see the table (in “Dante's Republican Treasury,” p. 75), also listing the various appearances of the dozen and a half republican heroes referred to in Dante's works.

It is surely striking that, at the climax of his antipapal outburst, he turns to a great political figure and not to a religious one. For an earlier and more developed presentation of this view, see Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977], pp. 216-20). A similar political frame of reference may inform Beatrice's prophecy of the fortuna (verse 145) at the end of the canto.

These are the last words spoken by any “character” in the poem (excepting, of course, the protagonist and his guides, Beatrice and Bernard). Peter joins those who charge mortal Dante with his prophetic task, Beatrice (Purg. XXXII.103-105; XXXIII.52-57) and Cacciaguida (Par. XVII.124-142), thus making threefold the source of the poet's authority to reveal his vision. This represents his final investiture in his role as God's prophet.

Peter's flat-out acknowledgment that Dante is here in his flesh finally sets that question to rest. See previous discussions in the notes to Paradiso I.73, II.37-45, and XXII.129.

The Sun is in Capricorn (the Goat) in late December and the first two-thirds of January, when we earthlings may well witness snowflakes falling downward through the air. Just so did Dante see the souls in whom the celestial Rose consists making their way back up (and thus through the Primum Mobile) to the Empyrean. This is not, as we may first think, a reversal of gravity. The celestial pull is the obverse of the terrestrial one, upward toward God. They are snowing themselves back home. They have been away since Paradiso XXIII.19, more than five hundred verses in five cantos, and for roughly the same six hours that Dante has spent here.

Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 67-68) was apparently the first to cite as “source” the upside-down “rain of manna” of angels returning to Heaven in Vita nuova XXIII.25, in the canzone “Donna pietosa e di novella etate.” The context of that central poem (sixteenth of thirty-one poems in all, second of three canzoni) is, however, the opposite of this passage, for in it Dante imagines the death of Beatrice, and does so in human, tragic terms. Here, Beatrice is very much alive, watching as her companions in beatitude joyfully return to their immortal stations.

It seems extraordinary that leggere Dante con Dante (“reading Dante through the lens of Dante,” in a free translation), as Scartazzini is doing here, took so long to establish itself as a critical method. There is very little reference to other loci in the Commedia (and hardly any to Dante's other works) in the first five hundred years of the poem's life among its commentators. And, in a related phenomenon, there is hardly any citation of the poet's “competitors” in vernacular lyric; the major sources of literary reference are the Bible and the Latin classics. Today, readers take all of these as necessary and useful avenues for exploring the poem. See, for example, Emilio Pasquini, “Fra Dante e Guido: la neve e i suoi segreti” (in Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 66-67), discussing the Cavalcantian elements of this simile.

Standing at either end of this heaven is a reference to it as “aether” (etera), the denser-than-air substance of the planetary spheres (see the note to Par. XXII.132).

The adjective attached to these souls (trïunfanti) is both descriptive and designative, the latter insofar as they are members of the Church Triumphant - in case we had forgot.

The space is that between the Starry Sphere and the Empyrean (i.e., situated above the Crystalline Sphere), and thus defeats Dante's ability to see them return.

Beatrice, seeing that Dante can no longer make out the members of the Church Triumphant as they return home, invites him, once again, to look beneath his feet, down through the universe, toward the earth (see Par. XXII.127-129).

The formally similar beginnings and conclusions of the two passages (this one and Par. XXII.133-153) devoted to the protagonist's earthward gazing back down through the heavens underline the formulaic aspect of both scenes. See Moore (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 {1903}], pp. 62-71) for a full discussion.

Dante's reference points are noteworthy: He is over the trackless ocean to the west of the two islands referred to as Gades (Insulae Gades [see the note to verse 82]) where Ulysses began his folle volo (Inf. XXVI.125) and can almost see the shore of Asia Minor, where Europa was raped by Jupiter. Some suggest that these two myths reflect the two most insistent temptations of man, prideful or transgressive intellectual behavior and lust. It may also be tempting to see them in autobiographical terms for Dante, his besetting sins of wayward philosophizing and sexual misconduct, these two sins finding an echo (and a model?) in St. Augustine's Confessions (see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}], p. 165n.). The importance of the double classical reference is underlined when we consider that we have not read an overt reference to a classical myth since the one to Semele in Paradiso XXI.6 that none such has been allowed in this heaven of the fixed stars, with its “characters” all drawn from their ranks in the Church Triumphant, surmounted by the three apostles and Adam. To round off this moment, the last in the Starry Sphere, Dante picks up two words or phrases from the similar vision in Paradiso XXII.151 and XXII.129: aiuola and sotto i [miei] piedi.

