The Cross of Mars: Crusade Imagery and Theology in the Prologue to the Encounter with Cacciaguida (Par. xiv–xv)*

ABSTRACT

Beginning with Innocent III’s pontificate, participation in the crusades became increasingly interpreted as imitatio Christi patientis. Innocent III’s crusade theology was revived by later pontiffs and became ingrained in the collective imagination through preaching. This article shows how Dante draws on thirteenth-century crusade theology in his depiction of the cross of Mars, with special attention paid to imitatio Christi. Dante’s rendering of his inner sacrifice (Par. xiv, 88–93) foreshadows the apparition of the cross and appears to have been influenced by the imagery of the crusader’s vow as found in contemporary ecclesiastical documents. In these texts, crusaders are frequently depicted as participating in an inner sacrifice prompted by the fire of caritas that recalls Christ’s own sacrifice. Reading Paradiso xiv-xv in light of this context – and with an awareness of the significance of Cacciaguida’s placement in the same heaven – allows us to explore Dante’s self-representation as a miles Christi.

KEYWORDS:

• Dante
• Paradiso
• Cacciaguida
• crusades
• preaching
• militia Christi

While considerable critical attention has been devoted to the relationship between the Commedia and the crusades,¹ an in-depth analysis of Dante’s reception of thirteenth-century crusade theology and its implications for interpreting some of the cantos of his ‘sacred poem’ is still lacking. Lawrence Warner, for instance, addresses this topic in a brief note for the Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America, providing an insightful interpretation of certain aspects of Paradiso xiv–xv, although the succinctness of his contribution prevents Warner from addressing the most recent historiographical developments on the subject.² This article seeks to fill this critical gap by focusing on the section of the poem in which the best-known motifs of thirteenth-century crusade theology are most clearly delineated: Dante’s ascent to the heaven of Mars and the apparition of the cross of the milites Christi in Paradiso xiv–xv. The first part of this article will highlight Innocent III’s role in the formulation of a distinct theological framework for the crusade that achieved widespread popularity throughout the thirteenth century, while the second part will discuss how Innocent III’s crusade theology took root in the collective imagination through preaching. I will also argue that Dante may have witnessed crusade preaching directly in Florence between 1290 and 1292. The third section of the article is focused on the echoes of this theological context in the passage in which the cross of Mars appears to Dante the Pilgrim, thus shedding light on an otherwise neglected aspect of Paradiso xiv–xv. The conclusion will argue that Dante’s use of this imagery, as well as his inclusion of Cacciaguida in the Heaven of Mars, is consistent with Dante’s self-representation as a miles Christi.

Crusade Theology in the Thirteenth Century

During Innocent III’s pontificate (1198–1216), crusade ideology underwent a number of radical changes, including its re-deployment in support of causes other than the liberation of the Holy Land and the conceptualisation of a detailed theological framework for it.³ The early developmental stages of the new theology of the negotium crucis may be found in the 1213 encyclical Quia maior, in which the Pope called for the fifth crusade.⁴ In the aim of inspiring the faithful to join the crusade, Innocent III offers a reading of Matthew 16. 24 (‘Si quis vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum, et tollat crucem suam, et sequatur me’⁵) that recasts Christ’s appeal for his disciples to take up their crosses and follow Him as a call to join him in battle, and, in so doing, to take part in the passagium.⁶ Following this encyclical, participation in the crusade was increasingly interpreted as imitatio and sequela Christi. In the Quia maior, it is also described as an act of love and Christian charity towards one’s neighbour, particularly Eastern Christians living in Saracen-controlled areas.⁷ Moreover, the pontiff suggests that the relationship between Christ and the crusaders is akin to that between a king and his vassals, who must be able to prove their loyalty by fighting for him and his lands at his hour of need.⁸ And although some of these concepts were already present in twelfth-century documents, their incorporation into Innocent III’s eucharistic and Christomimetic theology of the crusade allowed for their considerably more widespread dissemination.

In the opening session of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Innocent III elucidated the link between the Council, the eucharistic rite, and Easter (also understood in its etymological meaning of Passover or transitus). In his sermon, the pontiff frequently referred to Christ’s statement during the last supper as rendered in Luke 22. 15: ‘desiderio desideravi hoc Pascha manducare vobiscum, antequam patiar’.⁹ The Pope then proceeded to expound the threefold meaning of Easter or Passover in terms of the three main goals pursued by the Council: the liberation of earthly Jerusalem (the corporeal sense), the reform of the universal Church (the spiritual sense), and the pursuit of heavenly glory (the eternal sense).¹⁰ In the same sermon, Innocent III called on the faithful to join the crusade, making poignant allusions to the Scriptures, including Lamentations 1 (regarding Jerusalem’s desolation after the Chaldean conquest), Psalms 86 (the hymn to Zion), and i Maccabees 4 (regarding the liberation of the Holy City and the Temple from the Seleucids).¹¹ The connection established here between Easter and its etymological meaning of transitus (or passagium in its corporeal sense) implies an understanding of the crusade as a post-figuration of both Passover in the Old Testament (the passage from sin to redemption, respectively represented by Egypt and Israel) and the New Testament’s Easter (Christ’s sacrifice and the triumph over death).¹² Franco Cardini argues that Easter’s interlacing with the notion of passagium, along with the contemporary renewal of the liturgy and the theology of the cross, suggests that participation in the crusade transcended its conventional framing as a peregrinatio paenitentialis and took on the significance of imitatio Christi patientis. This is particularly evident in the redefinition of the crucesignati as allegorical bearers of the cross of Christ (crucigeri) rather than mere carriers of this symbol.¹³

Innocent III’s ideas retained their influence throughout the final decades of the thirteenth century, which were marked by a series of unsuccessful attempts to organise a new passagium. The first such attempt may be traced back to Gregory X, who made the crusade into the key issue of the Second Council of Lyon (1274).¹⁴ Upon calling the Council, Gregory X assigned those with a knowledge of the Eastern situation the tasks of elaborating a new strategy for reconquering the Holy Land and helping further develop crusade preaching. This enterprise was primarily undertaken by members of the mendicant orders – including the Franciscan Gilbert of Tournai and the Dominican Humbert of Romans –, whose treatises were characterised by an ideological conception of the crusade.¹⁵ In a sermon delivered on the first day of the Council, the Pope made use of the same evangelical passage chosen by Innocent III to open the Fourth Lateran Council (Luke 22. 15: ‘Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum’), expounded his rationale for calling the Council, and urged his audience to join the crusade effort.¹⁶ The pontiff’s vision for the conquest of the Holy Land is laid out in the decree Constitutiones pro zelo fidei, which outlines a set of practical steps towards a new passagium.¹⁷ This document displays marked ideological and political affinities with the decrees regarding the crusade issued for the Fourth Lateran Council and the First Council of Lyon – Innocent III’s Ad liberandam and Innocent IV’s Afflicti corde, respectively – parallels which testify to the enduring direct and indirect appeal of Innocent III’s ideas well into the final decades of the thirteenth century.¹⁸ Although this ambitious project was abandoned indefinitely following Gregory X’s sudden death in 1276, both the Constitutiones pro zelo fidei and the treatises commissioned by Gregory X would go on to play a key role in shaping the late-thirteenth-century idea of crusade by expanding its theoretical framework as conceptualised by Innocent III.

