Divine Symmetry: Dante and the Renaissance

(Paradiso, Canto XI): St. Francis, St. Dominic and the Divine Proportion

The souls of wise people look to the future state of their existence; all of their thoughts are concentrated toward eternity.

~ Cicero

Welcome to Dante Read-Along! ✨

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Welcome to Dante Book Club, where you and I descend into Hell and Purgatory to be able to ascend to Paradise. Our guide in Paradise is Beatrice, and in this eleventh Canto of the Paradiso, we learn of the poverty of St. Francis. You can find the main page of the read-along right here, reading schedule here, and the list of chat threads here.

In each post you can find a brief summary of the canto, philosophical exercises that you can draw from it, themes, character, and symbolism explanations.

All the wonderful illustrations are done specially for the Dante Read-Along by the one and only Luana Montebello.

This Week’s Circle ⭕️

The follies of earthly endeavors - Aquinas divines Dante’s questions - Two cryptic phrases - Two princes of the church, St. Francis and St. Dominic - Aquinas tells the life of St. Francis - Dedication to Lady Poverty - He criticizes the followers of the Dominicans, his own order - One question answered, another yet to come.

Canto XI Summary:

Dante scorned the false reasoning and misguided judgment of those earthly endeavors which, lacking the higher purposes of virtue and love, only draw down with heaviness those that practice them; they had forgotten that they had wings with which to fly upward, forgetting the divine for the hope of earthly success.

He called out the manifestations of these wrongly intentioned lives, professions, and ways of being: first, the law, both civil and canon, then medicine, informed by that medical text the Aphorisms, attributed to Hippocrates and with a commentary by Galen, physician of the ancient world, the sum of all medical knowledge in Dante’s day.

There were more; those who followed the priesthood were not immune to this downward pull, nor were rulers, thieves or statesmen, or those given over to bodily passions and sloth. But Dante, in the celestial sphere of the Sun, was of another mind than these.

While I, delivered from our servitude
to all these things, was in the height of heaven
with Beatrice, so gloriously welcomed.
xi.10-12

Returning now to the circle of soul lights in this celestial realm, the twelve philosophers and theologians that had been rotating around Dante and Beatrice came back into position and held still, as though lights on a chandelier.

Thomas Aquinas, the speaker that had been addressing them at the end of the last canto, continued in his address. He knew, through the clarity of the boundary between light and thought, what Dante was thinking, and the doubts that he held.

Even as I grow bright within Its rays,
so, as I gaze at the Eternal Light,
I can perceive your thoughts and see their cause.

You are in doubt; you want an explanation
in language that is open and expanded,
so clear that it contents your understanding

of two points: where I said, ‘They fatten well,’
and where I said, ‘No other ever rose’—
and here one has to make a clear distinction.
xi.19-27

In canto x, Aquinas had left off his speech with two cryptic references.¹ He began, in the most poetic and exalted terms—words woven into tapestry—with a description of the ineffable depths to which holy Providence reaches, a depth mere humans are incapable of even comprehending with the intellect, to introduce two illustrious figures of the church, St. Francis, and St. Dominic.

Saint Dominic in prayer by El Greco

To arrive at that introduction, he first spoke of the church as a bride, who had been wedded to Christ through the price of his blood and was with him at the moment of his death. He appointed two princes of the faith that would guide her, the church, in their own unique way and also be at one with her; one by way of the Seraphim, or love, those highest of the orders of angels who adore God in the Empyrean, and next, one by way of the Cherubim, the second to highest order, who embraced adoration through the expression of wisdom and understanding.

St Francis was the one reigned by love, St. Dominic the one who embodied the wisdom of the intellect.

Seraphim means those who are on fire, or who set on fire. Cherubim is interpreted as fullness of knowledge.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.q.63.a.7, 1

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And inasmuch as each Person of the divine Trinity may be considered in a three fold manner, there are in each hierarchy three orders which engage in contemplation in various ways. The Father may be considered only in relation to himself: and this is what the Seraphim contemplate, who see more of the First Cause than any other angelic nature. The Father may be considered in terms of his relation to the Son, that is, how he is separate from him and how he unites himself with him: and this is what the Cherubim contemplate. The Father may be considered, moreover, according to how the Holy Spirit proceeds from him, and how he is separate from him and how he unites himself with him: and this is what the Powers contemplate.
Dante, Convivio II.v.9-10

Aquinas was still approaching the explanation of the first question posed earlier, in regard to his statement from Paradiso x.94-96: “I was a lamb among the holy flock / that Dominic leads on the path where one / may fatten well if one does not stray off.

Of the two princes of the church, Aquinas began with St. Francis, although he qualified that what he would say could be equally applied to either saint.

