Author: Gary Familia

The Divine Feminine

The role of women in our society has long been a topic of discussion. Though it is much more common to see examples of liberated women in today’s literature and in all respective forms of media, this wasn’t always the case. Female writers were often excluded from the scene, which meant that their stories were usually told through the lens of men. This is part of the reason why there was such a profuse amount of dependent and submissive female roles in literary work. However, there is always an exception to every rule; three Italian writers, who aside from contributing to the Renaissance, also displayed forward-thinking in their writing. Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, and Giovanni Boccaccio have all credited women for being their main source of inspiration. They have also presented strong examples of female characters which reinforces the idea that women have a right to occupy spots in literary spaces.

In The Divine Comedy, Alighieri takes us on a journey through the different realms that are commonly referred to as the Christian afterlife: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. When Dante the pilgrim wakes up in a dark forest, right beyond the entrance of Inferno, he is visibly frightened and in need of some guidance. That is where Beatrice steps in; his savior in the story, but also his muse in the real world. She watched as Dante strayed further away from his faith, and wanted nothing more than to guide him to the light. She sends Virgil to protect Dante while he makes his way through Hell and witnesses all the atrocities first-hand. At one point, Dante confesses, “Oh full of pity she who has helped me! and you courteous, who have quickly obeyed the true words she offered you! Your words have so filled my heart with desire to come with you, that I have returned to my first purpose” (Inferno, Canto 2). In other words, Dante is attributing his will to Beatrice’s generosity and kindness. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Beatrice’s role in The Divine Comedy, is that Dante characterizes her as a religious figure rather than a normal lover. She has an undisputed divine nature throughout the story and plays such an important role in the pilgrim’s salvation (Beatrice: Inspiration, Divine Love, and the Key to Salvation). Although her moments in the Comedy were few and far between, she strikes me as one of the most notable figures in the entire story and the antithesis of a woman who relies on a man.

Beatrice depicted by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

In Il Canzoniere, Petrarca professes his love for his muse with hundreds of poems. The vast majority of these poems are written in sonnet form and they detail an array of emotions, from when he first fell in love with Laura to when she passed away. In sonnet 90, for example, he describes her appearance to us in a thoughtful manner and portrays her as a source of light in his life. He says, “She’d let her gold hair flow free in the breeze and whirled it into thousands of sweet knots … The way she walked was not the way of mortals but of angelic forms, and when she spoke more than an earthly voice it was that sang.” Though it was not uncommon for Italian poets to dedicate sonnets for the women they admired, Petrarca’s love for Laura was especially haunting because his passion for her only multiplied after she passed. He expressed his heavy feelings about her death in sonnet 319, where he says that his days seem to just pass him by now that she’s gone. Furthermore, he calls the world “wretched” and “arrogant” for taking Laura away and leaving him in a broken state. It’s evident that Petrarca thinks very highly of Laura, but more than anything, I think this also communicates just how much he values the women in his life. After her death, Petrarca had a tough time getting by because of how lost and abandoned he felt. When her soul moved on to the Heavens, as he said, a piece of him died too. Without her, he felt vulnerable and incomplete.

Petrarch and Laura de Noves, Ashmolean Museum.

Boccaccio’s The Decameron was written at the height of the Bubonic plague. Death and grief overtook all of Europe as sickness spread from one person to another. One of the main reasons he wrote The Decameron was, of course, for entertainment. As you could imagine, humor and joy were very scarce given the circumstances. However, Boccaccio also mentions in the preface of The Decameron, that he’s dedicating this work to women. He writes, “the ladies just mentioned will, perhaps, derive from the delightful things that happen in these tales both pleasure and useful counsel, inasmuch as they will recognize what should be avoided and what should be sought after. This, I believe, can only result in putting an end to their melancholy.” Simply put, he hopes that the women reading his work will take notice of the good and the bad, and possibly apply it to their own lives. Boccaccio also gives women the opportunity to recount the parables in The Decameron, as well as lead them. In a lot of the stories, there’s a common theme of men who try to outsmart their female counterparts, to no avail. With this, he implies that women can in fact be superior in terms of skill, which is something that has long been missing in fictional and historical texts alike (Kulshrestha).

