SN: 13004458

How does Dante’s use of optical theory influence his moral vision in the Commedia ?

‘Within the profound and shining subsistence

of the lofty Light appeared to me three

circles of three colors and one magnitude; and

one seemed reflected by the other, as rainbow

by rainbow, and the third seemed fire

breathed forth equally from the one and the other.’1

(Par. XXXIII, 115-21)

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was undeniably an eclectic thinker; in particular, the

Commedia exemplifies his wide scope of learned knowledge, encompassing a

heterogeneous range of sources from scripture, medieval and classical philosophy, and,

importantly, optical theory, all of which coalesce to reciprocate Dante’s moral vision. The

above quote represents the point at which the temperature of the poem is at its highest, as

Dante the pilgrim nears the climax of his spiritual journey, coming face-to-face with the

Trinity of God, a visual spectacle, that un-coincidentally is carefully crafted by Dante

through a trinity of synergistic optical ideas: reflection, rainbow, and colour.

Consequently, optical theory occupied an exalted position in Dante’s thought, however,

Dante was no professional philosopher; instead, the Bible was Dante’s chief source.

Therefore, Dante did not directly use optical theories; rather, he vulgarized these complex

scientific ideas, in conjunction with scripture and the literary technique of ‘synaesthesia’

to convey the moral journey of Dante the pilgrim.

For contemporaries, ‘optical theory’ was understood as hypotheses about the source,

properties, transmission, and reception of light. In medieval Europe, from the thirteenth-

century onwards there was a deeply ingrained ‘light-metaphysics’ tradition of

philosopher-theologians who sought to reconcile the properties of light within a religious

context, known collectively as the ‘perspectivae’. To precisely operationalize ‘moral

vision’, the best source is Dante himself. The Epistle to Cangrande della Scala is useful

for this purpose, and whilst caution should be taken that the letter was written during

Dante’s exile from Florence and the language of comparing his ‘friendship’ with

1 D. Alighieri, Paradiso, tran. C. S. Singleton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p.379. All citations are taken from the Singleton editions.

1

SN: 13004458

Cangrande to that of God and man masks a blatant appeal for patronage, the source

provides a unique insight into Dante’s own definition of ‘moral vision’. Dante

writes that the purpose of the Commedia ‘is to remove those in this life living in a state of

misery, and bring them to a state of happiness.’2 In lieu with the tradition of medieval

treatises to correct faults and improve one-self, Dante clarifies that the philosophical core

of the Commedia is that of morals and ethics.3 Likewise, he states that the Commedia will

follow the poetic convention of the comedy genre, because ‘at the beginning it is horrible

and foul, as being Hell; but at the close it is happy, desirable, and pleasing, as being

Paradise.’4 Thus, for Dante, ‘moral vision’ closely mirrors his own personal crisis of faith

during his exile, personified through Dante the pilgrim, who himself experiences a

spiritual crisis in canto I of Inferno, being ‘lost in a dark wood’5; yet, by the final canto of

Paradiso, all desire (the source of imperfection) has been vanquished, and Dante is

reunited with God in perfect harmony, ‘like a wheel/ that is evenly moved, by the Love

which/ moves the sun and the other stars.’6

The term “Light-metaphysics” (lichtmetaphysik) was coined in the twentieth-century by

German historian Clemens Baeumker (1853-1924) to account for the shared interest in

light-studies in the thirteenth-century.7 Since, there has been a proliferation in medieval

studies of optics; in particular, D. Lindberg, K. Tachau, and R. Southern have provided

insightful overviews of general perspectivistae theories, in addition to particular

perspectivists such as William of Ockham and Robert Grosseteste. However, as art

historian G. Rosser has observed, light-metaphysics in the Commedia have ‘tended to be

treated by Dante professionals as a subject in their own right, calling either for

recognition of their inconsistency or for their ultimate harmonization [with Dante’s

theology].’8 First to comprehensively explore Dante’s light-metaphysics was B. Nardi’s

collection of essays Saggi di filosofia dantesca, which identified the Neoplatonic idea of

emanation as key to Dante’s view of the universe as the creation of divine light. Yet,

Nardi strayed too close to arguing that Dante was a ‘scientist’ fully versed in medieval

2 D. Alighieri, Epistle to Cangrande della Scala, in P. Toynbee, Dantis Alighierii Epistolae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p.202. 3 Ibid, p.202. 4 Ibid, p.201. 5 Inferno. I, 2-3, p.3.6 Par. XXXIII, 143-145, p.381.7 See C. Baeumker, ‘Witelo, ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII. Jahrhunderts’, Beiträge, Vol 3. No. 2 (1908).8 G. Rosser, ‘Beyond Naturalism in Art and Poetry’, Art History, Vol. 34, No. 3 (June, 2012), p. 483.

