Paradiso (114 page)

129.
   The “left-hand care” reflects the traditional link between left- and right-handedness as reflecting, respectively, “sinister” (the Latin word for “left”) and positive purposes. The former here signifies “worldly concerns.” Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 127–141) does not attempt to
banish cares of the world from the curate’s interest, but does say that he does not (and must not) treat them as having the same importance as issues related to eternal life.
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130.
   Illuminato and Augustino were among Francis’s earliest followers. The first was a nobleman from Rieti, who accompanied him on his voyage to Egypt. Augustino was a townsman of Francis and eventually became head of a chapter of the order in Terra di Lavoro. Neither one of them is particularly associated with knowledge, which causes Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 130–132) to wonder why these two
homines ignorantes
were included here. He goes on to admire Dante’s subtlety in doing so, for they, if not great intellects themselves, helped others to become, by their labor and example, more wise.

It was only in 1960 that a commentator on this verse (Mattalia), responding to a number of Dantists who raised the issue, suggested that a predictable reaction in one who is reading this line might very well be: “But that’s not Saint Augustine of Hippo; where is he in all this?” (And we have to wait for
Paradiso
XXXII.35 to find that he is indeed among the blessed; see the note to that tercet.) For the last time he was named, see
Paradiso
X.120, but without mention of his eventual fate. Is it possible that Dante is playing a game with us? He mentions the actual St. Augustine in the last canto, where we might have expected to find him, among other theologians in the Sun; he now mentions a saved soul named “Augustine” who is not he but who
is
here. Both these gestures lead us to contemplate the possibility that Dante is teasing us. There will be some speculation as to his reasons for doing so in a note to
Paradiso
XXXII.34–36, a passage that situates Augustine among the inhabitants of the celestial Rose.
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132.
   See the note to
Paradiso
XI.87 for the
capestro
as signal of adherence to the Franciscan Order.
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133.
   “Hugh of St. Victor, celebrated mystic and theologian of the beginning of cent. xii; he was born near Ypres in Flanders c. 1097 or, as some believe, at Hartingham in Saxony, and was educated during his early years in the monastery of Hammersleben near Halberstadt in Saxony; in 1115 he removed to the abbey of St. Victor near Paris, which had recently been founded by William of Champeaux, the preceptor of Abelard, and which during cent. xii was a centre of mysticism; he became one of the canons-regular of the abbey, and was in 1130 appointed to the chair of theology, which he held until his death in 1141, his reputation being so great that he was known as ‘alter Augustinus’ [a second Augustine] and ‘lingua Augustini’
[Augustine’s tongue]. He was the intimate friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, and among his pupils were Richard of St. Victor and Peter Lombard. His writings, which are very numerous, and are characterized by great learning, are frequently quoted by Thomas Aquinas”
(T)
.
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134.
   Petrus Comestor (
comestor
is the Latin word for “eater” and was the nickname that Peter was given by his fellow priests because of his tremendous appetite for books), “priest, and afterwards dean, of the cathedral of Troyes in France, where he was born in the first half of cent. xii; he became canon of St. Victor in 1164, and chancellor of the University of Paris, and died at St. Victor in 1179, leaving all his possessions to the poor. His chief work was the
Historia scholastica
, which professed to be a history of the Church from the beginning of the world down to the times of the apostles”
(T)
.
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134–135.
   “Petrus Hispanus (Pedro Juliani), born at Lisbon, c. 1225, where he at first followed his father’s profession of medicine; he studied at Paris, probably under Albertus Magnus; subsequently he was ordained and became (1273) archbishop of Braga; in 1274 he was created cardinal bishop of Tusculum (Frascati) by Gregory X; on Sept. 13, 1276, he was elected pope, under the title of John XXI, at Viterbo, in succession to Adrian V; he died May 20, 1277, after a reign of a little more than eight months, his death being caused by the fall of the ceiling of one of the rooms in his palace at Viterbo” (T). His manual of logic, the
Summulae logicales
, in twelve books, had a large audience.

That Dante calls no attention whatsoever to the fact that Peter was a pope (if very briefly) has caught the attention of many commentators. For the “scorecard” of the perhaps twelve popes who, in Dante’s opinion, were saved (and the probably larger number who were damned), see the note to
Inferno
VII.46–48. John XXI is the last saved pope mentioned in the poem.
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136.
   “Nathan, the prophet, who was sent by God to reprove David for his sin in causing the death of Uriah the Hittite in order that he might take Bathsheba to wife”
(T)
.

