Dante and the early astronomers

by M. A. Orr

Saturn is in Leo. “Il petto del Leone”[523] may mean the western part of the Lion, the part which first rises and contains the head and breast, or it may refer to the star Regulus, which is called by Ptolemy and Alfraganus “Cor Leonis.”[524] “Sotto il petto”[525] may mean the position of the planet as seen projected in the sky or a map, that is, a little south of this part of the constellation; more probably, perhaps, Dante is thinking of the supposed position of Saturn’s sphere below that of the stars.[526]

Mars is spoken of as having returned to his own Lion a number of times: “al suo Leon ... venne,”[527] but this does not necessarily imply that he was in that constellation at the time.

Mercury and Jupiter are not noted as seen anywhere in the sky, nor does Dante say in what constellation they were when he entered them with Beatrice.

There are a number of pitfalls into which Dante might have stumbled, with this disposition of the skies, and the change to the southern hemisphere; and that he has avoided all is as clear a proof of his familiarity with astronomical phenomena as the positive evidence of his truthful, consistent descriptions. For instance, he might very well have represented the cold planet Saturn as actually aiding the cold moon in driving away the heat of the day during the night, in Purg. xix. 1-3, instead of only saying “talor da Saturno;”[528] but if so, this would have been inconsistent with the position of Saturn in Leo, since Leo was below the horizon when dawn was drawing near and Pisces was rising. Again, we have already mentioned that he evidently did not forget that it was autumn in the southern hemisphere. He never suggests that it was spring in Purgatory, and in the passage quoted above, where he describes sunrise at the March equinox, saying that the sun then moves “con miglior corso e con migliore stella,”[529] this happiest effect on the world is restricted to “mortals,” who as he thought all dwelt in the northern hemisphere, “surge ai mortali.”[530] I do not mean that the expression was used for this reason, but it is an example of how instinctively he avoided mistakes into which any other author would almost certainly have fallen.

6. THE ASSUMED DATE OF THE VISION.

Even among Dante enthusiasts there must be many who are astonished at the warmth of the controversy concerning the assumed date of his Vision. To know whether he feigned himself to have entered the Inferno with Virgil in March or in April, in the year 1300 or in 1301, really does not help us to appreciate the music of his verse nor the depth of his thought; yet a wealth of learning and research has been poured out upon this problem, and some commentators seem ready to defend their opinions with their lives, if that would avail to convince their readers!

The date is indeed intimately connected with the narrative of the Divine Comedy, since there are constant allusions to current events. By choosing a year earlier than the time at which he was writing, Dante is able not only to tell the spirits what is passing on the earth they have left, but to endow them with the power of prophesying to him events which are to come.[531] The peculiar interest of the problem for us just now is that astronomy has been called in to solve it. We have seen that the positions and movements of the heavenly bodies are all consistent with one another in his poem, but it is interesting to ask whether they are merely a consistent fiction or whether they correspond with facts. Did Dante arrange his moon and planets according to his feeling for scenery and the convenience of his time references, or did he take the positions as they really were at some particular date? If so, the full moon, Venus a morning star in Pisces, and Saturn in Leo, all together near a spring equinox, ought to help to fix that date.

The year which is almost universally accepted, by the oldest as well as the most modern commentators, is 1300, chiefly on the authority of Inf. xxi. 112-114. Here Malacoda says that yesterday (the day of Dante’s entering the Inferno) it was 1266 years since the earthquake which accompanied the Crucifixion ([see p. 370]). Adding to this the 34 years which Dante has told us he believed to have elapsed between the Nativity and the Crucifixion,[532] we get 1266 + 34 = 1300. And the day is either the Church Festival commemorating the Crucifixion, i.e. Good Friday, which in 1300 fell on April 8, or March 25, which was believed to be the actual anniversary.

If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April 4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on about the 9th of April.

These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant; Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.