1. So, for instance, Michele Barbi, in his introduction to the Convivio (Dante 1964 xxv n .1): "La Vita nuova prima di quest'applicazione doveva esser già composta, perché altrimenti non si giustificherebbe la citazione di quell'opera per continue

      provare che avanti tali sue letture e tali suoi studi 'molte cose quasi come sognando già vedea."' The misunderstanding rests on the ambiguity of Dante's last phrase, in which the già and the imperfect vedea can be taken to refer to a time before the readings referred to, if one disregards the fact that avea and potea are also imperfects and thus do not support the distinction. But now that it is established that the Consolatio and the De amicitia were in fact important influences on the Vita nuova (see next note), it is clear that the passage means, "once having penetrated into those books, I saw many things in them, as can be seen from the Vita nuova, but imperfectly (in the light of the better comprehension that I now have), thus as if dreaming." On the whole passage, see Dante 1988 201-212. [BACK]

2. See esp. De Robertis 1970 60-68. Nardi (1967a 201) comments: "Questo libro di Boezio non è affatto vero che fosse poco conosciuto. Era anzi una delle opere più lette e commentate dai dotti nelle scuole, ed era largamente penetrato persino nelle letterature volgari." The Consolatio is a protreptic—that is, one of its aims is to win adherents to the study of philosophy; as such, it is very much suited for an introductory course, one of the reasons it was so frequently used in schools. It may well have been one of the first texts Dante heard discussed. See the review of recent scholarship on the Florentine studia in Davis 1984 and Dante 1988 204-210. [BACK]

3. Tateo 1970 is an excellent survey of the question. [BACK]

4. In addition to the works already cited, see Nardi 1960. [BACK]

5. It forms approximately 6 percent of the total: see Dondaine 1953 84-89, 135-138. We note that Nardi assumes, without discussion, that when Dante was reading the Liber de causis he was also reading the De divinis nominibus (1949 55-57). Whenever he read it, the probability is strong that he read it with both the Maximus and the Pseudo-Maximus (Eriugena) glosses (however, none of the passages from Eriugena quoted below are from the latter; it is possible, but not very likely, that Dante knew the De divisione naturae itself).

      I. P. Sheldon-Williams (in Armstrong 1967 532-533) gives a convenient summary of Eriugena's influence:

Both as a translator and as an original writer, Eriugena's influence was to prove considerable. The Dionysian versions form the basis for those of Saracenus and Grossteste (written in clearer Latin and from better texts), and therefore underlie the curriculum of the philosophical schools where the ps.-Dionysius was the chief authority until superseded by Aristotle in the thirteenth century, and the tradition of Western mysticism, which also derives from the ps.-Dionysius. The doctrines of the Periphyseon were taught by Eriugena's disciples and their followers, such as Remigius, Heiric of Auxerre and the mysterious "Icpa." The work was epitomized by Honorious of Autun . . . and others. It was widely read among the Cathars, and was supposed to have inspired some of the heresies of Almeric of Bena and David of Dinant, and was condemned in the thirteenth century in consequence.

And yet it continued to be influential; for although no further copies were made after the twelfth century and many then existing must have suffered the fate of heretical works, and although the first printed edi- soft

tion, which appeared in 1681, was immediately placed on the Index, much of the text was preserved in glosses to the Latin Dionysius, in which form it was studied by, among others, St. Albert the Great. Eriugena, therefore, though banned and unacknowledged, has been a formative influence in the tradition not only of Western mysticism, but also of medieval scholasticism.

