Dr. Judith J.

Batin
The Middle Ages
 time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire
and the beginning of the Early Modern Period
 divided into: Dark, High and Late Middle Ages

limited artistic rapidly centuries of

and cultural increasing European
output, including population  prosperity and
historical brought about growth came to
records, when great political a halt
compared with and social
later times change

476 - 100 1000 - 1300 1300 - 1500

Crisis of the Middle Ages
 Great Famine
 Black Death
 social unrest and endemic warfare
 Peasants' Revolt
 Hundred Years' War
 the Great Schism of the Catholic Church
Progress in the Middle Ages
 within the arts and sciences
 renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts
led to what has later been termed the Italian
Renaissance
 the invention of printing
 era of discovery began
 produced writers: Dante Alighieri, Giovanni
Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarch, & Geoffrey
Chaucer
Dante Alighieri
 an Italian poet from Florence
 known as "the Supreme Poet"
 "Father of the Italian language“
 born to a noble Florentine family
 embroiled in a struggle between
the Holy Roman Empire and the
papacy for control of the city
 fought in decisive battles for the
city's independence and became
a Prior
Dante Alighieri
 put on trial when forces loyal to the pope seized
power
 did not appear and was banished for two years and
given a 5,000 florin fine
 was condemned to death by burning
 forced into exile and spent the last 20 years of his
life wandering through Italy
 ended his days in Ravenna
 composed his greatest work, The Divine Comedy,
during his exile
Dante Alighieri

Onorate
l'altissimo
poeta

“Honour the most

exalted poet.”
The Divine Comedy
 considered as the central epic
poem of Italian literature
 composed of three canticas:
Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio
(Purgatory), and Paradiso
(Paradise) —
 canticas: composed each of 33
cantos
Setting

Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso

Principal Characters

Dante Virgil Beatrice

Plot
Midway upon the
journey of our
life
I found myself
within a forest
dark,
For the straight-
forward
pathway
had been lost.
Plot
 Dante sets out on the night before Good Friday, and
finds himself in the middle of a dark wood.
 He sees a sunlit hill but
is unable to climb it as
he encounters three
beasts.
 Beatrice, along with the
Virgin Mary, sends
Virgil to guide him to salvation.
Plot
The Nine Circles of Hell
 Each circle represents further and further evil
 It culminates in the center of the earth, where
Satan is held.
 Each circle's sin is punished in a fashion fitting
their crime.
 Sinners are afflicted by the chief sin they
committed for all of eternity.
 They descend through hell and reach Satan.
Plot

All hope abandon,

ye who enter here.
Plot
 Satan is impotent,
ignorant, and evil – the
exact opposite of God.
 The two poets climb down
Lucifer, passing through
the center of the earth.
 The sun was shining. It
was the dawn of Easter
Sunday.
Plot
Terraces of Purgatory
 It is located exactly opposite Jerusalem in the
globe.
 As the pilgrims entered Purgatory, an angel
inscribed the letter “P” on Dante’s forehead seven
times.
 The letters were erased one by one as he made his
way through the seven areas.
Plot
Terraces of Purgatory
 It was composed of terraces where inhabitants
could move on to higher realms after a time of
purification.
 Each terrace was designed to purge its dead souls
of one particular deadly sin.
 After the seventh terrace, an angel directed Dante
and Virgil to pass through a wall.
Dante’s Vision of Heaven
• Dante’s Paradiso was based on the current,
Ptolemaic (earth-centered) model.
• Dante passes through successive, concentric
circles: moon, Venus, Sun, planets, fixed
stars.
• After reaching the primum mobile (first
mover) beyond the stars, Dante’s universe
undergoes a disorienting, non-Euclidean
transformation.
Dante’s Vision of Heaven
• What had been the center (the earth)
now becomes the extreme periphery,
and the sphere of the primum mobile is
seen to revolve around concentric
spheres of angels, centered in God.
• Thus, Dante’s universe is really not geo-
centric at all, but theo-centric.
Plot
 Virgil bid Dante farewell, for this was as far as
human reason would allow a non-Christian to go.
 Dante noticed a beautiful garden where he was
informed that across the river beside it, Beatrice
waited.
 He expressed remorse for his sins and confessed
them.
Plot
Nine Spheres of Heaven
 These are concentric and spherical, similar to
Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology.
 Souls are allotted to the point of heaven that fits
with their human ability to love God.
 Thus, there is a heavenly hierarchy. All parts of
heaven are accessible to the heavenly soul.
 That is to say all experience God but there is a
hierarchy in the sense that some souls are more
spiritually developed than others.
Plot
Nine Spheres of Heaven
 One’s level is determined by how much one allows
oneself to experience God above other things.
Plot
 From the ninth sphere, Dante ascends to a region
beyond physical existence where the souls of all the
believers form the petals of an enormous rose.
 Beatrice leaves Dante with Saint Bernard, because
theology has here reached its limits.
 Saint Bernard prays to Mary on behalf of Dante.
Finally, Dante comes face-to-face with God Himself,
and is granted understanding of the Divine and of
human nature.
Plot
 In union with the Divine, Dante was left to behold the
glory of God on his throne.
 God appears as three equally large circles within
each other representing the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit with the essence of each part of God,
separate yet one.
Plot

O how scant is
speech
And how feeble
To my
conception
Plot
 Dante's soul, through God's absolute love,
experiences a unification with itself and all things:

"but already my
desire and my will
were being turned
like a wheel, all at
one speed by the
Love that turns the
sun and all the other
stars.”
Themes

1. Nature is the
standard of
good/bad,
right/wrong.

2. The problem of the

relation between
self-love and love
for others.
Sites of Interest
 http://www.divinecomedy.org/
 http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/
 http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/paradiso/index.html
 http://www.worldofdante.org/
 http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/index.html