Inferno Canto XV Professor Corrado Calenda Università di Napoli ‘Federico II’

1. Inferno Canto XV Professor Corrado Calenda Università di Napoli ‘Federico II’

2. The renowned “canto of Brunetto” shares a key feature with other equally well-known canti in Dante’s Inferno. Close examination shows that this feature has defined and justified the centuries of continuous reflection or, rather, the type of reflection, which its readers have so consistently dedicated to it.

3. This feature is the way in which the “sin” committed by the protagonists in their earthly lives, and which is the basis for their eternal damnation, is not the direct focus of the canto itself. This is also true of Farinata (X), Ulysses (XXVI), and Ugolino (XXXIII). The reason for their presence in Hell is hinted at at most, either indirectly or as a digression, but the canto itself develops along different lines.

4. It is almost as though the aim is to avoid an unnecessary delay on non-essentials, or because it seems expedient, for various reasons, to just skim over the matter, if not to omit it entirely. The anomalous nature of this canto is obvious: even looking just at the best known cases of the first cantica, it is enough to contrast it with Canto V with Francesca and Paolo, which is centred around a detailed description of the event which led the two lovers to perdition.

5. We could also compare it with canto XIII, which sets out starkly the circumstances that led to Pier della Vigna’s suicide. I would add, however, that Brunetto represents an isolated case, even in comparison to the damned souls that Dante had been told earlier that he would meet. Brunetto is also unusual in comparison to those whose sin is hinted at.

6. In canto X, for example, before meeting Farinata and Cavalcante, Dante is concerned to find out that that “Epicurus and his followers have their cemetery in this part, who make the soul die with the body” (vv. 13-15). In Canto XXVI, in vv. 59-63, independently preceding the grandiose description of the fatal path to destruction, we find a list of the sins which led Ulysses and Diomedes to destruction.

7. In my opinion, however, this brief preface to an extraordinary canto is not detailed enough to decide for certain what Ulysses’s sin was. It is also well-known that Canto XXXIII, too includes a reference to Ugolino’s treachery: Dante tells us that “Count Ugolino was reported to have betrayed your fortresses” (vv. 85-86). There is none of this in Canto XV, nor in the following canto, in which the two travellers meet other famous characters who share in Brunetto’s sin.

8. Predictably, centuries of debate on Brunetto’s sin have ensued. With an effort of memoryand some reconstruction it is possible to deduce the nature of the sin, based on indications from canto XI where Virgil explains that among them are those that “use force against the Deity … and therefore the smallest sub-circle stamps with its seal Sodom and Cahors” (vv. 46-49).

9. Either that, or one could accept the usual explanation of v. 144, referring to Andrea de’ Mozzi,“where he left his ill-protended muscles”, although this has recently been called into question by scholars such as Mario Martelli. Or one may share the early commentators’s opinion of Iacopo Rusticucci’s wife (XVI 45), whom they held responsible for the damned man’s sinful inclinations towards his own gender.

10. Understandably, this initial and essential information conditions the entire reading of our canto, and above all the relationship that Dante means to imply with Brunetto: therefore, in some ways, a referential reading, or, perhaps, a content-basedreading is more justifiable than in other cases. This reading is primarily intended to clarify the significance of Dante’s decision to include an encounter with his former Florentine “master” as an essential element of his narrative.

11. It has not escaped anyone’s attention that such a course risks obscuring the extraordinary formal and stylistic features of the canto, its more specifically literary worth, among the most skilful in the entire poem.

12. Even focusing solely on the memorable opening, we could note, as an absolute minimum, the rare inclusive proparoxytonic rhyme (margini: argini); the brilliant metaphorical use of a technical botanical vocabulary (aduggia), used to suggest the marvel of a sort of umbrella of vapour which shelters the travellers from the flakesof fire.

13. We should also note, with Ernesto Giacomo Parodi, the cluster of rhymes entirely in double consonants up until v. 13 (argini, uggia, enta, elli, ossi) which prefigure the “rime aspre e chiocce” which will be widespread in the Malebolge. One also notes that the rhyme in –uggia anticipates that in -eggi of vv. 34-39, where the central rhyme “greggia” is one of two words that are “yrsuta propter austeritatem” against which the “noble” poet is advised in the De Vulgari Eloquentia.

14. We should also take note of the remarkable, but certainly not coincidental, lexical choices in a verse like ““Quali i Fiamminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia” (“Like the Flemings, between Wissant and Bruges) (v. 4). In this verse, fixed, neutral lexical items (the name of a people and two toponyms) imply a reference to the ‘fiamme che guizzano e bruciano’, directly linked to the scene which we are about to observe.

15. The deliberate use of similes taken either from literatureor from personal experience is also important, making the characteristics of the unlikely surroundings clear to the reader. These are, moreover, enriched by touches of absolute realism (vv. 11-12 “though not so high nor so thick, whoever he may have been, the master-builder made them”) which make the following events more realistic. The margins of Phlegethon on which Dante and Virgil walk, too, must be low enough to permit the close dialogue between Brunetto and the pilgrim.

16. The margins of Phlegethon on which Dante and Virgil walk, too, must be low enough to permit the close dialogue between Brunetto and the pilgrim. But above all, the entire canto is a marvel of representative evidence.

17. However one approaches them, the series of ethical, cultural, political and personal questions which are posed are as subtle and nuanced as they are worrying and problematic. First comes the very long opening discussed above which sets up a familiar tone and the close proximity of the two people in dialogue.

18. This is followed by two concrete images, that of those who gaze “at one another under the new moon” (v. 19) and that of the “old tailor” who has difficulty threading a needle (v. 21). These are not abstract descriptive formulae, but are the actions and attitudes of men in specific situations. We could continue at length in this vein in a close reading of Dante’s masterly methods in setting up his peculiar, otherworldly scene.

19. But it is now time to reflect on the central scene and the essential themes of our canto, sticking as closely as possible to the letter of the text. After the meeting with Capaneo, Dante and Virgil move further still from the wood of the suicides and profit from the protection offered by Phlegethon to walk unscathed across the barren land of the sinners against God, who are tormented by an incessant rain of fire which burns and disfigures them as it strikes.

20. Low down, under the margin, they see a crowd of souls coming to greet them, who seem to examine them with painstaking attention. One of them is startled to recognise Dante, and in his turn, Dante recognises him as Brunetto Latini showing a similar, if not greater, surprise.

21. He should, perhaps, be referred to more correctly as Burnetto, according to the variant on the Florentine codices mentioned by Francesco Mazzoni, which has recently been emphasised by Luciano Rossi’s ingenious etymological hypothesis.

22. An intense dialogue begins between the two, which first requires a series of explanations of their respective current situations. This is followed by Brunetto’s flattering recognition of the pilgrim’s gifts and a prophecy of the terrible destiny which awaits Dante in the plots of the corrupt and enraged Florentines.

23. Dante reciprocates this acknowledgement of esteem, albeit in the respectful tones of the disciple, then declares himself ready to challenge the blows of fate that Brunetto has prophesied. After Virgil’s very quick interjection of agreement, Brunetto replies to the pilgrim’s question, informing him that Priscian, Francesco d’Occorso and Andrea de’ Mozzi share his fate.

24. Then, preoccupied by the arrival of another crowd of sinners, he hurries to run after and rejoin his “flock” who had wandered off meanwhile. This is a summary of the canto on very general lines, in which I have consciously set out to outline its fundamental structure, the pure narrative schema. This is precisely my point.

25. The interpretation of more specific points, and above all, the canto’s important role in the overall plot of the Inferno, depend, as we know, on certain preliminary decisions, on certain exegetical presuppositions, which can profoundly alter the underlyingsignificance of the scene depicted here.

26. We are faced, then, with a potentially ambivalent text. It is difficult to establish whether this is a primary ambivalence, intentionally included and developed by the author, or whether it is through a layered exegetic tradition.

27. This is a tradition which has grown up around this canto, like a few others in the Commedia, to create a broad spectrum of interpretative hypotheses, which in some cases differ widely where they are not in direct opposition to each other.

28. To me, it seems most likely that at least the two things are not interwoven in time: the complexity and perhaps subtle ambiguity or evasive vagueness of Dante’s original intention has combined with the survival of historically determined readings. This has led to a sort of hermeneutic derivative, which has opened up further possible readings of a canto that was already strikingly plurisemic, as well as the originally intended ones.

29. If this is the case, the first task of each interpreter is to attempt to reduce or define, as far as it is possible, the contribution made by each of the successive overlapping layers, which are, nevertheless, a sign of the endless vitality of the text.

30. The two knots which need to be dealt with first and, if possible, unravelled, relate to the Brunetto’s sin and the type of relationship that Dante-author intends to establish between the protagonist (Dante agens) and his interlocutor.

31. As we will see these questions are connected, but not, I think, to the point, that the potential solution of the one requires complete clarity on the other. Let us take as our starting point, then, Brunetto’s sin: it is certainly a sin “against nature” and therefore, indirectly, against God.

32. The interpretative key that has dominated the reading of the canto, largely unquestioned, is sexual, with Brunetto as a practicing “sodomite”, explicitly, a homosexual and paedophile.

33. This, as is well known, was brought into doubt in an important work by Andre Pezard (although his hypothesis was recently re-proposed, with certain additions, by Selene Sarteschi) and by the studies of Richard Kay, which were subsequently borne out by the investigations of Sally Mussetter.

34. For the former, the sin against nature would have been Brunetto’s decision to adopt the langue d’oil rather than his own native vernacular when writing his best known work, the encyclopaedia of the Trésor. This practice had already been hotly contested by Dante on many well known occasions, albeit with no particular hostility, of course, towards Old French; merely an opposition to the abandonment of one’s “natural” speech.

35. This would have been a blow to his linguistic and ethical roots, as Eugene Vance and Peter Armour would assert from various perspectives. For Kay, however, “Brunetto would have been placed among the sinners against nature … because he would have subverted the natural order by placing philosophy not only at the service of the emperor, but also the unnatural, insubordinate and autonomous communal structures” (E. Esposito)

36. That said, it is necessary to add that even staying close to the traditional (and, frankly, less adventurous) reading of sexual sin, there is no lack of variation in the stances taken up by the various interpreters.

37. One of the preoccupations of the main commentators from the beginning of the last century (most important of whom is Ernesto Giacomo Parodi) is to defend Dante from the accusation of having betrayed ser Brunetto’s privacy, permanently associating his master with an infamous sin which would otherwise have remained unknown.

38. The idea of Brunetto “the sodomite” would be born for reasons relating to the symmetries of the poem. In this way the Florentine master would be assigned to a position corresponding roughly to that of his ancestor Cacciaguida in the third cantica, thereby setting up an intra-textual parallelism of great ideological depth.

39. Despite this, in 1979 D’arco Silvio Avalle (followed by Giuseppe Edoardo Sansone) interpreted an exchange of canzoni between Brunetto and Bondie Dietaiuti set out in Cd Vat 3793 using a key of allusive homoeroticism. This goes against the previous interpretation which uses a key of purely structural symmetries that do not have either ethical or ontological implications.

40. Here we begin to see how the question of “Brunetto’s sin” is interwoven with the relationship that Dante wishes to establish, both with the historical figure and with Brunetto’s literary personality. In an insightful reading, Manlio Pastore Stocchi has overwhelmingly accentuated the importanceof Dante’s ignominiously accused man by drastically overturning what has until now been theusualinterpretationof the entire episode.

41. To summarise, we are present at a serious act of denunciation: Dante’s allusive and ironic re-assessment of the presumed virtues of his Florentine master. Pastore Stocchi suggests that this is based on the logic which determines the law of the contrapasso. In this instance it is derived directly from the biblical text which speaks of the punishment inflicted by God on the inhabitants of Sodom: this is a sign of a sin judged and punished with special, implacable rigour.

42. To conclude I will note that in a recent lectura Luciano Rossi excludes the importance of the evidence brought to light by Avalle, and attributes Dante’s decision to place Brunetto here because of his ambiguous condemnation of sodomy in a well-known passage from the Tesoretto.

43. Drawing together the hypotheses summarised so far, let us return to the text. I do not honestly believe that there are convincing alternatives to the sin of sodomy, in the sense that they extend the boundaries of the potential sins “against nature”. All this, however, leads us to understand the importance that Dante wishes to accord to this type of sin in the wider significance of the event.

44. Allusions to the kind of sin that some interpreters claim to have discerned further enrich and add texture to this extraordinary text, but, as we have said, these appear to have been derived a posteriori from a number of fixed interpretative preconceptions.

45. The violent censure of Brunetto “the sodomite” may determine the reading of the two marvellous similes from vv. 18-21, as a bridging passage towards a “comic” stylistic register, culminating in the final scene of the canto with the Brunetto’s wavering path as he chases after his “crew”.

46. Traces of “homosexual” body-language (!) may be derived from a malicious “looking over” (v. 22) by the ghosts of the damned, from Brunetto grasping Dante’s robe (vv. 23-24), from the pilgrim stretching out his hand to the master’s face.

47. Even the way that Brunetto repeatedly addressed Dante as “Oh my son” (v. 31) and “Oh son” (v 37) which the pilgrim ingenuously interprets as an evocation of the “dear, kind, paternal image” (v. 83) may be read as a blasphemous compensation for natural fatherhood that has been denied through sin.

48. In reality, by continuing on this trajectory, there is the risk that even the deep and subtle ambivalence on which Dante intended to build the text itself may be irreparably lost: an interpretative key that has been declared superficial and ingenious will be replaced with the opposite one, but one that is equally linear and unequivocal.

49. The attribution of the infamous sin of sodomy to ser Brunetto, which I will assume henceforth adopt, cannot achieve the result of simply changing di segno the importance to be placed on the central scene of the canto.

50. It is useless, in my opinion, to dwell on either Dante’s possible indiscretion or his burning intention (if this is the case) to divulge Brunetto’s “private” sin, perhaps relating (as has been suggested) to an unconfessable personal experience in the relationship between student and master.