      For an excellent recent introduction to Eriugena's thought and influence, see O'Meara 1988. For the question of Dante's knowledge of Eriugena, see Dronke 1965 and Allard 1987. [BACK]

6. This major text was commented by William of Champeaux, Grosseteste, Thomas of Verceil, Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Ulrich of Strasburg, perhaps Alain of Lille, and many others; see De Bruyne 1946 vol. 3. Albert's and Aquinas's are naturally the most likely commentaries for Dante to have known. The presence of a fairly full collection of Aquinas's commentaries at Santa Croce has been established (see Davis 1988 342-346) and of course would be expected at Santa Maria Novella. [BACK]

7. I. P. Sheldon-Williams (1972 215n.) writes:

Dialectic ["in the Platonic conception . . . as the combined operation of division and collection"], from being simply a branch of philosophy, becomes in Neoplatonism, through the process of analogy, the whole of philosophy. . . . Division . . . is the process by which the descent is made from the One to the Many, and analytic the means by which the ascent or return is made from the Many to the One; that is to say, they are the descent from, and the return to, a Principle which remains always what it was. Dialectic and its Source, which is also its End, thus comprise the triad monê-próodos-epistrophê, by which the Neoplatonists reconciled the transcendence with the immanence of God. But the thoroughness with which Eriugena applies the principles of Dialectic finds no parallel in the system of any predecessor.

8. For the De divinis nominibus, see von Ivánka 1940 (also in von Ivánka 1964). [BACK]

9. In the third of the petrose, "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna," we find a clear interest in the question of the divine names; see Chapter 4, pp. 157-158, with notes. [BACK]

10. Dante 1980 37-44. All quotations from the Vita nuova are to this edition. [BACK]

11. Sandkühler 1967 41-42, 50-53. De Robertis (1970 208-222), on the basis of some impressive verbal parallels, has argued for the influence on the divisioni of Brunetto Latini's Retorica. [BACK]

12. The most interesting example of "reticent commentary," aside from chapter 19, is perhaps chapter 25; Dante's answer to the imagined doubt regarding the figure of Love in fact raises more questions than it answers: for Dante's claim that vernacular poets have the same license as Latin poetae, including that of using personification if they can provide a ratio for its use, does not constitute a ratio of his use of it. Dante asserts that he could furnish an explanation if he chose to; his not doing so calls attention to itself. See Chapter 4, note 50. [BACK]

13. We reject the famous theory of the esoteric group of "fedeli d'Amore" developed by L. Valli and his followers. A detailed statement of the arguments continue

      would take us too far afield; suffice it to say that like other "allegorical" interpretations of Dante's lyric poems, it rests on inadequate comprehension of the literal sense of the poems. [BACK]

14. De Robertis (Dante 1980 132, note on a troppi ) summarizes thus: "è intelligibile anche troppo, si abbia o no ingegno da intendere"; as we shall see, this misses the point completely. [BACK]

15. As De Robertis observes (Dante 1980 129), this is also the only poem whose division is preceded by introductory remarks. [BACK]

16. Shaw 1929 119-120. [BACK]

17. Spitzer 1937; in Spitzer 1976 131-132. Spitzer is in polemic here with J. E. Shaw, who had maintained that the "ostensible theme" of the praise of Beatrice masked the "real theme" of Dante's anxieties and dependence on her, which he was reluctant to make explicit by dividing stanzas 2 and 3. [BACK]

18. Spitzer was equally complacent in his claim that the last stanza is no easier to understand than the earlier ones: "dal momento che Dante, riguardo all'ultima strofa, come pure in altri casi, afferma che essa è 'lieve ad intendere' e pertanto non abbisogna di suddivisione, egli deve pensare la stessa cosa anche delle altre" (1976 132). Here is an obvious undistributed middle term (stanza 5, easy to understand, is undivided; 2 and 3 are undivided; therefore stanzas 2 and 3 are easy to understand—this would be valid only if every undivided text were easy to understand). [BACK]

19. Dante 1980 52-53. De Robertis refers the subdivisions to rhetorical practice: "più artificiosamente: con più arte, ossia con più 'sottili' (xli,9) o 'minute' (cfr. 22) partizioni (a metterne in rilievo appunto l'artificiosa e complessa struttura retorica), ossia, come vedremo, per gradi successivi (gliene offrivan modello le partizioni delle scienze, coi relativi 'alberi,' nella Retorica di Brunetto, 48-55), ma si ponga mente soprattutto alla tripartizione fondamentale, che sarà ripresa per la canzone in morte di Beatrice (xxxi,3) e per la seconda canzone del Convivio (III,i,13), ed essa stessa arieggiante le partizioni del discorso della retorica classica" (p. 129). Valid enough observations, which do not unlock the puzzle. As far as the models for the procedure of division are concerned (and without derogating from the impressive parallels De Robertis found between Vita nuova and Retorica —though not specifically in the divisione of "Donne ch'avete"), here is a good example from the beginning of Aquinas's commentary on the Pseudo-Dionysius's De divinis nominibus:

In hoc igitur libro, qui "de divinis Nominibus" inscribitur, more eorum qui artificiose scientias tradiderunt, primo, praemittit quaedam necessaria ad sequentem considerationem; secundo, incipit prosequi principale intentum in 3 cap. quod incipit ibi: Et primam  . . .

Circa primum, duo facit: primo, ostendit rationem divinorum Nominum; secundo, ostendit quod Nomina, de quibus in hoc libro tractatur, sunt communia toti Trinitati; et hoc 2° cap. quod incipit ibi: Thearchicam totam essentiam  . . .

Circa primum, duo facit: primo, continuat se ad praecedentem librum, ubi alloquens beatum Timotheum, dicit quod post Theologicas Hypotyposes, idest divinas distinctiones quibus personae in Trinitate ad in- soft

vicem distinguntur, transibit ad reserationem, idest manifestationem, divinorum Nominum, secundum suam possibilitatem. Perfecte enim ea exponere supra hominem esse videtur.

Secundo, ibi: Esto  . . . , incipit praemittere quaedam necessaria ad sequens opus. Praemittit autem duo: primo, quidem, modum procedendi in hoc opere, hoc enim necessarium est praescire in qualibet doctrina. Secundo, ostendit rationem divinorum Nominum de quibus in hoc libro intendit; ibi: Has sequentes. . . .
(Aquinas 1950 6)

      As can readily be seen, dividing only the second of two members was not customary and would have been noticed as unusual by anyone familiar with exegetical practice. For that matter, here is a particularly striking example of a series of divisions of only the first members, from the commentary of Albertus Magnus on the De divinis nominibus (Albert's insistence here is of course motivated by the fact that he is isolating the very first members of his text; the rest of his commentary divides the entire treatise in more or less equal detail):

Dividitur enim iste liber in duas partes. In prima determinat de nominibus divinis, quae ad suam considerationem pertinent in communi. In secundo determinat de unoquoque in speciali, in quarto capitulo, ibi Si igitur oportet iam etc. Prima pars dividitur in tres partes. In prima determinat de ipsis nominibus communiter ostendens modum significandi ipsorum. In secunda dividit divina nomina in primas suas differentias, scilicet quod quaedam dicuntur unite de personis et quaedam distincte, quibus adhuc non devenitur in specialia nomina, in secundo capitulo, ibi: Thearchicam. In tertia determinat modum accipiendi cognitionem istorum nominum, in tertio capitulo, ibi: Et primum, si videtur etc. Prima pars dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit modum, quo deus significatur istis nominibus; in secunda dicit se velle determinare de istis nominibus secundum determinatum modum, ibi: Nunc autem quaecumque sunt praesentia etc. Item prima dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit quo et a quibus significatur deus per huiusmodi nomina; in secunda, qualiter significatur, ibi: Istis deiformes etc. Item prima dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit quo significatur deus, quia per sacram scripturam, in secunda, a quibus, quia a sanctis viris, ibi: De hac, igitur, sicut dictum est etc. Prima pars dividitur in duas. In prima continuat se ad quendam librum, quem fecit de divinis personis, quem non habemus; in secunda ostendit, quod per sacram scripturam nobis deus nominatur, ibi: Esto autem et nunc etc.
(Albertus Magnus 1972 3)

20. The only exception is Durling's presentation of an earlier version of this chapter at the April 1975 meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, "Reticent Commentary in the Middle Ages: Vita nuova 19 and 25." [BACK]

21. Dante uses the term of the divine procession in Convvivio 3.2.4; as Bruno Nardi shows (1967 92-94), that is a passage derived from the Liber de causis. [BACK]

22. Thus God's speech provides an instance of the Dionysian triad powerjustice-peace, again based on monê-próodos-epistrophê. See Introduction, note 39. [BACK]

23. These lines have occasioned some puzzlement: does Dante mean he will be damned? Or can he be referring to the Inferno? Pazzaglia (1970) usefully continue

      summarizes the debates; and cf. J. E. Shaw's attentive analyses of the positions prior to 1929 (1929 122-128).

      Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:99-100), opting for the first possibility above, cite "Lo doloroso amor che mi conduce," lines 32-42, which do say, to paraphrase, " if God does not forgive me for my sins, my soul will depart to the torment it will deserve, and it will not fear; for it will be so intent to imagine her that it will feel no pain; so that, if I have lost her in this world, in the next world Love will pay tribute to me." But it is one thing to have the speaker say if, another thing to have God himself predict one's damnation. In the terms set up by "Donne ch'avete," not to speak of the Vita nuova as a whole, the speaker's insight into Beatrice's radiance and his knowledge of what is said about her in heaven would make it self-contradictory for line 28 to mean that he will be one of the damned; rather, the vision of heaven offered in stanza 2, not to speak of his insight into Beatrice's perfections, places him clearly among the worthy, among those who have "stayed to gaze on her" (line 35); cf. De Robertis's comment: "le parole rivolte ai 'mal nati', quello squarcio di luce nell'abisso, non saranno trasposizione della discesa all'inferno del Salvatore?" (1970 132 n .1). Furthermore, in our view, the implication of the return of colui from hell is required as part of the system of parallelisms among the various types of return in the poem.

      In short, the notion that lines 27-28 predict Dante's damnation goes against the clear sense of the text and against the plan of the entire Vita nuova. Do we then have to conclude that the passage is a later revision or that Dante was already planning the Commedia when he first wrote the Vita nuova? No, only that some of the grandiose possibilities of the theme of procession and return as a basis for poetic structure had begun to dawn on him. [BACK]

24. Again, see Introduction, note 39. [BACK]

25. The influential Maximus the Confessor distinguished five divisions by which the world came into existence: (1) "that which divides from the uncreated nature created nature in general"; (2) "that by which the universal and simultaneously created nature is divided into intelligibles and sensibles"; (3) that "by which visible nature is divided into heaven and earth"; (4) that "by which the earth is divided into paradise and the inhabited globe"; (5) that "by which man himself, who, well and beautifully . . . added to the sum of things that are—as a most effective agent of the continuity of all, in everything naturally establishing in himself a mediation between all extremes effected by every difference—is divided into male and female."

Quarum [scil. divisionum] primam  inquit esse aiunt eam, quae a non creata natura creatam universaliter naturam et per generationem esse accipientem dividit . . . . Secundam vero per quam ipsa simul omnis natura a deo per creationem esse accipiens dividitur in intelligibilia et sensibilia. Tertiam deinceps per quam ipsa sensibilis natura dividitur in caelum ac terram; quartam itidem per quam terra dividitur in paradisum et orbem terrarum, et quintam per quam ipse in omnibus veluti quaedam cunctorum continuatissima officina omnibusque per omnem differentiam ex- soft

tremitatibus per se ipsum naturaliter medietatem faciens bene ac pulchre secundum generationem his quae sunt superadditus homo in masculum feminamque dividitur.
(Eriugena's version in the De divisione naturae 2.3; text and translation from Sheldon-Williams 1972; cf. PL 122.530)

      See below, note 30.

