The Secret Language of Dante & the 'Fedeli D'Amore' ~ I
Under the title Il linguaggio segreto di Dante a dei fidele d'amore, [1] Luigi Valli, to whom we are already indebted for several studies on the significance of Dante's writings, has published a new work that is too important for us to pass by with no more than a mere bibliographical note. Its thesis may be briefly summarized as follows: the various 'ladies' celebrated by the poets attached to the mysterious organization of the Fedeli d'Amore, from Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, and their contemporaries, to Boccaccio and Petrarch, are not women who actually lived on this earth but are all, under different names, one and the same symbolic 'Lady', who represents transcendent Intelligence (the Madonna Intelligenza of Dino Compagni) or divine Wisdom. In support of this thesis the author brings forward formidable documentation and a collection of arguments that must impress even the most sceptical; in particular he shows that those verses that seem most unintelligible from the literal point of view become perfectly clear with the hypothesis of a 'jargon' or conventional language the principal terms of which he claims to have interpreted; and he recalls other cases, notably that of the Persian Sufis, where a similar meaning has been concealed in this fashion under the guise of simple love poetry. It would not be feasible to summarize his whole argument, which is based on exact textual citations that support his views, and so we can only refer anyone interested in the subject to the book itself.
In truth, what is involved has always seemed to us an obvious and incontestable fact, though one nevertheless needing to be firmly established. Indeed, Valli foresees that his conclusions will be challenged by several kinds of adversary: firstly, the so-called 'positivist' criticism (which he is wrong to qualify as 'traditional' since it is, on the contrary, opposed to the traditional spirit, to which all initiatic interpretation is linked); secondly, the party spirit, whether Catholic or anti-Catholic, which will find no satisfaction at all in what he writes; and finally, 'aesthetic' criticism and 'romantic rhetoric', which are fundamentally nothing other than what one might call the 'literary' spirit. We have here a group of prejudices that will always and inevitably stand opposed to the search for the profound meaning of certain works, though in the presence of such works those of good faith and open mind will readily see which side the truth is on. For our part, the only objections we have to make concern certain interpretations that in no way affect the general thesis; moreover, the author has made no claim to provide a definitive solution to all the questions he raises and is the first to acknowledge that his work will require correction or amendment in many points of detail.
Valli's principal shortcoming, whence stem most of the insufficiencies observed in his work, is-let us say it plainly-that he lacks the 'initiatic' mentality required to treat such a subject in depth. His point of view is too exclusively that of an historian: it is not enough to 'investigate history' in order to solve certain problems; and, moreover, we are entitled to wonder whether this does not really amount to interpreting medieval ideas with the modern mentality, a reproach the author quite rightly levels at the official critics. Did the men of the Middle Ages ever 'investigate history for its own sake'? The above matters require a more profound kind of understanding, and if one brings to them only a 'profane' spirit and intention, one can only accumulate materials reflecting an altogether different spirit; and we do not see that there could be much interest in historical research if some doctrinal truth does not result from it.
It is truly regrettable that the author lacks certain traditional data and a direct and so to speak 'technical' knowledge of his subjectmatter. This prevented him from recognizing the properly initiatic import of our study The Esoterism of Dante and explains why he did not understood how little it matters, from our point of view,
whether such 'discoveries' be attributed to Rossetti, Aroux, or to anyone else, for we cite them only as 'supports' for considerations of quite another order: we are concerned with initiatic doctrine, not literary history. As regards Rossetti, we find rather strange the assertion that he was 'Rosicrucian' since the true brothers of the RoseCross (who were, by the way, not of 'Gnostic descent') had disappeared from the Western world well before his time; and even if he were attached to some sort of pseudo-Rosicrucian organization, of which there were so many, such an organization would certainly not have had any authentic tradition to impart to him. Moreover, Rossetti's initial idea of reading a purely political meaning into everything quite clearly contradicts such an hypothesis. Valli has only a very superficial and altogether 'simplistic' idea of Rosicrucianism, and he does not seem to have any inkling of the symbolism of the cross any more than he seems to have understood the traditional significance of the heart, which refers to the intellect and not to feelings. Let us say on this last point that the cuore gentile of the 'Fedèles d'Amour' is the heart purified, that is, devoid of all that concerns worldly objects, and by this very fact made ready to receive interior illumination. It is remarkable that an identical doctrine is found in Taoism.
