“Poscia che Costantin l'aquila volse
contr' al corso del ciel, ch'ella seguio
dietro a l'antico che Lavina tolse,
cento e cent' anni e più l'uccel di Dio
ne lo stremo d'Europa si ritenne,
vicino a' monti de' quai prima uscìo;
e sotto l'ombra de le sacre penne
governò 'l mondo lì di mano in mano,
e, sì cangiando, in su la mia pervenne.
Cesare fui e son Iustinïano,
che, per voler del primo amor ch'i' sento,
d'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e 'l vano.
E prima ch'io a l'ovra fossi attento,
una natura in Cristo esser, non piùe,
credea, e di tal fede era contento;
ma 'l benedetto Agapito, che fue
sommo pastore, a la fede sincera
mi dirizzò con le parole sue.
Io li credetti; e ciò che 'n sua fede era,
vegg' io or chiaro sì, come tu vedi
ogne contradizione e falsa e vera.
Tosto che con la Chiesa mossi i piedi,
a Dio per grazia piacque di spirarmi
l'alto lavoro, e tutto 'n lui mi diedi;
e al mio Belisar commendai l'armi,
cui la destra del ciel fu sì congiunta,
che segno fu ch'i' dovessi posarmi.
Or qui a la question prima s'appunta
la mia risposta; ma sua condizione
mi stringe a seguitare alcuna giunta,
perché tu veggi con quanta ragione
si move contr' al sacrosanto segno
e chi 'l s'appropria e chi a lui s'oppone.
Vedi quanta virtù l'ha fatto degno
di reverenza; e cominciò da l'ora
che Pallante morì per darli regno.
Tu sai ch'el fece in Alba sua dimora
per trecento anni e oltre, infino al fine
che i tre a' tre pugnar per lui ancora.
E sai ch'el fé dal mal de le Sabine
al dolor di Lucrezia in sette regi,
vincendo intorno le genti vicine.
Sai quel ch'el fé portato da li egregi
Romani incontro a Brenno, incontro a Pirro,
incontro a li altri principi e collegi;
onde Torquato e Quinzio, che dal cirro
negletto fu nomato, i Deci e ' Fabi
ebber la fama che volontier mirro.
Esso atterrò l'orgoglio de li Aràbi
che di retro ad Anibale passaro
l'alpestre rocce, Po, di che tu labi.
Sott' esso giovanetti trïunfaro
Scipïone e Pompeo; e a quel colle
sotto 'l qual tu nascesti parve amaro.
Poi, presso al tempo che tutto 'l ciel volle
redur lo mondo a suo modo sereno,
Cesare per voler di Roma il tolle.
E quel che fé da Varo infino a Reno,
Isara vide ed Era e vide Senna
e ogne valle onde Rodano è pieno.
Quel che fé poi ch'elli uscì di Ravenna
e saltò Rubicon, fu di tal volo,
che nol seguiteria lingua né penna.
Inver' la Spagna rivolse lo stuolo,
poi ver' Durazzo, e Farsalia percosse
sì ch'al Nil caldo si sentì del duolo.
Antandro e Simeonta, onde si mosse,
rivide e là dov' Ettore si cuba;
e mal per Tolomeo poscia si scosse.
Da indi scese folgorando a Iuba;
onde si volse nel vostro occidente,
ove sentia la pompeana tuba.
Di quel che fé col baiulo seguente,
Bruto con Cassio ne l'inferno latra,
e Modena e Perugia fu dolente.
Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,
che, fuggendoli innanzi, dal colubro
la morte prese subitana e atra.
Con costui corse infino al lito rubro;
con costui puose il mondo in tanta pace,
che fu serrato a Giano il suo delubro.
Ma ciò che 'l segno che parlar mi face
fatto avea prima e poi era fatturo
per lo regno mortal ch'a lui soggiace,
diventa in apparenza poco e scuro,
se in mano al terzo Cesare si mira
con occhio chiaro e con affetto puro;
ché la viva giustizia che mi spira,
li concedette, in mano a quel ch'i' dico,
gloria di far vendetta a la sua ira.
Or qui t'ammira in ciò ch'io ti replìco:
poscia con Tito a far vendetta corse
de la vendetta del peccato antico.
E quando il dente longobardo morse
la Santa Chiesa, sotto le sue ali
Carlo Magno, vincendo, la soccorse.
Omai puoi giudicar di quei cotali
ch'io accusai di sopra e di lor falli,
che son cagion di tutti vostri mali.
L'uno al pubblico segno i gigli gialli
oppone, e l'altro appropria quello a parte,
sì ch'è forte a veder chi più si falli.
Faccian li Ghibellin, faccian lor arte
sott' altro segno, ché mal segue quello
sempre chi la giustizia e lui diparte;
e non l'abbatta esto Carlo novello
coi Guelfi suoi, ma tema de li artigli
ch'a più alto leon trasser lo vello.
Molte fïate già pianser li figli
per la colpa del padre, e non si creda
che Dio trasmuti l'armi per suoi gigli!
Questa picciola stella si correda
d'i buoni spirti che son stati attivi
perché onore e fama li succeda:
e quando li disiri poggian quivi,
sì disvïando, pur convien che i raggi
del vero amore in sù poggin men vivi.
Ma nel commensurar d'i nostri gaggi
col merto è parte di nostra letizia,
perché non li vedem minor né maggi.
Quindi addolcisce la viva giustizia
in noi l'affetto sì, che non si puote
torcer già mai ad alcuna nequizia.
Diverse voci fanno dolci note;
così diversi scanni in nostra vita
rendon dolce armonia tra queste rote.
E dentro a la presente margarita
luce la luce di Romeo, di cui
fu l'ovra grande e bella mal gradita.
Ma i Provenzai che fecer contra lui
non hanno riso; e però mal cammina
qual si fa danno del ben fare altrui.
Quattro figlie ebbe, e ciascuna reina,
Ramondo Beringhiere, e ciò li fece
Romeo, persona umìle e peregrina.
E poi il mosser le parole biece
a dimandar ragione a questo giusto,
che li assegnò sette e cinque per diece,
indi partissi povero e vetusto;
e se 'l mondo sapesse il cor ch'elli ebbe
mendicando sua vita a frusto a frusto,
assai lo loda, e più lo loderebbe.”
"After that Constantine the eagle turned
Against the course of heaven, which it had followed
Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years and more the bird of God
In the extreme of Europe held itself,
Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of the sacred plumes
It governed there the world from hand to hand,
And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and am Justinian,
Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,
Took from the laws the useless and redundant;
And ere unto the work I was attent,
One nature to exist in Christ, not more,
Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed Agapetus, he who was
The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere
Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and what was his assertion
I now see clearly, even as thou seest
Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,
God in his grace it pleased with this high task
To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my Belisarius I commended
The arms, to which was heaven's right hand so joined
It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the first question terminates
My answer; but the character thereof
Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou see with how great reason
Men move against the standard sacrosanct,
Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a power has made it worthy
Of reverence, beginning from the hour
When Pallas died to give it sovereignty.
Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode
Three hundred years and upward, till at last
The three to three fought for it yet again.
Thou knowest what it achieved from Sabine wrong
Down to Lucretia's sorrow, in seven kings
O'ercoming round about the neighboring nations;
Thou knowest what it achieved, borne by the Romans
Illustrious against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,
Against the other princes and confederates.
Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks
Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii,
Received the fame I willingly embalm;
It struck to earth the pride of the Arabians,
Who, following Hannibal, had passed across
The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest;
Beneath it triumphed while they yet were young
Pompey and Scipio, and to the hill
Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed;
Then, near unto the time when heaven had willed
To bring the whole world to its mood serene,
Did Caesar by the will of Rome assume it.
What it achieved from Var unto the Rhine,
Isere beheld and Saone, beheld the Seine,
And every valley whence the Rhone is filled;
What it achieved when it had left Ravenna,
And leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight
That neither tongue nor pen could follow it.
Round towards Spain it wheeled its legions; then
Towards Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote
That to the calid Nile was felt the pain.
Antandros and the Simois, whence it started,
It saw again, and there where Hector lies,
And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself.
From thence it came like lightning upon Juba;
Then wheeled itself again into your West,
Where the Pompeian clarion it heard.
From what it wrought with the next standard-bearer
Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together,
And Modena and Perugia dolent were;
Still doth the mournful Cleopatra weep
Because thereof, who, fleeing from before it,
Took from the adder sudden and black death.
With him it ran even to the Red Sea shore;
With him it placed the world in so great peace,
That unto Janus was his temple closed.
But what the standard that has made me speak
Achieved before, and after should achieve
Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it,
Becometh in appearance mean and dim,
If in the hand of the third Caesar seen
With eye unclouded and affection pure,
Because the living Justice that inspires me
Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of,
The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath.
Now here attend to what I answer thee;
Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.
And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten
The Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.
Now hast thou power to judge of such as those
Whom I accused above, and of their crimes,
Which are the cause of all your miseries.
To the public standard one the yellow lilies
Opposes, the other claims it for a party,
So that 'tis hard to see which sins the most.
Let, let the Ghibellines ply their handicraft
Beneath some other standard; for this ever
Ill follows he who it and justice parts.
And let not this new Charles e'er strike it down,
He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.
Already oftentimes the sons have wept
The father's crime; and let him not believe
That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies.
This little planet doth adorn itself
With the good spirits that have active been,
That fame and honour might come after them;
And whensoever the desires mount thither,
Thus deviating, must perforce the rays
Of the true love less vividly mount upward.
But in commensuration of our wages
With our desert is portion of our joy,
Because we see them neither less nor greater.
Herein doth living Justice sweeten so
Affection in us, that for evermore
It cannot warp to any iniquity.
Voices diverse make up sweet melodies;
So in this life of ours the seats diverse
Render sweet harmony among these spheres;
And in the compass of this present pearl
Shineth the sheen of Romeo, of whom
The grand and beauteous work was ill rewarded.
But the Provencals who against him wrought,
They have not laughed, and therefore ill goes he
Who makes his hurt of the good deeds of others.
Four daughters, and each one of them a queen,
Had Raymond Berenger, and this for him
Did Romeo, a poor man and a pilgrim;
And then malicious words incited him
To summon to a reckoning this just man,
Who rendered to him seven and five for ten.
Then he departed poor and stricken in years,
And if the world could know the heart he had,
In begging bit by bit his livelihood,
Though much it laud him, it would laud him more."
Justinian's response to Dante's first inquiry allows the poet to present his version of the biography of the emperor who codified Roman law. “Justinian I, surnamed the Great, emperor of Constantinople, A.D. 527-565. Justinian is best known for his legislation. He appointed a commission of jurists to draw up a complete body of law, which resulted in the compilation of two great works; one, called Digesta or Pandectae (533), in fifty books, contained all that was valuable in the works of preceding jurists; the other, called codex constitutionum, consisted of a collection of the imperial constitutions. To these two works was subsequently added an elementary treatise in four books, under the title of Institutiones (533); and at a later period Justinian published various new constitutions, to which he gave the name of Novellae constitutiones (534-65). These four works, under the general name of Corpus iuris civilis, form the Roman law as received in Europe” (Toynbee, “Giustiniano” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
The sixth canto in each cantica, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante's theologically charged imperial politics. For a clear statement of what had become the standard view, see Paolo Brezzi (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], p. 176). The three spokesmen for these three subjects are also of increasing distinction: Ciacco, Sordello, and Justinian; we get another clue as to Dante's high esteem for Ciacco, despite his deforming gluttony and resulting damnation.
The canto is divided into four parts, the first and third as direct responses to Dante's preceding questions (Par. V.127-129). The second (vv. 28-111) is coyly characterized by Justinian himself, here serving as Dante's stand-in, as a “digression” (alcuna giunta – verse 30). It is not only the longest but is also clearly the central element in Justinian's discourse. The final section (vv. 127-142) is devoted to a second spirit in Mercury, Romeo di Villanova. Nicolò Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 91-92), believes that the theme holding this canto together is earthly justice. And see Francesco Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 159). We need look no further than the first line of his Institutiones (I.i.1) to see how important that concept was to this man, who had the root of the word inscribed in his very name (iustus is Latin for “just”): “Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens” (Justice is the constant and perpetual desire to render each his due).
For an interesting early and global attempt to deal with the historical details (and some of their sources) lying behind this canto's presentation of Dante's ideas about Roman history, see Jacopo della Lana's lengthy proemial remarks in his commentary to this canto. And for the relation between the political concerns expressed in this canto and Dante's previous expressions of concern, in the opere minori, for the earthly welfare of the human race, especially that part of it residing on the Italian peninsula, see Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” op. cit., pp. 119-32.)
It has been suggested (by Hollander in Dante: A Life in Works [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], p. 140) that this canto, the only one in the poem spoken by a single voice, is a sort of Dantean version of a miniaturized Aeneid, become, in this handling, a theologized history of Rome. This first verse lends aid to such a view, as it rather dramatically opens this “mini-epic” in medias res, as indeed did the poem that contains it (see the note to Inferno I.1). In this connection, it is perhaps worth noting that, according to some, the canto both begins and ends with a not-very-noticeable citation of the Aeneid. The first words of Paradiso VI, “Poscia che,” may reflect, according to Torraca (comm. to vv. 1-3), Aeneid III.1, “Postquam.” Scevola Mariotti (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972], pp. 378-82), revisits Torraca's observation, showing how other elements in Aeneid III.1-6 leave their mark on this passage in Dante, and concludes by noting that Aeneid III, like Paradiso VI, is spoken by a single voice (it doesn't hurt his case that it belongs to “pater Aeneas”) except for its final three lines. And then, as Daniello (comm. to vv. 139-141) first and then Scartazzini (comm. to verse 1) argued, the penultimate verse (141) in this canto contains the phrase “a frusto a frusto” (a word not used elsewhere in the poem), a calque on Aeneid I.212: “Pars in frusta secant” (some cut it into pieces – tr. H.R. Fairclough). Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], p. 144) seizes upon this evidence, citing Scartazzini (but not Daniello), to make the argument for a Virgilian beginning and ending to the canto. Scartazzini finds himself here thinking of Dante's sad words about his own poverty-stricken exile (Conv. I.iii.3): “Ah, if only it had pleased the Maker of the Universe that the cause of my apology had never existed, for then neither would others have sinned against me, nor would I have suffered punishment unjustly – the punishment, I mean, of exile and poverty” (tr. R. Lansing).
The uniqueness of Justinian's canto, the only one in the poem dedicated to a single speaker and to the longest single speech in the poem, reflects the phenomenon addressed in great detail by E.H. Wilkins (“Voices of the Divine Comedy,” Annual Report of the Dante Society 79 [1961)]: 3): the third cantica has fewer speakers, but these speak at greater length than do most of those found in the first two canticles.
The Eagle, symbol of the Roman Empire, originally, with Aeneas, followed the course of the heavens, encircling the earth from east to west. Subsequently, it moved from west (Italy) to east (Constantinople), where Constantine had transferred the seat of empire in 330, and where Justinian governed from 527 until 565.
Aeneas's taking Lavinia to wife, not recounted in the Aeneid, is the only Virgilian detail that is reprocessed in Justinian's epic narrative.
Dante's chronology is different from that of most historians; he perhaps reflects one tradition found in some manuscripts of Brunetto Latini's Tresor, which has it that the initial transfer took place in 333 (and not in 330), and that Justinian assumed the eastern throne only in 539 (and not in 527), some 206 years later, thus accounting for Dante's error (in verse 4: “two hundred years and more”). For speculation regarding these dates in relation to Dante's sense of imperial prophecy in the Aeneid, see Robert Hollander and Heather Russo (“Purgatorio 33.43: Dante's 515 and Virgil's 333,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [March 2003]).
The mountains of the Troad, in Asia Minor, are presented as the site of Troy.
For Dante's phrase “the bird of God” (l'uccel di Dio), see its earlier presence in slightly different form: “l'uccel di Giove” (Purg. XXXII.112).
Justinian's words allow a reader to glimpse the heavily theologized nature of this history lesson. The citation (first noted by Baldassare Lombardi, in his comm. to this verse, of Psalm 16:8 (17:8), “sub umbra alarum tuarum” (beneath the shadow of your wings), building on the phrase “l'uccel di Dio” (the bird of God) in verse 4, invests the passage with a sense of divinity that is surely and specifically Christian.
The succession of the emperors has, in Dante, much the same feeling as that of the popes. One feels in both the presence of divine selection. It is not even a paradox that in Dante a greater solemnity is associated with the emperors, seen as carrying out God's work even before there were Christian emperors.
This verse performs a perfectly balanced five-word chiasmus:
Cesare Iustinïano
fui son
e
Justinian was a ruler and is a citizen of Heaven.
This verse makes a reader mindful of that classical (and modern) poetic convention in which the dead open a colloquy with passersby through the agency of the words inscribed on their tombstones; see Stefano Carrai (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 99-105).
One key element in Justinian's self-presentation as inspired lawgiver is perhaps surprisingly similar to a key element in Dante's self-description as inspired poet (see Purgatorio XXIV.52-54 and the note to that tercet). Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 279-81), calls attention to the similarity in the presentations of Dante and Justinian as divinely inspired writers; see vv. 23-24, below: “It pleased God, in His grace, to grant me inspiration / in the noble task to which I wholly gave myself.” Support for this view may be found in Silvia Conte (“Giustiniano e l'ispirazione divina dei Digesta,” L'Alighieri 27 [2006]: 25-40).
It may seem odd that Dante thought of the Digesta, Justinian's great winnowing of Roman law into fifty volumes, as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit – but not much more so than that he could have made the same claim for his own poetry. Moments like these make it difficult to deny the daring of the claims this poet makes for the veracity of his own fiction. He had to know how much discomfort this claim would cause, broadening, as it does, the range of those to whom the Spirit had chosen to speak beyond the wildest imagining. (See Mazzoni [“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 {1982}: 139-40], for acknowledgment of this dimension of Dante's strategy [which may seem surprising to those who wish to keep theology and politics separate], pointing to Kantorowicz's previous and entirely similar understanding.)
The words “[il] primo amor ch'i' sento” are potentially problematic. We have followed tradition in translating the verb sentire as meaning “feel.” However, it certainly could mean “hear.” The verb is used some 92 other times in the poem; in some 32 of these mean “hear,” while in some 60 it indicates a more general sense of sense perception. See the clear examples of both meanings in a single verse: Purgatorio XXIV.38. Thus we have no reason to believe it could not mean “hear” here. And see the parallel with the phrase “ch'i'odo” at Purgatorio XXIV.57, pointed out by Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], p. 279).
Justinian confesses that he had believed in the monophysite heresy, embraced by Eutyches, which allowed Jesus only a divine nature, that is, denied His humanity. Credit for bringing his view into conformity with orthodoxy is conferred upon Pope Agapetus I (533-536). As Carroll points out (comm. to vv. 1-27), however, Dante has, whether innocently or not, twisted several facts in order to manufacture his version of a Justinian cured of heresy before he did his inspired work on Roman law, e.g., Agapetus came to Constantinople only after the books were finished, while Dante's account (vv. 22-24) is quite different. Our poet simply must have a Christian compiler of the laws that were to govern Christian Europe; and so he manages to find (“create” might be the better word) him.
Agapetus is given credit for arguing his case so convincingly that Justinian was persuaded, as would be a contemporary of Dante, by Aristotle's “law of contradictories.” Tozer (comm. to this tercet) paraphrases as follows: “'[Agapetus's] article of faith (the two Natures in Christ) I now see clearly, in the same way as you see that of two contradictories one must be false, the other true'; i.e. not as a matter of opinion or inference, but with absolute certainty.”
Justinian now makes still more specific the dependence of his legal writing on the Holy Spirit. (See the note to vv. 11-12.) Dante is insistent in establishing the emperor's conversion as preceding his formulation of the laws, no matter what the facts may have been.
Belisarius (ca. 500-565), Justinian's greatest general, is portrayed by Dante in unproblematic and glowing terms, either despite what the poet knew of his eventual difficulties with his emperor or in ignorance of them. If Dante did know the extravagant and unverified tale (but he may not have, we must remember) that Justinian finally had all his possessions stripped from Belisarius and also had him blinded, we would sense even more strongly how willing he was to let the ideality of the situation trump its actuality. For here is a realm that a Dante can love, its supreme leader completely dedicated to the practical intellectual concerns of governance, the law, while his “right hand,” loyal and true, takes care of problems with the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in Italy. In any case, this pair of heroic figures offers Dante an emblem of the successful collaboration between representatives of the active and of the contemplative life (here in the form of the lower part of Boethius's familiar binome, practical [rather than theoretical] thought; see Cons. Phil. I.1[pr.]).
This is, according to the Grande Dizionario, one of the very few times in the history of the Italian language that the verb commendare is used to signify “affidare” (entrust) – the only other example put forward comes from Castiglione two centuries later. In Dante the word more usually signifies “praise, celebrate.”
Narrowing the principal activity of his own life on behalf of Rome triggers in Justinian the need to “add” something more, a “digression” of sorts (vv. 34-111), which naturally enough, given that he is speaking for his author, has begun (vv. 31-33) by touching on the criminally irresponsible struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Dante's Italy. It will, also naturally enough, conclude with the same concern (vv. 97-111). Thus ancient history has a most modern relevance and is framed by that topic.
The outcome of the struggle of the Eagle, a great Hegelian bird moving through history to make manifest the Spirit, is hardly a cause for optimism, at least not at the moment in which Dante is writing. The “covers” of Justinian's historical essay both depict the disastrous present day in Italy. The ensuing narrative of the Eagle's flight through time and space is put to the service of showing that it has become the corrupt emblem of a corrupt party (the Ghibellines of 1300), opposed by equally corrupt Guelphs.
Justinian speaks ironically (employing the trope antiphrasis, saying the opposite of what is meant).
The core of the canto, offering what is perhaps the poem's crucial political self-definition, presenting an absolutely unorthodox “history of the Caesars,” i.e., one principally shaped by a Christian point of view, is divided into sixteen segments:
(1) death of Pallas (35-36)
(2) Ascanius founds Alba Longa (37-38)
(3) Horatians' victory over the Curiatii (39)
(4) kings: rape of the Sabines (Romulus) (40)
(5) kings: rape of Lucretia (the Tarquins) (41-42)
(6) republic: vs. Gauls of Brennus (43-44)
(7) republic: vs. Tarentini of Pyrrhus (44-45)
(8) republic: Torquatus and Cincinnatus (46)
(9) republic: Decii and Fabii (47-48)
(10) republic: defeat of Hannibal (49-51)
(11) republic: Scipio and Pompey (vs. Catiline) (52-54)
(12) empire: Julius Caesar (55-72)
(13) empire: Augustus Caesar (73-84)
(14) empire: Tiberius Caesar (85-90)
(15) empire: Titus (91-93)
(16) empire: Charlemagne (94-96)
The Eagle is marked by virtù (usually “power” but, at times, as here, “virtue”), precisely what the opposing Italian political parties lack. The ensuing list of virtuous founding presences harps upon the moral virtues that separated Romans from their enemies. See Convivio IV.iv.11 for an earlier expression of Dante's firm belief in the moral superiority of the Romans: “Therefore, since this office [rulership] could not be attained without the greatest virtue, and since its exercise required the greatest and most humane kindness, this was the people best disposed to receive it” (tr. R. Lansing).
Roman imperial virtue begins with the death of Pallas, son of Evander. Despite the special protection of Aeneas, Pallas is killed in battle by Turnus (Aen. X.479-489). Thus the founding event of the empire is presented here as the death of Pallas, an event that seems to have the status of sacrifice. For a discussion in this vein, see Rachel Jacoff (“Sacrifice and Empire: Thematic Analogies in San Vitale and the Paradiso,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al. [Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985], pp. 317-32). The death of Cato has a similar resonance; he died for liberty, as Virgil tells Dante (Purg. I.71-72; and see the note to vv. 71-74). Pallas dies in order to give virtue a homeland in Italy where, for a time at least, it prospered. “His death led to that of Turnus, because Aeneas would have spared the latter's life, had he not seen the belt of Pallas, which [Turnus] was wearing (Aen. XII.940-950). By Turnus' death Aeneas became possessed of Lavinia, and of the kingdom of Latinus. Thus the death of Pallas ultimately caused the eagle to obtain the sovereignty” (Tozer's commentary to vv. 35-36).
For Dante's earlier view of the death of Pallas, see Monarchia II.ix.14.
Dante refers to Alba Longa, “the most ancient town in Latium, built according to tradition by Ascanius, son of Aeneas” (Toynbee, “Alba” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Eagle would remain there some three hundred years until the defeat of the local Curiatii by the Roman Horatii.
Dante (Conv. IV.v.11) includes three Tarquins among the first seven kings of Rome: “ ... the seven kings who first governed her – namely Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus, and the Tarquin kings who were the rulers and the tutors, so to speak, of her youth” (tr. R. Lansing). That means Dante counts the sixth king, Tullius Servius, related by marriage but not by birth, as one of the Tarquins, as Toynbee explains (“Tarquinii” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is probably significant that the first period of Roman history is marked, at either end, by rape, that of the Sabine women in Romulus's rule, and that of Lucrece by her husband's cousin, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, seventh king of Rome. That second act of sexual violence eventually had the result of ending Tarquin rule (510 B.C.).
Dante records two major military victories of the ensuing republican period. “Brennus, leader of the Senonian Gauls, who in 390 B.C. crossed the Apennines, defeated the Romans at the Allia, and took Rome; after besieging the capitol for six months he quitted the city upon receiving 1,000 pounds of gold as a ransom for the capitol and returned home safe with his booty. According to later tradition (followed by Livy), at the moment when the gold was being weighed and Brennus, declaring the Roman weights to be false, had thrown his sword into the scale, Camillus and a Roman army appeared, fell upon the Gauls, and slaughtered them” (Toynbee, “Brenno” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, born 318 B.C., died 272 B.C.; he claimed descent from Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and great-grandson of Aeacus. In 280 Pyrrhus crossed over into Italy at the invitation of the Tarentines to help them in their war against the Romans” (Toynbee, “Pirro-2” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
This tercet begins a passage dedicated to the Roman republic (vv. 43-54). For a clear understanding of Dante's allegiance to republican ideals and principles, see Charles Davis, “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic” (1974) and “Roman Patriotism and Republican Propaganda: Ptolemy of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III” (1975), both reprinted in Dante's Italy and Other Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), pp. 254-89 and 224-53, respectively; and see Robert Hollander and Albert Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 59-82) and the note to Paradiso XXVII.61-63.
The words principi e collegi refer to other political organisms on the peninsula, whether kingdoms or republics; for collegi with this meaning, Porena (comm. to this verse) cites Monarchia II.v.7: these bodies “seem in some sense to function as a bond between individuals and the community” (tr. P. Shaw).
“Titus Manlius, surnamed Torquatus, from the collar (torques) which he took from a fallen foe; and Quinctius, surnamed Cincinnatus, or the 'curly-haired'” (Longfellow, comm. on this verse).
The Decii and the Fabii: “Decii, famous Roman family, three members of which, father, son, and grandson, all bearing the same name, Publius Decius Mus, sacrificed their lives for their country” (Toynbee, “Deci” [Concise Dante Dictionary]); “the Fabii, ancient patrician family at Rome, which claimed descent from Hercules and the Arcadian Evander. It is celebrated as having furnished a long line of distinguished men” (Toynbee, “Fabi” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Dante uses a rare (or coins his own new) verb, mirrare, meaning “to embalm” or “to preserve with myrrh.” See Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) for an acerbic discussion of the vagaries of the ancient debate over this word. Some early commentators think Dante was only deliberately (because of the exigencies of rhyme) misspelling miro (admire) with a double “rr”; others see that it means “preserve,” as Scartazzini argues it indeed does, if he dislikes any sense of the odoriferous, favored by some but inappropriate, in his view, in Paradise.
To refer to the Carthaginians as Arabs is (as Bosco/Reggio [comm. on this tercet] explain) to commit an anachronism, since Arabs populated that part of North Africa only in Dante's day, not in Roman times. Hannibal (247-183 B.C.) was perhaps the Romans' most glorious and successful antagonist, over a period of some fifteen years defeating them in several major battles, until, at the battle of Zama, in 202 B.C., he was utterly crushed by Scipio (who received his surname, “Africanus,” as a result). Some may recall George C. Scott, portraying General George Patton in the eponymous film detailing the latter's military career, alone before a major tank battle of the North African campaign in World War II on the battlefield at Zama, reflecting on Scipio's victorious tactics.
“Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, one of the greatest of the Romans, born 234 B.C., died ca. 183; while just a youth he fought against Hannibal at the Battle of the Ticinus (218); he was elected consul 205, and in the next year crossed over into Africa, and at last brought to an end the long struggle between Rome and Hannibal by his decisive victory over the latter at the Battle of Zama, Oct. 19, 202; he returned to Italy in 201, and entered Rome in triumph, receiving the surname of Africanus in commemoration of his brilliant services; he served in the war against Antiochus the Great in 190, and, being afterwards accused of taking bribes from Antiochus, was tried in Rome in 185, on the anniversary of the Battle of Zama; the prosecution was, however, dropped, and Scipio left Rome, to which he never returned; he died not long after, probably in 183” (Toynbee, “Scipione-1” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pompey the Great, born 106 B.C., died 48 B.C.; in his youth he distinguished himself as a successful general and earned the surname of Magnus on account of his victories in the African campaign; he was consul with Crassus in 70 B.C., and in 59 B.C. joined Julius Caesar and Crassus in the first triumvirate. Caesar's increasing power made it inevitable that a struggle for supremacy should take place between them sooner or later, and in 49 B.C. the Civil War broke out; in the next year Pompey was completely defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalia, and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by order of Ptolemy's ministers” (Toynbee, “Pompeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Scipio is the Roman hero who is most often referred to by Dante; see Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 64-68).
The Roman standards seemed bitter to the inhabitants of the ancient hill town of Fiesole, beneath which lies Dante's Florence, when the army destroyed it in the war against Catiline. According to Giovanni Villani (Cron. I.36-37), Pompey was among the generals at the siege.
After seven tercets, each of which is devoted to one event (and sometimes more) in pre-imperial history, Dante will turn to his gallery of Roman emperors, one that will eventually resemble no other such listing ever found. But he deals with the first of them, Julius, here. (Post-Shakespearean readers may need to be reminded that, for Dante and historians in his time, Julius [and not Augustus] was the first emperor.)
Dante's “life of Caesar” is immediately put (forced?) into a Christian context. It was Julius's task to set the world in better order so that it would be prepared for the coming of Christ. Next Dante turns to Caesar's military triumphs in Gaul (vv. 58-60). The six rivers mentioned in these verses may derive from Lucan, Pharsalia I.399-434, as is suggested by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58).
The next four tercets (vv. 61-72) essentially recount the main Caesarean events of Lucan's version of the civil wars between Julius and the republicans: (1) his crossing of the Rubicon and march on Rome (Phars. I-III); (2) his attack on the republican forces in Spain (Phars. IV; see Purg. XVIII.101-102); (3) his landing on the Dalmatian coast in pursuit of Pompey (V-VI); (4) the battle of Pharsalus, with the death of Cato and flight of Pompey to Egypt, where he was betrayed and killed by Ptolemy (VII-IX); (5) his tour of some sites of the Trojan War (IX); (6) his deposition of Ptolemy, placing Cleopatra in his stead (X); (7) his defeat of Juba, king of Numidia, one of Pompey's supporters (not included in the unfinished epic, but since Juba is referred to at some length in Phars. IV.670-824, he was probably scheduled for a final, sad appearance); (8) a return to Spain, where Caesar annihilated the remainder of Pompey's followers (Lucan looks forward to this last battle, at Munda, in Phars. I.40). While most of these events seem to have sources in Lucan's text, and follow the order in which they occur in that text, what is utterly lacking is Lucan's biting sarcasm about Julius so sharply felt in most of these scenes. Indeed, Dante's own hostility toward Julius seems largely absent from this passage (see William Stull and Robert Hollander [“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 {1991 [1997]}: 33-43], for discussion of Julius's ups and [mainly] downs in Dante's eyes). In these lines, as in his presence as an exemplum of zeal in Purgatorio XVIII.101-102 (and see the note to the passage), only a positive view of Caesar is appropriate, since he is seen here as the first and theologically necessary emperor of Rome. The reference to Troy (vv. 67-68) also seems to have radically different purposes here and in Lucan; here it ties Julius to the Trojan founders of Rome, while there (Pharsalia IX.961-1003) it mocks his pretensions. See Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 121-29), for the problematic nature of Dante's changing views of Julius.
For Dante's similar sense of “kairos,” of the “fullness of time,” under Augustus, see Convivio IV.v.4-8, a text that also includes the following details about the birth of Rome: “David was born when Rome was born – that is, when Aeneas came to Italy from Troy, which was the origin of the Roman city, according to written records” (IV.v.6 [tr. R. Lansing]). And see Monarchia I.xvi.2: “That mankind was then [in the reign of Augustus] happy in the calm of universal peace is attested by all historians and by famous poets; even the chronicler of Christ's gentleness deigned to bear witness to it; and finally Paul called that most happy state 'the fullness of time' [plenitudinem temporis]” (tr. P. Shaw).
Here, once more, Dante's apparent sentiments are far from Lucanian. This nefarious crime of Julius is treated in this passage as a great and necessary step forward. See, however, Dante's previous harsh treatment of Curio, who encouraged Julius to cross the Rubicon and march on Rome (Inf. XXVIII.97-99). There the context was the destruction of the republic; here it is the establishment of the empire. For discussion of Dante's apparently contradictory views of Curio, see Jacques Goudet (“La 'parte per se stesso' e l'impegno politico di Dante,” Nuove letture dantesche, vol. VII [Florence: Le Monnier, 1974], pp. 313-16) and William Stull (“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 27-28).
Pompey, although he managed to avoid death at Caesar's hand in Greece, was betrayed by his host, the young king, Ptolemy, and killed in Egypt (Phars. VIII).
The young king suffers his own misfortune: Julius replaces him on the throne with Cleopatra.
The word baiulo here means “standard-bearer.” It refers to Octavian, the second of Dante's “world-historical” emperors, eventually known as Augustus Caesar. The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 73-81) traces it to the first-conjugation verb baiuolo (carry).
See Inferno XXXIV.64-67 for Dante's initial portrayal of this pair. Now he adds a detail: They are barking. In the previous passage we are told that Brutus is silent, and Cassius is not described as uttering sounds. Their “next-door neighbor” in Cocytus, however, Bocca, does bark (Inf. XXXII.105 and 108). Has Dante conflated that noise here? If we decide that such a solution seems unlikely, we are faced with another loose end in Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.34). But see Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), arguing that the phrase “e non fa motto” (Inf. XXXIV.66), apparently used to describe Brutus's silence, in fact is an ironic understatement on Dante's part, chosen to indicate that Brutus is indeed barking like a dog in his pain; this is surely an ingenious attempt to spare Dante from a self-contradiction; it probably fails to convince, mainly because no one would possibly read the line this way in its own terms. It would have been odd for Dante to have waited patiently for 39 cantos to make his meaning clear; would he not have preferred to live with readers' misprisions?
Octavian's forces defeated Mark Antony at Modena and also sacked the city of Perugia. Tozer points to Lucan (Phars. I.40) for a source: “though to these be added the famine of Perusia and the horrors of Mutina” (tr. J.D. Duff).
Antony, who survived defeat in the battles against the imperial army in Italy, did not choose to live much longer, after losing the naval battle near Actium (31 B.C.), and committed suicide. Cleopatra, fleeing before the imperial ensign, held aloft now by Octavian, did not choose to die with her lover; she put herself to death by means of the bite of an asp that she held to her breast (some commentators insist that she in fact employed two venomous snakes to do away with herself). Over the centuries many potential sources have been cited for the mode of her suicide, which occurred only once she perceived that, unlike Julius, Octavian was firm against her charms and intended to take her back to Rome as a captive. Giorgio Brugnoli (“'Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,'” Quaderni d'italianistica 16 [1995]: 89-90) argues that the most likely single source for Dante's “trista Cleopatra,” which he was the first to advance, is found in Juvenal (Sat. II.109), “maesta... Cleopatra” (wretched Cleopatra).
For a possible source, see Aeneid VIII.685-688, where Antony is criticized for his deportment with Cleopatra (this scene is one of those portrayed on the shield that Venus presents to Aeneas, Aen. VIII.626-731). As Fairclough points out in his note to this passage, the “ruddy sea” is the Indian Ocean, not the Red Sea. The first commentator to cite this phrase (litore rubro) in the Aeneid (VIII.686) was apparently Scartazzini (comm. to this verse). Most modern commentators also cite it, but, like Scartazzini, without noting that Virgil is not referring to the Red Sea. If he is in fact citing the Aeneid, Dante either makes the same mistake his modern commentators make or else forces the passage out of context, and has Augustus establishing his dominion over that most propitious part of the Mediterranean world, where Christ became flesh, as part of the plenitudo temporis (see the note to vv. 55-57). And see the note to Paradiso VII.6 for a possible resonance of another segment of this Virgilian text.
See the great prophecy of Augustus as bearer of world peace in Aeneid I.286-296, esp. verse 294, “claudentur Belli portae” (the gates of War shall be shut), as was first observed by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 79-81, along with passages from Lucan, esp. Phars. I.62). For both these loci, see also Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 79-81).
The word delubro is a Latinism (from delubrum, “temple”).
“Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson and adopted son and successor of Augustus; Roman emperor, A.D. 14-37” (Toynbee, “Tiberius” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). There is apparently a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to Dante's words in support of his selection of the third emperor in his most unusual pantheon. Julius is a bit problematic, given even Dante's own slurs on his character (see the notes to Purg. IX.133-138 and Purg. XXVI.77-78), but we understand that, for Dante and his time, he was the first emperor, and thus a necessary presiding presence. About Augustus no one ever could (and no one ever has wanted to) complain. But Tiberius (not to mention Titus!) has caused more than a little discomfort. And the protagonist does indeed marvel at these words (in Paradiso VII.19-24). But see Monarchia II.xi.5: “Thus if Christ had not suffered under an authorised judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorised unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ 'who bore our sorrows,' as the prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose representative Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind unless the Roman empire had existed by right” (tr. P. Shaw).
Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 79-81) made clear his amazement at Dante's having included Tiberius among the great emperors, referring to him as “the worst sort of successor” to Augustus. (And see Benvenuto's own list of seven emperors, dropping Tiberius and Titus in favor of Trajan and Constantine and adding Theodosius, in the Outline of this canto.) It is possible that Dante's “final list” is indeed seven, since it eventually includes Henry VII or his successor (see the note to Par. XXX.133-138) as the seventh emperor in the line adumbrated here. See Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 62 and 78n).
Justinian is making the case for the justness of Christ's death at the hands of the Romans (Pontius Pilate, acting as agent of Tiberius). This “vendetta” pursued by the Roman Eagle (as Justinian, inspired by the justice of God even as he now speaks, insists) is what makes the accomplishments of even Julius and Augustus seem paltry, for Christ's death atoned for all previous human sin and made sinners to come redeemable as well. Thus the apparently specious hyperbole in the passage regarding Tiberius (vv. 82-91) must be seen as serious. His greatness is precipitated out of the event he presided over, the Crucifixion. See Carroll on vv. 82-90: “The wrath is the just anger of God against the human race for its sins; and the 'doing of vengeance' is the death of Christ, regarded as the bearing of the punishment inflicted by that anger. The extraordinary thing is that Dante regards the Crucifixion as the supreme glory of Roman justice, inasmuch as it was the agent by which 'the Living Justice' 'did vengeance for His wrath.'”
See the quotation of the first line of Justinian's Institutiones in the note to vv. 1-27. Again Dante puts words reflecting the spiration of the Holy Spirit in Justinian's mouth; see verse 23 and the note to vv. 22-24. And see Inferno XXIX.55-57 (and the note to vv. 54-57) for Dante's association of himself with similar inspiration, not to mention Purgatorio XXIV.52-54. Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is one of the relatively few commentators to take clear notice of Justinian's insistence on divine inspiration for his work on Roman law.
“Titus, son and successor of Vespasian, Roman emperor, A.D. 79-81; he served under his father in the Jewish wars, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and returned to Italy in 70 he remained in Palestine in order to carry on the siege of Jerusalem, which he captured, after a siege of several months, in September of that year; in the following year he returned to Rome and celebrated the conquest of the Jews in a triumph with his father” (Toynbee, “Tito” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). For a clear explanation of this tercet, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 91-93): “The repetition is that of the word vendetta in two different applications, corresponding to the twofold mission of the eagle; first it avenged God's wrath against Adam's sin (vendetta del peccato antico) by putting Christ to death; then it took vengeance on the Jews for bringing about Christ's death by the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”
Giorgio Padoan (“Il Canto VII del Paradiso,” Lectura Dantis Romana [Turin: S.E.I., 1965], pp. 7-17) looks away from the canto of his Lectura Dantis Romana (Par. VII) to consider these verses and their problematic view of Jewish history.
Charlemagne gets short shrift as the sixth (Justinian does not, of course, refer to himself as a member of this elite group, but commentators have done so for him) and last of these “world-historical” emperors. See Tozer (comm. to these verses): “[W]hen Desiderius, king of the Lombards, persecuted the Church, Pope Adrian I called in Charles the Great to its defense. [V]incendo: by his victory over Desiderius. The date of this was 774, and Charles was not crowned emperor of the West until 800, so that at the time when it took place he was not under the protection of the Roman eagle (sotto le sue ali). Dante's error here is of a part with his more serious mistake in Mon. [III.xi.1] where he says that Charles was crowned emperor by Adrian I while the emperor Michael was on the throne of Constantinople – whereas in reality he was crowned by Leo III during the reign of Irene.” The process of translatio imperii has now been insisted on, as the Eagle has flown out of Italy and into France. This tercet thus accomplishes a great deal, introducing and defending the concept of the Holy Roman Empire in the space of three lines.
Having finished with the “Roman” past of imperial power, from Julius to Charlemagne, a period of just over 800 years, Justinian now turns to the present political ills of Italy. This subject is not treated as formally as the history of Roman institutions, but it is at once clear that, for Dante, it is of extraordinary importance
For Justinian's earlier references to Guelphs and Ghibellines and their battle over control of the sacrosanto segno (that most holy standard), see vv. 31-33 and the notes to those verses and to verse 30. In a real sense, then, vv. 34-96 are a digression (they are referred to as a giunta [an addendum], at verse 30), only preparing for Dante's pressing business, to show how poorly ordered the political affairs of the peninsula were in his own time.
While the Guelphs oppose the imperial ensign with their (French) golden lilies, the Ghibellines try to make it only their own, desiring to deprive others of their rightful imperial homeland.
The Ghibellines, for ridding the sacred sign of empire of justice, are told to find another symbol to represent their conniving spirit.
Charles II, King of Naples (ruled 1289-1309), is referred to as “new” to distinguish him from his father, also King of Naples (and Sicily, in his case), who died in 1285. Justinian warns him not to let his Guelph troops attempt to wrest the ensign of imperial rulership from the Ghibellines (who have their own problems in meriting it), for the empire has defeated mightier enemies before.
The imperial eagle's claws are portrayed as having “ripped the hides from greater lions” than Charles represents. The general sense is clear, but there have been any number of interpretations of what exactly is meant. E.g., the author of the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse) suggests defeated opponents of the eagle enumerated in the preceding text, such as Hannibal, Brennus, Turnus, etc.; Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 100-111) goes off into Roman history for still others who lost battles to the forces of ancient Rome; Trifon Gabriele (comm. to this verse) says that where the eagle is the symbol of empire, the lion is that of republics; Andreoli (comm. to this verse): the lion is the symbol of the ruling house of France; Bianchi (comm. to vv. 106-108): the “hides” indicate other princes; Pietrobono (comm. to vv. 107-108): enemies of Rome as indicated in Monarchia II.viii. The majority believes that there is no specific reference, only a generic prophecy of Charles' doomed experiment with increasing his dominions, should he try to accomplish that.
Strangely enough, not a single commentator (at least not among the seventy-two currently gathered in the DDP) makes reference to Ugolino's narrative here (see, e.g., Inf. XXXIII.38-39). In this poem there is hardly another more evident case of sons weeping for the sins of their father.
In these two tercets Justinian explains the nature of what was lacking in these souls (as Frank Ordiway has pointed out [“In the Earth's Shadow: The Theological Virtues Marred,” Dante Studies 100 {1982}: 82-85], it is the theological virtue of hope in its perfected form). As the temporary Moon-dwellers displayed a marred version of faith, so Justinian and the others here, while they were alive, displayed hope in an immature form, rendering their love of God less vibrant than it should have been.
In the following pair of tercets (these twelve verses indeed form a group, the two equal parts of which are joined by a triumphant “But”), Justinian, as has frequently been noted, sounds very much like Piccarda (Par. III.70-87). We can safely assume that neither he nor Romeo would be among the higher petals of the Rose in Paradiso XXXII; but that only makes them love God the more, for accepting them in Heaven with a history of such galling imperfections.
This verse marks the third occurrence of the noun giustizia in the canto, a density shared by only two previous cantos (Inf. III and Purg. XIX; however, see Par. VII, where that noun appears only once, but other forms of the word [giusta (3), giustamente (2), giuste] appear six times; see the note to Par. VII.20).
Romeo, seneschal (chief steward) of Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence: “The only foundation, apparently, for the story, adopted by Dante and Villani (vi.90), of the 'pilgrim' who became the minister of the Provençal count, is the fact that the name of count Berenger's grand seneschal was Romieu (or Romée) of Villeneuve. Romeo, a friend of Sordello (Purg. VI.74) was born c. 1170. In Aug. 1229 he was in Genoa as ambassador to the podestà of that city, and in the same year was serving as Raymond Berenger's chief minister, and by him was granted certain possessions in Genoa and her territories, and the next year received other properties. Early in 1241, on another mission as ambassador, he became involved in a battle at sea, from which he escaped unscathed, even managing to capture a Pisan vessel laden with merchandise which he had taken to Nice. On Aug. 19, 1245 Raymond Berenger died, leaving his daughter Beatrice his heir, and Romeo as 'baiulus totius terrae suae et filiae suae' [guardian of all his lands and those of his daughter]. Beatrice then married Charles of Anjou while under Romeo's guardianship. Romeo died in 1250” (Toynbee, “Romeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
For Villani's account (in English) of the arrangements made by Romeo to marry off Raymond's daughters and his umbrage at Raymond's request for an accountancy, see Oelsner's comment on these lines.
As Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is alone in pointing out, Justinian's reference to the planet Mercury as a pearl (as the narrator had referred to the Moon in Par. II.34) possibly has a biblical resonance: see Matthew 13.44-46, comparing the kingdom of heaven to “a pearl of great price.”
Those courtiers, we suppose, who spoke ill of Romeo to Raymond, succeeded in forcing his removal from a position of trust (see vv. 136-139), but in the end suffered the tyrannical rule of Raymond's successors.
When we read or hear Raymond's name, we may reflect on how many names or references to historical figures we have encountered in this canto (all but two of them in the first 106 verses). The total (Constantine, Aeneas, Lavinia, Justinian, Agapetus, Belisarius, Pallas, the Curiatii, the Horatii, the seven first kings of Rome, Sabine women, Lucrece, unnamed republicans, Brennus, Pyrrhus, Torquatus, Cincinnatus, the Decii, the Fabii, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Hector, Ptolemy, Juba, Augustus, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Tiberius, Titus, Desiderius, Charlemagne, Charles II of Anjou, Romeo, and Raymond), even if we count some plural presences as single units, as here, is an impressive 38, and that excludes the several-times-alluded-to Guelphs and Ghibellines. If we have bought into the discredited but still supported notion that in the last cantica Dante has given over worldly concerns, it may come as something of a surprise to have a canto in Paradiso make so obvious a gesture toward history.
The phrase dimandar ragione is a term used for requesting a review of the financial situation between involved parties.
That is, Romeo's accounts always returned more than he had accepted into his care. The numbers seem merely casually chosen, but would indicate a healthy 20% gain in Raymond's holdings under Romeo's management. But see Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 30), arguing for the non-coincidental appearance of these two numbers in Paradiso XIX.91-93, the “cinque volte sette” (five times seven) as the expression for the thirty-five letters that compose the first sentence of the Book of Wisdom.
Where the opening verses of the canto imply the presence of Virgil, as author of the Aeneid, the concluding ones summon the image of the exiled and “mendicant” Dante (cf. Par. XVII.58-60, Cacciaguida's admonition: “You shall learn how salt is the taste / of another man's bread and how hard it is / to go down and then up another man's stairs”). See Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 157); and see Woodhouse (“Dante and Governance: Contexts and Contents,” in Dante and Governance, ed. John Woodhouse [Oxford: Clarendon, 1997], pp. 1-11) for a treatment in English of Romeo's resemblance to Dante: It is he who, “by recalling, in his person and in his name, Romeus, pilgrim to Rome, recalls the tragic figure of Dante himself” (p. 7). His name also binds the two seemingly disparate parts of the canto, ancient and modern. This is a “Roman canto,” even when it turns its attention to recent events in Provence; its first part is a sort of vernacular version of a theologized Aeneid; its last, a comic (i.e., happily resolved) version of a lament for a courtier.
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“Poscia che Costantin l'aquila volse
contr' al corso del ciel, ch'ella seguio
dietro a l'antico che Lavina tolse,
cento e cent' anni e più l'uccel di Dio
ne lo stremo d'Europa si ritenne,
vicino a' monti de' quai prima uscìo;
e sotto l'ombra de le sacre penne
governò 'l mondo lì di mano in mano,
e, sì cangiando, in su la mia pervenne.
Cesare fui e son Iustinïano,
che, per voler del primo amor ch'i' sento,
d'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e 'l vano.
E prima ch'io a l'ovra fossi attento,
una natura in Cristo esser, non piùe,
credea, e di tal fede era contento;
ma 'l benedetto Agapito, che fue
sommo pastore, a la fede sincera
mi dirizzò con le parole sue.
Io li credetti; e ciò che 'n sua fede era,
vegg' io or chiaro sì, come tu vedi
ogne contradizione e falsa e vera.
Tosto che con la Chiesa mossi i piedi,
a Dio per grazia piacque di spirarmi
l'alto lavoro, e tutto 'n lui mi diedi;
e al mio Belisar commendai l'armi,
cui la destra del ciel fu sì congiunta,
che segno fu ch'i' dovessi posarmi.
Or qui a la question prima s'appunta
la mia risposta; ma sua condizione
mi stringe a seguitare alcuna giunta,
perché tu veggi con quanta ragione
si move contr' al sacrosanto segno
e chi 'l s'appropria e chi a lui s'oppone.
Vedi quanta virtù l'ha fatto degno
di reverenza; e cominciò da l'ora
che Pallante morì per darli regno.
Tu sai ch'el fece in Alba sua dimora
per trecento anni e oltre, infino al fine
che i tre a' tre pugnar per lui ancora.
E sai ch'el fé dal mal de le Sabine
al dolor di Lucrezia in sette regi,
vincendo intorno le genti vicine.
Sai quel ch'el fé portato da li egregi
Romani incontro a Brenno, incontro a Pirro,
incontro a li altri principi e collegi;
onde Torquato e Quinzio, che dal cirro
negletto fu nomato, i Deci e ' Fabi
ebber la fama che volontier mirro.
Esso atterrò l'orgoglio de li Aràbi
che di retro ad Anibale passaro
l'alpestre rocce, Po, di che tu labi.
Sott' esso giovanetti trïunfaro
Scipïone e Pompeo; e a quel colle
sotto 'l qual tu nascesti parve amaro.
Poi, presso al tempo che tutto 'l ciel volle
redur lo mondo a suo modo sereno,
Cesare per voler di Roma il tolle.
E quel che fé da Varo infino a Reno,
Isara vide ed Era e vide Senna
e ogne valle onde Rodano è pieno.
Quel che fé poi ch'elli uscì di Ravenna
e saltò Rubicon, fu di tal volo,
che nol seguiteria lingua né penna.
Inver' la Spagna rivolse lo stuolo,
poi ver' Durazzo, e Farsalia percosse
sì ch'al Nil caldo si sentì del duolo.
Antandro e Simeonta, onde si mosse,
rivide e là dov' Ettore si cuba;
e mal per Tolomeo poscia si scosse.
Da indi scese folgorando a Iuba;
onde si volse nel vostro occidente,
ove sentia la pompeana tuba.
Di quel che fé col baiulo seguente,
Bruto con Cassio ne l'inferno latra,
e Modena e Perugia fu dolente.
Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,
che, fuggendoli innanzi, dal colubro
la morte prese subitana e atra.
Con costui corse infino al lito rubro;
con costui puose il mondo in tanta pace,
che fu serrato a Giano il suo delubro.
Ma ciò che 'l segno che parlar mi face
fatto avea prima e poi era fatturo
per lo regno mortal ch'a lui soggiace,
diventa in apparenza poco e scuro,
se in mano al terzo Cesare si mira
con occhio chiaro e con affetto puro;
ché la viva giustizia che mi spira,
li concedette, in mano a quel ch'i' dico,
gloria di far vendetta a la sua ira.
Or qui t'ammira in ciò ch'io ti replìco:
poscia con Tito a far vendetta corse
de la vendetta del peccato antico.
E quando il dente longobardo morse
la Santa Chiesa, sotto le sue ali
Carlo Magno, vincendo, la soccorse.
Omai puoi giudicar di quei cotali
ch'io accusai di sopra e di lor falli,
che son cagion di tutti vostri mali.
L'uno al pubblico segno i gigli gialli
oppone, e l'altro appropria quello a parte,
sì ch'è forte a veder chi più si falli.
Faccian li Ghibellin, faccian lor arte
sott' altro segno, ché mal segue quello
sempre chi la giustizia e lui diparte;
e non l'abbatta esto Carlo novello
coi Guelfi suoi, ma tema de li artigli
ch'a più alto leon trasser lo vello.
Molte fïate già pianser li figli
per la colpa del padre, e non si creda
che Dio trasmuti l'armi per suoi gigli!
Questa picciola stella si correda
d'i buoni spirti che son stati attivi
perché onore e fama li succeda:
e quando li disiri poggian quivi,
sì disvïando, pur convien che i raggi
del vero amore in sù poggin men vivi.
Ma nel commensurar d'i nostri gaggi
col merto è parte di nostra letizia,
perché non li vedem minor né maggi.
Quindi addolcisce la viva giustizia
in noi l'affetto sì, che non si puote
torcer già mai ad alcuna nequizia.
Diverse voci fanno dolci note;
così diversi scanni in nostra vita
rendon dolce armonia tra queste rote.
E dentro a la presente margarita
luce la luce di Romeo, di cui
fu l'ovra grande e bella mal gradita.
Ma i Provenzai che fecer contra lui
non hanno riso; e però mal cammina
qual si fa danno del ben fare altrui.
Quattro figlie ebbe, e ciascuna reina,
Ramondo Beringhiere, e ciò li fece
Romeo, persona umìle e peregrina.
E poi il mosser le parole biece
a dimandar ragione a questo giusto,
che li assegnò sette e cinque per diece,
indi partissi povero e vetusto;
e se 'l mondo sapesse il cor ch'elli ebbe
mendicando sua vita a frusto a frusto,
assai lo loda, e più lo loderebbe.”
"After that Constantine the eagle turned
Against the course of heaven, which it had followed
Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years and more the bird of God
In the extreme of Europe held itself,
Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of the sacred plumes
It governed there the world from hand to hand,
And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and am Justinian,
Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,
Took from the laws the useless and redundant;
And ere unto the work I was attent,
One nature to exist in Christ, not more,
Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed Agapetus, he who was
The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere
Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and what was his assertion
I now see clearly, even as thou seest
Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,
God in his grace it pleased with this high task
To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my Belisarius I commended
The arms, to which was heaven's right hand so joined
It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the first question terminates
My answer; but the character thereof
Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou see with how great reason
Men move against the standard sacrosanct,
Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a power has made it worthy
Of reverence, beginning from the hour
When Pallas died to give it sovereignty.
Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode
Three hundred years and upward, till at last
The three to three fought for it yet again.
Thou knowest what it achieved from Sabine wrong
Down to Lucretia's sorrow, in seven kings
O'ercoming round about the neighboring nations;
Thou knowest what it achieved, borne by the Romans
Illustrious against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,
Against the other princes and confederates.
Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks
Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii,
Received the fame I willingly embalm;
It struck to earth the pride of the Arabians,
Who, following Hannibal, had passed across
The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest;
Beneath it triumphed while they yet were young
Pompey and Scipio, and to the hill
Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed;
Then, near unto the time when heaven had willed
To bring the whole world to its mood serene,
Did Caesar by the will of Rome assume it.
What it achieved from Var unto the Rhine,
Isere beheld and Saone, beheld the Seine,
And every valley whence the Rhone is filled;
What it achieved when it had left Ravenna,
And leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight
That neither tongue nor pen could follow it.
Round towards Spain it wheeled its legions; then
Towards Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote
That to the calid Nile was felt the pain.
Antandros and the Simois, whence it started,
It saw again, and there where Hector lies,
And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself.
From thence it came like lightning upon Juba;
Then wheeled itself again into your West,
Where the Pompeian clarion it heard.
From what it wrought with the next standard-bearer
Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together,
And Modena and Perugia dolent were;
Still doth the mournful Cleopatra weep
Because thereof, who, fleeing from before it,
Took from the adder sudden and black death.
With him it ran even to the Red Sea shore;
With him it placed the world in so great peace,
That unto Janus was his temple closed.
But what the standard that has made me speak
Achieved before, and after should achieve
Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it,
Becometh in appearance mean and dim,
If in the hand of the third Caesar seen
With eye unclouded and affection pure,
Because the living Justice that inspires me
Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of,
The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath.
Now here attend to what I answer thee;
Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.
And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten
The Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.
Now hast thou power to judge of such as those
Whom I accused above, and of their crimes,
Which are the cause of all your miseries.
To the public standard one the yellow lilies
Opposes, the other claims it for a party,
So that 'tis hard to see which sins the most.
Let, let the Ghibellines ply their handicraft
Beneath some other standard; for this ever
Ill follows he who it and justice parts.
And let not this new Charles e'er strike it down,
He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.
Already oftentimes the sons have wept
The father's crime; and let him not believe
That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies.
This little planet doth adorn itself
With the good spirits that have active been,
That fame and honour might come after them;
And whensoever the desires mount thither,
Thus deviating, must perforce the rays
Of the true love less vividly mount upward.
But in commensuration of our wages
With our desert is portion of our joy,
Because we see them neither less nor greater.
Herein doth living Justice sweeten so
Affection in us, that for evermore
It cannot warp to any iniquity.
Voices diverse make up sweet melodies;
So in this life of ours the seats diverse
Render sweet harmony among these spheres;
And in the compass of this present pearl
Shineth the sheen of Romeo, of whom
The grand and beauteous work was ill rewarded.
But the Provencals who against him wrought,
They have not laughed, and therefore ill goes he
Who makes his hurt of the good deeds of others.
Four daughters, and each one of them a queen,
Had Raymond Berenger, and this for him
Did Romeo, a poor man and a pilgrim;
And then malicious words incited him
To summon to a reckoning this just man,
Who rendered to him seven and five for ten.
Then he departed poor and stricken in years,
And if the world could know the heart he had,
In begging bit by bit his livelihood,
Though much it laud him, it would laud him more."
Justinian's response to Dante's first inquiry allows the poet to present his version of the biography of the emperor who codified Roman law. “Justinian I, surnamed the Great, emperor of Constantinople, A.D. 527-565. Justinian is best known for his legislation. He appointed a commission of jurists to draw up a complete body of law, which resulted in the compilation of two great works; one, called Digesta or Pandectae (533), in fifty books, contained all that was valuable in the works of preceding jurists; the other, called codex constitutionum, consisted of a collection of the imperial constitutions. To these two works was subsequently added an elementary treatise in four books, under the title of Institutiones (533); and at a later period Justinian published various new constitutions, to which he gave the name of Novellae constitutiones (534-65). These four works, under the general name of Corpus iuris civilis, form the Roman law as received in Europe” (Toynbee, “Giustiniano” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
The sixth canto in each cantica, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante's theologically charged imperial politics. For a clear statement of what had become the standard view, see Paolo Brezzi (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], p. 176). The three spokesmen for these three subjects are also of increasing distinction: Ciacco, Sordello, and Justinian; we get another clue as to Dante's high esteem for Ciacco, despite his deforming gluttony and resulting damnation.
The canto is divided into four parts, the first and third as direct responses to Dante's preceding questions (Par. V.127-129). The second (vv. 28-111) is coyly characterized by Justinian himself, here serving as Dante's stand-in, as a “digression” (alcuna giunta – verse 30). It is not only the longest but is also clearly the central element in Justinian's discourse. The final section (vv. 127-142) is devoted to a second spirit in Mercury, Romeo di Villanova. Nicolò Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 91-92), believes that the theme holding this canto together is earthly justice. And see Francesco Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 159). We need look no further than the first line of his Institutiones (I.i.1) to see how important that concept was to this man, who had the root of the word inscribed in his very name (iustus is Latin for “just”): “Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens” (Justice is the constant and perpetual desire to render each his due).
For an interesting early and global attempt to deal with the historical details (and some of their sources) lying behind this canto's presentation of Dante's ideas about Roman history, see Jacopo della Lana's lengthy proemial remarks in his commentary to this canto. And for the relation between the political concerns expressed in this canto and Dante's previous expressions of concern, in the opere minori, for the earthly welfare of the human race, especially that part of it residing on the Italian peninsula, see Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” op. cit., pp. 119-32.)
It has been suggested (by Hollander in Dante: A Life in Works [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], p. 140) that this canto, the only one in the poem spoken by a single voice, is a sort of Dantean version of a miniaturized Aeneid, become, in this handling, a theologized history of Rome. This first verse lends aid to such a view, as it rather dramatically opens this “mini-epic” in medias res, as indeed did the poem that contains it (see the note to Inferno I.1). In this connection, it is perhaps worth noting that, according to some, the canto both begins and ends with a not-very-noticeable citation of the Aeneid. The first words of Paradiso VI, “Poscia che,” may reflect, according to Torraca (comm. to vv. 1-3), Aeneid III.1, “Postquam.” Scevola Mariotti (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972], pp. 378-82), revisits Torraca's observation, showing how other elements in Aeneid III.1-6 leave their mark on this passage in Dante, and concludes by noting that Aeneid III, like Paradiso VI, is spoken by a single voice (it doesn't hurt his case that it belongs to “pater Aeneas”) except for its final three lines. And then, as Daniello (comm. to vv. 139-141) first and then Scartazzini (comm. to verse 1) argued, the penultimate verse (141) in this canto contains the phrase “a frusto a frusto” (a word not used elsewhere in the poem), a calque on Aeneid I.212: “Pars in frusta secant” (some cut it into pieces – tr. H.R. Fairclough). Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], p. 144) seizes upon this evidence, citing Scartazzini (but not Daniello), to make the argument for a Virgilian beginning and ending to the canto. Scartazzini finds himself here thinking of Dante's sad words about his own poverty-stricken exile (Conv. I.iii.3): “Ah, if only it had pleased the Maker of the Universe that the cause of my apology had never existed, for then neither would others have sinned against me, nor would I have suffered punishment unjustly – the punishment, I mean, of exile and poverty” (tr. R. Lansing).
The uniqueness of Justinian's canto, the only one in the poem dedicated to a single speaker and to the longest single speech in the poem, reflects the phenomenon addressed in great detail by E.H. Wilkins (“Voices of the Divine Comedy,” Annual Report of the Dante Society 79 [1961)]: 3): the third cantica has fewer speakers, but these speak at greater length than do most of those found in the first two canticles.
The Eagle, symbol of the Roman Empire, originally, with Aeneas, followed the course of the heavens, encircling the earth from east to west. Subsequently, it moved from west (Italy) to east (Constantinople), where Constantine had transferred the seat of empire in 330, and where Justinian governed from 527 until 565.
Aeneas's taking Lavinia to wife, not recounted in the Aeneid, is the only Virgilian detail that is reprocessed in Justinian's epic narrative.
Dante's chronology is different from that of most historians; he perhaps reflects one tradition found in some manuscripts of Brunetto Latini's Tresor, which has it that the initial transfer took place in 333 (and not in 330), and that Justinian assumed the eastern throne only in 539 (and not in 527), some 206 years later, thus accounting for Dante's error (in verse 4: “two hundred years and more”). For speculation regarding these dates in relation to Dante's sense of imperial prophecy in the Aeneid, see Robert Hollander and Heather Russo (“Purgatorio 33.43: Dante's 515 and Virgil's 333,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [March 2003]).
The mountains of the Troad, in Asia Minor, are presented as the site of Troy.
For Dante's phrase “the bird of God” (l'uccel di Dio), see its earlier presence in slightly different form: “l'uccel di Giove” (Purg. XXXII.112).
Justinian's words allow a reader to glimpse the heavily theologized nature of this history lesson. The citation (first noted by Baldassare Lombardi, in his comm. to this verse, of Psalm 16:8 (17:8), “sub umbra alarum tuarum” (beneath the shadow of your wings), building on the phrase “l'uccel di Dio” (the bird of God) in verse 4, invests the passage with a sense of divinity that is surely and specifically Christian.
The succession of the emperors has, in Dante, much the same feeling as that of the popes. One feels in both the presence of divine selection. It is not even a paradox that in Dante a greater solemnity is associated with the emperors, seen as carrying out God's work even before there were Christian emperors.
This verse performs a perfectly balanced five-word chiasmus:
Cesare Iustinïano
fui son
e
Justinian was a ruler and is a citizen of Heaven.
This verse makes a reader mindful of that classical (and modern) poetic convention in which the dead open a colloquy with passersby through the agency of the words inscribed on their tombstones; see Stefano Carrai (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 99-105).
One key element in Justinian's self-presentation as inspired lawgiver is perhaps surprisingly similar to a key element in Dante's self-description as inspired poet (see Purgatorio XXIV.52-54 and the note to that tercet). Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 279-81), calls attention to the similarity in the presentations of Dante and Justinian as divinely inspired writers; see vv. 23-24, below: “It pleased God, in His grace, to grant me inspiration / in the noble task to which I wholly gave myself.” Support for this view may be found in Silvia Conte (“Giustiniano e l'ispirazione divina dei Digesta,” L'Alighieri 27 [2006]: 25-40).
It may seem odd that Dante thought of the Digesta, Justinian's great winnowing of Roman law into fifty volumes, as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit – but not much more so than that he could have made the same claim for his own poetry. Moments like these make it difficult to deny the daring of the claims this poet makes for the veracity of his own fiction. He had to know how much discomfort this claim would cause, broadening, as it does, the range of those to whom the Spirit had chosen to speak beyond the wildest imagining. (See Mazzoni [“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 {1982}: 139-40], for acknowledgment of this dimension of Dante's strategy [which may seem surprising to those who wish to keep theology and politics separate], pointing to Kantorowicz's previous and entirely similar understanding.)
The words “[il] primo amor ch'i' sento” are potentially problematic. We have followed tradition in translating the verb sentire as meaning “feel.” However, it certainly could mean “hear.” The verb is used some 92 other times in the poem; in some 32 of these mean “hear,” while in some 60 it indicates a more general sense of sense perception. See the clear examples of both meanings in a single verse: Purgatorio XXIV.38. Thus we have no reason to believe it could not mean “hear” here. And see the parallel with the phrase “ch'i'odo” at Purgatorio XXIV.57, pointed out by Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], p. 279).
Justinian confesses that he had believed in the monophysite heresy, embraced by Eutyches, which allowed Jesus only a divine nature, that is, denied His humanity. Credit for bringing his view into conformity with orthodoxy is conferred upon Pope Agapetus I (533-536). As Carroll points out (comm. to vv. 1-27), however, Dante has, whether innocently or not, twisted several facts in order to manufacture his version of a Justinian cured of heresy before he did his inspired work on Roman law, e.g., Agapetus came to Constantinople only after the books were finished, while Dante's account (vv. 22-24) is quite different. Our poet simply must have a Christian compiler of the laws that were to govern Christian Europe; and so he manages to find (“create” might be the better word) him.
Agapetus is given credit for arguing his case so convincingly that Justinian was persuaded, as would be a contemporary of Dante, by Aristotle's “law of contradictories.” Tozer (comm. to this tercet) paraphrases as follows: “'[Agapetus's] article of faith (the two Natures in Christ) I now see clearly, in the same way as you see that of two contradictories one must be false, the other true'; i.e. not as a matter of opinion or inference, but with absolute certainty.”
Justinian now makes still more specific the dependence of his legal writing on the Holy Spirit. (See the note to vv. 11-12.) Dante is insistent in establishing the emperor's conversion as preceding his formulation of the laws, no matter what the facts may have been.
Belisarius (ca. 500-565), Justinian's greatest general, is portrayed by Dante in unproblematic and glowing terms, either despite what the poet knew of his eventual difficulties with his emperor or in ignorance of them. If Dante did know the extravagant and unverified tale (but he may not have, we must remember) that Justinian finally had all his possessions stripped from Belisarius and also had him blinded, we would sense even more strongly how willing he was to let the ideality of the situation trump its actuality. For here is a realm that a Dante can love, its supreme leader completely dedicated to the practical intellectual concerns of governance, the law, while his “right hand,” loyal and true, takes care of problems with the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in Italy. In any case, this pair of heroic figures offers Dante an emblem of the successful collaboration between representatives of the active and of the contemplative life (here in the form of the lower part of Boethius's familiar binome, practical [rather than theoretical] thought; see Cons. Phil. I.1[pr.]).
This is, according to the Grande Dizionario, one of the very few times in the history of the Italian language that the verb commendare is used to signify “affidare” (entrust) – the only other example put forward comes from Castiglione two centuries later. In Dante the word more usually signifies “praise, celebrate.”
Narrowing the principal activity of his own life on behalf of Rome triggers in Justinian the need to “add” something more, a “digression” of sorts (vv. 34-111), which naturally enough, given that he is speaking for his author, has begun (vv. 31-33) by touching on the criminally irresponsible struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Dante's Italy. It will, also naturally enough, conclude with the same concern (vv. 97-111). Thus ancient history has a most modern relevance and is framed by that topic.
The outcome of the struggle of the Eagle, a great Hegelian bird moving through history to make manifest the Spirit, is hardly a cause for optimism, at least not at the moment in which Dante is writing. The “covers” of Justinian's historical essay both depict the disastrous present day in Italy. The ensuing narrative of the Eagle's flight through time and space is put to the service of showing that it has become the corrupt emblem of a corrupt party (the Ghibellines of 1300), opposed by equally corrupt Guelphs.
Justinian speaks ironically (employing the trope antiphrasis, saying the opposite of what is meant).
The core of the canto, offering what is perhaps the poem's crucial political self-definition, presenting an absolutely unorthodox “history of the Caesars,” i.e., one principally shaped by a Christian point of view, is divided into sixteen segments:
(1) death of Pallas (35-36)
(2) Ascanius founds Alba Longa (37-38)
(3) Horatians' victory over the Curiatii (39)
(4) kings: rape of the Sabines (Romulus) (40)
(5) kings: rape of Lucretia (the Tarquins) (41-42)
(6) republic: vs. Gauls of Brennus (43-44)
(7) republic: vs. Tarentini of Pyrrhus (44-45)
(8) republic: Torquatus and Cincinnatus (46)
(9) republic: Decii and Fabii (47-48)
(10) republic: defeat of Hannibal (49-51)
(11) republic: Scipio and Pompey (vs. Catiline) (52-54)
(12) empire: Julius Caesar (55-72)
(13) empire: Augustus Caesar (73-84)
(14) empire: Tiberius Caesar (85-90)
(15) empire: Titus (91-93)
(16) empire: Charlemagne (94-96)
The Eagle is marked by virtù (usually “power” but, at times, as here, “virtue”), precisely what the opposing Italian political parties lack. The ensuing list of virtuous founding presences harps upon the moral virtues that separated Romans from their enemies. See Convivio IV.iv.11 for an earlier expression of Dante's firm belief in the moral superiority of the Romans: “Therefore, since this office [rulership] could not be attained without the greatest virtue, and since its exercise required the greatest and most humane kindness, this was the people best disposed to receive it” (tr. R. Lansing).
Roman imperial virtue begins with the death of Pallas, son of Evander. Despite the special protection of Aeneas, Pallas is killed in battle by Turnus (Aen. X.479-489). Thus the founding event of the empire is presented here as the death of Pallas, an event that seems to have the status of sacrifice. For a discussion in this vein, see Rachel Jacoff (“Sacrifice and Empire: Thematic Analogies in San Vitale and the Paradiso,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al. [Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985], pp. 317-32). The death of Cato has a similar resonance; he died for liberty, as Virgil tells Dante (Purg. I.71-72; and see the note to vv. 71-74). Pallas dies in order to give virtue a homeland in Italy where, for a time at least, it prospered. “His death led to that of Turnus, because Aeneas would have spared the latter's life, had he not seen the belt of Pallas, which [Turnus] was wearing (Aen. XII.940-950). By Turnus' death Aeneas became possessed of Lavinia, and of the kingdom of Latinus. Thus the death of Pallas ultimately caused the eagle to obtain the sovereignty” (Tozer's commentary to vv. 35-36).
For Dante's earlier view of the death of Pallas, see Monarchia II.ix.14.
Dante refers to Alba Longa, “the most ancient town in Latium, built according to tradition by Ascanius, son of Aeneas” (Toynbee, “Alba” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Eagle would remain there some three hundred years until the defeat of the local Curiatii by the Roman Horatii.
Dante (Conv. IV.v.11) includes three Tarquins among the first seven kings of Rome: “ ... the seven kings who first governed her – namely Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus, and the Tarquin kings who were the rulers and the tutors, so to speak, of her youth” (tr. R. Lansing). That means Dante counts the sixth king, Tullius Servius, related by marriage but not by birth, as one of the Tarquins, as Toynbee explains (“Tarquinii” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is probably significant that the first period of Roman history is marked, at either end, by rape, that of the Sabine women in Romulus's rule, and that of Lucrece by her husband's cousin, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, seventh king of Rome. That second act of sexual violence eventually had the result of ending Tarquin rule (510 B.C.).
Dante records two major military victories of the ensuing republican period. “Brennus, leader of the Senonian Gauls, who in 390 B.C. crossed the Apennines, defeated the Romans at the Allia, and took Rome; after besieging the capitol for six months he quitted the city upon receiving 1,000 pounds of gold as a ransom for the capitol and returned home safe with his booty. According to later tradition (followed by Livy), at the moment when the gold was being weighed and Brennus, declaring the Roman weights to be false, had thrown his sword into the scale, Camillus and a Roman army appeared, fell upon the Gauls, and slaughtered them” (Toynbee, “Brenno” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, born 318 B.C., died 272 B.C.; he claimed descent from Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and great-grandson of Aeacus. In 280 Pyrrhus crossed over into Italy at the invitation of the Tarentines to help them in their war against the Romans” (Toynbee, “Pirro-2” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
This tercet begins a passage dedicated to the Roman republic (vv. 43-54). For a clear understanding of Dante's allegiance to republican ideals and principles, see Charles Davis, “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic” (1974) and “Roman Patriotism and Republican Propaganda: Ptolemy of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III” (1975), both reprinted in Dante's Italy and Other Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), pp. 254-89 and 224-53, respectively; and see Robert Hollander and Albert Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 59-82) and the note to Paradiso XXVII.61-63.
The words principi e collegi refer to other political organisms on the peninsula, whether kingdoms or republics; for collegi with this meaning, Porena (comm. to this verse) cites Monarchia II.v.7: these bodies “seem in some sense to function as a bond between individuals and the community” (tr. P. Shaw).
“Titus Manlius, surnamed Torquatus, from the collar (torques) which he took from a fallen foe; and Quinctius, surnamed Cincinnatus, or the 'curly-haired'” (Longfellow, comm. on this verse).
The Decii and the Fabii: “Decii, famous Roman family, three members of which, father, son, and grandson, all bearing the same name, Publius Decius Mus, sacrificed their lives for their country” (Toynbee, “Deci” [Concise Dante Dictionary]); “the Fabii, ancient patrician family at Rome, which claimed descent from Hercules and the Arcadian Evander. It is celebrated as having furnished a long line of distinguished men” (Toynbee, “Fabi” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Dante uses a rare (or coins his own new) verb, mirrare, meaning “to embalm” or “to preserve with myrrh.” See Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) for an acerbic discussion of the vagaries of the ancient debate over this word. Some early commentators think Dante was only deliberately (because of the exigencies of rhyme) misspelling miro (admire) with a double “rr”; others see that it means “preserve,” as Scartazzini argues it indeed does, if he dislikes any sense of the odoriferous, favored by some but inappropriate, in his view, in Paradise.
To refer to the Carthaginians as Arabs is (as Bosco/Reggio [comm. on this tercet] explain) to commit an anachronism, since Arabs populated that part of North Africa only in Dante's day, not in Roman times. Hannibal (247-183 B.C.) was perhaps the Romans' most glorious and successful antagonist, over a period of some fifteen years defeating them in several major battles, until, at the battle of Zama, in 202 B.C., he was utterly crushed by Scipio (who received his surname, “Africanus,” as a result). Some may recall George C. Scott, portraying General George Patton in the eponymous film detailing the latter's military career, alone before a major tank battle of the North African campaign in World War II on the battlefield at Zama, reflecting on Scipio's victorious tactics.
“Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, one of the greatest of the Romans, born 234 B.C., died ca. 183; while just a youth he fought against Hannibal at the Battle of the Ticinus (218); he was elected consul 205, and in the next year crossed over into Africa, and at last brought to an end the long struggle between Rome and Hannibal by his decisive victory over the latter at the Battle of Zama, Oct. 19, 202; he returned to Italy in 201, and entered Rome in triumph, receiving the surname of Africanus in commemoration of his brilliant services; he served in the war against Antiochus the Great in 190, and, being afterwards accused of taking bribes from Antiochus, was tried in Rome in 185, on the anniversary of the Battle of Zama; the prosecution was, however, dropped, and Scipio left Rome, to which he never returned; he died not long after, probably in 183” (Toynbee, “Scipione-1” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pompey the Great, born 106 B.C., died 48 B.C.; in his youth he distinguished himself as a successful general and earned the surname of Magnus on account of his victories in the African campaign; he was consul with Crassus in 70 B.C., and in 59 B.C. joined Julius Caesar and Crassus in the first triumvirate. Caesar's increasing power made it inevitable that a struggle for supremacy should take place between them sooner or later, and in 49 B.C. the Civil War broke out; in the next year Pompey was completely defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalia, and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by order of Ptolemy's ministers” (Toynbee, “Pompeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Scipio is the Roman hero who is most often referred to by Dante; see Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 64-68).
The Roman standards seemed bitter to the inhabitants of the ancient hill town of Fiesole, beneath which lies Dante's Florence, when the army destroyed it in the war against Catiline. According to Giovanni Villani (Cron. I.36-37), Pompey was among the generals at the siege.
After seven tercets, each of which is devoted to one event (and sometimes more) in pre-imperial history, Dante will turn to his gallery of Roman emperors, one that will eventually resemble no other such listing ever found. But he deals with the first of them, Julius, here. (Post-Shakespearean readers may need to be reminded that, for Dante and historians in his time, Julius [and not Augustus] was the first emperor.)
Dante's “life of Caesar” is immediately put (forced?) into a Christian context. It was Julius's task to set the world in better order so that it would be prepared for the coming of Christ. Next Dante turns to Caesar's military triumphs in Gaul (vv. 58-60). The six rivers mentioned in these verses may derive from Lucan, Pharsalia I.399-434, as is suggested by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58).
The next four tercets (vv. 61-72) essentially recount the main Caesarean events of Lucan's version of the civil wars between Julius and the republicans: (1) his crossing of the Rubicon and march on Rome (Phars. I-III); (2) his attack on the republican forces in Spain (Phars. IV; see Purg. XVIII.101-102); (3) his landing on the Dalmatian coast in pursuit of Pompey (V-VI); (4) the battle of Pharsalus, with the death of Cato and flight of Pompey to Egypt, where he was betrayed and killed by Ptolemy (VII-IX); (5) his tour of some sites of the Trojan War (IX); (6) his deposition of Ptolemy, placing Cleopatra in his stead (X); (7) his defeat of Juba, king of Numidia, one of Pompey's supporters (not included in the unfinished epic, but since Juba is referred to at some length in Phars. IV.670-824, he was probably scheduled for a final, sad appearance); (8) a return to Spain, where Caesar annihilated the remainder of Pompey's followers (Lucan looks forward to this last battle, at Munda, in Phars. I.40). While most of these events seem to have sources in Lucan's text, and follow the order in which they occur in that text, what is utterly lacking is Lucan's biting sarcasm about Julius so sharply felt in most of these scenes. Indeed, Dante's own hostility toward Julius seems largely absent from this passage (see William Stull and Robert Hollander [“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 {1991 [1997]}: 33-43], for discussion of Julius's ups and [mainly] downs in Dante's eyes). In these lines, as in his presence as an exemplum of zeal in Purgatorio XVIII.101-102 (and see the note to the passage), only a positive view of Caesar is appropriate, since he is seen here as the first and theologically necessary emperor of Rome. The reference to Troy (vv. 67-68) also seems to have radically different purposes here and in Lucan; here it ties Julius to the Trojan founders of Rome, while there (Pharsalia IX.961-1003) it mocks his pretensions. See Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 121-29), for the problematic nature of Dante's changing views of Julius.
For Dante's similar sense of “kairos,” of the “fullness of time,” under Augustus, see Convivio IV.v.4-8, a text that also includes the following details about the birth of Rome: “David was born when Rome was born – that is, when Aeneas came to Italy from Troy, which was the origin of the Roman city, according to written records” (IV.v.6 [tr. R. Lansing]). And see Monarchia I.xvi.2: “That mankind was then [in the reign of Augustus] happy in the calm of universal peace is attested by all historians and by famous poets; even the chronicler of Christ's gentleness deigned to bear witness to it; and finally Paul called that most happy state 'the fullness of time' [plenitudinem temporis]” (tr. P. Shaw).
Here, once more, Dante's apparent sentiments are far from Lucanian. This nefarious crime of Julius is treated in this passage as a great and necessary step forward. See, however, Dante's previous harsh treatment of Curio, who encouraged Julius to cross the Rubicon and march on Rome (Inf. XXVIII.97-99). There the context was the destruction of the republic; here it is the establishment of the empire. For discussion of Dante's apparently contradictory views of Curio, see Jacques Goudet (“La 'parte per se stesso' e l'impegno politico di Dante,” Nuove letture dantesche, vol. VII [Florence: Le Monnier, 1974], pp. 313-16) and William Stull (“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 27-28).
Pompey, although he managed to avoid death at Caesar's hand in Greece, was betrayed by his host, the young king, Ptolemy, and killed in Egypt (Phars. VIII).
The young king suffers his own misfortune: Julius replaces him on the throne with Cleopatra.
The word baiulo here means “standard-bearer.” It refers to Octavian, the second of Dante's “world-historical” emperors, eventually known as Augustus Caesar. The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 73-81) traces it to the first-conjugation verb baiuolo (carry).
See Inferno XXXIV.64-67 for Dante's initial portrayal of this pair. Now he adds a detail: They are barking. In the previous passage we are told that Brutus is silent, and Cassius is not described as uttering sounds. Their “next-door neighbor” in Cocytus, however, Bocca, does bark (Inf. XXXII.105 and 108). Has Dante conflated that noise here? If we decide that such a solution seems unlikely, we are faced with another loose end in Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.34). But see Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), arguing that the phrase “e non fa motto” (Inf. XXXIV.66), apparently used to describe Brutus's silence, in fact is an ironic understatement on Dante's part, chosen to indicate that Brutus is indeed barking like a dog in his pain; this is surely an ingenious attempt to spare Dante from a self-contradiction; it probably fails to convince, mainly because no one would possibly read the line this way in its own terms. It would have been odd for Dante to have waited patiently for 39 cantos to make his meaning clear; would he not have preferred to live with readers' misprisions?
Octavian's forces defeated Mark Antony at Modena and also sacked the city of Perugia. Tozer points to Lucan (Phars. I.40) for a source: “though to these be added the famine of Perusia and the horrors of Mutina” (tr. J.D. Duff).
Antony, who survived defeat in the battles against the imperial army in Italy, did not choose to live much longer, after losing the naval battle near Actium (31 B.C.), and committed suicide. Cleopatra, fleeing before the imperial ensign, held aloft now by Octavian, did not choose to die with her lover; she put herself to death by means of the bite of an asp that she held to her breast (some commentators insist that she in fact employed two venomous snakes to do away with herself). Over the centuries many potential sources have been cited for the mode of her suicide, which occurred only once she perceived that, unlike Julius, Octavian was firm against her charms and intended to take her back to Rome as a captive. Giorgio Brugnoli (“'Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,'” Quaderni d'italianistica 16 [1995]: 89-90) argues that the most likely single source for Dante's “trista Cleopatra,” which he was the first to advance, is found in Juvenal (Sat. II.109), “maesta... Cleopatra” (wretched Cleopatra).
For a possible source, see Aeneid VIII.685-688, where Antony is criticized for his deportment with Cleopatra (this scene is one of those portrayed on the shield that Venus presents to Aeneas, Aen. VIII.626-731). As Fairclough points out in his note to this passage, the “ruddy sea” is the Indian Ocean, not the Red Sea. The first commentator to cite this phrase (litore rubro) in the Aeneid (VIII.686) was apparently Scartazzini (comm. to this verse). Most modern commentators also cite it, but, like Scartazzini, without noting that Virgil is not referring to the Red Sea. If he is in fact citing the Aeneid, Dante either makes the same mistake his modern commentators make or else forces the passage out of context, and has Augustus establishing his dominion over that most propitious part of the Mediterranean world, where Christ became flesh, as part of the plenitudo temporis (see the note to vv. 55-57). And see the note to Paradiso VII.6 for a possible resonance of another segment of this Virgilian text.
See the great prophecy of Augustus as bearer of world peace in Aeneid I.286-296, esp. verse 294, “claudentur Belli portae” (the gates of War shall be shut), as was first observed by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 79-81, along with passages from Lucan, esp. Phars. I.62). For both these loci, see also Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 79-81).
The word delubro is a Latinism (from delubrum, “temple”).
“Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson and adopted son and successor of Augustus; Roman emperor, A.D. 14-37” (Toynbee, “Tiberius” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). There is apparently a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to Dante's words in support of his selection of the third emperor in his most unusual pantheon. Julius is a bit problematic, given even Dante's own slurs on his character (see the notes to Purg. IX.133-138 and Purg. XXVI.77-78), but we understand that, for Dante and his time, he was the first emperor, and thus a necessary presiding presence. About Augustus no one ever could (and no one ever has wanted to) complain. But Tiberius (not to mention Titus!) has caused more than a little discomfort. And the protagonist does indeed marvel at these words (in Paradiso VII.19-24). But see Monarchia II.xi.5: “Thus if Christ had not suffered under an authorised judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorised unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ 'who bore our sorrows,' as the prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose representative Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind unless the Roman empire had existed by right” (tr. P. Shaw).
Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 79-81) made clear his amazement at Dante's having included Tiberius among the great emperors, referring to him as “the worst sort of successor” to Augustus. (And see Benvenuto's own list of seven emperors, dropping Tiberius and Titus in favor of Trajan and Constantine and adding Theodosius, in the Outline of this canto.) It is possible that Dante's “final list” is indeed seven, since it eventually includes Henry VII or his successor (see the note to Par. XXX.133-138) as the seventh emperor in the line adumbrated here. See Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 62 and 78n).
Justinian is making the case for the justness of Christ's death at the hands of the Romans (Pontius Pilate, acting as agent of Tiberius). This “vendetta” pursued by the Roman Eagle (as Justinian, inspired by the justice of God even as he now speaks, insists) is what makes the accomplishments of even Julius and Augustus seem paltry, for Christ's death atoned for all previous human sin and made sinners to come redeemable as well. Thus the apparently specious hyperbole in the passage regarding Tiberius (vv. 82-91) must be seen as serious. His greatness is precipitated out of the event he presided over, the Crucifixion. See Carroll on vv. 82-90: “The wrath is the just anger of God against the human race for its sins; and the 'doing of vengeance' is the death of Christ, regarded as the bearing of the punishment inflicted by that anger. The extraordinary thing is that Dante regards the Crucifixion as the supreme glory of Roman justice, inasmuch as it was the agent by which 'the Living Justice' 'did vengeance for His wrath.'”
See the quotation of the first line of Justinian's Institutiones in the note to vv. 1-27. Again Dante puts words reflecting the spiration of the Holy Spirit in Justinian's mouth; see verse 23 and the note to vv. 22-24. And see Inferno XXIX.55-57 (and the note to vv. 54-57) for Dante's association of himself with similar inspiration, not to mention Purgatorio XXIV.52-54. Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is one of the relatively few commentators to take clear notice of Justinian's insistence on divine inspiration for his work on Roman law.
“Titus, son and successor of Vespasian, Roman emperor, A.D. 79-81; he served under his father in the Jewish wars, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and returned to Italy in 70 he remained in Palestine in order to carry on the siege of Jerusalem, which he captured, after a siege of several months, in September of that year; in the following year he returned to Rome and celebrated the conquest of the Jews in a triumph with his father” (Toynbee, “Tito” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). For a clear explanation of this tercet, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 91-93): “The repetition is that of the word vendetta in two different applications, corresponding to the twofold mission of the eagle; first it avenged God's wrath against Adam's sin (vendetta del peccato antico) by putting Christ to death; then it took vengeance on the Jews for bringing about Christ's death by the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”
Giorgio Padoan (“Il Canto VII del Paradiso,” Lectura Dantis Romana [Turin: S.E.I., 1965], pp. 7-17) looks away from the canto of his Lectura Dantis Romana (Par. VII) to consider these verses and their problematic view of Jewish history.
Charlemagne gets short shrift as the sixth (Justinian does not, of course, refer to himself as a member of this elite group, but commentators have done so for him) and last of these “world-historical” emperors. See Tozer (comm. to these verses): “[W]hen Desiderius, king of the Lombards, persecuted the Church, Pope Adrian I called in Charles the Great to its defense. [V]incendo: by his victory over Desiderius. The date of this was 774, and Charles was not crowned emperor of the West until 800, so that at the time when it took place he was not under the protection of the Roman eagle (sotto le sue ali). Dante's error here is of a part with his more serious mistake in Mon. [III.xi.1] where he says that Charles was crowned emperor by Adrian I while the emperor Michael was on the throne of Constantinople – whereas in reality he was crowned by Leo III during the reign of Irene.” The process of translatio imperii has now been insisted on, as the Eagle has flown out of Italy and into France. This tercet thus accomplishes a great deal, introducing and defending the concept of the Holy Roman Empire in the space of three lines.
Having finished with the “Roman” past of imperial power, from Julius to Charlemagne, a period of just over 800 years, Justinian now turns to the present political ills of Italy. This subject is not treated as formally as the history of Roman institutions, but it is at once clear that, for Dante, it is of extraordinary importance
For Justinian's earlier references to Guelphs and Ghibellines and their battle over control of the sacrosanto segno (that most holy standard), see vv. 31-33 and the notes to those verses and to verse 30. In a real sense, then, vv. 34-96 are a digression (they are referred to as a giunta [an addendum], at verse 30), only preparing for Dante's pressing business, to show how poorly ordered the political affairs of the peninsula were in his own time.
While the Guelphs oppose the imperial ensign with their (French) golden lilies, the Ghibellines try to make it only their own, desiring to deprive others of their rightful imperial homeland.
The Ghibellines, for ridding the sacred sign of empire of justice, are told to find another symbol to represent their conniving spirit.
Charles II, King of Naples (ruled 1289-1309), is referred to as “new” to distinguish him from his father, also King of Naples (and Sicily, in his case), who died in 1285. Justinian warns him not to let his Guelph troops attempt to wrest the ensign of imperial rulership from the Ghibellines (who have their own problems in meriting it), for the empire has defeated mightier enemies before.
The imperial eagle's claws are portrayed as having “ripped the hides from greater lions” than Charles represents. The general sense is clear, but there have been any number of interpretations of what exactly is meant. E.g., the author of the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse) suggests defeated opponents of the eagle enumerated in the preceding text, such as Hannibal, Brennus, Turnus, etc.; Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 100-111) goes off into Roman history for still others who lost battles to the forces of ancient Rome; Trifon Gabriele (comm. to this verse) says that where the eagle is the symbol of empire, the lion is that of republics; Andreoli (comm. to this verse): the lion is the symbol of the ruling house of France; Bianchi (comm. to vv. 106-108): the “hides” indicate other princes; Pietrobono (comm. to vv. 107-108): enemies of Rome as indicated in Monarchia II.viii. The majority believes that there is no specific reference, only a generic prophecy of Charles' doomed experiment with increasing his dominions, should he try to accomplish that.
Strangely enough, not a single commentator (at least not among the seventy-two currently gathered in the DDP) makes reference to Ugolino's narrative here (see, e.g., Inf. XXXIII.38-39). In this poem there is hardly another more evident case of sons weeping for the sins of their father.
In these two tercets Justinian explains the nature of what was lacking in these souls (as Frank Ordiway has pointed out [“In the Earth's Shadow: The Theological Virtues Marred,” Dante Studies 100 {1982}: 82-85], it is the theological virtue of hope in its perfected form). As the temporary Moon-dwellers displayed a marred version of faith, so Justinian and the others here, while they were alive, displayed hope in an immature form, rendering their love of God less vibrant than it should have been.
In the following pair of tercets (these twelve verses indeed form a group, the two equal parts of which are joined by a triumphant “But”), Justinian, as has frequently been noted, sounds very much like Piccarda (Par. III.70-87). We can safely assume that neither he nor Romeo would be among the higher petals of the Rose in Paradiso XXXII; but that only makes them love God the more, for accepting them in Heaven with a history of such galling imperfections.
This verse marks the third occurrence of the noun giustizia in the canto, a density shared by only two previous cantos (Inf. III and Purg. XIX; however, see Par. VII, where that noun appears only once, but other forms of the word [giusta (3), giustamente (2), giuste] appear six times; see the note to Par. VII.20).
Romeo, seneschal (chief steward) of Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence: “The only foundation, apparently, for the story, adopted by Dante and Villani (vi.90), of the 'pilgrim' who became the minister of the Provençal count, is the fact that the name of count Berenger's grand seneschal was Romieu (or Romée) of Villeneuve. Romeo, a friend of Sordello (Purg. VI.74) was born c. 1170. In Aug. 1229 he was in Genoa as ambassador to the podestà of that city, and in the same year was serving as Raymond Berenger's chief minister, and by him was granted certain possessions in Genoa and her territories, and the next year received other properties. Early in 1241, on another mission as ambassador, he became involved in a battle at sea, from which he escaped unscathed, even managing to capture a Pisan vessel laden with merchandise which he had taken to Nice. On Aug. 19, 1245 Raymond Berenger died, leaving his daughter Beatrice his heir, and Romeo as 'baiulus totius terrae suae et filiae suae' [guardian of all his lands and those of his daughter]. Beatrice then married Charles of Anjou while under Romeo's guardianship. Romeo died in 1250” (Toynbee, “Romeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
For Villani's account (in English) of the arrangements made by Romeo to marry off Raymond's daughters and his umbrage at Raymond's request for an accountancy, see Oelsner's comment on these lines.
As Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is alone in pointing out, Justinian's reference to the planet Mercury as a pearl (as the narrator had referred to the Moon in Par. II.34) possibly has a biblical resonance: see Matthew 13.44-46, comparing the kingdom of heaven to “a pearl of great price.”
Those courtiers, we suppose, who spoke ill of Romeo to Raymond, succeeded in forcing his removal from a position of trust (see vv. 136-139), but in the end suffered the tyrannical rule of Raymond's successors.
When we read or hear Raymond's name, we may reflect on how many names or references to historical figures we have encountered in this canto (all but two of them in the first 106 verses). The total (Constantine, Aeneas, Lavinia, Justinian, Agapetus, Belisarius, Pallas, the Curiatii, the Horatii, the seven first kings of Rome, Sabine women, Lucrece, unnamed republicans, Brennus, Pyrrhus, Torquatus, Cincinnatus, the Decii, the Fabii, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Hector, Ptolemy, Juba, Augustus, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Tiberius, Titus, Desiderius, Charlemagne, Charles II of Anjou, Romeo, and Raymond), even if we count some plural presences as single units, as here, is an impressive 38, and that excludes the several-times-alluded-to Guelphs and Ghibellines. If we have bought into the discredited but still supported notion that in the last cantica Dante has given over worldly concerns, it may come as something of a surprise to have a canto in Paradiso make so obvious a gesture toward history.
The phrase dimandar ragione is a term used for requesting a review of the financial situation between involved parties.
That is, Romeo's accounts always returned more than he had accepted into his care. The numbers seem merely casually chosen, but would indicate a healthy 20% gain in Raymond's holdings under Romeo's management. But see Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 30), arguing for the non-coincidental appearance of these two numbers in Paradiso XIX.91-93, the “cinque volte sette” (five times seven) as the expression for the thirty-five letters that compose the first sentence of the Book of Wisdom.
Where the opening verses of the canto imply the presence of Virgil, as author of the Aeneid, the concluding ones summon the image of the exiled and “mendicant” Dante (cf. Par. XVII.58-60, Cacciaguida's admonition: “You shall learn how salt is the taste / of another man's bread and how hard it is / to go down and then up another man's stairs”). See Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 157); and see Woodhouse (“Dante and Governance: Contexts and Contents,” in Dante and Governance, ed. John Woodhouse [Oxford: Clarendon, 1997], pp. 1-11) for a treatment in English of Romeo's resemblance to Dante: It is he who, “by recalling, in his person and in his name, Romeus, pilgrim to Rome, recalls the tragic figure of Dante himself” (p. 7). His name also binds the two seemingly disparate parts of the canto, ancient and modern. This is a “Roman canto,” even when it turns its attention to recent events in Provence; its first part is a sort of vernacular version of a theologized Aeneid; its last, a comic (i.e., happily resolved) version of a lament for a courtier.
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“Poscia che Costantin l'aquila volse
contr' al corso del ciel, ch'ella seguio
dietro a l'antico che Lavina tolse,
cento e cent' anni e più l'uccel di Dio
ne lo stremo d'Europa si ritenne,
vicino a' monti de' quai prima uscìo;
e sotto l'ombra de le sacre penne
governò 'l mondo lì di mano in mano,
e, sì cangiando, in su la mia pervenne.
Cesare fui e son Iustinïano,
che, per voler del primo amor ch'i' sento,
d'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e 'l vano.
E prima ch'io a l'ovra fossi attento,
una natura in Cristo esser, non piùe,
credea, e di tal fede era contento;
ma 'l benedetto Agapito, che fue
sommo pastore, a la fede sincera
mi dirizzò con le parole sue.
Io li credetti; e ciò che 'n sua fede era,
vegg' io or chiaro sì, come tu vedi
ogne contradizione e falsa e vera.
Tosto che con la Chiesa mossi i piedi,
a Dio per grazia piacque di spirarmi
l'alto lavoro, e tutto 'n lui mi diedi;
e al mio Belisar commendai l'armi,
cui la destra del ciel fu sì congiunta,
che segno fu ch'i' dovessi posarmi.
Or qui a la question prima s'appunta
la mia risposta; ma sua condizione
mi stringe a seguitare alcuna giunta,
perché tu veggi con quanta ragione
si move contr' al sacrosanto segno
e chi 'l s'appropria e chi a lui s'oppone.
Vedi quanta virtù l'ha fatto degno
di reverenza; e cominciò da l'ora
che Pallante morì per darli regno.
Tu sai ch'el fece in Alba sua dimora
per trecento anni e oltre, infino al fine
che i tre a' tre pugnar per lui ancora.
E sai ch'el fé dal mal de le Sabine
al dolor di Lucrezia in sette regi,
vincendo intorno le genti vicine.
Sai quel ch'el fé portato da li egregi
Romani incontro a Brenno, incontro a Pirro,
incontro a li altri principi e collegi;
onde Torquato e Quinzio, che dal cirro
negletto fu nomato, i Deci e ' Fabi
ebber la fama che volontier mirro.
Esso atterrò l'orgoglio de li Aràbi
che di retro ad Anibale passaro
l'alpestre rocce, Po, di che tu labi.
Sott' esso giovanetti trïunfaro
Scipïone e Pompeo; e a quel colle
sotto 'l qual tu nascesti parve amaro.
Poi, presso al tempo che tutto 'l ciel volle
redur lo mondo a suo modo sereno,
Cesare per voler di Roma il tolle.
E quel che fé da Varo infino a Reno,
Isara vide ed Era e vide Senna
e ogne valle onde Rodano è pieno.
Quel che fé poi ch'elli uscì di Ravenna
e saltò Rubicon, fu di tal volo,
che nol seguiteria lingua né penna.
Inver' la Spagna rivolse lo stuolo,
poi ver' Durazzo, e Farsalia percosse
sì ch'al Nil caldo si sentì del duolo.
Antandro e Simeonta, onde si mosse,
rivide e là dov' Ettore si cuba;
e mal per Tolomeo poscia si scosse.
Da indi scese folgorando a Iuba;
onde si volse nel vostro occidente,
ove sentia la pompeana tuba.
Di quel che fé col baiulo seguente,
Bruto con Cassio ne l'inferno latra,
e Modena e Perugia fu dolente.
Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,
che, fuggendoli innanzi, dal colubro
la morte prese subitana e atra.
Con costui corse infino al lito rubro;
con costui puose il mondo in tanta pace,
che fu serrato a Giano il suo delubro.
Ma ciò che 'l segno che parlar mi face
fatto avea prima e poi era fatturo
per lo regno mortal ch'a lui soggiace,
diventa in apparenza poco e scuro,
se in mano al terzo Cesare si mira
con occhio chiaro e con affetto puro;
ché la viva giustizia che mi spira,
li concedette, in mano a quel ch'i' dico,
gloria di far vendetta a la sua ira.
Or qui t'ammira in ciò ch'io ti replìco:
poscia con Tito a far vendetta corse
de la vendetta del peccato antico.
E quando il dente longobardo morse
la Santa Chiesa, sotto le sue ali
Carlo Magno, vincendo, la soccorse.
Omai puoi giudicar di quei cotali
ch'io accusai di sopra e di lor falli,
che son cagion di tutti vostri mali.
L'uno al pubblico segno i gigli gialli
oppone, e l'altro appropria quello a parte,
sì ch'è forte a veder chi più si falli.
Faccian li Ghibellin, faccian lor arte
sott' altro segno, ché mal segue quello
sempre chi la giustizia e lui diparte;
e non l'abbatta esto Carlo novello
coi Guelfi suoi, ma tema de li artigli
ch'a più alto leon trasser lo vello.
Molte fïate già pianser li figli
per la colpa del padre, e non si creda
che Dio trasmuti l'armi per suoi gigli!
Questa picciola stella si correda
d'i buoni spirti che son stati attivi
perché onore e fama li succeda:
e quando li disiri poggian quivi,
sì disvïando, pur convien che i raggi
del vero amore in sù poggin men vivi.
Ma nel commensurar d'i nostri gaggi
col merto è parte di nostra letizia,
perché non li vedem minor né maggi.
Quindi addolcisce la viva giustizia
in noi l'affetto sì, che non si puote
torcer già mai ad alcuna nequizia.
Diverse voci fanno dolci note;
così diversi scanni in nostra vita
rendon dolce armonia tra queste rote.
E dentro a la presente margarita
luce la luce di Romeo, di cui
fu l'ovra grande e bella mal gradita.
Ma i Provenzai che fecer contra lui
non hanno riso; e però mal cammina
qual si fa danno del ben fare altrui.
Quattro figlie ebbe, e ciascuna reina,
Ramondo Beringhiere, e ciò li fece
Romeo, persona umìle e peregrina.
E poi il mosser le parole biece
a dimandar ragione a questo giusto,
che li assegnò sette e cinque per diece,
indi partissi povero e vetusto;
e se 'l mondo sapesse il cor ch'elli ebbe
mendicando sua vita a frusto a frusto,
assai lo loda, e più lo loderebbe.”
"After that Constantine the eagle turned
Against the course of heaven, which it had followed
Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years and more the bird of God
In the extreme of Europe held itself,
Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of the sacred plumes
It governed there the world from hand to hand,
And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and am Justinian,
Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,
Took from the laws the useless and redundant;
And ere unto the work I was attent,
One nature to exist in Christ, not more,
Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed Agapetus, he who was
The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere
Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and what was his assertion
I now see clearly, even as thou seest
Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,
God in his grace it pleased with this high task
To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my Belisarius I commended
The arms, to which was heaven's right hand so joined
It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the first question terminates
My answer; but the character thereof
Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou see with how great reason
Men move against the standard sacrosanct,
Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a power has made it worthy
Of reverence, beginning from the hour
When Pallas died to give it sovereignty.
Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode
Three hundred years and upward, till at last
The three to three fought for it yet again.
Thou knowest what it achieved from Sabine wrong
Down to Lucretia's sorrow, in seven kings
O'ercoming round about the neighboring nations;
Thou knowest what it achieved, borne by the Romans
Illustrious against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,
Against the other princes and confederates.
Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks
Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii,
Received the fame I willingly embalm;
It struck to earth the pride of the Arabians,
Who, following Hannibal, had passed across
The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest;
Beneath it triumphed while they yet were young
Pompey and Scipio, and to the hill
Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed;
Then, near unto the time when heaven had willed
To bring the whole world to its mood serene,
Did Caesar by the will of Rome assume it.
What it achieved from Var unto the Rhine,
Isere beheld and Saone, beheld the Seine,
And every valley whence the Rhone is filled;
What it achieved when it had left Ravenna,
And leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight
That neither tongue nor pen could follow it.
Round towards Spain it wheeled its legions; then
Towards Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote
That to the calid Nile was felt the pain.
Antandros and the Simois, whence it started,
It saw again, and there where Hector lies,
And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself.
From thence it came like lightning upon Juba;
Then wheeled itself again into your West,
Where the Pompeian clarion it heard.
From what it wrought with the next standard-bearer
Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together,
And Modena and Perugia dolent were;
Still doth the mournful Cleopatra weep
Because thereof, who, fleeing from before it,
Took from the adder sudden and black death.
With him it ran even to the Red Sea shore;
With him it placed the world in so great peace,
That unto Janus was his temple closed.
But what the standard that has made me speak
Achieved before, and after should achieve
Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it,
Becometh in appearance mean and dim,
If in the hand of the third Caesar seen
With eye unclouded and affection pure,
Because the living Justice that inspires me
Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of,
The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath.
Now here attend to what I answer thee;
Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.
And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten
The Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.
Now hast thou power to judge of such as those
Whom I accused above, and of their crimes,
Which are the cause of all your miseries.
To the public standard one the yellow lilies
Opposes, the other claims it for a party,
So that 'tis hard to see which sins the most.
Let, let the Ghibellines ply their handicraft
Beneath some other standard; for this ever
Ill follows he who it and justice parts.
And let not this new Charles e'er strike it down,
He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.
Already oftentimes the sons have wept
The father's crime; and let him not believe
That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies.
This little planet doth adorn itself
With the good spirits that have active been,
That fame and honour might come after them;
And whensoever the desires mount thither,
Thus deviating, must perforce the rays
Of the true love less vividly mount upward.
But in commensuration of our wages
With our desert is portion of our joy,
Because we see them neither less nor greater.
Herein doth living Justice sweeten so
Affection in us, that for evermore
It cannot warp to any iniquity.
Voices diverse make up sweet melodies;
So in this life of ours the seats diverse
Render sweet harmony among these spheres;
And in the compass of this present pearl
Shineth the sheen of Romeo, of whom
The grand and beauteous work was ill rewarded.
But the Provencals who against him wrought,
They have not laughed, and therefore ill goes he
Who makes his hurt of the good deeds of others.
Four daughters, and each one of them a queen,
Had Raymond Berenger, and this for him
Did Romeo, a poor man and a pilgrim;
And then malicious words incited him
To summon to a reckoning this just man,
Who rendered to him seven and five for ten.
Then he departed poor and stricken in years,
And if the world could know the heart he had,
In begging bit by bit his livelihood,
Though much it laud him, it would laud him more."
Justinian's response to Dante's first inquiry allows the poet to present his version of the biography of the emperor who codified Roman law. “Justinian I, surnamed the Great, emperor of Constantinople, A.D. 527-565. Justinian is best known for his legislation. He appointed a commission of jurists to draw up a complete body of law, which resulted in the compilation of two great works; one, called Digesta or Pandectae (533), in fifty books, contained all that was valuable in the works of preceding jurists; the other, called codex constitutionum, consisted of a collection of the imperial constitutions. To these two works was subsequently added an elementary treatise in four books, under the title of Institutiones (533); and at a later period Justinian published various new constitutions, to which he gave the name of Novellae constitutiones (534-65). These four works, under the general name of Corpus iuris civilis, form the Roman law as received in Europe” (Toynbee, “Giustiniano” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
The sixth canto in each cantica, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante's theologically charged imperial politics. For a clear statement of what had become the standard view, see Paolo Brezzi (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], p. 176). The three spokesmen for these three subjects are also of increasing distinction: Ciacco, Sordello, and Justinian; we get another clue as to Dante's high esteem for Ciacco, despite his deforming gluttony and resulting damnation.
The canto is divided into four parts, the first and third as direct responses to Dante's preceding questions (Par. V.127-129). The second (vv. 28-111) is coyly characterized by Justinian himself, here serving as Dante's stand-in, as a “digression” (alcuna giunta – verse 30). It is not only the longest but is also clearly the central element in Justinian's discourse. The final section (vv. 127-142) is devoted to a second spirit in Mercury, Romeo di Villanova. Nicolò Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 91-92), believes that the theme holding this canto together is earthly justice. And see Francesco Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 159). We need look no further than the first line of his Institutiones (I.i.1) to see how important that concept was to this man, who had the root of the word inscribed in his very name (iustus is Latin for “just”): “Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens” (Justice is the constant and perpetual desire to render each his due).
For an interesting early and global attempt to deal with the historical details (and some of their sources) lying behind this canto's presentation of Dante's ideas about Roman history, see Jacopo della Lana's lengthy proemial remarks in his commentary to this canto. And for the relation between the political concerns expressed in this canto and Dante's previous expressions of concern, in the opere minori, for the earthly welfare of the human race, especially that part of it residing on the Italian peninsula, see Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” op. cit., pp. 119-32.)
It has been suggested (by Hollander in Dante: A Life in Works [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], p. 140) that this canto, the only one in the poem spoken by a single voice, is a sort of Dantean version of a miniaturized Aeneid, become, in this handling, a theologized history of Rome. This first verse lends aid to such a view, as it rather dramatically opens this “mini-epic” in medias res, as indeed did the poem that contains it (see the note to Inferno I.1). In this connection, it is perhaps worth noting that, according to some, the canto both begins and ends with a not-very-noticeable citation of the Aeneid. The first words of Paradiso VI, “Poscia che,” may reflect, according to Torraca (comm. to vv. 1-3), Aeneid III.1, “Postquam.” Scevola Mariotti (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972], pp. 378-82), revisits Torraca's observation, showing how other elements in Aeneid III.1-6 leave their mark on this passage in Dante, and concludes by noting that Aeneid III, like Paradiso VI, is spoken by a single voice (it doesn't hurt his case that it belongs to “pater Aeneas”) except for its final three lines. And then, as Daniello (comm. to vv. 139-141) first and then Scartazzini (comm. to verse 1) argued, the penultimate verse (141) in this canto contains the phrase “a frusto a frusto” (a word not used elsewhere in the poem), a calque on Aeneid I.212: “Pars in frusta secant” (some cut it into pieces – tr. H.R. Fairclough). Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], p. 144) seizes upon this evidence, citing Scartazzini (but not Daniello), to make the argument for a Virgilian beginning and ending to the canto. Scartazzini finds himself here thinking of Dante's sad words about his own poverty-stricken exile (Conv. I.iii.3): “Ah, if only it had pleased the Maker of the Universe that the cause of my apology had never existed, for then neither would others have sinned against me, nor would I have suffered punishment unjustly – the punishment, I mean, of exile and poverty” (tr. R. Lansing).
The uniqueness of Justinian's canto, the only one in the poem dedicated to a single speaker and to the longest single speech in the poem, reflects the phenomenon addressed in great detail by E.H. Wilkins (“Voices of the Divine Comedy,” Annual Report of the Dante Society 79 [1961)]: 3): the third cantica has fewer speakers, but these speak at greater length than do most of those found in the first two canticles.
The Eagle, symbol of the Roman Empire, originally, with Aeneas, followed the course of the heavens, encircling the earth from east to west. Subsequently, it moved from west (Italy) to east (Constantinople), where Constantine had transferred the seat of empire in 330, and where Justinian governed from 527 until 565.
Aeneas's taking Lavinia to wife, not recounted in the Aeneid, is the only Virgilian detail that is reprocessed in Justinian's epic narrative.
Dante's chronology is different from that of most historians; he perhaps reflects one tradition found in some manuscripts of Brunetto Latini's Tresor, which has it that the initial transfer took place in 333 (and not in 330), and that Justinian assumed the eastern throne only in 539 (and not in 527), some 206 years later, thus accounting for Dante's error (in verse 4: “two hundred years and more”). For speculation regarding these dates in relation to Dante's sense of imperial prophecy in the Aeneid, see Robert Hollander and Heather Russo (“Purgatorio 33.43: Dante's 515 and Virgil's 333,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [March 2003]).
The mountains of the Troad, in Asia Minor, are presented as the site of Troy.
For Dante's phrase “the bird of God” (l'uccel di Dio), see its earlier presence in slightly different form: “l'uccel di Giove” (Purg. XXXII.112).
Justinian's words allow a reader to glimpse the heavily theologized nature of this history lesson. The citation (first noted by Baldassare Lombardi, in his comm. to this verse, of Psalm 16:8 (17:8), “sub umbra alarum tuarum” (beneath the shadow of your wings), building on the phrase “l'uccel di Dio” (the bird of God) in verse 4, invests the passage with a sense of divinity that is surely and specifically Christian.
The succession of the emperors has, in Dante, much the same feeling as that of the popes. One feels in both the presence of divine selection. It is not even a paradox that in Dante a greater solemnity is associated with the emperors, seen as carrying out God's work even before there were Christian emperors.
This verse performs a perfectly balanced five-word chiasmus:
Cesare Iustinïano
fui son
e
Justinian was a ruler and is a citizen of Heaven.
This verse makes a reader mindful of that classical (and modern) poetic convention in which the dead open a colloquy with passersby through the agency of the words inscribed on their tombstones; see Stefano Carrai (“Canto VI,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 99-105).
One key element in Justinian's self-presentation as inspired lawgiver is perhaps surprisingly similar to a key element in Dante's self-description as inspired poet (see Purgatorio XXIV.52-54 and the note to that tercet). Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 279-81), calls attention to the similarity in the presentations of Dante and Justinian as divinely inspired writers; see vv. 23-24, below: “It pleased God, in His grace, to grant me inspiration / in the noble task to which I wholly gave myself.” Support for this view may be found in Silvia Conte (“Giustiniano e l'ispirazione divina dei Digesta,” L'Alighieri 27 [2006]: 25-40).
It may seem odd that Dante thought of the Digesta, Justinian's great winnowing of Roman law into fifty volumes, as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit – but not much more so than that he could have made the same claim for his own poetry. Moments like these make it difficult to deny the daring of the claims this poet makes for the veracity of his own fiction. He had to know how much discomfort this claim would cause, broadening, as it does, the range of those to whom the Spirit had chosen to speak beyond the wildest imagining. (See Mazzoni [“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 {1982}: 139-40], for acknowledgment of this dimension of Dante's strategy [which may seem surprising to those who wish to keep theology and politics separate], pointing to Kantorowicz's previous and entirely similar understanding.)
The words “[il] primo amor ch'i' sento” are potentially problematic. We have followed tradition in translating the verb sentire as meaning “feel.” However, it certainly could mean “hear.” The verb is used some 92 other times in the poem; in some 32 of these mean “hear,” while in some 60 it indicates a more general sense of sense perception. See the clear examples of both meanings in a single verse: Purgatorio XXIV.38. Thus we have no reason to believe it could not mean “hear” here. And see the parallel with the phrase “ch'i'odo” at Purgatorio XXIV.57, pointed out by Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], p. 279).
Justinian confesses that he had believed in the monophysite heresy, embraced by Eutyches, which allowed Jesus only a divine nature, that is, denied His humanity. Credit for bringing his view into conformity with orthodoxy is conferred upon Pope Agapetus I (533-536). As Carroll points out (comm. to vv. 1-27), however, Dante has, whether innocently or not, twisted several facts in order to manufacture his version of a Justinian cured of heresy before he did his inspired work on Roman law, e.g., Agapetus came to Constantinople only after the books were finished, while Dante's account (vv. 22-24) is quite different. Our poet simply must have a Christian compiler of the laws that were to govern Christian Europe; and so he manages to find (“create” might be the better word) him.
Agapetus is given credit for arguing his case so convincingly that Justinian was persuaded, as would be a contemporary of Dante, by Aristotle's “law of contradictories.” Tozer (comm. to this tercet) paraphrases as follows: “'[Agapetus's] article of faith (the two Natures in Christ) I now see clearly, in the same way as you see that of two contradictories one must be false, the other true'; i.e. not as a matter of opinion or inference, but with absolute certainty.”
Justinian now makes still more specific the dependence of his legal writing on the Holy Spirit. (See the note to vv. 11-12.) Dante is insistent in establishing the emperor's conversion as preceding his formulation of the laws, no matter what the facts may have been.
Belisarius (ca. 500-565), Justinian's greatest general, is portrayed by Dante in unproblematic and glowing terms, either despite what the poet knew of his eventual difficulties with his emperor or in ignorance of them. If Dante did know the extravagant and unverified tale (but he may not have, we must remember) that Justinian finally had all his possessions stripped from Belisarius and also had him blinded, we would sense even more strongly how willing he was to let the ideality of the situation trump its actuality. For here is a realm that a Dante can love, its supreme leader completely dedicated to the practical intellectual concerns of governance, the law, while his “right hand,” loyal and true, takes care of problems with the Vandals in Africa and the Goths in Italy. In any case, this pair of heroic figures offers Dante an emblem of the successful collaboration between representatives of the active and of the contemplative life (here in the form of the lower part of Boethius's familiar binome, practical [rather than theoretical] thought; see Cons. Phil. I.1[pr.]).
This is, according to the Grande Dizionario, one of the very few times in the history of the Italian language that the verb commendare is used to signify “affidare” (entrust) – the only other example put forward comes from Castiglione two centuries later. In Dante the word more usually signifies “praise, celebrate.”
Narrowing the principal activity of his own life on behalf of Rome triggers in Justinian the need to “add” something more, a “digression” of sorts (vv. 34-111), which naturally enough, given that he is speaking for his author, has begun (vv. 31-33) by touching on the criminally irresponsible struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Dante's Italy. It will, also naturally enough, conclude with the same concern (vv. 97-111). Thus ancient history has a most modern relevance and is framed by that topic.
The outcome of the struggle of the Eagle, a great Hegelian bird moving through history to make manifest the Spirit, is hardly a cause for optimism, at least not at the moment in which Dante is writing. The “covers” of Justinian's historical essay both depict the disastrous present day in Italy. The ensuing narrative of the Eagle's flight through time and space is put to the service of showing that it has become the corrupt emblem of a corrupt party (the Ghibellines of 1300), opposed by equally corrupt Guelphs.
Justinian speaks ironically (employing the trope antiphrasis, saying the opposite of what is meant).
The core of the canto, offering what is perhaps the poem's crucial political self-definition, presenting an absolutely unorthodox “history of the Caesars,” i.e., one principally shaped by a Christian point of view, is divided into sixteen segments:
(1) death of Pallas (35-36)
(2) Ascanius founds Alba Longa (37-38)
(3) Horatians' victory over the Curiatii (39)
(4) kings: rape of the Sabines (Romulus) (40)
(5) kings: rape of Lucretia (the Tarquins) (41-42)
(6) republic: vs. Gauls of Brennus (43-44)
(7) republic: vs. Tarentini of Pyrrhus (44-45)
(8) republic: Torquatus and Cincinnatus (46)
(9) republic: Decii and Fabii (47-48)
(10) republic: defeat of Hannibal (49-51)
(11) republic: Scipio and Pompey (vs. Catiline) (52-54)
(12) empire: Julius Caesar (55-72)
(13) empire: Augustus Caesar (73-84)
(14) empire: Tiberius Caesar (85-90)
(15) empire: Titus (91-93)
(16) empire: Charlemagne (94-96)
The Eagle is marked by virtù (usually “power” but, at times, as here, “virtue”), precisely what the opposing Italian political parties lack. The ensuing list of virtuous founding presences harps upon the moral virtues that separated Romans from their enemies. See Convivio IV.iv.11 for an earlier expression of Dante's firm belief in the moral superiority of the Romans: “Therefore, since this office [rulership] could not be attained without the greatest virtue, and since its exercise required the greatest and most humane kindness, this was the people best disposed to receive it” (tr. R. Lansing).
Roman imperial virtue begins with the death of Pallas, son of Evander. Despite the special protection of Aeneas, Pallas is killed in battle by Turnus (Aen. X.479-489). Thus the founding event of the empire is presented here as the death of Pallas, an event that seems to have the status of sacrifice. For a discussion in this vein, see Rachel Jacoff (“Sacrifice and Empire: Thematic Analogies in San Vitale and the Paradiso,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al. [Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985], pp. 317-32). The death of Cato has a similar resonance; he died for liberty, as Virgil tells Dante (Purg. I.71-72; and see the note to vv. 71-74). Pallas dies in order to give virtue a homeland in Italy where, for a time at least, it prospered. “His death led to that of Turnus, because Aeneas would have spared the latter's life, had he not seen the belt of Pallas, which [Turnus] was wearing (Aen. XII.940-950). By Turnus' death Aeneas became possessed of Lavinia, and of the kingdom of Latinus. Thus the death of Pallas ultimately caused the eagle to obtain the sovereignty” (Tozer's commentary to vv. 35-36).
For Dante's earlier view of the death of Pallas, see Monarchia II.ix.14.
Dante refers to Alba Longa, “the most ancient town in Latium, built according to tradition by Ascanius, son of Aeneas” (Toynbee, “Alba” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Eagle would remain there some three hundred years until the defeat of the local Curiatii by the Roman Horatii.
Dante (Conv. IV.v.11) includes three Tarquins among the first seven kings of Rome: “ ... the seven kings who first governed her – namely Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus, and the Tarquin kings who were the rulers and the tutors, so to speak, of her youth” (tr. R. Lansing). That means Dante counts the sixth king, Tullius Servius, related by marriage but not by birth, as one of the Tarquins, as Toynbee explains (“Tarquinii” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
It is probably significant that the first period of Roman history is marked, at either end, by rape, that of the Sabine women in Romulus's rule, and that of Lucrece by her husband's cousin, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, seventh king of Rome. That second act of sexual violence eventually had the result of ending Tarquin rule (510 B.C.).
Dante records two major military victories of the ensuing republican period. “Brennus, leader of the Senonian Gauls, who in 390 B.C. crossed the Apennines, defeated the Romans at the Allia, and took Rome; after besieging the capitol for six months he quitted the city upon receiving 1,000 pounds of gold as a ransom for the capitol and returned home safe with his booty. According to later tradition (followed by Livy), at the moment when the gold was being weighed and Brennus, declaring the Roman weights to be false, had thrown his sword into the scale, Camillus and a Roman army appeared, fell upon the Gauls, and slaughtered them” (Toynbee, “Brenno” ([Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, born 318 B.C., died 272 B.C.; he claimed descent from Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and great-grandson of Aeacus. In 280 Pyrrhus crossed over into Italy at the invitation of the Tarentines to help them in their war against the Romans” (Toynbee, “Pirro-2” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
This tercet begins a passage dedicated to the Roman republic (vv. 43-54). For a clear understanding of Dante's allegiance to republican ideals and principles, see Charles Davis, “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic” (1974) and “Roman Patriotism and Republican Propaganda: Ptolemy of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III” (1975), both reprinted in Dante's Italy and Other Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), pp. 254-89 and 224-53, respectively; and see Robert Hollander and Albert Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 59-82) and the note to Paradiso XXVII.61-63.
The words principi e collegi refer to other political organisms on the peninsula, whether kingdoms or republics; for collegi with this meaning, Porena (comm. to this verse) cites Monarchia II.v.7: these bodies “seem in some sense to function as a bond between individuals and the community” (tr. P. Shaw).
“Titus Manlius, surnamed Torquatus, from the collar (torques) which he took from a fallen foe; and Quinctius, surnamed Cincinnatus, or the 'curly-haired'” (Longfellow, comm. on this verse).
The Decii and the Fabii: “Decii, famous Roman family, three members of which, father, son, and grandson, all bearing the same name, Publius Decius Mus, sacrificed their lives for their country” (Toynbee, “Deci” [Concise Dante Dictionary]); “the Fabii, ancient patrician family at Rome, which claimed descent from Hercules and the Arcadian Evander. It is celebrated as having furnished a long line of distinguished men” (Toynbee, “Fabi” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Dante uses a rare (or coins his own new) verb, mirrare, meaning “to embalm” or “to preserve with myrrh.” See Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) for an acerbic discussion of the vagaries of the ancient debate over this word. Some early commentators think Dante was only deliberately (because of the exigencies of rhyme) misspelling miro (admire) with a double “rr”; others see that it means “preserve,” as Scartazzini argues it indeed does, if he dislikes any sense of the odoriferous, favored by some but inappropriate, in his view, in Paradise.
To refer to the Carthaginians as Arabs is (as Bosco/Reggio [comm. on this tercet] explain) to commit an anachronism, since Arabs populated that part of North Africa only in Dante's day, not in Roman times. Hannibal (247-183 B.C.) was perhaps the Romans' most glorious and successful antagonist, over a period of some fifteen years defeating them in several major battles, until, at the battle of Zama, in 202 B.C., he was utterly crushed by Scipio (who received his surname, “Africanus,” as a result). Some may recall George C. Scott, portraying General George Patton in the eponymous film detailing the latter's military career, alone before a major tank battle of the North African campaign in World War II on the battlefield at Zama, reflecting on Scipio's victorious tactics.
“Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, one of the greatest of the Romans, born 234 B.C., died ca. 183; while just a youth he fought against Hannibal at the Battle of the Ticinus (218); he was elected consul 205, and in the next year crossed over into Africa, and at last brought to an end the long struggle between Rome and Hannibal by his decisive victory over the latter at the Battle of Zama, Oct. 19, 202; he returned to Italy in 201, and entered Rome in triumph, receiving the surname of Africanus in commemoration of his brilliant services; he served in the war against Antiochus the Great in 190, and, being afterwards accused of taking bribes from Antiochus, was tried in Rome in 185, on the anniversary of the Battle of Zama; the prosecution was, however, dropped, and Scipio left Rome, to which he never returned; he died not long after, probably in 183” (Toynbee, “Scipione-1” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). “Pompey the Great, born 106 B.C., died 48 B.C.; in his youth he distinguished himself as a successful general and earned the surname of Magnus on account of his victories in the African campaign; he was consul with Crassus in 70 B.C., and in 59 B.C. joined Julius Caesar and Crassus in the first triumvirate. Caesar's increasing power made it inevitable that a struggle for supremacy should take place between them sooner or later, and in 49 B.C. the Civil War broke out; in the next year Pompey was completely defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalia, and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by order of Ptolemy's ministers” (Toynbee, “Pompeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
Scipio is the Roman hero who is most often referred to by Dante; see Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 64-68).
The Roman standards seemed bitter to the inhabitants of the ancient hill town of Fiesole, beneath which lies Dante's Florence, when the army destroyed it in the war against Catiline. According to Giovanni Villani (Cron. I.36-37), Pompey was among the generals at the siege.
After seven tercets, each of which is devoted to one event (and sometimes more) in pre-imperial history, Dante will turn to his gallery of Roman emperors, one that will eventually resemble no other such listing ever found. But he deals with the first of them, Julius, here. (Post-Shakespearean readers may need to be reminded that, for Dante and historians in his time, Julius [and not Augustus] was the first emperor.)
Dante's “life of Caesar” is immediately put (forced?) into a Christian context. It was Julius's task to set the world in better order so that it would be prepared for the coming of Christ. Next Dante turns to Caesar's military triumphs in Gaul (vv. 58-60). The six rivers mentioned in these verses may derive from Lucan, Pharsalia I.399-434, as is suggested by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58).
The next four tercets (vv. 61-72) essentially recount the main Caesarean events of Lucan's version of the civil wars between Julius and the republicans: (1) his crossing of the Rubicon and march on Rome (Phars. I-III); (2) his attack on the republican forces in Spain (Phars. IV; see Purg. XVIII.101-102); (3) his landing on the Dalmatian coast in pursuit of Pompey (V-VI); (4) the battle of Pharsalus, with the death of Cato and flight of Pompey to Egypt, where he was betrayed and killed by Ptolemy (VII-IX); (5) his tour of some sites of the Trojan War (IX); (6) his deposition of Ptolemy, placing Cleopatra in his stead (X); (7) his defeat of Juba, king of Numidia, one of Pompey's supporters (not included in the unfinished epic, but since Juba is referred to at some length in Phars. IV.670-824, he was probably scheduled for a final, sad appearance); (8) a return to Spain, where Caesar annihilated the remainder of Pompey's followers (Lucan looks forward to this last battle, at Munda, in Phars. I.40). While most of these events seem to have sources in Lucan's text, and follow the order in which they occur in that text, what is utterly lacking is Lucan's biting sarcasm about Julius so sharply felt in most of these scenes. Indeed, Dante's own hostility toward Julius seems largely absent from this passage (see William Stull and Robert Hollander [“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 {1991 [1997]}: 33-43], for discussion of Julius's ups and [mainly] downs in Dante's eyes). In these lines, as in his presence as an exemplum of zeal in Purgatorio XVIII.101-102 (and see the note to the passage), only a positive view of Caesar is appropriate, since he is seen here as the first and theologically necessary emperor of Rome. The reference to Troy (vv. 67-68) also seems to have radically different purposes here and in Lucan; here it ties Julius to the Trojan founders of Rome, while there (Pharsalia IX.961-1003) it mocks his pretensions. See Mineo (“Canto VI,” in “Paradiso”: Lectura Dantis Neapolitana, dir. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 121-29), for the problematic nature of Dante's changing views of Julius.
For Dante's similar sense of “kairos,” of the “fullness of time,” under Augustus, see Convivio IV.v.4-8, a text that also includes the following details about the birth of Rome: “David was born when Rome was born – that is, when Aeneas came to Italy from Troy, which was the origin of the Roman city, according to written records” (IV.v.6 [tr. R. Lansing]). And see Monarchia I.xvi.2: “That mankind was then [in the reign of Augustus] happy in the calm of universal peace is attested by all historians and by famous poets; even the chronicler of Christ's gentleness deigned to bear witness to it; and finally Paul called that most happy state 'the fullness of time' [plenitudinem temporis]” (tr. P. Shaw).
Here, once more, Dante's apparent sentiments are far from Lucanian. This nefarious crime of Julius is treated in this passage as a great and necessary step forward. See, however, Dante's previous harsh treatment of Curio, who encouraged Julius to cross the Rubicon and march on Rome (Inf. XXVIII.97-99). There the context was the destruction of the republic; here it is the establishment of the empire. For discussion of Dante's apparently contradictory views of Curio, see Jacques Goudet (“La 'parte per se stesso' e l'impegno politico di Dante,” Nuove letture dantesche, vol. VII [Florence: Le Monnier, 1974], pp. 313-16) and William Stull (“The Lucanian Source of Dante's Ulysses,” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 27-28).
Pompey, although he managed to avoid death at Caesar's hand in Greece, was betrayed by his host, the young king, Ptolemy, and killed in Egypt (Phars. VIII).
The young king suffers his own misfortune: Julius replaces him on the throne with Cleopatra.
The word baiulo here means “standard-bearer.” It refers to Octavian, the second of Dante's “world-historical” emperors, eventually known as Augustus Caesar. The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 73-81) traces it to the first-conjugation verb baiuolo (carry).
See Inferno XXXIV.64-67 for Dante's initial portrayal of this pair. Now he adds a detail: They are barking. In the previous passage we are told that Brutus is silent, and Cassius is not described as uttering sounds. Their “next-door neighbor” in Cocytus, however, Bocca, does bark (Inf. XXXII.105 and 108). Has Dante conflated that noise here? If we decide that such a solution seems unlikely, we are faced with another loose end in Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.34). But see Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), arguing that the phrase “e non fa motto” (Inf. XXXIV.66), apparently used to describe Brutus's silence, in fact is an ironic understatement on Dante's part, chosen to indicate that Brutus is indeed barking like a dog in his pain; this is surely an ingenious attempt to spare Dante from a self-contradiction; it probably fails to convince, mainly because no one would possibly read the line this way in its own terms. It would have been odd for Dante to have waited patiently for 39 cantos to make his meaning clear; would he not have preferred to live with readers' misprisions?
Octavian's forces defeated Mark Antony at Modena and also sacked the city of Perugia. Tozer points to Lucan (Phars. I.40) for a source: “though to these be added the famine of Perusia and the horrors of Mutina” (tr. J.D. Duff).
Antony, who survived defeat in the battles against the imperial army in Italy, did not choose to live much longer, after losing the naval battle near Actium (31 B.C.), and committed suicide. Cleopatra, fleeing before the imperial ensign, held aloft now by Octavian, did not choose to die with her lover; she put herself to death by means of the bite of an asp that she held to her breast (some commentators insist that she in fact employed two venomous snakes to do away with herself). Over the centuries many potential sources have been cited for the mode of her suicide, which occurred only once she perceived that, unlike Julius, Octavian was firm against her charms and intended to take her back to Rome as a captive. Giorgio Brugnoli (“'Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra,'” Quaderni d'italianistica 16 [1995]: 89-90) argues that the most likely single source for Dante's “trista Cleopatra,” which he was the first to advance, is found in Juvenal (Sat. II.109), “maesta... Cleopatra” (wretched Cleopatra).
For a possible source, see Aeneid VIII.685-688, where Antony is criticized for his deportment with Cleopatra (this scene is one of those portrayed on the shield that Venus presents to Aeneas, Aen. VIII.626-731). As Fairclough points out in his note to this passage, the “ruddy sea” is the Indian Ocean, not the Red Sea. The first commentator to cite this phrase (litore rubro) in the Aeneid (VIII.686) was apparently Scartazzini (comm. to this verse). Most modern commentators also cite it, but, like Scartazzini, without noting that Virgil is not referring to the Red Sea. If he is in fact citing the Aeneid, Dante either makes the same mistake his modern commentators make or else forces the passage out of context, and has Augustus establishing his dominion over that most propitious part of the Mediterranean world, where Christ became flesh, as part of the plenitudo temporis (see the note to vv. 55-57). And see the note to Paradiso VII.6 for a possible resonance of another segment of this Virgilian text.
See the great prophecy of Augustus as bearer of world peace in Aeneid I.286-296, esp. verse 294, “claudentur Belli portae” (the gates of War shall be shut), as was first observed by Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 79-81, along with passages from Lucan, esp. Phars. I.62). For both these loci, see also Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 79-81).
The word delubro is a Latinism (from delubrum, “temple”).
“Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson and adopted son and successor of Augustus; Roman emperor, A.D. 14-37” (Toynbee, “Tiberius” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). There is apparently a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to Dante's words in support of his selection of the third emperor in his most unusual pantheon. Julius is a bit problematic, given even Dante's own slurs on his character (see the notes to Purg. IX.133-138 and Purg. XXVI.77-78), but we understand that, for Dante and his time, he was the first emperor, and thus a necessary presiding presence. About Augustus no one ever could (and no one ever has wanted to) complain. But Tiberius (not to mention Titus!) has caused more than a little discomfort. And the protagonist does indeed marvel at these words (in Paradiso VII.19-24). But see Monarchia II.xi.5: “Thus if Christ had not suffered under an authorised judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorised unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ 'who bore our sorrows,' as the prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose representative Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind unless the Roman empire had existed by right” (tr. P. Shaw).
Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 79-81) made clear his amazement at Dante's having included Tiberius among the great emperors, referring to him as “the worst sort of successor” to Augustus. (And see Benvenuto's own list of seven emperors, dropping Tiberius and Titus in favor of Trajan and Constantine and adding Theodosius, in the Outline of this canto.) It is possible that Dante's “final list” is indeed seven, since it eventually includes Henry VII or his successor (see the note to Par. XXX.133-138) as the seventh emperor in the line adumbrated here. See Hollander and Rossi (“Dante's Republican Treasury,” Dante Studies 104 [1986]: 62 and 78n).
Justinian is making the case for the justness of Christ's death at the hands of the Romans (Pontius Pilate, acting as agent of Tiberius). This “vendetta” pursued by the Roman Eagle (as Justinian, inspired by the justice of God even as he now speaks, insists) is what makes the accomplishments of even Julius and Augustus seem paltry, for Christ's death atoned for all previous human sin and made sinners to come redeemable as well. Thus the apparently specious hyperbole in the passage regarding Tiberius (vv. 82-91) must be seen as serious. His greatness is precipitated out of the event he presided over, the Crucifixion. See Carroll on vv. 82-90: “The wrath is the just anger of God against the human race for its sins; and the 'doing of vengeance' is the death of Christ, regarded as the bearing of the punishment inflicted by that anger. The extraordinary thing is that Dante regards the Crucifixion as the supreme glory of Roman justice, inasmuch as it was the agent by which 'the Living Justice' 'did vengeance for His wrath.'”
See the quotation of the first line of Justinian's Institutiones in the note to vv. 1-27. Again Dante puts words reflecting the spiration of the Holy Spirit in Justinian's mouth; see verse 23 and the note to vv. 22-24. And see Inferno XXIX.55-57 (and the note to vv. 54-57) for Dante's association of himself with similar inspiration, not to mention Purgatorio XXIV.52-54. Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is one of the relatively few commentators to take clear notice of Justinian's insistence on divine inspiration for his work on Roman law.
“Titus, son and successor of Vespasian, Roman emperor, A.D. 79-81; he served under his father in the Jewish wars, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and returned to Italy in 70 he remained in Palestine in order to carry on the siege of Jerusalem, which he captured, after a siege of several months, in September of that year; in the following year he returned to Rome and celebrated the conquest of the Jews in a triumph with his father” (Toynbee, “Tito” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). For a clear explanation of this tercet, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 91-93): “The repetition is that of the word vendetta in two different applications, corresponding to the twofold mission of the eagle; first it avenged God's wrath against Adam's sin (vendetta del peccato antico) by putting Christ to death; then it took vengeance on the Jews for bringing about Christ's death by the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”
Giorgio Padoan (“Il Canto VII del Paradiso,” Lectura Dantis Romana [Turin: S.E.I., 1965], pp. 7-17) looks away from the canto of his Lectura Dantis Romana (Par. VII) to consider these verses and their problematic view of Jewish history.
Charlemagne gets short shrift as the sixth (Justinian does not, of course, refer to himself as a member of this elite group, but commentators have done so for him) and last of these “world-historical” emperors. See Tozer (comm. to these verses): “[W]hen Desiderius, king of the Lombards, persecuted the Church, Pope Adrian I called in Charles the Great to its defense. [V]incendo: by his victory over Desiderius. The date of this was 774, and Charles was not crowned emperor of the West until 800, so that at the time when it took place he was not under the protection of the Roman eagle (sotto le sue ali). Dante's error here is of a part with his more serious mistake in Mon. [III.xi.1] where he says that Charles was crowned emperor by Adrian I while the emperor Michael was on the throne of Constantinople – whereas in reality he was crowned by Leo III during the reign of Irene.” The process of translatio imperii has now been insisted on, as the Eagle has flown out of Italy and into France. This tercet thus accomplishes a great deal, introducing and defending the concept of the Holy Roman Empire in the space of three lines.
Having finished with the “Roman” past of imperial power, from Julius to Charlemagne, a period of just over 800 years, Justinian now turns to the present political ills of Italy. This subject is not treated as formally as the history of Roman institutions, but it is at once clear that, for Dante, it is of extraordinary importance
For Justinian's earlier references to Guelphs and Ghibellines and their battle over control of the sacrosanto segno (that most holy standard), see vv. 31-33 and the notes to those verses and to verse 30. In a real sense, then, vv. 34-96 are a digression (they are referred to as a giunta [an addendum], at verse 30), only preparing for Dante's pressing business, to show how poorly ordered the political affairs of the peninsula were in his own time.
While the Guelphs oppose the imperial ensign with their (French) golden lilies, the Ghibellines try to make it only their own, desiring to deprive others of their rightful imperial homeland.
The Ghibellines, for ridding the sacred sign of empire of justice, are told to find another symbol to represent their conniving spirit.
Charles II, King of Naples (ruled 1289-1309), is referred to as “new” to distinguish him from his father, also King of Naples (and Sicily, in his case), who died in 1285. Justinian warns him not to let his Guelph troops attempt to wrest the ensign of imperial rulership from the Ghibellines (who have their own problems in meriting it), for the empire has defeated mightier enemies before.
The imperial eagle's claws are portrayed as having “ripped the hides from greater lions” than Charles represents. The general sense is clear, but there have been any number of interpretations of what exactly is meant. E.g., the author of the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse) suggests defeated opponents of the eagle enumerated in the preceding text, such as Hannibal, Brennus, Turnus, etc.; Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 100-111) goes off into Roman history for still others who lost battles to the forces of ancient Rome; Trifon Gabriele (comm. to this verse) says that where the eagle is the symbol of empire, the lion is that of republics; Andreoli (comm. to this verse): the lion is the symbol of the ruling house of France; Bianchi (comm. to vv. 106-108): the “hides” indicate other princes; Pietrobono (comm. to vv. 107-108): enemies of Rome as indicated in Monarchia II.viii. The majority believes that there is no specific reference, only a generic prophecy of Charles' doomed experiment with increasing his dominions, should he try to accomplish that.
Strangely enough, not a single commentator (at least not among the seventy-two currently gathered in the DDP) makes reference to Ugolino's narrative here (see, e.g., Inf. XXXIII.38-39). In this poem there is hardly another more evident case of sons weeping for the sins of their father.
In these two tercets Justinian explains the nature of what was lacking in these souls (as Frank Ordiway has pointed out [“In the Earth's Shadow: The Theological Virtues Marred,” Dante Studies 100 {1982}: 82-85], it is the theological virtue of hope in its perfected form). As the temporary Moon-dwellers displayed a marred version of faith, so Justinian and the others here, while they were alive, displayed hope in an immature form, rendering their love of God less vibrant than it should have been.
In the following pair of tercets (these twelve verses indeed form a group, the two equal parts of which are joined by a triumphant “But”), Justinian, as has frequently been noted, sounds very much like Piccarda (Par. III.70-87). We can safely assume that neither he nor Romeo would be among the higher petals of the Rose in Paradiso XXXII; but that only makes them love God the more, for accepting them in Heaven with a history of such galling imperfections.
This verse marks the third occurrence of the noun giustizia in the canto, a density shared by only two previous cantos (Inf. III and Purg. XIX; however, see Par. VII, where that noun appears only once, but other forms of the word [giusta (3), giustamente (2), giuste] appear six times; see the note to Par. VII.20).
Romeo, seneschal (chief steward) of Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence: “The only foundation, apparently, for the story, adopted by Dante and Villani (vi.90), of the 'pilgrim' who became the minister of the Provençal count, is the fact that the name of count Berenger's grand seneschal was Romieu (or Romée) of Villeneuve. Romeo, a friend of Sordello (Purg. VI.74) was born c. 1170. In Aug. 1229 he was in Genoa as ambassador to the podestà of that city, and in the same year was serving as Raymond Berenger's chief minister, and by him was granted certain possessions in Genoa and her territories, and the next year received other properties. Early in 1241, on another mission as ambassador, he became involved in a battle at sea, from which he escaped unscathed, even managing to capture a Pisan vessel laden with merchandise which he had taken to Nice. On Aug. 19, 1245 Raymond Berenger died, leaving his daughter Beatrice his heir, and Romeo as 'baiulus totius terrae suae et filiae suae' [guardian of all his lands and those of his daughter]. Beatrice then married Charles of Anjou while under Romeo's guardianship. Romeo died in 1250” (Toynbee, “Romeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
For Villani's account (in English) of the arrangements made by Romeo to marry off Raymond's daughters and his umbrage at Raymond's request for an accountancy, see Oelsner's comment on these lines.
As Aversano (Dante daccapo ([glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, p. 28), is alone in pointing out, Justinian's reference to the planet Mercury as a pearl (as the narrator had referred to the Moon in Par. II.34) possibly has a biblical resonance: see Matthew 13.44-46, comparing the kingdom of heaven to “a pearl of great price.”
Those courtiers, we suppose, who spoke ill of Romeo to Raymond, succeeded in forcing his removal from a position of trust (see vv. 136-139), but in the end suffered the tyrannical rule of Raymond's successors.
When we read or hear Raymond's name, we may reflect on how many names or references to historical figures we have encountered in this canto (all but two of them in the first 106 verses). The total (Constantine, Aeneas, Lavinia, Justinian, Agapetus, Belisarius, Pallas, the Curiatii, the Horatii, the seven first kings of Rome, Sabine women, Lucrece, unnamed republicans, Brennus, Pyrrhus, Torquatus, Cincinnatus, the Decii, the Fabii, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Hector, Ptolemy, Juba, Augustus, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Tiberius, Titus, Desiderius, Charlemagne, Charles II of Anjou, Romeo, and Raymond), even if we count some plural presences as single units, as here, is an impressive 38, and that excludes the several-times-alluded-to Guelphs and Ghibellines. If we have bought into the discredited but still supported notion that in the last cantica Dante has given over worldly concerns, it may come as something of a surprise to have a canto in Paradiso make so obvious a gesture toward history.
The phrase dimandar ragione is a term used for requesting a review of the financial situation between involved parties.
That is, Romeo's accounts always returned more than he had accepted into his care. The numbers seem merely casually chosen, but would indicate a healthy 20% gain in Raymond's holdings under Romeo's management. But see Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 30), arguing for the non-coincidental appearance of these two numbers in Paradiso XIX.91-93, the “cinque volte sette” (five times seven) as the expression for the thirty-five letters that compose the first sentence of the Book of Wisdom.
Where the opening verses of the canto imply the presence of Virgil, as author of the Aeneid, the concluding ones summon the image of the exiled and “mendicant” Dante (cf. Par. XVII.58-60, Cacciaguida's admonition: “You shall learn how salt is the taste / of another man's bread and how hard it is / to go down and then up another man's stairs”). See Mazzoni (“Il canto VI del Paradiso,” Letture classensi 9-10 [1982]: 157); and see Woodhouse (“Dante and Governance: Contexts and Contents,” in Dante and Governance, ed. John Woodhouse [Oxford: Clarendon, 1997], pp. 1-11) for a treatment in English of Romeo's resemblance to Dante: It is he who, “by recalling, in his person and in his name, Romeus, pilgrim to Rome, recalls the tragic figure of Dante himself” (p. 7). His name also binds the two seemingly disparate parts of the canto, ancient and modern. This is a “Roman canto,” even when it turns its attention to recent events in Provence; its first part is a sort of vernacular version of a theologized Aeneid; its last, a comic (i.e., happily resolved) version of a lament for a courtier.
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