xxi. 112-114 that the first day was either March 25, which was believed

Chapter 620,821 wordsPublic domain

in the Middle Ages to be the true anniversary of the Crucifixion, or Good Friday, which was kept by the Church as such. March 25 is four days after the date which the Church still kept as the day of the Equinox (March 21), and 13 days after the true equinox, which at this time fell on March 12. Good Friday also almost inevitably must fall after the equinox, since Easter follows the full moon which follows the equinox. It is true that some of Dante’s readers may still have regarded the old traditional date of March 25 as the true day of the equinox, and possibly it was to suit all shades of knowledge that he left the sun’s position vague; but he himself certainly knew better, and probably had March 12 in his mind. Then those who held to March 25 might consider the sun as exactly at the equinox on the first day of the Vision, but all better-informed readers and Dante himself must have regarded it as somewhat past this point. If we take it that, _e.g._, it was a week past the equinox, the sun was in about 7° of Aries, and this position agrees with the four crucial passages mentioned above. The stress laid on the equinox seems to demand that the sun should be at least as near it as this on the first day; and a week later it would have reached the middle of Aries, which is the position we assigned to it from a discussion of _Par._ xxvii. 86, 87.

This also agrees well with the course of the moon in the zodiac, which must depend upon the sun’s. We have seen that she was opposite the sun on the first morning, that her light paled the first-risen stars of Scorpio while she was yet beneath the eastern horizon three days later, and that she was proceeding south on the following night. If the sun was in the 7th degree of Aries on the first morning, the moon must have been in the 7th degree of Libra; her mean daily motion of 13° would bring her to the 16th degree of Scorpio three days later and to the last degree on the day following; so even if we allow a deviation of a few degrees from the average, she was just where she should have been on each occasion. We have assumed for convenience that she became full and was opposite the sun just as she set on the first morning, but this may have happened at any time during the previous night (in the Forest): Dante has not specified the hour, and it is of no consequence, since the indications of time by the moon must necessarily be vague.

The time of sunrise will still differ little from 6 o’clock, a week after the equinox. In London it is a quarter of an hour earlier, but the difference is less in Italy, and still less in the latitude of Jerusalem.

Besides the sun and moon, two of the planets are mentioned as in a particular place among the stars.

Venus, before sunrise on the fourth morning, is seen among the stars of Pisces;[521] and she is also mentioned as a morning star before sunrise on the seventh day.[522]

Saturn is in Leo. “Il petto del Leone”[523] may mean the western part of the Lion, the part which first rises and contains the head and breast, or it may refer to the star Regulus, which is called by Ptolemy and Alfraganus “Cor Leonis.”[524] “Sotto il petto”[525] may mean the position of the planet as seen projected in the sky or a map, that is, a little south of this part of the constellation; more probably, perhaps, Dante is thinking of the supposed position of Saturn’s sphere _below_ that of the stars.[526]

[521] _Purg._ i. 21.

[522] _Purg._ xxvii. 95.

[523] “The Lion’s breast.” _Par._ xxi. 14.

[524] “The Lion’s Heart.”

[525] “Beneath the breast.”

[526] _Cf. _Purg._ xxxii. 56, 57, where the sun is spoken of as under another star. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mars is spoken of as having returned to his own Lion a number of times: “al suo Leon ... venne,”[527] but this does not necessarily imply that he was in that constellation at the time.

Mercury and Jupiter are not noted as seen anywhere in the sky, nor does Dante say in what constellation they were when he entered them with Beatrice.

There are a number of pitfalls into which Dante might have stumbled, with this disposition of the skies, and the change to the southern hemisphere; and that he has avoided all is as clear a proof of his familiarity with astronomical phenomena as the positive evidence of his truthful, consistent descriptions. For instance, he might very well have represented the cold planet Saturn as actually aiding the cold moon in driving away the heat of the day during the night, in _Purg._ xix. 1-3, instead of only saying “talor da Saturno;”[528] but if so, this would have been inconsistent with the position of Saturn in Leo, since Leo was below the horizon when dawn was drawing near and Pisces was rising. Again, we have already mentioned that he evidently did not forget that it was autumn in the southern hemisphere. He never suggests that it was spring in Purgatory, and in the passage quoted above, where he describes sunrise at the March equinox, saying that the sun then moves “con miglior corso e con migliore stella,”[529] this happiest effect on the world is restricted to “mortals,” who as he thought all dwelt in the northern hemisphere, “surge ai mortali.”[530] I do not mean that the expression was used for this reason, but it is an example of how instinctively he avoided mistakes into which any other author would almost certainly have fallen.

[527] “To his Lion has come.” _Par._ xvi. 37, 38.

[528] “Sometimes by Saturn.”

[529] “With a better course and better star.” _Par._ i. 40.

[530] “Rises upon mortals.” _Par._ i. 37. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. THE ASSUMED DATE OF THE VISION.

Even among Dante enthusiasts there must be many who are astonished at the warmth of the controversy concerning the assumed date of his Vision. To know whether he feigned himself to have entered the Inferno with Virgil in March or in April, in the year 1300 or in 1301, really does not help us to appreciate the music of his verse nor the depth of his thought; yet a wealth of learning and research has been poured out upon this problem, and some commentators seem ready to defend their opinions with their lives, if that would avail to convince their readers!

The date is indeed intimately connected with the narrative of the _Divine Comedy_, since there are constant allusions to current events. By choosing a year earlier than the time at which he was writing, Dante is able not only to tell the spirits what is passing on the earth they have left, but to endow them with the power of prophesying to him events which are to come.[531] The peculiar interest of the problem for us just now is that astronomy has been called in to solve it. We have seen that the positions and movements of the heavenly bodies are all consistent with one another in his poem, but it is interesting to ask whether they are merely a consistent fiction or whether they correspond with facts. Did Dante arrange his moon and planets according to his feeling for scenery and the convenience of his time references, or did he take the positions as they really were at some particular date? If so, the full moon, Venus a morning star in Pisces, and Saturn in Leo, all together near a spring equinox, ought to help to fix that date.

The year which is almost universally accepted, by the oldest as well as the most modern commentators, is 1300, chiefly on the authority of _Inf._ xxi. 112-114. Here Malacoda says that yesterday (the day of Dante’s entering the Inferno) it was 1266 years since the earthquake which accompanied the Crucifixion (see p. 370). Adding to this the 34 years which Dante has told us he believed to have elapsed between the Nativity and the Crucifixion,[532] we get 1266 + 34 = 1300. And the day is either the Church Festival commemorating the Crucifixion, _i.e._ Good Friday, which in 1300 fell on April 8, or March 25, which was believed to be the actual anniversary.

[531] _Inf._ x. 100-105.

[532] _Conv._ IV. xxiii. 96-98. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April 4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on about the 9th of April.

These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant; Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.

If the anniversary of the Crucifixion means Good Friday, the day would be March 31 in 1301, and the moon would be wrong, but March 25 has some claims to be considered the more probable date. A fixed calendar date is more appropriate to use for calculating an exact number of years than a changing festival, which might rather be regarded as an “ideal date.”[533] Moreover, March 25 is suggested by the allusion to the Creation in the opening Canto; this day was also the traditional date for the spring equinox,[534] and it was one of the most important days in the year to Florentines, being their New Year’s Day as well as Lady Day.

[533] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 146.

[534] See p. 177. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We know that the idea of writing his great work was in Dante’s mind even when he wrote the last words of the _Vita Nuova_,[535] and we need only suppose that he was thinking of it when he looked at the sky on the evening before Lady Day in 1301, that he saw the full moon, and the two bright planets Mars and Saturn making a striking asterism with Regulus; also that in the early dawn about the same time he rejoiced in the sight of Venus veiling the Fishes in the east.

[535] _V. N._ xliii. 1-11. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

But is this attractive theory admissible? Can we take Dante’s words elsewhere as referring to the year 1301?

Take first the one passage in which he explicitly states the day and year, the words of Malacoda quoted above. This is usually taken to indicate the year 1300, as shown above (p. 410), but it is easy to interpret it another way—thus: 1300 years had been completed since the Nativity on the day Dante entered the Inferno. Now the year 1 is not one year after the Nativity, but the year of the Nativity itself; hence the year 2 is one year after, the year 3 two years after, ... the year 1300 is 1299 years after, and the year 1301 is 1300 years after. The year 1300 was completed on March 25,[536] and the date then changed, according to Florentine usage, to 1301. (It had already been called 1301 for three months, according to Roman usage, so fortunately for us, there is no disagreement between the two calendars from this part of the year).

[536] Exactly at midday, moreover, according to one system then in vogue, though it seems to have been more usual to begin the day at sunrise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It must also be noted that in several old MSS., considered authoritative by some of the very early commentators, the passage reads:—“Mille dugent _’uno_ con sessanta sei.”[537] Although it is impossible to believe that Dante wrote such a faulty line, this shows that some early copyist felt a difficulty either in accepting the date 1300 or in understanding how Dante arrived at it by Malacoda’s computations. This passage, therefore, is inconclusive for 1300 or 1301.

[537] “A thousand two hundred _and one_, added to sixty-six.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there is the first line of the _Divina Commedia_ “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”[538] which is usually taken to mean that Dante was in his 35th year, since in _Conv._ IV. xxiv. 30, 31, and xxiii, 88-94, he says that in normal natures the “punto sommo,” the “colmo,”[539] of the Arch of Life is reached at this age. But is it to be taken as indicating a precise year? If so, it points to one which has never been suggested for the Vision, so far as I know, for in another passage of the _Convivio_ he says when speaking of his exile, that he had lived in Florence “fino al colmo della mia vita,”[540] and we know that the year of his exile was 1302. But if we look again at the discussion concerning the arch of human life, we find that the whole period of “gioventute,”[541] which is from the 25th to the 45th year “veramente è colmo della nostra vita”[542] (_Conv._ IV. xxiv. 22, 23). If, nevertheless, it is said that the “mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” means Dante’s 35th year, we must know the date of his birth with certainty before we can deduce the year at which he had reached this age. And this is not quite easy. This very line is used indifferently to show that he was born in 1265 because the date of the Vision was 1300, or that the date was 1300 because he was born in 1265! No registers of births or baptisms were kept in those days. Most of the old biographers give 1265 for the date, but not all, and some of those who do betray ignorance or confusion in the matter: Boccaccio says the year 1265, when Urban the Fourth was Pope, yet Urban we know died in 1264; Lionardo Bruni says “1265, a little after the return to Florence of the Guelfs, who had been in exile by reason of the defeat of Montaperti,” but this return was in September 1266! Dante himself says that his ancestors shared in this exile,[543] and as he also often refers to the fact that he was born in Florence,[544] it is difficult to see how that could have been in 1265.

[538] “Midway in the journey of our life.”

[539] “The highest point,” the “summit.”

[540] “Until the summit of my life.” _Conv._ I. iii. 24, 25.

[541] “Youth.”

[542] “Is in truth the summit of our life.”

[543] Farinata alludes to the two Guelf banishments of 1248 and 1260. _Inf._ x. 42-50.

[544] _Conv._ I. iii. 22-24; _Inf._ xxiii. 94, 95, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old when he was nearly nine),[545] that she died in June 1290,[546] and was then on the threshold of her “second age,”[547] that is in her 24th year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295, and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in 1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been lowered before 1295.[548] There remains the story told by Boccaccio, that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was born in 1265.

[545] _V. N._ ii. 1-15.

[546] _V. N._ xxx. 4-13.

[547] _Purg._ xxx. 124, 125; _Cf. Conv._ IV. xxiv. 11-13.

[548] Imbriani: _Quando nacque Dante?_ and _Che Dante probabilissimamente nacque nei MCCCLXVII_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain that he reached that age in 1300.

Another passage which is often quoted as clearly indicating the year of the Jubilee, 1300, for the assumed date of the Vision is Casella’s explanation of his late arrival in Purgatory.[549] Dante is surprised to witness this arrival, knowing that it is some time since his friend’s death; and Casella replies that the Angel of the Passage had refused many times to bring him, until three months ago, when every one who wished to come had been graciously received. This is believed to refer to the Bull of Pope Boniface published at Christmas 1299, that is just three months before March 1300. But this Bull gave no indulgence to the dead; it was in favour of those who performed certain spiritual exercises in the churches of Rome during the Jubilee year. On the other hand, there was a Bull published just a year later, which was for the benefit of departed souls: it extended the indulgences to those who had died on their way to Rome, or before the spiritual exercises were completed there. We do not know when Casella died, but if it was some time in 1300, with his purpose of gaining the indulgence unfulfilled, the Angel’s refusal at first, and acceptance afterwards—after December 1300—and his arrival in Purgatory in March 1301, would be explained. The fact that his arrival was still three months after the Bull, and that all without exception were welcomed by the Angel, are difficulties which apply to both interpretations. But perhaps that just given is a little too clever. It is most natural to consider the Indulgence as the famous one of 1300, and to understand that in the Jubilee year the way of salvation was made easier for all souls, living or dead.[550]

[549] _Purg._ ii. 91-103. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

[550] For this point and a full discussion of the date, especially from the astronomical data, see Angelitti’s _Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco_, and _Sull’ anno della Visione Dantesca_, and Moore’s “The Date assumed by Dante for the Vision of the ‘Divina Commedia,’” _Studies in Dante_ III.

