[531] _Inf._ x. 100-105.
[532] _Conv._ IV. xxiii. 96-98.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once
that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full
on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April
4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be
invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on
about the 9th of April.
These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who
is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made
the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for
the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of
the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a
morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant;
Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of
Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.
If the anniversary of the Crucifixion means Good Friday, the day would
be March 31 in 1301, and the moon would be wrong, but March 25 has some
claims to be considered the more probable date. A fixed calendar date
is more appropriate to use for calculating an exact number of years
than a changing festival, which might rather be regarded as an “ideal
date.”[533] Moreover, March 25 is suggested by the allusion to the
Creation in the opening Canto; this day was also the traditional date
for the spring equinox,[534] and it was one of the most important days
in the year to Florentines, being their New Year’s Day as well as Lady
Day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[533] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 146.
[534] See p. 177.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We know that the idea of writing his great work was in Dante’s mind
even when he wrote the last words of the _Vita Nuova_,[535] and we need
only suppose that he was thinking of it when he looked at the sky on
the evening before Lady Day in 1301, that he saw the full moon, and
the two bright planets Mars and Saturn making a striking asterism with
Regulus; also that in the early dawn about the same time he rejoiced in
the sight of Venus veiling the Fishes in the east.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[535] _V. N._ xliii. 1-11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But is this attractive theory admissible? Can we take Dante’s words
elsewhere as referring to the year 1301?
Take first the one passage in which he explicitly states the day and
year, the words of Malacoda quoted above. This is usually taken to
indicate the year 1300, as shown above (p. 410), but it is easy to
interpret it another way—thus: 1300 years had been completed since the
Nativity on the day Dante entered the Inferno. Now the year 1 is not
one year after the Nativity, but the year of the Nativity itself; hence
the year 2 is one year after, the year 3 two years after, ... the year
1300 is 1299 years after, and the year 1301 is 1300 years after. The
year 1300 was completed on March 25,[536] and the date then changed,
according to Florentine usage, to 1301. (It had already been called
1301 for three months, according to Roman usage, so fortunately for us,
there is no disagreement between the two calendars from this part of
the year).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[536] Exactly at midday, moreover, according to one system then in
vogue, though it seems to have been more usual to begin the day at
sunrise.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It must also be noted that in several old MSS., considered
authoritative by some of the very early commentators, the passage
reads:—“Mille dugent _’uno_ con sessanta sei.”[537] Although it is
impossible to believe that Dante wrote such a faulty line, this shows
that some early copyist felt a difficulty either in accepting the
date 1300 or in understanding how Dante arrived at it by Malacoda’s
computations. This passage, therefore, is inconclusive for 1300 or 1301.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[537] “A thousand two hundred _and one_, added to sixty-six.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then there is the first line of the _Divina Commedia_ “Nel mezzo del
cammin di nostra vita,”[538] which is usually taken to mean that
Dante was in his 35th year, since in _Conv._ IV. xxiv. 30, 31, and
xxiii, 88-94, he says that in normal natures the “punto sommo,” the
“colmo,”[539] of the Arch of Life is reached at this age. But is it to
be taken as indicating a precise year? If so, it points to one which
has never been suggested for the Vision, so far as I know, for in
another passage of the _Convivio_ he says when speaking of his exile,
that he had lived in Florence “fino al colmo della mia vita,”[540]
and we know that the year of his exile was 1302. But if we look again
at the discussion concerning the arch of human life, we find that the
whole period of “gioventute,”[541] which is from the 25th to the 45th
year “veramente è colmo della nostra vita”[542] (_Conv._ IV. xxiv.
22, 23). If, nevertheless, it is said that the “mezzo del cammin di
nostra vita” means Dante’s 35th year, we must know the date of his
birth with certainty before we can deduce the year at which he had
reached this age. And this is not quite easy. This very line is used
indifferently to show that he was born in 1265 because the date of
the Vision was 1300, or that the date was 1300 because he was born in
1265! No registers of births or baptisms were kept in those days. Most
of the old biographers give 1265 for the date, but not all, and some
of those who do betray ignorance or confusion in the matter: Boccaccio
says the year 1265, when Urban the Fourth was Pope, yet Urban we know
died in 1264; Lionardo Bruni says “1265, a little after the return to
Florence of the Guelfs, who had been in exile by reason of the defeat
of Montaperti,” but this return was in September 1266! Dante himself
says that his ancestors shared in this exile,[543] and as he also often
refers to the fact that he was born in Florence,[544] it is difficult
to see how that could have been in 1265.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[538] “Midway in the journey of our life.”
[539] “The highest point,” the “summit.”
[540] “Until the summit of my life.” _Conv._ I. iii. 24, 25.
[541] “Youth.”
[542] “Is in truth the summit of our life.”
[543] Farinata alludes to the two Guelf banishments of 1248 and 1260.
_Inf._ x. 42-50.
[544] _Conv._ I. iii. 22-24; _Inf._ xxiii. 94, 95, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months
between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old
when he was nearly nine),[545] that she died in June 1290,[546] and was
then on the threshold of her “second age,”[547] that is in her 24th
year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and
he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical
documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295,
and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under
thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in
1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the
age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been
lowered before 1295.[548] There remains the story told by Boccaccio,
that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in
legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before
his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date
of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may
accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was
born in 1265.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[545] _V. N._ ii. 1-15.
[546] _V. N._ xxx. 4-13.
[547] _Purg._ xxx. 124, 125; _Cf. Conv._ IV. xxiv. 11-13.
[548] Imbriani: _Quando nacque Dante?_ and _Che Dante
probabilissimamente nacque nei MCCCLXVII_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del
cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain
that he reached that age in 1300.
Another passage which is often quoted as clearly indicating the year
of the Jubilee, 1300, for the assumed date of the Vision is Casella’s
explanation of his late arrival in Purgatory.[549] Dante is surprised
to witness this arrival, knowing that it is some time since his
friend’s death; and Casella replies that the Angel of the Passage had
refused many times to bring him, until three months ago, when every one
who wished to come had been graciously received. This is believed to
refer to the Bull of Pope Boniface published at Christmas 1299, that is
just three months before March 1300. But this Bull gave no indulgence
to the dead; it was in favour of those who performed certain spiritual
exercises in the churches of Rome during the Jubilee year. On the other
hand, there was a Bull published just a year later, which was for the
benefit of departed souls: it extended the indulgences to those who
had died on their way to Rome, or before the spiritual exercises were
completed there. We do not know when Casella died, but if it was some
time in 1300, with his purpose of gaining the indulgence unfulfilled,
the Angel’s refusal at first, and acceptance afterwards—after December
1300—and his arrival in Purgatory in March 1301, would be explained.
The fact that his arrival was still three months after the Bull, and
that all without exception were welcomed by the Angel, are difficulties
which apply to both interpretations. But perhaps that just given is a
little too clever. It is most natural to consider the Indulgence as the
famous one of 1300, and to understand that in the Jubilee year the way
of salvation was made easier for all souls, living or dead.[550]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[549] _Purg._ ii. 91-103.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[550] For this point and a full discussion of the date, especially
from the astronomical data, see Angelitti’s _Sulla Data del Viaggio
Dantesco_, and _Sull’ anno della Visione Dantesca_, and Moore’s “The
Date assumed by Dante for the Vision of the ‘Divina Commedia,’”
_Studies in Dante_ III.
If however these, and many other passages quoted in the controversy,
are unconvincing, the same cannot be said of Cunizza’s “Questo
centesim’ anno.”[551] Prof. Angelitti’s suggestion that she was
reckoning by the Easter year, which was used in some parts of France
and Italy, so that the date was still 1300 for her, though for most
Italians it was 1301, is too ingenious; and it is hard to believe that
she means “this century year” applying it to 1301. Though this might
be correct, it is clear that 1300 was regarded as the century year,
because the words “centesimo anno” occur in the Bull of Boniface VIII.
with reference to the year 1300. This then speaks strongly and clearly
against our astronomical theory of 1301.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[551] “This hundredth year.” _Par._ ix. 40.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The historical events alluded to in the _Divine Comedy_ are so often
of unknown date to us, that few of them help as much as might be
expected. Judge Nino’s widow remarried on June 24, 1300, and as he
speaks of her as having already put off her widow’s weeds,[552] this
might indicate that we are in 1301, but it is not conclusive, since
they would probably be discarded three months before she was actually
the wife of another. On the other hand, Can Grande della Scala, who is
said in a fourteenth century chronicle to have been born on March 9,
1291, is described as only nine years old.[553] Dante might possibly
have been mistaken by a year in the date of his birth, but he cannot
have been ignorant of the death of his friend Guido Cavalcanti. The cry
of anguish from Guido’s father will be remembered by all readers of the
_Inferno_, after Dante has spoken of his friend in the past tense:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[552] _Purg._ viii. 74.
[553] _Par._ xvii. 80, 81.
“Di subito drizzato gridò: Come,
Dicesti _egli ebbe_? Non viv’ egli ancora?
Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome?”[554]
[554]
“Up starting suddenly he cried out: How
Saidst thou? ‘_he had_?’ Is he not still alive?
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”
_Inf._ x. 67-69.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And as Dante hesitates a little, Cavalcante sinks back into his tomb
of punishment, and does not reappear. Before Dante leaves the place,
feeling compunction, he charges Farinata to tell the father that his
son is still among the living, and that the sinister hesitation was
due to another cause than he thought. Now it is beyond dispute that
Guido died in August 1300, for he was buried in the cemetery of St.
Reparata in Florence on August 29, 1300, according to official records
still extant;[555] and Dante had a share in banishing him amongst other
exiles to the unhealthy place where he contracted the illness of which
he died. The year 1300, in which Dante held the official position
which obliged him to do this, was burned into his mind, as we see in
his letter, mentioned by Lionardo Bruni, in which he says that all his
misfortunes sprang from the time of his priorate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[555] Toynbee’s _Dante Dictionary_, under “Cavalcanti.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How then can we believe that he here imagines himself speaking in the
spring of 1301, unless we assume that Cavalcanti had really guessed the
true cause of his hesitation, and that what Dante said afterwards was a
kindly lie? Is this in character with his uncompromising, even ruthless
straightforwardness? Unless therefore some really satisfactory way of
escape can be found from this incident and the “centesim’ anno” I fear
we must reluctantly abandon the theory of 1301, championed so skilfully
by Angelitti and others, and must agree with the majority that Dante
means us to understand the year 1300.
