Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante

Recent studies on animal imagery in the Comedy have shown how the poet draws on the reader’s knowledge of the symbolic values ascribed to animals in medieval tradition


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An Ethical and Political Bestiary in the First Canto of Dante's Comedy*

Giuseppe Ledda
Recent studies on animal imagery in the Comedy have shown how the poet draws on the reader's knowledge of the symbolic values ascribed to animals in medieval tradition, and how he uses similar allegorical techniques in new ways.In the past I have mostly examined the spiritual and religious meanings of these images.In this essay, my intention is instead to study animal imagery from a moral perspective, in order to show how this repertory of images nourishes the ethical dimension of the poem.In particular, I will focus on the animals of the first canto: lonza, lion, wolf and hound.
(Inf., I. 31-54)   [And behold, almost at the beginning of the steep, a lonza, light and very swift, covered with spotted fur; | and it did not depart from before my face but rather so impeded my way that I was at several turns turned to go back.| The time was the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with those stars that were with it when God's love | first set those lovely things in motion; so that I took reason to have good hope of that beast with its gaily painted hide | from the hour of the morning and the sweet season; but not so that I did not fear the sight of a lion that appeared to me.| He appeared to be coming against me with his head high and with raging hunger, so that the air appeared to tremble at him.| And a shewolf, that seemed laden with all cravings in her leanness and has caused many peoples to live in wretchedness, | she put on me so much heaviness with the fear that came from the sight of her, that I lost hope of reaching the heights.]

Identifying the lonza
The lonza is a feline yet to be clearly identified by Dante scholars.I believe that in the context of medieval zoology it is a pardus, not a lynx, leopard or panther.Dante evidently modelled his triad of beasts on the episode in which the prophet Jeremiah warns of three beasts that threaten the populace in its sinful rebellion against the Lord: pardus, leo and lupus: Idcirco percussit eos leo de silva, lupus ad vesperam vastavit eos, pardus vigilans super civitates eorum; omnis qui egressus fuerit ab eis capietur, quia multiplicatae sunt praevaricationes eorum, confortatae sunt aversiones eorum.
(Jeremiah 5. 6) [Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening, hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions are strengthened.] As the lion and wolf in Jeremiah correspond to the other two beasts in the first canto, the lonza should correspond to the pardus.The pardus also has many other relevant biblical occurrences, most of them in association with the lion or the wolf, sometimes with both. 1 For that matter, the term lonza seems to be an alternative to pardo, which is a very rare term in old Italian. 2 Dante could have chosen the form lonza so as to begin the names of all three beasts with the letter L, perhaps in a subtle reaffirmation that the evil manifested in the beasts is in fact a parodic reversal of good -for, as Dante recalls, El was God's name in Hebrew. 3Medieval encyclopaedias describe the pardus as having a spotted pelt, great speed and ferocity, all qualities that Dante ascribes to the lonza.For instance, the influential encyclopaedia of Isidore of Seville says: 'Pardus […] genus varium ac velocissimum et praeceps ad sanguinem.Saltu enim ad mortem ruit' [The pard, a beast of many colours, is very swift, likes blood, and kills with a leap]. 4he spotted coat is also typical of the panther (Latin panthera), but this animal has completely different characteristics in respect to Dante's lonza.It is a gentle beast, particularly celebrated for the sweet smell of its breath, and it always carries very positive symbolic values, being interpreted usually as an allegory of Christ. 5For these reasons, Dante's lonza cannot be a panther.For other Dante commentators the lonza has to be identified as a leopard (Latin leopardus).But it is necessary to remember that in medieval zoology the leopard is nothing other than the offspring of a mating between a lion and a pardus: for this reason, it shares some properties with the pardus. 6The lynx too (Latin lynx), although more similar to a wolf than a lion, has a spotted coat like the pardus.No single bestiary or encyclopaedia attributes to the lynx the swiftness and agility that are two of the main characteristics of Dante's lonza.Instead the lynx is well known for other properties, especially the fact that its urine changes into a hard, precious stone. 7The pardus, on the contrary, is always described as extremely swift ('velocissimus' for Isidore, and 'bestia velocissima' in Bartholomaeus Anglicus), 8 just as Dante's lonza is 'light and very swift' ('leggera e presta molto').
