indrasmusings

Filippo Agricola – Dante e Beatrice – Istituto Centrale per la Storia del Risorgimento, Rome – sd

‘Look over here! I am, I truly am Beatrice’ (‘Guardaci ben! Ben son, ben son Beatrice!’, Pur XXX, 73). With these words that echo the false, luring song of the siren (‘I am, I am the sweet siren’, ‘Io son, io son la dolce serena’, Pur XIX, 19) Beatrice introduces herself.

For Dante this is an important moment. The girl he had loved since his youth and then had tragically died at a young age is right in front of him. In the poems of his Vita Nuova Dante went through a roller coaster of emotions marked by adolescent love and self-pity. Now he writes again of Beatrice, but not Beatrice as a beautiful woman from Florence but rather as cosmic force, prefiguring Christ.

It is this role of Beatrice as Christ, that makes it better understandable what happens next. After their long separation the reader -and Dante the pilgrim- are expecting that Beatrice will warmly and lovingly welcome Dante. But there is none of that here. Beatrice only has a stern reprimand for him. Dante feels like a child, ashamed and afraid of evoking the anger of this mother-like figure. Again, the poet conjures up a vivid emotion that is universally human and we truly feel for him.

Beatrice continues to accuse Dante and confronts him with his former sins and how he had let himself be tempted by someone else. Finally, Dante breaks out in tears. By recognizing that he was at fault, Dante has started his penance.

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

William Blake – Beatrice and Dante – British Museum, London – 1824-7

Introduced by heavenly songs and blazing lights Dante sees a burning seven-armed candelabra approaching. Each of the seven candles gives the sky one of the colors of the rainbow. Then a procession follows: 24 elders, four beasts with each six wings covered with eyes, one of them a griffon drawing a two-wheeled chariot, at its left wheel there are three ladies, at its right four, then there follow two men, four humble men and finally and old sleeping man.

Dante’s description of the procession of the Church Triumphant reminds of John’s Apocalypse. A bright vision full of strange metaphors and personifications. When the procession halts, all of its participants turn towards the chariot and start singing. The sky turns pink as if the sun was rising. Finally, there she is…

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

Hugo van der Goes – The Fall of Man – Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna – after 1479

The world is not perfect and we all know it. But how did it come to be this way? Enter the myth of the Fall of Man. The imperfect state of the world was caused by man’s primordial sin. At the moment of creation everything was going smooth, but then man disobeyed God and it went downhill from there. According to the christian bible Adam was seduced by Eve, who in turn was persuaded by the serpent.

Hugo van der Goes (c1430/40-1482), a painter from the southern Netherlands, depicted the moment right before the Fall. In her right hand Eve holds the apple out of which she already took a bite. With her other hand she plucks the apple for Adam. It is not really clear if Adam is mildly protesting or already extending his hand to receive the forbidden fruit. One of the most remarkable figures is the hideous creature on the right. The snake is half beast, half woman and still has its legs, just like we saw in the image of medieval Saturn and the Ouroboros. Only when God punishes Adam and Eve will the serpents lose its legs ‘You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’ (Genesis 3, 14-15)

Another remarkable detail in the painting, besides the strategically growing flowers, is the river at the bottom right. If you look close enough you can see that the stream is filled with red, white and blueish gems. This is of course the Edenic river that springs directly from God’s fountain.

Nicolò Barabino – Dante Incontra Matelda – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Genova – 1876-87

There are many pivotal moments in the Divine Comedy. Instances where previous threads come together to form a new, meaningful whole. Suddenly the pieces fit and the reader, together with the journeying pilgrim, reaches a new and deeper level of understanding. The final canto’s of Purgatory form one of these important markers of the Divine Comedy.

Dante starts canto XXVIII with the description of how he enters a beautiful, sacred forest. What a stark contrast with the dark wood where Dante had found himself in the opening canto of Inferno! How different is this magical place from the sweet valley of the princes, a locus amoenus where the evil serpent was lying in ambush in the tall grass. And what an amazing and transforming journey the pilgrim has made up until now. He has finally reached the garden of Eden. Right in front of him, in between the two Edenic rivers Lethe and Eunoe stands the beautiful Matelda. She will guide Dante through his final purgation  from sin.

