Scars of Campaldino

Dear Crew of the USS Tom Clancy —

Working up this summer road trip American Odyssey piece (actually still on the road trip) and felt bad for depriving you of a dispatch until this point…so here’s some thoughts on Dante and trauma

trying an experiment where I do this all within the phone app, so apologies if it comes in broken and stupid or typo ridden

back to the regular grind in August, thank you for your patience

Matt

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The Scars of Campaldino

The Casentino valley is present not only because in that land Dante found himself waging war but, for him, it was also particularly congenial. The memories of this valley persist uninterrupted throughout his entire work, until becoming real and true landscapes of the soul, able to reflect even the most remote hues of his sentiments. A small world, that of the Casentino Valley, capable of being sweet and vicious almost at the same time, and maybe this is its most intimate and

enduring truth. All this could not escape the deep conscience of Alighieri.1

The Divine Comedy is a deeply personal work of art. Dante’s redemptive journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is not just an allegory; it is also a journey through the poet’s mind and memory and deeply felt opinions on the politics, personalities and moral questions in fourteenth century Florence. The political and military strife and internecine combat between the various Italian factions at this time provided the inspiration for some of the most vivid scenes in the Divine Comedy and some of the most vicious, particularly in the Inferno.

Yet, as we see in Dante’s interaction with various warriors in Purgatory, the wars also seeded some of the most sublime and compassionate scenes, particularly in Cantos. Dante’s military service, and the psychological cost of fighting in a close, bloody battle, left a deep impression on the man. This paper is an attempt to analyze and categorize the ways in which his past combat experience colors Dante’s work and how current thinking on combat trauma (Casentino pp 44) may contribute to our understanding of il Sommo Poeta.

This requires a brief survey of the battle and an understanding of the horror Dante witnessed and participated in on the fields Campaldino followed by an examination of the ways Dante interacts with the various warriors he encounters on his journey.

Campaldino

On June 11, 1289, in a wide valley flanked by dusky mountains, a young Florentine cavalryman named Durante Aligheri strapped on heavy iron armor and mounted his horse. It was time for battle. The twenty four year old was not alone: over a thousand Guelph horseman also prepared for battle, along with roughly ten thousand infantrymen. On the other side of the valley, the ten thousand infantryman and eight hundred cavalrymen fighting under the banner of the Ghibellines were un daunted by the odds: they were more experienced, better horsemen, battle-scarred veterans of the

many skirmishes and battles that were common the Italian city states in the 13th century.

The battle was bloody: a farmer plowing fields in the now-tranquil valley in the early 20th century turned up bones. Dante, as a Guelph Cavalryman, was ultimately on the winning side, although there were some tense moments in the battle before the Ghibbiline cavalry was enveloped and destroyed. In a now lost letter from Dante in (Hollander, 1984) exile to the Florentine ruling class, 15th Century Dante biographer Leonardo Bruni quotes the poet:

“[At Campaldio] I showed myself no child in armed warfare, in which I felt much fear and at the end great happiness over the outcome of the battle.”

Since Dante uses the phrase “non rudis belli” (no child in arms), which implies that this wasn’t his first battle, there is some speculation that Dante participated in skirmishes before the Battle of Campaldino, but no hard evidence exists beyond the ambiguity in the letter’s phrasing. Such speculation is beside the point: the fact remains that in at least one instance, Dante participated in violent, hand to hand combat where he feared for his life.

Dante was undeniably sensitive and incomparably observant, but he was also no stranger to obsession: consider Beatrice, who captivated the poet with just a glance and her grace is the strongest example, but there’s also the “Good Woman” from Vita Nuovo and Convivio. Poets weave massive tapestries of verse infused with meaning out of such brief moments; it is the currency of the trade. What impression did the brutal, up- close-and-personal organized murder in the fields of Campaldino leave on the author?

The previously quoted letter from Dante is the only primary source material available where the poet addresses the battle directly and without literary pretense, allusion or narrative artifice. However, a close look at the way Dante addresses not just (Scartazzini & Davidson, 1893) Campaldino, but other examples of war and warriors throughout the poem, is revealing in itself.

Combat Trauma and the Poet

In his seminal study of men and combat, “On Killing,” Lt. Col David Grossman estimated that only 2 percent (Grossman, 2009)of the general male population can, if provoked by service to their country or self-defense, kill without any remorse or traumatic after-effects. (Grossman, 2009) No matter the label ― “post-traumatic stress disorder,” “battle fatigue,” “shell shock,” “soldier’s heart” ― war changes a person. The previously quoted letter from Dante is the only primary source material available where the poet addresses the battle directly and without literary pretense or artifice. However, a close look at the way Dante addresses not just Campaldino, but also all war and warriors throughout the poem, reveals a man haunted by traumatic memories and images, struggling to make sense of it all.

