Si studia sì che pare ai lor vivagni.*
A questo intende il papa e i cardinali:

Non vanno i lor pensieri a Nazzarette,
Là dove Gabbriello aperse l' ali.

Thy city, which hath been planted by him (Satan)
who first turned his back upon his Maker, and whose
envy has caused so much weeping, brings forth and
spreads abroad the accursed flower (i.e the lily
stamped on the florin) which has led astray both
the sheep and the lambs (i.e. old and young) be-
cause it has made a wolf of the shepherd. For this
the Gospel and the great Doctors (the Fathers of the
Church) are laid aside, and only to the Decretals is
such great study given, which shows upon their
(well-thumbed and annotated) margins. To this
(greed of gain) both Pope and Cardinals give all
their application: their thoughts travel not to Naza-
reth, there whither Gabriel directed his flight (lit.
opened his wings).

135

Folco finishes by foretelling better days, when Rome and its many sacred spots, consecrated by the blood

ignorance and poverty of thought of the times. Lana contemptuously calls them, "scienzia lucrativa e contumeliosa.. imperquello che ogni parte con fallace si puòe substentare, e di vero non se ne ha espressa veritade."

* vivagni: Casini says that, beyond a doubt, this alludes to the habit prevalent in the 13th century of making marginal annotations and comments on the text of the Decretals, which, having only been recently arranged, afforded food for various and often very conflicting interpretations: the result of which was that, in that century, doctors of canonical law swarmed, especially in the schools of Bologna. Vivagno means the border or edge of anything; hence Lana, Benvenuto and some other old Commentators have tried to prove that the allusion is to the embroidered edges of the rich apparel of cardinals and prelates. Benvenuto says of vivagni: "idest, vestibus eorum sumptuosis, variatis: vivagnum enim vocatur extremitas panni, per quod pannus cognoscitur." In Inf. xiv, 123, Dante speaks of the hardened margin of the Phlegethon as questo vivagno.

of the martyrs, shall be delivered from the immoral government of the Pontiffs. Some see in this prediction an allusion to the death of Boniface VIII (Inf. xix, 53; Purg. xx, 86); some think it alludes to the transfer of the papal seat to Avignon; but both Scartazzini and Casini prefer to see here the hope expressed of the future mysterious liberator, who would cleanse Italy from the foul impurities that defiled its fair soil.

Ma Vaticano e l' altre parti elette

Di Roma, che son state cimiterio

*

Alla milizia che Pietro seguette,

Tosto libere fien dell' adulterio." +

But Vatican and other chosen spots of Rome, which
have been the burying-place of the soldiery that
followed Peter, shall soon be delivered from this
adultery."

140

* milizia: The glorious body of martyrs and saints, who died for the Christian Faith, following the example of St. Peter, who is believed by the Roman Catholic Church to have died a martyr at Rome. Compare Bishop Heber, St. Stephen's Day :— "A noble army, men and boys,

The matron and the maid,

Around the Saviour's throne rejoice

In robes of white arrayed.

They climbed the steep ascent of Heaven

Through peril, toil, and pain.

O God to us may Grace be given

To follow in their train!"

+ adulterio : The rapacity of the Pontiffs was the principal cause of the evil government of the Church, and, in Inf. xix, I et seq., Dante rebukes them for their prostitution of holy things:

"O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci,

Che le cose di Dio, che di bontate
Deono essere spose, e voi rapaci
Per oro e per argento adulterate."

END OF CANTO IX.

CANTO X.

ASCENT TO THE FOURTH HEAVEN-SPHERE OF THE SUN, OR SPHERE OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE-THE FIRST GARLAND OF GLORIFIED SOULS-THE THEOLOGIANS AND FATHERS OF THE CHURCH-ST. THOMAS AQUINAS -BOETHIUS-THE SCHOOLMEN.

THE last Canto ended with one of those outbursts of indignation, which Dante was but seldom able to suppress, against Boniface VIII, whom he regarded as the principal cause of the great misfortune of his life-his exile from Florence. The present Canto begins with an exordium addressed to the reader, introductory of the ascent from Venus to the Sun.

Benvenuto divides the Canto into four parts.

In the First Division, from ver. I to ver. 27, Dante describes the wonderful order of the Heavens.

In the Second Division, from ver. 28 to ver. 51, he relates his ascent into the Heaven of the Sun.

In the Third Division, from ver. 52 to ver. 81, he describes the bright spirits of personages of enlightened wisdom and knowledge that had their abode in the Heaven of the Sun.

