Appendix 1—
"Nascentis militie dies"

In Book 2 of the De vulgari eloquentia, after treating the ordering of rhymes in the canzone stanza, Dante lists three particular faults in the use of rhyme:

Tria ergo sunt que circa rithimorum positionem potiri dedecet aulice poetantem: nimia scilicet eiusdem rithimi repercussio, nisi forte novum aliquid atque intentatum artis hoc sibi preroget—ut nascentis militie dies, qui cum nulla prerogativa suam indignatur preterire dietam: hoc etenim nos facere nisi sumus ibi:

                        Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna;

secundum vero est ipsa inutilis equivocatio, que semper sententie quicquam derogare videtur; et tertium est rithimorum asperitas, nisi forte sit lenitati permixta: nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragedia nitescit.
(Dante 1979a 232–234)

There are three things, then, in the disposing of rhymes, which it is not fitting for the courtly poet to do: namely, the excessive repetition of the same rhyme, unless perhaps some new and unprecedented artistic intention demands this, like the day of the birth of a knighthood, which disdains to go by without claiming some prerogative: this we strove to do in:

                        Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna;

and the second is useless equivocation, which always seems to detract from the meaning; and the third is harshness of rhyme, unless it is mixed well with smoothness: for tragedy particularly shines in the mixing of harsh and smooth rhymes.

Interpretation of this passage has in general followed the lines set down by Gianfranco Contini in his edition of the rime:

Quando, nella penultima pagina del De vulgari, [Dante] condannò, con l'inutile equivocazione, dannosa al senso logico (la sententia ), la soverchia ripetizione d'una stessa rima, di quella sua poetica ormai vecchia celebrò tuttavia ancora l'ardita intenzione di novità e il prodotto. . . . Il novum aliquid atque intentatum riproduce quasi alla lettera la novità del congedo, che non fu mai pensata in alcun tempo . . . . Nei primi anni del secolo dunque

. . . sonnecchiava ancora in Dante l'ammirazione per l'antico tecnico ch'era stato in lui: poiché veramente non s'esce dall'ambito della pura tecnica.
(Dante 1946 160)

We have cited this passage in Chapter 4, as representative of the prejudice that has prevailed against "Amor, tu vedi ben." Once one accepts, as we have tried to demonstrate, that "Amor, tu vedi ben" is an impressive achievement in which the equivocal rhymes are far from "useless," it is clear that the notion that the De vulgari eloquentia is critical of the petrose must be reexamined.^[1] Contini's phrases "quella sua poetica ormai vecchia" and "l'antico tecnico ch'era stato in lui" spring from the traditional undervaluing of the petrose that does not see the nature of their links with the Commedia.

Moreover, in view of the insistence on technique we find in the De vulgari eloquentia, not to speak of the Commedia, it is odd to be asked to suppose that when he wrote the De vulgari eloquentia Dante was no longer a technician: why "l'antico tecnico" and "era stato"? Further, does Dante's analogy with the nascentis militie dies justify the term "sonnecchiava  . . . l'ammirazione"? Does the comparison indicate that Dante's pride was slumbering or that it was very much awake? Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo makes a very perceptive point, though he fails to draw from it the natural conclusion; he points out that Dante has used the analogy between poets and knights earlier in Book 2 of the treatise:

Et cum loquela non aliter sit necessarium instrumentum nostre conceptionis quam equus militis, et optimis militibus optimi conveniant equi, ut dictum est, optimis conceptionibus optima loquela conveniet. Sed optime conceptiones non possunt esse nisi ubi scientia et ingenium est: ergo optima loquela non convenit nisi illis in quibus ingenium et scientia est. Et sic non omnibus versificantibus optima loquela conveniet. . . .
(Dante 1979a 144)^[2]

And since speech is not less necessary an instrument of our thought than a horse is to a knight, and since it is fitting that the best knights have the best horses, as we have said, it is fitting that the best language be used for the best conceptions. But the best conceptions can only be found where there is wit and knowledge. And thus it will not be fitting that all versifiers use the best language . . .

Dante's reference to the ceremony of investing a knight,^[3] then, comes in a context where he is (1) claiming the authority to define the "illustrious volgare"; and (2) adopting the role of arbiter of its use, restricting it to the very best poets, who, like the best knights, have the right to exclusive use of the best vehicle, since only they can manage it appropriately. And one must not lose sight of the fact that in each case Dante cites his own canzoni as instances of, not departures from, the illustre vulgare; he is seeking to establish the validity of his claim to judge and rank the achievements of all other poets. Can there be any doubt that throughout the De vulgari eloquentia Dante implicitly claims to be the best poet writing in Italian? The entire context, then, implies that the metaphorical investiture of Dante as poet was a particularly exalted one, and thus the

special achievement appropriate to it must be an achievement comparable to that in the knighting of the best knights.^[4]

The traditional view, as we see it in Contini's and Mengaldo's formulations, takes the phrase nimia . . . eiusdem rithimi repercussio as identifying a fault in "Amor, tu vedi ben." But this seems to us to be a distortion of the sense of Dante's words. While asserting that excessive repetition of the same rhyme is usually a fault, he also asserts that under certain circumstances it is not a fault, namely, when it is justified and supported by an unusual total artistic purpose, as in "Amor, tu vedi ben." In this assertion he uses the same concessive formula, nisi forte, as he does later in the passage when he asserts that while harshness of rhymes is a fault, under certain circumstances it is not a fault, that is, when the harsh rhymes are blended with smooth ones.^[5]

Mengaldo rightly accepts Maggini's gloss on the analogy: "il nascentis militie dies non alluderà all'età giovanile, come vuole il Marigo . . ., ma 'al principio del nuovo esercizio, della nuova maniera."' By the same token, the point of the analogy is not that on the day of his investiture a new knight is to be indulged in un-knightly or in some sense incompetent activity, but rather that it is appropriate for the new knight to achieve something particularly fine. If Dante had thought that "Amor, tu vedi ben" was a seriously flawed poem, he would never have cited it as the achievement that marks his arrival to maturity as a poet. His arrival to maturity—and also to a degree of social standing, honor, and responsibility analogous to that of the best knights. What marks that day must be an achievement that has some claim to seriousness of purpose, not a mere technical exercise or a "Bizantinismo d'ozio letterario."^[6]

An aspect of this passage from the De vulgari eloquentia that has not received the attention it deserves is its relation to Dante's interview with his ancestor Cacciaguida in Paradiso 14–17.^[7] As has always been recognized, this interview is a particularly important moment in the definition of Dante's mission as poet. It is the most elaborate of the reenactments in the poem of Aeneas's meeting with Anchises in Aeneid 6; Cacciaguida makes explicit and explains the earlier obscure prophecies about Dante's exile; and, in answer to Dante's worries about whether his poem will offend the powerful, Cacciaguida not only encourages him to write fearlessly but—and this is the aspect that most interests us—also explains that Dante's journey through the Other World has taken place in order that he may write the poem:

Ché se la voce tua sarà molesta 
   nel primo gusto, vital nodrimento 
   lascerà poi, quando sarà digesta. 
Questo tuo grido farà come vento, 
   che le più alte cime più percuote; 
   e ciò non fa d'onor poco argomento. 
Però ti son mostrate in queste rote, 
   nel monte e nel la valle dolorosa 
   pur l'anime che son di fama note,

che l'animo di quel ch'ode, non posa 
   né ferma fede per essempro ch'aia 
   la sua radice incognita e ascosa, 
né per altro argomento che non paia. 
            ( Paradiso  17. 130–142)

It must be stressed that this passage is unique in the Commedia; nowhere else is it stated that the writing of the poem is the final cause of Dante's journey.^[8] It is no exaggeration to say that Cacciaguida explicitly lays on Dante the duty of writing the poem and that he is empowered to authorize him to do so. In other words, in the interview between Cacciaguida and Dante we have an analog of the ceremony of knightly investiture; Dante is being armed and prepared for the mission of writing the Commedia as though he were being knighted.^[9]

It is not surprising that these central cantos are filled with references to the ceremony of knightly investiture. The first such reference is Dante's exclamation on seeing the souls shining in the pattern of the cross "deep in Mars": "O Elïòs che sì li addobbi!" (Paradiso 14.96). The verb addobbare derives, of course, from the French adouber, "to dub (a knight)," one of the two most important items in the terminology of knightly investiture, the other being accolade, or colée, referring to the traditional blow on the cheek or neck received by the new knight. The exact meaning of adouber is disputed. Marc Bloch (1939 435–436) supposed that it derived from a Germanic word for "strike" and thus referred to the colée, while more recent opinion sees it as referring to the traditional gift of complete arms to the aspirant or, specifically, to the girding on of the most important of them, the sword (Flori 1976, 1978, 1979). The traditional gloss on Dante's use of the term here is "to adorn,"^[10] which is no doubt accurate enough as far as it goes. There seems no doubt that Dante understood the term as referring to arming or clothing, rather than to the colée; but the full sense of his use of the term is only seen in relation to his other references to knightly investiture.

