65 pages • 2 hours read
Dante AlighieriPurgatorio
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1316A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Cantos 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Canto 10 Summary
Virgil and Dante pass through Purgatory’s gate, Dante careful not to look back. After a long and difficult climb, they arrive at a ledge. Dante is exhausted, so he and Virgil pause to assess how to proceed. Beyond the ledge is a void. Alongside it rises a wall decorated with marble carvings so stunning that they would make Polyclite or even nature marvel. The carvings depict examples of humility.
The first one Dante notices shows the Annunciation. Virgil tells Dante to look beyond that first one, and Dante sees another that shows King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. He dances before it in humility while his wife Michal watches him disapprovingly. A third represents Roman Emperor Trajan. As he prepares to leave the city, he’s confronted by a woman with a murdered son. She asks him to stay behind to secure justice for her son. Though initially unwilling to put off his trip, he ultimately relents.
As Dante gazes at these scenes of humility, Virgil notices a crowd of souls. Expecting more beautiful scenes, Dante turns to look at them. He cautions readers not to dwell on “the form their sufferings take” (205) but to focus on “what follows.” Their suffering will end on Judgment Day. These people are the proud. Hunched over by the weight of their burdens, they beat their breasts. They do not recognize that they “are worms/born to become angelic butterflies” (205).
Canto 11 Summary
The penitents recite a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer as they walk along the ledge bearing their heavy loads. Dante writes that “we” should help them “cleanse the marks” they bear by praying for them and should ask them to guide “us” as well (208). Virgil asks the penitents to point out a road that Dante can negotiate with his living body. A man, who identifies himself as Omberto Aldobrandesco, invites them to join his group. He wears a stone around his “once-proud neck” (208) to ensure his head remains bowed. In life, he was guilty of being too prideful about his family lineage.
A man calls out to Dante, who recognizes the man as the great manuscript illuminator, Oderisi da Gubbio. Oderisi immediately replies that another illuminator, Franco Bolognese, held the greater talent. Oderisi wanted to be excellent, and this caused him to sin. Dante exclaims at how talent can lead to pride, while human interest in the products of such talent is fleeting. The painter Cimabue once held the title of master, until Giotto supplanted him. “[…] Earthly fame is just a breath/of wind” (210) that quickly passes. It is better to seek lasting fame through humility.
Walking ahead of Dante is a man whose name was once on everyone’s lips, Provenzan Salvani, who was a tyrant over Siena. Dante wonders how he made it into Purgatory given his delay in repentance. Oderisi tells him how Salvani at the end of his life fought for a rightful cause and showed humility. He disguised himself as a beggar to raise the funds needed to save a friend.
Canto 12 Summary
Dante walks on, yoked to “that burdened soul” (212) like a pair of oxen until Virgil instructs him to let the soul loose. Virgil and Dante continue on their way. Virgil calls Dante’s attention to carvings decorating the path that their feet tread. Like memorial tombs that tell stories of the dead, the carvings memorialize acts of pride punished throughout human history. Among those receiving punishment are Satan, Briareus, Nimrod, Niobe, Saul, Arachne, Rehoboam, Alcmaeon, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Holofernes, and the city of Troy. Dante marvels at how life-like the carvings are, which allow him to see the sin of pride as the subjects of the carvings failed to do.
Virgil and Dante continue following their path. Virgil urges Dante on, entreating him not to waste time, and points out an angel moving swiftly toward them. The angel beckons Virgil and Dante, strikes his wings across Dante’s brow, and promises that the way forward is safe.
Dante compares their path to the steep one that leads to a church in Florence. As they walk, Virgil and Dante sing, “Beati pauperes” (Blessed are the poor) (215). Dante contrasts the path they now walk with the one they trod in Hell. Here, they sing; there, they lamented. Dante notices that he feels lighter and walks with greater ease. Virgil explains that with each P he loses, Dante will feel progressively lighter. Dante touches his brow and realizes that he has lost a P, leaving six. Watching him, Virgil smiles.
Cantos 10-12 Analysis
In this section, Dante presents both Greco-Roman and biblical examples of pride (the sin) and humility (the virtue).
Examples of virtue feature the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the son of God, as well as King David from the Hebrew scriptures and Emperor Trajan, a pagan Roman emperor. Dante demonstrates that examples of Christian humility can be culled from across history, both before, during, and after the time of Christ.
Examples of sin include Greco-Roman myths: Briareus (a Titan defeated by the Olympic gods), Arachne (Athena turned her into a spider after Arachne boasted about her weaving skills), and Niobe (who boasted about having seven children only to have Artemis and Apollo kill them all). Figures from Hebrew scripture include Nimrod (who built the Tower of Babel), Saul (the first king of Israel), and Rehoboam (an Assyrian king).
With these virtue/sin examples, Dante creates an acrostic, which is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word. In the original Italian, these examples spell the word “man.” In the translation, Kirkpatrick divides the section into 13 stanzas. The first three begin with the letter “M,” the second three with the letter “A,” and the next three with the letter “N.” The 13th stanza begins with the letter “M.”
In addition to the classical and biblical figures who serve as examples of sin and virtue, Dante encounters penitents relevant to the Italy in which he lived and wrote. Through them, Dante grounds his exploration in the world of the living, providing examples of people who would be more immediately relatable. Omberto Aldobrandesco, Oderisi da Gubbio, and Provenzan Salvani provide opportunities to show how the sin of pride can cause the disintegration of social bonds. Individuals seek personal glory to the detriment of others, but personal glory is mutable and fleeting, as Dante seeks to show through his conversation with Oderisi da Gubbio.
Dante passes through the level of pride through conversation, observing penitents joined together in song, and reflecting on human life and ideas. At the end of this sensory and communal process, an angel brushes Dante’s brow, removing one of the Ps, which symbolizes his purification from that sin.
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By Dante Alighieri