Under Nicholas IV, whose conception of the crusade was deeply influenced by the Second Council of Lyon,¹⁹ both the fall of Tripoli (1289) and the ongoing threat to Acre, the last crusader stronghold in the Holy Land, prompted projects for a new passagium. Nicholas IV’s first expedition aimed to buttress the permanent garrison in Acre with a few thousand men from Northern and Central Italy, sent in early 1290.²⁰ After their departure, the pontiff successfully enlisted the support of Europe’s most powerful monarchs in an ambitious plan for a new passagium, intended to come into effect in 1293.²¹ This project gained new momentum in August 1291 when, following the fall of Acre, Nicholas IV proclaimed a new crusade and issued two encyclicals, the Dire amaritudinis calicem – in which he called for written suggestions for reconquering the Holy Land – and the Dura nimis et amara, inspired by Gregory X’s Salvator noster.²² This considerable intellectual and logistical investment yielded little concrete results, as hopes for a new passagium were put on hold following the death of Nicholas IV in 1292. However, the pontiff’s call for suggestions gave rise to a new literary genre: the memoranda de recuperatione Terre Sancte, a fundamental tool for understanding the idea of crusade in the 1290s and in the early years of the fourteenth century.²³ Fidentius of Padua’s Liber recuperationis Terre Sancte, written in the period between the Second Council of Lyon and 1290 or 1291, is an early landmark text of this genre and certainly influenced Nicholas IV’s conception of the crusade. Here, participation in the crusade is delineated using the linguistic paradigms of Franciscan spirituality and is once again framed as a form of imitatio Christi, yet another indicator that Innocent III’s crusade theology was still far from forgotten in the last decade of the thirteenth century.²⁴

Crusade Theology in Thirteenth-Century Preaching

Innocent III’s crusade theology became entrenched in the thirteenth-century collective imagination primarily through liturgy and preaching.²⁵ Following the failure of the fourth crusade, Innocent III set up a crusade preaching apparatus that branched throughout Christendom, whose purpose was to propagate information consistently, uniformly, and in line with the Pope’s own directives. This was the goal of the 1213 encyclical Quia maior, composed and published in order to disseminate the pontiff’s idea of crusade and to aid preachers across Europe.²⁶ The letter Pium et sanctum, sent by the pontiff to numerous bishops and prelates tasked with crusade preaching across Europe in 1213, is a testament to this point. Here, the pope instructs his readers to ‘pass on with great care and attention to detail exactly what is contained in the encyclical [Quia maior], transmitting carefully and effectively everything you will see has been included in that letter for the aid of the Holy Land, which we wish you to note most carefully’.²⁷ Innocent III’s instructions’ influence on the preaching of the cross is made apparent by the fact that, until as late as the 1260s, pontiffs continued to provide preachers with copies of the crusade bull Ad liberandam, from which they could draw information for instructing the faithful about the spiritual privileges due to those who took part in the passagium.²⁸ Innocent III’s successors pursued preaching as a preferred means of disseminating the principles and values associated with the crusade. This propagandistic apparatus grew increasingly pervasive with the heightened involvement of the new mendicant orders, who soon became the most important agents of crusade preaching.²⁹ The Dominicans and the Franciscans were often chosen by pontiffs for this activity due to their extensive territorial reach and the widespread availability of trained preachers within their ranks. As Christoph T. Maier notes:

The spectacular success and the rapid growth of the mendicant orders throughout Europe enabled them to build up an infrastructure which provided the medium of the sermon with channels for effective broadcasting and wide dissemination. It was ultimately because of the activities of the Franciscan and Dominican friars that preaching came to be the nearest that the middle ages had to a mass medium.³⁰

While the importance of mendicant-led preaching in the dissemination of crusade ideas in the thirteenth century has been widely acknowledged, there are no extant records detailing the content of these sermons.³¹ Thirteenth-century chronicles sometimes refer to crusade sermons delivered in specific contexts, but they rarely provide information regarding their content. The few such surviving texts are generally model sermons for the preaching of the cross composed by prominent preachers with ties to the University of Paris and preserved within their ad status sermon collections. Other sermons refer to the crusade on account of their delivery during relevant liturgical festivities, such as Lent or the feasts of the Invention and Exaltation of the Holy Cross.³² Another important source is Humbert of Romans’s De predicatione sanctae crucis, a compendium of material for the preaching of the cross.³³ Conceived to aid preachers in the composition of sermons, its circulation in the thirteenth century is debated, as there are no extant manuscripts of it predating the 1300s. It would be a delicate task to attempt to define the relationship between these texts, largely intended as preaching aids or templates, and the real sermons pronounced in front of an audience, which were likely altered and re-fashioned to suit the specific circumstances of their delivery. Nevertheless, the extant model sermons testify to the lingering influence of Innocent III’s crusade theology throughout the thirteenth century and suggest that their main recurring themes may still have been common in crusade preaching in Dante’s lifetime.

The representation of participation in the crusades as imitatio and sequela Christi is certainly one of the most prevalent themes in the model sermons.³⁴ These associations may be found in texts authored by Eudes of Châteauroux, Humbert of Romans and Gilbert of Tournai between the 1240s and 1270s. In representing the crusaders as Christ’s followers, these authors frequently quote Luke 9. 23 or Matthew 16. 24: ‘If anyone wants to come after me, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me’. Much as in Innocent III’s Quia maior, the scriptural injunction to ‘take up the cross and follow Christ’ is thus re-interpreted as an invitation to join the crusade in imitation of Christ’s Passion. Of the six model sermons that make this explicit association, Gilbert of Tournai’s first sermon³⁵ is particularly noteworthy for its use of Luke 9. 23 in representing the crusaders as martyrs ascending to Heaven with Christ:

Crux autem citissime facit crucesignatos devotos, immo martires veros, pro causa Christi de terra ad celum evolare, unde Luc.[ix, 23]: Qui vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur me. (Gilbert I. 8)

The cross most quickly makes devout crusaders, real martyrs indeed, fly from earth up to heaven for the cause of Christ, whence Luke 9: Who wants to come after me, let him renounce himself and carry his cross and follow me.

In the same model sermon, Gilbert of Tournai equates participation in the crusade with acting out one’s love for Christ through emulation of Him. Here, the crusader is described as subjected to an inner holocaust:

Hanc crucem Christi in corde habeas et eius stigmata in corpore tuo feras, ut intus offerens victimam holocausti etiam foris habeas pellem eius. Debet enim qui se dicit per internam dilectionem in Christo manere per apertam operum et passionum eius imitationem sicut ille ambulavit et ipse ambulare. (Gilbert I. 16)

May you have this cross of Christ in your heart and carry his stigmata on your body so that, offering the sacrifice of a burnt-offering inside, you may have his skin on the outside. He who claims to remain in Christ through internal love must walk as he walked by the open imitation of his deeds and passion.

The duty of acting upon and sharing one’s love for Christ in His Passion by taking part in the crusade was another widespread theme of crusade rhetoric from as early as the twelfth century.³⁶ In thirteenth-century model sermons, this rhetoric was widely employed by James of Vitry, Eudes of Châteauroux and Gilbert of Tournai.³⁷ Gilbert of Tournai illustrates the effects of God’s love on the crusaders by openly evoking the imagery of Christ’s Passion, stating in his second sermon that Christ ‘sufflatorium fecit ex pelle carnis sue et ligno crucis et clavis, ut ignem sue caritatis accenderet in cordibus nostris’.³⁸ Accordingly, Eudes of Châteauroux claims in his first sermon that whoever takes up his own cross and follows Christ will burn with His love: ‘Illi amore eius ardeant qui assumpta cruce eum secuntur’.³⁹ However, the relationship between Christ and the crusader is not only characterised in the terms of love, but also in those of feudal fealty and devotion.⁴⁰ In some of these sermons, the crusader’s relationship with Christ is rendered through various feudal appellations: vassalus, homo ligius, armiger.⁴¹ Moreover, some authors argue that God will reward His vassals for their service with gifts (dona, donaria, remunerationes) or privileges (beneficia), which may for the most part be understood as indulgences.⁴² Gilbert of Tournai offers an effective account of the vassalage relationship between God and the crusader:

Sic enim consuetudo est nobilium, quod per cyrothecam vel aliam rem vilem vasallos suos investiunt feodis pretiosis; sic Dominus per crucem, que est ex modico filo, vasallos suos investit de celesti regno. (Gilbert I. 21)⁴³

Thus it is a custom among the nobility to invest their vassals with precious fiefs by a glove or another worthless object; in the same way the Lord invests his vassals with the heavenly kingdom by the cross which is made of ordinary thread.

Due to the capillary structure of crusade propaganda’s dissemination in the second half of the thirteenth century, Maier asserts that ‘it is probably no exaggeration to say that, theoretically, the great majority of inhabitants of Europe would have had the opportunity of listening to several crusade sermons during their lifetime’.⁴⁴ This leads us to the obvious question of whether this was true of Dante as well.⁴⁵ While he may have been too young to have heard the extensive preaching campaign promoted by Gregory X for his planned passagium generale between 1274 and 1276, he was certainly an adult by the time Nicholas IV launched another ambitious crusade project prompted by the fall of Tripoli and Acre. While no crusade sermon delivered in Florence around this time has survived in written form, it is highly likely that Nicholas IV’s extensive promotion of preaching for this purpose between 1290 and 1292 had an impact on the city. It is well-known that preaching activities furthering the goals of the 1290 passagium particulare – enlisting crusaders drawn, for the most part, ‘de Lombardia, de Romagna, della Marcha d’Anchona e della Marcha Trivisana e de Toscana e de Bologna e de tuta Italia’ – were mainly concentrated in Northern and Central Italy, including Tuscany.⁴⁶ It is also significant that, on 5 January 1290, as he announced the fall of Tripoli and encouraged the faithful to take up the cross in the encyclical Visio dura, Nicholas IV issued the bull Necessitates miserabilis terre, which contained detailed guidelines for preaching. Significantly, its recipients included the mendicant orders of the province of Tuscany.⁴⁷ This preaching is likely to have become most widespread and most influential sometime between August 1291, when news of the fall of Acre reached Italy, and April 1292, when Nicholas IV died. The encyclicals Dire amaritudinis calicem and Dura nimis et amara – both dated to August 1291 – reveal the pontiff’s wish to expedite preparations for the passagium generale scheduled to take place in 1293.⁴⁸

Another indicator that the extensive preaching activities promoted by Nicholas IV had an impact on Florence is the marked increase across the city of donations pro remedio anime to finance the crusade, peaking in the 1290s. These donations suggest a renewed interest in the negotium crucis from various classes of citizens, who presumably hoped to enjoy the spiritual benefits promised to those who supported the crusade. The monasteries in which the donations pro remedio animae were held – as well as the notarial contexts where related documents were composed – generally had ties to the Franciscans, which suggests that this order may have played a particularly significant role in preaching the crusade in Florence.⁴⁹ It may also be useful to note that Dante was almost certainly in Florence between 1290 and 1292, the putative climax of Nicholas IV’s crusade preaching. Some scholars date the beginnings of Dante’s philosophical education ‘nelle scuole delli religiosi e alle disputazioni delli filosofanti’ (Cvo II. xii. 7) to this period.⁵⁰ These ‘religious schools’ are almost unanimously identified with the three conventual studia of Florence: Santo Spirito (Augustinian), Santa Croce (Franciscan), and Santa Maria Novella (Dominican). Furthermore, it is altogether possible that friars tasked by Nicholas IV with the preaching of the crusade attended these convents – particularly Santa Croce – in the aforementioned period. Nonetheless, the identities of the six friars entrusted by the Master of the Franciscan province of Tuscany with the preaching of the crusade, as well as the contents of their sermons and the circumstances in which they were delivered, remain unknown.⁵¹

Crusade Theology in the Cross of Mars (Par. xiv–xv)

This helps illustrate how Innocent III’s conception of the crusade prevailed throughout Gregory X and Nicholas IV’s pontificates and in thirteenth-century model sermons. However, the lack of transcripts of the crusade sermons preached in Florence at the end of the thirteenth century – a lack characteristic of medieval Europe in general, with few exceptions⁵² – makes it impossible to determine the content of any sermons that Dante may have heard. For this reason, the most reliable means of assessing the influence of thirteenth-century crusade theology on Dante’s works is a comparative reading of the Commedia alongside the papal encyclicals and the extant ad status sermons, which were meant as models for individual preachers. It would be unwise to put these texts forward as direct sources for Dante’s Commedia; our aim is rather to show how, in his depiction of the cross of Mars, Dante shows a particular mastery of the imagery and theological concepts associated with the crusade in the thirteenth century, as illustrated by encyclicals and model sermons. Current research into his reception of contemporary preaching ultimately points to the preferability of avoiding an intertextual approach, and of focusing instead on identifying the tòpoi, rhetorical patterns, and concepts most widely or frequently discussed within a given homiletic context.⁵³ In this light, it is worth noting how nearly all the major motifs of crusade model sermons are to be found in the Commedia, especially in Dante’s description of the cross of Mars in Paradiso xiv and xv:⁵⁴

Quindi ripreser li occhi miei virtute

a rilevarsi; e vidimi translato

sol con mia donna in più alta salute.

Ben m’accors’ io ch’io era più levato,

per l’affocato riso de la stella,

che mi parea più roggio che l’usato.

Con tutto ‘l core e con quella favella

ch’è una in tutti, a Dio feci olocausto,

qual conveniesi a la grazia novella.