The early commentators seem to have taken for granted that Dante was
correct in his astronomical data, without taking any particular trouble
to verify them. Jacopo della Lana in commenting _Par._ xxi. 14 says
that in 1300 in the month of March Saturn was in Leo, and was in the
8th degree of that sign; and in order that we should know what was the
disposition of the whole sky at that time he further informs us that
Jupiter was in Aries in the 24th degree, and Mars in Pisces in the
11th degree, that the sun was near the beginning of Aries, and Venus
in Pisces (these two are evidently taken simply from Dante). Mercury
was in Virgo (with the sun in Aries! in this case Mercury would have
been visible nearly the whole night), and the moon in . Here
there is said to be a blank in all the MSS. The moon was too much for
Della Lana, whether the difficulty was in finding her position or in
reconciling it with that given by Dante. The Ottimo and Benvenuto da
Imola copy Della Lana with little change, both giving the positions
of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in degree and sign, but the sun only as
near the beginning of Aries, Venus in Pisces, and Mercury in Virgo.
(It is astonishing that neither should have noticed this gross error.)
Benvenuto boldly adds that the moon was in Libra, doubtless because
Dante’s description so required it at the beginning of his poem.
Nor do these early commentators seem to feel any difficulty about the
date on which the Vision began. From _Inf._ i. 38-40 they generally
conclude that it was the day of the equinox, which they say vaguely
fell in the middle of March “mezzo Marzo,” and from _Inf._ xxi. 112-114
all except Boccaccio (who interprets March 25) take it to be Good
Friday.[556] No discrepancy seems to have been felt here: they merely
remark that in 1300 Easter fell in March, and more than two hundred
years passed before anyone pointed out that this was wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[556] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ III. p. 146.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At last a work appeared in 1554, called “_Del Sito, Forma, et Misure
dello Inferno di Dante_,” in which the author, Giambullari, remarked
that according to astronomical calculations the Paschal Moon was not
full on the night between Thursday and Good Friday in 1300, but on the
morning of April 5th. This excited a good deal of interest, and many
theories have since been put forth to reconcile Dante’s astronomical
data with the facts of the year 1300.
Dr. Moore thinks the date of entering the Inferno was Good Friday,
April 8, 1300, but that Dante uses instead of the real moon the
ecclesiastical moon, which, as we know, is a conventional body
revolving according to Meton’s cycle, and sometimes appearing on tables
as full two or three days before or after the real Full Moon. Dr. Moore
finds that this ecclesiastical moon, was full on April 7, 1300.[557]
But would Dante trouble about the ecclesiastical moon, and would his
readers know anything about it? Its only use was for determining
Easter, and this was done for the people by the Church. The real moon
was extremely important for astrologers, for whose benefit Tables and
Almanachs were chiefly drawn up; the real moon was useful to everyone
as light-giver and time recorder. It is surely inconceivable that a
Florentine who wished to arrange a midnight festival, or to start on a
night-journey, would consult a calendar to find out on what date the
_ecclesiastical_ moon would be full! And the ecclesiastical moon does
not alter the position of Venus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[557] “The Astronomy of Dante,” in _Studies_ III., and _Time References
in the Divina Commedia_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to another suggestion, Dante followed a tradition as to the
position of all the “seven planets” at the Creation, and for this
reason not only was his sun in Aries, but the moon full and opposite,
and Venus in Pisces. Venus is said to have this position in a picture
of the Creation in a Church at San Gemignano.[558] Compare also
Milton’s moon at her creation:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[558] Note on _Purg._ i. 19-21 in the “Temple” edition of Dante.
“ ... Less bright the moon,
But opposite in levelled west, was set,
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him.”[559]
[559] _Par. Lost_ vii. 375-378.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or again, it is sometimes held that the day and all the celestial
positions are ideal. Dante means us to understand that the first day
of his Vision was Good Friday, but without troubling as to what day it
fell on in 1300; the equinox and the full moon are naturally connected
with Good Friday, since they determine Easter; Venus is connected with
the idea of dawn, and when the Sun is in Aries the morning star may
well be in Pisces.
Either of these views might be correct, and no one will dispute a
poet’s right to arrange his skies as he thinks fit, if he is consistent
with them, as Dante was. But how did these positions, if they are
purely imaginary, come to coincide exactly with the real positions of
1301?
If we examine the positions of 1301, and accept nothing that is
doubtful in Dante’s own words, what does the coincidence amount to?
Saturn was near Regulus, but he was also in the forepart of Leo in
1300, and we are not sure that Dante means more than this; Mars was in
Leo, but we are not sure that Dante wanted him there;[560] the moon
was full on the morning of March 25, but we are not sure whether Dante
means March 25 or Good Friday. Venus was a morning star in Pisces, and
this till very lately was the one astronomical fact incontestably in
favour of 1301 and against 1300.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[560] See p. 407.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But in 1908 there was printed in Florence, for the first time, a
mediæval Almanach, which suggests so simple an explanation of this
most striking coincidence that it seems to leave nothing more to be
said for the 1301 hypothesis. This Almanach, which has been published
under a title which perhaps takes things a little too much for
granted—_Almanach Dantis Aligherii_—was compiled by a learned Jew,
Jacob ben Machir ben Tibbon, who was born in Marseilles about 1236,
and died at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Using the Toledan
Tables, he constructed this so-called perpetual almanach, which gives
the positions of sun, moon, and planets, at intervals of a few days for
whole cycles of years. Each has a cycle of a different length, that
of Venus for instance being 8 years, as on the Babylonian tablets of
ephemerides; and at the end of each cycle nearly the same positions
come over again. It was written in Hebrew, and translated into Latin
by an unknown author, and must have been popular, since there were
an immense number of Latin MSS. in the fourteenth century. In the
original, all the cycles begin in 1301, but in the Latin they begin in
1300, _except the cycles of Venus and the sun, which begin in 1301_.
Yet 1301 is not written over the first column for Venus, but merely 1,
or nothing at all, or even in some copies 1300, and in both the Hebrew
and Latin prefaces the beginning of all the cycles is stated to be
1300.[561]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[561] Preface to _Almanach Dantis Aligherii_, Boffito and Melzi d’
Eril.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If, therefore, Dante looked up the position of Venus in this almanac,
he would very naturally take the 1301 positions for 1300, and he would
find that Venus was in Aquarius throughout March, until the 27th, when
she passed into the sign of Pisces, and therefore was a morning star
during the whole month and also in April. And he would find that Saturn
was in the 7th and 8th degrees of Leo in March and April 1300 (which
was very nearly correct).[562]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[562] It is important to observe that this suits the description of
the “Lion’s breast” better than the 20th and 21st degrees (Almanach
positions for 1301), if Dante, as usual in the _Divina Commedia_,
identifies the constellation with the sign.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It appears then that while certain expressions used in the _Divine
Comedy_ prove clearly that 1301 is not the year assumed as the date of
the Vision, the astronomical argument in favour of it is not strong
enough to be convincing, especially in the light of this recent
discovery.
Granting that 1300 was the year, what was the day? Probably not March
25, for the early commentators, excepting only Boccaccio in one
passage, are all in favour of Good Friday, and Dante might see in the
Almanac that the moon was not full on that date. But neither was she
full on the actual date of Good Friday, which fell on April 8 in 1300;
moreover the sun was then so far advanced in Aries that seven days
later, when Dante describes it as a little past the equinox, it would
really have been in Taurus. The third and only possibility is to accept
the theory that his moon and his day were ideal; that is, he simply
assumed Good Friday and a full moon to occur together soon after the
equinox, with which both are so intimately associated. The date of
Easter is not given in the old almanac, and we have seen that the early
commentators who knew that the equinox fell in “mezzo Marzo”[563] were
content to accept Easter as falling in that month also. We must not
forget the convenience of an equinox and a full moon for simplifying
the time references also.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[563] The middle of March.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We conclude, then, that the year chosen by Dante was 1300 (as has been
most generally believed), and the day Good Friday, which he assumes
to have fallen about a week after the equinox, and at a time of full
moon. Saturn in his poem, and also in fact, was in Leo; Venus was not
actually a morning star, nor in Pisces, but he may have been led to
assign this position to her through an error in a contemporary almanac.
I must confess to a great feeling of disappointment in coming to the
conclusion that Prof. Angelitti’s enticing theory must be rejected, but
a careful study of Dante’s own words, and Prof. Boffito’s discovery
of the “Almanach perpetuum ad annum 1300 inchoatum” seem to leave no
other choice. Last April,[564] when helping to photograph Halley’s
Comet in beautiful early dawns, this problem was much in my mind. Venus
once more had the Fishes in her train, and oddly enough Good Friday
had fallen on March 25! I could not help wishing that these things had
happened in 1300 as well as in 1910!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[564] This was written in 1910.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If in spite of all arguments to the contrary, any readers are convinced
that Dante’s celestial positions were taken from the real skies, it
remains to them to imagine that he saw them in March of 1301 and wove
them into the narrative of his poem, although for some reason he
adopted another date.
The following tables (pp. 425-26) summarize the foregoing pages. It
will be noted with what appropriate symbolism Dante enters Hell on the
evening of Good Friday, spends that night and the whole of Saturday in
the depths, and rises out of them on Easter Day before the dawn.
For although he reaches Earth’s centre on Saturday evening by Jerusalem
time, the change of hemisphere there makes his time suddenly go back
twelve hours, so that it is again Saturday morning, and he spends the
day and night of Saturday (Purgatory time) in climbing to Earth’s
surface.
DAYS OF THE VISION AND POSITIONS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS.
_Dante’s |Jerusalem|Purgatory| Positions of Sun,_|
_Journey. | Time. | Time. | Moon and Planets | References._
| | | _in Zodiac._ |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
| Night | |Moon full in Libra,|_Inf._ xx. 127.
| | | about 7th degree |
|Day I. | |Sun in Aries, |_Inf._ i. 38-40.
Forest |Good | | about 7th degree |
|Friday | | |
|(1300) | | |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
| Night | | |
Inferno |Day II. | | |
|Saturday | | |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
|Night |Day III. | |
| |Saturday | |
Earth’s | Day | in | |
Interior |(Sunday) |Purgatory| |
| Easter | Night | |
| Day | | |
| |Day IV. | Venus in Pisces |_Purg._ i. 19-21.
| |(Sund.) | at dawn |
| |Easter | |
| | Day | |
| | in | |
| |Purgatory| |
| | | |
| | Night |Moon in the middle |_Purg._ ix. 1-6.
| | | of Scorpio |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
| |Day V. | |
| |(Mond.) | |
| | Night |Moon at end of |
| | | Scorpio or |
Purgatory | | | beginning of |_Purg._
| | | Sagittarius | xviii. 79-81.
| |Day VI. | |
| |(Tues.) | |
| | Night | |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
Earthly | |Day VII. |Sun in the middle |_Par._ i. 37-44;
Paradise,| |(Wed.) | of Aries | x. 7-33;
planetary| | |Saturn in Leo | xxvii. 86,87.
