Dante does not say how he moved from the second circle to the third, probably because he wanted to hint to the reader that his soul, even after the return of his feelings, was so greatly shocked by the sad fate of two lovers that he did not pay any attention to the path, now passed by him. It awoke in him only at the sight of a new execution. Streckfuss.

In this circle gluttons are executed (i miseri profani). “Rain, this blessed gift of heaven, fertilizing the earth, here in darkness, inaccessible to sunlight, produces nothing but disgusting dirt and stench: the gifts of heaven are vainly squandered for sensualists, sinners are immersed in mud: didn’t the same thing happen to them? in life? They are unable to rise from it; trying in vain to free themselves from it, they only turn from side to side; if they happen to rise, they immediately fall again (vv. 91–93) and, moreover, with their head forward, the receptacle of their spiritual strength: it has become so heavy that it itself brings them down to the ground.” You save and Streckfuss.

Like Charon and Minos, Virgilian Cerberus is transformed into a demon, the three-headed image of which ends in a gigantic worm or snake. Lucifer is also called the worm that wears away the world (Ada XXXIV, 107). He has a triple mouth, a thick belly, a strong beard (in reality: with a black and greasy beard, with red eyes - the real personification of gluttony. He is saturated with dirt: this expresses the value of what sensualists strive to satisfy their desires, for the sake of which they forget about the highest purpose of man - about the development of higher spiritual powers. The barking of Cerberus deafens sinners; it is the voice of their evil conscience, to which in their filth they would willingly wish to be deaf forever.

Imitation of Virgil, Aen. VI, 420.

Cui vates, horrere videns jam colla colubris,

Helle soporatam et medicatis frugibus offam

Objieit Ille fame rabida tria guttura pandeni

Gorripit objectam, atque immanla terga resolvit

Pusus bumi, totoque ingens extenditur antro.

Despite the fact that the sinners punished in this circle have a human image and seem to be real beings, they are so insignificant that they cannot be distinguished from the fetid filth in which their souls are mired. Like dirt, Dante tramples them under his feet, paying as much attention to them as to real dirt. Kannegiesser. – In general, however, we note that Dante’s shadows in hell are not yet completely freed from the earth, their essence is still connected with some materiality; in purgatory they are more spiritual; finally, in paradise, souls are no longer called shadows, but lights, for they are eternally surrounded by the light of the joy that animates them.

Chiacco is either an abbreviation of Giacopo, Jacob, or a nickname, which in Florentine dialect means pig. It is incredible that Dante, in addressing this sinner, would use the spoken word in a mocking tone, given the deep participation that he takes in his fate. Anyway, this is a play on words between Chiacco, Yakov, and ciacco, pig, sharply characterizes the representative of sin, here punished. This Giacopo or Chiacco, according to the most ancient commentators, is a true judge and a cheerful interlocutor, pleasant in society. He is mentioned by Boccaccio Decamer. IX, 8.