(Par. xiv, 82–90)

In the second half of Paradiso xiv, Dante ascends to the heaven of Mars, where he places the militant souls who fought for Christian faith on earth. Dante becomes aware that he has ascended to a new heaven as he discerns the unusually fiery glow of the red planet (‘l’affocato riso de la stella/che mi parea più roggio che l’usato’). Here, ‘con tutto ‘l core e con quella favella ch’è una in tutti’, the silent yet universally intelligible language of the Holy Spirit, Dante acts out his own holocaust to God. The term ‘olocausto’ – which designates a sacrifice by fire – is understood here as the full consecration of the self to the Lord through the inner flame of the Holy Spirit, as befits newly acquired grace (‘conveniesi a la grazia novella’). This is not simply Dante’s usual act of thanksgiving for having been allowed to ascend to a new heaven, since his sacrifice through the fire of the Holy Spirit is in keeping with the nature of the specific grace that is being bestowed upon him, namely, his ascension to the heaven of the milites Christi, who fully consecrated themselves to the defence of the Christian faith and, in some cases, lost their lives in order to keep their vow. Interestingly enough, the idea of a holocaust is also found in a sermon in which, among other themes, Gilbert of Tournai describes the experience of crusading as an act of love and of imitation of Christ. More specifically, Gilbert compares the sacrifice made by the crusaders to an ‘inner holocaust’, suggesting not only that this term likely belonged to the rhetoric surrounding crusade imagery, but also that it was closely linked to the concept of the vow.⁵⁵

In this canto, Dante describes the souls of the heaven of Mars as fiery red. This ardour also manifests itself in the pilgrim’s own inner holocaust (‘l’ardor del sacrificio’; Par. xiv, 92) and might be understood in relation to his description of the militant souls in Par. xv, 1–2 as characterised by ‘amor che drittamente spira’, a righteous love leading to ‘benigna voluntade’, the will to pursue what is good. This righteous love could certainly be associated with the caritas that characterises all heavenly souls, but one might also argue that, in this particular context, caritas takes on a more specific connotation linked to the ardour of both Dante and the militant spirits. Jonathan Riley Smith shows how, from the Second Crusade until at least the time of Gregory X’s Constitutiones pro zelo fidei, papal encyclicals, religious excitatoria and crusade songs portray the crusaders as kindled by the ardour, zeal, or fire of caritas. Here, the term caritas appears to denote its theological sense of Christian love, traditionally associated with the ethics of war and violence, and clearly linked to participation in the crusades in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Liber de laude. The caritas of the crusader is to be understood as love for God and other Christians, manifested in his decision to take up his cross and follow Christ, a duty explained in Luke 9. 23 or 14. 27 and Matthew 16. 24,⁵⁶ passages to which Dante alludes later in the canto. Hence, Dante consecrates himself to God in a vow by fire, which recalls both the ardour of the souls he goes on to encounter and crusaders’ full devotion of themselves to Christ:⁵⁷

E non er’anco del mio petto essausto

l’ardor del sacrificio, ch’io conobbi

esso litare stato accetto e fausto;

ché con tanto lucore e tanto robbi

m’apparvero splendor dentro a due raggi,

ch’io dissi ‘O Elïòs che sì li addobbi!’.

Come distinta da minori e maggi

lumi biancheggia tra ’ poli del mondo

Galassia sì, che fa dubbiar ben saggi;

sì costellati facean nel profondo

Marte quei raggi il venerabil segno

che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo.

(Par. xiv, 91–102)

Before the ardour of his inner sacrifice has been extinguished, Dante’s offer is accepted and he is allowed to see the souls of the heaven of Mars. The milites Christi appear to him from within two rays of light flashing across the heaven of Mars, both of which shine with the red lights of the souls, as the stars are seen sprawling against the backdrop of the Milky Way between the opposite poles of the night sky. These rays are laid out in the shape of a large Greek cross. Giuseppe Giacalone argues that, in the invocation to God through which the pilgrim comments on the spirits’ splendour, ‘O Elïòs che sì li addobbi’, the verb ‘addobbare’ may allude to the investiture of knights: ‘qui s’incontrano le anime dei crociati, cioè dei cavalieri che furono insigniti del venerabile segno della croce, e, quindi, cavalieri di Dio, di Eliòs che ora li riveste di luce, come allora in terra li armò cavalieri di Cristo’.⁵⁸ This imagery may also be found in crusade model sermons, in which the relationship between the crucesignati and God is often depicted as a feudal bond; in particular, the crusader is often designated as a vassalus or homo ligius, and his fealty to his Lord is spiritually rewarded with what is sometimes called ‘investitura del regno celeste’.⁵⁹

Qui vince la memoria mia lo ‘ngegno;

ché quella croce lampeggiava Cristo,

sì ch’io non so trovare essempro degno;

ma chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo,

ancor mi scuserà di quel ch’io lasso,

vedendo in quell’albor balenar Cristo.

(Par. xiv, 103-08)

Faced with the brightness of the cross, Dante’s ‘ingegno’ – namely his skill at narrating – is overwhelmed by these extraordinary memories, and he becomes incapable of clearly rendering this vision in words, or even of finding any suitable term for describing the image of Christ as it appeared on the cross. Addressing his readers, Dante apologises for this gap in his account and suggests that those who ‘take up their cross and follow Christ’ will be granted this same vision in the afterlife. Within this context – the heaven of the milites Christi – the phrase ‘chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo’ is almost certainly a reference to a specific category of followers and imitators of Christ, namely, the crusaders, who may hope to find their way to heaven through indulgences or martyrdom.⁶⁰ This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the scriptural passages to which Dante alludes in the phrase ‘chi prende sua croce e segue Cristo’ – especially Luke 9. 23 or 14. 27 and Matthew 16. 24 – were regularly applied to the crusaders by popes and preachers since the pontificate of Innocent III.⁶¹ The representation of participation in a crusade as sequela or imitatio Christi is very clearly expressed in verses 103-08: Christ flashes on the cross of Mars along with the souls of his milites, who, during their time on earth, took His burden upon themselves and followed Him. These warriors, partially named in Par. xviii, 37–48, took part in the struggle against infidels and, in some cases, performed the ultimate act of messianic emulation – martyrdom – through which they ascended to the peace of the New Jerusalem.⁶²

E come giga e arpa, in tempra tesa

di molte corde, fa dolce tintinnio

a tal da cui la nota non è intesa,

così da’ lumi che lì m’apparinno

s’accogliea per la croce una melode

che mi rapiva, sanza intender l’inno.

Ben m’accors’ io ch’elli era d’alte lode,

però ch’a me venìa ‘Resurgi’ e ‘Vinci’

come a colui che non intende e ode.

(Par. xiv, 118-26)

Paradiso xiv ends with the souls playing an enchanting melody. Dante is only able to make out two words, ‘Resurgi’ and ‘Vinci’, which support his triumphant depiction of the cross in verses influenced by Psalm 57 (56), as noted by Paola Nasti. The image of the harp to which Dante refers was described by Cassiodorus and the patristic tradition as a figuration of ‘Cristo che vince sulla Croce e intona la melodia della salvezza’. Alcuin of York and Bernard of Clairvaux also identified the harp with Christ and interpreted its tune as ‘il canto dei redenti che nell’imitazione di Cristo ritrovano la concordia e la salvezza stessa’. According to Nasti, we may therefore interpret Dante’s verses as ‘una proclamazione alta e sublime del significato soteriologico della Croce, marchio di vittoria e trionfo’.⁶³ Considering the relevance of Psalm 57 in the Easter liturgy for celebrating Christ’s triumph over death,⁶⁴ as well as the close connection between Easter and the idea of passagium, which had been commonplace since the pontificate of Innocent III, this interpretation of the heavenly melody is consistent with the theme of the crusades that underlies the entire episode. By portraying Christ and his milites in association with the cross, the symbol of the Passion, Dante does not emphasise the suffering in their earthly lives as much as the ultimate result of their sacrifice, their triumph over death and their entrance into the Heavenly Jerusalem. In other words, Dante’s poetic celebration of Christ’s resurrection and triumph over death through the symbol of his Passion takes on a broader meaning in its utterance by the militant souls, who gained eternal life by pursuing the example of Christus patiens on earth and now share the glory of Christus triumphans in heaven. The exaltation of the symbol of the cross was a distinctive feature of the crusades from their earliest stages, and became more elaborate under Innocent III, in response to the Cathar challenge to its sacrality.⁶⁵ Hence, in the heaven of the militia Christi, shortly before Dante’s encounter with his crusader ancestor Cacciaguida, the exaltation of the symbol of the cross bears a clear Christomimetic significance, recalling the crusades.

