For a fair-minded consideration of this passage, of which it may seem difficult to form a definitive opinion, see Oelsner's gloss (comm. to these tercets): “On his death [Charles'] son, Caroberto, became heir to the throne of Naples; but his uncle Robert (known as Robert the Wise), supported by Charles II's will, ousted him from the succession. This was in 1309. At the date of the vision, therefore, Robert could not yet have been abusing his powers as king; but according to Charles (Par. VIII.76), he was already preparing to do so by cultivating the Spanish friendships he had formed when a hostage in Spain, and so laying the train for oppression of the much enduring Apulia by the instrumentality of Spanish favourites.”

About the identity of “Clemence” in verse 1 there has been controversy. Nonetheless, it would seem most natural to assume that the reference is to Charles' wife. (Aversano [Dante daccapo {glosses to the Paradiso}, copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001, pp. 37-38] adduces the negative but inviting evidence that, as is underlined by the last word of the canto, avoltero [lit., “adultery”], the other lovers we encounter in Par. IX [Cunizza, Folco, Rahab] are all characterized by illicit sexuality.) Oelsner continues: “It was her son Caroberto that Robert of Naples had excluded from the succession to Naples and Provence; and to her and her son, therefore, the 'vostri danni' of line 6 would naturally apply. But the date of her death is given in recent commentaries as 1301, long before the time at which these words were written; and evidence has now been produced to show that she really died in 1295, as indeed several of the early commentators declare; and in that case she had been dead some years before the assumed date of the vision, 1300. This would make the direct address to her in line 1 difficult, and the implied communication in lines 2-6 well nigh impossible. And yet the only alternative seems still more difficult to accept, namely, that the Clemence addressed was Charles' daughter who married Louis X, le Hutin (cf. Villani, IX.66), and was living in 1328. This Clemence was in no special way wronged by the proceedings of Robert, nor is it easily conceivable that Dante in speaking of a father to a daughter would call him 'thy Charles.' The reader must take his choice between these two impossibilities.” Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that the intimacy of that familiar “tuo” at least implies relationship (Dante had once seen Charles' Clemenza, according to Chimenz [comm. to verse 1], in 1281, when she was thirteen, on her way to Naples, but had no dealings of any kind with his daughter, married to the King of France.) In addition, the plural “vostri” refers to Clemenza (“tu”) and at least one other, most likely Caroberto. Chimenz (comm. to vv. 5-6) finds this last piece of evidence decisive, referring to those who actually lost something to the political chicanery.

However, perhaps the single most convincing piece of negative evidence deals with the detail that led to the objection that there is something odd or impossible in Dante's addressing Charles' dead wife. Against this frequently offered objection, Porena (comm. to vv. 1-3) indicates that Dante frequently apostrophizes the dead, e.g., Constantine (Inf. XIX.115), Saul (Purg. XII.40), Rehoboam (Purg. XII.46), Buondelmonte (Par. XVI.140). Fernando Coletti (“Canto IX,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], pp. 302-3n.) offers a review of the problem, as does Giuliano Innamorati (“Canto IX,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1987}], pp. 187-91); both of them offer sound arguments for believing the reference is to Charles' wife, or at least not to his daughter. Innamorati offers properly scathing response to Gmelin's notion (Kommentar: das Paradies [Stuttgart: Klett, 1957], ad loc.), advanced perhaps slightly earlier by Pézard, who is generally credited with the idea (at times with agreement) that the spousal Clemenza is addressed by Dante because she is present with Charles in Venus, a perhaps charming notion (Innamorati does not think so, finding it, instead, vulgar), but nearly surely pure invention (see André Pézard, “Il canto VIII del Paradiso,” in Letture dantesche. III. “Paradiso,” ed. G. Getto [Florence: Sansoni, 1964 {1953}], pp. 1489-514). Palma di Cesnola (Semiotica dantesca: Profetismo e diacronia [Ravenna: Longo, 1995], pp. 39-40), arguing for Dante's reference to Clemenza the daughter, misunderstands one element in the passage, thinking that Dante refers to a conversation he had had with Charles in Florence in 1294 rather than the one that he had just now concluded (1300 in Venus).

As Ledda (La guerra della lingua [Ravenna: Longo, 2002], p. 268) points out, this is one of the very few examples of “forbidden revelations” in the Commedia.

This is the first appearance of the word vita when it has the meaning “living soul” in the poem. It is used 23 times in Inferno with its usual meaning (“life,” in various senses), and then 24 times in Purgatorio. In Paradiso it is used 32 times in all, but, to indicate a soul in grace, only here (of Charles) and then of five other denizens of Heaven, as follows: Paradiso XII.127 (Bonaventura), XIV.6 (Thomas), XX.100 (Trajan), XXI.55 (Peter Damian), and XXV.29 (James). Gragnolati (Experiencing the Afterlife [Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005], p. 242, n. 5) is simply incorrect when he states that the “same term 'vita' is used throughout the Comedy to define the human soul.”

As we will learn in vv. 95-96, Folco is swathed in the light of his glory, as a saved soul. Here Charles turns to God (metaphorically, the Sun), the source of his own brightness; if you are filled with that light, there is no need of anything else.

[The reader should know that this passage represents a totally different treatment of the tercet than the one originally found in online versions of these notes (that is, in both the DDP and in the Princeton Dante Project). The printed versions (Doubleday/Anchor 2003 and 2004) perforce still maintain the erroneous notion that this passage is an address to the reader.] It is not one, as I should have realized, at least on the models of Purgatorio X.121-129 (“O superbi cristian, miseri lassi”) and Purgatorio XIV.148-150 (“Ma voi prendete l'esca”), two other examples of direct address, the first to prideful Christians and the second to foolish mortals in general, that are not and should not be considered as specifically addressed to readers of the poem.

For the vexed question of exactly whom the poet addresses, see the preceding note. It is these familiar enemies of Charles Martel who are excoriated here. If indeed it is possible that some of these might well have become readers of this poem, it is nonetheless impossible to believe that Dante here considered them, as in other instances of his use of this rhetorical technique, his readers. [Mea culpa. (Note added 24 August 2013.)]

The rhyme position is possibly the cause of Dante's choice of tempie (literally, “temples,” but here, in metonymy, “head”). Indeed, half of the six uses of the word in the poem occur in rhymes.

To mark the change in personnel, or scene, Dante uses once again (and for the twentieth time) the formulaic ed ecco. Cf. Inferno I.31; III.82; XIII.115; XVII.1; XXIV.97; XXXIV.20; Purgatorio II.13; II.119; III.62; X.100; XIII.35; XIV.137; XV.142; XXI.7; XXIII.10; XXIII.40; XXVIII.25; XXIX.16; Paradiso V.105; here (IX.13); XIV.67; XXIII.19.

The increasing brightness of the living soul of Cunizza, as yet unidentified, signifies that she will gladly answer Dante's questions, in order to please him.

That is, his desire to speak with this living soul.

Literally, let my desire have its “counterweight” (compenso), i.e., and thus be brought back into balance.

That is, show me that you can read my thoughts because you are saved.

In the last canto (Par. VIII.29) the souls were singing “Hosanna” from within their light. Here this one speaks from within as well.

This is the first part of the ample speech (vv. 25-63) given by Cunizza da Romano; it is devoted to her brother and to herself. (The second part, vv. 37-42, serves to introduce the second speaker of the canto, Folco of Marseilles, while the third and longest part, vv. 43-63, is devoted to the troubles that the March of Treviso soon shall experience.) Cunizza (1198-1279 ca.), after a long life of love affairs (Jacopo della Lana says that she was in love at every stage of her life [comm. to vv. 32-33]), came to Florence in April of 1265 and signed a notarial document freeing her family slaves in the house of Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (seen in Inf. X), father of Dante's friend Guido. She was still alive in 1279, and probably died soon after that.

See Franco Masciandaro (“Appunti sul paesaggio dantesco [Inferno V, XXVI, e Paradiso IX],” in The Craft and the Fury: Essays in Memory of Glauco Cambon, ed. J. Francese [West Lafayette, Indiana: Bordighera Press, 2000], pp. 118-19) for Cunizza as correctively mirroring Francesca, and their surrounding landscapes as mirroring their inner states.

Tozer (comm. to vv. 25-28): “The place of which Dante speaks in line 28 as situated on a low hill is the castle of Romano, the patrimony of the Ezzelini. The exact position of this spot is not known, but the part of Italy which is here described as situated between Rialto and the 'fountains' of the Brenta and the Piave is the Marca Trivigiana, which lay between Venice (here represented by the island of Rialto) and the neighbouring part of the Alps, in which those two rivers rise.” Ezzelino da Romano (1194-1259) was a Ghibelline leader, famed for his oppressive ways. “Ezzelino, whose lordship over the March of Treviso lasted for more than thirty years, was a ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrant, and was guilty of the most inhuman atrocities.... In 1255 Pope Alexander IV proclaimed a crusade against Ezzelino, styling him 'a son of perdition, a man of blood, the most inhuman of the children of men, who, by his infamous torture of the nobles and massacre of the people, has broken every bond of human society, and violated every law of Christian liberty.' After a war of three years' duration, in the course of which he committed the most terrible atrocities, Ezzelino was finally defeated (Sept. 16, 1259) by the marquis of Este at Cassano, where he was desperately wounded and taken prisoner. Eleven days after, having torn open his wounds, he died in his prison at Soncino, at the age of 64, after a reign of thirty-four years” (Toynbee, “Ezzelino” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). See Erminia Maria Dispenza Crimi, “Ezzelino III da Romano, 'modello di affidamento' del personaggio di Cangrande della Scala,” an Appendix to her book (“Cortesia” e “Valore” dalla tradizione a Dante [Rovito: Marra, 1993], pp. 127-136), for the anti-Guelph activities of these two Ghibelline leaders.

We have seen Ezzelino briefly (with his menacing black hair) in Inferno XII.109-110. Pietro di Dante tells the following anecdote about him (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 31-33): “When his mother was close to parturition, she had a dream that she was giving birth to a flaming torch (facem igneam) that was setting afire the entire area of the March of Treviso.”

In fact, it may be Ezzelino who is responsible for his sister's presence in Paradiso, if only because he was the subject of Albertino Mussato's Ecerinis, the first Senecan tragedy written in the post-classical age, which, along with his historical account of Henry VII, was the reason for his receiving the laurel in a tumultuous ceremony at Padua at Christmas 1315. Padua was in many respects the most advanced center for the birth of early forms of humanism in Italy. The exchange of Latin verse serving as letters between Giovanni del Virgilio and Dante (ca. 1320) included an invitation to Dante to write a Latin poem about major Italian political figures and then to come to Bologna for his laureation, an offer clearly counting on Dante's emulous feelings toward Mussato (1261-1329) and desire to be laureated himself, as Dante comes close to admitting in the opening lines of Paradiso XXV. For what had been a neglected aspect of Dante's relationship with other writers, see Manlio Pastore Stocchi (“Dante, Mussato, e la tragedìa,” in Dante e la cultura veneta, ed. V. Branca and G. Padoan [Florence: Olschki, 1966], pp. 251-62) and Ezio Raimondi (“Dante e il mondo ezzeliniano,” ibid., pp. 51-69). See also Hollander (“Babytalk in Dante's Commedia,” in Studies in Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1980], p. 116n.). The first points to several passages in Dante, including the Epistle to Cangrande, which perhaps ought to be considered polemical against the never-mentioned Mussato. Raimondi, on the other hand, indicates several passages in Mussato, including a brief account of a dream of the afterworld that he had in Florence that was caused, it turns out, by stomach problems, a fairly obvious shot at the rival whom he, like that rival, never names. And see Girolamo Arnaldi (“La Marca Trevigiana 'prima che Federigo avesse briga', e dopo,” in Dante e la cultura veneta, ed. V. Branca and G. Padoan [Florence: Olschki, 1966], pp. 29-37) for more on the differing reactions to Cunizza and Ezzelino on the part of Mussato and of Dante. For the state of the question in 1970, see Guido Martellotti, “Mussato, Albertino,” ED III (1970). While Martellotti admits that there is no hard evidence connecting these two writers (p. 1068a), he suggests that verses 25-33 are possibly a sly attack on Mussato (p. 1067b). It may seem that Dante and Mussato had no cause for mutual dislike. Both were champions of Henry VII (of whom Mussato was the historian of his Italian activities). But Mussato despised the Scaligeri, and especially Cangrande. In fact, in an event almost certainly referred to in vv. 46-48, the battle at Vicenza in September 1314, not only was Mussato present to fight against Cangrande, he was taken prisoner by that lord (see Benvenuto [comm. to vv. 46-48]: “multi capti sunt,... et Mussatus poeta” [many were captured,... including the poet Mussato]) and brought back to Verona, where he was treated less like a prisoner than an honored guest. One story that circulated had it that when Cangrande, impressed by Mussato's bravery in battle (he was wounded several times and yet, in his desire to avoid capture, leaped into the castle moat, out of which he was pulled by Cangrande's troops), came to see him in his comfortable quarters in the Scaliger castle, which served as his dungeon, and asked whether he could have a few words with his prisoner, Mussato replied that surely he might, but only if he were able to converse in Latin. We do not know how long Mussato was held prisoner in Verona, but not for very long, one supposes. We do know that Dante was a resident of that castle at this period. It would seem inconceivable that Mussato was not much on Cangrande's mind and tongue. One can imagine Dante having to listen to his patron's lavish praise of this “other poet” who was “given the laurel,” who was such a great Latinist, and who had put up such a brave fight in combat. It must have been galling.

