“ Se non scritto,almen dipinto ”: The ethos of becoming in Purgatorio 28–33

A central question facing the reader of the Paradiso terrestre (Pg 28–33) concerns the selfhood of the protagonist, the character Dante. While the state of Dante’s soul was critical to the poem’s beginning in the dark wood, and remained implicit through the intervening cantos, it is only in the Paradiso terrestre that it becomes the poem’s central focus. At no point prior to this has the character had to explore his coscienza to the extent he does here. The radical shift in the narrative occasions an unprecedented stylistic change and the adoption of multiple and overdetermined symbolic rubrics that add to the poem’s ambiguity and obscurity precisely in these cantos that as serve as a fulcrum of the Commedia as a whole. ¹ Once ‘crowned and mitred’ by Virgil, the viator is ‘libero, dritto e sano’ (Pg 27.140) in the light of nature; he is free to choose between good and evil, but is not a redeemed soul. ² Only once he has confessed and passed through Lethe will he be free of sin; only then can the correction of the intellect properly begin. ³

The continuity of these cantos is founded in an incremental learning process that joins the symbolic pageant—the procession (Pg 28–29) and recession (Pg 32–33)—to the central autobiographical cantos (Pg 30–31). The pageant represents the books of the Bible, the history of humanity from Genesis to Apocalypse and the Church Triumphant, and the apocalyptic evocation of the Church Militant in Dante’s day when the Chair of St. Peter is deemed to be empty, because of the corruption of the current pope (in 1300), but also implicitly of the Avignonese papacy that followed. While there is a general consensus about the meanings of the allegorical passages, there is less agreement about their interpretation in a personal key. ⁴ It is precisely the inner character of the poetry that challenges the reader to look beyond the common gloss to acknowledge the functionality of ambiguity and obscurity in the Paradiso terrestre.

To begin with, the spectacular sacra rappresentazione of the pageant is presented for the viator alone and it is only the auctor who relates it to us. This brings into focus the ethos of becoming of the protagonist as the central subject of these cantos. This concerns sinfulness, contrition, and repentance, but also history, political philosophy, and cosmotheology, as incremental changes in the protagonist are enabled by Matelda and Beatrice. If during the ascent of the Mountain of Purgatory the viator’s experience was conveyed with a certain verisimilitude in earthly time, now the imagery grows enigmatic and the time ephemeral, moving from the liturgical to the apocalyptic and prophetic. ⁵ The cantos unfold as a “theological masque” (Hawkins, 1999: 59), a staging of sensory and supersensory phenomena that draw on the tissues of myth, history, and theology.

As Purgatorio 28 begins, Dante’s desire for knowledge is the motivating force in his journey: “Vago già di cercar dentro e dintorno/la divina foresta spessa e viva,/ch’a li occhi temperava il nuovo giorno” (Pg 28.1–3). ⁶ Confronted by a garden-forest of apparent peace and harmony, the senses come alive and are informed by a pervasive atmosphere of cosmic temperance. Dante’s description of Eden—“la divina foresta” (Pg 28.2), “la selva antica” (Pg 28.3)—recalls the “selva oscura” (If 1.2) and “selva selvaggia” (If 1.5) of the poem’s beginning. But there is also a pervasive element of desire, as evident in the lexis and imagery of the courtly lyric, including allusions to the poetry of Cavalcanti. When a young shepherdess-like figure appears, similar to those in classical literature and Cavalcanti’s “In un boschetto trova’ pasturella,” the viator’s first words to her—“‘Deh, bella donna, che a’ raggi d’amore/ti scaldi…’” (Pg 28, 43)—suggest that he perceives her as a love object. ⁷ That impulse will be refined by Matelda in the course of the canto, but it is not to be confused with a base instinct. If the initial description of Eden engages the lexis and figures of the dolce stil nuovo, that inclusion is to be read as an artful mediation of literary references, not unlike those to Ovid that immediately follow, involving scenarios of sexual attraction that lead to catastrophe. In such a way, through literary filters, Dante defuses the initial attraction felt by the viator, orienting it to its proper context. ⁸