As Jacoff points out (“The Rape/Rapture of Europa: Paradiso 27,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], p. 237), Ovid tells the story of Europa in three different places (Metamorphoses II and VI; Fasti II) with quite diverse treatments; she meditates upon the possibility that Dante has at once paired Europa with Ulysses in malo, as transgressive voyager (even if she is a victim of Jove's lustful forcing), and also in bono, as a sort of classical prefiguration of Dante, in that she was conjoined with the divine. On this passage, see Christian Moevs (The Metaphysics of Dante's “Comedy” [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], pp. 132-33), arguing that Ulysses and Europa have opposed valuations, he being identified with selfish seeking, while she represents “loving surrender to the divine.” For expression of the more usual view, see Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977], p. 223), finding in Ulysses a man who fell victim to the temptations of the intellect and the will, while seeing in Europa a victim of her own sensual desires. However, it might be objected that Europa is not the character who is paired with Ulysses, but that Jove is. That is, Ulysses and Jupiter are both portrayed as embarking on voyages, spurred by curiosity in the first case and by lust in the second, that are harmful to their “mates.”

How long was Dante away from our terrestrial globe? In Carroll's words (comm. to Par. XXII.151-154), this is “one of the most difficult problems in the poem.” But then Carroll himself neglects the question of how long Dante actually remained in the heavens. Even the usually more exigent Moore (The Time-References in the “Divina Commedia” [London: David Nutt, 1887], pp. 58-59, 126-27) rather casually allows the traveler (as do many other Dantists) one entire day in Paradise, as measured by a “clock” down here on earth (p. 59). The result is that the hours he was aloft round off the entire journey at precisely seven days (Thursday 6 pm to Thursday 6 pm). (In fact, most Dantists today are likely to insist that such a calendar would require that we understand that the poet was in the heavens thirty hours, from noon Wednesday to Thursday evening.) While there is no reason to think that this calculation is incorrect, there is also no evidence in the poem that would corroborate this perfectly understandable desire to add a detail (and it is indeed a thoroughly Dantesque detail) to what the poet left us. The fact is that, for whatever reason, he either never got round to working this calculation out or deliberately avoided engagement with it.

If, however, we limit our inquiry to how long he was in this heaven, we can establish that period from the celestial details we are given here (see, e.g., Moore [Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays {Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 [1903]}, p. 68]): Six hours have passed since the protagonist last looked down (at the conclusion of Par. XXII). And see the note to Paradiso XXVI.139-142, pointing out that Dante spends six hours in the Starry Sphere, as did Adam in Eden. (This is not to mention that [all but two] members of the Church Triumphant were also present here for that amount of time [see the note to vv. 67-72]).

See Tozer's clarifying paraphrase of this passage (comm to this tercet): “'I saw that I had passed along the whole of the arc which the first clime forms from its middle point to its end.' This means that Dante had moved through 90^o of longitude, from the meridian of Jerusalem – which place was the central point of the habitable world of 180^o in length reckoned from E. to W. – to that of Gades, which marked its western limit. In order to understand the terms in which Dante has expressed this, we must first examine the meaning of the word clima. The climata of the Greek geographers were belts or spaces of the earth's surface which intervened between two parallels of latitude; and by Hipparchus, who first invented the term, these intervals were measured by degrees of latitude; but Ptolemy, who subsequently adopted it, determined them by the increase of the length of the longest day, proceeding northwards from the equator to the parallel of Thule, and dividing the intervening space into 21 climata. Alfraganus, who is Dante's authority in this matter, adapted the scheme of Ptolemy to his own purposes, and reduced the number of climata to seven, commencing the computation, not from the equator, but from Lat. 12^o 45' N., which was to him the limit of the habitable globe to the south (Alfr., Element. Astronom., cap. x). The first of these climata, the central parallel of which passed through Meroë, was the only one which lay wholly within the tropics, and this is the reason why it is mentioned here, because the position of Dante at this time was immediately over the northern half of the torrid zone. For Gemini, in which he now was, is one of the signs of the zodiac; and as the sun never passes to the northward of the tropic of Cancer, the signs of the zodiac, through which his course lies, must fall within the same limit. Hence Dante, in describing himself as passing, while he was in Gemini, from the meridian of Jerusalem to that of Gades, says that he moved along the arc formed by the primo clima. The interval between those two points is represented as reaching from the middle to the end of the first clima, because to Alfraganus the climata were divisions not of the entire globe, but of the habitable globe (thus he says 'Loca quadrantis habitabilis dividuntur in septem climata'), and he regarded their extension from E. to W. as corresponding to twelve hours in time ('longitudo omnium climatum ab oriente in occasum spatio 12 horarum a revolutione caelesti conficitur'), which represent 180^o in space. Consequently, the half of this extension (dal mezzo al fine) would be six hours in time, or 90^o in space, thus corresponding to the difference between Jerusalem and Gades. Fine is appropriately used of the western extremity of the clima, because the movement of the sun, and that of Dante himself in the zodiac, which are here regarded, are from E. to W. It is hardly necessary to add that, when it is said that Dante was on the meridian of Jerusalem or of Gades, it does not follow that he was over those places, but only that he was in the same longitude with them.”