Jonathan Shay, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient for his work with Veterans and PTSD, provides the following guideline to PTSD symptoms:

PTSD and of the personality changes that mark its severe forms. All may be understood

as the persistence of past traumatic experience in the present physiology, psychology, and

social relatedness of the survivor. The symptoms can range in severity from mild to

devastating, and not everyone will have all of the symptoms at the same time: Loss of

authority over mental function— particularly memory and trustworthy perception;

(Grossman, 2009)

Persistent mobilization of the body and the mind for lethal danger, with the potential for

explosive violence; Persistence and activation of combat survival skills in civilian life;

Chronic health problems stemming from chronic mobilization of the body for danger;

Persistent expectation of betrayal and exploitation; destruction of the capacity for social

trust; Persistent preoccupation with both the enemy and the veteran’s own military/

governmental authorities; Alcohol and drug abuse; Suicidality, despair, isolation, and

meaninglessness.

Such unhealed PTSD can devastate life and incapacitate its victims from

participation in the domestic, economic, and political life of the nation. The painful

paradox is that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be its citizen.5

A fair number of those descriptors could easily be assigned to Dante based on his

angry Epistles alone. While it is obviously impossible to know whether or not Dante

would meet the modern criteria for a diagnosis for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that question is irrelevant. Instead, consider the striking similarities between the dominant themes and obsessions of Dante and this paragraph from PTSD Research Quarterly, a publication of the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs:

Moral injury has been defined as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or

learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” (Litz et al.,

2009). Various acts of commission or omission may set the stage for the development of moral

injury. Betrayal on either a personal or an organizational level can also act as a precipitant.

A year after the battle, Beatrice died and Dante began to lose his way (the events of the

Divine Comedy take place a decade after her death), a fact confronted cryptically by

Beatrice in Purgatory XXX:

this man, potentially, was so endowed

from early youth that marvelous increase

should have come forth from every good he sowed.

But richest soil the soonest will grow wild

with bad seed and neglect. For a while I stayed him

with glimpses of my face.

The poet was clearly troubled. So far, we’ve examined evidence strongly suggestive that the poet’s combat experience left a deep psychological mark. Now, let us examine how Dante grapples with the aftermath in the text of the Divine Comedy.

The Poet’s Journey: Beginning to Heal

Part of the poet’s reaction to the violence he’d experienced relies on his reservoir of empathy: he evinces a deep loathing for the injustice of the emotional burden of victims that the violent inflict with their wanton destructive impulses. Consider the rhetorical power of the word “blood,” which Dante uses not only to frame a dominant geographical feature of Hell (the River of Blood), but also layers of allusive meaning. Jeremy Tambling explains one:

In Inf X. 85-86 Dante, as passionate as Farinata, reminds him of the hatred he produced

in Florence, when the Battle of Montaperti made the river Arbia run with blood. Three

thousand Florentines died on the battlefield. The river of blood develops this reference,

cooking the engineers of violence with its heat, which makes literal allegorical 'hot blood'

and the power of hot passion.7

In the context of the poem it is impossible to avoid other important individual layers of meaning. Beyond the literal level (the writing of which must have reminded the poet of (Tambling, 2003)the blood-swamped fields of Campaldino) there’s also the internal logic of the punishment meted out at this level of the journey. The violent bobbing in rivers of blood, as an image, is a perversion of the baptism ceremony. Baptism is itself a symbolic representation that cleanses sin and the spiritual rebirth that comes with a commitment to Christ, whose blood is itself a tremendously important Christian motif.

In Canto XII, there’s another layer of symbolism, as we see here:

They run by that stream in thousands,

snapping their bows at any wraith who dares

to raise himself out of the blood more than his guilt allows.”

-Inferno, Canto XII

The last line of the tercet bursts with meaning and significance. Dante was guilty of sins of violence and, as Jonathan Shay previously demonstrated, those troubled by violence they witnessed or committed on the battlefield tend to mull and obsess over their memories.

The first instance where Dante addressed martial topics in depth is allusive, but also essential to interpreting the poet’s conflicted feelings about war and warriors. Consider the symbolism of the Centaurs: half man, half horse, they’re essentially cavalrymen viewed through a glass darkly. These mythic beasts are fierce and bloody fighters with a predilection for rape. Led by Nessus, they are known as fierce and (Lewis, 2001)bloody fighters, representing the savage id of combat.

Robert Hollander offers this observation on Dante’s encounter, in Inferno XII, with the Centaurs.

[Dante possessed] keen awareness of his own participation, as a cavalry officer, alongside

and against such soldiers in some of the bloody military engagements of the late

thirteenth century, and particularly at the great battle of Campaldino...Those who were

violent against others thus include our poet himself. His ride on horseback through the

carnage of Inferno XII puts him in mind of his own military past, yet distances him from

the savage human beasts who are the avatars of warfare.If Dante did battle, he would

seem to imply, he did so because he had to. These others made love to their employment.9

As Hollander notes, Cantos XII and XIII of Inferno are sections of the poem where the poet directly confronts his military past; so are Cantos III and V of Paradiso. While the warriors Dante meets in Hell are a truly terrible lot, including Alexander and Attila the Hun, the centaurs are an especially interesting personification of the fusion between man and beast in war–the conflation of id and superego so common in combat.

