Dante’s engagement with philosophy cannot be studied apart fromhis vocation as a poet, in which capacity he sought to raise the levelof public discourse by educating his countrymen and inspiring them topursue happiness in the contemplative life. He was one of the mostlearned Italian laymen of his day, intimately familiar withAristotelian logic and natural philosophy, theology, and classicalliterature. He is, of course, most famous for having written theDivine Comedy, but in his poetry as well as his philosophicaltreatises and other writings, he freely mingles and synthesizesphilosophical and theological language as well extensive referencesand allusions to scripture and classical and contemporary poetry.While his contributions to world literature and other artistic genresare universally acknowledged, his theological imagination has alsoremained influential from his own time to the present day. Hisphilosophical legacy, by comparison, remains more difficult to assess,though his writings provide, at the very least, a powerful tool forthe study of the landscape of late medieval and Renaissancephilosophy.

• 1. Life
• 2. Early Poetry
• 3. Philosophical Influences
• 4. TheConvivio
• 5. TheDe vulgari eloquentia
• 6. TheMonarchia
• 7. TheCommedia (The Divine Comedy)
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources and Translations
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life

Because Dante’s poetic persona looms so large in his writings,very little can be said about his biography that does not, in someway, depend upon an interpretations of his continual re-crafting ofthat persona. It is generally accepted that Dante was born in 1265 inFlorence. If it is true that he was born under the sign ofGemini—as reported inParadiso22.112–120—then his birthday would have been sometime inMay or June of that year. According to the testimony of his ownwritings, at the age of nine he met for the first time theeight-year-old Beatrice Portinari, whom, subsequent to her death in1290, Dante consistently invoked as the key inspiration for his poeticvision and personal salvation.

Also according to the testimony of his own writing, Dante believedhimself to be—or at least wished for his readers to believe himto be—a descendant of the ancient Roman families who foundedFlorence. InParadiso 15, for instance, he claims that hisgreat-great-grandfather Cacciaguida had been knighted by emperorConrad and died fighting as a crusader in the Holy Land—a claimthat a recent biographer has noted “might be traced back toDante’s desire, particularly apparent at the time of theCommedia, to give dignity to a family which, in reality,could boast no noble roots nor any knights among it, least of all ofimperial investiture” [Santagata (2016), 20].

While it remains difficult to separate myth from fact inreconstructing Dante’s biography, it is nevertheless undoubtedlytrue that Dante’s philosophical perspective and poetic ambitionswere powerfully shaped by the context of his upbringing in latethirteenth-century Florence. Between 1285, when he married and began afamily, and 1302, when he was exiled from Florence, he was active inthe cultural and civic life of Florence, served as a soldier, and heldseveral political offices. Within this context, despite his ownorigins in a family possessing only modest wealth, Dante’sparticipation in Florentine politics played a crucial role in thedevelopment of his philosophical thinking as well as in advancing hispoetic ambitions.

Since the early thirteenth century, two great factions, the Guelfs andthe Ghibellines, had competed for control of Florence. The Guelfs,with whom Dante was allied, were identified with Florentine politicalautonomy, and with the interests of the Papacy in its long struggleagainst the centralizing ambitions of the Hohenstaufen emperors, whowere supported by the Ghibellines. After Charles of Anjou, with theblessing of the Papacy and strong Guelf support, defeated Hohenstaufenarmies at Benevento (1265/6) and Tagliacozzo (1268), the Guelfs becamethe dominant force in Florence. By the end of the century, the Guelfswere themselves riven by faction, grounded largely in family andeconomic interests, but also exhibiting differing degrees of loyaltyto the papacy.

In 1301, when conflict erupted between the “Blacks,” thefaction most strongly committed to aristocratic and papal interests,and the wealthier but less illustrious “Whites,” PopeBoniface VIII instigated a partisan settlement which allowed theBlacks to exile the White leadership, of whom Dante was a member. Henever returned to Florence, and played no further role in public life,though he remained passionately interested in Italian politics, andbecame virtually the prophet of world empire in the years leading upto the coronation of Henry VII of Luxembourg as head of the Holy RomanEmpire (1312). The development of Dante’s almost messianic senseof the imperial role is hard to trace, but it was doubtless affectedby his bitterness over what he saw as the autocratic and treacherousconduct of Pope Boniface, and a growing conviction that only a strong,central authority could bring peace, stability, and order to Italy.

During the next twenty years Dante lived in several Italian cities,spending at least two long periods at the court of Can Grande dellaScala, lord of Verona. In 1319 he moved from Verona to Ravenna, wherehe completed theParadiso, and where he died in 1321.

As a poet, Dante’s major theme, from first to last, is thesignificance of his love for Beatrice, but he also clearly understoodhimself to be a public intellectual strongly committed to raising thelevel of vernacular discourse. After his banishment he addressedhimself to Italians generally, and devoted much of his long exile totransmitting the riches of ancient thought and learning, as theseinformed contemporary scholastic culture, to an increasinglysophisticated lay readership in their own vernacular.

This project was Dante’s contribution to a long-standing Italiancultural tradition. His reading in philosophy began, he tells us, withCicero and Boethius, whose writings are in large part the record oftheir dedication to the task of establishing a Latinate intellectualculture in Italy. TheConvivio and theDe vulgarieloquentia preserve also the somewhat idealized memory of theNeapolitan court of Frederick II of Sicily (1195–1250) and hisson Manfred (1232–66), intellectuals in their own right as wellas patrons of poets and philosophers, whom Dante viewed as havingrevived the ancient tradition of the statesman-philosopher [Van Cleve,299–332]. Dante himself probably studied under Brunetto Latini(1220–94), whose encyclopedicLivres dou Tresor(1262–66), written while Brunetto was a political exile inFrance, provided vernacular readers with a compendium of the LiberalArts and a digest of Aristotelian ethical and political thought[Meier; Imbach (1993), 37–47; Davis (1984), 166–97].

But the fullest embodiment of Dante’s contribution to thetradition of Italian vernacular writing is, above all, hisDivineComedy—a work in which we see for the first time a powerfulthinker, solidly grounded in Aristotle, patristic theology, andthirteenth-century scholastic debate, synthesizing and bringing theseresources to bear on educating his countrymen in their own vernacularwith the intention of inspiring them to pursue the happiness thatrewards the philosopher.

2. Early Poetry

Though he evidently did not begin serious study of philosophy untilhis mid-twenties, Dante had already been intellectually challenged bythe work of a remarkable group of poets, practitioners of what hewould later recall as thedolce stil novo, in whose hands alyric poetry modelled on thecanso of the Provençaltroubadours became a vehicle for serious enquiry into the nature oflove and human psychology. A generation earlier, Guido Guinizzelli(1230–76) had puzzled contemporaries with poems treating love interms of the technicalities of medicine and the cosmology of theschools, while celebrating in quasi-mystical language his lady’spower to elevate the spirit of her poet-lover (Al cor gentilrempaira sempre amore, 41–44, 47–50):

Splende ’n la intelligenzïa del cielo
Deo Criator più che ’n nostr’ occhi ’l sole;
ella intende suo fattor oltra ’l cielo,
e ’l ciel volgiando, a Lui obedir tole;
…
così dar dovria, al vero,
la bella donna, poi che ’n gli occhi splende
del suo gentil, talento
che mai di lei obedir non si disprende.

[God the creator shines in the intelligence of heaven
more than the sun in our eyes,
and she understands her maker beyond the heaven
and, as she turns the heaven, obeys Him
…
So truly should the beautiful lady,
when she shines on the eyes
of her noble lover, impart the desire
that he will never fail in his obedience to her.]

Thebella donna, exerting on her lover a power derived fromthe participation of her understanding in the divine, plays the roleof the celestialintelligenzïa, who transmits theinfluence of the First Mover to the universe at large. The poet isthus caught up in a circular process through which his understanding,like theirs, is drawn toward the divine as manifested in thelady’s divinely inspired radiance. For Guinizelli thisexploitation of the idea of celestial hierarchy is perhaps only adaring poetic conceit. For Dante it will become a means to thearticulation of his deepest intuitions.

Among Dante’s contemporaries, however, the single strongestinfluence on his early poetry was Guido Cavalcanti, renowned not onlyas a poet, but also for his knowledge of natural philosophy. His greatcanzone, “Donna mi prega,” which becamethe subject of learned Latin commentaries, deals with ideas commonlyassociated with the “radical Aristotelianism” or“Averroism” of his day. The purpose of this astonishingpoem is to describe in precise philosophical terms(“naturale dimostramento”) the experience oflove.

For Guido there is an absolute cleavage between the sensory andintellectual aspects of the response to a loved object. Once thephantasma of the object becomes an abstracted form in thepossible intellect, it is wholly insulated from thedilettoof theanima sensitiva (21–28). This has seemed tomodern commentators to imply an Averroist view of the intellect as aseparate, universal entity [Corti (1983), 3–37], and the lineswhich follow (30–56), where thevertú of thesensitive soul displaces reason and “assumes itsfunction,” presenting to the will an object whose desirabilitythreatens a fatal disorientation, sustain this impression. Love isstill the aristocratic vocation of the troubadours, and Guidoacknowledges that noble spirits are aroused by it to prove theirmerit. But they work in darkness, for the force that moves themobscures the light of intellectual contemplation (57–68). Thecanzone is so exclusively an exercise in “naturalphilosophy,” so centered on biological necessity, thatconsciousness itself is wholly excluded from consideration. Theethical dimension of love consists in the challenge its blind urgencypresents to reason. “Nobility” is a matter ofself-control, and the precarious happiness that such love affords hasno ideal dimension.

Guido’s influence on Dante was profound. But theVitanuova, an anthology of Dante’s early poetry interspersedwith a narrative combining commentary on his poetic development withthe history of his devotion to Beatrice during her earthly life,reveals a growing realization that his own conception of poetry andlove differ fundamentally from Guido’s [Ardizzone (2011);Barolini (1998), esp. pp. 60–63]. Like Guido, Dante acceptedlove as being, for better or worse, fundamental to the noble life, andhis early lyrics express a sense like Guido’s of the internallydivisive power of desire. But as theVita nuova unfolds thereis a gradual shift of focus: having failed to win his lady’sfavor by dramatizing his own sufferings, Dante resolves to devote hispoetry henceforth wholly to praise of her [VN, 18.9]. The result ofthis new resolve is acanzone, “Donnech’avete intelletto d’amore” (“Ladies whohave intelligence of love”), which returns to the source of hisinspiration and Guido’s in the poetry of Guinizelli, but makes awholly new departure. For Guido, the “heavenly” allure ofthe lady is a deception perpetrated by the senses, all the moredangerous as the lover’sgentilezza responds more fullyto the attraction of her beauty and subjects itself to the“fierce accident” of passion. Dante, too, sees that theexperience his early, tormented lyrics depict is “an accidentoccurring in a substance” [VN 25.1–2], but the“fiery spirits of love” which strike the eyes of those onwhom his lady bestows her greeting are not just goads to desire(Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore, VN19.10.37–40):

E quando trova alcun che degno sia
di veder lei. quei prova sua vertute,
ché li avvien, ciò che li dona, in salute,
e sì l’umilia ch’ogni offesa oblia.
Ancor l’ha Dio per maggior grazia dato
che non pò mal finir chi l’ha parlato.

[And when she finds someone worthy
to behold her, he experiences her power,
for what she gives him turns into salvation,
and so humbles him that he forgets every offense.
God has given her an even greater grace:
that one cannot end in evil who has spoken to her.]

Pursuit of the lady’s favor has become a test, not just ofnobility, but of virtue. Her beauty is perfect, the fullest possibleexample of nature’s power to reveal God’s creative love.The climax of theVita nuova occurs when Dante encountersGuido’s lady, Giovanna, followed by his ownBeatrice—“one marvel,” as he says, “followingthe other” [VN 24.8]. At once he realizes that Giovanna’sbeauty, like the prophecy of the biblical Giovanni, is a precursor,heralding the “true light” of Beatrice, just asGuido’s poetry of earthly love is finally a foil to his owncelebration of the transcendent love revealed to him in Beatrice.

3. Philosophical Influences

The philosophical content of theVita nuova is minimal, askeletal version of contemporary faculty psychology and a few briefreferences to metaphysics. But while finding his orientation as apoet, Dante was also engaged in the study of philosophy and, accordingto his own testimony in theConvivio, “started going towhere she [philosophy] was truly revealed, in the schools of thereligious orders and at the disputations of the philosophers”[Conv. 2.12.7]. Dante does not provide any additional detailsthat reveal specifically where he studied philosophy, but in Florencein the early 1290s, there were three schools of religious orders atwhich he may have studied: that of the Dominicans at Santa MariaNovella; that of the Franciscans at Santa Croce; and that of theAugustinians at Santo Spirito. Unfortunately, there are no reliablehistorical records concerning the course of study that may have beenavailable to Dante at Santo Spirito. However, there is reliableinformation about the resources that would have been available to alay student at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce.

Although the Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella did not allow laymen topursue studies of philosophy specifically, Dante would have beenpermitted to attend theology classes, and in these there would almostcertainly have been at least indirect exposure to Aristotelianphilosophy [Santagata (2016), 83]. Most intriguingly, Dante may havehad the opportunity to attend lectures of Remigio dei Girolami (d.1319), who had studied theology at the University of Paris during thetenure of Thomas Aquinas there [Panella; Davis (1984), 198–223].Remigio, like Dante, was a White Guelf, and, also like Dante, Remigioread widely in classical literature and was fond of drawing lessons inpolitical and ethical conduct from his reading. For both Remigio andDante, moreover, Thomas was primarily the author of theSummacontra Gentiles and the commentary on theEthics,concerned, like Aristotle himself, to demonstrate the capacities ofhuman reason as a means to truth.

The most prestigiousstudia in Florence in the 1290s,however, was surely Santa Croce, which, as aStudiumgenerale, ranked only behind the threeStudiaprincipalia of Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge in terms ofimportance [Santagata (2016), 83]. As Santagata notes in his recentbiography of Dante,

Two great intellectuals who were readers at Santa Croce between 1287and 1289—Pietro di Giovanni Olivi from Provence, and the youngerUbertino da Casale—played a major role in the history of theFranciscan movement and, more generally, in the Church. Dante couldnot have attended their lectures since both had left Florence before1290, but it is always possible that he had heard some ofUbertino’s sermons. Dante never mentions Olivi, but in manyrespects his vision of the history of the Church seems to coincidewith that of the Provencal theologian in its Franciscan and spiritualinterpretation. As for Ubertino, a leading champion of the Franciscan“spiritual” movement, namely of those who advocated areturn to the rigor of Francis’s rule against the permissiveinterpretation of the so-called “conventuals” led by theminister general, Matteo d’Acquasparta, Dante would haveBonaventura da Bagnoregio say inParadiso [12.124–126]that they both betrayed the rule: Matteo because he “is tooloose” through permissiveness, Ubertino because he “is toonarrow” through excessive rigor. [Santagata (2016), 84]

Beyond these possibilities in Florence, Dante’s testimony inConvivio 2.12.7 that he had attended the “disputationsof the philosophers” may hint at some degree of exposure to thestudy of philosophy in Bologna in this period of his life.Unfortunately, there is a gap of a little more than two years in therecord of Dante’s life between September 1291 and March 1294,and it is only possible to speculate on whether Dante was able toavail himself of the possibilities of studying philosophical subjectsthat would not have been accessible to him in the more constrainedlandscape of the monastic libraries andstudiae ofFlorence.

Wherever it may have been that Dante acquired his familiarity withphilosophy and theology, his writings offer ample evidence of wideranging interests, if not deep expertise about each and every subjectthat is touched on in them. In particular, Dante cites a dozen worksof Aristotle, apparently at first hand, and displays a particularlyintimate knowledge of theEthics, largely derived, no doubt,from Thomas Aquinas. But his Aristotelianism was nourished by othersources as well. Bruno Nardi has argued persuasively that his attitudetoward the study of philosophy also owes a great deal to the moreeclectic Albert the Great [Nardi (1967); 63–72; (1992),28–29; Vasoli (1995b); Gilson (2004)]. In Albert, in particular,Dante would have encountered a wide-ranging encyclopedism thatincluded original work, experimental and theoretical, in naturalscience, and treated Aristotelian natural philosophy and psychology inthe light of Islamic philosophers (notably Avicenna and Averroes) andGreco-Arab neo-Platonic sources such as theLiber de Causis,as well as the Christian neo-Platonist tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius.Albert aimed to discover Aristotle’s own meaning, with the helpof Greek and Arab commentators who led him into disagreement withotherLatini, including at certain points his pupil Thomas,and he asserts more than once that philosophy and theology areseparate spheres of knowledge. It is tempting to imagine that thiswillingness to pursue philosophy on its own terms appealed to Dante,whoseConvivio andMonarchia also sought todistinguish philosophical and religious knowledge without simplysubordinating the former to the latter.

Albert’s view of the procession of the universe from the“substantial light” of the divine intellect through theoperation of a hierarchy of lesser intelligences is also clearlyperceptible in Dante’s treatment of the cosmicintelligenze orsostanze separate in theConvivio [Conv. 2.4–5; Nardi (1992),47–62]. It shows up again in his treatment of the growth of thehuman embryo, which seems to imply, not a sequence of animations bynutritive, sensitive and intellective powers, as for Thomas, but thecontinuous operation of a singlevirtus formativa, whoseoperation Albert compares to that of theprima intelligentiain the soul [De intellectu & intelligibili 2.2], andwhich is responsible not only for the development of the humancreature but for effecting its union with an essentially externalanima intellectiva [Boyde (1981), 270–79; Nardi (1960),9–68; (1967), 67–70].

Albert is thus a likely conduit for seemingly Averroist elements inDante’s thought. He regards intellectual activity as theoperation of theintellectus agens, through which the humansoul is illumined by the divine Intelligence. Each soul possesses itsown intellect, but this intellect is a “reflection”(resultatio) of the light of the primal mind, which thus, ineffect, becomes itself the true agent intellect. Albert explicitlyrejects the Averroist view of the active intellect as itself acelestial intelligence, a single, separate substance which actualizesin the passive intellect phantasms supplied by individual human minds.But he nevertheless also argues that only an intellect universal innature can produce an understanding of universal forms. The intellectand the soul of which it is a function thus partake of the characterof the separate intelligences. Soul is not the actualizing essence ofthe human creature, as in Thomas, but is related to body through themediation of its organic faculties. In itself, through its agentintellect, the soul is drawn to contemplate the intelligences whichorder the universe at large, is informed by them with the transcendentknowledge they manifest, and finally “stands” in thedivine intellect. In this way, certain men are enabled to fulfill theinnate human desire for understanding and attain a natural beatitude,“substantiated and formed in the divine being” [Albert,De intellectu & intelligibili 2.2–12; Nardi (1960),145–50].

That this fulfillment is attained through natural understanding, withno recourse to the theology of grace and revelation, marks a crucialdifference between Albert and Thomas, who devotes several chapters oftheSumma contra gentiles to a forceful refutation of thenotion that final happiness as defined by Aristotle is possible inthis life [SCG 3.37–48]. For Thomas the desire to know is oneand the same at all levels, and philosophy, seeking the causes ofthings, is ultimately “ordered entirely to the knowing ofGod” [SCG 3.25.9] Dante’s own position on this question isdifficult to define precisely. The poet of theParadiso is atone with Thomas on the value of philosophy as consisting finally inits power to prepare the mind for faith [Par. 4.118–32;29.13–45], but he shares Albert’s fascination with naturalunderstanding, and in earlier writings his willingness to grantphilosophy a “beatitude” of its own hints at a latentdualism in his thought [Foster (1965), 51–71; (1977),193–208; de Libera (1991), 333–36]. How far this reflectshis responsiveness to neo-Platonism as mediated by Albert or in suchworks as theLiber de causis is hard to determine. Nardi, whoargued successfully for seeing Dante as an eclectic thinker [Diomedi(2005), 1–23], stressed the importance of theLiber deCausis. But the Platonizing strain in Dante’s thinkingsurely involves more than simply the influence of Albert or interestin theLiber de Causis, and other scholars have notedDante’s likely indebtedness to the encyclopedism oftwelfth-century thinkers like Bernardus Silvestris and Alan of Lille,poet-philosophers whose world view, inherited from late-antiqueNeoplatonism, was defined by the Liberal Arts and the cosmology ofPlato’sTimaeus [Vasoli (1995a, 2008); Garin (1976),64–70; Stabile (2007), 173–93]. In Bernardus’Cosmographia and Alan’sAnticlaudianus, theunfolding of the secrets of nature by the enquiring mind generates anallegory of intellectual pilgrimage toward truth. Dante’sexperience of philosophy, though defined in more dynamic andsophisticated terms, is a version of the same journey. The experienceof love becomes a means to self-realization, and an awareness of thehierarchy of forces operative in the universe at large, which makespossible anascensus mentis ad sapientiam, to that“amoroso uso della sapienza” that enables thehuman mind to participate in the divine.

On the other hand, recent studies have argued that Nardi, in his zealto free Dante from the constraints of the orthodox Thomism thatscholars like Pierre Mandonnet and Giovanni Busnelli claimed to findin him, exaggerates the neo-Platonist strain in his thinking[Maierù (2004), 128–35; Stabile (2007), 359–70;Iannucci (1997); Moevs (2005), 17–35]. Moreover, Dante wassurely also aware of and influenced in some manner by a“radical” Aristotelianism centered in Bologna, wheremasters influenced by Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia wereaffirming the autonomy of human reason and its capacity to attainhappiness through its own powers [Corti (1981), 9–31; VanniRovighi]. Indeed, a number of textual and biographical clues have alsobeen interpreted as pointing toward a more heterodox dimension inDante’s thinking. In short, the question of the influence ofLatin Averroism on Dante’s philosophical views has remained anactive subject of debate among Dante scholars [see esp., Fortin(2002); Ardizzone (2014 and 2016); Ziolkowski (2014a); Stone (2006)].Still, many of these thinkers were also following paths first taken byAlbert, and it is possible that Albert’s influence, togetherwith that of Thomas, is sufficient to account for many of the mostdistinctive features of Dante’s use of philosophy [Imbach(1996b), 399–413].

4. TheConvivio

The fullest expository expression of Dante’s philosophicalthought is theConvivio, in which commentary on a series ofhis owncanzoni is the occasion for the expression of a rangeof ideas on ethics, politics, and metaphysics, as well as for extendeddiscussion of philosophy itself. Originally, Dante conceived of thework as a “banquet” involving “fourteencourses”—that is, fourteen treatises commenting oncanzoni on the “themes of love and virtue”(Conv. 1.1.14). However, the work, which was probably,written around 1304–1307, was abandoned with only four of itstreatises completed. In these surviving treatises, Dante describes thegenesis of his love of philosophy, and reflects on the ability ofphilosophical understanding to mediate religious truth, tracing thedesire for knowledge from its origin as an inherent trait of humannature to the point at which the love of wisdom expresses itselfdirectly as love of God.

Philosophy itself is the “love of wisdom,” andDante’s central metaphor for representing it is the poeticcelebration of a noble lady, adonna gentile, an act that,like Guinizelli, he sees as involving the influence of cosmic powers.His poetry, comes into being out of love and virtue [Conv.1.1.14] because his nature is responsive to the influence of the“movers” of the universe, the intelligences, whose lovingunderstanding determines “the most noble form of heaven”[2.5.19] as they in turn respond to “the love of the HolySpirit” [2.5.14]. Their cosmic activity is a continualtranslation of understanding into love and natural process, and it isthis which causes Dante to sing [Conv. 2, Canzone,1–9]:

Voi che ’ntendendo il terzo ciel movete,
udite il ragionar ch’è nel mio core,
ch’io nol so dire altrui, sì mi par novo.
El ciel che segue lo vostro valore,
gentili creature che voi sete,
mi tragge ne lo stato ov’io mi trovo.
Onde ’l parlar de la vita ch’io provo,
par che si drizzi degnamente a vui:
però vi priego che lo mi ’ntendiate.

[All you who, knowing, make the Third Sphere move,
hear what is in my heart, this strange discourse
I can’t tell others for it feels so new.
The Sphere that follows on your virtue’s force—
noble, gracious creatures that you prove—
draws me in this state I have just come to;
Do words about what I am going through
seem not unworthily to you addressed:
and this I pray you, that you hear my part.]

The intellective power orintendimento of the intelligencesmoves Dante to an utterance which only these same powers can fullyunderstand. Thus there is a continuum, a process ofcirculazione which begins in the mind of God and descendsthrough the work of theintelligenze to draw Dante’snature into that praise of thedonna gentile whichconstitutes the fulfillment of his own nature, the highest expressionof which his desire and intellect are capable [2.6.5; Diomedi(1999)].

Of the four books ortrattati of theConvivio, thefirst is largely a defense of Dante’s decision to write hisprose commentaries, as well as the poems they expound, in the Tuscanvernacular rather than in Latin. The second book provides adelineation of the Ptolemaic universe which theintelligenzegovern, capped by a description of the Empyrean Heaven[2.3.8–12]:

…outside of all these spheres, Catholics posit the Empyreanheaven, that is to say, the heaven of flame or the luminous heaven;and they assert that it is motionless by having within itself, withrespect to each of its parts, all that its matter wants. This is thereason for the extremely rapid movement of the Prime Mover: throughthe exceedingly fervent desire of each part of the ninth heaven (whichis right next to that one) to be united with each part of that mostdivine and tranquil heaven, it revolves within it with so much desirethat its speed is practically incomprehensible. And tranquil andpeaceful is the place of that supreme Deity which alone completelysees itself. This is the place of the blessed spirits, according tothe Holy Church, which cannot tell lies; and Aristotle also seems tohold this view, to anyone who follows what he is saying, in the firstbook ofOn Heaven and Earth. This heaven is the overarchingedifice of the universe, in which all the universe is enclosed, andoutside of which nothing exists; and it is not in any place but wasformed alone in the First Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe. Thisis the magnificence of which the Psalmist spoke, when he says to God:“Elevated above the heavens is your magnificence.”

The role of the Empyrean in thirteenth-century thought is equivocal.Some thinkers attempt to explain it scientifically, as a comprehensivecosmic principle, while for Thomas and Albert any such realm must bespiritual in nature and can bear no natural relation to theastronomical universe—though both at times seem to grant it acertain influence on the natural order [Nardi (1967), 196–214;Vasoli (1995a), 94–102]. Dante’s account reflects theseuncertainties. He begins by citing “the Catholics,” ororthodox belief, as authority for his account of this “abode ofthe supreme deity,” but then goes on to treat the Empyrean as acreated thing, “formed in the Primal Mind,” and as themotionless cause of motion in the physical universe. If God dwells inthis place, the Empyrean resides equally in Him, and the universe atlarge is encompassed, causally and locally, by the Empyrean. Dantedeploys the Aristotelian physics of desire to explain the relationshipof the Empyrean to the lesser heavens, yet it is at the same timebeyond space, a wholly spiritual realm where blessed spiritsparticipate in the divine mind. Dante seems to emphasize this doublestatus by mingling theological and philosophical language, andinvoking Aristotle and the neo-Platonists side by side with the poetof the Psalms. In theParadiso the problems raised here willbe implicitly resolved by a brilliant recourse to the“metaphysics of light;” when Dante and Beatrice, emergingfrom the “greatest body,” the crystalline sphere or PrimumMobile, pass on “al ciel ch’è pura luce, / Luceintellettual piena d’amore” [Par.30.39–40], we know that we are at the precise point at which thebonum diffusivum sui that is God’s love transformsitself to cosmic energy, “the love that moves the sun and theother stars.” But poetry is perhaps the only means of definingthis threshold [Bonaventure,Sent. 2. d. 2, a. 2, q. 1, c. 4;Thomas,Quodl. 6, q. 11, a. unicus 19].

Similar ambiguities appear in Dante’s discussion of theintelligenze themselves. Since in governing the severalheavens the intelligences engage in a kind of civil life, they mustenjoy an active as well as a contemplative existence. But the latteris of a higher order than the former, and no single intelligence canpartake of both. Influenced perhaps by Thomas’s commentary,Dante imputes to Aristotle in theEthics the view that suchdivine beings must know only a contemplative life [2.4.13; cp.Aristotle, NE 10.8, 1178b; Thomas,Exp. Eth. 10, lect. 12,2125]. Dante’s attempt to resolve the issue is oddlyunpersuasive. He argues that the circular motion of the heavens, bywhich the world is governed, is really a function of the contemplativeactivity of the intelligences [2.4.13]. Here, as in the case of theEmpyrean which they inhabit, we can see Aristotle’s celestialmovers undergoing a neo-Platonizing transformation, but Dante endsthis stage of his discussion by noting that the truth concerning theIntelligences cannot be fully grasped by our earthly understanding[2.4.16–17].

The second book concludes with an extended allegory in which theconcentric “heavens” or planetary spheres are identifiedwith the seven Liberal Arts, the “starry sphere” withphysics and metaphysics, thePrimum mobile with moralphilosophy, and the Empyrean beyond with theology. This synthesis ofthe natural and the intellectual universe expresses an ideal ofeducation which harks back to the late-antique sources oftwelfth-century Platonism, but which Dante has imbued with new life.His emphasis on the ordering function of moral wisdom, and on thehappiness attainable through intellectual contemplation, reflects anengagement with the philosophical tradition, and a commitment tophilosophy as such, which belong to the later thirteenth century. Thefinal chapter of Book Two affirms the beauty that consists in seeingthe causes of those “wonders” that, as the opening of theMetaphysics declares, draw us to philosophy.

The third book is perhaps the most important for the student ofDante’s knowledge and use of philosophy. Its central theme ispraise of philosophy’s power, as “l’amoroso usodella sapienza,” “the loving use of wisdom,” toimpart the highest happiness to those who love her, perfecting theirnatures and drawing them close to God, of whose majesty and wisdom herbeauty is the expression. It is largely a meditation on love,understood as Dante’s response, intellectual, poetic, andpsychological, to his enlightenment at the hands of the beautiful ladywhom he celebrates as Philosophy.

Early in the third book Dante cites theLiber de Causis:every “substantial form” proceeds from the first cause,God, and participates in His divine nature according to its nobility[3.2.4–8; LC 1.1]. The human soul, noblest of all created forms,loves all things to the degree that they manifest the divine goodness,but desires above all to be united with God. Philosophy is theexpression of this desire in such a way that it, “apart from thesoul and considered in itself, has for its subject understanding andfor its form an almost divine love for what is understood”[3.11.13]. Thus it is through the love of philosophy—“thespiritual union of the soul with” [3.2.3] philosophyitself—that humanity perfects its “highest nature, inother words the truly human one—or better, the angelic orrational nature” [3.3.11]. For in this spiritual union, the souldiscovers in itself “that fine and most precious part of thesoul, which is deity” [3.2.19] and “participates in thedivine nature in the manner of a sempiternal Intelligence”[3.2.14]. As such it mirrors the nobility, wisdom and love of thedivine essence and its “loving use of wisdom” becomesunified with God “through eternal marriage”[3.12.11–14].

All of this may appear sheer fantasy, but we should remember that theaim of philosophy as theConvivio pursues it is to attain,through natural reason, the greatest happiness of which we are capablein our earthly state. Such felicity is of course circumscribed by ourmortality, and the Dante who celebrates philosophical understanding asa quasi-mystical union with God also maintains that true union can begranted only through grace to a soul made receptive by the infusion ofthe theological virtues which transcend the workings of rational,natural virtue.

In this vein, it is not surprising that Dante speaks of the soul afterdeath as enduring “perpetually in a nature that is more thanhuman” [2.8.6], and asserts that to perceive God is not possiblefor our nature [3.15.10]. Aristotle, too, had argued that a life ofpure contemplation is beyond our strictly human capacity—that wecan live in this way only to the extent that we have in us“something divine” [NE 10.7, 1177b]. But for Dante, as forThomas Aquinas, themodus essendi of the soul joined to thebody differs from that of the soul in separation: though they are thesame in nature, the separated soul understands, not by means ofsensory images, but through species in which it participates by virtueof the divine light [cf. ST 1.89.1r]. In the temporal life, however,as Dante acknowledges, there are truths which we can apprehend only asif in a dream, “come sognando,” [Conv.2.12.4; Nardi (1944), 81–90], and our desire for perfectunderstanding is necessarily limited. To desire what is beyond thecapacity of our intellectual nature would be ethically and rationallyincoherent, a desire for imperfection rather than perfection ofunderstanding. Therefore, our love of wisdom is “proportioned inthis life to the knowledge which we can have here, and does not gopast that point except by an error which is outside the intention ofnature” [3.15.8–10].

But theConvivio continually strains against these samelimits that it claims are appropriate to the proper scope of humanknowledge in our temporal condition. For Dante, first and foremost apoet of love, the experience of acquiring philosophical understandinghas an important psychological component. By enabling us to analyzethe processes of perception, philosophy brings us into contact withthe true nature of things, and for Dante, as Kenelm Foster observes,the slightest such contact could have a metaphysical value:

It did not in one sense matter to Dante what the particular object ofhis knowing might be, since the joy of knowing it was already aforetaste of all conceivable knowledge and all joy; and this preciselybecause, in knowing, the mind seized truth…once intelligence,the truth-faculty, had tasted truth as such, that is, its owncorrespondence with reality, it could not help desiring truth wholeand entire, that is, its correspondence with all reality. [Foster(1965), 59–60]

At this point, knowledge and the joy of possessing it combine toprepare the ground for faith. By explaining phenomena which withouther guidance would merely astonish us, philosophy inspires us tobelieve “that every miracle can be perceived by a superiorintellect to have a reasonable cause” [3.14.14]:

And here our good faith has its origin; from which comes hope, whichis desire for what is foreseen; and through this arises the act ofcharity. Through these three virtues one ascends to philosophize inthat celestial Athens, where the Stoics and Peripatetics andEpicureans, by the light of eternal truth, in a single will, concur intotal concord one with the other.

Philosophy thus conceived can still be regarded as the handmaid oftheology, but as Dante develops his philosophical ideal metaphoricallyin terms of the beauty of thedonna gentile, it assumes areligious value of its own. Since the wisdom she embodies is theconsummation of human self-realization, thedonna gentileresides in the divine mind as “the intentional exemplar of thehuman essence” [3.6.6]. In desiring her we desire our ownperfection, for she is “as supremely perfect as human essencecan be” [3.6.8] When at this point Dante adds a reminder thatnothing in our human experience can fully satisfy this desire, heseems to be acknowledging that what Thomas’Ethicscommentary refers to as the ultimate end of desire’s naturalinclination is unattainable in this life, since it would require anunderstanding more complete than any human being can possess [Thomas,Exp. Eth. 1, lect. 9, 107; SCG 3.48.2].

But having provided this caution, Dante seems to ignore it, as ifunable to resist the conviction that philosophy satisfies our desirein a manner proper to itself. Everything naturally desires its ownperfection, and for human beings this is “the perfection ofreason” [3.15.3–4; cf. Thomas,Exp. Eth. 9, lect.9, 1872]. But philosophy, as embodied in thedonna gentile,is not just the consummation of natural understanding. For Dante, asfor Aristotle, the human intellect as such is somehow more than human,and he is at times similarly unclear on the question of whether humanbeings can attain happiness through the exercise of virtue, and towhat extent it is a gift of the gods [Foster (1977), 198–201].Repeatedly he draws a distinction between merely human happiness andthat attainable through grace, only to seemingly disregard it insubsequent discussion. Thus in the final chapter of the third treatisehe acknowledges the “strong misgivings” that one mighthave about the happiness attainable through philosophy. Since certainthings—God, eternity, and primal matter are named—exceedthe capacity of our intellect, our natural desire to know must remainunfulfilled in this life [3.15.7]. Dante answers this by affirming, asnoted above, that the natural desire for perfection is alwaysproportionate to our capacity to attain it; for to desire theunattainable would be to desire our imperfection [3.15.8–11].Human happiness, then, consists in the attainment of Aristotle’s“human good,” through the exercise of the virtues. This iswhat Dante calls “l’umana operazione,” andits end is the highest that human beings can attain through their ownpowers.

Yet philosophy offers the promise of more. The same chapter isclimaxed by the vision of Wisdom as “the mother of allthings,” the origin of all motion and order in the createduniverse, guiding the quest of human wisdom by the light of the divineintellect. When the human mind is fully informed by philosophy, itwould appear, it becomes virtually one of theintelligenze,who know both what is above them and what is below, God as cause andthe created universe as effect [3.6.4–6]. Thus Dante can speakof our rational nature as, simultaneously our “trulyhuman” and “our angelic nature” [Moevs (2005),83–86].

TheLiber de causis says that each cause infuses into itseffect the goodness it receives from its own cause, or, in the case ofthe soul, from God [Conv. 3.6.11; LC 4.48]. When gazing onthe body of thedonna gentile, we are perceiving the effectof a cause which is ultimately God, and thus, Dante asserts[3.6.12–13]:

insofar as, with regard to her bodily aspect, marvelous things areseen in her… it is evident that her form, that is her soul,which directs it [her bodily aspect] as its proper cause, miraculouslyreceives the beloved goodness of God. And so it is demonstrated bythis appearance that, beyond the due of our nature (which is mostperfect in her, as was stated above), this lady is favored by God andmade a noble thing.

Thus in effect thedonna gentile is the perfection we desire.Through her we experience the divine goodness, by an outflowing, adiscorrimento, which Dante glosses with a further referenceto theLiber de Causis [3.7.2; LC 20.157] in terms of thehierarchical emanation of the divine goodness. In the quasi-continuousseries of gradations that descends from angel to brute animal, thereis no intervening grade between man and angel, so that some humanbeings are so noble as to be nothing less than angels [Aristotle, NE7.1, 1145a]. Such is thedonna gentile; she receives divinevirtue just as the angels do [3.7.7]. She is a thingvisibilmentemiraculosa, ordained from eternity by God intestimonio de lafede for us [3.7.16–17; Foster (1965), 56], and God, byinstilling his radiance in her love of philosophy,“assimilates” her form “to his likeness insofar asit is possible to be like Him” [3.14.3; cf. Thomas, SCG1.91].

Philosophy has clearly become far more than the means whereby humannature achieves self-realization, though this ideal continues toprovide a framework for Dante’s praise of her. She has assumedthe status of Wisdom,sapientia, the divine mind as expressedin the order and harmony of creation. Like the separate substances andGod Himself, her beauty can only be described in terms of its effects.The true philosopher “loves every part of wisdom, and wisdomevery part of the philosopher, since she draws him to herself in fullmeasure” [3.11.12]. Moreover, because the object of everyphilosopher’s contemplation is the same angelic intelligence,philosophical activity also unites individual human beings todonna gentile in such a way that, as Ardizzone has put it,emphasizes a “principle of unity in which the cosmological orderis the expression of a superior intellectual love and desire, onewhich human and superhuman beings may share” [Ardizzone (2016),274].

Here we may recall Dante’s account of how the swift motion ofthe Primum Mobile expresses its desire for total participation in thedivinity of the Empyrean [2.3.8]. And it is in such terms that Danteends his account of philosophy-as-wisdom. In the final chapter of thethird treatise, she is explicitly identified with the all-creatingWisdom of God as “the mother of all things and the origin ofevery motion” [3.15.15], and Dante concludes in propheticexhortation [3.15.17]:

Oh, worse than dead are you who flee her friendship! Open your eyesand look; for, before you were, she loved you, preparing and orderingthe process that created you; and once you were made, to show you theway she came to you in your likeness.

The fourth treatise of theConvivio seems to have beenwritten later than the first three, and it is markedly different inorientation. The principal theme of itscanzone is the truenature of nobility. Introducing his prose discussion, Dante gives acurious account of how an interruption in his philosophical studies,caused by what thecanzone calls “disdainful andharsh” behavior on the part of thedonna gentile,provided an occasion for taking up this topic:

So, since this lady of mine had slightly altered her sweet expressionstoward me, above all where I investigated and researched whether theprime matter of the elements was comprehended by God—because ofwhich I refrained for a while from being in the presence of herface—living more or less without her, I started to reflect onthe human defect related to the above-mentioned error [i.e., a falseperception of the bases of human nobility]. [4.1.8]

That God is the creator of prime matter was an article of faith, andThomas had dealt decisively with the role of divine will and intellectin the creative act [SCG 2.20.7, 21–24]. That Dante should admitto having entertained doubts about such a question is perhaps a wayhedging against or concealing the heterodox implications of his claimsin book 3 [Ardizzone (2016)]. Alternatively, he may have sensedhimself idolizing the secondary powers in whose hierarchicalcirculazione he felt himself, as poet, to be in a specialsense participant, and allowing these preoccupations to cloud hisawareness of God’s omnipotence. The anger of thedonnagentile would then express his sense of a corresponding loss offocus, a failure to affirm her unique and transcendent role in theexpression of the divine will. Or perhaps Dante had come to regard themetaphysical exposition of books 2 and 3 as incidental to what heregarded as a more significant philosophical theme that emerges inbook 4.

Whatever the precise nature of the dilemma to which Dante alludes, thefourth treatise is marked by a noticeable shift away from metaphysicsin the direction of ethics and rhetoric. Philosophical knowledge isredirected to the purposes of social and political life, and thetreatise, while punctuated like the others by numerous digressions,pursues a single sustained argument. Dante begins by explaining thatsocial order is a necessary condition for human happiness and that itrequires a single governor whose authority embraces that of allparticular governors and directs their several efforts to a single end[4.4]. After a long digression on the role of Rome in the providentialdesign of human history, he turns from political to philosophicalauthority, citing Aristotle as in effect the governor of the mind,“master and guide of human reason insofar as it is occupied withits final end” [4.6.8]. From this, Dante derives the conclusionthat even an emperor’s authority must be circumscribed insofaras the art of ruling and the laws it creates cannot overrule rationaljudgment based on the laws of nature [4.9].

On this basis Dante proceeds to refute the view that nobility consistsin wealth and ancestry, a view which he here attributes to FrederickII, “the last emperor of the Romans,” and for which hewill elsewhere cite Aristotle’sPolitics [Mon.2.3.4;Pol. 4.8, 1294a]. Perhaps as significant as thearguments he musters to show the treacherous nature of riches and theuncertain course of nobility from one generation to another is theassertion of Dante’s own authority, as philosopher and citizen,that is implied by his elaborate apology for speaking as he does[Ascoli (1989), 35–41]. The gesture nicely epitomizes theproject of theConvivio, a vernacular discourse which definesfor its lay audience the limits of political and scholastic authorityand affirms the autonomy and potential dignity of individual humanreason.

The later portions of the fourth treatise are grounded in anAristotelian definition of nobility, as the perfection of a thingaccording to its nature [Conv. 4.16.7;Physics 7.3,246a]. The human expression of this perfection is virtue, moral andintellectual. Electing to address the moral virtues, as moreaccessible to a lay understanding, Dante begins by describing hownobility is implanted in the nascent soul as the seed of virtue, fromwhich spring the two branches of the active and the contemplativelife. The final chapters of theConvivio show how the virtuesthat stem from nobility can direct the natural appetite of the mind,enabling it to evolve through love of them to the happiness which isthe end of virtue [Conv. 4.17.8–9; NE 1.13, 1102a].

In the final stanza of thecanzone analyzed in the fourthtreatise, Dante addresses the poem itself as“Contra-li-erranti,” his“Contra-the-mistaken,” and the final chapter of thecommentary explains this as an allusion to theSumma contragentiles of Thomas, written “to confound all those whodeviate from our Faith” [Conv. 4.30.3]. By thusdeclaring himself the follower of so fine a craftsman, Dante suggests,he hopes to “ennoble” his own undertaking.

TheContra gentiles may seem an odd choice of model. BrunoNardi considers that Dante had at most a superficial knowledge of thiswork at the time when he wrote theConvivio, and it iscertainly the case that he is fundamentally at odds with Thomas oversuch specific matters as the origin of the soul, the role of thecelestial intelligences in creation, and, more important, in claimingfor philosophy the power to fulfil the human desire for knowledge inthis life [Nardi (1992), 28–29]. On all of these matters, Danteis closer to the position of Albert.

