The first printed edition of the Convivio was issued at Florence in 1490, eighteen years later than the editio princeps of the Divina Commedia. The treatise was three times reprinted at Venice in the sixteenth century (1521, 1529, 1531). No edition of it was published in the seventeenth century. The fifth edition did not appear until 1723, when the work was printed by Anton Maria Biscioni (under the title of Convito),39 together with the Vita Nuova, in his Prose di Dante A lighieri e di Messer Gio. Boccacci, published at Florence in that year. Critical editions, with a more or less improved text, were published at Milan in 1826 (reprinted at Padua in the following year), and at Modena in 1831; but the first really critical text, based on the authority of all the available manuscripts, was that of Dr. Moore, which was first printed in the Oxford Dante in 1894, and was reprinted in an amended form in the third edition of that work in 1904.
Thirty-three manuscripts of the Convivio are known, of which three are in England.40 No critical account nor classification of these manuscripts has yet been published, but at least six of them belong to the fourteenth century.41
DANTE AND HIS BOOK
From the picture by Domenico di Michelino, in the Duomo at Florence
1“To every captive soul and gentle heart
Unto whose ken these present words shall come,
That they may write me back their thoughts thereon,
Be greeting in their Lord’s name, that is Love.
A third part well-nigh of those hours had passed
Wherein shines brightly every star on high,
When on a sudden Love appeared to me;
And still I shudder when I think on him.
Methought Love stood all joyful as he held
My heart within his hand, and in his arms
My Lady bore enshrouded and asleep.
Whom then he waked, and of this flaming heart
Humbly did make her eat, she sore afraid—
Then, as I looked, he wept and went his way.”
2 Translations of these three sonnets in reply (which are in the same rimes as Dante’s sonnet) are given by D. G. Rossetti in Dante and his Circle (ed. 1874), pp. 131, 183, 198.
3See Dante Dictionary, s.v. Canzoniere; and The Vita Nuova and Canzoniere of Dante, by T. Okey and P. H. Wicksteed (1906), pp. 155-357.
4 Bk. ix. ch. 136.
5 Vita di Dante, ed. Macrì-Leone, § 16, p. 74.
6 There are three English translations of the Canzoniere, viz. by Charles Lyell (in unrimed verse, in the metres of the original) in The Canzoniere of Dante, including the poems of the Vita Nuova and Convito (1835, 1840, 1845; a revised version of The Poems of the Vita Nuova and Convito was issued, with other matter, in 1842); by Dean Plumptre (in rimed verse) in The Commedia and Canzoniere of Dante, vol. ii. pp. 199-317 (1887); by P. H. Wicksteed (in prose) in The Convivio of Dante (1903), and in The Vita Nuova and Canzoniere of Dante, pp. 156-357 (1906).
7 See note on p. 47.
8See G. R. Carpenter, The Episode of the Donna Pietosa, in Annual Report of the Cambridge (U.S.A.) Dante Society for 1889, p. 60.
9 See note on p. 67.
10 See above pp. 46-7.
11 This is not borne out by what Dante himself says of it at the beginning of the Convivio: “E se nella presente opera, la quale è Convivio nominata e vo’ che sia, più virilmente si trattasse che nella Vita Nuova, non intendo però a quella in parte alcuna derogare, ma maggiormente giovare per questa quella; veggendo siccome ragionevolmente quella fervida e passionata, questa temperata e virile essere conviene. Chè altro si conviene e dire e operare a una etade, che ad altra” (i. 1, ll. 111-20).
12 Vita di Dante, ed. cit, § 13, p. 63.
13 The New Life of Dante Alighieri, pp. 93 ff.
14 See A. Bartoli, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, vol. iv. p. 173.
15 This might be used as an argument in favour of the reading “Bice” instead of “Lagia” in the sonnet, “Guido, vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io” (Son. xxxii.), where the name occurs in the ninth line.
16 On this point see above, p. 47, note.
17 See C. E. Norton, The New Life of Dante (1892), pp. 129-34. Norton’s views, however, are contested by M. Scherillo, in La Forma Architettonica della Vita Nuova, in Giornale Dantesco, ix. (1901).
18 See T. Casini, La Vita Nuova (1891), p. xxiii.
19 It was first introduced in the edition of A. Torri, Livorno, 1843.
20 Unfortunately all editors have not adopted the same numeration. Witte (Leipzig, 1876) and Casini, for example, do not number the opening paragraph, which Dante himself refers to as “il proemio che precede questo libello” (§ 29, 11. 17-18); while Torri, the Oxford Dante, and others count it as § 1. Again, Torri’s § 3 is divided by Witte and Casini into two (§§ 2, 3); while, on the other hand, Torri’s and Witte’s §§ 26, 27, are run by Casini into one (§ 26). In the critical edition recently published by M. Barbi (Florence, 1907) for the Società Dantesca Italiana the chapter divisions differ from those of all previous editions; and in the Oxford Dante, the arrangement of which is followed in this book, yet another system is adopted.