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

Colard Mansion – Ovide Moralisé – Metamorphoses – Public Library, Bruges – 1484

The Ovide Moralisé -a medieval moralized version of Ovid’s (43 BCE – 14 CE) Metamorphoses- is a fascinating work that is bound to surprise any modern reader. The image above seems to represent a scene of women bathing and men dressed in a medieval outfit. But when you look close enough there is something shocking about this picture: it graphically depicts a man being castrated while he devours a child. Yes, this is Saturn. Not in his classical appearance that is so familiar to us, but dressed in medieval clothing. But we can easily identify him through his attributes: eating the child, being castrated by his son Jupiter and carrying a sickle. There is also another symbol present, the ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail. Rather than a snake, we here find a small winged dragon.

Representing the snake as a dragon was common practice in the Middle Ages. Especially in a Christian context the snake-dragon was seen as an incarnation of evil and sin.

William Blake – The Angel Inviting Dante to Enter the Fire – National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne – 1824-7

In Inferno XXVII Dante had learned his lesson, the sinner Guido da Montefeltro was caught in a flame and doomed for eternal suffering. Just like the Greek Perillos was roasted inside the Sicilian bull. Here, in the corresponding canto of Purgatory, Dante will have to take his quest to the next level. In hell the burning fires are a form of punishment for the sinners, here in Purgatory the flame is used for cleansing the penitent. What makes Dante so sympathetic is his very human and fallible nature. When Virgil asks the pilgrim to pass through a wall of fire, Dante bluntly refuses. Even when his trusted guide tries to persuade him and gives him every reason to continue his journey, Dante is still nailed to the ground. He is so gripped with fear that even though he can rationalize that the flames will not hurt him in any way, instinctively he cannot take another step forward.

It is only when Virgil mentions Dante’s great love Beatrice, who is on the other side of the wall of fire, that Dante’s courage is rekindled. The thought of Beatrice is what the pilgrim needed to find his focus again and enter the flames. ‘As soon as I was in I would have thrown myself straight into molten glass to cool myself’ (‘Sì com’ fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi’, Pur XXVII, 49-50).

When Dante has made it through his ritual of initiation and has had a third dream, this time of Leah and Rachel, Virgil rightly congratulates the pilgrim. Dante has no more need of Virgil, his education is complete and his will has become ‘free, upright and sound’ (‘libero, dritto e sano’, Pur XXVII, 140). Virgil ends the canto with the words ‘over yourself I crown and miter you’ (‘per ch’io te sovra te corono e mitrio’, Pur XXVII, 142). Dante has become the master of his own fate.

Source:

– Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

Giorgio Vasari – The First Fruits from Earth Offered to Saturn – Palazzo Vecchio, Florence – 1555-7

Humans are fascinated by snakes. Joseph Campbell described them as ‘crawling digestive tracts’. Indeed, they have no arms or legs and only seem to be able to perform a limited number of actions: crawl, eat and reproduce. The snake is the animal in its most basic form. But unlike worms, snakes have a special feature that makes humans very afraid of them: they are also killing machines. Snakes are the stuff of human nightmares. And if that weren’t enough, their legless bodies conjure up phallic fantasies. Because of this almost universal fascination with snakes, they are one of the stock symbols of almost any human culture.

In antiquity Ovid (43 BCE – 17/18 CE) conceives time as a destructive cosmic force, devouring everything (‘tempus edax rerum’, time devours everything). A concept frequently linked to Saturn as a god of time who, as it were, eats his own children (time devours what it has produced). Macrobius (early 5th C) adds another layer of meaning. He sees the snake biting its own tail, the so-called ouroboros, as a symbol of time. The ouroboros would become a popular attribute of Saturn.

  Source: – Joseph Campbell – The Power of Myth

Alberto Martini – Illustrations for the Divine Comedy, Purgatorio XXVI – c1901

In Purgatory XXIV we encountered the exemplars of gluttony. Here, on the final terrace of Mount Purgatory, we meet the exemplars of lust. One of them is Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, the king of Crete. The queen fell in love with a great white bull. Her love was so strong that she had the architect Daedalus build her a wooden cow with strategically placed openings. She entered the cow and was able to have intercourse with the bull. Or as Dante describes it: ‘Pasiphaë crawls into the cow so that the bull may hasten to her lust’ (‘Ne la vacca entra Pasife, perché ‘l torello a sua lussuria corra’, Pur XXVI, 41-2).

Dante later refers to Pasiphae as she ‘who made herself a beast inside the beast-shaped rough-hewn wood’ (‘colei che s’imbestiò ne ‘mbestiate schegge’, Pur XXVI, 86-7. In the original Italian ‘making oneself into a beast’ is succinctly written as a single verb: ‘s’imbestiare’). The moral is clear, Pasiphaë sinned by surrendering to her bestial lust. This did not remain without consequence. She became pregnant and gave birth to the Minotaur, a creature half bull, half man. He is not unlike the centaurs, also creatures with both a bestial and human nature, and figures as one of the characters in Inferno XII. This time Daedalus had to build a labyrinth to contain the raging Minotaur.

