So far I have described different approaches to the vertical reading that have raised difficulties in trying to discover some commonality among the cantos xiii. I do not think that there is a single overarching critical exposition such as to reveal some central message or interpretative key or unifying principle not only present in, but also specific and distinctive, indeed exclusive, to these cantos (pace Viola). However, I think it is possible, as others have shown, to detect some less comprehensive connections or linking threads.
Envy
The presence of envy in cantos xiii of Inferno and Purgatorio is obvious and needs no lengthy elaboration here. One interesting if somewhat oblique
connection which has often been noted is the simile in the description of the souls being purged of envy, whose eyelids are sewn shut with iron wire ‘…come a sparvier selvaggio / si fa però che queto non dimora’ [as we do to a wild sparrowhawk because it will not be still] (Purg., xiii. 71–72).
The blindness is linked with the blindness Pier della Vigna suffered as a punishment, and the reference to the sparrowhawk may be connected to Inferno xiii through reference to the treatise De arte venandi cum avibus, written by Pier’s master, the Emperor Frederick II.49 However, this appears to be a later observation, not one made in the earlier commentaries, and first appearing in Scartazzini’s commentary in 1875.50
Can envy be linked with Paradiso xiii? Equally obvious is the fact that Paradiso will be no place for sin, and positing a connection to Inferno and Purgatorio through a principle of correction or opposition to sin may simply be such a generality as to apply to any and all cantos in the poem. Jacopo della Lana’s introduction, his nota, to Purgatorio xiii discusses envy, and refers to Aristotle’s Rhetoric book 2 as his source and authority, repeating a lot of what is there. Envy is looking at the achievements, the progress of lo prossimo, the person next to us. He says:
Or è da sapere che invidia non cade tra quelli che le sue facoltadi sono molto distanti, ma cade intra quelli li quali sono per gloria vicini; e questi avviene perché quelli che sono cosí distanti non si aprovano da adeguarsi in gloria insieme. E però non si truova invidia da uno villano a uno re, imperquello che sono troppo distanti in facultà; similemente non si truova invidia tra quelli che sono in grande distanza di luogo, come de lo re d’Assiria a quello d’Inghilterra; similemente non si truova invidia tra quelli che sono distanti in tempo, come essere stato al tempo d’Aristotile ad essere mo’; ancora nullo ha invidia a quello ch’elli sa che non è sufficiente, sí come l’uomo ad essere uccello.51
49 The inter-cantica for Purgatorio xiii of Durling and Martinez mentions this (Durling and Martinez, II, p. 221).
50 The Dartmouth Dante Project (http://dante.dartmouth.edu) gives Scartazzini as the earliest reference to the ‘De arte venandi cum avibus’, in his comment on Purg., xiii.
70–72. Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, ed. by G. A. Scartazzini, 6th edn, rev. by G.
Vandelli (Milan: Hoepli, 1911), p. 474. Scartazzini refers to Frederick’s De arte venandi cum avibus (II. 53). A more recent edition based on a particular manuscript gives II. 29 as the chapter on the method of sewing up of the birds’ eyelids, ‘De modo ciliandi’, mentioning a ‘filo’ [thread], but not specifying what material it is made from. Federico II di Svevia, De arte venandi cum avibus, ed. by Anna Laura Trombetti Budriesi, 3rd edn (Rome: Laterza, 2001), pp. 312–15.
51 Jacopo della Lana, Commento alla “Commedia”, ed. by Mirko Volpi, 4 vols (Rome: Salerno, 2009), II, p. 1193.
[We should know that envy does not occur between those whose powers are very distant, but occurs between those who are close in glory; and this happens because those who are distant do not strive to make themselves equal in glory. So envy is not found between a king and a peasant, because they are too distant in power, similarly envy is not found between those distant in place, like the king of Assyria and the king of England; similarly envy is not found between those distant in time, such as living in the time of Aristotle and living now; and again nothing has envy for that which it knows is inferior, such as a man wanting to be a bird.]
So, the peasant doesn’t envy the king, nor distant kings each other, nor the man the bird (pace Petrarch). Aristotle doesn’t mention kings (he simply refers to ‘great men’), but the interesting points here for the cantos xiii are precisely proximity and the example given (added by Lana, not in Aristotle) of kings. The absence of envy permits Aquinas in Paradiso xiii not so much to praise but simply to recognise, and then explain the superiority of Solomon in terms of ‘regal prudenza’ [the prudence of a king] (Par., xiii.
104). In the (mean) spirit of Sapia we might notice that Thomas also spends some time, perhaps just a bit more than he does on Solomon, outlining the different and, it is perhaps implied, superior wisdom of the philosophers and theologians. The explanation given by Thomas is one of categorisation, so that being first in ‘regal prudenza’, does not make Solomon wiser overall than Christ or Adam. There is also perhaps a touch of humour in the way that Thomas almost plays down ‘regal prudenza’ as compared to the more abstruse intellectual questions which Solomon did not ask to know about (Par., xiii. 97–102). In the terms used by Lana and Aristotle (putting aside the fact that being in Heaven means perfection anyway) we might even note that this explanation provides in a way the distance that we are told excludes envy, as their respective wisdoms belong to very different branches of knowledge.
The biblical account of Solomon’s request has some points of interest for the other cantos xiii:
At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I shall give you’. And Solomon said, ‘Thou hast shown great and steadfast love to thy servant David my father, because he walked before thee in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward thee; and thou hast kept for him this great and steadfast love, and hast given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people whom thou hast chosen, a great people, that
cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this thy great people?’ It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honour, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days’. (i Kings 3.5–14)
It may be rather tenuous, contorted even, but it is possible to draw a connection between the things which Solomon rejected, and the most prominent souls of Inferno and Purgatorio xiii. Long life and riches: Pier accumulated a great deal of the latter, but lost the former. Death to enemies:
Sapia, not wise like Solomon, desired the death, not simply of enemies but even of those who should have been friends. The biblical text does have a lesson which might arguably be specific to the souls of the other cantos xiii.