‘Una veritade ascosa sotto bella menzogna’: Dante’s Eclogues and the World Beyond the Text

Abstract

This article explores the poetic exchange between Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio with close attention to the Cacciaguida cantos. It suggests that the ‘ten buckets of milk’ mentioned at the end of Dante’s first eclogue correspond closely to Paradiso xv–xxv and that both these cantos and the eclogues may be understood to form Dante’s response to del Virgilio’s epistle. In answering del Virgilio, Dante sought to underline his own classical credentials while at the same time mounting a defence of vernacular literature. Paradiso xxv is read as the climax of Dante’s arguments, in which he rejects del Virgilio’s offer to move to Bologna and asserts his desire to wait to receive the laurel crown in Florence. This article highlights both Dante’s willingness to defend his own poetic practice and the role of external factors in motivating the writing of the Comedy. It suggests that by choosing to address troubling external factors within his ‘poema sacro’, Dante was able to respond to them from a more secure position of authority and theological unassailability.