1. Paradiso 8.34-37 associate it with Charles Martel's visit to Florence in March of that year; see Dante 1965 2:343-346. [BACK]

2. See the careful summaries of the debates in Fenzi 1966 230 and 286-294. [BACK]

3. "Tra i problemi più dibattuti della bibliografia dantesca è quello circa l'identificazione della così detta donna Pietra. In fondo, il problema non ha ragione di porsi, perché la donna Pietra è semplicemente il legame che unisce le liriche più tecnicistiche di Dante, nelle quali l'energia lessicale e la rarità delle rime si trasformano, a norma di 'contenuto', nel tema della donna aspra, dell'amore difficile" (Contini, in Dante 1946 149; cf. Fenzi 1966 286-287). [BACK]

4. The most careful elaboration of this view is Blasucci 1957 (also in Blasucci 1969). [BACK]

5. "La leggittima ammirazione corrente per questa serie suggestiva deve pur lasciar chiaro come, innanzi ai 'frammenti' di poesia petrosa che s'articolano nella Commedia (per esempio il cerchio dei traditori), l'ispirazione delle petrose appaia, essa, radicalmente 'frammentaria"' (Contini, in Dante 1946 xxi). See Fenzi 1966 293-294 n .21. [BACK]

6. The first critic who seems to us to have recognized the psychological and ethical seriousness of any of the petrose is Peter Dronke, in his three pages on "Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro" (1968 164-166). [BACK]

7. We discuss the grounds for this dating in Chapter 2, pp. 80-81. [BACK]

8. On all aspects of Dante's biography, see Petrocchi 1978; for Dante's birthdate, see pp. 1-5. In both versions of his life of Dante, the Trattatello in laude di Dante, Boccaccio gives only the years of Dante's birth and death; in the Esposizioni sopra il Dante, however, explaining that "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" refers to Dante's age as thirty-five in 1300, he relates:

E che egli fosse così assai ben si verifica per quello che già mi ragionasse un valente uomo, chiamato ser Piero di messer Giardino da Ravenna, il quale fu uno de' più intimi amici e servidori che Dante avesse in Ravenna, affermandomi avere avuto da Dante, giaccendo egli nella infermità della quale e' mori, lui avere di tanto trapassato il cinquantesimosesto anno, quanto dal preterito maggio avea infino a quel dì. E assai ne consta Dante essere morto negli anni di Cristo ICCCXXI, dì XIIII di settembre; per che, sottraendo ventuno di cinquantasei, restano trentacinque.
(Boccaccio 1965 20; see Padoan's note 6, p. 775) break

      If this testimony is accepted, corroborated as it is by Dante's own indication (in Paradiso 22.110-120) that he was born under Gemini (and it is perhaps inherently less likely to have been distorted by Boccaccio's love of "literary schemas" than other matters), we can at least locate the date of Dante's birth in the period between the entrance of the sun into Gemini, which in 1265 took place on May 13, and the end of the month (Petrocchi does not mention Boccaccio's testimony on this point, apparently regarding it as untrustworthy). See Chapter 2, notes 8, 32. [BACK]

9. The two had been betrothed as children in 1277, according to Florentine custom; we do not know when they were actually married. [BACK]

10. Both of Dante's sons, Pietro and Iacopo, would have to have been of legal age (at least fifteen) when they were included in the commune's sentence of death against Dante in 1315. Thus both of them, and possibly a third son who may have died in childhood, must have been born by 1300. [BACK]

11. See Petrocchi 1978 18-30; Dante's entrance into politics was made possible by the new Ordinamenti di Giustizia of 1295, which lifted the ban on lesser nobles' running for office. [BACK]

12. It is not entirely certain whether Dante was sent on the mission of November 1300 or that of October 1301 (the traditional view); see Petrocchi 1978 29-30. [BACK]

13. The question of the sequence and dating of Dante's other canzoni is so vexed, and the petrose represent on the whole so radical a departure from them, that for the most part we simply leave them to one side. On the several canzoni that seem to have special connections with the petrose, see Chapter 4, note 48. [BACK]

14. See below, "The Problematic of the Petrose ." [BACK]

15. See especially Blasucci 1957. [BACK]

16. Price 1970 123; on the Toledan and Alfonsine tables, see also Millas Vallicrosa 1943-50. Such patterns as Charles S. Singleton (1965a) established for the lengths of cantos around the center of the Commedia may depend on the use of the new Arabic numerals; the technique of casting out of nines, however, is ancient (see Martianus Capella 2.103-105 on the numerology of the names of Mercury and Philologia). For optics in the thirteenth century, see Crombie 1953. [BACK]

17. For an excellent survey of Dante's scientific and philosophical ideas, see Boyde 1981. The best discussion of Dante's astronomical conceptions is Buti and Bertagni 1966; see also d'Alverny 1970; Moore 1895; and Orr 1957. For general discussions of the science of Dante's day, see Crombie 1959; and the very useful volume by Edward Grant (1979). For a useful survey of astrology in Dante, see Kay 1988 147-162. [BACK]

18. For the concept in general, see Allers 1944; Rico 1970, esp. 11-107; Barkan 1975; and Kurdzialek 1971. For the twelfth century, see Gregory 1956; d'Alverny 1953; and Chenu 1976. For the concept of a literary work as microcosmic in the Neoplatonic tradition, see Coulter 1976. [BACK]

19. See Olerud, and F. M. Cornford's useful commentary (1937). [BACK]

20. Macrobius 1970a; there is an English translation by W. H. Stahl (1952). For the Timaeus in the Middle Ages, see Klibanksy 1939; Gregory 1958, esp. continue

      chap. 4, "Il Timeo e i problemi del platonismo medievale"; and Chenu 1976 108-141. [BACK]

21. Plato 1962. Calcidius ends at Timaeus 53 b. [BACK]

22. Timaeus 36b (Plato 1961 1166). Calcidius translates the passage:

Tunc hanc ipsam seriem in longum secuit et ex una serie duas fecit easque mediam mediae in speciem chi Graecae litterae coartavit curvavitque in orbes, quoad coirent inter se capita, orbemque orbi sic inseruit, ut alter eorum adverso, alter obliquo circuitu rotarentur, et exterioris quidem circuli motum eundem, quod erat eiusdem naturae consanguineus, cognominavit, interioris autem diversum; atque exteriorem quidem circulum, quem eundem cognominatum esse diximus, a regione dextra per sinistrum latus eidem et simili illi circumactioni virtute pontificioque rotatus dato. Unam quippe, ut erat, eam et indivisam reliquit, interiorem vero scidit sexies septemque impares orbes fabricatus est iuxta dupli et tripli spatia orbesque ipsos contraria ferri iussit agitatione.

23. For an analysis of the Timaeus itself as mirroring the structure of the human body—and thus of the cosmos—see Brague 1985. [BACK]

24. For detailed discussions of microcosmic form in other important texts known to have influenced Dante—Virgil's Fourth Eclogue and the third book of Seneca's Naturales quaestiones —see, respectively, Büchner 1955 1196-1211; and Durling 1975 97-100. [BACK]

25. See Gibson 1981; and Chadwick 1981. [BACK]

26. See the excellent survey of the entire question in Tateo 1970. [BACK]

27. Not much effective analysis has yet been carried out of the formal structure of the Consolatio. Chamberlain 1970 is an extremely careful and useful survey of references to music in the Consolatio. He shows (pp. 86-89) that 1 m.5 ("O stelliferi conditor orbis") and 3 m.12 ("Si vis celeri") refer to the main classifications of the musica mundana as set forth in De musica 1; he shows that the entire work is governed by the idea that "the world music should be used by man to order his own moral and intellectual activity" (p. 90), indeed, that the idea of music is in a sense the most fundamental one in the work; yet his discussion asks only what explicit or implicit statements about music are to be found within the Consolatio, and never raises the question of the relation of the structure of the poems (or of the work as a whole) to these principles. Gruber 1978 has important observations on the symmetrical arrangement of the various meters around "O qui perpetua" (pp. 19-24) but focuses almost entirely on questions of doctrine and sources (on "O qui perpetua," see pp. 277-290); Lerer 1985 (on "O qui perpetua," see pp. 138-145) and Crabbe 1981 have virtually no formal analysis; Scarry 1980 is based on extremely vague criteria. There really has been little advance beyond Fritz Klingner's suggestive discussion (1921). [BACK]

28. As has generally been recognized; and cf. Gruber's observation on the place of "O qui perpetua" among the various meters (see last note). [BACK]

29. This translation departs from the way the verse was understood in the Middle Ages: as most of the commentaries agree, "triplicis . . . naturae" was understood as a modifier to animam rather to mediam; see Gregory 1958 4-5 continue

and nn.; and Courcelle 1967 277, 293, 295. Gruber so takes the phrase (1978 282), referring to Timaeus 35a-36b (quoted above, p. 9). Dante seems to have understood the verse as we do, as a reference to the position of the soul as the mean between the two extremes. See Chapter 1, notes 30 and 31. [BACK]

