Dante and the Southern Cross

Abstract

THE question “where Dante could have learned about this constellation” (ante, p. 152) has been discussed by most modern commentators on the passage referred to. The general conclusion arrived at seems to be that it was through the delineation of the “quattro stelle” on Arabian celestial globes. The best scientific discussion of the question will be found in Humboldt's Kosmos ii. 205, 6 (ed. 1870). Might not, however, the line “Non viste mai fuor ch' alla prima gente” suggest that Dante's knowledge was derived from some record or tradition, of the visibility of these and other southern stars to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean shores before the precession of the equinoxes carried them below their horizon? “Prima gente”—generally rendered “our first parents”—recalls irresistibly Horace's “prisca gens mortalium.”