Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy Volume 2 EDITED BY GEORGE CORBETT AND HEATHER WEBB To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/499 Open Book Publishers is a non-profit independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy Volume 2 edited by George Corbett and Heather Webb http://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2016 George Corbett and Heather Webb. Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapter’s author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). 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Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://www. openbookpublishers.com/product/499#resources ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-253-0 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-254-7 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-255-4 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-256-1 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-257-8 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0100 Cover image: The mosaic ceiling of the Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John (13th-15th century). Photo by Matthias Kabel, https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Florence_baptistery_ceiling_mosaic_7247px.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported. All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), and PEFC (Programme for the endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) Certified. Printed in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK). Contents Acknowledgements vii Editions Followed and Abbreviations ix Notes on the Contributors xi Introduction 1 George Corbett and Heather Webb 12. Centaurs, Spiders and Saints 13 Christian Moevs 13. ‘Would you Adam and Eve it?’ 31 Robert Wilson 14. The Patterning of History: Poetry, Politics and Adamic 55 Renewal Catherine M. Keen 15. Dante’s Fatherlands 77 Simone Marchesi 16. Politics of Desire 101 Manuele Gragnolati 17. Seductive Lies, Unpalatable Truths, Alter Egos 127 Tristan Kay 18. Women, War and Wisdom 151 Anne C. Leone 19. Inside Out 173 Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja 20. Prediction, Prophecy and Predestination: Eternalising 193 Poetry in the Commedia Claudia Rossignoli 21. God’s Beloved: From Pitch, Through Script, to Writ 217 Corinna Salvadori Lonergan 22. Truth, Autobiography and the Poetry of Salvation 237 Giuseppe Ledda Bibliography 259 Index of Names 281 Acknowledgements We owe a particular debt to the wonderful community of students, academics and members of the public in Cambridge who have supported the lecture series, ‘Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy’ (2012–2016). We are also grateful to those who, following the series online, have contributed to this scholarly endeavour and experiment. The project has benefited from broad collaboration from the outset. Each public lecture was preceded by a video-conferenced workshop between the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Notre Dame on one of the three cantos in the vertical reading. There are many people who have helped us during the different stages of the project. We are deeply grateful to you all and we regret that, in these brief acknowledgements, we can only thank some of you by name. Apart from the contributors to this volume, we would like to thank Pierpaolo Antonello, Theodore J. Cachey, Elizabeth Corbett, Mary Corbett, Robert Gordon, Ronald Haynes, Claire Honess, Vittorio Montemaggi, Helena Phillips-Robins, Federica Pich, Katherine Powlesland, Nan Taplin, and Matthew Treherne. Finally, we would like to extend our particular thanks to Simon Gilson for his support, advice and encouragement on this project from its inception. The Master and Fellows of Trinity College generously hosted the series and offered accommodation to the speakers. The series would not have been possible without the generosity of our sponsors: Trinity College; Selwyn College; the Italian Department, University of Cambridge; the Cambridge Italian Research Network (CIRN); and Keith Sykes. Open Book Publishers has enabled us to build upon the growing public audience of the video-lectures by making all the volumes free to read online. We would like to thank especially Alessandra Tosi, Mark Mierowsky, Bianca Gualandi, and Corin Throsby for their work in enabling an excellent peer review process, their meticulous comments on the manuscript, and for their help in preparing the bibliography and index. Editions Followed and Abbreviations A. Dante Unless otherwise stated, the editions of Dante’s works may be found in: Le Opere di Dante, ed. by F. Brambilla Ageno, G. Contini, D. De Robertis, G. Gorni, F. Mazzoni, R. Migliorini Fissi, P. V. Mengaldo, G. Petrocchi, E. Pistelli, P. Shaw, and rev. by D. De Robertis and G. Breschi (Florence: Polistampa, 2012). A.1 Vernacular works Inf. Inferno Purg. Purgatorio Par. Paradiso Conv. Convivio VN. Vita nova Rime Rime A.2 Latin works DVE. De vulgari eloquentia Mon. Monarchia Questio Questio de aqua et terra Epist. Epistole Ecl. Egloge x Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’ B. English translations Unless otherwise stated, the translations of Dante are adapted from these readily available and literally translated English editions: B.1 Vernacular works The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, ed. and trans. by Robert M. Durling; introduction and notes by Ronald L. Martinez and Robert M. Durling, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996–2011). The Banquet, trans. with introduction and notes by Christopher Ryan (Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1989). La Vita Nuova, trans. by Mark Musa (Bloomington, IN and London: Indiana University Press, 1962). Dante’s Lyric Poetry, trans. by Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). B.2 Latin works De vulgari eloquentia, ed. and trans. by Steven Botterill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Monarchy, ed. and trans. by Prue Shaw. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). The Letters of Dante, trans. by Paget J. Toynbee, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966); for the political epistles, however, Dante Alighieri: Four Political Letters, trans. by Claire Honess (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2007). Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, trans. by Philip H. Wicksteed and Edmund G. Gardner (New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1970). In most instances, the translation [in square brackets] follows the original passage. Where the sense of the original passage is clear from the main text, the original passage (in parentheses) follows the paraphrase. Discussion is always with regard to the passage in the original. Notes on the Contributors George Corbett is Lecturer in Theology, Imagination and the Arts in the School of Divinity, University of St Andrews. Prior to this, he was Junior Research Fellow of Trinity College and Affiliated Lecturer of the Department of Italian, University of Cambridge. He is the author of Dante and Epicurus: A Dualistic Vision of Secular and Spiritual Fulfilment (2013), and was the co-organiser, with Heather Webb, of the Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy lecture series (2012–16). Manuele Gragnolati is Full Professor of Medieval Italian Literature at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, Associate Director at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. He has authored two monographs, Experiencing the Afterlife: Soul and Body in Dante and Medieval Culture (2005) and Amor che move. Linguaggio del corpo e forma del desiderio in Dante, Pasolini e Morante (2013). He has also co-edited several volumes and published many essays on medieval and modern authors from Bonvesin da la Riva and Guido Cavalcanti to Giacomo Leopardi, Cesare Pavese, Elsa Morante, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giorgio Pressburger. Tristan Kay is Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Bristol. He is the author of the monograph Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition (2016) and the co-editor of the volumes Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages (2012) and Dante in Oxford: The Paget Toynbee Lectures (2011). He has also published a number of articles on Dante, especially in relation to medieval vernacular literary culture and the poet’s modern reception. xii Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’ Catherine M. Keen is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at University College London. She is the author of Dante and the City (2003), and of articles on Dante relating especially to the themes of politics and exile. She has also published on the early Italian lyric tradition, with a special interest in Cino da Pistoia, and on the reception of classical authors, notably Ovid and Cicero, in Duecento and Trecento Italian vernacular poetry and prose. She is currently Senior Co-Editor of the journal Italian Studies. Giuseppe Ledda is Associate Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Bologna. His main research field is Dante and medieval literature.