Matelda’s resemblance to the shepherdess figure actually symbolizes the loss of original innocence and natural justice and the futility of pursuing them. ⁹ Eden only resembles a locus amoenus, being the place where humanity lost its original innocence. If natural justice prevailed before original sin, afterward the only justice available was personal justice. It will be the work of this canto to make that distinction so that the Pilgrim might convert his unfocused desire for knowledge to a quest for justice. As we come to understand, such a change can only occur incrementally through a process of self-recognition. ¹⁰

No less an authority than Gianfranco Contini (1976: 181) expresses skepticism about “l’opinione vulgata che la fine del Purgatorio, almeno fino all’apparizione di Beatrice, s’ispiri alle rappresentazioni dello Stil Novo. Ma che significa, finalmente, stilnovismo del Paradiso terrestre?” In discussing its supposedly “idyllic” or “bucolic” atmosphere, Contini identifies the lexical traces of Cavalcanti’s poetry in the rendering of Matelda (as Lia before her), but also a use of archaic Latinate syntax and rhetorical figures that is remote from the “melodismo” of the Stil nuovo. In short, Dante has ironically reframed Cavalcanti’s concept of the pastoral in order to contrast that poet’s concept of love, in which the object and subject are finally unreconcilable, to his own, which aims to join the personal subject, reconciled by grace, with the divine object of his love. The lyricism of the first half of the canto will give way to the doctrinal focus of the second half of the canto, in which the young woman (later named as Matelda) aims to “unfog” the viator’s mind.

The irony concerning Cavalcanti and Ovid also pertains to Virgil, who does not know grace and will not pass through Lethe. How this issue develops during the encounter with Matelda is a subtle matter, sometimes legible in the choice of imagery. When Matelda communicates worldlessly to the viator, walking and dancing over the “fioretti” strewn on the ground, one recalls the simile of the “fioretti” of If 2.127–132 and the figure of Virgil, who, also a transitional moment, explained his mission to the viator, causing his spirit to straighten like wildflowers in the morning sun. ¹¹ If the “fioretti” of If 2 were signs of hope to the pilgrim’s flagging spirit, a hope whose upper reaches Virgil could not know, the “fioretti” extended by Matelda offer a hope that is beyond nature, a hope in things not seen.

volsesi in su i vermigli e in su i gialli

fioretti verso me, non altrimenti

che vergine che li occhi onesti avvalli;

e fece i prieghi miei esser contenti,

sì appressando sé, che ’l dolce suono

veniva a me co’ suoi intendimenti. (Pg 28.55–60)

It is this hope that Dante will regain after his confession, which also concerns his loss of hope after Beatrice’s death. The echo of the earlier “fioretti,” a sign for Virgil, seems to foreshadow his imminent departure.

The growing distance between Dante and Virgil is implicit in three speech acts by Matelda. The first is her bidding Dante to read the Delectasti: Psalm 91 elevates the beauty of the active life as a way to praise God’s Creation and foresees the punishment of the wicked, the fools, and senseless ones who do not grasp that the Creation is God’s gift to humanity. Inserted at this point, the reference seems to confirm the sheer ontological difference between a pastoral locus amoenus and the reality of Eden. It also signifies that Matelda is herself a psalmist whose songs glorify the creation in a manner that Dante seeks to emulate (Hawkins, 1999: 176).

The second speech concerns the winds and circulation of water. Upon entering Eden, Dante noticed the wind. This caused him to wonder as it contradicted what Statius had told him about Purgatory’s lack of such phenomena due to its separation from earth (Pg 21.43–54). Matelda’s discourse (similar in type to those delivered by Beatrice in Paradiso) aims to clear the debilitating fog from the viator’s mind—“e purgherò la nebbia che ti fiede” (Pg 29.90). Her explanation that the winds and circulation of waters are caused by the motion of the Primum Mobile involves an entire theory about the heavens’ role in propagating life and virtue in the earth below: the winds inseminate the earth with plants as a wondrous cosmic expression of divine love. Animated by the rotating winds, the forest is like a musical instrument played by the motion of the heavens: ¹²

nell’aere vivo, tal moto percuote

e fa sonar la selva perch’è folta

e la percossa pianta tanto puote

che della sua virtute l’aura impregna

e quella poi, girando, intorno scuote; (Pg 28.107–111)

