Conosceva
Dante,
specie quanto ad Inferno XXVIII,
gli scritti islamologici di Riccoldo? | ▼
Conosceva
Dante,
(12 dic. 2005) Dear all,
Given the interest in 'Islam in Europe', I would like to point out a website that has been online since 2000 but may have escaped to the attention of members of our list (I too have run into it only recently, and still feel the shock...):
http://utenti.lycos.it/emilioweb/index.html
[!, da inizio '08 in : http://www.e-theca.net/emiliopanella/index.html ]
Don't be deceived by the web design. The site is by Emilio Panella, well known for his excellent studies on Riccoldo da Monte di Croce. His website publishes a wealth of materials on (or by) Riccoldo, Remigio dei Girolami and others, including electronic editions of Riccoldo's famous letter from Bagdad, of his Liber peregrinationis and of his Libellus ad nationes. Much to my regret, the writing I myself am most interested in, Riccoldo's Contra legem sarracenorum, is not among these electronic texts. Riccoldo was one important missionary and traveller who transmitted knowledge of things Islamic to the West. His intellectual seed (as we were speaking of fertilisation :-) made its way also to his Florentine compatriote Dante, who seems to have been familiar with Contra legem -- at least according to my own study of Dante's sources -- in his presentation of Mohammed and Ali in Inf. XXVIII.
What I find difficult to understand is why a treasure of this spectacular quality is hidden on a Lycos website and almost buried by Lycos ads.
Kind regards, O. Lieberknecht
-----------
Dr. Otfried Lieberknecht,
D-40477 Duesseldorf, Klever Strasse 37;
mailto:otfried@lieberknecht.de
At 11:45 12.12.2005
Dear Dr. Otfried Lieberknecht,
Thanks so much for your letter (was it a circular letter for your colleagues?). I'm not a professional webmaster, but on the whole the site works and it is consulted. Preference was given to my personal pubblications and unpublished texts, hence Contra legem is not where, because recentely published, as you know. Website gratuitous, so... buried by Lycos ads!Please let me know other suggestions and even critiques.
Did Dante really know Riccoldo's Contra legem? I doubt about it. But I'm very interested in your research and would be very thankful if you send me a copy of your pubblications on the matter.
Thanks so much. Best whishes and friendly greetings.
Emilio Panella.
■ Contra legem ora (2010) anch'essa in rete, ricontrollata nel testo originale, traduzione italiana in corso!
Dear Father Panella,
I am not sure whether this is the right way to address you, but if not, please don't hesitate to tell me!
Thank you first for your kind response! My mail was actually directed to a mailing list "medieval-religion", based in the UK and shared by several hundreds scholars all over the world.
If you are interested, you can view the mail archives at the following address:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
We would of course be highly pleased to receive you as a member (see the link "Subscriber's corner" at the above address). Your website actually is what I wrote: a treasure, especially for somebody like me who has been practically exiled from libraries and academic life for almost six years. My remarks about your webdesign (which is technically admirable but also plays some navigational tricks one has to get used to) and about Lycos where of course not meant to be unfriendly, yet they were maybe a bit unrespectful, and I am therefore especially grateful for your your kind response.
As regards Dante and Riccoldo, I did my work on Inf. 28 back in the eighties and early nineties, and I have to admit that at this time I had not yet become aware of your studies. What I knew about Riccoldo was gathered from Mandonnet, Dondaine, Mérigoux (whom I recall as particularly unreliable), Cerulli, d'Alverny and Kaeppeli's Index. The only text of Contra legem that I had (apart from sparse quotations in d'Alverny and others) was the Greek translation (I don't read Greek) and Latin retranslation in Migne. In addition I had consulted the Berlin MS of the Liber peregrinationis (I was living in Berlin at the time) and Le Long's French translation (in the print of Hethum's Histoire merveilleuse, Paris 1529). As you see, I had only begun to make some preliminary steps but was still far from being prepared for doing anything serious with Riccoldo's writings.
The focus of my study had been on the biblical and patristic sources or subtexts of Inf. 28, and Dante's sources on Islam had been only a sideline of my research. There are three reasons why I think that Contra legem could have been a source for Inf. 28:
1) D. is presenting Mohammed together with Ali. Ali is not mentioned very frequently in medieval Latin or venracular sources. Yet Contra legem is not the only source where D. could have drawn his knowledge on Ali (and it is also not very clear from Inf. 28 what precisely he knew about Ali and his role in history). Jacques de Vitry's Historia orientalis, for example, gives two accounts of Ali as if dealing with two different persons, one about a "socer Mahometi, Achali nomine" which is based on a short Latin digest of Pseudo-Kindi's Disputatio sarraceni et christiani (more precisely, on a Latin test independent of the Disputatio translated by Peter of Poitiers, but dependent on a similar Arabic source), the other about a "patruelis Mahometi, nomine Haly - which is based on Guillaume de Tyr.
2) D. is presenting Mohammed with a punishment which reflects two biblical subtexts and their traditional typological understanding. One is the death of Judas according to Act 1,18: Mohammed is split "dal mento" downwards (i.e. the sword is cutting through his throat), and his bowels are gushing out of his belly. Judas had been interpreted (by Beda et al.) as a type of heretics like Arius, and his death as the kind of contrapasso which heretics like Arius had to expect. (By the way, the parallel between Mohammed and Judas is reflected and confirmed in the end of the canto, where Bertran de Born compares himself with Ahitofel, another Judas type, according to exegetic tradition: but I will rather leave this aside for the moment.) The other biblical subtext, for Mohammed's spiritual rather than for his bodily punishment, is the punishment of Dives in Hell (Luke 16,19ss.): Like Dives looking up to Abraham and Lazarus and asking Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers "ne et ipsi veniant in locum hunc tormentorum", Mohammed too is looking up to Vergil and Dante and is asking Dante (asking him in this case directly, not through Vergil) to bring a warning message to 'brother' Dolcino, warning Dolcino to arm himself with food in his fight against the Church (or the "Noarese") "s'egli non vuol qui tosto seguitarmi". Ambrose had interpeted Dives as a figure of the unbelieving Jews (who deny the bread of biblical doctrine to the gentiles), and he had also associated him with Arianism and heresy, calling his five brothers "Manicheum Marcionem Sabellium Arrium Fotinumque - isti enim non aliud quam fratres sunt Iudaeorum, quibus perfidiae germanitate nectuntur". Both biblical subtexts (Judas and Dives) and their patristic exegesis can explain why Mohammed is presented with his vitals at display, and why he is neverheless so concerned about food in his warning to Fra Dolcino. But it seems that there is also a very precise anti-islamic sense of this arrangement, if you view Mohammed's punishment in the context of the Aristotelian notion of the three potentia animae, namely the potentia vegetativa (procreation, nutrition, growth, preservation of species and individual life): Mohammed is split through his throat (organ of respiration and nutrition), "dal mento fin dove si trulla", which also implies a splitting of his sexual (procreative) organs. His inner vital organs (respiration, digestion, including also il tristo sacco / che merda fa di quel che si trangugia, i.e. defaecation) are gushing out, and he is conspiciously concerned about his 'brother' Dolcino (member of his haeretic species) having enough food to preserve his material live.
I will spare you a longer explanation how this arrangement is developed further by the punishment of the other five "seminator di scandalo e di scisma" (the splitting of Ali's face is not obviously related to a specific potentia animae, but Pier da Medicina, Curio and Mosca Lamberti are punished in organs of the five senses, and in the end of the canto Betran de Born swings his severed head "a guisa di lanterna" and as a tremendous illustration of the rational faculty). Now it seems to me that D.s stressing of Mohammed's vegetative faculties in Hell has to be seen in the context of scholastic discussions of Islamic notions of Paradise: discussions of this kind had recurred to the Aristoelian concept of the vegative faculties when refuting these Islamic notions, namely the notion of eating and drinking (implying also digesting and defecating) real food in the Other World, and the notion of begetting children there. Riccoldo's Contra legem takes up some of these arguments, yet D. might of course have had other and more detailled sources for this particular subject.
3) If Mohammed, Dante-pilgrim and Vergil are actually reenacting Dives, Lazarus and Abrahm, the parallel between Vergil (coming directly from Limbus, which is just another term for the 'sinus Abrahae') and Abraham must probably be interpreted in the light of the importance of Abraham for Mohammed and Islam. In D.'s canto, Mohammed first addresses himself to D.-pilgrim and takes him for a soul who is trying to delay his own punishment (i.e. in a deeper place of Hell). There is a certain notion of refrigerium in this first speech of Mohammed, as there is one in Dives' first speech (asking for Lazarus to refresh his tongue with water), but it's not a very close parallel. It is Vergil who rejects this idea (remotely similar to Abrahm rejecting Dive's demand), explaining to Mohammed that the pilgrim is actually a living person elected to see the Other World. Vergil's speech makes a certain sense in the context of the biblical model, because the fact that Dives (or the damned in general) can 'see' Lazarus (or the elected) and can be seen vice versa used to be explained in the sense that the damned have a confuse notion of what they have lost and mentally suffer by it, whereas the elected enjoying the visio Dei are of course fully aware of this pain and are highly delighted by it. However, the fact that Vergil presents the pilgrim actually as one who already during his lifetime has been elected to see the Other World seems also more specifically a palinody to Mohammed's own pretentions of this kind. Again D. did not really need Contra legem, but could have had other and more detailled sources for Mohammed's journey, in the Liber scalae he could even have found an episode where Mohammed encounters Abraham in person (in paradise, of course) and receives a confirmation (one of many) of his divine legate.
As you see, my three reasons are not solid proof but can only suggest a possibility. Contra legem is the only source that I am aware of where Dante could have found all three elements together (Ali, discussion of vegetative functions in the Other World, Mohammed's Journey), but he could also have drawn them from three different sources, and there might of course be other texts presenting them together and that I am not aware of. Dante's early commentators (not counting Fazio degli Uberti, at least not for the moment) seem to have had no knowledge of Riccoldo, and their glosses do not show any trace of Contra legem. The only one where I am not entirely certain is Pietro Alighieri. The three redactions of his gloss on Mohammed are particularly tedious to analyse with regard to his sources. But it might be that the names of the "complices" which he adduces together with Ali present a certain parallel. His second redaction (Cod. Cass.) adduces "baietta ficcen [?] predictus et abdias" (the ominous 'ficcen' is earlier described as a jew), whereas Contra legem (drawing on the Alpholica) has (chap. XIII):
"Adhesit enim ei quidam Iacobita, nomine Baheyra, et fuit cum Mahomete fere usque ad mortem; fertur quoque quod Mahometus postea interfecit eum; et quidam Iudei, scilicet Finees, et Abdia nomine Salon, postea dictus Abdalla nomine Sellem, et facti sunt Saraceni� (quoted by d'Alverny and Vajda after B.N. fonds lat. 4230, f. 176) .