See Victoria Kirkham (“Dante's Polysynchrony: a Perfectly Timed Entry into Eden,” Filologia e critica 20 [1995], p. 347n.) on “Gade”: “Dante's 'Gades' refers not to Cadiz, but to the Gades Insulae described by Paulus Orosius, the foundations upon which Hercules built his pillars, marking the outermost limit of the western world. See for this clarification M. A. Orr, Dante and the Early Astronomers (London: Wingate, 1913), p. 222.”

Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001] makes an interesting observation [pp. 265-67]): Petrarch, in a letter to Boccaccio of 1359, fairly obviously appropriates Dante's presentation of Ulysses (Inf. XXVI.94-99) in order to portray the poet himself, seen as lacking in loyalty to the family he left behind in Florence.

Ulysses reappears once more. Again he figures a voyage quite different from Dante's, a voyage to destruction. Those who attempt to read the central character of Inferno XXVI as positive here must deal with Dante's firm rejection of the hero, which surely makes it even more difficult to heroicize him than did the ironic treatment offered in the earlier episode. See, in a similar vein, Picone (“Canto XXVIII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 430). However, see Ruedi Imbach (Dante, la philosophie et les laïcs [Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1996]) for an essay, “Ulysse, figure de philosophe” (pp. 215-45). This rehashes the varied classical and medieval sources (pp. 215-29) and by and large tries to associate itself with the earlier Romantic reading of Mario Fubini (“Il peccato d'Ulisse” and “Il canto XXVI dell'Inferno,” in his Il peccato d'Ulisse e altri scritti danteschi [Milan: Ricciardi, 1966], pp. 1-76).

This tercet repeats two distinctive elements we found at the arrival in the Starry Sphere: The poet again (see Par. XXII.151) refers to the little globe below as the “small patch of earth” that it seems (aiuola) and the protagonist again (Par. XXII.129) sees it beneath his feet (sotto li piedi) – see the appended note concerning the possibility that we are supposed to conclude that those feet make the protagonist present in his body. When we read the phrase now, however, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion, since Peter has already (see verse 64) referred to Dante's “mortal burden” – with him now, his flesh.

It is nearly certainly hazardous to translate aiuola (little patch of earth) as “threshing-floor”; see the note to Paradiso XXII.151. Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle (“Closure in Paradise: Dante Outsings Aquinas,” Modern Language Notes 115 [2000]: 1-12) is among the many who simply assume that it is what is meant by the word.

For the twin problems, exactly how far Dante had moved with the heavens and, consequently, how much of our globe he was able to observe, see Carroll (comm. to Par. XXII.151-154). His hypothesis is that the reader is supposed to identify each of the three apostles with whom Dante has conversed as having been particularly identified with efforts located in specific parts of the Mediterranean world, John with Asia Minor, Peter with Rome, and James with Spain. And thus, with regard to the second question, the protagonist's vision of earth coincides with those regions.

Only the last of these four tercets allotted to the ascent to the next heaven, the Crystalline Sphere, is devoted to the ascent itself. Once again, Beatrice has become unspeakably more beautiful, outdoing either natural beauty or artistic rendering. With his eyes fixed on hers, Dante moves up to the next realm. The passage includes, perhaps surprisingly, a reference to Beatrice's physical beauty (vv. 91-93). We are close enough to the Empyrean for that to come as a surprise, even as a shock. However, when we examine the text, we find that the poet tells us that such carnally delightful images would be nothing compared to her beauty as a reflection of God's divinity.

Her eyes draw him aloft out of Gemini, the “nest of Leda,” a reference that may have been chosen to remind us of Jupiter, seducer of Europa (verse 84) and Leda, among others.

The Crystalline Sphere is uniform and transparent. Those of us who have been hoping to have confirmation that somehow the specifications made in Convivio about the intellectual activities sponsored by the various heavens, as these are described there, might seem reflected in these same heavens, as they are described here, must once again suffer disappointment, as the Primum Mobile, according to Convivio (II.xiv.14-18), is supposed to resemble moral philosophy – not angelology. It certainly seems plain that Dante abandoned this schematic design of the earlier work in the Comedy, for whatever reason. But see Peter Armour (“Paradiso XXVII,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 410), claiming that Beatrice's turning to invective is indeed the sign of this heaven's alignment with moral philosophy.

