Cacciaguida's Prophecy in ‘Paradiso’ 17

Abstract

In face of the uncompromising condemnation of divination in Inferno 20 some disquiet may be felt that Dante should have allowed himself any unfulfilled prophecies in the Comedy. If Dante began the Comedy in 1307–8, as is widely held, and penned the prophecy of the ‘515,’ referring to Henry VII, in Purg. 33 before Henry VII's failure became obvious, as it did after July 1312 at latest, the prophecy of Clement V's death in Inf. 19.79–84—that he would be dead before 1323 — must have been made ante eventum, before April 1314. But, it is argued, it was a safe bet for Dante to venture on, in view of Clement's poor health and the average length of recent papal reigns. But in the world of politics as well as in poetry Dante allowed himself about this time (31 March 1311) a confident prophecy which was very soon utterly falsified. In Epistle 6 to the Florentine ‘Scoundrels within the city’ he forecast the imminent fall of the city to Henry, § 4: ‘et si praesaga mens mea non fallitur, sic signis veridicis sicut inexpugnabilibus argumentis instructa praenuntians, etc. (cf. § 6 ‘infusa praesagia’). What then was Dante thinking of prophecy in real life or in poetry, when in Purg. 23.109 he put into the mouth of Forese Donati an Italian counterpart of his phrase in Epistle 6,se l'anteveder qui non m'inganna?