In any case, having dwelt at length on the insatiability of the basedesire for riches, Dante addresses the question of whether our desirefor knowledge, too, since it continues to grow as knowledge isacquired, is not similarly base. Dante begins his answer by assertingthat “the supreme desire of each thing, the primal one given byits nature, is to return to its principle” or cause, and heillustrates this proposition by the images of a traveller on anunfamiliar road, who imagines each house he encounters to be the innhe seeks, and the desires of youth, which focus first on an apple or apet bird, then evolve to encompass love and prosperity [Conv.4.12.14–16]. But while this may seem to evoke Thomas’sview of a single desire which seeks to grow continuously toward unionwith God, Dante’s point is that the path to fulfillment involvesmultiple desires and the attainment of multiple perfections[Conv. 4.13.1–2]:

…the desire for knowledge cannot be said togrow inthe proper sense, even if as was stated earlier it doesexpand in a certain way. This is because anything which growsin the proper sense is always one; the desire for knowledge is notalways one but is many—when one is completed, another comesalong—so that properly speaking, its expansion is not growth buta progression from something small to something large. For if I desireto know the principles of natural things, no sooner do I know themthan this desire is satisfied and fulfilled. And if I subsequentlydesire to know the what and the how of each of these principles, thisis another, new desire, the occurrence of which does nothing to takeaway the perfection to which the other desire led me; and thisexpansion is not a cause of imperfection, but of greater perfection orcompleteness.

Thomas can speak of the natural desire to know as a force likegravity, whose attraction intensifies as it approaches its object [SCG3.25.13]. In contrast Dante’s insistence on types and stages ofknowing may seem almost perverse, a matter of emphasizing the stagesof the mind’s ascent rather than a single, unified desire thatleads it forward from stage to stage. But what is at stake for Danteis the need to acknowledge human ends as having a definite value oftheir own, and this need will play an equally important role inDante’s other major philosophical works.

5. TheDe vulgari eloquentia

During the same period in which Dante was writing theConvivio he was also composing theDe vulgarieloquentia. Written in Latin, this treatise was, like theConvivio, abandoned sometime around 1307. In it, however,many of the lengthy discussions of ethics and politics from book 4 ofConvivio are put in the service of a discussion of thecapacity of poets possessing bothscientia etingenium—that is, those who possess both knowledge andgenius [DVE 2.1.8]—to use an illustrious vernacularlanguage to “melt the hearts of human beings, so as to make theunwilling willing and the willing unwilling” [1.17.4].Underwriting this purpose, Dante offers a wholly unique treatment ofthe origins and development of language in book 1 before proceeding inbook 2 to set down specific rules that ought to govern the properpoetic deployment of this illustrious vernacular.

There are nineteen chapter divisions to part one. Chapters 1–3lay the groundwork by discussing the basic purposes of human language.Here, Dante quite rightly recognizes that, even were we to regardintellectual content as immaterial, human beings are neverthelessconstituted in such a way as to derive intellectual content initiallyfrom sensation directly (as in the case of induction arriving at afirst principle) or through the sensory communication of intellectualcontent from one human being to another (as in the case of dialecticalor rhetorical engagement). Languages thus convey thinking but do so ina material medium (e.g., sound produced by one person’s vocalcords and vibrating another person’s receiving organ of theear). Indeed, for Dante, this use of language is at the very core ofwhat it means to be human since, unlike other animals and also unlikeangels and demons, “in order to communicate their mentalconceptions (conceptiones) to one another, men had to havesome kind of rational and sensory sign…rational because itwould both arise from and lead to reason…[and sensory] sincenothing can be transferred from one reasoning mind to another exceptby sensory means.” [1.3.2].

Chapters 4–10 then proceed to offer an investigation of theorigins of the diversity of vernaculars in the world. The view Danteoffers in these chapters focuses on both the creation of Adam andAdam’s first speech as well as on the story of the tower ofBabel. (Aspects of the account offered here are later revised in thePilgrim’s discussion of this subject with Adam inParadiso 26—see Aleksander [2016], 240–41). Inchapters 11–15, Dante describes his supposed hunt among theexisting Italian vernaculars of his day for an illustrious version ofItalian. But rather than locating an illustrious vernacular among anyof the existing modes of Italian, he mainly heaps scorn on most of theregional vernaculars, including his own native Tuscan vernacular. Forinstance, Dante writes that “the Tuscans, who, renderedsenseless by some aberration of their own” [1.13.1] merelypersist in drunken raving [in hac ebrietate baccantur,1.13.2] about the excellence of their “foul jargon”[turpiloquio, 1.13.3].

There is one important exception to Dante’s scorn for thefourteen or so vernaculars that he reviews, and it is the vernacularof the Bolognese. Dante claims that the Bolognese seem to “speaka more beautiful language than most” [1.15.2] because theirvernacular, unlike that of other regions of Italy, borrows from othervernaculars in such a way that it is “tempered by thecombination of opposites” [1.15.5]. Unfortunately for them,however, Dante explains that his praise for their language is notabsolute but is only relative to his disdain for the sad state of theother existing vernaculars. After all, he says, had the dialect of theBolognese been absolutely the best of the existing Italianvernaculars, why would praiseworthy poets such as Guido Guinizelli,Guido Ghislieri, Fabruzzo, and Onesto have abandoned it?

In 1.16, Dante turns from his hunt for an illustrious vernacular amongexisting modes of Italian to his own definition of the mode ofvernacular against which all other Italian vernaculars ought to bejudged. Here Dante draws an implicit analogy between what is he isseeking in the case of the Italian vernaculars and the ways in whichwe are able to identify through intellectual insight a law orprinciple that provides a determination of what is good or bad withrespect to some distinct capacity for action. Dante reasons that justas we are able to arrive at conceptions of “virtue” thatought to govern our conduct, so too we ought be able to arrive at anunderstanding of the mode of language that is best suited to ourpractical needs as language users. As he will eventually make clear in2.1–2, this mode of language would be appropriate only for thebest of uses by the best individuals. That is, this mode would only beappropriate for use by those who are equipped by their own perfectionto generate virtues in others. Moreover, this mode would only expressand produce the virtues that correspond to the tripartite aspects of ahuman soul: prowess in arms, which pertains to the vegetal part of thesoul’s determination to seek that which is useful; love, whichpertains to a rectitude of the appetitive or animal part of the soul;and rectitude of will, which pertains to the rational part of the soul[2.2].

For Dante there are four main features of any mode of expressionappropriate for these tasks. Dante identifies these four features as avernacular’s illustriousness, cardinality, courtliness, andcuriality. That such a language cangenerate virtues in humanbeings is precisely what Dante means in 1.17 when he calls such alanguage “illustrious” since such a language is“sublime in both learning and power” [1.17.2]. And, in1.18, Dante explains that such a language is “cardinal,”or “pivotal,” (cardinalis) because it“plants” (plantat) what is best and peculiar tospecific local vernaculars and “removes”(exstirpat) what is disreputable [1.18.1]. It is“courtly” or “aulic” (aulicus)because “it is common to all and the property of none”[1.18.2]. And it is “curial” (curialis) becauseit has been weighed by the scales of justice in a court unified eitherunder the rule of a singular monarch or—as is the case forDante’s Italian contemporaries, who lack a unified court in thissense—according to a court unified by “the gracious lightof reason” [1.18.5]. This last criterion thus suggests that sucha vernacular also depends upon and expresses the principles of justrule since, according to Dante, “the essence of being curial isno more than providing a balanced assessment of whatever has to bedealt with” [1.18.4].

Dante’s style of argumentation in theDe vulgarieloquentia is notably assertorial and seems to beg the questionof the grounds for his own authority to offer the principlessummarized above. To illustrate the significance of this style ofargumentation, it is worth backing up for a moment to see that priorto defining the four main features of any illustrious vernacular,Dante had already hunted for an illustrious vernacular among roughlyfourteen existing regional species of the Italian mode of thevernacular. During the course of this hunt, however, Dante offeredjudgments regarding the deficiencies of various aesthetic features ofthese existing modes of the Italian vernacular as if he had alreadyestablished the very principles that he articulated only after havingabandoned that hunt. For instance, after heaping scorn on thevernacular habits of his fellow Tuscans, Dante proceeds to thefollowing evaluation of the Genoese:

If there is anyone who thinks that what I have just said about theTuscans could not be applied to the Genoese, let him consider onlythat if, through forgetfulness, the people of Genoa lost the use ofthe letterz, they would either have to fall silent for everor invent a new language for themselves. Forz forms thegreater part of their vernacular, and it is, of course a letter thatcannot be pronounced without considerable harshness.

The claim that an illustrious vernacular would not include frequentuses of the phonemez is puzzling on the surface and seems tocall for a justification much more robust than the judgment thatz is a harsh sound. Indeed, Dante seems somewhat aware ofthis problem, for in 1.6.2–3 he had already staked out his ownauthority in undertaking his investigation by explaining that:

whoever is so misguided as to think that the place of his birth is themost delightful spot under the sun may also believe that his ownlanguage—his mother tongue, that is—is pre-eminent amongall others; and, as a result he may believe that his language was alsoAdam’s. To me, however, the whole world is a homeland, like thesea to fish—though I drank from the Arno before cutting myteeth, and love Florence so much that, because I loved her sufferexile unjustly—and I will weight the balance of my judgment morewith reason than with [sensation].

Taken to an extreme, this comment suggests that the basis of hisauthority to evaluate the quality of diverse vernaculars is his“exile.” Read in this way, Dante’s unjust exile fromthe imperfect community of Florence perhaps suggests a reversal ofAdam’s exile from Eden (or of the hubris that resulted inNimrod’s linguistic isolation illustrated inInferno31)—an interpretation that is also justified by the very factthat in this same section Dante proceeds from this comment on his ownsuitability to judge Italian vernaculars immediately to a discussionof theforma locutionis of Adamic language.

