SOURCE: "Vita Nuova: Dante's Perceptions of Beatrice (1974)," in Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Vol. 23, 1983, pp. 372-89.

[Hollander examines Dante's use of vedere and various terms related to seeing to reach a better understanding of the final vision of Beatrice in heaven, which the Vita Nuova refers to but withholds from the reader.]

If one were asked to guess how many times Beatrice appears to Dante in the Vita Nuova one might, in view of Dante's fondness for the number, very well guess nine times. Since that is probably the correct answer it is at least a little surprising that no dantista—at least none known to this writer—has even made any effective attempt at a count. There are various objects of various kinds of "seeing" in the Vita Nuova, as will be described below. This discussion will be dominantly concerned with the appearances of Beatrice. An "appearance of Beatrice" is defined simply as what is recorded of a single particular awareness of Beatrice as actually being in Dante's presence, whether this awareness come from actual encounter, dream, or fantastic imagining. It is likely that from Dante's point of view one of the most important subjects of the Vita Nuova is its record of Beatrice's appearances. For this reason it does not matter whether a single event is described once or twice (i.e., in prose and in verse). What we wish to determine, first of all, is the number of her appearances to Dante. It may then be fruitful to study the qualities of these appearances. In order that the following survey he complete and clear, it will include specific apparitions of others to Dante as well as specific "non-apparitions" of Beatrice—occasions on which Dante expects or hopes to see her but does not.

1. Beatrice appears to Dante (they are both in their ninth year) dressed in crimson (ii, 3).
2. Nine years to the day later, dressed in white, between two gentili donne, she appears to Dante and grants him her salutation (iii, 1).
3. That same day Dante, while sleeping, has a maravigliosa visione of Beatrice held in the arms of Amore, a vision which is the subject of the first poem of the Vita Nuova (Ii, 3-7, 10-12).
4. In church Dante sees Beatrice but is thought to be admiring the lady who sits in his line of sight; she will serve as his schermo de la veritade (v, l).
   • 4a. Dante sees the corpse of una donna giovane e di gentile aspetto molto whom he had seen several times in the company of Beatrice (viii, 1-2).
   • 4b. Amore appears in Dante's imagination and announces the name of a second "screen lady," as is recounted in the following sonnet (ix, 3-6, 9-12).
5. Beatrice, "passando per alcuna parte," denies Dante her dolcissimo salutare because of the gossip concerning Dante's infatuation with the second "screen lady" (x, 2).
   • (5a. We are told that whenever Beatrice appeared Dante was filled with charity; here no specific occasion is alluded to (xi, 1).)
   • 5b. Amore appears in Dante's sleep, as he had done many times before, and urges Dante to justify himself against slanderous gossip by means of verse addressed to Beatrice (XII, 3-9).
6. A friend takes Dante along to a marriage feast where he sees Beatrice among the ladies (xiv, 4).
   • 6a. Dante, finding himself in the company of certain ladies, is relieved not to find Beatrice among them so that he can discuss the nature of his love with them (xviii, 2).
   • 6b. Dante goes to the funeral of Beatrice's father; he overhears departing ladies describe Beatrice's grief, but does not see or hear her himself (XXII, 3-5).
7. Dante, ill in his room, has wild imaginings of Beatrice's death and ascent to Heaven; his erronea fantasia is so strong that he even sees women covering Beatrice's head with a white veil and the last rites being administered to her; the central canzone recounts these imaginings (xxiii, 4-10, 17-28).
8. Dante sees Beatrice preceded by Guido's Giovanna after imagining that Amore had appeared to cheer him; the two episodes are united when they are recounted in a sonnet (xxiv, 2, 3-5, 7-9).
   • 8a. A year after her death, Dante, sketching an angel, has a thought of Beatrice which he records in the "anniversary poem" (xxxiv, 1-3).
   • 8b. Dante sees a gentile donna looking compassionately at him (xxxv, 2). &. He sees her several more times (xxxvi, 2).
9. In his imagination Dante seems to see Beatrice, as young as she was at their first encounter, and, as then, dressed in crimson; he repents his desire for a new love (xxix, 1-2).