Several of these are explicit. Cacciaguida's account of himself in Paradiso 15 relates that the emperor Conrad knighted him: "el mi cinse de la sua milizia," where milizia refers specifically to knighthood (Aglianò), and there is no doubt that cinse refers to the girding on of the sword.^[11] In Paradiso 16.130, Cacciaguida says of the Florentines who were knighted by the "gran barone" (Ugo il Grande), "da esso ebbe milizia e privilegio,"^[12] where the main reference is to the fact of being knighted and only implicitly to the ceremony.

Dante has not insisted on the analogy, but its presence is clear. He is to be a Crusader for the truth, like Cacciaguida; he prepares for the ceremony with a particularly intense act of devotion, a holocaust (sacrifice) of his will (Paradiso 14.88–93); Cacciaguida's status as ancestor, as Crusader, as knighted by an emperor, makes him parallel to the traditional sponsor (see Keen 1984 66–67, 77–79). Perhaps the most telling of the implicit echoes of the ceremony of investiture in Dante's Sendung is the prediction of his exile. This clearly corresponds to the accolade of investiture, the symbolic blow on the cheek or neck, which, as we infer from Dante's treatment here, he associated with the blow on the cheek given in the sacrament of confirmation: a foretaste, then, of the suffer-

ings the new soldier of Christ must be prepared to undergo. Dante's exile is referred to in the terminology of battle. He asks Cacciaguida to clarify the predictions he has received:

dette mi fuor di mia vita futura 
   parole gravi, avvegna ch'io mi senta 
   ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura; 
per che la voglia mia saria contenta 
   d'intender qual fortuna mi s'appressa: 
   ché saetta prevista vien più lenta. 
          (Paradiso  17.22–27)

The tetragono is first the geometric square, expressing the balanced firmness of Dante's character, but it is also the figure made by joining the endpoints of the quadranti in tondo to which the cross in Canto 14 has been compared.

Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta 
   più caramente; e questo è quello strale 
   che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta . . . 
E quel che più ti graverà le spalle. . . . 
          (Paradiso  17.55–57, 61)

The weight on the shoulders is generically a burden, but in the full context there is a clear reference to the cross the Christian must bear, as well as to the cross worn on the shoulder by the Crusader. The reference to the tetragono, then, must be understood as including reference to the cross as shield and to its frequent inscription on shields.^[13]

Ben veggio, padre mio, sì come  sprona 
   lo tempo verso me,  per colpo darmi 
   tal, ch'è più grave a chi più s'abbandona; 
per che di provedenza è buon ch'io m'armi. 
          (Paradiso  17.106–109; emphasis added)

Particularly striking is this image of the antagonist as mounted on a horse, spurring toward Dante to strike a blow (probably with a lance; if not, certainly with a sword),^[14] against which Dante must arm himself: the metaphors are knightly, and it is necessary to imagine Dante as also on horseback—that is, metaphorically at least, as a knight. From this perspective it becomes clear that the apparently casual pun which has a Cavalcante falling backward ("supin ricadde," Inferno 10.72) is by no means casual but is a variant of the jousting metaphor: Cavalcante falls as if unhorsed in a knightly combat, and against the same antagonist Dante sees spurring toward him: time, the whole focus of Cavalcante's misunderstanding of Dante's ebbe.^[15] The encounter with Cavalcante and Farinata is in several respects the most important prefiguring of the encounter with Cacciaguida; common to Inferno 10 and Paradiso 17 are the major themes of poetic mission, poetic superiority, exile, death, foreknowledge, and faith.^[16] In contrast with the hysterical instability of Cavalcante, Dante will be firm and circumspect in his joustings with the great adversaries.^[17]