He gave the geography of Assisi, the town where Francis was born, a town at the bottom of the slope of mount Subasio in Umbria in central Italy, where his birth brought the likeness of the sun rising bright from the easternmost regions. And here he expressed a play on words, in that rather than calling it Assisi—translated as “I have risen”—it could instead be called Orient—the Dayspring.

for even as a youth, he ran to war
against his father, on behalf of her—
the lady unto whom, just as to death

none willingly unlocks the door; before
his spiritual court et coram patre
he wed her; day by day he loved her more.
x.58-63

Philip Fruytiers, St. Francis of Assisi

Francis’s father raised his son to pursue the life of commerce, as he himself had done. Dante has boiled down into a single tercet the dramatic story of Francis’s public rejection of his father’s plans for him, taking the clothes off his back to return them to him in a public square of Assisi. This choice is represented here by his ‘marrying’ Lady Poverty.²

With this public rejection of social expectations, Francis joined in a spiritual marriage with Lady Poverty et coram patre—“in the presence of the father.” First the bride of Christ, Poverty had gone without a partner for all the time between Christ’s death and Francis, waiting for someone who would be worthy of her.

No doubt your aim, the purpose of all your delay, is to ensure that you need not fear poverty. But what if poverty is actually something to pursue? Many have found riches an obstacle to the philosophical life: poverty is untrammeled, carefree. When the trumpet sounds, the poor know that they are not the ones who are under attack; when alarm of fire is raised, they look around for the exit, not for their belongings. When a poor person is about to embark, there is no tumult at the harbor, no bustling throng along the beach, attendants all of a single person.
Seneca, Letters on Ethics xvii.3

Poverty had been once in the company of Amyclas, a poor fisherman who did not fear at the sound of Julius Caesar’s arrival as Caesar walked through the night, restless and seeking a boat while his armies slept in the time of his Civil War with Pompey.

This is why the Sage says: “If the wayfarer set out on his journey with nothing, he would sing in the face of bandits.” And this is what Lucan says in the fifth book, when he praises poverty for the security it offers, saying: “Oh safe the lot of the poor man’s life! oh tiny dwellings and furnishings! oh not yet comprehended riches of the Gods! At which temples and which walls could this happen, that is, not to be shaking with fear when the hand of Caesar knocks?” Lucan says this when he depicts how Caesar came at night to the hovel of the fisherman Amyclas, to cross the Adriatic Sea.
Dante Convivio IV.xiii.11-12

Fourth Heaven, or that of the Sun: St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Buonaventura of Bagnoregio

Not far from there the vessel’s captain and master
had his home from troubles free, not supported by any timber
but woven from barren rush and marsh reed
and protected on its exposed side by an upturned hull.
Twice and three times with his hand Caesar struck this threshold,
shaking the roof. From his soft bed provided by seaweed
Amyclas rises. He says: ‘Say, what shipwrecked man
seeks my home? Who is driven by Fortune to hope
for help from my hut?’ So speaking, he lifted
the rope from the deep mound of ash still warm
and fed the tiny spark till he had roused the fire,
not thinking of the war: well he knows that in civil warfare
huts are not the loot. O safe the lot of a poor man’s
life and humble home! O gods’ gifts not yet
understood! Which temples or which walls
could enjoy this blessing, not to shake in panic
when Caesar’s hand is knocking?
Lucan, Pharsalia v.515-531

Poverty was not even afraid of a Caesar, nor of the suffering on the cross as Christ’s mother, Mary, stood and watched. As Aquinas continued the story, he mentioned the first followers of Francis; Bernard who devoted himself to Francis’ teachings even as he gave up his own possessions, and considered what more he could give to increase his love, and therefore increase his spiritual riches, so hidden from the world. After Bernard came the second and third followers, Giles and Sylvester, all in his footsteps.

Francis was soon surrounded by followers, friars who wore the cord symbolic of the poverty and humility of the order, so humbly, that upon visiting the Pope Innocent III, he arrived in his lowly dress to the ‘scorn and wonder’ of the papal court. Innocent received Francis and his fellow followers, approving their order as a sanctioned group within and protected by the Church.

Like a sovereign, he disclosed in full—
to Innocent—the sternness of his rule;
from him he had the first seal of his order.
x.91-93

The order was further sanctioned by Pope Honorius III. Francis even preached his message to the Sultan of Egypt, after having joined members of Christian Crusades in 1219. While the sultan was not converted, he allowed Francis and his members to pass in safety, bestowing them with gifts. Finally, Francis was touched with stigmata during 40 days of fasting and prayer on Mount Vernia, the wounds of the crucified Christ appearing on his hands, feet, and side, fully sanctifying his role on earth; those wounds stayed with him for two years until his death.

There, on the naked crag between the Arno
and Tiber, he received the final seal
from Christ; and this, his limbs bore for two years.
xi.106-108

Then in death, staying true to Lady Poverty, he refused even a funeral bier and instead requested that his followers lay him naked on the ground to receive death to himself.

Aquinas had finished with the life of St. Francis, and turned his attention to his own order, the Dominicans:

Consider now that man who was a colleague
worthy of Francis; with him, in high seas,
he kept the bark of Peter on true course.

Such was our patriarch; thus you can see
that those who follow him as he commands,
as cargo carry worthy merchandise.
xi.118-123

Dominic in his role helped to keep the course of the church, of the ‘bark of Peter’ on course. Here Aquinas began his criticism however; only those who followed in Dominic’s footsteps were truly on the path, and true inheritors of the fruits of that labor. That true course, however, was not always the practice of his followers. Now his cryptic message, at the beginning, was made clear:

as his sheep, remote and vagabond,
stray farther from his side, at their return
into the fold, their lack of milk is greater.