      For Dante's later emanationism, see Paradiso 2.112-138, and Nardi's discussions (1960 16-20, 97-106); cf. Introduction, pp. 41-43, and Chapter 2, note 75. [BACK]

26. On the relation between the terms of rhetoric and metaphysics, see Introduction, p. 18, and above, note 7. [BACK]

27. Barbi's note reads, in part: "I manoscritti sia della Vita nuova sia delle rime varie sono concordi in legger viso; né ci è ragione di scostarsi della loro testimonianza, ben potendo il poeta aver voluto vedere in là 've non pote alcun mirarlafiso la determinazione di una parte del viso, cioè la bocca" (Dante 1932 78 n .). Once it is decided that the mouth is meant, Barbi's point is no doubt valid; but it is more natural to take the lines as referring to the eyes, in the tradition and in Dante the usual place where Love is visible (see Foster and Boyde's note on "Al poco giorno," line 16—Dante 1967 2:267). [BACK]

28. The phrase cosa nova picks up cosa mortale from line 53; it may well refer to Beatrice's death, the chief occasion on which the "friendship of the number nine for her" is manifested; see Vita nuova, chapter 29. [BACK]

29. For Dante's use of the term in other contexts, particularly with nonThomistic (i.e., Neoplatonic) emphasis, see Nardi 1967 345-346. [BACK]

30. On Maximus's fifth division (see note 25 above), Eriugena comments (in a late addition):

. . . extremitates hic vocat invisibilem sensibilemque creaturam quae a se invicem veluti longissimo spatio naturali differentia discrepant. Sunt enim naturarum conditarum duo extremi termini sibimet oppositi, sed humana natura medietatem eis praestat; in ea enim sibi invicem copulantur et de multis unum fiunt. Nulla enim creatura est, a summis usque deorsum, quae in homine non reperiatur. Ideoque officina omnium jure nominatur.
(text and translation from Sheldon-Williams 1972 18-19; cf. PL 122.530)

. . . by the extremes he here means the invisible creature and the sensible creature, which by natural difference differ from one another as though by a very wide space. For they are opposed to one another as the two extremes of created natures; but human nature supplies a middle term between them, for in it they are joined to one another, and from being many become one. For there is no creature, from the highest to the lowest, which is not found in man, and that is why he is rightly called "agent (of continuity)" [ officina, literally "workshop," translating ergasterion; see Sheldon-Williams 1972 218-219, note 9] of all things [this final sentence is a quotation from Maximus]. break

      Eriugena quotes Maximus again in the influential passage in Book 3 (again based on Maximus, contaminated with Gregory the Great—see Chapter 2, note 84):

 . . . non immerito dicitur homo creaturarum omnium officina quoniam in ipso universalis creatura continetur. Intelligit quidem ut angelus, ratiocinatur ut homo, sentit ut animal irrationale, vivit ut germen, corpore animoque subsistit, nullius creaturae expers.
( De divisione naturae 3.37 [Sheldon-Williams 1981 286; PL 122.733])

      Eriugena's De divisione naturae, along with his translations of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, is thus a main intermediary of the idea of man as the copula of all creation:

inter primordiales rerum causas homo ad imaginem Dei factus est ut omnis creatura et intelligibilis et sensibilis, ex quibus veluti diversis extremitatibus compositus unum inseparabile fieret, et ut esset medietas et adunatio omnium creaturarum.
(Sheldon-Williams 1972 28; PL 122.536; emphasis added)

      See Gregory 1955 103-104 and 104 n .3. For the history of the idea from Plato to Eriugena, see Sheldon-Williams 1972 219-220 n .62.

      In a famous passage, Dante writes of man as "the horizon between the corruptible and the incorruptible" ( Monarchia 3.16):

Homo solus in entibus tenet medium corruptibilium et incorruptibilium; propter quod recte a phylosophis assimilatur orizonti, qui est medium duorum emisperiorum. Nam homo, si consideretur secundum utranque partem essentialem, scilicet animam et corpus: corruptibilis est si consideretur tantum secundum corpus; si vero secundum alteram, scilicet animam, incorruptibilis est. . . . Si ergo homo medium quoddam est corruptibilium et incorruptibilium, cum omne medium sapiat naturam extremorum, necesse est hominem sapere utranque naturam. Et cum omnis natura ad ultinum quendam finem ordinetur, consequitur ut hominis duplex finis existat: ut, sicut inter omnia entia solus incorruptibilitatem et corruptibilitatem participat, sic solus inter omnia entia in duo ultima ordinetur, quorum alterum sit finis eius prout corruptibilis est, alterum vero prout incorruptibilis.
(we cite Nardi's edition, Dante 1979C 496-498, but accept the traditional emendation in lemma 4)