It seems to me that the trias of Bahira (baietta?), Finees (ficcen?) and Abd Allah ibn Salam ("Abdia nomine Salon", "abdias"?) is peculiar for chap. XIII of Contra legem. In the first redaction of Pietro's gloss (ed. Nannucci), the name of the first teacher is not Bahira, but Nicolaus, yet the two other names are again very untypical for D's early commentators: "<aliqui Christiani> et Judaei haeretici et scismatici, inter quos fuit Alis, dictus Nicolaus <et Sicce> et Sellem et facti sunt omnes cum eo Saraceni". Pietro's glosses can also be compared with Fazio degli Uberti's list, yet I find Cors's text quite unsatisfying (he occasionally uses Niketas for resolving textual cruces in Fazio's adaptation of Riccoldo!): "Abidalla e Baora, / Adian, Salem con la magica mente" (ed. Corsi), or ?Abidola e Baora, / Adiam, Facem con la magica mente" (as quoted by D'Ancona). I am not sure what to make of all this, but as Pietro and Fazio had both spent considerable time in Verona and may have known each other, and as Fazio had succeeded to find a copy of Contra legem (and other sources on Mohammed as well), I would not exclude the possibility that Pietro too could have been influenced by Riccoldo. Pietro, it is true, was certainly not one to go 'ad fontes': he is an awful case of second hand quotator and borrows almost everything from legal handbooks. So the chances are low that he would have cared to look up a book like Contra legem. His father however might have done so, because he was apparently very concerned to base his presentation of Mohammed on more than only popular legends and mere intuition. And he too spent considerable time in Verona.
Now that I have bored you with a very long mail (longer than courtesy would permit, though not long enough for explaining my ideas very well), I wonder if you would still be so kind to explain your doubts regarding Dante and Contra legem (and it does not have to be a long explanation!). The question itself is not of crucial importance for my interpretation of Inf. 28, but I would certainly like to know your opinion! I should add that I have never fnished my study of Inf. 28 and have published only some quite unsatisfying papers on Dante's Mohammed (availabel at my website www.lieberknecht.de). I had pursued this study for several years and had meant to present it as my doctoral thesis, but in the end, when I thought that I would need still more years to finish it, I decided to present rather something else (a very hastily concocted general discussion of allegory in Dante). Afterwards, when I could not find an academic position, I was forced to take up an entirely different line of work in order to sustain my family (which has broken up since, to add pain to injury...). Today I am working in the telecommunications industry, doing work which is extremely stupid (ringtones and the like) but is probably what one deserves for devoting too much time to research without regard of family and career!
With kind regards and best wishes, Otfried Lieberknecht
Dr Otfried Lieberknecht,
Grazie infinite della sua ricchissima nota sulle fonti islamiche di Dante, e rapporto con Riccoldo. Letta e meditata con attenzione Si vede bene la sua specialistica preparazione dantesca. Congratulazioni.
La mia opinione?
Mi faccia sapere. Ho visto e consultato www.lieberknecht.de. Beh! si vede che lei è del mestiere in fatto di website. Congratulazioni.
Emilio Panella OP
Piazza Santa Maria Novella 18 - 50123 Firenze
Tel. 055 2646336
Dear Father Panella
Many thanks for pointing me to your new website, and especially to your gloss about Ricoldo and Dante! Also please excuse that I am writing in English: I still read Italian without too much difficulty and always enjoy reading it, but I have had so little active practice over the past years in writing or speaking it that that I will rather not bother you with the remnants of my broken Italian!
When I received your response in 2005, I did not argue with you, mostly because I share your conclusion that there is no solid proof for Dante's knowledge of Contra legem (or of other writings of Riccoldo's). I have no better to offer today, because I am still earning my and my family's bread in the telecommunication's industry and find it difficult to resume my earlier studes. However, I would like to point out where I see things from a slightly different angle than you:
1. Nessun elemento del racconto dantesco in Inferno XXVIII esige Riccoldo. Bisognerebbe trovare almeno un elemento sconosciuto alle fonti e leggende medievali sull�islàm e presente invece nel solo Riccoldo. Soltanto allora avremmo la prova che Dante conoscesse il Contra legem. Del resto il genio dantesco è più abbandonato all'elaborazione poetico-passionale che a riferire notizie cronachistiche.
The first sentence is absolutely true
with regard to each of the three parallels that have raised my own interest.
Dante could have taken each of these details from other sources. Ali is absent
from most medieval sources on Mohammed, but present, for instance, in Guillaume
de Tyr, in Latin sources based on Pseudo-Kindi's Apologia and in Jacque de
Vitry's Historia Orientalis, which is conflating both traditions. Presenting
Mohammed with a punishment which puts particular stress on the vegetative
faculty of the soul does certainly not reflect widely diffused notions about
Mohammed and Islam, but may be informed by other sources than Riccoldo, i.e.
scholastic refutations of Mohammed's view of the delights of Paradise, as
they have been studied by Cerulli in William of Auvergne and Benedict of
Alignan. And the possible palinody to Mohammed's own pretentions of having been
elected, during his lifetime, to visit the Other World, which may (or may not)
be grasped from Vergil's presenta tion of Dante-viaggiatore in their encounter
with Mohammed, does not necessarily require Riccoldo's account of these
pretentions in his Contra legem, but might depend on the Liber Scalae Mahometi
or other (scarce) sources divulgating this detail in the West and investigated
by Cerulli and others.
However, if we apply the principle that "fontes non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem", Riccoldo's Contra legem is still the only Occidental text -- as far as I can tell -- that could account for all three (or for the first two) elements together. This is not proof, but it is just the best tentative result that I was able to reach when comparing Inf. 28 with medieval traditions on Mohammed and the history or teachings of Islam.
2. Questo "no" riporta a riconsiderare le implicanze cronologiche. Riccoldo, appena rientrato dal medioriente, redige in Firenze nel 1300 il Contra legem. Dante "guelfo bianco" è dei priori cittadini nel bimestre giugno-agosto 1300. Tempi di drammatici conflitti cittadini tra bianchi/neri. Il poeta abbandona per sempre Firenze tra fine 1301 e inizio '02 (la sua condanna a morte è del 10.III.1302).
Dante may well have been aware of Riccoldo's return to Florence, but I would certainly not want to base anything on the possibility of a personal encounter or on personal relations not attested anywhere.
3. Dante fu veramente interessato e si dette da fare per provvedersi una copia del Contra legem? per documentarsi su specifici temi islamici? In Firenze entro il biennio 1300-01, pressoché in contemporanea con la composizione riccoldiana? O in esilio? dopo la frattura con Firenze; dove?, prima d'ideare la Commedia e prima di comporre Inferno XXVIII (1307-1310 ca.).
Fu veramente interessato, sì! Dante's
interest was far from being superficial, and his presentation of Mohammed is by
no means the spontaneous, passionate response drawing purely on realistic and
vulgar details and informed only by a popular legend, that some commentators
have believed to find in Inf. 28. His presentation of Mohammed is probably the
most mindful, the intellectually (and of course poetically) most elaborate and
maybe also the most learned text ever produced by a medieval Christian author
about this subject. Passionate, yes, but driven by passions that are controlled
by intellect and poetic artcraft. His interest can be proven with regard to the
biblical, patristic and Aristotelian subtexts of this episode, and with regard
to the way how this episode is so carefully placed within the composition of
this canto and the numerically "perfect" arrangement of its fourteen historical
"scandala", ranging from the Italian wars of the "Troiani" to Achitofel's and
Absalom's re bellion against David (contemporary events, the synchronicity of
which, according to the Convivio, was one of divine pointers in pre-Christian
history foreshadowing the plenitudo temporis to be achieved by the incarnation
of Christ). His interest in Mohammed's doctrine may have been limited by
prejudice and by a priori rejection, and I doubt that he would cared to devote
careful studies to a Latin translation of the Alchoran, whereas the Liber Scalae
would probably have incited more interest. But he was at least aware of certain
elements of Islamic doctrine (and of their Christian refutation) which
demonstrate the learned character of his interest, not easily satisfied by
popular legends, but obviously informed by theological or apologetic Latin
writings. As regards his interest in Mohammed's history or biography, what you
term "notizie cronachistiche", he probably knew the popular legend turning
Mohammed into a Christian apostate, but his presentation of Mohammed together
with Ali clearly demonstrates that he was depending on a more learned tradition.
Dante's interest in biographic detail is never a purpose in itself, but his way
of using such details for other purposes can throw new light on the reasons why
he was interested in such details at all.
