SOURCE: Costa, Elio. “From locus amoris to Infernal Pentecost: The Sin of Brunetto Latini.” Quaderni d'italianistica 10, nos. 1-2 (1989): 109-32.

[In the following essay, Costa investigates the main philosophical and literary themes of The Little Treasure in relation to Dante's evocation of Brunetto in his Inferno, maintaining that Dante's condemnation of Brunetto was mainly based upon his opposing view of Florentine politics.]

The fame of Brunetto Latini was until recently tied to his role in Inferno 15 rather than to the intrinsic literary or philosophical merit of his own works.¹ Leaving aside, for the moment, the complex question of Latini's influence on the author of the Commedia, the encounter, and particularly the words “ché 'n la mente m' è fitta, e or m'accora, / la cara e buona imagine paterna / di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora / m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna” (82-85) do seem to acknowledge a profound debt by the pilgrim towards the old notary. Only one other figure in the Inferno is addressed with a similar expression of gratitude, and that is, of course, Virgil:

          Tu se' lo mio maestro e'l mio autore;
tu se' solo colui da cu' io tolsi
lo bello stilo che m'ha fatto onore.

(Inf. 1.85-87)

If Virgil is antonomastically the teacher, what facet of Dante's creative personality was affected by Latini? The encounter between the notary and the pilgrim in Inferno 15 is made all the more intriguing by the use of the same phrase “lo mio maestro” (97) to refer to Virgil, silent throughout the episode except for his single utterance “Bene ascolta chi la nota” (99). That it is the poet and not the pilgrim who thus refers to Virgil at this point, when the two magisterial figures, one leading forward to Beatrice and the other backward to the city of strife, conflict and exile, provides a clear hint of tension between “present” and “past” teachers.

The words “m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna” indicate a continuous magisterium on the part of the old teacher, Brunetto, whose specific nature, however, does not seem to be conclusively connected to any particular aspect of Dante's literary or intellectual activity.² The period in question was probably 1285 (Dante's twentieth year) to 1294 (the year of Brunetto's death). This coincided with Dante's own emergence in the literary and eventually the political life of the city. The notary's literary activity had taken place during his exile in France (1260-1266), and in the last years of his life he had become an eminent intellectual-political-civic personality.³ This eminence in the Florence of his time was perhaps best illustrated by Giovanni Villani who, after quoting the titles of his major works (Rettorica, Tesoro and Tesoretto), wrote that he had been “cominciatore e maestro in digrossare i Fiorentini, e farli scorti in bene parlare, e in sapere guidare e reggere la nostra repubblica secondo la politica” (Cronica 3:22). This striking statement is echoed in Dante's words “m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna.” Both Villani and Dante attribute to Latini a didactic function. For Villani, Brunetto's teaching raised the general level of Florentine culture, and seems to have had a particular impact on political thought. It must be emphasized that the intense outburst by the notary in Inferno 15 is centered on questions of a political nature, although in a context which is clearly more personal and subjective than Villani's. The choice of Latini as the central figure in the canto, the spokesman of a past formerly shared by Dante, and his magisterial posture, therefore, seem to match his role as guide and educator for a whole generation of Florentines.⁴ This explains in part the traditionally accepted, but ultimately misleading interpretation of the encounter as a moving interlude, a nostalgic “return” to the past, and as a scene of deep pathos and reverence.⁵

There is, however, ample evidence in the canto that justifies a different approach which, while it does not reject the literal meaning, including the notion of Latini's sin as sodomy, also exposes a more complex poetic strategy of much deeper moral and spiritual significance. Special mention must be made here to a remarkable book by André Pézard who produced a truly impressive array of evidence to support his theory that Latini's sin is “spiritual sodomy,” Dante's way of eternally damning his old teacher for contravening the law of nature in writing the Tresor in French. Dante sous la pluie de feu, notwithstanding its great philological ingenuity and its erudition, has received only marginal acceptance. To it, however, we owe a debt of gratitude for opening the door to the need of examining alternative possibilities of interpretation in Inferno 15.⁶

The assumption by Latini of a paternal authority is clearly equated to his didactic and guiding role in the life of the young Dante:

          ché 'n la mente m'è fitta, e or m'accora,
la cara e buona imagine paterna
di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora
          m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna.

(82-85)

If Brunetto's paternal guiding and didactic role had been his in the past, it becomes patently incongruous in view of the presence of Virgil at the side of the pilgrim. It is made even more ironic when seen from the perspective of the sin for which he is punished. The very first words spoken by Latini after the initial mutual surprise (which in itself should serve as a clue on how to approach the episode), are two short sentences, each of which is prefaced by a captatio benevolentiae: “O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia / se Brunetto Latino un poco teco / ritorna 'n dietro e lascia andar la traccia” (31-33), and “O figliuol …” (37). The prayer to turn back couched in this way is the first step in the seduction of the young poet by the authoritative figure of the old civic sage. A further clue in the subtle process by which the poet exposes the true image of the old teacher is found in Brunetto's enquiry about his pupil's voyage, and in the answer given by the pilgrim:

          El cominciò: “Qual fortuna o destino
anzi l'ultimo dì qua giù ti mena?
e chi è questi che mostra 'l cammino?”
          “Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos'io lui, “mi smarri' in una valle,
avanti che l'età mia fosse piena.
          Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m'apparve, tornand'ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”

(46-54)

In thus synthetically informing his teacher of the high points and goal of his mission, the pilgrim is being both exhaustive and evasive. The answer complies with the notary's question by summing up the beginning of the journey, the circumstances of the smarrimento, the role of Virgil, but in doing so it evades the central issue of the real significance of the mission. In the reference to Virgil as “questi,” which echoes the “costui” of verse 36, the role of the “new” teacher is bound to remain hidden to Brunetto. In this sense it has the same function as the “colui” in Dante's answer to Cavalcante in Inferno 10.62, which gives rise to the famous equivocation on the part of Guido's father. Indeed, Brunetto remains in the dark, as befits all the souls of the damned, but sodomites in particular, blind to the salvational dimension in Dante's journey (Mazzotta 138-39).