A close look at the few appearances in old Italian of the term lonza reinforces its identification with the pardus. 9Apart from an early, not very clear occurrence in the verse Proverbia quae dicuntur supra natura feminarum, 10 a more interesting presence of the lonza is that found later, in the poem entitled the Detto del gatto lupesco.Here the lonza appears in a list of the beasts gathered to obstruct the protagonist's way.With the lonza (line 127: 'e una lonça'), the poem mentions also 'four leopards' (line 125: 'quattro leopardi') and 'the panther' (line 131: 'la pantera'). 11hanks to this text, we can also definitively exclude the possibility of identifying the lonza with the leopard or the panther.Some very interesting occurrences can be found also in a pair of satirical sonnets by Rustico Filippi, which make evident the lonza's nature: ferocious and courageous, but also wild and brutal. 12Likewise, in a sonnet by Folgore da San Gimignano (the introductory sonnet to the 'Corona' della settimana), the sentence 'Leggiero più che lonza o liopardo' [lighter than a lonza or a leopard] makes it clear that the lonza is not the same creature as a leopard. 13It also presents the adjective 'leggero' [light], used by Dante too, and by the biblical tradition for the pardus ('levis').
Other evidence for the identification of the lonza with the pardus can be found in the use of the French term lonce in Brunetto Latini's Tresor.
Here, in a passage where the Florentine encyclopaedist translates a passage by Isidore, the term that Brunetto translates with lonce is pardus. 14nother proof comes from Giovanni Boccaccio, as reported in Benvenuto da Imola's Dante commentary.After having examined all the other candidates, Benvenuto concludes by arguing for the identification of the lonza with the pardus, partly on the basis of Boccaccio's testimony. 15nza as pardus: a symbol of fraud In medieval culture the pardus always has a negative allegorical value.It is commonly associated with diabolic symbolism or with the image of the sinner.As Eucherius of Lyon said, 'Pardus diabolus vel peccator moribus varius' [The pard is the devil or the sinner, fickle in his customs]. 16The biblical presences of the pardus confirm the negative and primarily diabolical meaning usually attributed to this animal.References to the pardus can be found in several biblical passages in which such negative values are evident, 17 and are widely confirmed by medieval biblical exegesis.
From a moral viewpoint, the pardus is commonly associated with fraud, or with various vices in which fraud is implicated.So, for instance, one of the marginal notes in De proprietatibus rerum interprets the entry on the pardus with a 'Nota contra dolosos et malitiosos' [Note against tricksters and malicious people]. 18The connection with fraud is extremely common in patristic literature and quotations could easily be multiplied. 19Patristic and medieval exegesis of the biblical presences of the pardus also confirms this value.This is true for the interpretation of Jeremiah 5. 6: Wherefore a lion out from the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening, hath spoiled them, a leopard [pardus] watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied; their rebellions are strengthened.
