Why Virgil?

Why is it Virgil who leads Dante through Hell and as far as the top of Mount Purgatory? Well, he’s a poet for one thing, the greatest poet of all by Dante’s reckoning. Plus, for the medievals, he had taken on the role of sage and magus, and was widely lauded as a great pagan prophet for his apparent prediction of Christ in the Fourth Eclogue.

In his recent Understanding Dante (Notre Dame, 2004), however, John Scott offers a more satisfying explanation, one rooted in Dante’s basic political, religious, and philosophical outlook: “Humanity has tow goals, termporal happiness on earth and eternal happiness in heaven: the first symbolized by the Earthly Paradise, the second by the celestial paradise. God has provided two guides to lead men and women to these goals: ‘the supreme Pontiff, who must lead humanity to eternal life’ in obedience to revelation, and ‘the emperor, who, in conformity wiht the teachings of philosophy, must lead humanity to temporal happiness’ ( Monarchia 3.16.10). That this latter task must be achieved ‘according to the teachings of philosophy . . . indicates the need for an Aristotelianized Virgil in addition to the ‘profound sense of the divine’ and the proclamation of Rome’s imperial, civilizing mission found in Virgil’s work.” Thus Virgil’s “role reflects the emperor’s mission on earth: to lead humankind to the temporal happiness prefigured in Eden. And that is exactly what Virgil does.” Virgil’s words at the top of Mount Purgatory reflect the fact that he has been leading Dante by the best of pagan learning: “I have drawn you here with wit and with art” ( Purgatorio 27.130).