& stellar| | | |
spheres | | | |
----------+---------+---------+-------------------+-----------------
Primum | |Day VIII.| |_Par._ xxi.
Mobile | |(Thur.) | | 13-15.
and | | | |
Empyrean | | | |
Summary.
_Arguments for 1300 or 1301._
_From Expressions and Incidents in the D.C._
Malacoda. | Inconclusive: method of reckoning uncertain.
_Inf._ xxi. 112-114.|
|
“Nel mezzo del | Inconclusive: a precise year possibly not
cammin.” | indicated, and date of Dante’s birth not
_Inf._ i. 1. | certainly known.
|
Casella. | Inconclusive: may refer to Bull of 1299,
_Purg._ ii. 98-99. | but possibly of 1300.
|
Can Grande. | For 1300: Can Grande 9 years old in
_Par._ xvii. 80, 81.| March 1300.
|
Cunizza. | For 1300: “questo centesim’ anno” can only
_Par._ ix. 40. | mean 1300.
|
Nino’s widow. | Inconclusive: might put off widow’s weeds
_Purg._ viii. 74. | before re-marriage.
|
Guido Cavalcanti. | For 1300: Guido, Dante’s intimate friend,
_Inf._ x. 111. | died in August 1300.
The Astronomical Data.
(_True Equinox, March 12. Ecclesiastical, March 21.
Traditional, March 25_).
_In D.C. | On Good Friday, 1300. | On March 25, 1301._
| |
SUN near |Day assumed to fall soon after|Date of traditional
EQUINOX. | equinox (actually April 8.) | equinox (13 days
| | after true
| | equinox).
| |
MOON full on |Assumed full, since Easter |Full.
first day. | associated with equinox and |
| full moon. (Actually full |
| March 5, and April 4.) |
| |
VENUS in Pisces |Supposed in Pisces from error |Entered Pisces
on 4th day. | in contemporary almanac, | March 27.
| confounding 1301 with 1300. |
| |
SATURN “on the |In forepart of Leo, |In Leo, 21st degree
Lion’s breast.”| 8th degree of the sign. | of the sign,
| | close to Regulus.
| |
MARS possibly |Not near Leo. |In Leo.
intended to be | |
in Leo. | |
Early commentators understand Good Friday, not March 25.
_VII. THEORETICAL AND SPECULATIVE ASTRONOMY._
“Thou shalt learn the burning nature of the pure
clear sun, thou shalt hear the wandering nature
of the round-eyed moon, and thou shalt learn of
the surrounding heaven, whence it arose, and how
Necessity guiding it compelled it to hold fast the
bounds of the stars.”
_Parmenides._
1. THE SPHERES.
Dante’s astronomical phenomena, though they are just the same that are
familiar (or ought to be familiar) to us, have led us into some strange
by-ways, because they are so intimately connected with his works of
imagination. His astronomical theories, by which these phenomena were
explained, will also take us into paths which are now seldom trodden
by astronomers or others, because mediæval astronomy was mingled with
magic, with metaphysics, and with religion, in a way which seems very
strange to us.
The second treatise of the _Convivio_ has for its text the Ode which
is quoted in _Paradiso_ viii. 37, “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel
movete.”[565] When speaking of the literal meaning of this Ode, Dante
takes the occasion to discourse on the system of astronomy which he
had learned, and describes how all the apparent movements of the
heavens are explained by postulating the existence of spheres and
epicycles, entering with special detail into the system of Venus, the
third heaven; and later on, when expounding the allegorical meaning of
the Ode, he draws an elaborate comparison between the spheres and the
different branches of science and philosophy, in which he incidentally
gives his readers a good deal of information about the heavens.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[565]
“Oh ye whose intellectual ministry
Moves the third heaven.”
(_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From this interesting treatise, therefore, as well as from many
scattered passages in all his works, we learn what Dante thought
were the real movements of the heavenly bodies, their dimensions,
their nature, and the forces which move them; and it forms a valuable
commentary on the _Paradiso_, in reading which he supposes us to
understand the elements of the Ptolemaic system, and the ideas of the
philosophers and the Fathers of the Church concerning the organization
of the Universe.
Of these ultimate truths concerning the heavens, Dante says, very
little can be known, but the little which is within the reach of human
reason, gives more delight (as Aristotle says) than the abundance
and the certainty of other things easier to be understood.[566] This
thought finds an echo in the _Paradiso_, where the poet reminds us of
the beautiful order to be found throughout the universe, and invites us
to contemplate the skill of the architect as shown in the movements of
the planets.[567]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[566] _Conv._ II. iii. 8-14.
[567] _Par._ x. 1-12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante knew that great men in ancient days had speculated on the
possibility that it was Earth, and not the skies, that moved in the
diurnal period, but the balance of authority was against them, and they
had been confuted by the Master of those who KNOW,[568] that glorious
philosopher to whom Nature most fully revealed her secrets,[569]
Aristotle. In Treatise III. of the _Convivio_ he gives a clear and
concise account of the theory of Philolaus, and of what he understood
to be the theory of Plato.[570] In the former he seems to have been
struck with the deduction that, if Fire were at the centre of the
Universe, the real motion of fire on Earth, which to us appears always
to ascend, would in reality be a descent towards its own place at the
centre.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[568] _Inf._ iv. 131.
[569] _Conv._ III. v. 54-56.
[570] _Conv._ III. v. 29-52. See Part I. of this book _Pythagoras and
his Followers_, and _Plato_, for a description of their astronomical
systems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both these hypotheses he had evidently learned from Aristotle’s _De
Cælo_,[571] and when thus presented they seem entirely fanciful; so
although Dante had reverence for both Pythagoras and Plato it is not
surprising that he rejected the systems of both. He adds that it is
not his intention to recount here the arguments by which Aristotle
confutes them and establishes the truth: it is enough for his readers
to know, on so great an authority, that the earth is fixed, and does
not revolve, and is at the centre of the World.
Dante has to confess reluctantly that Aristotle made two mistakes in
his astronomy: he said that there were only eight spheres, those of the
seven planets, and that of the stars, “e che di fuori da esso non fosse
altro alcuno;”[572] also he placed the heaven of the sun immediately
above that of the moon, that is to say second in order, counting from
Earth outward. Aristotle’s loyal admirer hastens to add that these
serious mistakes “questa sua sentenza così erronea”[573] are explicable
and excusable because, as Aristotle himself shows in the _Metaphysics_,
when he treated of astrology he was merely following the opinions of
others. That is to say, he took his facts from others, and they cannot
all be depended upon, but his philosophical deductions are his own, and
are never in error. In the above question of the possible movements
of Earth, we saw (pp. 101-2) that Aristotle’s arguments were almost
entirely drawn from metaphysics.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[571] See Part I. “Aristotle.”
[572] “And that outside the latter there was no other.” _Conv._ II.
iii. 24, 25.
[573] “This entirely mistaken opinion of his.” _Ibid._ 28.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There have been many opinions regarding the number and the positions
of the spheres, Dante says, but the truth about them has at length
been found. The scheme which he expounds is that of Ptolemy, modified
by the Arabs and adapted to the doctrines of the Church by Christian
writers. In the _Vita Nuova_ he almost seems to imply that the nine
moving spheres form an article of faith. “Secondo Tolommeo e secondo la
Cristiana verità, nove siano li cieli che si muovono.”[574]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[574] “According to Ptolemy and according to Christian Truth, nine is
the number of the moving heavens.” _V. N._ xxx. 16-18.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoting from Albertus Magnus, or Averroës, he apparently credits
Ptolemy with the discovery of precession, for he says that it was
Ptolemy who added a ninth sphere to the eight of Aristotle, because
he perceived that otherwise the outer sphere would have a double
movement, and so he felt obliged to assume a sphere beyond the
star sphere which should have only the one simple motion of the diurnal
east to west revolution. The period of this revolution (the sidereal
day) Dante gives as 23 hours and ¹⁴/₁₅ths of an hour, “grossamente
assegnando,”[575] _i.e._ 23 hours 56 minutes, which is the correct
value ignoring the 4 seconds. We know that it was not Ptolemy in fact
who thought it necessary to add a ninth sphere; he was not sufficiently
interested in spheres, since to him they were only mathematical
abstractions: but the Arabs of Baghdad noted that he had added another
_movement_, the discovery of Hipparchus; and they, accepting the
spheres as material instruments of celestial motions, felt obliged to
assume the existence of the Primum Mobile or 9th sphere.
That Dante should believe the spheres to exist as actual entities was
inevitable, for his principal authorities, Greek, Arab, and Christian,
all taught this. And there is abundant evidence that he did think
of them thus. He calls them bodies:—“omnia corpora,”[576] “questi
corpi grandi,”[577] “cerchi corporai,”[578] “il maggior corpo,”[579]
etc. They are transparent, one sphere not obstructing the light from
another;[580] and composed of æther, “questo etera tondo.”[581] They
have a certain thickness, and would be visible if near enough, for
Dante speaks of the inner margin of the Primum Mobile, and says that it
was too far above him for him to have seen it yet, when he was in the
Star Sphere.[582]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[575] “Roughly speaking.” _Conv._ II. iii. 36-48.
[576] “All bodies.” _Ep._ x. 445.
[577] “These vast bodies.” _Par._ viii. 99.
[578] “Material circles” (here compared with the Angels, who are purely
spiritual). _Par._ xxviii. 64.
[579] “The greatest body.” _Par._ xxx. 39.
[580] _Purg._ iii. 29, 30.
[581] “This rounded ether.” _Par._ xxii. 132.
[582] _Par._ xxiii. 112-117.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He gives the order of the eight heavens as in Ptolemy, and adds the
ninth, which is only perceived by the diurnal movement of which it
is the cause; and it is called by many the Crystalline, that is, the
diaphanous or completely transparent Heaven.[583] The order of these
spheres has been discovered by observation and reasoning, with the use
of the principles of Perspective, Arithmetic, and Geometry. Dante gives
as an instance the experience of Aristotle, who with his own eyes saw
the moon pass below Mars, and so hide it for some time; and he mentions
also how in eclipses it is evident that the moon is below the sun
(_i.e._ nearer to us).[584]
To these nine spheres of the astronomers, the Catholic Church, “which
cannot lie,” adds a tenth, the Empyrean Heaven, which means the heaven
of flame or light, and is the abode of the blessed spirits and of God
Himself.[585] And here Dante is able to give himself the pleasure of
adding that Aristotle seems to have been of this opinion also; “Ed anco
Aristotile pare ciò sentire, a chi bene lo intende, nel primo _Di Cielo
e Mondo_.”[586] He is no doubt alluding to what Aristotle says about
the existence beyond the finite universe.[587] The whole passage is
thus translated in the “Temple” Dante:[588] “Nor is there any change
of any of those things which are ranged above the outmost rotation,
but they are unchangeable and passionless, enjoying the superlative
existence, and passing in absolute self-sufficiency their eternal life.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[586] “And Aristotle also, to one who rightly understands him, seems to
mean the same thing, in his first book of _The Heaven and the Earth_.”