An important vehicle of the analogy with knightly investiture is the terminology of clothing, which is evident in the terms addobbare and cingere. As has been observed ofInferno 26, Dante associates his mission as poet with the prophetic roles of Elijah and Elishah, the symbol of whose transfer of authority is the inheritance of Elijah's mantle (pallium ) by Elishah (2 Kings 2:13), "colui che si vengiò con li orsi" (Inferno 26.34). In Inferno 26–27, the fiery fasce of the false counsellors are parodic versions of the prophet's mantle, but they are also parallel to the robes of light of the souls in the Paradiso, of whom it can also be said that "catun si fascia di quel ch'elli è inceso." The mantle recurs at the beginning of Paradiso 16 (just after Cacciaguida's account of his life and death). Here it is only indirectly related to the prophet's mantle:

O poca nostra nobiltà di sangue, 
   se gloriar di te la gente fai 
   qua giiù dove l'affetto nostro langue, 
mirabil cosa non mi sarà mai: 
   ché là dove appetito non si torce, 
   dico nel cielo, io me ne gloriai. 
Ben se' tu manto che tosto raccorce: 
   sì che, se non s'appon di di in die, 
   lo tempo va dintorno con le force. 
          (Paradiso  16.1–9)

Although only indirect, the grounds of the connection of this mantle with that of the prophet and the clothing of a knight are clear enough. First is the representation of an inheritance as a mantle, derived from the passage in 2 Kings. Second is the fact that what Dante inherits from Cacciaguida, nobility, is directly related to the theme of knighthood. Add the intensity of the theme of Dante's receiving his mission and, fourth, the associations set up in Canto 15 with Elijah and Elishah: first, Cacciaguida tells us that one of his brothers was named Elishah (Eliseo—Paradiso 15.136); second, he relates his death as a divesting of his soul from the coils of the world:

Quivi fu' io da quella gente turpa 
   disviluppato dal mondo fallace. 
           (15.145–147)

Again deeply submerged is the connection with Elijah, who as he ascends is divested of his mantle; that the connection is not arbitrary is guaranteed by the emphasis placed on Cacciaguida's having been girt by the emperor and the use of addobbare for the shining garment that makes the souls invisible to Dante, parallel to the other fiery garment that was explicitly compared to Elijah's fiery chariot. The provedenza with which Dante wishes to arm himself has a clear connection with the theme of foreknowledge and prophecy.^[18]

A clear implication of Paradiso 17—and one that is entirely consistent with De vulgari eloquentia 2—is that Dante's weapon, the pen, is the analog of the knight's sword and lance; and on the association with prophecy (and cf. Cacciaguida's term visione ), on the heavenly imposition of Dante's mission, rests the

implicit reference to Ephesians 6:17, "adsumite gladium spiritus, quod est verbum Dei." Cacciaguida's "Tutta tua vision fa manifesta" echoes Apocalypse 1:17, 19: "Noli timere . . . Scribe ergo quae vidistis."^[19]

Returning to Dante's use of the analogy of knightly investiture in connection with "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna," it is clear that when Dante wrote the passage in Book 2 of the De vulgari eloquentia he did not foresee the use he would make of the analogy in the Commedia; one is tempted to say that he had not yet seen the complex interconnections we have pointed out between his exile and what he would come to regard as his consecration as the poet of the sacro poema. But the fact that in the Commedia he used the analogy to express his sense of mission and that he entwined it so thoroughly with the imagery of the prophetic mantle and the jousting and archery metaphors we have examined does not undermine the point we have made about the analogy as a claim for the seriousness of "Amor, tu vedi ben." The metaphor of knightly investiture was a solemn and exalted one for Dante,^[20] so much so that he featured it in one of the culminating episodes of the Paradiso. It must therefore be taken very seriously when we find it in the De vulgari eloquentia.

In view of all these considerations, we find it extremely significant that in his reference in De vulgari eloquentia 2.xiii to "Amor, tu vedi ben," in his allusion to knightly investiture, Dante uses also the metaphor of birth to signify his arrival at maturity as a poet (nascentis militie ). As we have tried to show in Chapter 2, the apparently casual reference to birth in "Io son venuto," line 3—"l'orizzonte, quando il sol si corca, ci partorisce il geminato cielo"—is part of a complex of imagery referring to the birth of Dante's new poetics. That view receives a striking confirmation in the fact that in the De vulgari eloquentia Dante explicitly used the metaphor of the birth of a new knighthood to refer to the petrose.