If this speech concerns matters beyond Virgil’s ken, Matelda’s final speech will address the pagan notion of a Golden Age. With this “corollary” (gift) she states that perhaps the ancient poets who wrote of a Golden Age dreamed of this place, where humankind was innocent. Her remark causes Virgil and Statius to smile in satisfaction, as if their poetic visions had been corroborated: ¹³

Io mi rivolsi ’n dietro allora tutto

a’ miei poeti, e vidi che con riso

udito avean l’ultimo costrutto (Pg 28.146–147)

Rather than a conciliation of classical and Christian views of the earthly paradise, the corollary reminds us of the difference between Virgil and Statius, one who knows that the original innocence of Eden was despoiled, requiring repentance for those who would regain innocence, and the other who does not. Matelda’s words are ironic insofar as Virgil will soon return to Limbo, a place described by Dorothy Sayers (1966: 32) as “only the upper circle of an immense despair.”

The need to break with any poetic dream or idyllic reminiscence is clear in the opening of Pg 29, where Matelda cites Psalm 32:1: “‘Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata!’” (“‘Blessed are those whose sins are covered’”) (Pg 29.3), drawing attention to the need for redemption. As the style changes from the pseudo-lyrical and doctrinal to the liturgical and theatrical, the poetic impetus is that of an upward moral force. As Dante looks to the other side of Lethe and the procession, accompanied by the tempering influence of sweet music—“E una melodia dolce correva” (Pg 29.22)—he is amazed at the celestial phenomena, which he compares to a continuous flashing of lightning, and he is “disïoso ancora a più letizie” (Pg 29.33). ¹⁴ The fact of the protagonist’s amazement and desire, and the ways in which the intensity of his perceptual and affective experience limits his ability to articulate it, signal that the viator/auctor duality has assumed a greater role in the narrative: as the auctor describes the procession as a moving sequence of figures and images, his recollection is imperfect; similarly the viator, who is often overwhelmed, gradually learns to process the sensory and supersensory phenomena he confronts by adapting his intellect and spirit to an analogical form of learning, typically presented through similes, metaphors, symbols, and allegories.

Many of the figures in the procession are examples of rhetorical allegory (allegoria in verbis): the 24 elders represent the books of the Old Testament; the man, lion, ox, and eagle represent the four Evangelists. But a procession made entirely of such equivalents would not accurately capture the experience of the protagonist. Thus the auctor interrupts his account: “A descriver lor forme più non spargo/rime, lettor; ch’altra spesa mi strigne” (Pg 29.97–98). While the “altra spesa” could refer to the verbal economy of the poem, it also marks a shift in the poetic semiosis away from the binary allegory recapitulating imagery from the books of Ezekiel and Revelation to a more presentational mode of representation no longer text-based or reducible to univocal equivalents. ¹⁵ The images that follow are centered around the enigmatic figure of the griffin, a hybrid creature widely known in the Middle Ages as a symbol for Christ. ¹⁶ While Dante typically uses symbola similia, in which the imagery used in the symbol is like God and the effects of God, here he chooses a dissimilar, teratological symbol such as those found in Revelation. ¹⁷ Unlike the greater concreteness of the symbols used for the books of the Bible and the virtues, this symbol of the two natures of Christ moves away from concreteness toward abstraction. ¹⁸ As such it amounts to a local figurative disharmony that is felicitously contained within the overall figurative harmony. ¹⁹

The griffin and chariot are followed by the theological and cardinal virtues, which appear as three dancing women on the viator’s right and four on his left (Pg 29.121–132); what the reader is asked to construe is not the separate virtues but their unity—“tutto il pertrattato nodo” (Pg 29.135)—a “knot” that is followed by the aged figures of Saints Luke and Paul (“due vecchi”). Since the viator is only in possession of the cardinal virtues, the “knot” serves as a harbinger of his attainment of the theological virtues, but only after he has completed his confession.

