Even among Dante enthusiasts there must be many who are astonished at the warmth of the controversy concerning the assumed date of his Vision. To know whether he feigned himself to have entered the Inferno with Virgil in March or in April, in the year 1300 or in 1301, really does not help us to appreciate the music of his verse nor the depth of his thought; yet a wealth of learning and research has been poured out upon this problem, and some commentators seem ready to defend their opinions with their lives, if that would avail to convince their readers!

The date is indeed intimately connected with the narrative of the Divine Comedy, since there are constant allusions to current events. By choosing a year earlier than the time at which he was writing, Dante is able not only to tell the spirits what is passing on the earth they have left, but to endow them with the power of prophesying to him events which are to come.[531] The peculiar interest of the problem for us just now is that astronomy has been called in to solve it. We have seen that the positions and movements of the heavenly bodies are all consistent with one another in his poem, but it is interesting to ask whether they are merely a consistent fiction or whether they correspond with facts. Did Dante arrange his moon and planets according to his feeling for scenery and the convenience of his time references, or did he take the positions as they really were at some particular date? If so, the full moon, Venus a morning star in Pisces, and Saturn in Leo, all together near a spring equinox, ought to help to fix that date.

The year which is almost universally accepted, by the oldest as well as the most modern commentators, is 1300, chiefly on the authority of Inf. xxi. 112-114. Here Malacoda says that yesterday (the day of Dante’s entering the Inferno) it was 1266 years since the earthquake which accompanied the Crucifixion (see p. 370). Adding to this the 34 years which Dante has told us he believed to have elapsed between the Nativity and the Crucifixion,[532] we get 1266 + 34 = 1300. And the day is either the Church Festival commemorating the Crucifixion, i.e. Good Friday, which in 1300 fell on April 8, or March 25, which was believed to be the actual anniversary.

If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April 4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on about the 9th of April.

These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant; Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.

If the anniversary of the Crucifixion means Good Friday, the day would be March 31 in 1301, and the moon would be wrong, but March 25 has some claims to be considered the more probable date. A fixed calendar date is more appropriate to use for calculating an exact number of years than a changing festival, which might rather be regarded as an “ideal date.”[533] Moreover, March 25 is suggested by the allusion to the Creation in the opening Canto; this day was also the traditional date for the spring equinox,[534] and it was one of the most important days in the year to Florentines, being their New Year’s Day as well as Lady Day.

We know that the idea of writing his great work was in Dante’s mind even when he wrote the last words of the Vita Nuova,[535] and we need only suppose that he was thinking of it when he looked at the sky on the evening before Lady Day in 1301, that he saw the full moon, and the two bright planets Mars and Saturn making a striking asterism with Regulus; also that in the early dawn about the same time he rejoiced in the sight of Venus veiling the Fishes in the east.

But is this attractive theory admissible? Can we take Dante’s words elsewhere as referring to the year 1301?

Take first the one passage in which he explicitly states the day and year, the words of Malacoda quoted above. This is usually taken to indicate the year 1300, as shown above (p. 410), but it is easy to interpret it another way—thus: 1300 years had been completed since the Nativity on the day Dante entered the Inferno. Now the year 1 is not one year after the Nativity, but the year of the Nativity itself; hence the year 2 is one year after, the year 3 two years after, ... the year 1300 is 1299 years after, and the year 1301 is 1300 years after. The year 1300 was completed on March 25,[536] and the date then changed, according to Florentine usage, to 1301. (It had already been called 1301 for three months, according to Roman usage, so fortunately for us, there is no disagreement between the two calendars from this part of the year).

It must also be noted that in several old MSS., considered authoritative by some of the very early commentators, the passage reads:—“Mille dugent ’uno con sessanta sei.”[537] Although it is impossible to believe that Dante wrote such a faulty line, this shows that some early copyist felt a difficulty either in accepting the date 1300 or in understanding how Dante arrived at it by Malacoda’s computations. This passage, therefore, is inconclusive for 1300 or 1301.

Then there is the first line of the Divina Commedia “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”[538] which is usually taken to mean that Dante was in his 35th year, since in Conv. IV. xxiv. 30, 31, and xxiii, 88-94, he says that in normal natures the “punto sommo,” the “colmo,”[539] of the Arch of Life is reached at this age. But is it to be taken as indicating a precise year? If so, it points to one which has never been suggested for the Vision, so far as I know, for in another passage of the Convivio he says when speaking of his exile, that he had lived in Florence “fino al colmo della mia vita,”[540] and we know that the year of his exile was 1302. But if we look again at the discussion concerning the arch of human life, we find that the whole period of “gioventute,”[541] which is from the 25th to the 45th year “veramente è colmo della nostra vita”[542] (Conv. IV. xxiv. 22, 23). If, nevertheless, it is said that the “mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” means Dante’s 35th year, we must know the date of his birth with certainty before we can deduce the year at which he had reached this age. And this is not quite easy. This very line is used indifferently to show that he was born in 1265 because the date of the Vision was 1300, or that the date was 1300 because he was born in 1265! No registers of births or baptisms were kept in those days. Most of the old biographers give 1265 for the date, but not all, and some of those who do betray ignorance or confusion in the matter: Boccaccio says the year 1265, when Urban the Fourth was Pope, yet Urban we know died in 1264; Lionardo Bruni says “1265, a little after the return to Florence of the Guelfs, who had been in exile by reason of the defeat of Montaperti,” but this return was in September 1266! Dante himself says that his ancestors shared in this exile,[543] and as he also often refers to the fact that he was born in Florence,[544] it is difficult to see how that could have been in 1265.

Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old when he was nearly nine),[545] that she died in June 1290,[546] and was then on the threshold of her “second age,”[547] that is in her 24th year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295, and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in 1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been lowered before 1295.[548] There remains the story told by Boccaccio, that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was born in 1265.

On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain that he reached that age in 1300.

Another passage which is often quoted as clearly indicating the year of the Jubilee, 1300, for the assumed date of the Vision is Casella’s explanation of his late arrival in Purgatory.[549] Dante is surprised to witness this arrival, knowing that it is some time since his friend’s death; and Casella replies that the Angel of the Passage had refused many times to bring him, until three months ago, when every one who wished to come had been graciously received. This is believed to refer to the Bull of Pope Boniface published at Christmas 1299, that is just three months before March 1300. But this Bull gave no indulgence to the dead; it was in favour of those who performed certain spiritual exercises in the churches of Rome during the Jubilee year. On the other hand, there was a Bull published just a year later, which was for the benefit of departed souls: it extended the indulgences to those who had died on their way to Rome, or before the spiritual exercises were completed there. We do not know when Casella died, but if it was some time in 1300, with his purpose of gaining the indulgence unfulfilled, the Angel’s refusal at first, and acceptance afterwards—after December 1300—and his arrival in Purgatory in March 1301, would be explained. The fact that his arrival was still three months after the Bull, and that all without exception were welcomed by the Angel, are difficulties which apply to both interpretations. But perhaps that just given is a little too clever. It is most natural to consider the Indulgence as the famous one of 1300, and to understand that in the Jubilee year the way of salvation was made easier for all souls, living or dead.[550]

If however these, and many other passages quoted in the controversy, are unconvincing, the same cannot be said of Cunizza’s “Questo centesim’ anno.”[551] Prof. Angelitti’s suggestion that she was reckoning by the Easter year, which was used in some parts of France and Italy, so that the date was still 1300 for her, though for most Italians it was 1301, is too ingenious; and it is hard to believe that she means “this century year” applying it to 1301. Though this might be correct, it is clear that 1300 was regarded as the century year, because the words “centesimo anno” occur in the Bull of Boniface VIII. with reference to the year 1300. This then speaks strongly and clearly against our astronomical theory of 1301.

The historical events alluded to in the Divine Comedy are so often of unknown date to us, that few of them help as much as might be expected. Judge Nino’s widow remarried on June 24, 1300, and as he speaks of her as having already put off her widow’s weeds,[552] this might indicate that we are in 1301, but it is not conclusive, since they would probably be discarded three months before she was actually the wife of another. On the other hand, Can Grande della Scala, who is said in a fourteenth century chronicle to have been born on March 9, 1291, is described as only nine years old.[553] Dante might possibly have been mistaken by a year in the date of his birth, but he cannot have been ignorant of the death of his friend Guido Cavalcanti. The cry of anguish from Guido’s father will be remembered by all readers of the Inferno, after Dante has spoken of his friend in the past tense:—

And as Dante hesitates a little, Cavalcante sinks back into his tomb of punishment, and does not reappear. Before Dante leaves the place, feeling compunction, he charges Farinata to tell the father that his son is still among the living, and that the sinister hesitation was due to another cause than he thought. Now it is beyond dispute that Guido died in August 1300, for he was buried in the cemetery of St. Reparata in Florence on August 29, 1300, according to official records still extant;[555] and Dante had a share in banishing him amongst other exiles to the unhealthy place where he contracted the illness of which he died. The year 1300, in which Dante held the official position which obliged him to do this, was burned into his mind, as we see in his letter, mentioned by Lionardo Bruni, in which he says that all his misfortunes sprang from the time of his priorate.

How then can we believe that he here imagines himself speaking in the spring of 1301, unless we assume that Cavalcanti had really guessed the true cause of his hesitation, and that what Dante said afterwards was a kindly lie? Is this in character with his uncompromising, even ruthless straightforwardness? Unless therefore some really satisfactory way of escape can be found from this incident and the “centesim’ anno” I fear we must reluctantly abandon the theory of 1301, championed so skilfully by Angelitti and others, and must agree with the majority that Dante means us to understand the year 1300.

The early commentators seem to have taken for granted that Dante was correct in his astronomical data, without taking any particular trouble to verify them. Jacopo della Lana in commenting Par. xxi. 14 says that in 1300 in the month of March Saturn was in Leo, and was in the 8th degree of that sign; and in order that we should know what was the disposition of the whole sky at that time he further informs us that Jupiter was in Aries in the 24th degree, and Mars in Pisces in the 11th degree, that the sun was near the beginning of Aries, and Venus in Pisces (these two are evidently taken simply from Dante). Mercury was in Virgo (with the sun in Aries! in this case Mercury would have been visible nearly the whole night), and the moon in       . Here there is said to be a blank in all the MSS. The moon was too much for Della Lana, whether the difficulty was in finding her position or in reconciling it with that given by Dante. The Ottimo and Benvenuto da Imola copy Della Lana with little change, both giving the positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in degree and sign, but the sun only as near the beginning of Aries, Venus in Pisces, and Mercury in Virgo. (It is astonishing that neither should have noticed this gross error.) Benvenuto boldly adds that the moon was in Libra, doubtless because Dante’s description so required it at the beginning of his poem.

Nor do these early commentators seem to feel any difficulty about the date on which the Vision began. From Inf. i. 38-40 they generally conclude that it was the day of the equinox, which they say vaguely fell in the middle of March “mezzo Marzo,” and from Inf. xxi. 112-114 all except Boccaccio (who interprets March 25) take it to be Good Friday.[556] No discrepancy seems to have been felt here: they merely remark that in 1300 Easter fell in March, and more than two hundred years passed before anyone pointed out that this was wrong.

At last a work appeared in 1554, called “Del Sito, Forma, et Misure dello Inferno di Dante,” in which the author, Giambullari, remarked that according to astronomical calculations the Paschal Moon was not full on the night between Thursday and Good Friday in 1300, but on the morning of April 5th. This excited a good deal of interest, and many theories have since been put forth to reconcile Dante’s astronomical data with the facts of the year 1300.

Dr. Moore thinks the date of entering the Inferno was Good Friday, April 8, 1300, but that Dante uses instead of the real moon the ecclesiastical moon, which, as we know, is a conventional body revolving according to Meton’s cycle, and sometimes appearing on tables as full two or three days before or after the real Full Moon. Dr. Moore finds that this ecclesiastical moon, was full on April 7, 1300.[557] But would Dante trouble about the ecclesiastical moon, and would his readers know anything about it? Its only use was for determining Easter, and this was done for the people by the Church. The real moon was extremely important for astrologers, for whose benefit Tables and Almanachs were chiefly drawn up; the real moon was useful to everyone as light-giver and time recorder. It is surely inconceivable that a Florentine who wished to arrange a midnight festival, or to start on a night-journey, would consult a calendar to find out on what date the ecclesiastical moon would be full! And the ecclesiastical moon does not alter the position of Venus.

According to another suggestion, Dante followed a tradition as to the position of all the “seven planets” at the Creation, and for this reason not only was his sun in Aries, but the moon full and opposite, and Venus in Pisces. Venus is said to have this position in a picture of the Creation in a Church at San Gemignano.[558] Compare also Milton’s moon at her creation:—

Or again, it is sometimes held that the day and all the celestial positions are ideal. Dante means us to understand that the first day of his Vision was Good Friday, but without troubling as to what day it fell on in 1300; the equinox and the full moon are naturally connected with Good Friday, since they determine Easter; Venus is connected with the idea of dawn, and when the Sun is in Aries the morning star may well be in Pisces.

Either of these views might be correct, and no one will dispute a poet’s right to arrange his skies as he thinks fit, if he is consistent with them, as Dante was. But how did these positions, if they are purely imaginary, come to coincide exactly with the real positions of 1301?

If we examine the positions of 1301, and accept nothing that is doubtful in Dante’s own words, what does the coincidence amount to? Saturn was near Regulus, but he was also in the forepart of Leo in 1300, and we are not sure that Dante means more than this; Mars was in Leo, but we are not sure that Dante wanted him there;[560] the moon was full on the morning of March 25, but we are not sure whether Dante means March 25 or Good Friday. Venus was a morning star in Pisces, and this till very lately was the one astronomical fact incontestably in favour of 1301 and against 1300.

But in 1908 there was printed in Florence, for the first time, a mediæval Almanach, which suggests so simple an explanation of this most striking coincidence that it seems to leave nothing more to be said for the 1301 hypothesis. This Almanach, which has been published under a title which perhaps takes things a little too much for granted—Almanach Dantis Aligherii—was compiled by a learned Jew, Jacob ben Machir ben Tibbon, who was born in Marseilles about 1236, and died at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Using the Toledan Tables, he constructed this so-called perpetual almanach, which gives the positions of sun, moon, and planets, at intervals of a few days for whole cycles of years. Each has a cycle of a different length, that of Venus for instance being 8 years, as on the Babylonian tablets of ephemerides; and at the end of each cycle nearly the same positions come over again. It was written in Hebrew, and translated into Latin by an unknown author, and must have been popular, since there were an immense number of Latin MSS. in the fourteenth century. In the original, all the cycles begin in 1301, but in the Latin they begin in 1300, except the cycles of Venus and the sun, which begin in 1301. Yet 1301 is not written over the first column for Venus, but merely 1, or nothing at all, or even in some copies 1300, and in both the Hebrew and Latin prefaces the beginning of all the cycles is stated to be 1300.[561]

If, therefore, Dante looked up the position of Venus in this almanac, he would very naturally take the 1301 positions for 1300, and he would find that Venus was in Aquarius throughout March, until the 27th, when she passed into the sign of Pisces, and therefore was a morning star during the whole month and also in April. And he would find that Saturn was in the 7th and 8th degrees of Leo in March and April 1300 (which was very nearly correct).[562]

It appears then that while certain expressions used in the Divine Comedy prove clearly that 1301 is not the year assumed as the date of the Vision, the astronomical argument in favour of it is not strong enough to be convincing, especially in the light of this recent discovery.

Granting that 1300 was the year, what was the day? Probably not March 25, for the early commentators, excepting only Boccaccio in one passage, are all in favour of Good Friday, and Dante might see in the Almanac that the moon was not full on that date. But neither was she full on the actual date of Good Friday, which fell on April 8 in 1300; moreover the sun was then so far advanced in Aries that seven days later, when Dante describes it as a little past the equinox, it would really have been in Taurus. The third and only possibility is to accept the theory that his moon and his day were ideal; that is, he simply assumed Good Friday and a full moon to occur together soon after the equinox, with which both are so intimately associated. The date of Easter is not given in the old almanac, and we have seen that the early commentators who knew that the equinox fell in “mezzo Marzo”[563] were content to accept Easter as falling in that month also. We must not forget the convenience of an equinox and a full moon for simplifying the time references also.

We conclude, then, that the year chosen by Dante was 1300 (as has been most generally believed), and the day Good Friday, which he assumes to have fallen about a week after the equinox, and at a time of full moon. Saturn in his poem, and also in fact, was in Leo; Venus was not actually a morning star, nor in Pisces, but he may have been led to assign this position to her through an error in a contemporary almanac.

I must confess to a great feeling of disappointment in coming to the conclusion that Prof. Angelitti’s enticing theory must be rejected, but a careful study of Dante’s own words, and Prof. Boffito’s discovery of the “Almanach perpetuum ad annum 1300 inchoatum” seem to leave no other choice. Last April,[564] when helping to photograph Halley’s Comet in beautiful early dawns, this problem was much in my mind. Venus once more had the Fishes in her train, and oddly enough Good Friday had fallen on March 25! I could not help wishing that these things had happened in 1300 as well as in 1910!

If in spite of all arguments to the contrary, any readers are convinced that Dante’s celestial positions were taken from the real skies, it remains to them to imagine that he saw them in March of 1301 and wove them into the narrative of his poem, although for some reason he adopted another date.

The following tables (pp. 425-26) summarize the foregoing pages. It will be noted with what appropriate symbolism Dante enters Hell on the evening of Good Friday, spends that night and the whole of Saturday in the depths, and rises out of them on Easter Day before the dawn.

For although he reaches Earth’s centre on Saturday evening by Jerusalem time, the change of hemisphere there makes his time suddenly go back twelve hours, so that it is again Saturday morning, and he spends the day and night of Saturday (Purgatory time) in climbing to Earth’s surface.

DAYS OF THE VISION AND POSITIONS OF
THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS.

Summary.

Arguments for 1300 or 1301.
From Expressions and Incidents in the D.C.

The Astronomical Data.

(True Equinox, March 12. Ecclesiastical, March 21. Traditional, March 25).