Dante -born in 1265 -died in 1321
Domenico di Michelino -1465 Santa Maria del Fiore, Firenze
Florence
ITALY AND TUSCANY
Dante’s house in Florence
The Baptistery in Florence where
Dante was baptized was the
cathedral at that time.
The dome of the Baptistery is covered with mosaics,
which depict devils, angels, and after death punishments.
• Santa Maria del Fiore
• built between 1296 and 1436
Santa Maria del Fiore,
cupola (1420-1434)
• Dante was born in 1265 in Florence.
• As a young man in 1289, he fought in the
battle of Campaldino which marked the
victory of Dante’s Guelph party.
• In 1295 he began his political career.
• He was exiled from Florence (Firenze) in
1302.
• He started writing the Divine Comedy in
1306 when he was in exile.
• He died in 1321 in Ravenna.
Dante’s Statue in
Florence
Santa Croce, S. Croce, Firenze, Italy; 1294-1442; by Arnolfo di Cambio
Firenze - Ponte Vecchio
What Florence and New Orleans
have in common:
giglio – symbol of Florence
The year 1300
• Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the Jubilee Year.
• Dante is 35 years old.
• June 15-August 14: Dante is named a Prior, one
of the six highest magistrates in Florence.
• Easter time: Fictional date of the journey of the
Divine Comedy
• Beginning of the factional struggles between the
Cerchi and the Donati (Bianchi and Neri)
Tuscany
The Guelphs supported the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Boniface VIII sent Charles of Valois
to Florence in 1300 to end the feud
between the Black and White Guelphs. In
1302 Dante was exiled.
The statue of Boniface VIII is
at The Museum of the Opera
del Duomo in Florence.
The Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Empire.
The castle of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is located in Prato,
just north of Florence. It was built between 1237 and 1248.
Political Division in Tuscany
•In Florence the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which
represented rival families, fought from 1215 to 1278
when Florence became the head of the Guelph league
in Tuscany.
•Siena was Ghibelline, because it sought the support of
the emperor against the Florentines and against the
rebellious nobles of its own territory.
•Lucca was Guelph because it needed the protection of
Florence.
•Prato was Guelph
•Pisa was Ghibelline
•Arezzo was Ghibelline
The political parties in Florence and Tuscany
•
•
•
•
The Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Empire.
The Guelphs supported the papal party.
The two parties fought between 1215 and 1278.
The Guelph party took over.
– Dante was a Guelph (Guelfo).
• Around 1300 the Guelphs split into Blacks (Neri) and
Whites (Bianchi).
• The Whites opposed the tyrannical power of the Pope
and started siding with the Ghibellines.
• Dante was a White.
• The Whites ruled until 1302.
• While Dante was sent as an ambassador to the Pope, the
Blacks took control of the city.
• He could not return to Florence.
SIENA was ghibelline, therefore enemy of Florence
The Cathedral of Siena
Arezzo was Ghibelline.
In Canto XXIX Dante
meets Griffolino of
Arezzo, who was
punished for alchemy.
Prato, located close
to Florence, was
and still is an
important industrial
town for the
manufacturing of
textiles.
The Cathedral of Prato
• Pisa, a
stronghold of
the Ghibellines,
was a powerful
maritime
republic at war
with the Guelph
league and with
Genoa.
Lucca
• Etruscan origin
• Wealthy on silk and banking
• Mantained its independence
Pistoia, a ghibelline town, was overtaken by Florence’s
Guelph party in 1254. In cantos XXIV, 97 and XXV, 1
Dante mentions Vanni Fucci, a black Guelph who stole
holy objects from the Cathedral in Pistoia.
May 7 1300: Dante is sent as ambassador to San Gimignano to
persuade its citizens to join the Guelph party.
San Gimignano
San Gimignano
PIENZA
Tuscan countryside
Inferno XIII –” the wilds between Cecina and Corneto “
Once an undeveloped marshy area along the southern part of Tuscany, after a
project of land reclamation, it is today one of the most beautiful unspoiled
areas in Italy.
Tuscan coast in Maremma
PRATO
Dante’s Tomb in Ravenna
CANTO 1
Lost in a wood, Dante
meets a leopard, a lion,
and a wolf who block
his path. The leopard is
the symbol of lust or
excessive passion,
the lion of pride and
violence, and the
she-wolf of fraud
and betrayal.
The First Circle or Limbo
• Here the innocents will remain forever with
no hope of ever seeing God.
• Dante and Virgil join in conversation the
great poets of the classical times: Homer,
Horace, Ovid, and Lucan.
• It is a rather pleasant landscape with light
and green meadows, like the Elysian
Fields described by Virgil in the Aeneid.
Charon ferrying the souls across the Acheron to
the first circle
Michelangelo
Charon (detail from the Last Judgement, Sistine Chapel), 1536-41
Upper Hell and the Sins of
Incontinence
• Second Circle
– Lust: Paolo and Francesca
• Third Circle
– Gluttony: Ciacco
• Fourth Circle
– Avarice and prodigality: Popes and cardinals
• Fifth Circle
– Wrath: Filippo Argenti
The Styx and Phlegyas
Sixth Circle: the Heretics
• This is the first
circle inside the
City of Dis.
• Farinata and
Cavalcante are
punished here by
burning forever in
open coffins.
Illustration by William Blake
The river of
boiling blood:
the Phlegethon
(Salvador Dali’)
The Seventh Circle
• Here the violent are punished in three rings.
• 1) Violent Against their Neighbors (tyrants and murderers). These
souls are plunged into a river of boiling blood: the river Phlegethon.
They are watched over by the Centaurs.
• 2) Violent against Themselves (suicides). It is an unnatural forest
with leafless trees. These trees are the souls of the suicides. Dante
talks to Pier delle Vigne, personal secretary of Frederick II. The
trees have no leaves because the Harpies keep plucking them as
they sprout. Among the trees Dante sees the souls of the
squanderers, chased by bitches.
• 3) Violent against God and Nature. These ring is divided into three
zones: blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. Virgil talks to
Capaneus stricken by Zeus's bolt for his rebellion. Then Dante talks
to his teacher Brunetto Latini, and later he sees three Florentines,
at the edge of the circle. The usurers who have sinned against
God’s laws of nature are also punished here.
Canto XIV, 79-80
From the Phlegethon, small streams pour out, like the
sulphurous waters of the Bulicame near Viterbo, north
of Rome…
Inferno (xviii, 29) - Dante compares the
sinners passing along one of the
bridges of the Malebolge in opposite
directions, to the crowds crossing the
bridge of the Castel Sant' Angelo on
their way to and from St. Peter's in
Rome during the Holy year of Jubilee
in 1300
Castel Sant’ Angelo
Le Malebolge
The eight circle of hell is divided into ten sections.
Each “bolgia” is a depression in the ground similar
to a ditch. The “bolge” are connected by bridges
that span over the ditch and lower to the next level.
Canto 18 - Le malebolge
There is a place in hell, called Malebolge,
All of stone and iron of color,
Like the circle that all around surrounds it.
In the very middle of the evil field
Appears a well, rather large and deep.
Of whose location I will explain.
That circle which remains, then, is round
Between the well and the foot of the tall hard wall
And the bottom is divided into ten valleys.
Just as, where to protect the walls
Many and more ditches surround castles,
The part where they are, makes a figure,
Same image here those were forming:
And like in these forts from their ramparts
Small bridges go to the outside shore,
So from the rock juts are projected to connect the levees and the ditches,
Until the well which cuts and connects them.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
First bolgia – The Panderers and Seducers
Second bolgia – The Flatterers
Third bolgia – the Simoniacs
The Fourth bolgia – the Fortunetellers
Fifth bolgia –The Barrators or grafters
Sixth bolgia – the Hypocrites
Seventh bolgia – the Thieves
Eighth bolgia – The Evil counselors
Ninth bolgia – The Spreader of discord
Tenth bolgia – the Falsifiers
»
»
»
»
Of metals
Of persons
Of coins
Of words
• Bertrand de Born
exemplifies the
law of
contrapasso in
canto 28.
The contrapasso
• The punishment fits the crime. The souls
are condemned to endure the perpetuation
of their behavior or its opposite.
• For example, the Fortunetellers have
their heads on backwards and must walk
"backwards" for all time. In life, they
attempted to "see" the future, now in death
they must see the past.
Dante compares the giants who guard the ninth circle to the castle of Monteriggioni
outside Siena (Inferno canto XXXI, vv. 40-45 )
Canto 31 – The Giants
Bologna’s Towers
“della Garisenda and Degli Asinelli”
Dante compared Anteus to the Garisenda
The ninth circle is divided into four sections.
•Round 1: Caina (those who betrayed their relatives)
•Round 2: Antenora (those who betrayed their country)
•Round 3: Ptolomea (those who betrayed their guests)
•Round 4: Judecca (those who betrayed their benefactors)
Pisa and Count Ugolino
• Pisa was a town divided between power of the
church and state.
• To obtain power Count Ugolino, a Ghibellin,
betrayed his party.
• By siding with the Guelphs, he gained control of
the city.
• Ruggieri was an archbishop who at first
supported count Ugolino, but then betrayed him.
• Count Ugolino was imprisoned with his children
and let die of starvation.
PISA LUNGARNO
TORRE DELL’ OROLOGIO IN PISA
Canto 30 CONTE UGOLINO was imprisoned here and let die of starvation
PISA
William Blake
Inferno's characters from history and arts,
from mythology, from Dante's real life
• The guardians of Hell
• Dante’s contemporaries
• Historical figures and literary characters
Dante’s contemporaries
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Beatrice – personifies “pure and absolute love”
Ciacco – the glutton who must have known Dante
Paolo and Francesca - two lovers who were killed by the Francesca’s husband
Filippo Argenti – a Black Guelph, Dante’s enemy, found among the Wrathful in the
river Styx.
Farinata - A prominent leader of the Ghibelline party who saved Florence from
destruction when the Ghibellines won in 1260. He is punished among the heretics.
Cavalcante de’Cavalcanti - father of Dante’s friend, Guido de Cavalcanti
Pier della Vigna - Former advisor to Emperor Frederick II who committed suicide
when he fell into disfavor at the court.
Brunetto Latini – a poet and political leader whose ideas influenced Dante
Pope Boniface VIII - Dante’s enemy accused of simonism
The Navarrese barrator - who tricks the devils causing them to fall in the sticky tar
Vanni Fucci - of the Black party, a thief punished in the Seventh Pouch of the Eighth
Circle of Hell who prophesies the defeat of the White Guelphs.
Guido da Montefeltro - A Ghibellin advisor to Pope Boniface VIII
Bertran de Born (1140-1215): was a troubadour poet who carries his decapitated
head by the hair
Geri del Bello - Dante's cousin, a troublemaker who caused the feud with the
Sacchetti family
Gianni Schicchi – impersonated Buoso Donati, who had just died, and dictated a
new will in favor of Buoso’s nephew Simone.
Count Ugolino - betrayed Pisa and was betrayed by the Archbishop Ruggeri
who shares his punishment in the lowest circle of hell
Characters from history or literary works
• Pope Celestine V: Became Pope in 1294. Withdrew from the world
and renounced the papacy, allowing Boniface to become pope. He
is with the “uncommitted.”
• The poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan in Limbo
• The philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Limbo
• Dido, Achilles, Helen, Paris among the lustful
• Attila and Alexander among the tyrants
• Tiresias and Chalcas among the soothsayers
• Ulysses and Diomedes among the False Counselors
• Mohammed who caused the division between Christianity and Islam
• Caiaphas: Jewish high priest; head of council which condemned
Jesus.
• Sinon the Greek who lied to persuade the Trojans to bring the
wooden horse inside the town
• Judas who betrayed Jesus
• Brutus and Cassius who betrayed Cesar
The Guardians of Hell
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Charon (circle 1)
Minos (circle 2)
Cerberus (circle 3)
Plutus (circle 4)
Phlegyas (circle 5)
The Furies (circle 6)
The Centaurs and the Minotaur (circle 7)
The Harpies (circle 7, ring 2)
Geryon (circle 8)
The Giants (circle 9)
At the beginning of second circle
Minos judges the souls and assigns them to their place.
Cerberus, the three-headed dog guards the
gluttons punished in the third circle.
Plutus, Roman god of wealth
William Blake 1757-1827
Phlegyas is the ferry man who transports Dante
across the river Styx in the fifth ring of hell.
The Furies
• They guard the gates of the city of Dis at the
sixth circle.
• They have serpents in their hair.
The Centaurs, guardians of the 7th circle where the
violent are punished
Floor Mosaic in Ostia Antica
The Minotaur also in the seventh circle 7
A bull-headed
man who
lived in Crete
He was
imprisoned in
the Labyrinth
and killed by
Theseus
The Harpies (7th circle)
• Half women- half birds
Geryon
A monster who helps
Dante and Virgil to
reach the eight circle by
carrying them on his
back
Canto 31- The Giants
Botticelli
His face appeared to
me as long and large
As is at Rome the pinecone of Saint Peter's…
(Inferno, Canto XXXI)
The bronze pinecone is located in one of the Vatican’s courtyards.
Map of he
Purgatorio
Map of Paradiso
Dante and the Italian Language
The poetry
The Divina Commedia is composed in terza
rima, a three-line stanza called terzina,which
uses chain rhyme in the pattern
a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d.
Each line contains eleven syllables.
Therefore each terzina contains 33
syllables.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.
Terzina
Nel /mez/zo /del /cam/min /di /no/stra/ vi/ta
mi /ri/ tro/vai/ per/ una/ sel/va/ o/scu/ra
Ché/ la/ di/rit/ta/ vi/a/ era/ smar/ri/ta.
The language of the Divine Comedy
Dante’s use of his native Tuscan dialect in
The Comedy helped to unify the Italian language,
which is rooted in Tuscan more than in any other
Italian dialect. Before Dante, major literary works
were almost always written in Latin, the language
of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church; no
one had considered the vernacular capable of
poetic expression of the caliber of Virgil’s Aeneid,
for example.
In defense of this language Dante
wrote De Vulgari Eloquentia.
Dante himself felt compelled to defend the
legitimacy of literature written in the mother tongue
in his treatise De Vulgari Eloquentia
("Of Literature in the Vernacular," 1304-1306).
Paradoxically, Dante wrote this treatise defending
the literary legitimacy of the vernacular in Latin, not
Italian, because he wanted it to be taken
seriously!