Watt - The Cross That Dante Bears Pilgrimage, Crusade, and The Cruciform Church in The Divine Comedy (2005) PDF

The Cross That Dante Bears
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
Pilgrimage, Crusade, and the Cruciform Church
in the Divine Comedy
Mary Alexandra Watt
University Press of Florida

Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton · Pensacola
Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2005 by Mary Alexandra Watt
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Watt, Mary Alexandra.
The cross that Dante bears: pilgrimage, crusade, and the cruciform
church in the Divine comedy / Mary Alexandra Watt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-2876-7 (alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8130-3993-0 (e-book)
1. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Divina commedia. 2. Dante Alighieri,
1265-1321—Religion. I. Title.
PQ4417.W38 2005
851'.1—dc22 2005051926
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency

for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M
University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University,
Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of
Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of
North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida

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To Joe, who keeps me writing the pages that follow.
In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si
potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.
Dante, La Vita Nuova 1:1
Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself,

and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Mark 8:34
Contents
List of Figures x
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Crossing Jordan: The Cruciform Journey to Jerusalem 8
2. Leaving Jerusalem: The Journey into Exile 17
3. Exodus: The Journey Back 38
4. Let Him Go Up to Jerusalem 62
5. Sign of the Cross: The Medieval Cruciform Church 76
6. Navata infernale 90
7. Toward the Light 117
8. Beyond the Rood Screen 147
Epilogue: The Cross That Dante Bears 164
Notes 183
Bibliography 215
Index 223
Figures
1. Isidore of Seville’s tripartite world map, 1472 11

2. T-O map, circular plan of Jerusalem, 13th century 13
3. Doors, San Zeno Maggiore, Verona 96
4. Façade, San Miniato al Monte, Florence 130
5. Floor, duomo of Siena (detail) 133
6. Justinian mosaic, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna 150
7. Apse, Sant’Andrea chapel, Ravenna 153
8. Mosaics, Santa Maria dell’Assunta, Torcello 158
9. Exterior, duomo of Verona 172
10. Exterior, duomo of Verona 172
11. Exterior, San Zeno Maggiore, Verona 173
12. Apse, Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna 178
13. Apse, Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna (detail) 179
Preface and Acknowledgments
What initially drew me to medieval studies was my deeply rooted suspi-

cion and naïve hope that the Middle Ages were a time of magic, mysticism,
and hermetic knowledge, not completely comprehensible to the modern
mind but perhaps affording occasional vague glimpses. It was, I believed, a
period in which “spells of making” could conjure up any number of enti-
ties and a time when everything meant something else and secret codes
were embedded everywhere, in text, in architecture, in the visual arts.
Of course, my studies soon revised my thinking and I have come to
accept that the likelihood of St. Patrick actually driving snakes out of Ire-
land or St. George slaying a dragon is about as great as the likelihood of St.
Anthony preaching to the fish. Yet I came also to understand that all of
these events might nonetheless be true, even if they did not actually hap-
pen. I came to understand, too, that the distinction between actually hap-
pening and being true was perhaps, at best, a post-Enlightenment con-
struct and a distinction that held little weight in the years before the
scientific method dictated the measure of truth. Indeed, the magic of the
Middle Ages existed, but not as I had previously imagined. Instead it lay at
the heart of its hermeneutic strategies and was embedded in its omnipres-
ent allegory. Words and images thus cast and contained their own spells of
making, as writers, artists, and architects gave literal form to allegorical
truth, creating dragons and snakes to explain the triumph of good over
evil, building towering mental edifices in which memories and thoughts
could be catalogued, conjuring up the battles and journeys that marked a
hero’s progress.
Along the way I also learned that the Divine Comedy represents the
embodiment of such conjuring. As Dante’s protagonist wends his way
through the three realms of the afterlife, the reader discovers that beyond
the journey that Dante narrates there is another structure, discernible at
first only as if glimpsed “through a glass darkly,” but becoming ever more
knowable as the protagonist reaches his ultimate goal. That is, through a
series of strategically placed textual cues that recall both the medieval de-
pictions of the known world and the medieval cruciform cathedral, the
xii Preface and Acknowledgments
reader gradually becomes aware that Dante’s journey traces the figure of a
cross.
The purpose of this book, then, is to explore those textual cues, the se-
cret codes and other strategies that Dante employs in the service of his
own spell of making, to discover how and why Dante conjures up the shape
of a cross, in particular. By necessity, the book goes beyond traditional lit-
erary criticism to consider not only the visual arts but also medieval carto-
graphic and architectural conventions as potential sources for the literal
narrative of the Commedia. I have written this book, therefore, not only
for Dante scholars but also for scholars and students of medieval literature,
culture, and history, as all three are indeed fused in Dante’s great poem. It
is my fondest hope that my approach will provide readers with a new per-
spective on the Commedia, one that focuses on the text, certainly, but fo-
cuses on the text as a means of revealing an even more significant meta-
textual structure, the cross that Dante creates and then bears, a cross that
exists not in time or space but, rather, in the recesses of the reader’s figural
imagination.
My reading of the Commedia and my appreciation for its genius were
not born in a vacuum. But for my overwhelming good fortune in having
been taught and guided by the best of Dante scholars, this book could not
have come to fruition. In particular I am deeply indebted to Konrad
Eisenbichler for introducing me to Dante, to Amilcare Iannucci for helping
me get to know him, and to Giuseppe Mazzotta for teaching me how to
understand him.
I would like to acknowledge as well the continued support, encourage-
ment, and insight I have received from Christopher Kleinhenz, William
Calin, and Amy Gorelick. I would like also to thank the commune of Padua
for allowing me precious access to the Giotto frescoes during the restora-
tion of the Arena Chapel and to Sister Leonard for taking the time on a hot
July day in Venice to explain the Torcello mosaics to me. There are, of
course, colleagues and friends, too numerous to list, whose input along the
way has been invaluable. They know who they are and they know how
much I appreciate them.
Introduction
Few religious symbols in western Christianity possess the potency and

polysemous capacity of the cross. As an icon, it serves as a reminder of the
pivotal event in Christian history, the Crucifixion. As a symbol, it repre-
sents the meaning of that event, spiritual redemption. As such, it has both
literal and allegorical significance. And although representations of the
Crucifixion itself did not appear until the early fifth century,1 the symbolic
import of the cross had been established as early as the first century
through the inclusion in the gospels of Christ’s call to “take up” the cross.2
Early Christian writers such as Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and
Augustine of Hippo, furthermore, saw the cross as symbolic of the uni-
verse in all its dimensions—height and depth, length from east to west,
and breadth from north to south—and often concluded that Christ had
preordained the cross as the instrument of his death precisely because of
its symbolic potential.3
In the centuries following the fall of Rome, the significative potential
of the cross continued to expand. Representations of the cross were ex-
ploited in the service of numerous endeavors ranging from architectural
projects to military campaigns. By the time that Dante wrote his Divine
Comedy in the early decades of the fourteenth century, they had become
all-pervasive.
The cross had adorned the breast of countless crusaders, its war cry au-
dible in the stroke of their cross-shaped swords. But, just as important, it
lent its form to the maps of the Christian world that guided both pilgrims
and Christian soldiers to the Holy Land,4 representing the known world as
a cross at the center of which lay Jerusalem and on which East was also
“up.” Maps of Jerusalem itself adopted this representation in microcosmic
form, as the Holy City was typically laid out out on a cruciform pattern as
well, with the Temple located at the head of the cross. Thus Jerusalem was
the crux of the world, the center of the primary icon of Christian salvation.
And to travel to Jerusalem was to take up the cross in imitation of Christ’s
suffering.
2 The Cross That Dante Bears
While this central position of Jerusalem reflects the traditional view of

the Holy City as the navel of the world, it also reflects its position as the
genesis and epicenter of the Christian tradition. The representation of the
known world in the shape of the cross served both to attribute a Christian
significance to the Mediterranean world and to exclude as non-Christian
those places that lay beyond its confines. Moreover, it permitted the places
on the map to be interpreted in terms of where they lay on the cross and
their proximity to Jerusalem.
The cross also hung in the recesses and apses of Christian churches.
Wooden crosses painted with the figure of Christ were often surrounded
by saints who had taken up the cross in imitation of their Lord. As a result,
the cross on which Christ was depicted became also the exegetical tool
through which the lives of those saints could be interpreted. In addition to
wooden crosses, many of the apses of medieval Christian churches were
decorated with mosaic representations of the cross, sparkling amalgams of
thousands of smaller pieces, symbolizing the communion of spirit made
possible through the Passion.
Moreover, the cross gave its shape to those many churches of the
Middle Ages in which such crosses were found. Churches laid out in the
shape of the cross, oriented to the east, recreated symbolically the pilgrim-
age to the Holy Land, thus linking the trip to the altar, typically located
toward the east end of the church, with the journey to Jerusalem.5 Indeed,
from the fourth century onward, Christian church architecture intention-
ally sought to recreate the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In certain cases this
allegorical association of the church and Jerusalem was made even more
explicit. The Roman basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, for example,
contains numerous relics brought from the Holy Land,6 and thus affirms
the allegorical connection between the church building and Jerusalem. By
virtue of this process, which Irving Lavin refers to as the “topographical
transfusion” of Jerusalem to Rome, the basilica itself and indeed all of
Rome could be understood as the second or New Jerusalem. In fact, says
Lavin, it could be understood as “the truer Jerusalem,” where the Lord was
crucified a second time in St. Peter (34–35).
The symbolic value of the cross, therefore, underlines the common re-
demptive nature of the pilgrimage or crusading journey and the cruciform
church, which seeks to reiterate the same journey. At the same time, its
shape transforms the itinerary or map and the church into related physical
manifestations of the same significance. To use the terminology of medi-
eval hermeneutics, the cruciform map and the cruciform church were
Introduction 3
“types” of each other, as were the journeys they traced and prescribed.
Moreover, they were all “types” of the cross, sharing meaning and expli-
cating their mutual allegorical significance.7
Given the all-pervasive cultural presence of the cross and its types, the
cruciform church and the cruciform journey to the east, it is hardly sur-
prising that all three figure prominently in the Divine Comedy, a poem
that plots a journey of spiritual redemption. Images of the cross, references
to Jerusalem, and allusions to the great churches of medieval Europe con-
tinually underline the redemptive purpose of the poem, a purpose attested
to by Dante himself in his letter to his Veronese patron, Cangrande della
Scala.8
Dante, however, has done more than simply include frequent references
to these symbols of redemption. In the Commedia the placement of such
references reinforces the typological relationship between the cross, the
church, and the road to Jerusalem, while providing an allegorical founda-
tion on which to imprint the literal narrative of the pilgrim’s trek. As a
result of the correlation between these two levels of meaning, progress
through the poem is typologically linked to progress within a medieval
church and/or progress toward Jerusalem, either as pilgrim or as crusader.
The inclusion of liturgical hymns, especially in the Purgatorio, is one of
the more obvious strategies that Dante uses to reveal the typological af-
finities between his poem and a cross-shaped church. Other strategies may
not be as immediately evident but are equally significant. The frequent use
of exempla, or the inclusion of images such as the celestial rose of the
Paradiso, recalls the decorative elements of the medieval church and, simi-
larly, reminds the reader of the affinity between progress in the poem and
movement toward the altar and apse.
There are, of course, differences between Dante’s poem and the medi-
eval cruciform church. The reader’s progress through Dante’s great poem
is decidedly temporal rather than spatial. It is also mental rather than
physical. These and other distinctions indicate that Dante is not imitating a
church so much as reminding the reader of the commonalities between his
poem and the cruciform church, affinities based in their common underly-
ing structure. Likewise, while references to the road to the Holy Land re-
mind the reader that Dante’s poem is typologically linked to pilgrimage
and crusade, certain features of the narrative make it abundantly clear that
the Commedia is a uniquely Dantean manifestation of the cross, not sim-
ply an imitation of the cartographer’s craft.
The Commedia is, then, not mere imitatio. Insofar as it is “like” a
church, the likeness is attributable to the fact that the cruciform church
and the poem both exist as manuals of salvation that provide the Christian
with lessons in how to follow the “way.” The church and the poem also
both function as mnemonic devices for remembering these lessons. But
even more significantly, the church and the Commedia function as spatial
and temporal vehicles, respectively, for reiterating allegorically not only
Christ’s via crucis9 but also the prototypical pilgrimage journey. Dante is
not so much positing that his poem is like a church or the journey it reiter-
ates; rather he is using its cruciform shape to illustrate similarities to the
church and to the purpose and the meaning of his poem: that it is the way
out of slavery, the slavery of sin, and the way to salvation.
This common purpose is revealed in the song of the newly arrived sin-
ners in purgatory. Their hymn, “In exitu Isräel de Aegypto” (Purg. 2:46),
commonly sung by medieval pilgrims approaching Jerusalem,10 com-
memorates the Exodus while linking it to Christian pilgrimage. But at the
same time, the song links the poem to the church, for it was also sung
during Easter observance. Thus the narrative of the poem is associated
with the liberation from slavery, its spiritual fulfillment in the Easter pas-
sion, and the reiteration of both in the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as well as
its allegorical representation in a cross-shaped church. This fusion is made
explicit when Virgil asserts that he and Dante are also pilgrims (“noi siam
peregrin” Purg. 2:63).
The sin and slavery from which the pilgrim is liberated is thus figured
in the descent into the inferno, just as the Exodus was preceded by the
descent of Israel into the land of Egypt. As the pilgrim makes his subterra-
nean descent, textual cues such as the story of Ulysses (Inferno 26) remind
us that, in the world of the living, travel away from the Holy City was
equally a descent, for on the maps of Dante’s time, travel west meant travel
“down” from the city at the top of the world. Accordingly, as Dante’s poem
unfolds, it becomes clear that the downward progress of the Inferno, inas-
much as it corresponds to westward movement on the cruciform map, also
corresponds to movement away from the altar in the eastward-oriented
cruciform churches of the Middle Ages.
In contrast, the purgatorial journey corresponds to the return to the
east. It shares the same trajectory as the journey out of Egypt toward the
Promised Land. Its hardships, therefore, prepare the pilgrim for arrival in
Jerusalem. Its purgative process cleanses him for the eventual ascent to its
spiritual counterpart, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of God, or paradise.
But it also corresponds to the trip to the altar in an eastward-oriented
Introduction 5
church and the glance upward to the rose window of the apse through
which the morning sun shines with blinding brilliance. The altar, Jerusa-
lem, and the top of Mount Purgatory all coincide, superimposed in layers
of meanings, and thus the three can each explicate the significance of their
respective typological counterparts.
The affinity between the Commedia, the church, and pilgrimage serves
more than an exegetical purpose, however. Like many of the other struc-
tures that Dante incorporates into his poem—for example, literary forms
such as the epic or the hagiographical model—the presence of the cruci-
form church serves as a means of defining the Commedia in terms of
genre. This is scripture, divinely inspired, the Gospel according to Dante,
surely, but it is the poem’s affinity to the church that implicitly asserts its
spiritual authority. In positing his poem as an instrument of salvation with
authority akin to that of a church, Dante challenges the monopoly of the
bishops, and in particular the bishop of Rome, over Christian souls—a
point made exceedingly clear when Dante’s pilgrim is both crowned and
mitered with authority over himself at the completion of the purgatorial
journey (“per ch’io te sovra te corono e mitrio” Purg. 27:141).
The arduous pilgrimage journey and, indeed, the crusade to which
Dante links his poem also serve a pseudoautobiographical purpose. In a
strategy similar to the inclusion of references to the cruciform church and
the road to Jerusalem, Dante includes a series of references that evoke the
places of his own wandering. The journey of his actual life is presented,
then, as typologically equivalent to progress in a cruciform church and to
the journey to Jerusalem. As such, Dante’s own life is revealed as the alle-
gorical fulfillment of the figura that comprises the literal narrative of the
Commedia. The poem and the journey it describes, or rather foretells, are
therefore also cross-shaped and thus represent the suffering that will re-
deem him as well as the crusade that he launches against those who have
defiled him. The pilgrim’s journey is both the cross that Dante bears and
the cross that he wields.
And what a cross it is. Like the great painted crosses of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries on which medieval artists superimposed the lives
of saints and martyrs on a cruciform background, so too is Dante’s cross
embossed with the lives of the saints, creating a collective out of separate
entities, and attributing to them the redemptive significance contained in
the cross. But Dante’s cross is also painted with the details of his own vita.
As episodes from his life and glimpses of the places of his exile flesh out
the narrative, each of them forms part of a larger picture, sharing meaning
with the images of saints stretched across the arms of a Cimabue cross. The
common shape of the backdrop likens Dante’s life story to the medieval
lives of the saints, lives that invariably included taking the cross either in
martyrdom, pilgrimage, or crusade. The Commedia becomes an icon of
salvation, while the story it tells elevates its protagonist to the rank of
exemplum.
The Commedia then serves a dual purpose. It serves as a paradigm, in
the same way that a pilgrim itinerary might guide the wandering Chris-
tian, but it is also a travelogue, the tale of Dante’s own journey, his own trip
along the naves of countless churches of his exile, his own pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, his own crusade to recover the Promised Land, his own
exodus from the slavery of sin. Moreover, the insertion of a vast array of
textual cues allows Dante to lend a redemptive significance to his own life
by asserting its affinity to other highly pervasive representations of the
cross. As Dante plots the progress of his own journey through life along
the nave of a cruciform church and on the cross of a medieval map, the
meaning of his own particular journey emerges. The journey is Every-
man’s, but the trip is Dante’s.
The Cross That Dante Bears explores all of these aspects of the poem in
an attempt to fully understand the purpose and significance of the cross
within the narrative structure and the text of the Commedia. Accordingly,
chapter 1 considers the allegorical significance of the cross and its absorp-
tion into the cruciform maps of the Mediterranean and into maps of
Jerusalem itself. This introductory chapter also considers how Dante in-
serts textual clues that reinforce the cruciform structure of the poem and
at the same time orient the reader in terms of location, both within the
cross of the church and within the cruciform representations of the medi-
eval world. The book then moves on to consider how Dante uses the figure
of the cross, as traced on medieval maps, to reveal his poem of pilgrimage
as still another manifestation of the cross, textual rather than cartographic.
The first half of the book thus considers the ways that Dante uses both
explicit and oblique references to pilgrimage, crusading, and their carto-
graphic representations to create an affinity between his project and the
cartographer’s and, by extension, between the shape of the map and his
own representation of pilgrimage and crusade.
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 consider the significance of the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem and of the crusading voyage to the Holy Land in the context of
medieval culture. They consider, more particularly, the way in which the
Introduction 7
significance of each has been absorbed into the Commedia so as to serve an

exegetical function.
The second half of the book follows a similar methodology but, moving
beyond similarities between Dante’s poem and the road to Jerusalem, con-
siders the affinities between the Commedia and the allegorical reiteration
of the road to Jerusalem in the medieval cruciform church. In this second
part of the book, then, we see how Dante alerts the reader not only to the
similarities between his project and those of the cartographer and church
architect but also to the allegorical process at play in the creation of such
affinities. To this end, chapter 5 considers the allegorical aspects of the
medieval church, and in particular the allegorical aspects of the cruciform
floor plan. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 examine the correspondence between the
allegorical aspects of the cruciform church and the journeys depicted in the
Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso respectively.
Finally, the epilogue considers the sources of many of the references
that Dante uses and proposes that the cross that Dante creates, through the
affinities between his poem, the map to Jerusalem, and the shape of the
cruciform church, is at its most essential his own. It proposes that Dante’s
poem, fashioned in the shape of the cross, thus becomes an exegetical de-
vice through which he can find meaning and give value to his own life. It
concludes that not only is the poem a cross, it is his cross, one that is borne
in the service of his own redemption and, if read—or, rather, followed—by
his readers, might also save them.
The aim of this book is to demonstrate that Dante’s poem is, at its most
essential, Dante’s attempt to place his work and his life alongside the most
significant aspects of medieval culture. By necessity, then, the book looks
at some of the cities that Dante encountered during his travels and the
decorative art contained in the churches he visited, as well as his own expe-
riences with the pilgrimage and crusading culture of the Middle Ages. It
looks at how Dante absorbs some of the most striking works of Western
art, literature, and architecture, reformulating or transmogrifying them
into his own celebration of the Eucharist mystery, as the material becomes
allegorical and the flesh becomes word. As the poem attempts to present its
author as a new exemplum, its protagonist as a new saint, the experience of
writing is transformed into a redemptive exercise, and the act of reading
into a means of taking up the cross. The poem thus posits itself as the cross,
the cross on which its author/saint suffered and through which the reader,
companion to Dante’s pilgrim, might be saved.
Crossing Jordan
The Cruciform Journey to Jerusalem
It is probably trite to say that in Dante’s world the figure of the cross
loomed large. But it is not inaccurate. Certainly in Dante’s time and in the
centuries before, a variety of symbolic figures had played prominent roles
in the dissemination and propagation of Christianity. Early Christian art
abounds in depictions of the Lamb of God, the Good Shepherd, loaves and
fish. Medieval art is similarly preoccupied with the figure of the Madonna
and a vast array of saints and martyrs who, in turn, are embellished with
symbolic figures or “attributes.”1
Yet however pervasive these symbols may have been, their presence
rarely extends beyond the plastic or literary arts. That is, while the figure
of the Lamb of God, for example, pervades Christian writing and is fre-
quently represented in mosaic and sculpture of the Middle Ages, it did not
give its shape to buildings. Whereas a cross-shaped church was quite com-
mon in the Middle Ages, one would be hard pressed to find a lamb-shaped
basilica or a fish-shaped cathedral. And while the point may seem decid-
edly obvious, it is precisely the obvious difference between the cross and
the other symbols of Christianity that renders the cross so unique. Unlike
the lamb, the loaves, or the fish, the symbolic capacity of the cross is not
limited only to its association with the Judeo-Christian tradition. While
bread, of course, has a certain archetypical quality, it is its association with
Christ’s miracles and the prototypical Eucharist that affords it its greatest
metaphoric value in Christian worship. The fish’s symbolic value in Chris-
tian culture,2 similarly, derives primarily from its allegorical presence in
the gospels.3
But the cross had a polysemous quality independent of the Christian
tradition and predating the Incarnation. As a tool of execution, it had, of
course, a very practical role. On a more symbolic level, however, its pres-
Crossing Jordan: The Cruciform Journey to Jerusalem 9
ence in the mainmast of sailing ships early on linked the shape of the cross
with journeying, the traverse of space, and the crossing of water in particu-
lar. But its polysemy runs even deeper, as we see in the metaphoric poten-
tial of its occurrence at the meeting of two paths. A near inevitability in a
world marked by roads, the crossroads associates the cross not only with
journeying but also with choice. A traveler, metaphoric or otherwise, arriv-
ing at a crossroads can continue on the same trajectory but in doing so
must cross another path. He can turn right or left and travel a new road.
Finally, he can turn back, traversing the same path but in a different direc-
tion. Accordingly, even before Christ was hung on a cross, the instrument
of his death was already associated with journeying and choice.
Such significative capacity, coupled with its multidimensional quality
(it comprises height, depth, breadth), suggested to early Christian thinkers
that the cross was symbolic of the very universe itself. To those Christians
who pondered the ignominious death suffered by their Savior and the ex-
cruciating process of crucifixion, this polysemy offered a comforting and
reassuring solution. Irenaeus,4 writing in the second century, indeed re-
sponded to this very issue when he confirmed that the cross had signifi-
cance beyond its role in capital punishment. The dimensions of the cross
had a universal import, symbolizing not only height and depth but also the
length of the cosmos from east to west and its breadth from north to
south.5 The cross was much more than just two intersecting pieces of
wood.
Gregory of Nyssa,6 in the fourth century, similarly interpreted the four
projections emanating from the center of the cross as corresponding to
spatial directions that, in turn, are perceived in everything. Gregory, like
Irenaeus, thus suggested that Christ’s death on the cross was the link be-
tween humanity and the cosmos, asserting that the Crucifixion both tied
together and humanized the universe.7 St. Augustine, writing in the same
century, took the link further. Like Gregory and Irenaeus, Augustine af-
firmed the symbolic quality of the cross, but he associated it also with
Christ’s love and sacrifice, seeing it as the embodiment of the four dimen-
sions of the universe as enumerated by Paul: “the width and length and
depth and height.”8 Moreover, he saw the cross as a symbol of human
travail and associated the vertical length of the cross with the perseverance
of the soul to the end.9 The cross was thus the figure that joined human
suffering to Christ’s suffering and that linked the length of a life to a uni-
versal journey.
Augustine’s meditations were supported by the gospels where Christ
himself asserted that those who would follow him would have to sacrifice
and endure great suffering—in other words, would also have to “take up
the cross.”10 But Augustine’s thoughts also recognized that such suffering
was not a static moment but rather an ongoing journey, a journey figured
in the shape of the cross, and that Christ’s death on the cross had now
revealed the true significance of its presence in the masts of ships and at
dusty crossroads. Life was a journey full of choice, and the Christian life
was one of suffering. Christian faith, for Augustine, is the cross one bears,
but it is also the cross that infuses the journey with universal and redemp-
tive value.
In the centuries after the fall of Rome, the cross and its symbolic value
continued to shape Christian culture. In particular Augustine’s fusion of
the cross, the journey, and the length of a life found their expression in the
emergence of Christian pilgrimage and were reflected in a sermon deliv-
ered by Ivo of Chartres in 1116. Asserting that the vertical axis of the cross
represents the travail and suffering that we must suffer during the pil-
grimage of our life,11 Ivo attested to the typological relationship that ex-
isted between the cross, pilgrimage, and the human lifespan by the time
Dante was writing his Commedia. Seen as a journey of suffering, pilgrim-
age—to Jerusalem in particular—provided the Christian with a means of
“taking up the cross”12 and symbolized the soul’s eventual journey to
heaven (MacCormack 19).
Thus while the pilgrimage was a physical journey, it found its most
essential significance through its typological relationship to the cross, and
therefore was equally a symbolic journey. It is not surprising, then, that
medieval maps drawn to guide pilgrims to the Holy Land should also be
laid out in the shape of a cross. Extending the figural link between pilgrim-
age and the cross to the physical world, medieval cartographers adopted
the sixth-century perception of the world as “lengthwise from east to west
and breadthwise from north to south,”13 placing east at the top of the map.
The east-west trajectory and the north-south trajectory met at Jerusalem
to form either a Latin or a tau cross (a cross in the form of a T). In some
cases a figure of Christ was also placed on the cross, with the legs extending
down or westward along the Mediterranean and the right arm pointing
north while the left hand, sinistra, pointed south. Thus the length of the
cross, which Augustine had associated with the suffering of the soul to
the end, traced a parallel path at the end of which lay Jerusalem. (On
those maps that used a Latin cross, Jerusalem lay at the intersection of the
north-south and east-west trajectories, and on those maps that used a tau
Figure 1. Isidore of Seville’s tripartite world map, 1472. By permission of Jim

Siebold.
cross, the Holy City lay at the end of the east-west trajectory.) On such
maps “up” and “down” are equated with east and west, east being “up” and
west being “down,”14 with Jerusalem lying precisely at that point where
the two trajectories of the cross meet or intersect. Walking eastward or
“upward” to Jerusalem,15 therefore, entailed following a route that was
depicted as cruciform—that is, walking the via crucis, the “way of the
cross.”
The figural associations of the cross were also used in medieval depic-
tions of the city of Jerusalem itself. Many maps of the Holy City incorpo-
rate the figure of a cross and locate the Temple at the intersection of the
vertical and horizontal axes. Thus walking the streets of the city itself,
along what would eventually become known as the Via Dolorosa, not just
the route to it, was also associated with “taking up the cross,” comprising
an even more intimate reiteration of Christ’s suffering as he walked the
via crucis.16 The pilgrimage journey to Jerusalem is thus given two levels
of significance, the macrocosmic and the microcosmic. The first level is the
journey to the Holy City. The second is the journey within it. The first
level is preparatory to the final ascent, “up to Jerusalem,” but both walk
the way of the cross, and undertaking either was considered to be a reitera-
tion of Christ’s own passion. As such, the penitential nature of the journey
was also redemptive, allegorically taking up the cross as Christ had com-
manded in the scriptures.
Similarly, when Urban preached the First Crusade as a variant of pil-
grimage,17 the armed pilgrim “took up the cross” even more than had the
pilgrims who preceded him, for the Christian soldier not only walked the
way of the cross, following the same maps to the Holy Land, but also
wrapped himself in the cross, as his emblazoned tunic made explicit the
connection between his willingness to die for the cross and Christ’s will-
ingness to die on the cross.18
Thus, the cartographer of the Middle Ages utilized a form that endowed
the final creation with redemptive significance. At the same time, the
meaning of the cross was contained in and revealed by the activity to
which it gives its form, travel to the Holy Land, and to the heart of Jerusa-
lem itself. The significative process is, therefore, symbiotic as the imposi-
tion of the shape of the cross attributes its meaning to the very journey
that manifests its significance.
It is this kind of significative scheme that is at play in the Commedia: as
the image of the cross gives redemptive significance to Dante’s project, the
poem itself is transformed into an icon of the very salvation it signifies,
taking it beyond mere poetry. Like the medieval cartographer who tran-
scribes God’s book, the world, in the shape of the cross, Dante the writer
transcribes his own book, his poetic imagination, in the shape of the
cross.19 Thus the journey of the medieval pilgrim and the journey of
Dante’s pilgrim both follow cruciform itineraries, the common signifi-
cance of which is revealed by the very form of the road they travel.
As Peter Hawkins notes, “what the Commedia essentially unfolds for
the reader is a literary mappa mundi, a complex map of words that builds
upon (and by and large reflects) a contemporary cartographer’s notion of
the world and its position in the cosmos” (266–67). The purpose of Dante’s
mapmaking “is to chart the route of pilgrimage” (269), he continues, not-
ing that Dante “clearly wanted to relate the actual travel experience of
contemporary pilgrims to his own arrival in the Empyrean” (270).
But Dante’s project extends beyond the mere travel diary, however
popular such accounts were in the Middle Ages. Rather, he seeks to incor-
porate the iconic capacity of the medieval map, to create an artifact that is
at the same time mental and visual, not merely textual. Accordingly,
Dante’s task, creating a text that in turn produces a metatext in the shape
Figure 2. T-O map, circular plan of Jerusalem (26 cm diameter), 13th century. By
permission of Jim Siebold.
of a cross, is a very different task from that of the mapmaker. For that
reason alone Dante’s cross is not immediately discernible to the reader; it is
not something that one touches or physically sees. But it is one that the
reader is intended to hear in a series of textual references that allow the
reader to imagine and create a mental picture of the pilgrim’s movements
in terms of east versus west, up versus down, and thereby discern an iter, a
metatextual cross that corresponds to the orientation on a cruciform map.
What Dante does, then, is become the reader’s eyes. Each time he says,
“I saw,” we understand that the reader is to imagine, visualize, and come
along on the pilgrim journey. We must listen, if we are to follow the map,
to the directions Dante gives us. He cannot draw a map, but he can give
directions. Similarly, each time Dante tells us he turned right or he turned
left, we are to perceive these movements in terms of their symbolic signifi-
cance. If he goes up, he is heading to Jerusalem; if he is going down, he is
going away. But Dante’s map, and indeed Dante’s textual references, serve
for more than to bring the reader along with him. Dante’s map also reflects
the cross of the mappa mundi and thus indicates to the reader the signifi-
cance of this journey.
Accordingly, while a series of textual references in the Inferno reveal a
correspondence between the pilgrim’s downward movement and west-
ward direction on the medieval maps of the Mediterranean world,20 this
westward movement itself is explicated through its typological relation-
ship to the cross. To travel westward is to travel away from redemption.
Similarly, as the pilgrim progresses upward through the Purgatorio, he
reverses the westward journey, traveling eastward out of Egypt, heading to
the Promised Land and salvation. The significance of the journey is en-
hanced by its correlation to the metatextual cross that Dante creates in the
mind of the reader and that gives a metatextual form to his poem.
The pilgrim’s arrival in the Paradiso coincides with the terminus of the
tau map and the crux of the maps configured as Latin crosses. As the pil-
grim starts his ascent, his eastward trajectory thus leads toward the loca-
tion of paradise on medieval mappae mundi.21 From this point he contin-
ues upward, above the map, beyond the earthly Jerusalem to its allegorical
fulfillment, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of God.
As we shall see in later chapters, Dante’s journey also bears striking
similarities to progress in a medieval church. As textual references alert
the reader to the correspondence between Dante’s infernal trek and west-
ern movement away from Jerusalem, they also suggest movement away
from the altar,22 or below the altar into the crypt and the world of the dead.
As the trip through purgatory reorients the pilgrim, turns him back to face
the east, the text is similarly punctuated by images and motifs that suggest
the pilgrim is progressing through a church. He hears hymns,23 and he
sees miraculously lifelike friezes that remind the reader of some of the
greatest works of medieval religious art.24
Similarly, the ascent into heaven reminds the reader of the spectacular
rose windows that graced many medieval churches and also the sparkling
mosaics of the apses of many of the churches of Dante’s times and trav-
els.25 But such similarities are, as we shall see, ultimately linked to the
cruciform perception of the world as reflected in medieval cartography, for
medieval church architects actively sought to reproduce the Temple of
Jerusalem and the pilgrimage journey to the Holy City in the churches of
Christendom. From the Stations of the Cross to the artwork believed to
have decorated the Temple in ancient times, elements intended to link
progress in a church to actual pilgrimage were intentionally included, in an
attempt to enhance the redemptive nature of Christian worship and to link
the Eucharistic ritual with its prototype. No element, however, was more
prevalent than the cross, whose form became the very foundation on
which medieval churches were based. To create a church in the shape of a
cross was to mimic the cruciform world. The architectural manifestation
was, then, akin to the cartographic manifestation, and it is not surprising
that both should be present in Dante’s textual manifestation of the cross.
Dante’s journey as told and foretold in the three canticles is assiduously
given the shape and the meaning of the cross. The starting point of the
poem, the middle of the road (“Nel mezzo del cammin” Inf. 1:1), places the
pilgrim at a crossroads, at the foot of a hill. On the map he is approaching
Jerusalem. In the church he is approaching the altar. But Dante does not go
up to Jerusalem immediately. For reasons that will be discussed, he must
first descend, turn away from the Holy City, from the altar, and from the
communion with Christ they both represent. His descent is marked by his
journey through the Inferno, decorated with all those details that lead
downward, from courtly love to the squabbling of local politics. The
Purgatorio, the journey back to Jerusalem, back to the intersection, is, in
contrast, recuperative, an attempt to rid himself of all that dragged him
down. The final ascent, the Paradiso, is the reward, a journey to the ultra-
east and a glimpse of the Light of the World.
And just as Dante inserts textual cues that orient the reader, he also
inserts cues that remind the reader of the omnipresence of the cross. In the
Inferno the crosses are perversions, such as in the figure of Caiaphas (Inf.
23) who distorts and inverts the crucifixes found throughout Christian
churches in Dante’s time. In the Purgatorio the crosses are cleansing, and
in the Paradiso they are redemptive and triumphant, as in the case of the
great cross etched across the heavens, across a sky that reminds the reader
of Constantine’s own cross in the sky. Their continuing presence serves to
keep the cross fresh in the reader’s mind, existing as a stimulus to medita-
tion on the cross and sensitizing the reader’s consciousness to the possibil-
ity of other crosses in the narrative.
But it is the crossroads at the middle of the road of Dante’s own life that
is the most fundamental cross and the starting point from which Dante
fashions the cruciform structure of his poem. His choices are fourfold—he
can go forward, go back, turn left, or turn right—but his life, irrespective of
the trajectory, will be the cross he must traverse and the cross that he will
bear. To travel downward leads only to hell, to travel its length eastward
brings salvation. The crossroads thus contains the potential for degenera-
tion or for conversion. But each choice, other than retreat, requires cross-
ing over, and in this Dante’s journey recalls the journey of the Jews across
the Red Sea and the journey into the Promised Land across the River Jor-
dan. Dante’s cross completes the journey commenced by Abraham and re-
iterates the Christian pilgrimage across a world shaped and given meaning
by Christ’s passion. The poem is the record of his journey and the map he
draws to guide others on the path he has traced. Like the pilgrim or cru-
sader who takes up the cross and travels to Jerusalem, the reader who takes
up the cross, Dante’s cross, can travel through the pages of the Commedia
to the salvation it represents. The poem is Dante’s call to his readers to take
up the cross and follow the way, once “smarrita” but now clarified by his
iter of salvation.
Leaving Jerusalem
The Journey into Exile
Dante starts his Commedia with a deictic reference that locates the pilgrim
both spatially and temporally. “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (Inf.
1:1) immediately connects Dante’s narrative to the fusion of time and
space inherent in the merger of pilgrimage and the span of years suggested
by Ivo of Chartres,1 as it locates the pilgrim not only in terms of “where”
but also in terms of “when”: in the middle of the road of life. The medieval
reader knew well that the Bible allots each of us a lifetime of seventy years
and thus places Dante in his thirty-fifth year. At the same time, the middle
of the road links the pilgrim’s location to Jerusalem, found typically in the
middle of the world on medieval mappae mundi. But even medieval read-
ers with no knowledge of such cartographic conventions would just as eas-
ily have linked the “middle” with Jerusalem, for it was common belief in
the Middle Ages that Jerusalem lay at the center of the world.2 Moreover,
it was the midpoint on the circular pilgrimage of the Middle Ages that took
the pilgrim to Jerusalem and then back again.
Yet Dante does not leave the making of such an important association to
chance, as the opening canto makes the connection to pilgrimage, and to
pilgrimage to Jerusalem specifically, even more explicit. The hill that the
pilgrim faces as he emerges from the “selva oscura”3 recalls the many hills
and mountains one must climb along the pilgrimage routes to Rome, to
Santiago de Compostela, or to Jerusalem. An integral part of pilgrimage,
the ascent of such mountains or hills symbolized the climb up Mount Zion
before the Jews entered the Promised Land, as well as Christ’s own ascent
of Mount Calvary. But the hill of Inferno 1 also points to pilgrimage to
Jerusalem specifically, since it was the historical Jerusalem that lay at the
heart of the allegorical reiteration of the Exodus and the Crucifixion repre-
sented by pilgrimage.4 Moreover, its perceived position at the top of the

world distinguished it as the quintessence of the redemptive city on a hill
to which one “went up” both literally and allegorically. Finally, Dante’s
descent into hell from this location further reinforces its intentional evo-
cation of the Holy Land since, during the Middle Ages, the Dead Sea was
also reputed to be the mouth of hell (Demaray, Invention, 14).
In a more oblique way, the very presence of Virgil brings Jerusalem to
mind. Both as a favorite of the emperor under whom Christ was born,
Augustus, and as a writer often considered a sort of pre-Christian prophet,
the figure of Virgil might draw the reader’s mind circuitously back to the
Holy Land and to the birth of Christ. But the figure of Virgil also brings to
mind the city of Rome, itself a pilgrimage destination and a New Jerusa-
lem.5 While the gospels are full of references to the Roman Empire and the
role that Rome played in fulfilling the messianic prophecies,6 it was Virgil
who, in the Aeneid, attested to the divine destiny of Rome. More signifi-
cant, it was Virgil who, according to medieval interpretation, unknowingly
prophesied the birth of Christ in his Fourth Eclogue,7 which Christians
most seized upon to characterize Virgil as an unknowing prophet of Christ.
It is Virgil who links Rome to the New Jerusalem, and thus the figure of
Virgil alerts the reader to the allegorical significance of the pilgrimage
trek.
Given the strong presence in medieval thought of typological relation-
ships, Dante need not establish a definitive link between the pilgrim’s ini-
tial starting point and the actual historical Jerusalem in order to alert his
reader to the figure of the Holy City. The location that Dante creates in the
opening cantos of the Commedia is presented as actual, but it also reminds
the reader of Jerusalem and, because of its typological relationship to
Jerusalem, Dante can attribute to it the significance attached to the Holy
City. Further, the Jerusalem imagery comprises a narrative element that is
essential to linking the Commedia to the shape of the cross on the map of
the world. The typological presence of Jerusalem, a city at the top of the
world, ensures that the pilgrim’s voyage away from the hill will be associ-
ated with downward movement. Similarly, it will also be identified with
westward movement through a series of textual references discussed be-
low. The connection between his downward movement and the westward
movement confirms his location in terms of the cruciform of the mappa
mundi—he is at the middle—and also brings to mind the cross that gives
both the map and, by extension, Dante’s iter their shape and ultimately
their meaning.
Leaving Jerusalem: The Journey into Exile 19
To travel westward is to travel away from Jerusalem and also away from
the site of the True Cross. So while the journey through hell is retracing
the cross that lies on the map of the world, this journey is, in essence, an
antipilgrimage, for it takes the traveler farther away from Jerusalem.
Dante’s westward progress, however, is distinguishable from that of the
typical sinner inasmuch as it bears a distinct resemblance to those west-
ward journeys that were preordained as preparation for a subsequent
spiritual ascent, such as the journeys of Peter and Paul, whose westward
travels mimic Christ’s own descent into hell before his eventual ascension.
Dante’s journey through hell is, nonetheless, a journey away from Jerusa-
lem and, as the first leg of his own personal pilgrimage, is distinguishable
from the return trip of those palmers who have already gone up to Jerusa-
lem and whose return via the same westward trajectory is now protected
by the state of grace the pilgrimage journey affords the traveler. For these
pilgrims have climbed the mountain and are thereby transformed. For the
medieval palmer, the trip westward is a return, not a departure.
The distinction between Dante’s departure and the return of the palmer
is accentuated through a number of textual indicators that remind the
reader of pilgrimage but pervert it in such a way as to continually distin-
guish Dante’s trip from those who have returned transformed.
The entrance to hell is a perfect example of this. The inscribed gate8
recalls the many great porte encountered by the medieval pilgrim on the
way to Jerusalem. Natalino Sapegno suggests that Dante’s inscribed gate
was inspired by the many metric epigraphs inscribed on the gates of medi-
eval cities (30). More specifically, the inscription seems a cruel inversion of
one of the most obvious city gates a Florentine pilgrim encountered on
such a journey. Traveling south from Florence along the Francigena, the
pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome and then on to Jerusalem, the
pilgrim enters Siena at the Porta Camollia, a great fortified gate inscribed
with the welcoming message “Cor magis Sena tibi pandit”9 (Siena opens
its great heart to you).
In addition to serving as a bitter contrast to the welcome that awaited
the true pilgrim, the inscription on the gates of hell also signals the per-
verse nature of this journey, this antipilgrimage, by contrasting it with the
true Christian iter, the “way.” This journey contrasts substantially with
the pilgrimage that leads to heaven and with the portal to heaven that
belief in Christ represents. Thus the gate of hell is contrasted with its celes-
tial counterpart, heaven’s gate, and also serves as a textual reinforcement
of the extent to which Dante is on the wrong road.
Significantly, the entrance to hell presents the reader with an example

of one of the many strategies Dante uses to alert the reader to the pil-
grimage route to Jerusalem even as he walks in the opposite direction.
Throughout the Inferno, the reader encounters images that are inversions,
or perversions, of the markers associated with pilgrimage, contrasting
Dante’s journey with the true pilgrimage. Although the reader does not
learn immediately that the pilgrim has been descending straight down
from Jerusalem, his suspicions that the pilgrim is getting farther away
from Jerusalem and what it represents are fostered in the early stages of
the Inferno through a series of similar oppositions. The reader learns
where the pilgrim is by deducing definitively where he is not.
The ferryman Charon, for example, contrasts markedly with St. Peter,
the traditional gatekeeper of heaven to which Jerusalem is a spiritual por-
tal. Charon is a pagan character, a symbol of a time when death contained
no possibility of an ascent to the Heavenly City, when the afterlife re-
mained an underworld. Minos, the dreadful fusion of beast and man who
assigns the proper punishment for the sinners, likewise offers a pagan
counterpoint to Christ, the perfect union of God and man, who judges both
sinners and saints. Similarly, while the trembling of the earth that accom-
panies the pilgrim’s swoon (Inf. 3:127–31) and, indeed, even the descent
into hell recalls the Crucifixion,10 Dante’s reawakening in the next canto
underlines ironically just how much the descent into hell is without hope.
As he tells us he recovered (“mi riscossi” Inf. 4:2), we might as well read
“was resurrected.” But the pilgrim is not resurrected. He is still in hell.
Hell, Dante tells us, offers no hope of resurrection—a fact that is con-
firmed as he wanders through limbo.
Dante’s limbo, in contrast to the other more obvious evocations of pil-
grimage sprinkled throughout the Inferno, seems neither to evoke nor to
pervert the journey to Jerusalem. Yet its very presence reinforces the ab-
sence of restorative capacity hinted at in Inferno 4. In limbo there may be
movement but there is no progression. The stagnancy of the souls in
limbo, their inability to either descend or ascend, is accentuated by their
having witnessed Christ’s descent and his subsequent ascent together with
those souls deemed worthy. Their very presence here in hell is a reminder
that the journey of their life could not take them to heaven, that they
cannot enter the Holy City. They must remain beyond the start of the
antipilgrimage trajectory, close to Jerusalem but just below it, without
hope of ascent.
The circle of the lustful, Inferno 5, seems similarly situated in terms of
the trajectory of the antipilgrimage: as it lies outside the City of Dis, it is

still outside of hell proper. The lustful, like the noble pagans, have not so
much damned themselves as they have removed the chance to redeem
themselves. The canto’s most emblematic episode, the story of Paolo
Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, like the episode in limbo, suggests this
precisely as the doomed lovers point to the extent to which misdirected
love can preclude entry to the Holy City. In the romance read by Paolo and
Francesca, Lancelot spends his time romancing the wife of his king rather
than searching for the Holy Grail, a relic associated with the Crucifixion
and the Holy Land. Rather than seeking the holy relic or, like the other
chivalric heroes of medieval literature, seeking to rid the Holy Land of the
infidel, Lancelot seeks erotic pleasure. He romances the lady of his earthly
king rather than praising the lady of the heavenly king, the Madonna. The
quest for the Holy Grail, with its origins in the Holy City, is a restorative
quest intended as a type of pilgrimage and a restoration of the soul to its
homeland, but courtly love presents a distraction from the courtly gestes
and causes a tragic end for Lancelot and Guinevere, a tragic end played out
through the figures of Paolo and Francesca. Paolo and Francesca, therefore,
remain outside Jerusalem, linked to Lancelot’s failure to crusade. Lance-
lot’s is a pilgrimage that never starts and, as such, is not fulfilled. In this
sense Inferno 4 and 5 both emphasize that a failure to move toward Jerusa-
lem has results similar to moving away from it. Its logic is inescapable. One
cannot enter the Holy City without making the journey there.
Moving away from the circle of the lustful, Dante approaches a city that
resembles the superfortified cities of the Middle East, such as Damascus
and Jerusalem, which were comprised of a series of walls with outer and
inner fortifications. But Dante’s city is no Jerusalem. Indeed, it quickly
becomes evident that it is the direct antithesis of the Holy City,11 a point
punctuated by the ghoulish cry that comes from beneath the mud, “Pape
Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!” (Inf. 7:1). Although the words may at first seem
indecipherable, scholars such as Giorgio Petrocchi (Alighieri, Commedia,
2:109) have noted a probable connection between “Pape” and the Italian
papa, pope. Similarly, commentators have traditionally read “Aleppe” as a
contortion of a recognizable utterance, in this case the first letter of the
Hebrew alphabet, aleph, and an exclamation of pain, with which the la-
ment of Jeremiah opens.12 Thus the word conjures up the sound of the Old
Testament and certainly of the Hebrew language, but it is perverted in the
sense that it is being applied to Satan, who is not the King of Heaven but
rather the Prince of Darkness. Robert Hollander refers to the “garbled
mixture” of the “two sacred tongues of Christendom,” Latin and Hebrew,

calling it “unclean speech” (Dante and Paul, 27).
There is, however, an even more obvious significance to “Aleppe,” one
seemingly not considered by the commentators. “Aleppe” could just as
easily be a corruption of Aleppo, the name of a city occupied by Saladin in
1183 as part of his offensive push to take Jerusalem, which he eventually
accomplished in 1187. The reference is a reminder of the Muslim drive to
occupy the Holy Land and a reminder that Jerusalem is no longer in Chris-
tian hands. At the same time, the reader may recall the apparent indiffer-
ence of the Christian powers to the occupation of Jerusalem, a theme that
Dante reprises throughout the Commedia. Thus the allusion expands the
pilgrimage motif of the Commedia, or rather the antipilgrimage motif in
the Inferno, to include its armed variant, the crusade, or, in its infernal
inversion, the failure to crusade. The demon’s shout might be heard as a
victory cry, shouted in defiance of Jerusalem and alerting the reader and
the pilgrim to the anti-Christian nature of the city he approaches.
Concomitantly, the great tower of Dis is reminiscent of the tall narrow
defensive towers found throughout the cities of Tuscany and northern
Italy. The presence of Filippo Argenti, moreover, suggests Florence specifi-
cally. Dis thus evokes both the image of Florence and the great towering
fortress of Aleppo—a duality that likens Florence at the same time to a city
under siege, overrun by the infidel, and to a perversion of the Holy City.
Similarly, involving oneself in local strife of which the towers are a strong
reminder, rather than crusading in the Holy Land, is seen to be akin to
abandoning the Holy Land to the infidel, a point Dante will make much
more succinctly when he condemns Boniface for crusading in Rome
against the Colonna cardinals rather than in the Holy Land against Sara-
cens (Inf. 27:85–87). The affinity between Dis and a Muslim city is rein-
forced by the pilgrim’s initial misconception that the fires of hell are
mosques and minarets. Though the pilgrim soon discovers his error, the
point has been made as Dante equates Islam with hell.
The antithetical relationship of Dis to Jerusalem is underlined by Vir-
gil’s oblique invocation of the Madonna, as he says to Dante, “blessed is
she who bore you” (“Alma sdegnosa, / benedetta colei che ’n te s’incinse!”
Inf. 8:44–45). The invocation of Mary and, indeed, of the birth of Christ in
a moment following such violence is, at first, somewhat shocking and
seemingly incongruous. However, the violent opposition serves as a re-
minder of the sharp contrast between Christianity and Islam and under-
lines just how far removed Dis is from the Holy Land.
Since these cantos remain preliminary to Dante’s actual entry to the

city of hell, the compass direction of the journey is not overly pronounced.
Rather Dante has focused here on creating a thematic paradigm consisting
of a series of oppositions: Christianity versus Islam, dallying versus cru-
sade, Dis versus Jerusalem. Continual allusions to the Muslim Middle East
in these cantos establish that hell is an inversion of the Holy Land, an anti–
Holy Land as it were. In this way Dante lays the foundation on which to
establish that the pilgrim’s journey is, in the same vein, an antipilgrimage.
In the service of this strategy Dante relies on the medieval perception of
Islam as an inversion of Christianity and of the Islamic expansion into
Christendom as akin to sodomy—in a word, backward.13 As Dante associ-
ates hell with Islam, he also attributes a backward aspect to his own move-
ment toward the heart of this Muslim-like place, a theme that will be reit-
erated throughout the Inferno, especially in the cantos with Brunetto
Latini. As the pilgrim continues his descent through hell, this backward
movement is increasingly linked textually to westward movement, locat-
ing the pilgrim’s trajectory on the map of the world.
Dante refers to the city as a “basso inferno” (Inf. 8:75), emphasizing the
downward movement that, in medieval geography, was associated with
westward movement. The descent is contrasted with Christ’s descent,
however, through an allusion a few lines later to Christ’s harrowing of
hell.
Questa lor tracotanza non è nova;
ché già l’usaro a men segreta porta,
la qual sanza serrame ancor si trova.
(Inf. 8:124–26)
[This insolence of theirs is nothing new;

they showed it once before and at a gate
less secret—it is still without its bolts—]
The allusion is to the gates of hell being broken open when Christ de-
scended into hell after his death on the cross. “According to an early medi-
eval tradition, these demons gathered at the outer gate to oppose the de-
scent of Christ into Limbo at the time of the Harrowing of Hell, but Christ
broke the door open and it has remained so ever since.”14 The allusion to
Christ’s descent also emphasizes a crucial difference between his descent
and the descent of the sinners. Christ’s descent had a corresponding ascent,
while the sinners will remain in hell for eternity. The metaphor and the
allusion, together, introduce the thematic importance of descent into hell,
an importance that is underscored in the next episode, in which the angel’s

descent to open the gates (Inf. 9:80–90) reiterates Christ’s descent and as-
cent pattern.
Once inside Dis, the tombs of the heretics provide still another contrast
to the empty tomb of Christ, emphasizing the absence of an ascent corre-
sponding to the downward trajectory of the condemned. At the same time,
the central role played by Farinata degli Uberti continues to build on the
affinity between Dis and Florence suggested in canto 7. But the Florentine
atmosphere and the encounter with Farinata do more than focus on
Dante’s political condemnation of those who exiled him. The episode
serves rather to highlight the petty and divisive nature of the Florentine
squabbles and distinguish them from the more worthy struggle against
the infidel in the Holy Land, continuing the innuendo of Inferno 7. The
inhabitants of the cemetery of Dis, in their attention to local matters and
their abandonment of the true fight, are antipilgrims but, more specifi-
cally, they are anticrusaders.
The specific mention of two other sinners, Ottaviano degli Ubaldini and
Frederick II, emphasizes Dante’s condemnation of those who did not fight
to recover Jerusalem. Like Farinata, Ubaldini is here because of heretical
behavior—in Ubaldini’s case, uttering a comment that questioned the ab-
solute existence of the human soul.15 The comment seems hardly enough
to conclude that Ubaldini is guilty of heresy, and one suspects rather that it
is the situation that led to the comment that lies at the heart of his con-
demnation. Ubaldini, like Farinata, was intimately bound up in the local
Ghibelline-versus-Guelph conflict. Ubaldini’s preoccupation with the con-
flict, however, is linked to the anticrusade through the immediate mention
of Frederick II.16 The juxtaposition of the two figures associates heresy
with the preoccupation with local politics resulting in the failure to crusade
in the East.
Since Frederick continually failed to fulfill a promise to crusade,17 citing
local unrest as an excuse not to leave for the Orient, the figure of Frederick
also links failure to crusade with the Muslim incursion, given that
Frederick was often suspect in the eyes of the Church because of his per-
ceived Arab sympathies. (Frederick’s first language was Arabic. His court
was full of Arab entertainers, musicians, and poets, and he was reputed to
keep a harem, following the vogue among Arab rulers.) His eventual cru-
sade to the Holy Land together with his Muslim troops merely reinforced
this perception, especially as he declined to battle the Muslim defenders
for Jerusalem and instead negotiated with al-Malik al-Kamil, sultan of
Egypt, for possession of the city. The resulting Treaty of Jaffa, in which
Frederick was given Jerusalem for ten years, during which Muslim pil-
grims would still have access to the city, was seen by the papacy as unac-
ceptable.18 Moreover, rather than stay and govern Jerusalem following the
conclusion of the treaty, Frederick was crowned king of Jerusalem,19 then
promptly returned to Europe.
Notwithstanding his considerable cultural, literary, and legal achieve-
ments, from a medieval Christian perspective Frederick’s actions were seen
as an abandonment of Jerusalem to Muslim defiling. In the titular king of
Jerusalem, this abandonment was even more egregious. Frederick’s per-
ceived reluctance to journey east on crusade, his apparent Arab sympa-
thies, and his subsequent abandonment of the Holy City of which he was
king, all present Frederick as the antiking of Jerusalem.
The pairing of Frederick and Ubaldini tells the reader how to read the
canto with Farinata. The real heresy lay in equating Florence and the Holy
Land, in substituting a local battleground for a universal Christian cause.
The reader who sees only Florence in the City of Dis has fallen prey to the
same myopia, failing to see the minarets for the towers.
And lest the reader still let Jerusalem slip too quickly from his mind,
Virgil’s subsequent explanation (Inf. 12:43–45) of the earthquake that pre-
ceded Christ’s descent into hell recalls the Crucifixion, thus linking the
literal landscape of hell with the events of the Holy Land and preparing the
reader for yet another reference to its abandonment.
The figure of Pier della Vigna, in the woods of the suicides (Inferno 13),
reminds the reader that Frederick has abandoned not only Jerusalem but
also his trusted courtier. Pier’s presence emphasizes the extent to which
Frederick is unlike the real king of the Holy City, Jesus Christ. In a reversal
of the passion story, the earthly king Frederick abandons this Peter and in
turn betrays him rather than forgive him. The reversal serves not so much
to victimize della Vigna as to emphasize how unlike Christ’s Peter is
Frederick’s disciple Pier and, by extension, how distinguishable the earthly
concerns of this emperor were from those of the heavenly king. Pier may
hold both keys to Frederick’s heart; he is no Simon Peter holding both keys
to heaven.
Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi

del cor di Federigo, e che le volsi,
serrando e diserrando, sì soavi
(Inf. 13:58–60)
[I am the one who guarded both the keys

of Frederick’s heart and turned them, locking and
unlocking them with such dexterity]
Pier’s adoration for his king, like Peter’s, leads to death, but Pier has fol-
lowed the wrong king, the antiking, and thus rots in hell alongside him,
while Peter shines in heaven in the light of the true king.
It is important to note that Dante’s attack on Frederick is not an attack
on the office of Holy Roman emperor any more than his attacks on
Boniface are attacks on the papacy. Rather, they are attacks on those who
fail to turn to the east and fulfill the figural role the office represents.
Frederick, as earthly king, fails to realize the obligation of his office to
reflect the kingship of Christ, but Dante cannot or does not say this di-
rectly. Instead he uses evocative figures such as Pier and Frederick as false
figurae of Peter and Christ so as to emphasize the antithetical nature of
hell vis-à-vis the Holy City, thus avoiding uttering the name of Christ.
Similarly, the word “peregrin” is notably absent.
Indeed, just as the name of Christ is never mentioned in hell, the name
of the Holy City is avoided. This conspicuous absence reinforces just how
antithetical the inferno and Jerusalem are; the presence of the one pre-
cludes the mention of the other. The continual presence of Florentines,
apart from representing those characters with whom Dante undoubtedly
had the most familiarity, also supports Dante’s implication that to be con-
cerned with Florence often means to be unconcerned with Jerusalem.
Brunetto Latini’s subsequent characterization of the Florentines as
blind (Inf. 15:67)20 recalls the apparent blindness of Farinata to the present
and links the Florentines to those in the Bible who did not accept Christ
and were therefore “blind.” The sinners in hell are those who remain blind
like the men of the Old Testament. The figure of the Old Man of Crete in
canto 14 recalls a similar figure in Daniel 2:32–34 and emphasizes the New
Testament antithesis that Paul draws between the old man and the new
man, the preconversion and the postconversion. The Old Man of Crete is
the unconverted Old Testament man. He is not the converted Christian.
In canto 15 Dante emphasizes the backward aspects of the unconverted
when he characterizes the Florentines as backward, thus reiterating a cer-
tain orientation to a hell that is also Florence. From the outset of the canto,
the presence of sodomites recalls the Christian characterization of the
Muslim presence in Jerusalem as a defiling akin to sodomy.21 Thus again
we find a reminder of the holy war that the medieval Christians are losing.
At the same time, estrangement from Jerusalem and movement away

from it is accentuated by the continual allusions to backward motion. The
inverse movement of the sodomites builds on the earlier references to the
leftward, and therefore “sinister,” direction of movement in hell,22 as tex-
tual cues alert us to the backward nature and movement of the sinners in
this circle. Brunetto Latini is explicit about his orientation.
O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia
se Brunetto Latino un poco teco
ritorna ’n dietro e lascia andar la traccia.
(Inf. 15:31–33)
[My son, do not mind if Brunetto

Latino lingers for a while with you
And lets the file he’s with pass on ahead.]
That Brunetto must turn around (an alternate translation of “ritorna ’n
dietro” is “go back” or “turn back”) is not only consistent with his charac-
terization as a sodomite but also serves as a segue into Dante’s own back-
ward glance and his mention of having turned the wrong way. For the
pilgrim, however, the journeying process is a way of reorienting himself, a
way of turning back and righting himself.
“Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos’io lui, “mi smarri’ in una valle,
avanti che l’età mia fosse piena.
Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m’apparve, tornand’ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”
(Inf. 15:49–54)
[“There, in the sunlit life above,” I answered,

“before my years were full, I went astray
within a valley. Only yesterday
at dawn I turned my back upon it—but
when I was newly lost, he here appeared,
to guide me home again along this path.”]
It is here that an important distinction becomes more discernible be-
tween the pilgrim’s own direction and movement in general in hell. The
pilgrim follows the same road that the sinners take, a road that would ordi-
narily lead nowhere but to the pit of hell. However, while there is a certain
commonality in the two trajectories, Dante’s journey is not truncated in

the same way as is the hell-bound movement of the condemned. The
chance to turn back and right himself at the nadir distinguishes Dante’s
movement from the fruitless downward trajectory of the damned. The
reader must remember what he has been told, that Dante’s journey is dif-
ferent, willed by the Madonna herself (Inf. 2:94–96). The leftward motion,
the westward motion of Dante the pilgrim will not prove to be fatal—as we
of course know, since he has returned from the adventure to tell the tale.
Rather, his journey of descent and ascent reiterates Christ’s own descent
and ascent. The pilgrim’s journey, which bears witness to Augustine’s dic-
tum that one must descend before ascending, is more of an imitatio, an
inversion of sorts of a sacra rappresentazione on the one hand, and on the
other a preparatory act for the corresponding ascent that will follow. The
pilgrim’s journey away from Jerusalem, like Peter’s and Paul’s, is a prelude
to paradise.
There is, then, an important distinction between the protagonist’s jour-
ney and Everyman’s. If Everyman were to attempt the journey away from
Jerusalem, the descending westward flight past Gibraltar, surely only
death would await him. The pilgrim’s journey thus embodies both Dante’s
own voyage and Everyman’s and as such exists as a study in the difference
between the inspired and the uninspired and the duality possible in all
human beings. The duality in Dante’s personality reflects the protest he
made at the outset of his journey, “I am not Paul, I am not Aeneas.” He sees
himself as Everyman, devoid of the necessary grace to make such a jour-
ney and return. The text confirms, however, that Dante does reiterate both
of their journeys, linking his trek to those predestined descents and subse-
quent ascents encapsulated in Paul’s and Aeneas’s own trajectories.23
Backward movement from this point on becomes even more pro-
nounced, as do the signs of antipilgrimage. In canto 17, the purses that
hang around the necks of the usurers24 present a perversion of the “scrip”
worn by medieval pilgrims, a purse that signified their identity as pilgrims.
At the same time the ride that Dante makes on Geryon is compared to a
ship leaving port as the great winged beast moves “backward, backward”
(“in dietro in dietro” Inf. 17:101).
The discourse between Dante and Pope Nicholas III in canto 19 reprises
the distinction between antipilgrimage and Christian-motivated westward
movement. The mention of Peter,25 while recalling his westward journey
away from Jerusalem, provides yet another antithesis to the hell-bound
journey of the sinners in the Inferno. Peter’s journey westward was not
truncated but did eventually lead to ascent to the heavenly Jerusalem and
thus had a circularity that the trip away from Jerusalem without divine
will lacks. That Nicholas, as pope, claims apostolic succession from Peter
also recalls Peter’s journey, but at the same time it shows the effects of
westward travel not willed by God. Nicholas, like Pier della Vigna, is not
Peter, and he must spend eternity in hell.
But the discourse here and the evocation of Peter also introduce another
important aspect of certain journeys away from Jerusalem. We have noted
that the journeys of Dante, Paul, and Peter are westward, away from
Jerusalem, but that given the divine will that spurs such journeys, they are
not fatal. There is, however, another common element to these journeys.
Not only were Peter and Paul both journeying pursuant to divine will, but
they were both traveling to Rome, a Babylon destined to become the New
Jerusalem.26 The figural affinity between Rome and Jerusalem can, there-
fore, also distinguish and justify their voyages and suggests that, rather
than traveling away from Jerusalem, both Paul and Peter were traveling to
a New Jerusalem. This important and shared aspect of the Petrine and
Pauline journeys—that is, the perception of Rome as the New Jerusalem—
means that a perversion of Rome can also be seen as a perversion of Jerusa-
lem. Nicholas’s pollution of Rome thus characterizes his actions as similar
to those of the infidels who now defile the Holy City.
Moreover, in Rome’s defiled state, its significance parallels that of the
abandoned and defiled Jerusalem, a parallel that was hinted at in Dante’s
earlier use in canto 18 of an image that compares panderers to pilgrims of
the first jubilee year. The comparison suggests that Rome is both a pil-
grimage destination and a den of iniquity, a duality emphasized by the dual
directionality of the bridge that the pilgrims and panderers both traverse.
come i Roman per l’essercito molto,
l’anno del giubileo, su per lo ponte
hanno a passar la gente modo colto,
che da l’un lato tutti hanno la fronte
verso ’l castello e vanno a Santo Pietro;
da l’altra sponda vanno verso ’l monte.
(Inf. 18:28–33)
[as, in the year of the Jubilee, the Romans,

confronted by great crowds, contrived a plan
that let the people pass across the bridge,
for to one side went all who had their eyes
upon the Castle, heading toward St. Peter’s,

and to the other, those who faced the Mount.]
The movement of the panderers and pilgrims and the contrasting aspects
of Rome that they represent suggest a similar duality to the road that
Dante travels. The contemporaneity of the protagonist’s journey with that
of the pilgrims alerts the reader to a commonality in Dante’s journey and
that of the pilgrims. As the pilgrims and panderers are crossing the bridge,
Dante the pilgrim is crossing the bridges of the malebolge. The dual direc-
tion of the bridge reminds the reader as well that one can walk toward St.
Peter’s or away from it, just as one can walk away from Jerusalem or to-
ward it. Thus the two potential directions in life are encapsulated in a
single image and then absorbed into the protagonist’s journey.
The discussion of the simoniac popes in canto 19 and the anticipation of
Boniface’s arrival in hell, however, alert the reader that the travelers, the
sinners in hell and many of the visitors to Rome, are indeed going in the
wrong direction, as they are not going toward a new Jerusalem but rather
are contributing to its defiling. The evocation of the whore of Babylon
completes the image,27 suggesting the perverted Rome as the captor of
Jerusalem, and reminding the reader yet again of the infidel occupation of
the Holy City.
The diviners reinforce the perverted nature of the journey, as they
again reprise the backward motif.
ché da le reni era tornato ’l volto,
e in dietro venir li convenia,
perché ’l veder dinanzi era lor tolto.
(Inf. 20:13–15)
[they had their faces twisted toward their haunches

and found it necessary to walk backward,
because they could not see ahead of them.]
Although the focus soon shifts from Rome to Tuscany with Dante’s
references to Lucchese grafters (Inf. 21:36–51) and Pisan infantry (Inf.
21:94–96), the relationship between the Holy Land and hell is nonetheless
reiterated as Dante refers once again to the earthquake that struck hell at
the Crucifixion.
Ier, più oltre cinqu’ore che quest’ otta,
mille dugento con sessanta sei
anni compié che qui la via fu rotta.

(Inf. 21:112–14)
[Five hours from this hour yesterday,

one thousand and two hundred sixty-six
years passed since that roadway was shattered here.]
The reference reminds the reader that Jerusalem, or rather the road to
Jerusalem, exists in the same reality as does the physical locale of hell, yet
the Lucchese allusion reprises the antipilgrimage motif, reminding the
reader that within this shared reality the two places exist as a model in
antithesis. As the demon points out, one will not see the Volto Santo (the
Holy Face) here. Like the earthquake, the Volto Santo evokes the Crucifix-
ion,28 and in that way recalls the Holy Land, but its absence here character-
izes the space that hell occupies as bereft of holy relics, an antipilgrimage.
Its absence is also important in terms of Dante’s antipilgrimage motif. Be-
cause the Volto Santo, along with numerous other relics, was venerated
along the Francigena route that led first to Rome and then to Jerusalem, its
absence here reemphasizes that this is not the road to Jerusalem.
As the pilgrim and Virgil get closer to the center of hell, Dante increases
the number of references that reveal its true nature—that is, that it is an-
tithetical to Jerusalem. In furtherance of this strategy, Dante reprises some
of the earlier reminders of this anticrusade or the antipilgrimage that the
infernal trek represents. In the circle of the hypocrites, the heavy capes
worn by the sinners not only mock the monk’s habit but also allow Dante
to raise yet again the specter of Frederick, the anticrusader.
Di fuor dorate son, sì ch’elli abbaglia;
ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,
che Federigo le mettea di paglia.
(Inf. 23:64–66)
[Outside, these cloaks were gilded and they dazzled;

but inside they were all of lead, so heavy
that Frederick’s capes were straw compared to them.]
The mention of Frederick brings the reader’s attention back to the Holy
Land, or rather the anti–Holy Land that the Inferno comprises, creating a
logical segue for the pilgrim’s discovery of the crucified Caiaphas. Nailed
to the ground by three stakes, the body of Caiaphas presents an infernal
inversion of Christ’s crucifixion. Indeed, an antipilgrim will not see the
Volto Santo here. Rather, he will see the face of the one who ordered the
Crucifixion. Thus the farther the reader or the pilgrim gets geographically
from Jerusalem (for one cannot forget that hell lies directly beneath Jeru-
salem), the more such inversions increase.
Dante’s enumeration of the various Muslim lands of North Africa and
the Middle East, in canto 24,29 not only demonstrates Dante’s knowledge
of Lucan’s Pharsalia but again casts Muslims in a negative light, labeling
them as thieves. At the same time it draws the reader’s attention once more
to the holy war that has been lost by the Christians. The seemingly endless
parade of Florentine thieves that Dante presents in the following canto
ensures that, in the same way that Florence has been likened to the city of
the infidel, so too have the Florentines been likened to the infidels them-
selves. Dante spares few words in expressing his disdain in the invective
with which he opens canto 26.30
With Ulysses in Inferno 26, Dante introduces the character most piv-
otal to the creation and revelation of the cruciform that gives shape to his
narrative. It is Ulysses who defines the direction of the antipilgrimage and
links the infernal journey to the medieval map of the Mediterranean.31
Indeed, as pivotal as the figure of Ulysses is in associating the infernal
voyage with the westward trip away from Jerusalem, the full import of the
Ulysses character will not be felt until the reader realizes at the end of the
Commedia that Ulysses, like Dante, appears in all three canticles.32 But his
appearance here in the Inferno is significant even considered indepen-
dently of his presence in the Purgatorio or the Paradiso.
Like all the sinners in the Inferno, Ulysses is punished in a particular
circle determined by a particular sin. But even as Ulysses is punished in the
circle of false counselors, the sin on which Dante dwells is the one revealed
in Ulysses’ last act of counsel, transgressiveness. Ulysses may thus be lik-
ened to Adam in his failure to remain within set boundaries, in this case
the Mediterranean basin. This is not to say that he is without other sins, as
we saw in the case of Frederick II. It is Frederick’s underlying nature, how-
ever—not so much his heresy as the arrogance it represents and its conse-
quences—that flesh out the metanarrative of the Commedia, and this is
certainly the case with the figure of Ulysses. The driving desire of Ulysses
to go beyond set boundaries is what links the infernal journey to the
physical world and ultimately to Dante’s own personal story. This desire of
Ulysses and Dante’s own desire to write what has never been written be-
fore (expressed in his Vita Nuova, chapter 42) seem intimately tied to-
gether, especially when one considers that Dante’s project, by its very na-
ture, seeks to go beyond human capacity, not only by attempting to write

in the way that God writes,33 but also by witnessing the face of God him-
self. The Ulysses episode, however, also highlights an essential difference
in their sins and accentuates how crucial the deictic aspects are to the nar-
rative. The divine inspiration behind Dante’s project contrasts starkly with
the utter lack of God in Ulysses’ mission. As a result Ulysses’ journey is
truncated and his descent, his westward movement, lacks any correspond-
ing ascent or salvific eastward remedy or rehabilitation. As an epic hero,
Ulysses may initially be difficult to distinguish from Aeneas, but Aeneas
because of his “Romanness” is viewed by the medieval Christian as pre-
Christian rather than simply pagan. Moreover, Aeneas’s westward journey
resulted in the founding of Rome, a city destined to become the Christian
Jerusalem. Further, Aeneas’s westward movement was divinely willed—
although Aeneas, a pagan or, at most, a pre-Christian, could perceive its
significance only in terms of a pagan paradigm. In contrast, there is no
indication that anything other than self-aggrandizement and a greed for
knowledge motivates Ulysses. His journey is, therefore, bound to fail.
The westward journey described by Ulysses provides the earthly paral-
lel to the infernal journey. The westward journey is the figura, while the
infernal is the fulfillment. As we have seen, the trajectory of Ulysses’ jour-
ney westward from the east end of the Mediterranean basin was consid-
ered “downward” on the cruciform maps of Dante’s time. In terms of the
cross of those maps, Ulysses’ trajectory leads nowhere but to the ground
and is bereft of any countervailing eastward or upward ascent that might
redeem him. That Dante should choose Ulysses as the character that most
concretely links the infernal journey to the cruciform map is not inappro-
priate. It is not difficult to see how Ulysses might be interpreted as a kind
of pagan Christ figure. Specifically, the image of Ulysses tied to the mast of
his ship to hear the sirens’ song evokes images of Christ nailed to the cross.
Similarly the ship’s mast may be seen as a cross, while his ship recalls the
figural associations between boats and the Christian church.
Dante’s treatment of Ulysses and of Ulysses’ specifically westward
movement, however, quickly disposes of any such Christlike connotations.
Dante focuses on Ulysses’ movement away from Jerusalem, revealing
Ulysses as an Antichrist and his pseudocrucifixion on the mast as no more
than an infernal inversion akin to the crucifixion of Caiaphas.
The Ulysses episode and its treatment of the journey away from Jerusa-
lem are followed by a more contemporary example of Ulysses’ sin. The sin
in question once again is providing false counsel, and the subtext of the
episode links the infernal journey to the journey away from the Holy Land
in a similar fashion. When Guido da Montefeltro condemns Boniface VIII,
“the prince of the new Pharisees” (“Lo principe d’i novi Farisei” Inf.
27:85), for marching on the Lateran, he identifies Rome and Boniface with
the preconversion persecutor of the Lamb, described in Revelation. The
figure of Boniface highlights the antithetical relationship between his per-
verted Rome and the New Jerusalem it should be, and at the same time
represents abandonment of the Old Jerusalem to those who would despoil
it. Thus while the sin being punished is false counsel, once again the jour-
ney away from the Holy Land is integral to its commission.
In Inferno 28, the subtext of this episode is underlined where the pres-
ence of Muhammad suggests the perversion and the abandonment of the
Holy Land that Boniface’s and Guido’s actions effect. Muhammad is a clear
reminder of the Christian struggle and the papacy’s failure to rid the Holy
Land of Islam. But through the figure of Muhammad, Dante also makes
clear the extent to which Christian heresy, turning away from the Church,
can be equated with the perversion that Islam represents. Muhammad’s
implicit sympathy with Fra Dolcino’s cause suggests as well that Christian
heresy diverts crusading efforts and thus aids the Muslim cause.34
Or dì a Fra Dolcin dunque che s’armi,

tu che forse vedra’ il sole in breve,
s’ello non vuol qui tosto seguitarmi,
sì di vivanda, che stretta di neve
non rechi la vittoria al Noarese,
ch’altrimenti acquistar non sarìa leve.
(Inf. 28:55–60)
[Then you, who will perhaps soon see the sun,

tell Fra Dolcino to provide himself
with food, if he has no desire to join me
here quickly, lest when snow besieges him,
it bring the Novarese the victory
that otherwise they would not find too easy.]
Muhammad’s interest in the affair also suggests obliquely that he

somehow had a hand in it and attributes to the prophet an almost demonic
power akin to Satan’s power to intervene in human affairs. At the same
time, Ali’s presence accentuates what Dante sees as the divisive nature of
Islam.35
Of course the very mention of Muhammad and Ali draws the reader’s
mind back to the Holy Land, but again Dante abstains from any explicit
mention that the road through hell is an antipilgrimage and that the sin-
ners are going farther and farther away from the Holy City. Typically the
references to the Holy Land consist of a mention of a person or place asso-
ciated with the Holy Land or crusade against Islam and then a character or
place that contrasts or perverts the initial image. While a number of hints
along the way allow the attentive reader to make such an inference, the
oblique nature of the references to the Holy Land underlines the absence
of guidance inherent in this journey.
Since the reader is not provided with clear signposts to mark his pro-
gression, the entire journey seems fraught with potential for error and is
overshadowed by the constant threat that the pilgrim will become lost or
that the way will be blocked. This atmosphere accentuates Dante’s asser-
tion that the sinners are both mistaken and lost, a state of being that Dante
noted in the Commedia’s three opening lines. As Virgil and Dante ap-
proach the core of hell, for example, they hear a thunderclap that is com-
pared to the sound of Roland’s horn at Roncesvalles (Inf. 31:16–18). Again
the allusion recalls the continuing fight against Islam, as manifested in the
Crusades, but there is no explicit mention of the Holy Land, only the ironic
reminder that Charlemagne’s paladins are powerless here. Moreover, the
sound of Roland’s horn, like so much in the Inferno, is an illusion, a decep-
tion. The absence of familiar landmarks, together with the number of
things that seem like something else, once more adds to the pilgrim’s dis-
orientation, a condition that is frequently reiterated in the many times
Dante has to ask Virgil for directions.
This confusion is repeated when the protagonist sees what appears to be
a city.36 The confusion is characteristic of the general state of confusion in
hell, but the nature of the error also points to the metatextual alignment of
hell with the antithesis of Jerusalem. Although he is mistaken, Dante
thinks he is seeing Babylon, the historical and allegorical antitype of
Jerusalem. The soaring towers of the “city” and the presence of Nimrod,
first king of Babylonia (Gen. 10:8–10), confirm its association with the
traditional enemy of the Jews. Moreover, Nimrod’s babbling “Raphèl maì
amèche zabì almi” (Inf. 31:67)37 reminds us of the story of the Tower of
Babel and its catastrophic results, ensuring that the reader makes the nec-
essary figural connection.
The Babylonian associations are reinforced by the mention of the great
pinecone at St. Peter’s (Inf. 31:59), reminding the reader that while this
“city” may have features that remind one of Rome, it is by no means the
New Jerusalem. In an even more subtle way, Dante also suggests that the
papacy has defiled Rome so that it has become more of a Babylon than a
New Jerusalem, as the reference to the pinecone creates an affinity be-
tween the papal Babylon and this infernal “city.” Ultimately, though, the
pilgrim has been deceived on both counts, for as much as this place may be
like all of the above, it is only figurally Babylon. The great towers are actu-
ally giants.
That hell is the anti-Jerusalem is made most explicit in the perversion of
the Easter passion presented in the episode with Count Ugolino. The sons’
offer of their own flesh (Inf. 33:61–63) presents a ghoulish perversion of
the seder dinner in which Christ enjoins his followers to eat his body and
drink his blood. The elder son’s torment, however, expressed in his plea
“Father, why do you not help me?” (“Padre mio, ché non m’aiuti?” Inf.
33:69) and followed by his death—”And there he died” (“Quivi morì” Inf.
33:70)—sets up a parallel between the son and the Christ figure, recalling
Christ’s last moments on the cross.38
The direct contrast of the episode and the Easter passion is made even
more acute by the coincidence of the protagonist’s journey with the Easter
commemoration. While Dante is traveling his road at the time of the stag-
ing of the via crucis during the Easter vigil, geographically we could hardly
be farther from the heart of Jerusalem—a fact made clear when Ugolino,
the father, is not able to resurrect his sons two days later.
e due dì li chiamai, poi che fur morti.
Poscia, più che ’l dolor, poté ’l digiuno.
(Inf. 33:74–75)
[and after they were dead, I called them for

two days; then fasting had more force than grief.]
The second episode in the canto reiterates the carnality of Ugolino’s
infernal perversion of the Eucharist as Branca Doria’s savagery mingles
the cutting of human flesh and feasting in an infernal perversion of the
Communion supper.39
The perversion inherent in this anti-Jerusalem is crystallized as the pil-
grim and Virgil arrive at the center of hell. The militaristic hymn “Vexilla
regis prodeunt inferni” (Inf. 34:1) that heralds their arrival is a reminder of
the Christian crusade that the infernal journey mocks. But it is also a per-
version of the hymn “On March the Banners of the King,” traditionally
sung on Good Friday at the uncovering of the cross.40 The moment, there-
fore, recalls the entire paschal drama and brings the reader back to the
Holy Land, reminding him immediately of everything that Judecca is not.
The choice of the hymn, moreover, reminds the reader that the journey
has gone as far away from the cross as possible. It contrasts with, and
therefore evokes, the image of the cross and its Christian manifestation as
a guide on the journey to the Holy Land. The antipilgrim is thus not at the
heart of Jesus, where the two trajectories of the cross meet, but rather at
the bottom of the vertical projection. On the map, he is outside the known
world. The place is Judecca, named for Judas but linguistically linked to
Judah or Judea. The very name of the place speaks of the perversion of the
true Jerusalem that it represents, just as Judas from whom the circle takes
its name turned from the true king.
In the center of the core there is Satan, flanked on one side by the be-
trayer of Rome, the city destined to become the New Jerusalem, and on the
other by the betrayer of Christ, the portal to the heavenly Jerusalem. In
this single image Dante has fused the notion of Rome as the New Jerusa-
lem and the antithetical nature of hell vis-à-vis Jerusalem. Here lie all
those who went in the wrong direction and walked away from Jerusalem
and all of its implications and typological affinities. Here the final perver-
sion of the Eucharist, presaged by Ugolino and Branca Doria, is complete.
Rather than Christians eating the body of Christ, Satan is eating the bodies
of sinners.
The voyagers have two options, to remain in the pit of hell or to turn
from its stasis. Since it was divine will that characterized this journey as
preparatory and premonitory, Christian salvation provides the pilgrim
with an alternative trajectory. He must, nonetheless, first turn away from
sin to get back to his starting point, back to Jerusalem from where the
voyage to the heavenly Jerusalem can begin. The final act of the Inferno is
one of turning, then, but this time the turning is a reorientation—the per-
version of a perversion, as it were—in order to right a wrong. Only now
can Dante and Virgil ascend and climb to the stars.
Exodus
The Journey Back
Emerging from hell, finding himself on yet another seashore and con-
fronting yet another hill to climb, the pilgrim seems, in the opening cantos
of the Purgatorio, to be reliving the opening lines of the Inferno.1 Indeed it
seems at first that little has changed, that the infernal journey has done
little to aid the pilgrim’s progress.
That the purgatorial journey starts with imagery that recalls the begin-
ning of the pilgrim’s trek through the Inferno is logical, however, when
one considers that this is a chance to start over and correct the errors that
led to sin in the first place. If the infernal journey was an antipilgrimage
and a dereliction of crusading duty, then the purgatorial journey not sur-
prisingly represents precisely the opposite. The pilgrim seems to be right
back where he started, yet there is a difference. Altered by the experience
of the Inferno, the pilgrim himself is no longer the same. His descent has
shown him that the westward, downward direction was wrong. Certainly
he was on the Jerusalem road, but he was going the wrong way. This time
he will follow the same road, but he will take a different direction. Thus the
opening imagery reiterates that it is not the road that one travels but the
direction one takes that determines one’s final destination.
Moreover, the repetition of the imagery of the Inferno in the opening
cantos of the Purgatorio serves as an exemplum of the significative scheme
of the canticle. Here the imagery of the Inferno will be reprised, but it, like
the pilgrim, is altered, reoriented, corrected. Thus one of canticle’s first
images, a boat, not only reprises the journey motif but also announces the
rehabilitative project that the Purgatorio represents.
Per correr miglior acque alza le vele
omai la navicella del mio ingegno,
Exodus: The Journey Back 39
che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele

(Purg. 1:1–3)
[To course across more kindly waters now

my talent’s little vessel lifts her sails,
leaving behind herself a sea so cruel]
This journey will take the pilgrim to better waters and leave behind the
cruel and dark sea. The descriptive passage that follows, similarly, alerts the
reader to a change in direction as the invocation of the virtues of the east
creates an immediate contrast to the westward journey of the Inferno.2
Thus Dante presents both the vessel of the journey and its terminus. This
is a journey eastward to the sun, and to the land of the Levant where
Jerusalem lies.
This eastward orientation is reiterated several times later where a com-
plicated series of astrological references alert the reader to an important
exegetical aspect of this canto.
Lo bel pianeto che d’amar conforta
faceva tutto rider l’orïente,
velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.
(Purg. 1:19–21)
[The lovely planet that is patroness

of love made all the eastern heavens glad,
veiling the Pisces in the train she led.]
What purports initially to be a real description of the predawn sky is not
what it appears, since at no time in April of 1300 was Venus the morning
star.3 Given the great care that Dante takes to describe all manner of astro-
logical configurations, one can, and indeed must, assume that this inac-
curacy is no mere lapse on Dante’s part and instead is intentional. The
purpose of this fabrication, moreover, is discernible if one considers the
allegory within which Dante inserts the reference. He is steering a boat
through better waters. Since ancient mariners guided their actual boats by
the stars, it follows that Dante should guide his allegorical boat by allegori-
cal stars. Venus may therefore be read allegorically as love, the attribute
with which it has traditionally been associated. Similarly, the constellation
of Pisces, the fish, might be read allegorically as Christian faith or indeed
the faithful themselves.4 Love and faith are thereby both associated with
the journey east. The Three Sacred Virtues are then all present, as faith and
charity combine with the hope inherent in Dante’s invocation to the

Muses, to further underscore their absence in the Inferno.
The appearance of the constellation of the cross is somewhat more
problematic, given the existence of a similar constellation, the Southern
Cross, in the Southern Hemisphere. Yet one must be cautious about read-
ing the scene too literally, as its appearance does not necessarily indicate
that Dante was reproducing a constellation he had, by all accounts, never
seen. Dante may have heard nautical tales suggesting that sailors had in-
deed sailed to the Southern Hemisphere, notwithstanding the fate that
met Dante’s Ulysses for the same transgression. Or it may just be that
Dante’s allegory happens to coincide with the astronomical actuality. Cer-
tainly the inclusion of such a detail, had Dante heard tell of it, greatly
enhances both the prophetic value and the truth claims of the poem. Its
presence, then, is best read as a strong indicator of the Christian and
salvific nature of this journey. The cross, upright and shining, contrasts
with the mere perversions of the cross that one finds throughout the In-
ferno.
The fact that Dante turns to his right to see the cross coincides with the
moral rectitude of the symbol, again in contrast to the frequent left or
“sinister” directions of the Inferno.
I’ mi volsi a man destra, e puosi mente
a l’altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle
non viste mai fuor ch’a la prima gente.
(Purg. 1:22–24)
[Then I turned to the right, setting my mind

upon the other pole, and saw four stars
not seen before except by the first people.]
The deictic reference “to my right” (“a man destra”) also associates the
cross with direction, suggesting the cross as a means of orienting oneself.
Much in the same way as mariners might use the North Star as a point of
reference, the pilgrim can use the cross to guide him. The role of the cross
in Dante’s sky thus coincides with the role of the cross on the medieval
map, and its star-shaped constellation continues the association of the
pilgrim’s journey with the iter recorded by medieval cartographers.
The cross in the sky, however, serves still another related purpose. Its
appearance recalls Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky before the
battle of Milvian Bridge.5 Following the cross, Constantine believed, would
assure him of military victory. In this context the cross in the sky not only
serves as a guide but also legitimizes linking Christian faith with military
force. The cross in the sky thus has a long history in Christian culture as a
signal of Christ’s approval of certain warriors and military endeavors. Here
in Dante’s sky, the cross provides not only a Christian setting for the pil-
grimage to Jerusalem but also tacit approval of its military variant, the
crusade to reclaim the Holy City.
The cross in the sky, especially in its association with the Constantine
story, can also be read as a sign of conversion, for it was the cross in the sky
that led to Constantine’s conversion to Christianity and ultimately to the
conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. The cross is thus em-
blematic of the conversion inherent in the entire purgatorial process,
which consists in righting what was wrong, purging what was bad, and
replacing it with good.
The conversion alluded to in the opening cantos of the Purgatorio, then,
confirms the allegorical significance of the literal exercise of twisting and
turning that allowed Virgil and the pilgrim to emerge from the Inferno.6
Moreover, while the act of turning signaled textually that the pilgrim was
now taking a different direction, the strain and effort involved signaled as
well that such a process would not be without struggle. That the journey
back to Jerusalem is actually a reorientation of the infernal journey is
made clear by the continual use of language indicating that the pilgrim’s
purgatorial trajectory is the result of turning back or turning around. For
example, when Virgil explains how Dante has come to be at the shore of
purgatory, he reinforces the notion of turning.
Questi non vide mai l’ultima sera;
ma per la sua follia le fu sì presso,
che molto poco tempo a volger era.
(Purg. 1:58–60)
[This man had yet to see his final evening;

but, through his folly, little time was left
before he did—he was so close to it.]
We have seen that Dante’s glimpse of the cross is itself a result of turning
right. And the approach to the gate of purgatory is also the result of turn-
ing, as Virgil instructs Dante:
segui i miei passi:
volgiànci in dietro
(Purg. 1:112–13)
[follow in my steps;
let us go back]
Here, however, in contrast to the reference to the cross, the direction in

which the pilgrim and Virgil turn is not explicit, so we may infer that this
turning is not intended so much to orient the reader in terms of right or
left, east or west, as to alert the reader to the nature of the process that is
taking place. It becomes clear that the textual clues that evoke turning,
except where explicitly stated, do not necessarily correspond directly to
the literal progression of the pilgrim. The clues function, rather, as alle-
gorical deictic devices pointing the reader to the issue of directionality in
the metatext that will gradually emerge from the literal narrative. Distin-
guishing the allegorical deictics of the journey from the literal direction
means that although, in terms of the cosmology of the Commedia, the
pilgrim and Virgil are still progressing away from their entry point di-
rectly below Jerusalem, allegorically their direction has changed.
The opening cantos, therefore, set the scene for the pilgrim’s ultimate
reorientation at the pinnacle of Mount Purgatory. There Beatrice will ef-
fect yet another reiteration of the same process that characterizes the en-
tire canticle. In her insistence that Dante turn toward her and away from
the backward glance that marks Virgil’s departure,7 Beatrice encapsulates
the entire purgative process and defines its relationship to the infernal
journey.
That the protagonist’s journey will now be a pilgrimage, rather than an
antipilgrimage, is signaled by the resemblance his arduous climb bears to
the medieval pilgrimage in which suffering and effort played an integral
role in the purging of sin.8 More specifically, the climbing aspect of his trek
absorbs the allegorical significance afforded the numerous climbs that
formed an unavoidable feature of most of the major pilgrimages of the
Middle Ages. Such climbs, in addition to augmenting a pilgrim’s hardships,
figurally reiterated both the Exodus journey and Christ’s own ascent on
Mount Calvary and thus further authenticated the pilgrimage experience.
But this pilgrimage has a dual nature, as the cross in the sky suggests
that it also possesses elements of crusade,9 correcting the dereliction of
duty and abandonment of the Holy City that characterized the Inferno.
The purgatorial trek in the Commedia is thus not only a means of revers-
ing the process of damnation through the reiterative exercise of pilgrim-
age and its attendant suffering, but it is also a means of taking back what
was lost, a reconquista of the Holy Land and, therefore, a means of regain-
ing paradise.
As a pilgrimage and crusade, the purgatorial journey is marked by its
rejection of the westward trajectory that led Ulysses and the other sinners
to damnation and by its active reorientation of the pilgrim. Turning east to
face the sun and heading toward its source, moreover, is consonant with
medieval cosmology, which believed that further east from Jerusalem, “be-
yond the land thought to be populated by the peoples of the East, at the
point of the morning sunrise,” there rose “a peak surmounted by the Ter-
restrial Paradise, its fountains watering underground streams that burst
forth in various parts of the world to form the Ganges, Tigris, Euphrates
and Nile rivers” (Demaray, Invention, 15). The trip is, therefore, aligned
with the eastward trek on the medieval map, going toward the point where
the two arms of the cross meet. From here, the journey ceases to be one
through known territory, as its eastward direction becomes ultra-east. Be-
cause of the pilgrim’s eastward orientation, because he has turned back to
face the light, there is in the Purgatorio a substantial difference in how the
pilgrim’s surroundings are depicted. No longer are Christian symbols mis-
read or perverted as a result of shadows, darkness, or confusion, and ac-
cordingly the Purgatorio is devoid of all of the things that perverted the
image of Jerusalem. The way is no longer “smarrita” but instead is consid-
erably clearer. This clarity is highlighted as Cato points out that “the sun,
which rises now, will show you how / this hillside can be climbed more
easily” (“lo sol vi mosterrà, che surge omai, / prendere il monte a più lieve
salita” Purg. 1:107–8).
In contrast to the textual cues of the Inferno, which accentuated the
westward affinities of the infernal trek, the textual cues of the Purgatorio
highlight the eastward journey toward the rising sun, directing not only
the pilgrim but also the reader, turning them both, orienting them in the
truest sense, to the east. For these cues, Dante draws on three intertwined
motifs, all of which evoke the salvific quality of the journey east to Jerusa-
lem. References to the Exodus story, the origin of the salvific eastward
journey, are intermingled with references to the Crucifixion, itself consid-
ered in medieval exegesis the allegorical significance of the Exodus. Finally,
references to medieval pilgrimage remind the reader that the journey to
Rome, the New Jerusalem, and to Jerusalem itself are figural reiterations
of both the Exodus and the paschal drama. This textual fusion, in turn,
reflects the medieval perception that these events all comprise part of a
shared reality. As a result, when Dante the pilgrim reaches the pinnacle of
Mount Purgatory, the reader is reminded that Dante’s journey also shares
meaning with the Exodus, the Crucifixion, and the medieval pilgrimage—
that they each serve as portals to paradise.
The eastward Exodus journey, and its fulfillment in the Crucifixion, is
made evident early in the canto, where Dante’s description of Cato both
recalls Moses and alludes to Christ.
vidi presso di me un veglio solo,
degno di tanta reverenza in vista,
che più non dee a padre alcun figliuolo.
(Purg. 1:31–33)
[I saw a solitary patriarch

near me—his aspect worthy of such reverence
that even son to father owes no more.]
The language is vaguely reminiscent of the words of God at the Transfigu-
ration, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5).
The subtle echo then deftly turns the reader to Dante who is filled with
such reverence, casting him in the role of the son. The affinity created
between Christ and Dante alerts the reader to the concomitance of Dante’s
journey and Christ’s journey to Jerusalem, to their shared destination in
the heavenly Jerusalem. And while Dante’s filial reverence implies that the
“ancient man” occupies a significant position in Dante’s patriarchy, the old
man’s appearance also recalls the biblical descriptions of Moses after his
ascent of Mount Sinai.10
Lunga la barba e di pel bianco mista
portava, a’ suoi capelli simigliante,
de’ quai cadeva al petto doppia lista.
Li raggi de le quattro luci sante
fregiavan sì la sua faccia di lume,
ch’i’ ’l vedea come ’l sol fosse davante.
(Purg. 1:34–39)
[His beard was long and mixed with white, as were

the hairs upon his head; and his hair spread
down to his chest in a divided tress.
The rays of the four holy stars so framed
his face with light that in my sight he seemed
like one who is confronted by the sun.]
Though the old man eventually identifies himself as Cato of Utica, his
affinity to Moses is continued by their common exclusion, Cato from
heaven and Moses from the Promised Land.11 We note as well that Cato
does not in fact face the sun. He merely “seems” to, accentuating his eter-
nal marginalization. As the canto closes, the rushes with which Dante girds
himself continue the Exodus associations, as the reader recalls that Moses
started his own salvific journey of life amidst the humble rushes.
While the Exodus motif thus serves to liken the pilgrim to Moses, him-
self a prefiguration of Christ, the physical progression inherent in the Exo-
dus also provides the pilgrim with a preexisting itinerary. In following the
steps of the Exodus, the pilgrim is progressing eastward to the Promised
Land—that is, along the vertical axis of the cross or upward to the top of
the world.
The intentional evocation of the East and its significative role is reiter-
ated as the next canto opens with an explicit textual cue that once again
draws the reader’s imagination eastward.
Già era ’l sole a l’orizzonte giunto
lo cui meridïan cerchio coverchia
Ierusalèm col suo più alto punto;
e la notte, che opposita a lui cerchia,
uscia di Gange fuor con le Bilance,
che le caggion di man quando soverchia
(Purg. 2:1–6)
[By now the sun was crossing the horizon

of the meridian whose highest point
covers Jerusalem; and from the Ganges,
night, circling opposite the sun, was moving
together with the Scales that, when the length
of dark defeats the day, desert night’s hands]
The reader already knows it is morning, for Dante has told us that Ve-
nus, the morning star, was visible in the east. Dante’s reiteration of this fact
allows him to draw the reader’s attention eastward and at the same time
associate Jerusalem with daybreak. Through the fusion of the temporal
reference and the geographic locator, the reader’s attention is drawn not
only spatially to the east, to Jerusalem, but temporally to a Jerusalem
dawn.
And even though, given Jerusalem’s antipodal position, it is actually
sunset in the Holy City when Dante starts his purgatorial journey, the
textual fusion of dawn and Jerusalem cannot help but continue the Exodus
motif, as it is the setting for the fulfillment of the Passover, Christ’s resur-
rection, revealed at dawn in Jerusalem.12
Having linked Jerusalem with dawn and its Easter fulfillment of the
Exodus journey, Dante then links the purgatorial climb with the reitera-
tion of the Exodus that a physical pilgrimage to Jerusalem represents, lik-
ening the pilgrim’s thoughts to those of a traveler and securely establish-
ing a connection between spiritual progress and physical journeying.
Noi eravam lunghesso mare ancora,

come gente che pensa a suo cammino,
che va col cuore e col corpo dimora.
(Purg. 2:10–12)
[We still were by the sea, like those who think

about the journey they will undertake,
who go in heart but in the body stay.]
But Dante the writer leaves nothing to chance. The connection between
his pilgrim’s journey, the Exodus, and the rehabilitative value of retracing
the steps to the Holy Land is too essential to his project to be left implicit.
There is little question that the inclusion of the hymn is intended to expli-
cate the allegorical significance of the penitents’ trek as the words align the
penitential journey with the wandering in the desert. Death is a release
from the slavery of life, but hardship on the way to the Promised Land will
prepare the forgiven sinner for reconciliation with God. The appearance of
the souls singing “In exitu Isräel de Aegypto” (Purg. 2:46) almost immedi-
ately following the reference to Jerusalem makes the connection unmis-
takable, since the hymn recalls not only the actual historical Exodus but
also the common practice of medieval pilgrims approaching Jerusalem.13
When the arriving penitents question Dante as to their next step, the
connection between the Exodus and pilgrimage is made clear by Virgil,
who pronounces that he and Dante are equally pilgrims (“noi siam pere-
grin come voi siete” Purg. 2:63). The road up the mountain thus presents
the ultimate act of restoration and reversal. In the suffering it offers, it
constitutes the after-life fulfillment of the real-life act of pilgrimage that
prefigures it. As the pilgrim progresses through purgatory, he is, for ex-
ample, confronted with a series of exemplars similar to those encountered
by a medieval pilgrim en route to Jerusalem. As John Demaray points out
(Invention, 18), pilgrims “listened to edifying exempla of their guides and
prayed before holy icons,” so that the literal and spiritual experiences of
the pilgrims paralleled those of the souls in Purgatorio. Indeed the climb-
ing itself recalls a long forgotten practice of pilgrims to Jerusalem, namely
the Mount Sinai Ring. This “ring,” together with a series of religious ob-
servances in the desert referred to as the Stations of the Exodus, concen-
trated generally on the purgation of sin before entrance to the Holy City.14
Accordingly, the pilgrim’s progress through purgatory bears a striking
similarity to the experience of a pilgrim of Dante’s time.
The image of the souls arriving by boat also serves to contrast the jour-
ney to Jerusalem with the infernal journey away from the Holy City, ini-
tiating a project of conversion that will color the entirety of the canticle.
The ship of souls is but the first of a series of images throughout the
Purgatorio that recall, contrast with, and correct their infernal perversions.
Through such implicit contrasts and corrections, Dante gradually reveals
that the voyage of the Purgatorio is the counterpart to the infernal voyage
and that it is, in many respects, the same voyage but in reverse. This
gradual revelation will be complete at the top of Mount Purgatory, textu-
ally located opposite the earthly Jerusalem, but metatextually correspond-
ing directly to the earthly Jerusalem on the medieval map and the point
from which his initial journey into hell commenced.
The contrast in the two canticles is also indicated by the means by
which the souls arrive in the afterlife. Just as the souls of the Inferno arrive
by boat, so too do the souls of the Purgatorio, but there are substantial
distinctions in the two arrivals. While the infernal boats were guided by
Charon, a bellowing old pagan, the boats of purgatory are guided by a
celestial pilot, an oarsman who “seemed to have blessedness inscribed
upon him” (“tal che faria beato pur descripto” Purg. 2:44).
There is an essential deictic difference between these two boats. In the
Purgatorio the boat is arriving on a shore, not departing as it was in the
Inferno, immediately telling us that in the Purgatorio many things will be
the opposite of what they were in the Inferno but, more important, that
many of these opposites are revealed through close attention to direc-
tion—of one’s thoughts, one’s actions, one’s journey. While Charon’s pas-
sengers blasphemed God and their parents and their time on earth (Inf.
3:103–5), continuing to turn themselves away from salvation, the passen-
gers on the nocchiero’s ship sing “In exitu Isräel de Aegypto,” directing
their thoughts away from sin and heading unequivocally toward the Holy
City. As they sing, the angel makes the sign of the cross,15 reminding the
reader that this Exodus journey is the Christian fulfillment of the histori-
cal Exodus and reminding the reader as well of the shape of the Christian
world as depicted on maps of the era.
The boat itself reinforces the nautical journey motif introduced in Pur-
gatorio 1 with Dante’s figural boat. The nocchiero’s boat, however, also
reprises the commingling of ship and wings first seen in the Inferno. In
stark contrast, however, to the mad flight of Ulysses,16 this ship sails from
west to east, taking souls from the mouth of the Tiber to the shores of
purgatory where they will start their climb up to paradise.17
The trip from the Tiber to the Promised Land establishes the west-to-
east trajectory of the journey and in so doing also defines the journey as a
return, or the reverse of the infernal trek. This is made textually explicit as
Dante uses the same words to describe the arrival of the sinners on the
shores of purgatory as he did to describe the arrival of the sinners in hell,
with a crucial variation in preposition:
Poi fece il segno lor di santa croce;
ond’ ei si gittar tutti in su la piaggia
(Purg. 2:50–51)
[Then over them he made the holy cross

as sign; they flung themselves down on the shore]
similemente il mal seme d’Adamo

gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una,
per cenni come augel per suo richiamo.
(Inf. 3:115–17)
[similarly, the evil seed of Adam

descended from the shoreline one by one,
when signaled, as a falcon—called—will come.]
While the common language indicates how related the two journeys are,
the difference in prepositions (“in su” versus “di”) alerts the reader to an
essential distinction in direction. The reference to the Tiber evokes yet
again the pilgrimage motif as it presents Rome as the New Jerusalem.
Virgil’s assertion that he and Dante are pilgrims,18 provides still another
confirmation of Dante’s intentional link between the two. Similarly,
Casella’s subsequent statement that for the last three months—that is,
January through March of 130019—the angel has been ferrying from the
shores of the Tiber to the shore of Mount Purgatory any pilgrims who
asked (Purg. 2:98–99) makes explicit the allegorical role that pilgrimage
plays in the actual process of salvation.
The totality of these introductory cantos creates a setting in which the
pilgrim’s journey is likened to the Exodus of the Jews, its fulfillment in the
paschal event, and its reiteration in pilgrimage. The pilgrim’s course has
been plotted, leaving no doubt that he is on his way to the Promised Land,
but the narrative of the Purgatorio continues nonetheless to highlight its
chiastic relationship to the trajectory that necessitated such rehabilitative
steps.
The textual cues underline directionality, as is evident in Purgatorio 3
where Dante and Virgil set out on their journey. The number of times they
twist and turn accentuates the conversion that is effected by the purgato-
rial process. Similarly, light play and directional prompts continue to locate
the pilgrim and his guide both in terms of the literal narrative and in terms
of how their progress corresponds to a pilgrim’s progress on the medieval
map of the Mediterranean world.
In the first few lines, for example, Dante has the morning sun low at his
back (Purg. 3:16). The pilgrim is initially, therefore, facing west. When he
turns to see if Virgil has disappeared, since he casts no shadow, moments of
confusion follow, including several attempts to find their way.
“Or chi sa da quel man la costa cala,”
disse ’l maestro mio fermando ’l passo,
“sì che possa salir chi va sanz’ ala?”
(Purg. 3:52–54)
[“Now who knows where, along this mountainside,”

my master, halting, asked, “one finds a rise
where even he who has no wings can climb?”]
A group of pilgrims, however, reorient Dante, telling him to first turn
around and then go straight ahead (“‘Tornate,’ disse, “intrate innanzi
dunque’” Purg. 3:101). The westward movement is thus remedied textu-
ally. Although the episode has traditionally been interpreted in terms of
how Dante notes the difference between himself and the shades, it is
equally an example of how Dante reveals the existence of a figural trajec-
tory linked to, but distinct from, the pilgrim’s literal journey. Given that
one’s efforts to follow the pilgrim’s direction in terms of where he is on
Mount Purgatory result in the emergence of a series of conflicting direc-
tions, it is unlikely that the reader is intended to read these cues in a literal
sense. Rather the cues should be read in terms of the pilgrim’s metatextual
trajectory in which direction is essential to the reversal of the downward,
westward thrust of the infernal trek.
Indeed, one of the first sinners that Dante encounters, Manfred, imme-
diately highlights this reversal process. The illegitimate son of Frederick II,
Manfred was rumored to have indulged in the same heresy for which
Dante damned the father, Epicureanism. Similarly, Manfred was disobedi-
ent to the Church, yet Manfred has a chance to walk back to the Holy Land
while his father remains forever in hell. The difference lies in Manfred’s
repentance, albeit late, for his sins. By presenting a character closely linked
to one of the better-known sinners of the Inferno, Dante is able to high-
light such distinctions. The two sinners, who are so strikingly similar,
make clear that the sinners of the Purgatorio are hardly distinguishable
from the sinners of the Inferno but for a single moment in which they
turned their sights to God. Both groups walked the same paths, but they
directed their souls in different ways. The acts were the same, but the ulti-
mate response of the sinner in turning back to God is what distinguishes
those in purgatory from those in hell. Manfred stands thus as a means of
interpreting the way up the mountain, as even its physical structure pro-
vides a mirror image of the inversion of a mountain that hell presented.
The eastward orientation of the journey is reprised as Dante and Virgil
climb the ledges of antepurgatory, pausing to face east and contrasting
once again with the hell-bound direction that west represents.
A seder ci ponemmo ivi ambedui
vòlti a levante ond’ eravam saliti
(Purg. 4:52–53)
[There we sat down together, facing east,

in the direction from which we had come]
Explaining the position of the sun, Dante again evokes the image of
Jerusalem and in so doing includes a brief reference to a time when the
Hebrews held Jerusalem, obliquely invoking the motif of Jerusalem lost.
This also suggests a way out of Dante’s geographical quagmire.
Come ciò sia, se ’l vuoi poter pensare,

dentro raccolto, imagina Sïòn
con questo monte in su la terra stare
sì, ch’amendue hanno un solo orizzòn
e diversi emisperi
(Purg. 4:67–71)
[If you would realize how that should be,

then concentrate, imagining this mountain
so placed upon this earth that both Mount Zion
and it, although in different hemispheres,
share one horizon]
che ’l mezzo cerchio del moto superno,

che si chiama Equatore in alcun’ arte,
e che sempre riman tra ’l sole e ’l verno,
per la ragion che di,’ quinci si parte
verso settentrïon, quanto li Ebrei
vedevan lui verso la calda parte.
(Purg. 4:79–84)
[that the mid-circle of the heavens’ motion

(one of the sciences calls it Equator),
which always lies between the sun and winter,
as you explained, lies as far north of here
as it lies southward of the site from which
the Hebrews, looking toward the tropics, saw it.]
His direction to “imagine” suggests that what the author is describing is
distinct from the physical world, allowing the reader to approach the pur-
gatorial climb also in figural terms.
The reversal process at play in the Purgatorio is highlighted yet again as
Buonconte da Montefeltro describes a situation (Purg. 5:88–108) that is
almost the reverse of his father’s, Guido da Montefeltro’s (Inf. 27:106–
120). In the father’s case, St. Francis and one of Satan’s demons battled over
his soul, with the “black angel” emerging victorious. In the son’s narrative,
angels and demons similarly battle over his soul, but here the angels win.
The close relationship between the characters easily draws the reader back
to the Inferno, just as the opposite result here in the Purgatorio reinforces
the chiastic relationship of the two canticles and microcosmically hints at
the metatextual cruciform structure of the entire Commedia.
Purgatory not only redeems the sinners but reverses another aspect of
the Inferno that colored so many of its episodes. Just as the individual souls
lost in the Inferno are retrieved in the Purgatorio, so too is the metonymic
representation of this lost salvation reversed, so that the despair of para-

dise lost is replaced by the hope of paradise regained. In canto 6 this para-
dise is associated with Rome, as Dante laments that Rome, “the garden of
the Empire,” has been abandoned by Albert. But the hope of a return ech-
oes in Dante’s plea to the emperor, “Come, see your Rome who, widowed
and alone, / weeps bitterly” (“Vieni a veder la tua Roma che piagne / ve-
dova e sola” Purg. 6:112–13), and in the question that he asks God, “Or are
You, in Your judgment’s depth, devising / a good that we cannot foresee,
completely / dissevered from our way of understanding?” (“O è prepa-
razion . . . / del tuo consiglio fai per alcun bene / in tutto de l’accorger
nostro scisso?” Purg. 6:121–23).
Moreover, the narrative portions of the two stories that describe the
battle between good and evil forces are almost indistinguishable, reinforc-
ing the idea that the Inferno and the Purgatorio are really the same jour-
ney, albeit with very different destinations and outcomes. At the same
time, the relationship between the condemned father and the redeemed
son reiterates the theme of regeneration implicit in the Purgatorio.
Just as, in the Inferno, Dante linked the theme of paradise lost to the
abandonment of Jerusalem and the failure of the Christian warrior, here in
antepurgatory Dante continues the association, presenting the reader
again with negligent rulers whose sins lie in their abandonment of duty.
Dante links their state duties to Christian morality, grounding the argu-
ment that a dereliction of the duty to crusade is a moral failing, a sin, espe-
cially in a ruler. Thus once again the reader is confronted with the same
types of sinners and the same sins one might just as easily encounter in the
Inferno. Yet a single moment has reversed the damnation process. While
their location in the valley recalls the opening lines of the Inferno, it also
recalls the trip to Jerusalem, since pilgrims would typically approach
Jerusalem from the Hebron Valley. It is from this valley that Dante and
Virgil will finally approach the gate of purgatory proper.
Up to this point, the pilgrim and Virgil have not yet entered purgatory,
remaining instead in antepurgatory. As in the Inferno, these preliminary
cantos serve as a guide to the thematic structure and the hermeneutic
strategy of the canticle. Episodes that draw the reader back to the Inferno,
together with the constant mention of turning and the reversal process,
propose a journey that will turn from and reverse the infernal journey. At
the same time the frequent references to the east situate the purgatorial
journey on the map of the world, changing tack from a westward course to
an eastward one.
Approaching purgatory proper is where the journey to Jerusalem and

the reconquest of the Holy City is played out more consistently. The gate
of purgatory, like the gate of hell, is emblematic of the cities of the Middle
Ages and reinforces the connection of this journey to actual pilgrimage.
The episode once again starts at daylight, allowing Dante to reiterate the
eastern terminus of the journey.
La concubina di Titone antico

già s’imbiancava al balco d’orïente,
fuor de le braccia del suo dolce amico
(Purg. 9:1–3)
[Now she who shares the bed of old Tithonus,

abandoning the arms of her sweet lover,
grew white along the eastern balcony]
From here, while he dreams of an eagle, Dante is rapt up by Lucia into

purgatory. His passage into purgatory, into the Holy City, is accompanied
by a dream of a symbol of imperial might. That Dante’s movement into
Jerusalem is accompanied by a symbol of Roman military conquest is not
insignificant. Indeed, the polysemous capacity of this particular symbol
allows Dante to remind the reader of the initial conquest by the Romans of
Jerusalem, an historical event that Dante associates with the fulfillment of
the Hebrew prophecies in the birth of Christ.20 Similarly, the eagle recalls
the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, whose conquest of Jerusalem is
prefigured by the earlier Roman presence and would constitute the recov-
ery of the Promised Land.
Once inside the gates, the pilgrim’s iter is by no means complete. In-
stead the pilgrim’s journey merely corresponds to the maps of Jerusalem,
which, like the larger mappae mundi, were laid out on a cruciform. Now
that he is inside the gates, the eastward journey wends its way through the
streets of a city depicted in the shape of a cross, corresponding again in turn
to the medieval cruciform church, with the location of the temple corre-
sponding to the location of the choir beyond the altar.
At the same time frequent allusions to the pilgrimage to that New
Jerusalem, Rome, highlight the figural relationship between the two cities
and the value afforded the journey to each of them in the purgative pro-
cess. When the pilgrim and Virgil make their way along the narrow pas-
sage that Dante calls “that needle’s eye” (“quella cruna” Purg. 10:16), the
reference recalls a common ritual in the pilgrimage to Rome during which
pilgrims tried to squeeze through a hole, “the eye of the needle,” at the
base of the obelisk that stood in front of St. Peter’s at the time of the Jubilee
of 1300, in the belief that to do so would bring them salvation.21 The act
was preparatory to a visit to the basilica itself and thus links the pilgrim’s
entry into purgatory with entry through the gates of St. Peter’s, the terres-
trial equivalent of the gates of heaven.
The three panels that confront the pilgrim also associate the purgative
journey with the trip to Jerusalem. Read in succession, their significance is
not immediately discernible. However, Dante’s description of them sug-
gests that they ought not to be read as text but rather as “visibile parlare,”
a visual image. As such, they form a triptych, a common sight in a medi-
eval church and one that has its focus on the middle panel.
Read this way, the middle panel announces precisely what it is that
marks Jerusalem as a holy city: David’s translation of the ark to Jerusalem.
Thus arrival in Jerusalem marks the completion of the Exodus journey and
marks Jerusalem as the Holy City of the Chosen People. To the left is the
Annunciation, the initiating event that brings Mary and Joseph to the City
of David, linking Christ to the Hebrew royal house and initiating a jour-
ney that will end in Jerusalem in allegorical fulfillment of the Exodus. On
the right, the panel of Trajan indicates the next step in the process, the
transformation of Rome into the new Holy City, the New Jerusalem, and
Trajan into a Christian emperor. That Dante later places Trajan in heaven
confirms such an interpretation. Moreover, the episode depicting Trajan
halting the cavalry to help secure justice for a poor woman blends the idea
of a Christian militia and a fight for justice. Taken together, the panels
provide visual reminders of the prevailing themes of pilgrimage to Jerusa-
lem and its militant variant, crusade.
The physical penance of the sinners, the depiction of which commences
in purgatory with the punishment of the proud, evokes the self-inflicted
pain associated with pilgrimage. But the decoration of the circle of the
prideful also recreates one of the main pilgrimage destinations on the
Francigena. Here the suffering of the sinners takes place in a setting that
brings to mind the “storiated” engraved floor and the lifelike panels and
the Pisano pulpit in the duomo at Siena.22 The presence of the Sienese
Provenzano Salvani reinforces the intentional evocation of this location,
effectively likening Virgil’s and Dante’s progress with the actual act of pil-
grimage undertaken by many of Dante’s contemporary readers.
Similarly, Dante links his narrative to the actual world in Purgatorio 15
where, as the pilgrim is about to enter the third terrace, he notes,
vespero là, e qui mezza notte era.

(Purg 15:6)
[vespers was there; and where we are, midnight.]

The clear effort to have the pilgrim’s journey correspond to the physical
world not only adds to the truth claims of the text but also allows Dante to
relate the pilgrim’s journey to the actual world as depicted on the medieval
mappae mundi.
Having climbed a few more steps, Dante then has a vision of a temple.
Ivi mi parve in una visïone
estatica di sùbito esser tratto,
e vedere in un tempio più persone;
e una donna, in su l’entrar, con atto
dolce di madre dicer: “Figliuol mio,
perché hai tu così verso noi fatto?
Ecco, dolenti, lo tuo padre e io
ti cercavamo.”
(Purg. 15:85–92)
[There I seemed, suddenly, to be caught up

in an ecstatic vision and to see
some people in a temple; and a woman
just at the threshold, in the gentle manner
that mothers use, was saying: “O my son,
why have you done this to us? You can see
how we have sought you—sorrowing, your father
and I.”]
The reference to the temple and the image of Mary and Joseph looking
there for Jesus evokes the Holy Land, drawing the reader, as well, closer to
the heart of Jerusalem at the heart of which lay the Temple.
But the reference has an even more important narrative function, as it
constitutes another example of Dante teaching the reader how to read the
road map of the Commedia. The vision in the Temple follows Dante’s con-
certed efforts to link the narrative of the Commedia to the physical actual-
ity of the pilgrimage voyage. His assertion that the vision was a “not false
error”23 provides a clue to the relationship that Dante is establishing be-
tween the text of the Commedia and the actual world to which he needs to
link the journey so as to establish the figural affinities that are essential to
his hermeneutic strategy. Thus the literal narrative is real, but the series of
allusions and the dreams and other devices that suggest figural affinities
between the pilgrim’s journey and the physical journey to Jerusalem are
“not false.” The reader is intended to link these in the same reality and
allow them to share meaning.
The assertion also prepares the reader for the pilgrim’s interpretation of
the next vision, as Dante and Virgil approach a large cloud of dark smoke.
The series of visions that Dante has while emerging from the smoke are,
similarly, not “actual” in the sense that the purging sinners are “actually”
there. Rather, Dante’s experience is akin to that of the pilgrim who visits
the various churches, such as Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and shrines
along the way on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Although the images that
Dante encounters here in the Purgatorio are considerably more lifelike,
the experience is nonetheless one in which reminders of the saints, icons,
serve as physical reminders of the spiritual presence of the saint in that
sacred spot.24 The use of exempla, such as the figure of Haman in
Purgatorio 17:25–30, is consistent with the kind of figures the medieval
pilgrim encountered, forging yet another link between the purgatorial
journey and the actual pilgrimage trek.
Moreover, in the circle of sloth (Purgatorio 18) the exempla recall the
Exodus, warning that those who took their time crossing the Red Sea failed
to see the Promised Land. The link between Rome and the Promised Land
of the Jews is strengthened through the example of those surviving Tro-
jans who chose to stay behind in Sicily and failed to see the glory of Rome.
Thus Dante creates a textual version of the visual experience inherent in
medieval pilgrimage to further link his trek to the physical phenomenon
and thus incorporate the value and meaning of the latter into his writing
project.
As Dante falls asleep at the end of the lesson, another dream continues
to explicate the significance of this journey. While the first dream intro-
duced the notion of imperial conquest of the Holy Land, this dream recalls
the explicitly deictic Ulysses episode of the Inferno and reorients it. The
reference to turning Ulysses from his wanderer’s way, “Io volsi Ulisse del
suo cammin vago” (Purg. 19:22), makes the connection explicit as it also
raises again the issue of turning. The siren is not only a character in the
Ulysses story; she is also the synecdochical representation of all that is
false about Ulysses’ journey. Ulysses must again resort to trickery to avoid
the sirens. In reality he can no more resist their songs than the next man.
Had he been unbound, he would have steered the ship into the rocks. Only
through the imposition of deafness on his men and false restraints on him-
self can he avoid the temptation. Not only is Ulysses himself unable to
turn away from the sirens’ lure but, in contrast to the Christian boat that
represents faith, Ulysses’ boat is fallible, vulnerable, and corruptible. Thus
any thought of Ulysses as a Christ figure bound to the crosslike mast of his
ship is dispelled. In turning away from the Ulyssean character, Dante pro-
gresses, as his gaze is realigned.
Bastiti, e batti a terra le calcagne:
li occhi rivolgi al logoro che gira
lo rege etterno con le rote magne.
(Purg. 19:61–63)
[Let that suffice, and hurry on your way;

fasten your eyes upon the lure that’s spun
by the eternal King with His great spheres.]
Turning away from Ulysses confirms the eastward direction of the purga-
torial journey and at the same time connects the second canticle to the first
in a chiastic structure in which the second canticle reverses the direction of
and remedies the sins of the first. The metatextual journey evoked in
dreams and allusions is squarely headed eastward. The reader is thus re-
minded of the cruciform road map that gives form and meaning to the
purgatorial trek.
That the pilgrim is now on the road to the Holy Land is also confirmed
by a series of textual references reminding the reader of the saints, events,
and places venerated by pilgrims to the Holy Land. “Blessed Mary!” is
heard among those being purged, an utterance not in and of itself evocative
of the Holy Land, but the elaboration “‘Sweet Mary,’ as a woman would
outcry in labor pains” (“‘Dolce Maria!’ / . . . così nel pianto / come fa donna
che in parturir sia” Purg. 20:19–21) connects the reference to the Nativity
in its simultaneous recollection of Mary and childbirth.
Hugh Capet’s narrative keeps the reader’s mind on the Holy Land as he
equates recent events with the betrayal, trial, and crucifixion of Christ.
He equates Charles of Valois with the betrayer of Christ, noting that “He
does not carry weapons when he comes, / only the lance that Judas tilted”
(“Sanz’arme n’esce e solo con la lancia / con la qual giostrò Giuda” Purg.
20:73–74). The description of Boniface’s capture at Anagni similarly re-
verts to the language of the gospels:
veggio in Alagna intrar lo fiordaliso,
e nel vicario suo Cristo esser catto.
Veggiolo un’altra volta esser deriso;

veggio rinovellar l’aceto e ’l fiele,
e tra vivi ladroni esser anciso.
Veggio il novo Pilato sì crudele,
che ciò nol sazia, ma sanza decreto
portar nel Tempio le cupide vele.
(Purg. 20:86–93)
[I see the fleur-de-lis enter Anagni

and, in his vicar, Christ made prisoner.
I see Him mocked a second time; I see
the vinegar and gall renewed—and He
is slain between two thieves who’re still alive.
And I see the new Pilate, one so cruel
that, still not sated, he, without decree,
carries his greedy sails into the Temple.]
In the next cantos a series of textual references recall the sacred topog-
raphy of the medieval pilgrimage. The reference in canto 21 to the Samari-
tan woman,25 taken from John 4:6–42, directs the reader’s attention to
Jacob’s well, while the reference to the risen Christ’s apparition to “two
travelers on the road,” taken from Luke 24:13–31,26 brings to mind the
village of Emmaus. Similarly, the reference to Mary thinking more of
making the marriage feast seemly and complete than of her own mouth
(“‘Più pensava Maria onde / fosser le nozze orrevoli e intere, / ch’a la sua
bocca” Purg. 22:142–44) recalls the wedding at Cana, the site of Christ’s
first miracle. All three sites were significant to the pilgrim of Dante’s time
and were often included on the pilgrim itinerary and, as such, create a
species of textual pilgrimage through the Commedia.
The reference to the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans,27 similarly, re-
minds readers of the eventual absorption of Jerusalem into Rome and the
fusion of the two cities. For in the centuries following the siege of Jerusa-
lem in a.d. 70, not only did the Holy City become Roman but Rome, in
time, became a New Jerusalem. Following Titus’s destruction of the Holy
City and the expulsion of the Jews, Jerusalem was rebuilt on the Roman
model and renamed Aeolia Capitolina. In the early fourth century, efforts
on the part of Constantine’s mother, Helen, to bring the greatest relics of
the Holy Land to Rome transformed it into the New Jerusalem as proph-
esied in Revelation.28 Moreover, it was this romanizing of Jerusalem and
this transformation of Rome into a New Jerusalem that spawned the pil-
grimage vogue for Christians, so a mere reference to the time when Jerusa-
lem passed from Hebrew hands into Roman hands in and of itself evokes
an entire body of history intimately bound up in the pilgrimage tradition
and the figural association of Jerusalem and Rome with Christian salva-
tion. In the same canto, the allusion to Christ on the cross reiterates this
link.29 Now that the pilgrim’s course has been set and his eastern destina-
tion confirmed as the Holy Land, more and more the imagery of the
Purgatorio will bring to mind pilgrimage. The gluttons are, for example,
compared to pensive pilgrims meeting strangers along the way (“Sì come i
peregrin pensosi fanno, / giugnendo per cammin gente non nota” Purg.
23:16–17).
References to journeying, specifically in ships, increase. While this im-
agery is essential to the creation of an affinity between the Commedia and
the cruciform church, which will be discussed below, it is also essential to
establishing the link between the pilgrim’s movement and the great
sweeping voyages that pilgrimage and crusade to the Holy Land entailed.
As well, the evocation of nautical imagery provides a foil to the Ulysses
image and, as such, continues to contrast the mad flight of Ulysses with the
Christian flight of pilgrimage and the eastward journeys of the crusaders.
Accordingly, Statius’s conversion is described as that moment when he
set his sails “behind the fisherman” (“che tu drizzasti / poscia di retro al
pescator le vele” Purg. 22:62–63). And Virgil and Dante move “like a boat
a fair wind drives” (“sì come nave pinta da buon vento” Purg. 24:3). The
nautical imagery culminates in Dante’s encounter with Beatrice, whom
Dante describes as “like an admiral” taking his place at stern or bow (Purg.
30:58). Beatrice is the commander of this ship, of this journey. And, it is
gradually revealed, her final destination and Dante’s will be that Rome
where Christ is a Roman (“quella Roma onde Cristo è romano” Purg.
32:102)—that is, where the fusion of Jerusalem and Rome is complete.
As part of this project, Dante continues to link his journey to the his-
torical Exodus. As the pilgrim reaches the summit, allusions to the Exodus
increase. For example, the wall of fire in Purgatorio 27 recalls the burning
bush from which Moses returned transfigured. But there is an essential
difference. Dante actually passes through the wall, distinguishing him
from Moses and allowing him, adequately purified, to enter the Promised
Land and to reach the Holy City.
Once the pilgrim has surpassed Moses, the Jerusalem motif includes
distinctively Christian elements, emphasizing the figural relationship be-
tween the Exodus and its fulfillment in the paschal drama. The pilgrim’s
arrival is met with shouts of “Hosanna” (Purg. 29:51) that recall Christ’s
entry into the Holy City to celebrate Passover.30 Like the Jews who had to
cross the Red Sea and like Christ who was baptized in the Jordan, Dante’s
pilgrim must also submerge himself in water to complete his journey up to
Jerusalem, from which the journey into paradise can begin.
To regain Jerusalem is tantamount to regaining earthly paradise, for it
is from here, from this foothold, that the sinner may recommence his jour-
ney to heaven. Thus while this earthly paradise, like the earthly Jerusalem,
is the pilgrim’s destination, it is soon revealed to be still another point of
departure in an even larger itinerary. The earthly terminus of the pilgrim
voyage is but a portal to a celestial journey and destination of which the
earthly trek is but a figura. Accordingly, the earthly paradise becomes a
way station from which the Christian soul can ascend to its celestial coun-
terpart, the City of God, heavenly paradise.
The relationship between earthly and heavenly paradise thus parallels
the relationship between the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusa-
lem. In both cases, the earthly counterparts exist as potential portals to
heaven, but both are afflicted with an identical corruptibility, as likely to be
defiled, forfeited, or abandoned as to be revered, preserved, and defended.
The corruptibility of the earthly counterparts is emphasized both in
Dante’s censure of Adam (Purg. 33:61–63) and in the lament for the de-
struction of Jerusalem, “Deus, venerunt gentes” (Purg. 33:1).31
The hymn reminds the reader not only that Jerusalem is corruptible but
also that it is currently being corrupted by “unbelievers.” The reclamation
of Jerusalem, in the closing cantos of the Purgatorio, is presented through
imagery that evokes the crusader’s military efforts to reclaim the Holy
City. Beatrice comes forth on a chariot, triumphant in the manner of the
great military parades that follow a victory or the assembly marching to
war. Although the procession in which Beatrice comes forth is often lik-
ened to the great religious processions of the Middle Ages, it also bears a
resemblance to the parades and triumphs of the Roman era which inspired
the religious processions to which Dante’s tableau has been compared. In-
deed, the members of the procession are referred to as a glorious army (“lo
glorïoso essercito” Purg. 32:17) and the militia of the heavenly kingdom
(“quella milizia del celeste regno” Purg. 32:22).
Just as the corruptibility of the earthly Jerusalem was emphasized
through the hymn that opened the canto, the military motif, conversely,
signals its potential for resurrection. The potential for rebirth and restora-
tion is signaled further by Beatrice’s reference to that New Jerusalem,
Rome, and her implicit assertion that it is a reborn Jerusalem that leads to
heaven.
Qui sarai tu poco tempo silvano;
e sarai meco sanza fine cive
di quella Roma onde Cristo è romano.
(Purg. 32:100–102)
[Here you shall be—awhile—a visitor;

but you shall be with me—and without end—
Rome’s citizen, the Rome in which Christ is
Roman.]
Reclaiming paradise will thus transform Jerusalem, realizing its salvific
capacities that existed as mere potential before the birth of Christ.
In making his way back to the earthly paradise, Dante has regained the
Jerusalem that was lost. From here he can start over, start fresh and start
the journey ever upward to the Heavenly City, an incorruptible fortress,
impenetrable to those who would defile it, defended and inhabited by
transformed pilgrims and holy warriors. He can now travel beyond the
eastern horizon, for now he travels not only eastward but also beyond the
bonds of earthly travel. Purged of the weight of his sins, Dante is now able
to take the final step toward rapture and ascend into the skies above the
Holy City.
Let Him Go Up to Jerusalem
In the Paradiso the metatextual presence of the pilgrimage journey to

Jerusalem and its military variant, the crusade, becomes even more pro-
nounced, as Dante reasserts its structural importance from the very outset
of the canticle. After an opening appeal to Apollo, the poet’s journey
through paradise is soon likened to the voyages of reconciliation embodied
in pilgrimage. The journey motif is reprised from the outset of the canticle
as the pilgrim prepares to enter paradise:
pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole,
così de l’atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l’imagine mia, il mio sí fece
(Par. 1:51–53)
[much like a pilgrim

who seeks his home again, so on her action,
fed by my eyes to my imagination,
my action drew]
As the pilgrim progresses through the canticle toward the final vision of
God, the increasing textual presence of Jerusalem confirms that the home
for which the pilgrim yearns is the Holy City. While the journey to Jerusa-
lem was, of course, present in the Purgatorio, there its character was pre-
dominantly colored by the imagery of the Exodus, which in medieval ex-
egesis was a preparatory journey. At the summit of Mount Purgatory, the
Exodus journey was complete in the sense that the pilgrim was at last pre-
pared to ascend, purified, into heaven. At this point, however, the ascent
into heaven takes on another aspect. Inasmuch as Dante’s journey has now
retraced and reiterated the descent-and-ascent pattern associated with
Christ’s own story, the pilgrim’s arrival at the summit signals a return to
Jerusalem. What remains only is the final push to the highest point of the
Let Him Go Up to Jerusalem 63
city, the Temple, and in it the sanctuary where the very presence of God is
said to reside. But for the pilgrim or the crusader of Dante’s time, gaining
access to the Temple meant first having to rid it of the infidel. The final leg
of the journey recalls the armed advance to regain and liberate the Holy of
Holies. The ascent through the Paradiso is the final assault in a campaign
to liberate the Holy City by the sword that is Dante’s pen, and to truly
regain paradise.
In the Paradiso, therefore, the end to Dante’s wandering takes on a dis-
tinctly Christian character, as the imagery is drawn less from the Exodus
story and the Old Testament tradition and more from the medieval crusad-
ing tradition. This subtle shift is consistent with the pilgrim’s progress, for
by the time he reaches the Paradiso, Jerusalem is less a place to which one
is traveling than the place at which one has arrived. It is less a destination
than destiny. The image of Jerusalem is much more contemporaneous than
anticipatory. At the same time, the reader is still reminded that while the
journey to the Holy Land is eastward-oriented, travel to its pinnacle, the
Temple, is measured less in terms of east and west than in terms of up and
down, as the pilgrim now seeks the center of the circle where medieval
maps locate the city’s heart. The traveler has reached the limen of the East.
He now ascends from that spot toward the sun and thus in one sense con-
tinues eastward, but he also moves upward, toward the heavens. So while
Dante’s language continues to evoke the eastern orientation of the Holy
Land, the deictic indicators will also continue to reflect the fact that the
pilgrim’s eastward journey follows a more obviously upward trajectory.
Narratively, this verticality is marked by the use of concentric circles
that accentuate vertical as opposed to the seemingly horizontal progres-
sion facilitated by the use of a spiral path in the previous canticles. At the
same time, this shift toward a more distinctly vertical movement is also
consistent with the cross on the cruciform maps of the Middle Ages, since
the pilgrim was not expected to progress east of Jerusalem physically but
rather to ascend spiritually from that point.
This subtle shift in direction is accompanied by an equally subtle shift
in the purpose of the pilgrim’s journey. Dante’s text is still colored by the
image of the pilgrim as a mendicant wanderer, but that wanderer now
shares his journey with the crusader, whose purpose is not merely to jour-
ney to Jerusalem but, once there, to take possession of and defend the Holy
City.1
The transformation of wanderer into warrior is a logical progression,
for the Paradiso is as much about reclamation of one’s patrimony as it is
about realizing the promise of return. The pilgrim in the Paradiso has
reached the Promised Land and is no longer a traveler. Now he is a citizen,
even if only temporarily, and as such he bears the responsibility both of
reclaiming his home from those who defile it and of defending it against
them. Jerusalem at this stage of the soul’s journey is no longer prophecy
but the fulfillment of prophecy, and the relationship of the wanderer to the
city will be one of concrete appropriation.
This gradual evolution is an exercise in subtlety. References to crusad-
ing are not immediately obvious, but as the pilgrim rises higher and
higher, the souls in heaven evoke with more clarity the eastern ascendancy
and the crusading impulse. Indeed, the image of the “holy warrior” is ini-
tially introduced almost imperceptibly. In Paradiso 3, for example, the ref-
erence to Frederick II, who regained Jerusalem in 1229, is oblique at best
and reminds the reader only in a circuitous fashion of the continuing
struggle against the infidel. Dante presents not Frederick himself but his
mother, Empress Constance, whose apocryphal vow of celibacy was, ac-
cording to legend, broken against her will when she was espoused to
Henry VI in 1185. The subtle allusion to the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the
context of broken vows turns the reader’s mind to Frederick, whose own
broken vow was directly associated with the fight for the Holy Land.2
Choosing Constance as his exemplar enables Dante to allude also to bro-
ken promises in the context of crusading. Though Frederick did eventually
negotiate a treaty for the reacquisition of Jerusalem in 1229, he was al-
ready excommunicated and Dante damns him to hell. His reacquisition of
Jerusalem did not secure its Christian domination but rather allowed Mus-
lims continued access, and was valid for only ten years. Thus his reclama-
tion project was flawed and his promise unfulfilled. The empress’s regret
provides a particularly apt contrast to the emperor’s indifference as Con-
stance’s reclamation of paradise contrasts also with her son’s abandonment
of the earthly Jerusalem, which has once again been lost.
With the appearance of Justinian in Paradiso 6, the image of the Chris-
tian warrior is considerably less oblique. Although in his narrative Justin-
ian notes that he laid down his arms once he adopted Christianity (Par.
6:27), he nonetheless campaigns most strenuously in favor of the Chris-
tian warrior. Moreover, at the completion of his speech, the host of souls
sing a hymn to the God of Battles, the holy god of the armies (Par. 7:1–3).
In the wake of this hymn, the pilgrim’s conversation with Beatrice turns
first to the Crucifixion and then to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and
thus fuses Justinian’s idea of the holy warrior with the crucifixion event
and the Holy Land. Much in the same way that Dante’s earlier combina-
tion of references to Jerusalem and to the time of day evoked the image of
a Jerusalem sunrise, here Dante’s combination of references evokes the
image of a holy warrior in the Holy Land.
The presence of the holy war remains a constant, if only in the back-
ground, as the pilgrim and Beatrice pass through the heaven of Venus.
Located in what is ostensibly a circle of those who loved too much, the
character of Folquet de Marseilles, himself a firsthand witness to crusade,
creates part of what Charles Singleton has called a “charged” field3—that
is, a setting in which many of the references will lead to the creation of a
particular image, in this case the holy war and the holy warrior. Given the
renown of the Albigensian crusade of which Folquet was the leader,4 the
reader focuses less on his conversion from eros to caritas than on his role
as a crusader against heresy, and the direction of his discourse ensures
this. The focus on the battle for the Holy Land is heightened when Fol-
quet introduces Rahab, the whore of Jericho who was instrumental in
Joshua’s victory “within the Holy Land,” helping the Hebrews regain the
Promised Land (Par. 9:112–26). With Dante’s wordplay on “palm,”5 an im-
mediate nexus is forged between the Hebrew victory in the Promised
Land and Christ’s appropriation of the Promised Land. Thus the word-
play christianizes the holy war for Jerusalem and associates it with the
crucifixion event. The war of the Hebrews is updated to the war that Christ
waged and won with the cross, which is reiterated in the Christian holy
war, the crusade. That taking up the cross in defense of the Holy Land is a
Christian duty is made clear by Folquet as he denounces Boniface for his
failure to do anything to regain Jerusalem after its fall to the Saracens in
1291.6
With the appearance of St. Thomas Aquinas in canto 11, the warrior of
God is once again present, subtly but insistently, for Thomas, a Dominican,
is of course one of the “hounds of God.”7 His encomium to St. Francis
keeps the image of the holy warrior and travel to the East fresh in the
reader’s mind, as Dante ensures that Francis’s efforts in the East, his own
particular effort to take the cross to the infidel, is included in Thomas’s
account of the mendicant’s life.
E poi che, per la sete di martiro,

ne la presenza del Soldan superba
predicò Cristo e li altri che ’l seguiro
(Par. 11:100–102)
[And after, in his thirst for martyrdom,

within the presence of the haughty Sultan,
he preached of Christ and those who followed Him.]
The phrase “sete di martiro” associates Francis’s journey with martyrdom,
the white martyrdom of pilgrimage or the red martyrdom of death. The
phrase, therefore, makes explicit the link between Francis’s travels to the
East and “taking the cross.”
The following canto, in which St. Bonaventure praises St. Dominic,
makes more explicit the importance of an aggressive Christian stance vis-
à-vis infractions of the faith, the worst of which was the defiling of the
Holy City by infidel occupation. The military language with which Bona-
venture starts his history of Dominic sets the tone immediately.
L’essercito di Cristo, che sì caro
costò a rïarmar, dietro a la ’nsegna
si movea tardo, sospeccioso e raro,
quando lo ’mperador che sempre regna
provide a la milizia, ch’era in forse,
per sola grazia, non per esser degna
(Par. 12:37–42)
[Christ’s army, whose rearming cost so dearly,

was slow, uncertain of itself, and scanty
behind its ensign, when the Emperor
who rules forever helped his ranks in danger—
only out of His grace and not their merits.]
Dominic’s birth, then, was a strategic move in an ongoing war effort; he is
conceived in order to fight. Dante uses the language of chivalry to describe
him, first as one of two champions (“due campioni” Par. 12:44) sent to help
the Church, and then as “a loving vassal of Christian faith” (“l’amoroso
drudo / de la fede cristiana” Par. 12:55–56). His actions against heresy are
described in terms recalling a physical struggle (“e ne li sterpi eretici
percosse / l’impeto suo” Par. 12:100–101) within an ongoing war (“civil
briga” Par. 12:108).
The chivalric and martial imagery continues as Bonaventure, making
reference to Thomas’s earlier encomium to Francis, uses the term “pala-
dino,” casting both Dominic and Francis as fighting knights and linking
them as brothers in arms.
Ad inveggiar cotanto paladino
mi mosse l’infiammata cortesia
di fra Tommaso e ’l discreto latino;

e mosse meco questa compagnia.
(Par. 12:142–45)
[To this—my praise of such a paladin—

the glowing courtesy and the discerning
language of Thomas urged me on and stirred,
with me, the souls that form this company.]
Bonaventure reiterates the military nature of Dominic’s fight and presents

the “hound of God” as an armed pilgrim. Moreover, Dominic and Francis
are fused together by the chiastic structure of Bonaventure’s and
Aquinas’s narrative efforts and their common cause as “side by side, they
fought” (“com’elli ad una militaro” Par. 12:35).
The structure of the Francis and Dominic cantos reminds the reader also
of the underlying cruciform structure of the entire poem. As St. Thomas, a
Dominican, praises St. Francis, and then St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan,
praises St. Dominic, the chiastic structure provides a cruciform on which
the lives of Francis and Dominic are depicted. Thus Dante evokes the
painted crosses of the late Middle Ages on which episodes from the lives of
the saints were often represented alongside the crucified Christ.
The image of the cross together with the military language used to de-
scribe Dominic fuses his struggle with the cross, likening him to a crusader.
As Bonaventure calls Dominic a “holy athlete . . . harsh to enemies” (“il
santo atleta / . . . a’ nemici crudo” Par. 12:56–57), he highlights Dominic’s
development as a soldier on the side of Christ. It seems as well that Dante
takes his cue from the fresco cycle in Assisi where Francis’s own transfor-
mation from miles to miles Christi is depicted.
Yet significantly, while Bonaventure’s own life of St. Francis (on which
the Assisi cycle is based) details Francis’s role as a peacemaker,8 mention of
Francis’s efforts in this regard are mostly absent from Thomas’s enco-
mium (Havely 131). Instead, the word “paladin” not only associates the
two saints but also links their respective struggles to the actual fight of
Charlemagne against the Muslims.
As Dante and Beatrice pass from the sphere of the sun and ascend to the
sphere of Mars, the presence of the Christian warrior becomes expressly
manifest. As the group of souls forms Dante’s vision of Christ on the cross,
the reader gradually becomes aware that Dante is effecting textually a pro-
cess similar to the transformation of the pilgrim into a crusader. As the
pilgrim donned the cross-emblazoned tunic and took up the cross-shaped
sword (which also served as a reliquary) he became himself a cross. So too

do Dante’s souls, in becoming part of a cross, transform themselves into
instruments of redemption and Christian conquest.
Come distinta da minori e maggi
lumi biancheggia tra’ poli del mondo
Galassia sì, che fa dubbiar ben saggi;
sì costellati facean nel profondo
Marte quei raggi il venerabil segno
che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo.
(Par. 14:97–102)
[As, graced with lesser and with larger lights

between the poles of the world, the Galaxy
gleams so that even sages are perplexed;
so, constellated in the depth of Mars,
those rays described the venerable sign
a circle’s quadrants form where they are joined.]
The textual process is linked to crusading and to the pilgrimage initiative
when Dante follows the description with a reference to Christ’s directive to
take up the cross.9
ma chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo,
ancor mi scuserà di quel ch’io lasso
(Par 14:106–7)
[But he who takes his cross and follows Christ

will pardon me again for my omission]
Thus the connection between these souls and “taking up the cross” is made
textually explicit, while the presence of the “Cristo” rhyme is also highly
suggestive of the presence of an intratextual cross.10 Their military nature
is revealed as they sing the words “rise” and “conquer” (“‘Resurgi’ e
‘Vinci’” Par. 14:125), preparing the reader for the moment when they will
be revealed as the warriors of God. At the same time, references to both the
crucifixion event and crusading keep Jerusalem and the Holy Land fresh in
the reader’s mind.
But in the event that the connection between the Crucifixion, pilgrim-
age, and crusading has failed to draw the reader back to Jerusalem, the
character of Cacciaguida will accomplish this, for integral to his story are
his role as a crusader in the 1147 crusade (which ended in defeat at Da-
mascus) and Dante’s implication that he met his death precisely on the
road to Jerusalem to defend the Holy City.
Cacciaguida followed Conrad in 1147 to the Middle East, “Poi seguitai
lo ’mperador Currado” (Par. 15:139), and died in battle. That Cacciaguida
equates such a death with martyrdom—”From martyrdom I came unto
this peace” (“venni dal martiro a questa pace” Par. 15:148)—continues to
underline the link between crusading and “taking up the cross.” Caccia-
guida’s claim that he was knighted for his effort (“ed el mi cinse de la sua
milizia” Par. 15:140)11 links him to those other warriors of God, Dominic
and Francis, and to the Christian chivalric tradition. His status as holy war-
rior also establishes an additional layer of community in the celestial
spheres. While on one level the souls are part of the community of Chris-
tian souls, the underlying motif of Christian soldiery suggests that the
souls are also linked in camaraderie, as brothers in arms, in defense of the
Holy Land. Further, their defense of Jerusalem elevates them to rightful
heirs. By enumerating all of the holy warriors (Par. 18:34–48), tracing a
direct line from the Hebrew arrival in the Promised Land to the Christian
defense of Europe against Saracen invaders to Godfrey of Bouillon and the
conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, Dante establishes that the Christians are
the rightful occupants of the New Jerusalem, the rightful inheritors of the
Promised Land. Although the Hebrews were the people to whom the Holy
Land was promised, after their expulsion by the Romans it fell to the
Christians to maintain it, liberate it when invaded, and defend it from
threat. Thus through the introduction of the holy warriors, Dante has
completed the conversion project, in that even Jerusalem has become a
Christian city. He has also brought to full completion the pilgrimage
started by Abraham. Moses could not enter the Promised Land, and the
Jews could only establish an earthly kingdom there, but the Christians
were able to realize the complete potential of Jerusalem, not only as the
Holy City of the Promised Land but also as the City of God in the heavenly
kingdom.
After Dante’s departure from the circle of the holy warriors, the empha-
sis on Jerusalem becomes somewhat less pronounced. The conquest is
complete; what follows is the occupation. Indeed, as the canticle becomes
more contemplative, the saints that Dante encounters seem considerably
less inclined to military action and their connection to the Crusades more
tenuous. Yet the military language lingers, reminding the reader of the
constant battle for paradise and by extension the battle for its earthly
counterpart, Jerusalem. As Beatrice says,
La spada di qua sù non taglia in fretta

né tardo, ma’ ch’al parer di colui
che disïando o temendo l’aspetta.
(Par. 22:16–18)
[The sword that strikes from Heaven’s height is neither

hasty nor slow, except as it appears
to him who waits for it—who longs or fears.]
At the same time, subtle reminders keep the quest for the Promised Land
fresh in the reader’s mind, as when St. Benedict says,
Veramente Iordan vòlto retrorso
più fu, e ’l mar fuggir, quando Dio volse
(Par. 22:94–95)
[And yet, the Jordan in retreat, the sea

in flight when God had willed it so]
Similarly in the sphere of the fixed stars (Paradiso 23), Christ and the
saints are again described in military terms, as Beatrice calls them “the
troops of the triumphant Christ” (“le schiere / del trïunfo di Cristo” Par.
23:19–20).
The presence of Peter in Paradiso 24, however, reprises the presence of
the holy warrior. Though the reader’s first instinct is to consider Peter in
his now traditional role as gatekeeper of heaven and the rock upon which
Christ built his church, Peter is also the essence of the Christian martyr
and was the first holy warrior. Though Peter’s death is undocumented,
Christian tradition holds that it was indeed an imitation (or a mockery) of
Christ’s crucifixion, and the reader of Dante’s time would certainly have
considered that Peter did “take up the cross.” But his martyrdom is not the
only way in which Peter might be interpreted as having taken up the cross.
On the night before the Crucifixion, Peter drew his sword against those
who had come to arrest Christ, making him the first Christian soldier in a
holy war.12
Although Peter’s action draws Christ’s disapproval, in the time of the
Crusades such disapproval might not have been so readily interpreted as a
call for passive resistance as it might to the modern reader. Such an inter-
pretation rests on a view of Christ’s project as exclusively pacifist. This was
not necessarily the view of the medieval reader, for the entire crusading
phenomenon rested on the justifiability of taking up arms against persecu-
tors of Christianity. In fact, a close look at Christ’s words does not necessar-
ily evince a blanket condemnation of violence. Christ does not tell Peter to
throw away his sword. Rather he says, “Put your sword into the sheath,”
thus countenancing the possibility of later use, then asks, “Shall I not drink
the cup which My father has given Me?” (John 18:11), suggesting that he
opposes Peter’s violent action less out of pacifism than because of the
threat it poses to his martyrdom and destiny.
That Peter’s weapon was a sword would also, in Dante’s time, have char-
acterized him as a figura of the holy warrior, given that the shape of the
crusader’s sword caused it to be viewed as a cross itself, as a holy object.13
Moreover, the traditional image of Peter as the gatekeeper of heaven, a
representation that no doubt has its genesis in his being given the keys to
heaven by Christ, is just as easily interpreted in military terms. As the
gatekeeper, he is the appropriate person in the Paradiso to question Dante
first, acting as a sort of a celestial sentry, the guard against unauthorized
entry. In the context of Jerusalem ,then, Peter is the defender of the Holy
City, keeping out unworthy infidels. Such an interpretation not only le-
gitimizes the notion of the holy warrior but also legitimizes Dante’s own
eventual transformation from pilgrim to armed pilgrim, or crusader.
In the next canto, the connection between Jerusalem and paradise is
made still more explicit. Here St. James examines Dante and speaks of the
Church Militant, evoking again the journey out of Egypt to Jerusalem:
La Chiesa militante alcun figliuolo
non ha con più speranza, com’è scritto
nel Sol che raggia tutto nostro stuolo:
però li è conceduto che d’Egitto
vegna in Ierusalemme per vedere,
anzi che ’l militar li sia prescritto.
(Par. 25:52–57)
[There is no child of the Church militant

who has more hope than he has, as is written
within the Sun whose rays reach all our ranks:
thus it is granted him to come from Egypt
into Jerusalem that he have vision
of it, before his term of warring ends.]
As well as equating the journey to paradise with a journey to Jerusalem,
the language also equates Dante’s personal turmoil with a holy war. In-
deed, the generality of the statement recalls a similar configuration at the

beginning of the Commedia, where life is likened to a road and Dante’s
struggle to a war:
e io sol uno
m’apparecchiava a sostener la guerra
sì del cammino e sì de la pietate
(Inf. 2:3–5)
[and I myself
alone prepared to undergo the battle
both of the journeying and of the pity]
Thus the road of life is given an itinerary, from Egypt to Jerusalem, but it is
also characterized as more than mere pilgrimage: it is that military variant
of pilgrimage, a crusade. Or, at very least, Dante’s pilgrimage is also a cru-
sade. Dante has won, and his reward is a vision of the true face of God.
Before Dante approaches the heart of this Jerusalem, the Temple, the
Holy of Holies, he first takes a moment to catch his breath and prepare us,
the readers, for this climactic moment. Dante reemphasizes the affinity
between his journey and that of the crusader, the keeper and defender of
the Temple, through the example of those who behave contrary to the dic-
tates of Christ—that is, those who have failed or refused to “take up the
cross.” Dante has St. Peter, the original holy warrior, deliver an invective
against the bad popes and in particular against a pope that would fight
against Christians in the guise of a holy war.
Non fu nostra intenzion ch’a destra mano
d’i nostri successor parte sedesse,
parte da l’altra del popol cristiano;
né che le chiavi che mi fuor concesse
divenisser signaculo in vessillo
che contra battezzati combatesse;
né ch’io fossi figura di sigillo
e privilegi venduti e mendaci,
ond’io sovente arrosso e disfavillo.
(Par. 27:46–54)
[We did not want one portion of Christ’s people

to sit at the right side of our successors,
while, on the left, the other portion sat,
nor did we want the keys that were consigned
to me, to serve as an escutcheon on

a banner that waged war against the baptized;
nor did we want my form upon a seal
for trafficking in lying privileges—
for which I often blush and flash with anger.]
Having arrived at the Temple, Dante is at the highest spot in Jerusalem.
Thus, as the journey of the literal narrative takes the pilgrim to that point
from which he can look down and see how far he has come, metatextually
he is also well above the map of the known world. Here the interplay be-
tween the literal journey and the journey depicted on the maps continues,
as it did in the Inferno, where the pilgrim was moving literally downward
but metatextually westward. Similarly in the Purgatorio the pilgrim was
traveling upward but metatextually eastward. Now the pilgrim is continu-
ing upward textually while ascending metatextually to the highest point
above Jerusalem, from which one can look west or east, or indeed north or
south. There can be no better vantage point. From here he can see the en-
tire world. As Beatrice says, “look down and see how far you have re-
volved” (“Adima / il viso e guarda come tu se’ vòlto” Par. 27:77–78), we see
that Dante has completely turned from his original hell-bound trajectory.
In the literal text, Dante’s movement is almost exclusively vertical; that is,
the heavens have moved, not Dante, whose upward path is constant. We
recall that the physical perceptions of the images of the Commedia are but
vessels of deeper meaning, as Beatrice made clear in canto 4 that the physi-
cal surroundings that Dante encounters are but representations so that he
can better comprehend.14 Beatrice’s advice alerts the reader as well to the
issue of how to read the text. It is revealed as a mere attempt to represent
textually the visual images that contain a deeper meaning. Just as God
gives physical form to the spiritual, so too does Dante give textual form to
the metatextual so that the reader might imagine the significance of the
journey. Thus on a metatextual level the reader understands that Dante,
having reached Jerusalem, now ascends to stake his position in the Holy of
Holies within the Temple. The meaning of the journey is presented in a
textual fashion so that the reader’s eye might comprehend what is other-
wise impossible to write. For how does one write a cross? Dante has con-
tinually grappled with the problem of how to represent the ineffable. The
key, Beatrice has already told Dante, lies in the construction of an image
comprehensible to the reader (Par. 4:43–45).
The metatextual ascent to the Temple is evoked textually through the
continual upward movement of the pilgrim and his eventual vision of God.
Similarly, the eastward journey that culminated in the arrival in Jerusa-

lem, and that now gives way to an ascent, is recalled through the contrast
with the figure of Ulysses. Dante places the pilgrim in direct antithesis to
Ulysses by using him as a counterimage or, as Hawkins calls him, a
“counterexample” (270) to his own pilgrimage journey.15 The reader then
recalls that Ulysses’ westward movement took him away from Jerusalem,
and down to hell.
io vedea di là da Gade il varco
folle d’Ulisse
(Par. 27:82–83)
[beyond Cadiz, I saw Ulysses’

mad course]
The assault on the Temple is achieved through the introduction of St.
Bernard of Clairvaux as Dante’s final guide to the vision of God (Par.
31:58). Critics have often attributed the shift in guides at this point to an
increasingly mystic trend in the narrative, pointing to Bernard’s mysti-
cism,16 and to a shift to the ineffable and thus the need for a mystic ap-
proach to God. From a narrative and ontological approach, Bernard is an
appropriate choice.
Dante’s choice of Bernard as his final guide, however, may have more to
do with Bernard’s connection to crusading than with his mysticism. In-
deed, in the context of the military imagery of the journey to Jerusalem, it
would seem remiss to ignore Bernard’s close connections to crusading.
Bernard’s father, Tescelin Sorrel, was a Burgundian crusader, and Bernard
himself was a major promoter and supporter of the ill-fated Second Cru-
sade, leading the call to crusade at Vézelay in 1146. Perhaps most impor-
tant, in 1128 Bernard helped found the Knights Templar, who adopted the
habit of the Cistercians, adding to it a red cross, and guarded the Temple of
Jerusalem after the European forces had successfully taken the Holy City
in the First Crusade.17 It was Bernard who wrote the rule for the Templars
and who obtained recognition for the order at the Synod of Troyes in 1128.
The close connection between Bernard, the Templars, and Jerusalem
makes Bernard the fitting choice for the pilgrim’s conquest of paradise.
Dante is thus guided not only by a mystic but also by a holy warrior whose
order guarded the Temple in which the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy
Grail, according to tradition, had both been housed. The Temple is, there-
fore, the dwelling place of the physical vestiges of the God of the Old Tes-
tament and of the New Covenant. The Temple is the ultimate reliquary
corresponding to the altar in the church and the counterweight on a

crusader’s sword. Dante’s vision of God is a spiritual counterpart and the
allegorical fulfilment of its figura, the physical journey to the Temple. It is
in this moment that the pilgrimage, the white martyrdom of pilgrimage,
and the crusade are fused and become the quintessence of taking up the
cross, a fusion for which we have been prepared by Dante’s description of
the celestial court as the sacred soldiery (“la milizia santa” Par. 31:2).
Dante’s vision of God is, then, truly a reclamation of paradise. In breaching
the Temple he has regained the paradise that was lost. By following the
shape of the cross, by absorbing the shape into his narrative, Dante has
taken up the cross and walked, marched on, and seized the City of God.
Sign of the Cross

The Medieval Cruciform Church
By the time that Dante wrote his Commedia, church architecture had
evolved considerably from the early days of Christianity. Although many
of the major churches of medieval Europe still used the basilica plan popu-
larized under Constantine,1 the vast majority of Christian churches were
built in the shape of the cross. Reflecting the enormous importance of the
cross in medieval Christianity, the cruciform plan attributed the symbolic
properties of the cross to the place of worship and enhanced the already
rich allegorical potential of the church building. Designed so that the nave
and the transept intersect to form a cross, the cruciform church itself be-
came the very icon of the salvation it preached. Moreover, the cruciform
church represents an intentional absorption of the polysemy attached to
the cross by the early Christian writers discussed in the introduction,2
such that the nave corresponded to and symbolized that part of the cross,
the vertical axis, that Augustine saw as symbolic of the soul’s journey and
perseverance in life.
Cruciform churches were typically also oriented to the east—that is,
with the nave following a west-to-east orientation with the apse at the east
end and a transept running north to south. Thus the four extensions of the
floor plan emanating from the intersection of the nave and transept corre-
sponded to the “length from east to west and breadth from north to south”
identified by Irenaeus.3 Often the cross shape was incorporated into the
plan on more than one plane. In such cases, another cross was formed by
the intersection of the horizontal trajectory of the nave and the vertical
trajectory extending from the crypt that lay below the altar to the cupola
that rose above it. In this cross-shaped cross-section, the crypt corre-
sponded to the depth identified by Irenaeus, while the cupola above the
altar corresponded to the height. Accordingly, the cross of the church is
Sign of the Cross: The Medieval Cruciform Church 77
found not only in the opposition of nave and transept but also in the oppo-
sition of the cupola-crypt axis and the nave-apse axis. In those instances
the church becomes an architectural embodiment of the multidimensional
semiological potential identified by Augustine.4
The use of the cross in church architecture, however, went beyond a
mere re-creation and absorption of a prominent Christian symbol. As we
have seen, the significative properties that medieval culture placed on the
cross together with the gospel directive to “take up the cross” had resulted
in the cross featuring prominently on maps used to guide pilgrims and
crusaders to the Levant. The architectural adoption of the cross shape in-
tentionally reproduced the shape of the pilgrim voyage and provided
Christians with a symbolic means of making the journey to the Holy Land
without ever leaving home.
The adoption of the cruciform plan thus created an affinity between the
church building and those other elements of medieval culture to which the
cross lent its structure, most notably the map of the world. More simply
put, the cruciform church and the mappa mundi, sharing the same under-
lying form, share also the meaning assigned to that shape. The cruciform
church and the medieval map that plots the cruciform pilgrimage exist as
“types” of the cross, containing all of its polysemous capacity and most
significantly its specifically Christian connotation, salvation. As types of
the cross and, by extension, types of each other, the cruciform shape of the
church signifies, albeit in microcosmic form, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
In the cruciform church, then, the location of the altar corresponds to
the spot where, on the cruciform map, one finds Jerusalem and where, on
cruciform maps of Jerusalem, one typically finds the Temple. This corre-
spondence was intentional on the part of church architects, who not only
deliberately fashioned their churches to absorb the symbolism of the cross
but sought to emphasize, through its absorption, the affinity between the
church and that other physical manifestation of the cross, the journey to
Jerusalem. That is, the ecclesiastic architecture and the religious art that
adorned medieval churches intentionally symbolized the pilgrimage to the
Holy Land. As John Demaray has noted, architectural works of the Middle
Ages were regularly produced as types for distant Holy Land stations so as
to permit Christians to “act out, spiritually and in figura, journeys that
they could not otherwise take in person” (Invention, 6). Many churches of
the Middle Ages, he points out, were intended to copy venerated sites in
the Holy Land. The church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, for example,
took its inspiration from the Basilica of the Nativity. In the case of the
cathedral at Siena, Giovanni Pisano designed the façade and the carved
pavimento so as to mimic the Temple in Jerusalem (Ohly 36). Similarly, at
Pisa the Campo Santo contains earth brought from the Holy Land.5
Movement toward the altar in a cruciform church therefore repre-
sented, allegorically, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, while movement within
the church to observe the Stations of the Cross could equally be under-
stood allegorically as movement within Jerusalem, and specifically as the
reiteration of the Via Dolorosa.6 In such churches, then, the walk along the
nave symbolized both the perseverance of the soul in life and the persever-
ance of the soul as manifested in pilgrimage or crusade to Jerusalem.
The figural association of the cross and the church with the journey to
Jerusalem was enhanced by a similar relationship that already existed in
the characterization of the church as a species of saving vessel, prefigured
in Noah’s ark. The name given to the long corridor leading to the altar,
“nave” (boat), reflects the persistence of boat imagery in the gospel tradi-
tion7 and reveals the strong association between the church and the ship of
Christian souls on a voyage of salvation.8
The absorption of the cross into church architecture and its allegorical
reiteration of the pilgrimage journey thus substantially enhanced the
journey symbolism inherent in the typology of the boat. The nave, already
associated with the journey of life, now became more specifically associ-
ated with the journey to Jerusalem, while the boat of the church became
the vessel of pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
The correspondence between the cross-shaped church and the cross-
shaped world was relatively simple to establish. The standard orientation
of the cruciform church, in which the apse was typically located at the
eastern end of the nave, created a correspondence between the layout of
the cruciform church and cartographic representations of both Jerusalem
and the Mediterranean basin. Accordingly, progression along the nave, the
long axis of the cross, corresponded to the east-west orientation of the
Mediterranean Sea on the typical eastern-oriented mappa mundi. Because
of the figural associations of “nave” and “boat,” movement along it also
evoked a maritime voyage, further linking the church with the actual
means by which the medieval pilgrim typically reached the Holy Land.
The transept thus corresponded to the north-south corridor that tra-
versed the Middle East and created the limen to the “Far East” beyond
which lay, for the most part, unknown territory. Beyond this point, sepa-
rated in many medieval churches by a rood screen, lay the apse into which
only the choir and the clergy were permitted to enter. The separation of the
two areas created a distinction between the general population and an

elect. Whereas the nave was open to all, the area beyond the transept was
open to a few select individuals. It is the transept that separates the many
who are called from the few who are chosen.
At the intersection of these two trajectories, the transept and the nave,
lay the altar, corresponding to that spot on the cruciform map where
Jerusalem lay. The transept thus creates a barrier or limen. To arrive at the
altar, the Christian must first cross the limen of the church doors and move
forward, eastward, on a trajectory corresponding to the eastward pilgrim-
age to Jerusalem, an act considered in the Middle Ages as a species of
willing martyrdom, another means of “taking up the cross.” Similarly, prog-
ress along the nave toward the altar to receive Communion repeats, alle-
gorically, Christ’s own paschal journey to Jerusalem and the prototypical
celebration of the Eucharist.9
Passing beyond the altar, however, requires yet another passage, re-
served for the clergy or the choir, who correspond in a figural sense to
Christ and the angels respectively. Beyond the altar, then, is a place where
the prophets, the saints, and Christ himself dwell, indicated by the fre-
quent presence of an image of Christ or the cross in the apse beyond the
transept.
And while the cross of the church bears a typological affinity to the
cross of the map of the Mediterranean basin, the cross of the church also
bears an affinity to the medieval maps on which the city of Jerusalem itself
was represented in the shape of a cross with the Temple located at or just
beyond the intersection of the two arms of the cross. Thus the church reit-
erates not only the journey to Jerusalem but also the journey within the
Holy City.
The cruciform church in its affinity to the maps of Jerusalem becomes a
type of Jerusalem itself. Movement within the church, to observe the Sta-
tions of the Cross, for example, was understood allegorically as movement
within Jerusalem, and specifically as the reiteration of the Via Dolorosa.
Indeed, as John Demaray has noted, the Stations of the Cross originated in
Jerusalem and were translated to Europe along with numerous relics that
attempted to recreate in Europe a new Holy Land.10 Moreover, as Demaray
also notes, the tradition of the stations was brought by “priests and
palmers from the Holy Land” who “introduced the ritual of worshiping at
the stations of the cross into Europe where it was adapted by the Roman
Church” (Invention, 18). Thus movement within an eastern-oriented
church provided the Christian with an even more obvious allegorical rep-
resentation of the pilgrimage journey to the Holy City, and its reiteration
of the Via Dolorosa provided still another means of taking up the cross.
The physical effects of the eastern orientation were also significant to
the entrenchment of this affinity, especially in those churches whose main
source of light was a window located in the apse. In such churches the
morning sun illuminates the apse and then passes along the nave to illumi-
nate the entire church. The visual effect is such that someone entering the
church early in the morning faces a brilliant light that streams down from
the apse, backlighting the cross to create an aura akin to a halo. Light, and
particularly light from the east, can be understood allegorically as Christ,
who proclaimed himself the light of the world (John 18:12). Accordingly,
progression toward such a light could equally be understood allegorically
as the pilgrimage journey to Jerusalem and to Christ.
What Dante does in the Commedia is similar to what medieval archi-
tects were doing with their cruciform floor plans. While it has become
commonplace to compare the Commedia to a cathedral (Kleinhenz, “Vi-
sual Arts,” 275), one cannot simply ignore affinities between the poem and
the many artistic and architectural works of the Middle Ages that were
regularly produced as types for distant Holy Land locations so as to permit
Christians to, as Demaray put it, “act out, spiritually and in figura, jour-
neys that they could not otherwise take in person” (Invention, 6). By tak-
ing the cross as the basic shape of their project, architects and artists were
able to absorb the symbolism of the cross and the significance of other
cross-shaped projects. Thus it is not surprising to find similarities between
the Commedia and the medieval church inasmuch as both are figural rep-
resentations of the ultimate goal of Christian existence, spiritual redemp-
tion through Christ’s martyrdom on the cross. Like the medieval church,
Dante’s poem is replete not only with reminders that Christian salvation
requires following “the way” but also with reminders of how the Christian
might do so. Teeming with images and symbols of Christian saints, the
Commedia, like the church, depicts lives lived in accordance with “the
way,” lives willingly given in defense of “the way,” and lives sacrificed to
avoid divergence from “the way.” The Christian who followed these ex-
amples, those of Christ and of the saints, would surely find his way to
heaven. But the church provided more than a primer in Christian living.
Since almost every aspect of the medieval church was designed to create
movement and observation that reiterated, in a symbolic fashion, the pas-
sion of Christ and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the church provided the
Christian with a physical means of reiterating the lives of the saints who
had answered Christ’s call to “take up the cross,” living and often dying in
imitation of Christ.
The medieval church, therefore, functions on a number of levels. In one
sense it furnishes the Christian with a series of exempla and exercises in
imitation that lead the Christian along the right way to salvation. The
salvific meaning of the underlying form as well reveals the meaning of the
symbolic acts that take place within its shape, a shape that corresponds to
the cross of the medieval mappa mundi and to the cross of the church. The
visual images and the stories they tell serve as a narrative. As one
progresses through the church, the mosaics, paintings, sculptures, and in-
scriptions provide a text for salvation. Yet on an even more fundamental
level, the shape of the Christian worshipper’s path provides the means by
which to follow the example of the text. By reading each story in the
church, the Christian is reiterating the typological pilgrimage route. By
following “the way,” he is taking up the cross, and vice versa. Thus in a
church, as the Christian commemorates the Eucharist or follows the narra-
tive of the Passion through the allegorical reiteration of the via crucis, his
feet follow the cross, so that the text provides the map or the itinerary and
its reading effects the allegorical act of pilgrimage or “white martyrdom.”
In this last respect, then, the cruciform structure serves to transform
the church itself into an icon of salvation. The medieval church does not
simply represent the means of salvation, it also resembles the means of
salvation. The church thus configured is the cross that the Christian must
take up. It is the shape of pilgrimage and it is the shape of salvation. It is, in
fine, the physical signifier of the signified: spiritual redemption.
Dante’s poem functions in much the same way. As the episodes and the
characters of the Commedia draw the pilgrim along, textual cues alert the
reader to the shape of the poem so that the reader also follows the cross.
But like the cross-shaped church, its underlying form is best seen from a
distant perspective. Accordingly, Dante the writer relies on a series of tex-
tual cues throughout the three canticles to create a cohesive series of
deictic indicators, taking the reader first in a westerly direction, then in an
easterly direction, and then finally ascending above the starting point.
Similarly, a series of textual cues associates the initial east-west trajectory
and then the east and ultra-east progress with the initial journey away
from and then toward and above the earthly Jerusalem. Through the tex-
tual evocation of the journey to Jerusalem, Dante evokes and reiterates the
cross-shaped map to the Holy Land and the itinerary it depicts.11 This con-
nection, that is, between the journey to Jerusalem and the cruciform
church might be sufficient cause for the reader to associate the pilgrim’s
route with the microcosmic representation of the Jerusalem trip as mani-
fested in the cruciform church. However, Dante also ensures that the
reader will call to mind the cruciform church by infusing all three canticles
with still another series of textual cues that further associate these east-
west and west-to-east and then ultra-east indicators with a journey away
from, then toward, and then above the altar in a medieval church. Through
the textual evocation of progress in a church, Dante evokes and reiterates
the cross-shaped floor plan of the typical eastern-oriented medieval
church and the allegorical iter to the Holy Land it reiterates.
And while the presence of the church is not immediately obvious, once
it becomes more evident, the reader who looks back on the opening cantos
finds it a much easier task to see what it was that Dante was building all
along. In this too does the project of the Commedia resemble the erection
of a large building. Its form emerges only gradually, but in its more com-
plete stages, those portions that at first seemed without shape are seen
more clearly within the larger edifice to which they are integral.
Notwithstanding its gradual emergence, the presence of the church is
discernible from the first lines of the poem. Although the narrative places
the protagonist in a dark wilderness (“in una selva oscura” Inf. 1:3) rather
than a church, the religious and specifically the salvific implications of the
sunlight are soon made clear. Dante, gazing upon the mountain at first
light, says:
Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto,
guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite già de’ raggi del pianeta
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.
(Inf. 1:13–18)
[But when I’d reached the bottom of a hill—
it rose along the boundary of the valley
that had harassed my heart with so much fear—
I looked on high and saw its shoulders clothed
already by the rays of that same planet
which serves to lead men straight along all roads.]
He is, of course, forced to retreat. He cannot walk immediately to the light.
Instead he must turn away and walk through the darkness of the Inferno.
Although it might seem precipitous to suggest that these few lines are
sufficient to support a theory that Dante likens his trip through the In-
ferno to a walk down the nave of a church and away from the altar, a sub-
sequent reading of the various images associated with the pilgrim’s jour-
ney affirms that this is precisely what Dante is doing. Indeed, as the reader
sees, Dante soon likens his walk away from the altar to an antipilgrim-
age—that is, to the antithesis of progression toward what the altar and the
eastern light allegorically represent.
In terms of where Dante starts this journey, we can infer that it is pre-
cisely at the meeting of the transept and the nave, for, as he says, he was in
the middle of the journey of our life (Inf. 1:1). The use of the first person
plural (“nostra vita”) indicates initially that Dante’s journey and the gen-
eral journey of life are parallels. The coincidence of the two is quickly ex-
tinguished, however, by the abrupt insertion of the first person singular
(“mi ritrovai”), which marks a divergence from the collective road and the
initiation of Dante’s own particular journey. Dante’s own particular jour-
ney, as we shall see, is greatly informed by the highly evident pattern of
descent and ascent observed by Amilcare Iannucci and Dino Cervigni
among others.12 There is, however, another pattern that is equally obvious:
the antithetical acts of turning away and turning toward. The pattern is not
inconsistent with that observed by Cervigni and Iannucci, for both are de-
fined deictically and create opposition akin to the archetypical oppositions
of good and bad, life and death, progress and regress. Indeed the two pat-
terns—ascent/descent, turning away/toward—exist symbiotically, rein-
forcing the affinities between Dante’s journey, the cruciform church itself,
the cross, and the christological or hagiographical implications of the
Commedia. It is in the constant tension of turning away and turning to-
ward that the affinity between Dante’s text, the church, and the journey to
Jerusalem is perhaps most obvious. The choice to walk toward the light or
away from it, coupled with the opposition of the two trajectories, his own
and that of the collective, locates his point of departure at that point in the
church where the two trajectories of the nave and the transept intersect.
The crossroads at which Dante finds himself, therefore, corresponds to
that point in the church at which one can go backward or forward but at
which forward motion requires a special status. Within the church, pro-
gression forward into the apse requires a special selection. It is not enough
to be faithful; rather one must be part of the clergy or the choir in order to
leave the confines of the congregation and proceed beyond the transept.13
Progression toward the light, however, is not immediately possible, as
the three beasts bar Dante’s pilgrim from approaching the mountain. Pro-
ceeding any farther requires more than human will. It requires divine in-
tervention. It requires that Dante be chosen, specially selected or elected.
Dante’s elect status is promptly confirmed, as Virgil recounts how he was
sent to guide Dante on the journey that will ultimately allow him to reach
beyond the collective and proceed to the sanctuary: “In heaven there’s a
gentle lady—one / who weeps” (“Donna è gentil nel ciel che si compiange”
Inf. 2:94).
Even before his elect status has been confirmed, Dante evokes two para-
digms that will also give shape and meaning to the pilgrim’s journey. Yet
his protest that he is neither Aeneas nor Paul (“Io non Enëa, io non Paulo
sono” Inf. 2:32) alerts the reader that what the pilgrim is about to undergo
will indeed have Pauline and Virgilian echoes. These echoes are not by any
means restricted to the common aspects of the Dantean, Virgilian, and
Pauline literary projects, but rather they speak to profound commonalities
in the nature and significance of the journeys depicted in the three models.
Aeneas’s descent into the underworld and Paul’s rapture into heaven
demonstrate an inherent vertical movement that constitutes the basis of
their paradigmatic function. As antithetical as the two journeys may seem,
together they comprise complementary trajectories of a pattern of ascent
and descent that is also paradigmatic within the structure of the Com-
media. Paul’s ascent represents a departure from the horizontal plane of
the journey of life, an upward movement perpendicular to that horizontal
plane. The same configuration occurs in Aeneas’s case, but the horizontal
journey of his life is interrupted by a descent, a downward movement that
is, like Paul’s, at right angles to his horizontal course. Thus Aeneas’s and
Paul’s journeys taken together, or superimposed on each other, create a
cruciform pattern in which the combined trajectories of Paul’s ascent and
Aeneas’s descent intersect with their common horizontal progression,
similar to the cruciform created by the intersection of the vertical crypt-
and-cupola axis with the horizontal nave.
The evocation of Aeneas and Paul in the same breath also evokes the
shape of the Mediterranean basin, in actuality and on medieval maps, as
well as the shape of the medieval church in which all of these voyages
might be reiterated. More specifically, the east-to-west orientation of
Paul’s and Aeneas’s journeys provides a textual means of orienting the
reader as to the initial direction of Dante’s own journey; that is, he must
first travel away from the earthly Jerusalem in order to find his way back
to its heavenly counterpart.
In Aeneas’s case, the journey ends in Rome. The Christian reading in-
fers that his soul never made it back to the East; such are the limitations of
paganism. Similarly, Dante’s guide Virgil will not enter heaven. In terms of
the orientation of the church, he cannot pass beyond the boundary im-
posed by the transept. Virgil and his hero Aeneas can only reach pagan
Rome. Capacious though it is with Christian potential, Aeneas’s Rome is
nonetheless not yet transformed into the New Jerusalem prophesied by
John in Revelation, not yet physically effected by Helen’s treasure hunt-
ing. Thus Virgil, in contrast to Paul and to Dante, cannot reach “the Rome
in which Christ is Roman” (“quella Roma onde Cristo è romano” Purg.
32:102).
In Paul’s case, only the physical journey ends at Rome—a Rome that
knows Christ, a Rome that through Paul’s martyrdom is gradually becom-
ing the New Jerusalem. There his spiritual purgation through persecution
and martyrdom allows him to complete the journey back to the point from
which he can reach the heavenly Jerusalem. Although his rapture attested
to his divine selection, before Paul could return to heaven for eternity and
into the waiting arms of the Creator, he had first to travel away from
Jerusalem, away from the world of the chosen people.
These two paradigms, the Pauline and the Virgilian, thus orient Dante
and set his course. He must first travel away from the east, away from
Jerusalem, if he is to find his way back to the New Jerusalem and surmount
the barriers that keep him from entering the area beyond the transept.
Accordingly, the Inferno represents that initial journey away from the al-
tar, away from Jerusalem, and away from the light. Thus in the Inferno the
representations of the church are mostly inversions or perversions of the
true Christian church.
The journey away from the light leads to the world beyond the protec-
tive doors of the church, away from the protection of the allegorical boat
that is the nave and that is the synecdochical representation of the church
itself. Here we see yet another element common to the westward journeys
of Aeneas and Paul that Dante absorbs in order to give his journey the
same orientation. En route to Rome, both Aeneas and Paul suffered ship-
wrecks that served to explain the significance of their journeys and become
occasions for prophecy. The destruction of their boats in perilous waters
furnishes a reminder of the perilous nature of a voyage away from God,
away from the eastern light and into the world of heathens. The survival of
both Aeneas and Paul provides an exception to the ordinary course and is
attributable solely to their elect status. In the case of Paul, his survival
assures the reader that for one who is divinely chosen, the voyage away
from God, while perilous, is a necessary element in the eventual journey
back to God, prefigured in the westward journey of the Jews to the slavery
of Egypt and the return to the Promised Land. Dante draws on both of
these connotations by evoking the specter of the shipwreck in the opening
verses of the Inferno. Likening himself to one who has escaped the perilous
seas with his last breath, Dante reminds the reader of the potential dangers
of his journey, and in so doing reinforces the affinity between his iter and
that of Aeneas and Paul.
E come quei che con lena affannata

uscito fuor del pelago a la riva
si volge a l’acqua perigliosa e guata
(Inf. 1:22–24)
[And just as he who, with exhausted breath,

having escaped from sea to shore, turns back
to watch the dangerous waters he has quit]
The image of the shipwreck is, of course, intimately linked to the voy-
age itself. By its very nature, the image of the boat suggests travel. It is not
surprising, then, that Dante absorbs the image of the boat as a predomi-
nant image through which he makes most obvious the figural link be-
tween the church, pilgrimage, and his poem. Throughout the Commedia,
Dante continually uses the image of the boat to orient the reader both in
terms of location within the textual church that he is constructing and
within the pilgrimage route to Jerusalem. In the Inferno the boat is most
often progressing westward and, therefore, away from Jerusalem and in-
deed outside of the protective doors of the church. This orientation be-
comes particularly acute in the case of Ulysses, whose famous “folle volo”
(Inf. 26:125) takes him explicitly westward, beyond the cross of the Medi-
terranean and on to death.
da la man destra mi lasciai Sibilia,

da l’altra già m’avea lasciata Setta.
“O frati,” dissi “che per cento milia
perigli siete giunti a l’occidente”
(Inf. 26:110–13)
[Upon my right, I had gone past Seville,

and on the left, already passed Ceuta.
“Brothers,” I said, “o you, who having crossed

a hundred thousand dangers, reach the West”]
The boat is also linked most often, as we shall see especially in the
Ulysses episode and again in the Purgatorio, with wings and flight. Since
the journey of man was often associated with the flight of the soul, this
coupling should not be surprising. But it functions on more than an alle-
gorical level. The coupling of wings and boats is also reiterated in another
term associated with ecclesiastical architecture, “ala” or “wing” of which
“aisle” is a cognate. Although the language that links wings and boats is
obviously allegorical in terms of Christian imagery, it is also highly sug-
gestive of the architecture of a church. Its repetition, therefore, reminds
the reader of the physical building of the church that Dante evokes.
While the opening cantos of the Inferno act as a sort of prologue, orient-
ing the pilgrim and orienting the reader both in the church and in the
Mediterranean world, the actual journey could be said to start in Inferno 3.
Because of the antipilgrimage aspects, especially the imagery of turning
away, that characterize the first part of the journey, references to the
church and to pilgrimage are not always immediately obvious. If, however,
one considers Dante’s geography of hell,14 it becomes clear that the infer-
nal journey is, at its most essential, a journey away from Jerusalem and
therefore an inversion of a voyage to the Holy Land.
It might be tempting to suggest that the Inferno, the journey away
from the light, is a mirror image of the journey back, embodied in the
Purgatorio. This, however, is too simplistic. What emerges from the pages
of the Inferno is that the journey away from the altar is a distortion,
marked by an inability to see correctly, not simply a mirror. Within the
Inferno, textual clues alert the reader to the proximate cause of this inabil-
ity to see things properly. The lack of light is the first and most obvious,
representing literally the allegorical lack of spiritual enlightenment. As
Dante tells us, the dark wood was sunless (“dove ’l sol tace” Inf. 1:60).
Dante’s strategy of literalizing the allegorical, here in respect of light, par-
allels a significative process in effect in the light play of the medieval
church. In the case of an eastern-oriented church, from dawn to midmorn-
ing, the sun is behind a person walking away from the altar. Objects that lie
immediately in front of him fall in his shadow. Although distant objects
are illuminated, as one approaches them they also fall within one’s shadow.
Dante illustrates the particular effect most clearly in the ability of the con-
demned to see the future contrasted with their blindness to the immediate
present.
This blindness, however, contrasts starkly with the temporary blind-

ness caused by walking toward God’s light. Paul was struck blind in the
presence of God but was ultimately imbued with greater vision. The blind-
ness caused by turning one’s back on the light is somewhat different. The
shadow play of the Inferno reveals that the physical presence of self is an
impediment to physical sight just as selfishness impedes spiritual enlight-
enment. Indeed, it is blindness caused by selfishness that has informed the
fatal decisions of most of the condemned. God’s light, for Dante’s sinners,
has been blocked and diffused by their own self-interest. The images of the
Inferno are, therefore, always distortions, antitheses, perversions, and in-
versions of the right way to approach the altar. Moreover, the reader finds
that the farther the pilgrim gets from the altar, the greater are the perver-
sions and the less immediately recognizable are the sinners.
In the purgatorial journey, the presence of the church becomes much
more obvious. As the pilgrim turns around and walks back toward the
light, the hymns of the mass are audible, works of art instruct and correct
the pilgrim, and the penance the pilgrim experiences allows him to take up
the cross, in a microcosmic reiteration of the journey to Jerusalem and a
reiteration of the Via Dolorosa. As he approaches the altar and ultimately
ascends in the Paradiso into the shining sunlit space above the cross, we see
that Dante has entered the elect. Having turned from his original path,
having descended and then ascended, Dante now completes the cross of his
poem. It shares shape with the pilgrimage and it shares shape with the
church, but such commonalities alert the reader to its underlying structure
and, even more fundamentally, to its meaning. The poem, written in the
shape of the cross, is the means by which Dante will regain salvation, and
by which he will convert the reader. Thus the reading itself becomes an act
of taking up the cross, and the textual journey becomes as valid as a trek to
Jerusalem or a reiteration of the Stations of the Cross.
Finally, there is still another manifestation of the cross discernible in
the narrative of the Commedia. Interwoven subtly into the poem’s narra-
tive, the presence of the decorated cross, popular in the Middle Ages and
common in medieval churches, facilitates Dante in associating his poem
with the shape of the cross. Although strictly iconic representations of the
cross—that is, the cross as the instrument of Christ’s death—were not
unheard of in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, medieval artisans
rarely restricted the semiotic function of the cross to the depiction of
Christ’s execution alone. Recognizing its polysemous capacities, medieval
painters fashioned their crosses into episodic works, depicting thereon not
only Christ but also a number of other saints and biblical figures. The su-
perimposition of these lives on the cross created a typological relationship
between the lives depicted and the life of Christ. At the same time, the
shape of the cross characterized such lives as examples of “taking up the
cross” in imitation of Christ. Metal crosses of the eighth and ninth centu-
ries effected a similar project through the fusion of decorated discs, joined
together to create a unified cross out of the individuals represented on the
discs. The decorated cross embodies the unifying symbolism identified by
Gregory of Nyssa, while its presence in the church is a reminder of the
common shape and purpose it shares with the building it adorns. Thus
while Dante gradually reveals the underlying cross shape of his narrative,
he also decorates it textually with a series of exemplars that teach the
reader how to take up the cross. Just as the world laid out on the shape of
the cross and a church foundation laid along the same shape represent a
choice of form that endows the final creation with redemptive significance,
so too do the exemplary episodes laid across the backdrop of a wooden
cross endow and reveal the salvific nature of the entire work. As Dante lays
his poem out on the shape of a cross, the reader is made aware of the nature
of his project through the similarities it bears to some of the most signifi-
cant architectural, cartographic, and pictorial projects of the Middle Ages.
Navata infernale
As the pilgrim approaches the gates of hell in Inferno 3, it becomes imme-

diately obvious that the road to which the great porte lead is hardly the
way to salvation. The inscription “through me the way into the suffer-
ing city, / through me the way to the eternal pain” (“Per me si va ne la
città dolente, per me si va ne l’etterno dolore” Inf. 3:1–2), at first vaguely
familiar, recalls Christ’s proclamation “I am the way. . . . No one comes to
the Father except through Me,”1 but the inscription perverts the message
of hope into a warning of doom. This gateway to “dolore,” moreover, does
not lead to the Via Dolorosa but rather is the road away from Christ’s
passion. Indeed, as the correspondence of the textual journey of the Com-
media to the cruciform mappa mundi and to the cruciform church be-
comes more obvious, so too does it become more clear that the infernal
“way” corresponds not only to the geographical journey westward away
from Jerusalem but also to the westward journey away from Jerusalem as
allegorized in the cruciform church by movement away from the altar.
Moving away from the altar is, therefore, equated with the way into “eter-
nal pain” and the “suffering city” (Inf. 3:1–2).
It is important, at this point, to distinguish between mere movement
away from the altar and movement away from the altar following Com-
munion. Just as westward movement necessarily completes the medieval
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so too does movement away from the altar com-
plete the Communion rite. The blessings of Communion and pilgrimage
render the Christian impervious to evils associated with westward or
downward journeying. Such westward movement is much more akin to
Beatrice’s descent as described by Virgil in Inferno 2 than to that of the
condemned who chose sin over salvation, in whose case movement away
from the altar and away from Jerusalem is simply backward.
We must also distinguish the descent of the condemned from descent
willed by God in preparation for a corresponding ascent. Augustine, for
Navata infernale 91
example, saw the inherent value of such a descent when he theorized that
in order to ascend, one must first descend. But Augustine’s paradigm is
part of a figural affinity to Christ—that is, where the ultimate descent and
ultimate ascent is divinely willed, and where descent represents suffering.
Mere descent into sin, a path chosen by the sinner, will not assure ascent;
quite the contrary, it most assuredly results in damnation.
In the Inferno, then, we see that those who descend have indeed turned
their backs on the altar and the salvation that Communion represents. But
there are also those who simply could not bring themselves to partake of
the Eucharist. These are the souls who remain just outside the gate. Lack-
ing conviction and unable to make up their minds, they wait, in terms of
the church, at the crossroads. Not having yet made the decision to turn to
the altar, they will, by default, remain outside of its redemption. In many
respects this is Dante’s own point of departure. This moral paralysis was
clearly spelled out in his prologue: “I abandoned hope / of ever climbing up
that mountain slope” (“io perdei la speranza de l’altezza” Inf. 1:54). The
pilgrim’s descent, on an autobiographical level, can be traced to this mo-
ment, and its implications will eventually be revealed. But from a strictly
narrative perspective, the pilgrim’s downward movement does parallel
that of the sinners who refused or failed to drink from the saving cup and
now have no alternative but to descend. Thus the pilgrim’s journey, in its
first stages, takes him away from the altar, into the shadow of himself. His
protection is God’s will, and we suspect from the affinity to Paul’s journey
that this descent is of the preparatory kind, but inasmuch as his movement
parallels the rejection of Communion, his journey is also exemplary. There
will be, therefore, moments when even the most faithful of readers will
wonder whether Dante will be able to escape the perils this trial presents as
he leaves the comfort of the church and heads toward the godless and dark
world (“La buia campagna” Inf. 3:134).
Just inside the gate the pilgrim encounters limbo and those for whom
arrival at the altar was simply not possible: the noble poets. The poets,
including Virgil, exist in semilight and have witnessed Christ’s harrowing
of hell, but the limitations of paganism have prevented them from reach-
ing the altar and celebrating Communion. They are, in terms of Dante’s
textual church, just steps away from the altar, but for them forward prog-
ress toward it is not possible.
Similarly, as we step farther down into the circle of the lustful, Inferno
5, the pilgrim encounters Dido,2 who, like Virgil, is not so far away from
the altar and the Eucharistic celebration. In the Aeneid, a book understood
by medieval Christians to be a species of unknowing Christian prophecy,3

Dido’s offering following Aeneas’s departure recalls some of the elements
of the Eucharist,4 but as the wine turns to blood, she is horrified. Dido’s
pagan conception misunderstands the mystery, and so it cannot save her.
Indeed, the common error of most of the sinners found in Inferno 5 lies in
their inability—either as a result of the limitations of paganism, as in the
case of Dido, or pure selfishness, as we shall see in the case of Francesca—
to understand that earthly love is not the same as spiritual love. To be
consumed by flesh is not the same as consuming the flesh of Christ. Many
of the lustful can perceive the elements of Christian love as well as the
elements of the Eucharist, but they cannot quite grasp their full signifi-
cance. Because these sinners do not understand their error, they do not
understand their punishment, and so instead of praising God, they blas-
pheme him: “there they curse the force of the divine” (“bestemmian quivi
la virtù divina” Inf. 5:36). The specter of self has clouded their vision and
perverted even the most basic element of Christian worship.
In the case of Francesca da Rimini, her selfish and misguided attach-
ment to courtly love has clouded her ability to see that such love is not the
same as carità. Francesca, like Dido, can see the elements necessary for
Christian salvation. She can see the earthly figura of heavenly love, but
she cannot understand its true significance—that it is merely an imitatio
of spiritual love, or the love one feels for the Madonna. She is destined to
death, for her love cannot lead to everlasting life.
The importance of the Francesca episode extends beyond the presenta-
tion of courtly love as antithetical to spiritual love. Francesca’s choice of
reading material creates a series of allusions that orient the reader in
terms of the metatextual church that Dante is constructing. The presence
of the French courtly romance immediately brings to mind the image of
the red rose of courtly love, as opposed to the white rose of heavenly love
with which Dante will present his reader in the last cantos of the Paradiso.5
Francesca’s experience of love—like Dante’s first experience of love, chron-
icled in La Vita Nuova—mistakes earthly love for something greater than it
is. Francesca and Dante both fail initially to recognize that earthly love is
but an imitation of spiritual love and that it lacks the potential for spir-
itual salvation. Dante’s swoon, brought on by his compassion for Fran-
cesca’s tale, similarly misunderstands the figural death of religious rapture
and substitutes in its place what the French so tactfully refer to as le petit
mort. Beatrice will eventually correct Dante’s error, but Francesca died too
Navata infernale 93
soon to understand that the red rose is but an imitation of the rosa can-
dida,6 the white rose of Christian love.
The existence of the two roses links the episode to the textual church
that Dante is constructing. Frequently medieval churches—particularly in
France, which is significant for this episode—would have more than one
rose window, one above the apse and one above the door. Although the two
roses resemble each other, they are not the same, for even within a non-
eastern-oriented church, walking toward the wrong rose, the rose over the
door of the cathedral, leads out and away from the altar. But the signifi-
cance of the two roses is even greater in the eastern-oriented church,
where one window is located at the west end of the church and the other at
the east.
In many respects the difference between the western and eastern rose
windows is not immediately obvious, and one can certainly understand
why Francesca may have confused the two. The difference, however, is sig-
nificant. The western rose window leads out of the church. The eastern
window is the portal through which the eastern or morning light enters
the church, while the western rose is the conduit of a considerably weaker
light. If Francesca is fixating on the wrong rose, within a church, she is
looking to the west. The geographical orientation of Francesca’s gaze is
reinforced by the fact that she looks to French literature as her romantic
paradigm, requiring a westward gaze. Francesca is, therefore, looking the
wrong way. She needs to look to the eastern rose or the celestial rose, the
white rose that we will see at the culmination of the Paradiso. Francesca
needs to reorient her gaze and look to the east, to the gospels, for her inspi-
ration. Dante’s own compassion suggests that he is vulnerable to the same
error and in dire need of reorientation.
As we move farther away from the altar, the pivotal elements of Chris-
tianity continue to be confused, perverted, or misunderstood. The three
ugly heads of Cerberus (Inf. 6:13), for example, introduce one of the first
and most obvious perversions of the Trinity. Its inclusion in the canto of
the gluttons, whose obsession with the consumption of flesh would be bet-
ter directed at consuming the flesh of Christ in celebrating the Eucharist,
underlines the perversion that Cerberus represents and continues to sug-
gest that the sinners of the Inferno have allowed their attentions and in-
tentions to be misdirected. For the sinners, as for Dante, the road has be-
come “smarrita” and its signposts difficult to decipher.
In the next canto, the language of the church is perverted by Pluto as he
cries out in rage, “Pape Satàn, Pape Satàn, aleppe” (Inf. 7:1). Like the in-
scription above the gates of hell, the words, though garbled, have a familiar
ring. “Pape” and “Satàn” are decipherable. But equating the Holy Father,
be it in reference to the pope or God himself, with Satan, is clearly a perver-
sion of one of the central figures of Christianity. And the connection to
Aleppo, a Muslim city in the Middle East (noted in chapter 2), evokes the
specter of Islam, itself considered a perversion of Christianity.
In the same canto the hoarders and wasters similarly distort liturgical
hymns with their lamentations, which Dante describes as gargled in their
throats.7 As the episode is framed by perversions of Christian worship, it is
fitting that we should find within these frames a vast number of perverted
clergymen, the leaders of the convoluted litany.
Questi fuor cherci, che non han coperchio
piloso al capo, e papi e cardinali
(Inf. 7:46–47)
[These to the left—their heads bereft of hair—

were clergymen, and popes and cardinals]
Like Francesca, these sinners had the opportunity to see Christian light
but impeded their own ability to do so: “they labored to be blind” (“che i
fe’ sozzi, / ad ogne conoscenza or li fa bruni” Inf. 7:53–54). In Francesca’s
case, she looked in the wrong direction. In the case of the wasters and
hoarders, they looked to the light but, through their actions, effectively
blocked it out. As Dante notes,
Tutti quanti fuor guerci
sì de la mente in la vita primaia,
che con misura nullo spendio ferci.
(Inf. 7:40–42)
[All these, to left and right

were so squint-eyed of mind in the first life—
no spending that they did was done with measure.]
These sinners must now forever exist without the sun from which they
turned while living.
Canto 8 continues its perversion of Christianity through the inclusion
of Phlegyas’s boat, which takes sinners even deeper into the bowels of the
earth and farther away from the altar. Phlegyas’s boat, unlike the saving
ark of the Christian church, provides no shelter. The antithetical relation-
Navata infernale 95
ship this boat bears to the Christian boat is further enforced when
Phlegyas yells, “Be off there with the other dogs!” (“Via costà con li altri
cani!” Inf. 8:42). His words recall that the Jews referred to the gentiles—
that is, those who are excluded from God’s grace, the nonchosen people—
as dogs. Ironically, the words may also recall that Christ nonetheless would
extend his salvation to those dogs who proved worthy, as chronicled in the
Gospel of Matthew.8 Thus the dogs of the Inferno are those who truly are
excluded, not simply by race, but by their own failure to recognize the
saving power of Christ. In sharp contrast to Christ’s mission of inclusion,
Phlegyas’s boat provides no shelter for the dogs, but rather it continues
their marginalization and withdraws any chance of even a moment’s re-
spite from the torments of hell.
That this trip is the opposite of one toward the church and the altar
within is reinforced by the mention that this trajectory is leading Dante
and Virgil toward what seem to be red-hot mosques.9 The fallen angels
who gather at the entrance to this city in the distance further remind the
reader that this voyage is truly the opposite of a boat ride to heaven.10
In canto 9 Dante continues to invert and pervert holy symbols. The
three furies, for example, beat their brows and claw their breasts in a maca-
bre perversion of the breast-beating that accompanies the mea culpa.11 The
number of furies (three) might initially suggest that they function as an
infernal version of the Holy Trinity. However their gender and their role
in the episode suggest that they are better understood as the antithesis or
an infernal inversion of the trinity of women who made Dante’s journey
possible, Mary and Lucia and Beatrice.12 The three furies attempt to bar
Dante’s journey but, as we shall see, the power of the heavenly three-
some is far greater, for an angel descends by divine will to open the gates
of Dis.
At the same time, Medusa’s presence highlights an issue that pervades
the entire Commedia and in turn interacts with Dante’s textual cues to
orient us in the metatextual church. That Dante must now cover his eyes
rather than look on the Medusa contrasts tidily with the sinners in the
preceding canto who covered their eyes and blocked out the good light, but
it also raises the issue of the direction of one’s gaze. To avoid hell one must
close one’s eyes to evil, look away from the sinister, and look to the east for
true light.
This canto also marks another liminal moment not only in the literal
narrative but in the metatextual church as well. Virgil’s and Dante’s arrival
at the gates of Dis is obviously a significant point in the structure of the
Figure 3. Doors of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona. Photo by author.
Inferno. Here is where one leaves the “anteinferno” and begins the descent
into the true depths of hell. In terms of correspondence to a church, this
significant departure may be read as the actual exit from the church, dis-
tinguishing the sinners we will now meet from those we have already en-
countered. If we consider that thus far we have been dealing with sinners
who were still in sight of the light—that is, still inside the church—but
have misunderstood it or turned from it or closed their eyes to it, we have
now come to the point at which the sinners have left the church completely
and can no longer see clear to the altar. Entering the City of Dis corre-
sponds to exiting the church, leaving the building and venturing into the
world beyond its saving confines. The doors to the church are closed. The
liminality of this moment, though reasonably obvious, is later confirmed
Navata infernale 97
as the pilgrim in purgatory, having traversed antepurgatory, must reenter

the church, passing through a portal to enter purgatory proper.
Significantly, the journey beyond the doors of the church is introduced
by the image of a boat, but this boat is the antithesis of both the lifesaving
ark and the boat of the Christian church.13 As such it is an apt vessel for
Virgil’s and Dante’s foray beyond the confines of the church as their jour-
ney takes them into the secular world. Here the geography is marked not
only by the inversions of the church that colored the initial stages of the
Inferno but also by imagery that reminds the reader of the perversion and
decadence of the world outside Christianity and beyond the haven of the
church. Leaving the church is, then, precisely what will precipitate an even
deeper fall into the abyss, a more profound discesa agli inferi. Here Dante’s
election is even more necessary, and the descent of the angel assures him of
his elect status. Amilcare Iannucci suggests that much of the imagery for
this episode comes from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and indeed
this is a possible source for Dante’s imagery, but the descent of the angel
also situates the moment in terms of the metatextual church. Medieval
church doors, as we see in the case of San Zeno Maggiore in Verona, were
frequently decorated with depictions of the descent into hell. Dante was in
Verona during his exile, and his reference to it in Purgatorio 18 suggests
strongly that he knew this church with its great doors that remain to this
day.14 The depiction, predating Dante’s sojourn in Verona, is found pre-
cisely at the point where one must decide to stay in the church or leave,
which imbues the image with enormous emblematic capacity. Incorporat-
ing the image not only incorporates into the structure of his poem yet
another indication that the journey has much in common with the trip
through a Christian church but it also points precisely to the pilgrim’s
location within that structure.
It also suggests that the moment of arrival at the City of Dis, the antith-
esis of the City of God, is truly a departure from the church. Arriving in
the City of Dis means arriving at the tower first glimpsed in canto 8.
Io dico, seguitando, ch’assai prima

che noi fossimo al piè de l’alta torre,
li occhi nostri n’andar suso a la cima
per due fiammette che i vedemmo porre,
e un’altra da lungi render cenno,
tanto, ch’a pena il potea l’occhio tòrre.

(Inf. 8:1–6)
[I say, continuing, that long before

we two had reached the foot of that tall tower,
our eyes had risen upward, toward its summit,
because of two small flames that flickered there,
while still another flame returned their signal,
so far off it was scarcely visible.]
Entering its gates—that is, exiting the metatextual church—the pilgrim

first encounters the pseudograveyard in which Farinata and the other her-
etics lie. Still later we shall visit the inverted baptistery in which the
simoniac popes are plunged headfirst. Considered from this perspective,
we shall see that the layout of the City of Dis, in many respects, inverts the
layout of several ecclesiastical complexes in Italy and, in particular, the
cathedral complex in Pisa comprised of the duomo, a baptistery, a bell
tower, and an enclosed graveyard, the Campo Santo.
Leaving aside for now the autobiographical significance of Dante’s po-
tential sources for the graveyard, its inclusion is instrumental in linking
the infernal journey to the allegorical journey represented in medieval
church architecture. The move through the doors and into a graveyard
confirms that, in their sin, these sinners have also crossed a line, one that
puts them outside of the church building. Indeed, these sins are consider-
ably more serious, for their commission requires a conscious effort, unlike
the earlier sins of the anteinferno that are the result of typical human
weaknesses. Thus the church building itself and egress from it serve also as
an indicator of the seriousness of one’s sins.
The affinities between the architectonics of Dis and those of the Pisan
model allow Dante to continue to track the sinners who have left the
church and to trace the pilgrim’s progress away from the church building
and complex, as perverted as they are in hell. These affinities allow Dante
also to retain the structure of the church and the motif of the journey away
from the altar as the foundation for his metatext as he descends deeper and
deeper into hell. The figural association of Pisa’s Campo Santo with Jerusa-
lem,15 moreover, reinforces the link between the journey to Jerusalem and
its allegorical reiteration in a church, while its infernal inversion reminds
the reader that the sinner’s journey is an antipilgrimage, a westward jour-
ney away from the Holy Land.
Navata infernale 99
The circumstances of the founding of the duomo of Pisa, in commemo-

ration of a Christian victory over Muslim forces,16 allows Dante to punctu-
ate the extent to which the local fighting, of which Farinata degli Uberti is
emblematic, also constitutes an anticrusade. Contrasting ironically with
the many crusaders buried in Pisa’s Campo Santo, Farinata emphasizes the
backward direction of this trajectory vis-à-vis Jerusalem. The inhabitants
of the cemetery of Dis are, therefore, antipilgrims and specifically
anticrusaders. As such they are buried not in hallowed ground but in the
cursed fields of hell.
To a certain extent, the canto suggests as well several distortions of ele-
ments typical of medieval church décor. The open tombs, for example,
bring to mind the remains of saints displayed in open or glass caskets. The
structure of the dialogue in which Dante speaks first to Farinata, then to
Cavalcanti, and then again to Farinata creates a textual triptych in which
the figure of Cavalcanti is flanked by the figure of Farinata.
One of the less obvious but ultimately significant aspects of this canto is
how it reinforces the light patterns in a medieval eastern-oriented church.
Farinata explains his blindness vis-à-vis the present in terms of light:
“Noi veggiam, come quei c’ha mala luce
le cose,” disse, “che ne son lontano;
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce.
Quando s’appressano o son, tutto è vano
mostro intelletto; e s’altri non ci apporta,
nulla sapem di vostro stato umano.”
(Inf. 10:100–105)
[“We see, even as men who are farsighted,

those things,” he said, “that are remote from us;
the Highest Lord allots us that much light.
But when events draw near or are, our minds
are useless; were we not informed by others,
we should know nothing of your human state.”]
The process is similar to what occurs in an eastern-oriented church when
the light is to one’s back, that is, coming from the east. The closer an object
is, the more it lies in one’s own shadow and therefore lacks the illumina-
tion of an object beyond one’s shadow. Thus Farinata’s myopia in life is
inverted in its punishment. Once nearsighted, he is now infernally far-
sighted. Farinata is now denied the selfish focus of his heresy; it is replaced
with a manifestation of the truth that his trajectory takes him away from
God’s light and the shadow of himself prevents him from seeing what
means most to him.
That the limitations on his sight are imposed by location outside the
church is also suggested by his comment that the door is closed (“fia chiusa
la porta” Inf. 10:108) to such knowledge. At the close of the canto Virgil
reminds Dante that Farinata’s blindness is the result of misdirection, a
blindness that has evidently been shared by Dante but will eventually be
remedied:
quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio

di quella di cui bell’ occhio tutto vede,
da lei saprai di tua vita il vïaggio
(Inf. 10:130–32; emphasis mine)
[when you shall stand before the gentle splendor

of one whose gracious eyes see everything,
then you shall learn—from her—your lifetime’s journey.]
Virgil here makes it clear that vision is a function of orientation. Facing the
light will bring revelation. It is clear also that facing the light is associated
with turning. Thus Virgil’s words contrast Farinata’s egress with Dante’s
eventual progress.
In the woods of the suicides (Inferno 13), in contrast to the inverted
Campo Santo, the cadavers have no formal resting place. Outside the
church they had no sanctuary, and here outside the perversion of the
church they have even less. The harpies who guard the woods of the sui-
cides are inversions of the eagles that stand atop the churches of Dante’s
time, most notably San Miniato in Florence (fig. 4). This state of margin-
alization, or exclusion, is accentuated by the figure of Pier della Vigna, who
contrasts starkly with the apostle Peter, appearing as the antithesis of the
Christian Peter, the rock upon whom Christ built his Church. Unlike Peter,
who is shamed by his denial of Christ,17 Frederick’s Pier takes great pride
in his loyalty to his master.
fede portai al glorïoso offizio,

tanto ch’i’ ne perde’ li sonni e’ polsi.
(Inf. 13:62–63)
[and I was faithful to my splendid office,

so faithful that I lost both sleep and strength.]
Navata infernale 101
In the end, however, St. Peter suffered in the same way as his martyred
King, enduring scorn, torture, and death, while Pier killed himself rather
than suffer further torture. Pier has provided no foundation on which to
build, and so the tree of his death is unstable, easily broken and devoid of
refuge, unlike the “tree” of Calvary or the “tree” on which Peter was, ac-
cording to legend, similarly crucified.
That Pier, like so many sinners of the Inferno, misdirected his love and
faith is emphasized in the perversion of the Eucharist effected through
the mingling of words and blood that results when the sinner’s “body” is
broken.
sì de la scheggia rotta usciva insieme
parole e sangue
(Inf. 13:43–44)
[so from that broken stump issued together

both words and blood]
The sinner’s body is broken, not in imitation or memory of Christ, but
rather in the spirit of egotism and misdirection that has come to character-
ize the sinners of the Inferno.
The location of their respective burial places further emphasizes the
contrast between the two Peters. Pier della Vigna is buried inside Dis, and
therefore outside the walls of the church. But Peter, on the brink of aban-
doning Rome and his Church, came back. He reversed his egress and reen-
tered the city where his grave became the focal point of the basilica that
was the heart of the Church.18
Moreover, Peter’s soul is not confined to his earthly resting place, for
his fealty to Christ and to the Church has resulted in his salvation and his
privileged place in heaven. Thus while Peter’s role as the foundation of the
Church keeps him within the walls of Dante’s metatextual church, Pier
della Vigna’s misdirected faith keeps him outside its walls and within the
City of Dis.
By creating a Pier della Vigna who contrasts so strongly with another
Peter, Dante is able to alert the reader to the essential strategy of his
metatextual architectonics. The very evocation of St. Peter, his Church, and
the physical edifices in which it worships, tells the reader that this part of
the journey is an antichurch, a perversion. At the same time, the dynamic
creates a tension in which the reader anticipates the true Peter. Knowing
that Dante will come to stand before the ray that is Beatrice (Inf. 10:29–
31), the reader need only wait for the trip back to the altar.
The basic orientation of hell and its correspondence to movement in the

church is again emphasized when Virgil notes the leftward orientation of
movement in hell.
Tu sai che ’l loco è tondo;
e tutto che tu sie venuto molto,
pur a sinistra, giù calando al fondo
(Inf. 14:124–26)
[You know this place is round;

and though the way that you have come is long,
and always toward the left and toward the bottom]
Apart from the age-old association of the left (“sinistra”) with evil, Virgil’s
comment also serves as an introduction to the circle of the sodomites who,
probably better than any other sinners, demonstrate the importance of
facing in the “right” direction (“diritta”). Dante continually notes that
these people are turned the wrong way. Brunetto Latini, for example, has
to turn back in order even to chat with Dante.
O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia
se Brunetto Latino un poco teco
ritorna ’n dietro e lascia andar la traccia.
(Inf. 15:31–33)
[My son, do not mind if Brunetto

Latino lingers for a while with you
And lets the file he’s with pass on ahead.]
Moreover, Dante tells us that he himself had turned from the happy life,
that he was turning back.
“Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos’io lui, “mi smarri’ in una valle,
avanti che l’età mia fosse piena.
Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m’apparve, tornando ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”
(Inf. 15:49–54)
[“There, in the sunlit life above,” I answered,

“before my years were full, I went astray
within a valley. Only yesterday
at dawn I turned my back upon it—but

when I was newly lost, he here appeared,
to guide me home again along this path.”]
The antichurch imagery is present as well in the figure of Geryon. He is
described as a species of fish rising out of the depth of the filthy seas, and as
such he both recalls and perverts the Christian fish, a frequent symbol of
faith.
ch’i’ vidi per quell’aere grosso e scuro
venir notando una figura in suso,
maravigliosa ad ogne cor sicuro,
sì come torna colui che va giuso
talora a solver l’àncora ch’aggrappa
o scoglio o altro che nel mare è chiuso,
che ’n sù si stende, e da piè si rattrappa.
(Inf. 16:130–36)
[that through the dense and darkened air I saw

a figure swimming, rising up, enough
to bring amazement to the firmest heart,
like one returning from the waves where he
went down to loose an anchor snagged upon
a reef or something else hid in the sea,
who stretches upward and draws in his feet.]
The figure of Geryon is thus immediately associated with a series of Chris-
tian symbols all of which symbolize salvation and resurrection. He rises
from the sea, recalling Jonah’s delivery, which is in turn a prefiguration of
Christ’s resurrection. The notion of return from the sea also recalls Dante’s
earlier use of the image of the shipwreck survivor (Inf. 1:22–24) and, in-
deed, plays on the entire figural death contained within the baptismal rite.
The mention of the anchor invokes another early Christian symbol for
faith, which is also associated with the tropes of fishermen and boats. That
Geryon seems like one who has been trying to free a fouled anchor sug-
gests a salvific nature to his image. The salvific theme is continued in the
description of his posture, “who stretches upward and draws in his feet.”
The reader is left in anticipation of the arrival of a Christlike figure, but the
true nature of this beast is quickly exposed as we find out that his salvific
appearance is an illusion. In fact, he is quite the opposite of what he appears
at first to be. Virgil’s perversion of the Agnus Dei—”Behold the one whose
stench fills all the world!” (“Ecco colei che tutto ’l mondo appuzza!” Inf.
17:3)19—quickly alerts the reader that Geryon is no Christlike figure.
Geryon is no Lamb of God.
Geryon, as we find out in the next canto, is so far from the Truth that is
Jesus Christ that Dante describes him as the “filthy effigy of fraud”
(“Quella sozza imagine di froda” Inf. 17:7). The illusion that caused the
reader to expect salvation is yet another example of the skewed perception
that occurs in the flawed light of hell. In such a light the truth can seem
false and the false can seem true, as Dante suggests when he speaks of
“that truth which seems a lie” (“quel ver c’ha faccia di menzogna” Inf.
16:124) .
As some kind of perverse sea creature, Geryon also is presented as the
direct antithesis of the Christian fish symbol, perverting a standard ele-
ment of Christian iconography. Similarly, when Dante uses nautical terms
to describe Geryon’s movements,20 the monster is presented as a perver-
sion of the boat through which the church is often figured. Traveling on
Geryon’s back is, therefore, the opposite of travel in the saving ark of the
church, and it takes the pilgrim and Virgil farther still on their leftward
trek.21
The fact that the sinners in this part of hell are no longer within the
church is made clear in the next canto where Dante invokes the image of
pilgrims going back and forth on the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome during
the Jubilee of 1300.22 The image is a vivid one and expresses the duality of
direction that the infernal and purgatorial journeys represent. The pil-
grims are not in St. Peter’s; rather, they are walking to it or away from it.
The two directions of the sinners and the pilgrims suggest the distinction
between coming and going that colors the entire opposition between the
downward, westward trek of the Christian soul and the purgative journey
back inside the church and toward the altar.
The mention of pilgrims is also framed in such as way as to suggest this
inherent dual possibility. Located within a canto in which seducers and
panderers are punished, the reference contrasts genuine pilgrims of the
Jubilee with the nonpilgrims of the Inferno, to be sure, but it is a Janus-
type image that not only likens sinners to pilgrims but just as strongly
likens Jubilee pilgrims to sinners. It is ultimately a question of direction.
The image might also be seen as the synecdochical representation of the
structural relationship between the Inferno and the Purgatorio that will
emerge in the second canticle.
The antipilgrimage continues as Virgil and Dante move still further
from the church and encounter the simoniacs in Inferno 19. Their inver-
sion in simulacra of baptismal fonts accentuates the inverted nature of this
infernal voyage. It seems they are being baptized, but upside down. Their
downward direction corresponds as well to westward travel on the mappa
mundi, where west was considered “down.” The holes in which the sinners
are placed recall the baptismal fonts common in the cities of northern Italy
in Dante’s time. The image thus suggests movement away from the
church, inasmuch as in the model that Dante cites, San Giovanni,23 and in
another model from which Dante may have drawn inspiration, Pisa, the
baptistery is a separate building. Both baptisteries indeed contained pre-
cisely the kind of font that Dante describes. (Pisa’s still does.) Moreover, in
the Pisan complex, the baptistery stands to the west of the duomo, sug-
gesting again a Pisan inspiration for the layout of hell. Thus Dante contin-
ues with the notion that the sinners are outside the church building,
though the liturgical function of a baptistery allows him to continue using
church imagery, inverted in this case, to support his metatextual structure
and deictic strategy. Finally, the mention of St. Peter,24 uttered by a damned
pope, Nicholas III, continues the motif of the antipilgrimage: instead of
following Peter, these popes went in another direction.
The antipilgrimage motif is reiterated in canto 21 as demons scream at
the Lucchese sinner, an “elder of Santa Zita” (“anzïan di Santa Zita” Inf.
21:38), that he is off track if he hopes to see the Volto Santo (“Qui non ha
loco il Santo Volto!” Inf. 21:48). The mention of this relic and the fact that
the sinner is clearly in the wrong place makes it clear that this circle of hell
is neither the city of Lucca, one of the stops on the Francigena pilgrimage
route of the Middle Ages, nor its duomo, inside which this relic has been
housed since the twelfth century.25 That the sinners are indeed outside of
the church is also suggested by the presence of the gargoyles and demons,
which bring to mind those gargoyles that frequently decorate the exterior
of medieval churches.26 Here, however, rather than ward off evil spirits
who might try to enter the church, they terrorize those coming out of it.
The evocation of Lucca, in particular, serves here to remind the reader of
the allegorical reiteration of pilgrimage contained in the medieval church,
particularly churches that contained holy relics. In the case of Lucca, the
cathedral is both a pilgrimage destination itself and a reiteration of the
road to Jerusalem, drawing visitors to see the image of Christ carved, ac-
cording to legend, by St. Nicodemus at the time of the Crucifixion. The
demon’s observation thus highlights where precisely the sinner is not, and
in so doing locates him in terms of the antipilgrimage that the Inferno
constitutes. The location is further highlighted by the proverb with which

Dante dismisses the demons: “in church with saints, with drunkards in the
tavern” (“ne la chiesa / coi santi, e in taverna coi ghiottoni” Inf. 22:14–15).
The fact that he and Virgil are now with the fiends makes it clear that they
are not with saints.
The antithesis of the church is amplified in canto 23 in the circle of the
hypocrites, whose punishment is to wear heavy robes that mock the
monks’ habits, while the mention of Frederick II,27 himself excommuni-
cated, reiterates that these sinners are outside of the church. The figure of
Caiaphas in the same canto distorts and inverts the crucifixes found
throughout Christian churches in Dante’s time. His position, pinned to the
ground by three stakes so that all passers-by must walk on him, also con-
trasts with the tombs of saints and crusaders found in the floors of medi-
eval churches. Typically the slabs on such tombs are sculpted in effigy of
those buried within, whose souls are presumed in heaven, while their ca-
davers are protected by the flagstone that covers them. Moreover, they are
within the walls of the church or, in the case of the sepulchres at Pisa, in its
Holy Ground, and so are protected from exposure to the elements. By con-
trast Caiaphas, in the words of John Ciardi, “must suffer upon his own
body the weight of all the world’s hypocrisy, as Christ suffered upon his
body the pain of all the world’s sins” (Dante, Inferno, 197).
The fact that the tale of Caiaphas is told by a friar suggests in itself the
antichurch that the tale embodies in this infernal voyage. But Dante also
continues to emphasize the perversity of this journey through subtle ref-
erences to the right way from which the sinners have diverted. The last
words of the canto seem at first simply to indicate that Dante followed
Virgil’s footsteps.
Ond’io da li ’ncarcati mi parti’
dietro a le poste de le care piante.
(Inf. 23:147–48)
[at this I left those overburdened spirits,

while following the prints of his dear feet.]
However, the context suggests that the remark just as likely also refers to
following Christ, whose footprints, according to legend, were preserved in
stone in the Roman church of Domine Quo Vadis.28 Given the hermeneu-
tic implications of the legend for Dante’s project, such a reference not only
serves to assert the figural connection this journey bears to his textual
church and the figural pilgrimage it embodies, it also anticipates the cor-
rection of the antipilgrimage that awaits the reader.
Its utterance at what is yet another liminal point—Dante and Virgil
must now cross a bridge to get to the next circle—suggests strongly that
Dante intends the reader to recall the turning point marked by the stone
footprints as well as the location of the church in which they are preserved.
Built just outside Rome’s city wall, the church of Domine Quo Vadis fig-
ures the exit from the New Jerusalem. Because of the connection between
Peter and the Church of which he was to be the foundation, it also suggests
abandonment of the church. It thus marks another stage in the voyage
away from Jerusalem, or in this case from the New Jerusalem, Rome, like-
wise a pilgrimage destination. But it is also a turning point, for it is here
that Peter turned and followed Christ’s direction, avoiding what would be
yet another denial of his Lord. Thus the footsteps and a reference to them
also alert the reader to the proper direction back to the Holy City.
Following those footsteps affirms that Dante is on the right path, even
though he must first descend before he can ascend. Like Peter, he must
suffer the bad in order to bring about the good, and so his path, for now,
continues to take him down. Dante and Virgil cross a bridge, encountering
those who failed to turn around at the last border of the Holy City—those
who have left not only the church at the center of the Holy City but the
walls of the city itself. The extent of this departure is obvious in those
sinners who not only fail to praise God but who actively curse him.
il ladro
le mani alzò con amendue le fiche,
gridando: “Togli, Dio, ch’a te le squadro!”
(Inf. 25:1–3)
[the thief
raised high his fists with both figs cocked and cried:
“Take that, o God; I square them off for you!”]
Vanni Fucci’s obscene gesture is not only an infernal version of the sign of
the cross,29 it is a complete repudiation of the Christian God, what Na-
talino Sapegno calls “ribellione” (280), and it foreshadows the complete
“ribellione” of Ulysses that follows. In the figure of Ulysses, indeed, Dante
demonstrates the extent to which the sinners beyond the bridge have
transgressed. Ulysses, in his refusal to be constrained by the bounds of the
cross-shaped world, signals complete and utter repudiation of God and his
rules and limits. Ulysses has taken that step too far, sailing westward be-
yond the margins of the map, beyond the doors of the church, beyond the
gates of the Holy City, beyond the cross-shaped confines of the known
world.
In leaving the cross of the Mediterranean world, Ulysses leaves the
body of Christ, following the trajectory that parallels egress from a cruci-
form church. Dante’s description of Ulysses’ route clearly intends that the
reader visualize the direction of this departure. Sailing out through the
narrow Straits of Gibraltar,30 Ulysses and his men depart through a natu-
ral conduit into the Mediterranean and all that it represented in Dante’s
time.
quando venimmo a quella foce stretta

dov’ Ercule segnò li suoi riguardi,
acciò che l’uom più oltre non si metta:
da la man destra mi lasciai Sibilia,
da l’altra già m’avea lasciata Setta.
(Inf. 26:107–11)
[when we approached the narrows

where Hercules set up his boundary stones
that men might heed and never reach beyond:
upon my right, I had gone past Seville,
and on the left, already passed Ceuta.]
Leaving Seville and Ceuta signals abandonment of the known world, going
beyond where man is permitted to go (“l’uom più oltre non si metta”) and
moving away from the rising sun. Ulysses’ movement, therefore, corre-
sponds in the metatextual church to walking out of the western doors of-
ten decorated, like those of San Zeno (fig. 3), with depictions of the descent
into hell. Thus the Straits of Gibraltar correspond to the doors of the
church and to the lowest part of the cross on the medieval maps. That Ulys-
ses has turned his back to the eastern light is reiterated in the description
of the voyage beyond Gibraltar: “turned our stern toward morning”
(“volta nostra poppa nel mattino” Inf. 26:124). Their boat, like the boat of
the church, has wings,31 but this flight is folly, a perversion. The crazy
infernal flight can lead only to death and to exclusion from the church that
it mocks.
The form that Ulysses assumes in his damnation also contributes to the
perversion of church decoration that the Inferno presents generally. His
enclosure in a flame recalls and mocks the Pentecost,32 depicted in the

mosaics of the Venetian basilica of San Marco, exposing Ulysses’ quest for
knowledge as a perversion of the spirit that came upon the disciples follow-
ing the Resurrection. The divine intervention evidenced by the sudden
ability to speak in tongues initiated and legitimized their westward evan-
gelizing journeys. The disciples were to go out into the world, not to gain
knowledge forbidden to them, but to spread knowledge revealed to them.
The westward journey for the disciples was invariably a descent into the
world of the unwashed, of the sinful, and into the hell of persecution and
martyrdom, but nonetheless a necessary part of lives lived in imitation of
Christ. Yet their westward journeys are distinguishable from the sinful
westward journey precisely for the same reason that Dante’s is now sanc-
tioned. As we have seen in the case of Paul, these journeys are willed by
God and are preparatory to the ascent. While Ulysses’ shipwreck recalls
Paul’s and even Aeneas’s, we must note that both Paul and Aeneas survived
because their journeys were divinely willed and, in Paul’s case, preparatory
to an eventual ascent and return to the soul’s true home in paradise.
Ulysses’s journey has no such value. It is an intentional departure from
home. It does not seek to return to the Maker but rather expresses dissat-
isfaction with home. In contrast to the disciples whose Pentecost experi-
ence caused them to speak in tongues and thereby spread the truth,
Diomedes and Ulysses speak with “forked tongue,” as it were, distorting
the truth and exploiting the faith of their followers.
Ulysses’ boat is not the boat of the fishermen. It is a boat that brings
death. Ulysses is not the Christ figure one seems to see as he binds himself
to the mast of his boat to hear the sirens. Rather he is a false Christ, a
master of deception who can resist the sirens only through trickery. (The
sirens too will eventually be exposed as deceivers.) Ulysses’ “way” is just
as “smarrita” as that on which the pilgrim found himself at the beginning
of the Commedia. Ulysses’ boat is not the saving ark of the Christian
church. Rather it is a vessel that brings disaster. Ulysses’ flight, through
the metaphor of the “folle volo,” is exposed as a silly imitation of an angel’s
flight. And his boat is the antithesis of the angel’s boat that later appears at
the start of the purgative journey.
The Ulysses episode thus corresponds both to the cross of the mappa
mundi in its explicit western direction and to the cruciform church in the
exit to which it corresponds, and as such makes most explicit the intimate
connection between the cross of the world and the cross of the church and
their common underlying significance.
Though Ulysses is punished in hell for his false counsel, Dante focuses
most closely on his transgressiveness, which seems at first rather puzzling.
Yet the two are intimately linked both in terms of the literal narrative and
as a key to the metatextual strategy that Dante employs. In punishing
Ulysses for his false counsel in the literal narrative, yet focusing so fixedly
on his transgressiveness, Dante alerts the reader to the way the Commedia
works. Ulysses’ false counsel is the result of a will to transgress, and the
journey is the product of a soul who chooses to ignore confines, believing
that the rules do not apply to him. It is the transgressive desire of the
arrogant soul that fabricates the “orazion picciola” (Inf. 26:122). The Ulys-
ses episode suggests most strongly that to fully understand what drives
the Commedia we need to look beneath its layers. Dante’s journey at first
seems to parallel Ulysses,’ yet the eventual turning that we witness reveals
that Dante’s is the product of divine will, and as such will remain within
the prescribed confines of the cross.
The episode with the other significant false counselor, Guido da Mon-
tefeltro, provides an even more explicit series of textual cues that bring to
mind the underlying form to which Dante is directing us, linking the shape
of the cross to his literal narrative. As a story of conversion and uncon-
version, the episode is emblematic of the relationship that the Inferno
bears to the rest of the Commedia. Guido had turned the right way and
taken a monk’s vows. He describes this period in his life in nautical terms.
Quando mi vidi giunto in quella parte
di mia etade ove ciascun dovrebbe
calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte
(Inf. 27:79–81)
[But when I saw myself come to that part

of life when it is fitting for all men
to lower sails and gather in their ropes]
He had been at the altar, even beyond the altar in terms of the geography
of the church. Like Ulysses, he had made it home. But at the instigation of
Boniface VIII, Guido did an about-face, turning back to his warring ways,
entering the fray between Boniface and the Colonna family. This is an
unconversion, and it emphasizes the backward nature of the infernal jour-
ney. Here the entire episode is an exercise in inversion. Boniface becomes
an antipope as Peter’s keys function here not as keys to heaven but to lock
Guido into eternal damnation. Absolution precedes the sin, reversing the
divine order: “I now absolve you in advance” (“finor t’assolvo” Inf.

27:101). Guido contributes to the pope’s anticrusade: instead of killing
Saracens in the Holy Land, Boniface is killing fellow Christians in Rome.
The pope and, by extension, Guido have become the infidel, killing Chris-
tians in the New Jerusalem.
Lo principe d’i novi Farisei,
avendo guerra presso a Laterano,
e non con Saracin né con Giudei,
ché ciascun suo nimico era Cristiano,
e nessun era stato a vincer Acri
né mercatante in terra di Soldano
(Inf. 27:85–90)
[The prince of the new Pharisees, who then

was waging war so near the Lateran—
and not against the Jews or Saracens,
for every enemy of his was Christian,
and none of them had gone to conquer Acre
or been a trader in the Sultan’s lands]
But the episode also reminds the reader of the metatextual church, for
Guido’s actions essentially constitute not only an abandonment of its walls
but also an attempt to pervert that which was built upon Peter. The episode
with Guido shows distinctly the border that was crossed in Inferno 24.
From this point on, the damned are those intent on perverting or destroy-
ing social and religious norms as Dante defines them. These sinners are not
only outside of the Christian temple but they seek to destroy it.
The irony of calling this circle a cloister (“l’ultima chiostra” Inf. 29:40)
recalls once more the antichurch that the Inferno represents, for the sin-
ners here had no interest in confining themselves to the protective walls of
a Christian cloister. Instead the falsifiers, for example, tried to replace
God’s works, supplanting and usurping the role of the Church. More
pointedly, the schismatics did their best to destroy the Church. Most em-
blematic of this group, therefore, is Muhammad, whose dismemberment is
a graphic representation of the damage that Islam was perceived in the
Middle Ages to wreak upon the Christian Church.
In canto 31 the deception inherent in the Inferno is underlined in the
misperception created by the giants. What seems to be a city is instead a
mirage, as the apparent refuge of civilization turns out to be nothing more
than a monstrous illusion. It is within this context that we must consider

the reference to Nimrod, who is immediately linked to St. Peter’s Basilica
by the mention of the great pinecone that stands there.
La faccia sua mi parea lunga e grossa
come la pina di San Pietro a Roma
(Inf. 31:58–59)
[His face appeared to me as broad and long

as Rome can claim for its St. Peter’s pine cone]
The juxtaposition serves to contrast the two figures immediately, such that
one might conclude that if Peter was the Vicar of Christ, then surely
Nimrod was the vicar of Satan. The Church built by Peter is similarly con-
trasted with the destructive tower built by Nimrod. The construction of
the Tower of Babel was fueled by a desire to be God, the construction of St.
Peter’s to venerate God.
Similarly, the babbling of Nimrod, “Raphèl maì amèche zabì almi” (Inf.
31:67),33 is contrasted with the Word of God;34 as Robert Hollander has
argued, it constitutes a “parodic mirror image of the Psalms” (Dante and
Paul, 20). The scattering of language that occurred as a result of the tower’s
collapse is the opposite of the unification that took place through Peter’s
evangelizing. Ephialtes’ chain might similarly be seen as the antithesis of
the chains from which Peter was, according to tradition, miraculously
freed (Acts 12:6–7).
As the pilgrim and Virgil continue to descend, the antithetical nature of
the Inferno becomes even more succinct. In Cocytus, the sterility and im-
potence of the frozen water provides a chilling contrast to the living water
of Christ.35 The frozen water of Cocytus can neither give life nor effect the
allegorical death signaled by baptism. The sin that is punished here,
treachery against family, is simply a lesser version of the same sin embod-
ied in Satan, who committed treachery against God the Holy Father. Ev-
erything that is punished here in Cocytus is punishment for turning
against those against whom one ought not to turn. Such turning is highly
unnatural, and the sinners in this portion of hell are brutish and com-
pletely stripped of humanity. Their inversion and their frozen state indi-
cate the permanence of their actions. Frozen in time and space, they cannot
turn back to see the light. As John Ciardi says, “As they denied God’s love,
so are they furthest removed from the light and the warmth of His Sun”
(Dante, Inferno, 266).
The cannibalism so prevalent in these cantos, moreover, is a cruel inver-
sion of the Eucharist. These sinners eat the flesh of mortals, not of the
immortal Son of God. Accordingly, these sinners are destined to rot rather
than be reborn through their consumption of the flesh. The figures of
Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri in Inferno 23 are highly emblem-
atic of this perversion, but the story that Ugolino tells expands upon it,
revealing his death and the death of his sons as an even more terrible per-
version of the entire paschal drama.
Ugolino’s story recalls the filial obedience and sacrifice that is central to
the story of Abraham and Isaac and that is fulfilled in the Crucifixion.
When it becomes evident that Ugolino is desperate, his children volunteer
their own flesh to save him.
Padre, assai ci fia men doglia
se tu mangi di noi: tu non vestisti
queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia.
(Inf. 33:61–63)
[Father, it would be far less

painful for us if you ate of us; for you
clothed us in this sad flesh—it is for
you to strip it off.]
As their hunger progresses, the eldest, Gaddeo, pleads, “Father, why don’t
you help me?” (“Padre mio, ché non m’aiuti?” Inf. 33:69) with echoes of
Christ’s own cry from the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken Me?”
(Matt. 27:46). Yet this father cannot save his sons, nor will their sacrifice
save their father, for Ugolino is anything but the obedient servant of God
found in the figure of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son on
God’s command. Nor is the sacrifice of his sons figurally linked to God’s
sacrifice of Jesus. Instead, the episode shows the tragedy and waste of life
that comes from actions undertaken in contradiction of God’s commands.
The perversion of the Eucharist evident in the Ugolino episode is apt
preparation for the ultimate perversion that Giudecca represents. Here in
the bowels of the Inferno, all that is most holy is not merely inverted or
misunderstood but completely perverted, distorted, and mutated. At this
point one cannot get any farther away from the church. Thus the nadir of
hell contrasts with the zenith represented by the apse. This opposition is
also signaled by Virgil’s inversion of the “Vexilla regis prodeunt” (“On
March the Banners of the King”) just before Dante first glimpses Satan.
The hymn, which uses military imagery to refer to the cross,36 is tradition-
ally sung on Good Friday as part of the Adoration of the Cross. Virgil’s
version, “On March the Banners of the King of Hell” (“Vexilla regis pro-
deunt inferni” Inf. 34:1),37 thus heralds Satan as the antithesis of the cross.
As well, the portrayal of Satan in hell is the antithesis of the many apse
decorations in medieval churches, which picture Christ enthroned in
heaven. Hell is the antiapse. The singing of a hymn reminds the reader of
the underlying church pattern and how far the pilgrim and Virgil have
traveled from their starting point.
Satan himself is the antithesis of the Eucharist. He eats man, as opposed
to man consuming the body of Christ. The trinity of his victims recalls and
mutates the image of the Holy Trinity. Again the nautical language associ-
ated with Christianity is reprised. This time, however, it shows how unlike
a boat this Satan is.
Sotto ciascuna uscivan due grand’ali,
quanto si convenia a tanto uccello:
vele di mar non vid’io mai cotali.
(Inf. 34:46–48)
[Beneath each face of his, two wings spread out,

as broad as suited so immense a bird:
I’ve never seen a ship with sails so wide.]
Here the images of boats and wings are again coupled, but rather than
symbolizing divine salvation, the pairing shows precisely how far from the
boats and wings of the church this godforsaken place truly is.
The perversion of the bird also recalls and contrasts with the many
medieval depictions of the dove hovering above Christ to represent the
Holy Spirit.38 But here the bird is featherless and is actually more akin to a
rodent than a bird.
Non avean penne, ma di vispistrello
era lor modo
(Inf. 34:49–50)
[They had no feathers, but were fashioned like

a bat’s]
Finally, the image of Satan ensconced in ice is a perversion of the many
medieval depictions of Christ being baptized, which also often included the
image of the dove hovering above Christ’s head.
The pilgrim has, therefore, reached the end of the antipilgrimage em-
bodied in the perversion of the medieval church. He has gone as far away
from the altar and apse as possible, leaving nowhere else to go. The road
has hit, as it were, a dead end.
The antipilgrimage goes nowhere, just as the anticrusade liberated
nothing. Both journeys do, however, epitomize abandonment of God and
departure from the saving ark of the church. Outside the church, beyond
the Campo Santo, the baptistery, the campanile, the city walls, there lies
only perversion and eternal death. There is only one option if one wishes
to reenter and find the glory represented in the apse: to turn around and
start the long way back. This is, of course, what Dante and Virgil are doing
as they twist and turn on Lucifer’s body.
Quando noi fummo là dove la coscia
si volge, a punto in sul grosso de l’anche,
lo duca, con fatica e con angoscia,
volse la testa ov’elli avea le zanche,
e aggrappossi al pel com’om che sale,
sì che ’n inferno i’ credea tornar anche.
(Inf. 34:76–81)
[When we had reached the point at which the thigh

revolves, just at the swelling of the hip,
my guide with heady strain and rugged work,
reversed his head to where his legs had been
and grappled on the hair, as one who climbs—
I thought that we were going back to Hell.]
Thus the journey back to the altar begins. It could be argued, of course,
that in fact Virgil and Dante have not changed direction, since their trajec-
tory is still taking them through the earth to the other side. But such a
reading dwells on the physical directionality of the pilgrim’s journey
rather than the journey within the church it is intended to recall and the
figural cross that it etches.
To read the Commedia with attention only to the trajectories and direc-
tion of the literal level would be inconsistent with Dante’s own suggestion
in his letter to Cangrande della Scala that the Commedia can be read on
multiple levels.39 Dante himself is acutely aware of the conflict this inter-
section of the two levels might cause, and he recognizes the reader’s poten-
tial confusion.
e s’io divenni allora travagliato,
la gente grossa il pensi, che non vede
qual è quel punto ch’io avea passato.

(Inf. 34:91–93)
[and if I then became perplexed, do let

the ignorant be judges—those who can
not understand what point I had just crossed.]
The specific use of the turning language, however, together with the fre-
quent references to left and right, shadow and light, point markedly to
another level of significance that lies beneath, beyond, or within the literal
narrative of the text. Here the light play is our clue to where Dante is in the
church. As he says, Lucifer has gone from top to bottom and the sun has
gone from “night to morning” (“da sera a mane” Inf. 34:105). They are no
longer in shadow. They are in full light—that is, they have turned back
toward an altar soon to be backlit by dawn’s first rays. It is indeed morning,
early morning of Easter Sunday.
Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,
salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
(Inf. 34:133–39)
[My guide and I came on that hidden road

to make our way back into the bright world;
and with no care for any rest, we climbed—
he first, I following—until I saw,
through a round opening, some of those things
of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there
that we emerged, to see—once more—the stars.]
The new direction is a crossing over, a change of orientation, and it is
exemplified by the decision to restart in many ways the same journey that
was begun at the outset of the Inferno. The pilgrim will traverse the same
ground in one sense, but since he will be heading in another direction, it
will have a different look. This journey will take the pilgrim in a direction
that leads back to the front of the church, to the altar, and ultimately to the
apse and all that it represents.
Toward the Light
As the pilgrim finds himself on the shores of purgatory, the imagery of the
second canticle does seem to create a textual déjà vu. Yet, as we have seen,
there are substantial distinctions between the journey the pilgrim now
commences and the one he has just survived. While the journey away
from the altar represents error that leads to damnation, here in purgatory
the trajectory is the precise opposite: a positive inversion signaled by the
turning at the end of the Inferno and by Dante’s own geography of the
underworld where purgatory itself is the physical opposite of hell. Hell is a
hole; purgatory is a mountain. Hell is surrender; purgatory is a challenge
whose ascent counters the descent of hell. The climb that purgatory re-
quires constitutes an exploration of how to correct and find one’s way back
to the altar so as to partake of the salvation it offers.
The purgatorial journey thus retraces the journey of our life, played out
within Dante’s metatextual church as both a reversal and a correction of
the journey away from the intersection of nave and transept but also as a
reiteration of the journey of life that the cross in the church represents.
Accordingly, much of the imagery of the Inferno is here reprised but al-
tered, reoriented, and thus corrected.
This reiteration and reorientation of the journey is almost immediately
evident as the boat (and its association with wings and flight), one of the
most constant images of the Inferno, symbolic itself of journeying, reap-
pears in canto 1. Its reappearance underlines the affinity between the infer-
nal and purgatorial journeys, but its transformation in this second canticle
distinguishes this new voyage from the perversion of the church that the
westward sea voyages of the Inferno symbolized. Here, in stark contrast to
Charon’s vessel, the purgatorial boat is steered by an angel, its course
charted by God, as it brings its passengers eastward to the Promised Land.
Its corrective course is signaled immediately as Dante links his boat meta-
phorically to his poem:
Per correr miglior acque alza le vele

omai la navicella del mio ingegno,
che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele
(Purg. 1:1–3)
[To course across more kindly waters now

my talent’s little vessel lifts her sails,
leaving behind herself a sea so cruel]
Dante thus inserts his poem into the typological relationship that exists
between the boat and the church. His poem, the boat, and the church are all
types of each other, and his poem is not only his vessel but also his church,
together with all of its allegorical connotations.
The direction of his boat and the orientation of the church or poem are
announced by the subsequent invocation of the virtues of the east in clear
contrast to the westward journey of the Inferno.
Dolce color d’orïental zaffiro
(Purg. 1:13)
[The gentle hue of oriental sapphire]
Here Dante presents both the vessel of the journey and its terminus. This
is a journey eastward to the sun, and to the Levant where Jerusalem waits.
It is here as well that Dante begins the corrective process of purgatory.
Associating the east with love by evoking the figure of Venus, he describes
this predawn moment.
Lo bel pianeto che d’amar conforta
faceva tutto rider l’orïente,
velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.
(Purg. 1:19–21)
[The lovely planet that is patroness

of love made all the eastern heavens glad,
veiling the Pisces in the train she led.]
He thus begins a process of purification, one in which pagan love or amor
will eventually be sufficiently cleansed to become the Christian carità of
the Paradiso. The reference to Venus constitutes more than a signal of the
reorientation inherent in the purgatorial journey. The necessarily allegori-
cal reference—as we have notes, at no time in April of 1300 was Venus
actually the morning star1—immediately links Dante’s literal text to an
Toward the Light 119
underlying level of meaning, alerting the reader from the outset to the
polysemous capacity of this journey.
Given the integral role of the fish in Christian symbolism,2 the refer-
ence to Pisces further associates this journey with Christianity. Although
the reference appears to be literal at first, the earlier reference to a physi-
cally absent Venus urges an allegorical reading of the predawn sky. This
collage of signifiers, with the resultant fusion of what they signify, urges
the reader to include the cross in the sky as part of this same allegorical
tableau.3
The boat of Dante’s poetic “genius,” then, sails against the backdrop of
an eastern sky bejeweled with constellations that are allegorically linked to
love, Christianity, and the cross. In this allegorical sky, the pagan symbol of
love is attended by the symbols of Christ’s ministry and Christ’s resurrec-
tion, bringing to it faith and the hope of resurrection. Thus Dante urges
the reader to see the purgatorial journey in terms of the journey eastward
and all that it represents.
Associating his poem with the boat, itself symbolic of the church, he
reminds the reader that his poem, the journey east, and the church are all
allegorically linked. The explicit presence of the cross stands as a further
reminder of the cruciform that underlies the allegorical journey within the
journey and underlies the physical journey to the east, as well as underly-
ing the destination, Jerusalem. It also reminds the reader that pilgrimage
itself is a means of taking up the cross in imitation of Christ. Moreover, it
suggests to the reader a metatextual presence, a cross above and beyond
the physical or literal.
Dante continues his characterization of this journey as an allegorical
return to Jerusalem with the appearance of Cato. Before identifying him,
Dante paints him in terms that recall both Christ and Moses, figures asso-
ciated in Christian exegesis with the journey to the Promised Land.
Initially Dante’s description alludes to Christ:4
vidi presso di me un veglio solo,

degno di tanta reverenza in vista,
che più non dee a padre alcun figliuolo.
(Purg. 1:31–33)
[I saw a solitary patriarch

near me—his aspect worthy of such reverence
that even son to father owes no more.]
The language recalls the moment when Christ was revealed to the dis-
ciples, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5).
The allusion also leads back to Dante who is paying the reverence. The
typological affinity created between Dante the pilgrim and Christ empha-
sizes the analogous relationship the pilgrim’s journey has with Christ’s
suffering, so that the pilgrim’s wandering is understood as a species of
pilgrimage and, as we shall see, even a crusade. That both journeys might
also be made in a church is gradually made clear through Dante’s descrip-
tion of Cato, which recalls Moses and the eastward journey of the Jews
from the slavery of Egypt to the Promised Land. As the common exclusion
of Moses and Cato reinforces their typological affinity, a similar affinity
that Dante forges between himself and Christ allows the reader to deduce
that as Moses’ journey was fulfilled in Christ, so will Cato’s journey be
completed by Dante. The figure of Cato thus reinforces the affinity this
canticle bears to the Exodus journey, its Christian fulfillment, and the
cross-shaped repetition of both that are embodied in pilgrimage, crusade,
and their allegorical reiteration in the church.
That the journey back to the altar reverses and retraces the infernal
journey is also made clear through the frequent use of language indicating
that, on one level, the pilgrim’s new trajectory is indeed the result of turn-
ing back or around, as we saw in chapter 3.
Dante’s approach to purgatory proper also uses such language, as Virgil
instructs Dante, “Son, follow in my steps; / let us go back” (“Figliuol, segui
i miei passi: / volgiànci in dietro” Purg. 1:112–13). When the reader con-
siders the amalgam of earlier deictic references in the Inferno, he can con-
clude that the allegorical pilgrim has turned from the westward trajectory
that characterized the infernal journey to one that allegorizes eastward
movement.
It is important, however, not to confuse the literal directionality with
this allegorical direction. Indeed, Dante’s earlier reference to Venus dic-
tates that the eastern orientation is to be read on an allegorical level. Thus
in the opening cantos of the Purgatorio, in which the pilgrim and Virgil
frequently turn, the reader can distinguish the physical turning in the lit-
eral text from the act that it signifies in the underlying allegorical sense.
The persistent mention of turning and changing of direction, rather than
requiring the reader to keep track of whether the pilgrim has turned to the
right and is thus facing in a westward or eastward direction, for example,
functions rather as a cue to the reader that the purgatorial process is con-
cerned with turning and reorientation. The act of turning is the important
detail here, not the direction of the literal narrative, as the act of turning
alerts the reader to the nature of the purgatorial process that will culmi-
nate at the summit of Mount Purgatory and, in a church, culminates in the
Communion rite at the altar.
Because the pilgrim has turned around to face the light, there is a sub-
stantial difference in the way he sees the world. No longer are Christian
symbols misread or perverted as a result of shadows or darkness. The
pilgrim’s journey through the Purgatorio is devoid of the things that per-
verted the imagery of the church and all things holy. Here in the morning
hours, the eastern light illuminates everything in front of him. Since it
does not fall on his back, the problem of the shadow of self is eliminated. As
Cato points out, “the sun, which rises now, will show you how / this hill-
side can be climbed more easily” (“lo sol vi mosterrà, che surge omai, /
prendere il monte a più lieve salita” Purg. 1:107–8).
Within this metatextual construct, the pilgrim is thus moving toward
the morning light. Unimpaired by the visual impediments presented by
the disorientation inherent in movement away from the altar, the pilgrim
can now see the church and its attributes much more clearly. Thus in the
Purgatorio the presence of the church is consistently more recognizable.
Here the hymns ring true, the holy invocations are no longer garbled, and
images of the churches of Dante’s time come through loud and clear. The
pilgrimage that the church represents is now also more evident, as we see
that the movement toward the left has been corrected and the pilgrim’s
movement is more often associated with moving toward the right. Simi-
larly, the journey has been redirected and is now headed eastward. The
transgression of the westward journey, as well as the descent that it sig-
nals, is countered by the constant gaze toward the top of Mount Purgatory
and the journey to Jerusalem.
Having established the basic direction of this leg of the journey, Dante
then links it to both the Exodus journey and the paschal drama and to their
allegorical reiteration in the church as the canto closes with an act that is
easily read as a symbolic baptism.
Quando noi fummo là ’ve la rugiada

pugna col sole, per essere in parte
dove, ad orezza, poco si dirada,
ambo le mani in su l’erbetta sparte
soavamente ’l mio maestro pose:
ond’io, che fui accorto di sua arte,
porsi ver’ lui le guance lagrimose;

ivi mi fece tutto discoverto
quel color che l’inferno mi nascose.
(Purg. 1:121–29)
[When we had reached the point where dew contends

with sun and, under sea winds, in the shade,
wins out because it won’t evaporate,
my master gently placed both of his hands—
outspread—upon the grass; therefore, aware
of what his gesture and intention were,
I reached and offered him my tear-stained cheeks;
and on my cheeks, he totally revealed
the color that Inferno had concealed.]
John Ciardi sees the act as signifying baptism and places it within a greater
scheme in which the various sacraments of the Catholic Church are repre-
sented throughout the Purgatorio as the pilgrim progresses toward the
altar and eventually beyond where he is received into the “company of the
blessed.”5 Ciardi’s interpretation is but one of many that note the presence
of the mass within the purgatorial trek. Peter Hawkins, for example, offers
another interpretation that is also consistent with the existence of an un-
derlying narrative structure based on progression within a church. Placing
the washing within the context of the considerable role played by the lit-
urgy as a medium for personal transformation in the Purgatorio, Hawkins
characterizes the act as “a kind of Asperges Me” (256).6 Hawkins’s inter-
pretation, in particular, recognizes that the moment creates a hermeneutic
link between the literal text and the allegorical narrative.
In fact, both Ciardi’s and Hawkins’s interpretations are even more ten-
able when one considers them not as particular to the purgatorial leg of the
pilgrim’s journey but as forming part of a complete parallel narrative ex-
isting alongside or underlying the literal journey. The moment might just
as easily be interpreted in terms of reentering a church, coming back in
through the doors and touching one’s head with holy water, the reiteration
of baptism and a signal that this journey is symbolic, allegorical, and above
all a reiteration. The act is preparatory and marks the reiteration of a jour-
ney recalled textually as a reminder of both the time of day and the spatial
orientation for which the pilgrim has been preparing.
Già era ’l sole a l’orizzonte giunto
lo cui merïdian cerchio coverchia
Ierusalèm col suo più alto punto

(Purg. 2:1–3)
[By now the sun was crossing the horizon

of the meridian whose highest point
covers Jerusalem]
Dante might just as easily have said “dawn” rather than resort to a some-
what convoluted description. Yet the reference is more than mere affecta-
tion, for it is consistent with an increasingly evident project aimed at link-
ing the literal narrative to the underlying allegorical journey figured in a
church. Thus the start of the pilgrim’s journey is immediately linked to the
image of a Jerusalem bathed in the morning sun while Dante confirms his
protagonist’s status as a fellow traveler.
Noi eravam lunghesso mare ancora,
come gente che pensa a suo cammino,
che va col cuore e col corpo dimora.
(Purg. 2:10–12)
[We still were by the sea, like those who think

about the journey they will undertake,
who go in heart but in the body stay.]
The subsequent appearance of the ship of souls reminds the reader of
the allegorical process. Recalling both the Exodus journey and its fulfill-
ment in the Easter passion, their song, “In exitu Israel de Aegypto,” re-
minds the reader that this relationship is also allegorically represented
within the walls of the church and especially in the Easter mass, where the
Easter passion was, in Dante’s time, represented throughout the church.
Indeed, the church was the most common setting for representations of
the entire Easter story, from the crowds shouting “Crucify him,” through
Christ’s harrowing of hell, to Christ’s appearance outside the empty tomb.
The sign that the angel makes explicitly evokes the cross and, like the
cleansing that precedes it, recalls another gesture also associated with en-
tering a church. Similarly, the call to genuflect signals entry into a church
as Virgil instructs Dante, “Bend, bend your knees!” (“Fa, fa che le gino-
cchia cali” Purg. 2:28), reiterating an act commonly performed upon enter-
ing a church.
But the boat is the element that most closely links the purgatorial jour-
ney to the textual church. The angel’s vessel, associated obviously with
journeying, is also related allegorically to the church. In Christian symbol-
ism the church is the saving ark, prefigured in the story of Noah, fulfilled
in Christ’s choice of a fisherman on which to build his church, and com-
memorated both in the architecture of the church and in the ecclesiastic
architectural terminology that names the main corridor the nave. Virgil’s
comment that he and Dante are also pilgrims (“noi siam peregrin” Purg.
2:63) fuses the boat, the church, and the pilgrimage, confirming the her-
meneutic strategy behind this barrage of symbols.
The first two cantos, however, do not actually start the journey. Rather,
like the opening cantos of the Inferno, they serve almost as an overture, an
explanation of the situation and an interpretive key. Here again the open-
ing cantos situate the journey not only in terms of the literal narrative but
also, allegorically, in terms of its location vis-à-vis the mappa mundi and
the church. As in the Inferno, the real voyage does not start right away but
rather unfolds in the cantos that follow, reprising and expanding the cen-
tral motifs introduced in the overture.
Purgatorio 3, not surprisingly, reprises the pivotal elements introduced
in canto 1, as Virgil and Dante, along with the new arrivals, scatter and
begin their ascent. As the pilgrim and Virgil start out, the specific mention
of the sun’s position—”its rays were resting on my body” (“Lo sol, che
dietro fiammeggiava roggio, . . . ch’avëa in me de’ suoi raggi l’appoggio”
Purg. 3:16–18)—recalls the light play of canto 1 and underlines not only
the relationship between the literal narrative and allegorical eastward pro-
gression but also the relationship between the literal and allegorical levels
of the text. Moreover, the sun’s position reprises the reorientation exercise
of canto 1. Since it is morning, the pilgrim must be facing west. If he were
in a church at morning, this would mean that he was facing away from the
altar. The matter of direction is indeed at issue as Virgil voices a question:
“Or chi sa da qual man la costa cala,”
disse ’l maestro mio, fermando ’l passo,
“sì che possa salir chi va sanz’ ala?”
(Purg. 3:52–54)
[“Now who knows where, along this mountainside,”

my master, halting, asked, “one finds a rise
where even he who has no wings can climb?”]
But again a series of turns indicate that the pilgrim must and will reori-
ent himself. That the direction in which he will now be headed is a reversal
of the infernal journey away from the church, a journey in which “la
diritta via” had been lost, is made clear by the directions of the pilgrims he
encounters: “Come back, and move in our direction” (“Tornate . . . intrate

innanzi dunque” Purg. 3:102).
The episode demonstrates, of course, how Dante notes the difference
between himself and the shades. But it also provides a contrast to the literal
text of the Inferno in which the absence of light results in the absence of
shadows. On a metatextual level, however, it points to the light patterns at
play in Inferno 10 where Farinata’s westward direction casts a metatextual
shadow. Dante’s shadow recalls the blindness of selfishness and reminds
the reader of the light patterns in the metatextual church. When the pil-
grim turns and comes back, the blinding light of the church does create a
contrast with the darkness of the Inferno, but its role is also deictic, as
Dante is told to turn around—that is, to go in the direction that will keep
the shadow to his back instead of in front of him.
That these moments are preliminary and that the journey inside the
church has not yet properly commenced is signaled by the presence of
Manfred who, waiting outside the walls of purgatory proper, serves to lo-
cate the pilgrim and Virgil, who also have yet to actually start the journey
within the church. The light play and deictic indicators have been for the
benefit of the reader, functioning as a glossary or a primer of how to read
the journey that will follow. Like Dante’s symbolic act of baptism, the
opening cantos of the Purgatorio prepare the reader for the trek within the
church and down its center aisle.
The preliminaries continue in Purgatorio 4 as Virgil and Dante climb
yet again, rest facing east,7 and then glance up at the sun.8 But even as the
pilgrims remain outside the church, the climb inherent in this antepur-
gatory serves to link the narrative to the metatextual church, given that
so many of the churches of Dante’s time and in particular those on the
Francigena sat at the top of hills. Thus the climb up a series of steps or a
terraced ascent would be familiar to the medieval reader as the route to
Florence’s San Miniato al Monte, to which Dante will later make refer-
ence,9 and especially Santa Maria della Scala, the duomo of Siena. Indeed,
as the pilgrims continue through purgatory, more and more textual refer-
ence suggests that the Sienese cathedral was the model or at least the in-
spiration for the church that underlies the purgatorial trek.
The marginalization of the sinners in antepurgatory is accentuated not
only by the prayer for mercy that they sing, “Miserere” (Purg 5:24),10 but
also by the manner in which they sing it. The sinners here, cut off from
ritual, are singing in two choruses rather than with a single voice as is
more usual in the litany. Their lack of unity underlines the fact that they
remain outside the communion of souls and have not yet been welcomed
back into the unified Christian community.
The pilgrim’s encounter with Buonconte da Montefeltro demonstrates
the textual mechanics that drive the reversal process at play in the Pur-
gatorio. Buonconte tells of the postmortem struggle for his soul, similar to
the struggle recounted by the elder Montefeltro, Guido, in Inferno 26. The
accounts seem almost parallel, but there are crucial differences. In Buon-
conte’s case the forces of evil assumed his soul was theirs. The demons,
however, were wrong. The angels won and Buonconte was saved. In
Guido’s case the struggle was also between good and evil, but there the
angels lost the soul they presumed was theirs, as Lucifer drags Guido into
hell. Rather than seeing the episodes as parallel, it is more accurate to see
them as lying on opposing trajectories. In one the sinner is presumed saved
but ends up damned, in the other the sinner is presumed damned but ends
up saved. The purgatorial episode is a reversal of the infernal, and the pur-
pose is to demonstrate, microcosmically, a much larger process. The Mon-
tefeltro episodes synecdochically represent the larger relationship be-
tween the Inferno and the Purgatorio. At the same time, the chiastic
structure serves to remind the reader of the greater cruciform structure
that binds the entire work, much in the same way as do the intertwined
stories of Francis and Dominic in the Paradiso, as we have seen. Moreover,
the relationship defines the significance of the purgatorial journey in
terms of the pilgrim’s location in the metatextual church. Just as Guido’s
actions placed him in the Inferno in a location that corresponded to a place
beyond the church walls, so too is Buonconte’s location outside the walls.
However, Guido had his back to the altar and had turned away from the
church, while Buonconte in his final moment looked to Mary to save him
(Purg. 5:101) and is therefore on his way back in.
The reversal of the infernal direction is emphasized by the invective of
Purgatorio 6:127–50,11 which opposes and reverses the invective of In-
ferno 26:1–12. In the Inferno, the invective (“Godi, Fiorenza . . .”) preceded
the Montefeltro episode. In the Purgatorio, the invective (“Fiorenza mia
. . .”) follows. The placement of the invective suggests to the reader that the
reader is retracing his steps, revisiting territory already covered in the In-
ferno.
Although the Valley of the Princes remains outside purgatory proper
and thus outside the metatextual church, its inhabitants are still closer to
the church than those who have yet to turn back. Peter Hawkins likens the
valley to a monastic settlement in which “princes become monks, spending
their days in prayer, song, and the regulated labor of repentance. Thus as
the sun sets on the poet’s first day in Purgatory, he sees the princes inter-
rupt their sorrow over things done and left undone in order to sing the
evening antiphon ‘Salve Regina’” (259).12
As night falls in the valley and Dante and Virgil find themselves still
outside the confines of purgatory, the strains of the “Te lucis ante,” an-
other compline hymn,13 reach their ears. As the hymn finishes, Dante
alerts the reader once again to the hermeneutics of the text. Here, he says,
is where the veil grows “so very thin,” allowing the reader to see beyond
the signifier to catch a glimpse of the signified.
Aguzza qui, lettor, ben li occhi al vero,

ché ’l velo è ora ben tanto sottile,
certo che ’l trapassar dentro è leggero.
(Purg. 8:19–21)
[Here, reader, let your eyes look sharp at truth,

for now the veil has grown so very thin—
it is not difficult to pass within.]
Not only does Dante tell us that the episode that follows is allegory but
he suggests that the entirety of the text may be allegorical. The veil is not
limited to the episode in question; quite the contrary. It just becomes more
transparent than elsewhere. The reader is urged to look beyond the nar-
rated events and to consider what they are intended to signify. Thus when
the two angels descend and land so as to flank the souls camping in the
valley, the reader is urged to consider what Dante is representing by their
descent and by their position. The keen reader notes that they form a gate-
way between them, one reminiscent of the gateway of Gibraltar that was
guarded by a pagan colossus. And since Dante has already deftly created a
contrast between the angel’s wings and the “folle volo,” the keen reader
will also remember that just as Ulysses’ departure through the gate meant
his demise, reversing this trajectory back to Jerusalem spells salvation. But
the reader is also aware that the journey to Jerusalem is echoed in the
cruciform church. Thus the Pillars of Hercules correspond to the western
doors of an eastern-oriented church. And just as the western movement
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar is remedied by a return to the Mediterra-
nean, so too can the sinner be rehabilitated by return to the church. The
compline hymn is thus the clue that beneath the veil of the journey lie two
other signifiers, the journey to Jerusalem and the cruciform church, both
of which, in turn, are also signifiers for the cross, itself both icon and sym-
bol of redemption.
The appearance of the serpent continues the allegory. Its appearance is
not unanticipated. Sordello explains to Dante that the angels guard against
the regular appearance of this serpent (Purg. 8:37–39), making explicit the
allegorical nature of the episode. Its perpetual repetition makes it thus “re-
presentation,” underlining Dante’s earlier advice to the reader that this
episode, as well as others, is allegorical. Peter Hawkins suggests that
through this nightly performance Dante is able to demonstrate “the power
of ritual to foster a separation from secular reality, to inaugurate life in the
realm of the sacred” (260). The reiterative pageant is, therefore, crucial to
the preliminary stages of this journey, as it underlines the role of represen-
tation and reiteration in Christian worship. Such representation and reit-
eration is similarly present in the reiteration of the cross in pilgrimage and
the reiteration of pilgrimage, and therefore the cross, in the church. It is
the resultant shared meaning that Dante acknowledges when he states,
“I am still within the first life—although, by this journeying / I earn the
other” (“sono in prima vita, / ancor che l’altra, sì andando, acquisti” Purg.
8:59–60).
The statement and the pageant taken together form an interpretive key
and serve as an apt introduction to the next canto, where the purgatorial
journey begins in earnest. As Dante enters purgatory proper, the reader
may equally understand that Dante’s upward trek reverses the infernal
westward journey and finds its parallel not only in the journey to Jerusa-
lem but also in the return to the altar.
Indeed, reiteration is highlighted as Dante repeats in many ways the
introductory cantos of the canticle. Once again it is morning. Once again
the scene evokes the east, as once again Dante orients the reader through
the use of a textual cue.
La concubina di Titone antico
già s’imbiancava al balco d’orïente,
fuor de le braccia del suo dolce amico
(Purg. 9:1–3)
[Now she who shares the bed of old Tithonus,

abandoning the arms of her sweet lover,
grew white along the eastern balcony]
We see now that the first few cantos have served as an overture, intro-
ducing the themes that will follow and instructing the reader on how to
read. Prepared to read the journey as a return to the altar and prepared
equally to read the various narrative elements, the reader cannot help but
wonder what is signified by the dream of the eagle that brings Dante to the
gate.
in sogno mi parea veder sospesa
un’aguglia nel ciel con penne d’oro,
con l’ali aperte e a calare intesa
(Purg. 9:19–21)
[in dream I seemed to see an eagle poised,

with golden pinions, in the sky: its wings
were open; it was ready to swoop down.]
The answer will be somewhat more clear to those familiar with Florence
and the entrance to San Miniato al Monte (fig. 4). This church that sits on
a steep hill on the south bank of the Arno is topped by an eagle,14 providing
an appropriate image with which to link the pilgrim’s journey to a church.
The location of the church, at the top of a steep climb, and the location of
the eagle, at the top of the church, also makes it the perfect symbol for
Dante’s rapture as the eagle lifts him up into the heavens.
Poi mi parea che, poi rotata un poco,

terribil come folgor discendesse,
e me rapisse suso infino al foco.
(Purg. 9:28–30)
[Then it seemed to me that, wheeling

slightly and terrible as lightning, it
swooped, snatching me up to the fire’s orbit.]
The pilgrim awakens from the dream and finds he is indeed at the gate
of purgatory and ready to enter the metatextual church figured in the
opening cantos of the canticle. With his entry to purgatory, the pilgrim
starts in earnest his retracing of the infernal journey. The gate to purga-
tory thus represents a counterpart or correction of the door that led out of
the church, the gate to Dis. Here, in contrast to the harpies who tried to
keep Dante out, an angel uses Peter’s two keys— “These I received from
Peter” (“Da Pier le tegno” Purg. 9:127)—to open the gate and allow the
pilgrim back in. Here too, the direction of the pilgrim is crucial. The
gatekeeper’s warning recalls the porta that greeted the pilgrim at the start
of the Inferno, but it also warns him against looking back, and thus evokes
Figure 4. Façade, San Miniato al Monte, Florence. Photo by author.
the figures of Lot’s wife and Orpheus and emphasizes that the direction of
one’s gaze is essential to the choice between damnation and salvation, be-
tween regaining and losing that which is precious.
Intrate; ma facciovi accorti
che di fuor torna chi ’n dietro si guata.
(Purg. 9:131–32)
[Enter; but I warn you—he

who would look back, returns—again—outside.]
The pilgrim chooses salvation. The hymn “Te deum laudamus” (Purg.
9:140) marks the progress of the mass and also links the literal narrative to
the metatextual.
Tale imagine a punto mi rendea

ciò ch’io udiva, qual prender si suole
quando a cantar con organi si stea;
ch’or sì or no s’intendon le parole.
(Purg. 9:142–45)
[And what I heard gave me the very same

impression one is used to getting when
one hears a song accompanied by organ,
and now the words are clear and now are lost.]
The statement makes it clear though that the church that Dante is con-
structing is not intended to supplant the narrative but rather to give shape
to it. In this respect, it functions as an exegetical device to help the reader
see what lies beyond the veil. The more the reader begins to see the affini-
ties between Dante’s narrative and progress in a church, the more the
reader will be able to make out the shape of the journey and thus under-
stand not only its meaning but its very nature. For Dante, the allegorical
and the literal coexist,15 just as they did in the scriptures, and it is the
experience of the church that facilitates the reader’s understanding of the
deeper significance of the literal narrative.
The reversal of the Inferno that the Purgatorio comprises is evident in
the sonorous quality of the hymns heard throughout the canticle in con-
trast to the cacophony in hell. In particular, the praise of God contained in
the Te Deum contrasts with the obscenities hurled at God by Vanni Fucci
in Inferno 25: “Take that, o God; I square them off for you!” (“Togli, Dio,
ch’a te le squadro!” Inf. 25:3). Structurally, the Vanni Fucci episode falls
just before the Ulysses episode (Inferno 27), with Ulysses’ final westward
exit from the cruciform of the Mediterranean. Its opposite, then, would fall
just inside the first boundary within purgatory, which is precisely where
we find the praise of God. Thus Dante’s entry into purgatory also lies op-
posite Ulysses’ damnation.
These two moments interact in much the same way as do the episodes
of Guido da Montefeltro in Inferno 27 and Buonconte da Montefeltro in
Purgatorio 5. Similarly, the contrast between the praise of the Purgatorio
and the blasphemy of the Inferno is particularly striking when considered
in the context of the parallel invectives against Florence in Inferno 26 and
Purgatorio 6. A close inspection of these sets of related episodes suggests
that the farther the pilgrim’s progress takes the reader through purgatory,
the farther back in hell he will find a parallel episode. The forward move-
ment in the Purgatorio counters the backward movement in the Inferno.
The contrast continues to emphasize the very nature of the purgatorial

journey as a reversal of the infernal journey. And the chiastic structure
created by the relationship adds to the increasing number of crosses em-
bedded subtly in the fabric of the Commedia.
As Dante enters purgatory through a door that he describes as “that
needle’s eye” (“quella cruna” Purg. 10:16), the reversal is once again sub-
tly present. As we saw in chapter 3, the reference recalls an obelisk that
stood in front of St. Peter’s at the time of the Jubilee of 1300. Pilgrims in
preparation for their visit to the basilica squeezed through a hole at its
base, believing this would bring salvation. The reference to the “eye of the
needle” then links the entry into purgatory with the entry to heaven, that
is, the gates of St. Peter’s. But it also links pilgrimage to entry into churches
and to the allegorical significance of progression within the church. Dante
thus passes through the eye of the needle in order to formally enter the
church. The reference also corresponds, in reverse, to the subtle allusion in
Inferno 23 to the church of Domine Quo Vadis,16 which marked departure
from Rome much as arrival is here denoted by allusion to the obelisk.
Dante now stands at the true starting point of his pilgrimage. He has
bathed, he has robed himself with signs of humility, and he is now set to
walk down the nave of this metatextual church that reiterates the journey
to the Holy City.
And what a church it is! Its sculpted panels, impressively lifelike,17 re-
call the many marvelous sculpted works of the Pisano brothers through-
out Tuscany, while its floor18 reminds the reader of San Miniato al Monte.
The confluence of the panels and the inlaid floors recalls definitively one of
the most significant churches on the Francigena pilgrimage route, Santa
Maria della Scala, the eastward-oriented duomo of Siena.19 For a number
of reasons, it ought not to be surprising that the duomo should provide the
inspiration for the metatextual church that Dante is constructing. Though
not stated explicitly by Dante, its cruciform plan and eastward orientation,
together with its rose windows, provide the perfect physical manifestation
of the light play that has so far been described in detail. While the same
could be said of San Miniato and many of the churches along Dante’s road,
the duomo of Siena lies directly on the Francigena pilgrimage route to
Rome. Thus the cathedral is an integral part of the trip to heaven, whether
heaven manifests itself as Rome (the New Jerusalem) or as Jerusalem it-
self. The duomo of Siena, moreover, was planned to emulate the Temple at
Jerusalem, whose storiated pavement was legendary, recreating for wor-
shippers and pilgrims a visit to the Temple of antiquity.20
The decoration of this terrace aspires to a similar purpose, forging a
Figure 5. Floor of duomo of Siena (detail). By permission of Art Resource.
further affinity between Dante’s textual church and the medieval church,
and more specifically with the Sienese cathedral. The three panels that
confront the pilgrim in canto 10, for example, associate the purgative jour-
ney with the trip to Jerusalem just as the church at Siena associates
progress along its nave with the trip to Jerusalem. But in order to ascertain
this meaning one must dispense with reading the panels in succession. In-
deed, Dante’s description of them suggests that they ought not to be read
as text but rather as “visibile parlare” (Purg 10:95), a visual image. As such,
they form a typical triptych formation, a common sight in a medieval
church and one in which the focus is on the middle panel.
Read this way, the panels depict the translation of the ark to Jerusalem,
the Annunciation, and Trajan securing justice for a widow. All three epi-
sodes comment on the figure of the Holy City, as we saw in chapter 3. But
the triptych’s location here reminds the reader not only of typical church
décor but also of the particularly marvelous work of Nicola Pisano that
graces the interior of the Siena duomo.
It is also worth noting that the inhabitant of this terrace who delivers
the prophecy of Dante’s exile,21 Provenzano Salvani, is a Sienese, which is
particularly striking given that Dante was in Siena when he learned of his
exile (Browning 30). It is, therefore, in Siena that Dante’s own purgatorial
wandering starts. Siena is the place where Dante had to make a decision: to
slip back into the hell of local Ghibelline-Guelph fighting,22 or to purge the
sins to which he had been a party and move on.
While the autobiographical implications of the Sienese source are sub-
stantial and will be examined below, in terms of the metatextual church
that Dante is building, the textual clues pointing to Siena suggest that
Dante has adopted the shape and orientation of this church whose interior
was well known to those on the road to Rome or Jerusalem. He has also
fused the physical historical pilgrimage of the Middle Ages with the struc-
ture designed to facilitate an allegorical reiteration of that journey.
The recitation of a prayer based loosely on the Paternoster, “O Padre
nostro, che ne’ cieli stai . . .” (Purg. 11:1–24), continues to associate the
journey with the mass, while the connection of the narrative to the actual
church structure is reinforced by likening it to the ascent to San Miniato in
Florence (Purg. 12:100–105),23 a reference that would seem to confirm that
the earlier dream of the eagle was indeed intended to bring San Miniato to
mind. The episode closes with still another hymn, “Beati pauperes
spiritu,”24 reinforcing the presence of the church in the pilgrim’s progress.
The terrace of envy moves the sinner farther along in the church in
preparation for the approach to the altar and to what Dante refers to as the
“feast of love” (“la mensa d’amor” Purg. 13:27). The purgatorial process is
thus likened to the liturgical preparation for the celebration of the Eucha-
rist. The reference “Vinum non habent” (Purg. 13:29) recalls Christ turn-
ing water into wine at Cana, a miracle that prefigured the Eucharist.25 The
reference from the Gospel of John corresponds to that portion of the mass
in which the gospel is read in preparation for the Eucharist.
Following the liturgy of the word comes the sermon, here borrowed
heavily from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, as the sinners are instructed
to love their enemies.26 The sermon is followed by a prayer to Mary and all
the saints,27 a prayer that also precedes the Eucharist.
But it is not only the mass that takes place in the building on which
Dante intends the reader to focus. As he compares the envious to the beg-
gars who wait outside churches on feast days,28 Dante reminds the reader
once again of the physical existence and attributes of the structure in
which the mass takes place.
The church in which Dante’s mass is being celebrated is not, therefore,
just on the mountain but also in the churches of medieval Italy. Readers
picturing the beggar will also picture the building, the appearance of the
churches they know firsthand. But the reference to indulgences also links
churches to pilgrimages, one of the purposes of which is forgiveness of
sins. The Jubilee of 1300, taking place at the same time as the literal narra-
tive, was particularly generous in this respect. So Dante, through a series
of textual references, draws the reader’s mind first to the mass, then to the
building in which it takes place, then to the indulgences one might gain
through pilgrimage to that building. Finally, Sapia of Siena’s metaphor—
she refers to having lived as a pilgrim (“vivesse in Italian peregrina” Purg.
13:96)—ensures that the reader will make the necessary association be-
tween the church, life, pilgrimage, and the trek that Dante traces in the
poem.
The church is recalled as well in Dante’s time reference as he reaches the
next terrace—”vespers was there” (“vespero là” Purg. 15:6)—and in the
hymns that greet him,29 and in the loose rewording of the Sermon on the
Mount that follows.30
As Dante continues through purgatory, a series of visions not only recalls
scenes from biblical history but brings to mind various lives of saints and
scenes from the Bible depicted in the churches of Dante’s time. The episode
from the childhood of Christ (Purg. 15:85–93, from Luke 2:41–49) and espe-
cially the stoning of St. Stephen (Purg. 15:106–13, from Acts 7:54–60) were
common motifs. Their inspiration may have come from any of the churches,
such as the Arena Chapel, into which Dante surely wandered in his exile.
Following the sermon, the preparation for the Eucharist begins with
the repetition of the Agnus Dei (Purg. 16:19).31 And as the moment ap-
proaches in which the participant comes closer to the altar to receive the
host, the pilgrim in the literal narrative encounters smoke that recalls
the incense that wafts over the host before Communion.
Dante’s vision of the cross, “one who was crucified” (“un crucifisso”
Purg. 17:26), signals the pilgrim’s approach to the altar, where one typi-
cally encounters a cross in a medieval church. The cross of the vision,
moreover, is not simply a cruciform artifact but, like many of the crosses of
Dante’s time, is a narrative vessel painted with stories from the Bible and
from the lives of saints.32 Dante’s vision of the cross recalls this common
art form, but the fact that it is a vision rather than an actual physical cross
alerts the reader that another layer of text exists in addition to literal nar-
rative. In much the same way as Dante earlier explained that the descent of
the angel to kill the serpent was allegorical, the “vision” of the cross sug-
gests again that the literal is not the only narrative with which the reader
ought to be concerned.
Dante’s dream of the siren serves a similar function, as it reminds the
reader of how to read this voyage. The siren, a character from the Odys-
sey—”I turned aside Ulysses, although he / had longed to journey” (“Io
volsi Ulisse del suo cammin vago” Purg. 19:22)—presents the synecdochi-
cal representation of all that is false about Ulysses’ journey. In the revela-
tion of her true nature, she also reveals the uglier side of Ulysses. His
seemingly heroic resistance to her song is just another example of the
trickery for which he is renowned. In reality, as we have seen, he could no
more resist the siren song than the next man. Similarly, his boat—from a
Christian perspective a fallible, vulnerable, and corruptible craft—sails in
stark contrast to the boat of the church. In turning away from the Ulyssean
character, Dante gains advancement and his gaze is realigned.
Bastiti, e batti a terra le calcagne;
li occhi rivolgi al logoro che gira
lo rege etterno con le rote magne.
(Purg. 19:61–63)
[Let that suffice, and hurry on your way;

fasten your eyes upon the lure that’s spun
by the eternal King with His great spheres.]
Ulysses’ boat leads only to death, but its opposite, the Christian boat, the
nave of the church, will bring salvation. Dante’s dream reiterates that the
purgatorial journey subverts the imagery associated with the Ulyssean
journey and thus rights the boat that was bound for destruction. The
dream purges the pilgrim of his remaining Ulyssean proclivities and al-
lows him to adopt the obedient flight of a bird of prey mastered by a
greater power. In contrast to the “folle volo” of Ulysses, Dante now hun-
gers not for knowledge but for the flesh of Christ, present in the transub-
stantiation of the Eucharist mystery.
Quale ’l falcon, che prima a’ piè si mira,
indi si volge al grido e si protende
per lo disio del pasto che là il tira,
tal mi fec’io
(Purg. 19:64–67)
[Just like a falcon, who at first looks down,