As Pg 30 opens, the angels sing from the Song of Songs—“Veni, sponsa,/de Libano” (Pg 30.11), the Book of Matthew—“Benedictus qui venis!” (Pg 30.19), and the Aeneid—the words of Anchises in praise of Marcellus, anticipating the arrival of Beatrice. ²⁰ The citations constitute a matrix of personal, historical, and literary sources. ²¹ As Jacoff (2008: 347–349) shows, the references to the Aeneid and subsequently to the fourth Georgic and the Thebaid effectively signal the departure of Virgil (and Statius as a textual presence), as these guides are negated by the arrival of Beatrice in the imposing, male-gendered figure of an Admiral. When Beatrice arrives, it is the “return” of the woman of the Vita nuova, who was given her celestial “disegno” in that book; but it is also an “advent,” a term designating her Christological nature. ²² When Beatrice appears, the viator can see her outline due to the tempering effect of the atmosphere: “e la faccia del sol nascere ombrata,/sì che, per temperanza di vapori” (Pg 30.25–26). As she begins to speak, he is confused by the doubleness of her presence: she is at once the woman he had known and a transcendent spirit descended from heaven. Stunned, he looks to Virgil for help but to no avail. Seeing his dismay, Beatrice addresses Dante by name, comforting him and advising him that his supplications must be directed to a higher reason than Virgil’s:

“Dante, perché Virgilio se ne vada,

non pianger anco, non piangere ancora;

ché pianger ti conven per altra spada”. (Pg 30.55–57) ²³

Beatrice’s choice of the sword image—“non pianger anco, non piangere ancora;/ché pianger ti conven per altra spada” (Pg 30.56–57)—signals the battle ahead, the arduous struggle to repent. She will use a similar image in the following canto: as Dante seeks to find his voice, she parries with the blade of her voice, saying that his contrition will have the effect of dulling her sword (Pg 31.40–42).

When Beatrice states “Come degnasti d’accedere al monte?/non sapei tu che qui l’uom è felice?” (Pg 30.74–75), some have interpreted the words as ironic or sarcastic. ²⁴ Yet there is no reason not to take them at face value. In Jakobson’s terms, the language here is “referential” as it establishes context. As with Matelda, the establishment of context is essential if the viator is to understand the significance of the place he has entered. So too, if Beatrice’s tone grows harsh, it is for pity’s sake: “perché d’amaro/sente il sapor de la pietade acerba” (Pg 30.80–81). What is paramount is that the viator understand the need to confess his sins before passing through Lethe. For that he will shed many tears, eliciting the angels’ songs of compassion in the face of Beatrice’s severity:

lo gel che m’era intorno al cor ristretto,

spirito e acqua fessi, e con angoscia

de la bocca e de li occhi uscì del petto. (Pg 30.97–99)

The prevailing tone of the Paradiso terrestre is temperate. Though Beatrice shames Dante over his moral deviation after her death, her remonstrations exist within the framework of harmony and felicity and have a maieutic and cognitive purpose. By compelling the viator to consider his moral deviations after her death, Beatrice enables his transformation to a figure of justification. ²⁵ This is an incremental process, aided by the suffering and the recognition of sin that must occur before this living soul can pass through Lethe, not least because without a confession he would not recover the memory of the good—of repentance and justification—after imbibing the waters of Eunoe. As the canto concludes, so too does the retrospective journey into the memories of sin. In contrast, in Pg 31 one has a return to the present leading to a ritual baptism in Lethe. ²⁶ The twisting, juridical language of guilt and shame yield to that of pathos and catharsis, and finally contemplation.

The first 11 tercets of Pg 31 find Dante like a child unable to speak, unable to force the air from his mouth. One inevitably recalls that the birth of the soul, as explained by Statius in Pg 24, occurs when the prime Mover breathes life into it. Dante’s inability to expel air to have his voice heard directly implicates the struggle in his soul. Conversely, when a word does issue forth it is as if one saw it like an illuminated voice in a Giotto painting:

Confusione e paura insieme miste

mi pinsero un tal ‘sì’ fuor de la bocca,

al quale intender fuor mestier le viste. (Pg 31.13–15)