This inability by Brunetto to seize the implications of Dante's mission is made even more obvious in the notary's next words:

          Ed elli a me: “Se tu segui tua stella,
non puoi fallire a glorïoso porto,
se ben m'accorsi ne la vita bella;
          e s'io non fossi sì per tempo morto,
veggendo il cielo a te così benigno
dato t'avrei a l'opera conforto.”

(55-60)

The astrological allusion, the prediction of literary glory awaiting Dante, seemingly extend Brunetto's claim to paternal, guiding authority beyond death itself, were it not for the ambiguous nature of these words in which the use of three hypothetical clauses clearly undercuts the old notary's tutorship in a task whose goal he believes he knows.

The reason for this ironic equivocation is to be found in the pilgrim's recapitulation of the journey from the smarrimento in the “selva oscura” to this point in time. But while Dante's words express a forward-driving impetus and point to Virgil as a guide to a “home” beyond, Latini is drawn backward to a consideration of a goal which has finite, worldly connotations. The nostalgic reference to the “vita bella,” the regret for an “untimely” death, the prediction of glory for the talented pupil, all betray the essence of Latini's false vision. What triggers Brunetto's regression is the echo in the pilgrim's words of a similar experience by the notary as described in the Tesoretto.⁷ This literary “palimpsest” (Della Terza 23) allows the notary to assume his magisterial position and thus to replace Virgil at the side of the pilgrim. Besides this ambiguous super-imposition of the Tesoretto on the Commedia, and vice-versa, other parallel lexical and stylistical elements emerge, revealing a more complex relationship between teacher and pupil than appears on the surface. The expression “a capo chino” (44), for example, which seemingly manifests the pilgrim's reverence for the notary, has quite a different function in the Tesoretto. There, in the passage quoted in the notes (197), the expression is used as a prelude to the smarrimento, and is suggestive of the despair and anguish at the news of defeat and of exile. It is an image to which the Goddess Natura, Brunetto's guide at this point in the allegory of the Tesoretto, will return:

Vedi ch'ogni animale
per forza naturale
la testa e 'l viso bassa
verso la terra bassa
per far significanza
de la grande bassanza
di lor condizione,
che son sanza ragione
e seguon lor volere
sanza misura avere:
ma l'omo ha d'alta guisa
sua natura divisa
per vantaggio d'onore,
che 'n alto a tutte l'ore
mira per dimostrare
lo suo nobile affare,
ched ha per conoscenza
e ragione e scïenza.

(679-696)

The expression “eyes fixed upon the ground” is a topos which Brunetto derived from Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae,⁸ where it is also used as a metaphor for “exile” from virtue and knowledge, and the abandonment, therefore, of man's essential humanity which partakes of the divine. To walk with eyes downcast, in other words, signifies a fall, a surrender to the lower faculties which man shares with animals (an idea emphasized by the repetition of “bassa” and the annominatio “bassa-bassanza”). The words “ma 'l capo chino / tenea com'uom che reverente vada” cannot consequently be taken at face value, given the implications of these obvious intertextual references. The simile in this context suggests reverence only on the literal level: metaphorically it becomes an instrument with which the poet uses the notary's own words against him to expose his sinfulness. In this interplay of illusory impressions in which key words and images from the Tesoretto work their way into the poetic fibre of the Commedia, we have an apparent assimilation of the old notary's values by the younger poet. Indeed Dante has given his old teacher as much free play to expand on his doctrine as demanded by the principles they formerly shared. It becomes apparent, however, that Latini's vision, as inevitably required by the exigencies of the pilgrim's mission, and by the presence of the other “maestro,” Virgil, against which it must measure itself, has to be judged woefully inadequate. In the context of that mission the specific historicity of the notary is an obligatory passage, but one which must be transcended. Brunetto's “cara e buona imagine paterna” is a reflection in malo of the “maestro cortese,” and “dolcissimo padre” who leads to Beatrice. The past is therefore recuperated only here, at this point in the journey, so that it can be exorcized and dismissed forever.

At the conclusion of Brunetto's harangue against the Florentines, Dante, dismayed by the prophecy of the exile, declares that he will write his teacher's words in the book of his memory, to have them glossed by Beatrice:

          Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo,
e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo
a donna che saprà, s'a lei arrivo.

(88-90)

The reference to Beatrice, evasive though it may be, presents the reader with an additional irony, and perhaps the most significant clue on how the episode is to be read. Certainly the use of the term “donna” here is comparable in its vagueness to the “questi” twice used to refer to Virgil in the canto, once by Brunetto (48) and once by the pilgrim (53). That Brunetto is not aroused to enquire further about this woman is perhaps understandable in view of the sin for which he is punished. What counts even more in a poetic and philosophical sense, however, is that he will continue to be in the dark about the real meaning of the journey.

Brunetto's inability to be alerted to the significance of the pilgrim's reference to Virgil and Beatrice as key figures in his journey is caused, as we have seen, by the assumption of the notary's paternal-didactic authority over Dante. The echoes to the Tesoretto, which trigger the equivocation, should now be probed further in an effort to extract any additional relevance which these interconnections might yield.