30. Text from Boethius 1957 51-52. [BACK]

31. Courcelle 1967 271-274. For the doctrinal background, see Klingner 1921; Theiler 1964 (also in Theiler 1966); Theiler 1970; and Scheible 1972. Scheible's balanced discussion of the question of Boethius's debt in this poem to Proclus's commentary on the Timaeus (see esp. pp. 109-112) in our opinion rightly emphasizes the difference between the two writers' philosophical positions (a difference in our view due largely to Boethius's monotheistic Christianity). Scheible also demonstrates Boethius's use of Plotinus in several passages of 3 m.9. For the medieval discussions of the orthodoxy of Boethius's views, see Courcelle 1967 275-332; and Gregory 1958 2-15. [BACK]

32. See Tateo 1970 657; and Kranz 1967. For additional parallels, see Chapter 6, pp. 229, 231-235. [BACK]

33. As established by Norden (1913). [BACK]

34. "Boethius more prisco ab invocationibus exordium sumit, parte media virtutes factaque dei praedicat, denique preces profert" (Klingner 1921 40). [BACK]

35. He concludes: "In hymnis vero heroicis versibus compositis, Boethius quantum scio primus eo usus est. Qui hymnum Platonicum ad antiquissimam formam compositum illo quasi vertice addito ad pulchritudinem perfectam adduxit" (ibid.). [BACK]

36. The completion of the pagan hymn with the conclusion pointed out by Klingner is a formal correlative of Boethius's ambition to preserve the achievements of classical philosophy in the Christian context: implicitly the claim is made that pagan philosophy prepares for Christianity, and Christianity crowns and completes it. [BACK]

37. As Klingner (1921) showed, the terminology reflects the late Neoplatonic identification of the Good with the One; he argued that Proclus was the main influence. See above, note 31; and below, notes 39 and 40. [BACK]

38. Klingner's discussion of the conclusion continues: "Sic enim reditus animae non solum desideratur et poscitur, sed quodam modo in ipso hymno agitur. Et sicut in ceteris versibus qui praecedunt res a deo productae et rursus revocatae et ad eum festinantes explicantur et verbis quasi expanduntur, ita in extremis omnis ille tamquam decursus et recursus rerum in quinque nomina eius contrahitur, postremo omnia velut in unum punctum in illud idem concurrunt" (1921 61-62). One wishes he had developed this insight further; it has gone unnoticed by later commentators. [BACK]

39. Sheldon-Williams (in Armstrong 1967 429-431) writes:

For pagan and Christian alike, the cosmos is modelled on the Forms, which are located in the Mind of God. Therefore a proper understanding of the creation leads to the knowledge of the Mind of the Creator, and therefore of the Creator himself. The discourse of Scripture and the variety of nature reveal the same truth because their unifying principle is the same. The Scriptures express the Word of God, which, like the Neo- soft

platonic Intellect ( Noûs ) is the pleroma of all the Forms ( noetà ). . . . As power [the forms] are creative ( ousiopoioí ), as light they lead the creature back to its Creator: for they are the rays ( phôta, aktînes, augaî ) of which God is the Sun, the apprehensible aspect of divinity, whether intelligible or visible, through which he communicates himself to the minds and sense of his creatures, and through that knowledge draws them back to him, for "knowledge is a kind of conversion."

Thus the Christians shared with the Platonists the conception of universal nature as rest-in-motion or motion-in-rest consisting of three aspects: the eternally abiding First Principle; a procession therefrom through the Forms into their effects; and a return of the effects through the Forms to their First Principle. The names given to these aspects, by Platonist and Christian alike, were monê, próodos, epistrophé; but also, because every intelligible and creative principle abides what it is, and in order to accomplish its will emits power, which achieves its effect when the intention which emitted it is fulfilled, they were given the names ousia, dunamis, energeia.

The latter triad, which does not feature prominently in Neoplatonism, tended, after the ps.-Dionysius, to be preferred by Christians, since it was more convenient than the other for the exposition of a doctrine of creation (God effecting his will) as opposed to one of emanation (an automatic process).

40. Mente in line 7 refers to the transcendent principle of Mind ( noús in Neoplatonic terminology), assimilated to the Christian idea of the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, in an ablative of means, as holding the Ideas of things ( gerens, line 8); this is a version of Augustine's theory of the ideae seminales, based on John I: "through him were all things made"; cf. Gregory 1962, chap. 2, "Mediazione e incarazione." Menti in line 22 refers to the created analog of noûs aspiring to knowledge of it. So also forma boni in line 6 corresponds to fontem boni in line 23 (the referents are identical). As the terms applied to Soul here echo those used of God in the first section, so also the parallelism of convertit in line 17 with conversas in line 21 (noted above) establishes a descending chain of analogies. [BACK]

41. As this poem occurs in the central book of five; cf. Klingner's observation that there are five names for God in the last line (note 38 above). See below, note 46. [BACK]

42. This is not arbitrary; Boethius was fluent in Greek as well as in Latin, and he was used to thinking of the Roman letters (which existed exclusively in capitals and uncials, minuscules not having yet been invented) as counterparts of the Greek: Roman A was for him physically identical with Greek capital alpha; the long O of many Latin endings corresponded to the Greek omega endings, as every schoolboy knew. For end-at-beginning and beginning-at-end, cf. the pattern in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, of line 5, "Ultima . . . ," and line 70, "Incipe. . . ." [BACK]

43. See Freccero 1983 15-16. Considering the intense attention to detail that the poem evinces, it would not be fanciful to see its thematic alpha and omega in the first and last vowels of the last word of line 2 ( aevo ), where the sense is continue

      again the circle. Tempus ab aevo: time is set in motion from eternity, its alpha which is also its telos (its omega ), toward which it turns and therefore circulates. [BACK]

44. We mentioned above that there are alternative ways of dividing the poem. In addition to 1-6, 6-21, 22-28, and 1-9, 10-21, 22-28 (which gives sections of nine, twelve, and seven lines), the marginal line numbers may suggest another division, into groups of seven, according to which lines 1-7 would concern God, 8-14 and 15-21 the structure of the world, and 22-28 the return of the mind to God. In any division, of course, three lines go to the elements, five to the World-Soul, four to the lesser souls, and seven to the petition, which, as we have seen, breaks naturally into two groups of three and four lines. The sharply distinguished nature of the last line of the poem, combined with the clear break after line 9, may suggest that the poem can also be conceived as three groups of nine plus one, though it must be admitted that the clear break comes after line 17 rather than 18. [BACK]

45. Dante's structuring of "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna" probably owes much to his study of this aspect of "O qui perpetua"; see Chapter 4, pp. 158-162. [BACK]

46. Among its other microcosmic aspects, there is also evidence that Boethius thought of the poem in terms of numerical composition, especially that number is cited as the binder of the elements (terms with obvious application to poetry, which by definition is built of harmonious numerical proportion among syllables written in elementa—letters; see pp. 22-28, 315-317, for Dante's use of the term ligare to refer to the construction of the canzone stanza). The nominative and other forms of the second-person pronoun occur for a total of either nine or ten times, depending on whether one counts tuo (line 26). If one counts the emphatic series of substantives at the end of the poem, beginning in line 26, including idem as one of them (the quantity of the i marks it as a masculine nominative), the result is exactly nine. Furthermore, da occurs three times in lines 22-23, and the relative pronoun qui/quem occurs three times in lines 1-4. That three is of major significance—no doubt trinitarian—is assured by its explicit occurrence in triplicis . . . naturae, just after the reference to number as the binder of the elements in line 10, and it cannot be accidental that all five lines on the World-Soul have fifteen syllables. It is worth considering also that the number twenty-eight (an exfoliation of the perfect number seven) has a special status in Neoplatonic lore. Macrobius (1970a 29-31) enumerates the following significances: it is the length of the lunar month, as seven is of the week; it is the sum of the first seven digits; it is the number of weeks after which the human fetus may first live if born. [BACK]

47. Further analysis would no doubt reveal that "O qui perpetua" is a microcosm of the Consolatio in many other ways as well. [BACK]

48. See pp. 10-II above. [BACK]

49. The most useful edition is that by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (Dante 1979a), which includes an Italian translation and a useful commentary. [BACK]

50. In addition to Mengaldo's 1979 edition, see his 1968 edition (Dante 1968) and the useful Pazzaglia 1967; Marigo's controversial edition (Dante 1957a) is often useful for commentary. [BACK]

