Dante the poet begins the complex and brilliant process of helping us convert what seems into what is. But seeming and being are interconnected in so many ways that we can feel the ground shift under our feet as we begin our exit from the second terrace of Purgatory proper. And if all that were not enough, Virgil, Dante’s guide, undertakes a redefinition of “pleasure” or “delight.”
Read MoreDante the poet steps out from behind Dante the pilgrim to double down on his claims for art (that it’s realer than real), to push further his own (fake) ekphrastic poetry, and to remind us that the moral allegory that is COMEDY is at its heart a story, the only lie humans have to tell the moral truths of our existence.
Read MoreAn overview of the reliefs carved into the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. They (and the poet Dante) leave us with more questions than answers . . . which is curious in a passage that is supposed to be a rather simple, monochromatic lesson about morality (or the dangers of pride).
Read MoreDante the pilgrim walks over the final figures carved into the paving stones of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory: Alcmeon (and his mother, Eriphyle), Sennacherib, Tomyris (and Cyrus), and Holofernes (and Judith). This passage is full of presented and occluded figures and ends with a very odd comment about Holofernes’ “relics from his martyrdom.”
Read MoreDante the pilgrim continues to look at the carved reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He sees four more exemplars: Niobe, Saul, Arachne, and Reheboam. Two from the classical world and two from the Bible world. But one a statue and one an allegory of art. What is the relationship of pride and artistic creation?
Read MoreVirgil directs Dante the pilgrim to look down at the art that will lie under his feet, carved into the first terrace of Mount Purgatory. But then the poet steps forward with an audacious claim: this art is “realer” than its historical basis, than its original moment, because it’s God’s art. But it’s not. It’s Dante’s.
Read MoreDante is hunched over with the prideful, going along as if he has a rock on his back. He certainly wants us to think the grand swelling of pride has been lanced on this terrace of Purgatory . . . until Virgil tells him to be more like the damned Ulysses, and our pilgrim straightens up, and sets off at a much quicker pace. A most curious passage about Dante’s relationship with pride.
Read MoreThe illuminator Oderisi continues his monologue on the first terrace of Purgatory proper. He points out a third penitent: the warlord and tyrant from Siena, Provenzan Salvani, who plotted Florence’s demise and perhaps foreshadows Dante’s exile. How are the pains of Purgatory not “contrapasso” as in INFERNO? What part does art play in history? And how does Dante imagine his own art changing its reader?
Read MoreThere are many unanswered questions in the first half of Oderisi’s speech. Why does Dante turn reticent about naming himself when he’s been so brash elsewhere (in the malebolge with the thieves)? How is the art of illumination, or miniaturization, connected to the new style of poetry Dante practices? And what’s the significance of Dante's meeting someone who spent his life working on manuscripts?
Read MoreOn Purgatory’s terrace of pride, Dante encounters Oderisi, an artist, a manuscript illuminator, who utters some of the most famous lines in PURGATORIO. Oderisi discusses the vagaries of artistic fame and finds himself both forgotten and yet still prideful . . . about as Dante, our poet, who seems to vaunt his fame high in the passage but may actually be bringing himself pretty low.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim sees the prideful penitents under the boulders and likens their burdens to the weight of dreams (the key landscape of the imagination in medieval thinking). What? Then Dante the poet steps out to teach us the lesson from the passage, asking us to pray for the penitents he himself has imagined. Finally, Virgil speaks without ever being given a dialogue cue, so we’re not sure who’s speaking until the end of nine lines. What’s going on?
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has been alerted to figures coming around the bend of the first terrace of Purgatory proper. But neither he nor Virgil, his guide, is able to discern what’s what until Dante the poet interrupts the story and then the pilgrim uses art to understand what didn’t resemble people at all.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim is still gawking at the art in the marble of the first terrace of Purgatory when the first of the penitents round the bend. Virgil spots them . . . and then murmurs to the pilgrim. Murmurs? Like the Israelites in the wilderness? Or like an older poet when confronted with the exuberance of a younger poet?
Read MoreDante moves on to the third intaglio (or carving) in the marble of the first terrace of Purgatory proper. This time, he finds a scene (allegedly) from the life of the Roman emperor Trajan, a scene so real that the marble apparently comes to life and offers a dramatic dialogue between Trajan and a bereaved mother, as (carved) eagles soar overhead and knights tramp the ground.
Read MoreDante moves beyond his guide Virgil (or is prodded to move beyond him for curious reasons) to see the second intaglio or carving in the marble on the terrace of pride in PURGATORIO. Here, Dante continues his dangerous game, enhancing the realism of the art on the wall of Mount Purgatory with imagined details that offer the best “realism” in the scene.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim and (shockingly) Virgil arrive on the first deserted terrace of Purgatory proper to discover marvelous carvings in the white marble (although still no souls in sight). These first images of artistic production allow the poet to begin to develop his theory of art, one of the major achievements of his time on the terraces of Mount Purgatory.
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