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Galiet & Galiet
concealing his identity. Only Beatrice will pronounce his name. To return to his transcendental self of self, he must imagine Rachel’s mirror as his own contemplative tool to crystalize himself in the virtues of veritas and prudential (Pur. 27, 103-105). Just as the Virgin Mary gives us God’s image and reflection in Jesus Christ, all of creation reflects God’s being, just as much as Dante’s works mirror his creation. For Dante, creation is both eye and mirror in which the eye sees itself seeing. Thus, in Inferno, the mirror shares the negative qualities of exile. In Inferno 14 (103-105), an old man gazes on Rome’s corruption ‘as in his mirror.’ In Inferno 30 (127- 129), the coiner tells a sinner how he licks Narcissus’s self-adoring mirror. In Purgatorio, however, the mirror symbolizes the positive reflection of love and contemplation. In Purgatorio 15 (73-75) the loving souls reflect upon each other, returning love to one another. In Purgatorio 27 (103-105), Rachel contemplates herself on her looking glass all day long. Yet it is in Paradiso where the mirror’s purity and clarity begin to reflect God’s intense light and homecoming.
Mirrors of Exile. Not only has a proud Dante along with his entire Guelph party been exiled by 1302 from Florence, but he also mirrors aspects of his banishment in Pierre de La Vigna, Romeo, Boethius, Virgil. They become mouthpieces that speak of his disconsolation. Dante also reveals his experience in Latini’s and Cacciaguida’s prophecies.
De la Vigna’s mirror. De la Vigna shares aspects of Dante’s unjust exile and reversal of fortune from ‘happy honours’ to ‘hapless grief’ (Inf. 13, 69). Like Dante, De la Vigna is a honourable poet and rhetorician. As a faithful and trusted advisor to Emperor Frederick II, falsely accused of treason, he is imprisoned and blinded. Unable to accept his wretched fate, de la Vigna commits suicide. As a result, Dante finds him in the tenebrous suicide forest (Inf. 13, 28-
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