La Divina Commedia is an Italian narrative poem created by Dante Alighieri since c. 1308 and completed at 1320. It is an renowned masterpiece in the history of Italian literature as well as around the world. It serves as an essential peddlestone for the development of Italian language. Dante has incorporated vulgar fiorentine language: the tuscan dialect, into the narrative of story in La Divina Commedia. The legacy of this literature piece also cast a huge influence on the future evolvement of written italian.
La Divina Commedia has been examined and studied closely by numerous people and scholars, as an important testimony of the real facade of the medieval society and culture scene. Although this piece reflects many characteristic ways of medieval literature and style such as religious inspiration, didactic and moral purpose, it is profoundly innovative. As has been noted in particular in studies by Erich Auerbach, La Divina Commedia portrays a broad and dramatic representation of reality.
- Biography of Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 by a family of small nobility. In 1274, according to the Vita Nuova, he saw Beatrice (Bice di Folco Portinari) for the first time and fell madly in love with her. When Dante was about ten years old, his mother Gabriella, the “beautiful mother” died. In 1283 his father Alighiero di Bellincione, a trader, passed away and Dante became the head of the family at the age of 17.
An important linguist, political theorist and philosopher, Dante profoundly influenced Italian literature of the following centuries as well as the western culture. He is therefore nicknamed the “Great Poet” or, par excellence, the “Poet”. Dante, whose remains lie next to the tomb in Ravenna built by Camillo Morigia in 1780, has become one of the symbols of Italy. From the twentieth century and in the early years of the twenty-first century, Dante became part of the mass culture. His work and he himself are continuously influencing the world of comics, manga, video games and literature.
We do not know much about the formation of Dante. In all likelihood regarding the education system of that time period, Dante was likely to be trained with a grammarian with whom to learn the first linguistic rudiments. Later on he landed in the study of liberal arts, the pillar of medieval education: theology, philosophy, physics, astronomy on one side (quadrivium), and dialectic, grammar and rhetoric on the other (trivium). Deducting from convivium II, 12, 2-4, the importance of Latin as a vehicle of knowledge was fundamental for the formation of student, as the ratio studiorum was essentially based on the reading of Cicero and Virgil and of medieval Latin.
In addition to poetry, Dante completed important theoretical works ranging from discussions of political thought and rhetoric to moral philosophy. He has shown his greatest appreciation from classical tradition, drawing such writers as Virgil, Cicero, and Boethius. However, Dante also had very comprehensive thoughts about the most recent scholastic philosophy and theology. His personal involvement in political controversies of his time period led him to the composition of De monarchia, which was one of the main tracts of medieval political philosophy.
Dante also had the opportunity to participate in the lively literary culture revolving around the vulgar lyric. Around 1260, in Tuscan area emerged the first influence of the “Sicilian School”, a poetic movement born around the court of Frederick II of Swabia and reworked the amorous themes of the Provençal lyric. The Tuscan scholars, undergoing the influence of the lyrics of Giacomo da Lentini and Guido delle Colonne, developed a lyric oriented both towards courtly love, but also towards politics and civic engagement. It was precisely in Florence, that some young poets, led by the nobility Guido Cavalcanti, expressed their disagreement with the stylistic and linguistic complexity of Siculo-Tuscans, advocating instead a more gentle and sweet lyric: dolce stil novo.
Dante, after the death of his beloved Beatrice, began to refine his philosophical culture by attending the schools organized by the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella and the Franciscans of Holy Cross. The last were inherited from the thought of Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, while the former were inherited from the Aristotelian-Thomist lesson of Thomas Aquinas, allowing Dante to deepen his inquiries par excellence of medieval culture.
2. La Divina Commedia
La Commedià, or Comedy, known above all as Divina Commedia, is an allegorical-didactic poem by Dante Alighieri, written in chained triplets of hendecasyllables in the vernacular Florentine language.
Considered as a great Italian poet, writer and politician, Dante is recognized as the father of the Italian language. His fame is eminently due to La Divina Commedia, which is universally regarded as the largest written work in Italian and one of the greatest masterpieces of world literature. An expression of medieval culture, filtered through the lyric of the Dolce stil novo, La Divina Commedia is also an allegorical vehicle of human salvation, which is achieved by touching the tragedies of the damned, the purgatory penalties and the celestial glories, offering the readers an interrelationship of morals and ethics.
The poem is divided into three parts, called “cantiche”: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Each of which consists of 33 songs, except Hell which contains a further proemial song. The poem portrays an imaginary journey of Dante himself, through the three ultraterrestrial kingdoms towards the vision of the Trinity. His imaginary and allegorical representation of the Christian underworld is a culmination of the medieval vision of the world developed in the Catholic Church.
