mentions Thales[111] and Pythagoras. The date when the latter
flourished he takes (he tells us) from Livy, and his theory that the
Universe is governed by the principle of number from Aristotle’s first
book of Metaphysics. The astronomical theories of his school are also
doubtless taken from Aristotle. Dante tells the story of Pythagoras
that he was the first man to be called “philosopher,” because when
asked if he considered himself a wise man, he replied, “No, but only
a lover of wisdom.”[112] Dionysius the Academician and Socrates are
referred to for their opinions on the influence of the stars upon
human souls;[113] and Anaxagoras and Democritus for their galactic
theories,[114] which Dante obtained from Albertus Magnus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[111] _Conv._ III. xi. 39; _Inf._ iv. 137.
[112] _Conv._ III. xi. 22-33; II. xiv. 144-147; III. v. 29-44; III. xi.
41-47.
[113] _Conv._ II. xiv. 34, 35.
[114] _Conv._ II. xv. 56.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Except for Alfraganus, Dante refers but seldom to Arab astronomers.
He does not seem to have known Albategnius. The _De Substantia Orbis_
of Averroës is quoted in the _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_,[115] and it
is possible that from this book Dante derived a theory about the moon
which he expounds in the _Convivio_. He quotes Alpetragius on circular
existence (dependent on the spheres),[116] Avicenna on the Galaxy, and
again with Algazel on the influence of the spheres,[117] and Albumassar
on meteors.[118] The quotation from the latter, however, is second-hand
from Albertus Magnus, and is a mistake, for the passage is not to be
found in that astronomer’s works. He was born in Turkestan, in 805.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[115] _Qu._ xviii. 38, 39.
[116] _Conv._ III. ii. 37.
[117] _Conv._ II. xv. 77, II. xiv. 32.
[118] _Conv._ II. xiv. 170-174.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We may here remind our readers that the three Latin poets, Virgil,
Ovid, and Lucan, were among the world’s five greatest poets met by
Dante in Limbo; that next to Aristotle among the philosophers stood
Socrates and Plato, and near these were Democritus, Anaxagoras, and
Thales, Cicero and Seneca, Ptolemy, Avicenna and Averroës.[119]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[119] _Inf._ iv. 80, 81, 90, 131-144.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among Christian writers, Dante may have gathered some information about
ancient Greek speculations from St. Augustine and Peter Lombard; and
Orosius, the Spanish friend of Augustine, was his chief authority for
that geographical system which, in connection with astronomy, plays
an important part in the time-indications of the _Divina Commedia_.
Orosius had a great reputation among geographers and map-makers.
He had travelled much between Spain, Africa, and Palestine, and he
devotes a chapter to describing the different parts of the earth in his
history _Adversus Paganos_, which he wrote to prove that Christianity
had not injured but benefitted the countries in which it had been
accepted. This fifth century geography seems to have been largely based
on the first-century geography of Strabo, who quotes Eratosthenes,
Posidonius, and Hipparchus among his authorities. Orosius states that
the land is entirely surrounded by Ocean, and is divided into three
continents—Asia, with the mouths of Ganges in the middle of its eastern
coast, Europe stretching vaguely very far to the north-east, and Africa
a narrow and long strip from east to west between the Mediterranean and
the southern ocean. This chapter is quoted in _De Mon._ II. iii. 87-90
and _Qu._ xix. 43; and Orosius is almost certainly “quell’ avocato dei
tempi cristiani,”[120] seen by Dante among the learned doctors in the
Heaven of the Sun.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[120] “The advocate of the Christian centuries.” (_Par._ x. 199).
Orosius is also mentioned by name in _Conv._ III. xi. 27; _V. E._ II.
vi. 84; and _De Mon._ II. ix. 26.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The speaker who points him out in these words also mentions his own
name and that of the spirit nearest to him:—
“Questi che m’è a destro più vicino
Frate e maestro fummi, ed esso Alberto
È di Cologna, ed io Thomas d’Aquino.”[121]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[121]
“He who is nearest to me on the right
My brother and master was, and he Albertus
Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.”
(_Par._ x. 97-99).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These two, so near in heaven, had been close companions on earth. The
youthful Thomas, son of Count d’Aquino in southern Italy, after six
years’ study at the University of Naples joined the Dominican Order,
and went to Cologne to learn from Albert, who was also of noble
family but born in Suabia on the Danube. Together they went to Paris,
together returned to Cologne, but after six more years there their
paths separated: Albert rose to be Bishop of Ratisbon; Aquinas, after
lecturing in Paris, Rome, and Bologna, became a professor at Naples,
and died in Italy in 1274. His master survived him by six years, dying
at Cologne at the advanced age of eighty-seven in 1280.[122]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[122] Toynbee, _Dante Dictionary_; the source also of many other
details given in this chapter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These two are in the foremost rank among authors of his own time who
influenced Dante. He quotes both writers and several of their books by
name,[123] and though he never mentions it he was very familiar with
the _Summa Theologica_ of Aquinas. To the works of these famous authors
he was frequently indebted for astronomical facts, theories, and
history, as already noted. Besides this, his reverence for Aristotle,
his belief in the essential harmony between religion and science, and
his whole attitude towards knowledge, are greatly due to the influence
of St. Thomas and his “brother and master,” Albert of Cologne.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[123] Albert in _Conv._ III. v. 113-115, vii. 26-28; IV. xxiii. 125-6;
Aquinas in _Conv._ II. xv. 125-6; IV. viii. 3-6, xv. 125-130, xxx.
26-30; _De Mon._ II. iv. 5-8; and see _Purg._ xx. 69.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are also three of Dante’s own fellow-countrymen and
contemporaries whose books he is most likely to have read, although he
does not mention them:—Brunetto Latini the Florentine, Cecco d’ Ascoli,
professor at Bologna, and Ristoro the monk of Arezzo.
Brunetto Latini is only mentioned once in Dante’s works, besides the
passage in the _Inferno_ already referred to. In the _De Vulgari
Eloquentia_ Brunetus Florentinus is mentioned with admiration as a
distinguished man of letters, but blamed with other Tuscans for writing
in his own local dialect.[124] Brunetto, who was born in Florence
about 1210, was sent on an embassy in 1260 to Alfonso X. of Castile,
the learned king under whose guidance the famous astronomical Tables
had been drawn up. But on his way back to Florence he was met by the
news that the Florentine Guelphs had been defeated at the disastrous
battle of Montaperti,[125] and expelled from Florence; and as he
belonged to this party he took refuge in France, first at Montpellier
and afterwards in Paris. When the Guelphs had regained the ascendancy
through their victory at Benevento in 1266 (where Manfred lost his
life),[126] Brunetto returned to Florence, and his name subsequently
appears in no less than thirty-five public documents as having been
consulted by the government of his native city on various important
matters. For the most part, moreover, it is recorded that his advice
was followed. He died at a venerable old age in Florence in 1294, and
was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[124] _V. E._, I. xiii. 1-11.
[125] _Inf._, xxxii. 81, and x. 85, 86.
[126] _Purg._, iii. 112-129.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was while exiled in France that Brunetto wrote the Italian poem
_Il Tesoretto_, in which he represents himself as a pilgrim on
an allegorical journey; and from this Dante perhaps derived some
suggestions for his Vision. The poem is incomplete, and breaks off
at a tantalizing point, for Brunetto has just met Ptolemy on Mount
Olympus, and has put a question to him: Ptolemy “rispose in questa
guisa”[127]—and here the poem ends!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[127] “Replied after this fashion.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In France also he wrote _Li Louvres dou Trésor_, a great compendium of
learning, in French prose. The first part treats of the Creation and
Biblical history, and of the natural sciences; the second of ethics,
rhetoric, and politics. In the section on astronomy which is included
in the first part, Brunetto gives a very brief account of Ptolemy’s
system, and the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies as estimated
by the Arabs: it seems to be based chiefly on Alfraganus. But beside
the periods of the planets he adds in each case their astrological
properties, as for instance:—
“Saturnus, qui est le souverain sor tous, est cruex
et felons et de froide nature ... Jupiter ... ast
dous et piteus et plains de biens.... Mars et chaus
et bataillereus, et mauvais, et est apelez Diex de
batailles.”[128]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[128] _Li Louvres dou Trésor_, Chabaille, Paris 1863.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When speaking of the two principal movements of the skies, he quotes
a curious old idea which had been mentioned by Isidore of Seville,
that they are in contrary directions because the tremendous speed of
the diurnal motion would shake the whole universe to pieces if it were
not that the seven planets go as it were to meet it, and soften its
vehemence:—
“Li firmamenz court de orient en occident entre
jor et nuit une fois, si roidement et si fort
que sa pesanteur et so grandor la feroient tout
tressaillir, se ne fussent les VII. planetes qui
vont aussi comme a l’encontre dou firmament, et
atemprent son cours selonc son erre.”[129]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[129] _Ibid._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The _Acerba_ of Cecco d’Ascoli was another encyclopædic work, but in
Italian verse. It was very much the fashion in those days to undertake
a compilation of all kinds of knowledge, and this was doubtless very
useful when few books could be owned by any single reader. Cecco had a
considerable knowledge of natural science, and astrology was of great
importance in his eyes. Though Dante never mentions him or his work,
he can hardly have been ignorant of it, especially as he himself is
mentioned in it.
Nor does he mention Ristoro of Arezzo, yet we find many ideas and
expressions in Dante’s writings which are also in the _Composizione del
Mondo_. Even if he did not borrow from it, the book is worth study by
anyone interested in the popular astronomy of the thirteenth century.
We learn from the author that he wrote his book in Arezzo, finishing it
in the year 1282, that is about thirty years before Dante’s _Convivio_
appeared. The opening words run:—
“Incominiciasi il libro della Composizione del
Mondo colle sue cagioni: composto da Ristoro di
Arezzo in quella nobilissima città ... etc.”[130]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[130] “Here beginneth the book of the _Composition of the World
together with its Causes_: written by Ristoro of Arezzo in that most
noble city.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
and the closing words are:—
“Compiuto e questo libro sotto li anni di Cristo
nel mille dugento ottantadue. Ridolfo imperadore
aletto. Martino quarto papa residente. Amen.”[131]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[131] “Here endeth this book, in the year of our Lord one thousand
two hundred and eighty-two. Rudolph Emperor at this date. Martin IV.
resident Pope.” Amen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We learn further that he was a monk and a native of Arezzo in an
interesting passage where he describes a total eclipse of the sun seen
by himself from his monastery: the sky was very clear, and it must
have been a specially dark eclipse, for besides Mercury he saw many
stars; totality lasted for as long as a man could easily walk 250
steps; there was a feeling of chill, and birds and wild animals were so
frightened that they allowed themselves to be caught. Fra Ristoro made
a calculation and found that on that day sun and moon were in the same
position in the sky. It was perhaps this event which induced him to
study astronomy.