It is Beatrice’s prodding of Dante to confront his deviation after her death that allows him to regain his lost hope (Pg 31.22–27). Acting on his behalf, Beatrice urges him to confront his past and speak. ²⁷ As he confesses, his tears recall the example of Augustine, for whom weeping was an essential element of confession:

Piangendo dissi: ‘Le presenti cose

col falso lor piacer volser miei passi,

tosto che ’l vostro viso si nascose’. (Pg 31.34–36)

The generality of the confession—Dante had been attracted to “present things with their false pleasure”—is characteristic of the semiosis of Paradiso terrestre, where the recognition of sin, not its casuistry, is the point. ²⁸ Once he has confessed, Beatrice will instruct him to rid of his shame and lay down the “seme del piangere” (Pg 31.46). She speaks to him about the loss of the pure desire for God after her death:

Mai non t’appresentò natura o arte

piacer, quanto le belle membra in ch’io

rinchiusa fui, e che so’ ’n terra sparte;

e se ’l sommo piacer sí ti fallío

per la mia morte, qual cosa mortale

dovea poi trarre te nel suo disio? (Pg 31.49–54)

A common gloss of “e se ’l sommo piacer sí ti fallío” is that the maximum of natural and artistic beauties—the mortal Beatrice—revealed itself to Dante to be short-lived and transient. But this is a misconception, given that Beatrice is criticizing Dante for having confused her death for the death of that beauty, which is eternal. ²⁹ It is the reflected beauty of the “second cause” that now defines Beatrice’s person and serves as an example of the analogia entis: “Intendo la nozione che potremo definire dell’‘analogia dell’ente’ (analogia entis), che istituiva e coglieva un rapporto di proporzionalità e di somiglianza analogica tra Dio creatore e tutte le sue creature” (Mazzoni, 1965: 24). ³⁰ Beatrice’s beauty (pulchritudo) is absolute and transcendent. ³¹ Thus when she asks the viator to look into her eyes, and he does so and is overwhelmed, she is not an idealized allegorical figure but an actual spirit standing before him reflecting the beauty of God, a beauty that far exceeds the one he had known in her mortal life. ³² The viator’s recognition that Beatrice has surpassed her former self—“sé stessa antica” (Pg 31.83)—signals that he too is on the verge of a profound change.

Di penter sì mi punse ivi l’ortica,

che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse

più nel suo amor, più mi si fé nemica.

Tanta riconoscenza il cor mi morse, (Pg 31.85–88)

The viator understands the falseness of the simulacra that had attracted his love, including the worldly beauty of Beatrice. If ever in the dramatic self-recognition that is unfolding, the protagonist ceases to look outside himself for the causes of his unhappiness, it is here. ³³ That culmination is marked by Matelda’s dramatic words, “Tiemmi, tiemmi!” (Pg 31.93), as she immerses the viator in Lethe. From this moment forward he is in possession of the cardinal virtues infused with caritas and Matelda symbolizes the joy of regaining Eden on a personal plane and the attainment of personal justice. ³⁴ In theological terms, what is staged by Lethe is an “Augustinian sense of the purgatorial character of human experience, of the way in which the individual is called on to assert himself over himself” (Took, 1990: 378). ³⁵ In his process of becoming, the way is now open for the viator to be at one with God, yet that does not preclude him from further struggles. As with Augustine, with increased growth come increased challenges and responsibilities. ³⁶

As if to signal a new beginning, the Asperges me is sung (Pg 31.97). This is the last element of the mass included in Purgatorio and is the first in the order of the liturgy, as it is sung before the mass begins. ³⁷ It has been suggested that the symbolic significance of this placement is that the viator has passed beyond the boundaries of the liturgy and has no further need for “ecclesiastical mediation.” ³⁸ Certainly, after the catharsis of Lethe the viator has an expanded capacity to contemplate the symbolic values of the procession, in the first instance the griffin—“la fiera/ch’è sola una persona in due nature” (Pg 31, 80–81)—whose mutable aspect he sees reflected in Beatrice’s eyes. ³⁹ This startling image gives rise to the penultimate address to the reader in Purgatorio, where the auctor recalls his experience of seeing the two natures of the griffin: “l’anima mia gustava di quel cibo/che, saziando di sé, di sé asseta” (Pg 31.128–129). In order to comprehend this wondrous duality, the reader is asked to consider the viator’s amazement and the paradox of a food that satisfies even as it further stimulates the appetite. Normally, the two natures of the griffin are interpreted as representing Christ, with the food in question being that of the Eucharist; this interpretation is supported by the fact that the three women of “più alto tribo” (the theological virtues) understand this truth intuitively, as they dance the “caribo” (an elevated dance in harmony with the songs of the angels). But there are other possibilities that do not contradict this reading, such as Dronke’s assertion that the double nature of the griffin represents Dante’s possession of a mortal body and a divine, Christlike soul. ⁴⁰