To clearly understand Chiacco’s prediction, it is necessary to know the political state of Florence at that time, especially since this historical information will later serve us as a key to explain many places in Dante’s poem. At the end of the 13th century, Florence, having expelled the Ghibelline party, could finally enjoy peace for a while; but this calm did not last long. Pistoia was at that time part of the Guelphic League in Tuscany, having the same popular government as Florence. One of the most famous families of this city, Cancellieri, was divided into two lines: the members of one named themselves after their mother, Bianchi, white, members of the other, in contrast to her, called themselves black. These parties had long been at odds with each other and often came into bloody clashes; in 1300 their enmity flared up with with new strength . Amadore, one of the Black party, quarreled, wounded his relative Vanni (from the White party). Amadore's father, a man of peaceful character, sent his son to the father of the wounded man to apologize for his impatience; but this latter, instead of listening to excuses, ordered Amadora to be seized, and, saying that such insults are decided with the sword, and not with words, he cut off his right hand. This crime immediately divided the whole city: some took the side of the Blacks, others of the Whites. But the discord was not limited to Pistoia alone, but immediately spread to Florence, where the hostile spirit of the Guelphs and Ghibellines was still imperfectly suppressed. In Florence, members of the old noble family of Donati (under the leadership of Messer Corso) took the side of the Blacks, and the new noble house of the Cerchi (under the leadership of Messer Viero) took the side of the Whites. Unrest and bloody fights spread throughout the city. At this time, Florence was governed by priors, elected annually by 6 people, each for two months. Wanting to stop the unrest, they, according to legend, on the advice of Dante, who was prior of Florence from June 15 to August 15 of last year, expelled the leaders of both parties from the city: the Blacks to Perugia, the Whites to Sarzana. This was in February 1301. At that time, the Blacks turned to Pope Boniface VIII with a request to send them a third-party ruler to restore order to them. Meanwhile, the Whites, as less guilty, were soon called back, under the pretext that the climate of Sarzana was harmful to them, and indeed many of them died from disease. Returning to the city, in June 1301 they managed to expel the rest of the Black party, who retired to their leaders in Perugia. Whether Dante took any part in these party intrigues is very doubtful: the only certainty is that at that time he was used for political affairs and was sent as ambassador to Boniface VIII. Meanwhile, Boniface, benevolent to the Blacks as true Guelphs, sent, probably through their own machinations, Charles of Valois, brother of the French king Philip the Fair, to Florence under the guise of a peacemaker. The city authorities received him with honor and, after taking an oath of unbreakable obedience to the laws of the republic, authorized him to reform and calm the republic. Soon, however, he brought an armed army into the city. The Blacks took advantage of this moment, burst into the city and devastated it with fire and sword for five days in a row. Karl did not take decisively any measures to stop these troubles and only cared about obtaining more money by all means in his power; at the same time, he expelled from the city, under various pretexts, all the citizens who were hostile to him, among others, our poet and many Whites. However, many of this party remained in their homes even after Charles left Florence (in 1302), and only in 1304 were they finally expelled. Philalethes and Wegele (Dante's Lebeu und Werke, 1852, 117 et d).

Ugolino (In the last circle of hell before us...)

UGOLINO

(Legend from Dante)

In the last circle of hell before us
In the darkness the surface of the lake shone
Beneath the icy, hard layers.

I would have fallen harmlessly on this ice,
Like fluff, the bulk of a stone peak,
Without crushing their eternal crystal.

And like frogs, emerging from the mud,
Among the swamps one can sometimes see, -
So in the lake of that gloomy valley

10 Countless sinners in a crowd,
Bent over, sitting naked
Under the icy, transparent crust.

Their lips turned blue from the cold,
And the tears froze on my cheeks,
And there was no blood in the pale body.

Their dull gaze drooped in such sadness,
That my thoughts become numb with fear,
When I remember how they trembled, -

And the sun’s ray has not warmed me since then.
20 But the earth’s axis is not far away:
My foot slips and the cold blows in my face...

Then I saw deep in the darkness
Two sinners; stricken with madness,
One grabbed the other and brutally

Sank his teeth into a crushed skull
And gnawed at it and flowed out in streams
From the black wound the brain is bleeding.

And I asked with trembling lips,
Whom does it devour; raising
30 Your stained face and hair

Wiping the unfortunate victim's lips,
He answered: “I am the ghost of Ugolino,
And this shadow is Ruggier; native land

I cursed the villain... He was the reason
All my torments: he imprisoned me in chains
Me and the children, driven by fate.

The prison vault pressed in like a lead coffin;
Through its crack more than once in the clear firmament
I saw how a new month was born -

40 When I had that terrible dream:
The dogs were poisoning the old wolf;
Ruggier drove them with a whip, and the unfortunate beast

With a crowd of their cubs through the gray dust
There was a trail of blood, and he fell,
And the hounds' fangs sank into him.

Hearing the children cry, I woke up:
In a dream, full of foreboding melancholy,
They begged for bread and were crowded

I feel an involuntary horror of misfortune in my chest.
50 Is there really no spark of regret in you?
Oh, if you don't cry over me,

Why are you crying over!.. In the midst of languor
The hour when they brought us food,
Long gone; no sound, no movement...

