Enunciating authority: exonarrative inscriptions on or near miniatures of the Divine Comedy

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 – For reproductions of over 1200 Commedia miniatures, and for a fairly thorough, albeit somewhat dated, bibliography on them, see Illuminated Manuscripts of the ‘Divine Comedy’, eds Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, Charles Singleton, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). Note that, unless I mention otherwise, my dates for the miniatures derive from Meiss's contributions to the catalogue on pages 209–339 of the first volume. For the most complete survey of all manuscripts containing at least one cantica of the Commedia, and for a more up-to-date bibliography than that in Illuminated Manuscripts, see Marcella Roddewig, Dante Alighieri, ‘Die göttliche Komödie’: Vergleichende Bestandsaufnahme der ‘Commedia’-Handshriften (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1984). For additional bibliographic references, particularly with regard to publications since 1984, see my notes below. 2 – See my article ‘The artist as reader: Buffalmacco's illuminations for the Divine Comedy’, Dante Studies 122 (2004): 137–73; Michael Camille, ‘The pose of the queer: Dante's gaze, Brunetto Latini's body’, in Queering the Middle Ages, eds Glenn Burger and Steven F. Kruger (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 57–86; and Paul J. Papillo, ‘Rogue images in manuscripts of the Divine Comedy’, Word & Image 23 (2007): 421–38. 3 – For my interest in the original enunciation of a work, I am indebted to Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), especially as discussed in Camille's ‘Seeing and reading: some visual implications of medieval literacy and illiteracy’, Art History 8 (1985): 26–49; and idem., ‘The dissenting image: a postcard from Matthew Paris’, in Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages, ed. Rita Copeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 115–50. 4 – For an excellent introduction to the division of responsibility among manuscript producers, see Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1992). Note that all of the inscriptions I discuss appear to be contemporary or nearly contemporary with the production of the miniatures to which they relate. Note also that I have given evidence wherever possible as to the identity of their authors. 5 – Indeed, the role of authority in and around the Commedia has spawned a massive and diffuse bibliography. For a good introduction to the issue, and for a solid if slightly out-of-date bibliography on it, see Teodolinda Barolini's The Undivine ‘Comedy’: Detheologizing Dante (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), esp. chap. 1, ‘Detheologizing Dante: realism, reception, and the resources of narrative’, 3–20. 6 – For an authoritative Italian edition of Dante's text, see La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgate, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi, Società Dantesca Italiana, Edizione Nazionale, 4 vols. (1966–1968; 2nd ed. Florence: Casa editrice Le lettere, 1994). For this translation of Inferno 1.11, see Charles Singleton's three-volume edition, Bollingen Series 80 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970–1975). Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this paper are mine. For an introduction to the relationship between the Commedia and medieval dream-visions, see Barolini, The Undivine ‘Comedy’, esp. chap. 1, ‘Detheologizing Dante: realism, reception, and the resources of narrative’, 3–20. 7 – Given the rate of survival for medieval manuscripts, the more than 600 examples catalogued by Roddewig probably represent a fairly small percent of the total Commedia manuscripts produced during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And even the extraordinarily popular Roman de la Rose does not account for as many medieval miniatures as does Dante's narrative. For a reference to Giovanni di ser Buccio da Spoleto reading the Commedia aloud on feast days outside the Sienese church of San Vigilio during the early fifteenth century, see John Pope-Hennessy, Paradiso: The Illuminations to Dante's ‘Divine Comedy’ by Giovanni di Paolo (New York: Random House, 1993), 13. Also note that Leonardo Bruni and many other commentators repeatedly allude to the Commedia being read aloud, as is discussed by Deborah Parker in her Commentary and Ideology: Dante in the Renaissance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 173, n. 13. And see Parker's text for an introduction to the various commentators who publicly lectured on the Commedia, particularly Boccaccio. Note that many of these lectures were preserved in writing, as in Boccaccio's Esposizioni sopra la ‘Comedia’, ed. Giorgio Padoan (1965; repr. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1994). Finally, for a trecento reference to peasants singing the Commedia, see novella CXV in Le novelle di Franco Sacchetti, ed. Ottavio Gigli, 2 vols. (Florence: Successori Le Monnier, 1909), 1: 276–7, especially as discussed by John Ahern in ‘Singing the book: orality in the reception of Dante's Comedy’, in Dante: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Amilcare A. Iannucci (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 214–39. 8 – On the various roles sometimes pursued by illuminators and commentators in the production of manuscripts, begin with Alexander, Illuminators and their Methods of Work. 9 – For the best introduction to the sprawling discussion of the possible background, aims and means of manuscript producers, see Alexander, Illuminators and their Methods of Work. 10 – Ibid. 11 – Meiss dates these miniatures to the mid-fourteenth century, while Roddewig dates the manuscript as a whole to the end of the fourteenth century. 12 – Roddewig dates this manuscript to the second half of the fourteenth century, while Meiss dates the miniatures specifically to the third quarter of the fifteenth century. 13 – For the reference to Antenora on folio 50, see figure 3, below. For the references to Cleopatra on folio 8 and to the tyrants on folio 17, see plates 82b and 156b, respectively, in Illuminated Manuscripts. 14 – Indeed, for numerous examples of one-word references to Virgil and Dante, see the Holkham manuscript, where those figures are named, amid many much longer inscriptions, in almost every image of the Inferno (e.g. figure 3) and Purgatorio (e.g. figure 2), as well as many miniatures of Paradiso. 15 – For a color reproduction of a Holkham miniature with an inscription, see color plate Vc in Illuminated Manuscripts. 16 – On the duality of frames, begin with Derrida's ‘The parergon’, October 9 (Summer 1979): 3–41; and Craig Owens, ‘Detachment from the parergon’, October 9 (Summer 1979): 42–9. 17 – See, for example, Bodleian 108. 18 – For examples of quotes, see the reproduction in Illuminated Manuscripts (pl. 379b) of the Holkham miniature for Purgatorio 24, wherein a figure in the tree of the gluttonous says, ‘Pass farther onward’ (Trapassate oltre), and the angel at upper right says, ‘Why go you so in thought, you three alone?’ (Che andate pensando sì voi sol tre ?). 19 – See, for example, the phrase ‘Here are punished the gluttons’ (Qui si purga la gola) just above the second Holkham miniature for Purgatorio 23 (figure 2). 20 – Roddewig dates this manuscript to the second half of the fourteenth century. For more on catchwords and the part they play in the construction of manuscripts, begin with Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, esp. the end of chap. 2, ‘Technical aspects of the illumination of a manuscript’, 35–51, or Giulia Bologna, Illuminated Manuscripts: The Book before Gutenberg (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), 21. 21 – Though Roddewig dates the manuscript to the second half of the fourteenth century, Meiss's date of approximately 1345 fits within the range of 1343–1354, which has been assigned to the manuscript by Giorgio Fossaluzza in his detailed essay ‘Provenienza del codice, fortuna critica, stile e carattere illustrativo delle miniature’, for Dante Aligheri, ‘Commedia’, Biblioteca universitaria di Budapest, codex italicus 1, eds Gian Paolo Marchi and József Pál, 2 vols. (Campagnola di Zevio [Verona]: Grafiche SiZ S.p.a., 2006), 1:51–83. For a reproduction of the folio on which this inscription occurs, see the facsimile of the codex in the second volume of Dante Aligheri, ‘Commedia’, though note that the inscription is also transcribed by Meiss on page 45 in his essay ‘The smiling pages’, for Illuminated Manuscripts, 1:31–80. For much more on instructions to illuminators, see Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, esp. chap. 3, ‘Programmes and instructions for illuminators’, 52–71. 