The vertical reading is a problematic proposition which touches on some of the most fundamental assumptions about Dante and his text, as well as the critical study of literature in general. As a critical approach it is open to the charge of putting the cart before the horse insofar as it begins with a conclusion: that there is some special connection between similarly numbered cantos in the Commedia, and that attention to this fact will uncover hitherto unnoticed details and insights which are in some way peculiar to the cantos concerned, both individually and as a group. The reader is charged with proving this by finding these connections before knowing whether they actually exist. ‘Seek and ye shall find’ (Matthew 7.7). Is it worse then to find nothing, or to find something which is not really there (even if some people take the view that the latter is the very business of literary criticism)? I note that some of my questions about the approach have been shared by other readers in the series, including the editors, but I would like at least to signal them again as I believe they are important.
For the spoken version of this paper I considered various possible subtitles; ‘Strange but True: Sights and Sounds in Dante’s 13th Cantos’, or
‘Improbable Interlocutors’, or ‘Don’t Jump to Conclusions, Even if You Think You See One’, or the flippant but possibly more apposite ‘Would you Adam and Eve it?’ (rhyming slang for ‘would you believe it?’). Since the vertical reading approach applied to the whole of the Commedia is new, I also shared some of the ways in which I had tried to look for possible connections, albeit without success much of the time, and I will include those here as I think
© Robert Wilson, CC BY 4.0 http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0100.03
they have some interest for the project as a whole. Following a brief survey of previous lecturae of the individual cantos, I will consider some further problems, and conclude by suggesting a few possible links across these cantos, though I leave the question of plausibility open.
There have been some readings of individual sets of cantos before, which have been listed in the introduction to the first volume of Vertical Readings, but there is no previous attempt to apply the method to the whole poem.1 In that respect a full set of vertical readings shares a feature of the standard Lectura Dantis in obliging readers to address some of the less popular cantos in the interest of comprehensiveness. The self-contained study focussed on the isolated canto guarantees at least the possibility of a kind of equal treatment, however the vertical reading, positing as it does connections across three cantos, introduces a sort of unevenness, as it is clear that the approach works better in some cases than in others. We might say that the connective thread ‘…risplende in una parte più e meno altrove’
[shines forth in one place more and less elsewhere] (Par., i. 2–3). This is also evident in the simple fact that there have been prior readings of this sort for some groups of cantos, whilst others, to put it mildly, have not immediately lent themselves to this kind of reading.
Before we begin reading linked cantos there is a fundamental issue to be addressed, which was raised by Richard Kay in 1992, and noted again in the introduction to the first volume in this series.2 Kay explains that he was prompted to pursue this approach by the very well-known detail that all three cantiche of the Commedia end on the same word, ‘stelle’. We may note here that he opts for the term ‘parallel’ rather than ‘vertical’ in considering similarities. Taking the final word in each cantica of course gives a numbered set of Inferno xxiv, Purgatorio xxxiii and Paradiso xxxiii. This approach would exclude Inferno i, which fits well enough with the common understanding of the organisation of the Commedia that posits Inferno i as proemial to the entire poem and Inferno ii as the real beginning of Inferno. Following this methodology we would be looking at Inferno xiii, Purgatorio xii and Paradiso xii, or Inferno xiv, Purgatorio xiii and Paradiso xiii for the present discussion.
As it happens, Kay includes an example drawn from the first of these
1 George Corbett and Heather Webb, ‘Introduction’, in Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’:
Volume 1, ed. by George Corbett and Heather Webb (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015), pp. 1–11 (p. 2). They list existing studies of the cantos vi, vii, x, xi, xv, xvi, xxv, xxvi and xxvii.