   9a. In a sonnet Dante describes the heavenly voyage of his pensero/sospiro; it ascends to Beatrice, and though Dante's earthbound intelligence cannot understand what his heavenly thought comprehends of Beatrice's miraculous being, he does know that it is fully occupied with Beatrice alone, since he frequently hears it say her name (XLI, 3-7, 10-13).

The final vision of chapter XLII will be discussed later.

In the prose of the Vita Nuova Dante makes use of three different modes of seeing:

1. actual seeing
2. seeing in dream
3. imaginary or fantasized seeing.

For each of these modes of seeing there is a specialized vocabulary of vision and/or appearance. There are no observable inconsistencies in Dante's use of these three vocabularies. None, at least, if we confine our investigation to their use in the prose of the work. As will be pointed out later, there are a number of inconsistencies between various interjoined prose and poesie. Since it is the prose, written as a self-conscious unit, which gives us our best clues as to Dante's intentions in the Vita Nuova, it is only logical that it should here receive the major share of our attention.

Let us begin by examining Nicolò Mineo's assertion [in Profetismo e Apocalittica in Dante] that Dante uses the terms visione, imaginazione, and fantasia without apparent distinction. Imaginazione and fantasia are in fact used almost interchangeably to denote the third mode of seeing. In describing things seen imaginazione is used a total of seventeen times, fantasia, eight. The appearances of Beatrice to which they refer are items 7 and 9 in the preceding list; the appearances of Amore to which they refer are 4b and 8. In all four cases Dante explicitly informs his reader that the scene he describes occurred in his own mind and nowhere else—that it is a fantasy, an imagining, something limited to his own consciousness. Visione, on the other hand, pace Mineo, has two uses, neither of which is to be confused with the uses of fantasia and imaginazione in our third mode. The word is used only seven times in the libello ["little book"], and only thrice after the initial cluster of four which describes Dante's dream of Beatrice in the arms of Amore (item 3). In this first case the word joins with another, sonno ["dream"], to make the nature of the visione clear: it is a seeing in dream. The next time the word is used (item Sb), it describes Amore's appearance in a dream. Again it is accompanied by sonno. Items 3 and Sb are, strictly speaking, the only two dreams recorded in the Vita Nuova. One kind of visione, then, is that which occurs in dream. Our examination of the second kind lies ahead of us.

Thus far we have accounted for two kinds, or modes, of seeing in the Vita Nuova. But as our initial catalogue of Beatrice's appearances to Dante makes clear, a third kind of seeing has the lion's share: actual seeing. Six of Beatrice's appearances to Dante are of this nature: items 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8. Is there a characteristic vocabulary at work here too? It is again simpler to proceed by means of a catalogue.

• (1) Beatrice's first appearance to Dante: apparire is used five times, vedere once.
• (2) Beatrice's second appearance: again apparire.
• (4) Dante sees Beatrice in church: vedere.
• (5) When Beatrice denies Dante her salutare her actions are described directly, and there is no verb of appearance or perception used, simply direct narrative description.
• (6) Dante sees Beatrice at the wedding feast: vedere.
• (8) Dante sees Giovanna followed by Beatrice: vedere is used for both sightings.

From this description it is evident that in the Vita Nuova even common words like vedere and apparire are also used "technically" in a vocabulary of appearance and vision that is impressively careful. To summarize these findings as briefly as possible: the Vita Nuova yields the following schema of modes of appearance and seeing (this table refers only to appearances of Beatrice to Dante):

KINDS OF SEEING

1. in actuality (1,2,4,5,6,8)
2. in dream (3)
3. in fantasy (7,9)

DESIGNATIVE TERMS

1. -
2. sonno and visione
3. imaginazione and fantasia

MODAL TERMS

1. apparire or vedere
2. parere, parea, vedere, apparire
3. parere, parea, vedere, apparire]

Discussion of Dante's final vision will return to this schema.

We set out to investigate the number and quality of Beatrice's appearances to Dante. She appears to him nine times in three different modes. Each of these modes has its own vocabulary of appearance and vision. Dante most likely limited his reports of her "formal" appearances to nine consciously—Beatrice is a nine. And for this reason, it might be argued, the references to his having seen her on other occasions or generic references to the fact that he has seen her are limited to being just that—references—they are not formally "appearances of Beatrice." Similarly, apparitions of Amore and of the gentile donna, though they variously share the modes of appearance and seeing in which Dante perceives Beatrice, are not to be considered as having as significant a function in the work as the apparitions of Beatrice. Their function is that of a supportive scaffolding for Dante's major purpose, which is to be scriba Beatricis ("Beatrice's recorder")—not of what she says, of what she is. Yet Dante's treatment of Amore deserves closer attention. For it too reveals the consistency of Dante's distinction-making process in the Vita Nuova.

Caught between the conventions of thirteenth-century love poetry (as represented by his early lyrics) and the requirements of his own new poetic life (as represented by the prose of the Vita Nuova), Dante is forced to a somewhat ungainly compromise. Until we reach the twenty-fifth chapter of the work we must be prepared to encounter Amore in one of two guises: either as an actual "character" or as an internalized agency of Dante's being. Descriptions of his external behaviors occur in only four places in the prose. The following description proceeds in the order of Dante's composition, that is, from the earlier poems to the accompanying prose.

1. (3) In the first sonnet of the Vita Nuova Amore appears to Dante holding Beatrice in his arms. The verbs used to describe his appearance and Dante's beholding are apparire and vedere (III, 11, 12). In short, without the accompanying prose the action of the sonnet might be taken by a reader as either being or pretending to be the recounting of actual events. Dante's prose description of these events, however, makes it clear that the whole experience occurred during his sleep. The words used to describe the appearance of Amore ("uno segnore di pauroso aspetto") and Beatrice, as well as Dante's perceptions of them, carefully separate seeing in dream and appearance in dream from actual seeing and actual appearance.

   Ia. [(4a) In the sonnet "Piangete, amanti, poi che piange Amore" (Viii, 4-6) Dante sees Amore weeping ("ch'io 'I vidi lamentare in forma vera"—v, 10) over the dead form of the "donna giovane e di gentile aspetto molto." In the prose (VIII, 1-3) Amore is not mentioned at all. He has momentarily been excused from the fiction.]

2. (4b) In the sonnet "Cavalcando l'altr'ier per un cammino" (Ix, 9-12) Dante finds Amore on the road ("trovai Amore in mezzo de la via"—v, 3). Once again in the sonnet Amore performs as an actual "character." In the prose (Ix, 1-7) he is again described periphrastically and appears only in Dante's imagination.
3. (5b) The ballata which follows Dante's second and last dream in the Vita Nuova (XII, 3-9) does not involve Amore as a "character" who interacts with Dante. In the prose, where he does appear, he is once more not called by name, and once again (as in item 3) is presented as having been seen in dream.
4. (8) In the sonnet "lo mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core" (xxiv, 7-9) Dante sees Amore coming toward him ("e poi vidi venir da fungi Amore"—v, 3). Though in the sonnet he appears as an actual "character," in the accompanying prose he is described as being instead "una imaginazione d'Amore" (xxiv, 2). His appearance is thus sharply contrasted with those of Giovanna and Beatrice, who are seen, since they are actually present, both in the sonnet (xxiv, 8) and in the prose (xxiv, 3).

What emerges from this summary is a perhaps surprising fact: not once in the prose of the Vita Nuova is Amore treated as having actual existence; he is allowed this only in four of the sonnets, which had been previously composed. One of the aesthetic and rational problems of the Vita Nuova is Dante's rather confusing treatment of Amore. It is a problem which he himself partly acknowledges in the brilliant if self-serving twenty-fifth chapter of the work, one of the most brilliant passages of literary criticism written between the time of Servius and Macrobius and the close of the thirteenth century. The proximate cause of Dante's examination of poetic license in this passage is the contradiction raised by Amore's actualistic behavior in the sonnet of xxiv after what Dante has said of him in the preceding prose. Amore as internalized mechanism of Love runs the length of the Vita Nuova. He first appears in Chapter II and he is heard of for the last time in the final sonnet (XLI, 10). As a "character" he is essentially taken off after his appearance in the last dream recorded in the work (xii, 3-9). One can sense Dante's growing embarrassment with his presence as "character" in several passages. The only time after xii that he is treated as "character" is in the sonnet (xxiv, 7-9) that is the cause of his final dismissal as "character." It is as though his re-appearance in the monna Vanna / monna Bice sonnet were the last straw. And if we study his first appearance, which is conjoined with that of Beatrice, we can see that the author of the prose Vita Nuova never wanted him to be taken literally: the Amore who takes control of Dante's soul does so "per la vertu che li dava la mia imaginazione" (II, 7). This is the first use of the word imaginazione in the work, and it sharply contrasts with the four uses of apparire and the use of vedere which describe the appearance of Beatrice. It is of some use to understand that the Dante of the Vita Nuova was as careful in keeping distinctions between fiction modeled on "history" and fiction that is "fabula"—the bella menzogna of Convivio—as was the author of the Commedia.