2

SN: 13004458

optical thought. In retaliation, D. Lindberg, A. Cornish, J. A. Mazzeo, and S. Gilson, all

proponents of what has become the orthodox approach, advocate a more sceptical view of

the connection between Dante and optical theories. Whilst Mazzeo’s Medieval Cultural

Tradition is useful as a background, the most systematic study of Dante’s thought is

Gilson’s Medieval Optics. Gilson’s aim to reassess the role of light in Dante’s Commedia

is grandiose, arguing that the umbrella term ‘light-metaphysics’ is inadequate, as it has

encouraged scholars ‘to oversimplify the complexity and heterogeneity of medieval ideas

about light.’9 Whilst D. Lindberg has been the only historian to suggest a solution to this

problem, by fencing the study of light into four compartmentalised areas; epistemology,

theology, physics and metaphysics10; for Gilson, Lindberg’s classifications are artificial

and do not solve the problem, but rather creates an additional one by treating categories of

light in isolation from one another, a methodology binary opposed to medieval writers,

who integrated ‘light with religious beliefs, scientific concerns, and philosophical

doctrines in divergent ways to produce complex results.’11 Instead, Gilson outlines a

persuasive case that ‘rather than specific authors, Dante relies on more general ideas

which he rethinks, and syncretically lends with other sources.’12 This approach, in which

Dante is assimilating and simplifying many diverse optical theories is shared by Cornish,

who states that Dante ‘is “vulgarizing”… he is rendering the concepts and language of

natural sciences useful.’13 Neither is optics an isolated example of Dante’s ‘vulgarization’,

because as Cornish observes in his astronomy, ‘Dante rarely invokes arcane terminology

and grossly simplifies the complex apparatus of medieval astronomical theory.’14

The vulgarisation thesis when fused with Dante poetry has great coherence as a

methodology, because Dante was not primarily concerned with abstract theological ideas,

rather, he wanted to share his knowledge more widely, and break down the barriers of

Scholasticism. This theme is present early in Dante’s works as in the Convivio Dante

writes, ‘knowledge is the ultimate perfection of our soul, in which lies our ultimate

9 S. Gilson, Medieval Optics and Theories of Light in the Works of Dante (Lampter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), p.151. 10 D. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p.95-99.11 S. Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.157. 12Ibid, p.169. 13 A. Cornish, ‘Vulgarizing Science: Vernacular Translation of Natural Philosophy’, Dante for the New Millenium, ed. T. Barolini (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), p.171. 14 A. Cornish, Reading Dante’s Stars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p.8.

3

SN: 13004458

happiness.’15 Hence, this is largely why Dante wrote the Commedia in the vernacular as

opposed to Latin, in order to reach a wider audience. Therefore, the Commedia did not

simply seek to replicate previous works such as Brunetto Latini’s Tresor, a medieval

encyclopaedia divorced from all personal flair; instead, Dante was concerned with the

widespread purification of ethics and morals. For this reason, P. Shaw argues the

Commedia features a plethora of popes who ‘fail in their role as spiritual guides’ and

‘secular rulers who are motivated by naked ambition and greed’16, all concrete examples

of injustice, and imbued with Dante’s own thoughts and feelings which made the

Commedia so powerful. Therefore, demonstrating how light-metaphysics best interacts

with the purpose, genre, and moral vision of the Commedia, Gilson and Cornish’s

vulgarization thesis offers the most persuasive analysis to-date. However, its main

limitation is its tendency to ignore the centrality of the Bible, and how sight interacts with

other senses: hearing, smell, taste and touch. For a more complete synthesis, this essay

will interweave the twin-methodologies of ‘vulgarization’ and ‘synaesthesia’, the

linguistic portrayal of the senses. I will first outline the problems with medieval optical

theory; second, explore the cultural tradition of light-metaphysics; and thirdly, I will

argue the Commedia features a gradualistic increasing of light which produces a blinding

effect on Dante the pilgrim, the growing severity of this blindness being directly

proportional to Dante’s stadial ascension through Purgatory and Paradise, each act of

blindness a stepping-stone, of which increases Dante’s knowledge, and desire to be

reunited with God.

