Famous Sinners: Tolstoy, Augustine and Dostoyevsky
(Paradiso, Canto IX): Venus, meeting Cunniza, and Folco
For those of you who clicked because of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy - scroll to Philosophical Exercises section. (and welcome to Dante Read-Along)
Every Saint has the past, every Sinner has a future.
~ St. Augustine
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 ninth Canto of the Paradiso, in the realm of Venus, we see the shift from eros to agape. 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 ⭕️
Celestial sphere of Venus, continued - Final thoughts of Charles Martel - Cunizza da Romano and her prophecies - Folco of Marseilles, troubadour turned priest - Earthly love transformed into divine love - Rahab the prostitute - The adultery of the Church.
Canto IX Summary:
Still in the celestial sphere of Venus, Dante opened by addressing a certain Clemence of the many things that Charles Martel had shared with him about just rulers and the dispositions of those from the same families following their own paths. The identity of this Clemence has fallen under debate, with the question being whether Dante referred to Charles Martel’s wife or daughter, both of whom had the same name, but most agree that it is most likely his wife.
Charles had finished his speech by looking to the legacy of his own son, Charles Robert, who would suffer further injustices of succession. Charles Robert, rightful heir to the crown of Naples, would be defrauded of it by his uncle Robert through the intercession of Pope Boniface VIII; Charles Martel spoke no more of it, and Dante only noted that the wrongdoers would be punished.
The soul of Martel took his leave, and Dante addressed his readers, still stuck in the illusion of the senses, who fed on emptiness and dissipation, to take heed of those light filled souls who existed in a universe filled with meaning and joy:
And now the life-soul of that holy light
turned to the Sun that fills it even as
the Goodness that suffices for all things.
Ah, souls seduced and creatures without reverence,
who twist your hearts away from such a Good,
who let your brows be bent on emptiness!
ix.7-12
Another soul approached, and Beatrice gave assent with a look to Dante’s unspoken request to converse with this new arrival. In his greeting, he expressed his desire that this new soul come to know his thoughts and requests before he even said it aloud.
This soul responded from the very same depths that it had previously sung the Hosannah, that song which would stay with Dante forevermore.1 Their answer began with identifying where they were from, outlining the region of Italy containing the March of Treviso, a region in the northeast of the country bordered by the waters of the Brenta and Piave; this region housed the castle Romano high on a hill, from which a scourge on the region had been born. This scourge, this firebrand, was the soul’s brother, Ezzelino III da Romano.
The ‘torch’ or scourge of mankind is Ezzelino III da Romano, the most infamous and bloodthirsty of the petty tyrants of medieval Italy. He was born in 1194, in the little hill town of Romano, and died in 1259. Ezzelino extended his cruel rule beyond the March of Treviso and over much of the Venetian territory, as far as Mantua and Trent.2
That brow with hair so black is Ezzelino.
Inferno XXII.109
How different then, was the soul who spoke to Dante than her brother! She introduced herself as Cunizza, who was conquered in life by the radiance of Venus.
The soul of Cunizza, speaking from her ‘deep heart, as one delighted to give generously,’ tells Dante that she was the sister of the ferocious Ezzelino da Romano, notorious for his cruelty and especially for his hideous massacre of the citizens of Padua. In this relationship, Cunizza is a living symbol of the principle of individual differentiation upon which Charles Martel has discoursed…Cunizza’s temperament was not, like her brother’s, savage and cruel, but ardent and passionate. A glance at her biography shows that she was indeed swayed by the planet Venus, for she had no fewer than two lovers and four husbands.3
Nor is Cunizza presented as some meltingly repentant Magdalene. On the contrary, the most striking aspect of her speech is that she forgives herself for the erotic excesses to which her temperament predisposed her.4
One of the most notable elements that Cunizza presents in her account of herself is her movement, through her love nature, of the recognition of moving from eros—the passionate love that we saw disordered in Inferno and purged in Purgatorio—into agape, directing that purified love toward God. With the cleansing of the memory of error in the river Lethe, only that love nature remained. In her later years, she was considered an example of generosity and love to all, going so far as to liberate the slaves owned by her family.
Dwelling now within the will of God, Cunizza is able to see that her place in Heaven is in conformity with her natural capacity for love, which she therefore counts not as loss but as gain.5
There is logically, no place in Heaven for repentance—since all awareness of sin has been erased by the penances of Purgatory. But Cunizza’s words go beyond the logic of theology, expressing an exuberant affirmation of self-confidence—which is also confidence in God-and a recognition that the colorations given to human temperament by astral influence are ultimately providential in character.6
Cunizza, after this introduction of herself and her family, pointed to a radiant, jewel-like soul that was next to her, one whose fame on earth was so great, that another 500 years would pass before his name began to fade from memory.
She then went on to make three prophecies regarding Italian politics:
[Her first prophecy,] the battle at Vicenza; her second prophecy, Riccardo do Camino will die; her third prophecy, the bishop of Feltre, Alessandro Novello, will betray three Ferrarese brothers.7
Above are mirrors—Thrones is what you call them—
and from them God in judgment shines on us;
and thus we think it right to say such things.
ix.61-63
Cunizza here referenced the angelic hierarchy who resided in the seventh celestial Sphere of Saturn, the Thrones. Just as those not filled with the light of understanding were unable to comprehend that Cunizza did not grieve her fate at having been under the sway of Venus on earth and pardons herself easily, so here she expressed that with her prophecies, the punishment of those that she mentioned was seen as just to those in Paradise, since it represented divine judgment.8
We see mirrored in the Thrones the punishment that God has in store for the sinners, and therefore we can speak with satisfaction of their misdeeds.9
Here, Cunizza departed to rejoin those souls basking in the love of God. Upon her departure, Dante turned to the soul that she had referenced as having 500 years of fame before him:
The other joy, already known to me
as precious, then appeared before my eyes
like a pure ruby struck by the sun’s rays.
On high, joy is made manifest by brightness,
as, here on earth, by smiles; but down below,
the shade grows darker when the mind feels sorrow.
ix.67-72
This new companion was Folco of Marseilles, poet, troubadour, lover, and eventual bishop. Dante posed the same request of him that he had given to Cunizza, in asking if they could read his desire and know intuitively the questions that he so wanted to ask. Dante said that the song of this one was as pure as that of the Seraphim who dwelt in the ninth celestial sphere, turned toward God and continually singing in adoration of him, those ministers of divine love.
Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Isaiah 6:2-3
Dante as poet, in speaking to Folco, even went so far as to create new words in Italian to convey the sense of being within God and with each other as the purity of their minds and hearts were so transparent that all could be known with no hiding or shame. Folco began to speak, explaining by way of introduction where he was from.
The second speaker in this canto is the troubadour-turned-bishop Folco of Marseilles. Folco is the third in a sequence of Occitan poets who have been given prominence in the Commedia. Compare Bertran de Born in Inferno 28 and Arnaut Daniel in Purgatorio 26.10
Folco spoke of the Mediterranean, which at that time was thought to be just a part of the larger ocean that encompassed all of dry land. Placed between the lands of Europe and Africa, and bordered on the east by Jerusalem and the west by the straits of Gibraltar, Folco’s home was in Marseille, the setting of a battle during the Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey, whose effects were to make the harbor there fill with blood. Lucan told the story in his account of the war:
Now no missiles are hurled or shot by arms,
no wounds from weapon thrown fall from afar,
but hand meets hand: in the naval battle the sword
achieves the most. Each stands leaning from his own boat’s
stronghold to meet the enemy’s blows and none when killed
fell in his own ship. Deep blood foams
in the water, the waves are choked by clotted gore
and the ships, when hauled by iron chains thrown on board,
are kept apart by crowds of corpses.
Lucan Pharsalia iii.567-575
Devoting himself to a life of pleasure, Folquet became a frequenter of courts, his special patrons being Richard Coeur de Lion, Alfonso VIII of Castile, Raymond V, count of Toulouse, and Barral de Baux, viscount of Marseilles and lord of the city. He attached himself and paid court to the wife of the last, composing songs in her honor, but she appears to have rejected his addresses. After her death and the deaths of the princes whose favor he had enjoyed, Folquet retired from the world and became a Cistercian monk.11
Folco went on to describe the passions he had held in life, comparing himself to a trio of famous lovers, though none whose story ended well.
Dido was the daughter of Belus whose famous suicide as her lover Aeneas sailed away from Carthage inspired generations of art, music and poetry. She had taken Aeneas as her lover after her promise to her dead husband Sychaeus to hold him forever in his memory. Aeneas’ wife Creusa had been lost to death in their flight from Troy; Folco’s passions were as deep as these until his hair began to turn grey.
The second was Phyllis, a Thracian princess from mount Rhodope. Thinking that she had been tricked by her lover Demophoön, who did not return for her as promised after leaving for war, she took her life in despair:
I, your Phyllis, who welcomed you to Rhodope, Demophoön, complain that the promised day is past, and you not here. When once the horns of the moon should have come together in full orb, our shores were to expect your anchor – the moon has four times waned, and four times waxed again to her orb complete; yet the Sithonian wave brings not the ships of Acte. Should you count the days – which we count well who love – you will find my plaint come not before its time.
