The Portable Dante (91 page)

86
. Cennino Cennini in II
libra dell’arte
described these
tavolette
as wooden or parchment, six inches square, used by beginners for exercises in drawing.

87
. The events recounted in XXXV-XXXIX are further treated in
Convivio
II and in the
canzone “Voi che ‘ntendendo il terzo ciel movete.”
In
Convivio
II, 12, Dante gives an “allegorical and true exposition” of this compassionate lady as a symbol of Philosophy. In the light of this interpretation (which follows Dante’s demonstration of her “literal” coming into his life) controversy has arisen about the existence of both Beatrice and this
donna gentile
as real women. The
Convivio
presumably was written some years after the
Vita nuova
when Dante sought poetic ways to universalize his real experience, finding hidden reasons for what happened.

88
. In Provençal poetry such a prose account was called
“razo”
perhaps given orally when the poem or song was recited. Boethius also alternated prose and verse in his
Consolation of Philosophy,
a work Dante cites in
Convivio
II as his first investigation into philosophy.

89
. Ecclesiastically the period between noon and 3 P.M. (the 7th, 8th, and 9th hours of the day). Cf. III and XII.

90
. In the prose account, “a purple color.”

91
. The exact time of the event described here is not clear, and some commentators have considered the chapter to be out of order, more appropriately occurring soon after the death of Beatrice than after the battle between his heart and his reason. Others date it much later, for example in the Jubilee year 1300.

92
. The cloth called Veronica, imprinted with the likeness of Christ’s features when he wiped his face with it while carrying the Cross to Calvary, preserved at St. Peter’s in Rome and displayed to the faithful from time to time. Cf.
Paradise
XXXI 103-108; Petrarch, sonnet 16.

93
. Florence, although never named in the
Vita nuova.

94
. After his death at the order of Herod (cf.
Acts
12:2) the body of the apostle James was said to have been transported miraculously to Galicia in northwestern Spain. The burial place at Santiago de Compostela—pointed out by a star in the ninth century—was a frequent destination for pilgrims in the Middle Ages. Cf.
Paradise
XXV, 17-18;
Convivio
II, 14.

95
. This sonnet appears in XXXII.

96
. Here “Helios” is God.

97
. Aristotle’s work, which Dante knew from reading St. Thomas Aquinas. The analogy of the eye and the sun is St. Thomas’s

98
. After a period of intense study to write of his vision of Beatrice in a more worthy manner; i.e., in the
Divine Comedy. Cf. Conuiuio
II.

99
. Latin for “who is through all ages
blessed
.”

T
HE NEWEST AND MOST AUTHORITATIVE
Italian edition of Dante’s
Comedy
is by Giorgio Petrocchi (
La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata
in 4 vols., Milano: Mondadori, 1966-67). For the text of the
Vita nuova
see the edition by Domenico De Robertis
(Vita nuova,
Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1980).

Among the most useful general introductory studies on Dante are those by Thomas Bergin (
Dante,
Westport, Conn., 1976), Francis Fcrgusson
(Dante,
London and New York, 1966), Michele Barbi
(Life of Dante,
Berkeley, Calif., 1954; London, 1955).

Of the many prose translations of the
Commedia
the two outstanding ones are the Modern Library edition by Carlyle-Wickstead and the John Sinclair version (New York, 1961) which is straightforward and faithful to the original.

Important reference and bibliographical sources include Umberto Bosco
(Handbook to Dante Studies,
Oxford, 1950); the journal
Dante Studies
with a thorough, descriptive bibliography of Dante scholarship in the United States (edited by Anthony L. Pellegrini for many years and now by Christopher Kleinhenz, published by the State University of New York at Binghamton); Charles Dinsmore
(Aids to the Study of Dante,
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1903); the
Encidopedia Dantesca
edited by Umberto Bosco (6 volumes, Rome, 1970); the most useful bibliographical reference book in Italian is by Enzo Esposito (
Bibliografia analitica degli scritti su Dante,
1950-70, Firenze: Olschki, 1990); Edmund Gardner
(Dante,
London, 1985); Paget Toynbcc
(A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante,
revised by Charles S. Singleton, Oxford, 1968); and E. H. Wilkins, T. G. Bergin, et al. (
A Concordance to the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligbieri,
London and Cambridge, Mass., 1965).