The Tesoretto's genesis is the battle of Montaperti, vividly recalled by Farinata (“Lo strazio e 'l grande scempio / che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso,” Inf. 10.85-6). The autobiographical section, following the dedication to a “valente segnore,” is a very brief account of the circumstances which led to the exile (113-190), and is notable for the intensity of the political feelings expressed, a characteristic which is felt even more strongly in Inferno 15. The rest of the Tesoretto, which runs for a total of 2,994 lines, centres on the encounter with three allegorical figures: Natura, Vertute and Amore. The main thrust of the notary's allegory is based on Natura's teachings, and becomes a quest for harmony. Instinctively, it seems, Brunetto, exiled from his city, torn by strife, turns to a vision of a perfectly structured order in which each man—“ogn'om”—though uprooted from his past, seeks a definite place and function, first in the family and then in the commune, seen as values that emanate from cosmic and universal principles. The genesis of the Tesoretto, therefore, is founded on a fundamental concern with the polis which, in a more explicit way, would become Brunetto's central preoccupation in the Tresor and Rettorica.⁹

At the centre of the Tesoretto's narratio fabulosa stands the individual from whom the life-sustaining ties with the commune have been severed. The poet's implicit theme is the search for a renewal which heals political and social wounds and leads directly from total alienation to complete integration in the historical reality of the city. In this process, the science of politics teaches man to govern, to paraphrase Brunetto, in war and peace, over one's own citizens and others according to “reason and justice.” The polis for him, therefore, acquires a loftiness and a nobility which distinguish it from the ambiguous sinfulness attributed by the Augustinian tradition to the city of man.¹⁰

In the Amore episode, which occupies verses 2181-2426, the protagonist in this imaginative renovatio is waylaid by the blind god of love who, with the help of Paura, Disianza, Amore and Speranza, sows discord, grief and destruction all around. The section is clearly intended as an attack on the doctrine of courtly love.¹¹ But Latini's condemnation has a dialectical relationship with the important stages in the wayfarer's progress in the context of the natural and harmonious equilibrium of cosmic and moral forces presided over by Natura in the first part of the poem. Love is a disturbing element capable of upsetting that equilibrium, and the havoc wreaked by the four “donne valenti,” who serve the blind Cupid, is seen as the destructive coming asunder of the four elements, threatening to reduce men to the state of wild beasts. Love, therefore, is an emotion which, in its thrust to find pleasure, directs the individual to seek corporeal things. As such it is the vice of concupiscence which, as already seen in the topos “eyes fixed upon the ground,” is one of the causes for the pilgrim's (and everyman's) fall. From the perspective of the cosmos, created according to eternal and immutable laws, love represents a blind force, a revolt against Reason.¹² Mutability and chaos, are the key motifs of the love episode, evident in the characteristics of the locus amoris itself, and in the erratic behaviour of the people who inhabit it.¹³ The wayfarer becomes so hopelessly entangled in the snares of love that his efforts to escape prove useless, until Ovid intervenes to rescue him.¹⁴

The appearance of Ovid at this point in the Tesoretto, as a premise to the Penetenza which occurs immediately after the “fall” represented by the encounter with love, would require a longer explanation than is possible here. Suffice it to say, for our purposes, that Ovid (“Ovidio maggiore”) is here recalled not only as the author of the Ars amandi and the Remedia amoris, as Contini suggests, but also as the poet of the Metamorphoses. His role is indeed to extricate the wayfarer from the hopeless tangle represented by the encounter with love (a “metamorphosis in malo”), but he is also the guide to the spiritual “metamorphosis in bono” which is to take place in the Penetenza. The need to “change” and to “convert” is stressed, as a counter-effect to the fall. The Ovid of the Metamorphoses, whose “moralization” was a common feature of twelfth and thirteenth century literature, appears here as a key element in the conversion of the wayfarer. Manifesting itself primarily as an allegorization of the Metamorphoses, the “Christianization of Ovid” attempted to salvage a text whose alleged immorality had been a traditional obstacle in the Middle Ages. The opening cosmogony of the poem had, however, intrigued its readers who noticed striking similarities with the Genesis account of creation. According to the allegorical interpretation which soon became popular, Ovid's version of the creation of the world from eternally pre-existent chaos, and the stories of men transformed into beasts were a means of relating the cosmic forces of nature, and the changes which took place around us, to the mutability, for good or evil, taking place within each man.¹⁵ In essence the part Ovid plays in the Tesoretto in rescuing the helpless protagonist is much the same. The resultant emergence of the wayfarer from the chaos and confusion into which he has fallen can find its analogy in the creation of the universe; the liberation of forms from the silva of hyle which occurs in the description of creation by Natura (321-364; cf. Wetherbee 11-13). The reform of the wayfarer, then, does not take place in isolation from either the general account of creation as set out by Natura, or the moral and ethical exposition which occupies the central portion of the poem. The reference to Ovid serves to illustrate Latini's concern to connect the adventures of the protagonist to basic questions of rationality and ethics whose ultimate value is verifiable in the cosmos.

