From Dutiful Name-Dropping to Warm Esteem: Dante’s Statius between De Vulgari Eloquentia, Convivio III and Convivio IV.XXV

ABSTRACT Dante’s inclusion of Statius among De Vulgari Eloquentia’s catalogue of Latin poets and his use of Statius’s Thebaid in Convivio III–IV are well-known. Yet critical literature overlooks the significant development in Dante’s treatment of Statius over the course of the two opere minori. This article argues that Dante’s qualitatively different approach to Statius between De Vulgari Eloquentia, Convivio III, and Convivio IV. xxv both sheds light on Dante’s reading programme in exile and acts as a prelude to Dante’s engagement with Statius in Inferno and creation of Stazio-character in Purgatorio. Close analysis of Dante’s changing engagement with Statius between De Vulgari Eloquentia, Convivio III and IV. xxv suggests Dante first encountered Statian epic in extracted form, stimulating Dante’s interest such that he read the Thebaid in entirety. Dante’s use of Statius in Convivio thus signals the beginning of Dante’s intense engagement with Statian epic that culminates in the Commedia.


Introduction
Dante's Commedia (c. 1307-21) provides the clearest testament to his esteem for the Latin poet Statius. 1 Scholarly discussion of Dante's Statius thus tends to focus on Dante's masterwork, and particularly on those aspects of the Commedia where that esteem is most evident -Inferno's Statian characters and episodes and Stazio-character's presence in Purgatorio. 2 Yet Dante first mentions Statius in De Vulgari Eloquentia (c. 1302-05), first cites Statius's epic poem the Thebaid in Convivio's (c. 1304-13) third book and, by its fourth, freely uses exempla from the Thebaid to illustrate vergogna, a virtue of adolescenza, humankind's first programme in exile and his ongoing engagement with Statian epic. This article thus establishes that Dante's use of the Thebaid in Convivio represents only the beginning of his intense study of that epic, which culminates in the Commedia.

Statius's Absence from Vita Nuova XXV. 9's Classical Poetic Canon
Prior to departing Florence for exile, Dante almost certainly lacked any real familiarity with Statius's poetry. Statius is markedly absent from Dante's first catalogue of his classical poetic forebears and thus from Dante's first overt attempt to claim auctoritas through alluding to his intellectual inheritance from these great auctores. 10 In this first catalogue, as Dante justifies his and his fellow dicitori di rima's appearing to make 'Amore essere corpo' (VN XXV. 2), Dante stakes their claim to poetic auctoritas, affirming that the dicitori di rima 'non siano altro che poete volgari' and thus benefit from greater licence than prose-writers (VN XXV. 7). 11 Accordingly, Dante argues that just as the poete address inanimate objects, both real and imagined, 'sì come se avessero senso e ragione' and concepts lacking substance speak in their texts 'sì come se fossero sustanzie e uomini; degno è lo dicitore per rima di fare lo somigliante' (VN XXV. 8). Yet despite Statius's renowned allegorical personifications of abstract concepts, particularly in the Thebaid, Dante provides no examples from Statian epic to substantiate his claim. 12 Instead he uses exempla from Vergil, Lucan, Ovid, and Horace to support his assertions and even mentions Homer (whom he did not know in its original Greek) (VN XXV. 9). The lack within Vita Nuova XXV's catalogue of any paradigm from Statius is striking. Moreover, Dante does not appear to have translated or paraphrased any lines from Statius's poetry or to allude directly to that poetry either in the Vita Nuova's poems or anywhere else in Dante's accompanying self-exegesis. Instead, Dante relies throughout the Vita Nuova on that same 'canone ridottissimo di auctores' that he cites 'con onore' in chapter XXV. 13 Dante's ignorance of Statian poetry prior to his exile and consequent omission of Statius from the Vita Nuova's hall of classical poetic fame probably resulted from the dearth of Statian manuscripts in Dante's Florence and the limitations of Dante's youthful education in the classics. 