September 8, 2021

The women of Dante Alighieri

Love, the engine of everything: Beatrice and the women of the Divine Comedy

"Neither Creator nor creature ever," began he,
Began he, "my son, was without love,
Or natural or of mind; and thou knowest it."
Thus Virgil, in the XVII Canto of Purg, (91-93)

Love in the Divine Comedy is everywhere, from Hell to Paradise, from the senses to the spirit, in many different forms: passionate and familiar, earthly and divine, desperate and sweet. It is love that is the true impetus that leads Dante to embark on his wonderful journey. It is love for Dante materializes in Beatrice.

I hope that God will give me enough days to write about her what no one has ever written for anyone else.

Dante, Vita nova

Described in the sonnet "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare" (So kind and so honest it seems), in an extraordinary way, that is, as a "cosa venuta / di cielo in terra a miracol mostrare" (a thing that came / from heaven to earth to show miracles), Dante's words indicate that Beatrice is both the maiden he has met and loved since childhood and the spirit that guides Dante in Paradise. Even if the historical evidence is scarce, no one doubts that Beatrice really existed and that she is to be identified with Beatrice, or Bice Portinari, wife of Simone De' Bardi, who died very young on June 8, 1290.
In the Vita Nova it is Dante himself who tells about their first meeting, when they were both 9 years old, both children - maybe in the little church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi where still today the lovers leave romantic notes - and to have seen her again 9 years later, still in Florence, when his love was born. His spiritual maturation linked to this love. At the end of the Vita Nuova, Dante, who understood the turning point the woman had made in his spirituality, promised not to write about her again until he could do so in a completely worthy way.

In the Divine Comedy, having overcome the profound crisis in which the death of the beloved woman had thrown him, it is again Beatrice who saves Dante, first by sending Virgil to help him and then by guiding him through Paradise to salvation.
But Beatrice is not the only woman described in Dante's masterpiece: there is Francesca in the V Canto of Inferno: cultured and refined, Francesca is the first character in Inferno to deliver a whole speech, while her lover and brother-in-law Paolo weeps in silence.

In the Purgatory Dante speaks with the sweet Pia De Tolomei, who was married to Nello dei Pannocchieschi, podestà of Volterra and captain of the Guelph party in 1284, and was killed by her husband who made her fall from the balcony of his castle in Pietra, in Maremma. The cause of the crime would be, according to some, the punishment of an infidelity, according to others the desire of him to go to second marriage. (Purg. Canto V, 130-136).

In Paradise meets Piccarda Donati, daughter of Simone Donati and sister of Forese and Corso, pious and religious young girl, entered the convent of S. Chiara in Florence to become a nun. Her brother Corso, perhaps in the period in which he was podestà and then captain of the people in Bologna (1283-1293), for reasons of political convenience wanted to give her in marriage to Rossellino della Tosa, violent exponent of the Black Guelphs; for this Corso came to Florence with a group of troublemakers, kidnapped her from the monastery and forced her to marry Rossellino. Ancient chroniclers and Dante's commentators report that Piccarda, as soon as she was removed from the monastery, fell ill and died, although there is no direct confirmation of this. Dante dedicates an entire Canto to her, Canto III, and places her among the pure spirits who lacked constancy in life.