Home Literary Studies 3 Pier Delia Vigna
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

3 Pier Delia Vigna

View more publications by University of Toronto Press
To Publisher Page
Dante's Fearful Art of Justice
This chapter is in the book Dante's Fearful Art of Justice
3 PIER DELLA VIGNA Historians and literary critics generally divide into two camps concerning Pier della Vigna.1 Historians, though giving lip service to the greatness of the Commedia, usually see Dante as only a rather poor, somewhat biased, secondary source for the facts of Piero's guilt and death. While litterati have often taken Piero's words in the Poem at face value and declared his tragic innocence, historians examine contemporary documents and declare his ignominious guilt.2 There is, critics must accept, ample historic evidence of the Notary's criminality, not of lèse majesté, but of corruption in office, perver-sion of justice, and self-enrichment at the expense of the innocent and the state. In addition, a close examination of the contrapasso through the epi-sode's major images and a new analysis of the iconography of the cantos show that the Poet, far from exculpating his personage, considers him guilty, not only of suicide, but indeed of other crimes which led, in the view of an ortho-dox Christian, typically, dogmatically, and almost inexorably to it. Though the greater number of Dante scholars now distinguish between 'Dante Poet' and 'Dante Wayfarer,' earlier critics examining these cantos, almost without exception, ignored this useful separation and missed the moral and anagogical message. They accepted the narrow view of Dante Way-farer, sympathizing without reflection with Piero's protestation of innocence and with the sense of loss and despair he suffers through eternity. Their opinion sets aside the objective judgment of Dante Poet as a reflection of divine justice, and ignored that this very judgment condemned Piero to the circle of the violent, amidst the horror and repugnance of a trackless waste, a poisonous wood populated with filthy harpies, resounding with moans and cries of despair and pain. The view that Dante celebrated Pier della Vigna as a romantic, great-souled hero is unacceptable in the context of the Poem as a whole and does not square with the Poet's severe concept of divine justice.
© 2017 University of Toronto Press, Toronto

3 PIER DELLA VIGNA Historians and literary critics generally divide into two camps concerning Pier della Vigna.1 Historians, though giving lip service to the greatness of the Commedia, usually see Dante as only a rather poor, somewhat biased, secondary source for the facts of Piero's guilt and death. While litterati have often taken Piero's words in the Poem at face value and declared his tragic innocence, historians examine contemporary documents and declare his ignominious guilt.2 There is, critics must accept, ample historic evidence of the Notary's criminality, not of lèse majesté, but of corruption in office, perver-sion of justice, and self-enrichment at the expense of the innocent and the state. In addition, a close examination of the contrapasso through the epi-sode's major images and a new analysis of the iconography of the cantos show that the Poet, far from exculpating his personage, considers him guilty, not only of suicide, but indeed of other crimes which led, in the view of an ortho-dox Christian, typically, dogmatically, and almost inexorably to it. Though the greater number of Dante scholars now distinguish between 'Dante Poet' and 'Dante Wayfarer,' earlier critics examining these cantos, almost without exception, ignored this useful separation and missed the moral and anagogical message. They accepted the narrow view of Dante Way-farer, sympathizing without reflection with Piero's protestation of innocence and with the sense of loss and despair he suffers through eternity. Their opinion sets aside the objective judgment of Dante Poet as a reflection of divine justice, and ignored that this very judgment condemned Piero to the circle of the violent, amidst the horror and repugnance of a trackless waste, a poisonous wood populated with filthy harpies, resounding with moans and cries of despair and pain. The view that Dante celebrated Pier della Vigna as a romantic, great-souled hero is unacceptable in the context of the Poem as a whole and does not square with the Poet's severe concept of divine justice.
© 2017 University of Toronto Press, Toronto

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Note on Works Cited and Abbreviations xi
  5. 1 Justice and the Contrapasso 1
  6. 2 Farinata 15
  7. 3 Pier Delia Vigna 32
  8. 4 Avarice and Suicide 43
  9. 5 The Gran Veglio 57
  10. 6 The Idolaters 66
  11. 7 Ulysses 83
  12. 8 Satan 96
  13. List of Plates 105
  14. Notes 109
  15. Index 175
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442652606-005

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Note on Works Cited and Abbreviations xi
  5. 1 Justice and the Contrapasso 1
  6. 2 Farinata 15
  7. 3 Pier Delia Vigna 32
  8. 4 Avarice and Suicide 43
  9. 5 The Gran Veglio 57
  10. 6 The Idolaters 66
  11. 7 Ulysses 83
  12. 8 Satan 96
  13. List of Plates 105
  14. Notes 109
  15. Index 175
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 23.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442652606-005/html?licenseType=restricted&srsltid=AfmBOopZpRLge4zSr73x2deXDQ7WKRLwWuregdA58zKhzji0EAXaAnnj
Scroll to top button