Let us move on to some other points raised in the course of our reading, for there are some rather unfortunate references that detract from this otherwise serious work. Thus one might easily have found better authorities to cite on Gnosticism than G.R.S. Mead, [2] on number symbolism than Marc Saunier, and above all on Masonry than Léo Taxil! [3] Moreover, Valli cites the last mentioned on a most elementary point, the symbolic ages of the different
grades, something that can be found anywhere. In the same place, following Rossetti, the author also cites the Recueil precieux de la Maçonnerie Adonhiramite; but the reference is made in an altogether unintelligible fashion, which clearly demonstrates that he himself has no personal knowledge of the book in question. We have, besides, grave reservations concerning everything Valli says of Masonry, which he qualifies bizarrely as 'ultra-modern'; an organization may have 'lost the spirit' (or what is called in Arabic the barakah) through the intrusion of politics or otherwise, yet keep its symbolism intact even while no longer understanding it; but Valli himself seems not to have a very good grasp of the true role of symbolism nor a very clear sense of traditional filiation. When he speaks of the different 'currents' he confuses esoterism and exoterism and takes as sources of inspiration for the Fedeli d'Amore what only represent prior incursions into the profane world of an initiatic tradition from which these Fedeli d'Amore themselves proceeded directly. Influences descend from the initiatic sphere into the profane world, but the inverse is not possible, for a river never returns to its source; that source is the 'fountain of teaching' so often in evidence in the poems studied here, and generally described as situated at the foot of a tree that is obviously none other than the 'Tree of Life.' [4] The symbolism of the 'Terrestrial Paradise' and of the 'Celestial Jerusalem' must find its application here.
There are also some no less regrettable linguistic inaccuracies: thus the author qualifies as 'human' things that are on the contrary essentially 'supra-human', as, moreover, is the case for anything of a truly traditional and initiatic order. Similarly, he commits the error of calling initiates of any grade whatever 'adepts,' [5] whereas that term
must be strictly reserved for the supreme degree. The misuse of this word is particularly noteworthy because it constitutes, so to speak, a 'hallmark': there are a certain number of mistakes that the 'profane' rarely fail to commit, and this is one of them. We should also call attention to the constant use of words such as 'sect' and 'sectarian' to designate organizations that are initiatic and not religious, an entirely improper and most displeasing usage, [6] which brings us directly to the gravest shortcoming we must point out in Valli's work.
This failing is Valli's continual confusion of the 'initiatic' and the 'mystical' points of view, and his assimilation of the matters in question into a 'religious' doctrine, whereas esoterism, even if it bases itself on religious forms (as is the case with the Sufis and the Fedeli d'Amore), really belongs to an entirely different order. A truly initiatic tradition cannot be 'heterodox'; to qualify it as such is to reverse the normal and hierarchical relationship between the interior and the exterior. Esoterism is not contrary to 'orthodoxy', even orthodoxy construed simply in the religious sense; it is above or beyond the religious point of view, which is obviously not at all the same thing; and in fact the unjustified accusation of heresy was often nothing more than a convenient ruse for getting rid of people who might be problematic for altogether different reasons. Rossetti and Aroux were not wrong in thinking that in Dante's works theological expressions mask something else, but only in believing that these expressions must be interpreted 'inversely'; esoterism is not superimposed on exoterism, but neither is it opposed to it, for it is not on the same plane and gives to the same truths a deeper meaning by transposing them to a higher order. It is of course true that Amor is the inverse of Roma, [7] but we must not conclude from that,
as some have wished to do, that it signifies the antithesis of Roma, but rather that Roma is only its reflection or visible image, necessarily inverted as is the image of an object in a mirror-which gives us occasion to recall the per speculum in aenigmate of Saint Paul. Regarding Rossetti and Aroux and some reservations we have about certain of their interpretations, we will add that one cannot say a method is 'unacceptable because unverifiable' without running the risk of falling into the prejudices of 'positivist' criticism, which would entail rejecting everything obtained by direct knowledge, especially and in particular all knowledge obtained through the regular transmission of a traditional teaching, which is in effect unverifible... for the profane! [8]
