Dante's Inferno
It is an accepted fact within many schools of thought that, Dante'sInferno is a groundbreaking work that set a standard for its genre and alsodemonstrated many new visual and psychological concepts about the afterlife. Yet, it is also clear that the Inferno is a product of its time andmust be judged within the context of it. Within the work there arecountless demonstrations of both conformity and departure from theclassical Christian moral and ethical view upon sin and punishment but oneof the most striking conformities is with regard to the idea of divineright, in the sense that politics were guided and backed by God. "First he must descend through Hell (The Recognition of Sin), then he must ascend through Purgatory (The Renunciation of Sin), and only then may he reach the pinnacle of joy ..." (Dante, Ciardi 3)Dante's Inferno is clearly an example, on a grand scale of the thoughts andstandards of his time, as well as a culmination of the classical idealsassociated with philosophy, sometimes conforming to Christian ideals butoften departing from it. In many ways the work can be seen as one of thefirst applications of what we like to think of as the renaissance work of
Among the strongest theological weapons that the papal party wielded against their Ghibelline enemies were the charges of heresy (see Inferno, 10), astrology, divination, and magic. The next figure, however, is not a figure from classical antiquity at all; it is Michael Scot, the court astrologer of Frederick II, whose reputation as a magician grew during the thirteenth century, in spite of his disavowal of illegitimate magic in the Liber Introductorius. The punishments befit the crime and the crime was adirect reflection of the political and proprietary standards of his day. Paul's "Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas" as the principle underlying the worst categories. (Dante, Ciardi and MacAllister xi)The classic examples of evil are often based upon the ideas associated withDante's own politics and his belief in the divine right of his own causes. (Dante, Ciardi and MacAllister x)Dante's quest led him firstly back to the cannon of the faith, yet, whenanswers were not to be found Dante broadened his scope of exploration andlighted on a philosophical perspective and a philosophical base: Exploration of these questions led Dante through the Scriptures with their commentators, the Church Fathers, notably Anselm, Bonaventure, and Augustine, to Boethius and beyond to Lucan, Statius, Ovid, Horace, and his beloved and revered Virgil. Vergil remarks about the first of them, Amphiaros, what was true of all: "because he wished to see too far ahead in time, he looks behind and makes his way backwards. Namely one of the most common and effective tools associatedwith striking down one's political enemies is associated with those enemiesuse of magic and astrology to divine the success or failure of their futureendeavors. In this remarkable amalgam of the Nicomachaean Ethics and Cicero there is little that is peculiarly Christian except for a few borrowings from St. Comparatively the Fortune Tellers and Diviners of Canto XX arestricken with the reverse punishment After having seen the panderers and seducers, flatterers, and simoniacs, Vergil leads Dante to the next bolgia , where the poet is immediately stricken with pity at the prospect before him. Additionally because of the nature of the individualsbeliefs the political actions of each, determined by their life and theiractions against the cause which according to Dante is divine the extremityof their punishment in the after life is determined. It is not a theological arrangement but a philosophical one; not a theoretical exposition--save for the marvelously concise discourse of Virgil in Canto XI--but what might be called a case-system presentation of classic examples of evil in its outward social manifestations. (Peters 102)To some extent, as Peters goes on to say the relationship to the punishmentof the heretics within Canto X is related to that of the Fortune tellerswithin Canto XX. They, unlike the diviners, are afflicted with a clear vision only of the distant future. (Peters 104)Yet, again in a more direct representation of the political nature ofDante's opinions and condemnations is found in another of his listedmagical foes: Guido, a Ghibelline, is probably placed in Hell because astrology and magic, with heresy, were crimes particularly imputed to the Ghibellines in Italy, [being Dante's and Tuscany's direct enemy] just as treason was imputed to the Guelfs.
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Acceptance Essays