The sacred symbolism of the scene is accentuated at the canto’s end, as the virtues—the theological virtues but also the cardinal virtues infused with charity—ask Beatrice to turn her face to the viator, so he might perceive “la seconda bellezza che tu cele” (Pg 31.138), that being—as stated above—the reflected light of God. As the shadows of earth combine with the perfect harmony of heaven, the viator sees Beatrice unveiled for the first time: “qual tu paresti/là dove armonizzando il ciel t’adombra,/quando ne l’aere aperto ti solvesti?” (Pg 31.143–145). Here one has arrived at a contemplative apex as the lexis, syntax, and tropes all align themselves with the thematics of purification and redemption.

The return to a secular and historical thematics in Pg 32 and 33 concerns the interrelated roles of Church and Empire in human destiny, involving further education of the viator and his prophetic investiture. With his moral crisis behind him and his immediate personal agenda resolved, it is critical that he understand the provisional nature of human happiness. He will again be instructed by Beatrice, but the knowledge he acquires will be directed outward, toward humanity and its institutions. Dante’s figurative and figural language will grow more visual and more enigmatic, a change that has clear gnoseological connotations. To articulate this change it will be necessary to recall the overdetermined and multiple character of Dante’s symbolic practice in these cantos.

Faced by the “visioni enigmatiche” of the recession of the Church Militant in Pg 32, the modern reader may indeed be unable to discern exact meanings: “Tali immagini esibiscono un contrasto significativo tra la loro ricchezza descrittiva e la ‘connotazione arcana’ di marca biblica presente nella narrazione” (Bertin, 2014: 950). With reference to the same question of a symbolic hermeneutics, Storey has argued that once the symbolic register changes, so does the interpretation of the extant symbols; that is the case here as Dante draws on historically based symbols used by the Franciscan Spirituals. If one is to avoid an anachronist reading, one must keep this historical focus in mind:

[W]e find a shift in the nature of the symbol itself in the Spiritual tradition, a shift that is fundamental to understanding the tenor of the symbolism in the […] Earthly Paradise where […] symbolism becomes a vehicle not for conventional Augustinian representations of the apocalyptic but rather for suggestive historical interpretations that would lead the reader to contemplate the necessity of ecclesiastic reform in a world gone astray. (Storey, 2008: 363)

As Pg 32 opens, the viator is blinded by the intense light reflected off Beatrice’s face. When he recovers and sees the procession as “lo glorioso essercito” (Pg 32.17) and the “milizia del celeste regno” (Pg 32.22), the connotation is that the Church must reform its ways and work harmoniously with the Empire in order to achieve the goal of human happiness, as laid out in Monarchia. It is this relationship that is now explored symbolically, first positively, then—after a personal interlude—negatively, through a series of apocalyptic scenes of corruption and destruction.

Winding through the forest amid the tempering songs of the angels—“temprava i passi un’angelica nota” (Pg 32.33)—the procession arrives at the Tree, “la pianta,” normally understood as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is stripped bare of its leaves, suggesting its condition after the Fall. But once the chariot is lashed to the Tree, its leaves are spontaneously regenerated. ⁴¹ Faced by this miraculous flowering—an allegory of Christ’s having atoned for Adam’s sin—the viator is overwhelmed, again placing into relief the functionality of the viator/auctor duality. ⁴² When he awakes—seeing that the griffin and procession have disappeared—he compares his state of mind to that of the disciples after the Transfiguration, when Christ has regained his normal appearance and Moses and Elijah have disappeared. Within the logic of the simile, the griffin is the transfigured Christ, Beatrice is the living Christ, and Dante is a disciple. ⁴³ Beatrice then delivers her only speech in the canto (in sharp contrast to Pg 30, 31, and 33, where she speaks for 49, 45, and 74 lines). In her terse remarks she tells the viator he will spend a short time in the forest, “poco tempo silvano” (Pg 32.100), followed by an eternity in heaven, “quella Roma onde Cristo è romano” (Pg 32.102); she then charges him to retain in memory and transcribe for posterity a record of what he has seen:

[“…] Però, in pro del mondo che mal vive,

al carro tieni or li occhi, e quel che vedi,

ritornato di là, fa che tu scrive.” (Pg 32.103–105)

The confidence Beatrice expresses in her student should not be overlooked. As we will see below, when she repeats her charge to him in Pg 33, she will adopt the metaphor of painting as a gnoseological metaphor for the knowledge conveyable through imagery that is not retainable strictly by reason. This no coincidence, as throughout Pg 32 the emphasis has been on vision. There are eight incidences of occhi(o) together with 13 forms of vedere in the second half alone, a lexical usage that reinforces the extent to which the knowledge acquired here is eidetic in nature, keyed into visions and phantasms, or visa. Such is the tumultuous scene that unfolds at canto’s end, an allegorical vision of historical usurpation and destruction: the chariot is attacked by an eagle, a fox, and a dragon; it is transformed into a monster with a prostitute sitting on it; a giant kisses the prostitute, unties the chariot from the Tree, and drags it through the forest. In the multiple symbols, one has seven representations of the Church as it was victimized in the early centuries by the secular world and as it was corrupted in later centuries. ⁴⁴

As Canto 33 opens, Beatrice intervenes to connect the imagery of the giant and prostitute to a prophecy concerning the role of Empire in safeguarding the Church. Here the need to contend with obscurity reaches its apex, as if to underscore the inexplicable nature of grace. Beatrice now prophesies the arrival of “un cinquecento diece e cinque,/messo di Dio,” a liberator sent by God who will restore and revitalize the Empire (“l’aguglia”) (Pg 33.37–45). ⁴⁵ Perhaps the most common identity for the enigmatic “cinquecento diece e cinque” found in the commentaries is the Emperor Arrigo VII, though recent criticism dates the writing of these cantos after Arrigo’s foiled descent into Italy and probably after his death in August 1313. ⁴⁶ Regardless of the identity of the liberator, it is clear that Dante is injecting his political theory into the apocalyptic imagery in a manner consistent with his positions in Monarchia. Both Empire and Papacy derive their mandate directly from God; neither has the right to intervene on the other’s behalf; in the same manner, philosophy is to enjoy its autonomy from theology. ⁴⁷ Only in this way can earthly justice be attained, by virtue of “the contribution which ethics and politics are entitled to expect [philosophy] to make to the great cause of temporal human happiness” (Gilson, 1963: 280).

Beatrice now bids Dante to transmit her words, and the events surrounding the Tree, to the living (Pg 33.52–54). Though she criticizes the protagonist’s limited abilities to comprehend her words, one must assume at this juncture that these are the limitations of the Everyman that Dante has become. Thus when she reconfirms the scribal mission, she adopts the metaphor of painting as an acceptable means of conveying the prophetic message:

[“] Ma perch’ io veggio te ne lo ’ntelletto

fatto di pietra e, impetrato, tinto,

sì che t’abbaglia il lume del mio detto,

voglio anco, e se non scritto, almen dipinto,

che ’l te ne porti dentro a te per quello

che si reca il bordon di palma cinto.” (Pg 33.73–78)

If the viator cannot retain a “written” form of what Beatrice has said, a “painted” form will suffice, similar to the keepsakes carried by religious pilgrims to the Holy Land.