Aquinas, among others, considers the pardus in that passage a figure of Nebuchadnezzar, in consideration of his fraudulent nature ('Quantum ad obsidionem urbis, pardus vigilans, idest Nabuchodonosor propter fraudulentiam'). 20Aquinas makes the same connection with fraud for the occurrence of pardus in Jeremiah 13. 23: 'difficiliter potestis converti, Aethiops, propter naturalem infectionem peccati, pardus, propter dolositatem, vel diversitatem peccatorum' [It is difficult for you to be changed, Ethiopian, due to the natural corruption of sin, pard, due to deceitfulness or the diversity of sinners]. 21nother significant passage is Isaiah 11. 6: 'Habitabit lupus cum agno, et pardus cum haedo accubabit; vitulus, et leo, et ovis, simul morabuntur' [The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard [pardus] shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together].Exegesis of this text, although often more generic, 22 can sometimes be oriented towards fraud, as it is in Isidore of Seville's De fide catholica: 'In cuius ovili pardus cum haedo accubat permisti scilicet subdoli cum simplicibus' [The pard lies down with the kid in its sheepfold, namely the deceitful mixed among the innocents]; 23 or in a sermon by Aelredus Rievallensis: 'Pardus est animal quoddam plenum varietate: tales fuerunt aliqui vestrum, per calliditatem, per deceptionem, per fraudem' [The pard is a particular animal that is full of changeability: just as some of you were, through cunning, through deceit, through fraud]; 24 or in Aquinas: 'pardus, astutus, cum haedo, simplice' [the pard, cunning, with the kid, innocent]. 25The same can be said of exegesis concerning the passage in Hosea 13. 7, although the evidence in this case is less clear. 26here are some quite generic interpretations for the passage from Daniel 7. 6: 'et ecce alia quasi pardus et alas habebat avis quattuor super se, et quattuor capita erant in bestia; et potestas data est ei' [After this I beheld, and lo, another like a leopard, and it had upon it four wings as of a fowl, and the beast had four heads, and power was given to it].But a more precise reading is also common, which attributes the moral symbolism of fraud to the pardus -as can be seen in De eruditione by Richard of Saint Victor, where the bear is interpreted as a figure of envy and the pardus as a symbol of hypocrisy and fraud. 27Patristic and medieval exegetes devote considerable attention, of course, to the passage from the Book of Revelation 13. 2. In this case too generic interpretations can be found, as well as references to heretics without a precise moral interpretation, but the standard exegesis again connects the beast to fraud. 28mong the biblical references to the pardus, the most frequently commented in patristic and medieval literature is the strange passage in the Song of Solomon about the 'montes pardorum', that is, the mountains of the pards: 'Veni de Libano, sponsa, veni de Libano, ingredere; respice de capite Amana, de vertice Sanir et Hermon, de cubilibus leonum, de montibus pardorum' [Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned from the top of Amana, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards [pardorum]] (4.8).In this case too, besides some readings in a figural-historical sense, some allegorisations as a symbol of the devil or of heretics and some generic moralisations, 29 the pardus is very frequently associated with fraud or with sins connected with fraud. 30On the other hand the lion, with which the pardus is paired in this passage, is usually viewed as an image of violence or of pride.Gregory the Great explains it in this way, for instance; as does the Venerable Bede: 'cubilia etenim leonum ad montes sunt pardorum, hi qui acriore spirituum malignorum furore instigati, ad nocendum Christi gregem, et vi et fraude praevalent' [For the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards are those incited by the more violent fury of evil spirits to inflict injury on Christ's flock, who gain the upper hand by force and deceit]. 31Sometimes the pardus's form of fraud can be specified as hypocrisy, as in the Allegoriae in universam sacram scripturam by Rabanus Maurus: 'Per pardum hypocritae, ut in Cantico'. 32inally, the pardus's speed and ferocity, added to its spotted pelt, made it an emblem of malice and trickery in medieval culture, not only in biblical exegesis, but also in naturalistic literature.

The lonza's spotted pelt
The moral values most often imputed to the lonza in commentaries on the Comedy are lust, envy and fraud.Among these interpretations only the last, as we have seen, has a broad and solid historical basis in medieval culture, both in biblical exegesis and in naturalistic literature.