However, these claims also permit a more modest interpretation ofDante’s self-justification. In the first place, Dante’sclaim to authority by virtue of his exile from Florence suggests thatthe legitimacy of an illustrious vernacular is not simply rooted in agame of numbers—that is, the illustriousness of a vernacular isnot simply a product of how many people use it in a given region ofthe world. Quite to the contrary, since the proper use of such avernacular requires that a poet possesses bothscientia etingenium, those who are legitimate users of an illustriousvernacular are likely to be few in number, and the ways in which theyought to employ such a language are similarly constrained. Moreover,both Dante’s warnings about the problems of bias in ourattitudes toward our own linguistic conventions as well as his pointthat the legitimacy of his own evaluation is rooted in his attentionto reason rather than merely to the senses provides a hint that Danteregards the legitimacy of poetic employments of an illustriousvernacular as grounded in philosophy’s authoritativeness withrespect to ethical and political matters.

To see how this hint bears out it will help to recall the points thatDante offered in theConvivio about the relationship betweenphilosophical, theological, and secular political authority. As notedabove, inConvivio 4 Dante argues that even anemperor’s authority must be circumscribed insofar asthe art of ruling and the laws it creates cannot overrule rationaljudgment based on philosophical understanding of the laws of nature.But, in fact, Dante pursues this line of thinking even further inConvivio 4.6.16–18 by explaining the practicalnecessity of the unification of imperial and philosophicalauthority.

the authority of the supreme philosopher referred to here [Aristotle]is utterly valid [or, more literally “is invested with completepower”]. Philosophical authority is not opposed to imperialauthority; but the latter without the former is dangerous, and theformer without the latter is weak, as it were, not in itself butbecause of the disorder that results among the people; so that onecombined with the other is highly useful and most valid. And so it iswritten in the Book of Wisdom: “Love the light of wisdom, allyou who are before the people”; in other words, unitephilosophical authority and imperial authority, for the sake of goodand perfect rule.

Later in the text, Dante is even more explicit about the priority ofphilosophy’s authority to that of the emperor with respect tojudgments concerning the political necessities dictated by humannature. InConvivio 4.9.14–16, for instance, Danteoffers the following claim:

what we have discussed with regard to the various arts can be observedin the imperial art; for there are conventions in that art, too, whichare pure arts, as for example laws on marriage, domestic servants,military service, or successors in public office: in these we arecompletely subject to the emperor, without doubt or hesitation. Thereare other laws which follow on nature, so to speak, as in establishingwhen a man is old enough to manage his own affairs, and where theseare concerned we are not wholly subject. There are many others whichappear to have some relation to the imperial art—and whoeverbelieves that the emperor’s opinion in this area isauthoritative is and was deluded—as in defining what constitutesearly adulthood and nobility, over which no imperial judgment must beaccepted merely because it is the emperor’s: thus, may thatwhich is Caesar’s be rendered unto Caesar, and may that which isGod’s be rendered unto God. Consequently, there is no obligationto believe or assent to the emperor Nero, who said that earlyadulthood was bodily beauty and strength, but [instead] to him, aphilosopher [Aristotle], who said that early adulthood is the peak ofnatural life.

In other words, Dante’s argument inDe vulgarieloquentia ultimately depends upon and reinforces the claims oftheConvivio that just rule requires the unification ofphilosophical authority with that of the authority to establish andenforce laws. Philosophy qua philosophy is impotent in the task ofguiding all but those who have already achieved both ethical andintellectual virtues. The emperor, on the other hand, can indeedeither benefit or corrupt his subjects, but the emperor’slegitimacy depends on his recognition of the priority ofphilosophy’s claims to the knowledge of the principles ofjustice and the other human virtues since such matters are dictatedmore by human nature than by local conventions. What theDevulgari eloquentia adds to Dante’s emerging politicalphilosophy in theConvivio, however, is explicit attention tothe significance of poetic/rhetorical discourse as a tool to be usedon behalf of the project of unifying people under the joint rule ofphilosophy and empire—a perspective that it is easy to imagineplayed a significant role in his choice to turn back to poetry as hisprimary vehicle for addressing his fellow Italians in their ownvernacular in theDivine Comedy.

6. TheMonarchia

Although there remains some dispute about the date of theMonarchia’s composition (probably after 1314), it isclear that, unlike theConvivio and theDe vulgarieloquentia, theMonarchia was completed and disseminatedin Dante’s own lifetime—though, evidently, it was notwidely circulated until the late 1320’s, when it came to bedeployed as propaganda supporting Louis IV’s claim to the titleof Holy Roman Emperor [Cassell (2004), 33–49].

Regardless of the uses to which it was later put, theMonarchia is in its own way as idiosyncratic as theConvivio. Its purpose, foreshadowed in the discussion ofempire inConvivio IV, is to demonstrate the necessity of asingle ruling power, reverent toward but independent of the Church,capable of ordering the will of collective humanity in peace andconcord. Under such a power the potential intellect of humanity can befully actuated—the intellect, that is, of collective humanity,existent throughout the world, acting as one. For just as a multitudeof species must continually be generated to actualize the fullpotentiality of prime matter, so the full intellectual capacity ofhumanity cannot be realized at one time nor in a single individual[Mon. 1.3.3–8]. Here Dante adds his own furtherparticularization of this Aristotelian doctrine [De Anima3.5, 430a10–15], asserting that no single household, community,or city can bring it to realization. The ordering of the collectivehuman will to the goal of realizing its intellectual potentialrequires universal peace [1.4], and this in turn requires a singleordering power through whose authority humanity may achieve unity andso realize the intention and likeness of God [1.8].

The basis of this argument for empire is evidently the first sentenceof the Prologue to Thomas’ commentary on theMetaphysics, where he declares that when several things areordered to a single end, one of them must govern, “as thePhilosopher teaches in hisPolitics” [Thomas,Exp.Metaph., Proemium; Aristotle,Politics 1.5,1254a–55a]. For Thomas this is only an analogy, a way ofintroducing the theme of order as it applies to the soul and itspursuit of happiness. The passage he cites from thePoliticsis concerned only with the rudiments of hierarchy; the idea of“ordering of things to one end” is present only byimplication, and Aristotle makes no attempt to develop itsmetaphysical implications. Dante, however, seems clearly to associatewith Aristotle, or with Thomas’ reference to Aristotle, the ideaof “a political organization which leads in its way to‘beatitudo’ for the whole human race”[Minio-Paluello, 74–77]. One may wonder if Dante’serroneous impression of the Aristotelian passage, which he citesdirectly with no reference to Thomas in both theConvivio andtheMonarchia [Conv. 4.4.5;Mon.1.5.2–3], is not a symptom of his intense need to draw thePhilosopher into support of his view of world empire.

The second of theMonarchia’s three books deals withthe great example of Rome, describing the city’s providentialrole in world history, largely by way of citations from Romanliterature aimed at demonstrating the consistent dedication of Romanpower to the public good, and the conformity of Romanimperium with the order of nature and the will of God.

The third book deals with the crucial issue of the relationshipbetween political and ecclesiastical authority. Dante argues onvarious grounds that power in the temporal realm is neither derivedfrom nor dependent on spiritual authority, though it benefits from thepower of the Papacy to bless its activity. These arguments consistlargely in refutations of traditional claims for the temporalauthority of the Papacy, but the final chapter makes the argument onpositive grounds and in terms that recall the arguments first laiddown in theConvivio. Since the human being consists of souland body, its nature partakes of both the corruptible and theincorruptible. Uniting two natures, human existence must necessarilybe ordered to the goals of both these natures [Mon.3.16.7–9]:

Ineffable providence has thus set before us two goals to aim at: i.e.happiness in this life, which consists in the exercise of our ownpowers and is figured in the earthly paradise; and happiness in theeternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of the vision of God (towhich our own powers cannot raise us except with the help ofGod’s light) and which is signified by the heavenly paradise.Now these two kinds of happiness must be reached by different means,as representing different ends. For we attain the first through theteachings of philosophy, provided that we follow them putting intopractice the moral and intellectual virtues; whereas we attain thesecond through spiritual teachings which transcend human reason,provided that we follow them putting into practice the theologicalvirtues, i.e. faith, hope, and charity. These ends and the means toattain them have been shown to us on the one hand by human reason,which has been entirely revealed to us by the philosophers, and on theother by the Holy Spirit…

This is Dante’s most explicit, uncompromising claim for theautonomy of reason, reinforced by the entire world-historical argumentof theMonarchia and constituting its final justification forworld empire. Dante here goes well beyond Augustine’s sense ofthe stabilizing function of empire, and eliminates any hint of theanti-Roman emphasis in Augustine’s separation of the earthly andheavenly cities. In the final sentences of theMonarchia thetemporal monarch becomes, like the aspiring intellect of theConvivio, the uniquely privileged beneficiary of a divinebounty which, “without any intermediary, descends into him fromthe Fountainhead of universal authority” [Mon.3.16.15]. Like the Averroistic reasoning of his earlier claim thatonly under a world empire can humanity realize its intellectualdestiny, this crowning claim shows Dante appropriating Aristotle tothe service of a unique and almost desperate vision of empire as aredemptive force.

