«Magnanimità» Dantesca. Una lettura di Inf. I-IV
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6178
Una lettura intratestuale dei canti I-IV dell’Inferno dantesco, condotta alla luce dei concetti aristotelici di magnanimità e pusillanimità, che Dante personaggio e poeta ivi abilmente declina e teatralizza, sino ad esaltare se stesso come magnanimo tra i magnanimi.
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1973-9494
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Alfredo Cottignoli
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
poetry
Dantesque “Magnanimity”: A reading of Inferno I-IV
Text.Serial.Journal
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Articles
2015-12-30
2016-05-31
2015-12-30
2017-09-04
253-265
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Alfredo Cottignoli
2015/12/30
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6178
253
University of Bologna
1973-9494
poetry
en
265
Dantesque “Magnanimity”: A reading of Inferno I-IV
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/6178/5951
15
DA reading of Inferno I-IV
     ANTESQUE “MAGNANIMITY”1




   Alfredo Cottignoli*
   Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
   Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Ravenna, Italy


   Keywords: magnanimity, pusillanimity, honor, fame, poetry



   To my students in Ravenna

    From the famous opening words of his poem, poised between fear and hope (fear
– paura - of the three wild beasts and the hope that is instilled in the pilgrim by Virgil’s
rescue), but divided between the I that is dismayed by Dante the person, faced with the
otherworldly journey that awaits him («Ma io, perché venirvi? o chi ‘l concede? / Io non
Enea, io non Paulo sono; / me degno a ciò né io né altri ’l crede», Inf. II 31-33) and the
solemn investiture to do it, which comes to him through the compassionate interven-
tion of the «tre donne benedette» (Maria, Lucia, Beatrice) Dante the author skillfully
dramatizes his original condition of cowardice and then, his final liberation from all
fears about the possibility and legitimacy of undertaking this venture.
    In assuming the role of the central character in the Commedia, the medieval writer,




                                                                                                        CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
in short, didactically stages the story of his difficult, but ultimate transformation of his
initial timidity into magnanimity, from micropsichìa to megalopsichìa, to use two Aristo-
telian terms, found contiguously, in fact, in Inf. II 44-45, one referring to Virgil («rispuose
del magnanimo quell’ombra»), the other to Dante («l’anima tua è da viltade offesa»)2.
If indeed, in this case, the poet rightly defined pusillanimity in opposition to magnanim-
ity, like that which «molte fïate l’omo ingombra / sì che d’onrata impresa lo rivolve, /
come falso veder bestia quand’ombra» (Inf. II 46 -48); in other cases, in Convivio I XI,
he had already pronounced himself on the «viltà d’animo» and the contrasting virtue,
represented by its absence, as follows:

   Sempre lo magnanimo si magnifica in suo cuore, e così lo pusillanimo, per contrario,
sempre si tiene meno che non è. E perché magnificare e parvificare sempre hanno
rispetto ad alcuna cosa per comparazione a la quale si fa lo magnanimo grande e lo
pusillanimo piccolo, avviene che ‘l magnanimo sempre fa minori li altri che non sono,
e lo pusillanimo sempre maggiori. E però che con quella misura che l’uomo misura se
medesimo, misura le sue cose, che sono quasi parte di se medesimo, avviene che al
magnanimo le sue cose sempre paiono migliori che non sono, e l’altrui men buone:



* Corresponding author: alfredo.cottignoli@unibo.it


                                                                                                  253
                                            lo pusillanimo sempre le sue cose crede valere poco, e l’altrui assai; onde molti per
                                            questa viltade dispregiano lo proprio volgare, e l’altrui pregiano.

                                                The definition of pusillanimity necessarily implied (both in the prose of the Convivio
                                            and in the verses of the Commedia), that of magnanimity, a virtue which is «�������
                                                                                                                             ��������
                                                                                                                              modera-
                                            trice e acquistatrice de’ grandi onori e fama�������������������������������������������
                                                                                           »������������������������������������������
                                                                                             as the poet, always following along Aris-
                                            totle’s lines, again denotes in Convivio IV XVII. It is only a magnanimous person like
                                            Virgil (for whom Dante immediately acknowledges his great esteem, «de li altri poeti
                                            onore e lume» and his «maestro» and his «autore», Inf. I 82, 85), who could save the
                                            pilgrim from the «viltà» that takes hold of him, when setting off on his journey to the
                                            world beyond, which is the condition before the Commedia; even though the example
                                            of Virgil’s Aeneid itself was such that it spurred the modern poet on to the arduous
                                            task of composing this «poema sacro / al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra» (Par.
                                            XXV 1-2). This is just the same as saying that recognition of his own poetic virtue, the
                                            discovery of his own magnanimity, or rather of his own vocation as an artist, fatally
                                            passes through fear and despondency before definitively bringing about a sense of
                                            self-awareness and certainty of his own capabilities. Hence the insistence with which
                                            Dante emphasizes his conquest of «ardire e franchezza» (Inf. II 123), thanks to Virgil
                                            spurring him on; hence the famous and delicate comparison (held dear by Manzoni)
                                            between the «fioretti dal notturno gelo / chinati e chiusi» and the soul of the pilgrim, at
                                            first prostrated, as well as between those that grow straight and «aperti in loro stelo»,
                                            as «il sol li ’mbianca» and the «buono ardire» that then returns to hearten the poet (Inf.
                                            II 127-32).
                                                Neither should the role played by Beatrice in Dante’s progressive liberation from
                                            fear be forgotten (it is no coincidence that words such as «�������������������������
                                                                                                          ��������������������������
                                                                                                           tema���������������������
                                                                                                                » and «��������������
                                                                                                                        paura���������
                                                                                                                              » are
                                                                                                                                �������
                                                                                                                                    in-
                                            terwoven throughout the account Virgil gives the poet of the appeal made by Beatrice
                                            herself):

                                                                      Da questa tema a ciò che tu ti solve,
                                                                     dirotti perch’io venni e quel ch’io ‘ntesi
                                                                       nel primo punto che di te mi dolve.
                                                                                           [...]
A. Cottignoli - Dantesque “Magnanimity”




                                                                          “O anima cortese mantovana,
                                                                      di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura,
                                                                       e durerà quanto ‘l mondo lontana,
                                                                        l’amico mio, e non de la ventura,
                                                                         ne la diserta piaggia è impedito
                                                                      sì nel cammin, che volt’è per paura;
                                                                       e temo che non sia già sì smarrito,
                                                                      ch’io mi sia tardi al soccorso levata,
                                                                     per quel ch’i’ ho di lui nel cielo udito”.
                                                                                (Inf. II 49-51, 58-66)

                                               Stirred by pity, similar to that of Virgil’s, it is this «soccorso» that Dante emphasized
                                            in the final reproach to his «duca», «signore» and «maestro», aimed at securing a
                                            definitive victory over his earlier «viltà»:




                                      254
                           «Oh pietosa colei che mi soccorse!
                               e te cortese ch’ubidisti tosto
                              a le vere parole che ti porse!
                          Tu m’hai con disiderio il cor disposto
                               sì al venir con le parole tue,
                          ch’i’ son tornato nel primo proposto.
                          Or va, ch’un sol volere è d’ambedue:
                           tu duca, tu segnore e tu maestro».
                                       (Inf. II 133-40)

    But the theme of pusillanimity, far from limiting itself to Dante the person’s experi-
ence (thus alluding to that of Dante the author), objectifies itself in the representation
of the damned of the Anti-hell; almost as if the poet, to further exorcise his personal
insidious temptation, intended to reflect and cause to reflect, on the moral misery and
plight of «coloro / che visser sanza ’nfamia e sanza lodo» (Inf. III 35-36), and thus
on those who were unable to choose (similarly to the «cattivo coro / de li angeli che
non furon ribelli / né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro», ibid., 37-39) between good
and evil.
    Even here Virgil’s stimulus fails him (it should be remembered, he is the symbol
of human reason as well as the image of magnanimity), in other words it urges him
on to rationally dismiss all pusillanimity, that is to say, he fears he is inadequate to
personally undertake that difficult hellish journey and at the same time be its poetic
spokesman («Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto; / ogne viltà convien che qui sia
morta», Inf. III 14-15). But liberating Dante, both the author and the person, from any
further cowardice, he is eloquently rescued in a far more persuasive way than by a
mere verbal admonition («Questi non hanno speranza di morte, / e la lor cieca vita è
tanto bassa, / che ’nvidïosi son d’ogne altra sorte. // Fama di loro il mondo esser non
lassa; / misericordia e giustizia li sdegna: / non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa»,




                                                                                                       CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
Inf. III 46-51), the direct experience and vision of the harsh punishment allotted to the
pusillanimous, compelled, through their obvious retaliation with their moral apathy in
life to pursue, at least in death «ignudi e stimolati molto / da mosconi e da vespe» (Inf.
III 65-66), an infernal sign. Nor was there any stylistic feature, better than denial, that
could characterize the common condition of ethical and civil neutrality and the guilty
release, precisely of those who never dared take sides:

                        «Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,
                            né lo profondo inferno li riceve,
                         ch’alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d’elli».
                                      (Inf. III 40-42)

    Hence the grey anonymity to which they are condemned, in death as in life, those
«cattivi» (almost cowardly prisoners of their own laziness) «a Dio spiacenti e a’ nemici
sui» (Inf. III 62-63) so well-represented by the enigmatic figure of «colui / che fece per
viltade il gran rifiuto» (Inf. III 59-60), who, in as far as unequivocally identified by Dante
along with a small number of other souls, in that «lunga tratta / di gente» (Inf. III 55-
56) toiling behind a banner («Poscia ch’io v’ebbi alcun riconosciuto, / vidi e conobbi
l’ombra di colui…», ibid., 58-59), remains, however, an undecipherable «ombra» –
whether it alludes to Pope Celestine V or some other great defeatist from a Bible story,


                                                                                                 255
                                            more than from a chronicle – whose identity however, the poet did not deem appropri-
                                            ate or necessary to reveal to his readers.
                                               What is certain is that interest in the plight of «questi sciagurati, che mai non fur vivi»
                                            (Inf. III 64) was soon to be replaced by interest in that of the souls of the damned who
                                            thronged the banks of the Acheron; and no further mention is made of them throughout
                                            the rest of Canto III. In the following Canto, if the shadow of the same cowardice seems
                                            for one moment to touch someone as magnanimous as Virgil, (cfr. Inf. IV 13-21), it
                                            is soon dispelled from Dante’s mind and rightly interpreted as the Latin poet’s com-
                                            passion rather than fear for «l’angoscia de le genti / che son qua giù» (ibid., 19-20),
                                            whether such anguish refers generically either to the torments of the damned, or per-
                                            haps, rather to the moral suffering of the guests of Limbo (which is shared by Virgil, and
                                            that the vernacular poet especially holds so close to his heart he defines it as follows):

                                                                        Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
                                                                        non avea pianto mai che di sospiri
                                                                       che l’aura etterna facevan tremare;
                                                                         ciò avvenia di duol sanza martiri,
                                                                    ch’avean le turbe, ch’eran molte e grandi,
                                                                           d’infanti e di femmine e di viri.
                                                                                    (Inf. IV 25-30)

                                               Hence, Virgil himself is part of this crowd of adverse infidels (who «non peccaro»
                                            and «non ebber battesmo» or «non adorar debitamente a Dio», cfr. Inf. IV 34-38) who,
                                            not without grief, declare their shared exclusion from salvation and sentence to live
                                            eternally with a desperate longing for God��������������������������������������������������
                                                                                        («Per tai difetti,
                                                                                                  ���������������������������������������
                                                                                                           non per altro rio, / semo per-
                                            duti, e sol di tanto offesi / che sanza speme vivemo in disio», ibid., 40-42). Faced with
                                            this unhappy condition, torn between desire and despair of salvation, Dante’s turmoil is
                                            no less, and is not so much directed at the fate of that «selva […] di spiriti spessi» (Inf.
                                            IV 66) he had crossed with relative indifference, as to the fate of greatness:

                                                                     Gran duol mi prese al cor quando lo ’ntesi
                                                                          però che gente di molto valore
A. Cottignoli - Dantesque “Magnanimity”




                                                                      conobbi che ‘n quel limbo eran sospesi.
                                                                                  (Inf. IV 43-45)

                                               As this terzina, which holds the key to the canto, well attests, more than for the fate
                                            of a crowd of unbaptized innocents, Dante grieves for the fate of the people of great
                                            worth, in other words the «spiriti magni», that he is preparing to meet in the «nobile
                                            castello». No comment today regarding Dante limits itself to giving a general value of
                                            «anime grandi» to the expression «spiriti magni» (ibid., 119), which instead, calls for
                                            the specific value of «magnanimi», understood in the Aristotelian sense of megalopsi-
                                            coi, namely of spirits that rightly counted themselves deserving of great honor, as they
                                            were indeed worthy of it, without becoming pusillanimous or excessively presump-
                                            tious, the latter a trait of those who aspire to great honors without deserving them.
                                               «Videtur autem magnanimus esse, qui magnis seipsum dignificat dignus existens»,
                                            had in fact warned Aristotle (that Dante had read in light of the commentary of St.
                                            Thomas and had learned about through the VI book of Brunetto Latini’s Tresor, a ver-
                                            nacular translation of the Nicomachean Ethics by the Greek philosopher). Benvenuto