Any study of optics must confront several interconnected problems and questions with the

sources. Most problematic is what knowledge of light-metaphysics Dante possessed? As

suggested, Dante employed a ‘pick and mix’ approach, appropriating ideas not from a

single corpus of knowledge, but from a wide range of secondary sources. Whilst Dante

undoubtedly shows remarkable sensitivity as poet and philosopher to contemporary

optical ideas, as Gilson has observed, ‘it is extremely difficult to prove that Dante based

this conception of vision on the perspectivae’.17 Second, is there any direct evidence of

optical theories in the Commedia? Yes, however any attempt at intellectual history, trying

to trace the diffusion of specific theories across time and space is a notoriously difficult

task, particularly as many medieval philosophers had contradictory and heterodox sets of

15 D. Alighieri, Convivio, tr. Richard Lansing, accessed via the Princeton Dante Project, I, I, §I.16 P. Shaw, Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity (New York: Liveright, 2013), p.43. 17 S. Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.91.

4

SN: 13004458

ideas, ideas which were constantly subject to revision; and most never fully ordered their

ideas about light into a systematic body of doctrines. And finally, it is difficult to gauge

what branch of perspectivist knowledge is being appropriated and to what effect:

Reflection? Refraction? Colour? Rainbows?

Importantly, Dante was born during a time in which optics were assimilated with

Christian doctrine. As Lindberg has observed, optical treatises were part of the statutory

curricula from the thirteenth-century onwards. In fact, it was widely acknowledged that

visuality lay ‘not at the periphery but at the nexus of natural philosophy and

epistemology, all ultimately at the service of theology.’18 In medieval scholastic doctrine,

optics and semantics were deeply interlinked because the senses were seen as ‘not merely

gateways to the intellect, but lower forms in a continuous hierarchy of faculties of

knowing, unified by light.’19 In particular, the sense of sight occupied an exalted status

over the other senses as the eyes possessed a certain ‘purity and subtlety about the entities

associated with them, notably fire (sight’s ‘element’), light, and colour, and as

consequence had nobility attached to their objects.’20

The connection of sight with fire has classical origins with Plato’s Timaeus, in which

Plato outlined an ‘extramissive model’ of vision as a light ray emitted from the eye which

coalesced with the external fire of the atmosphere.21 Hence, Platonic models represented

‘seeing’ as an extension of touch, as the notion of a ‘visual stream of internal fire

‘striking’ and ‘pressing against’ the external object offers a tactile model of visual

perception.22 Platonic ideas gained influence in medieval Christendom precisely because

they were malleable to orthodox doctrine, allowing thinkers such as Augustine, who had a

Manichean background, to give light pre-eminence in conceiving the divine. By contrast,

Aristotle’s ‘intromission model’ outlined in De anima, the idea that light rays were

received through the eye where the image was chemically constructed in the brain took

much longer to diffuse into Christian doctrine. Most modern writers take for granted the

impact of Aristotle in medieval Western Europe, praising him as mere lip service to

18 K. Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham (Leiden: E.J. Brill Publishing, 1988), xvi.19 J. A. Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante’s Comedy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p.82. 20 S. Clark, Vanities of the Eye, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 10.21 M. J. Huxtable, The Relationship of Light and Colour in Medieval Thought and Imagination’, On Light, ed. K. P. Clarke and S. Baccianti (Medium Aevum, 2014), p.27. 22 Ibid, p.27.

5

SN: 13004458

medieval theology. However as Scott and Huxtable both show, ‘Aristotle’s writings were

virtually unknown in the Latin West until the late twelfth-century’23, as Aristotle did not

arrive in an accessible Latin translation until James of Venice’s c.1150 edition, as well as

the fact that in contrast to Neoplatonism, Aristotle seemed the ‘more suspicious, and

potentially corrupting pagan writer.’24

However, by the time of Dante’s birth in 1265, approximately fifty-five of Aristotle’s

works had been translated into Latin, and Aristotelian ideas possessed popular appeal.25

Throughout the entire corpus of Dante’s works there exists a clear relationship between

light and God. In the Convivio, Dante sets out his foundational metaphysical ideas of

light, how divine light descends upon all things, ordering and maintaining them: ‘the

divine goodness descends into all things, for otherwise they could not exist. But it is

received diversely, in greater or lesser measure, by those things which receive it.’26 For

Dante, the differing amount of divine light that reaches each individual is why human

beings are so different in character. Early on, Dante assimilated both Neoplatinism and

Aristotlelianism, in what Mazzeo refers to as an ‘inconsistent blend, fusing emanationism

with a notion of creation; which described the Good as outflowing in one great

outpouring, and yet identifies it with Being and a first cause that remains transcendent

over what it produces.’27

This blending of Neoplatonism and Aristotlelianism is best associated with Albertus

Magnus, who perceived divine light as filtering down from the Empyrean, in a hierarchy

of gradually decreasing luminosity, the further away it reached. In fact, Dante directly

cites Albertus in the Convivio stating: ‘We see the Sun’s light, derived from one source,

received diversely by diverse bodies, as Albert says in his book On the Intellect.’28

Clearly, Dante viewed the world as operating on two levels of hierarchy, as ‘there are

others which, because they are entirely transparent, not only receive the light but do not

impede, but rather transmit it to other things.’29 For Dante, creatures share in differing

degrees of divine goodness, ranging from the ‘pure “luminousness” of the angels down to

23 J. A. Scott, Understanding Dante (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), p.108.24 Huxtable, Light and Colour, p.34. 25 Ibid, p. 231.26 Convivio, III, vii, §2-3. 27 Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.92. 28 Convivio, III, vii, §2. 29 Ibid, III, viii, §iv.

6

SN: 13004458

man, who is, metaphorically speaking, partially visible.’30 Therefore, angels, being closer

to God receive divine light directly, and all other beings receive it indirectly as a

reflection.

By the Commedia, Dante’s light-metaphysics had reached their full maturity. Again, the

Epistle is useful to flesh out these ideas, as nowhere in the Commedia does Dante overtly

state the philosophers he has read. In the Epistle, Dante makes an impressive sixteen

citations to eight classical/medieval philosophers, including: Aristotle, Plato, Cicero,

Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Richard of St. Victor, Bernard and Boëtius. In particular,

Aristotle is hailed as the philosopher par excellence, referred to simply as ‘the

Philosopher’31, and cited no less than six times.32 However, Dante’s optical knowledge

must also be offset against the scriptural, as he also makes a total of fourteen biblical

citations from eight books: Wisdom, Psalms, Ecclesiastics, Ezekiel, Corinthians,

Matthew, Daniel and John. Whilst this quantitative analysis is of limited use in itself, it

does highlight that for approximately each optical citation, there is a biblical equivalent

(16 optical: 14 biblical); and whilst not representative of the Commedia in general, it

shows that Dante thought of the optical in relation to the spiritual. More telling, is that

scripture and optics are used to reciprocate one another as Dante repeatedly states that if

the bible is not enough ‘let them read Richard of St. Victor… let them read Bernard… let

them read Augustine.’33 In fact, the sheer length of the scriptural citations in the latter

section of the letter implies that Dante gave more superiority to the biblical, than the

optical.

Therefore, the Epistle shows that Dante’s Commedia is fusing religious and optical ideas

together, one deeply interlinked with astronomy. Dante’s Aristotelian and Ptolemaic view

of the nine heavens in the Commedia is one governed by motion. As Dante writes,

‘Everything, then, which has motion is in some respect defective, and has not its whole

being complete.’34 For Dante, all motion, as in the Aristotelian universe, is a ‘symptom of

incompleteness, of the “desire” to become fully actual and to be assimilated to the Pure

Act which moves the world as an object of desire.’35 Hence, only the Empyrean heaven,

30 Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.93. 31 Epistle, p.198, §5. 32 Ibid, for Aristotle see §5 p.198, §16 p.202, §18 p.203, §20 p.205, §25 p.207, §27 p. 208.33 Ibid, p.209, §28.34 Ibid, p.207 §26. 35 Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.96.

7

SN: 13004458

being God ‘has no need of motion for its perfection.’36 In Dante’s view, the primum

mobile has the swiftest movement out of the heavens, a rotation that is caused by its

desire to be reunited to the heaven above it, the Empyrean heaven, which is completely

immobile and still.

The connection between light and moral vision is a theme that runs throughout the

Commedia. As Mazzeo observes, the poem is a carefully ordered hierarchy of lights and

shadows, which allows Dante to structure his journey from material to divine light.37 This

hierarchy is particularly evident in the progression that Dante the pilgrim experiences in

his journey through Inferno where there is an absence of light, to Paradiso where light is

ubiquitous. In canto V of Inferno, Dante the pilgrim describes his own blindness at being

in a ‘place mute of all light’.38 This ‘blindness’ is both physical and metaphorical, as

Dante is physically unable to see, being underground, but darkness is also used for poetic

effect to show Dante’s moral lack of faith. As Cambon has shown, the senses are crucial

in Dante’s perception of the divine, as light and harmonious sounds depict Divine Love,

whereas darkness and harsh sounds are the opposite.39 Hence, whilst Dante’s sense of

sight is weakened, his other senses are heightened, in particular his sense of hearing, as

hell is likened to bellowing ‘like the sea in tempest when it is assailed by warring

winds.’40

The transition from the darkness and ‘dead air that afflicted my eyes…’ of the Inferno to

the ‘Sweet hue of oriental sapphire’ and ‘serene face of the sky, pure even to the first

circle’; which restores ‘delight’ to Dante’s eyes in the opening canto of Paradiso marks a

shift in tone of the poem, to one of progress, rather than punishment.41 Purgatory is

distinct from Hell as it works on a contrapasso system (counter-suffering), borrowed

from Aristotle who advocated repayment in kind for a malicious action, and more

obviously, maxims from the Old Testament which teach “an eye for eye, tooth for

tooth…” (Exod. 21. 24-25) Thus, the purpose of Purgatory is to vanquish the stains of sin,

not punish. A more optimistic tone conveyed through light and beauty, because as Dante

emerges from the Earth to the night sky above Mount Purgatory, this is the first showing

36Epistle, p.207, §26. 37Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.56. 38 Inferno. V, p. 27, p.49.39 G. Cambon, ‘Synaesthesia in the Divine Comedy’, Dante Studies, No. 88 (March, 1970), p. 3. 40 Inferno. V, 28-30, p.49.41 Par. I, 12-18, p. 3.

8

SN: 13004458

of real light in the Commedia so far.42 For this stage of the journey, Virgil remains with

Dante but ‘as more of a companion than a guide. The real guide is the light of the sun and

its movement around the earth.’43 Thus, as Dante progresses throughout the Purgatorio

and Paradiso he is subject to repeated ‘bedazzling’, and even blindness as he gets closer

to the Empyrean heaven. As Gilson has observed, ‘all of the scenes of dazzling and

blinding in the final two cantiche can be related to a gradualistic process by which, as

Dante ascends, the intensity of natural and supernatural light sources increases and so

does his ability to withstand them.’44 In Purgatorio XV, Virgil reassures Dante that by the

end of his journey the intensity of the light will become completely attuned to his senses.

Virgil exclaims that the divine light ‘is a messenger that comes to invite to the/ ascent.

Soon will it be that that the seeing of/ these will not be hard for you, but as great a

delight…’45 However, not everything in the Purgatorio involves blinding, rather, in most

examples Dante’s visual senses gets overloaded temporarily, a phenomenon Dante refers

to as “soverchio”, meaning ‘excessive’ or ‘immoderate’. This is evident when the suns

light dazes Dante to the extent that he is forced to raise his arms to protect himself: ‘I

lifted my hands above my eyebrows and made for me the shade that lessens excess of

light.’46 Here Dante conforms to the Aristotelian idea that overstimulation of a specific

sense destroys, or damages it irreversibly. In De anima, Aristotle states that ‘anything

excessively shrill or deep destroys the hearing: and the same in flavours destroys the

taste, and in colours, the sight, whether the excessively brilliant or the dark…’47 For

Dante, conveying this hyper-sensualisation is incredibly important, as the senses are our

only way of experiencing reality, and hence, they are tangible ways of showing God,

which is an incorporeal being, and beyond human conception.

In Paradiso, Dante begins his ascent with Beatrice as his guide to heaven ‘when all the

hemisphere there was white, and the other dark.’48 Hence, whereas it is midnight in

Jerusalem, it is noon in the earthly paradise. As Singleton notes, the chronology is

deliberately calculated as the entrance into the Inferno takes place in the evening,

Purgatory at dawn, and Paradise at high noon. This for Dante is richly symbolic, noon

42 S. Ralphs, Dante’s Journey to the Centre: Some Patterns in his Allegory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972), p.22.43 Ibid, p.25. 44 Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.79. 45 Purg. XV, 30-34, p.157.46 Purg. XV,13-15, p.155.47 Aristotle, De Anima III §II, in Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.81.48 Par. I, 42-43, p.5.

9

SN: 13004458

being the point at which the suns light is most harsh, exaggerated by the canto beginning

with an invocation addressed to Apollo, god of the sun.49 From now on, there is to be no

more darkness, rather a progression from light to light. Vulgarization can be seen in

action when Dante ascends to the heaven of the sun in canto XII. Here, Dante describes a

double rainbow: ‘two bows, parallel and like in colour, bend across a/ thin cloud when

Juno gives the order to her/ handmaid… whom love consumed as the sun does/ vapors-

and make the people here presage,/ by reason of the covenant that God made/ with

Noah.’50 This is an example of a triple simile assimilating optical theory, classics, and

theology in one. Dante did not believe in the refraction of light, rather, he subscribed to

the Aristotelian belief that the second rainbow was a reflection of the first. Here, Juno’s

‘handmaid’ Iris, daughter of Thaumas is a character borrowed from Ovid’s

Metamorphoses, and generally regarded as the personification of the rainbow, ‘which was

regarded as the messenger of the gods of Juno in particular.’51 Finally, the reference to the

‘covenant that God made with Noah’ is a biblical allusion to Noah’s Ark, and God’s

promise not to flood the world again. However, rainbows possessed deeper significance

for Dante, as the books of Revelations and Ezekiel are responsible for much of his

rainbow imagery, as several passages present the rainbow as a symbol of divine power.

For example, in Revelations 4: 2-4 God is seated on a throne that ‘had the appearance of

jasper and ruby’ and ‘a rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.’ As M.

Kempshall has shown in his study of Gregory the Great, sight was connected with

wisdom and kingship, and Gregory paid close attention to the gemstones mentioned in

Ezekiel, Isaiah and Revelation, as precious stones were a symbol of those in the Church

strong in faith and love.52 Indeed, colour too was Christianised; in particular, jasper, a

shade of green, mentioned above alongside rubies as forming the throne of God

symbolised ‘the minds of those who teach in the Church’.53 Dante himself possessed an

extensive knowledge of the Bible and therefore would have been acutely aware of the

importance of colour connotations as an expression of the divine.

Dante’s blinding’s become increasingly more frequent as he ascends through each

heaven, and with each blinding Dante’s sight becomes rehabilitated, a process which is a

49 C. S. Singleton, Paradiso: Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p.15. 50 Par. XII, 8-18, p.129.51 Singleton, Paradiso: Commentary, p.207. 52 M. Kempshall, ‘No Bishop, No King: The Ministerial Ideology of Kingship and Asser’s Res Gestae Aelfredi’, p.127. 53 Ibid, p.126.

10

SN: 13004458

form of “visual tempering” to prepare Dante to witness the light of God. This tempering

is evident in Paradiso XXI when Beatrice refrains from smiling lest the sheer beauty of

her smile destroy Dante. Beatrice exclaims that “Were I to smile… you would become

such as was Semele when she was turned to ashes.’54 Yet, two cantos later, Dante’s vision

has become sufficiently tempered by hash light to be able to see Beatrice’s face, which

surpassing all corporeal beauty, is ‘all aflame.’55 However, as is common, when Dante

sight strengthens, his capacity to speak becomes overwhelmed, as ‘he can frame no

word’, as all speech is stunned by Beatrice’s beauty.

The longest period of blindness Dante experiences in Paradise is when he blinds himself

by looking at St. John, an act likened to staring directly at a solar eclipse.56 For eighty-

nine lines Dante remains blinded, and it is only in the next canto that Beatrice finally

restores his vision by emitting an extramissive ray transmitted from her eyes: ‘Beatrice

chased away every/ mote from my eyes with the radiance of her/ own, which shone more

than a thousand miles.’57 This clearly exemplifies the Neoplatonic influence in Dante’s

optical knowledge. However, as seen before, the optical is fused with the biblical, as the

restoration of Dante’s sight is conveyed through Pauline similes, which compare Dante’s

dazzling’s to that of St. Paul’s blindness in Acts 9: 17-18, who too is blinded by the

divine light of Jesus. The comparison of Beatrice to Ananias of Damascus, the disciple

sent by Christ to cure St. Paul’s blindness is deeply symbolic, as St. John says that

Beatrice ‘has in her look the power/ which the hand of Ananias had.’58 Thus, Dante, like

Paul who too was faithless and lost, once his blindness is cured, his sight is described as

‘reformed’, being able to ‘see better than before’, a palpable statement of his progress

towards God.59 These repeated blinding’s should be seen as the preparation for Dante’s

reunification with God. As L. Pertile astutely suggests, the driving force in Paradise is

“desire”, the desire for Dante to be reunited with God. Hence, Dante’s increasing

knowledge is revealed to the reader through ‘an increment of his ability to withstand and

penetrate that light.’60 This desire is manifested sensually, as the pilgrim greedily drinks

from the river of pure light in Paradiso XXX, his hunger for God propelling him to drink

54 Par. XXI, 4-24, p.233.55 Ibid. XXIII, 22-24, p.259.56 Ibid, XXV, 117-122, p.287. 57 Ibid, XXVI, 75-78, p.293. 58 Ibid, XXVI, 10-12, p.289. 59 Ibid, XXVI, 79, p.295. 60 L. Pertile, “Paradiso”: A Drama of Desire”, Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the Divina Commedia (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), p.165.

11

SN: 13004458

more ravenously than any ‘infant, [who] on waking, so suddenly rushes with face forward

towards the milk.’61 Here the verb ‘to see’ (vedere) is repeated a total of eighteen times62,

but more significantly the senses seem fused, for Dante drinks light and sees odour’s, a

process that Mazzeo refers to as ‘mystical synaesthesia’.63 Indeed, the river is a sensory

spectacle as ‘living sparks’ erupt from it, and drop onto the ‘blossoms, like rubies set in

gold.’64 Hence, the assimilation of the heightened level of sensitivity to his sensory

stimuli, the simile of breastfeeding, and his baptism in a river of light all symbolise that

‘Dante has been reborn, having become a child once more.’65 As Dante exclaims, the river

gives him ‘new vision’, so that ‘there is no light so bright that my eyes could not have

withstood it.’66 Spiritually, Dante has been reborn in preparation for his rendezvous with

God.

Finally, returning to Paradiso XXXIII, we can see vulgarization and desire playing out to

their fullest extent, as the temperature of the poem reaches its epic conclusion. Ironically,

it is in the final canto where Dante is closest in proximity to God that ‘he is no longer

blinded by the light. Quite the opposite. If he did not see the divine light he would be

blinded.’67 This is evident when St. Bernard signals Dante should look upwards, but

Dante exclaims ‘I was already of myself such as he wished68, showing how Dante has

overcome his need for a guide and his moral journey is nearly at an end. By now Dante

can see clearly, his eyes becoming transhumanised69 as by gazing at God’s light his sight

is ‘becoming/ pure, was entering more and more through/ the beam of the lofty Light

which in itself is true.’70 Dante has to walk through a beam of pure light to find the source

of God, a difficult task, as he is unable to recount what he saw in great detail due to

complete overstimulation of his sight, which overpowers all other senses. As Dante

laments, ‘Now will my speech fall more short… than that of an infant who still bathes his

tongue at the breast.’71 As with Paradiso XXX, Dante the poet manipulates taste, speech

and light, drawing again on baby imagery to express that words, a human construct, are

61 Par. XXX, 82-85, p.341.62 Ibid, See lines 9, 13, 15, 29, 43, 45, 47, 58, 81, 95, 97, 99, 102, 110, 118, 130 and 131.63 Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.123.64 Ibid, XXX, 64-66, p.339.65 Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition, p.123. 66 D. Alighieri, Par. XXX, 60-61, p. 339.67 Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.89. 68 Par. XXXIII, 50-51.69 Gilson, Medieval Optics, p.103. 70 Par. XXXIII, 51-51, p.37571 Par. XXXIII, 105-108, p.377.

12

SN: 13004458

artificial, and are mere ‘baby-talk’ in contrast to God, a perfect being unexplainable using

flawed human language. However, when Dante finally sees God, He is a geometric shape,

three circles of light; and like Dante’s Aristotelian rainbow in Paradiso VII, each is a

reflection of the other ‘as rainbow by rainbow’, conveying an image reminiscent of

Joachim of Fiore’s Borromean rings in the Liber Figurarum, rather than a human

likeness.72 In fact, this image of God is the third and last rainbow simile in the Paradiso,

and the penultimate simile of the Commedia; and as suggested in the introduction,

contained within it is a nexus of optical and biblical ideas. Clearly, Dante’s decision to

represent divine power as rainbow-like was drawing on scriptural evidence, in particular

Ezekiel 1: 28, in which the ‘rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day… was the appearance of

the likeness of the Lord.’ Likewise, the Son as the reflection of the Father, and the Spirit

‘breathed forth’ from both is no coincidence, as in Hebrews 1: 3 the Son is ‘the exact

representation of His being’, and the Council of Nicea had used similar light imagery to

assert the non-inferiority of Christ. As Singleton has observed, the three ‘giri’ are not

motionless, but spinning in contrast to the rest of the Empyrean which is motionless,

symbolizing the complete actualisation of intellection and perfection.73 This correlates to

Wisdom 7: 24-28 in which wisdom is ‘more mobile than any motion’, and ‘a reflection of

eternal light, a spotless mirror in the working of God.’ Hence, for Dante, the Trinity as

conveyed through reflection, rainbow and geometric circular imagery conveys the

perfection of God; a being devoid of desire and defectiveness, one that the pilgrim is

harmonised with by lastly becoming a wheel revolving around God. In essence, Dante is

transformed from a state of imperfection in Inferno, to a state of wisdom, all-

knowingness, perfection and total completion by the final lines of the poem, a

transformation heavily facilitated by optical ideas.