22 – Six of the Musée Condé letters are mentioned by Francesco Paolo Luiso on page 89 of ‘Di un'opera inedita di Frate Guido da Pisa’, for Miscellanea di studi critici pubblicati in onore di Guido Mazzoni, eds A. Della Torre and P. L. Rambaldi, 2 vols. (Florence: Tipografia Galileiana, 1907), 1:79–135. Meiss notes two more in note 49 on page 46 of ‘The smiling pages’. For more on the medieval use of such references to lists of recommendations, see Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, esp. 57–60. For recent discussion of Musèe Condè 597, see Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Ragionare nel giardino. Boccaccio e i cicli pittorici del ‘Trionfo della Morte’ (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1987), esp. 60–2; Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto, ‘“Narrar Dante” attraverso le immagini: le prime illustrazioni della Commedia’, in the catalogue Pagine di Dante: Le edizioni della ‘Divina Commedia’ dal torchio al computer, for an exhibition held at the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Foligno 11 March–28 May 1989 and the Biblioteca comunale classense in Ravenna 8 July–16 October 1989 (Milan and Perugia: Electa Umbria, 1989), 80–102; Ricci, ‘Testo e immagini in alcuni manoscritti illustrati della Commedia: le pagine d'apertura’, in Studi offerti a Luigi Blasucci, eds Lucio Lugnani, Marco Santagata, Alfredo Stussi (Lucca: Pacini-Fazzi, 1996), 23–49; Camille, ‘The pose of the queer’; and my ‘The artist as reader’. 23 – For the other Budapest miniature of Purgatorio 13, see folio 37 of the codex facsimile in the second volume of Dante Aligheri, ‘Commedia’. 24 – Meiss, ‘The smiling pages’, 53. 25 – For the most detailed assessment of this manuscript, particularly in relationship to other Neapolitan manuscripts, see Mario Rotili, I codici danteschi miniati a Napoli (Naples: Libreria scientifica editrice, 1972). 26 – See plate 8a in Illuminated Manuscripts. 27 – See folios 182v, 189v, 196v and 212v, which are, respectively, plates 355b, 363c, 368d and 379a in Illuminated Manuscripts. Meiss dates these miniatures to ca. 1400, while Roddewig dates the manuscript to the beginning of the fifteenth century. 28 – See the miniatures on folios 3, 5v and 6v/7, which are, respectively, plates 48c, 58b and 59b in Illuminated Manuscripts. For my deferral to Meiss and Roddewig on the dates, see note 1, above. 29 – See folio 133. 30 – For the frontispieces to the Inferno and Purgatorio, which are on folios 1v and 76, see plates 15 and 22, respectively, in Illuminated Manuscripts. 31 – For these three images on folios 1v, 3 and 92, see, respectively, plates 31, 10 and 305 in Illuminated Manuscripts. 32 – For the figure of Solomon, see folio 267v. 33 – For a reproduction of the Padua image, see plate 466c in Illuminated Manuscripts. For more on the derivation of the Plutei miniatures from their counterparts in the Padua manuscript, see pages 226 and 305 of the catalogue in Illuminated Manuscripts. 34 – For a reproduction of the Palatini miniature, see plate 14 in Illuminated Manuscripts. Roddewig dates the Palatini manuscript to the fifteenth century in general. My date for Plutei 40.16 comes from Roddewig, as Brieger and Meiss do not list this manuscript in their catalogue for Illuminated Manuscripts. 35 – For two examples of possible sources for this theme, see the early-fourteenth-century figures of the Liberal Arts on the base of the Campanile next to Florence Cathedral, and Andrea da Firenze's mid-fourteenth-century fresco ‘St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts’ in the Spanish Chapel of the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. 36 – For a general reproduction of Nardo's oft-photographed fresco, see figure 17 in the first volume of Illuminated Manuscripts, and for details of the fresco, see figures 19–25 and 124 in the first volume of Illuminated Manuscripts. 37 – Note that though the inscriptions in Madrid 10057 are contemporary with its main text, they are so unsteady as to suggest that they were written by someone other than a scribe. And the fact that the illuminator provides ample space for the inscriptions at key junctures in the miniatures allows that he may have been the annotator, or at least anticipated the latter's needs and possibly worked with the annotator. 38 – For my understanding of supplements, I am indebted to Derrida's Of Grammatology, in which he claims (144–45) that a supplement ‘adds itself, it is a surplus, a plenitude encircling another plenitude, the fullest measure of presence. It culminates and accumulates presence. It is thus that art, techne, image, representation, convention, etc., come as supplements to nature and are rich with this entire accumulating function’ (his italics). 39 – Meiss dates all of the Altona miniatures other than those for Purgatorio to the last quarter of the fourteenth century, while Roddewig dates the Altona manuscript, which clearly depends on the Musée Condé Commedia for many of its miniatures, to the second half of the fourteenth century. 40 – Meiss dates the Copenhagen miniatures to the fifteenth century, while Roddewig dates the manuscript to the end of the fourteenth century. 