Latini's overwhelming preoccupation, as it emerges in his works, was with the welfare of his city. The Tesoretto, far from being “meschino, timido, puerile” (Benedetto 175), merits far more serious study and attention than it has been granted so far. In its imaginative allegorical structure are found the main themes of both the Tresor and the Rettorica, a synthesis of his philosophical and literary ideas, and as such perhaps his most ambitious undertaking. Its metaphysical flight ultimately leads back to the city of man, devoid of its negative Augustinian connotations, because its harmony in Brunetto's Florence could not be vouchsafed by a leap of faith or by an appeal to the principles of Christian charity. Hence the recourse to a new Goddess, Natura, from whom flow all reason, order and justice. In reaching for this humanistic ideal, on the trail of Cicero, Boethius, Alanus de Insulis, and the Chartrians, Brunetto floundered, and the Penetenza can indeed be seen as a setback in the way in which the wayfarer seems to be overcome by the realization of the ultimate failure of this quest. Hence, the contradiction contained in the Penetenza, in its absolute rejection of all worldly ideals, including the Tesoretto itself. The theme of the contemptus mundi which pervades the first part of the Penetenza conveys a heartfelt feeling of frustration. The quest which had been sustained under the guidance of Natura, and had penetrated to the uppermost recesses of the abode of the Virtues, seems to flounder and be shipwrecked on the vision of the vanity of all things.¹⁶

The Penetenza appears to be not merely a pause in the journey to philosophical enlightenment; nor is it a further step in that journey, ushering us perhaps to a possible ascensus mentis in Deum. Rather, it seems to represent a clear repudiation, on religious grounds, of the voyage itself. Yet, the confession ends and Brunetto resumes the voyage as it had been programmed by Natura. The quest for knowledge begins anew, but with a clear determination to avoid Ventura, or Fortune, thus confirming the earlier equation Amore-Ventura. Brunetto reaches Mount Olympus where he meets Ptolomey to whom he submits a question on the four elements on which Natura had already spoken. And here, on the threshold of a seemingly new beginning, the Tesoretto ends.

Brunetto's naturalistic and humanistic parameters, sketched out here with particular emphasis on the Tesoretto, given its undeniable resonance in Inferno 15, must be seen as the philosophical and theological dimension of the sin of sodomy. In the Amore episode Brunetto had put forth a view of love as a force which reduces men to the state of primitive beasts, and as an element which disturbs the cosmic equilibrium, a blind, irrational entity which threatens the eternal and immutable laws of Nature.

This naturalistic view is diametrically opposed to the essence of Dante's poetical, philosophical and theological doctrines, and amounts to a rejection of Beatrice in her salvational connotations. The notary's utter inability to comprehend the nature of Dante's voyage, implicit in his failure to seize on the allusions to Virgil and Beatrice, is a direct consequence of this rejection. Virgil's acceptance of the task of guiding the lost poet at Beatrice's request, on the other hand, typifies the explicit submission of reason to love:

          “I' son Beatrice che ti faccio andare;
vegno del loco ove tornar disio;
amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare.
          Quando sarò dinanzi al segnor mio,
di te mi loderò sovente a lui.”
Tacette allora, e poi comincia'io:
          “O donna di virtù sola per cui
l'umana spezie eccede ogne contento
di quel ciel c'ha minor li cerchi sui,
          tanto m'aggrada il tuo comandamento,
che l'ubidir, se già fosse, m' è tardi;
piu non t'è uo' ch'aprirmi il tuo talento.

(Inf. 2.70-81)

This important passage, in which Virgil recognizes the salvational function of love, embodied by Beatrice as the “donna di virtù” (recalled by the pilgrim as “donna che saprà” in Inferno 15), also delineates precisely the movement, proceeding from the highest sphere of Heaven, by which love becomes the word (“amor mi mosse che mi fa parlare”) and the force which propels mankind towards its goal beyond the confines of his worldliness. This spiritual dynamics of love can be actualized only through Beatrice-Grace whose instrument, Virgil, initiates the redeeming process of the pilgrim stranded in the “diserta piaggia” (Inf. 2.62). The “sabbion,” “landa,” made of “rena arida e spessa” which eternally fixes the locus for Brunetto's damnation, is in clear juxtaposition to the desert in which the pilgrim Dante begins his own process of redemption.¹⁷

If Brunetto's repudiation of love is based on its irrationality, Dante's theory on the same subject, as first developed organically in the Vita Nuova, already presented signs of an attitude which is fundamentally at odds with Latini's. If we consider the beginning of “quella parte del libro de la […] memoria,” we can notice the younger poet's concern to establish the principle of a love which, far from being in conflict with reason, is in fact supported by it:

E avvegna che la sua imagine, la quale continuatamente meco stava, fosse baldanza d'Amore a segnoreggiare me, tuttavia era di sì nobilissima vertù, che nulla volta sofferse che amore mi reggesse sanza lo fedele consiglio de la ragione in quelle cose là ove cotale consiglio fosse utile a udire.

(V.N. 2.9)

If the passage is important for the categorical nexus love-reason, in the Vita Nuova we find also the first unmistakable association of Beatrice with the Incarnation as expressed in the famous passage spoken directly to the heart by Love, which establishes a clear distinction, in typological terms, between her and Guido Cavalcanti's “monna Vanna”:

Quella prima è nominata Primavera solo per questa venuta d'oggi; ché io mossi lo imponitore del nome a chiamarla così Primavera, cioè prima verrà lo die che Beatrice si mosterrà dopo la imaginazione del suo fedele. E se anche vogli considerare lo primo nome suo, tanto è quanto dire ‘prima verrà’, però che lo suo nome Giovanna è da quello Giovanni lo quale precedette la verace luce, dicendo: ‘Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini.’” Ed anche mi parve che mi dicesse, dopo, queste parole: “E chi volesse sottilmente considerare, quella Beatrice chiamerebbe Amore, per molta simiglianza che ha meco.