If however these, and many other passages quoted in the controversy, are unconvincing, the same cannot be said of Cunizza’s “Questo centesim’ anno.”[551] Prof. Angelitti’s suggestion that she was reckoning by the Easter year, which was used in some parts of France and Italy, so that the date was still 1300 for her, though for most Italians it was 1301, is too ingenious; and it is hard to believe that she means “this century year” applying it to 1301. Though this might be correct, it is clear that 1300 was regarded as the century year, because the words “centesimo anno” occur in the Bull of Boniface VIII. with reference to the year 1300. This then speaks strongly and clearly against our astronomical theory of 1301.

[551] “This hundredth year.” _Par._ ix. 40. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The historical events alluded to in the _Divine Comedy_ are so often of unknown date to us, that few of them help as much as might be expected. Judge Nino’s widow remarried on June 24, 1300, and as he speaks of her as having already put off her widow’s weeds,[552] this might indicate that we are in 1301, but it is not conclusive, since they would probably be discarded three months before she was actually the wife of another. On the other hand, Can Grande della Scala, who is said in a fourteenth century chronicle to have been born on March 9, 1291, is described as only nine years old.[553] Dante might possibly have been mistaken by a year in the date of his birth, but he cannot have been ignorant of the death of his friend Guido Cavalcanti. The cry of anguish from Guido’s father will be remembered by all readers of the _Inferno_, after Dante has spoken of his friend in the past tense:—

[552] _Purg._ viii. 74.

[553] _Par._ xvii. 80, 81. “Di subito drizzato gridò: Come, Dicesti _egli ebbe_? Non viv’ egli ancora? Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome?”[554]

[554] “Up starting suddenly he cried out: How Saidst thou? ‘_he had_?’ Is he not still alive? Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?” _Inf._ x. 67-69. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

And as Dante hesitates a little, Cavalcante sinks back into his tomb of punishment, and does not reappear. Before Dante leaves the place, feeling compunction, he charges Farinata to tell the father that his son is still among the living, and that the sinister hesitation was due to another cause than he thought. Now it is beyond dispute that Guido died in August 1300, for he was buried in the cemetery of St. Reparata in Florence on August 29, 1300, according to official records still extant;[555] and Dante had a share in banishing him amongst other exiles to the unhealthy place where he contracted the illness of which he died. The year 1300, in which Dante held the official position which obliged him to do this, was burned into his mind, as we see in his letter, mentioned by Lionardo Bruni, in which he says that all his misfortunes sprang from the time of his priorate.

[555] Toynbee’s _Dante Dictionary_, under “Cavalcanti.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

How then can we believe that he here imagines himself speaking in the spring of 1301, unless we assume that Cavalcanti had really guessed the true cause of his hesitation, and that what Dante said afterwards was a kindly lie? Is this in character with his uncompromising, even ruthless straightforwardness? Unless therefore some really satisfactory way of escape can be found from this incident and the “centesim’ anno” I fear we must reluctantly abandon the theory of 1301, championed so skilfully by Angelitti and others, and must agree with the majority that Dante means us to understand the year 1300.

The early commentators seem to have taken for granted that Dante was correct in his astronomical data, without taking any particular trouble to verify them. Jacopo della Lana in commenting _Par._ xxi. 14 says that in 1300 in the month of March Saturn was in Leo, and was in the 8th degree of that sign; and in order that we should know what was the disposition of the whole sky at that time he further informs us that Jupiter was in Aries in the 24th degree, and Mars in Pisces in the 11th degree, that the sun was near the beginning of Aries, and Venus in Pisces (these two are evidently taken simply from Dante). Mercury was in Virgo (with the sun in Aries! in this case Mercury would have been visible nearly the whole night), and the moon in . Here there is said to be a blank in all the MSS. The moon was too much for Della Lana, whether the difficulty was in finding her position or in reconciling it with that given by Dante. The Ottimo and Benvenuto da Imola copy Della Lana with little change, both giving the positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in degree and sign, but the sun only as near the beginning of Aries, Venus in Pisces, and Mercury in Virgo. (It is astonishing that neither should have noticed this gross error.) Benvenuto boldly adds that the moon was in Libra, doubtless because Dante’s description so required it at the beginning of his poem.

Nor do these early commentators seem to feel any difficulty about the date on which the Vision began. From _Inf._ i. 38-40 they generally conclude that it was the day of the equinox, which they say vaguely fell in the middle of March “mezzo Marzo,” and from _Inf._ xxi. 112-114 all except Boccaccio (who interprets March 25) take it to be Good Friday.[556] No discrepancy seems to have been felt here: they merely remark that in 1300 Easter fell in March, and more than two hundred years passed before anyone pointed out that this was wrong.

[556] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ III. p. 146. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

At last a work appeared in 1554, called “_Del Sito, Forma, et Misure dello Inferno di Dante_,” in which the author, Giambullari, remarked that according to astronomical calculations the Paschal Moon was not full on the night between Thursday and Good Friday in 1300, but on the morning of April 5th. This excited a good deal of interest, and many theories have since been put forth to reconcile Dante’s astronomical data with the facts of the year 1300.

Dr. Moore thinks the date of entering the Inferno was Good Friday, April 8, 1300, but that Dante uses instead of the real moon the ecclesiastical moon, which, as we know, is a conventional body revolving according to Meton’s cycle, and sometimes appearing on tables as full two or three days before or after the real Full Moon. Dr. Moore finds that this ecclesiastical moon, was full on April 7, 1300.[557] But would Dante trouble about the ecclesiastical moon, and would his readers know anything about it? Its only use was for determining Easter, and this was done for the people by the Church. The real moon was extremely important for astrologers, for whose benefit Tables and Almanachs were chiefly drawn up; the real moon was useful to everyone as light-giver and time recorder. It is surely inconceivable that a Florentine who wished to arrange a midnight festival, or to start on a night-journey, would consult a calendar to find out on what date the _ecclesiastical_ moon would be full! And the ecclesiastical moon does not alter the position of Venus.

[557] “The Astronomy of Dante,” in _Studies_ III., and _Time References in the Divina Commedia_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to another suggestion, Dante followed a tradition as to the position of all the “seven planets” at the Creation, and for this reason not only was his sun in Aries, but the moon full and opposite, and Venus in Pisces. Venus is said to have this position in a picture of the Creation in a Church at San Gemignano.[558] Compare also Milton’s moon at her creation:—

[558] Note on _Purg._ i. 19-21 in the “Temple” edition of Dante.

“ ... Less bright the moon, But opposite in levelled west, was set, His mirror, with full face borrowing her light From him.”[559]

[559] _Par. Lost_ vii. 375-378. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or again, it is sometimes held that the day and all the celestial positions are ideal. Dante means us to understand that the first day of his Vision was Good Friday, but without troubling as to what day it fell on in 1300; the equinox and the full moon are naturally connected with Good Friday, since they determine Easter; Venus is connected with the idea of dawn, and when the Sun is in Aries the morning star may well be in Pisces.

Either of these views might be correct, and no one will dispute a poet’s right to arrange his skies as he thinks fit, if he is consistent with them, as Dante was. But how did these positions, if they are purely imaginary, come to coincide exactly with the real positions of 1301?

If we examine the positions of 1301, and accept nothing that is doubtful in Dante’s own words, what does the coincidence amount to? Saturn was near Regulus, but he was also in the forepart of Leo in 1300, and we are not sure that Dante means more than this; Mars was in Leo, but we are not sure that Dante wanted him there;[560] the moon was full on the morning of March 25, but we are not sure whether Dante means March 25 or Good Friday. Venus was a morning star in Pisces, and this till very lately was the one astronomical fact incontestably in favour of 1301 and against 1300.

[560] See p. 407. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

But in 1908 there was printed in Florence, for the first time, a mediæval Almanach, which suggests so simple an explanation of this most striking coincidence that it seems to leave nothing more to be said for the 1301 hypothesis. This Almanach, which has been published under a title which perhaps takes things a little too much for granted—_Almanach Dantis Aligherii_—was compiled by a learned Jew, Jacob ben Machir ben Tibbon, who was born in Marseilles about 1236, and died at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Using the Toledan Tables, he constructed this so-called perpetual almanach, which gives the positions of sun, moon, and planets, at intervals of a few days for whole cycles of years. Each has a cycle of a different length, that of Venus for instance being 8 years, as on the Babylonian tablets of ephemerides; and at the end of each cycle nearly the same positions come over again. It was written in Hebrew, and translated into Latin by an unknown author, and must have been popular, since there were an immense number of Latin MSS. in the fourteenth century. In the original, all the cycles begin in 1301, but in the Latin they begin in 1300, _except the cycles of Venus and the sun, which begin in 1301_. Yet 1301 is not written over the first column for Venus, but merely 1, or nothing at all, or even in some copies 1300, and in both the Hebrew and Latin prefaces the beginning of all the cycles is stated to be 1300.[561]

[561] Preface to _Almanach Dantis Aligherii_, Boffito and Melzi d’ Eril. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If, therefore, Dante looked up the position of Venus in this almanac, he would very naturally take the 1301 positions for 1300, and he would find that Venus was in Aquarius throughout March, until the 27th, when she passed into the sign of Pisces, and therefore was a morning star during the whole month and also in April. And he would find that Saturn was in the 7th and 8th degrees of Leo in March and April 1300 (which was very nearly correct).[562]

[562] It is important to observe that this suits the description of the “Lion’s breast” better than the 20th and 21st degrees (Almanach positions for 1301), if Dante, as usual in the _Divina Commedia_, identifies the constellation with the sign. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It appears then that while certain expressions used in the _Divine Comedy_ prove clearly that 1301 is not the year assumed as the date of the Vision, the astronomical argument in favour of it is not strong enough to be convincing, especially in the light of this recent discovery.

Granting that 1300 was the year, what was the day? Probably not March 25, for the early commentators, excepting only Boccaccio in one passage, are all in favour of Good Friday, and Dante might see in the Almanac that the moon was not full on that date. But neither was she full on the actual date of Good Friday, which fell on April 8 in 1300; moreover the sun was then so far advanced in Aries that seven days later, when Dante describes it as a little past the equinox, it would really have been in Taurus. The third and only possibility is to accept the theory that his moon and his day were ideal; that is, he simply assumed Good Friday and a full moon to occur together soon after the equinox, with which both are so intimately associated. The date of Easter is not given in the old almanac, and we have seen that the early commentators who knew that the equinox fell in “mezzo Marzo”[563] were content to accept Easter as falling in that month also. We must not forget the convenience of an equinox and a full moon for simplifying the time references also.

[563] The middle of March. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We conclude, then, that the year chosen by Dante was 1300 (as has been most generally believed), and the day Good Friday, which he assumes to have fallen about a week after the equinox, and at a time of full moon. Saturn in his poem, and also in fact, was in Leo; Venus was not actually a morning star, nor in Pisces, but he may have been led to assign this position to her through an error in a contemporary almanac.

I must confess to a great feeling of disappointment in coming to the conclusion that Prof. Angelitti’s enticing theory must be rejected, but a careful study of Dante’s own words, and Prof. Boffito’s discovery of the “Almanach perpetuum ad annum 1300 inchoatum” seem to leave no other choice. Last April,[564] when helping to photograph Halley’s Comet in beautiful early dawns, this problem was much in my mind. Venus once more had the Fishes in her train, and oddly enough Good Friday had fallen on March 25! I could not help wishing that these things had happened in 1300 as well as in 1910!

[564] This was written in 1910. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If in spite of all arguments to the contrary, any readers are convinced that Dante’s celestial positions were taken from the real skies, it remains to them to imagine that he saw them in March of 1301 and wove them into the narrative of his poem, although for some reason he adopted another date.

The following tables (pp. 425-26) summarize the foregoing pages. It will be noted with what appropriate symbolism Dante enters Hell on the evening of Good Friday, spends that night and the whole of Saturday in the depths, and rises out of them on Easter Day before the dawn.

