Exiled in Avignon, subservient to the king of France, the papacy seems at the beginning of the XIVe century abandon Rome. In an Italy deserted by the authority of the Church, refusing false prophecies, Dante imagines himself as Jeremiah again.
The work of the Florentine Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is known to be almost labyrinthinely difficult to interpret, even for the most seasoned specialists. Often overshadowed by the shadow of its famous Divine Comedythe rest of his work nevertheless contains valuable complementary pieces. This is the case with the poet’s correspondence – even fragmentary –: only thirteen epistles have been preserved. Its Letter to the cardinalswhich we know from a single manuscript copied by Boccaccio, is one of the most enigmatic.
However, some clues allow us to date it: it was probably written in view of the conclave which was planned for the year 1314 in Carpentras. The moment was pivotal for contemporaries: a new, more charismatic pontiff could allow the papacy to regain Italy and free itself from French interference. But the letter nevertheless seems, in its content, to echo more the events of the man who, meeting in 1304-1305 in Perugia, brought Clement V to power. The precise identity of the recipient of the letter ultimately remains uncertain. More than seven centuries after the poet’s death, the investigation is not yet complete.
Gian Luca Potestà, in this study initially published in Italy in 2021, reopens this file, takes stock of the most solid theories relating to Dante’s text, and offers renewed interpretations. The author takes advantage of this French translation (due to Jacques Dalarun) to enrich his work, taking into account remarks from other specialists. The work also presents a new edition of the Latin text of the Letteras well as a revised French translation, whose linguistic and philological choices are extensively commented on (p. 60-72).
The Pope and French interference
Dante’s letter must therefore be placed in the very specific context of the exile of the papacy in Avignon between 1309 and 1378. The reasons for the latter go back to the beginning of the XIVe century, during a diplomatic crisis which opposed the king of France, Philip the Fair, to Benedetto Caetani, elected pope under the name of Boniface VIII in 1294. Tensions between Rome and Paris, already strong, clearly increased a notch during the year 1302 when Boniface promulgated the bull Unam sanctamin which he becomes the champion of an ever more universal pontifical theocracy. The excesses of the pontiff, who threatened to impose an interdict on the kingdom of France, pushed Philippe le Bel to choose an extreme solution: in March 1303, an expedition led by Guillaume de Nogaret, close advisor to the king, went to Italy, to his residence in Anagni, to physically brutalize the pope. Traumatized by the attack, Boniface died a few months later. His successor, Benedict XIthen tried to ease tensions with France, but he in turn disappeared in July 1304, perhaps poisoned.
The choice of the next pope is therefore a crucial political moment, both for the Church and for the balance of power between European monarchies. The new conclave which opened in Perugia in the summer of 1304 was then the subject of numerous struggles for influence, including within the college of cardinals itself: on the one hand, the defenders of Boniface’s legacy VIIIled by Matteo Rosso Orsini ; facing him, his cousin Napoleone, former faithful of Celestine V. But between them no candidate emerged who would create consensus, and the conclave bogged down for almost a year. He is, according to contradictory accounts, disturbed by constant pressure from outside, notably from King Philip (p. 107-114), but also from James II of Aragon.
French interference in Italy has, for several years, been at the heart of debates, both in Tuscany and in Rome. Boniface VIII himself brought the wolves into the fold by accepting, in 1301, the arrival in Florence of Prince Charles of Valois: the latter then supported the coup of force of the black Guelphs, radical elements of the pro-pontifical party. Dante, linked to their moderate rivals (the White Guelphs), must therefore leave his hometown forever. The poet, tired of war, gradually moved away from Guelphism in the years that followed, and even became favorable to the Empire. But Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg died in 1313, after having failed to take Florence. Dante’s hopes for a return of strong monarchical authority to Italy faded once again.
Dante’s Alert
There Letter must therefore be understood in the light of this bitterness caused by the absence of the pope, a symptom of the deep political void that Italy is going through. It is a distant criticism of the events of 1304-1305 which were at the origin, testifying to a precise knowledge of their unfolding by its author. There Letter is certainly addressed “ to the Italian cardinals » of the Carpentras conclave, but everything points, according to Gian Luca Potestà, to Napoleone Orsini as its main recipient. It is he who remains, for Dante, the main person responsible for the disaster of Perugia, ten years earlier: he would be at the origin of internal maneuvers within the conclave (the “ latrine meeting », so named because of the place where the cardinals secretly negotiated between votes) to fool his peers and finally favor, in 1305, the election of the archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Got. However, the latter is a pawn of Philip the Fair, who would have had him elected to further increase his influence on the affairs of the Church. The cardinals are thus complicit in the masquerade, which Dante, in his Letterqualifies as “ notorious infamous scar » (p. 208).
