Chapter
International politics: the Emperor Henry VII
Dante’s third age: the ‘Comedy’
‘By profession, a poetic philosopher’
‘Propter admirari incoeperunt philosophari’
‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas’
The nature and origins of Aristotle’s theory
Substrate and potentiality
Heat and cold, lightness and gravity
Elemental love in prose and poetry
Fiction and fact in Dante’s underworld
The scope and influence of Aristotle’s meteorology
Condensation and evaporation
Meteorology in narrative and simile
Meteorology and divine punishment
Meteorology and the language of prophecy
‘Questa parte del mare e della terra’
Geography, language and politics
Geography, place-names and poetry
Geographical periphrasis in the Heaven of Venus
5 The natural world and the Scale of Being
The ‘Comedy’ as microcosm
Metals and minerals in the ‘Comedy’
Corporeity, form, quality and composition
Complexion, powers and virtues, ‘differentiae’
Compound bodies: inanimate, vegetative and sensitive
The Ladder of Being or the Scale of Nature
The material cause of the heavenly body
The planetary and stellar spheres
The planetary heavens in Cicero and Dante
The difficulties of geocentric astronomy
The movements of the earth and the solar system
Dante and the movements of the sun
The ninth heaven in the ‘Comedy’
The cosmic clock: (a) ‘moontime’
The cosmic clock: (b) the ‘ideal’ Easter
The cosmic clock: (c) counting the years
The heavenly luminaries as terms of comparison
The stars around the southern pole
Didactic narrative: (a) the angel of humility
Didactic narrative: (b) the angels of love and forgiveness
Didactic narrative: (c) the angel of moderation
Biblical angels in the ‘Comedy’
The ‘Celestial Hierarchy’: (a) St Paul and Dionysius
The ‘Celestial Hierarchy’: (b) Dante
Angels, demons and the pagan gods
‘Substances separate from matter’
L’essetnplo e I’essemplare
Part 2: Coming into being
Light: (a) its nature and properties
Light: (b) ‘God is light’
Light: (c) The scale of luminosity
Light: (d) relaying by reflection
Light: (e) negative and positive connotations
Numbers: (a) the one and the many
Number: (b) proportion and harmony
9 Creation (Paradiso xxix, 1-57)
The problems presented by Genesis 1.1
Prelude: the point of space and time
The unfolding of God’s eternal love
‘Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever’
10 Generation and universal nature
Aristotle’s account of generation
Dante’s account of generation and the celestial influences
Determinism in the natural order
Corruption, privation and death
Dante’s view of the ‘opus distinction’: a reconstruction
The poet of Christian Neoplatonism
Generation: (a) From the formation of seed to conception
Generation: (b) The transformations of the embryo
Creation: (a) The intellect and the error of Averroes
Creation: (b) The breath of human life
The shadow-bodies and the role of the heavens
‘Man in Society’ and ‘Man and God’
Our likeness to God: (a) Knowledge and freedom
Our likeness to God: (b) God-longing and immortality
The goodness of man s ‘natural’ functions
‘In my beginnings are my ends’
Part 3: Texts, references and notes
Introductory notes to Part 3
Suggestions for further reading
Index of longer quotations