BMCR 2009.04.70: Hawes on Cerri, Dante e Omero: Il volto di Medusa. Il vello d'oro 24

Giovanni Cerri, Dante e Omero: Il volto di Medusa. Il vello d'oro 24.
Lecce:  Argo, 2007.  Pp. 156.  ISBN 978882343644.  EUR 12.00 (pb).


Reviewed by Greta Hawes, University of Bristol ([email protected])
Word count:  1344 words
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/casalini06/07100159.pdf)

Dante's Divina Commedia is required reading for classicists interested
in the Nachleben of classical literature and myth.  Yet, even to those
with more than a passing acquaintance with this medieval masterpiece,
an entire book devoted to the relationship between Dante and Homer
might seem anomalous.  Dante could not read Greek and the Homeric epics
would not be available in translation for another generation; although
Dante's respect for the 'poeta sovrano' is obvious in his work, most
gloss this as representative of a vague conception of Homer's general
importance.  Cerri's ambitious project is to explore this relationship
in more detail.  Dante e Omero is the record of his search for Dante's
Homeric sources. The focus of this study expands remarkably from a
simple linguistic correspondence to an exploration of much wider
hermeneutical correspondences.  The admirable effort that Cerri
expounds in tracking Dante's knowledge of Homer is repaid by a number
of new insights into the literary worlds of these two poets.

This lively and attractive volume presents an unusual combination of
approaches to the relationship between Homer and Dante.  It
incorporates into an academic detective story work on the realities of
textual transmission in the Middle Ages, literary exegesis and
meta-literary readings which (as the author himself notes at times,
perhaps ironically given the context) test the boundaries of our
knowledge of the poet.  Far from creating a disjointed or aimless
study, however, these different approaches to the material complement
and challenge each other in a satisfying way.

It is difficult for a reviewer to do justice to the structure of this
work.  This slim volume is divided into 24 short chapters which
interweave the classical and medieval material and progressively build
up Cerri's primary argument while allowing for the discussion of a
number of subsidiary issues.

Cerri begins by noting striking parallel: he compares Odysseus' hasty
retreat from the underworld in fear of the (potential) arrival of
Medusa with a number of passages in the Commedia which seem to allude
to it and comment on its significance.  After establishing Odysseus'
journey as a search for experience and knowledge, he describes Homer's
Medusa as the embodiment of the limits imposed on human knowledge (chh.
1-3).  Analogies are drawn with the final epiphany of the Paradiso
(33.127-141), a vision of the face of Christ which represents salvation
and the limitless quality of the Christian experience (ch. 4), and with
Inferno 9.52-60 in which Medusa (unseen by the Pilgrim), attempts to
prevent his passage only to be vanquished by an angelic figure (chh.
5-6).  Drawing on the medieval allegorical tradition, which strongly
associated the gorgoneion with sapientia, and Dante's own conception of
the proper role of philosophy, Cerri establishes Medusa as an
incarnation of the distracting 'donna gentile' of Dante's youth, the
symbol of a type of 'razionalita\ pura senza fede' (p. 44), derived
especially from classical speculation, which hampers the Pilgrim's
progress.  In this way Medusa's petrifying visage is the antithesis of
the face of Christ.

Cerri carefully establishes close linguistic echoes between Od.
11.627-637 and Inf. 9.52-60, echoes which he rightly considers to be
more striking than simple coincidence or indirect transmission
(specifically via Aen. 6.540-636 and Luc. 6.423-749) would allow (chh.
8-12).  This sets in place a search for sources and for evidence of
what Dante might conceivably have known of the Homeric epics.  At this
time, Greek texts certainly existed, but translators were required.
Cerri portrays late medieval Italy as a place in which Greek scholars
and diplomats, envoys and emigrants from the Byzantine Empire, while
rare, might still be encountered (chh. 16-17). He speculates on those
individuals that Dante might have had occasion to meet or seek out
during his travels in central Italy and (perhaps) in Paris, but is
ultimately unable to provide firm evidence for his having encountered a
translation of the passage from Od. 11.  While an ingenious suggestion,
Cerri freely, and rightly, admits that his reading of a letter of
Petrarch's as making a punning reference to a translation of this
passage in his possession is 'un'ipotesi estrema' (ch. 15).  More
fruitful is his provision of a catalogue of Homeric passages which were
known indirectly by medieval writers (19-20).  This catalogue is
accompanied by fascinating commentary which builds up a portrait of the
reception of Homer in classical and medieval literature.  Here Cerri
finds some useful correspondences with Dante's work as well as sources
for Dante's recurring positive estimation of this 'long-lost' poet.

The final chapters seek to read these intertextual allusions more
broadly.  Cerri establishes broad analogies between the Dantean
Pilgrim, the Homeric Odysseus and the Dantean Ulisse as narrators of
their own literary journeys.  They stand ultimately in contradiction to
each other through their differing searches for sapientia.  Finally, we
are faced with Homer as he appears in the Commedia: an imposing figure
worthy of reverence.  The Homer of Inf. 4 carries a sword which has
traditionally been interpreted as a reference to his reputation for
martial poetry.  Cerri offers new readings of this element which
interact with the overarching themes of Dante's work.

Despite the obvious amount of scholarship required by his project,
references and philological discussion are kept to a minimum.  The
volume is certainly approachable. All passages are quoted in
translation with the exception of a few simple ones from medieval Latin
sources.  In this way, the material presented, especially the textual
interpretation, does not attempt to be exhaustive or to interact fully
with the wealth of scholarship already in existence. The bibliography,
divided into thematic sections, goes some way to rectifying this
situation by providing suggestions for further reading.  The extreme
brevity with which Cerri presents his arguments, while part and parcel
of a publication of this type, does lead to some frustrating lacunae,
of which a more nuanced discussion of the medieval tradition of
allegorical exegesis is perhaps the most obvious.

Projects in classical reception require classicists to bridge
disciplines and to move outside of their areas of expertise.  The best
studies in this field cast new light on both the classical tradition
and the world of antiquity in ways which maintain the integrity of both
fields.  Cerri's discussion of Odysseus' wanderings across the
Mediterranean and into the underworld as representing the thirst for
knowledge displayed by Archaic Greece, while necessarily narrow and
perhaps somewhat anachronistic in terms of what follows, does encourage
the reassessment of a number of familiar passages.  Cerri establishes
his reading of the Commedia material within the pattern,
well-established in amongst Dantisti,  of Dante's conception of the
seductive and praiseworthy, but ultimately misguided and limited, types
of knowledge available in classical antiquity which are superseded by
knowledge of Christ.  This approach is typified by previous scholarship
on the famous Ulisse episode of Inf 26  in which the hero's voyage
signifies the arrogance of the ancient pursuit of 'virtute e
canoscenza'.  Cerri's contributions to this general model, although
relatively minor, are thought provoking and presented with the
sensitivity and subtlety expected of those teasing interpretations out
of the densely allusive Commedia.  His specific reading of the figure
of Medusa takes the discussion of this passage in quite a different
direction than that offered recently by Balducci.[[1]]

The most valuable part of this study is an undertaking, to my knowledge
never before attempted on this scale, to delineate and gather together
the possible knowledge that Dante might have had of the Homeric works.
Cerri's discussion of the existence of Greek-speakers on the Italian
peninsula and their impact on the surrounding culture provides a timely
consideration of this aspect of Dante's possible cultural ambit.  The
collection and collation of information on Homer and the Homeric works
available to Dante through intermediary literary sources has been
attempted previously, although without the aim of a systematic
study.[[2]]  As Cerri notes, his own catalogue of sources is also
necessarily partial: he hopes that it will spur a more detailed study
(p. 97).  Although only briefly expounded in places, this material
provides an excellent resource which should be of use to scholars of
both Greek literature and reception and Dante studies.

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Notes:


1.   Marino Alberto Balducci, Classicismo dantesco: miti e simboli
della morte e della vita nella Divina Commedia.  2nd edition. Rimini,
2004.  Esp. pp. 197-267.

2.   E.g. Giorgio Brugnoli, 'Omero', in Amilcare A. Iannucci (ed.),
Dante e la bella scola della poesia: autorita\ e sfida poetica.
Ravenna, 1993.