¹ ‘The Classification of Sins in the “Inferno” and “Purgatorio,”’ in Studies in Dante; Second Series (Oxford 1899) 160.Google Scholar

² L'Etica Nicomachea e l'ordinamente morale dell'Inferno di Dante (Bologna 1907) 45–49 et passim. Google Scholar

³ The Moral System of Dante's Inferno (Oxford 1909) 334.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid. 354.Google Scholar

⁵ ‘Dante's Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide,’ Harvard Theological Review 52 (1959) 273–274.Google Scholar

⁶ ‘Il Canto XI dell'Inferno,’ in Letture Dantesche, ed. Getto, G. (Florence 1962) 200. (This ‘lettura’ appeared first as a monograph [Rome 1951].) Nardi is really not quite so sure about the interpretation of the third disposition (see p. 204). Among the influential commentators who accept it are Natalino Sapegno and Manfredi Porena, who says: ‘Io sto con quelli (e oggi sono forse i più) che ritengono corrispondere la frode alla malizia e la violenza alla matta bestialità’ (La Divina commedia , ed. Porena, [nuova ed. riveduta e ampliata, Bologna 1966] I 113). Google Scholar

⁷ ‘La “Matta Bestialità,”’ in Saggi Danteschi (Florence 1950) 87–94. The essay was first published in 1933.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid. 97–100.Google Scholar

⁹ Studi Danteschi (1953) 209–214. It also appears in the Siebzehner-Vivanti, G., Dizionario della Divina Commedia , ed. Messina, M. (Milan 1965 [first ed. 1954]) s. vv. Bestialità § 1 (p. 72 [66]), Matto agg. § 4 (p. 361 [327]). Google Scholar

¹⁰ In Eth., ed. Spiazzi, R. M., O.P. (Rome 1949) 7.1.1294.Google Scholar

¹¹ S.(umma) T.(heologiae) 2.1.74.5 ad 2. Cf. 2.1.17.1.Google Scholar

¹² S.T. 2.2.47.13; 55.3, 4, 5, 8. The remaining vice resembling prudence is called prudentia carnis. The vices directly opposed to prudence, but not to justice, are praecipitatio (or temeritas), inconsideratio, inconstantia, and negligentia. See S.T. 2.2.53.2.Google Scholar

¹³ Nardi, op. cit. (supra n. 6) 197–198.Google Scholar

¹⁴ According to this well known subdivision of commutative justice, violations against a fellow man may be committed either secretly — identified with fraud — or openly — identified with violence — in various ways. See Eth. Nic. 5.2 end, and St. Thomas, , In Eth. 5.4.930 (Spiazzi). In the Summa , St. Thomas, codifies these involuntary transactions, classifying secret and open injuries according as they are committed against a man's possessions, against his person both in its substance and dignity, and against adjunct persons (2.2.61.3). It is rarely maintained nowadays that the involuntary commutations were a major pattern for Dante's structure. They had, however, much to suggest to him even though they do not qualitatively differentiate violence and fraud nor provide a real gradation of the subsumed iniuriae. Google Scholar

¹⁵ Mythologiarum libri 2.6. See Busnelli, , op. cit. (supra n. 2) 127–130.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Speculum doctrinale 4.132 (Speculi Maioris Vincentii Burgundi II [Douai 1624; reprint, Graz 1965] col. 375).Google Scholar

¹⁷ In Eth. 7.1. 1296 (Spiazzi).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Freccero attaches genuine importance to the simile, concentrating on the lion rather than on the pig. He cannot resist the temptation to see this lion as evidence for the idea that Dante's middle beast stands for the irascible appetite, which he associates with the violence of circle VII and with matta bestialità. All this is part and parcel of the confusion arising out of the failure to analyze the subdistinctions of bestiality. Freccero himself raises the problem of bestial incontinence and bestial malice but goes on to treat bestiality as a univocal concept. Thus he accepts uncritically the common interpretation of the ‘Minus autem bestialitas malitia…’ See ‘Dante's Firm Foot,’ (cit. supra n. 5) 276 et passim .Google Scholar

¹⁹ In Eth. 7.1. 1303 (Spiazzi).Google Scholar

²⁰ Reade, , op. cit. (supra n. 3) 411.Google Scholar

²¹ In Eth. 7.5.1383 (Spiazzi).Google Scholar

²² Eth. Nic. 7.6 (1150a1); (ed. Spiazzi, [cit. supra, n. 10], sect. 985).Google Scholar

²³ In Eth. 7.1.10 (ed. Borgnet, 7.487).Google Scholar

²⁴ Eth. Nic. 7.6 (1149b19); (ed. Spiazzi, , sect. 981).Google Scholar

²⁵ While I think Albertus' interpretation of the key line is probably the preferable one — I am indebted to my colleague Prof. Robert E. Dengler, Professor Emeritus of Classical Languages at The Pennsylvania State University, for confirming the possibility of a reading to the effect that ‘less however is bestiality a wickedness [than incontinence] but more fearful’ — nevertheless, the notion of incontinence as ‘malitia aliqualiter’ suggests another possible and equally good alternative: ‘Bestiality is less evil than the malice of incontinence.’ Here malitia is preserved as an ablative specifying the term of comparison within the proposition itself but understood in a broader sense than it has as the second of the dispositions. Both readings, I submit again, are entirely consistent with the total context of Chapter 6.Google Scholar

²⁶ In Eth. 7.1.10 (ed. Borgnet, [vol. 7; Paris 1891] p. 487–8).Google Scholar

²⁷ In Eth. 7, 6.1403 (Spiazzi).Google Scholar

²⁸ Cf. Hocedez, E. S.J., ‘Gilles de Rome et Saint Thomas,’ in Mélanges Mandonnet (Paris 1930) 385–409.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Conv. 4.24.9.Google Scholar

³⁰ Operum D. Aegidii Romani I (Rome 1555), fol. 13.Google Scholar

³¹ Loc. cit. Google Scholar

³² In Polit., ed. Spiazzi, R. M. O.P., (Rome 1951) 1.1.35, 39.Google Scholar

³³ Polit. 1.2 end. (ed. Spiazzi, , sect. 22, p. 6).Google Scholar

³⁴ In Polit. 1.1 (ed. Borgnet, [vol. 8; Paris 1891] p. 15).Google Scholar

³⁵ In Polit 1.1.41 (Spiazzi, ).Google Scholar

³⁶ ‘Dante's Firm Foot,’ 224.Google Scholar

³⁷ Busnelli, , op. cit. 58.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid. 59. I have used the British Museum's Rhetorica Aristotelis cum Egidii de Roma luculentissimis commentariis, … (Venice 1515), fol. 45.Google Scholar

³⁹ Loc. cit. Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Loc. cit. (See Busnelli, 59).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Loc. cit. Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., fol. 44.Google Scholar

⁴³ Busnelli, 144–145.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Aristotelis, … De rhetorica et poetica libri, cum Averrois Cordubensis in eosdem paraphrasibus (Venice 1550) fol. 44.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Dante's procedure is semantically curious. In that both violence and fraud are bestial, he validates Cicero's statement to that effect in De off. 1.13.41. On the other hand, both violence and fraud are malitiae humanae. Reade's preoccupation with this point and repeated warnings of many critics that we must keep the violence of circle VII within careful bounds — it is not irrational, completely impulsive animal violence nor the same as the passion of incontinence but rather a habitual perpetrator of injustice, under the rubric of malice — are significant. Here as in other instances Dante's patterning is kaleidoscopic. We are forced to refocus always.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Cf. De inv. 2.22.65.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Reade 344f.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ “‘… Tali orazion fa far nel nostro tempio,”’ in Altri saggi di critica semantica (Messina-Florence 1961) 259–260. Pagliaro almost reaches the point of linking the impiety and ingratitude of the Par. 17 passage with matta bestialità see p. 260. In his article, ‘Le tre dispozione…’ (L'Alighieri 5 [1964] 21–35) however, Pagliaro defends the majority ‘crisscross’ pattern without adding anything new.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Dante, disciple et juge du monde gréco-latin (Paris 1954) 286.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cicero in the Courtroom of St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee 1946) 29–43.Google Scholar

⁵¹ This is diametrically at variance with Reade, who makes it a point to assert (p. 373) that Dante's doctrine ‘connecting iustitia and malitia together has nothing to do with this wider sense of justice which is iustitia legalis,’ because of Reade's almost total emphasis on iustitia particularis and deprecation of the notion of ‘political’ community in Dante, as presented in the present study.Google Scholar

⁵² Pietrobono, L., in his commentary on the triad, intellect, power and ill-will (Inf. 31, 55–56), tells us that ‘Siamo dunque a un luogo dell'Inferno in cui il male deriva dalla corruzione di tutte le potenze principali dell'uomo. Entriamo nel regno satanico vero e proprio, dove non pure i giganti, ma … anche gli uomini fanno una cosa sola con i diavoli’ (La Divina commedia , ed. Pietrobono, [quarta edizione interamente rifatta, Turin 1965] I 392). It is the ‘how’ of the last statement and its association with matta bestialità, which Pietrobono did not recognize, that I hope to show. Google Scholar

⁵³ One can readily agree with Frascino, S. that the giants represent the triumph of materiality but that they were not conceived by Dante as deformed or monstrously repellent, but I would take strong exception to his remark that their function in circle IX is largely decorative (‘La terra dei giganti e il Lucifero dantesco,’ La Cultura 12 [1933] 769–772). For Proto, E., Dante's giants are not monsters but originally splendid beings created for a purpose. He rejects any notion that their origin is in any way demonic because Dante does not specifically allude to such an idea (‘I giganti,’ Giornale Dantesco 20 [1912] 230). Arturo Graf had cited popular opinions in folklore that considered the giants to be demons and alludes briefly to the tradition which have to do with their birth from the union of angels and women (Miti, leggende e superstizioni del Medio Evo [Turin 1892] II 88). Renucci, P. asserts that they are simultaneously damned souls and demons (Dante, disciple et juge 202). Google Scholar

⁵⁴ La Divina commedia, ed. Sapegno, N. (1962) I 352. In a lighter vein Jacob, E. F., in his recent ‘The Giants’ (in Medieval Miscellany presented to Eugene Vinaver, ed. Whitehead, F. et al. [Manchester 1965] 167–185), claims that Dante does not clearly distinguish between monsters, Titans and Giants, and that he wished to see Briareus ‘with — for a moment — truly medieval circus mentality …’ (p. 175). Renaudet, A., Dante humaniste [Paris 1952] 182, believes that Briareus could not be represented as a monster owing to a ‘loi de convenance estétique,’ and also that Virgil's clarification is a confession that he had misrepresented and given a false image of Briareus in the Aeneid (6. 287 and 10.564–8).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Biagi, G. et al. La Divina Commedia nella figurazione artistica e nel secolare commento (Turin 1924–1939) II 730.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English ed. Charles, R. H. (Oxford 1963) II 20.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid. 191–199 et passim. Google Scholar

⁵⁸ De gigantibus 2.6–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Jewish Antiquities 1.73, trans. Thackeray, H. St. J. (Loeb Classical Library) IV (London 1930) 35.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cf. Graf, , Miti II 86 and n. 33. Also see infra, n. 79.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Philo, , loc. cit. , trans. Whitaker, G. H. (Loeb Classical Library) II (London 1929) 449.Google Scholar

⁶² Div. inst. 2.14 (CSEL 19.163) (2.15 [PL 6.331]). A good deal of consideration has been given to these mediate spirits and traditions involving them recently apropos of the neutral angels. See Nardi, , ‘Gli angeli che non furon ribelli nè fur fedeli a Dio,’ in Dal ‘Convivio’ alla ‘Commedia’ (Roma 1960) 331–350; and Freccero, , ‘Dante's “Per sé” Angel: The Middle Ground in Nature and in Grace,’ Studi Danteschi 39 (1962) 5–38. Freccero, (p. 10) assumes that Lactantius is speaking of the giants when discussing the mediate spirits. I see no evidence for this in Lactantius' text. Google Scholar