14 It is highly unlikely that Dante knew Statius's collection of occasional verse, the Silvae, as prior to Poggio Bracciolini's 'rediscovery' of the collection in 1417, it did not circulate widely. 15 While Violetta de Angelis believes that Statius's authorship of the collection may have been known in Italy prior to this, the Silvae does not appear to have been present in Dante's Florence, and Dante seems never to have known the collection. 16 Dante's attribution of a Toulousan birthplace to Stazio-character some years On Dante's reservation of the term poeta for the classical poets until VN XXV and its use in that chapter to claim auctoritas for vernacular poetry, see Ascoli, p. 68, n. 2. On Dante's claim to poetic auctoritas throughout the Vita Nuova, see Michelangelo Picone, 'La teoria dell'auctoritas nella Vita nova', Tenzone, 6 (2005), 173-91. 12 On these abstract personifications, see, for example, Denis Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 1993), pp. 364-91. 13 On Dante's 'canone ridottissimo di auctores' and his challenge to their auctoritas in the Vita Nuova, see 'L'auctoritas nella Vita Nova ' later (in Purg. XXI, 89), rather than Neapolitan as Silvae III. 5 tells us, and Stazio-character's failure to mention the Silvae when listing his oeuvre (Purg. XXI, 92-93), seem to confirm Dante's lack of acquaintance with the Silvae. 17 Dante almost certainly would not have read the Thebaid in his natal city either. Dante's Florence did not have a university and inventories of the libraries of the three mendicant studia ('schools') demonstrate that their scarce holdings of classical poetry did not include Statius's epic retelling of the 'Seven Against Thebes' myth, even had Dante been able to access the texts contained in these libraries. 18 Moreover, Robert Black found no twelfth-or thirteenth-century copies of the Thebaid in his study of Latin school texts contained in Florentine libraries, and the two fourteenth-century copies he identified long post-date Dante's exile. 19 It is nearly as unlikely that Dante encountered the Achilleid during his time in Florence. 20 The epic, which narrates Achilles' youth, education, and departure for the Trojan War, appears to have enjoyed some popularity as a school text in parts of twelfth-to-thirteenth century Europe. It appeared in the so-called Liber Catonianus collection of texts with Cato's Distichs, Theodulus's Eclogue, Avianus's Fables, Maximianus's Elegies, and Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae. 21 However, despite Marcus Boas's confirmation that twenty-four manuscripts of the Liber Catonianus contain some lines of the Achilleid, only three of these seemingly originate from Italy. 22 Black lists one late twelfth-century Italian manuscript of the Achilleid of a school type in a Florentine library and no thirteenth-century copies of either Statian epic. 23 The six fourteenth-century copies of the Achilleid that Black identified probably post-date Dante's exile in 1302. 24 Moreover, in the Vita Nuova, Dante appears to use extracts of Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, and Horace drawn from florilegia of classical poetry or grammar texts. 25 Medieval grammarians used such extracts to instruct students through detailed examination of syntax and to introduce them to literary analysis. 26 Such texts were then used throughout a medieval reader's life to provide models of excellence in Latin composition and versification. 27 Thus, rather than complete texts, medieval readers often knew citations, excerpted auctoritates collected in reference volumes, including florilegia, sententiae, encyclopaedias, and other compendia. 28  However, his failure to utilise any exempla from Statius or to reference Statian poetry more implicitly in the Vita Nuova suggests that Dante probably had not yet encountered extracts of Statian epic in such compendia by this time or, if he had, that he was not able to attribute them to Statius.

Dante's Exile, Statius, and the De Vulgari Eloquentia
Instead, Dante's first encounter with Statian epic almost certainly occurred during the early years of his exile. Dante names Statius for the first time only in the Latin treatise De Vulgari Eloquentia, as he instructs his readers regarding suitable models for each mode of writing. 30  Dante probably first read excerpts of Statian epic in a florilegium, grammar, or other compendium of classical poetic extracts, rather than encountering the full text of the Thebaid or Achilleid. of collection mentioned by Munk Olsen. As we saw in Vita Nuova XXV. 9, Dante knew how to use these texts and this familiarity may well have eased him into knowledge of this new classical author. In De Vulgari Eloquentia II. VI. 7, Dante similarly calls Statius only by name, without epithet or elaboration. 36 Yet Dante mentions neither the Thebaid nor the Achilleid in the De Vulgari Eloquentia; the treatise contains no other express references to Statius or his poetry, and Dante neither translates nor paraphrases a single extract of Statian epic. Conversely, Dante mentions Vergil three times and quotes Vergil most frequently of all the poets. Dante even cites Horace although he omits him from the regulati poetae (DVE II. IV. 4). 37 Accordingly, it seems likely that while Dante was aware of Statius's poetic qualities and may well have encountered him in one of these compendia, Dante was not yet familiar with Statius's poetry to any great extent.
Moreover, Dante's recommendation to use Vergil, Ovid Metamorfoseos, Statius, and Lucan as poetic models; their description as regulati; and Dante's reference to reducing them to memory, suggest he encountered the poets grouped together in some form of educational text, used to provide poetic and/or moral instruction. 38 This may well have been a florilegium, with three of the five Italian florilegia identified by Munk Olsen as containing extracts of Statius also containing extracts of Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan, inter alia. 39 Alternatively, Dante may have found the poets grouped together in a compilation of moral sententiae. 40 For example, one scholar has copied 'Prouerbia Stacii', alongside prouerbia from Ovid, Vergil, Lucan, and other classical authors in a thirteenth-century manuscript now kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 41 Statius's Thebaid also appears to have been grouped with the poetry of Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan among the maiores, the classical authors reserved by the medieval 'curriculum' for more advanced study of Latin. 42   Dante also appears to be forming a distinctive picture of the Thebaid's women, whom Statius portrays as epitomes of virtue and 'perfect specimens of womenkind' on a 'traditionally' Roman model. 50 Convivio III's second Statian translation suggests that Dante is already developing a fascination with these unfortunate women's tragic loyalty and virtue and they later appear in Virgilio-character's catalogue of the souls in Limbo (Purg. XXII, 109-14). As Michelangelo Picone notes, the virtues these women possess later become Christian ones, and these women resonate with the Christian archetype of the mater dolorosa, 'della donna che partecipa con dolore incommensurabile, ma anche con amore infinito, al sacrificio del proprio figlio'. 51 No Statian woman illustrates this archetype better than Hypsipyle, who leaves Archemorus, the babe in her care, in the grass while she shows the Argive troops where to find water but returns to find him killed by a serpent (Thebaid IV-V). 52 In Convivio III. XI Dante's use of Statius's Thebaid as an exemplar alongside Vergil's masterpiece demonstrates the growing depth of Dante's regard for Statian epic. However, again Dante merely names Statius and the textual locus; gives the characters' names briefly; provides the text in Italian not Latin; and offers no further elaboration. Again, this implies Dante may have found these extracts in a florilegium or even a grammar text. After all, providing extracts of classical poetry as paradigms of grammatical principles or rhetorical devices as Dante does here was a florilegium's defining purpose, as we saw earlier. Hypsipyle's lament for the dead Archemorus at Thebaid V. 608-15 often appears among the extracts included in such florilegia and is highlighted frequently by medieval readers in manuscripts of the Thebaid. 53 For example, the so-called 'Cambridge Songs', a mid-eleventh-century florilegium, includes Thebaid V. 608-16, while a florilegium found in a twelfth-century manuscript now found in Florence's Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana contains Thebaid V. 608-15. 54 Given Hypsipyle's heartrending tale, it is little wonder that Dante uses her lament not only as an exemplum in Convivio III, but becomes so engaged with her tragedy that he mentions her in Inferno XVIII, 88-93, Purgatorio XXII, 112, and especially Purgatorio XXVI, 94-99, which expressly references Archemorus's heart-breaking death and its near fatal consequences for Hypsipyle. Dante's encounter with such moving and powerful extracts of Statian epic may well have prompted him to begin reading the Thebaid in full.

Convivio IV. XXV: Dante's surprising use of the Thebaid
By the time Dante wrote Convivio IV. XXV, his enthusiasm for Statian epic was gaining pace as he began to read the Thebaid from its beginning. Several manuscripts originating from or present in medieval Italy are listed among the more than 160 extant manuscripts of the Thebaid mentioned by Dominique Battles and the more than 253 extant manuscripts containing Statian material listed by Harald Anderson. 55 The slightly later author Boccaccio had his own copy of the Thebaid. 56 Sadly no trace of Dante's library now remains and his oeuvre gives no express indication of when or how he read the Thebaid. 57 1-19), now using classical texts to claim not just poetic, but also philosophical auctoritas. 58 Yet Dante's stressing of the importance of adolescenza as 'porta e via per la quale s'entra nella nostra buona vita' (Cvo IV. XXIV. 9), before his description of this stage of life's prevailing virtues (obedienza, soavitade, vergogna, and adornezza corporale, Cvo IV. XXIV. 11), augments our sense of Dante's regard for Statius. Interestingly, in Convivio IV. XXIV. 12 Dante also foreshadows imagery that is fundamental to his magnum opus (cfr. Inf. I, 1-3), as he asserts the necessity of obedienza: 'così l'adolescente che entra nella selva erronea di questa vita, non saprebbe tenere lo buono cammino, se dalli suoi maggiori non li fosse mostrato' (Cvo IV. XXIV. 12).
Dante's use of Statius to provide moral exempla suggests that Dante probably read the Thebaid accompanied by one of its typical medieval paratexts -the accessus that attributed moralising intent to Statius and his poem, schooling Dante to find such paradigms in Statius's epic. 59 Dante had certainly read at least one such accessus by the time he wrote Stazio-character's autobiography in Purgatorio XXI, with many eminent scholars discussing the accessus tradition as a possible source for this biography. 60 Dante's growing confidence in dealing with classical poetry and his increasing familiarity with Statian epic manifests in his surprising decision to use episodes from Statius's Thebaid to illustrate not a vice, but a virtue. Dante boldly reverses the accessus tradition's general tendency to use the Thebaid to provide exempla of how to avoid vice and the tradition's assertion that Statius's own intention is to do so. 61 Dante's use of Statius's poem to illustrate a virtue of adolescenza, a time of 'acrescimento di vita' (Cvo IV. XXIV. 1) is even more remarkable, since the Thebaid depicts a recurring cycle of violence that devastates countless young lives and, Statius implies, will continue to do so even after the poem's conclusion. After all, this horrifying impiety and violence later led Dante to choose Thebes as a model for his hell and to utilise many of Statius directly as characters (e.g., Capaneus; Amphiaraus) or as model for some of Inferno's most disturbing scenes (e.g., the divided flame containing Ulysses and Diomedes (Inf. XXVI); Ugolino's gnawing on Ruggieri's head (Inf. XXXII-XXXIII). 62 Dante also seems to foreshadow his later puzzling Christianisation of Stazio-character when Dante explains in Convivio IV. XXV. 3 that 'è necessaria a questa etade la passione de la vergogna; e però la buona e nobile natura in questa etade la mostra [. . .] la vergogna è apertissimo segno in adolescenza di nobilitade'. 63 Dante qualifies that by vergogna, he means 'tre passioni necessarie al fondamento de la nostra vita buona', stupore, pudore, and verecundia. These are necessary because 'a questa etade è necessario d'essere reverente e disidiroso di sapere'; 'rifrenato, sì che non transvada'; and 'penitente del fallo, sì che non s'ausi a fallare' (Cvo IV. XXV. 4). This desire 'di sapere' arises from humankind's desire for its own perfection and therefore for God, the ultimate perfection, as Dante affirms in Convivio I. I. 1. This desire is the sete for the aqua vitae that becomes the leitmotif of the so-called Statian canti, Purgatorio XXI and XXII. 64 Significantly, Christian salvation also requires souls to demonstrate the other aspects of vergogna -the exercise of free will and reason to avoid sin, and repentance of those sins that we commit. As Inferno demonstrates, failure to exercise all three in life results in the soul's condemnation to hell upon death. According to Stazio-character's fictional conversion account (Purg. XXII), he exercised all three aspects of vergogna following his conversion, becoming a unique paradigm of a soul who has completed its purgation and is ready to join God. Nevertheless, Dante's description of vergogna demonstrates Statius's growing significance for Dante and Dante's increasing knowledge of the Thebaid, but also furthers our surprise that he utilises this violence-driven text here.