                                      256
da Imola moreover, had written in his renowned Comentum, along the same lines
as Aristotle, the famous terzina «Colà diritto, sovra ’l verde smalto, / mi fuor mostrati
li spiriti magni, / che del vedere in me stesso m’essalto» (Inf. IV 118-120): «in prato
virenti ostensi fuerunt […] viri magnanimi de quorum visione in se ipso Auctor gloriatur
[…] unde dicit li spiriti magni, id est animae magnanimorum».
    The vision of the «foco / ch’emisperio di tenebre vincìa» (Inf. IV 68-69), namely an
area of light that triumphs over a hemisphere of darkness, that is to say, surrounded by
darkness (humanistic interpretation vs mystical interpretation), introduces the second
part of canto IV, the one in which Dante meets heroes of action (such as Hector, Ae-
neas, Caesar, etc.) alongside heroes of thought (such as Aristotle – which in fact goes
back to the very concept of magnanimity – Socrates and Plato), ancient Greek and Latin
peoples next to modern Arabs (such as Saladin, Avicenna and Averroes). What unites
these spirits, all equally deprived of Christian salvation, – as my teacher Fiorenzo Forti
saw in his seminal essay on Limbo and megalopsicoi of the Nicomachea – is their com-
mon moral nature: they are in fact all megalopsicoi and believed they were worthy of
honor and fame, of an honourable name on earth, being indeed worthy of them.
    The theme of honor therefore, fittingly dominates this second part of the canto, while
in the background there remains the issue of eternal destiny (which the first canto per-
sistently emphasizes) reserved for greatness: everything in fact tends to highlight the
treatment reserved for the magnanimous, compared to that for the other inhabitants
of limbo (the first group in the light, the other in darkness). This, as if to underline the
special respect (l’onranza) there is, even in the Underworld, for the orrevol gente, for
their onrata nominanza, that is, for the honourable fame acquired in life, which thus
distinguishes them even in death. It is evident in these verses, (Inf. IV 72-100), that the
key word onore persistently echoes throughout, with all its derivatives: it may be said
that the very light (foco or lumera) surrounding the nobile castello – symbol and privi-
leged place of magnanimity – is a metaphor or related objective of that onore, which
like the light spreads evenly over all and that the poets of that bella scola (Homer,




                                                                                                     CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
Horace, Ovid and Lucan) lavish at times on Virgil («Onorate l’altissimo poeta; / l’ombra
sua torna, ch’era dipartita»), and at other times on Dante, person and poet, admitted
to this select group, as «sesto tra cotanto senno».
    «Però che ciascun meco si convene / nel nome che sonò la voce sola, / fannomi
onore, e di ciò fanno bene»,comments Virgil himself on the events, with his own mag-
nanimous confidence. He not only knows he deserves the honor paid tribute to him,
but also proclaims that those magnanimous people, poets like himself, by honouring
him, honor poetry itself. Thus, the honor done to his master-teacher, Virgil (and to the
poetry), is therefore also extended to Dante, who is the worthy pupil:

                        Da ch’ebber ragionato insieme alquanto
                          volsersi a me con salutevol cenno,
                           e ‘l mio maestro sorrise di tanto;
                         e più d’onore ancora assai mi fenno,
                          ch’e’ sì mi fecer de la loro schiera,
                          sì ch’io fui sesto tra cotanto senno.
                                      (Inf. IV 97-102)

   Like Virgil, Dante now has all the certainties of the magnanimous, and there is no
longer any trace of the earlier cowardice in him, so much so that he shows no surprise


                                                                                               257
                                            at the onore done him as a poet by the auctores he knows best: such investiture does
                                            indeed sound as if it were self-legitimation, as if it were the solemn recognition, that
                                            comes to him from the greatest poets of antiquity, of his value as an artist, his boldness
                                            as a poet, who is attempting to carry out a great feat, with the purpose of becoming in-
                                            timate with the other magnanimous members of the group. The one time pusillanimous
                                            character of long ago has now finally been dispelled and become magnanimous, and
                                            being so, not only has the elevated feeling and discretion of the magnanimous («Così
                                            andammo infino a la lumera, / parlando cose che ‘l tacere è bello, / sì com’era ’l parlar
                                            colà dov’era», Inf. IV 103-105), but also a solemn and reserved behaviour. The ����� «����
                                                                                                                                  sem-
                                            bianza», «né trista né lieta», of those wise men and their «salutevol cenno» to Dante,
                                            anticipate the very iconography of magnanimity (characterised by imperturbability),
                                            which emerges in a successive well-known terzina (ibid., IV 112-114):

                                                                      Genti v’eran con occhi tardi e gravi,
                                                                      di grande autorità ne’ lor sembianti:
                                                                         parlavan rado, con voci soavi.