Auerbach, Erich.
Dante: Poet of the Secular World.
Translated by Ralph Manheim. Chicago University Press, 1961.

—————.
Mimesis.
Princeton University Press, 1953.

Barolini, Teodolinda.
Dante’s Poets, Textuality and Truth in the “Comedy. ”
Princeton University Press, 1984.

—————.
The Undivine “Comedy, ” Detheologizing Dante.
Princeton University Press,

1992.

Boyde, Patrick.
Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos.
Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Brandeis, Irma.
The Ladder of Vision: A Study of Dante’s Comedy.
New York University Press, 1961.

Comparetti, Domenico.
Virgil in the Middle Ages.
Translated by E. F. M. Benecke. New York, 1895.

Davis, Charles Till.
Dante and the Idea of Rome.
Oxford University Press, 1957.

Demaray, John I.
The Invention of Dante’s “Commedia. ”
New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press, 1974.

d’Entrèves, Passerini.
Dante as a Political Thinker.
Oxford University Press, 1952.

Dunbar, H. Flanders.
Symbolism in Medieval Thought and Its Culmination in the Divine Comedy.
New York University Press, 1961.

Fergusson, Francis.
Dante’s Drama of the Mind, A Modern Reading of the “Purgatorio. ”
Princeton University Press, 1952.

Ferrante, Joan.
The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy. ”
Princeton University Press, 1986.

Fletcher, Jefferson Butler.
Dante.
Notre Dame University Press, 1965.

Foster, Kenelm.
The Two Dantes and Other Studies.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.

Freccero, John.
Dante: The Poetics of Conversion.
Edited by R. Jacoff. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1986.

Grandgent, Charles H.
Companion to the “Divine Comedy. ”
Edited by Charles Singleton. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1975.

Haskins, Charles Homer.
The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century.
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1927.

Hollander, Robert.
Allegory in Dante’s “Commedia. ”
Princeton University Press, 1969.

Lansing, Richard H.
From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante’s
Commedia. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1977.

Masciandaro, Franco.
Dante as Dramatist.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.

Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony.
Structure and Thought in the “Paradiso. ”
Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1958.

—————.
Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante’s “Divine Comedy. ”
Ithaca, N.Y. :

Cornell University Press, 1960.

Mazzotta, Guiseppe.
Dante’s Vision and the Circle of Knowledge.
Princeton University Press, 1992.

—————.
Dante, Poet of the Desert.
Princeton University Press, 1979.

Musa, Mark.
Advent at the Gates: Dante’s Comedy.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974.

—————.
Essays on Dante.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.

Nolan, David, ed.
Dante Commentaries.
New Jersey, 1977.

Orr, M. A.
Dante and the Early Astronomers.
Rev. ed. London, 1956.

Ruggiers, Paul R.
Florence in the Age of Dante.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. Sayers, Dorothy.
Introductory Papers on Dante.
New York, 1959.

—————.
Further Papers on Dante.
New York, 1957.

Schnapp, Jeffrey.
The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s “Paradise. ”
Princeton University Press, 1986. Seznec, Jean.
The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its
Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art.
Translated by B. Sessions. Princeton University Press, 1953.

Singleton, Charles S.
Dante Studies I.
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1954.

Sowell, Madison, ed.
Dante and Ovid, Essays in Intertextuality.
Binghamton, N.Y., 1991.

Stambler, Bernard.
Dante’s Other World.
New York University Press, 1957. Thompson, David.
Dante’s Epic journeys.
Baltimore, Md. : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Vossler, Karl.
Medieval Culture.
Translated by W. C. Lauxton. New York, 1929.

Barber, Joseph A. “The Role of the Other in Dante’s
Vita nuova. ” Studies in Philology
78 (1981): 128-137.

Bigongiari, Dino. “Dante’s
Vita nuova. ”
In
Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture,
65-76. Firenze: Olschki, 1964.