Edoardo Fumagalli (“Canto XXV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 395-403) deserves credit for bringing some of this material back into play in his reading of Paradiso XXV. He ties together Dante's responsive eclogue to Giovanni del Virgilio, his reaction to Mussato's laureation in 1315, and the opening passages of this last cantica.

Torraca (comm. to vv. 28-30) points out that Dante strips Ezzelino of the demonic paternity that Mussato provides him in his tragedy, in the opening lines of which his mother allows that his father was a fire-breathing monster.

As Bosco/Reggio remark (introductory note to this canto), the ninth canto of Paradiso is more datable than most, since it refers to a number of events that occurred in 1314 and 1315. Thus it may have been written hot on the heels of the news of Mussato's laureation at the close of 1315. If the original plan for the canto called for the presence of Folco alone, perhaps including his presentation of Rahab, Dante may have decided to add another woman (it is a rare canto in the Commedia that has two women in starring or major supporting roles; only Paradiso III, with Piccarda and Constance, comes to mind) because Cunizza offered Dante a way to address the question of Mussato through her brother (who enjoys brief enough treatment here, but several lines more than he receives in Inferno XII).

Cunizza now identifies herself both as the sister of the “firebrand” and as, in the words Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 13-15), “recte filia Veneris” (indeed a daughter of Venus). The words she uses to do so might suggest that she dwells permanently in this planet, as Pompeo Venturi (comm. to vv. 32-33) seems to believe. (For a later instance in the canto which seems indeed to indicate that Rahab was “assumed” by Venus, see the note to vv. 119-123.)

It has been difficult for commentators to accept Dante's salvation of Cunizza. Some show their hostile disbelief (she was, according to Benvenuto [comm. to vv. 31-36], “widely known to be a whore” [famosa meretrix], but he goes on to find her youthful conduct excusable [he does not mention her mature amorous adventures]). Meretrix was a label affixed to her on a half dozen other occasions (deriving from an unpublished early commentary), while others attempt to put forward the unbelievable claim that she only affected the manner of carnal lovers. For the amply documented list of Cunizza's various love affairs and marriages, including a famous fling during her first marriage with the poet Sordello, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 32-33) and Baranski (“'Sordellus... qui... patrium vulgare deseruit': A Note on De vulgari eloquentia, I, 15, sections 2-6,” in The Cultural Heritage of the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honour of T. G. Griffith, ed. C. E. J. Griffiths and R. Hastings [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993], pp. 19-45). (Sordello names himself at Purg. VI.74 but is present in the poem during four cantos, until the protagonist goes to sleep at the beginning of Canto IX.) To Daniele Mattalia (comm. to verse 32) she is a modern version of Rahab (but what service she performed for Church or state he does not say); however, Mattalia (comm. to verse 32) is apparently the only commentator before the seventh centenary observations in 1965 to face the question of the relation of the present situation of Cunizza in the afterworld to her eternal one, and he sees that they are different (what Dante would consider a correct view), but he then goes on to make a further distinction unwarranted by the text: she will be in the same rank in the Empyrean as Venus is in the heavens, i.e., “in the third level of merit/happiness (merito-felicità).” Again, see the note to vv. 119-123.

Cunizza's formulation, once we consider that one sibling is seen by Dante in Hell while the other addresses him from this planet, is surely meant to remind us of the remark of Charles Martel about the differing natures of members of the same family (Esau and Jacob) in the last canto (VIII.130-131).

Cunizza is saying that she no longer begrudges herself her sins because she neither feels the impulse that led to them nor the remorse that followed them (both in the world and in Purgatory), which were washed away by Lethe. See the similar view of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 25-36), dealing with the notion that Dante is contradicting himself when he presents Cunizza as remembering her sins. Folco will state the proposition a little more clearly than she does in vv. 103-104: “here we don't repent, but smile instead, / not at our fault, which comes not back to mind” but at God's Providence, that foresaw the sin and its redemption. The “common herd” will not understand that she is not racked by penitential thoughts of her sins.

Cunizza indicates Folco di Marsiglia, who will follow her in speaking to Dante at verse 82.

Dante would seem to hold to two positions, one “orthodox” in its condemnation of vainglory (see Purg. XI.100-102, where fame in the world is but a “gust of wind,” variable and of short durance) and one less so, if still more or less welcome in a Christian universe, acceptance of renown for the performance of good deeds. While the commentators are not of one opinion, it seems likely that Dante is not speaking of the vain sort of fame, but of the second sort. See the even stronger positive evaluation of such renown in Paradiso XVIII.31-33, that enjoyed by the last souls whom Dante observes in the heaven of Mars, those who in the world made such a mark “that any poet's page would be enriched” by containing their names. See also Inferno IV.76-78, where we are presented with the (strange) information that the renown of non-believers in Limbo somehow “advances” their cause with God.

Most readers take this line as we do, i.e., this century marker shall occur five more times before Folco's fame dies down. There was apparently a tradition, if it is referred to derisively by St. Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. 6.1), that the history of humankind, from Adam until Judgment Day, would last 7,000 years. That would, according to Dante's timeline, make human history on this earth extend roughly to the year 1800, since 6498 years have passed since God formed Adam (see Par. XXVI.118-123). Vellutello, however, objects to the widely shared interpretation of s'incinqua, arguing (comm. to vv. 37-42) that the verse actually means that the number of the century shall be “fived,” i.e., as it shall be in the year 1500. Only a few have followed his lead. Yet the reader should probably also consider another probably misguided theory, reported by Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), who severely disapproves, as having been embraced first by L.G. Blanc. It was then advanced soon after the end of the First World War by Rodolfo Benini (Dante tra gli splendori dei suoi enigmi risolti [Rome: Sampaolesi, 1952 {1919}], p. 64) and was more recently referred to approvingly by Silvio Pasquazi (“Il Canto IX,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], pp. 283-84). This understanding has it that one needs, not to add five centuries to thirteen hundred to reach 1800, but to multiply 1300 times 5 to reach 6500. Benini and Pasquazi believe that this is a propitious number because 6500 years have already passed since Adam and Eve were formed (see the note to Par. XXVI.118-120, where 6498 years have passed between then and “now,” the year 1300), thus making a total of 13,000 years, or, according to one medieval tradition, a “Great Year” (see the last paragraph of the note to Inf. I.1), one considerably shorter than Plato's 36,000-year one, obliquely but clearly referred to by Dante in Convivio II.v.16. Barbi (rev. of Vincenzo Russo, La fama di Folco di Marsiglia e la fine del mondo [Catania: Monago e Mollica, 1902], in Bulletino della Società Dantesca Italiana 10 [1903]: 52) reports that Russo refers to St. Augustine's view that the world will end seven millennia after the creation of Adam. What Augustine actually says is that those who assert this cannot possibly know what is known to God the Father alone. Professor James O'Donnell showed the way (in an e-mail message of 16 August 2005) to the relevant passage (Enarr. Ps. 6.1): “Qui adventus, computatis annis ab Adam, post septem annorum millia futurus creditur; ut septem annorum millia tanquam septem dies transeant, deinde illud tempus tanquam dies octavus adveniat” (Which coming [the Day of Judgment], counting the years since Adam, it is believed will occur after seven thousand years, so that if seven thousand years go by as seven days, then that time shall arrive as the eighth day). The sixth Psalm's rubric, in the Vulgate, refers to the octave (Psalms 4-6 are all addressed by David to the chief musician of the Temple); the “seven days” evidently refer to the days of Creation, become the archetype of the seven millennia of human history; the number eight has a long history as the number of baptism, and hence of rebirth of the Christian child (e.g., the octagonal shape of baptismal fonts). Whether in denial or not, Augustine's words put into play the concept that Dante may be borrowing here, and do so in a work that, if not discussed as being important to Dante (in standard sources, neither by Moore [Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante {Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 [1896]}] nor in the entry “Agostino” by Alberto Pincherle [ED I {1970}]), he nonetheless was well acquainted with it, as is becoming ever more clear (see, e.g., Mazzoni [“Un incontro di Dante con l'esegesi biblica (A proposito di Purg. XXX, 85-99),” in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], pp. 207-12). For Dante's own previous sense of the temporal location of the end of the world, see Convivio II.xiv.11-13. There he discusses “... the almost imperceptible movement which [the starry heaven] makes from west to east at the rate of one degree in a hundred years.... [T]his revolution had a beginning and shall have no end.... For since the beginning of the world [the Starry Heaven] has completed little more than one-sixth of the revolution, and yet we are already in the last age of the world and are still awaiting the consummation of the celestial movement” (tr. R. Lansing). One-sixth of the revolution of the stars would be 6,000 years. A “little more” could be roughly five hundred years, approximately 1.5% of that number, bringing the total years since the creation of Adam to 6500 (for Dante, as we have seen, 6498). If we accept Russo's reading, as do Steiner (comm. to vv. 39-40) and Giacalone (comm. to vv. 39-40 [without mention of his precursors]), it would have us believe that Folco's fame on earth will last, literally, for the rest of time (i.e., 6500 plus 500). And when we consider that it is not his poems (never referred to during his presence here), but his turning to the religious life, which included his persecution of the Albigensians, that will give him such positive and lasting renown, some may not be too eager to accept the hypothesis. His positive renown for such deeds until the end of time would be appalling to one who shared John Carroll's opinion of Dante's salvation of Folco (see his comm. to vv. 106-108). For a generic rebuke to such “soft” views, see Mark Balfour (“Paradiso IX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 138): “Those who would characterize the Albigensian Crusade as somehow being a perversion of the crusading ideal are largely subscribing to an anachronistic viewpoint.” Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 37-42) tries to move Dante from an error to dubious taste, suggesting that before even the fourteenth century had its end, Folco enjoyed no fame at all, even in his own city, going on to suggest, in one of this great commentator's flightier moments, that Dante is actually using coded speech to foretell his own lasting fame.

Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso, copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001], p. 39) contrasts this use of the word eccellente with the eccellenza of Purgatorio XI.87, where it has the clear sense of a need to excel based on pride. Here (if not all the commentators are in accord with this view), it clearly refers to extraordinary goodness, which lives on after one has died, forming a model for others to follow. St. Francis, for example, had exactly this effect on the world, galvanizing countless people to set their lives to doing good.

The current inhabitants of the Marca Trivigiana – its confines traced (to the west) by the Tagliamento and (to the east) by the Adige (see Tozer, comm. to this tercet), although they have been “scourged” by the various tyrants of the region (Ezzelino, his brother Alberigo, and others) have not, according to Cunizza, learned their lesson.

But they shall learn that lesson, one of obedience to Cangrande, insisting on his role as imperial vicar even after the death of Henry VII. Cunizza first foretells the disastrous defeat of the Guelph Paduan army in the fall of 1314 in Vicenza, a Ghibelline city that it had retaken the day before, only to be completely routed in a surprise attack by a small imperial force led by Cangrande. For more on this battle, and the role of Albertino Mussato in it, see the note to vv. 29-30. For a lengthy discussion of the nineteenth-century debate over the incidents referred to in these lines, see Scartazzini (comm. to this tercet).

Next Cunizza prophesies the brutal death of Rizzardo da Camino, ruler of Treviso (1306-1312). While playing chess in his own palace, he was murdered by a peasant wielding a pruning hook. As he had married a daughter of Nino Visconti (see Purg. VIII.53) in 1308, Dante would have probably looked with special disfavor on his notorious philandering, which may have been the motivating cause for his murder. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) point out, Dante nods here in the present tenses of the verbs in vv. 50-51: Rizzardo was not ruling the city in 1300, nor was the plot to kill him being hatched in that year.

The presence of Rizzardo here is perhaps intended to remind the reader of the high praise lavished upon his father, captain-general of Treviso (1283-1306), “il buon Gherardo” of Purgatorio XVI.124. See also Convivio IV.xiv.12, with its praise of Gherardo and mention of the rivers Sile and Cagnano. Thus we have here another of the examples, so dear to Dante, of the unpredictability of nobility's being passed on through the seed of a noble father. “Good wombs have borne bad sons” is King Lear's version of this reflection.

Finally, Cunizza turns her prophetic attention to Feltro (Feltre; see Inf. I.105). Alessandro Novello, a Trevisan, was bishop of Feltre (1298-1320). In 1314 he gave three Ferrarese brothers, Ghibellines, refuge in the city, but then turned them over to the Guelphs of Ferrara, who cut their heads off.