Within silent walls everything is as quiet as in a grave.
Suddenly a heavy hammer crashed outside the doors...
I understood everything: the entrance to the prison was blocked.

And intently with crazy eyes
I looked at the children; in front of me
60 They wept silent tears.

But I remained silent, bowing my head;
My Anzelmuccio to me with sweet affection
Whispered: “Oh, how do you look, what’s wrong with you?..”

But I was silent, and it was so hard for me,
That I could neither cry nor pray.
So the first day passed, and it came

Second morning; gentle lady
Flashed again, and, in a tremulous flicker
Recognizing their pale, thin faces,

70 I gnawed my hands to drown out the suffering.
But the children rushed to me, sobbing,
And I fell silent. We spent in silence

Two more days... The earth, the silent earth,
Oh why didn’t you swallow us up!..
He fell at my feet, weakening,

My poor Gaddo, groaning sadly:
“Father, oh, where are you, have mercy on me!..”
And death ended his torment.

As son after son fell in succession,
80 I saw with my own eyes,
And here I am, alone under the eternal darkness

Over dead, cold bodies -
I called the children; then exhausted
I will touch with helpless hands,

When the vision has already faded in the eyes,
I searched for their corpses, tormented by horror,
But hunger, hunger conquered torment!..”

And he fell silent, and again, tireless,
Grabbed a skull with his teeth in wild anger
90 And he gnawed at him, the inexorable executioner:

So the greedy dog ​​gnaws and gnaws the bones.

1885

Notes:

BE. 1886. No. 2, subtitled. “To the tune of Dante” and with the following variations: in Art. 22 (“in the ice” v. “in the darkness”), in Art. 38 (“windows” vs. “his”), in Art. 43 (“dark” v. “gray”), in Art. 61 (“having petrified the soul” v. “having hung his head”), in Art. 75 (“On the fourth day” viz. “At my feet”) and in vv. 87 (“But soon” v. “But hunger”) - SS-1904 - SS-1910 - PSS-I, vol. 15 - PSS-II, vol. 22. Text BE reprint: “Literary reader: An artistic collection of poems for reading at literary evenings...” (Compiled by I. Shcheglov. M., 1887), with a subtitle. "From Dante" Autograph (IRLI), without subtitle, with date: “1885”, var. in Art. 52 (“Over whom” v. “Over what”) and the edit in Art. 43 (“dark” on “gray”). Free arrangement of fragments of the thirty-second and thirty-third songs of “Hell” Dante(see note 80). K. P. Medvedsky (pseud. K. Govorov) considered “Ugolino” “one of the best” plays in the collection S-1888 (EO. 1888. T. 8, No. 214. Stb. 2694). Review of the anonymous reviewer of the Observer and assessment of the translation by A. A. Smirnov, see note. 80. Merezhkovsky returned to this episode of the poem, translated in his youth, at the end of his life, in a monograph on Dante. Quoting Art. 30-31 in another translation (“Then, lifting his lips from the terrible food, / He wiped them on the hair of the back of his head / The gnawed one...”), he wrote: “In this one external movement,” “wiped his lips,” - the whole the internal horror of the coal tragedy so that it remains indelibly in the chest, like a memory of delirium” (Merezhkovsky D.S. Dante. [Vol. 2]: What did Dante do? Bruxelles, 1939. P. 43). Further in the same book, the author gives another rhymeless translation of the last terzas of the present fragment.

• Ugolino de la Gherardesca - leader of the Guelphs, who were defeated by the Ghibellines, whose leader was the Archbishop of Pisa Ruggier ( Ruger degli Ubaldini).

Sources: Merezhkovsky D. S. Poems and poems / Introductory article, compilation, preparation of text and notes by K. A. Kumpan. (New Poet's Library) - St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2000 - 928 p.

Man-beamer - that's what Victor Hugo called him. He was a wanderer and an outcast, a warrior, a poet and a philosopher. And despite everything, he brought light in the darkness. Fate itself placed Dante Alighieri at the origins great era Renaissance.

