The Seven-Storey Mountain: Mechthild of Hackeborn and Dante's Matelda

Abstract

The Seven-Storey Mountain:Mechthild of Hackeborn and Dante's Matelda Barbara Newman In Purgatorio 28, after Dante has climbed the seven-storey mountain and expiated a sin on every terrace, he attains the summit.1 There he finds the Earthly Paradise, and in it a lady all alone, singing and gathering flowers. Radiant in her innocence, she tells him about the paradisal forest, especally its twin streams of Lethe and Eunoë. Both spring from the same fountain: one to erase the memory of sin, the other to restore that of every good deed (Purg. 28.121–33). Still nameless, she leads Dante to the pageant of the Church Triumphant and the longed-for Beatrice, who gives him a tongue-lashing. But after the chastened poet has confessed, the lady of paradise fulfills her ministry by baptizing him, first in Lethe, then in Eunoë. Momentarily stunned by these events, Dante asks Beatrice something he should have already known, and she responds, "Priega / Matelda che 'l ti dica" (Purg. 33.118–19). Thus, in passing, we learn the lady's name. The Mystery of Matelda The identity of this mysterious Matelda has long puzzled dantisti. If she is like his other characters (angels and demons excepted), she presumably fuses a historical person with a figural or exemplary sense. Numerous allegorical meanings have been proposed, centering on her role as a new or unfallen Eve. Critics have taken her to represent original innocence, [End Page 62] the active life, the virtuous human will, temporal felicity, ordered charity, divine wisdom, the ministry of the Church, pastoral beauty, lyric love, art, philosophy, unfallen intellect, and sanctifying grace.2 These interpretations may not be as diverse as they seem. In fact, many derive from the same passage at the end of Monarchia, where Dante spells out what the Earthly Paradise signifies. It is a place where humankind enjoys original justice and complete earthly happiness—a condition to be attained only through philosophy and the perfection of the active life, with exercise of all the moral and intellectual virtues.3 To grasp the full meaning of this paradise (and its lady) in Purgatorio, we must integrate this cluster of ideas with the canto's idyllic, lyrical tone, which evokes overwhelming natural beauty and unfallen sensuality. A number of influential readings converge to see Matelda as an apotheosis of the donna gentile, who consoles Dante in Vita Nuova 35–38 and reappears as Filosofia in the Convivio—with additional traits adapted from the figure of Lady Wisdom in the Old Testament.4 Admittedly, the donna gentile led Dante astray after Beatrice's death, whether through her physical attractions, his misguided philosophical studies, or both. That is the burden of Beatrice's reproach in Purgatorio 30 and the poet's confession in Canto 31. In this reading, therefore, Matelda is made to atone: if she once seduced Dante away from Beatrice and the love of God (through his own fault, not hers), she now leads him back.5 The problem with this attractive interpretation is that the donna gentile has no name. It is hard to explain why Dante should have withheld it in the Vita Nuova and Convivio, yet bestowed an inexplicable name in the Commedia. Hence a number of scholars argue that Matelda was never meant to be an identifiable person. For Peter Dronke, she incarnates earthly beatitude in its pagan as well as Christian figurations. Matelda is another Persephone, another Eve, "a woman of spellbinding physical seductiveness . . . But whatever real experience may have lain behind this meeting, Dante was determined to keep that private."6 Albert Ascoli believes Matelda remains mysterious because "Dante does not wish to historicize or motivate her presence."7 To heighten his self-presentation as a New Adam in the Earthly Paradise, she must be a New Eve, a role that is easier to grant if she is not complicated by a fixed historical identity. Francesco Santi too maintains that Dante, contrary to his usual custom, has introduced an ahistorical figure whose name is "a mere senhal, a pure symbol" of innocent desire, like the troubadours' ladies.8 [End Page 63] Her ordinary Italian name, casually dropped after six cantos, is...