For Nathan as
figura Dantis
and the question of why he, a relatively minor prophet, is given such high relief in this poem, see Sarolli (Saro.1971.1), pp. 189–246.
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136–137.
   “St. John Chrysostom (i.e., in Greek his name means ‘golden-mouthed’), celebrated Greek father of the Church, born at Antioch c.
345, died at Comana in Pontus, 407. He belonged to a noble family, and was first a lawyer; he afterward became a monk, in which capacity he so distinguished himself by his preaching that the Emperor Arcadius appointed him (in 398) patriarch of Constantinople. His severity toward the clergy in his desire for reform made him an object of hatred to them, and led to his deposition (403) at the instance of Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, and the Empress Eudoxia, whose excesses he had publicly rebuked. Sentence of exile was pronounced against him, but the people, to whom he had endeared himself by his preaching, rose in revolt, and he was reinstated in his office. Shortly afterward, he was again banished (404), and he finally died in exile on the shores of the Black Sea. He left nearly 1,000 sermons or homilies as evidence of his eloquence”
(T)
.
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137.
   “Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, 1093–1109; he was born at Aosta in Piedmont in 1033, and in 1060, at the age of 27, he became a monk in the abbey of Bec in Normandy, whither he had been attracted by the fame of Lanfranc, at that time prior; in 1063, on the promotion of Lanfranc to the abbacy of Caen, he succeeded him as prior; fifteen years later, in 1078, on the death of Herluin, the founder of the monastery, he was made abbot, which office he held till 1093, in that year he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury by William Rufus, in succession to Lanfranc, after the see had been vacant for four years; in 1097, in consequence of disputes with William on matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, he left England for Rome to consult the pope, and remained on the Continent until William’s death in 1100, when he was recalled by Henry I; he died at Canterbury, April 21, 1109; canonized, in 1494, by Alexander VI”
(T)
.
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137–138.
   “Aelius Donatus, Roman scholar and rhetorician of cent. iv, said to have been the tutor of Jerome; he was the author of a commentary on Virgil (now lost, but often alluded to by Servius), and of another on Terence, but his most famous work was an elementary Latin grammar,
Ars Grammatica
in three books; part of this work, the
Ars minor
, or
De octo partibus orationis
, served as a model for subsequent similar treatises. Owing to the popularity of this work in the Middle Ages it was one of the earliest books, being printed even before the invention of movable type—the name of its author became a synonym for grammar, just as Euclid for geometry”
(T)
.

Donatus was the “people’s grammarian” in that his
Ars
, unlike Priscian’s (see
Inf.
XV.109), kept grammar as simple as possible. And grammar was itself the “first art” in the sense that it was the first subject taught to children, the first of the seven liberal arts. Thus his “intellectual humility”
may have, in Dante’s mind, paralleled that of Illuminato and Augustino. Both the Ottimo (comm. to these verses) and John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 136–138) cite the
incipit
of the work: “Ianua sum rudibus” (I am the doorway through which the unlettered may pass [to learning]).
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139.
   Rabanus Maurus was “born at Mainz of noble parents, c. 776; while quite a youth he entered the monastery at Fulda, where he received deacon’s orders in 801; he shortly after proceeded to Tours to study under Alcuin, who in recognition of his piety and diligence gave him the surname of Maurus, after St. Maurus (d. 565), the favourite disciple of St. Benedict. He was ordained priest in 814, and after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land returned to Fulda in 817, where he became abbot in 822. He held this office for twenty years until 842, when he retired in order to devote himself more completely to religion and literature. Five years later, however, he was appointed to the archbishopric of Mainz, which he held until his death in 856. Rabanus, who was considered one of the most learned men of his time, wrote a voluminous commentary on the greater portion of the Bible, and was the author of numerous theological works …”
(T)
. And see Nicolò Mineo, “Rabano Mauro,”
ED
IV (1973), pp. 817–18. Most are content with the traditional identification of the ninth-century biblical commentator; however, for the view that this Rabanus is not Maurus but Anglicus, see Lerner (Lern.1988.1), pp. 631–32.
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140–141.
   Joachim of Flora “appears to have enjoyed in his own day, and long afterwards, a reputation for prophetic power”; hence Bonaventure speaks of him as “di spirito profetico dotato,” words which are said to be taken verbatim from the anthem still chanted on the Festival of St. Joachim in the churches of Calabria.

“Joachim was born c. 1145 at Celico, about 4 miles NE. of Cosenza in Calabria. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and on his return to Italy became a monk, entering (c. 1158) the Cistercian monastery of Sambucina. In 1177 he was made abbot of Corazzo in Calabria. In 1185, Pope Urban III appointed a deputy abbot in order that Joachim might have leisure to devote himself to his writings. In 1189 Joachim founded a monastery, San Giovanni in Fiore in the forest of the Sila among the mountains of Calabria, whence he was named ‘de Floris.’ From this institution, the rule of which was sanctioned by Celestine III in 1196, ultimately sprang the so-called Ordo Florensis (absorbed by the Cistercians, 1505). Joachim died c. 1202”
(T)
.

On Dante’s relationships with Joachim’s work and various of its followers, see Calvet (Calv.2001.1). And see Nardi (Nard.1965.1).

Veglia (Vegl.2000.1), p. 71, points out that Averroës (
Inf.
IV.144), Siger (
Par.
X.136), and Joachim is each the last figure in a group (fortieth, twelfth, and twelfth, respectively); they have in common the surprise generated by their presence in these groups.

Rather than attempting, as some do, to “Franciscanize” this second circle in the Sun (while “Dominicanizing” the first in Canto X), Botterill (Bott.1995.1), p. 184, speaks of (and he is also referring to the first circle, seen in
Par.
X) the “images of celebration, reconciliation, and harmony” that typify this entire heaven.
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142.
   There has been dispute over the reference of
paladino
, but most today seem content to believe that it refers to Dominic, rather than to Francis, Thomas, or Joachim. See Scotti (Scot.1987.1), p. 257n.

On the verb
inveggiar
, see Singleton (comm. to this verse): “The most plausible interpretation would seem to be that
inveggiar
, deriving from
invidiare
, to envy, would mean (as does its Provençal equivalent
envejar
) to envy in a good sense, hence to praise.”
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143–145.
   It has long been observed that Dante constructed these two cantos so as to make them reflect one another in a thoroughgoing way. See the chart offered by Bosco/Reggio (who at times seem to be forcing the details to fit) for the parallel elements in Cantos XI and XII (numbers in parentheses refer to the number of
terzine
dedicated to each subject; square brackets contain one element not included in their table):

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