21This is the subject of D. G. Rossetti’s famous picture “Dante’s Dream,” now in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool.
22 See Paget Toynbee, The Inquisition and the Editio Princeps of the Vita Nuova, in Modern Language Review, April, 1908, vol. iii. pp. 228-31.
23 See the introduction (pp. xvii. ff.) to Barbi’s critical edition. There are eight English translations of the Vita Nuova, of which the first, by Joseph Garrow, was published at Florence in 1846. Of the others the best known are those by D. G. Rossetti (1862), Theodore Martin (1862), and C. E. Norton (1867). The latest is that by Thomas Okey (1906).
24 This is the form of the title in the MSS., almost without exception, and in the editio princeps (1490); in the three sixteenth-century editions (1521, 1529, 1531) the title is L’ amoroso Convivio. The title Convito appears for the first time in the edition published by Biscioni (in Prose di Dante Alighieri e di Messer Gio. Boccacci) at Florence in 1723. The correct title Convivio was restored by Witte in 1879, and is now almost universally adopted (see Witte, Dante-Forschungen, vol. ii. pp. 574-80).
25 See Convivio, i. 1, 11. 102-5.
26 Conv. iv. 26, 11. 66-7
27 Conv. i. 12, 11. 86-8 ; iv. 27, 11. 100-2.
28 Conv . ii. 1, 11. 34-6.
29 Conv. i. 8, 11. 130-2; iii. 15, 1. 144.
30 See Antonio Santi, Il Canzoniere di Dante Alighieri, vol. ii. pp. 13 ff. (Roma, 1907).
31 See Conv. i. 4, 1, 4; ii. 7, 1. 1; iii. 6, 1. 1; iv. 2, 1. 77; etc. etc.
32Bk. ix. ch. 136. This passage is omitted from some MSS. of the Cronica.
33 Vita di Dante, ed. cit. § 16, p. 74.
34 Conv. ii. 14, 11. 69 ff.; Par. ii. 49-148; xxii. 139-41.
35 Conv. ii. 6, 11. 39 ff.; Par. xxviii. 40-139.
36See Zingarelli, Vita di Dante (1905), pp. 45, 52.
37 Conv. i. 3, 11. 20 ff.; see the passage quoted above, pp. 88-9.
38 Adapted, by kind permission of the author, from the “Summary of Contents” prefixed to each book in the translation of the Convivio by the Rector of Exeter College, Dr. W. W. Jackson (Oxford, 1909).
39 As to this form of the title of the treatise, see above, p. 173, note 3.
40 One in the Canonici collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; one in the Earl of Leicester’s collection at Holkham; and one in the possession of Dr. Edward Moore at Canterbury. There are four English translations of the Convivio, viz. by Elizabeth Sayer (1887), Katharine Hillard (1889), P. H. Wicksteed (1903), and W. W. Jackson (1909).
41 See Zingarelli, Dante, p. 389.
CHAPTER II
The Divina Commedia—Its origin, subject, and aim—Date of composition—Scheme of the poem—Boccaccio’s story of the lost cantos—Why it was written in Italian—Dante and his rimes—Manuscripts and printed editions—English editions and translations—Commentaries.
DIVINA COMMEDIA.—At the close of the
Vita Nuova Dante says that “a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one,1 until I could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please Him through whom all things live, that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to say of her what was never said of any woman.” This promise to say of Beatrice what had been said of no other woman Dante fulfilled in the Divina Commedia, the central figure of which is Beatrice glorified.
“Several years after the composition of the Vita Nuova,” says Boccaccio, “Dante, as he looked down from the high places of the government of the commonwealth of Florence wherein he was stationed, and observed over a wide prospect, such as is visible from such elevated places, what was the life of men, and what the errors of the common herd, and how few, and how greatly worthy of honour, were those who departed therefrom, and how greatly deserving of confusion those who sided with it, he, condemning the pursuits of such as these and commending his own far above theirs, conceived in his mind a lofty thought, whereby at one and the same time, that is in one and the same work, he purposed, while giving proof of his own powers, to pursue with the heaviest penalties the wicked and vicious, and to honour with the highest rewards the virtuous and worthy, and to lay up eternal glory for himself. And inasmuch as he had preferred poetry to every other pursuit, he resolved to compose a poetical work; and after long meditation beforehand upon what he should write, in his thirty-fifth year he began to devote himself to carrying into effect that upon which he had been meditating, namely, to rebuke and to glorify the lives of men according to their different deserts. And inasmuch as he perceived that the lives of men were of three kinds—namely, the vicious life, the life abandoning vices and making for virtue, and the virtuous life—he divided his work in wonderful wise into three books comprised in one volume, beginning with the punishment of wickedness and ending with the reward of virtue; and he gave to it the title of Commedia. Each of these three books he divided into cantos, and the cantos into stanzas. And he composed this work in rime in the vulgar tongue with so great art, and with such wondrous and beautiful ordering, that never yet has any one been able with justice to find fault with it in any respect. How subtly he exercised the poet’s art in this work may be perceived by all such as have been endowed with sufficient understanding for the comprehension of it. But inasmuch as we know that great things cannot be accomplished in a brief space of time, so must we understand that so lofty, so great, and so deeply thought out an undertaking as was this of describing in verses in the vulgar tongue all the various actions of mankind and their deserts, could not possibly have been brought to completion in a short time, especially by a man who was the sport of so many and various chances of fortune, all of them full of anguish and envenomed with bitterness, as we have seen Dante was; he, therefore, from the hour when he first set himself to this lofty enterprise down to the last day of his life (notwithstanding that meanwhile he composed several other works) continually laboured upon it.”2
Villani, whose chronicle repeatedly echoes the Commedia, gives the following account of the poem :—
“Dante also wrote the Commedia, in which in polished rime, treating of grave and subtle questions of moral and natural philosophy, astrology, and theology, with beautiful and wonderful figures, similes, and poetical devices, he discoursed in a hundred capitoli or cantos of the nature and condition of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, in as lofty a style as language will allow, as may be gathered from the poem itself by any one who has sufficient understanding. Albeit in the Commedia he took delight in scolding and crying out, after the fashion of poets, perhaps somewhat more than is altogether seemly; but maybe his exile was the cause of this.”3
In his letter to Can Grande, in which he dedicates to him the Paradiso, Dante gives his own explanation of the subject and aim of the poem, and of the reasons why he called it a comedy.