This interpretation is partially confirmed by the terzine describing Cacciaguida’s descent from the cross of Mars in Paradiso xv, which precedes Dante’s long conversation with him. After describing the interruption of the enchanting melody of the souls, Dante compares the movement of one of the spirits – later revealed to be Cacciaguida – to that of a shooting star:

Quale per li seren tranquilli e puri

discorre ad ora ad or sùbito foco,

movendo li occhi che stavan sicuri,

e pare stella che tramuti loco,

se non che da la ond’ e’ s’accende

nulla sen perde, ed esso dura poco:

tale dal corno che ‘n destro si stende

a piè di quella croce corse un astro

de la costellazion che lì resplende;

né si partì la gemma dal suo nastro,

ma per la lista radial trascorse,

che parve foco dietro ad alabastro.

(Par. xv, 13–24)

Warner identifies Matthew 24. 29–30 as a potential source for Dante’s depiction of the cross of Mars.⁶⁶ On the Mount of Olives, Christ foretells of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of time to the apostles; he outlines the tribulations of the last days and states that ‘sol obscurabitur et luna non dabit lumen et stellae cadent de caelo et virtutes caelorum commovebuntur / et tunc parebit signum Filii hominis in caelo’.⁶⁷ These words were also adopted by crusade preachers, as illustrated by Gilbert of Tournai’s third sermon.⁶⁸ The link between this scriptural passage and Paradiso xv lies less in the fairly commonplace reference to the appearance of the ‘signum Filii homini’ in the sky than in the account of Cacciaguida’s arrival. His soul, which descends from the right arm of the cross to its foot like ‘foco dietro a alabastro’, reminds Dante of a shooting star emerging from the constellation made up of the militant spirits. Significantly enough, the aforementioned passage from Matthew 24. 29 (‘the stars shall fall from heaven’) also appears in some French and Italian crusade chronicles in relation to a similar astronomical phenomenon that occurred at the time of the first passagium, then interpreted as a call to Christendom to liberate the Holy Land.⁶⁹ Hence, even Dante’s description of Cacciaguida’s appearance, which precedes the long conversation between them, may have been influenced by the imagery characteristic of crusade preaching.

Conclusion

All of this helps illustrate how the references to crusade rhetoric in Paradiso xiv-xv were influenced by the thirteenth-century theology of the passagium. These references also show how what might be defined as the prologue to the encounter with Cacciaguida is saturated with crusade imagery, an observation that may just as well apply to the militant souls that Cacciaguida points out to Dante in Par. xviii, 37–48. Moreover, this is consistent with crusade preachers’ tendency to cite biblical and historical figures as paradigms to be emulated by those preparing to engage in a holy war. In their sermons, preachers most often drew on Joshua and i–ii Maccabees, which respectively recount the Israelites’ conquest of the Promised Land and the Maccabees’ effort to end the Seleucid occupation of Judea through war. As Maier points out, ‘both stories were perfect biblical examples of a war fought by God’s people, led by the Lord against the enemies of his religion’.⁷⁰ Unsurprisingly, Joshua – who had already been mentioned in relation to the problem of the liberation of the Holy Land in Par. ix, 124-26 – and Judas Maccabeus are the first two souls of the cross of Mars that Cacciaguida points out to Dante in Par. xviii, 37–42. Alongside these biblical figures, Dante lists a number of literary and historical figures with various degrees of involvement in wars against non-Christians, including Charlemagne, Roland, William of Orange, Rainouart, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Robert Guiscard.⁷¹ In light of this, it seems safe to say that the conversation between Dante and Cacciaguida takes place in a context of celebration and glorification of the crusade.

Dante’s encounter with Cacciaguida – as all other encounters in the Paradiso – should be interpreted in relation to the celestial sphere in which it takes place, which is why it may be worth considering the implications of Dante’s decision to situate the definitive explanation of his prophetic mission within this crusade context.⁷² We have already remarked that Dante’s inner holocaust in Paradiso xiv may recall a crusade vow and was most likely influenced by the theological imagery used by thirteenth-century pontiffs and preachers in relation to the crucesignati. This may indicate that here Dante is proposing an ideal analogy including himself, his crusader ancestor, and the various other souls of the heaven of Mars. As Nicol Fantappié points out, Cacciaguida ‘sembra […] presentarsi come la persona storica che in qualche maniera prefigura il suo discendente, e la missione poetica della quale Dante è da lui investito acquista in questo modo il carattere di una vera e propria militanza’.⁷³ In other words, Cacciaguida’s role as a crusader, clarified in Par. xv, 139-48, seems to have been passed on to his descendant. By describing his own ascent to the heaven of Mars, his vision of the cross and the presence of his ancestor and precursor within it, Dante thus appears to cast himself as a member of the ideal community of milites Christi enumerated in Paradiso xviii.⁷⁴ This suggests that Dante conceives of the prophetic role that Cacciaguida explicitly assigns to him in Paradiso xvii – the composition of the Commedia – as a kind of militia Christi. Dante’s militia would obviously not consist in an armed struggle against the external enemies of the Christian faith – the Saracens or the gentiles – but in an attempt to restore, through his ‘sacred poem’, the providential order that God has established for humanity.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Giovanni Miccoli, ‘Crociata’, in Enciclopedia Dantesca; Lawrence Warner, ‘Dante’s Ulysses and the Erotics of Crusading’, Dante Studies, 116 (1998), pp. 65–93; Brenda Deen Schildgen, ‘Dante and the Holy Land Crusade’, in her Dante and the Orient (Urbana-Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002), pp. 66–91; Mary Alexandra Watt, The Cross that Dante Bears: Pilgrimage, Crusade, and the Cruciform Church in the Divine Comedy (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), pp. 62–75; Franco Cardini, ‘La crociata e la cortesia. Dante dinanzi all’islam, tra Maometto e il Saladino’, in Lectura Dantis 2002-2009. Omaggio a Vincenzo Placella per i suoi settanta anni, ed. by Anna Cerbo (Naples: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale, 2011), ii, pp. 575–81; Franco Cardini, ‘Acri, Palestina, Cielo di Marte. Dante e la crociata “tradita”’, in ‘Il mondo errante’. Dante fra letteratura, eresia e storia, ed. by Marco Veglia, Lorenzo Paolini, and Riccardo Parmeggiani (Spoleto: Cisam, 2013), pp. 371–84; Gianluca Caccialupi, ‘Dante tra crux transmarina e crux cismarina: l’idea di crociata nella Commedia’, L’Alighieri, 59 (2022), 111–26; Nicol Fantappié, ‘Profetismo, pellegrinaggio e crociata nella Commedia’, L’Alighieri, 59 (2022), 127–41.

² Lawrence Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son: Crusading imagery in the Cacciaguida episode’, Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America (2002) <https://www.princeton.edu/~dante/ebdsa/warner091602.html> [accessed 17 January 2024].