For man alone among beings holds the mean between the corruptible and the incorruptible; for which reason he is rightly likened by the philosophers to the horizon, which is the mean between two hemispheres. For man, if he is considered according to both his essential parts, namely soul and body: he is corruptible if considered only according to the body, but if considered according to his other part, his soul, he is incorruptible . . . . If then man is a certain mean between corruptible and incorruptible things, since every mean partakes [literally, tastes] of the nature continue

of the extremes, man must partake [literally, taste] of both natures. And since every nature is ordered to some final end, it follows that man's final end is double: so that, just as he alone among beings participates in both corruptibility and incorruptibility, so he alone among beings is ordered to two final ends, of which one is his end in so far as he is corruptible, the other in so far as he is incorruptible.

      Nardi (1967b 89-91) showed that this passage involves one of Dante's borrowings from the Liber de causis, where it refers to the World-Soul, as Aquinas and Albert both point out in their commentaries (cited by Nardi); the horizon is between time and eternity: "Esse autem quod est post aeternitatem et supra tempus est anima; quoniam est in orizonte aeternitatis inferius et supra tempus."

      Albert and Aquinas both define horizon as the juncture of two hemispheres; it would seem that Dante's substitution of the terms the corruptible and the incorruptible for time and eternity (not considered by Nardi, who also seems unfamiliar with the application of the idea to man himself, as opposed to the World-Soul—see his notes, Dante 1979c) is a contamination of the Liber de causis passages with the passages we have quoted from Eriugena and the Greek fathers and provides further possible evidence for his familiarity with them. Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure are further possible sources; see Theiler 1970; and Schneider 1960, 1961. See also next note and above, note 25.

      The interesting phrase sapere utranque naturam seems to be related to one of the parallels R. B. Woolsey found between Bernard Silvester's Megacosmos and the second-century Hermetic Asclepius: according to him, Bernard's "curabit utrumque" (referring to the body and the spirit, or earthly and heavenly realities) echoes the Asclepius statement, in a similar context, that man is "ex utraque natura" (Woolsey 1948 343). See Nock 1973 324; Bernard cites the idea of man as medietas in the following passage:

Mentem de caelo, corpus trahet ex elementis, 
   Ut terras habitet corpore, mente polum. 
Mens, corpus diversa licet iungentur ad unum, 
   Ut  sacra  conplacitum  nexio  reddat opus. 
Divus erit, terrenus erit, curabit utrumque 
   Consiliis mundum, religione deos. 
Naturis poterit sic respondere duabus, 
   Et sic principiis congruus esse suis. 
Ut divina colat, pariter terrena capessat, 
   Et  geminae  curam sedulitatis agat, 
Cum superis commune bonum rationis habebit. 
             (Bernard Silvester 1876 55; emphasis added)

      He will take his mind from the heavens, his body from the elements, that he may live on earth with his body, in the sky with his mind. Mind and body, though they be different, will be yoked together, that the sacred nexus may make the work pleasing. He will be divine and he will be earthly, he will concern himself with both: the world with his counsels, continue

the gods with his worship. Thus he will be able to be dutiful with two natures and thus be worthy of his beginnings. That he may cultivate divine things, and at the same time grasp earthly things, following his concerns with twinned sedulity, he will share with the gods the good of reason.