“The subject of this work,” he writes, “must be understood as taken according to the letter, and then as interpreted according to the allegorical meaning. The subject, then, of the whole work, taken according to the letter alone, is simply a consideration of the state of souls after death; for from and around this the action of the whole work turns. But if the work is considered according to its allegorical meaning, the subject is man, liable to the reward or punishment of justice, according as through the freedom of the will he is deserving or undeserving. . . . The aim of the work is to remove those living in this life from a state of misery and to guide them to a state of happiness. . . . The title of the book is ‘Here beginneth the Comedy4 of Dante Alighieri, a Florentine by birth, but not by character’. And for the comprehension of this it must be understood that . . . comedy is a certain kind of poetical narrative which differs from all others. It differs from tragedy in its subject matter,—in this way, that tragedy in its beginning is admirable and quiet, in its ending or catastrophe foul and horrible. . . . Comedy, on the other hand, begins with adverse circumstances, but its theme has a happy termination. . . . Likewise they differ in their style of language, for tragedy is lofty and sublime, comedy lowly and humble. . . . From this it is evident why the present work is called a comedy. For if we consider the theme, in its beginning it is horrible and foul, because it is Hell; in its ending fortunate, desirable, and joyful, because it is Paradise; and if we consider the style of language, the style is lowly and humble, because it is the vulgar tongue, in which even housewives hold converse.” 5
The form of Dante’s poem (or vision, as he claims it to have been) is triple, the three divisions corresponding with the three kingdoms of the next world, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Each division or cantica contains thirty-three cantos (with an introductory one to the first cantica). The opening canto of the Inferno forms an introduction to the whole poem, which thus contains a hundred cantos, the square of the perfect number ten.6 These contain in all, 14,233 lines, namely, 4,720 in the Inferno, 4,755 in the Purgatorio, and 4,758 in the Paradiso.
Dante places the date of the action of the poem in the Jubilee year 1300.7 Thus he describes his vision as having taken place “midway upon the pathway of our life” (Inferno, i 1), that is, in his thirty-fifth year, the days of our life, according to the Psalmist, being “three-score years and ten,” and Dante having been born in 1265.
As regards the duration of the action of the poem there is considerable difference of opinion. The most probable estimate, on the whole, seems to be that which puts it at seven days. Of these, twenty-four hours would be occupied in traversing Hell (i.e. from nightfall on the evening of Good Friday, 8 April, 1300, until shortly after sunset on Easter-eve); four days in traversing Purgatory (i.e. one day in Ante-Purgatory, two days in Purgatory proper, and one day in the Earthly Paradise at the summit of the mountain of Purgatory) ; and one day in traversing Paradise; the remaining time being occupied by the passage from Hell to Purgatory, and from Purgatory to Paradise.8
The dates of the completion of the several parts of the poem have not been fixed with any certainty, but the following limitations may be accepted:—The Inferno must have been completed after 20 April, 1314, the date of the death of Pope Clement V, because of the allusion to that event in the nineteenth canto (11. 76-87); and not later than 1319, since it is referred to as finished in a Latin poem addressed to Dante in that year by a Bolognese professor, Giovanni del Virgilio, as well as in Dante’s poem in reply.9 The Purgatorio must have been completed not later than 1319, since it is alluded to as finished in the same poems. The Paradiso must have been completed after 7 August, 1316, the date of the accession of Pope John XXII, since that Pope is alluded to in the twenty-seventh canto (11. 58-59); its latest limit is fixed by the date of Dante’s death, 14 September, 1321.
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