³ For a more thorough discussion of the new orientations of thirteenth-century crusading ideology, see Helmut Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1969); Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades. A Short History (London: The Athlone Press, 1987), pp. 119–45; Franco Cardini, ‘La crociata nel Duecento. L’ ‘Avatara’ di un ideale’, in his Studi sulla storia e sull’idea di crociata (Rome: Jouvence, 1993), pp. 259–89; Christoph T. Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross: Innocent III and the Relocation of the Crusade’, in Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. by John C. Moore (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 351–60; Christoph T. Maier, ‘Pope Innocent III and the Crusades Revisited’, in Religion as an Agent of Change. Crusades – Reformation – Pietism, ed. by Per Ingesman (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2016), pp. 55–74; The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement. The Impact of the Council of 1215 on Latin Christendom and the East, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).

⁴ For a more detailed analysis of the Quia maior see: Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1991), pp. 104–07; Thomas W. Smith, ‘How to Craft a Crusade Call: Pope Innocent III and Quia maior (1213)’, Historical Research, 92 (2019), 2–23.

⁵ ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me’. All translated passages from the Gospels are based on The Holy Bible translated from the Latin Vulgate (Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1914).

⁶ Patrologia Latina (PL), 216, col. 817. Similar passages can also be found in Luke 9. 23 (‘quis vult post me venire abneget se ipsum et tollat crucem suam cotidie et sequatur me’; ‘if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me’) and Luke 14. 27 (‘et qui non baiulat crucem suam et venit post me non potest esse meus discipulus’; ‘and whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple’). All of these scriptural references will be used in relation to the crusades throughout the thirteenth century.

⁷ P.L. 216, col. 818: ‘Nam et quomodo secundum praeceptum divinum diligit proximum suum sicut seipsum qui scit fratres suos fide ac nomine Christianos apud perfidos Saracenos ergastulo diri carceris detineri ac iugo deprimi gravissimae servitutis, et ad liberationem eorum efficacem operam non impendit […]’; ‘For how can a man be said to love his neighbour as himself, in obedience to God’s command, when, knowing that his brothers, who are Christians in faith and in name, are held in the hand of the perfidious Saracens in dire imprisonment and are weighed down by the yoke of most heavy slavery, he does not do something effective to liberate them […]?’. Trans. by Louise and Jonathan Riley Smith, The Crusades. Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 (London: Edward Arnold, 1981), p. 120.

⁸ P.L. 216, col. 817: ‘Si enim rex aliquis temporalis a suis hostibus ejiceretur de regno, nisi vassalli ejus pro eo non solum res exponerent, sed personas, nonne cum regnum recuperaret amissum, eos velut infideles damnaret, et excogitaret in eos inexcogitata tormenta, quibus perderet male malos? Sic Rex regum, Dominus Jesus Christus, qui corpus et animam et caetera vobis contulit bona, de ingratitudinis vitio et infidelitatis crimine vos damnabit, si ei quasi ejecto de regno, quod pretio sui sanguinis comparavit, neglexeritis subvenire’; ‘For if any temporal king is thrown out of his kingdom by his enemies, when he regains his lost kingdom surely he will condemn his vassals as faithless men and for these bad men will devise unimagined torments, with which he will bring them to a bad end, unless they risk for him not only their possessions but also their persons? In just such a way the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bestowed on you body and soul and all the other good things you have, condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you fail to come to his aid when he has been, as it were, thrown out of his kingdom’. Trans. by Riley Smith, The Crusades, p. 120.

⁹ ‘With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer’.

¹⁰ P.L. 217, col. 675: ‘Triplex autem Pascha sive Phase desidero vobiscum celebrare, corporale, spirituale, aeternale: corporale, ut fiat transitus ad locum, pro miserabili Jerusalem liberanda; spirituale, ut fiat transitus de statu ad statum, pro universali Ecclesia reformanda; aeternale, ut fiat transitus de vita in vitam, pro coelesti gloria obtinenda’; ‘Now I desire to celebrate with you a threefold Passover or passage: corporeal, spiritual, eternal. Corporeal, so that there may be a transition to a place in order to free the miserable Jerusalem; spiritual, so that there may be a transition from state to state in order to reform the universal Church; eternal, so that there may be a transition from life to life in order to obtain the heavenly glory’ (translation is mine).

¹¹ P.L. 217, col. 675–76.

¹² Franco Cardini, Nella presenza del soldan superba (Spoleto: CISAM, 2009), p. 48.

¹³ Cardini, Nella presenza, pp. 48–49. On the consolidation of the crusade’s eucharistic and Christomimetic meaning and the liturgy of the cross, see also Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’.

¹⁴ On the crusading effort under Gregory X, see Sylvia Schein, Fideles crucis. The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land 1274–1314 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 15–50; Philip B. Baldwin, Pope Gregory X and the Crusades (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014); Antonio Musarra, Acri 1291. La caduta degli stati crociati (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2017), pp. 111–18.

¹⁵ Schein, pp. 22–36; Musarra, Acri 1291, pp. 112–13. See also the papal bull summoning the Council of Lyon – Salvator noster (1272) – in Les registres de Grégoire X, ed. by Jean Guiraud (Paris: Thorin et fils, 1892), pp. 53–55.

¹⁶ Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571). Volume I: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1976), p. 112. Council proceedings are contained in a brief summary titled Ordinatio Concilii generalis Lugdunensis. See Joannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova, et amplissima collectio (Venice: Antonio Zatta, 1780), xxiv, col. 63.

¹⁷ On the Constitutiones pro zelo fidei, Gregory X’s crusade project and its eventual failure, see Schein, pp. 36–49; Musarra, Acri 1291, pp. 115–18. For a detailed account of the Council session devoted to the crusade, see also Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), pp. 113–14.

¹⁸ Maureen Purcell provides a helpful comparative reading of these three documents in Papal Crusading Policy, 1244–1291: The Chief Instruments of Papal Crusading Policy and Crusade to the Holy Land from the Final Loss of Jerusalem to the Fall of Acre (Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 23–31. For the full text of the decrees, see Ibid., pp. 187–99.

¹⁹ See Franco Cardini, ‘L’impegno crociato di papa Niccolò IV’, in Studi sulla storia e sull’idea di crociata, pp. 117–33.

²⁰ Schein, pp. 68–71; Musarra, Acri 1291, pp. 163–74.

²¹ Schein, pp. 71–73.

²² Antonio Musarra, Il crepuscolo della crociata. L’Occidente e la perdita della Terrasanta (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018), pp. 25–28.

²³ See Schein, pp. 91–111; Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land. The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); Luca Mantelli, ‘De recuperatione terrae sanctae: dalla perdita di Acri a Celestino V’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 67.2 (2013), 397–440; Musarra, Il crepuscolo della crociata, pp. 97–143; Thomas Ertl, ‘De Recuperatione Terrae Sanctae. Kreuzzugspläne nach 1291 zwischen Utopie und “Useful Knowledge”’, in Zukunft im Mitelalter. Zeitkonzepte und Planungsstrategien, ed. by Klaus Oschema and Bernd Schneidmüller (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2021), pp. 283–310.

²⁴ See Paolo Evangelisti, ‘Il “Liber Recuperationis Terre Sancte” di Fidenzio da Padova: un progetto egemonico francescano per il recupero ed il governo della Terrasanta’, in Acri 1291. La fine della presenza degli ordini militari in Terra Santa e i nuovi orientamenti nel XIV secolo, ed. by Francesco Tommasi (Perugia: Quattroemme, 1996), pp. 143–70 (pp. 148–50). On the survival of the Christomimetic imagery in later treatises, see Leopold, pp. 91–92.