The newborn was given the name Durante, which means “patient, enduring.” It turned out to be prophetic, although it was very soon forgotten for the sake of the affectionate diminutive Dante, which remained with him for the rest of his life.

I was born and raised
In the great city, by the beautiful waters of the Arno, -

then he will write about himself.

Today in Florence we can easily find the ancient quarter where the Alighieri family lived. There, a stone's throw from his home, near the Church of Santa Margherita on a Florentine street with the same name, as legend has it, nine-year-old Dante first met Beatrice Portinari.

Barely the ninth revolution of the sun
Fulfilled in the sky above me,
As I already loved.

Dante saw Beatrice only twice in his life. But, probably, already on the day of that first meeting he could have said, as he said 40 years later in The Divine Comedy, having met her in Paradise:

And after so many, so many years of separation...
Me before Her my eyes
They saw - already by secret force,
What came from her, I found out,
What power still has
My love for her is as old as the world.
I was shocked and now, as in childhood,
When I saw her for the first time...
I ancient love I recognized mine.

But all this will happen later. In the meantime... Florence, XIII century. The spring wind of history brings new breath to the banks of the Arno. The poetry of the singers of knightly love - the troubadours of Provence - penetrates the city of flowers. The most refined and educated Tuscan poets, such as Guido Cavalcanti, inspired by the troubadours, became Dante's teachers. Then the young man studies at the University of Bologna, where he receives the basics of classical knowledge - ancient history, mythology, philosophy. He dedicates the following lines of gratitude to one of his teachers:

Imprinted in my soul to this day
Your dear, kind, fatherly face.
That's what you first taught me,
How a person becomes immortal.

The life of Florence during the time of Dante proceeded in a series of endless wars. In his early youth, he fought in the front ranks at the Battle of Campaldino and participated in the siege of Caprona. His further path is closely connected with the politics and public affairs of Florence. The pinnacle of Dante’s political destiny was his tenure from June 15 to August 15, 1300, “prior of order and speech.” In fact, he headed the executive branch of the city. But not for long. Alighieri would soon find himself embroiled in a conflict between the black and white Guelphs - two parties vying for power in Florence - and would be driven out of his beloved city in disgrace. In 1302, the period of wanderings of the great Florentine began. In a foreign land, he will say: “The world is a fatherland for me, like the sea is for fish, but although I loved Florence so much that I endure an unjust expulsion, there is still no place in the world for me more kind than Florence.”

Later, having come to their senses, the Florentine magistrates, blinded by the poet’s glory, invited him to return to hometown, however, on the condition that he repents and apologizes for his mistakes, to which the exile angrily replied: “This is not how Dante will return to his homeland. Your forgiveness is not worth this humiliation. My shelter and my protection are my honor. Can’t I see the sky and the stars everywhere?”

It was a harsh, dark time. A time of epidemics, empty treasuries and the constant threat of famine.

There is no hope, and everything is in darkness,
And lies reign, and truth hides its eye.
When, Lord, will that come?
Are your faithful waiting? weakens
Faith is in delays...

His own response to the times was The Divine Comedy, 14 thousand verses...

Having completed half my earthly life,
I found myself in a dark forest,
Having lost the right path in the darkness of the valley, -

This is how Dante's story begins. They say that the poet called his work simply “Comedy.” “Comedy” - because it begins “terribly and sadly”, with “Hell”, and its end is beautiful and joyful - this is “Paradise”. The epithet “Divine” appeared later. Traces of the great poet in Florence are elusive, but still... The house where Dante lived remains. At the old church of San Stefano al Ponte, Boccaccio once read excerpts from the Divine Comedy. In the Duomo, on a 15th-century fresco, there is a famous portrait: Dante in a scarlet cloak with his creation in his hands. The stern look of the marble pyita at the Cathedral of Santa Croce Alighieri, surrounded by lions and with a mighty eagle at his feet, is striking. This is probably how the poet looked at the pictures of “hell”, suggested to him by the cruel world in which he lived...