The word malta has caused difficulty. Before Petrocchi, most texts capitalized it. (There were at least six prisons in Italy that bore the name Malta.) But it is also possible that Dante meant what Petrocchi thought he did (a generalized sense of “prison”). If, however, he was referring to a particular place, most recent discussants prefer the choice of the prison for ecclesiastics situated in Lake Bolsena.

Cunizza concludes her speech by reminding Dante of the actual location of the angelic order of Thrones, “above,” i.e., just below the Cherubim (and thus third from the highest rank, occupied by the Seraphim). For the implicit rebuke to Dante, both here and there, see the note to Paradiso VIII.34-39. Edward Peters (“Human Diversity and Civil Society in Paradiso VIII,” Dante Studies 109 [1991: 51-70) points out that Thomas Aquinas associates the order of the Thrones with theologically correct human governance.

Cunizza is aware that to mortals her three prophecies (vv. 43-60), all of them detailing the just punishment of her “countrymen” from the Marca Trivigiana, may seem cruel, while to the saved they are a cause for further celebration of God's justice.

As soon as she breaks off her words to Dante (and she has been speaking quite a while, vv. 25-63), she joins her companions in dance and, like them, contemplates God.

Dante “knew” the next soul from Cunizza's words at vv. 37-42.

Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 67-69) report that the balasso is a ruby found in Asia, in Balascam (today Badakhshan, a region including northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan [see Eric Ormsby, “A mind emparadised,” The New Criterion 26 {Nov. 2007}: 73f.]), according to the thirty-fifth chapter of Marco Polo's Il milione.

The meaning is fairly clear: Here in Paradise (là sù) a living soul, grown more joyful, becomes more refulgent; on earth (qui), a person, made happier, smiles; in Hell (giù), a damned soul, caused to feel greater sadness, darkens in its outer aspect. We never actually see such change in Inferno. This is another example (cf. Inf. XVI.106-108; Inf. XX.127-129) of Dante adding details to his descriptions of earlier scenes.

The protagonist's nine verses indulge in rhetorical flights and playful reproof. For “fancy” rhetoric, consider Dante's three coinages (vv. 73 and 81), which spectacularly turn pronouns into verbs (“to in-him,” “to in-you,” “to in-me”) at either end of his address to Folco. And then there is his mock impatience with his interlocutor for holding his tongue when Folco can surely see, in God, Dante's eagerness to know his story. Is this the most “literary” pose we have as yet watched and heard the protagonist assume? Whatever its degree of novelty, it is a delight to observe.

When we look back from Paradiso XIV.96, we realize that these were the last words spoken by the protagonist until then. This is by far the longest stretch in the poem in which he remains silent, from here near the end of his stay in Venus, right through his time in the Sun, until just after his arrival in Mars.

For a consideration of the word fuia, which seems to have various shades of meaning in its three appearances in the poem (Inf. XII.90 and Purg. XXXIII.44), see Luigi Peirone (“Parole di Dante: fuia,” L'Alighieri 27 [2006]: 151-60).

It is probably no accident that Dante speaks here of the Seraphim, the highest order of angels and associated with the highest form of affection, spiritual love. Folco was, after all, a poet of carnal love, but one who transformed himself into a better kind of lover when he took orders and then when he became God's flail for heresy. Starting with Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 73-79) and the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 73-78), the early commentators found biblical sources of the six wings of the Seraphim either in the Apocalypse or in Ezechiel. However, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to vv. 77-78), the consensus had moved to Isaiah 6:2, the only passage specifically naming them in the Bible: “And above [the Lord's throne] stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.”

The poet, through the words of Folco, locates the Mediterranean, the second largest sea on the earth's surface after Oceanus (verse 84), which surrounds all the land on our globe, on the map of Europe. Moving from west to east, Folco makes the Mediterranean extend 90 degrees in latitude, more than twice its length in modern cartography. Folco places his birthplace, the as-yet-unnamed Marseilles (Vellutello forcefully protests [comm. to vv. 82-87] against, he says, all the other commentators [but also against Dante], stating that Folco was actually born in Genova), between the Ebro's mouth in Spain and that of the Magra in Italy, which separates Liguria from Tuscany. Nearly sharing the time of both sunrise and sunset, Folco continues, his native city and Bougie (on the North African coast) thus nearly share the same meridian of longitude. This rebus leads a patient reader to his city's name. Carroll (comm. to vv. 82-92), at least in part to excuse the exerted twelve-verse periphrasis for “I was born in Marseilles,” insists that Folco is looking down, from the epicycle of Venus, with an astronaut's view of the Mediterranean, and describing what he sees.

For the context offered by the citation of Aeneid IV.622-629, see Mark Balfour (“Paradiso IX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995), p. 137. He points out that IV.628, “litora litoribus contraria” (shore with opposing shore), recognized by some as the source of Dante's “tra ' discordanti liti” (between its opposing shores) is drawn from Dido's penultimate utterance, her curse on Aeneas and his offspring. “Dante's allusion to Dido's curse, therefore, underlines the far-reaching consequences of Aeneas's illicit love, for the conflict between Islamic East and Christian West is, for Dante, a continuation of the enmity between Carthage and Rome.” Awareness of this reference is surprisingly limited and no one before Balfour drew anything like his conclusions. The only early commentator to notice the Virgilian provenance of this verse was the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 82-90). More than 500 years were to pass before another, the classicizing Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 85-87), gave the passage a second chance. He was followed by Scartazzini, Campi, and only a few others, including Casini/Barbi and Bosco/Reggio.

For the citation of Lucan here (Phars. III.453), see the notes to Purgatorio XVIII.101-102 and Paradiso VI.55-72.

Folchetto di Marsiglia was born ca. 1160 and died in 1231. His poems, written in Provençal roughly between 1180 and 1195, were known to Dante, who praises them highly (if the only one referred to is his canzone “Tan m'abellis l'amoros pensamen” [So greatly does the thought of love please me]), naming him by his more familiar name as poet (Folchetus in Latin, which would yield Folchetto in Italian, as many indeed do refer to him) in De vulgari eloquentia II.vi.6. Dante “recycles” the opening of the first line of that canzone in the first line he gives to Arnaut Daniel (Purg. XXVI.140, “Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman” [So greatly does your courteous question please me]). At least several years before 1200, Folchetto left the life of the world behind (including a wife and two sons), becoming first a friar, then abbot of Torronet in Toulon, and finally bishop of Toulouse in 1205. He was deeply involved in a leadership role in the bloody and infamous Albigensian Crusade (1208-1229). As Longfellow has it (comm. to this verse), “The old nightingale became a bird of prey.”

