1. Braving the Fires of Hell For Love
Dante: Inferno
Braving the Fires of Hell
For Love

2. The Renaissance rebirth of classical arts
human beings in the center of things, rather than God
balance, symmetry, beauty of this world
architecture, painting, sculpture, literature

3. The Music of the Spheres
From Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology, p. 100.

4. The Caduceus of Hermes/Mercury

5. The Caduceus of Hermes/Mercury

6. The Caduceus of Hermes/Mercury
Centre de Sante, Island of St. Pierre & Miquelon

7. The Music of the Spheres 1

8. Music of the Spheres: Bottom Detail
Three heads
Leopard, lion, wolf – represent incontinence, violence, fraud
Thalia – buried beneath them, must ascend through the center
Thalia represents comedy & playful & idyllic poetry
Where have you seen a leopard, lion and wolf before?
Hint: Dante, Canto I

9. Mind of God = source of energy
Mentis Apollineae vis has movet undique musas
“The Energy of the Apollonian Mind sets these Muses everywhere in motion“

10. Italy in the Late Middle Ages / Renaissance

11. Firenze

12. Florence - Ravenna

13. Popes vs. Holy Roman Emperors
“lay investiture”
struggle since the early Middle Ages between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor for Power
HRE Henry IV & Pope Gregory VII at Canossa

14. Popes vs. Holy Roman Emperors
“lay investiture”
struggle since the early Middle Ages between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor for Power
HRE Henry IV & Pope Gregory VII at Canossa

15. Political Situation in Italy
Guelphs / Ghibellines
1140 – battles among German families: Welfs vs. the Hohenstaufens
Ghibellines: Imperial Party - agricultural
Guelphs: support pope – mercantile
Rivalry lasted until 1529

16. Political Situation in Florence
Guelphs defeat Ghibellines in 1289 at Campaldino and Caprona,
begin to fight among themselves.
1300 Florence divided into
Black Guelphs continued to support the Papacy
White Guelphs opposed to Papal influence (Boniface VIII).
Dante supported White Guelphs, exiled when the Black Guelphs took control of Florence.
Emperor Henry VII was disgusted by supporters of both sides when he visited Italy in 1310
1334 Pope Benedict XII threatened excommunication to anyone who used either name.

17. Dante Alighieri 1265 -1321 Prominent Florentine family
Father – White Guelph
The Divine Comedy, La Vita Nuova, other important works
Renewed the Italian language – made it a literary language

18. Beatrice Portinari When Dante was nine, he met Beatrice
He saw her again when he was 18
One of great examples of courtly love – from afar, never requited
She and he married other people
She dies at 25 years old

19. Structure Divine “Comedy” =>
comedy begins in chaos and ends in order;
tragedy begins in order and ends in chaos
100 Cantos (canto = a “chapter” of epic)
introduction = 1st Canto
next 33 = Inferno = hell (what we will read)
next 33 = Purgatorio = purgatory
next 33 = Paradiso = heaven

20. Strophic Form
Terza rima: each set of three lines forms a unit; look at rhyming word at end of line
Rhyme pattern=
aba bcb cdc… xyx y
Let’s look at the first verses: a rhyme, b rhyme, c rhyme, d rhyme etc.
Extremely difficult formal style - Dante carries it throughout the 100 cantos of the Commedia.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant'è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.

21. Numerology Numbers are significant, especially the number “three”
3 beasts, 3 realms of hell, trinity, 3 women of heaven, etc.

22. The Holy Trinity (Inferno III, 5-6)
Primal Love
Highest Wisdom
Divine Authority

23. Dante’s Trinity of Women:
Blessed Virgin Mary
Beatrice
Santa Lucia

24. Divine Comedy For Dante: midlife crisis, he has lost his way
Has to find his way back to the path that “does not stray,” so he passes through all parts of human experience
Travel – it’s the journey!
3 realms – hell, purgatory, paradise

25. Contrapasso
counter-penalty = principle of punishment commensurate with the sins committed by the respective individual on earth.
Bertrand de Born in Canto XXVIII, Sowers of Scandal and Schism, lines
Betrand's headless trunk moves around "carrying its severed head by the hairs as if it were a lantern" (Inferno XXVIII ).

26. Canto 1 = introduction Lost in woods – woods are a psychological space
Dante = ca. 35 years old
Good Friday, 1300
Is this a midlife crisis?

27. William Blake: The Three Beasts
Dante encounters:
Three Beasts
Leopard – represents incontinence
Lion –violence
She-Wolf – fraud
Fear- must be mastered -you can’t just stay here! Move on!
William Blake: The Three Beasts

28. Virgil (70 B.C. – 19 B.C.) From Mantua Companion to Dante
Sent by Beatrice to help Dante through the places where she cannot go: Hell and Purgatory
One of great poets of classical Roman antiquity
Author of Aeneid, the work in which Aeneas, founder of Rome, is conducted through the underworld – there are many parallels to this work