Fiction that is modeled on history—medieval argumentum—is the basic fictive mode both of the Vita Nuova and of the Commedia. This does not necessarily mean that either Dante (or the present writer) believed that the actions recorded in either work actually occurred in history, but only that this is their fictional convention. Dante did not labor under the delusion that he had actually visited the afterworld. The question of his sense of the historicity of Beatrice is more complicated. While there may be almost enough documentation to suggest hat the Vita Nuova records historical events in a historical relationship, whether or not Beatrice was Bice Portinari, whether or not she existed at all, is not terribly important. The next step taken by critics who take that first step is, however, generally the wrong one: if she is not "real," she must be "allegorical." While questions concerning her actual existence are not terribly important, what is centrally important is to grasp the significance of Dante's treatment of her as actual. The same remark may be applied (and with some force) to the Divina Commedia. Dante was ahead of his contemporaries in this too, for he realized the aesthetic and intellectual superiority of a convention of fiction that is mimetic in nature, partly because he was a Thomist on this point, at least, and understood the implications for a poet of the priority of knowledge held through the senses and partly because he was the kind of man and poet who could not think without reference to the senses, for whom nomina sunt consequentia rerum (xiii, 4).

There are many apparitions or sightings in the Vita Nuova. It is at least likely that the numerologically inclined Dante gave some of these a numerological structure. It is also likely that such a structure would involve Beatrice rather than anyone else, and that its number would be a nine. However, an agreement can be reached that Dante records nine appearances of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova (six in actuality, two in fantasy, one in dream), it is also true that this accountancy does not include his most important vision of Beatrice, the mirabile visione that concludes the libello. This vision is unlike all the previous nine sightings in many respects. One of the more important of these is that it is undescribed. In the preceding chapter Dante tells us that his thought ("il mio pensero"—XLI, 3) flew up beyond the primo mobile (and thus into the Empyrean), saw a donna honored there (it can only have been Beatrice), but that what it had seen is beyond the capacity of Dante's intellect and that his thought spoke wholly of his lady (XLI, 3-7). The sonnet, the last poem of the work, is in basic accord with the prose and makes the identity of Beatrice specific (XLI, 13). This chapter does not technically record a sighting of Beatrice by Dante. The point it makes is that he was then incapable of seeing with heavenly vision. But if Dante is unable to understand, within the fiction, the implications of what his pensero returns from heaven with, his readers have perhaps received enough training at this stage in the work to understand what the character cannot. The play is taken out of our hands before we have time to give the problem much thought, for, suddenly, in chapter XLII, Dante has been able to follow his thought to Heaven. His intellect, as though trained by the near-vision of "Oltre la spera che più larga gira," has finally been granted what has always been the goal of the pilgrimage in love that is the Vita Nuova. To put this another way, his intellect has finally achieved comprehension of the new life.