We may expect a simile to begin our experience of the new realm, as has been frequently the case (see Par. V.100-105; Par. VIII.16-21; Par. XIV.97-102; Par. XVIII.73-77; Par. XXI.34-42), but do not find one.

There is considerable contention about the possible reading vicissime (nearest), defended vigorously and even nastily by Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 100-102). Petrocchi (Dante Alighieri: La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, ed. G. Petrocchi [Florence: Le Lettere, 1994 {1966}], vol. I, Introduzione), pp. 245-47, defends his choice of vivissime. As always, whatever our opinion, we have followed Petrocchi, who argues that it here means “moving most quickly.” There are a number of other candidates, as sketched by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 100-102).

Beatrice, reading Dante's mind, knows that he wants to find out exactly where he is.

These verses make clear the relationship of this sphere to the Empyrean, which, without having any recognizable shape at all, is like a tenth celestial circle, if only in that it “surrounds” the Primum Mobile.

The word mezzo, which also can have a quite different technical meaning (e.g., at Purg. I.15), here apparently means “midpoint” or “center,” indicating the earth as the center of the material universe.

For the notion that Dante's universe is four-dimensional, a hypersphere, see Mark Peterson (“Dante and the 3-sphere,” American Journal of Physics 47.12 [1979]: 1031-35), who believes that Dante's vision of the cosmos looks forward to Einstein's; Robert Osserman (Poetry of the Universe [New York: Anchor, 1995], pp. 89-91), suggesting that Peterson overlooks the earlier model proposed by Riemann; John Freccero (“Dante's Cosmos” [Bernardo Lecture Series, No. 6; Binghamton, N.Y.: CEMERS, 1998], pp. 1-16); and William Egginton (“On Dante, Hyperspheres, and the Curvature of the Medieval Cosmos,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60.2 [1999]: 195-216). However, the reader probably should temper an enthusiasm for such “premodern physics” on Dante's part with an awareness of his possible dependence, for his “ontological, neoplatonic, and theocentric” vision of the rest of the universe, on such models as he found in his precursors. For instance, see Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“'Legato con amore in un volume,'” in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], pp. 232-34), reacting to Paradiso XXVIII.14-15 with the suggestion that Dante's “picture” derives from Bonaventure (Itinerarium mentis, V).

For a quick introduction to the properties of the hypersphere, one may visit the following site: http://www.hypersphere.com/hs/abouths.html.

The Crystalline Sphere rules the temporal relationships among the parts of the rest of the universe. Dante employs the word testo (“flowerpot”), a hapax when having this sense (but see Inf. XV.89 and Purg. VI.29 for its use with the meaning “text”) to portray the ninth (and invisible) sphere as the container of all time, with its invisible roots here, displaying its leaves, pushed downward, in the visible portions of the rest of the spheres (the stars and planets). (The Crystalline Sphere's “likeness” to a flowerpot would seem to be based on the fact that we cannot see the “roots of time,” just as we cannot see the root system of a plant when it is in a pot.)

The author of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to verse 115) was perhaps the first to point to Dante's source here, Aristotle's Physics (IV.x-xiii); Francesco Torraca (comm. to vv. 118-120) appears to have been the first commentator to cite Dante's citation of that passage in Convivio (IV.ii.6).

Ever since the protagonist encountered the wolf of cupidity in the first canto, cupidigia has been a constant presence in the poem. It now becomes, in metaphor, the flood that covers all humankind and stifles efforts toward noble enterprise. Since we naturally long for the good, it is the blight of cupidity that turns our first flowering into rotten fruit.

Casini/Barbi (comm. to this verse, citing BSDI 9 [1902]: 161) refer to the Tuscan saying (given here in a rough English version) that offers the following meteorological pearl: “If it rains on Ascension Day / the plums will suffer quick decay.”

We follow Chimenz (comm. to vv. 127-129) and most recent commentators in reading the word fede in the moral (rather than the theological) sense, and thus “loyalty” or “honesty.”

In these two examples of failing human conduct, does Dante rehearse the first two sins of mankind, eating and killing? An air of puzzlement about the poet's reasons for choosing these particular examples pervades the early commentaries. John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 133-135) is among the few to offer a motive, in the second instance, for such nasty thoughts on the part of the grown child, putting in his mouth the following maledictive question: “When will she be dead, this damned old lady?” Baldassare Lombardi (comm. to vv. 134-135) suggests two motives: to be done with her pious corrections and to dissipate her property. This two-part motive is repeated by any number of later commentators; Luigi Pietrobono (comm. to verse 135) is the first of them to think of Cecco Angiolieri's sonnet “S'io fossi fuoco” (If I were fire) in which he says, “S'i' fosse morte, andarei a mi' padre; – s'i' fosse vita, non starei con lui: – similemente faria da mi' madre” (If I were Death, I'd go to my father; if I were life, I would not abide with him: and [I'd have] the same dealings with my mother).

