Dante and the early astronomers

by M. A. Orr

He is comparing the two sciences of Metaphysics and Physics with the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, and takes the opportunity to tell us some of the most important facts known about it. Here he calls the Galaxy a circle:—“La Galassia, cioè quello bianco cerchio che il vulgo chiama la Via de Santo Jacopo.”[321] This popular name perhaps arose through a confusion of Galaxy and Galicia, where was a famous shrine of St. James, and hence came the belief in Italy that the Galassia was a sign by night to guide pilgrims on their way to this shrine at Compostella in Galizia.

Dante proceeds as follows with his comparison:—

“E per la Galassia, ha questo cielo grande similitudine colla Metafisica. Perchè è da sapere che di quella Galassia li filosofi hanno avuto diverse opinioni. Chè li Pittagorici dissero che ’l sole alcuna fiata errò nella sua via, e, passando per altre parti non convenienti al suo fervore, arse il luogo, per lo quale passò; e rimasevi quell’ apparenza dell’ arsura. E credo che si mossero dalla favola di Fetonte, la quale narra Ovidio nel principio del secondo di Metamorfoseos. Altri dissero (siccome fu Anassagora e Democrito) che ciò era lume del sole ripercosso in quella parte. E queste opinioni con ragioni dimostrative riprovarono. Quello che Aristotile si dicesse di ciò, non si può bene sapere, perchè la sua sentenza non si trova cotale nell’ una traslazione come nell’ altra. E credo che fosse l’errore de’ traslatori; che nella Nuova par dicere che ciò sia uno raunamento di vapori sotto le stelle di quelle parte, che sempre traggono quelli; e questa non pare avere ragione vera. Nella Vecchia dice, che la Galassia non è altro che multitudine di stelle fisse in quella parte, tanto picciole che distinguere di quaggiù non le potemo, ma di loro apparisce quello albore il quale noi chiamiamo Galassia. [E puote essere che il cielo in quella parte è più spesso, e però ritiene e ripresenta quello lume] e questa opinione pare avere, con Aristotile, Avicenna e Tolommeo. Onde conciossiacosachè la Galassia sia uno effetto di quelle stelle le quali non potemo vedere, se non per lo effetto loro intendiamo quelle cose, e la Metafisica tratta delle prime sustanze, le quali noi non potemo simigliantemente intendere se non per li loro effetti; manifesto è che ’l cielo stellato ha grande similitudine colla Metafisica.”[322]

This characteristic passage is interesting for several reasons. It illustrates the mediæval fondness for allegory, the reluctance to believe that Aristotle could ever be wrong, and the interest in ancient Greek speculations, in all of which Dante expresses the feelings of his age: and it brings vividly before us the methods and the difficulties of mediæval authors. For Dante is repeating from Albertus Magnus all these ancient speculations: the officious copyist who altered Aristotle’s words, the fact that Aristotle could only be read in Latin, and the variety of translations, were all everyday obstacles to study; and Dante’s own book has suffered from one of them in this very passage. The words placed between brackets are evidently an interpolation (as Mr. Wicksteed observes in the “Temple” Convivio): without them the passage goes on smoothly and logically to its end. On the assumption that the Galaxy is composed of a multitude of small stars, but not that the sky is denser in that part, the parallel with Metaphysics holds good.

Dante therefore held the true opinion about the Milky Way, but he was mistaken in thinking that he had the support of Aristotle. It was the “New Translation” (made by Aquinas from the Greek) which gave his opinion correctly; in the “Old” (made by Michael Scot from the Arabic) his statement had been apparently changed without comment into one which seems to Dante—and also to us—to represent the truth about the Galaxy.

5. THE PLANETS.

All the planets which were known before the days of the telescope are mentioned by Dante several times. Each has its peculiar beauty, but “la lucentissima stella di Venere”[323] is brighter and more beautiful than any other. He speaks of “la chiarezza del suo aspetto, ch ’è soavissima a vedere più che altra stella.”[324]

No reader of the Purgatorio can ever forget that matchless morning on which Dante, escaping at last from the murky gloom of the Inferno, sees the sky once more, pure blue even to its furthest limits, and the planet of love shining in the east.

“Dolce color d’oriental zaffiro, Che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto Dell’ aer, puro infino al primo giro, Agli occhi miei ricominciò diletto, Tosto ch’ i’ uscii fuor dell’ aura morta, Che m’avea contristati gli occhi e il petto, Lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta Faceva rider tutto l’oriente, Velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.”[325]

Strange to say, the beginning of the above beautiful passage which conveys so direct and vivid an impression of blue sky and pure air, presents some difficulties when one comes to translate it word by word, especially as the texts offer more than one reading. By some commentators the “primo giro”[326] has been understood to mean the sphere of the moon,[327] or even the highest sphere (the Primum Mobile); but this is certainly inadmissible, as Dante supposed the atmosphere to reach only as far as the sphere of Fire, which came between it and the moon. The prime circle is here evidently the horizon, the fundamental circle of observers, the First Circle of the astrologers, from which they reckoned all the rest. It is here that the sky usually becomes pale and misty, however blue and clear it may be above. The colour was gathering and deepening,[328] especially in the east, where Dante was looking, as dawn began to appear in a perfectly cloudless sky; for during the darkness of the night it would have appeared almost black.