To conclude, imbedded in these three written pieces by revolutionary contemporaries are high commends for the women who make them feel complete. Whether it’s done by depicting them as religious figures, describing how lost they feel without them or dedicating their work to them, these men gave women a leading role in their stories during a time period where women were seen as subordinate to men.

Work Cited

Alighieri, Dante. “The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno” ProQuest eBook Central, 29 Feb. 1996, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ccny-ebooks/reader.action?docID=693941

“Beatrice: Inspiration, Divine Love, and the Key to Salvation” Digication EPortfolio, Boston University, 24 Oct. 2010, https://bu.digication.com/wr100B1_challenerjn/Final_Draft2 

Petrarca, Francesco. “Il Canzoniere”

Boccaccio, Giovanni. “The Decameron”

Kulshrestha, Sujay. “Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‘the Decameron’ and the Roles of Men and Women.” Inquiries Journal, 1 Dec. 2010, http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/344/giovanni-boccaccios-the-decameron-and-the-roles-of-men-and-women

The Prince: Cynicism

A painting of Hannibal and his army on the wall of the Capitoline Museum, Rome.

A painting of Hannibal and his army on the wall of the Capitoline Museum, Rome. In The Prince, Machiavelli praises Hannibal and the cruel tactics that he used to keep his enormous army together.

In hopes of obtaining the good graces of Lorenzo Medici, Machiavelli constructed a treatise that advised rulers how to secure and maintain power. Rooted in Machiavelli’s ideas was a poor impression of humanity and justifications for the unvirtuous acts that leaders may take. In chapter 17, he famously writes that “it is much safer to be feared than loved” if you cannot be both because men are “ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, [and] covetous.” All of these descriptions stem from a belief that people are inherently evil and motivated by self-interest. Furthermore, he uses this to say that a good leader should be equipped to fall back on their honesty and act immorally if they must. Therefore, in his mind, it is a good thing to “appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, [and] upright,” while also being fully prepared to do the opposite at any given time.

Angela da Foligno: Guilt

Angela da Foligno

In this painting, Angela da Foligno is shown holding onto a cross tenderly and revealing the mystic scars on each of her palms. On her face, is a rather guilty expression, which is further explained in The Memorial of Angela da Foligno. She says that at the seventh step of her spiritual development, she was “moved to reflect on the cross” which brought about a lot of pain. During the eighth step, Angela became aware of her sins all over again while looking at the cross, feeling as though she had crucified Jesus herself. I imagine that because the cross serves as a reminder of the sacrifices that Christ made for the betterment of humanity, the guilt that Angela was feeling only increased.

Deceit in the Decameron 10.3 and 10.10

Throughout the Decameron, Bocaccio shares several tales that are designed to teach the audience moral lessons. The parables are told by the characters in the book for the duration of ten days, and each one is cleverly laden with social commentary. Though readers may pick apart several themes from the collection of stories, the one that was consistently established within the tenth day, especially, is deception. In stories 3 and 10, we are introduced to good-hearted protagonists who are double-crossed by manipulative people looking to gain something. But similar to standard fairytales, they end off on a happy note, reinforcing the idea that immorality does not prevail.