In 1314, Clement V died in turn, and it was a papacy forced to reside in France which had to find a successor. Cardinal Napoleone, faithful relay of the interests of the King of France, is still present there. We do not know when the Letter was received by its official recipients, and even if it was truly sent: Gian Luca Potestà does not exclude the hypothesis of a “ open letter », intended to be read in public, to make known one’s opinion on events (p. 225).
The text addressed by Dante to the cardinals has other ambitions than to take stock of the political situation of the past decade: the Florentine poet seeks to alert the cardinals to their responsibility in the face of history. To defend a cause that he considers superior, Dante then chooses “ to follow the model of the persecuted prophet, to the point of staging an explicit divine investiture » (p. 91).
A legacy “ prophetic »
What exactly do we mean by “ prophet » in the Middle Ages ? Gian Luca Potestà recalls that Gregory the Great, in VIe century, qualifies an individual as a prophet “ not because it predicts what will happen, but because it brings to light what is hidden » (p. 14). Prophecy can therefore only be understood, for medieval people, through this notion: its author does not necessarily announce the future with accuracy, but rather wants to reveal the “ plan » that God reserves for humanity. Dante, in the Lettertherefore does not predict anything: on the contrary, he points to the consequences of the past, the greed of the prelates and finally expresses his anger in the face of the Avignon exile (p. 95).
Why, however, make use of a style “ prophetic » ? Probably because, since the end of the XIIIe century, a literary genre was then in vogue among Western intellectuals: that of “ pontifical prophecy » (pp. 135-141). Several texts identified under this type (Nequam people, Liber de Flore, Horoscope…) thus claim to predict the future of the papacy to better justify the present. Written by anonymous hands, prestigious false authors are attributed to them, sometimes fictitious (the mage Merlin) or real (Hraban Maur, Joachim de Flore), to increase their scope. These documents are actually Latin adaptations of the “ imperial oracles », Byzantine texts dated IXe ande centuries. The latter already featured the animal figure of a “ Bear »: the latter is reused in his masculine letter by Dante, thus making a very probable play on words with the noun “ Orsini “.
For Gian Luca Potestà, it is obvious that the events in Perugia bear the mark of these prophecies, and that they could have influenced the vote of the cardinals. We can then understand that Dante, who knows of its existence, has nothing but contempt for the texts of these “ astronomers and rough prophesyers “. To better respond to it, he in turn uses the genre of prophecy, and uses it as the basis for a virulent enterprise of denunciation: a dismayed witness to a hostage-taking of the Church by the French monarchy, he publicly accuses the cardinals of simonic drift.
Dante is finally inspired by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah, whose influence is clearly visible in several passages of the Divine Comedy (pp. 74-94). The song XIX of theHell is the one who crystallizes all the attention. The figure of the Bear is already used there to evoke Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280), which, compared to the Lettersurprises the specialists: theHell would have been written between 1306 and 1308, but Dante already seems to announce the imminent death of Clement V ! The debate over the dating of the Letter therefore remains open, and Dante continues to play, across the centuries, with the certainties of “ astronomers » (p. 160).
A call for Italian revival
The similarities are also disturbing between the Letter and the singing VI of Purgatorysecond part of the Comedy whose writing would be more contemporary with the conclave: Italy is presented in both texts as “ mistress » (domina gentium in the Letter, donna di province in the Comedy), which had a lasting influence on his later allegorical representations.
There Letter to the cardinals circulated in Italy in the years following the conclave, and continued to be commented on well after Dante’s death. His impact on a whole generation of Italian intellectuals and political actors from the middle of XIVe century is undeniable. Cola di Rienzo, a tribune who briefly took power in Rome in 1347, seemed to be inspired by it when he used feminine allegories at the time of his coup d’état, as recounted in the Chronic from Roman Anonymous. Petrarch also cites it as early as 1331, and refers to it several times in other texts (p. 19).
Behind the criticism of the abandonment of Rome by the Church there is therefore an implicit call for Italian action to reclaim the Latin city. Foundation, for Dante, of the civilitas (“ citizenship ), the Eternal City “ must be cherished with piety by all Italians “. This argument then explains, in the Letterthe appeal to the feelings of the cardinals from the peninsula: they should have felt ashamed of having elected a French pope following the events in Perugia, and must, while it is still possible, correct this historical error (p. 187-188). The layout of the Macula editions, which is somewhat experimental, can be criticized for sometimes lacking homogeneity. But the numerous and detailed notes, presented at the end of each chapter, allow the reader to be referred more directly to the various previous studies relating to the subject. A work of historiography as much as philology, Gian Luca Potestà’s work finally gives valuable keys to historiansnes who are interested in the central political issues of XIVe century, and in particular those posed by the Avignon papacy.