Who She Is
Cunizza is the soul of Venus who introduces herself to Dante by describing the place before the name: in the corrupted part of Italy, between Rialto and the sources of the Brenta and the Piave, rises a low hill, from which a torch descended that assailed the region. The torch is her brother, whom tradition reads as Ezzelino III da Romano, the tyrant whom Dante left in the river of blood in Inferno, and Cunizza sprang from the same root. What brought her to Venus fits in a line: the star conquered her. The pardon she grants herself is joyful and unrepentant. Tradition attributes to her a life of love affairs, among them the one with the poet Sordello, whom Dante meets in Purgatory, but the poem says only that the light of the star conquered her. She points out the nearest jewel, that of Folquet, and passes to the land from which she came: she foretells punishment for the March of Treviso, for Padua, for a lord of Treviso, and for the bishop of Feltre. She closes by explaining the source of what she says, the Thrones in which God the judge shines. She appears only in canto IX, and it is there that she fulfills her function: a soul that forgives itself without repenting and speaks without indulgence of the crimes of others.
Trajectory
In canto IX of Paradise she names herself by kinship and by star:
D’una radice nacqui e io ed ella: / Cunizza fui chiamata, e qui refulgo / perché mi vinse il lume d’esta stella; / ma lietamente a me medesma indulgo / la cagion di mia sorte, e non mi noia; / che parria forse forte al vostro vulgo, from one root we were born, she and I: I was called Cunizza, and here I shine because the light of this star overcame me; but gladly I pardon myself the cause of my fate, and it does not weigh on me, though perhaps it would seem harsh to your common crowd.
The prophecy comes next: the commentators see events subsequent to the date of the journey, and Cunizza explains where she gets her words:
Sù sono specchi, voi dicete Troni, / onde refulge a noi Dio giudicante; / sì che questi parlar ne paion buoni, up there are mirrors, which you call Thrones, from which God the judge shines upon us; therefore these words seem good to us.
Themes Embodied
Cunizza embodies the Love of Venus after passion: what conquered her was the star, and there joy replaces repentance. She also embodies Justice and law, because the same mouth that forgives itself speaks without indulgence of the crimes of the March.
The text sustains two readings. In the first, the pardon she gives herself is that of someone who has understood where the inclination came from. In the second, the poem anticipates what Folquet will say about guilt that no longer returns to the mind. In both, Cunizza's stance does not cancel the prophecy: the pardon is for the inclination of the star, and the condemnation is for what the people of the March did after being struck.
Relationships
- Folquet of Marseille: the jewel she points out and who speaks afterward.
- Dante: the living man whom she answers with courtesy.
- Beatrice: the one who gives the assent that certifies Dante's will.