One wonders if Dante's use of Folco (rather than Folchetto) for him in this canto mirrors his sense of the “new man” that eventuated once he turned from love and amorous poetry to the religious life. For a perhaps similar appreciation, if it is not clearly stated, see Alfonso Bertoldi (Il canto XII del “Paradiso” [“Lectura Dantis Orsanmichele”] [Florence: Sansoni, {1913}], p. 27), noting that St. Dominic was at Rome in 1216 “in compagnia del vescovo Folco, l'amoroso Folchetto di Marsiglia....” On Dante's sense of Folco's two-part “career,” see Barolini (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984], pp. 114-22).

Folco's meaning is that the heaven of Venus has its light increased by the presence of his soul, now wrapped in a sheath of light because he is saved, just as it once stamped his nature with an amorous disposition.

While Folchetto's status as poet seems not to be alluded to here at all, many deal with it as part of the context of his presence, understandably assuming that Dante is centrally interested in that. Among those involved in examining the possible Old French and Provençal sources of Dante's poems, Michelangelo Picone has been particularly active. See, inter alia, his “Vita Nuova” e tradizione romanza (Padua: Liviana, 1979); “I trovatori di Dante: Bertran de Born” (Studi e problemi di critica testuale 19 [1979]: 71-94); “Giraut de Bornelh nella prospettiva di Dante” (Vox romanica 39 [1980]: 22-43); “La poesia romanza della Salus: Bertran de Born nella Vita Nuova” (Forum Italicum 15 [1981]: 3-10); “Dante e la tradizione arturiana” (Romanische Forschungen 94 [1982]: 1-18); “Paradiso IX: Dante, Folchetto e la diaspora trobadorica” (Medioevo romanzo 8 [1981-1983]: 47-89); “Baratteria e stile comico in Dante” (in Studi Americani su Dante, ed. G. C. Alessio e R. Hollander [Milan: Franco Angeli, 1989], pp. 63-86); “Presenze romanzesche nella Vita Nuova” (Vox Romanica 55 [1996]: 1-15); “La carriera del libertino: Dante vs Rutebeuf (una lettura di Inferno XXII)” (L'Alighieri 21 [2003]: 77-94). And see Massimilano Chiamenti (“Intertestualità trobadorico-dantesche,” Medioevo e Rinascimento 11 [1997]: 81-96) for more on Dante's sources in Provençal verse. Opposing the views advanced by Picone (both in “Giraut de Bornelh nella prospettiva di Dante” and in “Paradiso IX: Dante, Folchetto e la diaspora trobadorica”) and by Rossi (“'E pos d'amor plus no·m cal': Ovidian Exemplarity and Folco's Rhetoric of Love in Paradiso IX,” Tenso: Bulletin of the Société Guilhem IX 5 [1989]: 49-102– also reaffirmed by Antonelli (“Subsistant igitur ignorantie sectatores,” in Guittone d'Arezzo nel settimo centenario della morte: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Arezzo [22-24 aprile 1994], ed. M. Picone [Florence: Franco Cesati, 1995], p. 347) – Pietro Beltrami (“Arnaut Daniel e la 'bella scola' dei trovatori di Dante,” in Le culture di Dante. Atti del quarto Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone et al. [Florence: Cesati, 2004], p. 33n.) argues that Folco is not to be taken as the highest exponent of Troubadour lyrics found in the poem, but rather as a poet who has given over poetry for religion and is saved for that reason alone. I.e., Folco's distinction in Paradise lies in his rejection of poetry, not in his continued embrace of it. Cf. the similar opinion of Luca Curti (“Canto X,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 146): “ ...but now [we hear not the troubadour] but only the bishop Folco, in whose discourse poetry has not even a marginal presence... .” For a related point, this time with reference to the chastened poetic inclinations of Guinizzelli and Arnaut Daniel in Purgatorio XXVI, see Claudio Giunta (La poesia italiana nell'età di Dante: la linea Bonagiunta-Guinizzelli [Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998], pp. 56-57). Stefano Asperti (“Dante, i trovatori, la poesia,” in Le culture di Dante. Atti del quarto Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone et al. [Florence: Cesati, 2004], pp. 61-92) also discusses, in a similar vein, Dante's view of the importance of the conversion of Folco, rather than his poetry, as redeeming him in the eyes of God (and of Dante). He sees Dante's turning from the poetry of human desire to a poetry of the love for God as paralleling Folco's turning from poetry to the love of God pure and simple. Asperti (pp. 79n.-80n.) reproduces notice, from a sermon of Robert de Sorbon, chaplain of King Louis IX, of an occasion on which the penitent Folco, having heard someone singing one of the songs he had composed in his pre-monastic life, ingested no more than bread and water for that entire day (as a form of recognition of his former sinfulness). See also Adriana Mastalli's study (“El erotismo como alimento: Cecco Angiolieri y la negación de la 'Donna Angelicata',” in XVIII Congreso de lengua y literatura italianas: Le candide farine e il rosso vino, 12-13-14 setiembre de 2002 [Asociación de Docentes e Investigadores de Lengua y Literatura Italianas] [Mendoza, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras], pp. 177-86) of Cecco Angiolieri's rejection of the Guinizzellian tradition of the donna angelicata and of the dolce stil novo (p. 178). Since Cecco was dead by February 1313, and probably before the phrase was created or (at least published) by Dante, only the first part of her formulation is valid, if its essential views seem acceptable. Cecco's attacks on Dante reflect the early lyrics and the Vita nuova. It is, however, interesting to consider that, from his writings, Folco might have seemed to Dante as disreputable a figure as Cecco (whom he never mentions – this silence being, perhaps, his best revenge), and indeed not one bound for Heaven.

Dido (“the daughter of Belus”) was no more aflame with love, bringing grief to Sychaeus (Dido's dead husband; see Aen. IV.552 and Inf. V.62) and Creusa (Aeneas's dead wife; see Aen.II.736-794 and the note to Purg. II.79-81) than Folco was. (However, since the next two classical lovers are both apparently drawn from Ovid's Heroides, Dante may be thinking of the portrait of Dido found there [Book VII].) Nor was Phyllis more in love with Demophoön, who betrayed her (see Ovid, Heroides II); nor was Hercules more in love with Iole (see Ovid, Heroides IX). Paola Allegretti (“Canto IX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati], p. 142) suggests that Dante wants us to think of the Heroides in part because the work insists on the adulterous nature of most of the loves it recounts, using faithful Penelope as a counter exemplum to them. For Folco's reputation as a lover, see Antonio Viscardi, “Folchetto (Folco) di Marsiglia,” ED II (1970), p. 955a.

The tercet clarifies the similar, but more occluded, statement of Cunizza (vv. 34-36). All the pain of sin is utterly erased from the memory of every saved soul. On this smile, see Jacoff (“The Post-Palinodic Smile: Paradiso VIII and IX,” Dante Studies 98 [1980]: 111-22).

A problematic passage. We have followed Bosco/Reggio's reading of it (see their comm. to this tercet), in which a Florentine form of the verb torniare (to turn, as on a lathe) is seen as bringing the meaning into focus, as follows: “Here, in Paradise, we contemplate the craft revealed in the creation that God's love makes beautiful; we also discern the goodness through which the heavens give form to the world below.”

For a lengthy and unapologetic negative response to Dante's saving of Folco, see the judgment of John S. Carroll (comm. to vv. 82-102), which concludes as follows: “It certainly gives us a shock to find a noble spirit like Dante's so subdued to the colour and temper of its time that deeds which sink Ezzelino to perdition exalt Folco to Paradise, because done in the name of Christ and authority of His Vicar.”

For the other appearance of the phrase “cotanto affetto,” see Inferno V.125, where it applies to carnal affections. Folco's use of it now is very different, we may imagine, than it would have been in his flaming youth.

Having read Dante's mind, Folco changes the subject from himself to the particularly dazzling light (“like a sunbeam gleaming in clear water”) about which he knows Dante is curious. Once we find out who it is, we understand why he has tried to create a sense of excited mystery around this being.

The enjambment in the second line of the tercet creates Dante's desired effect: surprise. Not only does Rahab's name cause us (at least temporary) consternation, what Folco goes on to say of her does also. Not only is a whore among the saved, she is among the loftiest souls whom we see here.

Among the first commentators, only the author of the Codice cassinese (comm. to verse 117) said that by the “highest rank” Dante indicates the Empyrean, which is what he should have meant, since none of the Hebrew (and a very few other) souls saved in the Harrowing of Hell is anywhere recorded as going anywhere else, not even by Dante. That anonymous commentator would wait for nearly five and a half centuries for company (Torraca in 1905 [comm. to this tercet]). Torraca also believes the reference is to the Empyrean. The passage is, as many commentators protest, difficult to understand. Nonetheless, Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to this tercet) seems quite certain that her highest “rank” pertains to the hierarchy of the souls gathered in Venus. Most of those after him who elect to identify her location also think the reference is to the planet. Only in the last one hundred years has the pendulum of scholarly opinion begun to swing, if only slightly, in the direction of the Empyrean. Paola Allegretti (“Canto IX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 143-44) makes a strong case for that resolution. The only problem is that, in the entire passage, all other references are unquestionably to the sphere of Venus (vv. 113 [qui]; 115 [là]; 116 [a nostr' ordine congiunta]; 118-120 [questo cielo... fu assunta]; 122 [in alcun cielo]). And so it would seem that this is yet another instance of an authorial slip (see the note to vv. 119-123).

The point at which ends the shadow of the earth cast by the Sun, a cone stretching nearly 900,000 miles above the earth according to Alfraganus, reaches only as far as the sphere of Venus (and thus marks the planet only when it is on the lower half of its epicyclical rotation). Most early commentators, if they cite any astronomical authority, refer to Ptolemy (for the relevance of his chapter on eclipses, first mentioned by Jacopo della Lana). Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Alfraganus becomes more widely used as Dante scholars began to understand the extent of the poet's debt to the Latin translation of the ninth-century Arabian astronomer's work, in fact the probable source for whatever Ptolemy he knew. (See Toynbee, “Alfergano” and “Tolommeo” [Concise Dante Dictionary].)

In the Old Testament, Rahab has a major role in the second chapter of Joshua (2:1-21), where she aids and abets two spies from Joshua's army; then she is rescued during the destruction of the city by a grateful Joshua (Joshua 6:22-25). Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 118-126) point out that her salvation is not original with Dante, but is a matter of biblical record, with such witness as offered by St. Paul (Hebrews 11:31) and St. James (James 2:25), the first of whom insists on her faith in God, while the second extols her good works. And see Matthew 1:5, where Rahab is listed as the mother of Boaz, and thus a distant ancestress of Jesus. For a figural understanding of Rahab, see Auerbach (“Figurative Texts Illustrating Certain Passages of Dante's Commedia,” Speculum 21 [1946]: 482-84).

Dante slips back into the language of Paradiso III, where Piccarda and Constance seem to be located in the Moon on a permanent basis. See Bosco/Reggio (comm. on verse 120), who are of the opinion that Dante does not in fact mean what he seems to, since the souls of all those who were harrowed from Hell by Christ (see Inf. IV.52-63) were assumed at once into the Rose, as have been, indeed, all those who have been “graduated” from Purgatory (not to mention those few [we assume] in the Christian era who went straight to Heaven). However, we may once again be witnessing the trace of an earlier plan (see the note to Paradiso III.29-30). Bosco/Reggio's alternative explanation seems weak (repeating the explanation of Grabher [comm. to vv. 118-120]): Dante only means that in the Empyrean their rank corresponded to the rank of Venus among the planets. Dante, in fact (and deliberately?), never clarifies the relationship between the order of the eight heavens in which he sees the saved arranged for his edification (nor indeed between the hierarchy among the souls who appear in each heavenly sphere) and the seating plan in the Rose. One probable cause of his avoidance of this question is that there are obvious distinctions among the degrees of blessedness of the saved who appear in various spheres, as we have just seen (Rahab is the highest in rank among these visitors to Venus). To calibrate both scales of beatitude probably proved too much even for a Dante, who thus simply avoided a question that we sometimes choose to force on him.

Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 118-126) perhaps exhausted the possible interpretations of this line. The two “palms” refer to (1) the palms of Rahab's hands when she lowered her line for Joshua's two spies from the window of her room so that they could climb down; (2) the palms that Joshua and those who followed him raised in prayer. Benvenuto says these interpretations have been suggested by other readers and dismisses both of them in favor of (3): the palms of the hands of Jesus, nailed to the cross. While there is still a certain amount of uncertainty, most current commentators support Benvenuto's reading. The second interpretation has found occasional support: first, among the moderns, in Andreoli (comm. to vv. 122-123); then in Bianchi (comm. to this verse), who, however, ends up leaving the question open; Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 121-123) does a full review of the exegetical history and decides for Andreoli's version of Benvenuto's second hypothesis. Casini/Barbi (comm. to this verse) share this view. But Vandelli takes it upon himself to jettison Scartazzini's developed argument without apology (he never mentions it). Trucchi (comm. to vv. 121-126) is adamant for the hands-joined-in-prayer hypothesis; and Giacalone (comm. to vv. 121-123) favors it over the palms of Christ. The tercet (vv. 121-123) has continued to cause difficulty, perhaps because of the uncertainty resulting from what Dante says about Rahab being left as a trophy in Venus, which makes it sound much as though Dante means that Christ, taking that first group of saved Hebrews to Heaven, left her off in the third heaven. Had he had the opportunity to clarify what he meant, it seems likely that he would have done so.