Gary Cestaro (Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003], pp. 80-82), dealing with the intrinsic concern with the kind of vernacular Dante champions here, believes that one finds in this passage a reversal of the disparaging of the “unlettered vernacular” urged both in De vulgari eloquentia and in Convivio. He does so, however, in a heavy-handed a manner, one based, as he himself insists (e.g., pp. 3-6) on the post-psychoanalytic views of the determining effects of infancy put forward by Julia Kristeva. The result tends to turn Dante's work into a single-purposed, compulsive deliberation about the sexually derived status of his language. We read, for example, that a central concern of the Convivio is “an imaginative reconstruction of the scene of his parents' coitus” (p. 77); that (on the same page) in De vulgari eloquentia both “language and subject exist in a kind of poststructuralist drift.” One does not want only to object that these things simply are not so, but that Dante would have been wide-eyed in amazement if he had heard them uttered. The over-determination of Cestaro's thesis is both evident and in particular disarray a few pages later (pp. 73-74). He is considering the text of Proverbs 1:8-10, which runs, in part, as follows: “My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother.... My son, if sinners will entice (lactaverint) you, consent not to them.” And here is Cestaro on this passage: “Jerome's choice of the verb lacto here to convey luxurious enticement and seduction... provides spectacular semantic testimony of the nurturing horror inherent in classical language.” One would probably not be convinced of the truth of that statement even if the first-conjugation Latin verb lacto, lactare had anything to do with nursing, with giving milk, as does the verb of the second conjugation, lacteo, lactere, with which Cestaro has evidently conflated it because of their identical stems.

The gerund balbuzïendo, used as participle (repeated in verse 133), picks up the adjective balba (stammering) from Purgatorio XIX.7, the description of the foul seductress in Dante's second Purgatorial dream. There it contrasted with the false beauty and eloquence that the dreaming protagonist lent her; here it is the sign of innocence and immaturity that is preferable to mature and calculated evildoing.

A widely debated tercet, one of the most vexed passages in the entire poem. And yet, at least at first glance and if we listen only to its first interpreters, it seems easier to resolve than it has in fact turned out to be. The Ottimo, Benvenuto, and Landino, obviously reflecting on the context of the preceding six verses, argue that the bella figlia is human nature itself, “created” by the Sun (the Ottimo refers us to Par. XXII.116 for Dante's presentation of the Sun as “father” of every mortal life). Starting with John of Serravalle (comm. to this tercet), who also believes that the reference is to human nature, commentators refer to Aristotle's tag, “Homo et sol generant hominem” (Man and the Sun generate men), found near the end of the second section of the Physics (and quoted by Dante [Mon. I.ix.1].) This is then repeated by numerous later glossators. Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet), as many now do, recalls Paradiso XXII.93: “del bianco fatto bruno” (how dark its white has turned) as a precursor text in the poem.

What tends to be obscured in the conflicting studies of the tercet is the difficulty in making out the literal sense of the phrase “nel primo aspetto.” This phrase may be understood in at least three mutually exclusive ways: the aspetto (1) belongs to the daughter (it is probably located in the skin of her face, her “aspect,” what she looks like) and is darkened by the Sun; (2) belongs to the daughter and is her gaze; (3) is what is seen by the Sun, that is, is in his sight (whatever the Sun represents, whether itself or God). Since there is no sure way of determining which of these possibilities governs, one has to proceed “backward,” arguing from the context to the meaning of this phrase.

What may seem surprising today, in light of the wildly differing responses that begin with Carmine Galanti (as reported by Poletto in 1894 [comm. to this tercet], he introduced Circe into the list of “candidates”) and continue into our own time, is the near unanimity of the ancients. Major exceptions are Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet), who interprets her as representing the Church; the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to this tercet), who, in a variation, thinks that she represents the priesthood. (For passages in Bonaventura's Collationes in Hexaemeron [XII and XXV] that portray the Church as filia solis, see Gian Luca Pierotti [“La filia solis di Bonaventura e i cambiamenti di colore in Par. XXVII,” Lettere Italiane 33 {1981}: 216-21].) On the other hand, and for something completely different, see Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 121-138), who uniquely is of the opinion that, reflecting her presence in Aeneid VI.142 (the next two verses detail the plucking of the golden bough), she is Proserpina, or the Moon. The most complete summary of interpretations until 1921 is found in Casini/Barbi (comm. to verse 136) and is still useful, up to a point, today.

See James E. Shaw (“'And the Evening and the Morning Were One Day,' [Paradiso, XXVII, 136-138],” Modern Philology 18 [1921]: 569-90) for a close study of the passage that has perhaps dubious result (the “primo aspetto” is Lucifer's, and the present tense results from the presence of Lucifer in the world today – pp. 584-86) but nonetheless presents a good deal of interesting material. Peter Armour (“Paradiso XXVII,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 411-14) reviews the various theories without choosing one over another in the hope of resolving this “the most impenetrable [tercet] in the entire poem” (p. 412).

