Reading Dante's Stars

Description

The introduction contains some very good quotes about the nobility of astronomy, which reminds me of St. John of the Cross's, St. Bonaventure's, et al.'s writings on how creatures can raise us to God:

Convivio 2.13.30:

[L’Astrologia] è altissima di tutte l’altre; però che, sì come dice Aristotile nel cominciamento dell’Anima, la scienza è alta di nobilitade per la nobilitade del suo subietto e per la sua certezza; e questa più che alcuna delle sopra dette è nobile e alta per nobile e alto subietto, ch’è dello movimento del cielo; e alta e nobile per la sua certezza, la quale è sanza ogni difetto, sì come quella che da perfettissimo e regolatissimo principio viene.

This is remniscent of Giacomo Leopardi Storia dell'Astronomia :

La più sublime, la più nobile tra le Fisiche scienze ella è senza dubbio l'Astronomia. L'uomo s'innalza per mezzo di essa come al di sopra di se medesimo, e giunge a conoscere la causa dei fenomeni più straordinari.
The most sublime, the most noble among the Physical sciences is without doubt Astronomy. Man raises himself through being beyond himself and arrives at understanding the cause of the most extraordinary phenomena.

These are the same reasons St. Thomas on how theology is the noblest science.

Galileo gave a lecture to the Florentine Academy on the astronomy of La Divina Commedia (intro. // PDF p. 160n7)! He was also familiar with the logical works of St. Thomas et al. Thomists, which Duhem mentions at the end of his Studies on Leonardo da Vinci (vol. 3).

Astronomy is one of the most prominent and perplexing features of Dante's Divine Comedy. In the final rhyme of the poem's three parts, and in scores of descriptions and analogies, the stars are an intermediate goal and a constant point of reference for the spiritual journey the poem narrates. This book makes a sustained analysis of Dante's use of astronomy, not only in terms of the precepts of medieval science but also in relation to specific moral, philosophical, and poetic problems laid out in each chapter. For Dante, Alison Cornish says, the stars offer optical representations of invisible realities, from divine providence to the workings of the human soul. Dante's often puzzling celestial figures call attention to the physical world as a scene of reading in which visible phenomena are subject to more than one explanation, Cornish contends. The poetry of Dante's astronomy, as well as its difficulty, rests on this imperative of interpretation. Reading the stars, like reading literature, is an ethical undertaking fraught with risk, not just an exercise in technical understanding.
Cornish's book is the first guide to the astronomy of Dante's masterpiece to encompass both ways of reading his work.

Review

"This is an elegantly concise, lucid, and beautifully written book. It is fresh Dante criticism of the first order." David Quint, Yale University

About the Author

Alison Cornish is assistant professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan.