Dante's Purgatorio (Mistry)

Introduction

The Divine Comedy was written by Dante Alighieri and completed in 1320. In short, the story describes Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. This project will focus on Part 2 of the Divine Comedy which is Dante’s travels through Purgatory. In this part, Dante, alongside Virgil, travel up the mountain of Purgatory in which he has to pass through the 7 terraces of sin before reaching the Early Paradise. Along the way, the pair encounter a number of literary visitors that assist them in their way.
This exhibit will focus on Dante as he travels up the mountain of Purgatory. The spaces of focus in this exhibit will be at the base of the mountain, the beginning Terrace of Avaricious, the end of the Terrace of Avaricious, the Terrace of Gluttony, and at the end of the Terrace of Lust before the entrance to the Earthly Paradise.

Space

Dante creates the setting of Purgatory by blurring the line between real and fake. First, Dante immerses himself in his own story by using himself as the main character. In addition, he also uses real people to accompany him in his journey and even references his own work, New Life, in Purgatorio. By using Dante’s reality like this, he writes as he himself is going on this journey of salvation metaphorically through writing a book as he could not do so literally. This sort of reality is set along a fake background that Dante has created. He took Purgatory for being a mountain and uses this for his character’s journey in the Divine Comedy.

In a way Dante uses religious geography as he mixes elements of the afterlife according to Christianity into his space. This is done by having each terrace of the mountain be that of a sin. Meaning, that each terrace is a place for those who committed that sin is punished. Those who are able to make it up the mountain are rewarded to the Earthly Paradise, Heaven. In addition, he also uses the physical geography of a mountain and incorporates that into his story. This can especially be seen in Canto XXI when the mountain shakes and Dante and Virgil find out that it shakes whenever a soul is about to reach Heaven (Alighieri, 520-521). This, thus, mixes religious geography and physical geography. In addition, environmental geography is also expressed in this space as Dante mentions that the mountain is not subjected to weather as how earth is subjected to weather. Further, Purgatory does not experience weather the same way (Alighieri, 520). The physical geography of Purgatory can also be seen in the miniatures that depict Purgatory. Like the ones used in my map, both miniatures depict a typical rocky setting for Purgatory with no greenery. This contrasts with the lush, greenery of the Earthly Paradise that sits on top of the mountain which can be seen in the map.

This space shapes the story as the geography of the mountain is central to Purgatory since Purgatory is a mountain. Essentially the space of the story is central to Dante’s journey since this is a sort of fictional space created for the purpose of Purgatorio. In addition, creating a space such that of the Mountain of Purgatory as weather-less gives in to how Purgatory is an in-between space that may resemble earth, through its terrain, but is not actually earth, given its lack of weather. Also, having the mountain as an island surrounded by water plays into how Purgatory is isolated and that you cannot escape. The isolated mountain shows how you cannot escape from Purgatory until you have repented your sins. The space of the mountain is also an inverted tunnel which is the space of Inferno. Further, just as Dante was climbed down the funnel, he is now climbing up the inverted funnel, the mountain, to reach the Earthy Paradise. Also creating the space of Purgatory as a mountain gives into how one has to reach for Heaven. In a way the soul would have to climb the mountain just as they have to climb towards heaven which is high above.

Digital Map

This map illustrates, accompanies, and re-interprets the story of Dante’s journey through Purgatory as it allows his story to come alive by highlighting some of the key moments in his travels. The map starts with a point right when Dante is at the base of the mountain and the map ends when Dante has already travelled up the mountain and is about to enter the Earthly Paradise. This way, readers can start their journey of going through my map just as Dante starts his journey in Purgatory and readers can also finish reading my map just as Dante has finished his journey up the Mountain of Purgatory.