Cvo IV. XXV. 6 This would accord with Leo's assertion that Dante was (re)reading Latin poetry and understanding it more personally when writing these chapters of Convivio. 66 Dante's shift from translating to paraphrasing Statius seems to illustrate Dante's growing confidence when dealing with classical poetry. The assimilation of Adrastus's desire to know, wonder, and dutiful recalling of Apollo's oracle, to humankind's philosophical desire for wisdom and reverence for God resonates with the sete we see in Purgatorio's Statian canti. Yet Dante's use of Adrastus in Convivio IV. XXV. 6 suggests that Dante may not have read much past Thebaid I when he used this example. If Dante had read past Thebaid I, he could have found one of Statius's rare examples of the virtues of adolescenza among young men. For example, Menoeceus desires to know the gods' will and then sacrifices himself to save Thebes, obeying what he has learnt of that will (Thebaid X. 650-85). Instead, Dante utilises a man who is well past the twenty-five years that Dante himself asserts that adolescenza lasts (Cvo IV. XXIV. 2). Adrastus is 'medio de limite vitae │ in senium vergens' ['verging from life's midway into old age'] (Thebaid I. 390-91). Again, this resonates with Inferno's opening -this time to Dante-pilgrim as 'Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita' (Inf I, 1). In Thebaid III, Adrastus's inciting of his subjects to arms on Polynices's behalf and his own involvement in the Thebaid's impious war mar his virtue and otherwise honourable conduct. Perhaps Dante chose Adrastus, a mature man, to emphasise the rarity of such virtue among the Thebaid's male characters, or due to Adrastus's siring of the two virtuous women Dante shortly uses as examples of vergogna. In any event Dante's use of Adrastus here demonstrates that Dante has begun to read and appreciate the Thebaid's complex themes in earnest.

The 'Pudore' of Adrastus's Virgin Daughters
By the time of writing Convivio IV. XXV and despite only reading Thebaid I in depth, Dante's grasp already of a fundamental aspect of Statius's Thebaid -Statius's embodiment in his female characters of the traditional Roman female values -is more apparent still. When Dante describes pudore as 'uno ritraimento d'animo da laide cose, con paura di cadere in quelle; sì come vedemo ne le vergini e ne le donne buone e ne li adolescenti, che tanto sono pudici' (Cvo IV. XXV. 7), he chooses not a male adolescens to exemplify this virtue but Deiphyle and Argia, Adrastus's virgin daughters. Dante also expressly signals his engagement with Thebaid I, as he avers: Onde dice lo sopra notato poeta ne lo allegato libro primo di Tebe, che quando Aceste, nutrice d'Argia e di Deifile, figlie d'Adrasto rege, le menò dinanzi da li occhi del santo padre ne la presenza de li due peregrini, cioè Polinice e Tideo, le vergini palide e rubicunde si fecero, e li loro occhi fuggiro da ogni altrui sguardo, e solo ne la paterna faccia, quasi come sicuri, si tennero.