Their equine haunches symbolize the base, animal instincts that allow unjustified violence such as rape that brutal men inflict in both war and peace, while their human heads and torsos remind us that, as rational beings, they should know better. What a better way for Dante to address his role in war by acknowledging and anthropomorphizing the animal ferocity and lack of compassion he witnessed there into a creature Dante both despises and desperately needs?

Virgil, in the Inferno and Purgatorio, often seems to play the role of therapist. At times of crisis, he is there, counseling Dante and imparting subtle guidance in (Hollander, 1984)Hollander “Dante on Horseback”anticipation of the visions in purgatory that will challenge the poet.

This is a common occurrence in the Inferno as Dante is braced for the horrific sights ahead. Therefore, the Dante-Virgil dynamic in Purgatory III is interesting. Not only does he anticipate the way Dante's raw, visually apparent and shaken mortal body and psyche would react to the way they do to seeing so many mixed up comrades, particularly when he must spur the poet into action in Canto IV (after he attracts "the shades" seeking ablution in Purgatory as they do in lines 99-105, with confusing interrogatives, chief among them the injunction in line 102 to "First turn around, and then go straight ahead"), but the delicate urgency and acute sense of time of his request indicates both an awareness and a sense of responsibility for controlling the urges of Dante that stem from memories of battle.

Indeed, part of the aftermath of Dante speaking with Manfred, the first combat veteran Dante addresses in depth, is measured in immeasurable hours, the way "when we see or hear/whatever seizes strongly on the soul, time passes, and we lose it unaware" (Canto IV, lines 7-9), which sheds a different light upon Virgil's request for directions through purgatory: he prefers the directions accurate and quick, knowing Dante will lose time conversing with others who've spent time in battle, time essential to redemption. Dante’s purgation demands a true confession, contrition and satisfaction. Today, therapy for treating trauma victims encourages an honestaccounting of experiences, no matter how awful or infused with shame, which is most effective among people of shared experience.

Manfred, the King of Sicily and illegitimate son of Frederick II, died the Battle of Benevento in 1231 against Charles of Anjou. Benevento, like Campaldino, relied heavily on cavalry units throughout the engagement. Despite the horror of the conflict, there was honor between opposing forces: After Manfred’s defeat and death, Charles of Anjou ordered that every soldier in his army file past the body of the dead Manfred and place a stone upon it until his gravesite was built.

Manfred and Dante are an uncanny pair. Unlike the violent, bloodythirsty, warriors of the Inferno, both of these men are noble cavalrymen. They’re also both exiles: Dante in life, Manfred in death.

Bartolommeo Pignatelli, cardinal and archbishop of Cosenza from 1254 to 1266 disinterred the body of the posthumously excommunicated Manfred from his original makeshift cairn. Agents of the Cardinal re-buried the body outside of Church-owned land, thus exiling both his body and soul, an ugly and vindictive act that must have evoked strong emotions from the exiled poet, as well as a sense of kinship.

No man may be so cursed by priest or pope

but what the Eternal Love may still return

while any thread of green lives on in hope.

-Purgatorio, Canto III

These words of encouragement and wisdom affirm that, for Manfred and for Dante, there is still hope. The poet in the early Cantos of the Inferno, lost and confused, depressed and suicidal, is gone, replaced by a man capable of change, capable ofhealing. A report by the Department of Defense noted “Common experiences, particularly for those who have served in combat, bind individuals together. Shared experiences are the foundation for peer support, as they foster the initial trust and credibility necessary for developing relationships in which individuals are willing to open up and discuss their problems despite concerns about stigma.”

Clearly, both Virgil and Manfred would fit into this; given Dante’s willingness to pass information back to living relatives and friends, so would the poet. There is, of course, a danger in this which Dante recognizes in Canto V: the danger of getting bogged down in these memories.

I never saw hot vapors flashing through

the first sweet air of night, or through the clouds

of August sunsets, faster than those two

ran up to join their band, wheeled round again,

and, with the whole band following, came toward us,

like cavalry sent forward with a loose rein.

“There are hundreds in that troop that charges so,”

my Guide said, “and all come to beg a favor.

Hear them, but press on, listening as you go.”

The poet must be admonished again and again that all progress means forward motion, continual improvement, striving toward salvation. Ultimately, though, by the end of Purgatorio Dante has at last managed to put the guilt and residual psychic burdens from the trauma of war away, as we see in line 145: “I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars.”

Bibliography

Casentino, C. d. C. I. Dante Alighieri in Casentino. [Website].

Grossman, D. (2009). On Killing.

Hollander, R. (1984). Dante on Horseback? (Inferno XII, 93-126). Italica, 61(4), 287-296.

Lewis, R. W. B. (2001). Dante. New York: Lipper/Viking.

Scartazzini, G. A., & Davidson, T. (1893). A handbook to Dante: Ginn & co.

Shay, J. (1995). Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New

York: Simon & Schuster.

Tambling, J. (2003). Monstrous Tyranny, Men of Blood: Dante and "Inferno" XII. The

Modern Language Review, 98(4), 881-897.