For although he reaches Earth’s centre on Saturday evening by Jerusalem time, the change of hemisphere there makes his time suddenly go back twelve hours, so that it is again Saturday morning, and he spends the day and night of Saturday (Purgatory time) in climbing to Earth’s surface.

DAYS OF THE VISION AND POSITIONS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS.

_Dante’s |Jerusalem|Purgatory| Positions of Sun,_| _Journey. | Time. | Time. | Moon and Planets | References._ | | | _in Zodiac._ | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- | Night | |Moon full in Libra,|_Inf._ xx. 127. | | | about 7th degree | |Day I. | |Sun in Aries, |_Inf._ i. 38-40. Forest |Good | | about 7th degree | |Friday | | | |(1300) | | | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- | Night | | | Inferno |Day II. | | | |Saturday | | | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- |Night |Day III. | | | |Saturday | | Earth’s | Day | in | | Interior |(Sunday) |Purgatory| | | Easter | Night | | | Day | | | | |Day IV. | Venus in Pisces |_Purg._ i. 19-21. | |(Sund.) | at dawn | | |Easter | | | | Day | | | | in | | | |Purgatory| | | | | | | | Night |Moon in the middle |_Purg._ ix. 1-6. | | | of Scorpio | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- | |Day V. | | | |(Mond.) | | | | Night |Moon at end of | | | | Scorpio or | Purgatory | | | beginning of |_Purg._ | | | Sagittarius | xviii. 79-81. | |Day VI. | | | |(Tues.) | | | | Night | | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- Earthly | |Day VII. |Sun in the middle |_Par._ i. 37-44; Paradise,| |(Wed.) | of Aries | x. 7-33; planetary| | |Saturn in Leo | xxvii. 86,87. & stellar| | | | spheres | | | | ----------+---------+---------+-------------------+----------------- Primum | |Day VIII.| |_Par._ xxi. Mobile | |(Thur.) | | 13-15. and | | | | Empyrean | | | |

Summary.

_Arguments for 1300 or 1301._ _From Expressions and Incidents in the D.C._

The Astronomical Data.

(_True Equinox, March 12. Ecclesiastical, March 21. Traditional, March 25_).

Early commentators understand Good Friday, not March 25.

_VII. THEORETICAL AND SPECULATIVE ASTRONOMY._

“Thou shalt learn the burning nature of the pure clear sun, thou shalt hear the wandering nature of the round-eyed moon, and thou shalt learn of the surrounding heaven, whence it arose, and how Necessity guiding it compelled it to hold fast the bounds of the stars.” _Parmenides._

1. THE SPHERES.

Dante’s astronomical phenomena, though they are just the same that are familiar (or ought to be familiar) to us, have led us into some strange by-ways, because they are so intimately connected with his works of imagination. His astronomical theories, by which these phenomena were explained, will also take us into paths which are now seldom trodden by astronomers or others, because mediæval astronomy was mingled with magic, with metaphysics, and with religion, in a way which seems very strange to us.

The second treatise of the _Convivio_ has for its text the Ode which is quoted in _Paradiso_ viii. 37, “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete.”[565] When speaking of the literal meaning of this Ode, Dante takes the occasion to discourse on the system of astronomy which he had learned, and describes how all the apparent movements of the heavens are explained by postulating the existence of spheres and epicycles, entering with special detail into the system of Venus, the third heaven; and later on, when expounding the allegorical meaning of the Ode, he draws an elaborate comparison between the spheres and the different branches of science and philosophy, in which he incidentally gives his readers a good deal of information about the heavens.

[565] “Oh ye whose intellectual ministry Moves the third heaven.” (_Carey_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

From this interesting treatise, therefore, as well as from many scattered passages in all his works, we learn what Dante thought were the real movements of the heavenly bodies, their dimensions, their nature, and the forces which move them; and it forms a valuable commentary on the _Paradiso_, in reading which he supposes us to understand the elements of the Ptolemaic system, and the ideas of the philosophers and the Fathers of the Church concerning the organization of the Universe.

Of these ultimate truths concerning the heavens, Dante says, very little can be known, but the little which is within the reach of human reason, gives more delight (as Aristotle says) than the abundance and the certainty of other things easier to be understood.[566] This thought finds an echo in the _Paradiso_, where the poet reminds us of the beautiful order to be found throughout the universe, and invites us to contemplate the skill of the architect as shown in the movements of the planets.[567]

[566] _Conv._ II. iii. 8-14.

[567] _Par._ x. 1-12. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dante knew that great men in ancient days had speculated on the possibility that it was Earth, and not the skies, that moved in the diurnal period, but the balance of authority was against them, and they had been confuted by the Master of those who KNOW,[568] that glorious philosopher to whom Nature most fully revealed her secrets,[569] Aristotle. In Treatise III. of the _Convivio_ he gives a clear and concise account of the theory of Philolaus, and of what he understood to be the theory of Plato.[570] In the former he seems to have been struck with the deduction that, if Fire were at the centre of the Universe, the real motion of fire on Earth, which to us appears always to ascend, would in reality be a descent towards its own place at the centre.

[568] _Inf._ iv. 131.

[569] _Conv._ III. v. 54-56.

[570] _Conv._ III. v. 29-52. See Part I. of this book _Pythagoras and his Followers_, and _Plato_, for a description of their astronomical systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Both these hypotheses he had evidently learned from Aristotle’s _De Cælo_,[571] and when thus presented they seem entirely fanciful; so although Dante had reverence for both Pythagoras and Plato it is not surprising that he rejected the systems of both. He adds that it is not his intention to recount here the arguments by which Aristotle confutes them and establishes the truth: it is enough for his readers to know, on so great an authority, that the earth is fixed, and does not revolve, and is at the centre of the World.

Dante has to confess reluctantly that Aristotle made two mistakes in his astronomy: he said that there were only eight spheres, those of the seven planets, and that of the stars, “e che di fuori da esso non fosse altro alcuno;”[572] also he placed the heaven of the sun immediately above that of the moon, that is to say second in order, counting from Earth outward. Aristotle’s loyal admirer hastens to add that these serious mistakes “questa sua sentenza così erronea”[573] are explicable and excusable because, as Aristotle himself shows in the _Metaphysics_, when he treated of astrology he was merely following the opinions of others. That is to say, he took his facts from others, and they cannot all be depended upon, but his philosophical deductions are his own, and are never in error. In the above question of the possible movements of Earth, we saw (pp. 101-2) that Aristotle’s arguments were almost entirely drawn from metaphysics.

[571] See Part I. “Aristotle.”

[572] “And that outside the latter there was no other.” _Conv._ II. iii. 24, 25.

[573] “This entirely mistaken opinion of his.” _Ibid._ 28. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

There have been many opinions regarding the number and the positions of the spheres, Dante says, but the truth about them has at length been found. The scheme which he expounds is that of Ptolemy, modified by the Arabs and adapted to the doctrines of the Church by Christian writers. In the _Vita Nuova_ he almost seems to imply that the nine moving spheres form an article of faith. “Secondo Tolommeo e secondo la Cristiana verità, nove siano li cieli che si muovono.”[574]

[574] “According to Ptolemy and according to Christian Truth, nine is the number of the moving heavens.” _V. N._ xxx. 16-18. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quoting from Albertus Magnus, or Averroës, he apparently credits Ptolemy with the discovery of precession, for he says that it was Ptolemy who added a ninth sphere to the eight of Aristotle, because he perceived that otherwise the outer sphere would have a double movement, and so he felt obliged to assume a sphere beyond the star sphere which should have only the one simple motion of the diurnal east to west revolution. The period of this revolution (the sidereal day) Dante gives as 23 hours and ¹⁴/₁₅ths of an hour, “grossamente assegnando,”[575] _i.e._ 23 hours 56 minutes, which is the correct value ignoring the 4 seconds. We know that it was not Ptolemy in fact who thought it necessary to add a ninth sphere; he was not sufficiently interested in spheres, since to him they were only mathematical abstractions: but the Arabs of Baghdad noted that he had added another _movement_, the discovery of Hipparchus; and they, accepting the spheres as material instruments of celestial motions, felt obliged to assume the existence of the Primum Mobile or 9th sphere.

That Dante should believe the spheres to exist as actual entities was inevitable, for his principal authorities, Greek, Arab, and Christian, all taught this. And there is abundant evidence that he did think of them thus. He calls them bodies:—“omnia corpora,”[576] “questi corpi grandi,”[577] “cerchi corporai,”[578] “il maggior corpo,”[579] etc. They are transparent, one sphere not obstructing the light from another;[580] and composed of æther, “questo etera tondo.”[581] They have a certain thickness, and would be visible if near enough, for Dante speaks of the inner margin of the Primum Mobile, and says that it was too far above him for him to have seen it yet, when he was in the Star Sphere.[582]

[575] “Roughly speaking.” _Conv._ II. iii. 36-48.

[576] “All bodies.” _Ep._ x. 445.

[577] “These vast bodies.” _Par._ viii. 99.

[578] “Material circles” (here compared with the Angels, who are purely spiritual). _Par._ xxviii. 64.

[579] “The greatest body.” _Par._ xxx. 39.

[580] _Purg._ iii. 29, 30.

[581] “This rounded ether.” _Par._ xxii. 132.

[582] _Par._ xxiii. 112-117. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

He gives the order of the eight heavens as in Ptolemy, and adds the ninth, which is only perceived by the diurnal movement of which it is the cause; and it is called by many the Crystalline, that is, the diaphanous or completely transparent Heaven.[583] The order of these spheres has been discovered by observation and reasoning, with the use of the principles of Perspective, Arithmetic, and Geometry. Dante gives as an instance the experience of Aristotle, who with his own eyes saw the moon pass below Mars, and so hide it for some time; and he mentions also how in eclipses it is evident that the moon is below the sun (_i.e._ nearer to us).[584]

To these nine spheres of the astronomers, the Catholic Church, “which cannot lie,” adds a tenth, the Empyrean Heaven, which means the heaven of flame or light, and is the abode of the blessed spirits and of God Himself.[585] And here Dante is able to give himself the pleasure of adding that Aristotle seems to have been of this opinion also; “Ed anco Aristotile pare ciò sentire, a chi bene lo intende, nel primo _Di Cielo e Mondo_.”[586] He is no doubt alluding to what Aristotle says about the existence beyond the finite universe.[587] The whole passage is thus translated in the “Temple” Dante:[588] “Nor is there any change of any of those things which are ranged above the outmost rotation, but they are unchangeable and passionless, enjoying the superlative existence, and passing in absolute self-sufficiency their eternal life.”

[586] “And Aristotle also, to one who rightly understands him, seems to mean the same thing, in his first book of _The Heaven and the Earth_.” _Conv._ II. iv. 32-34.

[583] _Conv._ II. iv. 1-13.

[584] _Conv._ II. iii. 52-65.

[585] _Conv._ II. iv. 13-16, 30-32. See also _Ep._ x. 448-452.

[587] See p. 97.

[588] _The Convivio of Dante_, “Temple” Edition, note on II. iv. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ninth sphere rotates on two poles, which are absolutely fixed, “fermi e fissi e non mutabile, secondo alcuno rispetto,”[589] the eight within it have each two poles which are only relatively fixed (for they move with the movement of the Primum Mobile), and every sphere has an equator, every point on which is equally distant from the two poles of rotation, as anyone may see who will turn round an apple, or any other spherical thing. Any point on the equator moves more quickly than any other point on the sphere, and each part moves more quickly the nearer it is to the equator, more slowly as it is far from it and nearer to the pole, since all the circling is done in the same time, and some parts have a greater, and some a less distance to go, according to their distance from the equator. Dante adds that the nearer any part of a heaven is to its equator, the nobler it is compared with its poles, for it has more movement, and more actuality, more life, and more form, and it touches more of the heaven just above, and in consequence is more noble.[590]

[589] “Firm and fixed and not moveable, from any point of view.” _Conv._ II. iv. 50, 51.

[590] _Conv._ II. iv. 68-75. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Besides these ten heavens there are others which, strictly speaking, should be included in the number: these are the little spheres which are called “epicycles” by astronomers, and they also have equators and poles of rotation, and are fixed on the large spheres, or heavens. Dante does not enter into any particulars about these, but only mentions (as belonging specially to the subject in hand) that the brilliant star of Venus is carried “on the back” of an epicycle, which is itself fixed on the back of the third Heaven.[591] The apparent movement of Venus is therefore compounded of no less than four movements: that of her epicycle, of her whole heaven (the “deferent” Dante does not name, probably as introducing too technical a word), of the west to east motion of the star sphere (precession), and the diurnal. The epicycle of Venus is also called in this treatise, as we have already seen, “quello suo cerchio che la fa parere serotina e mattutina, secondo i due diversi tempi,”[592] and the “terzo epiciclo”[593] is referred to in _Par._ viii. 3.

[591] _Conv._ II. iv. 78-104.

[592] “That circle of hers which makes her appear as evening and morning star, according to the two different periods.” _Conv._ II. ii. 3-5.

[593] “Third epicycle.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

A little further on in the same treatise, Dante tells us the periods in which all these nine spheres revolve. It is an interesting passage, and illustrates the poet’s vivid way of bringing home to his own mind and those of his readers the effects of the different celestial motions.[594] The ninth sphere, which is the Crystalline or Primum Mobile, causes by its daily revolution the daily revolution of all the other spheres, which are within it; it is, as Beatrice says, “costui, che tutto quanto rape l’altro universo seco.”[595] Therefore if we imagine it possible for the motion of this Crystalline Heaven to cease, what will be the effect on the motions of the other heavens? Obviously their diurnal movement from east to west will cease, and we shall only see them revolving, each in its own period, from west to east. There will be no alternation of day and night, or rather, there will be one long day of six months, and one long night of the same length, in any given place all over the earth. In the same way the moon will be invisible for half the month; and all the planets will be invisible to us for half their periods; and as Dante believed only the known hemisphere of Earth to be inhabited, he could say that during one half of each period no one would see the planet at all. He enumerates the half period in each case, as follows:—

[594] _Conv._ II. xv. 132-155.

[595] “That one which sweeps the whole of the rest of the universe along with it.” _Par._ xxviii. 70, 71. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Half Period Whole Period given by Alfraganus_ “_Planets._” (_approximate_) (_El. Ast. ch. xvii._) _given by Dante. Years Months Days_

Saturn 14½ years 29 5 8 Jupiter 6 ” 11 10 14½ about. Mars about a year 1 10 22 nearly. Sun 182 days, 14 hrs. ... 365¼ nearly. {about the same Venus { as the sun. ... ” Mercury ” ” ... ... ” Moon 14½ days ... (nearly) 27, 7¾ hrs. (Paris edition, 29 days, 12¾ hrs.)

If we compare these with the zodiacal periods given by Alfraganus, we see that Dante has taken those of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars at the nearest whole number of years and halved them, but with the sun he seems to have used that more exact value with which we have already seen that he was acquainted. For to divide the 365¼ days of Alfraganus by 2 would have given him exactly 182 days 15 hours; but dividing 365 days 5 hours, and neglecting minutes gives 182 days 14 hours. The large oscillations of Venus and Mercury would make their periods of visibility very irregular, but the mean period would be, as Dante says, about the same as that of the sun. He has made a slip with the moon, for of course it is her sidereal period of 27 days 7¾ hours which he should have taken, giving a half period of less than 14 days, whereas he has evidently taken the mean synodic period of 29 days 12¾ hours, and ignored the hours. All the printed editions of Alfraganus give the sidereal period in this passage, except the Paris edition of 1546; but that gives the synodic,[596] so it doubtless appeared on some mediæval MSS. Dante must have had the misfortune to possess or consult one of these.

[596] Toynbee, “Dante’s Obligations to Alfraganus in _Vita Nuova_ and _Convivio_,” in _Romania_ xxiv. 95. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the stars, one third of their sphere would not yet have been seen. This is not difficult to understand if we remember what the movement of the star sphere was supposed to be, and how long it was since man had first begun to look upon it, according to Dante’s chronology. The movement which makes the equinoctial point shift its place among the stars was thought to be a movement of revolution of the whole star sphere, and its rate to be one degree in a century; the age of the world, we learn from _Par._ xxvi. 118-123, was over sixty centuries when Dante wrote. For Adam said that he had spent 930 years on Earth and 4302 in the Limbo, so that Dante evidently counted 5232 years from the Creation to the Crucifixion, that is (5232-33 =) 5199 to the beginning of our era at the birth of Christ, which is the date given by Orosius; adding 1300 years to this, we find that the age of the world in Dante’s day was more than 6000 years. Therefore the star sphere had revolved, since the beginning of the world, through more than 60 degrees.

The first inhabitants of this earth saw half the starry sky or 180°, and since then it had revolved through 60°, which together is equal to 240°; therefore there would still remain 120°, or one third of a revolution, to be made to complete the whole 360°, and bring every part of the star sphere into view. Just before this passage Dante had expressed the same idea in another way. This movement proper to the star sphere, he says, will never have an end, for the end of a revolution is to return to the same point; and this heaven will never do so, for since the beginning of the world it has turned through a little more than the sixth part of its whole revolution (60° = ⅛ of 360°), and we are already in the last age of the world, and indeed are awaiting the consummation of the celestial motion.[597]

[597] _Conv._ II. xv. 108-118. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the premises be granted, the conclusions are correct. As regards sun, moon, and planets, they are correct even from the point of view of modern knowledge. For if the diurnal motion (that is Earth’s rotation) were to cease, while her other motions, and those of the rest of the solar system remained as at present, her motion round the sun would cause it to rise and set once in a year, and the appearance of moon and planets also would be as described. The vastly distant stars would have no appreciable motion, save that caused by precession, for if the earth revolved round the sun without turning on her axis, the same stars would always remain on the meridian at any given place. Precession, however, would not have the result which Dante supposed. He considered it to be a rotation of the star sphere, but we know that it is merely a nodding. Hence at any given place a star at the pole would describe, in the course of centuries, a small circle in the sky, and those at the equator would move in short lines first north and then south, while stars between would move in ellipses which become narrower as they approach the equator. All round the horizon, therefore, there would be slight very slow changes, bringing a few fresh stars into view, and causing others to disappear. The whole amount of the sky actually seen would vary but little, even if the world should last much longer than Dante expected.

Dante evidently took his value of precession from Alfraganus, for he was one of the few Arab astronomers who accepted Ptolemy’s erroneous figure.

In the _Paradiso_, as the poet mounts with Beatrice from sphere to sphere he mentions the number of each one in its order. The moon is “la prima stella,”[598] Mercury “il secondo regno,”[599] Venus “il terzo ciel,”[600] the spirits met in the sun are “la quarta famiglia,”[601] Mars is “questa quinta soglia,”[602] and “più levato”[603] than the last heaven, Jupiter is the “stella sesta,”[604] Saturn “il settimo splendore.”[605] The starry heaven is alluded to as “la spera ottava.”[606] The Primum Mobile is “il ciel velocissimo,”[607] “il maggior corpo.”[608] The Empyrean, “il ciel ch’ è pura luce,”[609] is called “l’ultima spera,”[610] but this has no limits and no movement, and therefore no poles:—

[598] “The first star.” _Par._ ii. 30.

[599] “The second realm.” _Par._ v. 93.

[600] “The third heaven.” _Par._ viii. 37.

[601] “The fourth family.” _Par._ x. 49.

[602] “The fifth threshold.” _Par._ xviii. 28.

[603] “More lofty.” _Par._ xiv. 85.

[604] “Sixth star.” _Par._ xviii. 68, 69.

[605] “The seventh splendour.” _Par._ xxi. 13.

[606] “The eighth sphere.” _Par._ ii. 64.

[607] “The swiftest heaven.” _Par._ xxvii. 99.

[608] “The greatest body.” _Par._ xxx. 39. Compare _V. N._ xlii. 47. “Oltre la spera che più larga gira,” (“beyond the sphere which has the largest circle).”

[609] “The heaven of pure light.” _Par._ xxx. 39.

[610] “The last sphere.” _Par._ xxii. 62.

“ ... In quella sola E ogni parte là dove sempr’ era; Perchè non è in loco, e non s’impola.”[611]

[611] “ ... Within that one alone Is every part where it has always been; For it is not in space, nor turns on poles.” _Par._ xxii. 65-67. (_Longfellow._) ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In _Conv._ II. iv. 35-39 it is thus described:—

“Questo è il sovrano edificio del mondo, nel quale tutto il mondo s’inchiude; e di fuori dal quale nulla è; ed esso non è in luogo, ma formato fu solo nella Prima Mente, la quale li Greci dicono Protonoe.”[612]

[612] “This is the sovereign edifice of the world, in which all the world is enclosed, and beyond which is naught; and it exists not in space, but received form only in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe.” See also _Ep._ x. 442-447. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We must remember, however, that the spheres are sometimes counted in the other direction, from the outermost to the innermost or lowest, and therefore this “ultima spera”[613] is elsewhere spoken of as “il primo cielo,”[614] “il primo giro,”[615] “cœlum primum.”[616]

[613] “Last sphere.”

[614] “The first heaven.” _Purg._ xxx. 1.

[615] “The first circle.” _Par._ iv. 34.

[616] “First heaven.” _Qu._ iv. 7. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. THE SPHERES AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS.

The pure region of the spheres, “il paese sincero,” is immortal as the spirits themselves;[617] but below the lowest celestial sphere (“la celestial c’ha men salita” _Par._ iv. 39) all is mortal and transitory, as the Greeks and the Latin poets had said. This is expressed in the Letter to Can Grande, when Dante contrasts the spheres (cœlum) and the elements, and says: “illud incorruptibile, illa vero corruptibilia sunt.”[618] It is also implied in Virgil’s address to Beatrice:

[617] _Par._ vii. 130-132 compared with 67, 68. See also _Par._ i. 64 and 76.

[618] _Ep._ x. 435-437. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

“O donna di virtù, sola per cui L’umana specie eccede ogni contento Da quel ciel che ha minor’ li cerchi sui.”[619]

[619] “O Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom The human race exceedeth all contained Within the heaven that has the lesser circles.” _Inf._ ii. 76-78. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is only through the spiritual teaching which Beatrice symbolizes that the human race can rise above all that is comprised within the heaven of the smallest sphere. And it is taught by Beatrice herself when, in the heaven of Mercury, she discourses on the mysteries of the creation and redemption. The angels, the souls of men, and the spheres, were created directly by God, she says, and are therefore immortal, but the elements, water, fire, air, earth, and all things that are formed out of them, also the souls or living principles of all animals and plants, were created through intermediate instruments and are mortal. These intermediate instruments are the heavenly bodies. Pure or inchoate matter was created at the beginning by God, and a power infused into the stars to give it form.[620]

[620] _Par._ vii. 124-143. Compare with Plato’s account of the creation of living beings (Part I., _Plato_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dante follows the classics and agrees with his contemporaries in arranging the four elements in four spheres, which are below the celestial spheres. The sphere of Fire is immediately within that of the moon, below this comes Air, then Water, and lastly the solid sphere of Earth. The contrast between Fire which constantly tends to rise towards the moon, and Earth which sinks towards the centre of the universe, is a favourite thought with him;[621] and lightning striking the earth is described as fleeing its proper place.[622] Aristotle seems to have regarded the four elements as flowing into one another, so that these lowly spheres beneath the moon were not sharply divided, but his mediæval disciples, following the Greek idea to its logical conclusion, conceived them with boundaries as definite as those of the celestial spheres. “Exhalations” could pass from one to another, but each particle of every element tended always to revert to its own place, which was distinct from the others.

[621] _Par._ i. 115, 117; _De Mon._ I. xv. 38-41; and III. vii. 30, 31, etc.

[622] _Par._ i. 92, 130-134. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here they encountered a serious difficulty. If the sphere of water is naturally higher than that of earth, how comes it that in one quarter of the globe land rises above the ocean? It was recognised as necessary that this should happen in some part of the world, in order for an opportunity to be given for the elements to combine and to form all those substances and all those living creatures, including man, for which this earth was prepared; it was also agreed that the celestial spheres were the agency by which the Creator had first chosen to “let the dry land appear,” and by which it was maintained above the ocean; but the exact nature of this force and the way in which it acted was a question sometimes discussed. Albertus Magnus was of opinion that the rays of the sun and the stars, which had more power in the temperate and tropic zones than in the arctic, had here dried up the ocean, and he quotes Albumassar’s statement that this proves the existence of land on the southern side of the equator also. Ristoro, on the other hand, believed that the waters had been drawn up and rolled back from the habitable earth, and he attributes the elevating force to the stars of the north, bringing in his favourite theory that in this hemisphere they are far more numerous, and the constellations, from their upright position, are far more powerful than in the south.

He compares this lifting force of the stars to the attractive power of a magnet over iron, and argues that it must be the waters which are drawn away from the earth, not the earth which is lifted above the water, because the starry influence in its downward course would meet first the sphere of water, and moreover it is lighter and easier to move than Earth. He also thinks that the presence of springs on mountain tops is to be explained by the fact that the ocean is preserved at a higher level, hence water percolating through the porous land, as through a sponge, is forced up to its utmost height.