So, how does Dante’s use of optical theory influence his moral vision? As my selective

examples have shown, Dante is not simply translating optical theories, rather, he is

vulgarizing. Whilst Dante demonstrates remarkable sensitivity to optical ideas, often,

optical ideas provide a useful foundation, one that Dante can then manipulate using poetic

skill and artistry to assimilate with other sources such as classical philosophy, and most

commonly, the Bible. Unsurprisingly, optical ideas have such prevalence in the

Commedia because of their dominance in Christian doctrine, a status that provided Dante

with a range of widely relatable images about light. In particular, the supra-temporal

72 Ibid, XXXIII, 118, p.379.73 Singleton, Paradiso: Commentary, p.582.

13

SN: 13004458

quality of light meant that light was nearest analogy to God in a sub-lunar world as light’s

connection with knowledge. Hence, whilst Dante uses optical doctrines related to

reflection, rainbows and colour extensively, he picks and mixes his sources with a

considerable degree of selectivity and freedom. Ultimately, these scientific ideas are fully

at the service of conveying the moral and spiritual transformation of Dante the pilgrim.

Bibliography

Primary Sources Alighieri, Dante, Convivio, tr. Richard Lansing, accessed via the Princeton Dante

Project.

14

SN: 13004458

Alighieri, Dante, Epistle to Cangrande della Scala, in P. Toynbee, Dantis Alighierii Epistolae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).

Alighieri, Dante, Inferno, tr. Charles S. Singleton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

Alighieri, Dante, Paradiso, tr. Charles S. Singleton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

Alighieri, Dante, Purgatorio, tr. Charles S. Singleton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

Secondary Sources Baeumker, Clemens, ‘Witelo, ein Philosoph and Naturforcher des XIII.

Jahrhunderts’, Beiträge, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1908). Cambon, Glauco, ‘Synaesthesia in the “Divine Comedy”’, Dante Studies, with the

Annual Report of the Dante Society, No. 88 (March, 1970). Clark, Stuart, Vanities of the Eye (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Cornish, Alison, ‘Vulgarizing Science: Vernacular Translation of Natural

Philosophy’, Dante for the New Millennium ed. T. Barolini and H. W. Storey

(New York: Fordham University Press, 2003).

Cornish, Alison, Reading Dante’s Stars (New Haven: Yale University Press,

2000).

Gilson, Simon A., Medieval Optics and Theories of Light in the Works of Dante

(Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000).

Huxtable, Michael J., ‘The Relationship of Light and Colour in Medieval Thought and Imagination’, On Light, ed. K. P. Clarke and S. Baccianti (Medium Aevum, 2014).

Kempshall, Matthew, ‘No Bishop, No King: The Ministerial Ideology of Kingship and Asser’s Res Gestae Aelfredi’, in R. Gameson and H. Leyser, Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Lindberg, David, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler in the Works of Dante (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Mazzeo, Joseph A., Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante’s Comedy (New York:

Greenwood Press, 1968).

Pertile, Lino, ‘“Paradiso”: A Drama of Desire’, Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the Divina Commedia ed. J. C. Barnes and J. Petrie (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993).

Ralphs, Sheila, Dante’s Journey to the Centre: Some Patterns in his Allegory

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972).

Rosser, Gervase, ‘Turning Tale into Vision: Time and the Image in the “Divina Commedia”, Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 48 (Autumn, 2005).

Rosser, Gervase, Beyond Naturalism in Art and Poetry: Duccio and Dante on the Road to Emmaus, Art History, Vol. 34, No. 3 (June, 2012).

15

SN: 13004458

Scott, John A., Understanding Dante (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

Press, 2005).

Shaw, Prue, Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity (New York: Liveright, 2013).

Singleton, Charles S., Paradiso: Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

Singleton, Charles S., Purgatorio: Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

Southern, Richard, Robert Grossesteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Tachau, Katherine H., Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham, Epistemology

and the Foundations of Semantics 1250-1345 (Leiden: E. J. Brill Publishing,

1988).

16