²⁵ On crusade liturgy, see Christoph T. Maier, ‘Crisis, Liturgy and the Crusade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48.4 (1997), 633–41; Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, pp. 352–55; M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons. Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca-London: Cornell University Press, 2017).

²⁶ On Innocent III’s attempt to establish a well-organised preaching apparatus, see Cole, Preaching, pp. 98–141. On the relationship between the Quia maior and crusade preaching, see Ibid., pp. 104–08.

²⁷ P.L. 216, col. 822: ‘prout in generalibus litteris continetur, cura sollicita et accurata sollicitudine inducatis, exsequentes diligenter et efficaciter universa quae ad subsidium terrae sanctae in eisdem litteris videbitis comprehensa, quae a vobis volumus studiose notari’. Trans. by Riley Smith, The Crusades, p. 131.

²⁸ Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades. Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 118.

²⁹ On the role played by the mendicant orders in crusade preaching all along the thirteenth century, see: Cole, Preaching; Maier, Preaching the Crusades.

³⁰ Christoph T. Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology. Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 7.

³¹ This section is mostly based on Maier, Preaching the Crusades, pp. 111–22; Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp 3–31.

³² On this topic, see also Cole, Preaching, pp. 167–73.

³³ On Humbert of Roman’s De predicatione, see also Cole, Preaching, pp. 202–17; Penny J. Cole, ‘Humbert of Romans and the Crusade’, in The Experience of Crusading. Volume One. Western Approaches, ed. by Marcus Bull and Norman Housley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 157–74.

³⁴ Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 59–61; Miikka Tamminen, Crusade Preaching and the Ideal Crusader (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 108–43.

³⁵ The sermons are numbered according to Christoph T. Maier’s classification in Maier, Crusade Propaganda. Maier is also the source of the Latin excerpts from the sermons, as well as their English translations.

³⁶ Jonathan Riley Smith, ‘Crusading as an Act of Love’, History, 65.2 (1980), 177–92.

³⁷ Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 57–59.

³⁸ Gilbert II. 6: ‘made a bellows from his skin, the wood of the cross and the nails, so that the fire of his charity would be lighted in our hearts’.

³⁹ Eudes I. 9: ‘they who have taken the cross and follow him burn with his love’.

⁴⁰ Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 56–57; Tamminen, pp. 91–108.

⁴¹ James II. 10, 46, 47; Eudes I. 24; Gilbert I. 18, 21.

⁴² Eudes I. 9; Gilbert I. 18 and III. 11; Humbert II. 1, 6, 7, 9, 10.

⁴³ A similar passage can be found in James II. 46.

⁴⁴ Maier, Crusade Propaganda, p. 51.

⁴⁵ On the rest of this section, see also Caccialupi, ‘Dante tra crux transmarina e crux cismarina’, pp. 114–17.

⁴⁶ Musarra, Acri 1291, pp. 171–74. Musarra derives the crusaders’ geographical provenance from the Bolognese chronicle known as Varignana.

⁴⁷ Musarra, Acri 1291, pp. 165–66.

⁴⁸ See Giovanni Villani’s account of these events in Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, 145: ‘Venuta la dolorosa novella in ponente, e il papa ordinò grandi indulgenzie e perdoni a chi facesse aiuto e soccorso alla Terrasanta, mandando a tutti i signori de’ Cristiani che volea ordinare passaggio generale […]’. Testo da Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, ed. by Giuseppe Porta (Parma: Guanda, 1991).

⁴⁹ See also Franco Cardini, ‘Crusade and “presence of Jerusalem” in Medieval Florence’, in Outremer. Studies in the history of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, ed. by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hans Eberhard Mayer and Raimund Charles Smail (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi Institute, 1982), pp. 332–46 (p. 341); Paolo Pirillo, ‘Terra Santa e ordini militari attraverso i testamenti fiorentini prima e dopo la caduta di San Giovanni d’Acri’, in Acri 1291, ed. by Tomasi, pp. 121–35. On the overlap between preaching and the collection of donations, see Maier, Preaching the Crusades, pp. 123–34.

⁵⁰ The dating of Dante’s philosophical training to 1291–1294 is proposed in Marco Santagata, Dante. Il romanzo della sua vita (Milan: Mondadori, 2012), pp. 82–83; Alberto Casadei, ‘Dalla “Vita Nova” al “Convivio”’, in his Dante. Altri accertamenti e punti critici (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2019), pp. 143–60. On the other hand, Giorgio Inglese, Vita di Dante. Una biografia possibile (Rome: Carocci, 2015), pp. 52–57, dates Dante’s attendance of the ‘schools of the religious orders’ to the years 1293–1295. The prevalent academic consensus has coalesced around the timeline 1293–1296, which is endorsed, among others, by Stefano Carrai, ‘Puntualizzazioni sulla datazione della Vita Nova’, L’Alighieri, 52 (2018), 109–15.

⁵¹ The copy of Necessitates miserabilis terre sent by Nicholas IV to the Master of the Franciscan province of Tuscany explicitly restricts the number of friars in charge of preaching the cross to six. However, the pontiff left the choice of the preachers to the Master. The full text of this version of the bull can be found in Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’oriente cristiano e coi Turchi, ed. by Giuseppe Müller (Florence: Cellini, 1879), pp. 107–08.

⁵² See Maier, Preaching the Crusades, pp. 111–22; Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 17–31.

⁵³ On matters of methodology, see the introduction to the most recent and comprehensive publication on this topic: Nicolò Maldina, In pro del mondo. Dante, la predicazione e i generi della letteratura religiosa medievale (Rome: Salerno, 2017), pp. 9–19. On the influence of contemporary preaching on Dante, see also Carlo Delcorno, ‘Cadenze e figure della predicazione nel viaggio dantesco’, Lettere Italiane, 37.3 (1985), 299–320; Carlo Delcorno, ‘Dante e il linguaggio dei predicatori’, Letture Classensi, 25 (1996), 51–74.

⁵⁴ The presence of ideas and tropes drawn from thirteenth-century crusade theology and preaching in these cantos has never received extensive critical attention, with the partial exception of Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’.

⁵⁵ Gilbert I. 16: ‘Hanc crucem Christi in cordem habeas et eius stigmata in corpore tuo feras, ut intus offerens victimam holocausti etiam foris habeas pellem eius. Debet enim qui se dicit per internam dilectionem in Christo manere per apertam operum et passionum eius imitationem sicut ille ambulavit et ipse ambulare’ (‘May you have this cross of Christ in your heart and carry his stigmata on your body so that, offering the sacrifice of a burnt-offering inside, you may have his skin on the outside. He who claims to remain in Christ through internal love must walk as he walked by the open imitation of his deeds and passion’).