Image may contain Art Painting Human and Person
John William Waterhouse’s The Decameron. Depicts the young storytellers from The Decameron.
Source: Columbia University  

The main characters of story three are named Nathan and Mitridanes. Both are equally as wealthy, but only one of them has a heart of gold. Nathan has a notable reputation for being a generous person because he extends his riches to commoners passing by his palace. Mitridanes, on the other hand, only cares about renown, which is why his growing jealously for Nathan points him in the direction of murder. Mitridanes devises a plan to disguise himself as someone in need of Nathan’s services, but his plan falls through when he accidentally reveals his intentions to Nathan. Although Mitridanes was completely unaware that he was revealing his plan to Nathan, it’s interesting to think about why he was so motivated to tell a random person such a deep secret. It turns out, that he, too, is enthralled by Nathan’s kindness. When Mitridanes has a conversation with Nathan, who poses as a servant, he is able to witness how good of a person Nathan actually is. He goes from wanting to murder a then-stranger, to feeling shameful for even thinking about killing his friend. In typical Nathan fashion, he forgives Mitridanes and allows him to stay at the palace for several days. However, Mitridanes decides to leave upon realizing that “‘twas not possible to surpass him [Nathan] in liberality” (Tenth Day, Novel 3).

On the tenth day, we meet The Marquis of Saluzzo, Gualtieri, who chooses a woman named Griselda to be his wife. Griselda is described to be the complete opposite of Gualtieri, not only in social status, but in character too. She is someone who is well-mannered and very compliant, while he subjects her to the horrors of a man with a fragile ego. He makes her believe that both of their children are dead and that he is leaving her for another woman – all in the name of testing her patience and humility. Griselda almost never flinches at his requests, but there is one moment where she lets Gualtieri know what she’s feeling. She pleads that he treats his “new wife” with respect and that he “spare her those tribulations” which he once inflicted on her (Tenth Day, Novel 10). This serves as the turning point in the story, where Gualtieri reveals his true intentions to Griselda, and they vow to restore their relationship. Many people were not pleased with this ending, calling it an “extreme example of female submission” (The Griselda Tale and Women in The Decameron). However, things are left off in this note because as damning as this experience was for her, Griselda does restore her wifely status and Gualtieri’s dirty truths come to the light.

Work Cited

“Decameron Web.” Decameron Web: Day 10, Story 3 https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/texts/DecShowText.php?myID=nov1003&lang=eng 

“Decameron Web.” Decameron Web: Day 10, Story 10 https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/texts/DecShowText.php?myID=nov1010&lang=eng

Allen, Shirley S. “The Griselda Tale and the Portrayal of Women in The Decameron” https://www.proquest.com/docview/1290878378?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true#

Canzoniere 319: Shackled

Throughout Il Canzoniere, Petrarca professes his love for Laura in several ways. When he talks about the weight of her death in this sonnet, for example, it gives us, as the readers, an understanding of the admiration that he has for her. Love is seemingly the main theme of a handful of his poems, including this one, however he does not always portray it as a constant beautiful feeling. For instance, this sonnet explores the complexities of love and how it can be constricting.

In the first stanza, Petrarca writes “My days, swifter than any fawn, have fled like shadows” which explicitly reveals that he has lost all sense of time. This is awfully common for people who aren’t experiencing any excitement in their life, or have no hope for their future. He also compares the duration of all the good things in his life to a wink, which effectively shows how fast these moments come and go. Lastly, when he talks about his calmest hours, which he says are few and far between, he uses the word “bittersweet” to describe them, because his mind is truly never at ease. Even when things seem to be going better for him, he constantly thinks about how much happier he would be if he and Laura were together.

The Triumph of Death, from a 1503 edition of Petrarch. Depicts Laura’s death from the Black Plague. Source: FineArtAmerica

In the next stanza, Petrarca lets out all his anger and frustration with the world. He describes it as “wretched” and “arrogant” because of the broken condition that he was left in after Laura’s death. He also condemns any man that puts their trust into the world, even calling them “blind,” because at one point he was that same man that put his hope out there in the world. He believes that he was given false hope, as he is now unhappy because the person who owns his heart is merely dust, not a person in the flesh. Even though he is fully aware that Laura is not with us, he continues to express his love for her in the third stanza, where he says that her soul (“her best form”) continues living in the Heavens and keeps him more in love.

In the final stanza, Petrarca reintroduces the idea of time passing him by. He mentions that as he gets older and his hair grays, the only thing that he can think of is Laura and what she is like. This, once again, only reinforces the sentiment that he is chained to this love for eternity.