7. TheCommedia (TheDivine Comedy)

Few texts have generated such deep and abiding interest as has theDivine Comedy in its nearly centuries of transmission. Inlarge part, this wealth of attention is a function of the way in whichtheDivine Comedy seems to gather, in what is often called an“encyclopedic” fashion, the entire edifice of classicalpoetry, medieval knowledge (including but not limited to itsreflections on ethics, political theory, metaphysics, theology,biblical exegesis, literary history, rhetoric, and aesthetics) and tocall out to its contemporary and future readers with the perennialdemand that they make its encyclopedic interests meaningful in theirown lives. In part because of this seemingly encyclopedic character,but also because so many of the poetic stratagems of theDivineComedy involve irony and outright paradox, any attempt tosummarize its philosophical content or significance is to a certaindegree an act of folly. In fact all of the themes mentioned in thediscussion of Dante’s three expository treatises aboveconstitute significant themes in Dante’s magnum opus. For thisreason, rather than attempt to summarize theDivineComedy’s treatment of these themes, it may be more usefulto offer a brief comment on what may be at stake in the question ofthe relationship between the philosophical content of theDivineComedy and its poetic form.

At the outset, it is worth dispensing with the notion that theDivine Comedy rejects philosophy in favor of what appears tobe a mystical undertaking. It is, of course, quite true that theDivine Comedy condemns even Aristotle, the “master ofthose who know,” to Hell [Inf. 4.131; all translationsof theDivine Comedy in this entry are those of RobertDurling (1996–2011)]—specifically to the portion of Limboin which souls of the noble pagans are punished only insofar as“without hope [they] live in desire” [Inf. 4.42].However, even if philosophical perfection is, in itself, insufficientfor salvation according to theDivine Comedy’sspiritual economy, this is not to say that salvation is possiblewithout philosophy. In other words, the question of what philosophymeans within the world described by theDivine Comedyprobably should not rest upon a superficial identification of itexclusively with the fates it imagines even for those who are tooeasily taken to be its symbols.

Indeed, already in theConvivio, Dante presents a complicatedunderstanding of the meaning and scope of philosophy. There, ladyphilosophy was depicted in books 2 and 3 as offering human beings thecapacity for contemplative unity with God through their devotion toher. Hence, it is worth recalling a passage mentioned above in whichDante maintains that

it should be understood that the gaze of this woman was so liberallyordained for us, not only for seeing the countenance that she revealsto us, but for desiring to attain the things she keeps hidden. Thus,because through her many of those things are seen by means of reason,and consequentlycan be seen, while without her they seeminexplicable and miraculous, so we believe through her that everymiracle may have its reason in a higher intellect and consequently ispossible. And here our good faith has its origin; from which comeshope, which is desire for what is foreseen; and through this arisesthe act of charity. Through these three virtues one ascends tophilosophize in that celestial Athens, where the Stoics andPeripatetics and Epicureans, by the light of eternal truth, in asingle will, concur in total concord one with the other.[3.13–14]

In this light, it is also worth noting that Dante turns toward theauthority of Aristotle inConvivio 4 only after having“refrained” from pursuing his desire for thedonnagentile who embodies philosophy [4.1.8]. And it is noteworthy,too, that Dante appeals to Aristotle’s authority not about thespiritual and metaphysical matters that were the subjects ofdiscussion inConvivio 2–3, but about those thatconcern the definition of nobility and the role of philosophy inethical and political issues—issues that are pertinent only tothe question of the pursuit of temporal rather than spiritual goods.In other words, the tension between the role of philosophy in theactive life and its potential role for the contemplative life isbroached in theConvivio in such a way that hints that theDivine Comedy, too, may be structured by the tension betweenits ambitions to make legitimate use of philosophy in these tworelated but fundamentally different manners—ways that may evenbe in tension with each other insofar as pursuit of one end maysometimes seem to preclude or require the abandonment of pursuit ofthe other.

There are, however, two major complications that hinder any directassessment of theDivine Comedy’s treatment of thenature of philosophy. First, there is the question of the how tointerpret the explicit doctrinal claims of the various speakers in theDivine Comedy.Purgatorio 16, for instance,introduces Marco the Lombard on the terrace of wrath. Marco’sspeech to Dante’s pilgrim touches on a variety of philosophicalsubjects, including a refutation of astral determinism. But theculminating lines of his speech do little more than offer a briefsummary of the political philosophy espoused inConvivio 4andMonarchia. Specifically, Marco offers the followingdiagnosis of the cause of civil strife in the Italy of Dante’sday (Purg., 16.106–12):

Soleva Roma, che ’l buon mondo feo,
due soli aver, che l’una e l’altra strada
facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.
L’un l’altro ha spento, ed è giunta la spade
col pasturale, e l’un con l’altro insieme
per viva forza mal convien che vada
però che, giunti, l’un l’altro non teme.

[Rome, which made the good world,
used to have two suns that made visible
the two paths, of the world and of God.
One sun has extinguished the other,
and the sword is joined to the shepherd’s staff,
and it is ill for those two to be violently forced together,
for, joined, neither fears the other.]

Accordingly, read in light of theConvivio and theMonarchia, when Marco asserts in 16.91–96 that either aguide or reins are necessary to turn human appetite away from basepleasures so that the human being may be genuinely happy, we mayunderstand Dante to be endorsing the view that the best case scenariofor the cultivation of justice involves a unification of the politicalauthority of the emperor, whose laws operate as “reins” onhuman desire, with the authority of the intrinsic“guidance” that philosophy provides in its concerns withmatters of ethics.

Nevertheless, as straightforward as Marco’s speech seems to beat this juncture, the careful reader will keep in mind that thespeaker may be undergoing penance because his own sense of devotion tojustice fostered in him wrath towards others who did not share hisvalues—and in an unjust world, this would mean thatMarco’s love of valor [16.47] would have made charity difficultfor him. In other words, even though it is true that Marco’sspeech recapitulates key arguments ofConvivio 4 andMonarchia, the dramatic context for the speech introducessome doubt as to whether we are meant to understand this speech as anunqualified endorsement for those positions. And, of course, thisproblem—the interpretive problem posed by the significance ofthe dramatic context for the various speeches in theDivineComedy—is an inescapable feature of the hermeneuticframework within which philosophical (and theological) doctrines areoffered for our consideration.

The second basic complication that hinders any straightforwardassessment of theDivine Comedy’s treatment of thenature of philosophy is that Dante’s choice to deploy Beatriceas the ultimate and explicit guarantor of the veracity and salvificpotential of the text invokes and transforms the meaning of his entirecorpus of writings. That is, because Beatrice anddonnagentile are simultaneously real women and yet also allegoricaltropes as early as theVita Nuova, theDivineComedy’s reinvention of Beatrice calls upon the reader toreturn to Dante’s earlier texts while also hindering any clearsense of what those texts have to offer in terms of their claims onthe reader’s interpretation of theDivine Comedy.Moreover, it must also be kept in mind that theDivineComedy’s pilgrim is a fictionalized depiction of the sameperson who, relative to the setting of theDivine Comedy, hadalready written theVita Nuova but had not yet begun writingtheConvivio, theDe vulgari eloquentia, and theMonarchia, and this also contributes to the strangerelationship that theDivine Comedy constructs between itselfand Dante’s prior writings. Indeed, a great deal of scholarlyattention and debate has centered around a handful of passages in theDivine Comedy that may be considered palinodes toVitaNuova andConvivio [see, for example, Freccero 1973;Hollander 1975, 1990; Jacoff, 1980; Pertile 1993; Scott 1990, 1991,1995; Ascoli 1995; Dronke 1997; and Aleksander 2011a].

However, even if these two complications both hinder anystraightforward assessment of theDivine Comedy’sunderstanding of the nature of philosophy, they permit a more modestconclusion about one of the fundamental features of the poem. That is,if it is safe to say that the dramatic context that unfolds in therelationship between Beatrice and the pilgrim troubles our attempts tounderstand theDivine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy,then it is nevertheless also safe to say that there is a philosophicallesson to be derived from theway in which the text troublesour attempts to understand it. In particular, even while theDivine Comedy explicitly defends the superiority of acontemplative path to salvation, nevertheless the poem also stimulatesthe will of the reader by confronting her with the unsettlingrealization that the doctrinal content defended in the poem’sexplicitly philosophical register is to a certain extent illusory inits veracity and therefore of questionable value to the attempt tofollow the intellectual path that is mapped out in that register.Fortunately, this illusory nature of the doctrinal content may beirrelevant to the way in which the reader’s engagement with thepoem actually generates meaning through a process that does, in anycase, always demand rigorous philosophical thinking. This is becausethe poem is structured by the conviction that there can be no hope ofachieving any of our possible perfections without constantly exposingourselves, especially in our shared activity of reading, to theanxious experience of wonder—an experience that is heightenedand sustained by simultaneously striving for philosophical rigor andacknowledging it limitations.

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