All this does not mean that he would have gone long ways to provide a copy of Riccoldo's Contra legem. But this book, written by a compatriote and by a teacher of one of the two orders which had so deeply influenced his own intellectual and spiritual development would certainly have been of interest to him if it had been available in one of the libraries that he must have consulted, in this case rather during his exile than during the short time when Dante and Riccoldo happened to be living together in Florence. We know practically nothing about the ways how and the places where Dante was able to pursue his studies during the years of his exile. My own primary interest used to be (and still is) in his patristic and exegetical sources, which, I believe, have been seriously underrated by the earlier and still more philologically oriented schools of Dante studies which I nevertheless admire, whereas sources of this kind use to be adduced more frequently, but often in a rather loose a nd negligent way by certain more recent Dante scholars which I tend to admire a bit less. In Inf. 28 it can be demonstrated that Dante must have had a copy of Ambrose's Expositio in Lucam under his eyes, where he must have meditated about the relations between two distant chapters which Amborse himself had connected only by a passing reference. The depth of patristic learning which can be traced in Inf. 28 and elsewhere seems to suggest that he had access to libraries well equipped with theological books, university libraries or monastic libraries that he may have visited during the years of his exile. Verona, where later Fazio degli Uberti (who claims that he had searched long for it) came to study Riccoldo's book and where also Dante's son Pietro may have picked up a passage based on it (though I don't claim that in his case Riccoldo's influence can be taken for granted), would be one place deserving special interest for investigating the ways how Dante could have become acquain ted with Riccoldo's Contra legem.
Unfortunately, the ignorance which I had to admit to you already in 2005 regarding the text and early transmission of Contra legem has not improved until today. My family life with four children, and my extremely stupid, but consuming work in the telecommunications industry do not leave me much time for studies, and the little time that I have I use to waste with electronic ressources accessible on the internet, which have the advantage, compared with books in non-virtual libraries, that they can be browsed manu nocturna.
4. Il "sì" o il "no" alla questione coinvolge molto di più della semplice utilizzazione di notizie. Nulla della teologia delle religioni e della salvezza fuori della Chiesa, che assilla Riccoldo, si ritrova in Dante; che era interessato a ben altro. E nessuna notizia usata da costui esige lettura delle opere di Riccoldo.
My ignorance (or my past and superficial reading based, as you know, only on the Latin retranslation) prevent me from understanding clearly what you are referring to: I did not notice at the time that Riccoldo was in any way haunted by notions of a possible salvation outside the Church. Also I am certainly not the type of reader that Dante deserves for understanding the theological depths or hights of his work. I believe to have developed a certain ability for spotting and corroborating well calculated intertextual parallels especially with biblical subtexts in their patristic (or later medieval) understanding, but I have never reached (nor even tried) more than finding and combining pieces of a puzzle, which is still very incomplete but already complete enough to suggest certain reservations regarding the validity of existing notions of Dante's theology. You may well be right that Dante's work shows no trace of any influence of Riccoldo's theological thought, and this may or may not be evidence against the possibility that he might nevertheless have used certain "notizie" found in this book. But, to be frank, I would like the question of a possible deeper influence of Riccoldo's thought in Inf. 28 to be reconsidered at a later stage, when I will have been able to present my more relevant (and also more solid) findings about Inf. 28 in a coherent manner. The short papers that I have linked on my homepage are not appropriate for this task, and I hope that I will still somehow be able to replace them with a book.
5. Fino a prova contraria! E sarò felice di prenderne atto. Se non altro, a motivo della straordinaria valenza storiografica che coinvolge "conoscenza delle opere di Riccoldo da parte di Dante".
As you see, I have no proof to offer. I also doubt that valid evidence proving my hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt can ever be found even if there may be better supporting evidence than I can supply so far. The best and probably only way to close this question with a firm "no", however, would be to present a better, safer hypothesis.
Wishing you the best, also for your own studies,
Otfried Lieberknecht
13/11/2008 02:57