It does not seem as if Dante had paid much attention to this problem when he was writing the _Convivio_, for although he calls the habitable part of the earth “the uncovered land,” “la terra discoperta” (_Conv._ III. v. 73), he speaks of Earth and ocean as if they formed a globe together, “Questa terra ... col mare è centro del cielo,”[623] in the manner of Alfraganus, “Inter sapientes convenit, terram unà cum aqua globosam esse.”[624] But if we may believe that Dante is the author of the _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_—a belief shared by many experts—he became greatly interested in the problem later on. According to the introduction and the final colophon, he attended a discussion on the subject and joined in it himself, when in Mantua, and afterwards in Verona less than two years before his death he wrote and read in public a Latin treatise in which his arguments and conclusions are set forth.

[623] “This earth, together with the sea, is the centre of heaven.” (_Conv._ III. v. 63-65.)

[624] “It is agreed among learned men that earth and water together form a globe.” (_El. Ast._ iii.). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

He seems to have had in mind Ristoro’s book, and while refuting some of the conclusions agrees with others. As a thirteenth century scholar he admits, as a matter of course, that the centre of the earth is the centre of the Universe and the goal towards which all heavy things tend; that earth as the heaviest element ought to be everywhere nearest this centre, while water ought to occupy the nobler place above it, that is, nearer to the most noble sphere of all which envelops all the others (the Empyrean). He also reasons, in true Dantesque and true mediæval fashion that there must be some place in the universe where all the elements may meet and mingle so that all potential forms of matter may be realized; otherwise the Mover of heaven, in whom all these forms (Plato’s Ideas) actually exist, would fail to give complete expression to his goodness, which is impossible.[625]

[625] _Qu._ xviii. 28-54. This may be compared with _Par._ xxix. 13-18. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The author of the _Quæstio_ denies, however, that this was accomplished by the removal of part of the sphere of water from the underlying earth. The ocean cannot have been drawn away and heaped up, he says, for water would always flow down again, being fluid and naturally seeking its own level; nor can the sphere of water be eccentric to that of Earth so that the latter emerges from it in one part. The reason for this is interesting since it implies a curious and apparently novel theory of gravity. Aristotle’s theory was that all heavy things tend by a natural law towards the centre of the universe, and therefore necessarily range themselves in spheres round it; the writer might therefore have made short work of Water’s eccentric sphere by stating briefly that it could not exist; instead of this, however, he suggests a new law of gravity, apparently invented on the spur of the moment, according to which everything which has weight tends towards the centre of its own circumference. If then earth and water had two separate centres, they would fall naturally in different directions, or as he puts it “to different _downs_.” Yet we know that the law of gravity is the same for both, and therefore their spheres must be concentric. The centre of the universe must be also the centre of the sea.[626] It had apparently been urged (perhaps in the discussion at Mantua) that since water follows the moon in the tides, its sphere may also imitate hers in being eccentric, but although Dante takes for granted that a connection between moon and tides is proved (and indeed it had been noted by the Greeks),[627] he replies that imitation in one particular need not imply imitation in all. Again, if the sphere of earth emerged from the sphere of water in the way proposed, the outline of the emergent earth must be circular, instead of which it is that of a half-moon, or nearly so, its width from east to west being much greater than its length from north to south.

[626] _Qu._ xv. 10, 11.

[627] See p. 134. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dante has been blamed for assigning this shape to the emergent earth, but the comparison of Earth’s habitable quadrant with the illuminated quadrant of the moon is perfectly just, as we saw with Ristoro,[628] from whom Dante is perhaps quoting here. The qualifying “vel quasi”[629] is added because the truly habitable regions did not extend over the whole quadrant, but stopped short at the arctic circle.

[628] See p. 247.

[629] “Or nearly.” _Qu._ xix. 61-63. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The existence of springs on mountain tops is explained by the fact that water rises thither not in the form of water but of vapour. Another upholder of Ristoro’s theory that Water was rolled away from Earth seems to have brought forward as evidence that sailors can see distant land from the mast which is invisible from the deck, and that therefore it evidently lies below the ocean; but this is confuted by the true and well known explanation that it is the convex shape of the sea which hides the distant land. Our author adds to his other arguments, in the curiously casual way so characteristic of his age, the ordinary observation which would be the first to occur to us, and quite sufficient in itself, viz. that instead of seeing a great wall of ocean rising above our sea-coasts, we invariably see the coast rising above the sea.

His own idea is that though the sphere of Water in general rises above Earth, in one part of the northern hemisphere Earth has been drawn up above the ocean. Earth must be subject to an uplifting influence, as well as to the downward drag of gravity, just as man is susceptible to the influence of reason as well as to the sway of his lower passions. This uplifting influence is not inherent in Earth herself, an upward impulse would be contrary to her own nature; nor can it be in water, or air, or fire, since all these are homogeneous bodies, and their virtue is evenly distributed, so that they could not cause a local and partial effect. It must be therefore in one of the heavens, and it remains for us to enquire which.

It cannot be in the heaven of the moon, for in the moon herself resides whatever influence comes from her sphere;[630] and she goes as far south of the equator as she does north: therefore she would raise land beyond the equator as well as on this side, but this is not so.

[630] Compare with _Conv._ II. vii. 88-100, where the poet says that the influence from each sphere comes on the rays of the planet in that sphere, also _De Mon._ III. iv. 139, 140. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then follows a passage of which commentators can make nothing as it stands:—

“Nec valet dicere quod illa declinatio non potuit esse propter magis appropinquare terræ per excentricitatem; quia si hæc virtus elevandi fuisset in luna, (quum agentia propinquiora virtuosius operentur) magis elevasset ibi quam hic.”[631]

[631] “Nor does it avail anything to say that that declination could not take place because of approaching nearer the earth through eccentricity; for if this elevating virtue were in the moon, since agents act the more powerfully the nearer they are, she would elevate there rather than here.” _Qu._ xx. 65-71. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Wicksteed suggests reading “elevatio” instead of “declinatio,” and apparently deletes the “non,”[632] and Dr. Moore seems to read the same way,[633] for both agree in interpreting as follows:—the author is stating an argument that the elevation of land (in only one hemisphere) might be due to the moon’s coming nearer to Earth in one part of her orbit, owing to its eccentricity; to which he replies that if that were the cause the elevation would be greater in the south than here in the north, because the moon is nearer to the earth when she goes south.

[632] Note on this passage in “Temple” Dante.

[633] _Studies in Dante_, ii. p. 339. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is supposed to imply a belief that the moon is always in perigee[634] when south of the equator, whereas the fact that her perigee revolves all round the zodiac was as well known to Ptolemy and Alfraganus as it is to modern astronomers. The interpretation therefore convicts the author of the _Quæstio_ of so serious and inexplicable a blunder that these commentators find themselves obliged to consider it as evidence either that it was not written by Dante, or that his knowledge of astronomy was much less extensive than has been supposed. It is suggested that there may have been a popular fallacy in his time that the moon was like the sun in this respect—although to know that the sun has a perigee, and that it is situated in the south, requires some acquaintance with astronomy! However, Dr. Moore has searched Alfraganus and other works in vain to find a suggestion of this kind.

[634] Nearest Earth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yet an explanation and a source of this statement is not far to seek, and instead of proving ignorance it indicates that the author of the _Quæstio_ knew his Alfraganus well. The passage is evidently slightly corrupt, but the clue to its meaning lies in the word “eccentricity.” In two other places of the _Quæstio_ the moon’s eccentric “orbis” is alluded to,[635] but if we translate this as “orbit” we shall be introducing modern ideas which meant nothing to Dante or his contemporaries. According to Alfraganus and Ptolemy the moon’s orb or sphere[636] was eccentric, but this was not the main cause of her varying distance from Earth. It was the revolution of her epicycle round its centre C, which caused her to move continually from apogee M to perigee P; and as the whole epicycle was meanwhile revolving on the deferent round C, and these two periods were not quite equal, the moon was as often in the perigee of her epicycle when it was south as when it was north. But besides this, the deferent, being eccentric to Earth, had also a perigee and apogee; and Alfraganus says that _the perigee of the eccentric is always in the south_. “Saturnus, Jupiter, atque Mars eccentricorum suorum absidas summas et imas habent declinatas a zodiaco, illas ad boream, hasce ad austrum, secundum eandem semper deflexus mensuram: _quedadmodum res in Luna obtinet_.”[637]

[635] _Qu._ vii. 4, 6, and xxiii. 52.

[636] “Orbis” and “sphæra” are used indifferently by Alfraganus to indicate the celestial spheres: thus, in ch. xii. he says “_Orbes_, qui stellarum omnes motus complectantur, numero esse octo,” and on the next page, “unamquamque harum _sphærarum_ octo.”

[637] “The upper and lower apsides of the eccentrics of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, have a certain declination from the zodiac, the former to the north, the latter to the south, the amount always remaining constant: _and it is just the same with the moon_.” _El. Ast._ xviii. par. 6. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The upper and lower apsides are defined in chapter xii. as the positions of apogee and perigee respectively.[638]

In this quotation the word “declinatas” also supplies us with the meaning of Dante’s “declinatio,” which need not be changed for “elevatio.” He is using it in the astronomical sense of position north or south, like Alfraganus and modern astronomers, and it refers here to the “declinet” of five lines earlier. “Luna ... tantum _declinet_ per zodiacum ab æquinoctiali _versus polum antarcticum_ quantum versus arcticum.”[639]

[638] In the edition of Golius ch. vii. par. 5, the position of greatest distance is called the perigee, of least the apogee, but this mistake is corrected in the next paragraph.

[639] “The moon’s declination in the zodiac from the equator towards the south pole is as great as towards the north.” _Qu._ xx. 61-63. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is only necessary to delete “quod” and “non potuit,” and the whole passage becomes clear and, from the point of view of mediæval astronomy, correct. The author has shown that the moon cannot be supposed to exert any preponderating influence in the northern hemisphere, because her declination south is equal to that in the north. Nor is it of any use, he adds, to say that this declination (south) results from her approaching the earth more nearly on her eccentric orb (see diagram);[640] for (although this does imply an unequal influence) if the elevating influence came from the moon, it would act more powerfully in the south than here in the north, since the nearer an agent is the more powerfully it acts.

He goes on to say that the same reasoning rules out the planetary spheres, and here Alfraganus still supports him, for Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are said to have the perigees of their eccentrics in the south, just like the moon, while those of Venus and Mercury are continually changing.[641]

[640] The deferent was the equator of her orb or sphere.

[641] Ristoro also defines apogee and perigee (“auge” and “opposito d’auge”) as effects of movements on an epicycle, and says that the deferent is “declined” from the ecliptic (“declinato della via del sole,”) part being north and part south, but he does not say whether its perigee is north or south. _Comp. del Mondo._ I. xii. xiv., and III. vii. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the Primum Mobile, or ninth sphere, it is uniform throughout, and consequently quite uniform in virtue, therefore there is no reason why it should elevate land here rather than elsewhere. Since, then, there are no more moving bodies except the star sphere, or eighth heaven, it must be from this that the lifting power proceeds. And it is specially adapted to exercise such an influence since it contains a number of stars, all of which have different “virtues.” Without repeating Ristoro’s naïve assertions about the greater number and the upright positions of the northern constellations, our author bids us remark that star differs from star, constellation from constellation, and that their influences are also diverse, so that those in the north have different virtues from those in the south. The lifting virtue which raises the land must reside in those stars which are between the equator and 67° north, since those are above the habitable earth; but we do not know the nature of the force they exercise, whether it attracts the land as a magnet attracts iron, or forces it up by generating underground vapours, such as have raised some mountains (Aristotle had said in his _Meteorologica_ that volcanic hills were formed by pent-up winds beneath them).

After so elaborate a search for a power capable of raising land only in the north and not in the south, we naturally inquire why in the east and not in the west? But to this we only receive the reply that there was not enough material to go round, and that we must not ask presumptuous questions. Let us seek to approach divine and immortal things as nearly as is possible to human nature, but leave those which are too high for us.