_Conv._ II. iv. 32-34.
[583] _Conv._ II. iv. 1-13.
[584] _Conv._ II. iii. 52-65.
[585] _Conv._ II. iv. 13-16, 30-32. See also _Ep._ x. 448-452.
[587] See p. 97.
[588] _The Convivio of Dante_, “Temple” Edition, note on II. iv.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ninth sphere rotates on two poles, which are absolutely fixed,
“fermi e fissi e non mutabile, secondo alcuno rispetto,”[589] the eight
within it have each two poles which are only relatively fixed (for they
move with the movement of the Primum Mobile), and every sphere has an
equator, every point on which is equally distant from the two poles of
rotation, as anyone may see who will turn round an apple, or any other
spherical thing. Any point on the equator moves more quickly than any
other point on the sphere, and each part moves more quickly the nearer
it is to the equator, more slowly as it is far from it and nearer to
the pole, since all the circling is done in the same time, and some
parts have a greater, and some a less distance to go, according to
their distance from the equator. Dante adds that the nearer any part of
a heaven is to its equator, the nobler it is compared with its poles,
for it has more movement, and more actuality, more life, and more form,
and it touches more of the heaven just above, and in consequence is
more noble.[590]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[589] “Firm and fixed and not moveable, from any point of view.”
_Conv._ II. iv. 50, 51.
[590] _Conv._ II. iv. 68-75.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Besides these ten heavens there are others which, strictly speaking,
should be included in the number: these are the little spheres which
are called “epicycles” by astronomers, and they also have equators and
poles of rotation, and are fixed on the large spheres, or heavens.
Dante does not enter into any particulars about these, but only
mentions (as belonging specially to the subject in hand) that the
brilliant star of Venus is carried “on the back” of an epicycle, which
is itself fixed on the back of the third Heaven.[591] The apparent
movement of Venus is therefore compounded of no less than four
movements: that of her epicycle, of her whole heaven (the “deferent”
Dante does not name, probably as introducing too technical a word),
of the west to east motion of the star sphere (precession), and the
diurnal. The epicycle of Venus is also called in this treatise, as
we have already seen, “quello suo cerchio che la fa parere serotina
e mattutina, secondo i due diversi tempi,”[592] and the “terzo
epiciclo”[593] is referred to in _Par._ viii. 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[591] _Conv._ II. iv. 78-104.
[592] “That circle of hers which makes her appear as evening and
morning star, according to the two different periods.” _Conv._ II. ii.
3-5.
[593] “Third epicycle.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A little further on in the same treatise, Dante tells us the periods
in which all these nine spheres revolve. It is an interesting passage,
and illustrates the poet’s vivid way of bringing home to his own mind
and those of his readers the effects of the different celestial
motions.[594] The ninth sphere, which is the Crystalline or Primum
Mobile, causes by its daily revolution the daily revolution of all the
other spheres, which are within it; it is, as Beatrice says, “costui,
che tutto quanto rape l’altro universo seco.”[595] Therefore if we
imagine it possible for the motion of this Crystalline Heaven to cease,
what will be the effect on the motions of the other heavens? Obviously
their diurnal movement from east to west will cease, and we shall only
see them revolving, each in its own period, from west to east. There
will be no alternation of day and night, or rather, there will be one
long day of six months, and one long night of the same length, in
any given place all over the earth. In the same way the moon will be
invisible for half the month; and all the planets will be invisible
to us for half their periods; and as Dante believed only the known
hemisphere of Earth to be inhabited, he could say that during one half
of each period no one would see the planet at all. He enumerates the
half period in each case, as follows:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[594] _Conv._ II. xv. 132-155.
[595] “That one which sweeps the whole of the rest of the universe
along with it.” _Par._ xxviii. 70, 71.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Half Period Whole Period given by Alfraganus_
“_Planets._” (_approximate_) (_El. Ast. ch. xvii._)
_given by Dante. Years Months Days_
Saturn 14½ years 29 5 8
Jupiter 6 ” 11 10 14½ about.
Mars about a year 1 10 22 nearly.
Sun 182 days, 14 hrs. ... 365¼ nearly.
{about the same
Venus { as the sun. ... ”
Mercury ” ” ... ... ”
Moon 14½ days ... (nearly) 27, 7¾ hrs.
(Paris edition, 29 days, 12¾ hrs.)
If we compare these with the zodiacal periods given by Alfraganus,
we see that Dante has taken those of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars at the
nearest whole number of years and halved them, but with the sun he
seems to have used that more exact value with which we have already
seen that he was acquainted. For to divide the 365¼ days of Alfraganus
by 2 would have given him exactly 182 days 15 hours; but dividing 365
days 5 hours, and neglecting minutes gives 182 days 14 hours. The
large oscillations of Venus and Mercury would make their periods of
visibility very irregular, but the mean period would be, as Dante says,
about the same as that of the sun. He has made a slip with the moon,
for of course it is her sidereal period of 27 days 7¾ hours which he
should have taken, giving a half period of less than 14 days, whereas
he has evidently taken the mean synodic period of 29 days 12¾ hours,
and ignored the hours. All the printed editions of Alfraganus give the
sidereal period in this passage, except the Paris edition of 1546; but
that gives the synodic,[596] so it doubtless appeared on some mediæval
MSS. Dante must have had the misfortune to possess or consult one of
these.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[596] Toynbee, “Dante’s Obligations to Alfraganus in _Vita Nuova_ and
_Convivio_,” in _Romania_ xxiv. 95.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for the stars, one third of their sphere would not yet have been
seen. This is not difficult to understand if we remember what the
movement of the star sphere was supposed to be, and how long it was
since man had first begun to look upon it, according to Dante’s
chronology. The movement which makes the equinoctial point shift its
place among the stars was thought to be a movement of revolution of
the whole star sphere, and its rate to be one degree in a century;
the age of the world, we learn from _Par._ xxvi. 118-123, was over
sixty centuries when Dante wrote. For Adam said that he had spent 930
years on Earth and 4302 in the Limbo, so that Dante evidently counted
5232 years from the Creation to the Crucifixion, that is (5232-33 =)
5199 to the beginning of our era at the birth of Christ, which is the
date given by Orosius; adding 1300 years to this, we find that the age
of the world in Dante’s day was more than 6000 years. Therefore the
star sphere had revolved, since the beginning of the world, through
more than 60 degrees.
The first inhabitants of this earth saw half the starry sky or 180°,
and since then it had revolved through 60°, which together is equal
to 240°; therefore there would still remain 120°, or one third of a
revolution, to be made to complete the whole 360°, and bring every
part of the star sphere into view. Just before this passage Dante
had expressed the same idea in another way. This movement proper to
the star sphere, he says, will never have an end, for the end of
a revolution is to return to the same point; and this heaven will
never do so, for since the beginning of the world it has turned
through a little more than the sixth part of its whole revolution
(60° = ⅛ of 360°), and we are already in the last age of the world, and
indeed are awaiting the consummation of the celestial motion.[597]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[597] _Conv._ II. xv. 108-118.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the premises be granted, the conclusions are correct. As regards
sun, moon, and planets, they are correct even from the point of view of
modern knowledge. For if the diurnal motion (that is Earth’s rotation)
were to cease, while her other motions, and those of the rest of the
solar system remained as at present, her motion round the sun would
cause it to rise and set once in a year, and the appearance of moon and
planets also would be as described. The vastly distant stars would have
no appreciable motion, save that caused by precession, for if the earth
revolved round the sun without turning on her axis, the same stars
would always remain on the meridian at any given place. Precession,
however, would not have the result which Dante supposed. He considered
it to be a rotation of the star sphere, but we know that it is merely
a nodding. Hence at any given place a star at the pole would describe,
in the course of centuries, a small circle in the sky, and those at the
equator would move in short lines first north and then south, while
stars between would move in ellipses which become narrower as they
approach the equator. All round the horizon, therefore, there would be
slight very slow changes, bringing a few fresh stars into view, and
causing others to disappear. The whole amount of the sky actually seen
would vary but little, even if the world should last much longer than
Dante expected.
Dante evidently took his value of precession from Alfraganus, for he
was one of the few Arab astronomers who accepted Ptolemy’s erroneous
figure.
In the _Paradiso_, as the poet mounts with Beatrice from sphere to
sphere he mentions the number of each one in its order. The moon is “la
prima stella,”[598] Mercury “il secondo regno,”[599] Venus “il terzo
ciel,”[600] the spirits met in the sun are “la quarta famiglia,”[601]
Mars is “questa quinta soglia,”[602] and “più levato”[603] than
the last heaven, Jupiter is the “stella sesta,”[604] Saturn “il
settimo splendore.”[605] The starry heaven is alluded to as “la spera
ottava.”[606] The Primum Mobile is “il ciel velocissimo,”[607] “il
maggior corpo.”[608] The Empyrean, “il ciel ch’ è pura luce,”[609] is
called “l’ultima spera,”[610] but this has no limits and no movement,
and therefore no poles:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[598] “The first star.” _Par._ ii. 30.
[599] “The second realm.” _Par._ v. 93.
[600] “The third heaven.” _Par._ viii. 37.
[601] “The fourth family.” _Par._ x. 49.
[602] “The fifth threshold.” _Par._ xviii. 28.
[603] “More lofty.” _Par._ xiv. 85.
[604] “Sixth star.” _Par._ xviii. 68, 69.
[605] “The seventh splendour.” _Par._ xxi. 13.
[606] “The eighth sphere.” _Par._ ii. 64.
[607] “The swiftest heaven.” _Par._ xxvii. 99.
[608] “The greatest body.” _Par._ xxx. 39. Compare _V. N._ xlii. 47.
“Oltre la spera che più larga gira,” (“beyond the sphere which has the
largest circle).”
[609] “The heaven of pure light.” _Par._ xxx. 39.
[610] “The last sphere.” _Par._ xxii. 62.
“ ... In quella sola
E ogni parte là dove sempr’ era;
Perchè non è in loco, e non s’impola.”[611]
[611]
“ ... Within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles.”
_Par._ xxii. 65-67. (_Longfellow._)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In _Conv._ II. iv. 35-39 it is thus described:—
“Questo è il sovrano edificio del mondo, nel quale
tutto il mondo s’inchiude; e di fuori dal quale
nulla è; ed esso non è in luogo, ma formato fu
solo nella Prima Mente, la quale li Greci dicono
Protonoe.”[612]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[612] “This is the sovereign edifice of the world, in which all the
world is enclosed, and beyond which is naught; and it exists not in
space, but received form only in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call
Protonoe.” See also _Ep._ x. 442-447.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We must remember, however, that the spheres are sometimes counted in
the other direction, from the outermost to the innermost or lowest, and
therefore this “ultima spera”[613] is elsewhere spoken of as “il primo
cielo,”[614] “il primo giro,”[615] “cœlum primum.”[616]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[613] “Last sphere.”