In the Fourth Division, from ver. 82 to ver. 148, the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas declares himself to Dante, and mentions some of the more eminent of his companions in this Sphere.

Division I.-Dante, in Conv. ii, 14, ll. 123-153, makes the Heaven of the Sun the symbol of Arithmetic, i.e. the first Science of the Quadrivium.

Guardando nel suo figlio con l' amore

Che l'uno e l' altro eternalmente spira,
Lo primo ed ineffabile valore,

Quanto per mente o per loco † si gira

Con tanto ordine fe', ch' esser non puote

5

* Guardando, et seq.: These opening lines of the Canto are in full agreement with those of St. Thomas Aquinas, who (Summ. Theol. pars i, qu. xlv. art. 6) writes: "Creare non est proprium alicui personae, sed commune toti Trinitati. . . . Deus Pater operatus est creaturam per suum Verbum, quod est Filius; et per suum amorem, qui est Spiritus sanctus . . . sicut natura divina, licet sit communis tribus personis, ordine tamen quodam eis convenit, inquantum Filius accipit naturam divinam a Patre, et Spiritus sanctus ab utroque; ita etiam et virtus creandi, licet sit communis tribus personis, ordine tamen quodam eis convenit. Nam Filius habet eam a Patre, et Spiritus sanctus ab utroque. Unde creatorem esse attribuitur Patri, ut ei qui non habet virtutem creandi ab alio. De Filio autem dicitur (Joan. i, 3): Per quem omnia facta sunt, inquantum habet eamdem virtutem, sed ab alio. Nam haec praepositio, per,' solet denotare causam mediam sive principum de principio. Sed Spiritui sancto, qui habet eamdem virtutem ab utroque, attribuitur quod dominando gubernet et vivificet quae sunt creata a Patre per Filium." And again, ibid. qu. xxxii, art. 1: "Virtus creativa Dei est communis toti Trinitati. Unde pertinet ad unitatem essentiæ, non ad distinctionem personarum."

+ per mente o per loco: Some read o per occhio. On this see Moore, Textual Criticism, pp. 454, 455: “The substitution of occhio for loco, which is found in a small number of MSS., was probably intended to supply a better antithesis to mente the appropriateness of the . . . facilior lectio (l'occhio) is merely superficial, and disappears on a closer examination of the passage, for si gira suits loco much better than occhio. The 'eye' is not the sphere in which the objects of the external world in any sense move or 'revolve' (si gira). They revolve in space just as the objects of thought may be said to revolve in the mind. It is not therefore a question of the organ or instrument of perception, bodily or mental, but of the sphere of existence of the objects of sense or of thought. The antithesis is the familiar one between τὰ γενητὰ (loco) and τὰ νοητά (mente), and

Senza gustar* di lui chi ciò rimira. Contemplating His Son with the Love which both the One and the Other eternally breathe forth, the First and Ineffable Power (God the Father), created with so much order all that revolves in the mind or through space that there can be no one who contemplates (all) this without tasting of Him. Antonelli (ap. Tommaséo) calls these lines a sublime introduction, in which the Poet prepares the readers for his instantaneous passage from Venus to the Sun, and for the contemplation of the lofty matters that he will describe within that great luminary. Dante begins by saying that God the Father, the Primal Might, created the universe through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. ("Let us make Man in Our image.") God the Father, who has of Himself the creative power (says Scartazzini), looking into His Divine Son, Who is the Wisdom, the thought, the Word,

the distinction thus briefly indicated is the same as is described with more pomp by Wordsworth in the lines:

'Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.'

It is curious to note that loco, after appearing in the first four editions, in the Edizione Nidobeatina (1477), and the early Spanish translation of Febrer (1428), seems to have been almost entirely displaced by occhio in later editions, if I may judge from my having found it in two only (Witte and Scartazzini) out of twenty-five such that I have consulted here." I notice that in Casini's Commentary, published after Dr. Moore wrote the above, the reading is loco.

* Senza gustar, et seq.: On this Pietro di Dante: "Sed, ut dixi, videndo opera ejus gustamus, idest asserere debemus ipsum esse; unde Psalmista: gustate et videte quoniam suavis est Dominus. Et Boëtius in III Consolationis, Pros. viii : 'Respicite coeli spatium, firmitudinem, celeritatem et aliquando desinite vilia mirari. Quod quidem coelum non his potius est, quam sua, qua regitur ratione, mirandum.'”