It is the more astonishing that Valli confuses esoterism with 'heterodoxy' in view of the fact that he has at least understood, far better than his predecessors, that the doctrine of the Fedeli d'Amore was in no way 'anti-Catholic' (even being, like that of the Rosicrucians, rigorously 'catholic' in the true sense of the word) and that it had nothing in common with the profane currents from which the Reformation was to come. Where then did he get the idea that the Church had revealed the deeper meaning of its 'mysteries' to the general populace? On the contrary, so little of this is taught by the Church that one comes to doubt, with good reason, whether she herself has retained any knowledge of it; and it is precisely in this 'loss of spirit' that the 'corruption' already denounced by Dante and his associates consisted, [9] although the most elementary prudence dictated that when speaking of this 'corruption' they not do so clearly. But one should not conclude from this that the use of a
symbolic terminology has no other raison d'être than the desire to conceal the true meaning of a doctrine; there are things that by their very nature cannot be expressed otherwise than in this form, and this side of the question, which is by far the most important, scarcely seems to have been recognized by the author. And there is yet a third aspect, intermediate so to speak, where prudence is indeed involved, but in the interest of the doctrine itself and no longer of its exponents. This aspect is more particularly related to the symbol of wine used by the Sufis, whose teaching, let us add in passing, cannot be qualified as 'pantheistic' except by a typical Western error. The allusions he makes to this symbol in no way establish that 'wine' signifies 'mystery', a secret or restricted doctrine, simply because yayin and sôd are equivalent numerically in Hebrew, or because in Islamic esoterism wine is the 'drink of the elite', which the common man may not use with impunity. [10]
But let us move on to the confusion of the 'mystical' with the 'initiatic' point of view, a confusion that is connected to the preceding one because it is the false assimilation of esoteric doctrines to mysticism (which latter pertains to the religious domain) that leads to situating them on the same plane as exoterism and insisting on opposing them to it. We see very well what it is in the present case that could have provoked this error: a 'chivalric' tradition always
requires the preponderance of a principle represented as feminine (Madonna) [11] as well as the intervention of an affective element (Amore) in order to adapt to the nature of the men to whom it is particularly addressed. The linking of such a traditional form with that represented by the Persian Sufis is altogether sound, but it should be added that these two are far from being the only cases where one encounters the cult of the 'donna-Divinitá', that is to say the feminine aspect of the Divinity: we also find it in India, where that aspect is designated as the Shakti, equivalent in certain respects to the Hebraic Shekinah; and it should be noted that the cult of the Shakti concerns above all the Kshatriyas. A 'chivalric' tradition is precisely nothing other than a traditional form appropriate to the Kshatriyas, and that is why it cannot constitute a path that is purely intellectual as is that of the Brahmins; the latter is the 'dry way' of the alchemists, whereas the former is the 'moist way', [12] water symbolizing the feminine as fire does the masculine, the first corresponding to the emotivity and the second to the intellectuality that predominate respectively in the natures of the Kshatriyas and the Brahmins. This is why such a tradition may seem mystical from the outside even when it is really initiatic, so much so that one could even think that mysticism in the ordinary sense of the word is a sort of vestige of it, a 'survival' in a civilization such as that of the West, after every regular traditional organization has disappeared.
The role of the feminine principle in certain traditional forms is noticeable even in Catholic exoterism in the importance attributed to the cult of the Virgin. Valli seems astonished to find the Rosa Mystica figuring in the litanies of the Virgin, but there are in these same litanies many other properly initiatic symbols, and what he does not
seem to suspect is that their application is perfectly justified through the association of the Virgin with Wisdom and with the Shekinah. [13] Apropos of this let us also note that Saint Bernard, whose connection with the Templars is well known, appears as a 'knight of the Virgin'; and he calls the Virgin 'his Lady', the origin of the expression 'Our Lady' [Notre Dame] even having been attributed to him. She is also Madonna, and in one of her aspects is identified with Wisdom, hence the same Madonna of the Fedeli d'Amore, this being yet another correspondence Valli does not suspect, any more than he seems to suspect the reason why the month of May is consecrated to the Virgin.