[614] “The first heaven.” _Purg._ xxx. 1.
[615] “The first circle.” _Par._ iv. 34.
[616] “First heaven.” _Qu._ iv. 7.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. THE SPHERES AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS.
The pure region of the spheres, “il paese sincero,” is immortal as the
spirits themselves;[617] but below the lowest celestial sphere (“la
celestial c’ha men salita” _Par._ iv. 39) all is mortal and transitory,
as the Greeks and the Latin poets had said. This is expressed in the
Letter to Can Grande, when Dante contrasts the spheres (cœlum) and the
elements, and says: “illud incorruptibile, illa vero corruptibilia
sunt.”[618] It is also implied in Virgil’s address to Beatrice:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[617] _Par._ vii. 130-132 compared with 67, 68. See also _Par._ i. 64
and 76.
[618] _Ep._ x. 435-437.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“O donna di virtù, sola per cui
L’umana specie eccede ogni contento
Da quel ciel che ha minor’ li cerchi sui.”[619]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[619]
“O Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom
The human race exceedeth all contained
Within the heaven that has the lesser circles.”
_Inf._ ii. 76-78. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is only through the spiritual teaching which Beatrice symbolizes
that the human race can rise above all that is comprised within the
heaven of the smallest sphere. And it is taught by Beatrice herself
when, in the heaven of Mercury, she discourses on the mysteries of the
creation and redemption. The angels, the souls of men, and the spheres,
were created directly by God, she says, and are therefore immortal,
but the elements, water, fire, air, earth, and all things that are
formed out of them, also the souls or living principles of all animals
and plants, were created through intermediate instruments and are
mortal. These intermediate instruments are the heavenly bodies. Pure
or inchoate matter was created at the beginning by God, and a power
infused into the stars to give it form.[620]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[620] _Par._ vii. 124-143. Compare with Plato’s account of the creation
of living beings (Part I., _Plato_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante follows the classics and agrees with his contemporaries in
arranging the four elements in four spheres, which are below the
celestial spheres. The sphere of Fire is immediately within that of the
moon, below this comes Air, then Water, and lastly the solid sphere of
Earth. The contrast between Fire which constantly tends to rise towards
the moon, and Earth which sinks towards the centre of the universe, is
a favourite thought with him;[621] and lightning striking the earth
is described as fleeing its proper place.[622] Aristotle seems to
have regarded the four elements as flowing into one another, so that
these lowly spheres beneath the moon were not sharply divided, but his
mediæval disciples, following the Greek idea to its logical conclusion,
conceived them with boundaries as definite as those of the celestial
spheres. “Exhalations” could pass from one to another, but each
particle of every element tended always to revert to its own place,
which was distinct from the others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[621] _Par._ i. 115, 117; _De Mon._ I. xv. 38-41; and III. vii. 30, 31,
etc.
[622] _Par._ i. 92, 130-134.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here they encountered a serious difficulty. If the sphere of water
is naturally higher than that of earth, how comes it that in one
quarter of the globe land rises above the ocean? It was recognised as
necessary that this should happen in some part of the world, in order
for an opportunity to be given for the elements to combine and to form
all those substances and all those living creatures, including man, for
which this earth was prepared; it was also agreed that the celestial
spheres were the agency by which the Creator had first chosen to “let
the dry land appear,” and by which it was maintained above the ocean;
but the exact nature of this force and the way in which it acted was a
question sometimes discussed. Albertus Magnus was of opinion that the
rays of the sun and the stars, which had more power in the temperate
and tropic zones than in the arctic, had here dried up the ocean, and
he quotes Albumassar’s statement that this proves the existence of land
on the southern side of the equator also. Ristoro, on the other hand,
believed that the waters had been drawn up and rolled back from the
habitable earth, and he attributes the elevating force to the stars of
the north, bringing in his favourite theory that in this hemisphere
they are far more numerous, and the constellations, from their upright
position, are far more powerful than in the south.
He compares this lifting force of the stars to the attractive power
of a magnet over iron, and argues that it must be the waters which
are drawn away from the earth, not the earth which is lifted above
the water, because the starry influence in its downward course would
meet first the sphere of water, and moreover it is lighter and easier
to move than Earth. He also thinks that the presence of springs
on mountain tops is to be explained by the fact that the ocean is
preserved at a higher level, hence water percolating through the porous
land, as through a sponge, is forced up to its utmost height.
It does not seem as if Dante had paid much attention to this problem
when he was writing the _Convivio_, for although he calls the habitable
part of the earth “the uncovered land,” “la terra discoperta” (_Conv._
III. v. 73), he speaks of Earth and ocean as if they formed a globe
together, “Questa terra ... col mare è centro del cielo,”[623] in the
manner of Alfraganus, “Inter sapientes convenit, terram unà cum aqua
globosam esse.”[624] But if we may believe that Dante is the author
of the _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_—a belief shared by many experts—he
became greatly interested in the problem later on. According to the
introduction and the final colophon, he attended a discussion on the
subject and joined in it himself, when in Mantua, and afterwards in
Verona less than two years before his death he wrote and read in public
a Latin treatise in which his arguments and conclusions are set forth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[623] “This earth, together with the sea, is the centre of heaven.”
(_Conv._ III. v. 63-65.)
[624] “It is agreed among learned men that earth and water together
form a globe.” (_El. Ast._ iii.).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He seems to have had in mind Ristoro’s book, and while refuting some
of the conclusions agrees with others. As a thirteenth century scholar
he admits, as a matter of course, that the centre of the earth is the
centre of the Universe and the goal towards which all heavy things
tend; that earth as the heaviest element ought to be everywhere nearest
this centre, while water ought to occupy the nobler place above it,
that is, nearer to the most noble sphere of all which envelops all the
others (the Empyrean). He also reasons, in true Dantesque and true
mediæval fashion that there must be some place in the universe where
all the elements may meet and mingle so that all potential forms of
matter may be realized; otherwise the Mover of heaven, in whom all
these forms (Plato’s Ideas) actually exist, would fail to give complete
expression to his goodness, which is impossible.[625]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[625] _Qu._ xviii. 28-54. This may be compared with _Par._ xxix. 13-18.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author of the _Quæstio_ denies, however, that this was accomplished
by the removal of part of the sphere of water from the underlying
earth. The ocean cannot have been drawn away and heaped up, he says,
for water would always flow down again, being fluid and naturally
seeking its own level; nor can the sphere of water be eccentric to that
of Earth so that the latter emerges from it in one part. The reason for
this is interesting since it implies a curious and apparently novel
theory of gravity. Aristotle’s theory was that all heavy things tend
by a natural law towards the centre of the universe, and therefore
necessarily range themselves in spheres round it; the writer might
therefore have made short work of Water’s eccentric sphere by stating
briefly that it could not exist; instead of this, however, he suggests
a new law of gravity, apparently invented on the spur of the moment,
according to which everything which has weight tends towards the centre
of its own circumference. If then earth and water had two separate
centres, they would fall naturally in different directions, or as he
puts it “to different _downs_.” Yet we know that the law of gravity
is the same for both, and therefore their spheres must be concentric.
The centre of the universe must be also the centre of the sea.[626] It
had apparently been urged (perhaps in the discussion at Mantua) that
since water follows the moon in the tides, its sphere may also imitate
hers in being eccentric, but although Dante takes for granted that a
connection between moon and tides is proved (and indeed it had been
noted by the Greeks),[627] he replies that imitation in one particular
need not imply imitation in all. Again, if the sphere of earth emerged
from the sphere of water in the way proposed, the outline of the
emergent earth must be circular, instead of which it is that of a
half-moon, or nearly so, its width from east to west being much greater
than its length from north to south.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[626] _Qu._ xv. 10, 11.
[627] See p. 134.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante has been blamed for assigning this shape to the emergent earth,
but the comparison of Earth’s habitable quadrant with the illuminated
quadrant of the moon is perfectly just, as we saw with Ristoro,[628]
from whom Dante is perhaps quoting here. The qualifying “vel
quasi”[629] is added because the truly habitable regions did not extend
over the whole quadrant, but stopped short at the arctic circle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[628] See p. 247.
[629] “Or nearly.” _Qu._ xix. 61-63.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The existence of springs on mountain tops is explained by the fact
that water rises thither not in the form of water but of vapour.
Another upholder of Ristoro’s theory that Water was rolled away from
Earth seems to have brought forward as evidence that sailors can see
distant land from the mast which is invisible from the deck, and that
therefore it evidently lies below the ocean; but this is confuted by
the true and well known explanation that it is the convex shape of
the sea which hides the distant land. Our author adds to his other
arguments, in the curiously casual way so characteristic of his age,
the ordinary observation which would be the first to occur to us, and
quite sufficient in itself, viz. that instead of seeing a great wall of
ocean rising above our sea-coasts, we invariably see the coast rising
above the sea.
His own idea is that though the sphere of Water in general rises above
Earth, in one part of the northern hemisphere Earth has been drawn up
above the ocean. Earth must be subject to an uplifting influence, as
well as to the downward drag of gravity, just as man is susceptible to
the influence of reason as well as to the sway of his lower passions.
This uplifting influence is not inherent in Earth herself, an upward
impulse would be contrary to her own nature; nor can it be in water, or
air, or fire, since all these are homogeneous bodies, and their virtue
is evenly distributed, so that they could not cause a local and partial
effect. It must be therefore in one of the heavens, and it remains for
us to enquire which.
It cannot be in the heaven of the moon, for in the moon herself resides
whatever influence comes from her sphere;[630] and she goes as far
south of the equator as she does north: therefore she would raise land
beyond the equator as well as on this side, but this is not so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[630] Compare with _Conv._ II. vii. 88-100, where the poet says that
the influence from each sphere comes on the rays of the planet in that
sphere, also _De Mon._ III. iv. 139, 140.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then follows a passage of which commentators can make nothing as it
stands:—
“Nec valet dicere quod illa declinatio non
potuit esse propter magis appropinquare terræ
per excentricitatem; quia si hæc virtus elevandi
fuisset in luna, (quum agentia propinquiora
virtuosius operentur) magis elevasset ibi quam hic.”[631]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[631] “Nor does it avail anything to say that that declination could
not take place because of approaching nearer the earth through
eccentricity; for if this elevating virtue were in the moon, since
agents act the more powerfully the nearer they are, she would elevate
there rather than here.” _Qu._ xx. 65-71.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Wicksteed suggests reading “elevatio” instead of “declinatio,” and
apparently deletes the “non,”[632] and Dr. Moore seems to read the same
way,[633] for both agree in interpreting as follows:—the author is
stating an argument that the elevation of land (in only one hemisphere)
might be due to the moon’s coming nearer to Earth in one part of her
orbit, owing to its eccentricity; to which he replies that if that were
the cause the elevation would be greater in the south than here in the
north, because the moon is nearer to the earth when she goes south.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[632] Note on this passage in “Temple” Dante.