Love speaks to my soul -
He sang so sweetly that he continues to this day
That sweet song sounds within me...

In how many souls did Dante's songs evoke a response! And in Russian souls too. The entire Silver Age was inspired by his terzas.

You must be as proud as a banner;
You must be as sharp as a sword;
Like Dantu, underground flame
Your cheeks should burn...

This is Bryusov. He has a lot of beautiful poems that mention Alighieri.

The great Florentine was quoted, read, learned by heart, translated. Poems and entire literary studies were dedicated to him, Gumilev, Akhmatova, Lozinsky, Mandelstam, Merezhkovsky wrote articles about him...

From Akhmatova’s memoirs about her meeting with Mandelstam in Leningrad in 1933: “Osip had just learned Italian language and Dante raved, reciting pages by heart. We started talking about "Purgatory". I read a part of the XXX song (the appearance of Beatrice).

In a wreath of olives, under a white veil,
A woman appeared, dressed
In a green cloak and a fire flame dress...
All my blood
An unspeakable thrill permeates:
I recognize traces of the fire of the past...

Osip began to cry. I was scared - “What is it?” - No, nothing, just these words and in your voice.’”... And this is Anna Akhmatova’s “Muse”:

When I wait for her to come at night,
Life seems to hang by a thread.
What honors, what youth, what freedom
In front of a lovely guest with a pipe in her hand.
And then she came in. Throwing back the covers,
She looked at me carefully.
I tell her: “Did you dictate to Dante?
Pages of Hell? Answers: “I.”

Dmitry Merezhkovsky believed that Dante’s main goal was not even to say something to people, but to do something with people, to change their souls and the fate of the world. From the biographical novel "Dante":

"I can't say how I got there,
I was so full of a vague dream at that moment,
When I had already left the right path, -

Dante remembers how he got lost in the dark, wild forest leading to hell. It sometimes seems that the whole world is now full of the same vague dream... If he is destined to wake up, then perhaps in one of the first voices that awakens him, he will recognize Dante's voice. The entire “Comedy2” is nothing more than a warning cry to those lost in the Dark and Wild Forest, which leads to Hell. In Dante’s voice one can hear the voice of human conscience, unsilent for centuries...

Eternal Love can save us,
While the sprout of hope is green..."

Dante's fate was tragic. He died in exile, never seeing his beloved Florence again. Eight years after the poet’s death, Cardinal Bertrando del Poggetto will burn his works and even want to burn his ashes - for the “heresy” that the church saw in the Divine Comedy.

Dante's great message is still waiting to be understood.

“But don’t think that I’m the only Phoenix bird in the whole world. For what I shout about at the top of my voice, others either whisper, or mutter, or think, or dream.”

Discuss the article in the community

Ugolino

1284 - 1288 Successor: Archbishop of Pisa Ruggeri degli Ubaldini Birth: OK. 1220
Pisa Death: March-May 1289
Hungry Tower Genus: della Gherardesca Children: sons of Guelfo, Gardo and Ugoccione, grandchildren from Guelfo: Nino and Anselmuccio

Biography

Born into a noble family, known since the 8th century, whose descendants continue to live in Italy to this day. After King Enzo of Sardinia (the illegitimate son of Emperor Frederick II) was captured in 1249, Ugolino was appointed governor of Sardinia (1252) and remained in this position until the island was captured by Genoa (1259). Following this, he inherited the title of Count of Donoratico and became the head of his family. In 1271, he married his sister (or daughter) to Giovanni Visconti, judge of Gallura, a representative of the Pisan branch of the Visconti, who sided with the Guelphs. This aroused the suspicion of the Ghibellines.

The archbishop (died in 1295) is with Ugolino, because he was his like-minded person in betraying his homeland, and then betrayed him too; and also for condemning him to a similar death.