Although La Divina Commedia continues to pursue many of the characteristic ways of medieval literature and style such as religious inspiration and moral purpose, it is profoundly innovative, as has been noted in particular in studies by Erich Auerbach, tends to a broad and dramatic representation of reality, expressed also with the use of neologisms created by Dante as “insusarsi”, “inluiarsi” and “inleiarsi”. La Divina Commedia is one of the obligatory readings of the Italian school system. The work is made up of 100 songs. The first canto of works as a preface to the following 99, divided into 3 cantiche (Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso), each of which consists of 140 verses hendecasyllables and divided into 33 songs (33 + 1 the first). The total of the verses is 14.223. As we can see, the work is set up according to the sense of the hierarchical order proper to the “theological summae”. Everything is fixed on the Christian symbolism of the number 3 (Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the Trinity) and its multiples, of the 1 (God alone) and of the 100 (totality of God). The very structure of the otherworldly universe also possesses a narrative explanation that precedes the narration. It goes back to the clash between Good and Evil: on the one hand God, on the other Lucifer. Hell originated from the fall of Lucifer, the leader of a host of angels rebelling against God. That part of land that withdrew upon the arrival of Lucifer went to form, on the other side, the mountain of Purgatory, and from the top of Purgatory, the garden of Eden, begins Paradise, which widens, of circle in circle , towards the totality represented by God.
Purgatory is the second of the three cantos of La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri. The other cantos are Hell and Heaven. Dante’s Purgatory is divided into Antipurgatory, Purgatory and Earthly Paradise.The structure of Purgatory follows the Thomistic classification of the vices of badly directed love, and no longer refers to single faults. It is divided into seven frames, in which the seven deadly sins are expiated: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, throat, lust.
The souls of Purgatory are already saved. But before arriving at Paradise, those souls have to expiate their sons through climbing the mountain, as they did in the times of Dante of the pilgrims who went to Rome for penance or for Santiago de Compostela. Every soul must therefore walk the whole path and purify themself in every frame of the corresponding sin. However, in order to facilitate the encounterance with certain characters, Dante placed them in the frame of their most important sin.
Purgatory has the specific function of expiation, reflection and repentance. It is only through the journey and the pilgrimage to God the souls can aspire to redemption. This is also applicable of Dante, who at first had seven P’s on his forehead- symbol of the seven deadly sins. At the end of each frame the wing of the guardian angel would delete the P indicating that that specific expiation is accomplished. Virgil, in canto XVII del Purgatorio (verses 91-139), explains the moral order of the second supernatural kingdom.
- The Socio-historical background: Florence in the 14th century
In Florence, a great republic of northern Italy, the essential constitutional moment arrived in 1293 with the ordinances of justice. A system was preserved in which sovereignty explicitly rested with the popolo, an elite class drawn from the seven main guilds, or so called “arti maggiori”—that is, the judges and notaries, the Calimala (cloth bankers and international traders), the money changers, the silk merchants, the doctors and apothecaries, wool traders, and fur dealers. Along with the major five guilds of a lower status, those people met for the election of six priors every two months, who ruled Florence as supreme magistrates.
Popolo grasso, often translated as “fat people”, consists of rich bankers and businessmen. They professed allegiance to the Guelf party, while the survival of guilds was precarious during this period. There were apparent and fierce rivalries existing and splitting the dominant faction. In 1302, the “Black” Guelfs, who were in alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, expelled the “Whites” successfully. Dante Alighieri was one among the “Whites” and had held public office in these years. La Divina Commedia, which was completed from 1308 to 1321, has provided its testimony to the extreme bitterness of internal political collision. Moreover, between 1313-1328, King Robert of Naples and Robert’s son, Charles of Calabria had forced the city to embrace the lordship.
On the other hand, despite such political struggles, Florence probably has reached its apogee of prosperity during the early 14th century. The population growth was significant, to approximately 95,000 people. Circle of walls was built between 1284 and 1333, enclosed an area that was not intended to surpass until the mid 19th century. In the 1290s, the new cathedral (Duomo) of Santa Maria del Fiore has began its construction, as well as the fortress-residence of the Palazzo Vecchio. Both of them remained potent symbols of the commune, throughout history of time.
Works Cited
“Civic Religion and the Countryside in Late Medieval Italy.” City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy : Essays Presented to Philip Jones, doi:10.5040/9781472598752.ch-006.
“Four. Society in Transition: Purgatory.” The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy”, doi:10.1515/9781400853991.198.
Najemy, John M. “Dante and Florence.” The Cambridge Companion to Dante, pp. 80–99., doi:10.1017/ccol0521417481.006.
Alighieri, Dante, and W. S. (William Stanley) Merwin. “Purgatorio: Canto XXXIII.” Manoa, vol. 11, no. 2, 1999, pp. 122–126., doi:10.1353/man.1999.0034.
“The Analysis of the Purgatorio and Paradiso from the Divine Comedy by Dante.” IvyPanda, ivypanda.com/essays/the-analysis-of-the-purgatorio-and-paradiso-from-the-divine-comedy-by-dante/.
Treccani: Dizionario Della Lingua Italiana. Istituto Della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014.