18-year-old Dante dreams of Beatrice naked

By: Aurel Plasari

I became curious reading reviews in the Italian press of historian Alessandro Barbero's new book on Dante. 18-year-old Dante dreams of Beatrice naked?!

The book indeed describes Dante as "a teenager with unfulfilled desires". After having seen Beatrice once at the age of nine, after nine years the second sighting occurs. He is 18 years old, she is 17, but now a married woman and can leave the house, although almost always accompanied, as her husband's sister, the knight Simone de' Bardi, asks.

That day he is in the company of two elderly ladies and, for the first time, he notices the teenager. He, like any shy teenager, panics. But Bea meets his gaze and greets him by sending him to the seventh heaven: "As much as it seemed to me that I saw all the edges of happiness." It was the first time he heard her voice!

After that, the 18-year-old runs home and locks himself in his room, where he replays the meeting with Beatrice in his mind. Night has fallen and he, locked in the room, dreams of her naked. The author of the book says it well, even if Dante himself had said it "with such an easy sweep that exegetes usually avoid commenting".

We are in the Middle Ages, between the years 1292-1294. Let's open Dante's text, "La vita nova", to verify how it was said.

Here, in Song III: E pensando di lei, mi sopragiunse uno soave sonno, ne lo quale m apparve una marvelous vision: che me perea vedere ne la mia camera una nebula di colore di fuoco, dentro a la quale io discernea una figura d'uno segnore di pauroso aspetto a chi la guardasse [...] Ne le sue braccia mi parea vedere una persona dormire nuda, salvo che involta mi parea in uno drappo sanguigno leggeramente.

That is: And, thinking of him, I fell into a sweet sleep, in which a wondrous vision appeared to me: in my room I seemed to see a mist of the color of fire, within which I discerned the figure of a lord of scary [...] In his arms it seemed to me as if I saw a person sleeping naked, only it seemed to me wrapped in a slightly bloody sheet.

The author is right: things must be said well. An example of how to write for writers, so also a reading recommendation.