[633] _Studies in Dante_, ii. p. 339.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is supposed to imply a belief that the moon is always in
perigee[634] when south of the equator, whereas the fact that her
perigee revolves all round the zodiac was as well known to Ptolemy and
Alfraganus as it is to modern astronomers. The interpretation therefore
convicts the author of the _Quæstio_ of so serious and inexplicable a
blunder that these commentators find themselves obliged to consider
it as evidence either that it was not written by Dante, or that his
knowledge of astronomy was much less extensive than has been supposed.
It is suggested that there may have been a popular fallacy in his time
that the moon was like the sun in this respect—although to know that
the sun has a perigee, and that it is situated in the south, requires
some acquaintance with astronomy! However, Dr. Moore has searched
Alfraganus and other works in vain to find a suggestion of this kind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[634] Nearest Earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 52. The moon’s epicycle and deferent.
(The dotted line represents the southern half of the deferent).]
Yet an explanation and a source of this statement is not far to seek,
and instead of proving ignorance it indicates that the author of the
_Quæstio_ knew his Alfraganus well. The passage is evidently slightly
corrupt, but the clue to its meaning lies in the word “eccentricity.”
In two other places of the _Quæstio_ the moon’s eccentric “orbis”
is alluded to,[635] but if we translate this as “orbit” we shall
be introducing modern ideas which meant nothing to Dante or his
contemporaries. According to Alfraganus and Ptolemy the moon’s orb
or sphere[636] was eccentric, but this was not the main cause of her
varying distance from Earth. It was the revolution of her epicycle
round its centre C, which caused her to move continually from apogee M
to perigee P; and as the whole epicycle was meanwhile revolving on the
deferent round C, and these two periods were not quite equal, the moon
was as often in the perigee of her epicycle when it was south as when
it was north. But besides this, the deferent, being eccentric to Earth,
had also a perigee and apogee; and Alfraganus says that _the perigee
of the eccentric is always in the south_. “Saturnus, Jupiter, atque
Mars eccentricorum suorum absidas summas et imas habent declinatas a
zodiaco, illas ad boream, hasce ad austrum, secundum eandem semper
deflexus mensuram: _quedadmodum res in Luna obtinet_.”[637]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[635] _Qu._ vii. 4, 6, and xxiii. 52.
[636] “Orbis” and “sphæra” are used indifferently by Alfraganus to
indicate the celestial spheres: thus, in ch. xii. he says “_Orbes_, qui
stellarum omnes motus complectantur, numero esse octo,” and on the next
page, “unamquamque harum _sphærarum_ octo.”
[637] “The upper and lower apsides of the eccentrics of Saturn,
Jupiter, and Mars, have a certain declination from the zodiac, the
former to the north, the latter to the south, the amount always
remaining constant: _and it is just the same with the moon_.” _El.
Ast._ xviii. par. 6.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The upper and lower apsides are defined in chapter xii. as the
positions of apogee and perigee respectively.[638]
In this quotation the word “declinatas” also supplies us with the
meaning of Dante’s “declinatio,” which need not be changed for
“elevatio.” He is using it in the astronomical sense of position north
or south, like Alfraganus and modern astronomers, and it refers here
to the “declinet” of five lines earlier. “Luna ... tantum _declinet_
per zodiacum ab æquinoctiali _versus polum antarcticum_ quantum versus
arcticum.”[639]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[638] In the edition of Golius ch. vii. par. 5, the position of
greatest distance is called the perigee, of least the apogee, but this
mistake is corrected in the next paragraph.
[639] “The moon’s declination in the zodiac from the equator towards
the south pole is as great as towards the north.” _Qu._ xx. 61-63.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is only necessary to delete “quod” and “non potuit,” and the
whole passage becomes clear and, from the point of view of mediæval
astronomy, correct. The author has shown that the moon cannot be
supposed to exert any preponderating influence in the northern
hemisphere, because her declination south is equal to that in the
north. Nor is it of any use, he adds, to say that this declination
(south) results from her approaching the earth more nearly on her
eccentric orb (see diagram);[640] for (although this does imply an
unequal influence) if the elevating influence came from the moon, it
would act more powerfully in the south than here in the north, since
the nearer an agent is the more powerfully it acts.
He goes on to say that the same reasoning rules out the planetary
spheres, and here Alfraganus still supports him, for Saturn, Jupiter,
and Mars are said to have the perigees of their eccentrics in the
south, just like the moon, while those of Venus and Mercury are
continually changing.[641]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[640] The deferent was the equator of her orb or sphere.
[641] Ristoro also defines apogee and perigee (“auge” and “opposito
d’auge”) as effects of movements on an epicycle, and says that the
deferent is “declined” from the ecliptic (“declinato della via del
sole,”) part being north and part south, but he does not say whether
its perigee is north or south. _Comp. del Mondo._ I. xii. xiv., and
III. vii.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for the Primum Mobile, or ninth sphere, it is uniform throughout,
and consequently quite uniform in virtue, therefore there is no reason
why it should elevate land here rather than elsewhere. Since, then,
there are no more moving bodies except the star sphere, or eighth
heaven, it must be from this that the lifting power proceeds. And it
is specially adapted to exercise such an influence since it contains
a number of stars, all of which have different “virtues.” Without
repeating Ristoro’s naïve assertions about the greater number and the
upright positions of the northern constellations, our author bids us
remark that star differs from star, constellation from constellation,
and that their influences are also diverse, so that those in the north
have different virtues from those in the south. The lifting virtue
which raises the land must reside in those stars which are between
the equator and 67° north, since those are above the habitable earth;
but we do not know the nature of the force they exercise, whether
it attracts the land as a magnet attracts iron, or forces it up by
generating underground vapours, such as have raised some mountains
(Aristotle had said in his _Meteorologica_ that volcanic hills were
formed by pent-up winds beneath them).
After so elaborate a search for a power capable of raising land only
in the north and not in the south, we naturally inquire why in the
east and not in the west? But to this we only receive the reply that
there was not enough material to go round, and that we must not ask
presumptuous questions. Let us seek to approach divine and immortal
things as nearly as is possible to human nature, but leave those which
are too high for us.
This somewhat lengthy description of the contents of the _Quæstio_ has
been given because, even if it is not Dante’s work, it illustrates
well the current ideas concerning the Cosmos, its form and forces. So
many of the ideas, however, and even the expressions find parallels in
the unquestioned writings of Dante, that the internal evidence for its
genuineness is strong.[642]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[642] For a thorough discussion of this question see Moore’s _Studies
in Dante_ ii. pp. 303-374.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his poems Dante is faithful to his own descriptions of the universe
in prose, and in the visionary journey of the _Divine Comedy_ he
passes successively through all the spheres which are enumerated in
the _Convivio_ and the _Quæstio_. The central sphere of earth, the
lowest of all the elements, “il suggetto dei vostri elementi,”[643]
is completely traversed, from side to side, and on the further side
is seen the vast sphere of ocean which envelopes three-quarters of
the earth. The Mountain which the poet has placed here (his only
innovation) rises out of the water towards the heavens higher than any
other, “inverso il ciel più alto si dislaga,”[644] and in climbing
it he reaches that region in the sphere of air into which no cold
exhalations can rise from earth or sea, neither the “secco vapor”[645]
which causes wind and earthquake, nor the “esalazion dell’ aqua”[646]
from which are formed rain and hail, cloud and dew. Hot exhalations
ascend to the sphere of fire, there to become meteors or comets (see
p. 103); but the cold vapours rising as high as they can towards the
sun which draws them up (“retro il calor”[647]), are unable to ascend
beyond the Gate of Purgatory.[648] Therefore Purgatory is exempt from
all changes except those caused by that which heaven receives from
itself into itself. This was ingeniously conjectured by Venturi to be
light, since there is change of day and night in Purgatory; but from
the context it seems clear that human souls are meant. Souls come forth
from their Creator, whose special abode is the heaven of heavens,
and return thither after purification. And it was the rising of the
purified soul of Statius, ready to return to heaven, which had been the
cause of that trembling of the Mountain of which he is here speaking.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[643] “The foundation of your elements.” _Par._ xxix. 51.
[644] “Rises highest towards heaven out of the sea.” _Purg._ iii. 15.
[645] “Dry vapour.”
[646] “Exhalations from the water.”
[647] “Behind [_i.e._ following] the heat.”
[648] _Purg._ xxviii. 97-99 and xxi. 52-53. The gate is meant by “i tre
gradi” (“the three steps”), and “ove si serra” (“where it is locked”).
See _Purg._ ix. 76, 106-108.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After learning this, Dante is surprised to find, on the summit of the
Mountain, that his brows are caressed by a gentle breeze which comes
from the east and bends all the trees of the Forest in one direction.
Matilda tells him that it is true no atmospheric changes are felt on
this Mountain, and it was for this that it was made to rise so high, so
that man in the Garden of Eden, on the top of the Mountain, should be
untroubled by the disturbances which occur lower down: what he feels
now is no fluctuating wind. On this lofty mountain, remote from any
other land in the midst of the hemisphere of sea, he feels for the
first time the revolution of the atmosphere uninterruptedly following
the movement of the celestial spheres.
The idea that Eden was on a lofty mountain, secure from stormy weather,
and inaccessible to fallen man, was a familiar one with mediæval
writers: it was sometimes located on Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, and Bede
thought it might rise as high as the moon, but Albertus Magnus says
this was only meant figuratively. But the connection with Purgatory,
and the thought that here the movement of the heavens might be felt as
a soft breeze, is, so far as I know, all Dante’s own.
In all the _Divine Comedy_ there is no more beautiful allegory than
this. Man in the age of innocence, man to-day when purified from sin,
is already partly in heaven, though he still walks the earth. And like
many another allegory of Dante’s, it follows naturally from the science
of his day. Aristotle had said that the upper air “flows in a circle,
because it is drawn along with the circulation of the Whole,” and
Aquinas:—
“Thus the air which exceeds the greatest altitude
of the mountains flows round, but the air which is
contained within the altitude of the mountains is
impeded from this flow by the immoveable parts of
Earth.”
