Inferno · Canto X ·
Inferno X — Farinata Rising
Reading Divine Comedy · canto 10 of 100 · Inferno, Canto X
Before reading
This is the canto of Farinata degli Uberti, and it is one of the four or five most famous in the Inferno. It is also, by common consent, the canto in which Dante's politics, his theology, and his loyalty to the city that exiled him collide most sharply on the page. The reader meets two souls only — one of them an enemy from the previous generation, one of them the father of a friend — and the encounter is short, courteous, and devastating.
Where the canto sits
The pilgrim has just entered the city of Dis through the gate opened by the Heavenly Messenger and stands in the cemetery of the heretics. The canto walks the two poets across the plain of tombs to a specific section: the burial of the Epicureans — those who believed that the soul died with the body. The general doctrine is theological (denial of immortality); the political reality, in thirteenth-century Florence, was specific. The most prominent Florentine Epicureans were members of the great Ghibelline families, particularly the Uberti and the Cavalcanti. Heresy and politics meet in one tomb.
What it helps to know
Farinata degli Uberti (c. 1212–1264) was the head of the Ghibelline party in Florence in the generation before Dante's birth. The Florentine Ghibellines, loyal to the Holy Roman Emperor, were the great opponents of the Guelphs. In 1248 the Ghibellines, under Farinata, expelled the Guelphs from Florence; the Guelphs returned in 1251; in 1260, at the battle of Montaperti, a Ghibelline force in which Farinata played the decisive part destroyed the Guelph army of Florence so completely that, in a later Council of the Empire held at Empoli, the victorious Ghibelline allies proposed to raze Florence to the ground. Farinata alone refused. He defended the city with open face, and Florence was spared. The Guelphs returned in 1267, three years after Farinata's death, and the Uberti name was placed under permanent ban by Florentine law. Dante, born 1265, grew up in a city in which the Uberti were the great public enemy and Farinata the great absent villain. He grew up also knowing that the city he loved existed because of that villain's restraint.
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti was a contemporary and friend of Farinata, the father of the poet Guido Cavalcanti — Dante's primo amico, his first friend, mentor in the dolce stil novo, and the addressee of Dante's Vita Nuova. Guido was a Guelph (the families had married across the factions to make peace). In 1300, the year the journey is set, Guido was alive — Dante had in fact been one of the priors who exiled him to Sarzana in June 1300 — but he was very ill and would die in August of that year. The dramatic irony of the canto turns on this fact: in 1300 Guido is dying; in 1300 the pilgrim does not yet know it; Cavalcante asks after his son, and the pilgrim's answer is the wrong tense.
The doctrine that the heretics here see the future but not the present is one of the strangest pieces of metaphysics in the Inferno. Read for the explanation when it comes; it is delivered as if in passing.
What to read for
Listen for the contrast between the two souls. Farinata rises from the waist upward, his breast forward, his brow scornful, as if he held all Hell in disdain. Cavalcante rises uncovered down to the chin, on his knees, peering anxiously around for his son. Two postures, two souls, two relationships to the burning tomb they share. Notice that Dante does not collapse the two into one. The canto's whole moral architecture lives in the gap between them.
Listen for the pilgrim's grammar. When he answers Cavalcante's question about Guido, the verb he uses is in the past tense — he had (ebbe) — and the past tense is the cause of Cavalcante's collapse. Watch what the canto says with that one word.
Listen for Farinata's prophecy. It is one of the most personal in the Inferno and the second time the pilgrim has been warned, in Hell, about his own exile.
The canto ends with the doctrine on the heretics' partial sight, and with a small reassurance about the journey's end. The reassurance turns on a name that will become the dominant figure of Purgatorio and Paradiso. Listen for whose eyes are coming.
From here on: illustrations and analysis. The three images below are scenes from the canto, and after them comes the close reading — famous lines quoted in full, paradoxes explained, political and theological freight unpacked. If you have not yet read the canto, stop here — read it, then come back.