In the art of modern times

Detail of the Carpo sculpture: Ugolino gnawing his fingers

Ugolino is also known to lovers of Russian literature. In “The Golovlev Gentlemen” one of the characters recites “Ugolino” Nick. Polevoy. Herzen dreamed that “England would not be weighed down by the lead shield of feudal landownership and that, like Ugolino, it would not constantly step on its children dying of hunger.” Nikolai Gumilyov in Pisa searched in vain for “the insatiable passion of Sodoma and the hungry cry of Ugolino.” In “The 12 Chairs” Ugolino is “the grandmaster of the fascist order.”

Notes

1. Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. "Hell", Canto 33
2. Giovanni Villani, NUOVA CRONICA, book. 7. 121. HOW JUDGE DI GALLURA AND THE GUELPH PARTY WERE EXPELLED FROM PISA AND COUNT UGOLINO CAPTURED: “In July 1288, Pisa split into several parties and a struggle for power broke out between them; one was headed by the judge Nino Di Gallura dei Visconti and some Guelphs, the second belonged to Count Ugolino dei Gherardeschi with the rest of the Guelphs, the third was headed by Archbishop Ruggeri degli Ubaldini with the families of Lanfranchi, Gvalandi, Sismondi and other Ghibelline houses. Count Ugolino, for the sake of power, became close to the archbishop and his supporters and abandoned Judge Nino, his grandson, despite the fact that he was the son of his daughter, and they decided to capture him or expel him with all his people from Pisa. Having learned about this and not having the strength to resist, Judge Nino withdrew from the city and went to his castle of Calci, where he concluded a military alliance against the Pisans with Florence and Lucca. To hide the betrayal by ordering Nino's expulsion, Count Ugolino, before the judge's departure, moved from Pisa to his estate called Settimo. When Nino left the city, the inspired count returned to Pisa and with great solemnity was installed by the townspeople at the head of the government, but he did not last long in power, because his luck betrayed him and God’s punishment befell him for his sins and betrayal (after all, they said that he ordered the count to be poisoned Anselmo da Capraia, his nephew, his sister's son, jealous of his popularity in Pisa and fearing for his power). What came true was what a wise and worthy courtier named Marco Lombardo had shortly before predicted to Count Ugolino: when the count became the sovereign ruler of Pisa and achieved the highest power and prosperity, he organized a celebration on the occasion of his birthday, which was attended by his children and grandchildren, all his family and relatives of both sexes in luxurious clothes and with all the decorations appropriate for a rich holiday. The count turned to the aforementioned Marco and, pointing out the pomp and splendor with which the celebration was arranged, asked him: “What do you think about this?” The sage immediately answered him: “It is unlikely that any baron in Italy will be more ill-fated than you.” Frightened by these words, the count asked: “Why?” - “Because you have everything in abundance, except God’s wrath.” And indeed, the wrath of the Lord soon broke out over him, for God was pleased to punish him for his sins and betrayals: just as before the Archbishop of Pisa and his supporters planned to drive out the party of Judge Nino from the city with the complicity of the traitor Count Ugolino, so now, when the power of the Guelphs was undermined , he decided to get rid of Ugolino, turning the rage of the people against him, and staged an attack on him in the palace, declaring that the count had betrayed the Pisans and given their castles to Florence and Lucca. The crowd attacked his supporters, and he had no choice but to surrender, and in the clash his side son and nephew were killed, and two of his sons and three grandsons, the children of his son, were captured along with Count Ugolino; they were imprisoned, and other relatives and supporters: the Visconti, Ubitzingi, Guatani and other Guelph families were expelled from the city. Thus the traitor was betrayed by the traitor, and the Guelph party in Tuscany was extremely weakened, and the Ghibellines strengthened thanks to the said coup in Pisa, the power of the Ghibellines of Arezzo, as well as the strength and victories of Don Giacomo of Aragon and the Sicilians over the heir of King Charles.”
3. Nicole Martinelli, "Dante and the Cannibal Count" Newsweek(February 1, 2007).
4. Francesco Mallegni, M. Luisa Ceccarelli Lemut. Il conte Ugolino di Donoratico tra anthropologia e storia (2003).
5. Paola Benigni, Massimo Becattini. Ugolino della Gherardesca: cronaca di una scoperta annunciata. Archeologia Viva n 128 (2008).
6. Dante quotes here the speech of Aeneas to Dido in Virgil: “You, queen, order to renew unspeakable grief»
7. H. L. Borges. Nine Essays on Dante. Ugolino's false problem
8. Lombroso. Crazy artists and artists