then, when the falconer has called, bends forward,
craving the food that’s ready for him there,
so I became]
While the presence of Pope Hadrian adds to the liturgical atmosphere of
the episode, it is the presence of the penitents that most effectively re-
minds the reader of the metatextual church. The approach to the altar is
strongly signaled by the prostration of the sinners uttering the ritual “My
soul cleaves to the dust” (“Adhaesit pavimento anima mea” Purg. 19:73).
Epitomizing the demonstrations of piety common in the Middle Ages, this
dramatic act of humility creates a convenient segue into the next canto,
where the avaricious are humbled and purged.
Here the juxtaposition of Dante’s cursing of the she-wolf and the cries
of “Sweet Mary” (“Dolce Maria!” Purg. 20:19) reflects the medieval di-
chotomy attaching to women, presenting the reader with two contrasting
views, the whore of the Inferno and the Madonna of the Paradiso, and
revealing the Virgin Mary to be the correction of the lascivious she-wolf.
The presence of St. Nicholas (Purg. 20:32) together with the image of
Mary emphasizes the strong presence in medieval churches of images of
saints, where hagiographical portraits not only contained likenesses but
served as repositories of narrative. Specific details in the paintings revealed
the saints’ patronage, their means of death, and other attributes. Here in
Dante’s metatextual church, the silent icon becomes a talking picture, as
the “visibile parlare” serves to remind the reader that Dante is giving
voice, verbal expression, to the pictorial allegory with which the reader has
by now become familiar.
The allusive nature of Dante’s discourse, with its mention of Judas,33
and the references to Christ’s crucifixion,34 thus becomes more than a
mere political statement: it becomes also a reminder of the Easter mass
that is taking place in the metatextual church that Dante is constructing.
At the same time, mention of the spread of wings (“ali”) is yet another
instance of Dante’s continual association of wings with the church/boat.
The evocation of the Easter story—told, however, through the Stations
of the Cross, which in turn reiterate the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem—reas-
serts the commonalities of the church, Jerusalem, and Dante’s poem. The
fusion of these journeys is reinforced by the references to the life of Christ
woven by Dante into the text. The reference to the Blessed Mary followed
immediately by a reference to childbirth recalls the Nativity (“as / a
woman would outcry in labor pains” (“così nel pianto / come fa donna in
parturir sia” Purg. 20:20–21), as does the cry of “Glory in excelsis Deo”
(Purg. 20:136).35 The references together create a Nativity motif that, in
the context of the references to the death and resurrection, completes a
cycle of the life of Christ and suggests as well the textual imposition of a
cycle that in most churches found its expression in the pictorial or plastic
arts. Specifically, it recalls Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Arena Chapel,
though the cycle as a genre was not unique to Giotto or to Padua.
As the pilgrim and Virgil enter the circle of the avaricious, two refer-
ences—to the Samaritan woman who begged “water that gives grace” of
our Lord (“l’acqua onde la femminetta / samaritana domandò la gra-
zia”(Purg. 21:2–3) at Jacob’s well (John 4:6–15), and to the risen Christ’s
apparition on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–15)36—continue to weave
the life of Christ through the text and at the same time create a meta-
textual topography featuring the significant places of a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land. Yet their evocation of the cycle genre also suggests progression
in a church, itself a representation of the journey depicted in its décor.
Still closer to the altar, the whip of gluttony prepares the pilgrim for the
feast of Christ’s flesh, admonishing those who hunger for earthly food,
while references to wine and the prefiguration of the Eucharist further
prepare the reader for the Eucharist celebration. John the Baptist is praised
for eating only what was necessary for survival, and the wedding at Cana
is used to point out that Mary cared more for the honor of the wedding
feast than for her own mouth. Daniel’s abstention from the king’s wine is
lauded, contrasting the wine of an earthly king with the wine of a heavenly
king. Similarly, gluttony itself is contrasted with the consumption of the
host as the fasting before the Eucharist is recalled in the emaciation of the
gluttons, itself a microcosmic representation of the fasting endured by pil-
grims.
The fusion of pilgrimage and the mass is emphasized again in quick
succession through the singing of the hymn “Labïa mëa, Domine”37 (Purg
23:11) and then the comparison of the souls to pilgrims.
Sí come i peregrin pensosi fanno,

giugnendo per cammin gente non nota
(Purg. 23:16–17)
[Even as pensive pilgrims do, who when

they’ve overtaken folk unknown to them]
As the pilgrims move closer to the altar, the confluence of the church,
the boat, and the journey is once again evoked as Dante says they moved
“like a boat a fair wind drives” (“come nave pinta da buon vento” Purg.
24:3).
The reversal of the infernal journey is reinforced as Dante and Virgil
encounter Bonagiunta of Lucca. The moment corresponds in inverse fash-
ion to that moment in the Inferno where the sinners were warned that
they were in the wrong place to see the Volto Santo. A soul from Lucca,
combined with references to pilgrimage and to the creation of the face of
man by God himself, evokes the image of pilgrimage to Lucca to see the
face of God, the Volto Santo, created by man. Pilgrimage is thus a micro-
cosm of the ultimate journey, where man will see the face of God, not a
likeness in a church., and the journey to the earthly Jerusalem is a micro-
cosm of the journey to the heavenly City of God. The allegorical pilgrim-
age to Lucca, then, is similar to the allegorical pilgrimage that the poem
creates: it reiterates the journey to Jerusalem and, consequently, shares
meaning with it. Like the Volto Santo, it is as close as man—in this case,
Dante—can come to bringing the face of God to his readers.
Indeed, Dante rarely lets this journey escape his reader’s mind. As the
pilgrims arrive in the circle of the lustful, they sing a hymn begging for
clemency for their sins.38 Then they praise Mary, the paragon of chastity.39
Not only does Mary’s chastity serve as a corrective model for the lustful,
but its mention initiates a series of associations that link the action of the
narrative to the allegorical pilgrimage in a metatextual church that Dante
seeks to evoke. Since Mary’s chastity is integral to the miraculous nature
of Christ’s birth, it, along with the very mention of Mary, reprises the
Nativity motif. Within the context of pilgrimage, the double veneration of
Mary and of the Nativity is specifically associated with the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore in Rome. In addition to its being specifically designed to
reiterate the journey to and within Jerusalem, the church was likewise vis-
ited by pilgrims adoring the relic of the manger displayed beneath the al-
tar. Thus the reprise of the Nativity motif draws the reader’s mind not only
to Jerusalem but also to its re-creation and reiteration in that church of the
New Jerusalem and more specifically to the altar in that church. The Na-
tivity and the culmination of the Advent season that it marks prepare the
reader and the pilgrim for the Second Coming and for the affirmation that
accompanies the mystery of faith recited at the Eucharist, “Christ will
come again.”
The approach to the altar is similarly signaled as the pilgrim sees
“flames” suggesting candles, in the same way that earlier the incense
wafted down the aisle toward him. The pilgrim must not tarry, but rather
he must pass through these flames, which also correspond to the rood
screen found in many medieval churches, representing the point beyond

which only the initiated may pass.
In a liminal moment reminiscent of Moses’ confrontation with the
burning bush, Dante walks through the wall of fire, marking yet another
crossing, commemorated by the hymn “Venite, benedicti Patris mei”
(Purg. 27:59) that accompanies this moment. Its words, “Come ye blessed
of my father,” hint also at the Hosanna, “blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord,” sung in preparation for the Eucharist.
That this is a new beginning and a moment reiterative of the entire
purgatorial journey is made clear through the time of day and the light
play that Dante incorporates into the moment. Dante emerges from the
fire to the first rays of the morning sun. Once again the mention of the
east and the planet Venus brings the reader back to the opening moments
of the Purgatorio.
Ne l’ora, credo, che de l’orïente,
prima raggiò nel monte Citerea,
che di foco d’amor par sempre ardente
(Purg. 27:94–96)
[It was the hour, I think, when Cytherea,

who always seems aflame with fires of love,
first shines upon the mountains from the east]
Bathed in the eastern light, Virgil and Dante then climb stairs. Above
them heaven’s dome corresponds to the many cupolas found directly
above the altar and in many of the churches of the Veneto,40 where Dante
found himself writing the Purgatorio and then the Paradiso. It is here that
Dante is crowned and mitered over himself, precisely at that place in the
church where coronations occur. The political connotations are astonish-
ing, but on a subliterary level the appearance of the miter reveals that this
is more than a church, that it is a cathedral in which Dante has become
bishop. The church he has built, the cathedra he occupies and from which
he preaches, is his Commedia.
The appearance of Beatrice, whose arrival is seen as prefiguring the sec-
ond coming of Christ, also locates the reader at the altar, since it is here that
Christ’s enduring presence is commemorated, here that his second coming
is anticipated in the Eucharist mystery. Though she is riding in a chariot,
Dante describes Beatrice in naval terms, as being like an admiral taking his
place at the stern or bow (“Quasi ammiraglio che in poppa e i prora/viene”
Purg. 30:58–59). The naval imagery recalls that the ship is both a figure for
the institution of the Church and the structure to which much church ar-
chitecture is attributable.
Moreover, that Beatrice is either at the stern or the prow of this ship
reiterates the choice inherent in the location. At the transept or crossroads,
one can go either backward toward damnation or forward in pursuit of
salvation. From this point on, the pilgrim, having returned to the altar,
looks upward and allows the light of the sun to shine on his face. As Dante
enters into the earthly paradise, he is welcomed into a garden reminiscent
of Ravenna’s church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, in which the apse is
decorated in a garden motif (figs. 12 and 13) and to which Dante makes an
oblique reference in his description of the garden.
tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
per la pineta in su ’l lito di Chiassi.
(Purg. 28:19–20)
[just like the wind that sounds from branch to branch

along the shore of Classe, through the pines.]
Once Dante crosses this barrier into earthly paradise, the resemblance
to the churches of Ravenna becomes even more acute. The altar is, after all,
the entryway to heaven. It signals communion with Christ, and in terms of
the architecture of the church it is found on that trajectory that creates the
cross with the nave. It is, therefore, the crossroads, the center. It is the
earthly Jerusalem from which the journey to the heavenly Jerusalem be-
gins. In the medieval church this is the last place where the layperson can
enter. Beyond it lies the choir and the sanctuary.
Here at the altar, the singing of the Hosanna (Purg. 29:51) recalls the
celebration of the Eucharist, as it signals the coming of Christ.41 Although
many critics have noted the similarity between this episode and the sacra
rappresentazione of Dante’s time, it is important to distinguish between
the procession on the literal level and the allegorical metatextual level at
which it hints.
While the representation and obvious theatricality of the moment is
consistent with the dramatic elements incorporated into the Holy Week
observances, on an even deeper level the procession embodies, in living
form, the significance of the various decorative elements of the medieval
church. For example, the pilgrim first sees candles or, more precisely, can-
delabra.
Poco più oltre, sette alberi d’oro
falsava nel parere il lungo tratto
del mezzo ch’era ancor tra noi e loro;
ma quand’i’ fui sì presso di lor fatto,
che l’obietto comun, che ’l senso inganna,
non perdea per distanza alcun suo atto,
la virtù ch’a ragion discorso ammanna,
sì com’ elli eran candelabri apprese
(Purg. 29:43–50)
[Not far beyond, we made out seven trees

of gold, though the long stretch of air between
those trees and us had falsified their semblance;
but when I’d drawn so close that things perceived
through mingled senses, which delude, did not,
now they were nearer, lose their real features,
the power that offers reason matter judged
those trees to be—what they were—candelabra]
The procession itself brings to life much of the decoration found in the
churches that Dante visited in his lifetime. The four beasts representing
the four gospels are typical of the allegorical representations of the Middle
Ages, such as the mosaics in San Vitale in Ravenna. Yet Dante creates a
living tableau and brings to life the common iconography of the church
with his depiction of Luke as the author of Acts and Paul, carrying a blade,
as the author of the fourteen epistles.
In many cases the images recall churches that Dante visited later in his
life, toward the end of his own journey of purgation. Dante’s description of
the elders, for example, recalls Venice’s cathedral of San Marco, where the
dome of the Pentecost shows the apostles with tongues of flames jutting
out of their heads.
E questi sette col primaio stuolo
erano abitüati, ma di gigli
dintorno al capo non facëan brolo,
anzi di rose e d’altri fior vermigli;
giurato avria poco lontano aspetto
che tutti ardesser di sopra da’ cigli.
(Purg. 29:145–50)
[The clothes these seven wore were like the elders’

in the first file, except that these had no
garlands of lilies round their brow; instead,
roses and other red flowers wreathed their heads;
one seeing them less closely would have sworn
that all of them had flames above their eyebrows.]
The cart on which Christ appears is also reminiscent of the many repre-
sentations of the Last Judgment in the Veneto churches, and in Torcello’s
duomo in particular, in which Christ appears on a wheeled cart. The pag-
eant also bears a resemblance to the mosaics at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in
Ravenna (Hawkins 290–91). The possibility of other sources for the im-
ages,42 though less tenable, nonetheless underlines the extent to which the
imagery of the Purgatorio intends the reader to link the pilgrim’s journey
to progress in a church.
The liturgical mood is heightened by the hymns that seem to summon
Christ himself. The “Veni, sponsa” (Purg. 30:11),43 the singing of “Alle-
luia” (“alleluiando” Purg. 30:15), the continuation of the Hosanna, “Bene-
dictus qui venis” (Purg. 30:19),44 together with “In te, Domine, speravi”
(Purg. 30:83) as far as the words “pedes meos” (Purg. 30:84),45 serve to link
this moment to the mass being celebrated in the metatextual church.
Christ, or his figura, has arrived at the moment and in the place where he
is present in the Eucharist.
In this church, then, Dante has in essence arrived at the starting point of
his voyage to the inferno. Although in his textual narrative he is at the
antipodes of Jerusalem, this antipodal relationship serves as a textual clue
to the reversal of the infernal journey that the purgatorial trek com-
prises. That we are at a crossroads from which progress forward or pro-
gress backward are both possible is evident in Dante’s backward glance as
he meets Beatrice. But his orientation is predestined and Beatrice quickly
corrects him. At the sound of her voice he turns around, promptly correct-
ing the backward glance at a now departed Virgil (Purg. 30:60–64). Turning
toward Beatrice means looking forward, to the east, to the light, to the
apse.
The pilgrim is now back where he started, but he has been reoriented,
and rather than taking him away from the altar, removing him from Com-
munion, this trajectory will take him beyond it and up into heaven for the
true communion that the Eucharist merely prefigures. The similarity in
the imagery at the start of the Inferno and at the apex of Mount Purgatory,
noted by Amilcare Iannucci,46 is thus logical, for in effect both trips start
from this point. Similarly, the confluence of Dante’s story and the univer-
sal, frequently noted,47 is consistent with the cruciform structure in which
the “road of our life” might be seen as a horizontal journey, corresponding
to the transept in a church, the point from which Dante departs to make his
descent. His ascent back through purgatory thus returns him to that origi-
nal trajectory, bringing him back to the collective from which he departed.
Indeed, if one considers the layout of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, a
Dominican church frequented by Dante, such a configuration is even more
tenable, given that the church, in Dante’s time and to this day, is entered
from the side. Worshippers entering the church first walk across the tran-
sept and then must turn to the right in order to glimpse the altar or turn
left to walk down the nave to join the rest of the congregation. Thus
Dante’s starting point at the beginning of the Commedia would put him
precisely in that part of the church from which one can move toward the
altar or away from it. Moreover, such a correspondence would equally lo-
cate Dante in Florence at the start of his descent, just as the textual cues of
the circle of pride will locate him in Siena at the start of his own personal
journey of purgation. Purgatorio 31, therefore, celebrates the return to the
body of the church and represents the culminating moment in the mass
when the sinner takes Communion. The ceremonial baptism signaled by
the hymn “Asperges me”48 (Purg. 31:98) prepares Dante for the Commun-
ion that follows as he drinks the waters of Lethe (Purg. 31:99).
The direction of the pageant also recalls the pilgrimage journey reiter-
ated in the metatextual church. It came originally from the east. It passes
Dante, executes a right turn, and then returns to face the east again (Purg.
32:16–18). In that moment Beatrice invokes both Jerusalem and Rome, the
New Jerusalem, reminding the reader of the ultimate significance of the
journey within the church.
Qui sarai tu poco tempo silvano;
e sarai meco sanza fine cive
di quella Roma onde Cristo è romano.
(Purg. 32:100–102)
[Here you shall be—awhile—a visitor;

but you shall be with me—and without end—
Rome’s citizen, the Rome in which Christ is
Roman.]
The reader is further reminded of the significance of Jerusalem to Rome
and the Church when, after the rappresentazione of the woes of the
Church, the papacy, and its entanglement in secular politics, the next canto
opens with a traditional lament for the destruction of Jerusalem,49 “Deus
venerunt gentes”(Purg. 33:1). From a structural perspective, the reference,
located precisely at the juncture of the two arms of the cross on medieval
maps and at the intersection of nave and transept in the church, connects
Jerusalem and the altar.
The potential presence of the True Cross in the form of the Tree of Good
and Evil50 emphasizes the presence of the cross as the foundation of the
church and of the world. That Dante is at the foot of the cross is also sug-
gested textually through a reference to Mary that locates her at the foot of
the cross:
e Bëatrice, sospirosa e pia,

quelle ascoltava sì fatta, che poco
più a la croce si cambiò Maria.
(Purg. 33:4–6)
[sighing and full of pity, Beatrice

was changed; she listened, grieving little less
than Mary when, beneath the Cross, she wept.]
Here progression in the church and pilgrimage are fused as Dante locates
himself at the altar where the relics are typically located. He has, allegori-
cally, reached Jerusalem.
che si reca il bordon di palma cinto
(Purg. 33:78)
[just as
the pilgrim’s staff is brought back wreathed with palm]
The presence of the cross facilitates this ubication. While crosses might
be found throughout the churches of the Middle Ages, the main cross was
located at the intersection of the two trajectories, the nave and the transept,
standing on the altar or suspended in the apse. In either case, the location
of the cross reiterates the position of the altar and Jerusalem, emphasizing
their common unifying substructure.
Although the connection here is between Jerusalem and the institution
of the Church, the effect is nonetheless one that reminds the reader that
this journey is being played out within the building of the church. Dante’s
ascent up the mountain has reversed the westward journey away from the
altar, and it has also brought him back from the crypt below it. Dante is
now one of the elect. He can ascend into heaven, represented by the apse,
go beyond the crossroads. He can rise above Jerusalem. That the next step
is heaven is evident in Beatrice’s words, echoing Christ’s.51
Modicum, et non videbitis me;
et iterum, sorelle mie dilette,
modicum, et vos videbitis me.
(Purg. 33:10–12)
[Modicum, et non videbitis me

et iterum, sisters delightful to me,
modicum, et vos videbitis me.]
Dante can see the heavens, just as the reader can now see the apse that
only the initiated can enter. Drinking from Eunoe, he is bathed in the light,
“remade, as new trees are / renewed when they bring forth new boughs”
(“rifatto . . . / rinovellate di novella fronda” Purg. 33:143–44). From here,
“pure and prepared to climb unto the stars” (“puro e disposto a salire a le
stelle” Purg. 33:145), the pilgrim now ascends to the sparkling apse of his
own eastward-oriented church.
Beyond the Rood Screen
As the pilgrim ascends into heaven, the cruciform church continues to give
shape to Dante’s journey. Here as in the previous canticles, geographical
direction and spatial orientation are fused so that upward and eastward are
often inextricably intertwined. In this sense, the pilgrim’s progress beyond
the earthbound confines of terrestrial paradise is akin to progress beyond
the altar in a church: eastward to the apse, and upward to the cupolas and
domes that mark the meeting of the transept and nave. Accordingly, as the
pilgrim moves upward into heaven, his progress is punctuated by a series
of images that recall the decorated apses of the churches of Dante’s travels.
At the same time, his vertical movement corresponds to the crypt-cupola
trajectory that intersects with the nave-apse trajectory to form a three-
dimensional cross. Thus in the Paradiso all of the dimensions of the cross
are evident, reflecting Irenaeus’s conception of its multidimensionality,1
and emphasizing its significance in the redemption process.
As the pilgrim’s eyes are drawn upward through the spheres of the
Paradiso, what he sees corresponds in many respects to what one still sees
in Dante’s beloved baptistery in Florence, where the decorated dome is
divided into concentric circles. In contrast to the spirals of the Inferno and
the Purgatorio, the concentric arrangement precludes simple linear pro-
gression. That is, in the first two canticles, and especially in the Purgatorio,
the traveler proceeds up the mountain by walking forward. The spiral con-
figuration of his path gradually, if at times almost imperceptibly, allows
him to ascend and eventually brings him to the end of the journey. Here,
however, the upward movement is more direct and accentuates vertical
over horizontal movement. This upward focus is also consistent with the
cross on medieval maps of the Holy Land, especially those that use the tau
cross to locate Jerusalem, on which the trajectory to the east of Jerusalem is
somewhat truncated and, in some cases, nonexistent. On such maps Jer-
usalem is the final destination. Earthly movement eastward, from this

point on, represents a journey into the unknown East out of which the sun
rises each day. Vertical movement above Jerusalem on such maps brings
one upward to heaven, to the spiritual equivalent of the earthly city. Here
in the Paradiso we see the culmination of Dante’s metatextual architecton-
ics as the pilgrim’s final ascent reflects both the cartographic and ecclesias-
tic renderings of the journey of which the pilgrim’s trek is a reiteration.
The Paradiso is, therefore, the terminus of the spiritual and earthly pil-
grimage, a point made clear by the textual emphasis on Jerusalem’s role as
the ultimate destination for both pilgrims and crusaders. Thus in the Par-
adiso, Dante draws on images inspired by church architecture and décor to
link his journey to the church and the cross-shaped pilgrimage or crusad-
ing journey that it embodies.
Jerusalem is thus both terminus and a new starting point. As arrival in
the Holy City marks the completion of the earthly journey—a point made
clear by Virgil’s absence from this leg—the journey beyond is the begin-
ning of a new phase, a superhuman journey where upward and onward
coincide.
This upward and eastward movement is introduced almost immediately
as Beatrice raises her eyes to the sun (Par. 1:46–48). Yet while references to
the earthly Jerusalem abound, how the Paradiso actually looks to Dante
and to the reader is more reflective of the allegorical representation of
Jerusalem embodied in the medieval church than of the physical appear-
ance of the actual city. Indeed, when Beatrice later tells Dante that the
Paradiso is but a representation constructed for Dante’s benefit so that he
may comprehend, we recognize that the process mimics precisely the pro-
cess inherent in the church’s allegorical representation of the journey to
Jerusalem. Just as Dante does not see the Paradiso as it actually is, so the
church represents for many of his contemporaries a facsimile of the Holy
City they have not actually seen. Beatrice’s upward gaze is thus immedi-
ately linked to pilgrimage, reminding the reader again of the allegory at
play.
pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole,

così de l’atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l’imagine mia, il mio si fece,
e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr’ uso.
(Par. 1:51–54)
Beyond the Rood Screen 149
[much like a pilgrim

who seeks his home again, so on her action,
fed by my eyes to my imagination,
my action drew, and on the sun I set
my sight more than we usually do.]
But the moment also reflects the experience of facing the apse in an east-
ern-oriented church at morning, a link suggested subtly by yet another
nautical reference that draws on the typological relationship between
boats and churches.
O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,
desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti
dietro al mio legno che cantando varca
(Par. 2:1–3)
[O you who are within your little bark,

eager to listen, following behind
my ship that, singing, crosses to deep seas]
The journey in the ship is therefore a journey in the church. And as the
pilgrim progresses, Dante’s imagery attests to this relationship. The higher
the pilgrim ascends, the more the Paradiso draws on motifs found also in
the apses of medieval Italian churches and, in particular, in the churches of
Ravenna and the Veneto where Dante spent his own final days.
The commanding presence of Justinian in Paradiso 6, for example, bears
an unmistakable resemblance to his representation in the detailed mosaics
of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo or in the apse of San Vitale, both in Ravenna.
The emperor is bathed in light when the pilgrim first sees him, just as he is
in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (fig. 6), where natural light streams in through
the rows of windows, ensuring that the emperor’s image is rarely in
shadow.
Justinian does more, however, than link the Paradiso to a church struc-
ture. He also links the church to the pilgrimage that it reiterates allegori-
cally. When he speaks, he speaks of justice, but he also exalts the humility
that pilgrimage embodies. He calls Romeo da Villanova a humble man, a
pilgrim in his life (“persona umìle e peregrina” Par. 6:135). But more im-
portant, Justinian links pilgrimage to justice through the figure of the cru-
sader, the armed pilgrim fighting the just war. He thus expands upon the
reiterative and allegorical capacity of the cross-shaped church to include
Figure 6. Mosaic portrait of Justinian, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.

Photo by author.
crusading, or “taking the cross.” His hymn to the God of triumphant

armies makes it clear that Justinian has no trouble justifying holy war, or
linking God to armed struggle.
“Osanna, sanctus Deus sabaòth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacòth!”
(Par. 7:1–3)2
As the pilgrim continues to move up through the spheres, the sound of

the choir is audible, locating Dante in the sanctuary behind the altar.
e dentro a quei che più innanzi appariro
sonava “Osanna” sì, che unque poi
di rïudir non fui sanza disiro.

(Par. 8:28–30)
[and a “Hosanna” sounded from within

their front ranks—such that I have never been
without desire to hear it sound again.]
This upward movement is linked to movement eastward through still an-

other reference to the Holy City and to the reward that awaits those who
effect its liberation. In Paradiso 9, as he berates Boniface for his neglect of
the Holy Land, Dante insinuates that the pope has forgotten that the Holy
City has been under Muslim control since 1291.3 Talking about Rahab, he
notes,
Ben si convenne lei lasciar per palma
in alcun cielo de l’alta vittoria
che s’acquistò con l’una e l’altra palma,
perch’ ella favorò la prima gloria
di Iosüè in su la Terra Santa,
che poco tocca al papa la memoria.
(Par. 9:121–26)
[And it was right to leave her in this heaven

as trophy of the lofty victory
that Christ won, palm on palm, upon the cross,
for she had favored the initial glory
of Joshua within the Holy Land—
which seldom touches the Pope’s memory.]
The pope’s neglect is attributed to a myopic obsession with church bureau-

cracy and doctrine, exemplified in his meticulous attention to the decretals.
A questo intende il papa e ’ cardinali;
non vanno i lor pensieri a Nazarette,
là dove Gabrïello aperse l’ali.
Ma Vaticano e l’altre parti elette
di Roma che son state cimitero
a la milizia che Pietro seguette,
tosto libere fien de l’avoltero.
(Par. 9:136–42)
[On these the Pope and cardinals are intent.

Their thoughts are never bent on Nazareth,
where Gabriel’s open wings were reverent.

And yet the hill of Vatican as well
as other noble parts of Rome that were
the cemetery for Peter’s soldiery
will soon be freed from priests’ adultery.]
Thus the prevalence of holy war or crusade as a means of taking up the
cross continues its subtle yet eventually successful pervasion of the
Paradiso. But Dante is very clear about which holy war he believes will
bring salvation: it must be directed to the east.4 To turn one’s efforts else-
where, specifically to focus them on Rome, is a species of sacrilege and is
akin to turning the wrong way.
Given the fact that pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a highly dangerous and
often impossible undertaking at the time of the Commedia, it is logical
that the pilgrim who has arrived there now finds himself in the position of
warrior or even martyr. In terms of the metatextual church, the increased
presence of the crusader, with his cross-shaped sword and cross-embla-
zoned tunic, keeps the shape of the cross in the front of the reader’s mind.
Now that the pilgrim has arrived in the Holy Land, the shape of the cross
and the iter to which it gives form is visible as the pilgrim continues to rise
and look down at the shape of the church and of the journey he has just
undertaken. The imagery that reminds the reader of the church accompa-
nies Dante’s ascent, and will eventually afford him the perspective from
which to look down and see the shape of his poem.
The garland of souls in canto 10 is not only a way of presenting souls
but is also a means of locating Dante within the metatextual church, as it
recalls the decoration of many churches, in Ravenna in particular, in which
the apse features a series of saints depicted in the form of a garland. In the
chapel of St. Andrew in the Archbishop’s Palace in Ravenna, for example, a
garland decorated with images of John, James, Peter, Andrew, and Philip
adorns the apse (fig. 7). The location in the church is reinforced by the
manner in which Dante describes the garland of saints:
Poi che ciascuno fu tornato ne lo
punto del cerchio in che avanti s’era,
fermossi, come a candellier candelo.
(Par. 11:13–15)
[After each of those spirits had returned

to that place in the ring where it had been,
it halted, like a candle in its stand.]
Figure 7. Apse of chapel of Sant’Andrea, Ravenna. Photo by author.
The combination of garlands of saints and candles, either freestanding

or in a votive rack,5 quite strongly evokes ecclesiastic imagery. In particu-
lar, for the reader familiar with the pilgrimage churches of Italy, the depic-
tions of saints on an arched surface would easily bring to mind similar
representations at Sant’Agnese Fuori le Mura or Santa Prassede in Rome.
Dante’s description thus places the pilgrim at the altar or beyond, while the
arrangement of the saints reminds the reader of the space above the altar.
Moreover, the lives of two saints, St. Francis and St. Dominic, told in the
next two episodes further link the narrative to the metatextual church by
reflecting the prevalence of the fresco cycle as a means of decorating medi-
eval churches, as witness in particular the cycle in the Lower Church in
Assisi. There, in a series of frescoes inspired by St. Bonaventure’s life of St.
Francis, the temporal act of reading is transformed into the spatial act of
viewing. Here Dante uses a process similar to the one that produces the
fresco cycle. His Commedia is the source text from which he constructs his
panorama, not perceptible to the physical eye but, rather, visible in the
mind’s eye.
Thus the lives of the saints, as told in the Paradiso, present in narrative
fashion what the leading painters of Dante’s time—in particular Giotto,
with whom Dante was evidently familiar6—were representing visually.7
Just as Giotto adorns the walls and the east end of the Scrovegni Chapel
with the lives of Christ, Mary, Joachim, and Anna, so Dante adorns the
walls of his sanctuary with the lives of saints.
The autobiographical implications of this will be discussed later, but in
terms of the creation of Dante’s metatextual church, the coincidence of
Dante’s and Giotto’s projects creates an affinity between Dante’s meta-
textual structure and its ecclesiastic architectural counterpart, which in
turn reminds the medieval reader of the basic structure of and the founda-
tion of the great majority of churches of his time.
As St. Thomas Aquinas recounts the life of Francis, Dante’s readers fol-
low along the walls of the metatextual church. But they are also taken east
as Thomas notes the wordplay that associates Francis’s hometown with the
Levant.8
Però chi d’esso loco fa parole,

non dica Ascesi, ché direbbe corto,
ma Orïente, se proprio dir vuole.
(Par. 11:52–54)
[Therefore let him who names this site not say

Ascesi, which would be to say too little,
but Orient, if he would name it rightly.]
The eastward direction continues as the narration focuses on St. Francis,

presenting him as a secular warrior who turned east to fight for the
Church. Francis represents the perfect fusion of warrior and pilgrim who
waged a genuine unarmed crusade as he traveled to the East in an attempt
to convert the sultan.9
E poi che, per la sete di martiro,

ne le presenza del Soldan superba
predicò Cristo e li altri che ’l seguiro
(Par. 11:100–102)
[And after, in his thirst for martyrdom,

within the presence of the haughty Sultan,
he preached of Christ and those who followed Him.]
To this eastward focus Dante adds the motif of St. Francis as boatman guid-
ing the church:
Pensa oramai qual fu colui che degno
collega fu a mantener la barca
di Pietro in also mar per dritto segno.
(Par. 11:118–120)
[Consider now that man who was a colleague

worthy of Francis; with him, in high seas,
he kept the bark of Peter on true course.]
Thus the image of Francis as pilgrim and the image of the church as a
vessel of voyage are also fused, as the life of St. Francis presents an amal-
gam of images of pilgrimage, holy war, travel to the East, and progress in
the church.
The double garland is now likened to the brightest stars in the sky, again
recalling the star-spangled ceilings of the Arena Chapel in Padua, the mau-
soleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, and countless other churches that
Dante might have visited. The image in canto 14 of Christ on the cross
against the backdrop of the sky further links his heaven to the apses of
those churches, especially those of Ravenna, where the mosaic apses fre-
quently depict a gold cross against the backdrop of a starry sky.
In particular, the apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe (figs. 12 and 13)
comes to mind, and indeed, as noted in chapter 4, there is good reason to
believe that the image was inspired primarily by it. The mosaic technique
itself is the essence of Dante’s paradisaical vision in which large numbers
of individuals continually merge to create a larger image. Thus Dante’s
narrative project in the Paradiso has much in common with an art form
that in the Middle Ages was closely associated with apsidal decoration.
Come distinta da minori e maggi
lumi biancheggia tra ’ poli del mondo
Galassia sì, che fa dubbiar ben saggi;
sì costellati facean nel profondo
Marte quei raggi il venerabil segno
che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo.
(Par. 14:97–102)
[As, graced with lesser and with larger lights

between the poles of the world, the Galaxy
gleams so that even sages are perplexed;
so, constellated in the depth of Mars,
those rays described the venerable sign
a circle’s quadrants form where they are joined.]
But the holy sign also serves as a segue, linking holy men to holy war-
riors, of whom the next circle of souls is comprised. St. Francis’s mission
and the unarmed pilgrimage have been transformed and fully fused with
the military pilgrimage of the crusade and the conquest of Jerusalem. The
crusade thus is also merged with the rapture into heaven. Taking Jerusa-
lem, no longer simply arriving in Jerusalem, now emerges as the true es-
sence of heaven and the completion of the mission prefigured by the re-
claiming of earthly paradise. Taking the cross is not only a journey of
deprivation and suffering but also a struggle to regain what has been lost.
Christ’s directive to take up the cross is thus brought to the fore
through the holy warriors and the holy sign, the cross in the sky, locating
its essence above and beyond the altar, embedded in the eastern-oriented
mosaic apses. Thus it is here in the metatextual church that the crusade and
the soul’s pilgrimage are fully fused as the vision of the cross is immedi-
ately linked to Christ’s directive with respect to martyrdom.
Qui vince la memoria mia lo ’ngegno;
ché quella croce lampeggiava Cristo,
sì ch’io non so trovare essempro degno;
ma chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo,
ancor mi scuserà di quel ch’io lasso,
vedendo in quell’ albor balenar Cristo.
(Par. 14:103–8)
[And here my memory defeats my wit:

Christ’s flaming from that cross was such that I
can find no fit similitude for it.
But he who takes his cross and follows Christ
will pardon me again for my omission—
my seeing Christ flash forth undid my force.]
Not only does this fusion mimic the effect of the mosaic but it also mimics
those crosses that are formed by the fusion of multiple medallions repre-
senting saints.10 In such crosses, the symbols of the various saints are as-
sembled to form the symbol of the meaning of their lives, martyrdom and
redemption, lives lived in imitation of Christ’s. While stories of saints are
also incorporated into the wooden Tuscan and Umbrian crosses of Dante’s
time—examples of which can be found in most of the churches of Florence,
including some crosses attributed to Cimabue or Margaritone d’Arezzo—
the lives of the saints are here superimposed on the cross, which serves as
a backdrop. The medallion cross is somewhat different, in that the lives of
the saints form the cross itself, emphasizing the importance of the collec-
tive of souls, for without the medallions there is no cross.
The passage also reprises the light play essential to orienting oneself in
the metatextual church. As the pilgrim looks up toward the light coming
from the east, he describes an effect common in buildings with limited
illumination, such as medieval churches. He describes what seem like dust
motes, causing the reader to reflect perhaps on having seen the same thing.
così si veggion qui diritte e torte,
veloci e tarde, rinovando vista,
le minuzie d’i corpi, lunghe e corte,
moversi per lo raggio onde si lista
talvolta l’ombra che, per sua difesa,
la gente con ingegno e arte acquista.
(Par. 14:112–17)
[so, straight and slant and quick and slow, one sees
on earth the particles of bodies, long
and short, in shifting shapes, that move along
the ray of light that sometimes streaks across
the shade that men devise with skill and art
to serve as their defense against the sun.]
Here the heavenly host is located precisely in the part of the metatextual
church that corresponds to the place in an actual church where one finds
the choir. As the warriors sing “Rise” and “Conquer” (Par. 14:125), they
resemble a choir and their lyrics reinforce the upward trajectory of the
Paradiso.
As Dante rises higher and higher in the apse, he watches as the souls
come together to form still another image, the message “diligite iusti-
tiam . . . qui iudicatis terram” (Par. 18:91–93), or, roughly, “Love righ-
teousness, ye that are judges of the earth.” The themes of justice and judg-
ment located here in the metatextual apse also recall the many churches of
Dante’s time, and especially those in Ravenna and the duomo of Torcello
Figure 8. Mosaics, Santa Maria dell’Assunta, Torcello. Photo by author.
(fig. 8), that are decorated with mosaics depicting the preparation for the
Second Coming and the Last Judgment. In Torcello the mosaics date from
the twelfth century and present a graduated series of preparatory phases,
divided into distinct levels and stages just as is the Paradiso.11 (Unlike the
spiral structure of the Inferno and the Purgatorio where one level flowed
into another, here the levels are distinct spheres, similar to the divisions in
the mosaics of Torcello.)
As Beatrice talks in Paradiso 22 about God’s repair of the broken
church, the reader will no doubt recall the story of St. Francis’s vision in
which God called on him to repair the church, but the well-traveled reader
will also recall its depiction in the fresco cycle in Assisi in which St. Francis
is shown propping up the church. The discussion introduces the notion of

reparation to the theme of reclamation that colors the Paradiso. Thus the
church and the Holy Land share an affinity, as they are the objects of simi-
lar projects, reparation and reclamation, and once again Dante’s two meta-
textual pilgrimages are fused.
Arriving at the summit, Beatrice turns her eyes to the sun at its highest
point (Par. 23:10–18). They have reached the ultra-Jerusalem, the highest
point of Dante’s metatextual apse, appropriately decorated with images of
Christ triumphant, recalling the many churches of Ravenna and eastern
Italy with the same motif.
The images here are an amalgam of typical apse decorations and images
that invoke pilgrimage, crusade, and the ultimate goal of reaching the Holy
Land. There are also images typical of apse decorations such as the Virgin
Mary and the Apostles in countless other churches. The garden imagery is
apt, given the common pictorial associations of flowers and saints in medi-
eval iconography. The rose also recalls the rose window found in many of
the churches that Dante had seen, such as the rose-wheel window in the
cathedral of Siena, Santa Maria della Scala. At the same time, the garden
setting—”the troops of the triumphant Christ—and the fruits ingath-
ered” (“Ecco le schiere / del trïunfo di Cristo e tutto ’l frutto / ricolto” Par.
23:19–21), and “that / fair garden blossoming beneath Christ’s rays” (“bel
giardino / che sotto i raggi di Cristo s’infiora” Par. 23:71–72)—recalls the
light touch of the Ravenna mosaics, and particularly the composition of
the apse mosaics in Sant’Apollinare in Classe.12
The now constant mention of wheels and turning recalls as well the
frequent depictions of Christ on a stylized cart during the Second Com-
ing.13 As the choir sings “Dio laudamo” (Par. 24:113), the presence of St.
Peter evokes the figure of Rome, while its heavenly equivalent, Jerusalem,
is evoked by the reference to the Holy Land in “ver’ lo sepulcro” (Par.
24:126). And the allusion to the Apostle’s Creed (“Io credo in uno Dio /
solo ed etterno” Par. 24:130–31) links such images once again to the meta-
textual church, suggesting a distinct affinity between the church and the
narrative of the Paradiso.
The shape of the journey becomes even more pronounced as Dante ex-
presses the hope of some day returning to Florence. The reader knows that
the pilgrim will at some point have to come down from the apse, for he has
indeed returned to tell the tale. The return from heaven is, therefore, a
return to the road of our life in the middle of which he will start over. He
will return to the middle point on the cross, though he will be transformed,
like the pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, their transformation attested

to by the palms they carry. Yet for now he is suspended—rapt, like Paul, up
into the heavens above Jerusalem.
Moreover, as the pilgrim continues to ascend, the allegorical nature of
his journey and of the metatextual church he is constructing becomes con-
siderably more discernible. Beatrice’s earlier revelation, that the Paradiso
has been constructed so as to make him understand (Par. 4:43–45), reiter-
ates that Dante’s poem too may be an elaborate allegory constructed to
give form to a meaning. Herein lies the essence of Dante’s project. It is
an elaborate metaphor constructed to give form to meaning, so that the
meaning underlying it might be read. As Beatrice tells Dante that heaven
exists in God’s mind, she also reveals that Dante’s world exists in his mind.
As Dante builds his narrative, he endows it with the characteristics of a
church and a pilgrimage eastward. He is constructing his own paradise, his
own purgatory, and his own hell in order to illuminate the meaning of his
own journey of life.
Thus as the pilgrim rises in the heavens, he is equally rising in a church,
or rising above and beyond Jerusalem. As the décor of the Paradiso more
and more reminds the reader of the decorations in the apse of a church, the
reader and the pilgrim are elevated by their upward gaze.
It is not only the pilgrim’s gaze, however, that is directed upward. Now
he himself floats high above the altar, able to abstract himself, as if from a
scaffold, to look at his work from a point beyond it. Dante’s trip above the
world places him above Jerusalem and in his metatextual cross above the
altar. At this point the pilgrimage of the church, the pilgrimage to Jerusa-
lem, and the journey of Dante’s life are truly fused, in a fusion similar to
that signaled in the opening lines of Paradiso 27, “Unto to the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, / glory!” (“‘Al Padre, al Figlio, a lo Spirito Santo,’ /
cominciò, ‘gloria!’ tutto ’l paradiso” Par. 27:1–2).
As Dante reprises, yet again, nautical language to prophesy a “storm”
that will turn around the errant ships of the “human family” and set them
straight on course (Par. 27:141), the reader remembers that this ship on
which we sail is also a metaphor for the church. Moreover, the word
“classe,” the Latin word for “fleet” as well as the name of Ravenna’s har-
bor,14 evokes the church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe whose mosaics al-
most certainly inspired much of the imagery of the Paradiso.
As Beatrice gazes upon God, Dante again uses analogy to explain what
he has seen, but even here the image conjures up the notion of light enter-
ing through the windows of a church.
E come in vetro, in ambra o in cristallo

raggio resplende sì, che dal venire
a l’esser tutto non è intervallo
(Par. 29:25–27)
[And as a ray shines into amber, crystal,

or glass, so that there is no interval
between its coming and its lighting all]
The pilgrim and Beatrice continue their ascent, rising up to the light, up
to the rose window, to reclaim Jerusalem and become one with the eastern
light.
Ma perché siam digressi assai, ritorci
li occhi oramai verso la dritta strada,
sì che la via col tempo si raccorci.
(Par. 29:127–29)
[But since we have digressed enough, turn back

your eyes now to the way that is direct;
our time is short—so, too, must be our path.]
St. Bernard, the church’s voice of crusade and founder of the guardians
of the Temple, will take them there. As he arrives in the Empyrean, Dante’s
experience continues to parallel Paul’s rapture as he is temporarily blinded
(Par. 30:46–51). The reader is, therefore, urged to follow along, to see with
the mind’s eye, to imagine. What follows is described in terms that also
likely had their inspiration in the soaring cupolas and apses of Dante’s
memories. As Dante looks up, the river of light from which he drinks is
turned into a circle that unfolds into the mystical rose (Par. 30:88–90). The
image of the river of light transforming itself into a circle is found in the
baptistery in Florence, in the frescoes of Rome’s Santi Quattro Coronati, and
in the Torcello mosaics (fig. 8) of the preparation for the coming of Christ.
In each case an angel holds the starry firmament that turns back on itself
to form a spiral or circle. This representation of linear becoming circular
provides the perfect allegory for the transformation from finite to infinite.
The pilgrim now sees the garden at close range, and its impact is likened
to the impact Ravenna’s mosaics might make on those who see them for
the first time.
e vidi lume in forma di rivera
fulvido di fulgore, intra due rive
dipinte di mirabil primavera.

Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive,
e d’ogne parte si mettien ne’ fiori,
quasi rubin che oro circunscrive
(Par. 30:62–67)
[and I saw light that took a river’s form—

light flashing, reddish-gold, between two banks
painted with wonderful spring flowerings.
Out of that stream there issued living sparks,
which settled on the flowers on all sides,
like rubies set in gold]
It is here that Beatrice joins the choir, locating her in the apse beyond the
altar. The location of the rose itself also serves a deictic function in imita-
tion of those churches in which a rose window allows light from the east to
illuminate the interior. Thus to rise up to it is to reach the eastern light
source. Beatrice is now part of the “ultra-east,” enveloped in the light of
God.
The pilgrimage motif is reiterated with the mention of the heathen’s
first sight of Rome and the reader is immediately drawn back not only to
the corresponding journey but also again to the churches of Rome, with
the mention of the Veronica, housed at St. Peter’s.
Qual è colui che forse di Croazia
viene a veder la Veronica nostra,
che per l’antica fame non sen sazia
(Par. 31:103–5)
[Just as one
who, from Croatia perhaps, has come
to visit our Veronica—one whose
old hunger is not sated]
The image of the Madonna enthroned together with the heavenly host
in Paradiso 32 is so common in medieval churches that its inspiration is
almost trite. But the image of the heavenly thrones appears to be an amal-
gam of the Byzantine and the “Giottoesque” assemblies that Dante would
have seen at Padua and in his journeys in the Veneto.
It is in the final vision that Dante’s metatextual project is fully revealed.
The prayer puts the reader squarely in a church as its praise of the Ma-
donna attests to the strength of the Marian cult of the Middle Ages, re-
flected in the number of cathedrals dedicated to her—Santa Maria No-
vella, Santa Maria della Scala, Santa Maria dell’Assunta, to name but a few
evoked throughout the poem. Yet his attempt to describe his vision of God,
a moment in which he knew all truth, especially about the essence of
things, suggests as well how the reader might interpret this moment.
Nel suo profondo vidi che s’interna,
legato con amore in un volume,
ciò che per l’universo si squaderna
(Par. 33:85–87)
[In its profundity I saw—ingathered

and bound by love into one single volume—
what, in the universe, seems separate, scattered]
When for Dante the truth comes in a flash of light, we understand that
churches, the churches of his exile and the churches of his text, are alle-
gorical representations of the journeys man makes in obedience to Christ’s
directive to take up the cross. Even the circle of light that streams through
the rose window is an allegory of the light of the East, Jesus Christ. It is
love that turns the sun, which in turn illuminates the cross, emblem of the
martyrs, that bears witness to its truth.
164 Epilogue
Epilogue
While the cruciform structure serves to identify Dante’s great poem as a

Christian work and thus as an opus with salvific potential, there is another
fundamental aspect to the poem, a personal one. As we have seen, the
shape of the Commedia and, by extension, its meaning are gradually re-
vealed through the affinities between the poem, pilgrimage, and progress
in a church that Dante so artfully creates. Dante’s poem then takes its place
beside the medieval cartographic and architectural representations of the
journey to salvation. But just as the cross on the map and the cross of the
church gave more than shape to the journeys they guided, so the poly-
semous capacity of that shape gives meaning to Dante’s narrative cre-
ation. Thus Dante’s poem gives shape to his journey, and that shape, the
cross, in turn gives meaning to the hell into which he descends in the
middle of the road of his life.
Like the medieval church and the medieval map, the poem is represen-
tative. It is not a chronicle in the strictest sense of the word. Yet if we
consider the signifying scheme of the medieval map and of the medieval
cruciform church, it becomes evident that Dante’s cross does tell the story
of his life. Indeed, we see that he has taken the events of his life and laid
them out on the cruciform shape that he has created, enabling him to make
sense of what might otherwise seem meaningless. Using the cruciform,
Dante infuses his own life with the meaning and value inherent in the
cross: redemption and salvation.
At the same time, the affinities between his poem and the other cruci-
form representations allow Dante’s misfortunes to reinvent themselves as
a pilgrimage and as the cross that he bears. It is in the service of this project
that Dante has so meticulously introduced his reader to his allegorical and
constructive methodology. As Peter Hawkins notes, Dante “is at pains to
underscore a common ground between his unique itinerary through the
afterlife and those sacred journeys undertaken, at home or abroad, by
Epilogue 165
other Christians. For this reason he invokes the particulars of pilgrimage”

(250). As narrative cues alert the reader to the iter of the poet’s wandering,
the Commedia is revealed as a cruciform representation of Dante’s own
journey from a Florence embroiled in the political tit-for-tat of the
Guelph-Ghibelline struggle to his final days in eastern Italy, the Veneto
and Ravenna. As Margaret Grimes has suggested, Dante’s life is rarely far
removed from the geography of the poem.1 The Commedia is at the same
time both his map, tracing the journey of his exile, and his church in which
the journey is reiterated.
Finally, the revelation of the salvific value of his wanderings allows
Dante to present himself as an exemplum, as a Christ figure, a new Paul,
and his exile as the cross he must bear. The Commedia, then, is the record
of his wanderings, a guidebook to those who seek a new pilgrimage. From
his approach to the gates of hell to the abyss at its frozen core, Dante fol-
lows a westward trajectory corresponding to movement away from the
Promised Land, and away from the altar in a cruciform church. Dante’s
journeying is thus in this first part of the Commedia akin to the initial
wandering of Abraham which led westward and to Israel’s eventual captiv-
ity in Egypt. His descent corresponds also to Paul’s own departure from
Israel to a Rome that John in Revelation likened to Babylon.2 The purgato-
rial journey, however, corrects the course. As its Exodus imagery corre-
sponds to Moses’ flight from Egypt, the road leads Dante to a new home,
not the home that Abraham left but indeed a better place, eastward to
Jerusalem. His consequent ascent into heaven confirms the rightness of
the journey and reveals the relationship between the earthly Jerusalem
and the City of God.
The Commedia is thus a reiteration of Dante’s own journey from the
hell of Florentine myopia and a Rome defiled by papal corruption, through
the purgatorial suffering of exile and the journey back to respectability, to
the reward of paradise, a moment of wonder on the eastern shores of Italy,
immortality in the Christian Rome,3 Ravenna, medieval Christendom’s
most stunning vision of heaven. The narrative of the Commedia is like-
wise the monument to Dante’s suffering, a shrine built to commemorate
his martyrdom. Visiting its pages will bring salvation to the reader as
surely as a journey to see the Volto Santo in Lucca,4 or the Veronica in
Rome,5 for what Dante presents in the closing cantos of the Paradiso is his
own Volto Santo. His voyage has brought him to see the face of God. Just
as Nicodemus crafted the face of Christ, so too has Dante written the face
of God, recreated it for the pilgrim reader who journeys through the pages
of the Commedia.
That the Commedia contains autobiographical elements is of course a
166 Epilogue
given.6 Such elements are expected in a work that purports to be a record of

the author’s own experience. This impulse is evident as early as the open-
ing lines of the Commedia, where the shift from the universal “our” of
“cammin di nostra vita” to the individual “mi ritrovai” suggests that the
reader is intended to see the story as having happened to the narrator. The
author’s purported actuality is confirmed in the Inferno, where the pilgrim
is recognized by characters whose actual existence was well known to the
reader of Dante’s time. However, it is not in the explicitly obvious autobio-
graphical references of the literal narrative that we find the shape of the
cross or Dante’s own iter of damnation, purgation, and ultimate salvation.
Indeed, we must bear in mind that the literal text of the Commedia is like
the map, a representation or analogue of something else. The reader is
urged to consider not simply what the narrative relates but what the nar-
rative represents and what likeness it shares with analogous structures.
Structurally, the narrative consists of one hundred individual cantos and
thousands of discrete moments fused together. Like the medallions of a
medieval cross or the shimmering tiles of a medieval mosaic, such mo-
ments come together to give shape and meaning to the journey that the
entirety represents. The autobiographical moments, therefore, function
much like the stars in the collective cross of the Paradiso that Dante so
skillfully presents. Like the stars, such moments are but indications of a
greater narrative structure, of a larger metatextual pattern that is evident
only when viewed in its entirety. Just as the cruciform layout of the medi-
eval church is not evident from the nave alone, but rather emerges when
one considers the intersection of the nave with the transept and apse, so the
shape of Dante’s story, together with its meaning, is found on a greater
level, which is evident only when one considers all of its parts together and
when one can find a perspective from which its entirety may be taken in.
As Robert Hollander has noted, the Commedia is written as “part of an
unfolding autobiography in its changeful development. As he moves for-
ward, we continually witness his backward glances to review the paths
taken and abandoned. There is so much objectivity in Dante’s visionary
gaze that we tend to forget the extraordinary amount and degree of subjec-
tivity informing his texts. His obsessive telling and retelling of his own
narrative is one clear indication of that subjectivity” (Life in Works, 2). Yet
while we may look to the text for indications of the author’s self, the mean-
ing of those moments or images that he chooses to include must be consid-
ered in terms of the larger pattern, and in terms of what they represent or
recreate, if we are truly to locate the story that Dante seeks to tell.
Epilogue 167
When considered in this way, the encounter with Ciacco in Inferno 6,

for example, becomes more than a simple meeting with a gluttonous sin-
ner. The autobiographical elements of the encounter link the moment to a
specific place in Dante’s own life and, in turn, explicate the meaning of that
place, Florence, in terms of its relationship to the cross-shaped journey of
the Commedia. When the pilgrim meets Ciacco, the first of many Flor-
entines Dante will encounter in hell, he is immediately identified as Flor-
entine.7 Excessive, self-absorbed, and mired in his own feces, Ciacco repre-
sents the first impression the reader has of the denizens of Dante’s native
city. There are countless characters in the Inferno who are not Florentines,
yet it is significant that a character who is so intimately linked to Dante’s
hometown delivers the first prophecy of exile.8 Dante’s journey of exile,
his own journey through hell, is thus linked immediately to Florentine
excess.
As the pilgrim continues toward the gates of Dis, he encounters another
Florentine. Although Filippo Argenti (Inf. 8:31–63) does not recognize
Dante, Dante recognizes him. Just as Ciacco was representative of Flor-
ence’s excess, Filippo stands for its wrath and, significantly, such wrath
blinds him to the sight of a compatriot. Instead of greeting Dante, he rails
at him. Dante’s journey is thus also linked to Florentine blindness.
The Florentines in the Inferno, then, are intended less to represent the
entirety of hell than to alert the reader to the personal nature of the
pilgrim’s hell.9 Those Florentines with whom Dante was acquainted pre-
sent autobiographical moments, certainly, but more important, the reason
for these autobiographical moments is to align the journey of the Inferno
with Dante’s own personal journey through his own personal hell—that
is, the journey that is not explicitly told but rather is deeply embedded in
the literal text of the Commedia.
Later, in the Purgatorio, Dante similarly links his personal journey to
the literal narrative as the Sienese penitent Provenzano Salvani prophesies
Dante’s exile and wandering.10 Still later, in the Paradiso, Dante’s own cru-
sader ancestor Cacciaguida delivers still another prophecy of exile.11 Thus
a series of prophecies link his exile first with damnation, then with purga-
tion (for it was in Siena that Dante received word of his exile), and finally
with salvation, as the meaning of his wandering emerges as part of a cruci-
form plan, plotting a personal itinerary to the Holy Land.
These prophecies and the characters who deliver them are a primary
link between the journey narrated in the literal story of the Commedia
and Dante’s actual journey of life. Through a series of other textual refer-
168 Epilogue
ences Dante explains that life in Florence, his involvement in local politics,
and his resultant expulsion indeed correspond to the journey through hell.
His wanderings through Siena, Verona, and Padua are similarly associated
with the purgation process, while his eastward journey and final stay in
Ravenna represent the portal to paradise.
Textual cues in the form of deictic references, as we have seen, associ-
ated the pilgrim’s initial trajectory with westward, downward movement
as he made his way through the Inferno.12 But still another set of textual
cues—autobiographical references, names of sinners, notes on the places
that Dante himself likely visited or passed through—link the downward
trajectory of the pilgrim, the lower part of the cross, to his involvement in
Florentine politics and his ill-fated trip to Rome in 1301. The starting point
of the trip is Florence, and, as we have seen, the prophecies of the Flor-
entine sinners associate his exile from Florence with the infernal journey.
Still other references serve to associate the infernal voyage specifically
with the trip from Florence to Rome. Accordingly, at least in the Inferno,
Dante’s own trip to Rome ought not to be confused with a penitent’s jour-
ney to the New Jerusalem. Dante’s own actual journey is instead concomi-
tant with the inversion inherent in the infernal journey. For Dante, Rome
was akin to Babylon. He fills the Inferno with references to the iniquity
and decadence of Rome. The city hailed as the New Jerusalem has, for
Dante, failed to realize its potential because of the corruption of the papacy.
Dante’s earthly Rome is, then, figurally linked to captivity—and thereby
also figurally linked to the land of the pharaohs from which the purgative
journey will deliver the pilgrim.
The great towers of Dis that Dante and Virgil glimpse from a distance
certainly recall many of the cities of Europe of Dante’s time. Equally, the
towers within the walls recall the tall, slender defensive towers—found
throughout Tuscany in cities and towns like Florence, San Gimignano, and
of course Monteriggioni of which Dante writes, and in many northern
Italian cities such as Bologna—from which rival families fought within
city walls. The city of Dis bears a marked resemblance to Florence too, most
notably in the case of the mock baptismal fonts into which the simoniacs
are plunged (Inf. 19:16–18). Yet at its core there is evil, and the evil is the
perversion of Rome. Florence cedes to Rome, and the two are fused in a
single spiral downward. Indeed, as we learn almost from the start, the
Florentine corruption has its genesis in the papal struggle for temporal
power. Thus Florence is in many ways a microcosmic representation of
Rome, at least in its decadence.
Epilogue 169
When Dante encounters Farinata (Inf. 10:22–51, 73–93) and the politi-
cal bickering is reprised, the extent to which Florence will be the starting
point and also the cause of Dante’s wandering and servitude is made clear.
Dante’s actual trip to Rome is by no means a redemptive pilgrimage. In-
deed, the validity of pilgrimage to Rome under Boniface is questioned by
Dante, whose descent into hell coincides with the journeys of millions
flocking to Rome to purchase forgiveness.13 And while Dante’s mention of
the pilgrims seems objective enough in itself—
come i Roman per l’essercito molto,
l’anno del giubileo, su per lo ponte
hanno a passar la gente modo colto,
che da l’un lato tutti hanno la fronte
verso ’l castello e vanno a Santo Pietro,
da l’altra sponda vanno verso ’l monte
(Inf. 18:28–33)
[as, in the year of the Jubilee, the Romans,

confronted by great crowds, contrived a plan
that let the people pass across the bridge,
for to one side went all who had their eyes
upon the Castle, heading toward St. Peter’s,
and to the other, those who faced the Mount]
—one must remember that he uses the description in a simile to describe
the movement of the seducers and panderers.
Similarly, while Dante’s reference to the baptismal font in Florence’s
San Giovanni seems quite nostalgic, he is using the image in a simile to
describe the punishment meted out to the simoniac popes. He uses a refer-
ence to Florence, and to its baptistery specifically, to make his point.
Non mi parean men ampi né maggiori
che que’ che son nel mio bel San Giovanni,
fatti per loco d’i battezzatori
(Inf. 19:16–18)
[They did not seem to me less broad or more

than those that in my handsome San Giovanni
were made to serve as basins for baptizing]
Significantly, the simile is followed by a highly autobiographical detail
that serves to link the text to Dante’s actual life:
170 Epilogue
l’un de li quali, ancor non è molt’ anni,

rupp’ io per un dentro v’annegava:
e questo sia suggel ch’ogn’omo sganni.
(Inf. 19:19–21)
[and one of these, not many years ago,

I broke for someone who was drowning in it:
and let this be my seal to set men straight.]
While the comment has been interpreted as setting the record straight
about an incident involving a broken baptismal font, the aside is interest-
ing in that it creates a clear link between the character in the text and the
writer. It also creates a very clear link between the places of the text and the
places of the writer’s life. It seeks to clarify, like those other moments when
Dante will indicate to the reader that clarification is needed. Dante may
just as easily be saying, “Do not be deceived, the hell that I am describing is
Florence.” Moreover, those who have seen the baptistery of San Giovanni
will no doubt recall the chilling mosaics set in the ceiling that depict a
Lucifer who may well have inspired Dante’s own conception of the Prince
of Darkness. Hence Dante’s Florence and Dante’s Rome are not sources of
purification and forgiveness; rather they are corrupted cities in which sal-
vation is bought and sold.
Indeed, as Dante describes Lucchese grafters (Inf. 21:51–57) and the de-
mons of hell are likened to the Pisan infantry (Inf. 21:97–99), it seems that
much of Tuscany is hell. But it is the Florentine thieves for whom Dante
reserves his greatest vitriol, and it is his scathing invective against the city
of Florence (Inf. 26:1–9) that acts as a prelude to the deictically significant
story of Ulysses, a story ultimately linked to Dante’s own wandering.
Similarly, the holy war taking place in Rome will not free Jerusalem but
rather is a product of the same greed that has made “thief” and “Flor-
entine” synonymous. Dante’s condemnation of Boniface (Inf. 27:82–87),
who wages war against the Colonna and not against the Saracens, parallels
his invective against Florence. Arriving in Rome for Dante is arrival at the
pit of hell and vice versa—a point made clear as the pilgrim stares Satan in
the eye and the presence of Rome, a Rome betrayed, stares back at him in
the figures of Brutus and Cassius (Inf. 34:65–67).
One must note, however, that while Dante observes the punishments of
hell, he does not suffer them. Had Dante remained in Florence and re-
mained set in his Florentine ways, certainly he would have ended up here.
Epilogue 171
But he does not. As numerous sinners question his presence, the reader
quickly gleans that Dante is not wanted here. So much the better, for his
rejection from hell leads him safely through Dis and out of the infernal
Rome to find his way to another place, that Rome where Christ is a Ro-
man.14
To find his way back from Babylon/Egypt/Rome, Dante must turn
around and climb the mountain. In actuality Dante’s first months of exile
would have required constant climbing, sojourning as he was in Siena, a
city at the top of a hill, when word of exile first reached him (Browning 7).
It is not surprising, then, that Dante’s Purgatorio is deeply tinged with
textual references that evoke Siena. Indeed, Siena and its duomo appear to
have provided the strongest inspiration for the imagery of the circle of the
prideful, as discussed in chapter 7. The journey through purgatory thus
becomes a vision or a prophecy of the actual journey that Dante will even-
tually make. And what a fitting source for pilgrimage imagery! Siena’s
duomo lay directly on the Francigena pilgrimage route to Rome. Dante
would have seen pilgrims passing daily through the city, climbing step af-
ter step to reach Santa Maria della Scala. The cathedral of Siena formed, in
Dante’s world, an integral part both of the purgative act of physical jour-
neying to Rome, the new Jerusalem, or Jerusalem itself and of the soul’s
journey to heaven. But looking to the duomo of Siena for inspiration also
specifically links Dante’s own journey to the purgative function of pil-
grimage.15
The presence of Siena is reinforced by the fact that the most significant
of the sinners in the circle of pride, Provenzano Salvani, was lord of Siena.
As Salvani prophesies Dante’s exile, the actual and the textual are linked,
for it was in Siena that Dante started his purgatorial wandering. But just as
significant is the fact that it was in Siena that Dante had to face a choice: to
backslide into the hell of local Ghibelline-Guelph fighting,16 or to purge
the sins of that life and leave it behind. The autobiographical aspect of the
episode is substantially enhanced by Dante’s later admission—to a Sien-
ese, Sapia of Siena17—that he expects to spend time in that very circle.18
Dante makes the confession in the circle of the envious, after having passed
through the terrace of the prideful.
But the circle of pride, Dante’s own special circle of purgation, also bears
echoes of the purgation to come, for here the prideful are punished in a
manner that points to another city in which Dante will find temporary
refuge, Verona. Bowed by the weight of rocks on their backs, these sinners
172 Epilogue
Figure 9. Exterior, duomo of Verona. Photo by author.
Figure 10. Exterior, duomo of Verona. Photo by author.

Epilogue 173
Figure 11. Exterior, San Zeno Maggiore, Verona. Photo by author.
recall the exterior of the duomo and the church of San Zeno Maggiore
(figs. 9–11), both of which feature the same image: men bent over with
rocks on their backs.
The shared nature of these two cities, and their role in Dante’s own
journey of purgation, will later be confirmed by the prophecy of Caccia-
guida, who tells Dante in Paradiso 17:58–61 that he will learn how salty is
another man’s bread and how hard is the ascent on another man’s steps
(“scale”).19 The “scale” of the prophecy can easily be read as a veiled refer-
ence either to the duomo of Siena, Santa Maria della Scala, or to Dante’s
great patron in Verona, Cangrande della Scala, or both.20
That Dante should choose features of the cities that are drawn specifi-
cally from the churches of each is also not insignificant. While the cathe-
drals of medieval cities are in many cases their most recognizable architec-
tural features, Dante’s absorption of them serves to do more than simply
locate himself in a particular place. He is also able to reprise the pilgrimage
motif by incorporating particular images of sites, such as Siena’s duomo,
which served both as a destination of pilgrimage and as architectural reit-
erations of the route to the Holy Land itself. Thus Dante places the open-
ing steps of his purgatorial process within a church and decorates this nar-
174 Epilogue
rative church with décor that will remind the reader of one of the great
pilgrimage churches of the era. But the Sienese cathedral is also significant
because it, even more than the church in Verona, reiterates quite precisely
the trajectory of the pilgrimage route to the east. Having placed himself in
the cathedral of Siena, working himself eastward, progressing through
purgatory, the pilgrim hears hymns that remind the reader of the parallel
metanarrative set in the metatextual church that he imagines.
The cruciform floor plan of Siena is also significant because it is ori-
ented eastward, so the sinner progressing toward the altar is reiterating
the route to Jerusalem, the route likewise laid out on medieval maps in a
cruciform pattern. Thus the choice of the Siena cathedral not only locates
Dante within a church but also links his progression within that church to
the physical journey of an eastward pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Linking this episode to the cruciform plan of an eastward-oriented
church thus engrafts the pattern of the church onto Dante’s own life and
attributes an exegetical function to the cruciform structure. That is, the
church and its underlying shape will reveal the meaning of Dante’s own
exile as pilgrimage and the means by which Dante can “take up the cross.”
His exile is transformed into the cross he bears and allows him to portray
himself as a Christ figure.
The autobiographical nature of the episode is marked and enhanced by
the exchange with Oderisi da Gubbio in which Dante specifically mentions
Giotto in his discourse on fame (Purg. 11:91–108). Not only is there good
reason to believe that Dante knew Giotto personally,21 but Dante’s sojourn
in Padua in 1304–5 at the time that Giotto was painting his famous fres-
coes in the Scrovegni Chapel (Vita di Dante, 99) suggests that Giotto’s
Paduan masterpiece may have provided substantial inspiration for the nar-
rative structure of the Commedia. Moreover, that Dante discusses fame in
the context of Giotto gives a particular autobiographical bent to the canto,
especially when one considers that the discourse immediately following
the mention of Giotto and Cimabue shifts to poetry and the various
Guidos to whom Dante sees himself as heir.
By the time the pilgrim has reached and traversed the early stages of
purgatory, the purgation process has brought Dante farther away from his
Florence, distancing himself from the infernal city as the souls note that he
hesitates to even mention the Arno.
Perché nascose
questi il vocabol di quella riviera,
Epilogue 175
pur com’ om fa de l’orribili cose?

(Purg. 14:25–27)
[Why did he hide

that river’s name, even as one would do
in hiding something horrible from view?]
On a narrative level this is logical, for the purgation process does remove
Dante more and more from the local politics and petty alliances of Flo-
rence. On a metanarrative level, however, it also signals Dante’s physical
distance from Florence and progress toward eastern Italy, for Guido del
Duca, who here describes events leading to Dante’s exile (Purg. 14:1–72), is
from a Romagnolo family, and the long list of players he includes in his
prophecy were intimately involved in the politics of Romagna.
By the time that Dante encounters Forese Donati, who also prophesies
exile (Purg. 23:37–133), Dante’s estrangement from Florence is quite clear.
Although the narrative refers to estrangement due to the journey set out
in the literal level, when read in the context of the emerging metanar-
rative, it becomes clear that by the later cantos of the Purgatorio Dante is
already charting the actual journey of his actual life. Moreover, the refer-
ence to Gentucca and the encounter with the Lucchese, Bonagiunta, corre-
spond as well to a stay in Lucca during his exile.22
As Dante approaches the apex of purgatory, the eastward orientation of
the metatextual church and the correspondence to the trip to Jerusalem
become still more evident as Dante introduces the churches of the Ve-
neto and Romagna. As Dante enters the earthly paradise, he is welcomed
into a garden reminiscent of Ravenna’s famous churches, in particular
Sant’Apollinare in Classe, whose apse is decorated with a garden motif
described in detail by Mazzotti, Rizzardi, and numerous other scholars.
Dante makes an oblique reference to this locale in his description of the
garden:
tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
per la pineta in su ’l lito di Chiassi
(Purg. 28:19–20)
[just like the wind that sounds from branch to branch

along the shore of Classe, through the pines]
Similarly, Dante’s description of the elders recalls Venice’s cathedral of
San Marco, where the dome of the Pentecost shows the apostles with
tongues of flames jutting out of their heads.
176 Epilogue
E questi sette col primaio stuolo

erano abitüati, ma di gigli
dintorno al capo non facëan brolo,
anzi di rose e d’altri fior vermigli;
giurato avria poco lontano aspetto
che tutti ardesser di sopra da’ cigli.
(Purg. 29:145–50)
[The clothes these seven wore were like the elders’

in the first file, except that these had no
garlands of lilies round their brow; instead,
roses and other red flowers wreathed their heads;
one seeing them less closely would have sworn
that all of them had flames above their eyebrows.]
Dante’s journey through purgatory and his arrival at its apex thus also
suggests the actual places of his own journey and the cities where he will
live out his final days. Within the theological exegesis of the Middle
Ages,23 then, the historical or literal journey of the Commedia has its alle-
gorical meaning in Dante’s own fulfillment of its events by his own wan-
dering.
As the pilgrim moves east toward the light and upward into the apse of
the metatextual church, so too the intertextual references, while still re-
calling the churches of his travels, take their cues from the soaring apses,
not from the exteriors, not from the long trek toward the altar but in the
glittering gardens and shining crosses found in the spectacular churches of
the Veneto and Romagna.
Indeed, here in the Paradiso the eastward trek and the pilgrimage that it
signals are also signaled by the increase in the textual references to Jerusa-
lem and the intertextual absorption of the churches of eastern Italy, and
specifically of the eastern seaport Ravenna. Given that Dante was at Venice
and Ravenna when he wrote the Paradiso, it is not surprising to see the
influence of so many of the Ravenna churches as well as the motifs of the
Veneto. While the vestiges of Dante’s Florentine churches are still visible,
it is the imagery of the great churches of Romagna and the Veneto that is
most prevalent.
Dante’s arrival in the apses of Ravenna is first announced by the pres-
ence of Justinian, recalling his mosaic depiction in the churches of
Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and San Vitale in Ravenna. In Paradiso 7, as in the
Epilogue 177
Ravenna church, Justinian is bathed in light. His hymn to the God of

Battles, the holy god of the armies (Par. 7:1–3), reminds the reader both of
Dante’s metatextual church and of the link between that church and the
journey to the Promised Land. As he sings of holy warriors, he introduces
another variant of pilgrimage, the crusade. Significantly, the fusion of pil-
grimage and crusading, this evocation of “taking up the cross,” in Dante’s
metatextual church takes place precisely where one would expect to find a
cross, glittering in the golden mosaics of the apse.
In Paradiso 10 where Dante is surrounded by the garland of souls, the
shining apses of Romagna and the Veneto are recalled again, in particular
in the Chapel of St. Andrew in the Archbishop’s Palace in Ravenna (fig. 7)
where the apse is decorated with garlands punctuated with images of five
of the Apostles. Dante likens the double garland to the brightest stars in
the sky, recalling the star-spangled ceilings of the Veneto churches, espe-
cially when the shape of the cross emerges against this textual backdrop of
the stars. The image of Christ on a cross set against a backdrop of stars
(Paradiso 14) is also highly suggestive of the churches of the Veneto, espe-
cially of those in Ravenna in which a cross is often contained within a circle
and then laid across a starry firmament (figs. 12 and 13).
The mosaic itself is, of course, the essence of the imagery of Dante’s
paradisaical vision in which large numbers of individuals merge to create a
larger image. As Dante rises higher and higher in the apse, for example, the
collective evokes the notion of justice and its role in judgment,24 recalling
the Veneto churches, especially those in Torcello and Padua but also those
in Ravenna, where the preparation for the coming of Christ and the Last
Judgment was a common motif. As the river of light transforms itself into
a circle,25 Dante recalls the great mosaic wall at Torcello in which an angel
at the end of time holds the starry firmament as it folds back on itself to
form a spiral (fig. 8).
But perhaps the motif that most closely links Dante’s Paradiso to his
time in Ravenna, and in particular to Sant’Apollinare in Classe, is the gar-
den imagery of Paradiso 23. The bucolic garden setting of the depiction of
St. Apollinaris echoes in Dante’s description of the souls flitting about the
rosa candida. Yet the invocation of this imagery does more than place
Dante in Ravenna. It tells us what he has seen and what he has become.
The apse of Sant’Apollinare uses the iconographic conventions associated
with Christ’s transfiguration (von Simson 43–57) to express the same pro-
cess in its patron saint. Dante’s evocation of its imagery and his absorption
Figure 12. Apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna. Photo by author.
Figure 13. Apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna (detail). Photo by author.
180 Epilogue
of the same into his own apse serves a similar purpose, advising the reader
that Dante’s cross is an emblem of his own transfiguration and a prophecy
of his own redemption.
Mary the rose and the lilies that are the apostles also recall another
frequent feature in medieval churches, the rose-wheel window, as well as
the iconographic representation of sainthood, the lily. Specifically, the rose
windows would recall many of the churches Dante had likely visited in-
cluding Siena.26 But the general garden setting is most closely linked to the
light touch of the Ravenna mosaics, most notably Sant’Apollinare in
Classe, where thousands of gold tiles provide a shimmering backdrop for a
series of bucolic images.27 One can only imagine how greatly impressed
Dante must have been by the Ravenna mosaics.28 Certainly a sense of his
awe may be found in his description of heaven in Paradiso 30.
Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive,
e d’ogne parte si mettien ne’ fiori,
quasi rubin che oro circunscrive
(Par. 30:64–66)
[Out of that stream there issued living sparks,

which settled on the flowers on all sides,
like rubies set in gold]
Ravenna and the Veneto represent the final stages of Dante’s physical
journey, and his fusion of images of Siena and of Ravenna signals that
Ravenna is the culmination and fulfillment of the journey started in Siena,
when he faced east to watch the rising sun through the eastern rose win-
dow of the duomo. Traveling east has brought Dante to that second Rome,
the Christian Rome, signaled by Ravenna’s own place as an imperial seat in
the post-Constantine era. In this way Ravenna might substitute for Rome,
at least for that earthly Rome that is a stepping-stone to the City of God.
Ravenna is an analogue of the true Christian capital that Dante imagines,
for it represents movement to the east and a shore distinct from that of his
polluted Rome/Babylon. For Dante, Ravenna is Justinian, justice personi-
fied, for it is from Ravenna that he will write his Paradiso and find his own
immortality, the reward for the injustice of his suffering.
If one considers for a moment that Dante has so continually told us that
this journey is real,29 we understand the necessity of this intertextual ab-
sorption and the role it plays in his project. Culling images from his own
journey of life allows Dante to reiterate its truth by creating a traceable
itinerary. He can present his life not only in the tradition of the lives of the
Epilogue 181
saints but in the tradition of those other great travelers, a resemblance to

whom he so coyly denies, Paul and Aeneas. Indeed he is not Aeneas, nor is
he Paul; rather he is the fulfillment of Aeneas and Paul in that he reiterates
Aeneas’s descent into the underworld and Paul’s own rapture into heaven.
But Dante has seen in Ravenna the Rome of which Paul could only have
dreamed. By journeying eastward, he has reached the New Jerusalem, the
Rome where Christ is Roman, and where Dante is finally home.
Dante has truly taken up the cross, and his cross will surpass the great
crosses and frescoes of Giotto di Bordone. It will surpass the Last Judg-
ments of the mosaicists of Torcello and Ravenna. Dante’s poem is his cross;
the meaning of the poem is salvation, and the meaning of his life is salva-
tion through suffering. With it he girds himself as surely as a crusader
strapped on a cross-shaped weapon of conversion, or donned a cross-em-
blazoned tunic. Dante’s poem offers his readers a new iter, a new cross
whose trajectories they can trace in their own wandering. The poem is his
cathedral in which he wears his own bishop’s miter. It is his pilgrimage and
his martyrdom. It takes the shape of the lives of saints found on the crosses
in the great churches of his life, and so his life is fused with all of those lives
of saints who took up the cross before him. Dante has lived in imitation of
Christ. He is not Aeneas, nor is he Paul. As Beatrice clearly pronounces at
the top of the suffering that leads him home,30 he is, above all, Dante.
Notes
Introduction
1. The earliest known depiction of the Crucifixion is carved in wood on a side door
of the Basilica di Santa Sabina, a Roman church of the fifth century that stands on
the Aventine Hill (Cahill 286).
2. “When he had called the people to Himself, with his disciples also, He said to
them, ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me’” (Mark 8:34). Historians generally consider that Mark’s gospel
was likely written sometime between 63 and 70 a.d. (Cahill 76). See also Matthew
16:24, Luke 9:23.
3. On these three writers, see chapter 1, notes 4–9.
4. A vast number of the maps from this time configure the world in the shape of
a tau cross, which was also used, along with the Greek cross, as a symbol of Christian
faith. See figure 1 for an example of such maps. These T-O maps are comprised of a
circular disc with Asia occupying the upper half, and Europe and Africa the lower
two quadrants. The horizontal line separating Asia from Europe is formed by the
Don, the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, the Aegean, and the Nile.
The Mediterranean, as a radius, joins the diameter at right angles forming the ver-
tical stroke of a letter T (Bagrow 42).
5. Margaret Visser notes the symbolism of journeying and pilgrimage in the
architecture of the early Christian church: “The central aisle or ‘road’ forward in any
church is a symbol of the length of a life: the life of all creations, of all humanity, of
the Church as a community, of each individual person. The ‘journey of life’ symbol-
ized in the floor of the church nave is accompanied by many other significant jour-
neys in Jewish and Christian memory” (57).
6. In the case of Santa Croce, the importation of such items—ranging from earth
brought from Mount Calvary in the fourth century by St. Helen to relics of the
Passion such as pieces of the True Cross, the INRI sign, fragments of the post upon
which Christ was flagellated, thorns from the crown of thorns, and finally a nail used
to affix Christ to the cross—effected a physical manifestation of the allegorical con-
nection.
7. See Corti, 245–46. See also Charity, Events and Their Afterlife, on Christian
typology.
8. “. . . our redemption through Christ is signified; . . . the conversion of the soul
from the sorrow and misery of sin to a state of grace is signified; . . . the passing of the
184 Notes to Pages 4–9
sanctified soul from the bondage of the corruption of this world to the liberty of
everlasting glory is signified” (Convito, epistle 13:21, my translation).
9. The ritual Stations of the Cross have their origins in the pilgrim ritual of
walking the Via Dolorosa in the Holy City. As John Demaray has noted, “priests and
palmers from the Holy Land introduced the ritual of worshiping at the Stations of
the Cross into Europe where it was adapted by the Roman Church” (Invention, 18).
10. It was the custom of medieval pilgrims preparing to enter the Holy City to
sing this hymn (ibid., 16). See also Holloway, Pilgrim and the Book, 58.
Chapter 1. Crossing Jordan: The Cruciform Journey to Jerusalem

1. In the Middle Ages it became common practice to depict more prominent saints
in a uniform manner. Most often saints were represented with the instrument of
their torture (as in the case of St. Lawrence, who is typically portrayed holding a
grill) or with a nod to their specific role (as in the case of St. Peter, who holds two
keys) or the particular part of their bodies that was miraculously restored (as in the
case of St. Lucy, who holds her eyes on a plate). These additional objects are referred
to as “attributes” and served to identify the saints to illiterate worshippers.
2. Early Christians used the fish as a recognition sign of their religion. It is also
identified as the “Ichthus,” an acronym from the Greek Iesous Christos Theou Uios
Soter [Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Savior]. Moreover, early Christians were called
pisciculi, a diminutive of the Latin piscis, fish.
3. The gospels are rife with allegorical references to fish: “Follow Me, and I will
make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17); “For as Jonah was three days and
three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40); “And they said to Him, ‘We
have here only five loaves and two fish’” (Matt. 14:17); “And when they had done
this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking” (Luke 5:6); “So
they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb” (Luke 24:42); “And He
said to them, ‘Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So
they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish”
(John 21:6).
4. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130–200) was of Eastern origin and, as a boy, studied at
Rome. He later became one of the leading theologians of the early Christian church
and was appointed bishop of Lyons in 178 (Farmer 244).
5. From Epideixis I.34, in Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, trans. Joseph P. Smith
(Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1952), cited in Ohly, 20.
6. Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 330–ca. 395) was born at Caesarea Mazaca in Cappa-
docia. He was trained as a rhetorician before being ordained as a priest. In 371 he
became bishop of Nyssa in Asia Minor (Farmer 216).
7. In christi resurrectionem oratio I, PG 46, 624 B, cited in Ladner, 197.
8. Eph. 3:17–19: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you,
being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints
Notes to Pages 9–11 185
what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
9. From Augustine’s treatise on the Gospel of John: “et significat perseverantium
in longitudine temporis usque in finem” (Tractates, CCL.36.657.10, cited in Ohly
21).
10. See introduction, note 2.
11. “. . . longa et perseverans laborum et persecutionum sustinentia, quam
patienter ferre debet at patriam suspirans nostra peregrinatio” (cited in Ohly 20).
“For what could we have to say of the cross itself, which every one knows was in like
manner made and fastened to Christ by enemies and sinners? And yet it is to it we
may rightly understand the words of the apostle to be applicable, ‘what is the
breadth, and the length, and the height, and the depth.’ For its breadth lies in the
transverse beam, on which the hands of the Crucified are extended; and signifies
good works in all the breadth of love: its length extends from the transverse beam to
the ground, and is that whereto the back and feet are affixed; and signifies persever-
ance through the whole length of time to the end: its height is in the summit, which
rises upwards above the transverse beam; and signifies the supernal goal” (Tractates,
vol. 5, 118:5, on John 19:23–24).
12. Debra Birch notes that, by Dante’s time, this aspect of pilgrimage was so fully
developed that pilgrimages were, at times, imposed on Christians as punishment for
some crime or misdemeanor. The penitential nature of the journey meant that the
pilgrim must expect to suffer in the course of his travel. Indeed, notes Birch, some
sources refer to pilgrimage as “white martyrdom” as opposed to the “red martyr-
dom” of death (3).
13. “The figure of the earth is lengthwise from east to west and breadthwise from
north to south and that is divided into two parts: this part which we, the men of the
present day inhabit, and which is all round encircled by the intermedial sea, called
the ocean by the Pagans, and that part which encircles the ocean and has its extremi-
ties bound together with those of the heaven, and which men at one time inhabited
to eastward before the flood in the days of Noah occurred and in which also paradise
is situated” (Indicopleustes 33). Interestingly, this configuration places paradise at
the other side of the earth—that is, antithetical to the inhabited portion. The date of
the work is uncertain, but its author was likely a native of Alexandria of Greek
parentage writing around 547.
14. Leo Bagrow discusses the various cross-shaped representations of the world
during the Middle Ages. The most common was the T-O or wheel representation in
which the world is represented as a circular disc with Asia occupying the upper half
and Europe and Africa the lower two quadrants (42). See introduction, note 4. See
also Schildgen, 19–27, for a detailed examination of medieval maps of the known
world in Dante’s time.
15. The notion of Jerusalem being “up” predates the Christian map. The books of
the Old Testament regularly refer to going “up” to Jerusalem. “Who is among you
of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is
in Judah and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God) which is in
Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:3).
16. As Peter Hawkins has pointed out, pilgrimage in the Middle Ages was marked
by physical discomfort and suffering such that “the way of the Christian pilgrim is
inevitably a via crucis” (248).
17. In November 1095 at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II preached a
sermon in which he called on the Frankish knights to vow to march to the east, with
the twin aims of freeing Christians from Islamic rule and liberating the Holy Sepul-
chre (Riley-Smith, “Crusading Movement,” 1). Urban had preached the crusade as
a pilgrimage, a devotional activity open to all, and by the third quarter of the twelfth
century, the taking of the cross and the rite granting the pilgrimage symbols of purse
and staff were being merged into a single ceremony (Riley-Smith, “State of Mind,”
69).
18. Introducing the cross as a visible symbol of the vow of commitment, Urban
associated the taking and wearing of it in a highly charged way with Christ’s pre-
cepts as enunciated in Matthew 16:24 (Riley-Smith, “State of Mind,” 70).
19. John Demaray notes that it has become commonplace to assert that the world
of the Commedia “reflects earthly events and persons recorded in two great medi-
eval source books: the Book of God’s Works, the existent universe, and the Book of
God’s Words, the Holy Bible” (Invention, 3).
20. The most obvious is the episode in which Ulysses describes his ill-fated jour-
ney beyond the Pillars of Hercules, a journey that not only is westward but explicitly
requires turning to face away from the east: “and turning our stern toward morning,
our bow toward night” (“e volta nostra poppa nel mattino” Inf. 26:124).
All citations from the Commedia are taken from the Petrocchi edition and all
translations from Mandelbaum.
21. The Ebstorf map (ca. 1235), which superimposes a figure of Christ on the
cross shape, places paradise in the east beyond Jerusalem, at the top of the map where
Christ’s head is located (Woodward 307–14). The Psalter map (ca. 1260) discussed by
Schildgen places Jerusalem at the center and locates the Garden of Eden east of
Jerusalem—that is, above it. The same map places an image of the risen Christ at the
apex, outside the globe itself (Schildgen 21).
22. Typically, medieval churches that were given a cruciform floor plan were also
laid out with the apse at the east end of the church. Accordingly, one facing the altar
was also facing east. Facing west requires turning one’s back to the altar. For more
details on this, see chapter 5. In the circle of the heretics, for example, Dante uses the
heretic’s blindness to the present to mimic the light patterns of an eastern-oriented
church. Farinata uses light imagery to explain that he can see the future but not the
present: “‘Noi veggiam, come quei c’ha mala luce, / le cose,’ disse, ‘che ne son
lontano’” (Inf. 10:100–101). The process is similar to what occurs in an eastern-
oriented church when the light coming from the east is to one’s back. The closer an
object is, the more it lies in one’s shadow and therefore lacks the illumination of an
object beyond one’s shadow. Farinata’s trajectory thus takes him away from God’s
light, and his own shadow precludes him from seeing what means most to him. This
is explored in more depth in chapter 6.
23. John Ciardi suggests that in the Purgatorio the hymns mark the progress of
a mass (Dante, Purgatorio, 111). See also chapter 7.
24. The lifelike sculpted panels of the circle of pride (Purg. 10:22–81) recall the
many marvelous sculpted works of the Pisano brothers throughout Tuscany, while
its inlaid floor (Purg. 12:14–15) reminds the reader of San Miniato al Monte and the
duomo of Siena. See chapter 7, note 20.
25. See Schnapp, chapter 5, on Dante’s use of Sant’Apollinare in Classe in the
Commedia. See also chapter 8 below.
Chapter 2. Leaving Jerusalem: The Journey into Exile

1. See chapter 1, note 11.
2. Demaray, Invention, 14
3. Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto
(Inf. 1:13–15)
[But when I’d reached the bottom of a hill—
it rose along the boundary of the valley
that had harassed my heart with so much fear]
4. Robert Hollander explains theological allegory using this example: “Jerusalem
was the historical city of Old Testament time; it points to the allegorical Jerusalem
in which Jesus was crucified; it is the moral or tropological ‘city’ (whether within a
single believer or as the entity formed by the Church Militant now) at any present
moment; it is anagogically the New Jerusalem, which will exist only at the end of
time” (Life in Works, 99).
5. The early Church had done much to establish Rome as the genuine inheritor
of Jerusalem’s capacity as the portal to salvation. The concerted efforts of Con-
stantine’s mother Helen to translate Jerusalem into Rome (Santa Croce in Geru-
salemme), by bringing not only earth from Mount Calvary but also what purported
to be pieces of the True Cross, firmly established in the minds of Romans that Rome
was indeed the New Jerusalem that John had prophesied. (In Revelation 17–21, John
identifies the scarlet whore of Babylon with a city that sits on seven hills and “will
make war with the Lamb” (17:14). This Babylon, he prophesies, will fall, making
room for the New Jerusalem.)
6. Scriptural connections between Rome and Christianity abound. Indeed, the
gospels repeatedly take pains to include the secular circumstances into which their
messiah was born and in which their messiah preached and through which he was
crucified. Luke 2:1 tells us that it was Caesar Augustus’s proclamation that brought
Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where the prophecy of Micah 5:2 that the messiah
would be born in Bethlehem could be fulfilled. We also read in Matthew 27:19 of the
intimate involvement of Pilate and his wife in the crucifixion of Christ, and in John
18:24 of the role of Roman soldiers in fulfilling the prophecies of Psalms 22:16–18
(“They have pierced My hands and My feet . . . And for My clothing they cast lots”).
7. In the Fourth Eclogue, one of a series of pastoral poems written by Virgil
around 37 b.c., much of the imagery recalls the prophecies of Isaiah: “justice re-
turns” echoes Isaiah 9:7; “what so tracks remain of our old wickedness” echoes
Isaiah 11:4; “with his father’s worth reign over a world at peace” can be heard in
Isaiah 9:7; “while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear” is reminis-
cent of Isaiah 11:6; “The serpent too shall die” echoes Isaiah 11:8; “the sturdy
ploughman shall loose yoke from steer,” echoes Isaiah 9:4. See also Comparetti on
the medieval characterization of Virgil as an unknowing prophet.
8. Per me si va ne la città dolente
per me si va ne l’etterno dolore
(Inf. 3:1–2)
[Through me one enters the sorrowful city,
through me one enters eternal sorrow.]
9. The current gate was constructed to honor Ferdinand I de’ Medici’s arrival in
Siena but the previous gate was similarly inscribed long before the Medici domina-
tion of Tuscany.
10. Matt. 27:51: “and the earth quaked and the rocks were split.”
11. Dante’s imagining hell as a city was not unique. The medieval imagination
pictured hell much the way it pictured heaven, as a gated area, passage into which
required admission. Medieval tradition placed demons at the outer gates of hell to
oppose Christ’s descent at the time of the harrowing of hell (Dante, Inferno, 86).
12. For a through review of the commentary tradition in respect of this passage,
see Hollander, Dante and Paul, 20–27.
13. As Ciardi notes, “To a European of Dante’s time a mosque would seem the
perversion of a church, the impious counterpart of the House of God, just as Satan
is God’s impious counterpart” (Dante, Inferno, 85). María Rosa Menocal suggests
that the mosques also reflect Dante’s condemnation of Islamic culture, whose
spreading influence in Europe he saw as a threat (128–32).
14. Ciardi in Dante, Inferno, 86. He continues: “The service of the Mass for Holy
Saturday still sings Hodie portas mortis et seras pariter Salvator noster disrupit.
(On this day our Saviour broke open the door of the dead and its lock as well.)”
15. Ottaviano degli Ubaldini was bishop of Bologna from 1240 to 1244. He be-
came a cardinal in 1245 and died in 1273. A comment commonly attributed to him,
“Io posso dire, se è anima, che l’ho perduta per parte ghibellina” (I can say that, if
there is a soul, I lost it in the Ghibelline cause), was sufficient to have him branded
both Ghibelline and heretic (Sapegno 122).
16. Frederick II (December 26, 1194–December 13, 1250). His father was Henry
VI (1165–1197), his grandfather was Frederick I Barbarossa, and his mother was
Constance (1154–1198), daughter of Roger II Hauteville of Sicily. He was crowned
Holy Roman emperor by Pope Honorius III at Rome in 1220 (Lomax 382–83).
17. Frederick had taken the cross for the Fifth Crusade in 1215 and was supposed
to have joined the expedition, but political problems in the West prevented him from
departing (ibid.).
18. In the Treaty of Jaffa contracted in February 1229, Sultan al-Kamil agreed to
surrender control of Jerusalem for ten years, but the Muslims were to retain the
Temple area and the city was not to be fortified. In return, Frederick promised to
protect the sultan’s interests against all his enemies, Christian or Muslim (Phillips
134). See also Tate, 180.
19. Frederick had become king of Jerusalem in 1225 by marrying Isabelle de
Brienne. It was a kingship in name only, since Muslims had possession of the city.
Crowned king in 1229, Frederick reigned in person for only a few weeks (Tate 180).
20. “Even the old adage calls them blind” (“Vecchia fama nel mondo li chiama
orbi” Inf. 15:67). Sapegno notes that this is an ancient proverb, common in Tuscan
communities under Florentine hegemony. Possible sources include Totila’s decep-
tion and subsequent destruction of Florence, or the Florentines’ acceptance of two
damaged porphyry columns sent by Pisans who had hidden the damage by decep-
tion (175).
21. For more on the view of Muslim presence in the Holy Land as defilement see
Riley-Smith, “State of Mind,” 77.
22. Tu sai che ’l loco è tondo;
e tutto che tu sie venuto molto,
pur a sinistra, giù calando al fondo
(Inf. 14:124–26)
[You know this place is round;
and though the way that you have come is long,
and always toward the left and toward the bottom]
23. Paul’s westward journey was a prelude to paradise, though Aeneas’s west-
ward journey, devoid of Christian salvation, permitted a descent whose correspond-
ing ascent could only bring him back up to his starting point and lacked the capacity
to reach heaven.
24.che dal collo a ciascun pendea una tasca
ch’avea certo colore e certo segno
(Inf. 17:55–56)
[that from the neck of each a purse was hung
that had a special color and an emblem]
25.Deh, or mi dì: quanto tesoro volle
Nostro Segnore in prima da san Pietro
ch’ei ponesse le chiavi in sua balìa?
Certo non chiese se non “Viemmi retro.”
(Inf. 19:90–93)
[Then tell me now, how much gold did our Lord
ask that Saint Peter give him before
he placed the keys within his care? Surely

the only thing he said was “Follow me.”]
26. According to legend, in the fourth century Constantine’s mother, Helen, had
important holy relics brought from Jerusalem to the Roman church of Santa Croce
in Gerusalemme, giving the allegorical connection a physical manifestation; see in-
troduction, note 6. Helen’s discovery of the True Cross and its translation to Rome
are recounted in Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 3:78–82.
27.Di voi pastor s’accorse il Vangelista,
quando colei che siede sopra l’acque
puttaneggiar coi regi a lui fu vista
(Inf. 19:106–8)
[You, shepherds, the Evangelist had noticed
when he saw her who sits upon the waters
and realized she fornicates with kings]
28. According to legend, Nicodemus carved it at the time of the Crucifixion. For
more on the evolution of the legend, see Baracchini.
29.Più non si vanti Libia con sua rena;
ché se chelidri, iaculi e faree
produce, e cencri con anfisibena,
né tante pestilenzie né sì ree
mostrò già mai con tutta l’Etïopia
né con ciò che di sopra al Mar Rosso èe.
(Inf. 24:85–90)
[Let Libya boast no more about her sands;
for if she breeds chelydri, jaculi,
cenchres with amphisbaena, pareae,
she never showed—with all of Ethiopia
or all the land that borders the Red Sea—
so many, such malignant, pestilences.]
30.Godi, Fiorenza, poi che se’ sì grande
che per mare e per terra batti l’ali,
e per lo ’nferno tuo nome si spande!
(Inf. 26:1–3)
[Be joyous, Florence, you are great indeed,
for over sea and land you beat your wings;
through every part of Hell your name extends!]
31. Here Dante once again recalls the Old Testament tradition. He sets the scene
with a pastoral setting in which the various flames of the valley below are likened to
fireflies, while across this sky bolts the fiery chariot of Elijah (Inf. 26:35) referred to
in 2 Kings 2:11–24. The Hebrew prophecies are thereby introduced and then imme-
diately contrasted with the evil counsel of Ulysses. Thus the word of God is con-
trasted with the word of an evil Greek, and the fact that hell is an anti–Holy Land is
reiterated once again.
32. Amilcare Iannucci notes that the Ulysses episode is one that is “structurally
determining,” that is, one whose “meaning extends far beyond its immediate sur-
roundings.” Such episodes are “the sources of patterns and issues fundamental to
the poem’s design and significance” (“Paradiso XXXI,” 471).
33. In the “Letter to Cangrande” (epistle 13 in Convito), Dante describes a four-
fold means of interpreting the Commedia, using as an example scriptural passages
that Dante suggests as the prototype for such polysemy.
34. In 1300 Fra Dolcino took over the reformist order called the Apostolic Broth-
ers, who preached, among other things, community of property and of women.
Clement declared them heretical and ordered a crusade against them. The brother-
hood retired with its women to an impregnable position in the hills between No-
vara and Vercelli, but their supplies gave out in the course of a yearlong siege, and
they were finally starved out in March of 1307. Dolcino and Margaret of Trent, his
“sister in Christ,” were burned at the stake at Vercelli the following June (Salvio
22–36).
35. Ali succeeded Muhammad in the caliphate, but not until three of the disciples
had preceded him. Muhammad died in 632, and Ali did not assume the caliphate
until 656.
36.Poco portäi in là volta la testa,
che me parve veder molte alte torri;
ond’io: “Maestro, di,’ che terra è questa?”
(Inf. 31:19–21)
[I’d only turned my head there briefly when
I seemed to make out many high towers; then
I asked him: “Master, tell me, what’s this city?”]
37. According to Sapegno, even the earliest commentators tried to make sense of
the words that Dante has created here to invent the sound of babble. The general
conclusion is that these are words culled by Dante from biblical sources and medi-
eval lexicons and then twisted and distorted (349). For a concise overview of the
critical tradition with respect to Nimrod’s babbling, see Hollander, Dante and Paul,
7–20.
38. Gaddeo’s plea echoes Christ’s own cry from the cross, “My God, why have
You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
39. In 1275 he invited his father-in-law, Michele Zanche, to a banquet and had
him and his companions cut to pieces (Inf. 33:137–47).
40. “Vexilla regis prodeunt,” a hymn that celebrates the Holy Cross and is sung
on Good Friday at the moment of uncovering the cross, was written in the sixth
century by Venantius Fortunatis, bishop of Poitiers.
Chapter 3. Exodus: The Journey Back

1. Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto
(Inf. 1:13)
[But when I’d reached the bottom of a hill]
E come quei che con lena affannata

uscito fuor del pelago a la riva
si volge a l’acqua perigliosa e guata
(Inf. 1:22–24)
[And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from sea to shore, turns back
to watch the dangerous waters he has quit]
2. Dolce color d’orïental zaffiro,
che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto
del mezzo, puro infino al primo giro
(Purg. 1:13–15)
[The gentle hue of oriental sapphire
in which the sky’s serenity was steeped—
its aspect pure as far as the horizon]
3. Here, as morning star, Venus is described as rising in Pisces, the fishes, the
zodiacal sign immediately preceding Aries. In canto 1 of the Inferno Dante has made
it clear that the sun is in Aries, hence about to rise. Yet at no time in April of 1300 was
Venus the morning star; rather it rose after the sun.
5. The Battle of Milvian Bridge took place on October 28, 312, between the Ro-
man emperors Constantine the Great and Maxentius. On the evening of October 27,
Constantine reportedly had a vision. The Greek letters XP (chi rho, the first two
letters of “Christ”), intertwined with a cross, appeared emblazoned on the sun to-
gether with the inscription “In Hoc Signo Vinces” (Under this sign, you will con-
quer). Constantine, who was a pagan at the time, put the symbol on his solders’
shields. The next day, he was victorious. He entered Rome not long afterward and
was acclaimed as sole western Augustus. He credited his victory at Milvian Bridge to
the god of the Christians, and in 313 he ordered the end of any religious persecution
within his realm. He was baptized as a Christian in 337.
6. Quando noi fummo là dove la coscia
si volge, a punto in sul grosso de l’anche,
lo duca, con fatica e con angoscia,
volse la testa ov’elli avea le zanche,
e aggrappossi al pel com’om che sale,
sì che ’n inferno i’ credea tornar anche.
(Inf. 34:76–81)
[When we had reached the point at which the thigh
revolves, just at the swelling of the hip,
my guide, with heady strain and rugged work,
reversed his head to where his legs had been
and grappled on the hair, as one who climbs—
I thought that we were going back to Hell.]
Ed elli a me: “Tu imagini ancora

d’esser di là dal centro, ov’io mi presi
al pel del vermo reo che ’l mondo fóra.
Di là fosti cotanto quant’io scesi;
quand’io mi volsi, tu passasti ’l punto
al qual si traggon d’ogne parte i pesi.”
(Inf. 34:106–11)
[And he to me: “You still believe you are
north of the center, where I grasped the hair
of the damned worm who pierces through the world.
And you were there as long as I descended;
but when I turned, that’s when you passed the point
to which, from every part, all weights are drawn.”]
7. Dante, perché Virgilio se ne vada,
non pianger anco, non pianger ancora
(Purg. 30:55–56)
[Dante, though Virgil’s leaving you, do not
yet weep, do not weep yet]
mi volsi al suon del nome mio
(Purg. 30:62)
[I’d turned around when I had heard my name.]
8. See chapter 1, note 12. See also Demaray, “Pilgrim Texts,” on the similarities
between Dante’s purgatorial climb and actual pilgrimages to Jerusalem.
9. Debra Birch also notes that pilgrimage and crusading were so intertwined in
the Middle Ages that it is often difficult to distinguish pilgrims from crusaders in
eleventh- and twelfth- century sources. “Frequently sources refer to peregrini trav-
eling to the Holy Land but it is often impossible to assess whether they were ordi-
nary pilgrims or those ‘armed pilgrims’ who had taken the cross” (8).
10. “Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two
tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the moun-
tain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone, while he talked with
Him. . . . and they were afraid to come near him “(Ex. 34:29–30). “And whenever the
children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses
would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him” (Ex. 34:35).
11. “Cato, the guardian of Purgatory is presented (cantos I and II) in ways that
portray him as the pagan antitype of Moses and the type of Christ” (Hollander, Life
in Works, 102).
12. Matthew sets his Resurrection account precisely at dawn: “Now after the
Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary came to see the tomb” (28:1). Mark describes the time of day as “Very early in
the morning . . . when the sun had risen” (16:2). Luke says it was “very early in the
morning” (24:1), while John says that it was “early, while it was still dark” (20:1).

14. While the Stations of the Cross were adopted and absorbed into Roman obser-
vance, the Stations of the Exodus and the Mount Sinai Ring were practiced by fewer
people and were eventually forgotten (Demaray, Invention, 18).
15.“In exitu Isräel de Aegypto”
cantavan tutti insieme ad una voce
con quanto di quel salmo è poscia scripto.
Poi fece il segno lor di santa croce;
ond’ei si gittar tutti in su la piaggia:
ed el sen gì, come venne, veloce.
(Purg. 2:46–51)
[“In exitu Israel de Aegypto,”
with what is written after of that psalm,
all of the spirits sang as with one voice.
Then over them he made the holy cross
as sign; they flung themselves down on the shore,
and he moved off as he had come—swiftly.]
16.de’ remi facemmo ali al folle volo

(Inf. 26:125)
[made wings out of our oars in a wild flight]
17. Cato explains where it is that the angel has gone:
A quella foce ha elli or dritta l’ala,
peró che sempre quivi so ricoglie
qual verso Acheronte non si cala.
(Purg. 2:103–5)
[Straight to that river mouth, he set his wings:
that always is the place of gathering
for those who do not sink to Acheron.]
18. Voi credete

forse che siamo esperti d’esto loco;
ma noi siam peregrin come voi siete.
(Purg. 2:61–63)
[You may be convinced
that we are quite familiar with this shore;
but we are strangers here, just as you are.]
19. The time reference is clearly an allusion to the jubilee declaration of Boniface
VIII under which pilgrims to Rome were granted a large variety of indulgences in
return for their journey.
20. Dante argues strenuously in book 2, chapter 10, of the Monarchia that
Roman imperial rule facilitated the Incarnation and that the Incarnation itself
affirms the rightness of Roman imperialism. “6. . . . Sed Cristus, ut scriba eius
Lucas testatur, sub edicto romane auctoritatis nasci voluit de Virgine Matre, ut in
illa singulari generis humani descriptione filius Dei, homo factus, homo con-
scriberetur: quod fuit illud prosequi. [6. . . . But Christ chose to be born of the
Virgin Mary under an edict authorized by Rome, as Luke, Christ’s scribe, attests.
Christ so chose in order that the son of God, being made man, might be enrolled as
a man in that unique census of the human race. And by this action he approved the
edict.]
21. Although this may appear to be an allusion to Matthew 19:24 (“It is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God”), such an allusion would have little bearing on the pilgrim’s own particular
situation. Moreover, the fact that it refers to a specific class of people seems restric-
tive, particularly in this portion of the text where Dante has not yet begun to distin-
guish between the particular sins being purged.
22. While the autobiographical implications of this are not without note and will
be discussed below, the inclusion of such an image suggests very strongly that Dante
was attempting to link the journey of his pilgrim to the actual pilgrimage routes of
the Middle Ages. For more on the storiated floor at Siena, including the issue of its
date, see chapter 7, note 20.
23.Quando l’anima mia tornò di fori
a le cose che son fuor di lei vere,
io riconobbi i miei non falsi errori.
(Purg. 15:115–17)
[And when my soul returned outside itself
and met the things outside it that are real,
I then could recognize my not false errors.]
24. Sabine MacCormack notes that in medieval thought patterns the symbol and
the prototype were often regarded as part of the same reality. In the case of shrines
of the saints, this thinking led to the belief that the saint could be both in the earthly
location and in heaven at the same time (7).
25.La sete natural che mai non sazia
se non con l’acqua onde la femminetta
samaritana domandò la grazia
(Purg. 21:1–3)
[The natural thirst that never can be quenched
except by water that gives grace—the draught
the simple woman of Samaria sought]
26.Ed ecco, sì come ne scrive Luca
che Cristo apparve a’ due ch’erano in via,
già surto fuor de la sepulchral buca
(Purg. 21:7–9)
[And here—even as Luke records for us
that Christ, new-risen from his burial cave,
appeared to two along his way]
See Holloway, Jerusalem, 128, for further affinities between the Emmaus model and
the Commedia.
27.Io dicea fra me stesso pensando: “Ecco
la gente che perdé Ierusalemme,
quando Maria nel figlio diè di becco!”
(Purg. 23:28–30)
[Thinking, I told myself: “I see the people
who lost Jerusalem, when Mary plunged
her beak into her son.”]
28. Not only was Helen instrumental in bringing some of the most significant
relics of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome, she was also instrumental in lending
Roman patronage to the fourth-century construction in Jerusalem of Christian
churches such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holum 77).
29.ché quella voglia a li alberi ci mena
che menò Cristo lieto a dire “Elì,”
quando ne liberò con la sua vena.
(Purg. 23:73–5)
[same longing that had guided Christ when He
had come to free us through the blood He shed
and, in His joyousness, called out: “Eli.”]
30. “Hosannah to the Son of David!” (Matt. 21:9).
31. Taken from Psalm 79, the hymn continues: “O God, the heathens are come
into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem
on heaps.”
Chapter 4. Let Him Go Up to Jerusalem

1. Such a fusion is also consistent with the medieval perception of the relation-
ship between crusading and pilgrimage. By the late twelfth century, the investiture
ceremony of a crusader included not only receiving his cross from a bishop, but also
the scrip (purse) and staff of a pilgrim. See chapter 3, note 9, for more on the fusion
of crusader and pilgrim.
2. On Frederick, see chapter 2, notes 16–19.
3. In describing Dante’s descriptive technique in Inferno 12, Charles S. Singleton
says: “the poet is leading us down into that circle through images of violence. Words
and phrases are alive to this idea and are serving it in every possible way. Indeed we
are justified, I think, in resorting to a metaphor here ourselves. This semantic field
may be called a magnetic field within which all particles bear a charge of attraction,
as it were, to the electrifying and controlling idea—here violence—an attraction that
is here witnessed in the detail of those verbs in a narrative tense, percosse and si
mosse, that immediately precede the image of a bull that has been percosso at the
slaughter and moves about (si move) in its stunned state (matta bestialitade) before
it falls (ruina). It is such a charged field of meaning that we shall find around our
second sample of Dante’s illustrations” (“The Irreducible Vision,” 17–18).
4. As bishop of Toulouse from 1205 to 1231, Folquet, a Cistercian monk, led the
Albigensian crusade declared in 1208 by Innocent III.
5. Ben si convenne lei lasciar per palma
in alcun cielo de l’alta vittoria
che s’acquistò con l’una e l’altra palma,
perch’ella favorò la prima gloria
di Iosüè in su la Terra Santa,
che poco tocca al papa la memoria.
(Par. 9:121–26)
[And it was right to leave her in this heaven
as trophy of the lofty victory
that Christ won, palm on palm, upon the cross,
for she had favored the initial glory
of Joshua within the Holy Land—
which seldom touches the Pope’s memory.]
6. A questo intende il papa e’ cardinali:
non vanno i lor pensieri a Nazarette,
là dove Gabrïello aperse l’ali.
Ma Vaticano e l’altre parti elette
di Roma che son state cimitero
a la milizia che Pietro seguette,
tosto libere fien de l’avoltero.
(Par. 9:136–42)
[On these the pope and cardinals are intent.
Their thoughts are never bent on Nazareth,
where Gabriel’s open wings were reverent.
And yet the hill of Vatican as well
as the other noble parts of Rome that were
the cemetery for Peter’s soldiery
will soon be freed from priests’ adultery.]
7. “Domini canes” (L., hounds of the Lord) is a play on the name of the order of
Dominicans.
8. Mazzotta also notes Francis’s role as a peacemaker: “Saint Francis preaches to
the Sultan. Unlike the crusaders, he wants to tear down by peaceful speech the theo-
logical barriers dividing Christians and Muslims” (“Heaven of the Sun,” 164).
10. Thomas Elwood Hart proposes that the location of the “Cristo” rhymes in
Paradiso 12, 14, and 19 at “amazingly proportional intervals” suggests the quad-
rants of a circumscribed Greek cross (two equal diameters at right angles) and
creates what he calls an “embedded cross” (118). Such a theory indeed supports the
notion that Dante was ultimately engaged in producing not only a textual struc-
ture but also a metatextual structure of which the embedded cross is synecdoch-
ical.
11. There is no historical evidence to support this claim, or indeed even that he
went on a crusade.
12. “Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s ser-
vant, and cut off his right ear” (John 18:10).
13. Indeed, the hilts of such swords were often used as reliquaries. As such, the
crusader’s sword corresponded to the cruciform church, and the reliquary at the hilt
corresponded to the altar in the church where relics were most often kept or dis-
played—and to the city of Jerusalem on medieval mappae mundi.
14.Per questo la Scrittura condescende
a vostra facultate, e piedi e mano
attribuisce a Dio, e altro intende.
(Par. 4:43–45)
[And this is why the Bible condescends
to human powers, assigning feet and hands
to God, but meaning something else instead.]
15. For a thorough examination of the figure of Ulysses as an “anti-pilgrim” to
Dante’s pilgrim, see Hawkins, 265–83.
16. Steven Botterill has devoted an entire study to the question of Bernard. His
1994 book Dante and the Mystical Tradition provides, in Botterill’s words, “a survey
of the solutions of others to the questions raised by Bernard’s appearance” (14). In
particular, Botterill notes the medieval conception of Bernard as a second Moses,
“alter Moyses.” While this view of Bernard might justify Dante’s use of him as part
of the Exodus motif, it does not explain how it is that Bernard is allowed to enter the
Promised Land. It cannot, therefore, be the primary reason for which Bernard is
selected as Dante’s final guide.
17. Until the suppression of their order in 1310, these knights also took oaths to
protect the Holy Sepulchre and other holy shrines (Demaray, Cosmos and Epic
Representation, 64).
Chapter 5. Sign of the Cross: The Medieval Cruciform Church

1. In the early Christian period, from the mid-first century until the Constan-
tinian era of the early fourth century, Christian places of worship ranged from
tituli—homes of private citizens, and therefore built in the style of the Roman
home—to hastily constructed shrines built over the tombs of Christian martyrs
buried outside the city walls. After the Battle of Milvian Bridge and the legalization
of Christianity, the basilica church, based on Roman basilica architecture, was added
to the repertoire of building styles.
2. See Visser, 57–59, and also introduction, note 5.
5. In certain cases this allegorical association of the church and Jerusalem was
made even more explicit, such as in the case of Rome’s Basilica di Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme. See introduction, note 6.

7. Christ’s first two disciples, including Peter upon whom he vowed to build his
church, were fishermen.
9. Visser observes that the “penultimate journey towards the Resurrection was
Christ’s journey to his crucifixion, his being forced to carry the instrument of his
own torture and death out of the walls of Jerusalem to the hill called the Skull,
Golgotha in Hebrew, Calvary in Latin. This journey is commemorated by the sta-
tions of the cross” (57).
10. In certain cases this allegorical association of the church and Jerusalem was
made even more explicit. In Rome, for example, the Basilica di Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme affirms the allegorical connection between the church building and
Jerusalem. In the case of Santa Croce the importation of relics from the Holy Land
(see chapter 2, note 26) effected a physical manifestation of the allegorical connec-
tion. By virtue of this process, which Irving Lavin refers to as the “topographical
transfusion” of Jerusalem to Rome, the basilica itself, and indeed all of Rome, could
be understood as the second Jerusalem. In fact, Lavin says, it could be understood as
“the truer Jerusalem,” where the Lord was crucified a second time in St. Peter (34–
35).
11. John Demaray has observed that “Dante’s long pilgrimage throughout the
Commedia is an imitation of an early pilgrimage made by countless medieval Chris-
tians to holy stations located in the Near East and Italy” (Invention, 6).
12. See Iannucci, Forma ed Evento; Cervigni, Dante’s Poetry of Dreams.
13. Even today, when many of the churches in Europe and especially in Italy exist
equally as museums, admittance to the sanctuary is rare. And while tourists are
often permitted to approach the altar, it is the rare church that permits traffic beyond
it. Certainly during the course of a mass, an ordinary member of the congregation
does not progress beyond the altar. Ordinary members of the congregation can enter
the sanctuary during a sacrament such as baptism or marriage, but on those occa-
sions admittance itself indicates a special selection for the purposes of the celebration.
14. See especially Schildgen, chapter 1.
Chapter 6. Navata infernale

1. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me’” (John 14:6).
2. L’altra è colei che s’ancise amorosa,
e ruppe fede al cener di Sicheo
(Inf. 5:61–62)
[That other spirit killed herself for love,
And she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus]
3. Further, Comparetti notes that Dante and his medieval contemporaries would
have afforded Virgil’s writings a historicity that the modern reader would find un-
supportable (202–3).
4. “As she laid her offerings on the altars where incense burned, she saw a dread-
ful sight; for the holy waters turned to black and the poured wine by some sinister
transformation was turned to blood” (Virgil, Aeneid 4:658–61; trans. Knight, 111).
5. In his study of medieval rose-wheel windows, John Leyerle notes the distinc-
tion between the earthly rose associated with courtly love, the red rose, and the
heavenly rose, associated with the medieval perception of Mary as rosa sine spina,
the white rose (289).
6. Mary, the embodiment of such immaculate love, is also described in terms of
the white rose: “The Rose in which the Word of God became / flesh” (“la rosa in che
’l verbo divino / carne si fece” Par. 23:73–74).
7. Quest’inno si gorgoglian ne la strozza,
ché dir nol posson con parola integra.
(Inf. 7:125–26)
[This hymn they have to gurgle in their gullets,
because they cannot speak it in full words.]
8. In Matthew 15:26–27 Christ extends his salvation to the Canaanite woman
who asks his mercy for her sick daughter. Christ’s immediate response, in keeping
with the Hebrew custom, refers to her as a dog, but he sees her as worthy when she
points out that even “little dogs who sit at the master’s table await the scraps that
fall.”
9. Maestro, già le sue meschite
là entro certe ne la valle cerno,
vermiglie come se di foco uscite
fossero.
(Inf. 8:70–73)
[I can already see distinctly—
master—the mosques that gleam within the valley,
as crimson as if they had just been drawn
out of the fire.]
10.Io vidi più di mille in su le porte

da ciel piovuti
(Inf. 8:82–83)
[About the gates I saw more than a thousand—
who once had rained from Heaven]
11.Con l’unghie si fendea ciascuna il petto;

battiensi a palme, e gridavan sì alto,
ch’i’ mi strinsi al poeta per sospetto.
(Inf. 9:49–51)
[Each Fury tore her breast with taloned nails;
each, with her palms, beat on herself and wailed
so loud that I, in fear, drew near the poet.]
12. They might also be seen as an infernal perversion of Mary Magdalene, Mary
the mother of James, and Salome, the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection (Matt.
16:1). These three women came to Christ’s tomb seeking to open it, whereas the
infernal furies endeavor to keep their tomb shut. Cf. Dante’s interpretation of these
women (“queste tre donne”) in Convivio 4.22.15.
13. This moment will be reiterated, but with the inversion corrected, at the start
of the purgatorial journey where an image of the Christian salvific boat heralds the
journey back to the open doors of the church. See chapter 7.
14. “I was abbot of San Zeno in Verona” (“Io fu abate in San Zeno a Verona” Purg.
18:118). The bronze panels on the doors of the west entrance date to the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. The artist is unknown. Leyerle, noting that Dante was in Verona
from 1316 to 1318, has even suggested the rose window of the basilica as a possible
source of inspiration for the heavenly rose of the Empyrean (301).
15. Construction of the Campo Santo was established in 1277 by Archbishop
Visconti though its use as a burial ground goes back to at least a century before. Its
name, meaning “holy field,” derives from a story that it holds earth brought back
from the Holy Land in 1203 (Rothrauff 906).
16. The cathedral was founded in 1063 to celebrate a victory against Muslims in
a raid at Palermo and was consecrated by Gelasius II in 1118 (Rothrauff 905).
17. “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, ‘Before the
rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ So he went out and wept bitterly
(Matt. 26:75).
18. Although Peter’s grave was not, at the time of death, within the walls of
Rome, the Leonine walls built later in the reign of Leo IV (847–55) meant that
Peter’s grave was enclosed not only within the walls of the church but also within the
walls of the city, the New Jerusalem.
19. Virgil’s language is reminiscent in its rhythm of the Agnus Dei: “Behold the
lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
20.Come tal volta stanno a riva i burchi
(Inf. 17:19)
[As boats will sometimes lie along the shore]
Come la navicella esce di loco

in dietro in dietro, sì quindi si tolse
(Inf. 17:100–101)
[Just like a boat that, starting from its moorings,
moves backward, backward, so that beast took off]
21. Dante and Virgil have crossed on the right bank of the rill. In the course of
Geryon’s flight they will be carried to the other side of the falls, continuing their
course to the left.
22. During the Jubilee of 1300 declared by Boniface VIII, traffic on the bridge
across to Castel Sant’Angelo was divided, in a species of medieval crowd control.
23.Io vidi per le coste e per lo fondo
piena la pietra livida di fóri,
d’un largo tutti e ciascun era tondo.

Non mi parean men ampi né maggiori
che que’ che son nel mio bel San Giovanni,
fatti per loco d’i battezzatori
(Inf. 19:13–18)
[Along the sides and down along the bottom,
I saw that livid rock was perforated:
the openings were all one width and round.
They did not seem to me less broad or more
than those that in my handsome San Giovanni
were made to serve as basins for baptizing]
26. John Ciardi also associates the demons of cantos 21 and 22 with church
decoration, though he does not specifically attach any particular location to them.
“These two Cantos may conveniently be remembered as the gargoyle cantos. If
the total Commedia is built like a cathedral (as so many critics have suggested), it
is here certainly that Dante attaches his grotesqueries. At no other point in the
Commedia does Dante give such free rein to his coarsest style” (Dante, Inferno,
182–83).
27.Elli avian cappe con cappucci bassi
dinanzi a li occhi, fatte de la taglia
che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi.
Di fuor dorate son, sì ch’elli abbaglia;
ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto,
che Federigo le mettea di paglia.
(Inf. 23:61–66)
[And they were dressed in cloaks with cowls so low
they fell before their eyes, of that same cut
that’s used to make the clothes for Cluny’s monks.
Outside, these cloaks were gilded and they dazzled;
but inside they were all of lead, so heavy
that Frederick’s capes were straw compared to them.]
28. Located just outside the gate of San Sebastiano on the south side of Rome
where the Via Appia Antica enters the city, the church of Domine Quo Vadis houses
a stone said to bear the impression of Christ’s feet. The impression, according to
legend, was made when Peter was leaving Rome in the wake of the Roman persecu-
tion of Christians. The story tells that Christ appeared to Peter as Peter was leaving
the city. When Peter asked him, “Domine quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going?),
Christ is said to have answered, “I’m going to Rome to be crucified again.” The
implication was that if Peter was not going to allow himself to be crucified, then
Christ would have to do it for him. Peter then turned around and went back to Rome
to suffer martyrdom and to start the process of transforming Rome into the New
Jerusalem.
29. This is an obscene gesture of scorn made by holding the fist closed with the
thumb between the forefinger and the middle finger.
30. The Pillars of Hercules refers to the Straits of Gibraltar, presumed to be the
western limit beyond which no man could navigate. Even today at Gibraltar there is
a monument marking the “Pillars of Hercules.”
31.de’ remi facemmo ali al folle volo
(Inf. 26:125)
[made wings out of our oars in a wild flight]
32. “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon
each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3–4).
34. R. A. Shoaf has argued that there is a negative correspondence between
Nimrod’s speech and the language of the Psalms, reflecting the passage in Convivio
1.7.14–15 in which Dante discusses the failure of translation (159–60).
35. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’
you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).
36. “Vexilla” refers to the banners supported on the crossbars of standards borne
by the Roman armies.
38. The mosaics in the Battistero Neoniano and in the Battistero degli Ariani, in
Ravenna, both include this image.
39. Dante discusses allegory in both the Convivio and his famous letter to his
patron Cangrande della Scala (epistle 13 in Convito). While the true authorship of
the letter has been disputed, the evidence of Convivio 2.1.3 makes it clear that Dante
was well versed in allegory, be it “allegory of the poets” or “allegory of the theolo-
gians.”
Chapter 7. Toward the Light

3. It is highly unlikely that Dante would have intended the cross to be read on a
purely literal level. As noted in chapter 3, there is no evidence to suggest that this is
anything more than alta fantasia on Dante’s part. But even if Dante had heard
sailors’ tales of the Southern Cross constellation, its inclusion here, when inter-
preted in accordance with the “fourfold” method, would ensure that its existence has
an allegorical sense as well.
5. Ciardi writes: “The structure of Purgatory certainly suggests a parable of the
soul’s stages of sacred development: the dew, baptism; the gate of Purgatory . . . first
communion; Virgil’s certification of Dante as lord of himself (XXVI, 143), confirma-

tion; and Dante’s swoon and awakening (XXXI, 89) . . . extreme unction and the
reception into the company of the blessed” (Dante, Purgatorio, 39).
6. Hawkins notes as well the extent to which the liturgy punctuates progress
through purgatory, noting that “the souls in purgatory sing their way up the moun-
tain in familiar songs that are taken from the daily action of the Mass and the Divine
Office: the Miserere and the Agnus Dei, the Salve Regina and Te Deum Laudamus,
and most especially the Psalms. They meditate on Scripture formerly ignored and
say the prayers and chant the hymns for which they once had little time” (256).
7. A seder ci ponemmo ivi ambedui
vòlti a levante
(Purg. 4:52–53)
[There we sat down together, facing east]
8. Li occhi prima drizzai ai bassi liti;
poscia li alzai al sole
(Purg. 4:55–56)
[My eyes were first set on the shores below,
and then I raised them toward the sun]
9. Come a man destra, per salire al monte
dove siede la chiesa che soggioga
la ben guidata sopra Rubaconte
(Purg. 12:100–102)
[As on the right, when one ascends the hill
where—over Rubaconte’s bridge—there stands
the church that dominates the well-ruled city]
10. This is the fiftieth psalm, “Have mercy on us.” Peter Hawkins suggests that
the singing of the Miserere here is a reflection of the importance that Dante places
on liturgy in the penitential process, and notes that the late-repentant who died
violent deaths “appropriate the psalm’s cry of penitence at the same time that they
learn to ask God for mercy” (258).
11.Cerca, misera, intorna da le prode
le tue marine
(Purg. 6:85–86)
[Squalid Italy,
search round your shores]
12. “Salve regina!” (Purg. 7:82) is the beginning of the compline hymn in the
Roman Catholic breviary.
13. The compline hymn “Te lucis antes terminum” (“To Thee Before the Light Is
Done”) is a prayer for protection against the evils that walk the dark.
14. The façade of the church was begun around 1090. The statue on the gable
shows an eagle carrying a bale of cloth, the symbol of the Arte di Calimala (guild of
wool importers) who financed the church. The floor of the nave was covered in 1207
with seven mosaic panels of animals and signs of the zodiac (Wild 296).
15. John Ciardi seems closer to the mark when he says “Despite the thunderous
roar next to him, Dante seems to hear with his ‘allegorical ear’ what certainly could
not have registered on his physical ear” (Dante, Purgatorio, 111).
17.Là sù non eran mossi i piè nostri anco,
quand’io conobbi quella ripa intorno
che dritto di salita aveva manco,
esser di marmo candido e addorno
d’intagli sì, che non pur Policleto,
ma la natura lì avrebbe scorno.
(Purg. 10:28–33)
[There we had yet to let our feet advance
when I discovered that the bordering bank—
less sheer than banks of other terraces—
was of white marble and adorned with carvings
so accurate—not only Polycletus
but even Nature, there, would feel defeated.]
18. Volgi li occhi in giùe:

buon ti sarà, per tranquillar la via,
veder lo letto de le piante tue.
(Purg 12:13–15)
[Look downward, for the way
will offer you some solace if you pay
attention to the pavement at your feet.]
19. Peter Hawkins sees Dante’s construction of the terrace of pride as an “illustra-
tion of how the Middle Ages ‘storiated’ the text of the Scripture in the visual arts”
(46). Specifically, he sees the floor as recalling the “storiated” tombstones that often
cover the floors of medieval churches (262). Such an interpretation does not pre-
clude the Siena cathedral as the inspiration for the floor of the circle of pride, but
rather supports the notion that the Inferno is a perversion of the medieval cathedral
complex of which Pisa, with its inlaid graves, is typical.
20. The dating of the floor at Siena is not overly problematic. While it is not
unlikely that the original cathedral at Siena had a storiated pavimento, as did a
number of churches of the time, there is no doubt that the current floor was com-
pleted long after Dante’s sojourn in Siena. The reconstruction project of which the
floor was a part, however, was planned and commenced before Dante arrived in
Siena. The contract with the Pisanos was signed on September 29, 1265 (Carli, Il
Duomo, 31). Given that Nicola’s plans for the cathedral (eventually carried out by
his son Giovanni) constituted a direct attempt to emulate the Temple at Jerusalem
(Ohly 36), it is likely that such plans included a storiated pavimento. Since the
rebuilding project was intended to make the duomo the largest and grandest church
in Christendom, it is not unlikely that the plans for the wonders of this new duomo
would have been the talk of the town. And while work on the new and marvelous
floor might not have actually commenced in Dante’s time, the intended prophetic
and allegorical quality of the Commedia would have been greatly enhanced by a
description of a floor that had not yet been built but which would eventually come
to fruition. See especially Ploeg, 98–106.
21.Più non dirò, e scuro so che parlo;
ma poco tempo andrà, che ’ tuoi vicini
faranno sì che tu potrai chiosarlo.
(Purg. 11:139–41)
[I say no more; I know I speak obscurely;
but soon enough you’ll find your neighbor’s acts
are such that what I say can be explained.]
22. “The exiles met first at Gargonza, a castle between Siena and Arezzo, and then
at Arezzo itself. They joined themselves to the Ghibellines, to which party the
podestà Uguccione della Faggiuola belonged. The Ghibellines, however, were divided
amongst themselves, and the Green Ghibellines were not disposed to favour the
cause of the White Guelfs. They found a more sympathetic defender in Scarpetta
degli Ordelaffi at Forlì. From this place Dante probably went to Bartolomeo della
Scala, lord of Verona, where the country of the great Lombard gave him his first
refuge and his first hospitable reception” (Browning 31–32).
23. San Miniato is built on a hill across the Arno and overlooks Florence. The
Rubaconte (now the Ponte alle Grazie) was the bridge that led most directly to San
Miniato.
24. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The words
are taken from Matthew 5:3 and, as Sapegno indicates (137), are intended as praise
for the humble.
25. At the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1–10), Mary asks Christ to replenish the
wine, saying “They have no wine.” He turns water into wine, performing his first
miracle.
26. “Amate da cui male aveste” (Purg. 13:36). As Sapegno points out (141), these
are the words of Christ, taken from the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Mat-
thew 5:44 and Luke 6:27–28.
27. As Sapegno notes, “gli invidiosi cantano le litanie dei Santi (dal versetto
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis fino a quello Omnes Sancti): “hic orant pro salute
aliorum, ubi in mundo odierunt aliorum salutem” (142).
28.così li ciechi a cui la roba falla,
stanno a’ perdoni a chieder lor bisogna,
e l’uno il capo sopra l’altro avvalla
(Purg. 13:61–63)
[so do the blind who have to beg appear
on pardon days to plead for what they need,
each bending his head back and toward the other]
Sapegno tells us that the blind would sit outside of churches on feast days. “Perdoni,”
he explains, “sono propriamente le sollenità religiose, o anche i luoghi (santuari e

simili), dove si lucrano indulgenze” (143). Ciardi notes that the “figure here is based
on the behavior of blind beggars at church doors, and particularly at the doors of
those churches which offer special Indulgences (Pardons for Sin) during certain feast
days” (Dante, Purgatorio, 146).
29. “Beati misericordes!” (Purg. 15:38)—which is the fifth of the Beatitudes,
“Blessed are the merciful” (Matt. 5:7)—and “Rejoice, you who have overcome”
(“Godi tu che vinci!” Purg. 15:39).
30. Sapegno suggests that “Godi tu che vinci!” (Purg. 15–39) implies victory over
envy and that it is possibly a reference to Matthew 5:12, the culmination of all of the
Beatitudes: “Gaudete et exultate, quoniam merces vestra copiosa est in coelis” (Re-
joice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven). Finally, Sapegno
notes (164) that Nardi has suggested that the reference could be “il principio di un
inno rivolto a Cristo e immaginato da Dante sul ritmo di alcuni inni ecclesiastici.”
31. The litany of the mass includes a threefold prayer:
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
Have mercy on us.
Grant us peace.
32. Here the story depicted in Dante’s vision is from the Old Testament book of
Esther 3–7 and recalls the crucifixion of Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus, king of
Persia. Enraged at Esther’s uncle Mordecai, Haman had persuaded Ahasuerus to
decree the death of all Jews in Persia. Esther persuaded the king that Haman was at
fault, and the king ordered Haman crucified. This story is one of the reins of wrath
and shows the dangers of wrath. That Dante should see a cross at this point is an
interesting contrast to the cross of Inferno 23 where Caiaphas was crucified face-
down.
33. “Sanz’ arme n’esce e solo con la lancia / con la qual giostrò Giuda” (“He does
not carry weapons when he comes, only the lance that Judas tilted” Purg. 20:73–74),
in reference to Charles of Valois.
34. Purg. 20:86–93.
35. Sung in Luke 2:14 by the shepherds.
36. See Auerbach, Mimesis, 186–87.
37. “O Lord, open my lips, / And my mouth shall show forth Thy praise” (Psalms
51:15).
38. The hymn is one of clemency, “Summae Deus Clementiae” (God of clemency
supreme). These are the first words of an old hymn sung at Matins on Saturday. The
hymn is a prayer for chastity, begging God, of his supreme clemency, to burn lust
from the soul and leave the suppliant chaste.
39. The hymn is “Virum non cognosco” (I know not a man). Mary spoke these
words at the Annunciation: after Gabriel had said, “And behold, you will conceive in
your womb, and bring forth a Son,” Mary replied, “How can this be, since I do not
know a man?” (Luke 1:30–34).
40. In particular, decorated in blue with golden stars, such churches create an
affinity between the heavens and the area above the altar. The churches of the
Veneto and of Ravenna will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8 and in the
epilogue.
41. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Ho-
sanna to the Son of David!” (Matt. 21:9).
42. Equally they may have been inspired by the mosaics in Rome’s Santa
Prassede sull’Esquilino or the duomo in Anagni (Mazzoni in Hawkins 285–88). Still
others suggest a resemblance to the triumphal arch of the Roman basilica of San
Paolo on via Ostiense, or even just as possible SS. Cosma e Damiano (before its
sixteenth-century restoration) (Fallani in Hawkins 19–20).
43. Song of Sol. 4:8: “Veni sponsa de Libano” (“Come with me from Lebanon, my
spouse”).
44. Matt. 21:9: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!”
45. Psalms 31:1–8: “In You, O Lord, I put my trust; . . . You have set my feet in a
wide place.”
46. Iannucci, “Paradiso XXXI.”
47. See especially Schnapp, chapter 1.
48. Psalms 51:7: “Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem
dealbabor” (“Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; / Wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow”).
49. Taken from Psalm 79, it is the lamentation for the destruction of Jerusalem:
“O God, the heathen have come into Your inheritance; / Your holy temple they have
defiled; / They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.”
50. It was a popular belief in the Middle Ages that the True Cross was fashioned
out of wood from the Tree of Good and Evil.
51. “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will
see Me” (John 16:16). Beatrice thus uses the words that Christ used to announce his
resurrection to the disciples.
Chapter 8. Beyond the Rood Screen

2. This hymn, written in Hebrew and Latin, may be rendered “Hosanna, holy
God of Sabaoth [of the armies], lighting from above with Your luster the blessed
fires of these kingdoms!” Sapegno cites the hymn as follows:
Osanna, sanctus Deus sabaòth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacòth!
Dante has adapted it from the formula of the Sanctus in the mass: “Sanctus Dominus
Deus sabaoth . . . Osanna in excelsis.” “Malacòth” is an erroneous transcription of
the genitive plural mamlacoth (Sapegno 86–87).
3. The papacy had done nothing to reestablish Christianity there after Acre, the
last Christian stronghold, fell to the Saracens in 1291.
4. On this point see Schildgen, 66–91.
5. Sapegno notes that this is not the first time that these saints have been com-
pared to candles. The comparison in Paradiso 11, he suggests, means that each of the
saints is like a “candela che si fissa nel candeliere.” He further notes: “Una di quelle
luci era stata già paragonata ad un ‘cero’ (cfr. Par., X, 115)” (144). Ciardi suggests that
“candellier” might also mean the candle racks that hold votive candles in churches
(Dante, Paradiso, 133). Either or both interpretations, nonetheless, continue to sug-
gest affinities between the poem and the church.
6. Indeed, Dante includes Giotto in his discussion of the nature of fame, in
Purgatorio 11:95.
7. The decoration of the Peruzzi Chapel in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce
in Florence was probably carried out not long after the works in the Lower Church
at Assisi. Unfortunately, the Peruzzi cycle was extensively repainted, and what re-
mains of the original frescoes, revealed during a recent restoration, is in a bad state
of preservation. There is still much controversy over the dating of this chapel and
that of the Bardi family adjoining it. The probable date is between 1315 and 1320.
Although there is no specific evidence to place Dante at Assisi, it is not unlikely that
he would have seen the cycle paintings of the life of St. Francis, completed between
1296 and 1300 and according to some sources, as early as 1295. Christopher
Kleinhenz suggests, in fact, the fresco cycle might very well have been a source of
inspiration for Dante (“Visual Arts,” 277). Dante would quite possibly have seen
Giotto’s frescoes in the Peruzzi Chapel, which consist of scenes from the lives of St.
John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, likely completed around 1300. There is
little doubt, however, that as Dante was writing the Commedia, Giotto was complet-
ing his now famous frescoes on the walls of the Arena Chapel, patronized by Dante’s
own hosts in Padua, the Scrovegni bankers. As one examines the chapel, with its Last
Judgment adorning the west wall and its depiction of the virtues and vices underlin-
ing the lives depicted, one sees that the narrative of the Commedia adopts a motif
also popular in church decoration, the Last Judgment. The Commedia, like Giotto’s
work, also presents the virtues and vices in a systematic fashion, but differently than
in the traditional representation in which they are represented as branches of the
same tree (Boyde 52–55). Dante’s virtues and vices are allegorical figures, certainly,
but they also have an actual existence as human beings, contorted and enhanced by
their punishment or reward but, like Giotto’s figures, nonetheless human rather
than mere categories on the limbs of an elaborate mnemonic device.
8. Ascesi, together with Scesi, which also means “I have risen,” was a common
name for Assisi in Dante’s day. “Orïente,” of course, is the point at which the sun
rises (Sapegno 147).
9. “In 1219, St. Francis and eleven of his followers made a missionary pilgrimage
to Greece and Egypt. Dante, whose facts are not entirely accurate, may have meant
that pilgrimage, or he may have meant Francis’s projected journey to convert the
Moors (1214–1215) when Francis fell ill in southern Spain and had to give up his
plans” (Ciardi in Dante, Paradiso, 136).
10. A perfect example of such a cross can be seen in the Museo Arcivescovile in
Ravenna. There one finds a processional cross belonging to Archbishop Agnello dat-
ing to the sixth century (556–69). It was restored sometime during the eleventh
century and was still in use several centuries after its creation.
11. The church of Santa Maria dell’Assunta was founded in 639 on the island of
Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The west wall of the church is decorated with a Last
Judgment in mosaics completed in the twelfth century. The wall is divided into six
levels, of which the first five depict, from the top down: the Crucifixion; the descent
of Christ into hell (anastasis); Christ in Glory (deisis) on a two-wheeled chariot; the
preparation of the throne (etoimasia) for the Last Judgment; and the Last Judgment,
showing St. Michael and the devil weighing the souls of the dead. The lowest level is
divided into heaven, with St. Peter at the door, and hell, populated with devils and
skulls.
12. See also Schnapp, 180–88, on the mosaics at Sant’Apollinare.
13. Typically in the Veneto churches Christ is pictured within a circle, but the
Torcello mosaics show an even more distinct image of Christ and wheels, as the
triumphant Christ is encased in a mandorla supported by two wheels.
14. “It is probably better to see that the ‘fleet’ that Dante has in mind is the City
of Man, as Augustine would have insisted, the Rome to which Peter referred in his
prophetic utterance earlier in the canto. The word classe, apparently used here for
the first time in Italian, is the Roman word for ‘fleet,’ and indeed was the name for
the harbor at Ravenna when that city was the capital of the empire. The ‘fleet’ that
Dante here has in mind would surely seem to be associated with the imperial desti-
nation of the historical voyage of the ‘human family’” (Hollander, Life in Works,
143).
Epilogue: The Cross That Dante Bears

1. In her note on the significance of the hill at the beginning of the Inferno,
Margaret Grimes has suggested that no matter how richly symbolic the “selva
oscura” may be, “it is also a thicket in Italy of the fourteenth century, not too far
from Florence” (28).
2. “And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns” (Rev. 17:3); “And on her forehead a
name was written: mystery, babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the
abominations of the earth” (Rev. 17:5); “The seven heads are seven mountains on
which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the
other has not yet come” (Rev. 17:9–10).
3. After the fall of Rome, Ravenna was made the capital of the western empire
(a.d. 402). Ravenna is renowned for its early Christian mosaics. Christianity was
brought to Ravenna as early as the first century a.d. The town converted to Chris-
tianity in the second century and was made a bishopric in the fourth century (Barker,
“Ravenna,” 948–54).
4. A revered thirteenth-century effigy believed by medieval pilgrims to have
been carved by Nicodemus at the time of the Crucifixion, the Volto Santo is dis-
played in the duomo of Lucca, San Martino (Wild 312).
5. According to legend, a cloth was offered by a woman of Jerusalem to Christ as
he was carrying his cross up toward Calvary. When he returned the cloth to her after
wiping away the blood and sweat from his face, an image of his features was miracu-
lously imprinted on it. This cloth, called the Veronica, has been venerated in Rome
since the eighth century and was installed in St. Peter’s on the order of Boniface VIII
in 1297.
6. See especially Hollander’s Dante: A Life in Works.
7. La tua città, ch’è piena
d’invidia sì che già trabocca il sacco,
seco mi tenne in la vita serena.
(Inf. 6:49–51)
[Your city—one so full
of envy that its sack has always spilled—
that city held me in the sunlit life.]
8. Poi appresso convien che questa caggia

infra tre soli, e che l’altra sormonti
con la forza di tal che testé piaggia.
(Inf. 6:67–69)
[But then, within three suns, they too must fall;
at which the other party will prevail,
using the power of one who tacks his sails.]
9. See Ferrante, 67–68, on the numerous similarities between medieval Florence
and the city of Dis; see also Iannucci, “Paradiso XXXI,” 477–78, on Florence as hell.
10.Più non dirò, e scuro so che parlo;
ma poco tempo andrà, chè ’ tuoi vicini
faranno sì che tu potrai chiosarlo.
(Purg. 11:139–41)
[I say no more; I know I speak obscurely;
but soon enough you’ll find your neighbor’s acts
are such that what I say can be explained.]
11.Tu proverai sì come sa di sale

lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e ’l salire per l’altrui scale.
(Par. 17:58–60)
[You are to know the bitter taste
of others’ bread, how salt it is, and know
how hard a path it is for one who goes

descending and ascending others’ stairs.]
12. See chapter 2 on Ulysses and Frederick.
13. The first year of jubilee, or Holy Year, was officially proclaimed by Pope
Boniface VIII on February 22, 1300, in the bull Antiquorum habet. During that year
pilgrims to Rome were granted an indulgentia plenaria, a plenary indulgence for the
guilt and punishment of their sins. Rome profited enormously from the jubilee. The
chronicler Villani notes that during the jubilee year there were 200,000 pilgrims
constantly present in Rome (Lützelschwab 590–91).
14. “Quella Roma onde Cristo è romano” (Purg. 32:102).
15. One of the first indicators that the circle of pride is intended to evoke Siena is
the lifelike sculpted panels of Purgatorio 10, which critics have consistently com-
pared to Nicola Pisano’s work in Pisa. But this is not the only work of the sculptor
that Dante would have seen, for Pisano’s artistry also adorns the pulpit at Siena.
More significantly, the other distinguishing feature of the circle of pride, the
“storiated” floor (Purg 12:14–15) with its series of lifelike inlaid motifs, bears a
striking resemblance to the decorated floor of the duomo of Siena in its initial phases
during Dante’s sojourn in that city. See chapter 7, note 20.
17. Sapia of Siena was the paternal aunt of the Sienese lord mentioned earlier,
Provenzano Salvani.
18.“Li occhi,” diss’io, “mi fieno ancor qui tolti,
ma picciol tempo, ché poca è l’offesa
fatta per esser con invidia vòlti.
Troppa è più la paura ond’ è sospesa
l’anima mia del tormento di sotto,
che già lo ’ncarco di là giù mi pesa.”
(Purg. 13:133–38)
[“My eyes,” I said, “will be denied me here,
but only briefly; the offense of envy
was not committed often by their gaze.
I fear much more the punishment below;
my soul is anxious, in suspense; already
I feel the heavy weights of the first terrace.”]
19. See note 11 above.
20. Indeed, Dante has already alerted the reader to this hermeneutic strategy in
the stories of St. Francis—”Ascesi” for “Assisi” (Par. 11:52–53) and with the popular
association of the Dominicans with canine imagery. According to legend Dominic’s
mother, while she was pregnant with Dominic, had a dream of giving birth to a black
and white dog with a firebrand in his mouth. Black and white are the Dominican
colors, and domini canes translates as “hounds of the Lord.”
21. Giotto was very probably an acquaintance of Dante’s. The most familiar por-
trait of Dante, in the Bargello in Florence, is commonly attributed to Giotto.
22. The identity of Gentucca is somewhat problematic. John Ciardi suggests she
is a lady Dante met when he went to live with a friend at Lucca, probably about
1314–16 (Dante, Purgatorio, 249). Sapegno notes, however, that while Dante might
have met her while a guest of Moroello Malaspina, there is no foundation for such
conjecture (267).
24. “diligite iustitiam . . . qui iudicatis terram” (Par. 18:91–93), which may be
rendered “Love righteousness, ye that are judges of the earth.”
25. Paradiso 30:88–90. This image is found in the Torcello mosaics of the prepa-
ration for the coming of Christ. In the mosaics an angel holds the starry firmament
that turns back on itself to form a spiral or circle.
26. As Iannucci points out, possible sources for the rose of paradise are numerous
(“Paradiso XXXI,” 472).
27. “In the apse mosaics of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, the cross is not an alien
shaft, driven into a context where it does not belong—it refers to the exaltation, the
transfiguration and the crucifixion” (von Simson 44).
28. Another potential source for the frequent images of wheels in the Paradiso is
the Last Judgment at the duomo of Torcello. In the Veneto churches, Christ is typi-
cally pictured within a circle, but here there is an even more distinct image of Christ
and wheels, as the triumphant Christ in glory, deisis, is encased in a mandorla sup-
ported by two wheels. Here in canto 24 we see as well another image found in the
Torcello mosaics and also in the mosaics of the baptistery in Florence, the linear
firmament turning back on itself to form a spiral or circle, as part of the etoimasia or
preparation for the Throne of Judgment.
29. On Dante’s visione verace, see Barolini, 10–13.
30. “Dante” (Purg. 30:55).
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Index
Abraham, 16, 69, 165 Birch, Debra, 185n12, 193n9

Acts of the Apostles, 142 Bologna, 168
Adam, 32, 60 Bonagiunta da Lucca, 175
Aeneas, 28, 33, 84–85, 92, 109, 180, 189n23 Bonaventure, Saint, 66, 67, 153
Aeneid (Virgil), 18, 91 Boniface VIII, Pope, 22, 26, 30, 34, 57, 65,
Agnus dei, 135, 201n19, 204n6, 207n31 110–11, 151, 169, 194n19, 201n22, 211n5,
Aleppo, 22, 93 212n13
Ali, 34, 35, 191n35 Botterill, Steven, 198n16
Andrew, Saint, 152; Chapel, 172 Branca Doria, 36
Annunciation, 54 Brunetto Latini, 23, 26–27, 102
Apollo, 62 Brutus, 170
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas, Buonconte da Montefeltro, 51, 126
Saint
Arena Chapel. See Scrovegni Chapel Cacciaguida, 68–69, 173
Argenti, Filippo. See Filippo Argenti Caiaphas, 15, 31, 33, 106, 207n32
Arno, 174, 206n23 Calvary, Mount, 42
Asperges me, 144, 208n48 Campo Santo, 78, 98, 100, 114, 201n15
Assisi, 67, 153–54, 158, 209nn7–8, 212n20 Cana, 58, 138, 206n25
Augustine, Saint, of Hippo, 1, 9–10, 27, 76– Cangrande della Scala, 3, 115, 173, 191n33,
77, 90–91, 154 203n39
Canterbury, 19
Babel, Tower of, 35 Capet, Hugh. See Hugh Capet
Babylon, 29–30, 35–36, 165, 168, 171, 180, Casella, 48
187n5 Cassius, 170
Bagrow, Leo, 185n14 Cato, of Utica, 44–45, 119–21, 193n11,
Bargello, 212n21 194n17
Bartolomeo della Scala, 206n22 Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti, 99
Battistero degli Ariani, 203n38 Cerberus, 93
Battistero Neoniano, 203n38 Cervigni, Dino, 83, 199n12
Beati misericordes, 207n29 Charlemagne, 35
Beati pauperes spiritu, 134 Charles of Valois, 57, 207n33
Beatrice, 42, 59–60, 65, 67, 69, 73, 90, 92, 95, Charon, 20, 47
101, 140–41, 143–45, 148, 158–62, 180, Ciacco, 166
208n51 Ciardi, John, 106, 112, 122, 187n23,
Benedict, Saint, 70 188nn13–14, 202n26, 203n5, 205n15,
Benedictus qui venis, 143 207n28, 209n5, 213n22
Bernard, Saint, of Clairvaux, 74, 161, Cimabue, 6, 157, 174
198n16 Cocytus, 112
224 Index
Colonna, 22, 110, 170 Eucharist, 8, 37, 79, 81, 91–93, 134, 136,
Commedia (Dante), 1, 3–7, 10, 12, 17–18, 138–41, 143
22, 32, 42, 51, 55, 58, 72, 76, 80–81, 86, Eunoe, 145
88, 95, 109–10, 115, 140, 144, 152, 154, Exodus, 4, 17, 42–49, 54, 59, 62, 120–21,
164–67, 174, 191n33, 199n11, 202n26, 123, 165, 198n16
206n20, 209n7
Communion, 79, 90–91, 121, 135, 144 Farinata degli Uberti, 24, 98–100, 125, 169,
Comparetti, Domenico, 199n3 186n22
Conrad, 69 Filippo Argenti, 22, 166
Constance, Empress, 64 Fish, 8, 39, 103, 184nn2–3
Constantine, 16, 40, 41, 58, 76, 192n5 Florence, 19, 22, 24–25, 134, 144, 147, 159,
Convivio (Dante), 201n12, 203nn34–39 165–66, 168, 170, 175, 189n20, 206n23,
Crete, Old Man of, 26 209n7, 210n1, 212n21
Crucifixion, 1, 9, 17, 20, 25, 30–33, 43–44, Folquet de Marseilles, 65, 197n4
64, 68, 105, 183n1, 1876, 190n28, 210n11 Forese Donati, 175
Crusade, 24, 35, 43, 59, 72, 75, 152, 159, 161; Fourth Eclogue (Virgil), 18, 188n7
Albigensian, 65; First, 12; Second, 74 Fra Dolcino, 34, 191n34
Francesca da Rimini, 21, 92–94
Damascus, 21, 68 Francigena, 19, 31, 54, 105, 132, 171
Daniel, 138 Francis, Saint, 51, 65–67, 69, 126, 153–56,
David, King, 54 158, 197n8, 209nn7,9, 212n20
Dead Sea, 18 Frederick II, Emperor, 24–26, 31–32, 50, 64,
Del Duca, Guido. See Guido del Duca 100, 106, 188n16, 189nn17–19, 196n2,
Demaray, John, 46, 77, 79–80, 184n9, 212n12
186n19, 193n8, 199n11 Fucci, Vanni. See Vanni Fucci
Deus venerunt gentes, 145
Dido, 91, 92 Gentucca, 175, 213n22
Diligite iustitiam, 157, 213n24 Geryon, 28, 103, 104
Dio laudamo, 159 Ghibelline, 24, 134, 165, 171, 206n22
Diomedes, 109 Gibraltar, 28, 108, 127, 203n30
Dis, City of, 21–24, 95–98, 101, 129, 168, Giotto di Bordone, 138, 154, 174, 180,
171 209nn6–7, 212n21
Divine Comedy (Dante). See Commedia Godfrey of Bouillon, 69
Domine Quo Vadis, Church of, 106–7, 132, Good Shepherd, 8
202n28 Grail, Holy. See Holy Grail
Dominic, Saint, 65–67, 69, 126, 153, 212n20 Gregory of Nyssa, 1, 9, 88, 184n6
Doria, Branca. See Branca Doria Grimes, Margaret, 165, 210n1
Guelph, 24, 134, 165, 171, 206n22
Easter, 4, 36, 46, 116, 123, 137 Guido da Montefeltro, 34, 51, 110, 111, 126
Egypt, 4, 14, 24, 71–72, 86, 120, 165, 171, Guido del Duca, 175
209n9
Emmaus, 58, 138 Hadrian, Pope, 137
Empire, Roman. See Roman Empire; Holy Haman, 56, 207n32
Roman. See Holy Roman Empire Harrowing of Hell, 23
Empyrean, 12, 161, 201n14 Hart, Thomas Elwood, 197n10
Ephialtes, 112 Hawkins, Peter, 12, 122, 126, 128, 164,
Epicureanism, 50 186n16, 198n15, 204nn6,10, 205n19
Index 225
Hebron Valley, 52 Latini, Brunetto. See Brunetto Latini

Helen, Saint, 58, 85, 183n6, 187n5, 190n26, Lavin, Irving, 2, 199n10
196n28 Lethe, 144
Henry VI, 64 Leyerle, John, 200n5, 201n14
Hohenstaufen, 64 Limbo, 23
Hollander, Robert, 21, 112, 166, 187n4 Loaves, 8
Holy Grail, 21, 74 Lucan, 32
Holy Land, 10, 12, 17–18, 22–24, 30–31, 34– Lucca, 105, 139, 165, 175, 211n4, 213n22
35, 37, 43, 45, 50, 57, 59 Lucifer, 115–116, 126
Holy Roman Empire, 53 Lucy (Lucia), Saint, 95, 184n1
Hugh Capet, 57 Luke, Saint, 142
Iannucci, Amilcare, 83, 97, 143, 191n32 MacCormack, Sabine, 195n24

Ichthus, 184n2 Madonna, 21–22, 28, 162. See also Mary,
Incarnation, 8 Saint
In exitu Isräel de Aegypto, 4, 46–47, 123 Malatesta, Paolo, 21
Inferno (Dante), 4, 7, 14–15, 19–20, 23, 28– Manfred, 50, 125
29, 32, 35, 37–39, 41, 43, 47–48, 50–52, Margaritone d’Arezzo, 157
56, 82–83, 86–88, 91, 93, 104–5, 108, 110, Mars, 67
112, 116–18, 120, 124, 131, 137, 158, 166, Marseilles, Folquet de. See Folquet de
168, 192n3, 205n19, 210n1 Marseilles
In te, Domine, speravi, 143 Mary, Saint, 22, 54–56, 58, 95, 126, 134,
Irenaeus of Lyons 1, 9, 76, 147, 184n4 137–39, 145, 159, 180, 187n6, 200n6,
Israel, 165 206n25, 207n39
Ivo of Chartres, 10, 17 Matthew, Saint, Gospel of, 95
Mazzotta, Giuseppe, 197n8
Jaffa, Treaty of, 25 Mediterranean, 1, 6, 10, 14, 32, 33, 78, 86, 131
James, Saint, 71 Medusa, 95
Jeremiah, 21 Menocal, Maria Rosa, 188n13
Jerusalem, New, 2, 18, 29, 34, 36–37, 43, 48, Middle East, 21, 23, 32, 78, 94
53, 58, 60, 69, 85, 107, 132, 144, 168, 171, Minos, 20
187n5 Miserere, 204nn6,10
John, Saint, Baptist, 138 Monarchia (Dante), 194n20
Jordan, River, 16, 60 Montefeltro, Buonconte da. See Buonconte
Joseph, Saint, 54–55 da Montefeltro; Guido da. See Guido da
Judas, 37 Montefeltro
Judecca, 37 Monteriggioni, 168
Justinian, Emperor, 64, 149, 150, 176, 177, Moses, 44–45, 59, 69, 119–20, 140, 165,
180 193nn10–11, 198n16
Muhammed, 34–35, 111, 191n35
Kamil, al-Malik al-, 24, 189n18
Knights Templar, 74 New Testament, 26
Nicholas, Saint 137
Labïa mëa, Domine, 138 Nicholas III, Pope, 28–29, 105
Lamb, 8; of God, 8, 207n31 Nicodemus, Saint, 105, 165, 190n28, 211n4;
Lancelot, 21 Gospel of, 97
Lateran, 34 Nimrod, 35, 112, 191n37, 203n34
226 Index
Oderisi da Gubbio, 174 Rimini, Francesca da. See Francesca da

Odyssey, The (Homer), 136 Rimini
Old Testament, 26, 207n32 Roland, 35
Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, 25, 188n15 Romagna, 175, 176, 177
Roman Empire, 18, 41
Padua, 138, 162, 168, 174, 177, 209n7 Rome, 1, 5, 10, 17–19, 22, 29, 31, 33, 36–37,
Paradiso (Dante), 3, 7, 14–16, 32, 62–64, 71, 48, 52–53, 56, 58–61, 77, 85, 104, 107,
88, 92–93, 118, 137, 147–49, 152, 154–55, 132, 134, 144, 152, 159, 161–62, 165, 168,
157–60, 165–67, 173, 176, 180 170–71, 180, 187n6, 192n5, 194n19,
Passover, 46, 60 196n28, 199n10, 210nn2–3, 212n12
Paul, Saint, 9, 19, 26, 28–29, 88, 91, 109, Romeo da Villanova, 149
142, 161, 165, 180, 189n23 Roncesvalles, 35
Peter, Saint, 2, 19, 25–26, 28–29, 70–72, Rosa candida, 93, 177
100–101, 105, 107, 110–11, 129, 159, Rose, 93, 159, 162, 180, 200n6, 201n14,
184n1, 199n10, 201n17, 210nn11,14; 213n26
Basilica of. See Saint Peter’s Basilica Rose windows, 5, 180, 200n5
Petrocchi, Giorgio, 21
Pharsalia (Lucan), 32 Sacra rappresentazione, 28, 141
Phlegyas, 94, 95 Saint Peter’s Basilica, 30, 35, 54, 112, 132,
Pier della Vigna, 25–26, 29, 100, 101 162, 201n18, 211n5
Pillars of Hercules. See Gibraltar Saladin, 22
Pisa, 78, 99, 105–106, 170, 189n20, 212n15 Salvani, Provenzano. See Provenzano
Pisano, Brothers, 54, 132; Giovanni, 78; Salvani
Nicola, 133, 205n20, 212n15 Salve Regina, 204nn6, 12
Pisces, 39, 119 San Gimignano, 168
Pluto, 93 San Giovanni, Baptistery of, 105, 169, 170
Ponte Sant’Angelo, 104 San Marco, Cathedral, 109, 142, 175
Porta Camollia, 19, 188n9 San Miniato al Monte, 100, 125, 129, 132,
Promised Land, 4, 6, 16–17, 45, 48–49, 53, 134, 187n24, 204n14, 206n23
56, 64, 69, 86, 117, 120, 165 San Pietro, Basilica. See Saint Peter’s
Provenzano Salvani, 54, 133, 166, 171, Basilica
212n17 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 2, 56, 183n6,
Purgatorio (Dante), 3, 7, 14–16, 32, 38, 41, 187n5, 190n26, 198n5, 199n10
43, 47, 49, 51–52, 54, 56, 59–60, 72, 86– Sant’Agnese Fuori le Mura, 152
87, 104, 120–21, 124–25, 131, 140, 143, Santa Maria: della Scala, 125, 132, 159, 163,
158, 165, 175 171, 173, 195n22, 205nn19–20;
Purgatory, Mount, 5, 42, 44, 47–49, 62, 121, dell’Assunta, 163, 210n11; Maggiore, 77,
143 139; Novella, 144, 163
Sant’Andrea, Chapel. See Andrew, Saint,
Rahab, 65, 151 Chapel
Ravenna, 141, 143, 149, 152, 155, 157, 159, Sant’Apollinare: in Classe, 141, 155, 159–
160–161, 165, 175–177, 180, 203n38, 160, 175, 177, 180, 187n25, 213n27;
208n40, 210nn3,10,14 Nuovo, 143, 149, 176
Red Sea, 16, 60 Santa Prassede sull’Esquilino, 152, 208n42
Resurrection, 193n12, 199n9, 201n12 Santa Sabina, Basilica, 183n1
Revelation, 34, 58, 165 Santa Zita, 105
Index 227
Santiago de Compostela, 17 True Cross, 19, 145, 183n6, 190n26, 208n50

Santi Quattro Coronati, 161 Tuscany, 30, 132, 170, 188n9
San Vitale, 142, 149, 176
San Zeno Maggiore, 97, 108, 201n14 Ubaldini, Ottaviano degli. See Ottaviano
Sapegno, Natalino, 19, 107, 189n20, 191n37, degli Ubaldini
206nn27–28, 207n30, 209n5, 213n22 Uberti, Farinata degli. See Farinata degli
Sapia of Siena, 135, 171, 212n17 Uberti
Satan, 21, 34, 37, 51, 94, 112, 113, 170 Ugolino, 36
Scala, della: Bartolomeo. See Bartolomeo Ulysses, 4, 32–33, 40, 43, 48, 56–57, 59, 74,
della Scala; Cangrande. See Cangrande 86–87, 107, 108–10, 127, 131, 136,
della Scala 186n20, 190n31, 191n32, 198n15,
Schildgen, Brenda Deen, 199n14, 209n4 212n12
Scrovegni Chapel, 135, 138, 154–155, 173, Urban II, Pope, 12, 186nn17–18
209n7
Shoaf, R.A., 203n34 Vanni Fucci, 107, 131
Siena, 19, 54, 78, 125, 132–134, 144, 159, Veneto, 140, 143, 149, 162, 175–77, 180,
167–168, 171, 173–174, 180, 188n9, 208n40, 210n13, 213n28
205nn19–20, 212n15 Venice, 175
Sinai, Mount, 44, 47 Veni, sponsa de Libano, 143, 208n43
Singleton, Charles, 65, 196n3 Venite, benedicti Patris mei, 140
Sordello, 128 Venus, 39, 45, 65, 118, 120, 192n3
Southern Cross, 40, 203n3 Verona, 97, 168, 171, 173–74, 201n14,
Saint Andrew, Chapel of, 177 206n22
Stations: of the Cross, 15, 78–79, 88, 184n9, Veronica, 162, 165, 211n5
194n14; of the Exodus, 47, 194n14 Via crucis, 4, 11, 36, 81, 186n16
Statius, 59 Via Dolorosa, 11, 78–80, 87, 90, 137, 184n9
Stephen, Saint, 135 Vigna, Pier della. See Pier della Vigna
Summae Deus Clementiae, 207n38 Villanova, Romeo da. See Romeo da
Villanova
Te deum laudamus, 130–31, 204n6 Virgil, 18, 22, 25, 31, 35–37, 41–42, 46, 48–
Te lucis antes terminum, 204n13 50, 52–56, 59, 84–85, 90–91, 95, 97, 100,
Templar Knights, 74, 198n17 102–4, 106, 107, 115, 120, 123–25, 127,
Temple of Jerusalem, 1, 11, 15, 55, 63, 73– 139, 143, 148, 169, 201nn19, 21, 204n5
75, 78, 132, 161, 205n20 Virum non cognosco, 207n39
Tiber, 48 Visser, Margaret, 183n5, 198n2, 199n9
Titus, Emperor, 58 Vita Nuova, La (Dante), 32, 92
Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 65–67 Volto Santo, 31, 32, 105, 139, 165, 190n28,
Torcello, 143, 157–58, 161, 177, 180, 210n11, 211n4
213nn25,28
Trajan, Emperor, 54, 133 Zion, Mount, 17
Mary Alexandra Watt is an assistant professor and codirector of the Center
for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, Gaines-
ville. She is the author of several articles on Dante, including “Take This
Bread: Dante’s Eucharistic Banquet” and “The Reception of Dante in the
Time of Cosimo I.”

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The Cross That Dante Bears

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

Mary Alexandra Watt

University Press of Florida

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency

University Press of Florida

Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself,

1. Isidore of Seville’s tripartite world map, 1472 11

What initially drew me to medieval studies was my deeply rooted suspi-

Few religious symbols in western Christianity possess the potency and

While this central position of Jerusalem reflects the traditional view of

significance of each has been absorbed into the Commedia so as to serve an

Figure 1. Isidore of Seville’s tripartite world map, 1472. By permission of Jim

sented by pilgrimage.4 Moreover, its perceived position at the top of the

Significantly, the entrance to hell presents the reader with an example

the trajectory of the antipilgrimage: as it lies outside the City of Dis, it is

mixture” of the “two sacred tongues of Christendom,” Latin and Hebrew,

Since these cantos remain preliminary to Dante’s actual entry to the

[This insolence of theirs is nothing new;

an importance that is underscored in the next episode, in which the angel’s

Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi

[I am the one who guarded both the keys

At the same time, estrangement from Jerusalem and movement away

[My son, do not mind if Brunetto

[“There, in the sunlit life above,” I answered,

commonality in the two trajectories, Dante’s journey is not truncated in

[as, in the year of the Jubilee, the Romans,

upon the Castle, heading toward St. Peter’s,

[they had their faces twisted toward their haunches

anni compié che qui la via fu rotta.

[Five hours from this hour yesterday,

[Outside, these cloaks were gilded and they dazzled;

ture, seeks to go beyond human capacity, not only by attempting to write

Or dì a Fra Dolcin dunque che s’armi,

[Then you, who will perhaps soon see the sun,

Muhammad’s interest in the affair also suggests obliquely that he

[and after they were dead, I called them for

che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele

[To course across more kindly waters now

[The lovely planet that is patroness

charity combine with the hope inherent in Dante’s invocation to the

[Then I turned to the right, setting my mind

[This man had yet to see his final evening;

Here, however, in contrast to the reference to the cross, the direction in

[I saw a solitary patriarch

[His beard was long and mixed with white, as were

[By now the sun was crossing the horizon

Noi eravam lunghesso mare ancora,

[We still were by the sea, like those who think

[Then over them he made the holy cross

similemente il mal seme d’Adamo

[similarly, the evil seed of Adam

[“Now who knows where, along this mountainside,”

[There we sat down together, facing east,

Come ciò sia, se ’l vuoi poter pensare,

[If you would realize how that should be,

che ’l mezzo cerchio del moto superno,

[that the mid-circle of the heavens’ motion

representation of this lost salvation reversed, so that the despair of para-

Approaching purgatory proper is where the journey to Jerusalem and

La concubina di Titone antico

[Now she who shares the bed of old Tithonus,