|
In imagining Paradise and his voyage through the heavens, Dante follows in the footsteps of biblical, classical, and medieval travelers to a limited extent and then, like a comet, blazes a new and exciting trail through the celestial lights on his way to a vision of God. Dante's Paradise, consistent with medieval cosmology, comprises concentric spheres revolving around a fixed, immobile earth. The first eight spheres each carry a heavenly body--or bodies, in the case of the eighth--in circular orbit around the earth: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Fixed Stars (the constellations of the zodiac). The ninth, outermost sphere in Dante's geocentric cosmos is the crystalline sphere or Primum Mobile--that is, the sphere that is first moved and thus able to impart movement to the spheres below it. Beyond the Primum Mobile, and therefore beyond space and time, is the Empyrean (from the Greek empyrios, meaning "fiery"), an immaterial, motionless heaven that is the divine mind itself and the true home of angels and the blessed. The most influential cosmological models available to Dante, if not directly (albeit in Latin translation) then through medieval commentaries, were those of the Greek authorities Plato (428-348 BCE), Aristotle (384-322 BCE), and Ptolemy (second century CE). From the translated portion of Plato's Timaeus and the accompanying commentary by Chalcidius (fourth century CE?), Dante learned that the seven planets (including the Moon and the Sun) revolve around the earth from east to west each day but travel in the opposite direction, west to east, against the background of the Fixed Stars over a much longer period of time. From Aristotle and his followers Dante drew more detailed support for this model, which placed the earth at the center of a series of perfectly concentric spheres, while Ptolemy and his commentators established the order of the heavens for the Middle Ages. Ptolemy was also a source for astronomical measurements, such as the distances of the planets from the earth, and the idea that apparent irregularities in planetary motion could be explained by the movement of a planet around a smaller circle (epicycle) centered on its larger orbit around the earth. For instance, the epicycle of Venus, which Dante mentions (Convivio 2.3.16; Par. 8.1-3), was meant to account for the planet's apparent retrograde motion. The Ptolemaic system used by Dante also posited a great circle (the ecliptic), inclined approximately 23.5 degrees to the celestial equator, along which the Sun appeared to travel in its annual course through the constellations of the zodiac. Dante appropriately dates his entry into the heavens to the vernal equinox, one of the two places (the autumnal equinox is the other) where the ecliptic (the Sun's path) crosses the celestial equator (Par. 1.37-45). It should be noted that Dante's astronomical learning hardly precludes a belief in astrology, which was also considered a legitimate science in the late Middle Ages. Thus Beatrice, while dismissing Plato's literal claim that the souls return to their stars of origin, nonetheless reinforces the point made in Purgatory by Marco Lombardo that the heavens exert some influence on human affairs (Par. 4.49-60). While Dante follows ancient and medieval authorities in the overall structure of the celestial realm, his depiction of Paradise--and his travel through it--is far more detailed and developed than previous versions. Biblical accounts are sketchy at best. Elisha witnesses the prophet Elijah swept up into Heaven in a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses, but nothing else of his voyage is told (4 Kings [2 Kings in the Protestant Bible] 2:11); the Apostle Paul is similarly reticent in describing what happened when he was snatched up to the third heaven of Paradise: only God knows whether he traveled bodily or only in spirit, and "it is not granted to man to utter" the secret words Paul heard during his celestial visit (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). Popular Christian narratives of heavenly journeys or visions are more informative, but the paradises they describe tend to be earthbound. For instance, in Saint Paul's Apocalypse (late fourth century) Heaven contains gates, rivers, trees, and walls (Eileen Gardiner, ed., Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante [New York: Italica Press, 1989], 26-35), in Thurkill's Vision (1206) the blessed inhabit an immense cathedral located on the Mount of Joy (Visions, 222), and in Tundale's Vision (1149) the residents of Paradise--including faithful spouses, martyrs, virtuous monks, builders and defenders of churches, and the nine orders of angels--appear in regions embellished with silver and gold walls, tents and pavilions, a fruit-laden tree, and a wall made of precious stones (Visions, 185-92). Andreas Capellanus (late twelfth century) describes "Delightfulness," the privileged area of his afterworld for women, as a luxuriant meadow containing beautifully decorated couches, each located next to a rivulet. Herein the King and Queen of Love preside over beautiful women accompanied by well-dressed knights. Because these women conducted themselves wisely in matters of love (by showing favor to worthy suitors and responding properly to those who sought love falsely), their blessed spirits enjoy an afterlife of pure pleasure, including entertainment by jugglers and musicians (The Art of Courtly Love, 77-80). From the Islamic tradition, Dante may have known, in a Latin or Old French version, the mi'raj or Libro della Scala ("Book of the Ladder"), the prose account of Mohammed's visit to the otherworld. Guided by the archangel Gabriel, the Prophet witnesses the lush, sensuous wonders of Paradise (as well as the punishments of Hell) in his journey from Mecca to God's throne. Medieval works that address theological and philosophical issues through the celestial travel of allegorical figures are another source of inspiration for Dante's Paradiso. The Cosmographia (mid-twelfth century), by Bernardus Silvestris, is an account of creation in which Nature journeys to the summit of the firmament to find Urania (queen of the stars); the two of them then ascend beyond the physical universe to God's abode of pure light before journeying back through the stars and the planetary heavens, down to the sublunar and terrestrial regions of material imperfection and variability. In Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus (late twelfth century), Prudence, assisted in turn by Reason, Theology, and Faith, traverses the heavens in her quest to obtain a soul from God for the creation of a new, perfect man. Alan associates the heavens with the liberal arts by having the latter construct the chariot used by Prudence in her celestial voyage. In the Convivio Dante fully expounds this identification of the liberal arts (and other disciplines) with the celestial spheres based on perceived commonalities: the Moon with grammar, Mercury with dialectic (logic), Venus with rhetoric, the Sun with arithmetic, Mars with music, Jupiter with geometry, Saturn with astronomy, the Fixed Stars with natural science (physics and metaphysics), the Primum Mobile with ethics (moral philosophy), and the Empyrean with theology (2.13.8-30, 14.1-21). These pairings play an important though limited role in his representation of the heavens in the Paradiso. As Virgil's account of Aeneas's visit to the underworld (Aeneid 6) is Dante's greatest model for his descent through Hell, so another classical narrative anticipates the cosmology and several major themes presented in his celestial voyage. In Cicero's Dream of Scipio, Scipio Africanus the Younger, a Roman military and political leader (second century BCE), dreams at age thirty-five of an encounter in the heavens (the Milky Way, to be precise) with the souls of his father, Paulus, and his grandfather, Scipio Africanus the Elder. Like the character Dante, Cicero's dreaming protagonist is instructed in human and divine matters and hears prophesies of future events in his life, both bitter and sweet. Dante's presence in the Celestial Paradise, however, is presented not as a dream but as actual experience. Despite his humble declaration (following the example of the Apostle Paul) that only God knows whether he made the journey in both body and soul (Par. 1.73-75), Dante gives every indication--including protestations of his inability to recall and describe adequately what he saw--of having traveled through the heavens in his full, living being. Unprecedented and unsurpassed, Dante's Paradiso narrates the physical journey of a living man through a celestial realm that, both cosmologically and theologically, is carefully and coherently conceived. |