Links

The action of “The Divine Comedy” begins from the moment when the lyrical hero (or Dante himself), shocked by the death of his beloved Beatrice, tries to survive his grief, setting it out in poetry in order to record it as specifically as possible and thereby preserve the unique image of his beloved. But here it turns out that her immaculate personality is already not subject to death and oblivion. She becomes a guide, the savior of the poet from inevitable death.

Beatrice, with the help of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, accompanies the living lyrical hero - Dante - around all the horrors of Hell, making an almost sacred journey from being to non-existence, when the poet, just like the mythological Orpheus, descends into the underworld to save his Eurydice. On the gates of Hell it is written “Abandon all hope,” but Virgil advises Dante to get rid of fear and trepidation of the unknown, because only with with open eyes Man has the power to comprehend the source of evil.

Dante's Hell. Start

Sandro Botticelli "Portrait of Dante". (wikimedia.org)

Hell for Dante is not a materialized place, but a state of soul of a sinned person, constantly tormented by remorse. Dante inhabited the circles of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided by his likes and dislikes, his ideals and ideas. For him, for his friends, love was the highest expression of the independence and unpredictability of the freedom of the human person: this is freedom from traditions and dogmas, and freedom from the authorities of the church fathers, and freedom from various universal models of human existence.

Love with a capital “L” comes to the fore, aimed not at the realistic (in the medieval sense) absorption of individuality into a ruthless collective integrity, but towards the unique image of the truly existing Beatrice. For Dante, Beatrice is the embodiment of the entire universe in the most concrete and colorful image. And what could be more attractive to a poet than the figure of a young Florentine woman, accidentally met on a narrow street? ancient city? This is how Dante realizes the synthesis of thought and concrete, artistic, emotional comprehension of the world. In the first song of Paradise, Dante listens to the concept of reality from the lips of Beatrice and is unable to take his eyes off her emerald eyes. This scene is the embodiment of deep ideological and psychological shifts, when artistic comprehension of reality strives to become intellectual.

Illustration for The Divine Comedy, 1827. (wikimedia.org)

The afterlife appears before the reader in the form of a solid building, the architecture of which is calculated in the smallest detail, and the coordinates of space and time are distinguished by mathematical and astronomical accuracy, complete numerological and esoteric overtones.

The number three and its derivative, nine, appear most often in the text of the comedy: a three-line stanza (terzina), which became the poetic basis of the work, which in turn is divided into three parts - cantics. Minus the first, introductory song, 33 songs are devoted to the depiction of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and each part of the text ends with the same word - stars (stelle). To the same mystical number series one can also include the three colors of clothes in which Beatrice is clothed, three symbolic beasts, three mouths of Lucifer and the same number of sinners devoured by him, the triple distribution of Hell with nine circles. This entire clearly constructed system gives rise to a surprisingly harmonious and coherent hierarchy of the world, created according to unwritten divine laws.

Speaking about Dante and his “Divine Comedy”, one cannot help but note the special status that the great poet’s homeland – Florence – had in a host of other cities of the Apennine Peninsula. Florence is not only the city where the Accademia del Chimento raised its banner experimental knowledge peace. This is a place where nature was looked at as closely as anywhere else, a place of passionate artistic sensationalism, where rational vision replaced religion. They looked at the world through the eyes of an artist, with elation and worship of beauty.

The initial collection of ancient manuscripts reflected a shift in the center of gravity of intellectual interests to the device inner world and the creativity of man himself. Space ceased to be the habitat of God, and they began to treat nature from the point of view of earthly existence, they looked for answers to questions understandable to man, and took them in earthly, applied mechanics. New look thinking - natural philosophy - humanized nature itself.

