Paradiso, Canto 15

Purchase Joe Carlson's translation of Paradiso

Summary

The souls of the warriors of God cease their singing in order that Dante may converse with one of them who, like a shooting star, speeds to the foot of the Cross. In answer to Dante’s question, the spirit reveals himself as his ancestor and describes the simple virtues of the citizens of twelfth-century Florence.

The Prepatory Lecture

Click here if video doesn't appear.

Questions for Reflection

• In the heaven of Mars Dante meets crusaders and righteous warriors, likening them to the martyrs. What do you think of this comparison? Does it still work in a contemporary Christian context? Is Dante ultimately celebrating war and violence or is he celebrating peace?
• Dante’s main conversation partner in the heaven of Mars is his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida. Why might Dante choose to give us a father-son dynamic at this point in Paradiso (think back to Inferno 15)?
• Dante likens his meeting with Cacciaguida with Aeneas meeting his father Anchises from Virgil’s Aeneid. Cacciaguida’s first words to Dante are all in Latin, another suggestion of Virgil’s influence. Why might Dante want us to associate Cacciaguida and Virgil with each other? How does this recall the way that Virgil fathered Dante’s moral and growth in the beginning of the Comedy?
• What are Cacciaguida’s first words that Dante can understand (15.46-48)? How do these words tie the spiritual and personal journeys of Dante together?

Paradiso, Canto 15 © Jan Hearn

The Images

Cacciaguida: The existence of this great-great-grandfather of Dante (see Genealogical Tables, p. 397) is attested by a document (still preserved in Florence) which refers to his two sons. Apart from this, we have no independent testimony concerning him. From Dante we learn that he served in the Second Crusade under the Emperor Conrad III, by whom he was knighted, and that he died in battle against the Infidel about the year 1147. He was born in Florence about 1090 of one of the old Florentine families who claimed Roman descent; from his wife, who came from the region of the river Po, the surname of Alighieri was derived.

In the story, this encounter between Dante and his illustrious ancestor is one of the most poignant and climactic moments in the poem. Of all the souls with whom he has conversed in Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, this is the one from whom his life-blood flows. Cacciaguida claims him insistently as his ‘blood’, his ‘seed’, his ‘son’, his ‘branch’, and renders thanks to God for the measureless grace whereby his descendant has visited Heaven. The link, so intimate and personal, between ancestor and scion, is also the link between past, present and future which binds all men in an unending chain of heritage. From Cacciaguida to Dante flows not only the blood of illustrious forbears but also the past events of Borence, the history of Christendom, the inheritance of sin and of redemption, the burden and the glory of the Cross.

Florence of olden times: The ideal of twelfth-century Borence as a free Commune, confined within her ancient walls and peopled by upright and simple-living republicans, is conveyed by Cacciaguida in moving and nostalgic terms, mingled with stern reproach for the immoral influences which have since corrupted the city. In the allegory, the decline of morals in Florence is an instance of that widespread increase of evil throughout the world, the causes of which are the subject of Inferno and Purgatory, the remedy for which Dante believes it to be his mission to proclaim.

Tom LA Books