Strangely enough, it was only eighty years ago that what has come to be considered an essential reference in verse 136 was brought to light by H.D. Austin (“'Black But Comely' [Par. XXVII, 136-138],” Philological Quarterly 15 [1936]: 253-57): Song of Solomon (1:5), “I am black but comely.” Once Auerbach (“Figurative Texts Illustrating Certain Passages of Dante's Commedia,” Speculum 21 [1946], pp. 485-88) also treated this as an evident borrowing, it began to be more widely noticed. (For discussion of this tercet [and these two contributions], see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}, pp. 174-80] and Pertile [“'Così si fa la pelle bianca nera': l'enigma di Paradiso XXVII, 136-138,” Lettere Italiane 43 {1991}]: 5-6.)

Scartazzini (comm. to this tercet) resurrects Jacopo della Lana's solution: the Church. In the twentieth century Circe became the favored choice, supported by the Virgilian (Aen. VII.11) and Ovidian (Metam. XIV.346) phrase, filia solis, describing her (see Barbi [Problemi di critica dantesca {Florence: Sansoni, 1934}, pp. 292-93]); Scott [Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” {Florence: Olschki, 1977}], p. 229). More recently, Bodo Guthmüller (“'Che par che Circe li avesse in pastura' [Purg. XIV, 42]. Mito di Circe e metamorfosi nella Commedia,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 248-50) takes issue with Pertile's anti-Circean view. Pertile (“'Così si fa la pelle bianca nera': l'enigma di Paradiso XXVII, 136-138,” Lettere Italiane 43 [1991]: 3-26), who mines commentary to the Canticle of Canticles by Guillaume de Saint-Thierry (pp. 7-18), had argued that for Dante, in this passage, at least, the sposa (bride) of the Canticle represents the human soul.

The Third Vatican Mythographer (XI.6) offers the following list of those to whom the name filia solis was given: Pasiphae, Medea, Circe, Phaedra, Dirce. For the first of these, Pasiphae, see Selene Sarteschi (“Ancora sui versi 136-38 di Paradiso XXVII,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 118 [2000]: 401-21), referring to Servius as source; but see the previous article of Letterio Cassata (“Tre cruces dantesche: III. La pelle di Pasifae,” Studi Danteschi 48 [1971]: 29-43), who had arrived at this interpretation before her. Antonio Lanza (La Commedìa: Testo critico secondo i più antichi manoscritti fiorentini, Nuova edizione [Anzio: De Rubeis, 1996], ad loc.) accepts Cassata's argument.

However, for still another candidate, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], p. 191n.): If Dante knew either the Dittochaeon (Prudentius's poeticized version of Scriptural narrative) or some digest or listing in which at least its first line is found (cf. the online catalogue of the holdings of the monastery at Melk, where it does in fact appear), he would have seen some version of the following: “Eva columba fuit tunc candida; nigra deinde / facta per anguinum malesuada fraude venenum” (Eve was at first white as a dove; she then became black because of the venomous serpent and its persuasive fraudulence). Hollander begins by citing Ovid (Metam. V.568-571) for the facies (face, aspect) of Proserpina turning, in the obverse of what is described here, from sadness to sunlit gladness; he then presses his case for Dante's figural melding of Proserpina and Eve (a familiar enough equation, e.g., both women as sinful “eaters” [Hollander, p. 179]).

There are problems with all the solutions heretofore proposed except, perhaps, for the most generic one: human nature, or human beings in general (or, in Pertile's formulation, the human soul). This last hypothesis is accompanied by only one slight problem: Dante has, in the two preceding tercets, exemplified human conduct in a male child; why should he, if his subject remains the same, suddenly switch to a generic female child? This would make a reader believe that the reference changes to feminine for a reason, a hidden identity that we are meant to puzzle out. And we have certainly puzzled. However, and to take only the two most popular modern readings, Circe and the Church, both of these seem flawed. Circe does not have the virginal aspect that these lines at least seem to confer upon the bella figlia. And she really doesn't fit the context; she does not change from good to bad, from lovely to ugly, etc.; she changes others into something that they were not before. In order to support this reading, one must interpret Circe as changing the complexion of her captives, hardly what Dante seems to be interested in here. And what about the Church? As a possible interpretation, it gains support from its longevity (it first was broached by Jacopo della Lana), from a modern authority (Scartazzini), and from a skillful argument (see Chiavacci Leonardi [Paradiso, con il commento di A. M. C. L. {Milan: Mondadori, 1997}], p. 763). However, if one reads the entire context as political and civil, as it surely seems to be, one finds that solution awkward. Indeed, it could be argued that Dante's thoughts about the Church's reform and revitalization outside a political context at the time he was writing the last parts of Paradiso (with the Church, by electing John XXII pope, having thereby confirmed its election of the Avignonian captivity) are never anything but grim. All we hear about the Church in upper paradise is given in thundering invectives against her failings. It does not appear that Dante spent much thought on ways in which it might be amended.