      Dante's use of this traditional Neoplatonic notion to found his doctrine of the two goals of human existence is of course one of the capital points of the Monarchia. In a parallel but narrower way, we find his characteristic refusal to give up either side of human experience in the petrose as well. See Chapter 2, pp. 106-108. [BACK]

31. In particular of the division into male and female sexes, regarded by the Greek fathers as foreign to the ideal essence of humanity and an anticipation of the Fall. The disappearance, in the resurrected Christ, of the sexual (based on Galatians 3:28) was seen as the first stage of the cosmic reunification; Eriugena's discussion of this idea is in PL 122.530-536, based mainly on Maximus, and 794-815, based mainly on Gregory of Nyssa. See Sheldon-Williams's lucid account (1972 217-218 n .42). Eriugena quotes at great length from Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opficio (chap. 16: PG 44.177-188) in his section on the division of the sexes ( De divisione naturae 4.12-17: PL 122.794-830); for instance, the following passage is close to the others we have cited on man as medietas:

Duorum quorundam per extremitatem a se invicem distantium medium est humanitas, divinae videlicet incorporalisque naturae, et irrationabilis pecudalisque vitae. Licet enim utrumque praedictorum in humana comparatione considerari: portionem quidem Dei quod rationabile est et intellectuale, quod iuxta masculum et feminam differentiam non admittit, irrationabilis vero corporalem constitutionem et duplicationem in masculum et feminam partitam. Utrumque horum est omnino in omnibus humanam vitam participantibus.
( PL 122.795; cf. PG 44.181-182; cf. Introduction, note 29)

Human nature is the mean between two natures extremely distant from each other, namely the divine and incorporeal nature and the irrational life of beasts. For we can consider both of them in the composition of man: the portion of God, what is reasonable and intellectual, which does not admit of difference according to male and female; and on the other hand the bodily constitution of the irrational, duplicated and divided into male and female. Both of these are in all those who participate in human life.

32. See above, note 28. [BACK]

33. See Introduction, note 32. [BACK]

34. Except perhaps in his use of the term finire in lines 3 and 42. [BACK]

35. See Introduction, pp. 15-17, and cf. above, notes 30 and 31, in particular Gregory of Nyssa's situating human nature between the divine/incorporeal and the bodily. [BACK]

36. See Introduction, note 27; the symmetrical arrangement of meters in the Consolatio may also have influenced Dante's arrangement of verse forms in the Vita nuova. break [BACK]

37. As Nardi (1967b 89-94) showed, Dante's citations of the Liber de causis regularly turn what is said there of the World-Soul to apply to the human soul, a tendency already visible in his adaptation of Boethius to "Donne ch'avete"; cf. Gregory 1955 123-174; and Gregory 1957. This is also true of many of the commentaries on "O qui perpetua" assembled by Pierre Courcelle (1967). In the Paradiso, of course, Dante has Beatrice speak of the angels as "enlivening" their respective spheres (which he calls "organs of the world"— Paradiso 2.121), and says that their "power" ( virtù ) is joined to the spheres in a way similar to the union of soul and body in man ( Paradiso 2.139-144); the ambiguity of the passage is no doubt intentional. Dante was probably familiar with the discussion by Albertus Magnus of Avicenna's and Averroës's positions (Avicenna favored incarnation of the heavenly intelligences, Averroës regarded them as separated; Albert expresses some doubt but opts for Averroës and Alpetragius) in the De causis etprocessu universitatis 1.4.7 (Albertus Magnus 1890-98 10:423-427). But he avoids the concept of the World-Soul as such. [BACK]

38. On which Barbi (Dante 1932 cclxiii) states: "Poca sembra essere stata, per le lezioni di senso, la corruzione introdotta nel testo nel passaggio dall'autografo al capostipite delle due tradizioni. In generale fra a e b c'è accordo perfetto." [BACK]

39. Cf. Barbi's observations on the integral relation of the divisioni to the rest of the text, contra Boccaccio's relegation of them to the margins (ibid., xvi-xviii). [BACK]

40. There is a close relation between "Donne ch'avete" and the second canzone of the Convivio, "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona," which is usually dated around 1294. From the point of view of our discussion here, one of the most striking things about the later canzone is that it completely avoids reference to the pattern of procession/return, despite the fact that it associates the lady it sings of with the biblical figure of Sapientia (often identified with the Logos). See Vincenzo Pernicone's excellent discussion (1970a). We accept his view (which follows Barbi's) that this canzone was probably originally composed with allegorical intent (i.e., the lady was Philosophy). [BACK]