(V.N. [Vita Nuova] 24.4-5)

Beatrice's superiority over Cavalcanti's Giovanna, expressed here in biblically-inspired words, has more than a marginal bearing on Latini in Inferno 15. The “primo amico” of Dante's youth, and also, according to early humanistic tradition, Latini's disciple (Contini, Poeti 1:487), considered love to be a passion of the sensitive appetite, and therefore “for di salute.” Approaching love from a naturalistic perspective, Cavalcanti was inevitably led to the conclusion that love, far from propelling man into a higher sphere of understanding, is a tyrannical force which debases his intellectual faculties.¹⁸ A few lines from “Donna me prega,” will reveal the relevance to our topic:

Move, cangiando—color, riso in pianto,
e la figura—con paura—storna;
poco soggiorna;—ancor di lui vedrai
          che 'n gente di valor lo più si trova.
La nova—qualità move sospiri,
e vol ch'om miri—'n non formato loco,
destandos'ira la qual manda foco
          (imaginar nol pote om che nol prova).

(46-53)

The passage bears some striking similarities with the Amore episode from the Tesoretto. In both instability and irrationality are the dominant symptoms. Thus, in Brunetto's locus amoris “l'un giace e l'altro corre / l'un gode e l'altro ‘mpazza, / chi piange e chi sollazza: / così da ogne canto / vedea gioco e pianto,” (2211-2219) is picked up by Cavalcanti in the first line above. A complete line from the Amore section (“la forza d'amare / non sa chi no·lla prova,” 2375) makes its appearance almost verbatim in Cavalcanti, above, and is also inserted in Dante's “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare” (V.N. 26).¹⁹ It seems not only possible, but probable, on the basis of the evidence, that in Dante's mind Brunetto and Cavalcanti were linked together for their common attitude to, and ultimate rejection of, love. Guido's “disdegno” for Beatrice in Inferno 10²⁰ certainly seems to acquire a fuller meaning when its analogy with Brunetto's repudiation of love and his consequent punishment are considered.

The link between Inferno 10 and Inferno 15 can be extended to include the figure of Farinata, whose “paternal” characteristic may not be as obvious as that of Brunetto or Cavalcante. Yet it is clear that the greatness and magnanimity of Farinata, a majestic yet tragically flawed pater patriae, in his all too circumscribed view of politics, is undercut by naturalistic epicurean philosophy. In this sense he is Latini's kindred soul, whose own vision, political no less than philosophical, is impaired.

The tension between the Pilgrim and Farinata, which is political only at the most elementary human psychological level of the characters involved, manifests itself through words and images which find fuller expression in canto 15. I refer to Farinata's initial words to the Pilgrim:

          O Tosco che per la città del foco
vivo ten vai così parlando onesto,
piacciati di restare in questo loco.

(10.22-24)

The initial captatio benevolentiae is echoed by Brunetto; but it is a similarity which can be extended to include the substance of the invitation to remain, to linger here in the “città del foco,” just as Brunetto's request to the pilgrim has much the same objective. Similarly, the pilgrim's reaction to Farinata (“Io avea già il mio viso nel suo fitto”) is echoed in the Brunetto episode:

          E io, quando 'l suo braccio a me distese,
ficcaï li occhi per lo cotto aspetto,
sì che 'l viso abbrusciato non difese
          la conoscenza süa al mio 'ntelletto.

(15.25-28)

and extends the thrust and force of the earlier line onto a semantic plane which has peculiarly aggressive undertones. It seems quite evident, moreover, that this passage is the culmination of a descriptive strategy which begins with the remarkable series of similes which serve as the prelude to the encounter. The first two (“Quali Fiamminghi … / temendo 'l fiotto che 'nver' lor s'avventa, / fanno lo schermo perché 'l mar si fuggia; / e quali Padoan … / per difender lor ville e lor castelli, / … a tale imagine eran fatti quelli”) employ a “military” language to describe a seemingly natural violence against Brunetto. The next two similes appear to ease the harshness by the reference to the common and familiar:

          quando incontrammo d'anime una schiera
che venian lungo l'argine, e ciascuna
ci riguardava come suol da sera
          guardare uno altro sotto nuova luna;
e sì ver' noi aguzzavan le ciglia
come 'l vecchio sartor fa ne la cruna.

(16-21)

Here too, however, the deployment of the verb “to see” in its various forms from “riguardava” to “guardare,” which becomes “aguzzavan,” and then turns into the triumphalistic “ficca' li occhi per lo cotto aspetto,” serves once again to alert us to the inherent ambiguity and deceptiveness of a situation which is not what it appears to be on the surface. The similes do indeed suggest “likeness” (“a tale imagine”) and similarity; but they are only intended to lay the groundwork for the unmasking of the true malevolent reality of sin, which can at times assume the appearance of benevolence (“la cara e buona imagine paterna”). In this sense the “mala luce” of the epicureans is echoed here in the effort needed by the sodomites to see the pilgrim, in the pale light of the moon, also mentioned by Farinata in his prophecy (“la faccia della donna che qui regge,” 10.80) and later by Ulysses (“Cinque volte racceso e tante casso / lo lume era di sotto dalla luna,” 26.130-131) as unmistakable references to the cold light of reason, unaided by Grace.

One can now perhaps see more clearly the relevance of linking the Brunetto episode to Inferno 10 by which Farinata and Cavalcante's “mala luce” and the notary's squinting eyes become metaphors which, juxtaposed to the penetrating eyesight of the pilgrim's intellect, serve to distance him from their “defenceless” and helpless sinfulness. The meaning of these consummately subtle and allusive intratextual references is put into even sharper focus if we take our attempt to develop the parallelism between the two cantos one step further. In Inferno 10 Virgil's stern advice to Dante following Farinata's disturbing prophecy concerning the exile, refers to Beatrice in terms which are meant to stress the spiritual blindness of Farinata and Cavalcante and which enhance her visional significance:

          “La mente tua conservi quel ch'udito
hai contra te,” mi comandò quel saggio;
“e ora attendi qui” e drizzò 'l dito:
          “quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio
di quella il cui bell'occhio tutto vede,
da lei saprai di tua vita il vïaggio.”