As for the proposal of Eve, it faces (as do all the others but that putting forward human nature), a formidable challenge: the present tense of the verb fa. If the verse read, in the original, fé, as Lanza suggests it might have (La Commedìa: Testo critico secondo i più antichi manoscritti fiorentini, Nuova edizione [Anzio: De Rubeis, 1996], ad loc.), then the reference to Eve would be a lot more plausible. But such proposals must be advanced only with a sense of restraint.

For a consideration of the varying views through the 1970s, see Gian Paolo Marchi (“Canto XXVII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], pp. 533-36) and, for some later ones, Pertile (“'Così si fa la pelle bianca nera': l'enigma di Paradiso XXVII, 136-138,” Lettere Italiane 43 [1991]: 3-26).

Perhaps because we are so near the Empyrean, many Dantists do not observe the clearly political interests of the following prophecy (vv. 142-148), which concludes the canto. Any sort of open-minded reading of this tercet makes it plain that the governance Dante has in mind is not that of a pope, is not ecclesiastical in any way. It is instructive to compare the similar moment in Purgatorio XVI.94-96 (and see the appended note). It is also instructive to study the lengthy and concerted gloss to this passage of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 139-148), which interprets the entire prophecy as having to do with the corruption and necessary reform of the Church. That so gifted a commentator can go astray is a warning to us lesser readers. And see Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001]), p. 156), who considers the unreported prophecy Cacciaguida makes of Cangrande's great deeds (Par. XVII.91-93) the third major prophecy in the poem and does not mention this one.

As Tozer interprets verses 142-144: “The reckoning of the Julian calendar involved a yearly error in excess of somewhat less than a hundredth part of a day (la centesma), and this in Dante's time amounted to an error of about nine days, so that January was advanced by so much towards the end of winter and beginning of spring. It was this which was corrected by the Gregorian calendar two centuries and a half later. The general meaning, then, of prima che, &c., is 'before a very long time has passed'; but it is intended to be understood ironically as meaning 'before long,' 'soon,' somewhat in the same way as when we say 'not a hundred miles off' for 'near.'” Whatever the time involved, it is clear that this is a major prophecy in the poem, in line with those found in Inf. I (“veltro”) and Purg. XXXIII (“DXV”), as Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 180-91) has argued. One of the medieval meanings of “fortuna” was “storm at sea” – cf. Purg. XXXII, 116 – and that clearly seems to be the image Dante uses here. The word for “fleet” (classe) is here used for the first time in Italian (according to the Grande Dizionario); it comes from Latin classis, the name for Ravenna as home of the Roman fleet and (for a time) capital of the empire. Within the context of the canto, Peter's slam of the papacy also ends with a Roman thought (Scipio defeating Hannibal); it is not really surprising that Beatrice here should prophesy the coming of an emperor who will set things right. (See, among others, Scott [Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” {Florence: Olschki, 1977}, pp. 232-33]; Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works {New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001}, pp. 142-44].) Only then will the human race steer a good course – and the papacy, too, get straightened out. Christian Moevs (“The Metaphysical Basis of Dante's Politics,” in Le culture di Dante. Atti del quarto Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone et al. [Florence: Cesati, 2004], p. 218) insists that Dante does not claim that the Bible itself actually argues for empire. But certainly Monarchia (II.xi.1), on its own authority, does: “And if the Roman empire was not based on right, Adam's sin was not punished in Christ; but this is false” (tr. P. Shaw).

See Moore (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 {1903}], pp. 95-101) for an extended presentation of what still coincides with the “standard” interpretation of this problematic expression. He shows that the Julian calendar, itself developed to adjust “seasonal slippage” of considerable extent, mismeasured the solar year by the one-hundredth part of a day. Richard Kay (“Unwintering January [Dante, Paradiso 27.142-143],” Modern Language Notes 118 [2003]: 237-44) does not believe that Dante here refers to this error (as is the general understanding among dantisti), but to the hundredth part of a degree of sidereal movement. Thus, according to his calculations, A.D. 8300 would be the date to which Beatrice alludes (p. 240). That would not seem to conform to the dominant impression that she leaves with the reader, which is that this promised event will happen soon. And so Kay, as were others before him, who used a different base for their calculations, is forced to argue for Beatricean ironic understatement, except that in his case the gap between hope and realization seems unbridgeable. Whatever our eventual understanding, Kay's note is useful for its presentation of the sort of astronomical calculations Dante would have known and used.