51. See Chapter 1. break [BACK]

52. What follows reflects qualified agreement with Pazzaglia 1967. [BACK]

53. See Monterosso 1970b. [BACK]

54. Pazzaglia seems to us to have excessively reacted against Marigo's excessive vagueness on this point. Poetic form, as distinct from musical form, imitates the musica mundana in sharply definable ways. The distinction Pazzaglia seeks to draw between Platonic and Aristotelian phases, we believe, lacks foundation: "Dante lascia cadere ogni considerazione della musica 'mundana' e 'umana'. . . . Pur tenendo fermo il principio della proporzione e dell'armonia cosmica, lo interpreta in chiave aristotelico-scolastica, e cioè fisica e naturalistica, piuttosto che matematica. . . . La musica, per Dante, non ha più alcun diretto addentellato metafisico, ma è un'ars con propri caratteri specifici e una propria capacità agogica sulla psicologia dell'uomo" (Pazzaglia 1967 21-22). It is true that music and poetry have each their own autonomy for Dante; that there is no "diretto addentellato metafisico" is overstated. [BACK]

55. Nancy Vine Durling reminds us of Erich Auerbach's use of this analogy (Auerbach 1953 106) to characterize the laisse of the Chanson de Roland. Auerbach's perceptive remark would seem to be an unconscious echo of the De vulgari eloquentia. [BACK]

56. 2.xiii.10 seems to contradict itself on this point; see Appendix 4, note 17. [BACK]

57. See Appendix 4, note 18. [BACK]

58. See Appendix 4, note 14. [BACK]

59. This may be the case also in his disdain for lines with an even number of syllables: see 2.v.7; and Appendix 4, notes 6 and 7. [BACK]

60. This last phrase is somewhat obscure; we believe Mengaldo's translation, "solo per il prestigio dei modelli riconosciuti" ("solely because of the prestige enjoyed by the recognized models [of canzone form]") does not account for the freedom to depart from the models which Dante is assigning to the poet. Rather, Dante's point would seem to be either (1) that the canzone itself, because of its preeminence among vernacular forms, has this authority or (2) that the composition ofcanzoni is ideally restricted to those who have the discretion to make intelligent use of this freedom, in other words to those poets who possess authority, like Dante himself. We incline to the second interpretation, which is consistent with the position explicitly taken in 2.1, where the use of the vulgare illustre latium is restricted to the optime poetantes—the best poets—and in 2.2, where the canzone is identified as the form most suited for the vulgare illustre. [BACK]

61. See Mengaldo's notes in Dante 1979a 230-233. On Dante's reference to "Amor, tu vedi ben," see Appendix 1. [BACK]

62. For the iconography of the creation of the world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Zahlten 1969 153-156 and plates 123, 167, 180, 269, 282, 284, 286-290 (many of these show God holding scales as well as compasses); and cf. Friedmann 1974 (and Par. 19.40). For cosmic binding, see Lapidge 1980, whose argument is seriously flawed in omitting from consideration the obvious dependence of most of the passages discussed on Anchises' speech in Aeneid 6. [BACK]

63. As we show in Chapter 3, this last use of the term in this poem is generic in appearance only: it conceals a specific term. [BACK]

64. See Boyde 1981 248-255. break

65. See ibid., 263-265. [BACK]

66. Naturales Historiae 36 and 37. [BACK]

67. Etymologiarum liber 16 ( PL 82.562-577). [BACK]

68. Evans (1922) prints a number of Latin and French lapidaries. See also Evans 1933, 1953; Pannier 1882; Albertus Magnus 1967, apps. B and D; and Thorndike 1923-58, vols. 2 and 3. [BACK]

69. Echoed in Inferno 5 by Francesca's "Amor, che nel cor gentil ratto s'apprende." See also Chapter 3, note 32. [BACK]

70. This is especially evident because in the traditional doctrine of love Guinizelli is assuming, the lover's desire takes on the form of the beloved as telos (as in Virgilio's discussion in Purgatorio 18.37-39). [BACK]

71. See below, note 86. [BACK]

72. Summa theologica Ia, quaest. 70, art. 1. This is the view taken by Beatrice in her explanation of the cause of the spots on the moon in Paradiso 2. There were differences of opinion as to the degree and nature of the heavenly influences, of course; as Nardi pointed out, Aquinas sometimes regarded their influence as a motus ad formam rather than the imposition of form. [BACK]

73. See the lucid outline in Nardi 1967a 69-95. [BACK]

74. This adaptation of Ptolemy's and ibn Haitham's treatises on optics was the standard Western text until Kepler. [BACK]

75. See Crombie 1953 128-134; Crombie 1959 1:99-113. Cf. McEvoy 1982 149-222; and Mazzeo 1960 56-90 and, for the "light-metaphysics" in the Commedia, 91-132. [BACK]

76. On Albert as a natural scientist, see Thorndike 1923-58 2:517-592; and Weisheipl 1980. [BACK]

77. See also Riddle and Mulholland 1980. [BACK]

78. See Chapter 1, pp. 53-54; and Chapter 2, notes 67-68. [BACK]

79. As Nardi showed (1967 34-58), Albert's views on the development of the fetus were adopted by Dante in several respects where Albert differed sharply from Aquinas. [BACK]

80. They include Aristotle's Mineralogica, Epiphanius of Constantinople, Avicenna's Liber de congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum (Holmgard and Mandeville 1927), Marbodus, and the encyclopedist Thomas of Cantimpré; see Grant 1987 615-624. On Albert's use of Arnold of Saxony and Thomas of Cantimpré, see Albertus Magnus 1967 68-70. [BACK]

81. Quaestiones naturales 3.12; Seneca 1961. Interesting and characteristic is the Ovidian turn of phrase, "qui fuerat, aequore erat, fiat super aequora saxum." [BACK]

82. Evidently Hermes Trismegistus; the text Albert is citing has not been identified; see 1967 273-274. [BACK]

83. As Nardi showed (1960 69-101), Albert's doctrine of the virtus loci is an extension of Aristotle's notion of the natural place of the elements. See the edition of the De natura loci by Paul Hossfeld (Albertus Magnus 1976); and Hossfeld 1969, 1978. [BACK]

84. There is a further analogy with the digestion and assimilation of food, Mineralium liber 1.1.8 (1967 12). Albert insists, however, that the vis mineralis is not a soul. [BACK]

85. This is not strictly true, however, since in Albert's emanationism, based continue

      on the Liber de causis, the first axiom is that any superior cause always acts more strongly than an inferior one that it acts through. See De causis et processu universitatis 2.1.5 (Albertus Magnus 1890-99 10:441-442). [BACK]

86. The translation has been revised. Albert is not drawing a comparison: the intentio of the angelic intelligence looking into the mind of God is the formal cause of the shaping of the sublunar (as in Guinizelli's poem), though transferred to the vis mineralis. See Nardi 1967b 97-99, 29-31. [BACK]

87. E.g., De causis et processu universitatis (Albertus Magnus 1890-99 10: 385, 387, 409, 453, 509). "Quod cum intelligentia sit plena formis, imprimit illas formas in materiam per corpora celestia tamquam per instrumenta" (cf. ibid. 2.2.21, pp. 510-511) is one of the propositions condemned by the bishop of Paris in 1277 as heretical (Albert died in 1280). Aquinas, too, seems aimed at in the condemnation of this thesis; see Litt 1963 174-185; Wipfel 1977. [BACK]

88. All this power is "poured" into the matter itself—Albert had not encountered Occam's razor, "Entia non sunt multiplicanda"! (See Litt 1963 110-148.) The more he tries to free himself from the astrological theory, the more he involves himself in it and in its tendency to personify the forces of nature. [BACK]

89. Dante states the analogy explicitly in Paradiso 2, a passage that is closely related to Albertus Magnus's conception; see Chapter 2, note 75. [BACK]

90. We discuss this passage, and other connections of parts of the Commedia with the petrose, in Chapters 2 and 6. [BACK]

91. Dante 1964 2:16-18. We leave out of consideration here the question of Dante's views on the possible intellect. [BACK]

92. This was a well known branch of "white" (non-infernal) magic, amply attested from late antiquity and important enough that a fairly large number of treatises exist on it; these are listed by Thorndike 1947. The most important is the Lapidario del rey d. Alfonso X, which classes stones and images according to whether they owe their power to a constellation, a star, a zodiacal sign, a decan, or a planet; there is a facsimile edition of the whole (Fernando-Guerra and de Madrazo 1881) and of the first part (Brey-Mariño 1982). [BACK]

93. This accounts, in Albert's view, for the fact that many ancient gems have lost their virtus: the precession of the equinoxes has robbed them of it ( Mineralium liber 2.3.3). [BACK]

94. We accept the ordering of the four poems established by Michele Barbi, as do most modern critics; see Dante 1969; Dante 1979d 192. [BACK]

95. The self-division of the poet's nature in the poems is one of the important meanings of the mystifying phrase "il geminato cielo" in the first petrosa; see Chapter 2, pp. 95, 106-108. On the solitude of the poet in his cosmos, see Chapter 2, note 2; Chapter 4, pp. 163-164. [BACK]

96. For the topical references that offer some clues to the chronology of the composition of the Commedia, see Petrocchi 1978. [BACK]