(10.127-132)

It is this lesson that the pilgrim will remember at the end of Latini's prophecy:

          Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo,
e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo
a donna che saprà, s'a lei arrivo.

(15.88-90)

The pilgrim's words are a clear affirmation of the emerging consciousness of the superior dignity of his mission, and it is this confident assertion which elicits at this crucial moment the approval of the true “maestro” (“Bene ascolta chi la nota”) who points the way to Beatrice.

By attributing to Brunetto the sin against nature, Dante could have found no more apt way of harnessing the old teacher's philosophical and allegorical notions against him. Even in his most rationalistic phase Dante espoused a concept of philosophy which stressed that aspect of it by which it becomes the love of God drawing man to Himself:

Filosofia è uno amoroso uso di sapienza, lo quale massimamente è in Dio, però che in lui è somma sapienza e sommo amore e sommo atto; che non può essere altrove, se non in quanto da esso procede.

(Conv. [Convivio] 3.12.12)

In a real sense, therefore, any philosophical enquiry, which, like the Tesoretto, is not guided by love, is bound to pervert itself and imperil those to whom it is taught, since it is in the nature of philosophy to be love. It is with this same fundamental idea that Dante will close his great poem: “l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle” (Par. 33.145). Through this image, in which he resolves the key cosmological themes of classical and Christian traditions (Dronke), Dante further illustrates the immeasurable distance between Latini and himself. Canto 33 of the Paradiso also begins in a way which reminds us of Latini. But what an exquisite irony that the most effective and meaningful annominatio found in the allegory of the notary, “Natura-Fattura-Fattore,”²¹ should reappear here and apply not, of course, to Natura, but to the Virgin, the woman who is the “mover” of the mission (Sarolli 289-91), and through whom salvation has been made possible for all mankind:

          Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio,
umile e alta più che creatura,
termine fisso d'etterno consiglio,
          tu se' colei che l'umana natura
nobilitasti sì, che 'l suo fattore
non disdegnò di farsi sua fattura.
          Nel ventre tuo si raccese l'amore,
per lo cui caldo ne l'etterna pace
così è germinato questo fiore.

(Par. [Paradiso] 33.1-9)

It is perhaps foolhardy to suggest that Brunetto's annominatio has made its way into the sublime prayer of St. Bernard in the Paradiso.²² Nevertheless, the images used here by Dante to describe the Incarnation, the central event in the history of man's redemption, focus on love in terms of fire whose warmth allows the germination of the flower-Christ, the event which makes possible the nobility of human nature. In direct juxtaposition to this stands Brunetto, “dell'umana natura posto in bando” (Inf. 15.81).

Another image in the Convivio is even more pertinent to the understanding of the punishment meted out to Brunetto (“Sovra tutto 'l sabbion, d'un cader lento, / piovean di foco dilatate falde, / come di neve in alpe sanza vento,” Inf. 14.28-30), but in the second canzone of his treatise Dante is writing about the “donna gentile,” lady Philosophy:

Sua bieltà piove fiammelle di foco,
animate d'un spirito gentile
ch' è creatore d'ogni pensier bono:
e rompon come trono
li 'nnati vizii che fanno altrui vile.

(Conv. 3; canz. 2.63-67)

In commenting on the image of the rain of fire, Dante explains it as “ardore d'amore e di caritade” (3.8.16), and concludes by restating about philosophy what he had already said: “E questo conferma quello che detto è di sopra ne l'altro capitolo, quando dico ch'ella è aiutatrice de la fede nostra” (3.8.20).

The pathetic figure of the notary, helplessly subjected to the fiery tongues of an infernal Pentecost, an apt contrapasso brought down upon his head by the rejection of love, is true to himself to the end: unmindful of anything except his limited concept of glory, reminding his pupil of his works. If the opening lines of their encounter were an allusion to the Tesoretto, the epilogue is a narcissistic reminder of the Tresor, entrusted to the memory of the pilgrim. Just as his first words were ambiguously aimed at the arousal of the filial affection of Dante, his last are a more explicit expression of the desire to live through him. In the last lines of the canto the irony of the poet borders on parody as the notary is summarily dismissed:

“Sieti raccomandato il mio Tesoro,
nel qual io vivo ancora, e più non cheggio.”
          Poi si rivolse, e parve di coloro
che corrono a Verona il drappo verde
per la campagna; e parve di costoro
          quelli che vince, non colui che perde.(23)

(119-124)

The condemnation of Brunetto includes the central part of the canto, that is to say his political ideas. Latini's harsh diatribe against the Florentines (“Faccian le bestie fiesolane strame / di lor medesme …”), couched in images of extreme bestiality, while it enables the pilgrim to emerge with an affirmation of confidence in his mission, and trust in his guides, falls within the limited naturalistic horizon, political and ethical, of the notary. In the De vulgari eloquentia Dante relegated Latini, with other Tuscans, among the “municipal” poets (1.13). In an analogous way the political vision of the notary, by virtue of his sin, is confined to the violence and spiritual claustrophobia of Florentine politics.

Notes

1. See for example Contini, Poeti del Duecento 2: 169: “Naturalmente la fama di questo cittadino, eminente ma come ce ne sono molti, riposa sull'episodio della Commedia.”