The exhibit starts with Dante (the bold words mark the map’s point of interests) making sense of where he is after leaving Hell. This leaves Dante standing with Virgil at the bottom of the Mountain of Purgatory. This is where the pair looks out at the water and sees the celestial pilot delivering souls to Purgatory. Following this, he and Virgil continue up the mountain and all the Terraces. Eventually, the pair make it to the Terrace of Avaricious where they are joined by Statius. At the end of this terrace they walk up to the next terrace as Statius and Virgil talk and Dante following the pair. Following this terrace, the trio makes it up to the Terrace of Gluttony where they are then joined by Bonagiunta Orbicciana and she discusses with Dante his own work, New Life. Bonagiunta does not continue with the trio as they make their way up to the last terrace, the Terrace of Lust. Upon leaving this terrace they are blocked by an angel before entering the Earthy Paradise. The Earthy Paradise marks the end of Purgatorio and the beginning of Paradiso. The beginning of the Earthy Paradise will also mark the end of my map

From mapping the story of Dante I got to see a visual side to his story. This is something I would not have experienced if I had just only read the story. By this I mean I got to see visual or auditory components to his story that enhanced and made more engaging the story. By looking at miniatures, I was able to see artist renditions of how that scene could have played out with the given outfits of different characters and settings as they ascend up the mountain. Also, by seeing different artist renditions I get to see how others interpreted the scene. By having an audio of the song the souls sang while on the way to Purgatory, I could immerse myself in the scene and picture what it could have seen and heard like. Having an audio clip is more sensory than just having an image and I feel like having a strong representational object like this to represent my first point is well-fitting. In addition, having manuscript pages to also accompany the points in my digital map enhanced my way of learning about the novel instead of just simply reading it by providing me with supplements that were produced around the same time of the Divine Comedy. The supplements help me to understand the scene more by providing me with 14-15^th century manuscript pages of what the text is referring to or describing.

Although difficult, the digital mapping experience was rewarding. I was able to learn a new software that I was completely unaware about. Also, for not being tech-savvy, I was able to produce a digital map that I am proud of. Learning to use Omeka and Neatline took time but once I had the proper instruction, most of the work is inputting data which is repetitive and did not make the project seem as hard as I had initially thought. Through this project, I also learned how to better use online repositories. Through researching in various repositories, I learned so much about different historical objects especially the ones I chose to map.

This learning experience adds to the discussion of medieval maps in class as I am mixing the past with the present. The medieval maps are being enhanced through modern interventions like Omeka and Neatline to make the map more than just being 2 dimensional.

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. “Divine Comedy,” in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, vol. B, ed.

Martin Punch (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012).

Alighieri, Dante. “MS. Holkham misc. 48: Roll 389.2 frame 44, p. 100 (detail) Purgatorio, Canto
XXII. Statius and Virgil conversing, Dante listens.” Bodelain Library. Accessed March 4,

2018.
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/holkham/misc/048.b.htm

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. “Manuscript - Chigiano L VIII 305”. Digital Vatican Library.
Accessed March 4, 2018.
https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Chig.L.VIII.305

British Library. “Egerton 943, f. 100v, Dante and Virgil meet Statius”. Catalogue of Illuminated
            Manuscripts. Accessed March 4, 2018.
            http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=1
            0414

Caetani, Michelangelo. “Caetani, The Ordering of Purgatory, 1855”. Cornell University Library:
Digital Collections. Accessed March 23, 2018.

https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:3293775

Delft, Dirc van. “Eight Beatitudes”. Walters Art Museum. Accessed April 4, 2018.

art.thewalters.org/detail/81625/eight-beatitudes/

Mazzuchi, A. “The Vita Nuova; Manuscript and Editorial History”. Internetculturale.it. Accessed
March 4, 2018.
http://www.internetculturale.it/opencms/directories/ViaggiNelTesto/dante/eng/b9.html

Vox-Nostra. “Ensemble.” VOX NOSTRA. Accessed March 4, 2018.
http://www.vox-nostra.de/ENGLISCH/ensemble.php

Vox Nostra. Gregorian Chant: In exitu Israel de Aegypto from Veri solis radius: Gregorian
Chants. K&K Verlagsanstalt Kuk119, 2015, audio file.