One thing ought to have led Valli to see that the doctrines in question were not 'mysticism' at all: he himself acknowledges the almost exclusive importance these doctrines attach to 'knowledge', something totally foreign to the mystical point of view. He is mistaken, moreover, about the consequences to be drawn therefrom, for this emphasis is not a characteristic peculiar to 'gnosticism', but a general feature of all initiatic teaching, whatever form it may have taken; knowledge is always the sole aim, and all the rest but different means of attaining it. One must take care not to confuse 'gnosis', which signifies 'knowledge', with 'gnosticism', although the latter obviously takes its name from the former; besides, the term 'gnosticism' is rather vague and seems in fact to have been applied indiscriminately to very different things. [14]
One must not allow oneself to be hindered by external forms, whatever they may be. The 'Fedeli d'Amore' were well able to go
beyond these forms, as is attested by the fact that in one of the first tales of Boccaccio's Decameron, Melchizedek affirms that, as between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 'no one knows which is the true faith.' Valli was right to interpret this affirmation in the sense that 'the true faith lies hidden under the external aspects of the various beliefs,' but what is most remarkable here-and this he did not see-is that these words are put into the mouth of Melchizedek, who is precisely the representative of the single tradition concealed under all these outer forms, clearly indicating that certain individuals in the West at that time had retained a knowledge of the true 'Center of the World'. However that may be, an 'affective' language, such as that of the Fedeli d'Amore, is also an outer form by which one must not be fooled, for it may very well conceal something far more profound; and the word amour in particular may, by virtue of an analogical transposition, signify something altogether different from the sentiment it ordinarily denotes. This deeper meaning of 'love' in connection with the doctrines of the Orders of Chivalry becomes clear enough if one considers the following together: firstly, Saint John's phrase, 'God is Love'; then the battle-cry of the Templars, 'Vive Dieu, Saint Amour'; and finally the last verse of the Divine Comedy, 'L'Amor che muove il Sole e l'altre stelle.' [15] Another interesting point in this regard is the relationship established between 'love' and 'death' in the symbolism of the Fedeli d'Amore, a twofold relationship, as the word death itself has a double meaning. On the one hand, there is a parallel and a sort of association of love with death, where the latter must be understood as 'initiatic death'; and this parallel seems to have endured in the current that, at the close of the Middle Ages, gave rise to the depictions of the 'dance of death' [danse macabre]; [16] on the other hand, there is also a point of view that establishes an antithesis between love and death, an antithesis that can be explained in part by the very formation of the words [amour and mort]: the root mor is common to both, and, in
a-mor, is preceded by a privative 'a', as in the Sanskrit a-mara, a mrita, so that 'amour' could be interpreted as a sort of hieroglyphic equivalent for 'immortality'. The 'dead' can in this sense be regarded, in a general way, as designating the profane, whereas the 'living', or those who have attained immortality, are the initiates; and here we should recall the expression 'Land of the Living', synonymous with 'Holy Land' or 'Land of the Saints', 'Pure Land', and so forth; and the opposition that we have just indicated is, in this context, equivalent to the opposition of hell, which is the profane world, to the heavens, which represent the degrees of the initiatic hierarchy.