2. The following passage from the Tresor (2.2.102), on glory as a “second life” is a possible source for the verse: “Gloire est la bonne renomme, ki cort par maintes terres, d'aucun homme, de grant afere, ou de savoir bien son art. Ceste renomme desire chascuns, pour ce que sans lui ne seroit pas congneue … cil ki traitent de grans choses tesmoignent que glore done au preudome une seconde vie; c'est a dire que aprés sa mort la renomme ki maint de ses bones oevres fait sambler k'il soit encore en vie” (303). For Iannucci (Forma ed evento, esp. 100-103) the passage becomes the focus for the explanation of Latini's sin.

3. For Latini's life see Ceva and Sundby.

4. Cf. Mazzoni: “Maestro dunque [Latini] ad un' intiera città, non ad una scuola di ragazzi … fondando con la sua Rettorica le basi della prosa d'arte in Firenze, volgarizzando Cicerone, e insieme svelando ai giovani Fiorentini i segreti dell' Ars dictandi: quell' Ars dictandi che in Brunetto si coloriva anche delle personali esperienze transalpine, e che Dante epistolografo applicherà poi sempre strettissimamente, in maniera impeccabile” (xx). See also Davis, “Education in Dante's Florence,” and “Brunetto Latini and Dante.”

5. See, for example, Bosco: “In Brunetto Dante rimpiange la sua giovinezza” (115-16); also Sapegno in his introductory note to Canto 15 of the Inferno: “I ricordi di un'antica consuetudine e le professioni di filiale riconoscenza acquistano rilievo proprio da questa dolorosa presenza: la nostalgia della ‘cara e buona imagine paterna’ si colorisce di tanta tenerezza nel contrasto appunto di una realtà così diversa e brutalmente deformata …” (165-66).

6. The critics who generally adopt the “metaphorical” approach to explain Inferno 15 are the following: Montano, esp. 450 ff, Stocchi, Kay, Iliescu, Iannucci, Nevin, Mazzotta 73-9 and 138-41, Culbertson. Dante della Terza stakes out his own position by a careful weighing of the complexities of the episode: “L'ambiguità che risulta dalla sovrapposizione delle due personalità di Brunetto: quella proveniente dal suo discorso e quella legata al suo peccato, quella che risulta dal magistero del veggente e quella radicata nella umiliante presbiopia, nella ‘malaluce’ del dannato, e consustanziale al personaggio e perciò inalienabile ed irriducible ad unità,” (25); for a recent contribution which rejects the metaphorical approach to the question of Latini's sin, see Angiolillo. An important contribution to the question of Latini's “sodomy” is that of Avalle, who offers stringent literary evidence of it in an exchange of poems between Brunetto and Bondìe Dietaiuti (86-106).

7. Upon hearing the news of the battle of Montaperti, the defeat of the Guelphs and of his subsequent exile, Brunetto had described his own smarrimento. I quote the relevant passage from Contini's edition of the Tesoretto 163-190:

   Ed io, ponendo cura,
   tornai a la natura
   ch' audivi dir che tene
   ogn'om ch' al mondo vene:
   nasce prim[er]amente
   al padre e a' parenti,
   e poi al suo Comuno;
   ond'io non so nessuno
   ch'io volesse vedere
   la mia cittade avere
   del tutto a la sua guisa,
   né che fosse in divisa;
   ma tutti per comune
   tirassero una fune
   di pace e di benfare,
   ché già non può scampare
   terra rotta di parte.
   Certo lo cor mi parte
   di cotanto dolore,
   pensando il grande onore
   e la ricca potenza
   che suole aver Fiorenza
   quasi nel mondo tutto;
   e io, in tal corrotto
   pensando a capo chino,
   perdei il gran cammino,
   e tenni a la traversa
   d'una selva diversa.

   Two recent editions of the Tesoretto are by Ciccuto and Holloway.

8. There are many examples of this key topos in the Consolation. Two of the most telling follow, the first referring to the muses, shamed and scattered by Philosophy, and, in the same paragraph, to Boethuis himself: “His ille chorus increpitus deiecit humi maestior uultum confessusque rubore uerecundiamn limen tristis excessit. … Tum illa propius accedens in extrema lectuli mei parte consedit meumque intuens uultum luctu grauem atque in humum maerore deiectum. …” [“That company (i.e., the muses) thus checked, overcome with grief, casting their eyes upon the ground, and betraying their bashfulness with blushing, went sadly away. … Then she (Philosophy) coming nearer, sat down at my bed's feet, and beholding my countenance sad with mourning, and cast upon the ground with grief. …”] (132; 1.1.42-52).

9. Politics as the central focus of Latini's literary activity is best exemplified by his definition of it in the Tresor (317; 3.1.2) as “la plus haute science et … plus noble mestier ki soit entre les homes, car ele nous ensegne governer les etranger gens d'un regne et d'une ville, un peuple et un comune en tens de pes et de guerre, selonc raison et selonc justice.” The indissoluble link between politics and, for Latini, its most indispensable handmaiden, rhetoric, is apparent from the following statement (21; 1.4.9): “retorique, cele noble science ke nous ensegne trover et ordoner et dire paroles bonnes et bieles et plaines de sentences selonc ce que la nature requiert. C'est la mere des parliers, c'est l'ensegnement des diteours, c'est la science ki adrece le monde premierement à bien faire, et ki encore l'adresce par les predications de sain homes, par les divines escriptures, et par la loi ki les gens governe à droit et à justice” (21); see also Contini, Poeti del Duecento 2:122, where the Tresor is called “un manuale di formazione dell'uomo politico.”

10. Becker argues convincingly that, at this time in history the “central locus” of the poet, inevitably caught up in the secular life of the city, was “the notion that sacred events can be treated as historical episodes possessing the temporal dimension which renders them objectively real, i.e., having their locus in time and space as they are humanly conceived” (65-6 n. 1); this “secularization of virtue,” which would become an important feature of Humanistic thought in the fifteenth century, is already present in Latini's concept of the nobility of the state. On Latini as a forerunner of the Humanists, cf. Rubinstein, Weiss and Ciccuto (6-16).

11. Latini's attack on the doctrine of courtly love was part of a wider doctrinal controversy, which culminated in the condemnation in 1277 by Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, of 219 “heretical” propositions which included Andreas Capellanus' De Amore: see Denomy, “The De Amore of Andreas Capellanus and the Condemnation of 1277” and “‘Fin' Amors’; the Pure Love of the Troubadors, Its Amorality, and Possible Source”; see finally the important observations by Corti, La felicità mentale 38-61.

12. For the iconographic tradition of the blind god of love, see the fundamental study by Panofsky, esp. 104-113, where the Blind Cupid is associated with Death and Fortune—the latter also being represented as blind—as implied in the Tesoretto 2179-2180 and 2891-2892. Panofsky shows that while the Blind Cupid as irrationality was a concept which appeared in the Ovide Moralisè, it is also present in Hrabanus Maurus (De Universo 15.6 [PL 3: 432C]): “Cupidinem vocatum ferunt propter amorem. Est enim daemon fornicationis, qui ideo alatus pingitur, quia nihil amantibus levius, nihil mutabilius invenitur. Puer pingitur, quia stultus est et irrationalis amor.” But even this passage is literally copied from Isidore of Seville (Etymologiae 8.9.80). See also Patch 29 and 117-18.

13. Ma or parea ritondo,
    ora avea quadratura;
    or avea l' aria scura,
    ora è chiara e lucente;
    or veggio molta gente,
    or non veggio persone;
    or veggio padiglione,
    or veggio case e torre;
    l'un giace e l'altro corre,
    l'un fugge e l'altro caccia;
    chi sta e chi procaccia,
    l'un gode e l'altro 'mpazza,
    chi piange e chi sollazza:
    così da ogne canto
    vedea gioco e pianto.

    (2204-2218)

14. Così fui giunto, lasso,
    e giunto in mala parte!
    Ma Ovidio per arte
    mi diede maestria,
    sì ch'io trovai la via
    com'io mi trafugai:
    così l'alpe passai
    e venni a la pianura.

    (2388-2395)

    See Contini, Poeti del Duecento 2: n. to 2359; see also Ciccuto, n. 193.

15. Such an interpretation, for example, is found in the commentary to the Metamorphoses of Arnulf of Orleans, according to whom Ovid seeks to “recall us from error to the recognition of the true creator”; see Ghisalberti, Viarre, Munari, Battaglia; finally, for the discussion of the links between this tradition and Dante, see Padoan.

16. Adunque, omo, che fai?
    Già torna tutto in guai,
    la mannaia non vedi
    ch'ai tuttora a li piedi.
    Or guarda il mondo tutto:
    foglia e fiore e frutto,
    angel, bestia né pesce
    di morte fuor non esce.
    Dunque ben pe ragione
    proväo Salamone
    ch'ogne cosa mondana
    è vanitate vana.

    (2495-2505)

17. For the centrality of the desert metaphor, see Singleton, “In exitu Israel de Aegypto,” but also the important contribution by Mazzotta, esp. 37-38.

18. For Cavalcanti's averroistic notion of love, see Nardi 190-219; also Picone 135-47; finally, the recent superb study of “Donna me prega” by Corti, La felicità mentale 3-37 which places the canzone in the context of “radical aristotelianism” (or averroism), and, also by Corti, Dante a un nuovo crocevia 77-101. It must be pointed out that, while Corti stresses the influence of the Aristotelians on Cavalcanti and Dante (especially, of course, on the former), not enough emphasis is placed on the neo-platonic tradition which weighs heavily on Latini, and which has its source in the School of Chartres. This is a point on which Nardi has some very valid observations (3-21), especially the following: “… lo stesso fondamento aristotelico comincia a manifestarsi nel secolo XII, come esito del platonismo di Chartres” (21).

19. G. Contini, “Cavalcanti in Dante” 155, calls this “uno dei suoi [Dante's] versi lirici più celebrati,” attributing its source to “Donna me prega.” The common source for both Dante and Cavalcanti seems, instead, to be the Tesoretto.

20. I take it for granted that Dante criticism has now accepted that the “cui” of Inferno 10.63 refers to Beatrice. I agree with Contini (Cavalcanti in Dante 148), who, while accepting this interpretation of the famous pronoun, states that “la sostanza della polemica, gnoseologica non meno che letteraria, non muterebbe comunque si traducesse cui: Virgilio o perfino Dio”; Corti arrives at the same conclusion: “Molto si è scritto su quel cui, se vada riferito a Virgilio o a Beatrice; personalmente incliniamo per Beatrice, ma la cosa non conta molto perché sia Virgilio sia Beatrice qui sono simboli di un'operazione mentale ortodossa, teologicamente in regola: ragione al servizio della teologia e pronta a cedere il ruolo ad essa” (Dante a un nuovo crocevia 84-5).

21. I am referring to the first words spoken by Natura in the Tesoretto: “Io sono la Natura, / e sono una fattura del lo sovran fattore” (289-91).

22. The formula, according to Auerbach, had become traditional by the twelfth century; cf. his important study “Dante's Prayer to the Virgin (Par. XXXIII) and Earlier Eulogies,” now in Studi su Dante 263-92.

23. On the theme of the race in Inferno 15 and in the Commedia in general, see Werge, esp. 4-5.

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