Let us now turn to evidence found further along in the poem.The participle maculato recurs only once in the poem, for the damned souls of the final bolgia, the counterfeiters 'di schianze macolati' [spotted with scabs] (Inf., XXIX.75).This ties the lonza to the theme of fraud.Furthermore, the only other animal with a spotted skin is the monstrous Geryon, the 'sozza imagine di froda' [filthy image of fraud] (XVII.7), which serves both as guardian of the eighth circle and as emblem of the sins of fraud punished there.Early in canto XVII the monster is said to have 'lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste | dipinti […] di nodi e di rotelle' [back and breast and both sides painted with knots and little wheels] (lines 14-15, italics mine).And right at the end of canto XVI the poet had recalled the lonza when, at Virgil's request, Dante handed his master the cord he had 'intorno cinta, | e con essa pensai alcuna volta | prender la lonza a la pelle dipinta' [girding me, and with it I had thought at times to capture the lonza with the spotted (dipinta) hide] (XVI.106-08, italics mine).So, only a few verses apart, the lonza and Geryon are defined with the same adjective, dipinto.And Virgil uses the cord to tame a painted-skinned beast, just as Dante had intended: only instead of the lonza the beast is Geryon.So we have a marked correlation between the lonza and Geryon; it is extremely probable that the lonza bears a symbolic meaning of fraud, like Dante's Geryon and like the pardus of the bestiaries.
In light of this correlation, I believe that the three beasts of Inferno I may correspond to the three forms of sin punished in Hell: 33 fraud (the lonza), violence (the lion) and incontinence (the she-wolf).Here they are presented not in order of objective seriousness (as in the subdivision of Hell itself), but in order of the threats they pose to the subjective disposition of the protagonist -hardly at all inclined to fraud, rather more to violence and most to incontinence.From the first canto alone, however, the reader cannot draw a precise idea of all this.The elements that suggest this interpretation only appear later on in the poem, with the subdivision of Hell in canto XI and the association of the lonza with fraud in cantos XVI-XVII.

Three beasts for three-fold sin
The three beasts are instead understood, by medieval commentators of Dante's Comedy, as symbols of the three capital vices: the lonza representing lust, the lion pride and the she-wolf avaritia, in the particular sense of cupiditas. 34he idea that the lonza could be a symbol of lust is already very common in early commentary on the Comedy, but it has no foundation in medieval symbolism associated with the animals.Indeed, there are only faint traces of the pardus as a supposed medieval symbol of lust.Nor should conclusions be drawn from the allusion to Virgil proposed along those lines by many commentators: 'maculosae tegmine lyncis' [in the pelt of the spotted lynx] (Aen., I. 323).The quotation is irrelevant, because it refers to the lynx, not to the pardus.For that matter the lynx's spotted pelt is part of a trick played by Venus when she pretends to be a Spartan huntress.Rather than an element of iconography associated with Venus, it is a detail meant to characterise a life devoted to the hunt.Sometimes the commentators who sustain the symbolism of lust support their position by reference to the pervasive and undeniable symbolism of fraud; they argue that the beast, with its spotted coat, symbolises the fraudulent and deceitful enticement of lust. 35This is, obviously, a poor proof that rather confirms the strength and inescapability of the lonza's interpretation as an image of fraud. 36It must be added that Geryon, the 'sozza imagine di froda' to which the lonza is in various ways connected, has nothing to do with erotic-lustful fraud of this kind.
Another proof often alleged by scholars in favour of such an interpretation is a passage from the Bestiario toscano, published by Milton Stahl Garver and Kenneth McKenzie.Here an animal named loncia is said to be a lustful beast 37 -but in this case it is an amplification of a common property usually attributed to the leopardus.Here the leopardus is indicated with the term loncia.If we scrutinise this text more broadly and attentively, we can note that the alternative term lonça is here used for the she-pardus, or parda, who, after mating with a lion, gives birth to a loncia, that is a leopardus. 38The term leopardo is here used for male pardus.As can be seen, it is an extremely confused text from a lexical point of view.In any case such a text, among so much confusion, confirms that Dante's lonza can be a she-pardus or a she-leopardus, but does not offer any decisive evidence for the interpretation of the lonza as a symbol of lust. 39he term pardo is almost totally absent in thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Italian, but the term leopardo is widely attested.By contrast, in the Bible the term leopardus is almost absent, but there are several extremely important occurrences of the term pardus, which I have discussed above.The same can be said for patristic and medieval literature, especially when connected with biblical exegesis.