As for the 'true faith' of which we spoke a while ago, it is designated as the Fede Santa, an expression which, like the word Amore, applies at the same time to the initiatic organization itself. This Fede Santa [Holy Faith], of which Dante was a Kadosch, is the faith of the Fedeli d'Amore; and it is also the Fede dei Santi [Faith of the Saints]-that is, the Emounah of the Kadosch, as we explained in The Esoterism of Dante. This designation of the initiates as 'Saints', of which Kadosch is the Hebrew equivalent, is perfectly understandable if one considers the meaning of the 'heavens' just now indicated, since the heavens are in fact described as the abode of the saints. This must be seen in the context of many other analogous denominations, such as 'Pure Ones', 'Perfect Ones', Cathars, Sufis, Ikhwān-al-Ṣafa' [Brethren of Purity], and so forth, which are all taken in the same sense, permitting us thereby to understand what the 'Holy Land' truly is. [17]
This raises another point to which Valli alludes all too briefly: the secret significance of pilgrimage, which is related to the peregrinations of initiates whose itineraries in fact coincided most frequently with those of ordinary pilgrims, with whom they were thus easily confused, thus permitting them the better to conceal the true reasons for their journeys. Moreover, the very locations of pilgrimage sites such as the sanctuaries of antiquity have an esoteric value that should be taken into consideration here, and this is something
directly related to what we have called 'sacred geography' [18] and which must also be considered together with what we have written on the subject of the Compagnons and the Bohemians, [19] a subject to which we shall perhaps return on another occasion.
The question of the 'Holy Land' could also provide the key to the relationship of Dante and the Fedeli d'Amore to the Templars, again a subject that receives very incomplete treatment in Valli's book. Valli does consider these relationships with the Templars, as well as with the alchemists, to be an undeniable fact, and he points out some interesting correspondences, as, for example, that of the Templars' nine-year probation with the symbolic age of nine years in the Vita Nuova-but there could have been many other things to choose. Thus, apropos of the Templars' center on Cyprus, it would be interesting to examine the meaning of that island's name, its connection with Venus and the 'third heaven', and the symbolism of copper, from which it took its name, all subjects that we can only point to at the moment, without dwelling on them.
Similarly, regarding the obligation imposed on the Fedeli d'Amore to employ the poetic form in their writings, there would be good reason to ask why poetry was called the 'language of the gods' by the ancients; why vates in Latin signified both the poet and the soothsayer or prophet (oracles, moreover, being rendered in verse); why verses were called carmina (charms, incantations, a word identical with the Sanskrit karma, understood in its technical sense of 'ritual act'); [20] and also why it is said of Solomon and other sages, particularly in the Islamic tradition, that they understood the 'language of the birds', [21] which, strange as it may seem, is only another name for the 'language of the gods'. [22]
Before concluding these remarks, we must still say a few words on the interpretation of the Divine Comedy that Valli has developed in
other works and which he simply summarizes in the work we are now considering. The symmetries of the cross and of the eagle, on which the poem is based entirely, certainly explain a part of its meaning (in conformity, moreover, with the conclusion of De Monarchia); [23] but there are in this poem many other things that cannot be completely explained in this way even if we limit ourselves to the use made of symbolic numbers, the author wrongly believing that he has found some single key sufficient to resolve all difficulties. Furthermore, he seems to regard these 'structural connections' as devices peculiar to Dante, whereas, on the contrary, there is something essentially traditional in this symbolic 'architecture', which, although it did not perhaps play a part in the modes of expression customary among the Fedeli d'Amore properly speaking, nonetheless existed in organizations more or less closely allied to their own, and was closely bound to the very art of the builders. [24] There seems to be an intuition of these relationships, however, when he states that 'a study of symbolism in the figurative arts' could further the research in question. Moreover, here, as everywhere, one could discover many other points of comparison, sometimes quite unexpected ones, once all 'aesthetic' preoccupations were laid aside. [25]
If we have dwelt at such length on Valli's book it is because it is one that truly deserves our attention, and if we have especially pointed out its omissions, it is because in this way we are able to indicate for him and for others new paths for research that may successfully complement the results already achieved. It seems that the time has come when the true significance of Dante's work may at last be uncovered; if the interpretations of Rossetti and Aroux were not taken seriously in their own times, it is perhaps not because minds were much less prepared to receive them then than they are today, but rather because it was foreseen that the secret must be kept for six centuries (the Chaldean Naros). Luigi Valli often speaks
of these six centuries during which Dante was not understood, but evidently without seeing any particular meaning in that fact; and this again demonstrates the need, in studies of this kind, for a knowledge of 'cyclical laws', something the modern West has so completely forgotten.