This somewhat lengthy description of the contents of the _Quæstio_ has been given because, even if it is not Dante’s work, it illustrates well the current ideas concerning the Cosmos, its form and forces. So many of the ideas, however, and even the expressions find parallels in the unquestioned writings of Dante, that the internal evidence for its genuineness is strong.[642]

[642] For a thorough discussion of this question see Moore’s _Studies in Dante_ ii. pp. 303-374. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his poems Dante is faithful to his own descriptions of the universe in prose, and in the visionary journey of the _Divine Comedy_ he passes successively through all the spheres which are enumerated in the _Convivio_ and the _Quæstio_. The central sphere of earth, the lowest of all the elements, “il suggetto dei vostri elementi,”[643] is completely traversed, from side to side, and on the further side is seen the vast sphere of ocean which envelopes three-quarters of the earth. The Mountain which the poet has placed here (his only innovation) rises out of the water towards the heavens higher than any other, “inverso il ciel più alto si dislaga,”[644] and in climbing it he reaches that region in the sphere of air into which no cold exhalations can rise from earth or sea, neither the “secco vapor”[645] which causes wind and earthquake, nor the “esalazion dell’ aqua”[646] from which are formed rain and hail, cloud and dew. Hot exhalations ascend to the sphere of fire, there to become meteors or comets (see p. 103); but the cold vapours rising as high as they can towards the sun which draws them up (“retro il calor”[647]), are unable to ascend beyond the Gate of Purgatory.[648] Therefore Purgatory is exempt from all changes except those caused by that which heaven receives from itself into itself. This was ingeniously conjectured by Venturi to be light, since there is change of day and night in Purgatory; but from the context it seems clear that human souls are meant. Souls come forth from their Creator, whose special abode is the heaven of heavens, and return thither after purification. And it was the rising of the purified soul of Statius, ready to return to heaven, which had been the cause of that trembling of the Mountain of which he is here speaking.

[643] “The foundation of your elements.” _Par._ xxix. 51.

[644] “Rises highest towards heaven out of the sea.” _Purg._ iii. 15.

[645] “Dry vapour.”

[646] “Exhalations from the water.”

[647] “Behind [_i.e._ following] the heat.”

[648] _Purg._ xxviii. 97-99 and xxi. 52-53. The gate is meant by “i tre gradi” (“the three steps”), and “ove si serra” (“where it is locked”). See _Purg._ ix. 76, 106-108. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

After learning this, Dante is surprised to find, on the summit of the Mountain, that his brows are caressed by a gentle breeze which comes from the east and bends all the trees of the Forest in one direction. Matilda tells him that it is true no atmospheric changes are felt on this Mountain, and it was for this that it was made to rise so high, so that man in the Garden of Eden, on the top of the Mountain, should be untroubled by the disturbances which occur lower down: what he feels now is no fluctuating wind. On this lofty mountain, remote from any other land in the midst of the hemisphere of sea, he feels for the first time the revolution of the atmosphere uninterruptedly following the movement of the celestial spheres.

The idea that Eden was on a lofty mountain, secure from stormy weather, and inaccessible to fallen man, was a familiar one with mediæval writers: it was sometimes located on Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, and Bede thought it might rise as high as the moon, but Albertus Magnus says this was only meant figuratively. But the connection with Purgatory, and the thought that here the movement of the heavens might be felt as a soft breeze, is, so far as I know, all Dante’s own.

In all the _Divine Comedy_ there is no more beautiful allegory than this. Man in the age of innocence, man to-day when purified from sin, is already partly in heaven, though he still walks the earth. And like many another allegory of Dante’s, it follows naturally from the science of his day. Aristotle had said that the upper air “flows in a circle, because it is drawn along with the circulation of the Whole,” and Aquinas:—

“Thus the air which exceeds the greatest altitude of the mountains flows round, but the air which is contained within the altitude of the mountains is impeded from this flow by the immoveable parts of Earth.”

_Purg._ xxviii. 103-108 is almost a poetical paraphrase of this:—

“ ... In circuito tutto quanto L’aer si volge con la prima volta, Se non gli è rotto il cerchio d’alcun canto: In questa altezza, che tutta è disciolta Nell’ aer vivo, tal moto percote E fa sonar la selva, perch ’è folto.”[649]

[649] “ ... The universal atmosphere Turns in a circuit with the primal motion, Unless the circle is broken on some side: Upon this height, that all is disengaged In living ether, doth this motion strike, And make the forest sound, for it is dense.” (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The whole body of the air, everywhere in the world, is turning with the First Revolution (the Primum Mobile), wherever it is not interrupted by any obstruction (of hills etc.); and as at this height the Mountain is altogether free and open to the pure air, this motion strikes the thick forest and makes it murmur.[650]

[650] Scartazzini takes the passage as referring to Eden only, and interprets that all the air _here_ is moving evenly and noiselessly unless it meets with any obstacle _such as this forest_, when a murmuring sound results. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

From this region of pure air, Dante rises with Beatrice through the sphere of Fire, into which already in a dream he had been rapt, on the first night in Purgatory, by the Eagle with golden feathers, when the burning heat of the dream-fire roused him from his sleep.[651] Now he feels no heat, but is amazed at the vast extent of light, greater than any river or lake ever seen on earth, and at the same moment he begins to hear the music of the eternal spheres,[652] for he is approaching the heaven of the moon.

In each one he hears it until the seventh is reached, but here, in pity for his mortal senses, which are not yet strong enough to bear so much divine beauty, not only does Beatrice forbear to smile, but the sweet symphonies of heaven are silent.[653]

[651] _Purg._ ix. 30-33.

[652] _Par._ i. 76-81.

[653] _Par._ xxi. 58-63. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did Dante then, in spite of Aristotle, believe in the music of the spheres? Perhaps the fact that only the _Commedia_, of all his works, makes mention of it indicates that he only thought of it as a poetical fiction, an allegory? Yet it was fully believed in by many in his day, although opinions varied greatly as to what note each planet sang. The favourite idea among Greek and Latin writers seems to have been that the notes made up a musical scale, the lowest sphere sounding forth the lowest note, and the star sphere its octave; but others thought that only the seven planets took part in the harmony, corresponding with the seven strings of the lyre: the moon being at the shortest distance from Earth, was the shortest string and gave the highest note, Saturn was the longest and gave the deepest.

Our own Milton, when he prays, “Ring out, ye crystal spheres,” bids the Primum Mobile join in, as well as the star sphere:

“And with your nine-fold harmony Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.”[654]

And Shakespear lets every separate star swell the chorus:

“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.”[655]

In the same spirit, but more literally perhaps than these, are we to understand the music of Dante’s spheres, which accompanies the singing of the angels:—

“Il cantar di quei che notan sempre Dietro alle note degli eterni giri.”[656]

[654] _Hymn on the Nativity._

[655] _Merchant of Venice._

[656] “The song of those who sing for ever After the music of the eternal spheres.” _Purg._ xxx. 92, 93. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. DIMENSIONS AND PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE.

We have seen that Dante believed the circling of the nine moving spheres and their epicycles to be the immediate cause of the movements which he saw in stars and planets. If we ask what were his ideas with regard to their sizes and distances the question is easily answered.

It is a curious fact that although our ideas about the size of anything we see depend upon the distance at which it appears to be, and no one can say how far away the sun looks, most of us nevertheless have a quite definite idea as to how large it looks, about the size of a dinner-plate, a cart-wheel, &c. Cleomedes, in the days of Augustus, quotes Lucretius and the Epicureans as believing that the sun is no larger than it looks, _that is a foot in diameter_; and he rightly remarks, amongst other arguments to the contrary, that if it were only that size it would be invisible unless nearer than the tops of the mountains, yet we see islands and hills projected against it when rising, which shows that its distance is greater. Dante twice quotes the same fallacy, as an instance of the folly of trusting to the impression of our senses, when not corrected by reason, and he tells us what he believes the true size of the sun to be.

In _Conv._ IV.[657] he says:—

“Thus we know that to most people the sun appears to be a foot wide in diameter; and this is so utterly false that according to the investigation and discovery made by human reason with her attendant arts, the diameter of the sun’s body is five times that of the earth’s, and a half besides. For whereas the earth has a diameter of six thousand five hundred miles, the diameter of the sun, which when measured by sense-impressions seems to be a foot in extent, is thirty-five thousand, seven hundred and fifty miles.” (See also _Ep._ x. 42-46).

When speaking of the planet Venus he says she is “far off from us, being distant even when she is nearest to us one hundred and sixty-seven times the distance of the distance of the centre of the earth from us, which is three thousand two hundred and fifty miles.”[658]

[657] _Conv._ IV. viii. 51-64.

[658] _Conv._ II. vii. 104-108. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mercury is spoken of in the _Paradiso_ as a small star, “Questa picciola stella,”[659] and in _Conv._ II.[660] Dante says:—“Mercury is the smallest star in the sky; for the length of its diameter is not more than 232 miles, according to Alfraganus, who says that it is one twenty-eighth of the diameter of the earth,[661] which is six thousand five hundred miles.”

[659] “This small star.” _Par._ vi. 112.

[660] _Conv._ II. xiv. 92-98.

[661] The Frankfort printed edition and some Latin MSS of Alfraganus agree with this: the edition of Golius gives ¹/₁₈. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is only in the last passage that our poet quotes his authority, but in the others also the diameter or the semi-diameter of the earth is used as the unit of measure, and it is the same as that given by Alfraganus; so are the sizes of Mercury and the Sun, and the least distance of Venus is the value given by Alfraganus for the greatest distance of Mercury, which he asserted to be equal. It seems quite clear, therefore, that the figures given in the tables on pp. 189-90 represent Dante’s belief as to the dimensions of the Universe. These passages also are another proof that Dante had not studied Ptolemy’s own work, for Ptolemy had said that the distances of Venus and Mercury could not be accurately known.[662]

[662] _Almagest_, Bk. IX. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We do not expect exact measures of distance in Dante’s descriptions of his soaring flight through the spheres, but he so constantly speaks of the marvellous speed with which he passes from star to star that we are not required to ignore the stupendous distances between. The one indication he does give us of the space which separates him from earth is full of poetry and symbolic meaning: I refer to Folco’s words in the heaven of Venus:—

“Questo cielo, in cui l’ombra s’appunta Che il vostro mondo face” ...[663]

[663] “This heaven, where ends the shadowy cone Cast by your world.” _Par._ ix. 118, 119. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the last of the three heavens in which Dante has met spirits whose lives did not reach the perfection of the saints in higher heavens, but were marred by broken vows, earthly ambition, earthly love; and here he is reminded that he has not yet soared high enough to be beyond reach of the cone of shadow thrown by the earth. This is another allegory resting on what was to the poet an astronomical fact. For Earth’s shadow was said by Ptolemy and Alfraganus to extend to 268 times the distance of her semi-diameter, and the distance of Venus from Earth varied, according to Alfraganus, between 167 and 1120 times this unit, while the next planet, the sun, at his least distance was 1120 units distant (the same as Venus’ greatest). Therefore the spheres of Venus and the two nearer planets Mercury and the Moon, were all within reach of Earth’s shadow, but the sun and the rest were far beyond it.[664] Venus and Mercury themselves never could be actually touched by the shadow like the moon, however, because they keep too near the sun for Earth to interpose herself between them and the source of light.

(Though the length of the shadow thrown by Earth is nearly accurate, see pp. 191-92, the planets are a great deal further than Alfraganus supposed; for the least distance of Venus is nearly 6000 times Earth’s semi-diameter, and the least distance of Mercury 12,000).

[664] Rabbi Abraham ben Chija, in his _Sphæra Mundi_, written about 1100 A.D., says that Earth’s shadow extends as far as the distance of Mercury, not of Venus (Delambre, _Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne_, and Dreyer, _Planetary Systems_); but this does not agree with the figures given by Alfraganus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Except for this we have only the passage in the _Paradiso_ already referred to, where Dante, standing among the stars of Gemini, found the sphere above him too distant to be seen, but turning his gaze downwards was able to survey all the planets and the earth at the centre of the World. He knew very well that at a distance from Earth 20,000 times her own semi-diameter it would be impossible to see her as a disc,[665] far less to distinguish oceans and continents, hills and river-mouths. It would in fact be like looking at an object one foot in diameter at a distance of two miles. But as we have before observed, his power of vision here was more than human: at every step in this marvellous journey it had grown clearer and stronger, and in the fourth heaven he had been able to look on spirits which shone in the sun more brilliantly than the sun itself, although on earth no eye can look upon the sun.[666]

In the Empyrean, distinctions of space, and impediments to vision vanished altogether.[667]

[665] Her diameter would look no larger than the diameter of Saturn, as we see it when nearest to him; but like Saturn she would be visible as a bright point, because shining by reflected sunlight. Ancient and mediæval astronomers never realized this, however, but thought of Earth as a dark body, receiving light but giving none.

[666] _Conv._ II. xiv. 126, 127; _Par._ x. 40-42, 48.