After reading
What the canto did
Two souls share a single burning tomb, and they are radically unequal to it. Farinata rises from the waist up, breast forward, head lifted, scornful of his own damnation; he talks like a Florentine of the great Ghibelline generation talking to a Florentine of the next Guelph one — that is, like a citizen of the same city, in the same idiom, with the same political loves and hatreds, picking up an argument that has not ended. Cavalcante rises only to the chin, on his knees, asking after his son. The pilgrim's small grammatical error — a verb in the past tense — strikes him down. Farinata, who has not noticed the small drama beside him, resumes the political conversation as if no interruption had occurred. Then a doctrine is delivered, almost in passing, about how the damned see the future and not the present. The canto ends with the two poets walking on. The whole encounter is a few hundred lines and it contains the Inferno's most sustained piece of political reckoning, its most precise piece of dramatic irony, and its strangest piece of speculative metaphysics — all delivered, characteristically, as if Dante did not realise he was doing more than one thing at a time.
Farinata and the political theology of restraint
The historical Farinata degli Uberti was the man who, after the battle of Montaperti in 1260, defended Florence with open face when his victorious Ghibelline allies wanted to raze it. Dante was born five years later into a city that owed its existence to that defence, and into a Guelph political culture that had spent forty years pretending it did not. The canto puts Farinata in the cemetery of the heretics — for the Epicurean doctrine that the soul dies with the body, the specific charge against the great Ghibelline families — and gives him the bearing of a man who refuses to acknowledge his own punishment. From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him. The choice of view is doctrinal: the half of him that is unbowed is the half the canto sees.
Farinata's first question is not theological. It is Who were thine ancestors? — the question one Florentine of the old families would ask another. When Dante names the Alighieri, Farinata recognises them at once: fiercely adverse have they been to me, and to my fathers, and my party; so that two several times I scattered them. The pilgrim, stung, retorts that the Guelphs returned both times, an art which they have not learned aright on your side. The retort wounds Farinata more than the fire of the tomb: that more tormenteth me, he says, than doth this bed. Then comes his prophecy, the second the pilgrim has heard about his own exile: fifty times shall not rekindled be the countenance of the Lady who reigns here — fifty months will not pass; the Moon, the Lady who reigns in Hell, will not be full fifty times — ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art. Within four years and two months, on the standard reckoning, Dante will himself be in exile and will know what the art of returning costs.
And then the great line that has done the work of Farinata's defence ever since: there I was alone, where every one consented to the laying waste of Florence, he who defended her with open face. The man Dante's Guelph childhood was raised to hate is given the moral authority of the canto's most direct sentence about civic love. The poem damns him and gives him the only honourable position in the politics of his generation in one stroke. The canto is teaching the reader to hold two judgments at once.
Cavalcante and the past tense
Cavalcante's question rises in the middle of the political conversation like an emergency. Where is my son? and why is he not with thee? The grammar of the pilgrim's hesitation is the grammar of the canto: and to him — who was the colour of him changed — I said not by myself I come; he there awaiting leads me, perchance, to whom your Guido had disdain. The verb is ebbe — had. Past tense. Cavalcante registers it instantly. How saidst thou — he had? Is he not still alive? Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes? The pilgrim hesitates. Cavalcante reads the hesitation as confirmation. He falls back into the tomb and does not rise again. The whole episode is a half-dozen lines.
The dramatic irony is exact. In the spring of 1300, the date of the journey, Guido Cavalcanti is alive but very ill; he will die in August of that year. The pilgrim of 1300 does not know that Guido will die before the year is out. The poet, writing in exile years later, knows. The past tense slips out because the writing hand knows what the speaking pilgrim does not. Cavalcante mistakes the slip for a report of Guido's death, and because — as the canto will explain — the heretics in their tombs see the future clearly but cannot see the present, he has no other way to check. The father's collapse is built on a metaphysical accident that the writer arranged through grammar. It is one of the most precisely constructed small scenes in any literature.
Farinata, who has been talking to the pilgrim through this exchange, has not noticed it. The canto is exact about that, too. The other, magnanimous, at whose desire I had remained, did not his aspect change, neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side. The political man and the grieving father are in the same tomb and cannot see each other.
The metaphysics of partial sight
When the pilgrim asks how it is that the heretics can foretell his exile but Cavalcante cannot know whether his living son still breathes, Farinata answers without hesitation: we see, like those who have imperfect sight, the things that distant are from us; so much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler. The damned can see the future because the future is distant; they cannot see the present because the present is near. When time itself ends at the Last Judgment, all future will collapse into present, and they will see nothing at all — all our knowledge will be dead. The doctrine is delivered without commentary. It is one of the Commedia's strangest pieces of metaphysics, and it makes the dramatic irony of Cavalcante's collapse theologically necessary: he could not have known his son was alive even if his son had been alive.