The metaphor of painting as knowledge has been developed since Matelda was seen walking on the pathway “ond’ era pinta tutta la sua via” (Pg 28.42). It stood out in the image of sacred candelabras painting the sky, anticipating the advent of Beatrice, “e vidi le fiammelle andar davante,/lasciando dietro a sé l’aere dipinto, /e di tratti pennelli avean sembiante” (Pg 29, 73–75); in the references to the depictions of the Books of the Gospel as animals in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation: “ma leggi Ezechïel, che li dipigne/come li vide da la fredda parte/venir con vento e con nube e con igne” (Pg 29, 100–102); and in the moment when the viator fell asleep—“come pintor che con essempro pinga,/disegnerei com’io m’addormentai” (Pg 32, 67–68).

When Beatrice instructs Dante to remember and report her words in a way that is painted, if not written, it is implicit that such a visionary means is not only sufficient but is appropriate to the knowledge in question. ⁴⁸ Dante need not rationalize or syllogize; he must only trust in the images registered in memory. A painted version of Beatrice’s message is appropriate, given the limitations of the human mind when faced by the supernatural. ⁴⁹ This is consistent with the Augustinian metaphorics of darkness and light that are connected in these cantos to the keywords luce, specchio, viso, vedere, velo, occhio. The qualification refers not only to the auctor’s capacities, but to the positive ability of the poetic imagination to perceive the higher meaning of the Tree. The Tree—that Adam ate from and which, after 5000 years, Christ was crucified on—can only be known through the memory of images in the mind. This knowledge pertains to the analogia entis, the Trinitarian and Augustinian tenet concerning the relation of similarity and proportionality between God and his Creation. ⁵⁰ “Se non scritto, almen dipinto” is an apt descriptor for the eidetic learning enacted in these cantos, in imitation of the liturgy, the sacra rappresentazione, and the Apocalypse of St. John, and in the viator’s dialogue with Matelda and Beatrice. ⁵¹ From the perspective of the viator at the end of Pg 33, Eden is a place of incipient temperance and justice. It anticipates in that respect the Heaven of Jupiter where temperance and justice are seen in their celestial solemnity and finality.

The stylistic novelty of Pg 28–33 with respect to the rest of Purgatorio is evident in the higher level of dramatic tension, the ambiguity, and the fantastic events presented in the service of the excavation of the Dantean self. That personal excavation is framed by a universal discourse on the Church, its liturgy, its sacraments, and its relations to Empire. As we follow the viator through Eden, we see him experience diverse affective and somatic states, from shame and fear to amazement and wonder, to sleep, all of which are recorded in a style that runs up against its limits—of memory and ineffability—in a way that will be common in Paradiso. Uniquely in this threshold area of the poem one has the simultaneous expression of metaphysical wonder and historical delusion, a fact that requires one to read the text transversely in order to integrate its secular and religious themes. As Dante explicates in Monarchia, theology and philosophy have as their respective subjects the religious and secular life of humanity and are responsible for elaborating, within their particular domains, the concept of justice basic to human happiness.

Dante’s thought after 1310 was increasingly influenced by a form of Bonventurian and Augustinian Neoplatonism for which transcendence was enabled through the contemplation of beauty. As Bonaventure writes, the human creature’s analogical similarity to God is a substantial fact of its nature; this similarity is more perfect if grasped beyond the conditions of the body in the light of the soul. ⁵² In order to grasp that similarity, the Christian must confess. This act—central to the Paradiso terrestre—is based on the Augustinian motif of the internal word that coincides with the ontological foundation of the person. ⁵³ Such a verity required a robust theory of the image and the affect in support of the internal word; only in that way could language convey the experience of the ineffable. ⁵⁴

The Paradiso terrestre constitutes a spatio-temporal threshold in which the transition of one soul, from confession to redemption to instruction on the divine word, is linked to the destiny of humankind and the prospect of universal salvation. Throughout the process of becoming, the character’s cognitive limitations are exposed, not simply as flaws but as signs of his intrinsic humanity; in fact, this flawed humanity is the precondition for his initiation into the higher knowledge and morality that is treated here. ⁵⁵ As the sequence closes, Beatrice delivers an enigmatic prophecy and pronounces the protagonist ready to enter into Paradise, as he has understood the moral significance of the Tree of divine justice, and she charges him with the task—whose arduousness she recognizes—of conveying her recondite message to posterity.