[667] _Par._ xxii. 67; xxxi. 19-24; xxx. 118-123. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

With regard to the physical nature of the heavenly bodies, Dante and his contemporaries had no means whatever of investigation, and could only profess ignorance or accept one or other of the guesses of their predecessors. Some of the Greek philosophers, as we saw, guessed that the planets were worlds somewhat like the earth, others thought they were composed of fire or of air. But the general belief in the thirteenth century was that planets and spheres alike were composed of a kind of celestial matter, called by Aristotle and the Greeks “æther,” by the Arabs “al-acir,” an immortal substance which had neither heaviness nor lightness, and was altogether distinct from any of the four elements existing below the sphere of the moon. Beatrice speaks of “this sphered ether,” “questo etera tondo.” _Par._ xxii. 132.

Dante’s description of this celestial substance when he first enters the ethereal world is one of the finest instances of his faithfulness to the teachings of astronomy as he had learned it, combined with poetical imagination, and at the same time his power of using material facts (as he conceived them) to present an allegory of the deepest religious mysteries. If we merely listen to the magic of the words, an impression is conveyed of something mysteriously beautiful and dazzling, unlike anything known on earth; but if we look into the meaning, we find that the globe of the moon has just those strange, contrasting qualities, just the colour and the form which a sphere of ether may be imagined to have. It is white and rounded like a pearl, “polished” as Plato said of the universal orb, it is thick and shining, soft as cloud but hard as diamond; and it offers no more resistance to Dante as he enters into it than does water to a ray of light.[668]

Then follows a discussion concerning the substance not only of the moon but of all the heavenly bodies. On hearing that he has reached the boundaries of the immortal world, and has entered “la prima stella,”[669] Dante eagerly enquires of Beatrice what are those dark markings in the body of this planet which are seen from Earth and have given rise to the fable of Cain. She smiles a little, and bids him tell her first what is his own opinion. He advances the theory which he had taught in the _Convivio_, viz. that the parts of the moon which look dark to us are less dense than the rest, and therefore the rays of the sun when striking them are not stopped and reflected back to us; hence the brightness is less than in other parts of her surface.

“L’ombra ch’ è in essa, ... non è altro che rarità del suo corpo, alla quale non possono terminare i raggi del sole e ripercuotersi così come nell’ altre parti.”[670]

[668] _Par._ ii. 25-45.

[669] “The first star.”

[670] “The shadow which is in her is nothing but rare parts of her substance, which cannot stop the rays of the sun and reflect them back like the other parts.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 72-76. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

This explanation seems to have been first suggested by Averroës, the Arab philosopher and astronomer of Cordova, who was known in the Middle Ages as “The Commentator,” from his famous commentary of Aristotle. The suggestion occurs in his _De Substantia Orbis_, and as it follows a quotation from Aristotle (to the effect that the moon is more nearly related to Earth in her nature than to the stars), it was believed by many to be originally due to Aristotle himself.

The strange circumstance that the moon alone, among all the heavenly bodies, appeared to have dark shadows on her bright face, had roused much curiosity already among the Greeks; and Plutarch, in his dialogue “On the Face in the Moon,” mentions the different explanations suggested in his day. Some thought that the polished surface of the moon reflected, like a mirror, parts of the earth; the Stoics said that air was enclosed within her globe of fire and obscured it in certain places, but this view was rejected with contumely by Plutarch.

“It is a slap in the face to the moon when they fill her with smuts and blacks, addressing her in one breath as Artemis and Athena, and in the very same describing a caked compound of murky air and charcoal fire, with no kindling or light of its own, a nondescript body smoking and charred like those thunderbolts which the poets address as lightless and sooty!”[671]

[671] Plutarch, _On the Face in the Moon_, translation by Prickard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The third hypothesis, which was favoured by most of the speakers in the dialogue, was that the moon was not a star at all, but a kind of more beautiful Earth; and it was even suggested that men might dwell on her who thought their world the only place fit for human beings, looking down with contemptuous pity on our Earth, as a sort of sediment and slime of the Universe, appearing through damps and mists and clouds, a place “unlighted, low, motionless,” entirely incapable of supporting moving breathing warm-blooded animals!

This was not a view which could possibly be held by mediæval Christians, and in a treatise on Aristotle’s _De Cœlo_, attributed to Albert of Saxony, we find others put forward. The author disproves the old theory of a mirror-like moon reflecting parts of Earth, and also another that the moon draws up cold vapours which are seen like clouds on her surface, and upon which she is nourished—for how should an eternal heavenly body need nourishment?—and finally he expounds the theory of “The Commentator,” with which he agrees. The markings are rare parts of the moon’s substance, which cannot shine so brightly as the denser parts, and this varied surface he compares with alabaster, in which “the dense and not translucent part is very white, while that which is translucent like glass is obscure and tends to blackness. And if,” he adds, “it is asked why the moon is thus dissimilar in her parts, the reply is that this is her nature.”[672]

[672] See Paget Toynbee, _Le Teorie Dantesche sulle Macchie della Luna_, in _Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana_, vol. xxvi. pp. 156-161. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

This theory was perhaps the most popular one with mediæval scholars, though there was some difference of opinion as to whether the dense or the rare parts of the moon were those that showed dark. Ristoro perhaps alludes to it, in the passage where he speaks of the moon’s markings, but in a very confused way, and the contrast of “polished” and “rugged” surface is what he chiefly lays stress upon.

After upholding this theory in the _Convivio_, Dante rejects it in the _Paradiso_: perhaps because it was more or less bound up with the idea that the moon was partly of an earthy nature, and this was inconsistent with the other theory of Aristotle, so popular among classical writers, that all within and above the sphere of the moon was eternal and heavenly. He is evidently very anxious to convince us of the falsity of his old belief, for he is not content with a simple assertion, but lets Beatrice reason like a learned doctor, using arguments which would appeal to his readers, drawn now from experiments which might be used in a school, and now from the accepted astrological beliefs of the day.

First she reminds him that the numerous stars scattered over the surface of the eighth sphere differ in brightness, like the different parts of the moon’s surface, but they differ in the quality (colour?) of their light, as well as the quantity, and we know that there are essential differences between them, because their “virtues” are different. It cannot be, therefore, that they differ simply in density or rarity of their substance.

Then she shows that in no circumstances is the theory of varying density in different parts of the moon capable of explaining the observed variety of brightness. For if the parts which look dark are less dense than others, either they must be so right through the planet, or there must be an alternation of dense and rare matter in those parts, like fat and lean in a material body, one behind the other like pages in a book. (The double metaphor is characteristic of Dante.) Now if the first be true, the sunlight would shine through the moon is those parts, during an eclipse;[673] and if the second, the sun’s rays must penetrate to the lower-lying denser part, and be reflected thence just as from the dense parts of the moon’s surface. A possible objection that in that case the reflecting surface would be further away, and therefore appear fainter, may be disproved by an experiment. Take two mirrors and place them at an equal distance from you; place a third between them but further away, face the three mirrors, and place a light behind you so that it may be reflected from them all: the distant one will appear smaller, but no less bright than the two near ones. This reasoning is perfectly sound.

Then follows the explanation for which all this is a preparation. It involves an exposition of ultimate causes which we need not enter into here: for the present we need only say that difference of brightness is not caused by differences of much or little of the same substance. There are intrinsic differences between star and star, and between different parts of the moon,[674] but all are manifestations of divine intelligence; just as the different members and faculties of a human body are manifestations of a human soul.

[673] Albert of Saxony notes this objection, but says the rarity is not sufficiently great to make these parts transparent.

[674] This is in agreement with modern belief. Some parts of the moon’s surface reflect sunlight less well than others, and therefore look dark, just as a peaty soil looks darker than limestone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The diversity of the celestial matter is also touched upon in the _Convivio_, where it is said that the epicycle of Venus is “not of the same essence as that which carries it [the deferent or large sphere], although it is more nearly of one nature with it than with the rest.”[675] Differences of colour are indicated in the glowing masses of the planets, which are entered by Dante and Beatrice. As with the moon, they do not merely alight upon the surface, but penetrate the planetary ether. “Quel ch’ era _dentro_ al sol,”[676] “Nel profondo Marte,”[677] “La temprata stella sesta, che _dentro a sè_ m’avea ricolto.”[678] Mercury is called a pearl—“la presente margarita”[679]—while Mars is “questo fuoco,”[680] and the astronomer poet says he knew the planet by its burning smile, for it seemed to him even more ruddy than its wont.

[675] _Conv._ II. iv. 94-96.

[676] “That which was _within_ the sun [_sc._ the spirits].” _Par._ x. 41.

[677] “In the depths of Mars.” _Par._ xiv. 100, 101.

[678] “The temperate sixth star, which _within itself_ had received me.” _Par._ xviii. 68, 69.

[679] “The present pearl.” _Par._ vi. 127.

[680] “This fire.” _Par._ xvi. 38.

“Ben m’ accors’ io ch’ io era più levato, Per l’affocato riso della stella, Che mi parea più roggio che l’usato.”[681]

[681] “Well was I ’ware that I was more uplifted By the enkindled smiling of the star That seemed to me more ruddy than its wont.” _Par._ xiv. 85-87. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

And when, without being conscious of any movement, he found that the red light shining on Beatrice had turned to purest white, like a blush fading from a fair face, he knew that the sixth star (Jupiter) had received him within itself.

“E quale è il trasmutare in picciol varco Di tempo, in bianca donna, quando il volto Suo si discarchi di vergogna il carco, Tal fu negli occhi miei, quando fui volto, Per lo candor della temprata stella Sesta, che dentro a sè m’avea ricolto.”[682]

[682] “And such as is the change, in little lapse Of time, in a pale woman, when her face Is from the load of bashfulness unladen, Such was it in mine eyes, when I had turned, Caused by the whiteness of the temperate star, The sixth, which to itself had gathered me.” _Par._ xviii. 64-69. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

This contrast between the colours of Jupiter and Mars is referred to more than once. In _Par._ xxvii., the flaming spirit of St. Peter, flushed with righteous indignation, becomes brilliant as the planet Jupiter, and red as Mars:—

“E tal nella sembianza sua divenne, Qual diverrebbe Giove, s’egli e Marte Fossero augelli, e cambiassersi penne.”[683]

[683] “He in semblance such became As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds, And interchanged their plumes.” _Par._ xxvii. 13-15. (_Carey_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

And when Dante looks down upon the seven planets he sees

“il temperar di Giove Tra il padre e il figlio.”[684]

[684] “The temperate light of Jove, between his father and his son.” _Par._ xxii. 145-146. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

To understand which we must turn to the oft-quoted fourteenth chapter of the second treatise in the _Convivio_. Here we find that Jupiter “moves between two heavens” which “are antagonistic to its excellent temperateness, that is to say the heavens of Mars and that of Saturn,”[685] and Dante quotes Ptolemy as saying that Jupiter is a star of temperate constitution, between the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars.

It seems that these ideas of cold and heat, as applied to the planets, were taken literally, not merely as poetical descriptions of colour, nor of astrological significance; for Dante says explicitly in the same chapter of the _Convivio_ that Mars is hot like fire, that this is the cause of his colour,[686] and that he dries up and burns things.[687]

[685] _Conv._ II. xiv. 196-198.

[686] _Cf._ Ristoro, _Comp. del Mondo_, III. iii.

[687] _Conv._ II. xiv. 161-165. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Similarly he appears to have believed that Saturn and the moon were literally of a cold nature. “Quel pianeta che conforta il gelo,”[688] in _Canzone_ xv. is doubtless Saturn; and the chill of the hour before dawn is described as due not only to loss of heat by the earth but sometimes also to the influence of the cold moon or of Saturn.[689]

Besides her shadowy markings, the moon had another peculiarity which distinguished her from all other heavenly bodies, for she was the only planet then known to vary in apparent size and shape “according to the way in which the sun looks upon her.”[690] She was therefore a very dark body, though it was believed that she had some light of her own, and Dante argues in favour of this that she does not become totally invisible during an eclipse.[691] This was a very natural conclusion: it would not readily occur to anyone that the reddish light of the eclipsed moon is sunlight refracted (_i.e._ bent out of its direct course) in passing through the earth’s atmosphere.

[688] “The planet that strengthens the cold.” _Canz._ xv. 7.

[689] _Purg._ xix. 1-3.

[690] _Conv._ II. xiv. 78, 79.

[691] _De Mon._ III. iv. 140-142. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun, although the astrologers made him not very much larger than the brightest fixed stars and the largest planets, was much brighter and hotter than any, and it was universally agreed that all obtained their light from him. Even if, like the Moon, they had some light of their own, and did not only reflect like mirrors, this inherent light had originally come from the sun and was but absorbed sunlight.[692] We meet constantly with this idea in Dante’s works. In one of his Odes the sun is said to “donar luce alle stelle;”[693] in the _Convivio_ he says, “Il sole ... di sensibile luce sè prima, e poi tutti i corpi celestiali ed elementali allumina.”[694] The Morning Star is described as deriving her beauty from the sun;[695] and after the sun has set he shines forth again in the light of all the stars.[696]

So also says Brunetto Latini, “Sans faille li solaus est fondemenz de toutès lumieres et de toute chalor.”

