“IN DEATH HE WAS UNDIVIDED”

Near the beginning of this study, I wrote that what came after would constitute a protracted gloss on Inferno 1, line 85, Dante's address to the character “Virgil” (hereafter Virgilio) as “lo mio maestro e 'l mio autore.” In retrospect, and from the perspective of this final chapter, those words, and indeed the Commedia itself as verbal object, constitute a gloss on, because they are in part a consequence of, the elaborate, uneven process of “self-authorization” described in the preceding six chapters, particularly as this unfolds in Vita Nova, Convivio and De Vulgari Eloquentia. What follows, then, will do triple duty. First, predictably, I offer it as a reading of some aspects of the Commedia “in the light of” the historical context(s) and methodological caveats developed around those works of Dante. From this angle, the poema sacro will figure as yet another example of Dante's long-term engagement with the figure of the auctor and the culture of auctoritas, although, inevitably, as primus inter pares. Secondly, viewed in another way, the Commedia serves simply as a means of verifying the significance that has been attributed to the “other” works, because it repeats, “corrects,” and develops the issues with which they first grappled.