                                               It is precisely such external «sembianti», that Dante has outlined, which find an
                                            antecedent in the description of the magnanimous, that the poet may have read, for
                                            example, in Brunetto Latini’s Tresor:

                                                L’uomo ch’è magnanimo, si è il maggior uomo ed il più onorato che sia. E’ non si
                                            move per piccola cosa, e non china la magnanimità sua a veruna sozza cosa […]. E
                                            se alcun uomo è magnanimo, non si rallegra troppo per grandi onori che gli siano fatti.
                                            E sappiate, che tanto onore non gli può esser fatto, che risponda alla sua bonarietà,
                                            ed alla sua grandezza. Anche il magnanimo non si rallegra troppo per cose prospere
                                            che gli avvengano, e non si conturba mai per cose adverse. […] E tiene bene a mente
                                            l’ingiurie; ma disprezzale, e non cura. E non si loda, e non loda altrui, e non dice villa-
                                            nia di niuno uomo. E cura più delle grandi cose che delle vili, sì come uomo che basta
                                            a sé medesimo. E nel suo movimento è tardo e grave. E nella parola è fermo. E questa
                                            è la diffinizione del magnanimo.
                                                                                                        (Tesoro volgarizzato, 73-77)
A. Cottignoli - Dantesque “Magnanimity”




                                               In a gloriously ever-increasing repetition of vidi, as in the «vidi quattro grand’ombre
                                            a noi venire», of verse 83 to the progressively iterated vidi before the shadows of the
                                            other spiriti magni (verse 121 and successive verses: «I’ vidi Elettra con molti com-
                                            pagni», «Vidi Cammilla e la Pantasilea», «da l’altra parte vidi ’l re Latino», «Vidi quel
                                            Bruto che cacciò Tarquino», «e solo, in parte, vidi ’l Saladino», «vidi ’l maestro di color
                                            che sanno», «quivi vid’ io Socrate e Platone», «e vidi il buon accoglitor del quale»,
                                            «e vidi Orfeo»), Dante the person ultimately declines his very own apotheosis of the
                                            magnanimous and poet who has been given the good fortune to see (vedere), in the
                                            company of those «savi», the shadows of the heroes inhabiting the «nobile castello»,
                                            and for whom it is now natural to take pride in, evident in the words «sesto fra cotanto
                                            senno» and
                                                     ������������������������������������������������������������������������
                                                          magnanimous among the magnanimous, the honor that divine justice it-
                                            self bestows on earthly greatness.




                                      258
   Notes
1
  For subject matter and sources see Fiorenzo Forti, Magnanimitade. Studi su un tema dantesco,
Roma, Carocci, 2006, with preface by Emilio Pasquini (I ed. Bologna, Pàtron, 1977).
2
  This and the following are my italics.



   Biographical notes

    Alfredo Cottignoli former professor of Italian literature, he is currently “Profes-
sor Alma Mater” at the University of Bologna and professor of Italian Literature on
the three-year degree course of Cultural Heritage. A student of Raffaele Spongano,
Fiorenzo Forti and Emilio Pasquini, he taught Italian literature and Dante Philology
in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, and Conservation of Cultural
Heritage. Philologist and historian of criticism, his research interests range from me-
dieval to modern literature (Dante, and fourteenth-century commentators, his authors
are Muratori, Foscolo, Manzoni, Carducci and Tenca). On the subject of Dante’s work,
he has held several lecturae Dantis in cities with links to Dante (Florence, Bologna,
Ravenna), conceiving and organizing in 2006, with fellow anthropologist Giorgio Grup-
pioni (with whom he later published, in 2012, a volume on Fabio Frassetto e l’enigma
del volto di Dante. Un antropologo fra arte e scienza), an international conference on
Dante e la fabbrica della «Commedia». He is a Councillor for the Opera di Dante in
Ravenna (for which he edited, in 2011, the cycle of Classense Lectures dedicated to
Dante in the Italian Risorgimento) and co-director of “Studies and problems of textual
criticism,” as well as, since 2012, for the Ravenna “Dante Bulletin. For the seventh
centenary”, designed for Dante’s Centenary in 2021.




                                                                                                       CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE




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