⁵⁶ See Riley Smith, ‘Crusading as an Act of Love’. The conceptualisation of crusading as an act of love for Christ in emulation of His Passion is already evident in a letter from Innocent III to Duke Leopold VI of Austria which dates back to 24 February 1208 (P.L. 215, col. 1339). We have already seen how the crusade is presented as an act of love for one’s neighbour – particularly Eastern Christians in Saracen-controlled areas – in the Quia maior (P.L. 216, col. 818). This language is widely deployed in the thirteenth-century model sermons. See Gilbert II. 6: ‘Christus, qui sufflatorium fecit ex pelle carnis sue et ligno crucis et clavis, ut ignem sue caritatis accenderet in cordibus nostris’ (‘Christ, who made a bellows from his skin, the wood of the cross and the nails, so that the fire of his charity would be lighted in our hearts’); Eudes I. 9: ‘Illi amore eius ardeant qui assumpta cruce eum secuntur’ (‘They who have taken the cross and follow him burn with his love’). For more examples, see Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 57–59; Tamminen, pp. 113–26. Pietro Alighieri’s commentary on these lines (1359–64) also points to caritas as the distinguishing feature of Christ’s soldiers.

⁵⁷ On the nature of the crusade vow, which was ‘essentially a personal matter between the individual vovens and God’, see James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 116–18. See also Tamminen, pp. 97–101.

⁵⁸ Giacalone’s thesis is adopted by Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’.

⁵⁹ We have already noted the presence of this imagery in Innocent III’s Quia maior (P.L. 216, col. 817). The crusaders are referred to as ‘fideles vasalli’ and ‘homines ligii’ in James II. 47, while the idea of ‘heavenly investiture’ can be found in James II. 46: ‘Dominus per crucem ex modico filo vel panno vasallos suos investit de celesti regno’ (‘The Lord invests his vassals with the heavenly kingdom by the cross made of ordinary thread or cloth’) and Gilbert I. 21: ‘Dominus per crucem, que est ex modico filo, vasallos suos investit de celesti regno’ (‘The Lord invests his vassals with the heavenly kingdom by the cross which is made of ordinary thread’). For more examples on the use of this imagery in crusade model sermons see Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 56–57; Tamminen, pp. 97–101.

⁶⁰ A reading of this line as a reference to the crusaders can be found in Quondam, ‘croce’, in Enciclopedia Dantesca and Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’, who rely on Casini-Barbi and Porena, respectively. Casini and Barbi enumerated the evangelical occurrences of this expression (Matthew 10. 38 and 16. 24; Mark 8. 34; Luke 9. 23 and 14. 27) and stated that ‘quanto al senso si può dubitare se in Dante sia proprio l’evangelico di umiliazioni, afflizioni, dolori che purificano l’uomo, o non più tosto sia quello di armarsi a difesa della religione, prendere la croce o crocesignarsi, espressione efficacissima del linguaggio delle crociate e bene appropriata in questo luogo ove si parla dei beati del cielo di Marte, ossia dei propugnatori della fede’. Porena, on the other hand, claimed that, while Dante’s words may well refer to the crusaders, ‘seguir Cristo non è espressione troppo appropriata pei Crociati’. In fact, subsequent historiographical work has shown how the crusade is consistently framed as a form of imitatio and sequela Christi, particularly from the thirteenth century onwards.

⁶¹ See Riley Smith, ‘Crusading as an Act of Love’, pp. 178–80. Of the many documents flagged by Riley Smith, it may be sufficient to mention the beginning of the encyclical Quia maior (P.L. 216, col. 817). On the extensive deployment of this language by preachers see Maier, Crusade Propaganda, pp. 59–61, who quotes, among others, Gilbert I. 8: ‘Crux autem citissime facit crucesignatos devotos, immo martires veros, pro causa Christi de terra ad celum evolare, unde Luc. [ix, 23]: Qui vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur me’ (‘The cross most quickly makes devout crusaders, real martyrs indeed, fly from earth up to heaven for the cause of Christ, whence Luke 9. 23: Who wants to come after me, let him renounce himself and carry his cross and follow me’). See also Tamminen, pp. 108–43.

⁶² See Cacciaguida’s words in Par. xv, 148: ‘e venni dal martiro a questa pace’. See also Maier, Crusade Propaganda, p. 60: ‘The concept of the crusader following Christ, however, also included a third aspect, namely that of following Christ into death. Gilbert of Tournai [I. 8] suggested that the crusaders were “martyrs” who after death literally followed Christ into heaven. When taking up his cross to follow Christ, the crusader could even be said to imitate Christ’s passion […]’. On this topic, see also Tamminen, pp. 199–201.

⁶³ Paola Nasti, ‘Soteriologia e passione nella Commedia’, in Theologus Dantes. Tematiche teologiche nelle opere e nei primi commenti, ed. by Luca Lombardo, Diego Parisi, and Anna Pegoretti (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2018), pp. 103–38 (p. 121). For the texts of the Psalm, Cassiodorus, Alcuin, and Bernard, see Ibid., p. 121.

⁶⁴ Nasti, p. 121.

⁶⁵ Cardini, Nella presenza, p. 49.

⁶⁶ Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’. Other possible sources for the cross of Mars include a mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna – where a jewelled golden cross bears the image of Christ’s face – as well as the Officium Sancti Victoris by Bernard of Clairvaux. On this topic, see: Jeffrey T. Schnapp, The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s Paradise (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 170–238; Fay Martineau, ‘A Literary Source for the Cross of Mars?’, Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America (2006) <https://www.princeton.edu/~dante/ebdsa/martineau020106.html> [accessed 17 January 2024] respectively.

⁶⁷ Matthew 24. 29–30: ‘The sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: / and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven’.

⁶⁸ Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’. For the full text of the sermon, see Gilbert III. 17: ‘Crux etiam est signum glorie. Mt. xxiv [29–30]: Tunc apparebit signum Filii Hominis in celo, tunc quando sol obturabitur et luna non dabit lumen suum; tunc apparebit, tunc radiabit et lucebit lumen crucis’ (‘The cross is also a sign of glory. Matthew 24: Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, when the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; then the light of the cross will appear, radiate and shine’).

⁶⁹ Warner, ‘The Sign of the Son’.

⁷⁰ Maier, Crusade Propaganda, p. 55, includes a complete list of references to Joshua and Maccabees in crusade model sermons. For the use of these biblical books in relation to the crusades, see also Tamminen, pp. 45–89.

⁷¹ For an in-depth discussion of the reverberations of crusade culture in this list, see Fantappié, pp. 138–40, where further critical bibliography is also provided.

⁷² On the function of these cantos in clarifying Dante’s prophetic and providential role, as well as the relationship between his individual story and universal history, see some recently published critical works such as: Elisa Brilli, Firenze e il profeta. Dante fra teologia e politica (Rome: Carocci, 2012), pp. 271–354; Giuseppe Mazzotta, Reading Dante (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 215–25; Roberto Antonelli, Dante poeta-giudice del mondo terreno (Rome: Viella, 2021), pp. 225–48.

⁷³ Fantappié, p. 141.

⁷⁴ On the relationship established by Dante between the spirits of Mars and his own prophetic mission, see Robert Hollander, ‘Dante and the Martial Epic’, Medievalia, 12 (1986), 77–91; Fantappié, p. 141. On Dante’s self-representation as a crusader in other sections of the poem, see Zygmunt Baranski, ‘Reading the Commedia’s IXs “vertically”: from addresses to the reader to the crucesignati and the Ecloga Theoduli’, L’Alighieri, 44 (2014), 5–35 (pp. 26–30); Zygmunt Baranski, ‘“E cominciare stormo”: Notes on Dante’s Sieges’, in ‘Legato con amore in un volume’: Essays in Honour of John A. Scott, ed. by John J. Kinder and Diana Glenn (Florence: Olschki, 2013), pp. 175–203.