[692] See quotations from Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon in Moore’s _Studies_, iii. p. 45, _note_.

[693] “Bestow light on the stars.” _Canz._ xix. 117.

[694] “The sun illumines first himself and then all celestial and elemental bodies with visible light.” _Conv._ III. xii. 54-56.

[695] _Par._ xxxii. 107, 108.

[696] _Par._ xx. 1-6; compare xxiii. 28-30. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. INFLUENCE OF THE SPHERES ON HUMAN AFFAIRS.

If we are to believe a fifteenth century biographer, we have so far omitted to mention Dante’s greatest claim to be considered a proficient in astronomy. “He foretold,” says Filelfo, “many of the calamities of Florence, the wars of Italy, and other political changes, all of which would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of the movements of the celestial bodies.”

Filelfo was a poet, and his authority for this surprising statement can be no other than that on which, Dr. Moore says, he mainly depends, and which seldom or never fails him, “his own most airy and lively imagination unembarrassed by any references to documents.”[697] The prophecies of the _Divina Commedia_ are obviously written after the events, and in no single instance are they supposed to have any connection with the art of the astrologers. On the contrary, it is remarkable how very little we find in Dante’s writings about the fate-predicting and character-reading which passed as the chief part of astronomy with the large majority of his contemporaries, and played a considerable part even in the scientific writings of his fellow authors.

[697] Moore, _Dante and his early Biographers_, p. 95. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not that he disbelieved in the art: it would have been almost a miracle if he had. The astrologers in the fourth Bolgia were punished with other soothsayers not because they deceived credulous clients, but because they had desired to look too deeply into the future,[698] which was impiety. For this reason the learned Michael Scot, the honoured of Popes, was there, as well as poor Asdente, and Guido Bonatti, and Aruns who from his solitary cave had watched the stars, and prophesied the victories of Cæsar over Pompey.[699] This orthodox sentiment that “judicial astronomy,” was apt to be a snare, and lead to practices condemned by the Church, may have been one reason for Dante’s avoidance of it; but we cannot read his works without feeling that it was the beauty of the skies, and the keen desire to understand the structure of the universe which inspired him to study astronomy, and that he had no superstitious fear of the heavenly bodies, no greedy wish to make use of his knowledge to pry into the future. There is no evidence that he was acquainted with the details of astrology. The few allusions made in his works to special effects of certain stars or planets are only to those most familiarly known, and parallel instances might be found to many of them in modern poems. With this difference, however, that to-day they are figures of speech: with Dante they represented facts. Venus was to him in serious truth “la stella d’amor,”[700] “lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta,”[701] and exercised a real power over Folco[702] and Cunizza,[703] and his own heart.[704] He even tells us, in serious prose, that it is the planet and not the whole sphere, which is the source of this influence, and that it is borne to us upon her rays.[705] So also the moon has a special influence, which is communicated by her rays.[706]

[698] _Inf._ xx. 38.

[699] _Inf._ xx. 115-118, 46-51.

[700] “The star of love.” _Canz._ xv. 4.

[701] “The fair planet which incites to love.” _Purg._ i. 19.

[702] _Par._ ix. 94-96.

[703] _Par._ ix. 32, 33.

[704] _Conv._ II. _Canz._ 1-6.

[705] _Conv._ II. vii. 88-100.

[706] _De Mon._ III. iv. 139, 140. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the strong star of Mars the noble warlike nature of Can Grande was partly due;[707] Jupiter is a temperate star, not only in the purity of his colour, but his influence is felt where justice is worked on earth.[708] Saturn’s influence is modified when he shines in Leo,[709] the sun has special powers in Aries,[710] and to his presence in Gemini at the time of Dante’s birth the poet attributes his literary gift.[711] In _Inf._ xxvi. 23, he again suggests that his mental powers may be due to the influence of a good star, and Brunetto Latini bids him follow his star.[712]

Dante also quotes Albumassar, and Seneca, and the events of his own day, to show that those fiery vapours, meteorites, portend the death of kings and the downfall of states, adding that this is because they are effects of the sovereignty of Mars.[713] This passage explains why the warrior Malaspina is called a vapour drawn by Mars from Valdimagra, which in the tempest of battle at Piceno shall suddenly split the clouds and deal death to the combatants.[714]

[707] _Par._ xvii. 76-78.

[708] _Par._ xviii. 115-117.

[709] _Par._ xxi. 13-15.

[710] _Par._ i. 40-42; _Canz._ xv. 41.

[711] _Par._ xxii. 112-117. The Ottimo, commenting this passage, says that Gemini “is the house of Mercury, who signifies, according to the astrologers, literature, science, and learning. And in this direction it disposes those who are born when it is in the ascendant, and more powerfully if the sun is in it.”

[712] _Inf._ xv. 55.

[713] _Conv._ II. xiv. 170-180.

[714] _Inf._ xxiv. 145-150. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The results of the right disposition of sphere with sphere are spoken of in _Canz._ xix. 77-79; all the nine were in perfect accord when Beatrice, herself a nine or miracle of perfection, was to be born;[715] and every star rained its light and its virtue into her beautiful eyes.[716] There is also a charming sonnet, in which the poet tells us how all the seven planets influence his lady.

[715] _V. N._ xxx. 22-24.

[716] _Ball._ vi. 11, 12.

“Da quella luce che il suo corso gira Sempre al volere dell’ empiree sarte, E stando regge tra Saturno e Marte, Secondo che l’astrologo ne spira; Quella che in me col suo piacere aspira, D’essa ritragge signorevol arte: E quei che dal ciel quarto non si parte Le dà l’effetto della mia desira. Ancor quel bel pianeta di Mercuro Di sua virtute sua loquela tinge, E ’l primo ciel di sè già non l’è duro. Colei, che ’l terzo ciel di sè costringe Il cor le fa d’ogni eloquenza puro; Così di tutti e sette si dipinge.”[717]

[717] “From that bright star which moveth on its way For ever at the Empyrean’s will, And between Mars and Saturn ruleth still, E’en as the expert astrologer doth say, She who inspires me with her beauty’s ray Doth subtle art of sovereignty distil; And he whose glory doth the fourth heaven fill Gives her the power my longing soul to sway. And that fair planet known as Mercury Colours her speech with all its virtue rare, And the first heaven its boon does not deny. She who the third heaven ruleth as her share Makes her heart full of utterance pure and free; So all the seven to perfect her agree.” _Sonnet_ xxviii. (_Plumptre_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In more serious vein is the discourse in _Par._ ii. on the different virtues of the different stars;[718] and this should be compared with passages in the _Quæstio_ and the _Convivio_. “Sciendum quod licet cœlum stellatum habeat unitatem in substantia, habet tamen multiplicitatem in virtute,”[719] sounds like an echo of the words of Beatrice:

[718] _Par._ ii. 64-72, 130 to end.

[719] “It should be borne in mind that although the starry heaven has unity in substance it nevertheless has multiplicity in virtue.” _Qu._ xxi. 12-14.

“Così l’intelligenza sua bontate Multiplicata per le stelle spiega, Girando sè sopra sua unitate.”[720]

[720] “ ... E’en so The intellectual efficacy unfolds Its goodness multiplied throughout the stars, On its own unity revolving still.” _Par._ ii. 136-138. (_Carey_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

And when comparing Nobility with the star-spangled sky, our author says:

“Tante sono le sue stelle che nel cielo si stendono, che certo non è da maravigliare, se molti e diversi frutti fanno nella umana Nobiltà, _tante sono le nature e le potenze di quelle, in una sotto una semplice sustanza comprese e adunate_, nelle quali siccome in diversi rami fruttifica diversamente.”[721]

[721] “So many are the stars which spread themselves over her sky, that surely we cannot wonder if they make many and diverse fruits grow on human nobility, _so many are their natures and potencies, concentrated and united in one simple substance_; and on them as on diverse branches she bears fruit in diverse ways.” _Conv._ IV. xix. 45-52. (_Jackson_).

See also _Conv._ IV. xxi. 62-66. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The author goes on to say in the _Quæstio_ that the many and diverse stars which we see in the eighth heaven were placed there in order that it might pour down diverse virtues, and that he who perceives this not, let him know that he is outside the pale of philosophy.[722] In another place he tells us that the nearer a star is to the mid-circle of the star sphere, the greater is its virtue:[723] he no doubt means, not the celestial equator, but the zodiac (or more exactly the ecliptic), since this was the mid-circle of the star sphere, parallel to which its slow revolution of 36,000 years was made. This would agree with the view of the astrologers, who paid more attention to the constellations of the zodiac than to any others.

[722] _Qu._ xxi. 17-19.

[723] _Conv._ II. iv. 75-77. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

But we may search all Dante’s works in vain for any reference to the “houses” or “aspects” of the planets, or for any information about the masculine and feminine, mobile and stable, signs. All such things, which seemed to most writers of his day quite as important as the periods of the planets or the positions of the signs, he entirely ignores. Among the circumlocutions by which he describes the signs, such as “the fair nest of Leda,” or “the sign that follows Taurus,” we never find “the house of Saturn,” or “the sign in which Mars is mildest.” Leo is called Mars’ own Lion, probably because the “leo audax et ferox” of bestiaries agreed with the fiery colour and nature of Mars:[724] astrologically, his signs were Scorpio and Aries. It is quite astonishing that among all the characteristics of the planets and spheres mentioned in _Convivio_ II. chapters xiv. and xv., only two relate to astrology, namely, the temperate disposition of Jupiter between the hot Mars and cold Saturn, and the power of Mars to draw up the hot vapours which become meteors and portend the deaths of kings. All the rest—the markings and phases of the moon, the small size and proximity to the sun of Mercury, the beauty of Venus and her appearance alternately as morning and evening star, the brilliance of the sun and his capability of giving light to all the stars, the position of the sphere of Mars midway between those of the other planets, the purity of Jupiter’s colour, the slow movement and distance of Saturn—all these are purely astronomical, to use the modern distinction. So also are the characters of the star sphere—the thousand and twenty-two visible stars, and the indistinguishable stars of the Galaxy, the pole we see and the other which remains hidden, the conspicuously swift diurnal movement and the almost imperceptible secular revolution of 36,000 years. Of the Primum Mobile it is remarked that it controls the movement of all the rest, and of the Empyrean that it is full of peace.

[724] But see Tozer’s _English Commentary on Dante’s Divina Commedia_, note on _Par._ xvi. 37. “In mediæval astrology Mars was one of the Lords of the Lion.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The symbolism of the spheres assigned in Paradise to the different saints is partly drawn from astrological ideas, for in Venus Dante meets the lovers, in Mars the warriors, in Jupiter the just rulers. But those who were not eternally faithful to their vows are in the moon because she has the lowest sphere,[725] the contemplative saints are in the highest planet, the theologians who enlightened the faithful are in the sun, and the ambitious are in the little planet which ever keeps closest to the sun. The heaven of “many and diverse stars” shows the poet a host of saints, and the Primum Mobile, which controls the movement of the other spheres, reveals to him the Angels who direct them.

It seems, then, that Dante was not interested in technical astrology, and had never made a study of it; and I think we may adduce this additional evidence that he had not learned astronomy in a university, or under Cecco d’Ascoli. It is only necessary to look at the list of books prescribed at Bologna[726] to feel sure that Dante had not taken a regular course there. The list, it is true, belongs to a somewhat later time, but there is no reason to suppose that astrology became of more importance in the late fourteenth century than at its beginning.

[725] _Par._ iii. 55-57.

[726] See p. 202. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nevertheless, however little Dante may have cared for the details of astrology, we shall never understand all that the skies meant to him unless we realize that a general belief in their influence on man was deeply rooted in his mind. For him it was a tremendous fact, and one which pervades his writings, that stars and spheres are the instruments of God’s providence, and are ordained by the First Mover to mould the destinies of Earth.[727] It is their movements which manifest His Will;[728] they are the hammers,[729] earth the metal, they are the seals,[730] and earth the wax.

[727] _De Mon._ II. ii. 15-18, 25, 26, 36-38; III. ii. 30-32; xvi. 91-101; _Ep._ v. 133-135; _Par._ ii. 121, viii. 97-99.

[728] _Ep._ v. 124, 125.

[729] _Par._ ii. 127, 128.

[730] _Par._ ii. 130-132; xiii. 73-75; viii. 127, 128; i. 41, 42. Ristoro of Arezzo uses the same expression, _Comp. del Mondo_, Bk. VII.