Rome

Rome is the eternal city that serves as the political and spiritual center of Dante's world, the seat of both the Roman Empire and the Papacy, and the ultimate earthly symbol of the divinely ordained authority whose corruption Dante condemns throughout the Divine Comedy. It is the city where Virgil lived under the good Augustus, the city whose empire was chosen by God as the holy place for Peter's successor, and the city whose present rulers have, in Dante's view, abandoned their sacred duty for avarice and power. Throughout the poem, Rome functions as a touchstone for both the ideal of just governance and the reality of ecclesiastical decay.

The Ideal of Rome: Empire and Divine Mandate

Virgil, born "Sub Julio" and living at Rome under the good Augustus during the time of false and lying gods, represents the Roman Empire at its peak. Dante, through Virgil, articulates a providential view of Roman history: Aeneas, the parent of Silvius, was chosen by God as the father of Rome and its empire, which was established as the holy place wherein sits the successor of the greatest Peter. This divine election means that the Roman standard, the eagle, is sacred. Justinian, speaking from the sphere of Mercury, recounts the eagle's history from its origins with Aeneas through the kings, the Republic, and the Caesars, culminating in the peace of Augustus and the vengeance of Titus. Dante's political vision, expressed through Marco Lombardo, holds that Rome once had two suns—the Pope and the Emperor—that made manifest the two roads of God and of the world. The corruption of this order, with the sword joined to the crosier, has led to the world's depravity.

The Papal See: Corruption and Prophecy

Dante's most scathing condemnations are reserved for the popes who have betrayed their office. In the third bolgia of the Inferno, the simoniac popes are thrust headfirst into holes, their feet aflame. Pope Nicholas III mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII, whom he expects to follow him, and laments that he was a son of the She-bear, so eager to advance his cubs that he pocketed wealth above and himself below. Dante, emboldened, denounces the avarice of the papacy, declaring that the popes have made themselves a god of gold and silver, and that Constantine's donation to Sylvester was the mother of much ill. In Paradise, St. Peter himself, his face suffused with the color of shame, denounces the current pope who has made his cemetery a sewer of blood and stench, and declares that the papacy was never meant to be used for the acquisition of gold. The Eagle of Justice, speaking from Jupiter, prophesies the punishment of corrupt kings and prelates, and the Eagle's eye includes the soul of the Trojan Ripheus, a pagan saved by faith, as a sign of the inscrutability of divine grace.

The City of Dis: Hell's Capital

The infernal city of Dis, with its iron walls and mosques glowing red from the eternal fire, is a perversion of Rome. It is the capital of the damned, where the heretics are tormented in flaming tombs and the Furies threaten Dante from its towers. The city's gates are guarded by fallen angels, and its entry is only forced by a messenger from Heaven. This demonic city mirrors the earthly Rome in its role as a seat of power, but it is a power turned entirely to evil, a place where the divine justice of the Inferno is enacted.

The Pilgrim's Journey and the Heavenly Rome

Dante's entire journey is framed by the promise of Rome. Virgil, in the first canto, tells Dante that he will guide him through Hell and Purgatory, but that a worthier soul—Beatrice—must lead him to the city of God. The journey is a pilgrimage from the dark forest of error to the heavenly Jerusalem, the true Rome where Christ is Roman. In the Empyrean, Dante beholds the White Rose of Paradise, the celestial city where the blessed are seated in their eternal thrones. Beatrice points out the empty throne prepared for the noble Henry of Luxembourg, who will come to redress Italy. The poem ends with Dante's vision of God, the love that moves the sun and the other stars, a vision that is the ultimate goal of the pilgrimage that began in the shadow of Rome's earthly power and corruption.