The doctrine has a second implication the canto does not press but the reader is meant to feel. The future the heretics see includes the Last Judgment, when their tombs will be closed forever. They live with that knowledge. Farinata's scorn of his bed of fire is the bearing of a man who knows exactly when his bed will be made permanent.
Famous and meaningful passages
The Epicureans named.
Their cemetery have upon this side With Epicurus all his followers, Who with the body mortal make the soul (Inf. X.13–15)
The theological category is precise. The political application — to the Uberti and Cavalcanti families — is left for the reader.
The Tuscan voice.
O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire Goest alive, thus speaking modestly, Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place. (Inf. X.22–24)
The greeting comes out of a tomb because the dialect is familiar. The whole canto turns on the idea that Florence has not stopped being Florence even in Hell.
Farinata rises.
Behold there Farinata who has risen; From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him. (Inf. X.32–33)
The half-view that is the moral measure. The half the canto shows is the half that is unbowed.
The genealogical interrogation.
As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb, Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful, Then asked of me, Who were thine ancestors? (Inf. X.40–42)
The first question of the great political conversation. Not theology; lineage.
The retort accepted.
If, said he, continuing his first discourse, They have that art, he said, not learned aright, That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed. (Inf. X.76–78)
Their failure to return wounds him more than the fire. The greatest sin of the political man — to be unable to forgive a political failure even from inside Hell.
The prophecy.
But fifty times shall not rekindled be The countenance of the Lady who reigns here, Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art (Inf. X.79–81)
Fifty months. Dante's own exile foretold by the man whose family Dante's family helped destroy.
The defence of Florence.
But there I was alone, where every one Consented to the laying waste of Florence, He who defended her with open face. (Inf. X.91–93)
A viso aperto. The single great line that has carried Farinata's reputation for seven centuries. The poem damns him and gives him the moral high ground of civic love.
Cavalcante rises.
Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered Down to the chin, a shadow at his side; I think that he had risen on his knees. (Inf. X.52–54)
Only to the chin, only on his knees. The contrast with Farinata's posture is the canto's structural argument.
The question about Guido.
If through this blind Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius, Where is my son? and why is he not with thee? (Inf. X.58–60)
The father's instinct — if you are here by your gifts, where is the one whose gifts are equal to yours? The praise of Guido and the fear for him in one breath.
The grammatical wound.
How Saidst thou — he had? Is he not still alive? Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes? (Inf. X.67–69)
The reading of the past tense. The whole encounter turns on the verb.
The collapse.
But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire I had remained, did not his aspect change, Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side. (Inf. X.73–75)
Farinata has not noticed. Two souls in one tomb; one collapses, the other resumes his sentence.
The doctrine of partial sight.
We see, like those who have imperfect sight, The things that distant are from us; So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler. (Inf. X.100–102)
The damned have long sight and no near sight. Cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo Duce. A small reluctant grace.
The Frederick.
Within here is the second Frederick, And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not. (Inf. X.119–120)
Farinata names Emperor Frederick II — Hohenstaufen, stupor mundi, the most learned ruler of the thirteenth century, the Ghibelline ideal — and adds the great Ghibelline Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, and then refuses to go further. The list of the heretical great is given as a withholding.
The reassurance.
When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold, From her thou'lt know the journey of thy life. (Inf. X.130–132)
Virgil names Beatrice without naming her. The eyes that all things behold will, in Paradiso, be the doctrinal answer to the heretics' partial sight.
What to watch for
Watch the past tense return. Dante's exile in 1302 will be the historical event the canto foretells. In Paradiso XVII, his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida will give the third and most detailed prophecy of the exile, and will use the same grammar of inevitability.
Watch Guido. The conversation about Cavalcanti — Dante's first friend, his early teacher in poetry, the addressee of the Vita Nuova — leaves the poem here and does not quite return. The next time Dante's poetic genealogy is discussed in detail will be in Purgatorio XI and XXIV, where the poets of the sweet new style are named and graded. Guido's absence from those lists is one of the Comedy's quieter judgments.
Watch the architecture of lower Hell. After this canto the descents will be marked by physical obstacles — the cliff in canto XII, the Minotaur, the centaurs — and by long passages of geological description. The plain of the tombs is the last open space the pilgrim will walk through for many cantos.
This post is part of Reading Divine Comedy, a slow daily companion to Dante's Commedia in the Longfellow translation — read one canto at a time, with a short orientation before and a close reading after. From Inferno I to Paradiso XXXIII.