(3) But the place of honour, next to Scripture, in Dante, must be assigned, surely, to classical lore—to the mythology and literature of the ancient Graeco-Roman civilisation for which the mediaeval mind had so profound a reverence. Greek philosophy, as represented by Aristotle—
il maestro di color che sanno[167]
is a category by itself, to which we shall turn our attention in a moment. But classical lore in general, as represented by such writers as Virgil (quoted 200 times), Ovid (100), Cicero (50), Lucan (50), Horace (15?), Livy (15?), finds very definite recognition in Dante’s works.
The old Roman Empire was viewed by Dante with a truly religious veneration, as is clear not only from many a passage in the Divina Commedia (e.g. Par. vi), but from the whole argument of the De Monarchia.[168] This veneration, which shed lustre and dignity upon a “Holy Roman Empire” which even in Dante’s day had become actually, though not technically, German, is characteristic especially of the Italian mind; and Dante was Italian as well as mediaeval. The Italians even of to-day are proud to regard themselves as the direct successors of the old Romans of the Republic and of the Caesars: in Dante’s time they were prepared to trace their ancestry to the divinely guided companions of Aeneas of Troy.
Rome looms large in the providential ordering of human history: Dante’s conception of her sovereign place is drawn from the author of the princely Aeneid, whose function in the Divine Comedy is guarantee of the affectionate reverence which Dante bore to him.
But it is not only Roman history, but classical mythology that weaves itself into the texture of Dante’s religious thought. If he quotes Virgil some two hundred times, he quotes Ovid about one hundred.
The tendency to mingle together examples from Scripture and from pagan mythology is characteristically mediaeval. In Dante it is a well known feature, most typically represented perhaps in the sculptures, visions and voices of the Purgatorio.
He who is bold enough in Purg. xxx. to blend together the Scriptural Benedictus qui venis with Virgil’s Manibus o date lilia plenis is not afraid to invoke the Muses and Apollo (mystically interpreted) as he begins a new cantica.[169] He does not hesitate to apostrophise the Saviour of the world in terms which blend the Christian with the antique pagan tradition—[170]
... O Sommo Giove,