2 Richard Kay, ‘Parallel Cantos in Dante’s Commedia’, Res publica litterarum 15 (1992), 109–
13; Corbett and Webb, ‘Introduction’, pp. 3–4.
groupings. Pier della Vigna (Inf., xiii) is contrasted with St Dominic (Par., xii): both rhetoricians of different sorts, serving different masters, and the difference between them, pride, is revealed by Purgatorio xii, exemplified in the reliefs described there. Furthermore, Pier’s speech is characterised by self-praise while Dominic is praised by another, St Bonaventure, from the ‘rival’ order of Franciscans no less.3 Kay explains that, despite having established a great number of correspondences of this type, his purpose here is simply to demonstrate that the approach is able to yield fruit, and he provides ten examples to that end. These also illustrate the range of types of connections which might be posited, from simple verbal repetition or echo to looser groups of referents (which may be similar or contrasting), or instances where parallel reading in different directions has one canto reveal underlying principles in another, or provide a progressive clarification and so on.4 The real difficulty which is beginning to emerge here is establishing the permissible range of types and methods of connection and deciding where to draw the line before we are pulled into a six stages of separation scenario in which everything is interconnected to everything else. Verbal echoes, rhyme repetitions, related characters, the interwoven nature of the text, all make for a particularly dense infratextuality. It is not surprising that such a highly self-referential work as the Commedia has a well-established critical tradition of reading Dante with Dante, modelled in many ways on the practices of reading scriptural texts.5
Another, more comprehensive, parallel reading is found in the second volume of the three-volume commentary and translation of the Commedia by Robert Durling and Ron Martinez.6 At the end of the notes on every canto is an ‘inter-cantica’ section in which they discuss the poem’s ‘system of recall of the earlier cantiche, often in the form of parallels between similarly numbered cantos’.7 The first such section largely examines links
3 Kay, p. 112.
4 Ibid., pp. 111–12. The canto groups for these ten examples are (in order of discussion) 1.
Inf., xxxi, Purg. and Par., xxx; 2. Inf., xxii, Purg. and Par., xxi; 3. Inf., xvii, Purg. and Par., xvi; 4. Inf., xxiii, Purg. and Par., xxii; 5. Inf., vii, Purg. and Par., vi; 6. Inf., xxix, Purg. and Par., xxviii; 7. Inf., v, Purg. and Par., iv; 8. Inf., xvi, Purg. and Par., xv; 9. Inf., xiii, Purg. and Par., xii; 10. Inf., xxvi, Purg. and Par., xxv.
5 See Amilcare A. Iannucci, ‘Autoesegesi dantesca. La tecnica dell’ “episodio” parallelo’, Lettere Italiane 33 (1981), 305–28. Noted too by Corbett and Webb, ‘Introduction’, p. 4.
6 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, ed., trans. and notes by Robert M.
Durling and Ronald L. Martinez, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996–2011), II (later cited as Durling and Martinez).
7 Ibid., II, p. 33.
between Purgatorio i and Inferno i, although the discussion is not bound by a rigid adherence to same numbered cantos.8 There is sometimes a matching similar to that proposed by Kay, so that the note on Purgatorio ii, for example, draws out many connections with Inferno iii, but reference is also made to Inferno xxiv, xxxii, i, ix, and xxvi.9 In the preface to their edition of the Paradiso, Durling and Martinez explain that there will not be ‘inter-cantica’ sections in this volume since, with the preceding two cantiche now involved, the cross-references ‘…become particularly dense and frequent’.10 The flexibility of the inter-cantica does respond to a potential problem with the matching of numbers suggested by Kay, which sometimes seems to work well, but would preclude parallel readings across all three cantos with the same number. The best-known matching of this type is probably in the cantos vi. The depiction of ever expanding evil and the infamous number of the beast from Revelation 13.18 seems to work well, although perhaps more obviously apparent in Arabic rather than Roman numerals.11
Authorial intention is one of the most fundamental questions in any study of literature, and must also be addressed in the vertical reading approach.12 Not only must we find connections, but must we also then detect some intention on the part of Dante to put them there; the discovery of meaning as against its manufacture? ‘Dante Studies’ as an activity (or
‘industry’) has been criticized for its imperviousness to literary theory, not unlike the walled city of Dis, perhaps, in its self-reflexive circularity. These are larger questions than we can discuss here, and, of course, we are free to read a text however we please. On the other hand, particular attention to authorial intention is well-established in the Middle Ages, and particularly evident in the case of Dante’s earliest readers: ‘Intentio autoris est optima;
intendit enim facere hominem bonum’ [The intention of the author is excellent; for he intends to make man good] writes Benvenuto da Imola at the outset of his commentary, which prioritises the author throughout.13
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., II, pp. 46–47.
10 Ibid., III, p. v. Corbett and Webb note the ‘intensive self-referentiality of the entire poem’
(‘Introduction’, p. 3).
11 The vulgate text runs ‘hic sapientia est qui habet intellectum conputet numerum bestiae numerus enim hominis est et numerus eius est sescenti sexaginta sex’, so the repetition of ses/sex is evident enough. Biblia Sacra. Iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. by B. Fischer, R.
Weber, R. Gryson, et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), p. 1895.
12 Corbett and Webb discuss this ‘thorny question’ (‘Introduction’, pp. 6–8).
13 Benvenuto da Imola, Comentum super Dantis Aldigherij Comoediam, ed. by G. F. Lacaita, 5 vols (Florence: Barbera, 1887), I, p. 17. For the standard discussion of the position of the
Numerology
A question as unavoidable for a number based approach as it might be unwelcome is that of numerological significance. Dante himself draws the numbering of the cantos into the poetic text in the well-known opening to Inferno xx: ‘Di nova pena mi conven far versi / e dar matera al ventesimo canto / de la prima canzon, ch’è d’i sommersi’ [Of a strange new punishment I must make verses / and take matter for the twentieth song / in this first canticle, which is of those submerged] (Inf., xx. 1–3).14 This is not the only time Dante refers to the formal structures of the poem but it is the only mention of the numbering and is enough of an imprimatur for us to consider the numbers, especially since they form the basis of the vertical reading of the poem.
Although 13, or XIII, might initially seem promising as a number of such ill portent that it has its own named phobia, the association of the number with bad luck seems to originate after Dante’s time. According to Vincent Foster Hopper, the first mention of the specific idea of thirteen at table being unlucky is found in the late sixteenth century in what is almost a passing remark in Montaigne’s Essais (III. viii).15 A more general negative interpretation of the number is also found in the sixteenth century, in a work specifically focussed on numerology, the Mysticae numerorum significationis liber (1585) of Petrus Bungus, or Pietro Bongo, of Bergamo.16 Each number is usually dealt with in a single section, but ‘De numero XIII. et XIV’. puts thirteen together with fourteen in quite a short treatment, most of which is taken up with a discussion around the number fourteen as it relates to the dating of Easter.17 Bungus links the number thirteen with the impiety of the Jews and gives a few examples from the Old Testament, beginning with the Jews murmuring against God in the desert when they set up camp
author see Alastair Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Philadelpha, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).
14 Noted also by Zygmunt G. Barański, ‘Without Any Violence’, in Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’, pp. 181–202 (p. 182). Dante also uses the term ‘canto’ at Par., i. 12 (though here meaning cantica); v. 139; and xii. 6.
15 Vincent Foster Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Meaning, and Influence on Thought and Expression (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000), pp. 131–32.
16 Pietro Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significationis liber, 2 vols (Bergamo: Comino Ventura, 1585). This edition can be consulted electronically in the digital library of the Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10147847_00001.html. This work forms the basis of the later Numerorum Mysteria (Bergamo: Comino Ventura, 1591).
17 Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significationis liber, II, pp. 31–35.
for the thirteenth time.18 He states that since thirteen is the first number after twelve it denotes transgression of the teaching of the apostles and he concludes by quoting Hugh of St Victor’s Miscellanea.19
It is in Hugh’s De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris that we find guidelines for numerological exegesis, in chapter xv De numeris mysticis sacrae Scripturae.20 These take the form of nine principles: order of position, composition, extension to other numbers, disposition, computation, multiplication, aggregate parts, number of parts, and exaggeration.