Polynices -An Unusual Statian Exemplum
Both Dante's reliance in Convivio IV. XXV only on Thebaid I and his engagement with the Thebaid's defining themes are driven home in his use of Polynices as exemplum both of verecundia, the final aspect of vergogna, and perhaps also of adornezza corporale. This is surprising given that Dante imbues his explanation of verecundia with a distinctively Christian tone. Dante avers that 'La verecundia è una paura di disonoranza per fallo commesso; e di questa paura nasce un pentimento del fallo, lo quale ha in sé una amaritudine che è gastigamento a più non fallire' (Cvo IV. XXV. 10). This 'gastigamento a più non fallire' seems at odds with the recurrent cycle of violence at the heart of Statius's Thebes -and perhaps that is its point. After all, Dante's Ugolino later refers to Pisa as 'novella Tebe' (Inf. XXXIII underlying and subtle allusion in Convivio IV. XXV. 10 to the horrific crimes Polynices commits later in the Thebaid remind us that virtue is an ongoing choice that we must make. Without doing so we will face eternal punishment, like many of Statius's characters. Dante's careful and deliberate use of Statian exempla here and his omission of Statian exempla in describing adolescenza's other virtues (a contrast to how he utilises Vergil's Aeneid) indicates already that Dante understands the rarity of virtue among the Thebaid's characters. This hints at the Thebaid's value in instructing us to follow the diritta via on which Dante focuses in the Commedia. Dante's in-depth understanding of Thebaid I and his enthusiasm for the text seem to have prompted him to continue reading Statius's only finished epic, such that by the time of writing the Commedia, he had read it 'tutta quanta'.

Statius's Achilleid: A Deliberate Omission or A Lack of Knowledge?
Dante is notably silent regarding the examples of vergogna that the Achilleid contains. If Dante did know the Achilleid, this may have been because exempla of the virtue are rare in the poem. Even the dutiful virgin Deidamia lacks the extreme pudore of Adrastus's blushing, bashful daughters, and Achilles's mother Thetis could be taken either as example of maternal pietas or admonition not to counter the will of fate. 77 Alternatively, Dante may have wanted to select paradigms from only one epic source, as he does for all the virtues displayed by Aeneas. After all, Dante does not yet display the confident intermingling of multiple classical and contemporary sources in a single character or episode that he does in the Commedia.
A more plausible explanation is that Dante had not yet read Statius's second epic. In an educational context, the Achilleid was often read before the Thebaid, among the so-called auctores minores, with the Thebaid saved for more advanced study. 78 However, as we saw above, there is nothing to suggest that Dante encountered the Achilleid during his formal education at Florence. Instead, like the Thebaid, Dante probably read the Achilleid in entirety only after his exile. After all, the Thebaid appears alone in many of the manuscripts Anderson lists, and in the manuscripts in which both poems appear, the Achilleid can appear either before or after Statius's complete epic. 79 Yet when Dante writes Inferno he includes Achilles among the lustful (Inf. V, 65-66), mentions Achilles's abandonment of Deidamia in Inferno XXVI. 61-62, places Chiron among Inferno XII's centaurs, and refers expressly to Statius's unfinished 'seconda soma' in Stazio-character's autobiography (Purg. XXI, 93). 80 By the time Dante writes the Commedia, it is obvious that he has read and is enthused by both Statian poems. He draws on both epics in episodes and characters he later includes in Inferno and, having understood the tensions inherent within the two poems, includes their tragic but dutiful heroines among the Limbo-dwelling souls that Virgilio-character lists for Statius's embodiment in the Commedia, Stazio (Purg. XXII, 109-14).

Conclusion
Dante's failure to mention Statius prior to De Vulgari Eloquentia seems to confirm that Dante's access to classical poetry prior to his exile was limited, and his knowledge of Statius practically nonexistent. After his exile, Dante's access to classical poetry increased as he travelled to cities with public libraries such as Verona or perhaps enjoyed the fruits of his acquaintances with other learned men to access their private manuscript collections. 81 Dante's knowledge of Statius and probably of other poets too seems to have begun with the extracts included in florilegia, grammar texts, and other compendia, before starting to read complete texts, probably accompanied by various paratexts. Dante's use of the Thebaid between Convivio III and IV. XXV demonstrates his growing regard for and engagement with the dolce poeta's epic works and his appreciation of their moral value and driving themes. As this article demonstrates, this growing regard and engagement culminates in the Commedia, as Dante plays upon the tensions inherent in Statius's two epics, not just in Inferno as we might expect, but in Purgatorio and beyond -a subject that merits research of its own.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by doctoral funding from the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.