_Purg._ xxviii. 103-108 is almost a poetical paraphrase of this:—
“ ... In circuito tutto quanto
L’aer si volge con la prima volta,
Se non gli è rotto il cerchio d’alcun canto:
In questa altezza, che tutta è disciolta
Nell’ aer vivo, tal moto percote
E fa sonar la selva, perch ’è folto.”[649]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[649]
“ ... The universal atmosphere
Turns in a circuit with the primal motion,
Unless the circle is broken on some side:
Upon this height, that all is disengaged
In living ether, doth this motion strike,
And make the forest sound, for it is dense.”
(_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole body of the air, everywhere in the world, is turning with the
First Revolution (the Primum Mobile), wherever it is not interrupted by
any obstruction (of hills etc.); and as at this height the Mountain is
altogether free and open to the pure air, this motion strikes the thick
forest and makes it murmur.[650]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[650] Scartazzini takes the passage as referring to Eden only, and
interprets that all the air _here_ is moving evenly and noiselessly
unless it meets with any obstacle _such as this forest_, when a
murmuring sound results.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From this region of pure air, Dante rises with Beatrice through the
sphere of Fire, into which already in a dream he had been rapt, on the
first night in Purgatory, by the Eagle with golden feathers, when the
burning heat of the dream-fire roused him from his sleep.[651] Now he
feels no heat, but is amazed at the vast extent of light, greater than
any river or lake ever seen on earth, and at the same moment he begins
to hear the music of the eternal spheres,[652] for he is approaching
the heaven of the moon.
In each one he hears it until the seventh is reached, but here, in pity
for his mortal senses, which are not yet strong enough to bear so much
divine beauty, not only does Beatrice forbear to smile, but the sweet
symphonies of heaven are silent.[653]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[651] _Purg._ ix. 30-33.
[652] _Par._ i. 76-81.
[653] _Par._ xxi. 58-63.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Dante then, in spite of Aristotle, believe in the music of the
spheres? Perhaps the fact that only the _Commedia_, of all his works,
makes mention of it indicates that he only thought of it as a poetical
fiction, an allegory? Yet it was fully believed in by many in his day,
although opinions varied greatly as to what note each planet sang. The
favourite idea among Greek and Latin writers seems to have been that
the notes made up a musical scale, the lowest sphere sounding forth the
lowest note, and the star sphere its octave; but others thought that
only the seven planets took part in the harmony, corresponding with the
seven strings of the lyre: the moon being at the shortest distance from
Earth, was the shortest string and gave the highest note, Saturn was
the longest and gave the deepest.
Our own Milton, when he prays, “Ring out, ye crystal spheres,” bids the
Primum Mobile join in, as well as the star sphere:
“And with your nine-fold harmony
Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.”[654]
And Shakespear lets every separate star swell the chorus:
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.”[655]
In the same spirit, but more literally perhaps than these, are we to
understand the music of Dante’s spheres, which accompanies the singing
of the angels:—
“Il cantar di quei che notan sempre
Dietro alle note degli eterni giri.”[656]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[654] _Hymn on the Nativity._
[655] _Merchant of Venice._
[656]
“The song of those who sing for ever
After the music of the eternal spheres.”
_Purg._ xxx. 92, 93. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. DIMENSIONS AND PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE.
We have seen that Dante believed the circling of the nine moving
spheres and their epicycles to be the immediate cause of the movements
which he saw in stars and planets. If we ask what were his ideas with
regard to their sizes and distances the question is easily answered.
It is a curious fact that although our ideas about the size of anything
we see depend upon the distance at which it appears to be, and no
one can say how far away the sun looks, most of us nevertheless have
a quite definite idea as to how large it looks, about the size of a
dinner-plate, a cart-wheel, &c. Cleomedes, in the days of Augustus,
quotes Lucretius and the Epicureans as believing that the sun is no
larger than it looks, _that is a foot in diameter_; and he rightly
remarks, amongst other arguments to the contrary, that if it were
only that size it would be invisible unless nearer than the tops of
the mountains, yet we see islands and hills projected against it when
rising, which shows that its distance is greater. Dante twice quotes
the same fallacy, as an instance of the folly of trusting to the
impression of our senses, when not corrected by reason, and he tells us
what he believes the true size of the sun to be.
In _Conv._ IV.[657] he says:—
“Thus we know that to most people the sun appears
to be a foot wide in diameter; and this is so
utterly false that according to the investigation
and discovery made by human reason with her
attendant arts, the diameter of the sun’s body is
five times that of the earth’s, and a half besides.
For whereas the earth has a diameter of six
thousand five hundred miles, the diameter of the
sun, which when measured by sense-impressions seems
to be a foot in extent, is thirty-five thousand,
seven hundred and fifty miles.”
(See also _Ep._ x. 42-46).
When speaking of the planet Venus he says she is “far off from
us, being distant even when she is nearest to us one hundred and
sixty-seven times the distance of the distance of the centre of
the earth from us, which is three thousand two hundred and fifty
miles.”[658]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[657] _Conv._ IV. viii. 51-64.
[658] _Conv._ II. vii. 104-108.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury is spoken of in the _Paradiso_ as a small star, “Questa
picciola stella,”[659] and in _Conv._ II.[660] Dante says:—“Mercury is
the smallest star in the sky; for the length of its diameter is not
more than 232 miles, according to Alfraganus, who says that it is one
twenty-eighth of the diameter of the earth,[661] which is six thousand
five hundred miles.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[659] “This small star.” _Par._ vi. 112.
[660] _Conv._ II. xiv. 92-98.
[661] The Frankfort printed edition and some Latin MSS of Alfraganus
agree with this: the edition of Golius gives ¹/₁₈.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is only in the last passage that our poet quotes his authority,
but in the others also the diameter or the semi-diameter of the earth
is used as the unit of measure, and it is the same as that given by
Alfraganus; so are the sizes of Mercury and the Sun, and the least
distance of Venus is the value given by Alfraganus for the greatest
distance of Mercury, which he asserted to be equal. It seems quite
clear, therefore, that the figures given in the tables on pp. 189-90
represent Dante’s belief as to the dimensions of the Universe. These
passages also are another proof that Dante had not studied Ptolemy’s
own work, for Ptolemy had said that the distances of Venus and Mercury
could not be accurately known.[662]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[662] _Almagest_, Bk. IX.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We do not expect exact measures of distance in Dante’s descriptions of
his soaring flight through the spheres, but he so constantly speaks of
the marvellous speed with which he passes from star to star that we
are not required to ignore the stupendous distances between. The one
indication he does give us of the space which separates him from earth
is full of poetry and symbolic meaning: I refer to Folco’s words in the
heaven of Venus:—
“Questo cielo, in cui l’ombra s’appunta
Che il vostro mondo face” ...[663]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[663]
“This heaven, where ends the shadowy cone
Cast by your world.”
_Par._ ix. 118, 119. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the last of the three heavens in which Dante has met spirits
whose lives did not reach the perfection of the saints in higher
heavens, but were marred by broken vows, earthly ambition, earthly
love; and here he is reminded that he has not yet soared high enough
to be beyond reach of the cone of shadow thrown by the earth. This is
another allegory resting on what was to the poet an astronomical fact.
For Earth’s shadow was said by Ptolemy and Alfraganus to extend to 268
times the distance of her semi-diameter, and the distance of Venus from
Earth varied, according to Alfraganus, between 167 and 1120 times this
unit, while the next planet, the sun, at his least distance was 1120
units distant (the same as Venus’ greatest). Therefore the spheres of
Venus and the two nearer planets Mercury and the Moon, were all within
reach of Earth’s shadow, but the sun and the rest were far beyond
it.[664] Venus and Mercury themselves never could be actually touched
by the shadow like the moon, however, because they keep too near the
sun for Earth to interpose herself between them and the source of light.
(Though the length of the shadow thrown by Earth is nearly accurate,
see pp. 191-92, the planets are a great deal further than Alfraganus
supposed; for the least distance of Venus is nearly 6000 times Earth’s
semi-diameter, and the least distance of Mercury 12,000).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[664] Rabbi Abraham ben Chija, in his _Sphæra Mundi_, written about
1100 A.D., says that Earth’s shadow extends as far as the distance of
Mercury, not of Venus (Delambre, _Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne_,
and Dreyer, _Planetary Systems_); but this does not agree with the
figures given by Alfraganus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Except for this we have only the passage in the _Paradiso_ already
referred to, where Dante, standing among the stars of Gemini, found
the sphere above him too distant to be seen, but turning his gaze
downwards was able to survey all the planets and the earth at the
centre of the World. He knew very well that at a distance from Earth
20,000 times her own semi-diameter it would be impossible to see her as
a disc,[665] far less to distinguish oceans and continents, hills and
river-mouths. It would in fact be like looking at an object one foot in
diameter at a distance of two miles. But as we have before observed,
his power of vision here was more than human: at every step in this
marvellous journey it had grown clearer and stronger, and in the fourth
heaven he had been able to look on spirits which shone in the sun more
brilliantly than the sun itself, although on earth no eye can look upon
the sun.[666]
In the Empyrean, distinctions of space, and impediments to vision
vanished altogether.[667]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[665] Her diameter would look no larger than the diameter of Saturn,
as we see it when nearest to him; but like Saturn she would be visible
as a bright point, because shining by reflected sunlight. Ancient and
mediæval astronomers never realized this, however, but thought of Earth
as a dark body, receiving light but giving none.
[666] _Conv._ II. xiv. 126, 127; _Par._ x. 40-42, 48.
[667] _Par._ xxii. 67; xxxi. 19-24; xxx. 118-123.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
With regard to the physical nature of the heavenly bodies, Dante and
his contemporaries had no means whatever of investigation, and could
only profess ignorance or accept one or other of the guesses of their
predecessors. Some of the Greek philosophers, as we saw, guessed
that the planets were worlds somewhat like the earth, others thought
they were composed of fire or of air. But the general belief in the
thirteenth century was that planets and spheres alike were composed
of a kind of celestial matter, called by Aristotle and the Greeks
“æther,” by the Arabs “al-acir,” an immortal substance which had neither
heaviness nor lightness, and was altogether distinct from any of the
four elements existing below the sphere of the moon. Beatrice speaks of
“this sphered ether,” “questo etera tondo.” _Par._ xxii. 132.
Dante’s description of this celestial substance when he first enters
the ethereal world is one of the finest instances of his faithfulness
to the teachings of astronomy as he had learned it, combined with
poetical imagination, and at the same time his power of using material
facts (as he conceived them) to present an allegory of the deepest
religious mysteries. If we merely listen to the magic of the words,
an impression is conveyed of something mysteriously beautiful and
dazzling, unlike anything known on earth; but if we look into the
meaning, we find that the globe of the moon has just those strange,
contrasting qualities, just the colour and the form which a sphere of
ether may be imagined to have. It is white and rounded like a pearl,
“polished” as Plato said of the universal orb, it is thick and shining,
soft as cloud but hard as diamond; and it offers no more resistance to
Dante as he enters into it than does water to a ray of light.[668]
Then follows a discussion concerning the substance not only of the
moon but of all the heavenly bodies. On hearing that he has reached
the boundaries of the immortal world, and has entered “la prima
stella,”[669] Dante eagerly enquires of Beatrice what are those dark
markings in the body of this planet which are seen from Earth and have
given rise to the fable of Cain. She smiles a little, and bids him tell
her first what is his own opinion. He advances the theory which he had
taught in the _Convivio_, viz. that the parts of the moon which look
dark to us are less dense than the rest, and therefore the rays of the
sun when striking them are not stopped and reflected back to us; hence
the brightness is less than in other parts of her surface.
“L’ombra ch’ è in essa, ... non è altro che rarità
del suo corpo, alla quale non possono terminare
i raggi del sole e ripercuotersi così come nell’
altre parti.”[670]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[668] _Par._ ii. 25-45.
[669] “The first star.”
[670] “The shadow which is in her is nothing but rare parts of her
substance, which cannot stop the rays of the sun and reflect them back
like the other parts.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 72-76.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This explanation seems to have been first suggested by Averroës, the
Arab philosopher and astronomer of Cordova, who was known in the Middle
Ages as “The Commentator,” from his famous commentary of Aristotle.
The suggestion occurs in his _De Substantia Orbis_, and as it follows
a quotation from Aristotle (to the effect that the moon is more nearly
related to Earth in her nature than to the stars), it was believed by
many to be originally due to Aristotle himself.
The strange circumstance that the moon alone, among all the heavenly
bodies, appeared to have dark shadows on her bright face, had roused
much curiosity already among the Greeks; and Plutarch, in his dialogue
“On the Face in the Moon,” mentions the different explanations
suggested in his day. Some thought that the polished surface of the
moon reflected, like a mirror, parts of the earth; the Stoics said that
air was enclosed within her globe of fire and obscured it in certain
places, but this view was rejected with contumely by Plutarch.
“It is a slap in the face to the moon when they
fill her with smuts and blacks, addressing her in
one breath as Artemis and Athena, and in the very
same describing a caked compound of murky air and
charcoal fire, with no kindling or light of its
own, a nondescript body smoking and charred like
those thunderbolts which the poets address as
lightless and sooty!”[671]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[671] Plutarch, _On the Face in the Moon_, translation by Prickard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The third hypothesis, which was favoured by most of the speakers in the
dialogue, was that the moon was not a star at all, but a kind of more
beautiful Earth; and it was even suggested that men might dwell on her
who thought their world the only place fit for human beings, looking
down with contemptuous pity on our Earth, as a sort of sediment and
slime of the Universe, appearing through damps and mists and clouds, a
place “unlighted, low, motionless,” entirely incapable of supporting
moving breathing warm-blooded animals!
This was not a view which could possibly be held by mediæval
Christians, and in a treatise on Aristotle’s _De Cœlo_, attributed to
Albert of Saxony, we find others put forward. The author disproves
the old theory of a mirror-like moon reflecting parts of Earth, and
also another that the moon draws up cold vapours which are seen like
clouds on her surface, and upon which she is nourished—for how should
an eternal heavenly body need nourishment?—and finally he expounds the
theory of “The Commentator,” with which he agrees. The markings are
rare parts of the moon’s substance, which cannot shine so brightly as
the denser parts, and this varied surface he compares with alabaster,
in which “the dense and not translucent part is very white, while that
which is translucent like glass is obscure and tends to blackness.
And if,” he adds, “it is asked why the moon is thus dissimilar in her
parts, the reply is that this is her nature.”[672]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[672] See Paget Toynbee, _Le Teorie Dantesche sulle Macchie della
Luna_, in _Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana_, vol. xxvi. pp.
156-161.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This theory was perhaps the most popular one with mediæval scholars,
though there was some difference of opinion as to whether the dense or
the rare parts of the moon were those that showed dark. Ristoro perhaps
alludes to it, in the passage where he speaks of the moon’s markings,
but in a very confused way, and the contrast of “polished” and “rugged”
surface is what he chiefly lays stress upon.
After upholding this theory in the _Convivio_, Dante rejects it in the
_Paradiso_: perhaps because it was more or less bound up with the idea
that the moon was partly of an earthy nature, and this was inconsistent
with the other theory of Aristotle, so popular among classical writers,
that all within and above the sphere of the moon was eternal and
heavenly. He is evidently very anxious to convince us of the falsity
of his old belief, for he is not content with a simple assertion, but
lets Beatrice reason like a learned doctor, using arguments which would
appeal to his readers, drawn now from experiments which might be used
in a school, and now from the accepted astrological beliefs of the day.
First she reminds him that the numerous stars scattered over the
surface of the eighth sphere differ in brightness, like the different
parts of the moon’s surface, but they differ in the quality (colour?)
of their light, as well as the quantity, and we know that there are
essential differences between them, because their “virtues” are
different. It cannot be, therefore, that they differ simply in density
or rarity of their substance.
Then she shows that in no circumstances is the theory of varying
density in different parts of the moon capable of explaining the
observed variety of brightness. For if the parts which look dark are
less dense than others, either they must be so right through the
planet, or there must be an alternation of dense and rare matter in
those parts, like fat and lean in a material body, one behind the other
like pages in a book. (The double metaphor is characteristic of Dante.)
Now if the first be true, the sunlight would shine through the moon
is those parts, during an eclipse;[673] and if the second, the sun’s
rays must penetrate to the lower-lying denser part, and be reflected
thence just as from the dense parts of the moon’s surface. A possible
objection that in that case the reflecting surface would be further
away, and therefore appear fainter, may be disproved by an experiment.
Take two mirrors and place them at an equal distance from you; place
a third between them but further away, face the three mirrors, and
place a light behind you so that it may be reflected from them all: the
distant one will appear smaller, but no less bright than the two near
ones. This reasoning is perfectly sound.
Then follows the explanation for which all this is a preparation. It
involves an exposition of ultimate causes which we need not enter into
here: for the present we need only say that difference of brightness
is not caused by differences of much or little of the same substance.
There are intrinsic differences between star and star, and between
different parts of the moon,[674] but all are manifestations of divine
intelligence; just as the different members and faculties of a human
body are manifestations of a human soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[673] Albert of Saxony notes this objection, but says the rarity is not
sufficiently great to make these parts transparent.
[674] This is in agreement with modern belief. Some parts of the moon’s
surface reflect sunlight less well than others, and therefore look
dark, just as a peaty soil looks darker than limestone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The diversity of the celestial matter is also touched upon in the
_Convivio_, where it is said that the epicycle of Venus is “not of
the same essence as that which carries it [the deferent or large
sphere], although it is more nearly of one nature with it than with
the rest.”[675] Differences of colour are indicated in the glowing
masses of the planets, which are entered by Dante and Beatrice.
As with the moon, they do not merely alight upon the surface, but
penetrate the planetary ether. “Quel ch’ era _dentro_ al sol,”[676]
“Nel profondo Marte,”[677] “La temprata stella sesta, che _dentro
a sè_ m’avea ricolto.”[678] Mercury is called a pearl—“la presente
margarita”[679]—while Mars is “questo fuoco,”[680] and the astronomer
poet says he knew the planet by its burning smile, for it seemed to him
even more ruddy than its wont.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[675] _Conv._ II. iv. 94-96.
[676] “That which was _within_ the sun [_sc._ the spirits].” _Par._ x.
41.
[677] “In the depths of Mars.” _Par._ xiv. 100, 101.
[678] “The temperate sixth star, which _within itself_ had received
me.” _Par._ xviii. 68, 69.
[679] “The present pearl.” _Par._ vi. 127.
[680] “This fire.” _Par._ xvi. 38.
“Ben m’ accors’ io ch’ io era più levato,
Per l’affocato riso della stella,
Che mi parea più roggio che l’usato.”[681]
[681]
“Well was I ’ware that I was more uplifted
By the enkindled smiling of the star
That seemed to me more ruddy than its wont.”
_Par._ xiv. 85-87. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And when, without being conscious of any movement, he found that the
red light shining on Beatrice had turned to purest white, like a blush
fading from a fair face, he knew that the sixth star (Jupiter) had
received him within itself.
“E quale è il trasmutare in picciol varco
Di tempo, in bianca donna, quando il volto
Suo si discarchi di vergogna il carco,
Tal fu negli occhi miei, quando fui volto,
Per lo candor della temprata stella
Sesta, che dentro a sè m’avea ricolto.”[682]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[682]
“And such as is the change, in little lapse
Of time, in a pale woman, when her face
Is from the load of bashfulness unladen,
Such was it in mine eyes, when I had turned,
Caused by the whiteness of the temperate star,
The sixth, which to itself had gathered me.”
_Par._ xviii. 64-69. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This contrast between the colours of Jupiter and Mars is referred to
more than once. In _Par._ xxvii., the flaming spirit of St. Peter,
flushed with righteous indignation, becomes brilliant as the planet
Jupiter, and red as Mars:—
“E tal nella sembianza sua divenne,
Qual diverrebbe Giove, s’egli e Marte
Fossero augelli, e cambiassersi penne.”[683]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[683]
“He in semblance such became
As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds,
And interchanged their plumes.”
_Par._ xxvii. 13-15. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And when Dante looks down upon the seven planets he sees
“il temperar di Giove
Tra il padre e il figlio.”[684]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[684] “The temperate light of Jove, between his father and his son.”
_Par._ xxii. 145-146.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To understand which we must turn to the oft-quoted fourteenth chapter
of the second treatise in the _Convivio_. Here we find that Jupiter
“moves between two heavens” which “are antagonistic to its excellent
temperateness, that is to say the heavens of Mars and that of
Saturn,”[685] and Dante quotes Ptolemy as saying that Jupiter is a star
of temperate constitution, between the cold of Saturn and the heat of
Mars.
It seems that these ideas of cold and heat, as applied to the planets,
were taken literally, not merely as poetical descriptions of colour,
nor of astrological significance; for Dante says explicitly in the same
chapter of the _Convivio_ that Mars is hot like fire, that this is the
cause of his colour,[686] and that he dries up and burns things.[687]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[685] _Conv._ II. xiv. 196-198.
[686] _Cf._ Ristoro, _Comp. del Mondo_, III. iii.
[687] _Conv._ II. xiv. 161-165.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similarly he appears to have believed that Saturn and the moon were
literally of a cold nature. “Quel pianeta che conforta il gelo,”[688]
in _Canzone_ xv. is doubtless Saturn; and the chill of the hour before
dawn is described as due not only to loss of heat by the earth but
sometimes also to the influence of the cold moon or of Saturn.[689]