Russell Peck follows this list with a description of some of the more typical glosses on each number: one signifies unity, of course, and so God and everything to do with God; two represents ‘the other’ and can be negative, indicating the devil, division, cupidity and so on, but it can also be positive, in referring to the second person of the trinity for example; three is very positive, representing the trinity, perfection, the soul (man in the image of the triune God), and, by extension to thirty, the number of books in the Bible (according to Hugh of St Victor anyway); four denotes elements, humours, conditions, directions, gospels, evangelists, cardinal virtues, branches of knowledge (theoretical, practical, mechanical, logical) etc.; five is quintessence; seven, too much to mention here; and so on up to twelve, the number of months, apostles, tribes of Israel, completeness and the Apocalypse, with which his list ends.21
Numerological interpretation allows for almost infinite variations;
virtually any number can be interpreted, often through manipulations themselves accepted as legitimate, so that it may represent almost anything
18 The list begins: ‘Haec numerus Iudaeorum taxat impietatem’. Ibid., II, p. 131. Besides the murmuring against God, Bungus also notes that Psalm xiii illustrates the anger of the Jews, and that thirteen is the age of circumcision. The most relevant biblical texts are Exodus 16.1–35 and Numbers 20.1–5. See too Hopper, p. 131.
19 Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significationis liber, II, pp. 31–32. Bungus names Hugh as his source for a reference to the death of Christ, but the wording of the Old Testament examples immediately preceding this reference is also very close to the text of the Miscellanea vi, titulus xxvi, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by J. P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1844–55), 177, cols 826–27. The work is attributed to Hugh, but listed in the Patrologia Latina as Incertus since it is not known whether it was compiled by Hugh himself or others.
20 Hugh of St Victor, ‘De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris’, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by J.
P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1844–1855), 175, cols 22–23. Russell Peck includes Hugh’s nine guidelines in an appendix. See Russell Peck, ‘Number as Cosmic Language’, in Essays in the Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature, ed. by Caroline D. Eckhardt (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1980), pp. 15–64 (pp. 58–59). Hopper also lists and discusses them (pp. 100–04).
21 Peck, pp. 59–62.
else. Hugh’s methodology has been seen as an attempt to introduce some order, and place restrictions on the sort of ‘free form’ association which might otherwise result, although it does itself present quite a range of interpretative options.22 So the number XIII, according to Hugh’s rule six (factorization, including addition), may be interpreted as X, a number of perfection, plus III, associated with the Trinity among other things. Thirteen is also the number of St Paul as the thirteenth apostle, as Isidore of Seville explains in his Liber de numeris, on numbers in the Bible:
Denarius ternarius numerus propter tria et decem designat legem, et legislatorem, Decalogum, videlicet, et Trinitatem. Competenter autem hic numerus apostolo Paulo ascribitur, qui ejusdem tenet numeri locum in ordine apostolorum.
[The thirteenth number as three and ten designates the law and lawgiver, the Decalogue, and the Trinity. Moreover this number is properly assigned to Paul, who holds the place of the same number in the order of the Apostles].23 Three and ten have many other interpretations, and we might well share Hopper’s assessment in his discussion of the equally polysemous number seven: ‘In this twilight zone of symbolism, it is extremely hazardous to attempt or even look for an interpretation of such a widely significant number as 7’.24 In the context of the vertical readings, the cantos iii and x must have a prior claim to any numerological significance those numbers may have, and whilst it may shed light on other cantos, the numerological approach doesn’t appear to be particularly fruitful for the cantos xiii.
Nonetheless, there is still perhaps a lesson in Hugh’s concern to set some ground rules. The Commedia has the potential for almost infinite connection, so how can the vertical reading stay grounded? Must any suggested connection be demonstrable in all three cantos? Hopper notes that three as a number of proof has deep roots in human culture, certainly antediluvian, perhaps even primeval.25 In addition, should there be some measure of exclusivity which limits the connection to the three same numbered cantos?
22 Hopper (p. 103) suggests that the creation of such a list indicates Hugh’s awareness of the problem of ‘looseness’ in the practice of numerological interpretation.
23 Isidore of Seville, ‘Liber numerorum qui in sanctis scripturis occurrunt’, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by Migne, 83, col. 193.
24 Hopper, p. 129.
25 Ibid., pp. 4–6.