In Paradiso, the third part of his Divine Comedy, Dante describes his journey through Paradise, accompanied by Beatrice. The astrological allusions abound throughout the text and their sheer frequency has been cause for surprise, dismay, and sometimes disdain. Scholars, in their embarrassment, chose to focus solely on the astronomical side and neglect all things astrological. To be fair, this neglect of astrology may be due not only to prejudice against the occult but also to ignorance of its literature. Dante’s sources were Arabic, Greek and Latin texts not easy to come by, to say nothing of understanding them.
What now are considered as two distinct (and unequally valid) inquiries - astronomy and astrology - in the Middle Ages went by a single name (Dante used the term astrologia). To the medieval mind, celestial influence was not supernatural at all but rather a fact of nature.
When Dante enters the Seventh Sphere of the planet Saturn, he encounters the spirits of the contemplative, ascending on a golden ladder into the higher heavens attaining to a higher mind. “The mind that here is radiant, on the earth is wrapt in mist”.
Elsewhere in his writings (‘Convivio’) Dante makes Saturn the emblem of astrology. He gives the following reasons: First, that it has the slowest movement of any planet, and is, therefore, comparable to astrology which requires a longer period for its study than any of the other sciences. Second, that it is higher than any other planet, and thus can be likened to astrology which is the highest and noblest among the seven sciences.
Dante’s famous condemnation of two astrologers in the Twentieth Canto of the ‘Inferno’ should not be seen as disbelief in their art but as a repudiation of any kind of divination which went against the doctrine of the Church and was seen as an impiety. They had to suffer for their being fraudulent soothsayers.
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Paradiso, Canto XXII.
Gemini; Dante and Beatrice look down at the seven planets; Dante and Beatrice conversing.