The Evils of Excess

As Dante and Virgil scavenge their way through Inferno, they come across several entities who seem to have no relation to one another. While that is a logical assumption, given that they are being punished for acting upon different sins, their commonality lies in the fact that they show excessive devotion to something that isn’t their love of God. 

When Dante enters the circle of lust, he speaks to two lovers (Francesca and Paolo) who committed adultery. As Francesca recounts the story, she reiterates the idea that love is a force that compels us to do things that we wouldn’t do otherwise. She says, “Many times that reading drove our eyes together and turned our faces pale; but one point alone was the one that overpowered us” (canto 5, lines 130-132). It’s important to note the distinction between Dante the Pilgrim and Dante the Poet in this section, as they do reciprocate different feelings towards Francesca’s story. Dante the Pilgrim feels a lot of pity for Francesca, even saying, “‘Francesca, your sufferings make me sad and piteous to tears’” (canto 5, lines 116-117). Dante the Poet, on the other hand, is seemingly less sympathetic and places her in this circle because he feels as though love does not deprive us of our free will, and that she did act upon feelings of excessive affection. Thus, condemning her to an infernal storm, where “the wind controls the lustful in the same way that their passions controlled them while in this life” (Digital Dante, What’s Love Got to Do with It? Love and Free Will).

William Blake, The Circle of the Lustful: Francesca da Rimini (The Whirlwind of Lovers)
Source: Tate Britain

When Dante descends into the eighth pit of the eighth circle, he finds Ulysses alongside other fraudulent counselors. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Ulysses’ inclusion in Inferno is that Dante never read The Iliad or The Odyssey, which famously tells the story of Ulysses winning the Trojan War by means of deceit, as well as the long voyage that took place after the war (Digital Dante, The Epic Hero). Instead, Dante creates his own conception of Ulysses’ final moments, where he and his crew mates set out to cross boundaries that were imposed by God (Danteworlds, Ulysses: Circle 8, Canto 26). In a lengthy speech where Ulysses tries to convince his men that this quest for knowledge is justified, he says, “You were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge” (canto 26, lines 118-119). When they pass the Pillars of Hercules (said to have been the end of the western world), Ulysses and his crew mates come in contact with a whirlwind that sinks their ship. Ulysses’ excessive desire to be all-knowing cost the lives of many (including his own), and directly goes against God’s commands. It goes without saying that Dante categorizes this as Ulysses’ biggest offense, and the reason for his damnation.

  1. “Digital Dante.” Inferno 26 – Digital Dante, https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-26/.
  1. “Digital Dante.” Inferno 5 – Digital Dante, https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-5/.
  1. Ulysses, https://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/inf2601.html

Character Analysis of Dante The Pilgrim in Cantos 1 & 2

In canto 1, Dante can be easily characterized as a fearful individual. He first describes the feel of the woods as “savage” and “harsh,” and mentioned how even the slightest thought of that place was enough to renew his fright (canto 1, line 4). In addition, as he tried to make his way towards the top of a hill where light shone very brightly, he froze with terror at the sight of three beasts. The she-wolf, specifically, made him lose hope of reaching the top of that hill and prompted him to turn back. In canto 1, lines 58-60, he says “That restless beast, who, coming against me, little by little was driving me back to where the sun is silent.” This is very telling of how shaken up he was by the she-wolf; so much so, that he found more comfort in those “savage” woods than in her presence. In the second canto, Dante feels much more hopeful after meeting his guide, Virgil. Virgil tells Dante about Beatrice, a past lover who pitied Dante’s state of terror and wished for protection upon him. While Dante did feel doubtful at the thought of not making it through the journey to paradise, he said to Virgil, “your words have so filled my heart with desire to come with you, that I have returned to my first purpose” (canto 2, lines 136-138). This was the first time where we witnessed Dante being quite courageous and proceeding with the tough path that lay ahead.

By: Gianna Arias, Layka Coby, Gary Familia