The extent and depth of Ristoro’s reading evidently bore no comparison
to Dante’s, but he was able to sit writing in his quiet cell, day after
day, and had such books as he wanted at hand. The monastery seems
to have been furnished with astronomical tables, a celestial globe,
and the books of Alfraganus and other Arab writers. All these he had
studied, and he was something of an observer too. Alfraganus must have
been always at his elbow when writing, for he turns to it constantly,
quoting (unlike Dante) the chapter referred to:—
“Alfragano pose nell’ ottavo capitolo;” “è
testimonio l’Alfragano nelli venti e due capitoli
del suo libro;”[132]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[132] “Alfraganus said in the 8th chapter”; “Alfraganus bears witness
in the 22nd chapter of his book.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
one chapter is avowedly taken whole from Alfraganus, and where the
opinions of “il grande Tolommeo”[133] are quoted they are evidently
copied from the same source. Other Arab writers are quoted once or
twice, for instance, Albumassar,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[133] “The famous Ptolemy.”
“il quale fu altissimo maestro d’astrologia,”[134]
[134] “Who was a very great teacher of astrology.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
and several lines are copied from a Latin translation of Algazel,[135]
giving some astrological jargon about the twelve zodiacal signs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[135] “An Arabian philosopher of Baghdad, 1058-1111.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have already quoted from Ristoro’s preface, showing the high
opinion he held of astronomy. But it is disappointing to find that the
greatest part of his book is devoted to the “cagioni,” that is, to
purely fanciful “reasons,” for all the facts and fallacies concerning
nature which he has here brought together.
He gravely argues about the constellation figures as if they were real
pictures of animals and things pricked out by nature in stars on the
vault of heaven, and not a human convention. He notes their paucity in
the southern hemisphere, and that nearly all have their heads towards
the north, and from this he draws the conclusion that the northern part
of the sky is the nobler, for we can see it is the upper side, just as
we know the top side of a book by the position of its letters.
It is for this reason, he thinks, that only the northern hemisphere of
the earth contains land and is inhabited. Some, especially the great
Averroës, had indeed held that there is inhabited land south of the
equator, because the sun goes there. But this is because his movements
of recession and approach are necessary to produce the seasons, and
hence the growth of plant life, in the north. The constellations are
upside down for the south, so they can have no effect there, therefore,
there are no animals there (since every race of animals is under the
protection of a constellation); therefore no plants, since they exist
for animals, and therefore, Ristoro concludes his chain of argument
triumphantly, there are no men, and no lands, for land without life
would be useless.
Ristoro reproduces Alfraganus’ description of the sun’s movements as
seen in different latitudes, quotes him as saying that the equatoral
regions are inhabited, and Avicenna that the temperature there is
equable because days and nights are always equal. The city Arym which
is exactly on the equator has a perfect climate, and as it has two
summers and two winters there are two harvests; moreover, all the stars
in the sky are visible at the equator; therefore, the best astronomers,
and the wisest and richest men, ought to live there, says Ristoro. When
writing thus, he seems to have had before him one of the “climate maps”
which were common in Europe in the eleventh and following centuries,
having been introduced by Arab cartographers, who adopted the idea from
Greek maps. For he goes on to point out that the first “climate” is
much the longest, and that the others diminish gradually towards the
pole, all the “terra scoperta”[136] being thus contained in one quarter
of the earth, and having the shape of the moon when we see it half
full.[137]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[136] “The uncovered earth,” _i.e._ not hidden under the ocean.
[137] Bk. VI. cap. xi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 38. The half-moon shape of the habitable earth.
(Ristoro).
There is nothing but sea south of the equator, and
the habitable earth lies wholly in one half of the
northern hemisphere, the other half being sea. The
habitable earth, therefore, is the same shape as
the half-moon, _i.e._ a quarter sphere.]
The accompanying climate map shows all these features, the famous
city Arym—occupying nearly half the space, although it is supposed to
be merely on the equator—the seven climates, and the region beyond the
seventh, near the north pole, marked as uninhabitable through the cold.
The half-moon shape of Earth’s habitable quarter is obvious. The map
betrays Arab influence in the orientation, the south being at the top;
and Arym, or Aren, was an Arab myth, perhaps derived from the Mount
Meru of the Hindus, which is said in the Vedas to be “in the middle of
the earth.”
According to Ristoro, the positions of the constellation figures do
not only explain why one hemisphere of earth has land and the other
none; they also explain the movements of the skies. For the figures
of the zodiac face west (those that have faces), and this is why the
diurnal movement of the whole heaven is towards the west, so that the
constellations may move straightforward, in the natural way. On the
other hand, the planets move in the opposite direction because it would
not be seemly for them to pass each figure of the zodiac arriving first
at the back and moving on to the head. This is the true reason of the
contrary direction of the two principal celestial movements. Ristoro
does not approve of the solution quoted by Brunetto Latini. He adds
that the width of the zodiac was designed to contain the figures of the
animals!
After this, we are not surprised to hear that the red colour of the
planet Mars is the cause of its martial nature (not the reason for
which such a nature is attributed to it). The markings on the moon
Ristoro explains by saying that some body must exist in the World
which is neither polished and shining all over, like the stars, nor
altogether rugged and dark, as the earth was supposed to be, but
partaking of both natures; and this body must be the moon, because of
her intermediate position between the earth and the nearest of the
other planets (Mercury).
[Illustration: CLIMATE MAP, OF ABOUT A.D. 1110. [_To face p. 248._
_Reproduced by permission from Beazley’s “Dawn of Modern Geography.”_]
Of the influence of the heavens on the earth Ristoro has very much to
say, from general statements such as that the spheres impress their
influence on things of Earth, just as a seal impresses wax, down to
details about the births of horses. If the moon is strong in Aries,
and Aries is powerful, then, because the moon signifies white among
the colours and Aries signifies the head, the horse will be born
with a white mark on its head, and if the influence is very strong
it will be a beautifully-shaped mark. Again and again he tells us
about the various properties and “virtues” of the seven planets, but
he does not omit to mention that the powers which move the planets
and cause them to influence Earth are spirits, which we call Angels,
and the philosophers call Intelligences. These have their several
dwelling-places in the spheres, and the nobler their nature the higher
is the sphere which they inhabit.
From these quotations the reader may judge of the general trend of the
eight books comprised in _La Composizione del Mondo colle sue Cagioni_:
we shall have occasion to refer to it again, by way of comparison and
contrast, when dealing with Dante’s works in detail.
It is rather curious that there is no trace in Dante’s writings of
acquaintance with the great Roger Bacon, or with Sacrobosco, especially
as Brunetto Latini knew the former personally, and Cecco d’Ascoli
wrote a commentary on the latter, but Dante may have known them, and
also the works of Isidore and Bede, who are both mentioned in _Par._,
x. 131, as well as other books which are now completely lost. Those we
have described above would, however, be enough to supply him with all
the astronomical data, except one, which we find in his writings. It is
now time to examine these, and see what use he made in literature of
the knowledge he possessed.
_IV. ASTRONOMY IN DANTE’S WRITINGS._
ASTRONOMY IN DANTE’S WRITINGS.
If we except the seven _Penitential Psalms_ and the _Profession of
Faith_, which are only paraphrases, and are very doubtfully ascribed
to Dante, no work of his can be mentioned which does not contain some
reference to the heavenly bodies.
When writing the _Vita Nuova_, that story of his love for Beatrice
which he calls the work of his boyhood,[138] he was haunted by the
sublime idea of the rolling spheres. Beatrice at her first appearance
as a little girl of eight, and Beatrice when she died, suggested
thoughts of the nine heavens;[139] almost the first words of the book
allude to the circling spheres of the sun and of the stars:[140] and
the last sonnet soars beyond them all to the Empyrean.[141] Already he
seems to have read Alfraganus, for he takes a suggestion which occurs
in the first chapter of the _Elementa Astronomica et Chronologica_.
Alfraganus there describes the different methods of reckoning days,
months, and years, in use among different nations, and gives a special
list of the Syrian months with their corresponding Roman months; and
Dante, by using the Arabian system of days and the Syrian months, is
able to prove to himself that the day and the month when Beatrice died
were both at the sacred number of nine.[142] According to our method of
reckoning, the time was sunset on the eighth of June, but this was the
first hour of the ninth day according to Arabian usage, and our sixth
month corresponds with the ninth of the Syrians.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[138] _Conv._ I. i. 125, 126. Compare _Conv._ IV. xxiv. 1-13.
[139] _V. N._ ii. 9-12, xxx. 13-24.
[140] _V. N._ ii. 1-12.
[141] _V. N._ xlii. 47.
[142] _V. N._ xxx. 1-6.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante had also read at this time Aristotle’s doctrines about the
spheres and their Movers, for he quotes from the _Metaphysics_,[143]
and this is the work in which they are found.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[143] _V. N._ xlii. 30.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet a familiarity with Alfraganus and Aristotle so early as this is
hardly consistent with the difficulty he says he found in understanding
Latin books of philosophy some time after the death of Beatrice.[144]
Perhaps the latter part of the _Vita Nuova_ was written a good deal
later; or it may be not altogether frivolous to suggest that in his
youth Dante had read the first chapters of Alfraganus, which are easy,
but did not master the rest of the book till later.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[144] _Conv._ II. xiii. 22-26.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of his fifty-three short poems (including all in Moore’s Oxford
Edition, except those which form part of the _Vita Nuova_ or
_Convivio_), twelve, or nearly a quarter, contain some reference to
sun, moon, or stars, planets, or spheres; and from these alone we could
form some idea of Dante’s acquaintance with astronomy. He speaks of
the sun as measuring time,[145] and giving light to the stars[146]
(according to the general belief); the moon[147] and each of the
planets[148] is mentioned, some of the constellations also,[149]
especially with reference to the seasons; the theory of the several
heavens and their First Mover,[150] and the supposed influences of the
stars and planets are alluded to.[151] These poems were written at
different times, and some belong to a much later period than the _Vita
Nuova_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[145] _Son._ xxxvi. 2; _Canz._ xx. 89.
