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Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003) 31-46



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Against Aristotle:
Cosmological Vision in Dante's Convivio

Mario Trovato
Northwestern University 1


Dante defined the commentary he wrote on his own poems or canzoni as a Convivio or Banquet. This work was supposed to cover fourteen canzoni, "which deal with both love and virtue" (Cv. 1.1.14). In reality, the poet wrote commentaries on only three poems, composed almost ten years before the Convivio between 1293-95. Two canzoni, "Voi che 'ntendendo il terzo ciel movete" ("You who move the third heaven by understanding") and "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona" ("Love which discourses in my mind") constitute, respectively, the subject of the second and third books of the Convivio. As Etienne Gilson and Maria Simonelli have noted, these two books form a whole, a theoretical unity on the subject of love, and it is on these books that I will concentrate in what follows. Dante analyzes a third canzone, "Le dolci rime d'amor ch'i' solia" ("The sweet rhymes of love that I would seek") in the fourth and final book. Book One of the Convivio serves as a general introduction. 2

Thus the Convivio remains incomplete and scholars still debate the cause. In the wake of Bruno Nardi, 3 most critics mantain that the Convivio—especially Books Two and Three—documents Dante's departure from theology (allegorically, the divine Beatrice) and his conversion to the "gentle woman" or donna gentile, symbol of Aristotelian-Averroistic "philosophical speculation." These critics argue that through the donna gentile, Dante created "a symbiosis between the classical Wisdom of the Nichomachean Ethics and various facets of Christian knowledge." 4 In this light, some recent Dante scholars have pointed out that Cato's rebuke of the pilgrim in Purgatorio II for enjoying the Book-Three canzone "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona" represents "Dante's recrimination for his own past 'folle volo' ('mad flight')." 5

I will argue that Dante never meant to recant his unfinished work as unorthodox nor divorce himself from his donna gentile. I will attempt to demonstrate [End Page 31] two things. First, in the Convivio and especially the second and third books, Dante's vision of the universe is anything but Aristotelian-Averroistic. As Nardi explained, these philosophers understood philososphy as the system of natural order without theology as elaborated by Aristotle. 6 By contrast, Dante's cosmological doctrine is deeply rooted in Neoplatonic theology as christianized by St. Augustine, Boethius, and Chartrian scholars like William of Conches, as well as Franciscan intellectuals who followed Augustine's principle of credo ut intelligam and declared faith preeminent to reason. Philosophy is a loving activity whose end is human-divine Wisdom. Second, in my view, the thesis of 'rejection' is based on the misinterpretation of Dante's notion of philosopher and philosophy. At the center of the cosmological frame, in fact, are two characters: the philosopher or the lover (Dante) and "Primal Mind" ("Protonoé") or divine Wisdom,represented as the beloved Lady Philosophy or donna gentile. The Convivio is, indeed, a mini-Commedia. 7 In Purgatorio II, the poet, rather than rejecting his work, reaffirms both his poetical and ethical principle: the unity between content and musical form.

It is well known that Dante's philosophical and theological education is the result of serious training after Beatrice's death. In Convivio 2.12.5-6, the author gives us a hint of his propaedeutic instruction before going to the religious schools. Hetells us thathe read Boethius, Cicero, and "authors both of sciences and of books"; he fell in love with "the lady of these authors," whom he imagined as a donna gentile. It is likely that, among other authors, Dante read the Glosae super Boethium by William of Conches, the Neoplatonic Christian philosopher who also wrote De Philosophia Mundi, the Dragmaticon and Glosae super Platonem. William firmly believed that Boethius was a Christian martyr. 8 However, Dante tells us that, in order to become more acquainted with Lady Philosophy, he went "where she truly revealed herself, that is, to the...

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