⁶³ Hist. schol. Gen. 31 (PL 198.1081D).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Quaestiones disputatae II, ed. Bazzi, P. et al. (8th ed. Rome 1949) 181.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Clemens, Prudentius, Apotheosis, Hamartigenia, ed. Lavarenne, M. (Paris 1945) 47–48.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Postilla super Isaiam 14.9, ed. Siepmann, F. (Alb. Magn. Opera omnia 19 [Münster 1952]) 205.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Moralia in Iob 17.21.30 (PL 76.24D).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ ‘Questa [giustizia] è tanto amabile, che, sì come dice lo Filosofo nel quinto de l'Etica, li suoi nimici l'amano, sì come sono ladri e rubatori, e però vedemo che ‘l suo contrario, cioè la ingiustizia, massimamente è odiata, sì come è tradimento, ingratitudine, falsitade, furto, rapina, inganno e loro simili. Li quali sono tanto inumani peccati, che, ad iscusare sè de l'infamia di quelli, si concede da lunga usanza che uomo parli di sè, …’ Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Reade, , op. cit. (supra n. 3) 344–345.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ S.T. 2.1.72.1, 73.8; 2.2.142.4 ad 1 et passim. Google Scholar

⁷¹ In Eth. 5.2.910, 911 (Spiazzi). Google Scholar

⁷² See S.T. 2.2.120.2 ad 1.Google Scholar

⁷³ In Polit 3.12.472 (Spiazzi).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Dal centro al cerchio (2nd ed. Turin, 1956) 24.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ This suggestive idea is to be found (I am not sure that he was the first to advance it) in Carroll, John S., Exiles of Eternity (London 1904) 475: ‘It seems to follow that gradually the sink of Cocytus will be filled up, until at last when all the sorrows of time have drained into it, Lucifer will be completely frozen in, and his punishment fulfilled by the return upon himself of all the evil into which he tempted and betrayed both men and angels.’ Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Postilla super Isaiam (cit. supra n. 66) 14.13 (p. 207).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The human body is certainly rent and mutilated in various ways in the circles above circle IX by devils, beasts and other humans but nowhere else save here do intellectual beings perform the act of a gnawing which is a cannibalistic devouring.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ See Freccero, , ‘The Sign of Satan,’ Modern Language Notes 80 (1965) 11–26. Freccero here attempts to show Satan in the image of crux diaboli in the form of the sycamore tree, a travesty of the cross.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Cf. Isidore, , Etym. 8.11.103: ‘Pilosi, qui Graece Panitae, Latine Incubi appellantur, sive Inui ab ineundo passim cum animalibus. Unde et Incubi dicuntur ab incumbendo, hoc est stuprando. Saepe enim improbi existunt etiam mulieribus, et earum peragunt concubitum: quos daemones Galli Dusios vocant, quia adsidue hanc peragunt inmunditiam. Quem autem vulgo Incubonem vocant, hunc Romani Faunum ficarium dicunt.’ Cf. supra, n. 60.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Postilla super Isaiam 13.20 (p. 199).Google Scholar

⁸¹ Dante, disciple et juge, 252.Google Scholar

⁸² See supra , p. 264, esp. ‘Et summae iniuriae est mulctandi excessus poenis …’ Google Scholar

⁸³ Another allied process leading to the same end is that of odium, inveterate hatred. Dante means it technically as well as subjectively when he addresses Ugolino as ‘O tu che mostri per sì bestial segno / odio sovra colui che tu ti mangi, …’ (32.1334-). As Ruggieri had nurtured this habitual hatred against Ugolino in life, with its dire result, so now is it reversed and projected into eternity. Odium, strictly speaking, is in the concupiscible and arises formally from the envy which is ‘tristitia de bono proximi’ (S.T. 2.2.34.6). Under another aspect, however, odium is also a product of ira, anger, which is, of course, in the irascible; but it does not grow out of ira directly, but rather, through a process of causality, a long lasting anger issues in odium (2.1.46.2 ad 2). Or, as St. Thomas says in 2.2.34.6 ad 3, odium arises from ira ‘secundum quoddam augmentum’ or ‘dispositive.’ Thus the corruption of the concupiscible and the irascible are inextricably linked here again.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ To modem moral feeling, justly suspicious of wholesale condemnations, and to commentators without a grasp of the import of the vindictae for Dante, he is thought to be himself cruel and motivated by an excess of political passion when he calls down a curse on the whole of Pisa: ‘muovasi la Capraia e la Gorgona, e faccian siepe ad Arno in su la foce / sí ch'elli annieghi in te ogni persona!’ (33.82–4) However, not only is such a fulmination in the prophetic mode but it was justifiable on theoretical grounds. The implication is that the whole population of Pisa shared in the guilt of those who inflicted the bestially unjust punishment on the Count and his sons because none of its members moved to prevent it. The consummation of just vengeance may apply to a multitude or a collectivity, as St. Thomas has it in S.T. II–II, 108, 4, esp. ad 1: ‘Sive etiam per aliqualem consensum; sicut etiam interdum boni simul puniuntur temporaliter cum malis, quia eorum peccata non redarguerunt, ut Augustinus dicit in I De Civit. Dei.’ Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Busnelli, 58.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ La Divina commedia, ed. Porena, I 308.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Porena noted the unusual nature of the Ugolino-Ruggieri relationship. He cites several examples of sinners used as God's instruments for punishing each other, but these punishments are concretely related to the sin or sins of the respective circles. Only in the case of Ugolino, he says, do we have an eternal punishment inflicted with Divine sanction by one sinner on another for an offense that is not germane to its circle. Porena would have us content ourselves ‘di notare la singolarità del fatto, senza chiederci se ciò sia teologicamente verosimile: siamo in presenza d'una grande invenzione poetica, e non domandiamo altro’ (La Divina commedia, ed. Porena, I 298). The present study should have shown that the case can bear questioning and that there is a very good cause for Ugolino's comportment toward Ruggieri from the theologico-moral point of view.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ See, for example, Cassian, John, Collationes 5.16 (CSEL 13.140–143); Gregory, , Moralia in Iob 31.45.89 (PL 76.621–2); Magnus, Albertus, Summa theol. 2.18.120 memb. 2 (ed. Borgnet, [vol. 33; Paris 1895] pp. 385f.). Google Scholar

⁸⁹ This is also of interest apropos of violence, which is one of the filiae avaritiae, for it can be said to be drawn into some sort of association with false prudence through its tie with fraud in its role as a filia and direct link to said prudence. Busnelli, who makes a good deal of the vices resembling prudence, actually asserts that violence proceeds from ‘mala prudenza’ and further that false prudence proposes to a man who wills to do harm two alternatives: (1) the ways of cunning or fraud, which are the arts of malice, (2) the ways of violence and bestiality, which encompass cruelty and the lack of restraint (pp. 47–49). Although his coupling of violence and bestiality is unacceptable and he probably overstated the case for violence proceeding directly from false prudence, nevertheless Busnelli may in general have been on the right track. This again underscores the idea that the violence of circle VII is not a purely impulsive exercise of force.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ See supra, p. 253, and Nardi, , op. cit. (supra n. 6) 198.Google Scholar

⁹¹ It is clear that Dante's wolf stands for avarice, but, without fully entering the dispute on the meaning of the three beasts, I feel it necessary to say simply that he does not stand for a general concupiscence which can then be said to attach to the circles of incontinence, an interpretation defended by Freccero in ‘Dante's Firm Foot’ 274–281. I believe that the Giacinto Casella thesis which holds that the beasts stand for the so-called three areas of the Inferno, and which is popular among American Dantists, should once and for all be put to rest. Rather, the beasts are for a procession of three basic sins operating throughout God's cosmos of which the Inferno is a corrupt image. The most concretely operative of these is avaritia — cupiditas and this is the domain of the wolf. Professor Kaske's research into the wolf and earth eating with its analogues in the bestiaries need not be tied to Freccero's interpretation. See Kaske, R. E., ‘Dante's DXV and “Veltro,”’ Traditio 17 (1961) 227–230.Google Scholar

⁹² Under this rubric, to cite one example, the classical notion of the giants as sons of the earth will attain its full significance for Dante. I stated earlier that it would give rise to another order of speculations.Google Scholar