You’re in the 7th circle of Hell, treading on the edge between the second and third ring, careful not to step on the boiling sand and into the rain of fire. Before you, a band of naked souls has slowed down their perpetual race to have a closer look at you. Suddenly one of them breaks out in delight “how marvellous!”. You focus on his scorched face and make out the features of your beloved mentor.
Canto 15 is in many ways one of the high points of the Comedy. We’re almost halfway through the journey, it revolves around a sole character that takes up the entire canto (as opposed to the usual tripartite structure), and it features - in my opinion - the most touching recognition scene and intimate dialogue.
After a quick introduction of the landscape, complete with the obligatory real-life geographic simile, Dante (the poet) moves straight into his encounter with this canto’s main character, Brunetto Latini, or Latino, depending on your translation. Depending on your translation, you will also have an approximate rendition of the painful moment in which Dante recognises his former master. Personally, I prefer the Musa translation to the Kirkpatrick here. The latter goes ‘Brunetto, sir, are you here?’, which is… fine. The former, however, does a better job of capturing the joy of seeing someone you love and admire again mixed with the saddened disbelief of finding them in the depths of hell, despite how great a person they were in life.
‘Is it really you, here, Ser Brunetto?’
Brunetto Latini was an important cultural figure in 1200s Florence. He was a lawyer and notary, writer, and chronicler, actively involved in local politics and widely known for his engagement in the dissemination of knowledge through his encyclopaedic work, Tresor.
He lived in France as an exile for a while, before returning to Florence, where Dante is believed to have been part of his literary circle. He was to real-life Dante what Virgil is to fictional Dante.
And we can see this throughout their interaction, from Dante’s constant use of “sir” when addressing Brunetto and the sinner’s corresponding “my son” and “dear boy” when addressing Dante, to Dante’s hope that they could sit down together and talk for a while (v. 35). The meeting is punctuated by an unspoken awkwardness stemming from the reversal of roles between teacher and student. Physically, Dante is standing on the lifted shore of the second ring, while Brunetto is on the burning sand below, his head barely reaching the hem of Dante’s robe. Spiritually, Brunetto, that great man whose life was dedicated to the good of the community, is in hell, while Dante, for reasons incomprehensible to him, has been granted salvation.
This awkwardness bordering on embarrassment on Dante’s part is evident in his posture. He tells us
I did not dare to climb down to quit the causeway
and walk with him on equal terms. But still,
as though in reverence, I kept my head bowed down. (v. 43-5)
We’ve seen Dante empathise with sinners, we’ve seen him pity them, we’ve even seen him show them respect. But never before have we seen an expression of such a deep emotional connection with one. Nor have we seen such a mutual connection. To Dante’s confession that what he wishes the most is that Brunetto was still alive (v.79-81), the latter responds by wishing he was still alive to assist Dante in his work and his fight against corrupt Florence.
There is no explicit mention of what Brunetto Latini is in hell for. We know that he is in the third ring of the seventh circle and that he is running around to shield himself from the rain of fire (see Sodom) with those who have sinned against God in nature. Yet a lot of effort from Dante scholars has gone into arguing that Brunetto was not homosexual, for reasons that are quite frankly lost on me.
It’s almost laughable that despite all Dante’s fainting and cuddling with Virgil - and now this encounter - critics (older, more conservative ones, I have to add), find it difficult to explain that Dante would be the most affectionate to a sinner who ended up in hell for being gay. Not only this but presents him in an almost exclusively positive light, no less in the last verse of the canto. Here, Dante describes that Brunetto returns to the constant race through a comparison between the sinners and the runners in the Verona races and says of Brunetto
‘He seemed to be the one that wins, not loses.’
This could simply mean that he’s a very fast runner. But in a poem where no word is random, much less superfluous, I find this hard to believe.
Now, I’m not saying Dante was gay (sorry about the title, I’m sure there’s a place in hell for clickbaity people like me). But! There’s a whole area of Dante's criticism that looks at his work through a queer theory lens and it’s sooo interesting. I’ve asked my Dante people and they’ve come up with a few further reading suggestions.
A bunch of texts under ‘Queering Dante’ by Gary Cestaro (see the Oxford Handbook on Dante).
Dante as a Gay Poet by Nicola Giardini
When Dante Came Out by Peter Levin.