For medieval views that the stars were involved in shaping these major human events, see Kennerly M. Woody (“Dante and the Doctrine of the Great Conjunctions,” Dante Studies 95 [1977]: 119-34).

The word fortuna, as only several earlier commentators have pointed out (e.g., the Anonimo Fiorentino and Tommaseo, both to vv. 145-148 [although both eventually hedge their bets]), here nearly certainly has the meaning “storm at sea.” In the nineteenth century, beginning with Andreoli (comm. to vv. 145-147), that became the dominant reading (and see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}], pp. 181n., 190). Tommaseo (comm. to these verses) also cited an analogous passage (Purg. XXXII.116), “come nave in fortuna” (like a ship tossed in a tempest), which might have offered a clue to others. Perhaps the vastly different context of that passage (the nascent Church is being attacked by Roman emperors) is responsible for the failure of attention. However, for a more recent and differing opinion, see Stefano Prandi (Il “Diletto legno”: Aridità e fioritura mistica nella “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1994], p. 120), who does not consider pertinent the meteorological meaning of fortuna in this occurrence of the word; the same may be said of Roberto Antonelli (“Canto XXVII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 422-23).

For notice of a similar and entirely relevant passage, see Scott (Dante's Political Purgatory [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996], p. 100), in his discussion of Purgatorio VI.76-78, pointing to Epist. VI.3: “... When the throne of Augustus is vacant, the whole world goes out of course, the helmsman and rowers slumber in the ship of Peter, and unhappy Italy, forsaken and abandoned to private control, and bereft of all public guidance, is tossed with such buffeting of winds and waves as no words can describe, ...” (tr. P. Toynbee). See Tommaseo (comm. to these verses [and see the note to verse 148]), citing an earlier form of the image in a discussion of empire in Convivio IV.v.8: “Since universal peace reigned everywhere, which it never did before nor ever shall again, the ship of human society was speeding on an even course directly toward its proper port” (tr. R. Lansing). Christopher Kleinhenz (“Dante and the Bible: Intertextual Approaches to the Divine Comedy,” Italica 63 [1986], pp. 229-30) thinks that the prophecy is of “a powerful temporal ruler.” Steno Vazzana (“Il Canto XXVII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], p. 726) sees the storm at sea as representing the next and very angry emperor, “un nuovo Scipione, salvatore armato” (a new Scipio, a savior in arms).

For some of the earlier presences (there are six of them in all) of the word poppa, signifying “poop deck,” see the note to Purgatorio XXX.58. And here prora, of which this is the fifth and final appearance (see Inf. VIII.29 and XXVI.141; Purg. XXX.58; Par. XXIV.68), joins its naval counterpart for a shared final appearance.

The canto ends with a corrective return to the image of failed fruition (found in verse 126). We are promised that the eventual imperial reemergence, latent in history (one perhaps thinks of the model represented by kairos, the “fullness of time” in the coming of Christ during the Pax romana), will be, amazing even to Dante, fulfilled before our very eyes. This underlying reference had already been precisely expressed in Convivio IV.v.8: “Nor was the world ever, nor will it be, so perfectly disposed as at the time when it was guided by the voice of the one sole prince and commander of the Roman people [Augustus], as Luke the Evangelist testifies. Since universal peace reigned everywhere, which it never did before nor ever shall again, the ship of human society was speeding on an even course directly toward its proper port” (tr. R. Lansing). This is, “reading Dante through the lens of Dante” (see the last paragraph of the note to vv. 67-72), perhaps the single best gloss to this difficult passage, even if it appears to have been cited only by Tommaseo (see the note to vv. 145-148). Much has recently been written about Dante's rejection of the values he espoused in his earlier works, particularly Convivio (see the notes to Par. VIII.34-39 and XVIII.91-93). While it seems nothing less than obvious, to any sort of objective examination that this is true, it surely needs also to be observed that such retrospective change of heart is not total. These notes refer to the minor works frequently, and to the Convivio most frequently (roughly one hundred times). In some respects it was the pre-study for Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.91-96), embodying several of its major themes and images (centrally, the intellectual banquet [the “bread of angels”]). Thus, while some of its matter may have been “heretical” from the standpoint of the author of the later poem, many of its judgments, particularly in the fourth treatise, in which the Convivio changed its course dramatically, now embracing Roman history as one of its new themes, are exactly as we find them in Paradiso (see Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works {New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001}], pp. 86-90).

In a decidedly less political context, Barbara Seward (The Symbolic Rose [New York: Columbia University Press, 1960], p. 22) cites St. Bernard to the effect that the rose is “the flower of resurrection, blossoming after the rain of disbelief.”