Ovid, Heroides 2.1
The third passionate character from antiquity was Hercules, called Alcides here, whose wife Dienara, jealous of Hercules love for Iole, took a robe soaked with the blood of the centaur Nessus and gifted it to Hercules, thinking it would act as a love potion. The blood was poisoned however, and when he put on the cloak it burned him so violently that Hercules built his own funeral pyre and had it lit in order to escape the suffering; Deianeira hung herself in despair:
But Deianeira, learning from Lichas how matters stood with regard to Iole, was afraid that Heracles might be more in love with Iole than with herself, and thinking that the blood that had flowed from Nessos really was a love-potion, she rubbed it into the tunic. So Heracles put it on, and proceeded with the sacrifice. But as soon as the tunic grew warm, the poison from the hydra began to bite into his skin. In response, he lifted Lichas by the feet and hurled him into the Euboean Sea, and tried to tear off the tunic, which had become attached to his body; but his flesh was torn off along with the clothing. In this sorry plight, he was carried back to Trachis by ship; and when Deianeira learned what had happened, she hanged herself. Apollodorous, The Library of Greek Mythology v.7
Folco, after telling Dante of his past passionate nature, then focused on the state of being of those in the celestial realm of Venus:
Yet one does not repent here; here one smiles-
not for the fault, which we do not recall,
but for the Power that fashioned and foresaw.
For here we contemplate the art adorned
by such great love, and we discern the good
through which the world above forms that below.
ix.103-108
These souls had forgotten their earthly state of disordered lust, so had no need of repentance; instead, they smiled in celebration of the divine love of God, that transformed state which was the purged form of the earthly love they had once celebrated. Their natural dispositions, embraced in their perfect expression, bring only joy.
Folco divined one last question in Dante’s mind, the identity of a soul next to them, sparkling as a sunbeam on the water. This was Rahab of the Old Testament, and she was the most exalted of all the souls in the third celestial realm of Venus. Rahab had helped to save two spies working for Israel’s leader Joshua as they hid in the city of Jericho, safely delivering them through her window and out of the city walls. Her reputation as a prostitute did not prevent her from being honored and saved by the Israelites when they defeated the city.
By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
Hebrews 11:31
This heaven, where the shadow cast by earth
comes to a point, had Rahab as the first
soul to be taken up when Christ triumphed.
ix.118-120
In this exalted place as first in this realm, Rahab had even been the first soul to be saved from Limbo in Christ’s harrowing of Hell. As much as she and Joshua had worked to save the lands of Israel, the land itself being precious to them, Folco pointed out that even Pope Boniface did not consider that land and its significance so much as they did, being too involved in politics and temporal matters.
Folco decried the state of Florence and the Church as being the real adulterers, more so than the lovers in the stories of suicides and noble prostitutes. The contrast was emphasized by the importance that the clergy put on the marginalia of papal decrees; being that many degrees removed from the heart of the teachings as signified by the annunciation of Gabriel in the land where Christ walked.
Folco ended with the thought that the holy site of the Vatican, the place of St. Peter’s death, would soon be free of such wickedness, necessary to bring about transformation.
💭 Philosophical Exercises
I lived to my fiftieth year, thinking that the life of man which passes from birth to death is all his life, and that, therefore, man’s aim is happiness in this mortal life, and I tried to receive this happiness; but the longer I lived, the more obvious did it become to me that there is no such happiness, and that there can be none.
The happiness which I was looking for did not come to me, and the one which I attained immediately stopped being happiness.
At the same time my misfortunes grew more and more, and the inevitableness of death became more and more obvious, and I understood that after this senseless and unhappy life nothing was awaiting me but suffering, diseases, old age, and annihilation; I asked myself what this was for, and I arrived at despair
~ from Tolstoy’s Confession
I.
Can one reshape their life after being a sinner?
One of the most profound themes in Paradiso is the idea that anyone can reshape and redeem their life by redirecting their love toward what is truly worthy.
As St. Augustine said: ‘Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.’
This canto delves into how immense divine mercy is offered to those who choose to reorient their love in the right direction.
II.
I would love to illustrate this theme of ‘redirecting love’ through the lives of two great writers, one great entrepreneur, and one saint.
The first one is Dostoyevsky, who began as a writer involved with the radical Petrashevsky Circle in the 1840s.
In 1849, he was arrested and sentenced to death, and only at the last moment was his execution halted by a reprieve from the Tsar Nicholas I.