Carruthers, M.
The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture.
Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Corsi, Sergio. Il
“modus digressivus” nella “Divina Commedia. ”
Potomac, Md. : Scripta Humanistica, 1987.

Cro, Stelio.
“Vita nuova
figura
Comoediae:
Dante tra la Villana Morte e Matelda. ”
Italian Culture
6 (1985): 13-30.

D’Andrea, Antonio. “La struttura della
Vita nuova:
le divisioni delle rime. ”
Yearbook of Italian Studies
4 (1980): 13-40.

De Bonfils Templer, Margherita.
Itinerario di Amore: dialettica di Amore e Morte nella
Vita nuova. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1973.

Elata-Aster, Gerda. “Gathering the Leaves and Squaring the Circle:
Recording, Reading
and
Writing
in Dante’s
Vita nuova
and
Divina Commedia. ” Italian Quarterly
24.92(1983):5-26.

Fletcher, Jefferson Butler. “The ‘True Meaning’ of Dante’s
Vita nuova. ” Romanic Review
11 (1920): 95-148.

Guzzardo, John. “Number Symbolism in the
Vita nuova. ” Canadian Journal of Italian Studies
8:30 (1985): 12-31.

Hainsworth, P. “Cavalcanti in the
Vita nuova. ” Modern Language Review
83 (1988), 586-90.

Harrison, Robert Pogue.
The Body of Beatrice.
Baltimore, Md. : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Hollander, Robert.
“Vita nuova:
Dante’s Perceptions of Beatrice. ”
Dante Studies
92 (1974): 1-18.

1 lolloway, Julia Bolton. “The
Vita nuova:
Paradigms of Pilgrimage. ”
Dante Studies
103 (1985): 103-24.

Howe, Kay. “Dante’s Beatrice: the Nine and the Ten. ”
Italica
52 (1975): 364-71.

Kleiner, J. “Finding the Center: Revelation and Reticence in the
Vita nuova. ” Texas Studies in Literature and Language
32:1 (1990), 85-100.

Klemp, P. J. “The Women in the Middle: Layers of Love in Dante’s
Vita nuova. ” Italica
61:3 (1984): 185-194.

Mazzaro, Jerome.
The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the “Vita nuova. ”
Princeton University Press, 1981.

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. “The Language of Poetry in the
Vita nuova. ” Rivista di studi italiani
1:1 (1983): 3-14.

McKcnzie, Kenneth. “The Symbolic Structure of Dante’s
Vita nuova. ” PMLA
18 (1903): 341-55.

Musa, Mark.
Dante’s “Vita nuova": A Translation and an Essay.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.

Nolan, Barbara. “The
Vita nuova:
Dante’s Book of Revelation. ”
Dante Studies
88 (1970): 51-77.

Norton, Charles Eliot.
The New Life of Dante Alighicri.
Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1895.

Pipa, Arshi. “Personaggi della
Vita nuova:
Dante, Cavalcanti e la famiglia Portinari. ”
Italica
62:2 (1985): 99-115.

Scott, J. A. “Dante’s ‘Sweet New Style’ and the
Vita nuova. ” Italica
42 (1965): 98-107.

Shaw, J. E.
Essay on the “Vita nuova. ”
Princeton University Press, 1929.

Singleton, Charles S.
An Essay on the “Vita nuova. ”
1949. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1958.

Smarr, Janet Lcvarie. “Celestial Patterns and Symmetries in the
Vita nuova, ” Dante Studies
98 (1980): 145-50.

Sturm-Maddox, Sarah. “The Pattern of Witness: Narrative Design in the
Vita nuova, ” Forum Italicum
12:2 (1978): 216-32.

Trovato, Mario. “Il capitolo xii della
Vita nuova. ” Forum Italicum
16:1-2 (1982), 19-32.

Valency, M.
In Praise of Love: An Introduction to the Love Poetry of the Renaissance.
New York: Macmillan, 1958.

Vincent, E. R. “The Crisis in the
Vita nuova. ”
In
Century Essays on Dante by Members of the Oxford Dante Society,
132-42. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965.

Viegnes, Michel J. “Space and Love in the
Vita nuova. ” Lectura Dantis
4 (1989): 78-85.