41 – For more on the Yates Thompson miniatures, see Pope-Hennessy, Paradiso; Benjamin David, ‘The paradisal body in Giovanni di Paolo's illuminations of the Commedia’, Dante Studies 122 (2004): 45–70; and idem., ‘Sites of confluence: the master of the Yates Thompson Divine Comedy’, in Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, Art & Architecture, eds Susan L'Engle and Gerald B. Guest (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2006), 21–32. 42 – For the claim that the content of the Commedia came from ‘assiduo studio’, see paragraph 24 of Boccaccio's Trattatello in laude di Dante, ed. Luigi Sasso (Milan: Garzanti, 1995). For a recent and thorough overview of the fourteenth-century commentaries as a whole, see Steven Botterill, ‘The trecento commentaries on Dante's Commedia’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume II: The Middle Ages, eds Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 590–611. For a detailed analysis of the early fourteenth-century commentaries, albeit in the course of discussing other matters, see Bruno Sandkühler, Die frühen Dantekommentare und ihr Verhältnis zur mittelalterlichen Kommentartradition, Münchner Romanistiche Arbeiten XIX (Munich: W. Fink, 1967), 155–91. And for much greater discussion on how fourteenth-century commentators approach Dante's responsibility for the Commedia, see my 1999 Columbia University dissertation, ‘Engaging the Viewer: Reading Structures and Narrative Strategies in Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy’, 103–61. For a recent discussion of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century commentaries as a whole, see Parker, Commentary and Ideology. 43 – For more on how the Epistler treats the Commedia as Scripture, see Bruno Nardi, ‘Osservazioni sul medievale accessus ad auctores in rapporto all’Epistola a Cangrande’, in his Saggi e note di critica dantesca (Milan and Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1966), 268–305. For the claim that the Commedia is ‘in possibilitate’, see paragraph 19 in the Epistle as edited by Arsenio Frugoni and Giorgio Brugnoli in Opere minori, vol. 2 (Milan and Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1979). For the explanation of how Dante may have seen the Empyrean and then been unable to remember or articulate the experience, see paragraphs 28–30 in the Epistle. 44 – For the original text of this remark, see Vincenzo Cioffari's transcription of Guido's Expositiones et glose super Comediam Dantis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974), 19, where it is recorded as ‘quia Infernum, Purgatorium, celum, celique cives, ipsamve beatissima Trinitatem, sibi adhuc in carne viventi sunt videre concessa’. For this translation of Guido's text, see Cioffari, ‘Guido da Pisa's basic interpretation: a translation of the first two cantos’, Dante Studies 93 (1975): 8. 45 – For a detailed discussion of this issue during this period, see my ‘Engaging the Viewer’, 109–43. 46 – For this quote from Boccaccio, see Francesco Mazzoni, ‘Guido da Pisa interprete di Dante e la sua fortuna presso il Boccaccio’, Studi Danteschi 35 (1958): 114, where it is transcribed as ‘Questa senza alcun dubbio, si dee credere che fosse la grazia di Dio’. For similar claims, see paragraphs 19 and 61–63 in the Trattatello. For a few examples of Boccaccio comparing Dante to Old Testament authors, see paragraphs 142, 149 and 150 in the Trattatello. 47 – For a few examples of Benvenuto comparing Dante to the Prophets and to other Old Testament authorities, see Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola illustrato nella vita e nelle opera, e di lui Commento Latino sulla ‘Divina Commedia’ di Dante Allighieri, ed. Giovanni Tamburini, 3 vols. (Imola: Galeati, 1855–1856), 1:9–10, 20 and 22. For Francesco da Buti's declaration that Dante ‘impero che graziosamente fece dono ad altrui di quello che Idio li avea prestato’, see Francesco da Buti, Commento di Francesco Buti sopra la ‘Divina Comedia’, ed. Crescentino Giannini, 3 vols. (Pisa: Fratelli Nistri, 1858–1862), 1:10. For the Falso Boccaccio's claim that ‘spirò Iddio per grazia nell'animo dello Autore di fargli venire voglia et pensiero di studiare in questa scienza’, see Chiose sopra Dante, ed. G.G. Warren, Lord Vernon (Florence: Piatti, 1846), 44. And for Villani's insistence that Dante was ‘spiritu Dei tactus’, see Il Comento al primo canto dell’‘Inferno’ di Filippo Villani, ed. Giuseppe Cugnoni, Collezione di opuscoli danteschi indediti o rari, XXXI (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1896), 28–9. 48 – This description owes much to that of Brieger's on page 89 in ‘Pictorial commentaries to the Commedia’, in Illuminated Manuscripts, 81–113. For more extensive yet compressed discussions of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century perceptions of Dante's responsibility for the Commedia, see Vittorio Rossi, Scritti di critica letteraria, 3 vols. (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1930), 1:293–332; D. Mattalìa, ‘Dante Alighieri’, in I classici italiani nell storia della critica, ed. Walter Binni, 3 vols. (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1954), 1:3–93; Siro A. Chimenz, Dante, Letteratura italiana, I Maggiori (Milan: Carlo Marzorati, 1956), 70–103; and Paola Rigo, ‘Commenti danteschi’, in Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana, ed. Vittore Branca, 4 vols. (Turin: Unione tipografico-editrice torinese [UTET], 1986), 2:6–22. 49 – For more on Serravalle's reliance on Benvenuto da Imola's commentary, see Carlo Dionisotti, ‘Dante nel quattrocento’, in Atti del congresso internazionale di studi danteschi, 20–27 aprile 1965, 2 vols. (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1965), 1:333–78, esp. 342. For the claim by Bruni's Niccoli in Ad Petrum Paulum Histrum Dialogi, see Dialogi: Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed. Eugenio Garin, La letteratura italiana: Storia e testi, XIII (Milan and Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1952), 70. 50 – For Bruni's contrast of Dante to St. Francis and other poets who are ‘divini, […] sacri, e […] vati’ and whose works are ‘la somma e la piú perfetta spezie di poesia’, see page 220 of his ‘Della vita stvdi e costvmi di Dante’, in Le vite di Dante scritte da Giovanni e Filippo Villani, da Giovanni Boccaccio, Leonardo Aretino e Giannozzo Manetti, ed. G.L. Passerini (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1917), 205–34 (220). And see the same page for Bruni's conclusion that Dante should be distinguished from St. Francis and other writers who are extraordinarily spiritual and know theology ‘né per istudio né per lettere’. 51 – Where Buti claims on page 60 in the first volume of his commentary that ‘per questa invocazione si dee intendere essere invocate la grazia di Dio’, Barzizza, claims on page 31 of Lo ‘Inferno’ della ‘Commedia’ di Dante Alighier col commento di Guiniforto delli Bargigi, ed. Giuseppe Zacheroni (Marseilles: Leopoldo Mossy; Florence: Giuseppe Molini, 1838), that Dante invokes ‘profondità, ovvero universalità, e perfezione di scienza’. For more on Barzizza, see Pier Giorgio Ricci's entry on him in the Enciclopedia dantesca, ed. Umberto Bosco, 6 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–1978), 1:529. 52 – For more on Manetti's work in this context, see Carlo Madrignani, ‘Di alcune biografie umanistiche di Dante e Petrarca’, Belfagor 18 (1963): 31–48 (42–8); Dionisotti, ‘Dante nel quattrocento’, 355–60; Eugenio Garin, ‘Dante nel Rinascimento’, Rinascimento 7 (1967): 3–28; and my ‘Engaging the Viewer’, 183–9. 53 – For the text of La città di vita, see the version edited by Margaret Rooke, 2 vols. (Northampton, MA: n.s., 1927–1928). For more on Palmieri in the context of his response to Dante, see Giuseppe Saitta, Il pensiero italiano nell'Umanesimo e nel Rinascimento, I, L'Umanesimo (Bologna: C. Zuffi, 1949), 372–81; Garin, L'Umanesimo italiano (Bari: G. Laterza, 1952), 87–91; and Dionisotti, ‘Dante nel quattrocento’, esp. 361. For further discussion specifically about Palmieri's reliance on the Commedia for his model, see Vladimiro Zabughin, L'oltretomba classico medievale dantesco nel Rinascimento (Rome: Pontificia academia degli arcadi, 1922), 113; Dionisotti, ‘Dante nel quattrocento’, 361; and Michele Messina's entry on Palmieri in the Enciclopedia dantesca, 3:263–4. On the heresy of Palmieri's work, see S. Boffito, ‘L'eresia di Matteo Palmieri’, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 37 (1901): 1–69; and Messina, ‘Matteo Palmieri’, 264. 54 – Nibia's selective invocation of Jacopo's commentary, particularly regarding the origins of the Commedia, is noted by Gianvito Resta in his entry on Nibia for the Enciclopedia dantesca, 3:44. On Nibia's sources, see also Michele Barbi, ‘Dante nel cinquecento’, Annali Reale Scuola Normale Superiore de Pisa 13 (1890): 147–8; Alessandro Viglio, ‘Una edizione quattrocentesca della Divina Commedia curata da un novarese (M. P. N.)’, Bolletino Storico Provincia Novara 15 (1921): 70–9; and Dionisotti, ‘Dante nel quattrocento’, 369–73. 55 – For a transcription and discussion of Landino's claim that he is presenting his commentary to demonstrate ‘puro et semplice fiorentino’, see page 537 in Manfred Lentzen, ‘Die “Orazione di Messere Cristoforo Landino Fiorentino havuta alla illustrissima signoria fiorentina quando presento el comento suo di Dante”’, Romanische Forschungen 80 (1968): 530–9. 56 – See Bruni's Ad Petrum Paulum Histrum Dialogi, in the Dialogi, 70: ‘Verum haec, quae religionis sunt, omittamus […]’. 57 – For much more on this theme, see my dissertation, ‘Engaging the Viewer’.