During his years in the brutal Omsk fortress in Siberia, stripped of everything, he returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood. He observed criminals and peasants closely, gained compassion, and found his soul renewed.
In Dante’s terms, we might say he redirected his love from earthly political ambition to a deeper moral and spiritual insight, ultimately shaping the works we now revere.
Another powerful example of redirected love comes from the life of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy, born into wealth and aristocracy, spent part of his life indulging in gambling, heavy drinking, and worldly pleasures. Yet, in the middle of his life, he experienced a profound crisis of meaning.
In his work “A Confession,” he describes how he felt so suicidal that he couldn’t trust himself to be alone with a gun. The pleasures of money, prestige, and indulgence only deepened his sense of emptiness. Was this all that life had to offer?
What saved him was observing the simple faith of the Russian peasants around him. He turned toward a personal form of Christianity, one that ultimately set him apart from the Russian Orthodox Church but gave his life a deeper purpose.
In that sense, Tolstoy redirected his love from worldly distractions to a profound moral and spiritual quest, much like the souls in Dante’s Paradiso who find redemption through rightly ordered love.
My reader must forgive me for giving this more contemporary example, it is certainly not in direct comparison to the giants of Russian literature like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but consider Steve Jobs.
In his famous commencement speech, Jobs spoke about how seemingly random experiences, like studying calligraphy, later connected the dots in his life. At the time, people thought calligraphy was a useless pursuit, but that curiosity led him to create the beautiful typography of the first Macintosh. The lesson here is that we often can’t see the meaning of our choices until we look back.
In a way, it echoes Dante’s message: when we redirect our lives toward something meaningful, we eventually find a deeper kind of joy and understanding.
And finally, to elevate our reflection even further, we can look to St. Augustine, who confessed that he once led a life of empty debates and indulgences. Only by turning his love toward higher, more meaningful pursuits did he discover a deeper divine truth. Dante, inspired by Augustine, shows us that when we align our lives with true meaning, we move from aimlessness to fulfilment.
III.
In this canto, Dante the poet, explores the balance between commitment and the possibility of change.
Earlier, in the canto V, Beatrice warned Dante about the importance of vows: if you jump on the wrong train, meaning you commit yourself to the wrong direction, it can be like heading down a path you can’t easily escape.
But here in Paradiso, Dante also shows us that even if you’ve boarded the wrong train in life, you can still find a way to step off at the next station and choose a better path.
In other words, while vows and commitments are serious, Dante is teaching us that the trials and hardships we face can prepare the soil for transformation. Like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, who endured great trials and then chose to redirect their lives, we too have the freedom to choose the right path once we recognise we’ve gone astray.
The stars might align to show us the right direction, but we still have to make that choice to step onto the right train.
That’s the nuance Dante offers us: both the gravity of our choices and the mercy of being able to choose again.
This Week’s Sinners and Virtuous 🎭
(Themes, Quotes, Terms and Characters)
I. Bitter Fruit, Sweet Seed (Pt.2)
In the previous canto, Dante told us about two different fruits springing from the same seed and here with Cunizza we can see the same example. Since we met her brother Ezzelino in Inferno XII.
The difference between them both is clear, they both led life full of vice: she, however, re-aligned her life with the divine will, and changed her ways. Whilst her brother did not.
A visual example of this would be both of them boarding the wrong train and while the sister (at some point) realised her mistake and stepped off at the next stop; the brother, stubbornly, refused.
II. Love ❤️
Perhaps the most important point of being in this sphere of Venus is the nature of Love that we see here. In our 21st century, we think of Love as a romantic feeling, or feeling towards a family member; for Dante’s vision this was much deeper. It affected every area of life.
Look at the examples of this canto: Cunizza → Italian civic critique, Folquet → ecclesiastical action (crusade).
Quotes 🖋️
(The ones I keep in my journal as reminders of eternal wisdom):
Ah, souls seduced and creatures without reverence,
who twist your hearts away from such a Good,
who let your brows be bent on emptiness!
~ lines 10-12, Paradiso, Canto IX
See Paradiso viii.28-30
Charles S. Singleton, Commentary on the Paradiso 163
Dorothy L. Sayers, Paradise 129
Robin Kirkpatrick, Paradiso 363
Sayers 130
Kirkpatrick 363
Robert Hollander, Paradiso 226
For the debate over Dante’s incorrect placement of the Thrones in the third celestial heaven, see Hollander p 213 n.34-39.
Singleton 167
Kirkpatrick 364
Singleton 169
Bravo! Bravo!
If anyone is interested, here is music from Folquet - Concert Flor Enversa "L'art des troubadours" à Saorge (Festival de musique ancienne). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBOmFItRFk