Rise of Italian Communes in 11-12 C.
 vacuum of Imperial power during Investiture Conflict

   Society: 11th C. cities dominated by nobility
     nobles: military, landowning class, urban
     citizens (cives):         guild members
          non-noble property holders (merchants);
     popolino (little people)
         majority poorer urban dwellers: servants, day laborers,

Republican city states: representative self-government
      transfer of power from feudal ruler (Bishop, Counts)

   COMMUNE:  Italian for Latin res publica (public thing)
       association of free men collectively holding some public authority
    
   CONSULS:  permanent body of elected citizen executives
       extension of authority over the contado (countryside)

Phases of the Italian commune:
     11th C. Consular commune: dominated by noble families
              Age of the Towers: built by noble families for urban warfare
     12th C. Podesta: outsider (nobleman with law degree)
                 brought as executive  for specific period (1-2 years)
     12-13th C. Rise of the popolo (people):  guild regimes

Florentine factions: background to Dante
         Guelfs (papacy) versus  Ghibellines (Empire)   

DANTE: THE DIVINE COMEDY AND THE MEDIEVAL WORLD VIEW            

I.  DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321): Florentine noble; ambassador to Rome for
       Florentine Republic; first poet to write in Italian vernacular
      1292 La Vita Nova: love poems to Beatrice Portinari
         “Platonic” inspirational love of a young noble woman

II. POLITICS: 1301 Dante exiled due to armed factional dispute in Florence;
    Papacy under Boniface VIII supports opposite faction with troops:        
        Dante hostile to power of Popes; puts Boniface in Hell; looks to
    ROMAN EMPIRE as hope to restore peace in Italy (recalls Pax Romana)
    1313 writes treatise De Monarchia (On Monarchy) to support Empire;
    1310-1313 Emperor Henry VII brings army to Italy, but defeated by Pope
      end of Dante’s political hopes of return to Florence; turns to religion

     Dante’s redefinition of Augustine’s political model from City of God:
    City of Man: shifts from Babylon/pagan Roman state to FLORENCE,
      “whose name resounds throughout Hell” (full of Florentines & Popes)  
    City of God: shifts from Jerusalem/Church to IMPERIAL ROME (but also:
      “Paradise is the Rome of which Christ is a Roman citizen.”)     

“For Rome, which made the world good, used to have two suns
[reference is to Sun and Moon: Sun = Papacy, Moon = Empire],
and they made visible two paths –- the world’s path and the pathway
that is God’s. Each has eclipsed the other; now the sword has joined
the shepherd’s crook; the two together must of necessity result
in evil." Purgatory Canto 16, 106-111 = denunciation of armed Papacy

III. Poem: La Divina Commedia "autobiography on a cosmic scale"   
      Christian symbolism, allegory of soul’s search for salvation

     Time frame: set in the year 1300 (actually written later)
     Characters:  Dante ("everyman," the Christian soul/pilgrim),
            Virgil (Reason), Beatrice (Revelation/Divine Love)

      Geography: Ptolemaic universe; Ptolemy = Egyptian astronomer
            geocentric universe, sun & moon = planets, crystalline spheres
      Journey through universe: opens with Dante lost in Dark Wood

      Hell: First Circle = Limbo, where Dante speaks with "good pagans"
                              Plato, Aristotle, Virgil etc.
       deeper circles = progressively worse sins; three categories of sins:
       Incontinence (sins of passion, eg lust, gluttony)
         Canto V: story of Paolo & Francesca
       Violence: against self (suicide), neighbor, God
       Fraud: sins of deceit, treason as worst eg Brutus & Cassius in
            jaws of demon at bottom of Hell for role in assassination
            of Julius Ceasar(= example of Dante's Imperial politics)
      Purgatory "mountain  of Purgatory" summit "Earthly Paradise"
            where Beatrice replaces Virgil as guide to heaven
     Paradise concentric "heavenly spheres" correspond to orders
        of angels, level of holiness; last sphere = Primum mobile,
        beyond this universe ends, Empyrean (where God is) begins   

IV. Sources:
     A. Classical Poetry: Virgil's Aeneid, journey to underworld;
         Dante consciously imitated Virgil’s poetic achievement
      B. Courtly Love Tradition: 12th C. southern France, troubadors;
            romantic, unconsummated love of woman of higher status;
            love as enobling for knight devoted to her service
      C. Christianity: divine love (charity) = central Christian theme
            drawing on Platonic tradition of love as desire of
            "the one, the true and the beautiful" = God
      Poem: Love as binding force of society, absent in Hell

V. 13th C Rise of Universities as intellectual setting

      Scholasticism = rational study of religion, philosophy
      effort to blend Christian faith and classical knowledge
      parallel in Dante’s imagery of his reliance on
          Virgil (reason) and Beatrice (revelation)