Who He Is
Bonaventure is the voice that, in canto XII, answers the Dominican Thomas Aquinas, from the second circle of wise men of the Sun, and names himself only at the end of the canto. He speaks of one of the new lights, and the pilgrim turns toward it as the compass needle turns to the star. A Franciscan, he uses the love that makes it beautiful as a reason to speak of the other duke: where one is led, the other should be led too, because the glory of both shines together. He recounts Dominic's birth in Calaruega, in Spain, under the protection of the shield of Castile, and makes him the lover of the faith and its athlete, gentle to his own and cruel to his enemies. He describes the boy who, while still in the womb, made his mother a prophetess, the godmother who saw the fruit in a dream, the name taken from Dominus, the farmer whom Christ chose to help him in the garden. He speaks of the jurist and the physician whom the world follows, and whom Dominic refused out of love for the true manna, and of the petition he made to the apostolic see. He ends by condemning his own order, with the image of mold where there had been crust. What matters here is the gesture of being the exact mirror of Thomas's praise.
Trajectory
In canto XII he begins by describing the birthplace of Dominic:
dentro vi nacque l’amoroso drudo / de la fede cristiana, il santo atleta / benigno a’ suoi e a’ nemici crudo, within it was born the loving lover of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, gentle to his own and cruel to his enemies.
Dominic petitions the apostolic see in the negative: no exemption, no vacant benefice, no tithe:
non dispensare o due o tre per sei, / non la fortuna di prima vacante, / non decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei, not to dispense two or three for six, not the fortune of the first vacancy, not tithes, which belong to God's poor.
After praising another's founder, Bonaventure judges his own, with an image of wine:
Ma l’orbita che fé la parte somma / di sua circunferenza, è derelitta, / sì ch’è la muffa dov’ era la gromma, but the orbit that made the highest part of its circumference is abandoned, so that there is mold where there was crust.
And he points to the two extremes of the rule, one that flees it and the other that tightens it:
ma non fia da Casal né d’Acquasparta, / là onde vegnon tali a la scrittura, / ch’uno la fugge e altro la coarta, but it will not come from Casale or from Acquasparta, where such men come to the rule, one who flees it and another who tightens it.
Only at the end does he present himself:
Saint Bonaventure, a Franciscan, holds up the exact mirror.Io son la vita di Bonaventura / da Bagnoregio, che ne’ grandi offici / sempre pospuosi la sinistra cura.Saint Bonaventure presents himself as the life of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, who in great offices always set aside care for his own interest, and begins to narrate the life of Dominic:Domenico fu detto; e io ne parlo / sì come de l’agricola che Cristo / elesse a l’orto suo per aiutarlo.He was called Dominic, says Bonaventure, and he speaks of him as the farmer whom Christ chose to help him in his garden. The symmetry is exact and deliberate: each order praises the founder of the other through the mouth of one of its greatest names, and the poem closes the historical quarrel between Franciscans and Dominicans with the strongest proof it had at hand, the voice of the adversary.
With him are Illuminato and Augustine, among the first barefoot ones, Hugh of Saint Victor, Peter Comestor and Peter of Spain, the prophet Nathan, the metropolitan Chrysostom, Anselm, Donatus, Rabanus, and the abbot Joachim, endowed with prophetic spirit. Thomas's courtesy moved Bonaventure to celebrate so great a paladin, and with him it moved this company too.
Themes Embodied
Bonaventure embodies Knowledge and wisdom, and Faith that corrects itself from within. The praise of another's founder is proof that praise is free, and the criticism of his own order is proof that whoever praises knows what has been lost.
The text sustains two readings of the final condemnation. In the first, it is the outburst of someone who saw Francis's rule loosen on one side and tighten on the other. In the second, it is a literary device of the poet, who can condemn the Franciscans more forcefully through a Franciscan's mouth than through his own. The exact symmetry with canto XI, in which the Dominican condemns his own flock, suggests that the second reading does not exclude the first.
Relationships
- Thomas Aquinas: the Dominican whose praise of Francis he returns.
- Dante: the living man who turns toward him as the needle to the star.
- Beatrice: the one who remains at the center of the two crowns with Dante.