The language with which Dante describes the fact of the vision is interesting: "Appresso questo sonetto apparve a me una mirabile visione, ne la quale io vidi cose che mi fecero proporre di non dire più di questa benedetta infino a tanto che io potesse più degnamente trattare di lei" (XLII, 1—italics added). As has been previously noted, up to this moment in the Vita Nuova Dante has distinguished three vocabularies of appearance and vision. Now he brings together his vocabularies of seeing in dream (visione) and of actual seeing (vedere). (Since apparire has been assimilated by each of these two categories before, it is not clear at first which one it joins here.) Is the mirabile visione to be understood as dream seeing, or as actual seeing? The correct answer is probably neither, though more the latter than the former. On two previous occasions, when he recorded dreams, Dante has clearly told us they were dreams. Since he does not do so now, we have no reason to suppose that the vision is a dream. With regard to actual seeing in the Vita Nuova, it is limited, naturally enough, to perceiving the things apparent on this earth, which is to see through a glass darkly. And while the ability to discern what is actually before the eyes of the earthly beholder is essentially the same ability which enables the organs of sight to see face to face, the objects seen in the mystical vision, even when they are presented to mortal sight, are unrecognizable unless the beholder has undergone that change which Paul was believed to have referred to in I Corinthians 13:12. Dante's mirabile visione is not a vision in a dream, a Macrobian veiled presentation of the truth, as were the first two dreams; nor is it to be confounded with perception of earthly reality (the preceding sonnet makes that absolutely clear); it should most likely be taken as the result of a raptus, of a sudden seeing in gloria, with heavenly sight. The words apparire, visione, and vedere have gained an exalted context and new meanings.

Visione has a biblical counterpart—there are many fewer than one might think to choose from in the New Testament—that might well have been in Dante's mind. In all of St. Paul's works the word visio occurs only once: "Si gloriari oportet (non expedit quidem), veniam autem ad visiones et revelationes Domini" (2 Cor. 12:1). It is this passage which leads into the description of his raptus: "Scio hominem in Christo ante annos quattuordecim, sive in corpore nescio sive extra corpus nescio, Deus scit, raptum huiusmodi usque ad tertium caelum" (12:2). All one can claim is that if the experience recorded in Vita Nuova XLII is to be thought of as Pauline raptus, the word visione is likely to come from the same source. This does not seem an unlikely hypothesis, especially since Paul, in possession of knowledge it is not lawful to utter, continues as follows: "Nam, etsi voluero gloriari, non ero insipiens, veritatem enim dicam; parco autem, ne quis me existimet supra id quod videt in me aut aliquid audit ex me" (12:6). His disclaimers are at least likely to be behind those of Dante, who intends "di non dire più di questa benedetta infino a tanto che io potesse più degnamente trattare di lei" (XLII, 1).

The verb trattare may also have a Pauline context here. Paul's use of the verb is indeed its single occurrence in the New Testament. He urges Timothy to show himself to God as an "operarium inconfusibilem, recte tractantem verbum veritatis" (2 Tim. 2:15). The last four words describe Dante's desire in Chapter XLII rather well. Trattare, however, has a more immediate context in the Vita Nuova that should not be overlooked. It is used a total of fourteen times. Its first use has reference to writing about Beatrice (v, 3) as an earthly being, and does not seem to have any unusual overtone. The second trattare of the Vita Nuova is used in a technical sense to describe the middle three stanzas of the canzone "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore." The subject of these three stanzas is the desire of the angels in Heaven to have Beatrice in their midst. Their request is spoken to by no less a being than God Himself, in His only speaking part in the Vita Nuova (the influence of Guinizelli's "Al cor gentil" is probably felt here). It seems possible that Dante's use of the word might reflect not only his technical sense of the division of a canzone, but the subject treated in that part of the canzone—things heavenly.

The next occurrence of the word (two uses in XX and one, retrospectively, in XXI) is entirely without such overtones. Here Dante, in the most overtly Guinizellian poem of the collection ("Amore e 'l cor gentil sono una cosa"), treats "philosophically" (and not "theologically") the nature of Amore. The next use (XXV, 3), in a discussion of love poetry as written by vernacular and "lettered" poets, seems to have the same meaning—a "philosophical" treatment of a subject in verse. Then, however, trattare enters the work for the penultimate time in a highly charged cluster (used six times in ten lines—XXVII, 2). Beatrice is dead and Dante will not "treat" her death. For the purposes of this investigation it is important to see that again the subject—though it is not treated—is "theological." The next chapter explains that Beatrice was a nine, or miracle (XXIX, 3). And in this chapter the second reason Dante gives for not treating Beatrice's death looks strangely familiar if it is seen in the perspective of chapter XLII: "ancora non sarebbe sufficiente a trattare come si converrebbe di ciò" (XXVIII, 2)—"infino a tanto che io potesse più degnamente trattare di led" (XLII, 1). To treat of Beatrice is to treat of high things indeed. Of the fourteen uses of trattare in the Vita Nuova nine (and here no further numerological point is intended) indicate the treatment of celestial materia ("subjects"). Three elements are involved in this heightened use of trattare: a thought of Beatrice desired in Heaven, the fact of Beatrice's death (and thus her implied presence in Heaven), and the final vision of Beatrice in Heaven. In the Vita Nuova the only "treatment" we are allowed to read is the first. The second is refused and the third only promised.

After the many purely technical and "philosophical" uses of trattare in the Convivio, the verb—now with "theological" overtones—reappears (like so much else in the Vita Nuova) in the Commedia: Inferno i, 8; Paradiso iv, 27; Paradiso xxv, 95. While all three uses are to the point here, the last one is particularly interesting. Dante's final response to St. James is to say that his Hope is based on scriptures in both Testaments (Isaiah 61:7, 10 and Revelation 7:9-17). Both these passages tell of the souls of the blessed sitting in Glory. Dante refers to the second of the two as follows: "la dove tratta de le bianche stole" (cf. Rev. 7:14: "Hi sunt qui venerunt de tribulatione magna et laverunt stolas suas et dealbaverunt eas in sanguine Agni"). Is not this precisely where and how we may presume Dante saw Beatrice in the mirabile visione? Seated in the presence of God in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. At least one may now advance this fairly common view of Beatrice's heavenly situation with a particular text in view: Revelation 7:9-17. For where Paul does not recount his "visiones et revelationes Domini" ("visions and revelations of God"), John explicitly describes what Paul must have seen. In a sense it is he who offers one like Dante, who wanted to know what Paul saw, the only canonical description available. If Dante had previously thought of the form of his experience of the final vision in terms of a raptus Pauli, its content could come only from John's Apocalypse.

It is not until Paradiso xxxi, 70-93, that Dante will actually see Beatrice sit in Glory. That is very likely what his pensero / sospiro saw in the thirty-first and final poem of the Vita Nuova. And what she is said to gaze upon in the last line of the Vita Nuova, "la faccia di colui qui est per omnia secula benedictus," is what she gazes upon now: "sorrise e riguardommi; / poi si tornò a l'etterna fontana" (Par. xxxi, 92-93). Dante coming closer to seeing God by seeing Beatrice see God is a common element in both passages.

And so, if Dante ostensibly maintains a Pauline official silence about the content of the mirabile visione at the conclusion of the Vita Nuova, he also conspires, overtly as well as tacitly, to let all but li piu semplici ("the most simple, innocent") of the Vita Nuova's readers have a fairly sure idea of what his memory retained of the vision, both its form (Pauline) and its content (Johannine). If we had nothing else, the two little verbs that tell us Beatrice's condition and activity in Paradise—she knows and she gazes—are really enough to let the major fact about her be a most salient one. "E di venire a ciò io studio quanto posso, si com'ella sae veracemente … quella benedetta Beatrice, la quale gloriosamente mira ne la faccia di colui qui est per omnia secula benedictus." In the first twenty-seven chapters of the Vita Nuova Beatrice is described in the "historical past," that is, by the past absolute. In the next fourteen chapters Dante looks back to the dead Beatrice in the same tense. After the mirabile visione a small grammatical miracle not only resurrects her from the dead, it even stands as a rebuke to the backward-looking intention of the entire libello: "Incipit vita nuova. Sotto la quale rubrica io trovo scritte le parole le quali e mio intendimento d'assemplare in questo libello." The liver of the new life must not be content to be the historian of his first awakening. As long as Dante is only able to live in his memory of past events he cannot live the new life. His new life may be said to be truly undertaken once he can speak of Beatrice in the present, as the living soul in Gloria who will draw him on up. The incipit of the Vita Nuova is the unvoiced explicit as well.

For these reasons it seems proper to look upon Dante's final vision of Beatrice as the first one, as an experience of such different order from that of her previous nine appearances that it should be set aside from these in our minds (as it certainly seems to have been in Dante's) as a kind of epilogue that transcends the rest of the work and which serves, as many have said before, as prologue to the great poem.