Dante's Hell. Topography

The topography of Dante's Hell and the structure of Purgatory and Paradise follow from the recognition of loyalty and courage as the highest virtues: at the center of Hell, in the teeth of Satan, there are traitors, and the distribution of places in Purgatory and Paradise directly corresponds to the moral ideals of the Florentine exile.

By the way, everything we know about Dante’s life is known to us from his own memoirs, set out in The Divine Comedy. He was born in 1265 in Florence and remained loyal to his hometown all his life. Dante wrote about his teacher Brunetto Latini and his talented friend Guido Cavalcanti. The life of the great poet and philosopher took place in the circumstances of a very long conflict between the emperor and the Pope. Latini, Dante's mentor, was a man with encyclopedic knowledge and based his views on the sayings of Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle and, of course, the Bible - general ledger Middle Ages. It was Latini who most influenced the development of the personality of Buddhism. a great Renaissance humanist.

Dante's path was replete with obstacles when the poet was faced with a difficult choice: for example, he was forced to contribute to the expulsion of his friend Guido from Florence. Reflecting on the theme of the vicissitudes of his fate, Dante in the poem “ New life» dedicates many fragments to his friend Cavalcanti. Here Dante created the unforgettable image of his first youthful love - Beatrice. Biographers identify Dante's lover with Beatrice Portinari, who died at the age of 25 in Florence in 1290. Dante and Beatrice became the same textbook embodiment of true lovers as Petrarch and Laura, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet.

In 1295, Dante entered the guild, membership in which opened the way for him into politics. Just at this time, the struggle between the emperor and the Pope intensified, so that Florence was divided into two opposing factions - the “black” Guelphs, led by Corso Donati, and the “white” Guelphs, to whose camp Dante himself belonged. The Whites were victorious and drove their opponents out of the city. In 1300, Dante was elected to the city council - it was here that the brilliant oratorical skills poet.

Dante increasingly began to oppose himself to the Pope, participating in various anti-clerical coalitions. By that time, the “blacks” had stepped up their activities, burst into the city and dealt with their political opponents. Dante was summoned several times to testify before the city council, but each time he ignored these demands, so on March 10, 1302, Dante and 14 other members of the “white” party were sentenced to death in absentia. To save himself, the poet was forced to leave his hometown. Disillusioned with the possibility of changing the political state of affairs, he began to write his life's work - The Divine Comedy.

Sandro Botticelli "Hell, Canto XVIII". (wikimedia.org)

In the 14th century, in The Divine Comedy, the truth revealed to the poet who visited Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is no longer canonical, it appears to him as a result of his own, individual efforts, his emotional and intellectual impulse, he hears the truth from the lips of Beatrice . For Dante, an idea is the “thought of God”: “Everything that will die and everything that will not die is / Only a reflection of the Thought to which the Almighty / With His Love gives existence.”

Dante's path of love is the path of perception of divine light, a force that simultaneously elevates and destroys a person. In The Divine Comedy, Dante placed special emphasis on the color symbolism of the Universe he depicted. If Hell is characterized by dark tones, then the path from Hell to Heaven is a transition from dark and gloomy to light and shining, while in Purgatory there is a change in lighting. For the three steps at the gates of Purgatory, symbolic colors are allocated: white - the innocence of the baby, crimson - the sinfulness of the earthly being, red - redemption, the blood of which whitens so that, closing this color series, white appears again as a harmonious combination of the previous symbols.

In November 1308, Henry VII became king of Germany, and in July 1309, the new Pope Clement V declared him king of Italy and invited him to Rome, where the magnificent coronation of the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire took place. Dante, who was an ally of Henry, returned to politics, where he was able to use his literary experience productively, writing many pamphlets and speaking publicly. In 1316, Dante finally moved to Ravenna, where he was invited to spend the rest of his days by the city's lord, philanthropist and patron of the arts, Guido da Polenta.

In the summer of 1321, Dante, as ambassador of Ravenna, went to Venice with a mission to make peace with the Doge's Republic. Having completed an important assignment, on the way home Dante falls ill with malaria (like his late friend Guido) and suddenly dies on the night of September 13-14, 1321.