英文摘要 |
In Canto 31 of the Paradiso Dante likens his amazement upon entering the Empyrean and beholding the heavenly citadel, laid out in the form of a white rose, to the awe that the Barbarians must have felt when they first gazed on the majesty of the great monuments of Rome. He goes on to contrast the just and sane people who dwell in the heavenly realm with himself, who has journeyed from time to eternity, from the human to the divine, from Florence to the city of the saints, thus implying that his native city represents all that is not just, all that does not respect the divine order, all that is barbaric.
In fact, this contrasting of the Heavenly Jerusalem with Florence is part of a wider programme in the Commedia in which Dante vividly portrays the corruption, avarice and internecine strife that has brought the once great cities of Italy low, and sets forth his vision for a new civic disposition when Rome will once again rule over a new Christian Empire. This is essentially the same vision that Dante sets forth in his Monarchia where he proposes that the dual roles of Christ as King and High Priest be divided on earth between Pope and Emperor, the latter holding absolute sway in the civic realm and guaranteeing the peace in which citizens can flourish and lead an upright moral life, the former determining all matters spiritual.
This paper explores how Dante‘s complex portrayal of infernal and heavenly cities in the Commedia is the principal vehicle whereby he sets forth his political and ethical vision for a Christian civilisation, just as important in its own way as the spiritual message of the poem. |