At the bottom of Martini’s picture we can also see the penitents on the terrace of lust. They have to restrain their improper feelings and are forced to kiss one another chastely on the cheek.

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

Peter Paul Rubens – Temple of Janus – Hermitage, St-Petersburg – 1635

In November 1634 Ferdinand of Austria, the new governor of the Spanish Netherlands, would make his ‘Blijde Intrede’ (Joyous Entry) into the city of Antwerp. This festive occasion was the ideal moment for welcoming the new ruler and pledge allegiance to him. But it was also an opportunity for the magistrates of Antwerp to create awareness of their requests and that of the city. Rubens, who had by then been an established artist and diplomat, would be the ideal candidate to create the welcoming festival in his native city. We still have Rubens’ sketches of the temporary monuments, often made of wood and cloth.

At the east side of the Antwerp cathedral, in the narrow street of the Melkmarkt, stood the towering stage of Rubens’ Temple of Janus. Remarkably Rubens didn’t draw a temple with closed gates, as was usually the custom. Antwerp was tired of war and they wanted their new ruler to take note. Instead Rubens depicts the dramatic moment that will decide the future: will the gate close and peace and prosperity reign or will Fury, the blind sword-wielding maniac, be able to slip through and start a period of war and desolation?

At the left hand side death wields his sickle and Mars violently pulls a woman by the hairs. Furies fly through the air and a few figures try to hold open the door. At the right hand side the opposite is happening: women and cherubs try to close the door. At the top their are women holding horns of plenty. It is of course a very fitting and flattering subject for welcoming the new Infant of Spain. A reminder of how his reign can change the course of history for better or worse. But also how war will bring devastation and how peace will bring prosperity to the city of Antwerp. This choice between good and evil is a theme we have already frequently discussed here, it is that of the Choice of Hercules. Here it is up to Ferdinand to play the role of the hero.

Source: – John Rupert Martin – Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XVI, The Decorations for the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi

Image: Salvador Dali – Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, Purgatory XXV – c1951-60

Here at the brink of the terrace of Lust Statius makes a speech about human procreation. It is well worth reading the full text from lines 37 until 108 (a free online English version is available at the Princeton Dante Project website). Although there is a gap of 700 years between our world and that of Dante, many times the poet manages to convey truths that are as useful today as they were in his day (for example Dante’s views on politics, love or ethics). But in Statius speech we feel the opposite, biology around 1300 was mere educated guesswork. The age of science was still far away.

Statius begins with the origin of man’s seed. He thinks it consists of blood that is ‘distilled’ several times until has become the ‘perfect blood’ (‘sangue perfetto’, Pur XXV, 37) that is then mixed with the blood of a woman. It is a mix of active and passive that results in new life, that starts as a vegetative soul, then gains movement and feelings, becoming like a sea-sponge (‘come spungo marino’, Pur XXV, 56). Statius admits that the next part is still unclear, somehow God breathes a soul into this being that is on the brink of becoming an animal and then human.

Statius also explains that at the moment of death the soul flees the body, carrying with it both its human and divine faculties. When the soul escapes it makes the surrounding air into the form it once had when still attached to a body. This explains the looks of the souls we met in hell and purgatory: these shades are the airy bodies of souls, not bodies of flesh. But they still retain their earthly senses and feelings, explaining how the souls can still be punished or do penitence although they lack a proper body. Later it will become clear that in heaven the souls are no longer ‘aerial’ but consist of pure spirit.

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

anonymous – Roman coin with the Temple of Janus – c54-68

Besides being the god of new beginnings, Janus was also the god of gates and doorways. His Roman temple on Janiculum consisted of an arched passageway with at each end a set of doors. The temple was built by Numa, the legendary second Roman king, successor of the first king and founder of Rome, Romulus. In times of war the gates of the temple were opened and in times of peace closed. The gates remained open for 400 years until after the Punic Wars in 235 BCE they would be closed for the second time. Peace lasted only eight years. War would rage on until the reign of Augustus (63 BCE -14 CE) who closed the gates again.

What is remarkable is that we still know what the Temple of Janus looked like. The emperor Nero (38-68 CE) closed the gates and issued a commemorative coin with at the obverse his portrait and at the reverse an image of the Temple of Janus.

Sources: – Amanda Claridge – Rome: an Oxford Archaeological Guide – Mary Beard – Religions of Rome

anonymous – The Parthenon Marbles, metope XXXI, Centaur and Lapith – British Museum, London – c447-438 BCE

Dante, Statius and Virgil are still on the terrace of gluttony. After having talked to the sinners they are reminded of those famous people that were punished because of their gluttony. One group are the Hebrew soldiers under the leadership of Gideon who went to war with the Midianites. When Gideon and his men approached a river he was disgusted by those who drank directly from the river. Immediately he sent them back to their tents. Only the 300 soldiers who had spontaneously restrained their thirst and cupped their hands to drink were selected to go into battle. Only they had the discipline that was vital for a good soldier.

We already met the other group: the centaurs. Half beast, half men they frequently figure as exemplars of how bestial desire can take over man’s reason. At a wedding feast the centaurs drank too much wine, attempted to rape the bride and bridesmaids and started a fight with the Lapiths. Surely not the kind of guest anyone would wish at their wedding. The hero Theseus fought side by side with the Lapiths and crushed the drunk centaurs.

Dante makes both the drunk centaurs and the thirsty soldiers into exemplars of gluttony.

Source: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

Image: anonymous – Herm with four heads – Ponte Fabricio, Rome – unknown c200-0 BCE

Janus is a rather particular god. Most Roman gods are derived from earlier Greek gods, Jupiter was the Greek Zeus, Minerva was Athena, Venus was Aphrodite and so on. But Janus is a native Italian god with no Greek predecessor. In Roman prayers Janus was the first god to be addressed, he was evoked even before that of Jupiter.

Typical of the god is that he has two heads. One looking backwards the other looking forward. Janus was the god of past and future, of new beginnings. That is why the first month of the year, January, is named after Janus. The sculpture that is pictured is a herm with two sets of dual heads. It is located, together with its identical twin, at the Ponte Fabricio (also know as Ponte dei Quattro Capi, the bridge of the four heads), the bridge that links the Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island) with the rest of the city of Rome. The Ponte Fabricio is a unique work in itself, it is the oldest Roman bridge (dating from 62 BCE) that is still intact and in use. Still visible at the side of the bridge is an inscription that reminds of the restoration in 23 BCE. The two Janus herms were moved from a nearby sanctuary, probably the Temple of Janus that was at the site of the church San Nicola in Carcere. It is actually quite fitting that the Temple of Janus was located nearby and that the herms now stand on a bridge over the river Tiber. According to one legend Janus was an early king of Latium, a region south of Rome, and the father of Tiberinus. Poor Tiberinus drowned in a river that from then on bore his name: river Tiber.

Sources: – Amanda Claridge – Rome: an Oxford Archaeological Guide – Mary Beard – Religions of Rome

Image: Priamo della Quercia – Dante’s Divine Comedy, Yates Thompson 36 f. 107r – British Library, London – c1444-50

‘Eli, Eli lema sabacthani’, were the Aramaic words uttered by a despairing Christ when he hung nailed on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34, Matt 27:46). Dante refers to these famous words in Purgatorio XXIII: ‘that led Christ to utter ‘Elì‘ with such bliss’ (‘che menò Cristo lieto a dire ‘Elì’, Pur XXIII, 74′). But what is so blissful (‘lieto’) about Christ’s cry of anguish?

It is what Charles Singleton calls the ‘joy-in-suffering motif’. Canto XXIII is full of these kind of contradictory feelings: ‘sing with weeping’ (‘piangere e cantar’, Pur XXIII, 10), ‘delight and grief’ (‘diletto e doglia’, 12), ‘I speak of pain but should say solace’ (‘io dico pena, e dovrai dir sollazzo’, 72), ‘blessed sorrow’ (‘buon dolor’, 81). These bittersweet contradictions weave the context for Christ’s famous cry of dereliction that we saw above. For christians this cry has a complex theological meaning. It is at the heart of the mystery of Christ because it emphasizes Christ’s dual nature: both human and divine. Only by incarnating can God descend deep enough into humility to atone for Adam’s primal sin. No mere human can do this. But on the other hand, if Christ were fully divine and not human, his crucifixion would be no sacrifice. Christ would then be all powerful, not feel any pain or suffering. This is why it is essential that Christ is both human and divine: he must be able to suffer and save humanity.

This dual predicament of suffering and bliss is the fate the gluttonous undergo on the sixth terrace of Purgatory. Indeed, the penitents actively desire their punishment because they want to be with God as soon as possible. The gluttonous no longer care for food and drink, rather they savor their starvation. Tellingly, they can find the willpower to abstain from eating the juicy ripe fruits of the trees on this terrace, an overt reference to the tree of knowledge of good and evil that caused man’s fall from grace.

Sources: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander) – Karl Vossler – Medievael Culture, An Introduction to Dante and His Times – George Andrew Trone – The Cry of Derelicition in Purgatorio XXIII

Image: Peter Paul Rubens – Herakles and Cerberus – Prado, Madrid – 1636

The badge of honor for a classical Greek hero is descending to the underworld and being able to return alive and well. It is exactly what Hercules did during one of his labors. Not only did he manage to return from the realm of Hades, he also succeeded in chaining the hellhound Cerberus, dragging him to earth and back to hell again.

One of the most powerful depictions of Hercules chaining Cerberus is the oil sketch made by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). The sketch functioned as a model for a painting to be made by Rubens’ assistants. It was part of a series on the Labors of Hercules for the hunting lodge of the King of Spain, the Torre de la Parada. This sketch shows how Rubens masterfully achieves a dynamic and dramatic tension. Cerberus pulls ferociously on its chain while Hercules, diametrically opposed to the dog, uses sheer strength to keep the beast in check.

William Holman Hunt – The Light of the World – Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London – 1900-4

In the previous canto we already hinted at the complex role that Statius plays. Statius is not merely a new guide for Dante, a christian version of Virgil as it were. When Statius appears to the two wandering pilgrims, Dante the poet draws a comparison with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Statius is figured as Christ, his shade is the shade of Christ, an ‘umbra Christi’. Two cantos earlier the earthquake signaled the end of Statius’ time in purgatory. Like Christ, Statius is resurrected, an event celebrated by the other souls singing ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’.

What is so remarkable is the role that Virgil plays. Remember, Virgil was a pagan poet who has to spend eternity in Limbo because he did not believe in Christ. So how can Statius be converted through an unbeliever like Virgil? Dante finds his inspiration in Augustine. Augustine (354-430) described the Jews as a people who ‘carried in your hands the lamp of the law in order to show the way to others while you remained in the darkness’. With claims as these the church father further paved the way for a figural interpretation of the Old Testament; the exegesis of the Jewish Old Testament by reading and interpreting it in the light of christianity.

Similarly Dante describes Virgil as ‘You were as one who goes by night, carrying the light behind him -it is no help to him, but instructs all those who follow’ (‘Facesti come quei che va di notte, che porta il lume dietro e sé non giova, ma dopo sé fa le persone dotte’, Pur XXII, 67-69). This is a key passage, because it shows how Dante opens up pagan literature to a Christian interpretation, similar to what Augustine did with the Jewish Old Testament. Statius was able to convert to Christianity by reading Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, even though Virgil himself was oblivious to the christological meaning of his own writings.

Sources: – Dante – Divine Comedy (translated by Robert Hollander)

– Francis Fergusson – Dante’s Drama of the Mind

– Giuseppe Mazzotta – Dante’s Literary Typology – Giuseppe Mazzotta – Dante’s Poetics of Births and Foundations – Robert Hollander – Allegory in Dante’s Commedia

Lorenzo Lotto – Allegory of Virtue and Vice – National Gallery of Art, Washington DC – 1505

After seeing our previous examples of the Choice of Hercules it does not take long to interpret the painting by Lorenzo Lotto. It is titled ‘Allegory of Virtue and Vice’ and could be seen as a Choice of Hercules, but without Hercules. Or is it? By leaving out the protagonist Lotto opens up the canvas and makes the viewer part of the scene. The choice is no longer to be made by an ancient Greek hero inside the painting, but in the here and now by the spectator.

We are already familiar with the two choices. The putto on the left holds attributes of the liberal arts in an arid landscape. In the background a putto covered in wings ascends towards the light. The tree stump on this side of the painting has a new shoot that is already cultivating into a well-formed tree. On the right side a drunken satyr peers into a flask of wine, probably looking for some more to drink. The green grass and trees give way to dark clouds, a stormy sea and -ultimately- shipwreck.

Not only does Lotto succeed in making a very beautiful painting, combining the stormy and sunny side, the rocky desert and green pasture into a harmonious whole. He also manages to add an extra dimension to the tradition of the Herculean choice. By engaging the viewer, the choice has now become a pressingly moral one. Not a future hope as in the ‘desco da parto’ of Benvenuto di Giovanni, but a very concrete appeal for the here and now.