In his voce dedicated to “Folchetto (Folco) di Marsiglia,” ED II (1970), p. 955b, Antonio Viscardi makes the interesting suggestion that parallels exist between Folco's destruction of the fortified town of Lavaur in the Albigensian Crusade in 1211, accompanied by the voices of priests raised in song, and the fall of Jericho, accomplished by the sound of trumpets and shouts; he also suggests that both Folco and Rahab are humans stained by the sin of lust and ultimately redeemed by good works. For an earlier appreciation of the parallel fates of Jericho and Lavaur, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 109-126).

Satan is traditionally thought of as prideful (in that he cannot accept being less important than God); but he is also thought of as envious, particularly in his dealings with Adam and Eve, whose happiness he cannot abide. Dante uses the rhetorical figure periphrasis here to rousing effect, for who does not know the “answer” to this riddle? We seem to be invited to shout the name of Lucifer. But note also the crushing result when we consider the adverb pria (first): Satan may have been the first to deny his Creator, but he was hardly the last, dear reader....

The sins of Eve and Adam brought all of us “distress” in that we weep for our lost immortality.

For Satan's fall as a “foundation myth” of humankind, see the note to Inferno XXXIV.121-126. This text would seem to offer another version of that myth, with Satan's envy as the founding sin of Florence.

The gold florin, currency of Florence, has a lily stamped on its face, and, “accursèd flower” that it is, has corrupted the citizens of the town, whether old (“sheep”) or young (“lambs”), because it had first corrupted the clergy, turned from caretaker (“shepherd”) to greedy marauder of the flock (“wolf”). The avarice of the clergy caused major complaint in the Middle Ages, even more so than the runners-up, sexual license and gluttony.

The blackened margins of collections of decretals, or books of ecclesiastical law, tell what interests lure the clergy to study: the material advantage furthered, or so they believe, by mastering the ins and outs of canon law. For this they have given over, not only consulting the Gospels, but studying the Fathers of the Church. And in one of his own letters (to the Italian cardinals gathered in France to choose a new pope after the death of Clement V), Dante makes the same charge, mentioning some specific names of those whom these cardinals do not read: “Gregory lies among the cobwebs; Ambrose lies forgotten in the cupboards of the clergy, and Augustine along with him; and Dionysius, Damascenus, and Bede” (Epist. XI.16 [tr. P. Toynbee]).

For an attempt to date Dante's first expression of his hatred of decretalists, see Maurizio Palma di Cesnola (Questioni dantesche: “Fiore”, “Monarchia”, “Commedia” [Ravenna: Longo, 2003], p. 54). And see Anthony Cassell (The “Monarchia” Controversy: An Historical Study with Accompanying Translations of Dante Alighieri's “Monarchia,” Guido Vernani's “Refutation of the 'Monarchia' Composed by Dante,” and Pope John XXII's Bull “Si fratrum” [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America 2004], pp. 12-13), adducing the fact that all the popes of Dante's time (except, of course, Celestine V) were canon lawyers, a fact that may help explain some of Dante's hostility to decretals.

In the early centuries of the Catholic Church, canon law was formed by the member churches themselves at synods of bishops or church councils. By the sixth century papal letters settling points in canon law (a practice dating perhaps to the third or fourth century) began to be included in collections of the decisions of synods and of councils. Sometime between the late eighth and late ninth century there was produced a collection, the so-called False Decretals. These spurious documents included “papal letters” that had in common the desire to strengthen papal authority. Gratian, a sort of Justinian of canon law, published his Decretum ca. 1150. It codified the laws of the Church (although it included many documents collected in the False Decretals) and enjoyed a great deal of authority. To the surprise of some, given Dante's dislike of those churchmen who are interested in studying decretals as a path to maintaining or augmenting their financial privilege, we find Gratian in the heaven of the Sun (Par. X.103-105). See J. Michael Gaynor, “Canon Law and Decretals”.

“To it” refers, again, to the florin, to which the highest ranks of the officialdom of the Church, the pope and his cardinals, pay much more serious attention than their vows of poverty should allow.

The two references are, first, to the Annunciation (when Gabriel “opened his wings” to Mary in Nazareth), second, to all those martyred in Rome for their belief in Christ, starting with Peter (buried on the Vatican hill) and filling many a catacomb. Thus the two exemplary groups bracket the birth and resurrection of Jesus, the one preparing the way for Him, the second following his path into a glorious death (and eventual resurrection).

Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 127-142) suggests that Dante's muffled prophecy is set in the context of crusading (see vv. 125-126), without going on to suggest that it calls for a new crusade. However, that does seem a real possibility. At any rate, most commentators have given up on finding a precise formulation for understanding Folco's prophecy. The “usual suspects” have been, more or less in this order of popularity, the death of Boniface VIII, the removal of the papacy to Avignon, the coming of a great leader (e.g., on the model of the veltro and/or the DXV). It would not seem like Dante to have a negative prophecy at this point (furthermore, the death of Boniface did not lead to a rejuvenation of the Church, nor did the “Avignonian captivity”); nor would it seem like him to repeat a prophecy that he would then repeat still again in Paradiso XXVII.145 (the fortuna [storm at sea]) and which is primarily imperial, not ecclesiastical, as this one is. And so it seems reasonable to suggest that Scartazzini may have been on the right track. Fallani (comm. to vv. 139-142) comes close to saying so (without referring to Scartazzini). And see Angelo Penna, “Raab,” ED IV (1973), p. 817a, who says in passing that vv. 112-142 reflect crusading. Mark Balfour (“Paradiso IX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 140-41) sees the desire for renewed crusading in the Holy Land as permeating the conclusion of the canto, but follows exegetical tradition in seeing its very last lines as referring to the veltro or DXV. The Church (and the entire context of this passage, vv. 133-142, which we hear in the voice of a [crusading] churchman, is ecclesiastical) will reorder itself only when it returns to its original purpose; for Dante, no matter how this may trouble modern readers (including Brenda Deen Schildgen [“Dante and the Crusades,” Dante Studies 116 {1998}: 95-125]) that meant recapturing Jerusalem.