If the biblical-exegetical tradition paid great attention to the pardus and almost ignored the leopardus, it seems extremely implausible that -when taken together with two of the most relevant beasts of the biblical-exegetical tradition, the lion and the wolf -the animal indicated by Dante with the term lonza could be identified with an animal with an extremely weak literary and biblical tradition, the leopardus, rather than with the extremely important pardus, so pervasively present in the Bible and in the exegetical tradition, where it also regularly accompanies the lion.Moreover, the fact remains that nowhere else in the Comedy is there an echo of the series lust, pride and avarice: this hypothetical series would therefore be totally isolated within the poem.
A similar series does in fact recur in the cantos that tackle Florence, namely pride, avarice and envy.The double repetition of this triad could tempt the reader retrospectively to interpret the three beasts of the first canto in this way; 40 but medieval tradition does not support a reading of the lonza as a symbol of envy.Nor is the pardus ever a symbol of envy, which is instead ascribed to the lynx. 41But, as we have seen, the lonza is not a lynx.
The nineteenth century introduced a political reading of the three beasts as personifications of political entities: the lonza represents Florence, the lion the royal house of France and the she-wolf Rome's Papal Curia. 42Today nobody would propose such an interpretation in an absolute and exclusive way, but some scholars have suggested that a political level may be present, without precluding the existence of a stronger, moral sense. 43This would also accord with the way in which biblical visions were interpreted in the Middle Ages: that is, with both a moral or allegorical sense and at the same time also a historical or political one.

The lion and the wolf
As for the lion, its many appearances in the Bible imbue it with different meanings.The principle of symbolic ambivalence is fundamental for the interpretation of the biblical and medieval bestiary.The lion is emblematic of this double-edged symbolism, as it can represent both Christ and the devil. 44aturally, the lion in the first canto can only be read in a negative sense, as a diabolic adversary, and enemy of humanity's pursuit of happiness.
Countless medieval texts state explicitly that the lion represents the devil by its force and cruelty. 45Biblical exegesis insists on its diabolical symbolism also when associated with the pardus. 46In moral terms, the lion is associated with wrath in the bestiary of vices proposed by Boethius (Cons.Phil., IV. 3).Pride is also at times ascribed to the lion, and the lion's posture in canto I with its head held high does encourage the reader to think of pride.Nonetheless, the lion's evident pride does not contradict its possible symbolic value of violence: for the proud in Hell, in particular Farinata and Capaneus, are all punished among the violent.While the posture con la testa alta could be indicative of pride, the 'rabbiosa fame' [raging hunger] suggests other vices, such as gluttony or avarice, while the adjective rabbiosa calls to mind wrath.
After the lonza and the lion comes a she-wolf.The noun magrezza [leanness] appears at only three points in the poem, first here and then twice in the depiction of the gluttonous in Purgatorio (XXIII.39 and XXIV.69).It constitutes an evident link between the wolf and the vice of gluttony.In the Bible the wolf always has a negative value, and in medieval culture it is chiefly a symbol of the devil. 47In moral terms it is widely linked with avarice, 48 but also with other vices, such as gluttony and lust. 49et us examine the other occurrences of wolf imagery in the poem.The second occurrence, 'maladetto lupo' [cursed wolf] (Inf., VII.8), refers to Pluto, the diabolic monster-guardian of the fourth circle, the place of misers and spendthrifts.Then in Purgatorio the wolf represents the three vices of excessive love for worldly goods, vices which correspond to the sins of incontinence in Hell: 'Maladetta sie tu, antica lupa, | che più che tutte l'altre bestie hai preda | per la tua fame sanza fine cupa!' [A curse be on you, ancient she-wolf, that more than any other beast find prey for your endlessly hollow hunger!] (Purg., XX. 10-12).To me, this seems to reinforce the identification of the three beasts with the three types of sin (fraud, violence and incontinence). 50n Inferno I, meanwhile, Virgil notes the she-wolf's 'bramosa voglia' [greedy desire], so greedy that 'dopo 'l pasto ha più fame che pria' [after feeding she is hungrier than before] (Inf.I. 98-9).The food metaphors and the reference to desire or appetite place the she-wolf within the semantic sphere of incontinence, which overwhelms rational choice with disproportionate desire (e.g. in Inf., V. 38-9).
On another note, recurrences of the lupo (the masculine form of 'wolf') throughout the poem are almost all concentrated around two entities: the people of Florence (Purg., XIV.50-1, Par., XXV.1-6) and the simoniac popes (Par., IX. 127-36, XXVII.55) who, in a reversal of the good pastor image, are seen as wolves who rip apart the flocks entrusted to them. 51Hence wolf imagery also has a strong political valence.And in Paradiso XXV the animal emblem of the wolf is soldered onto the theme of autobiography, when Dante explicitly presents himself as 'nimico ai lupi' [enemy of the wolves] (line 6).A scene similar in some aspects to that in the poem's first canto plays out in the Earthly Paradise, concluding in the prophecy of the 'cinquecento diece e cinque' [five hundred ten and five, Purg., XXXIII.43], which corresponds to the hound that will drive the wolfbeast into Hell.If a political reading of the symbols is undeniable in the Earthly Paradise, it is hard to imagine that a similar reading should be irrelevant in the first canto of Inferno.
Another important aspect of the first canto is that the three beasts are never present on stage at the same time, but each one appears after the other: the lonza disappears when the lion appears, just as the lion disappears when the she-wolf appears.Beyond this, Virgil speaks of '"questa bestia, per la qual tu gride"' ['this beast at which you cry'] (line 94).For these reasons some scholars propose that it is a single diabolical beast -taking the form now of a lonza, now a lion and finally a she-wolf, in an everlasting metamorphosis of evil.Guglielmo Gorni has effectively defined this beast as the 'bestia una e trina' [one and triune beast].A correspondence between this diachronic trinity, in which evil presents itself at the beginning of the poem, will be found in a synchronic trinity at the bottom of Hell -that is, in Lucifer, as represented in the last canto of the first canticle (XXXIV.37-45). 52e veltro Coherently with the animal imagery employed thus far, the person who will defeat the she-wolf-beast and everything she represents is, in turn, presented via an animal image: that of the veltro, the hound, known for its great speed.If scholars have long disagreed on how to interpret the symbolic value of the three beasts, the interpretation of the hound has been no less contentious; it has possibly been even more so. 53There are two main theories that read the hound either as an emperor, who will re-establish imperial power over an Italy devastated by corruption and civil wars, or as a saintly pope, who will conduct the Church back to its original purity and rightful, purely spiritual jurisdiction.Some readers have looked for a specific historical personage, be it an emperor or imperial vicar (Henry VII or Cangrande della Scala) or a pope (the Dominican Benedict XI).Another interpretation worth mentioning sees in the hound the Second Coming of Christ on Judgement Day.Finally, some readers consider the hound to be an allusion to Dante himself or, more precisely, to his poem, destined to restore justice to the world.As this variety of interpretations indicates, the open, indeterminate character of this image might indicate an essential polysemy -inviting the reader to interpret the hound via multiple discourses that may include, besides the moral and political, the rich metaliterary vein that runs through the poem.
The first canto of Inferno thus employs two typical modes for the use of animal imagery: firstly as moral symbols of vices or sinful dispositions, and secondly as political emblems.The canto also demonstrates the author's tendency to construct symbolic systems that combine multiple animals, and to complicate this rhetorical device with the ambiguity of prophetic language and the polysemy of symbols.