[146] _Canz._ xix. 117; _Canz._ ix. 16, 17.
[147] _Canz._ xx. 89; _Son._ xxviii. 11.
[148] _Son._ xxviii.; _Canz._ xv. 4, 7.
[149] _Canz._ xv. 3, 29, 41.
[150] _Son._ xxviii. 2.
[151] _Son._ xxviii. _Canz._ xix. 77, _Ball._ vi. 11, 12, _Canz._ xv.
41., _Son._ xxvi. 14.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is when we come to examine the _Convivio_, the work of his
manhood,[152] that we find the clearest evidence of Dante’s careful
study of astronomy. This book was written with the professed intention
(as one of its aims) of sharing with others the learning he had been
happy enough to acquire—not indeed as one of the guests at the Table
of Wisdom, but as one sitting at their feet and gathering up the
crumbs.[153] The thread which connects his discourse is a collection
of his own Odes, on each of which he had intended to write a treatise
or commentary, but the book never advanced beyond the fourth treatise.
These Odes were nearly all love-poems, but the poet explains that
they are a figurative expression of his devotion to Philosophy, and
the whole book is a glorification of the pursuit of knowledge. In the
opening sentences, with the reference to Aristotle, the manner of
reasoning, the assumptions of our innate desire for absolute knowledge
and the bliss brought by its attainment, Dante is the spokesman of his
period.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[152] _Conv._ I. i. 111-113 and 125-127.
[153] _Conv._ I. i. 67-86.
“Siccome dice il Filosofo nel principio della
_Prima Filosofia_, Tutti gli uomini naturalmente
desideranno di sapere: La ragione di che puote
essere, che ciascuna cosa, da providenza di
propria natura impinta, è inclinabile alla sua
perfezione. Onde, acciochè la scienza è l’ultima
perfezione della nostra anima, nella quale sta la
nostra ultima felicità, tutti naturalmente al suo
desiderio siamo soggetti.”[154]
[154] “As the Philosopher says at the beginning of the _First
Philosophy_, ‘All men naturally desire to have knowledge.’ The reason
of this may be that everything, being impelled by foresight belonging
to its own nature, tends to seek its own perfection. Wherefore inasmuch
as knowledge is the final perfection of our soul in which our final
happiness consists, all men are naturally subject to the desire for
it.” _Conv._ I. i. 1-11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And from a study of the _Convivio_ we may learn much of the authors
most esteemed, the methods of study pursued, and the results obtained,
by thirteenth-century scholars seeking to gain the ultimate perfection
of the soul.
Astronomy is frequently introduced, especially in the second and third
treatises. The Ode which forms the text of the second treatise is
that which is quoted by Charles of Hungary in _Par._ viii. 37—“Voi
che intendendo il terzo ciel movete,”[155] and it gives Dante the
occasion to speak first of the heaven of Venus, explaining Ptolemy’s
system of epicycles, and later of all the heavens in their order, and
the celestial bodies contained in them. The ode of the third treatise
contains the line “Non vede il Sol, che tutto il mondo gira ...”[156]
and upon this he hangs a complete little essay describing the movements
of the sun, and how they appear from different parts of the earth, as
well as a short dissertation on the question whether it is Sun or Earth
which actually moves.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[155] “Oh ye whose intellectual ministry
Moves the third heaven.”—_Carey._
[156] “The sun sees not, though circling all the world.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Latin works, _De Monarchia_, _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, the
_Eclogues_, and the _Letters_, do not give much scope for astronomical
references; yet there are many similes drawn especially from the sun
and moon, and the thought of the spheres as instruments of God’s Will
in bringing about events on earth is constantly recurring. In the
curious work _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_, Dante argues learnedly about
the spheres, the orbit of the moon, and her effect on the tides, and
the influences of the stars. The book purports to have been written at
Verona in 1320 as the outcome of a discussion in which Dante had taken
part as to the respective heights of land and ocean, a problem which
had been dealt with by Ristoro d’ Arezzo some forty years earlier. Its
authenticity has been questioned, partly under the mistaken idea that
facts such as gravity, the spherical form of Earth, and the connection
of tides with the moon were not known until much later; but as a matter
of fact the discussion is quite in the manner of Dante’s day, and no
facts or theories are put forward which he could not have learned
from books with which we believe he was acquainted.[157] The internal
evidence of his authorship is strong, and belief in it seems to be
gaining ground among experts.[158]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[157] The spherical form of Earth, and the action of gravity at the
earth’s surface, were commonplaces with the Greeks, as we have seen
in Part I. of this book. Posidonius, Strabo, and other classical
writers speak of the tides as following the revolution of the heavens,
and having periods similar to those of the moon; Albertus Magnus and
Aquinas ascribe them to the influence of the moon, and so does Dante
himself in _Par._ xvi. 83.
[158] See Moore, _Studies in Dante_, II. “The Genuineness of the
_Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_,” for a complete discussion of the question.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the _Divine Comedy_, the work of Dante’s maturity, which took
him so many years to write, and for which he had studied ever since he
closed the _Vita Nuova_ with the resolve to write more worthily one day
of Beatrice,[159] focuses in one unique and finished work the thoughts
and ideals, the knowledge and fancies, of the poet and his age. The
subject of the poem, taken in its literal sense, is cosmical, for it
describes a journey in which the author penetrates to the centre of
the universe, and passes from planet to planet until he reaches the
outermost sphere. Moreover, the journey is assumed to take a definite
space of time, and the passing of the hours by day and by night is
indicated by the successive positions of sun or stars, and the phases
and movements of the moon. The _Divine Comedy_ contains more than twice
as many allusions to the heavenly bodies as all the other works of
Dante put together.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[159] _V. N._ xliii. 3-7.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But we must discriminate in drawing conclusions from these
astronomical references so freely distributed in all Dante’s writings.
If he wrote the _Quæstio_, it is his only professedly scientific
work, written for scientific men, and astronomy is only brought in
incidentally. The _Convivio_, in which astronomical facts and theories
are set forth in much greater detail and fulness than elsewhere, was
a popular work meant for those who had no inclination, or else no
opportunity, for prolonged serious studies. We expect, therefore, that
technical details will be avoided. Still more will they be omitted in
the _Divine Comedy_ and other poetical works, where difficult problems
and pedantical accuracy would be most unsuitable. We can _infer_ the
knowledge which lay in Dante’s mind, behind his popular use of it in
literature; and we can often find an explanation in the prose of the
_Convivio_ for a slight allusion in the poetical works; but we must
not deal with any as if they were text-books, and set forth precisely
and completely all that Dante knew of his favourite science. It is
the poet’s artistic use of the astronomy of his day which merits our
admiration quite as much as the scholar’s proficiency.
This being premised, we may now proceed to quote from his works,
showing how he has dealt with first the facts, and secondly the
theories, of astronomy. Finally we shall be able to form a clear mental
picture of the universe as it was believed to exist by Dante, and not
only by his contemporaries but by his successors for many generations.
_V. OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMY._
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament sheweth His handy-work. Day unto day
uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth
knowledge. There is no speech nor language where
their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end
of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for
the sun; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a
race.”
1. MOVEMENTS OF THE MOON.
Of all the seven sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, Astronomy,
Dante thought, was the noblest, and for two reasons. Aristotle had said
that a science is noble in proportion to the nobility of its subject,
and the certainty of its conclusions; and in both of these Astronomy
excels. Its subject is the Movement of the Heavens, and its certainty
is perfect. “E nobile e alta per nobile e alto suggetto, ch’è del
movimento del cielo: è alta e nobile per la sua certezza, la quale è
senza ogni difetto.”[160] If astronomers are sometimes mistaken, the
fault lies in them, as Ptolemy said, and not in the science.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[160] _Conv._ II. xiv. 244-217. “It is noble and lofty because of its
noble and lofty subject, which is the movement of the heavens; it is
lofty and noble because of its certainty, which is without flaw.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This quotation from Ptolemy is from his book on “judicial
astronomy,”[161] and it may be that Dante was partly thinking of
astrological predictions, as he almost certainly was in the passage
that follows, where he adds that astronomy takes a long time to
learn, not only because of its great range, but because experience is
necessary to form a correct judgment. Nevertheless, it is probable that
by its flawless certainty he meant that unchanging laws govern the
celestial phenomena, so that they may always be predicted without error
when the laws are known.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[161] See p. 156.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
His definition of astronomy was accurate, for it was not until the
middle of the nineteenth century that physical astronomy began to take
its place beside the old “astronomy of position,” and in Dante’s day
practically the only subject open to research concerning the heavenly
bodies was their movements. Of these, and especially the “prime motion”
of the diurnal revolution, he was vividly conscious. His favourite name
for the heavens is “wheels”—“le ruote magne,” “eterne ruote,” “stellate
ruote”;[162] and he often refers to them as a standard of motion. Thus
when with Beatrice he was rapt from the summit of Mount Purgatory, to
express the swiftness of their flight he says it was almost as rapid
as the movement of the sky—“veloci, quasi come il ciel vedete.”[163]
Constantine moving the capital of the Roman Empire eastwards is
described as turning the Roman Eagle contrary to the course of the
sky—“contra il corso del ciel,”[164] and the sky itself is described as
a sphere which is ceaselessly at play like a lively child:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[162] “The great wheels,” “eternal wheels,” “starry wheels.”
[163] “Swift, almost as the heaven ye behold.” _Par._ ii. 21.
[164] “Against the course of the sky.” _Par._ vi. 2.
... “la spera,
Che sempre a guisa di fanciullo scherza.”[165]
[165] ... “That sphere,
Which aye in fashion of a child is playing.”
_Purg._ xv. 2, 3. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Dante, as to the Greeks, it is not the unusual or startling that
appeals, but the unfailing harmony of the regular celestial movements.
Comets he mentions only twice, and shooting stars twice, eclipses seven
times; but there are scores of allusions to the rhythmical progression
of Sun and stars, Moon and planets. The skies were familiar to him
in all their daily aspects—sunset and dawn and radiant noons; cloudy
nights “sotto pover cielo,”[166] brilliant starlit nights, nights of
clear moonlight. He had seen the stars fade one by one, till at last
even the brightest vanished in the glow of dawn:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[166] “Under a poor sky.” _Purg._ xvi. 2.
“E come vien la chiarissima ancella
Del sol più oltre, così il ciel sì chiude
Di vista in vista, infino alla più bella.”[167]
[167] “And as advances, bright exceedingly,
The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed,
Light after light, to the most beautiful.”
_Par._ xxx. 7-9. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
he had watched for their first appearance in the evening twilight:—
“E sì come al salir di prima sera
Comincian per lo ciel nuove parvenze,
Sì che la vista pare e non par vera....”[168]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[168] “As at evening hour
Of twilight, new appearances through heaven
Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried.”
_Par._ xiv. 70-72. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numberless other passages and expressions will occur to every Dante
reader, proving how keenly he felt the beauty of the skies.
But they prove more than this. Other authors have felt and have
described poetically the beauties of the skies, but they often remember
imperfectly what they saw, or draw upon their imagination without any
knowledge of the celestial movements, and so fall into absurd mistakes.
The moon especially is a stumbling-block, and it is quite a rare thing
for a modern novelist to introduce one without making it do something
impossible. A new moon will rise at midnight, or a waning moon at
sunset; she has even been known to rise and then to set in the dark
hours of one short midsummer night;[169] and a well known author sees
her in two phases at the same moment: “the full moon rose, yellow _and
gibbous_!”[170]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[169] In Kenneth Grahame’s delightful book, full of sympathy with
Nature, _The Wind in the Willows_. The moon rose when it was “past ten
o’clock,” and “sank earthwards reluctantly and left them” before dawn.
[170] H. G. Wells, _The Time Machine_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante’s moon does indeed give us a little trouble once or twice, but
he never makes flagrant mistakes of this kind. His consistency and
truth of description prove his knowledge of astronomy, and also imply
intelligent thoughtful watching of the celestial movements; for it
is notorious that book-knowledge, if unassisted by acquaintance at
first-hand with the facts of a subject like astronomy, will not save a
writer from glaring inaccuracies.
His allusions to the motions of the moon, both diurnal and monthly,
show plainly that he understood them well. His new moon appears in
the evening, his waning moon rises late at night and sets in morning
sunshine,[171] and his full moon comes on the meridian at midnight, for
when he wishes to describe her at her brightest, as a comparison with a
very brilliant light, he places her in a clear sky at midnight in her
mid-month.[172] In the middle of a lunar month the moon is full, and
being exactly opposite the sun will reach the meridian at midnight:
this therefore is the time when she gives all the light she possibly
can. In the _Quæstio_[173] Dante mentions that the moon does not move
in the celestial equator, but sometimes north of it, and sometimes an
equal amount south; in the _Convivio_ he indicates the length of her
period, and briefly describes her phases and their cause—“Ora luce da
un lato, e ora luce dall’ altro, secondo che ’l sole la vede.”[174]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[171] _Inf._ xv. 18, 19; _Purg._ xviii. 76-81; _Purg._ x. 14, 15, _Cf._
ix. 44.
[172] _Purg._ xxix. 53, 54.
[173] _Qu._ xx. 61-63.
[174] “Now she shines on one side, and now on the other, according to
the way the sun looks upon her.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 77-79.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Her position in the zodiac is mentioned several times. In one passage
he indicates a very brief space of time in the following curious way:—
“Quando ambo e due i figli di Latona,
Coperti del Montone e della Libra,
Fanno dell’ orizzonte insieme zona,
Quant’ è dal punto che il zenit inlibra.
Infin che l’uno e l’altro da quel cinto,
Cambiando l’emisperio, si dilibra,
Tanto, col volto di riso dipinto,
Si tacque Beatrice.”[175]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[175]
“At what times both the children of Latona,
Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales,
Together make a zone of the horizon,
As long as from the time the zenith holds them
In equipoise, till from that girdle both
Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance,
So long, her face depicted with a smile,
Did Beatrice keep silence.”
_Par._ xxix. 1-8.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is to say, when Sun and Moon (the children of Latona) are both
on the horizon, but one being in Aries and the other in Libra they
are opposite one another, the zenith for a moment holds them, as it
were, in balance; but the next moment one will drop below the horizon
while the other rises above it, thus changing from the visible to
the invisible hemisphere and _vice versa_, as each frees itself (“si
dilibra”) of the common horizon that girdled them. The pause of
Beatrice was as brief as the time during which sun and moon would thus
hang in the balance.
Yet, though Dante shows that he was familiar with the movements
and appearances of the moon, his allusions to her are cold and
comparatively rare. Unlike modern poets, moonlight does not seem to
have had any great fascination for him. In all his works there are
only fifty-one references to the moon, and far the greater number of
these are remarks about the measurement of time, or else her phases,
her markings, her share in causing eclipses etc. In all his short poems
(including those of the _Vita Nuova_ and _Convivio_) there are but two
references, and those as dry as possible. “Più lune”[176] is once used,
meaning several months, and in a sonnet which describes the influences
of each heaven on his lady, all he can find to say of the moon’s is “E
’l primo ciel di sè già non l’è duro.”[177]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[176] “Many moons.” _Canz._ xx. 89.
[177] “And the first heaven is not grudging to her.”—_Sonetto_ xxviii.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The chill of moonlight is spoken of as with a shudder on the hill of
Purgatory;[178] and its usefulness is recognized rather grudgingly
when Virgil remarks that yesternight the moon was full, and adds that
Dante must remember it, since it did him no harm in the depths of the
Forest.[179] It is true there is some beauty in the description of the
aurora which preceded moonrise[180] on the first night in Purgatory,
but Dante gives it an ugly name, and the waning moon when seen on the
following night, four days after full, is oddly compared to a bucket
in shape. Dante did not admire this gibbous form, for he instances
the outline of the moon when not quite full as an ignoble curve,
contrasting it with the beauty of a perfect circle.[181]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[178] _Purg._ xix. 1, 2.
[179] _Inf._ xx. 127-129.
[180] _Purg._ ix. 1-9.
[181] _Conv._ IV. xvi. 89-93.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 39. Sun, moon, and zenith.
To illustrate _Par._ xxix. 1-6. (_See p. 265_).
In the first figure the sun and moon are balanced, as it were, being at
equal distances from the zenith: in the second, a few minutes later,
by the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon, the balance is
disturbed, and each changes its hemisphere.]
Hardly ever does he find a beautiful epithet for her: she is ruler of
Hell,[182] Cain and the Thorns[183] (in reference to the legend which
sees this figure in her dark markings); or she is simply Delia,[184]
Trivia,[185] the daughter of Latona,[186] or with a little warmth
the sister of the sun,[187] and with the sun one of the two Eyes of
Heaven.[188] One exception to this harsh treatment is in the beautiful
description of reaching the heaven of the moon,[189] for there she is
the first star, the eternal pearl; and the sudden burst of eloquence in
the midst of a grave argument in _De Monarchia_ startles us doubly when
we find that Justice is compared to the moon—not, as one might expect,
resplendent in a dark sky, but Phœbe gazing at her brother opposite,
in the purple of the morning calm.[190] The passage from _Par._ xxix.
quoted above helps us to understand why the moon in this position
should symbolize Justice, for here again is suggested the perfect
balancing of the two great orbs, as the sun rises and the full moon
sets.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[182] _Inf._ x. 80.
[183] _Inf._ xx. 126.
[184] _Purg._ xxix. 78; _Ep._ vi. 54.
[185] _Par._ xxiii. 26.
[186] _Par._ x. 67; xxii. 139; xxix. 1.
[187] _Purg._ xxiii. 120.
[188] _Purg._ xx. 132.
[189] _Par._ ii. 25-36.
[190] _De Mon._ I. xi. 35-37.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Add to these passages two similes drawn not indeed from the moon
itself but from the halo surrounding her,[191] and two descriptions
of brilliant moonlight nights,[192] and we have all that Dante has
written in praise of the moon. It is true that throughout the _Inferno_
and _Purgatorio_ the sun typifies Divine Grace, and the moon is his
opposite, but this cannot altogether explain the difference in their
treatment, even in the _Divine Comedy_. A deeper reason seems to be
Dante’s true southerner’s love of the sun; and he doubtless had the
astronomer’s feeling that moonlight always means loss of starlight,
which he dearly loved (see _Purg._ xviii. 76, 77). Perhaps too the
astrological views of the moon influenced him, consciously or not.
According to Ristoro, the moon represents the poorest and lowest
classes of people, who are servants and messengers to the rest; and as
all the planets were supposed to be either masculine or feminine, he
ungallantly adds—“E questa Luna, a cagione di sua viltà, potemo dire
per ragione ch’ella sia femmina.”[193] Her only house, too, which is
Cancer, is also poor and base. The moon, moreover, is nearer Earth than
any other planet, and shows by her dark markings that she is less pure
than the rest.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[191] _Par._ x. 67-69; and _Purg._ xxix. 78.
[192] _Purg._ xxix. 53, 54; and _Par._ xxiii. 26.
[193] “And this moon, because of her inferiority, is rightly called
feminine.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. MOVEMENTS OF THE SUN.
Whatever the reason, Dante’s fifty-one references to the moon are in
strong contrast to his allusions to the sun. These are four times as
many, and they include warm expressions of admiration and delight,
and beautiful epithets and similes. The sun is Titan with his chariot
and horses,[194] he is a Mirror, a Car of Light, the Lantern of the
World, the Prince of the Stars, the Father of all mortal life.[195] His
beautiful form is admired, “la perfetta sua bella figura,”[196] and his
intense brilliance often noted.[197] He is the guide that leads all
aright,[198] to whom Virgil appeals:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[194] _Ecl._ ii. 1-4.
[195] _Purg._ iv. 62, 63; _Purg._ iv. 59; and xxix. 117, 118; _Par._ i.
38; _Canz._ xix. 114; _Par._ xxii. 116.
[196] “The perfection and beauty of his shape.” _Canz._ xix. 76.
[197] _V. N._ xlii. 29; _Canz._ ix. 2; _Conv._ II. xiv. 126, 127;
_Purg._ xvii. 52, 53; _Par._ i. 54; and x. 48, etc.
[198] _Inf._ i. 17, 18.
“O dolce Lume, a cui fidanza i’ entro
Per lo nuovo cammin, tu ne conduci.”[199]
[199]
“O pleasant light, my confidence and hope!
Conduct us thou,” he cried, “on this new way.”
_Purg._ xiii. 16, 17. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under his rays the rose expands, the air is gladdened, mists are
dispelled, snow melts, and all things are quickened into life.[200]
Unlike the moon, the sun is the bringer of warmth and comfort, chasing
away cold and darkness,[201] sunrise is the hour of renewed hope and
confidence,[202] it strengthens our limbs, paralysed by the cold of
night,[203] it is eagerly awaited through the darkness by the little
bird on her nest;[204] and delicate flowers, bowed and closed during
the cold night, rise upright on their stems and open as soon as the sun
shines once more upon them.[205] The exquisite sunsets and sunrises of
the _Purgatorio_ are favourite passages with all readers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[200] _Par._ xxii. 55, 56; _Inf._ vii. 122; _De Mon._ II. i. 37-39; and
_Par._ ii. 106-108; _Canz._ xi. 37; _Conv._ III. xii. 59, 60, etc. etc.
[201] _Canz._ ix. 5.
[202] _Inf._ i. 41-43.
[203] _Purg._ xix. 10, 11.
[204] _Par._ xxiii. 1-9.
[205] _Inf._ ii. 127-129.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Love is compared with the summer sun,[206] the generosity of a noble
nature resembles “the great planet.”[207] The Emperor Henry VII., from
whom Dante expected the regeneration of Italy and the whole Christian
world, is likened to the rising sun;[208] the birth of St. Francis is
described as “nacque al mondo un sole,”[209] and his birthplace ought
rightly to be called not Assisi but Orient.[210] Virgil is addressed
as “O Sol che sani ogni vista turbata;”[211] Beatrice is “Il sol degli
occhi miei.”[212] Finally the sun is the best symbol of God,[213]
and so it is used many times in the _Divine Comedy_: “Il Sol degli
angeli,”[214] “Il Sol che raggia tutto nostro stuolo;”[215] a spirit
turns to “il Sol che la riempie,”[216] and when Virgil laments that he
is shut out of heaven it is in these words: “Ho i’ perduto Di veder l’
alto Sol che tu disiri.”[217]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[206] _De Mon._ II. i. 36-41.; _Canz._ ix.
[207] _Canz._ xix. 96-114.
[208] _Ep._ v. 10; and vii. 19, 20, 25.
[209] “A sun rose upon the world.” _Par._ xi. 50.
[210] _Par._ xi. 52-54.
[211] “O sun that healest all imperfect vision,” _Inf._ xi. 91.
[212] “The sun of my eyes.” _Par._ xxx. 75 (See also _Par._ iii. 1-3).
[213] _Conv._ III. xii. 52-63.
[214] “The Sun of the angels.” _Par._ x. 53.
[215] “That Sun which enlightens all our company.” _Par._ xxv. 54.
[216] “The Sun which satisfies it.” _Par._ ix. 8.
[217] “I have lost the sight of that high Sun whom thou desirest.”
_Purg._ vii. 25, 26. Compare _Par._ xxx. 126; xv. 76; xviii. 105.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But we may not dwell on those thoughts of the sun as the typical giver
of light and life; we must ask what Dante says about his movements,
since this was the chief subject-matter of mediæval astronomy.
His daily course, “il cammin del Sole,”[218] is often spoken of, and
is indicated both by his position in the sky, and the length and
direction of shadows. The second _Eclogue_ begins with a description of
a breathlessly hot midday, when objects, which are usually shorter than
their own shadows, now surpassed them in length.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[218] “The path of the sun.” _Purg._ xii. 74.
“Resque refulgentes, solitae superarier umbris,
Vincebant umbras.” _Ecl._ ii. 5, 6.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At this time the sun appears most brilliant, and seems to move most
slowly, since he is scarcely changing his position with regard to the
horizon.
“E più corrusco, e con più lenti passi,
Teneva il sole il cerchio di merigge.”[219]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[219] “Shining more brightly and with slower steps, the sun had gained
the circle of midday.” _Purg._ xxxiii. 103, 104.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The greatest number of references to the sun’s daily journey occur in
the _Purgatory_, and we shall quote them in a later chapter.
His yearly journey through the zodiac is also very often referred to.
When relating his first meeting with Beatrice, Dante names his age, not
by simply saying that he was nearly nine years old, but by counting the
number of the times that the “heaven of light,” that is, of the sun,
had returned to the same point since his birth:—
“Nove fiate già, appresso al mio nascimento, era
tornato lo cielo della luce quasi ad un medesimo
punto, quanto alla sua proprio girazione.”[220]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[220] “Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light
returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution.”
_V. N._ ii. 1-4. (_Rossetti_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sun’s “own revolution” is of course its apparent yearly movement,
as distinct from the diurnal movement which it shares with all the
heavenly bodies.
The same thought is expressed in a sonnet:
“Io sono stato con Amore insieme
Dalla circolazion del Sol mia nona.”[221]
We know further that Dante was born in either May or June, because he
says, when he finds himself among the stars of Gemini, that the sun was
rising and setting in this sign at the time of his birth.[222]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[221] “I have dwelt with Love since my ninth revolution of the sun.”
_Son._ xxxvi. 1, 2.
[222] See diagram on p. 276.
“O gloriose stelle
Con voi nasceva e s’ascondeva vosco
Quegli ch’è padre d’ogni mortal vita,
Quand’ io senti’ da prima l’ aer tosco.”[223]
[223]
“O glorious stars ...
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air.”
_Par._ xxii. 112-117. (_Longfellow_).
At this date the sun entered the _constellation_ of Gemini on June
1 (Old Style), but was in the _sign_ from May 11 to June 11, and it
is always to the signs that Dante refers in the _Divine Comedy_. The
anonymous fourteenth century commentator known as “l’Ottimo” interprets
this passage as indicating the time “between the middle of May and the
middle of June.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boccaccio tells us that a Mayday feast, given by the father of
Beatrice, was the occasion of Dante’s first meeting with her, and also
that not long before his death in Ravenna he told a friend that he had
completed his fifty-sixth year in the preceding May, so we may conclude
that May was the month of his birth.
Dante seems to have taken some trouble to find out the exact period of
the sun’s revolution. His text-book, the _Elementa_ of Alfraganus, only
gives it as 365¼ days nearly:—“Sol ... orbem confecit diebus 365 et
propè ¼.” Ristoro d’Arezzo and Brunetto Latini were content to repeat
this rough estimate, and call the year 365 days 6 hours, but Dante
wished to be more exact, and somehow contrived to obtain a value which
was much nearer the modern estimate of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes,
46 seconds. We know this from two passages. In the _Convivio_ he gives
the half period as less than 182 days 15 hours; and in the _Paradiso_
Beatrice says that January will in time cease to be a winter month,
because of a neglected fraction of time.
“Prima che gennaio tutto si sverni
Per la centesma ch’ è laggiù negletta.”[224]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[224]
“Ere January be unwintered wholly
By the centesimal on Earth neglected.”
_Par._ xxvii. 142-143. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
January was in fact receding from the winter, and steadily though
slowly advancing towards the spring, because the Julian year (as we
saw, p. 171) was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the true solar
tropical year. When Julius Cæsar reformed the Calendar, March 25 was
made (as of old) to coincide with the spring equinox, but by Dante’s
time this date was 13 days late, and the true equinox fell on March 12.
Consequently though the day called January 1 still came 84 days before
March 25, it was only 71 days before the spring equinox.
If Beatrice meant to speak with scientific precision, and was correct
in her hundredth part of a day per annum, that is, if the difference
between the astronomical and the Julian year was one day in a hundred
years, it would be 7100 years before the first of January came to
coincide with the spring equinox, and January became a spring month.
But the error quoted is really rather too large, for a hundredth part
of a day is 14 minutes 24 seconds, and it was in fact only 11 minutes
14 seconds.
It would be interesting to know where Dante found this value, which
is practically the only astronomical datum not given in Alfraganus.
Ptolemy, following Hipparchus, had given the tropical year as ¹/₃₀₀
part of a day less than 365¼; Albategnius gave a more accurate figure,
and one which agrees well with the “centesma,” for his tropical year
differs from the Julian by a little less than ¹/₁₀₆ of a day; but he
also improved the value of precession, and Dante does not seem to have
known this, so he was probably not acquainted with this astronomer’s
work. The Alfonsine Tables gave a value which was very close indeed to
the correct one, making the tropical year only 30 seconds longer than
the modern value, and the difference between the Julian and true year
¹/₁₃₄ of a day. (The correct value is ¹/₁₂₈). Either of these figures
may have been known to Dante indirectly: perhaps he had obtained the
Alfonsine value in conversation with Brunetto Latini, who had visited
Alfonso’s court. His fraction was evidently only approximate, but it is
interesting to know that he had found out more than popular books could
tell him about the period of the sun’s revolution, and that he had been
sufficiently struck by the small difference between the calendar and
astronomical years to mention it in a picturesque way in his poem. It
is possible that he had heard of Roger Bacon’s appeal to the Pope in
1267 to correct the calendar because the date of the spring equinox was
of importance in connection with the observation of Easter.
It is hardly necessary to remind my readers that this was done by
another Pope three hundred years later, before January had made much
more advance towards becoming a spring month. The hundredth part of a
day, of which Beatrice complained, is now subtracted from the year by
omitting to make century years leap years; but as the error was really
not quite so great as she said, an exception is made for century years
divisible by 400. Thus 1600 was a leap year, but not 1700, 1800, or
1900.
[Illustration: Fig. 40. The Zodiac and the Months.]
Dante seems to have connected any season of the year with the sun’s
path in the zodiac as readily as with the name of a month. The sun’s
yearly course through the signs is shown diagrammatically in figure 40,
and a glance at this will make clear a number of allusions without any
explanation.
Starting from the first point of Aries at the spring equinox, which in
Dante’s time fell in the middle of March, and taking one-twelfth of
the year to traverse each sign, it is evident that during the end of
March and beginning of April the sun was in Aries; he entered Cancer
and reached the summer solstice in June, the autumnal equinox in Libra
in September, and the winter solstice when he entered Capricornus in
December. The six signs above the horizontal line are northern, the six
below are southern.
The following are a few typical examples.
When Dante wishes to express the transition of his feelings from
despondency to courage, at seeing the stern and troubled face of his
guide melt suddenly to a smile, he compares himself to a poor shepherd
who wakes early and sees the fields covered, as he thinks, with snow,
but in a short time finds that it is only hoar-frost which has put on
the semblance of her white sister, and seeing the face of the world
changed he gladly leads out his sheep to pasture. The time at which
this may happen is
“Quella parte del giovinetto anno,
Che il sole i crin sotto l’Aquario tempra,
E già le notti al mezzodì sen vanno.”[225]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[225]
“In that part of the youthful year wherein
The sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,
And now the nights draw near to half the day.”
_Inf._ xxiv. 1-3. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
That part of the youthful year when the sun cools his locks beneath
Aquarius is clearly the end of January or beginning of February, but
the last line may bear one of two meanings. If we translate “mezzodì”
as “half the day” it means that the nights are growing shorter, and
very soon (in March) when the sun will have reached the equinox, they
will be just twelve hours long. If we take “mezzodì” as meaning “the
south,” we must interpret the passage in the light of others in the
_Divine Comedy_ where Night is personified, and considered as circling
in the zodiac always opposite to the sun. For instance in _Purg._ ii.
1-6 (a passage which will be more fully explained later) Night is
described as circling opposite to the sun, “La notte, che opposita a
lui cerchia,”[226] and as the sun at that time was in Aries, Night was
in Libra, “le Bilance.” Henceforth for six months the sun will be in
the northern signs, and the days longer than the nights, but as soon as
Night begins to assert her supremacy, and the nights begin to be longer
than the days, the sun enters Libra and then it is not visible all
night. This is the meaning of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[226] “Night that opposite to him revolves.” (_Longfellow_).
“le Bilance,
Che le caggion di man quando soverchia.”[227]
[227]
“The Scales, that from her hands are dropped
When she reigns highest.”
_Purg._ ii. 5, 6. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Night becomes dominant, the Scales fall from her hand, for the sun
is in that sign.
Applying this idea to the passage quoted above, it will mean “The
nights are going southward,” for the sun in Aquarius is not far from
the point where he crosses the equator to the north, therefore Night
circling opposite to him is nearing the point where she goes south.
Either interpretation is faithful to fact, but perhaps the circumstance
that the plural noun is used favours the first.
[Illustration: Fig. 41. The Ram on the Ecliptic. [_To face p. 279._
_From the “Cosmi Historia” of Robert Flud, a.d. 1612._
(_Reproduced from Brown’s Phainomena of Aratos._)]
Conrad Malaspina prophesied to Dante that his favourable opinion of the
Malaspina family would be justified “before the sun had come to rest
again seven times in the bed which the Ram covers and bestrides with
his four feet.”
“Ed egli: Or va, che il Sol non si ricorca
Sette volte nel letto che il Montone
Con tutti e quattro i pie copre ed inforca
Che cotesta cortese opinione ...”[228]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[228]
“And he: Now go, for the sun shall not lie
Seven times upon the pillow which the Ram
With all his four feet covers and bestrides.
Before that such a courteous opinion ...”
_Purg._ viii. 133-136. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sun was at the time in the Ram, and Malaspina means that less
than seven years would elapse, before his prophecy was fulfilled.
The aptness of the description may be seen by the figure of Aries
as portrayed in an old seventeenth century book in which the Ram is
uncomfortably trying to sit on the ecliptic.
Another instance is in the beautiful midwinter Ode, “Io son venuto al
punto della rota.”[229] Each stanza pictures a feature of a severe
winter—snow and rain, the absence of summer birds, bare trees and dead
flowers, the favourite walk become a torrent; but the first describes
the position of stars and planets. When the sun sets, the Twins
appear on the eastern horizon, hence we know at once that the sun is
in Sagittarius and the time is November or December. To confirm his
melancholy, the poet adds that the Star of Love (Venus) is hidden from
us by the sun’s rays which now shine athwart her, and that the planet
which strengthens the cold (Saturn, the “frigida stella” of Virgil)
displays himself in that arc of the sky in which all the seven planets
cast the shortest shadow;[230] that is, either he is on the meridian at
sunset, or he is in the most northerly part of the zodiac, in Gemini or
Cancer. A planet in this place, as for instance the sun at midsummer,
is visible longer, describes a longer arc, and casts shorter shadows,
than in any other part of the zodiac. And as this is the part which
rises over the eastern horizon as the sun sets, Saturn would also rise
at that time and remain visible all night.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[229] “I have come to that part of the wheel.” _Canz._ xv.
[230] Like all mediæval writers, Dante includes the sun and moon among
the seven planets. The others do not cast perceptible shadows, except
Venus and Jupiter at their brightest.
The opening lines of the Ode run thus:—
“Io son venuto al punto della rota,
Che l’orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca,
Ci parturisce il geminato cielo;
E la stella d’amor ci sta rimota
Per lo raggio lucente, che la ’nforca
Sì di traverso, che le si fa velo;
E quel pianeta che conforta il gelo
Si mostra tutto a noi per lo grand’ arco,
Nel qual ciascun de’ sette fa poca ombra.”[231]
[231]
“I to that point in the great wheel have come,
Wherein the horizon, when the sun doth set,
Brings forth the twin-starred heaven to our sight;
And Love’s fair star away from us doth roam,
Through the bright rays obliquely on it met
In such wise that they veil its tender light;
That planet which makes keen the cold of night
Shows himself to us in the circle great,
Where each star of the seven casts little shade.”
(_Plumptre_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is astonishing that Giuliani should so completely miss the point of
the “twinned sky,” that he substitutes “ingemmato” for “geminato,” and
reads—
“ ... la rota,
Ch’ all orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca,
Ci parturisce l’ingemmato cielo.”[232]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[232] “The Wheel which, when the sun sets, brings forth for us on the
horizon the jewelled sky.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He understands the hour of evening to be meant, when the Wheel of
Day and Night brings a jewelled, _i.e._ starry sky on the horizon as
the sun sets. But it is not only on the horizon that stars appear at
sunset; and the mention of Gemini to indicate the time of year is
thoroughly characteristic of Dante. The Wheel is the revolving year
which has carried the sun into Sagittarius.
Angelitti remarks that the whole description was literally true for
December 1296, since Venus was then in conjunction with the sun, and
Saturn in Cancer;[233] and as this poem is a complaint of the hardness
of his lady, to whom the poet is nevertheless wholly devoted, it may
well have been written in that time when the lady Philosophy refused to
smile upon her lover.[234]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[233] _Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco_ p. 90, note.
[234] Comparing _Conv._ II. ii. 12, xiii. 49-52, and IV. i. 60-62, we
learn that in August 1293 (_vide infra_, p. 314), Dante first became
acquainted with the Lady Philosophy; that in the early part of 1296 he
was completely under her spell; and that some time afterwards she for a
while estranged herself from him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further on in the same poem the effects of the sun in spring, when he
is in the sign of Aries, are alluded to as “the virtue of Aries”:—
“Passato hanno lor termine le fronde,
Che trasse fuor la virtù d’Ariete,
Per adornare il mondo, e morta è l’ erba.”[235]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[235]
“Scattered and faded now is all the foliage
Which had burst forth, beneath the power of Aries,
To beautify the world, the grass is withered.” _Canz._ xv. 40-42.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contrast with this the passage in the _Paradiso_ where “nocturnal
Aries” is used as a synonym for autumn.
“Questa primavera sempiterna
Che notturno Ariete non dispoglia.”[236]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[236]
“This everlasting spring
Nocturnal Aries never can despoil.”
_Par._ xxviii. 116-117.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For although Aries may be seen during some part of the night in the
greater part of the year, it is most emphatically a noctural sign when
it rises as the sun sets, and remains above the horizon until he rises;
this happens when the sun is in the opposite sign of Libra, which he
enters at the autumnal equinox.
A rather curious passage in the _Paradiso_ is incomprehensible unless
we think of the sun’s path in the zodiac, and realize that Dante is
comparing the brightness of the spirit of St. John in an indirect way
with the brightness of the sun.
“Poscia tra esse un lume si schiarì,
Sì che, se il Cancro avesse un tal cristallo,
L’inverno avrebbe un mese d’un sol dì.”[237]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[237]
“Thereafterward a light among them brightened
So, that if Cancer one such crystal had
Winter would have a month of one sole day.”
_Par._ xxv. 100-102. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If a light as dazzling as this spirit were to shine forth in Cancer,
there would be perpetual day for a whole month in winter. For when the
sun entered Capricornus, which he does in December, he would be exactly
opposite, so that as one light set the other would rise, and there
would be no darkness until the sun passed into another sign.
To many similar instances the diagram (p. 276) will be found to supply
a key, and some we shall have occasion to notice presently in another
connection.
3. THE STARS.
If our poet did not love moonlight, there is no doubt that starlight
was very dear to him. Never are stars spoken of as cold, or placed in
antithesis to the sun. Rather are they classed together, as in the
pathetic letter, written when he heard of the possibility that the
Florentines might receive him again if he would consent to return as a
disgraced but pardoned criminal. If this is the only path to Florence,
never will he re-enter the beloved city. “What then?” he cries. “Can he
not see the mirrors of the sun and of the stars, wherever he may be?
can he not meditate on precious truths under any sky?”[238]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[238] _Ep._ ix. 46-49.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He describes the Inferno as bereft of stars as well as of sun;[239]
he hopes to escape those dark abysses to see the beautiful stars
again,[240] and the terror of the sounds of weeping and crying is
heightened indescribably by the simple words:—“risonavan per l’aer
senza stelle.”[241] When he does at length come forth to see “le cose
belle che porta il ciel”[242] how eagerly he gazes, not only at Venus,
but at the new stars in the south! how his “greedy eyes”[243] seek
the same region as soon as dusk begins to fall! and how radiantly the
stars look down upon him on that last night on the rocky slopes of the
Mountain, near the summit![244]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[239] _Inf._ iii. 23.
[240] _Inf._ xvi. 82, 83.
[241] “Resounded through the air without a star.” _Inf._ iii. 23.
[242] “The fair things that heaven holds.” _Inf._ xxxiv. 137, 138.
[243] _Purg._ viii. 85.
[244] _Purg._ xxvii. 89, 90.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is all allegorical, no doubt, but it is because of Dante’s
feeling for the real “belle stelle”[245] that he uses them as symbols
of truth and holiness, and concludes each Cantica of the _Divine
Comedy_ with their name:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[245] “Beautiful stars,” _Inf._ xvi. 83.
“E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”[246]
“Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”[247]
“L’Amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.”[248]
[246] “Thence issuing we beheld again the stars.”
[247] “Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.”
[248] “The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here “stelle” has the wider meaning of the French “astres,” for which
we have no equivalent in English except the clumsy “heavenly bodies;”
but most of Dante’s hundred references are to stars in the more special
sense, and often to particular stars or constellations. Over eighty
occur in the _Divine Comedy_.
Stars are jewels, torches, flames, immortal nymphs adorning every
region of the sky.[249] Heaven is made beautiful by their light, and
the joy of the angels is expressed in their shining, as mortal joy
shines forth in human eyes.[250] If the spirits in the fourth heaven
are described as glowing suns,[251] the “splendours” that descend upon
the golden ladder in the seventh, make Dante think that all the stars
in the sky are gathered together there.[252]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[249] _Purg._ ix. 4; _Purg._ viii. 89; _Purg._ i. 25; _Par._ xxiii. 26.
[250] _Par._ ii. 130, 142-144.
[251] _Par._ x. 76.
[252] _Par._ xxi. 28-33.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The eyes of Beatrice shone brighter than stars;[253] light comes as
from many stars in reading the sacred books;[254] faith gleams like a
star in the sky;[255] and truth appears in a mind cleared of falsehood
and error like the radiance of stars in a sky which has been wholly
swept of cloud and mist by a north wind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[253] _Inf._ ii. 55.
[254] _Par._ xxv. 70. See also _Conv._ II. xvi. 4-12, where the
writings of Boëthius and Cicero, and all instructive books, are called
stars full of light.
[255] _Par._ xxiv. 147.
“Come rimane splendido e sereno
L’emisperio dell’ aer, quando soffia
Borea da quella guancia ond’ è più leno,
Perchè si purga e risolve la roffia
Che pria turbava, sì che il ciel ne ride
Con le bellezze d’ogni sua paroffia:
Così fec’ io, poi che mi provvide
La Donna mia del suo risponder chiaro,
E come stella in cielo il ver si vide.”[256]
[256]
“Even as remaineth splendid and serene
The hemisphere of air, when Boreas
Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest,
Because is purified and resolved the wrack
That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs
With all the beauties of its pageantry:
Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady
Had me provided with her clear response,
And like a star in heaven the truth was seen.”
_Par._ xxviii. 79-87. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stars, as well as the sun, are used as symbols for the objects of
Dante’s deepest reverence; for the Blessed Virgin is called “la viva
stella,”[257] and the Final Vision in which the redeemed find their
ultimate bliss is a Trinal Light seen as a single star:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[257] “The shining star.” _Par._ xxiii. 92.
“O trina Luce, che in unica stella
Scintillando a lor vista sì gli appaga,
Guarda quaggiù alla nostra procella.”[258]
[258]
“O Trinal Light, that in a single star
Sparkling upon their sight so satisfies them,
Look down upon our tempest here below!”
_Par._ xxxi. 28-30. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The diurnal motion of the stars is referred to many times. As Dante
watched the mystical procession in the Earthly Paradise, and saw one
group follow in the footsteps of another across the flowers and the
grass, he thought of the stately procession of stars which we see here
by night, star following star across the sky.[259] Their movement marks
for him the passage of time, as we see in the first sonnet of the _Vita
Nuova_:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[259] _Purg._ xxix. 91.
“Già eran quasi ch’ atterzate l’ ore
Del tempo che ogni stella è piu lucente.”[260]
[260]
“Of those long hours wherein the stars above
Wake and keep watch, the third was almost nought.”
_V. N._ iii. 81, 82. (_Rossetti_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
and in the _Inferno_, where Virgil hastens Dante, saying that all
the stars are sinking which were rising when he started on his long
journey.[261]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[261] _Inf._ vii. 98, 99.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The motion of those stars which neither rise nor set, but are always
seen circling round the pole, is clearly described. In the heaven
of the sun, spirits gather round Dante and Beatrice, and circle
round them, “Come stelle vicine ai fermi poli;”[262] and the motion
of the stars near the pole is said to be slow, like the part of a
wheel which is near the axle.[263] We may compare these descriptions
with the statement of Alfraganus:—“Eæ stellæ (_i.e._ the northern
circumpolar) vertuntur omnes circa idem punctum. Et quei ex iis
puncto huic est vicinior, minorem conficit circulum: motusque ejus
appâret lentior.”[264] Dante assumes that his readers understand this
motion when he describes himself as seeing unknown stars near the
South Pole. The Mount of Purgatory is supposed to be situated in the
southern hemisphere, and at his first arrival, before dawn, he turns
to the right, after looking at Venus in the east, therefore to the
south, and sees near the pole four stars so brilliant that the whole
sky seems to rejoice in their radiance, and he pities the “widowed”
northern hemisphere because they are invisible there.[265] In the
evening, as soon as it begins to grow dark, although he is engaged
in an interesting discourse with a friend with whom he had exchanged
warm greetings, he looks eagerly once more towards the pole (note the
intensity expressed by the repeated “pure”)—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[262]
“Like unto stars neighbouring the stedfast poles.”
_Par._ x. 78.
[263] _Purg._ viii, 86, 87.
[264] “These stars all revolve round the same point, and the nearer a
star is to this point, the smaller is the circle that it makes, and the
slower its motion appears.” _El. Ast._ cap. ii.
[265] _Purg._ i. 22-27.
“Gli occhi miei ghiotti andavan pure al cielo,
Pur là dove le stelle son più tarde,
Sì come rota più presso allo stelo.”[266]
[266]
“My insatiate eyes
Meanwhile to heaven had travelled, even there
Where the bright stars are slowest, as a wheel
Nearest the axle.”
_Purg._ viii. 85-87. (_Carey_).
He now sees three bright stars which make this pole glow with light,
and Virgil says that the stars he saw in the morning are low, while
those now visible have risen higher to take their place.
“Ed egli a me: Le quattro chiare stelle
Che vedevi staman son di là basse,
E queste son salite ov’ eran quelle.”[267]
[267]
“And he to me: The four resplendent stars
Thou sawest this morning are down yonder low,
And these have mounted up to where those were.”
_Purg._ viii. 91-93. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The diurnal movement of the starry heaven is also alluded to in the
_Convivio_, and contrasted with that immensely slow movement which was
discovered by Hipparchus, and is called by us Precession. The starry
heaven, says Dante, displays one of its poles to us, and keeps the
other hidden; and in like manner it displays only one movement to us,
and keeps the other almost hidden. By the first, it revolves once in
every day from east to west; the other is nearly insensible, being only
one degree in a hundred years, and it is from west to east.[268] This
is the value of precession as given by Alfraganus, following Ptolemy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[268] _Conv._ II. xv. 10-14, and 96-104.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was this stupendous and mysterious cycle which was used by Dante
to measure the age of Beatrice, though for his own he used (as we
saw) the ordinary measure of the sun’s period. When he first saw “la
gloriosa donna”[269] she had only been in this life so long that the
starry heaven had moved towards the east one-twelfth part of a degree.
Therefore, she was one-twelfth of a hundred years old, or 8 years 4
months, “so that it was near the beginning of her ninth year that she
appeared to me, and I saw her nearly at the end of my ninth.”[270]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[269] “The glorious Lady.”
[270] _V. N._ ii. 9-15.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante tells us how many stars had been counted by “the sages of Egypt,”
by whom he means Ptolemy and the other Alexandrians: he did not know
that the star catalogue of the _Almagest_ was originally made by
Hipparchus of Rhodes.
“Dico ch’ il cielo stellato ci mostra molto stelle;
chè, secondochè li savi d’Egitto hanno veduto,
infino all’ultima stella che appare loro in
meridie, mille ventidue corpora di stelle pongono,
di cui io parlo.”[271]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[271]
“I say that the starry heaven displays a multitude
of stars to us, for as the Sages of Egypt have
perceived, including the last star which appears
to them in the south, they reckon one thousand
and twenty-two starry bodies, of which I am now
speaking.”
_Conv._ II. xv. 18-22. (_Jackson_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be noted that he carefully avoids saying that this is the
number of all the stars visible from the whole earth. Had he, like
Ristoro, run away with the idea that a blank space on the globe meant
a blank in the sky, his night sky seen from Purgatory would have been
strangely bare and dull! Yet both writers used the same text-book.
Dante is here following Alfraganus closely, for he had written in his
nineteenth chapter:—
“Sciendum itaque sapientes inivisse mensuram
stellarum fixarum omnium, quoad instrumentis
observari eæ potuerunt, extremam usque meridiei
partem, in tertio climate ipsis conspicuam....
Stellæ universae quarum agi mensura potuit sunt
mille viginti duæ.”[272]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[272] “You are to know that the Sages measured the places of all the
fixed stars as accurately as possible with their instruments, as far
south as they could see in the third climate.... The number of all the
stars which he was able to measure is one thousand and twenty-two.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both in the _Quæstio_ and the _Paradiso_ Dante notes how stars differ,
not only in their brightness or “magnitude,” but also in the quality of
their light, by which he probably means their colour:—
“Videmus in eo [_sc._ cœlum stellatum] differentiam
in magnitudine stellarum et in luce.”[273]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[273] “We see in it (the starry heaven) a difference in the magnitude
of the stars and in their light.” _Qu._ xxi. 19-21.
“Lumi, li quali nel quale e nel quanto
Notar si posson di diversi volti.”[274]
[274]
“Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you
Which in their quality and quantity
May noted be of aspects different.”
_Par._ ii. 65-66. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems as if it were the beauty and the movement of the starry sky
as a whole which appealed to Dante, rather than the distinguishing of
special stars and constellations. Those which he mentions are almost
all either in the zodiac, and used to denote the hour, the season, or
the position of one of the seven planets; or else they are near one of
the poles and illustrate the circumpolar motion.
All the zodiacal constellations are mentioned except Virgo and
Sagittarius. Besides the ordinary names of “Ariete,” “Libra,” etc.,
Aries is called “il Montone;”[275] Gemini “il segno che segue il
Tauro,” “gli eterni Gemelli,” and “il bel nido di Leda,”[276] in
reference to the mother of Castor and Pollux, its two brightest
stars; Libra is “le Bilance”;[277] Scorpio “il freddo animale”;[278]
Capricornus is “il Capra del ciel”;[279] and Pisces “la celeste
Lasca.”[280]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[275] “The Ram.” _Purg._ viii. 134; _Par._ xxix. 2.
[276] “The sign which follows Taurus,” _Par._ xxii. 110, 111; “The
eternal Twins,” xxii. 152; “The fair nest of Leda,” xxvii. 98.
[277] “The Balance.” _Purg._ ii. 5.
[278] “The cold creature.” _Purg._ ix. 5.
[279] “The Goat of the sky.” _Par._ xxvii. 69.
[280] “The celestial Carp.” _Purg._ xxxii. 54.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In one place Castor and Pollux are mentioned, but merely as a synonym
for the whole constellation of Gemini.[281] “Il petto del Leone
ardente”[282] is perhaps Cor Leonis, the Heart of the Lion, for this is
the name given to Regulus by both Ptolemy and Alfraganus. The “Maggior
Fortuna”[283] of _Purg._ xix. 4, is a group of stars belonging to the
two constellations of Aquarius and Pisces, in which the geomancers, who
told fortunes by means of certain points traced at random, thought they
saw a special series of these points,-:::..
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[281] _Purg._ iv. 61.
[282] “The burning Lion’s breast.” _Par._ xxi. 14.
[283] “Greater Fortune.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is generally agreed that the “gemme” of _Purg._ ix. 4, “poste in
figura del freddo animale, Che con la coda percote la gente,”[284] are
some stars of Scorpio which were shining on the eastern horizon just
before the moon rose on the first night in the Island of Purgatory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[284]
“Gems ... set in the shape of that cold animal
Which with its tail doth smite amain the nations.”
(_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The zodiacal constellations in general are spoken of as “all the
lights of his [the sun’s] path:” “Tutti i lumi della sua strada.”
(_Par._ xxvi. 121, 122).
The pole star is described as the point of the axle round which the
first sphere revolves.[285] The first sphere (or wheel, as it is
called, with reference to its circling motion) is here the Primum
Mobile, which was thought to cause the diurnal motion. This unique
position gains for the pole star the name of “the star,” as for
instance in _Conv._ III. v. 84, 85, where Dante says that a man
standing at the north pole would have “la stella” directly over his
head. And in Paradise he hears a voice among the spirits which makes
him turn in its direction as the needle turns to the star—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[285] _Par._ xiii. 11, 12.
“Voce, che l’ago alla stella
Parer mi fece in volgermi al suo dove.”[286]
[286]
“A voice,
That made me seem like needle to the star,
In turning to its whereabout.”
_Par._ xii. 29, 30. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This property of the magnet was known in Dante’s day, as well as its
power of attracting iron, though only the latter had been known to
Ptolemy and the classical world. Whether the discovery came from China,
where it is said that some form of compass has been used since the
second century A.D., or whether it had been discovered independently
by Arab or Italian navigators, we do not know: but scholars and poets
in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries write of the “ugly brown
stone” used by sailors to make an instrument that cannot lie. For a
needle, rubbed by it and run through a straw, when floated on water
turns so surely to “the star” that one need never doubt its guidance.
Thus writes Guyot, the poet of Languedoc, about 1200:—
“Un art font qui mentir ne puet,
Par la vertu de la manete,
Une pierre laide et brunete,
Ou le fers volentiers se joint,
Ont: si esgardent le droit point,
Puis c’une aiguile i ont touchie,
Et en un festu l’ont couchie,
En l’eve la metent sanz plus,
* * * * *
Puis se torne la pointe toute
Contre l’estoile si sanz doute,
Que ja nas hom n’en doutera.”
And thus Ristoro:—
“L’angola, che guidi li marinari, chè per la virtu
del cielo è tratta e rivolta alla stella la quale è
chiamata tramontana.”[287]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[287] “The needle which guides mariners, for by the virtue of the
heavens it is attracted and turned towards that star which is called
the North Star.” _Composizione del Mondo_, Bk. VII. part iv. ch. 2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Albertus Magnus speaks of it in the same way, as something well known
to mariners.
It seems strange to us how Dante and his contemporaries failed to see
the importance of this discovery; Brunetto Latini, when the ugly stone
was shown to him on his visit to Roger Bacon at Oxford, even professing
to regard it as a mere toy, of no practical use. Dante discusses the
number of the stars known to Ptolemy, and describes the last mad voyage
of Ulysses, who saw all the stars of the other pole, while ours sank
low on the ocean floor;[288] but he does not seem to guess that the new
toy would make possible even longer voyages than these, and that in
time the blank in his celestial globe would be filled.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[288] _Inf._ xxvi. 127-129.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet even in his own life-time plucky little Genoa fitted out two
galleys which ventured through the forbidden Straits, with intent to
circumnavigate Africa and find a new route to India. And meanwhile,
travelling by old overland or coasting routes, Italian missionary
monks, and Italian traders, were visiting southern countries and
describing southern skies. Friar Giovanni de Monte Corvino, who was
in South India with Nicolo of Pistoia, writes home in 1291, telling
of his disappointment that he had never been able to see “the other
pole star” (l’altra tramontana), though he saw new stars moving round
and evidently near to it, close to the southern horizon. A few years
later Marco Polo the Venetian was dictating the story of his travels to
a Pisan in Genoa: he had been further south than the missionaries, for
in a certain island (probably Sumatra) he had seen the south pole “a
spear’s length” above the horizon; and in the land of Zinzi (Zanzibar?)
he had seen a marvellous star as big as a sack (which was evidently the
Greater Magellanic Cloud). This he drew a picture of with his own hand.
Dante’s silence, and probable incredulity, regarding these experiences
of his own countrymen and contemporaries is characteristic of his
age; for scholars were too eager to explore the precious classical
lore lately recovered from oblivion, to realize that they were on the
threshold of a new era in knowledge, of which these men were pioneers.
It is sometimes thought, however, that Dante made use of contemporary
observations of southern skies in his description of the stars he
feigned himself to have seen when the Wain disappeared under his
northern horizon.[289] Quite correctly, he does not place any single
bright star to mark the south pole; his two constellations, one of four
bright stars seen above the pole in the morning,[290] one of three
which takes its place after sunset,[291] are these real or fictitious?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[289] _Purg._ i. 30.
[290] _Purg._ i. 26.
[291] _Purg._ viii. 89.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a fact that there are four bright stars in the form of a cross,
lying between 56° and 63° south: are these Dante’s “quattro chiare
stelle,” “quattro luci sante?”[292] They were not recognized as a
separate constellation until the beginning of the sixteenth century,
when Amerigo Vespucci described them in his letters about his southern
voyages, and the Florentine Andrea Corsali wrote about the marvellous
Cross which was so beautiful that in his opinion no other constellation
in the sky was worthy to be compared with it. This, he believed, was
the very cross of which Dante had spoken in a prophecy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[292] “Four bright stars, four sacred lights.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even among Dante’s most enthusiastic admirers, I suppose none will be
found to-day to support this view; but many think that he must have
heard of the Cross from travellers. True, these stars are visible
during at least part of the year in all places south of 34° north, and
therefore in North Africa, and they had been catalogued by Ptolemy as
part of the Centaur, so that no astronomer could take them to be a
newly-found constellation, but might not some unscientific traveller
like Marco Polo have brought a vague report of their position?
[Illustration: MAP OF STARS VISIBLE BEFORE DAWN IN PURGATORY. _To face
p. 295_]
To this we might reply that Dante never says his four stars were in
the form of a Cross; that there had to be four to represent the four
Pagan virtues, the other constellation of three representing the three
Christian virtues (compare the group of four handmaidens who sing, “Noi
siam qui ninfe, e nel ciel siamo stelle,”[293] and are followed by a
group of three);[294] and that this other constellation was certainly
imaginary, since there is no group of three bright stars anywhere near
the south pole.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[293]
“We are nymphs here, and in heaven we are stars.”
_Purg._ xxxi. 104-106.
[294] _Purg._ xxxi. 111.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But the fact is that conjectures and arguments are unnecessary, since
Dante has expressly said that his four stars had never been seen before
by anyone except the first people—“non viste mai fuor che alla prima
gente,” (_Purg._ i. 24)—that is, our first parents, in that Eden of his
imagining which was in the southern hemisphere, and on the island where
he was then standing in his vision.
As a matter of curiosity I have included a map showing what stars
would have been really visible to Dante at the supposed latitude of
Purgatory, when Pisces was on the eastern horizon, as described in
_Purg._ i. It will be seen that the Southern Cross is low, and would
have been hidden behind the Mountain of Purgatory at five o’clock in
the morning.[295]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[295] Antonelli thinks the four stars were α and β Crucis, α and β
Centauri, all of which had been mentioned by Ptolemy, and all lie
near the circle which marks the limit of circumpolar stars in the
supposed latitude of Purgatory (32° south). The three stars he says
were ζ Navis, Canopus, and Achernar:—Antonelli, _Accenni alle Dottrine
Astronomiche nella Divina Commedia_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among northern constellations, Ursa Major is frequently spoken of by
Dante, under different names, but always with reference to its high
northern latitude. As the Wain, “il Carro,” it is said to be lying
in the north-west when Pisces is on the eastern horizon, and to have
disappeared from view in the southern hemisphere.[296] The wain-pole
or shaft is pictured as sweeping round in the diurnal revolution,
but always remaining above our horizon day and night, throughout its
turning:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[296] _Inf._ xi. 113, 114; _Purg._ i. 30.
“Quel Carro, a cui il seno
Basta del nostro cielo e notte e giorno,
Sì ch’ al volger del temo non vien meno.”[297]
[297]
“The Wain, that in the bosom of our sky
Spins ever on its axle, night and day.”
_Par._ xiii. 7-9. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The same idea is expressed in the Midwinter Ode, where the
constellation is called the Seven Frosty Stars, never lost to sight in
Europe:—
“Fuggito è ogni augel che ’l caldo segue
Dal paese d’Europa, che non perde
Le sette stelle gelide unquemai.”[298]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[298]
“Fled is every bird that seeks the warmth,
From European lands which never lose
The seven cold stars.”
_Canz._ xv. 27-29.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a reminiscence of some lines of Boëthius quoted by Dante in
_De Monarchia_, in which the northern nations are described as under
the sway of the “septem gelidi triones.”[299] The Septem Triones, the
Seven Ploughing Oxen, was one of the Latin names for Ursa Major, whence
comes “septentrional” for North. This name also is used by Dante in
_Purg._ xxx. 1, where the Seven Candlesticks of the mystic procession
seen in the Garden of Eden are likened to these seven stars, and are
named the Septentrion of the First Heaven (the Empyrean). This divine
Septentrion was guiding the Procession, as the starry Septentrion of a
lower heaven guides the mariner into port:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[299]
“Seven cold oxen.”
_De Mon._ II. ix. 96.