Though there are some indeed who, fearing harm,
stay near the shepherd, they are few in number—
to cowl them would require little cloth.
xi.127-132

Thus was Dante’s first question answered; if only he could understand the references, he would know why the neglectful members of Dominic’s order had cleft the group in twain, and lost their chance of growing ripe and fat.

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💭 Philosophical Exercises

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

― St. Francis Of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, Studio of El Greco

I.

One can often re-order one’s life by returning to the true meaning of words.

“Poverty”, for example, is such a word and it is the key to understanding Canto XI. My reader must have noticed how Dante begins; he begins with a cry over our “senseless cares” and “defective syllogisms” that make our wings beat downward.

We spend our lives studying law codes and learning medical aphorisms; even priesthood and rule (pursued by force or by trickery) become heavy when we take them as ends.

The meaning of the word “poverty” got corrupted by the economists, for Dante uses it in a different sense: shedding away what is superfluous, unnecessary and distracting. But distracting from what exactly?

Let me invoke Cicero, who said that “the wise are those who keep their focus on the eternal.” Everything beyond the eternal weighs the soul and hinders one’s pursuit for greatness. The only cure for it is poverty.

This opening lament is a weighing of the soul. Only then does Thomas Aquinas speak of Francis. Here, poverty is not deprivation but subtraction: the art of stripping away the superfluous so that the soul grows light enough to encounter the sublime.

In a finite life, we cannot carry base things and great things together. We must choose.

Those who try to bear both end in mediocrity.

II.

From this lament, Dante moves us to the vision of the harmonious circle of souls in heaven, where all is balanced in geometric proportion. Just as a Renaissance painting follows a divine ratio, each soul’s unique placement fits into a greater order. This is the geometry of a life aligned with the divine. By stripping away the unnecessary, we prepare for this kind of ordered harmony.

Then Dante brings us to two figures: St. Francis and St. Dominic.

My reader must forgive me for using the same metaphor of Renaissance art, because these two saints represent the twofold nature of spiritual poverty. Francis is the seraphic lover, stripping away all that is unnecessary for the sake of pure love. Dominic is the master of ordered knowledge, removing all that is extraneous to reach the truth.

Like a painting that combines passionate love and skilled technique, the soul must unite Francis’s burning ardor and Dominic’s structured wisdom.

Only by holding both can we achieve the divine harmony Dante envisions.

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo

III.

And we shouldn’t go much further into Renaissance art before we see that the same structure is already alive within Dante’s poem itself.

The Divine Comedy is constructed according to the divine ratio of terza rima—the number of three. Each tercet contains three lines; each cantica has thirty-three cantos (with the first of the Inferno serving as the poem’s threshold).

The entire architecture of the poem reflects what Thomas Aquinas describes in his speech: the marriage of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the union of love and wisdom, of fire and form.

It is this harmony that Beatrice herself embodies in her luminous fusion of intellect and love, and it is this proportion that underlies the entire geometry of the Comedy.

Dante’s form is not accidental; it is theology made visible, the rhythm of divine order captured in human verse.

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This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭

(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)

Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco de Zurbarán

I. The Power of Poverty (Amyclas)

Dante recalls Amyclas, the poor fisherman from Lucan, whom Caesar found utterly unafraid when he knocked at his door. Hollander notes the point: Amyclas “had nothing to lose” and so stood securus belli: secure, unalarmed by power or war.

II. St. Francis

Francis was a rich merchant’s son who one day stripped himself naked before the bishop of Assisi, renouncing his father’s wealth to marry Lady Poverty.

He wandered barefoot, preaching that joy begins where possession ends, and his life became a visible gospel. On Mount Alverna, in a moment of burning contemplation, he received the stigmata (the wounds of Christ), becoming a living image of divine love.

He is venerated not for suffering, but for his radiant simplicity: a man who found eternity by owning nothing but his heart.

II. St. Dominic

Dominic was a Castilian scholar who believed that ignorance was as deadly to the soul as greed.

He founded the Order of Preachers, teaching that truth must be spoken with the same purity that Francis lived love.

His poverty was intellectual. He refused the vanity of argument for argument’s sake, choosing clarity over brilliance.

He is venerated as the mind aflame with light: the saint who turned knowledge itself into an act of worship.

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Quotes 🖋️

(The ones I keep in my journal as reminders of eternal wisdom):

O senseless cares of mortals, how deceiving
are syllogistic reasonings that bring
your wings to flight so low, to earthly things!

One studied law and one the Aphorisms
of the physicians; one was set on priesthood
and one, through force or fraud, on rulership;

one meant to plunder, one to politick;
one labored, tangled in delights of flesh,
and one was fully bent on indolence;

~ lines 1-9, Paradiso, Canto XI

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1. Paradiso x.96, 114

2. Robert Hollander, Paradiso 298