In the Heaven of the Sun Dante has Bonaventure address the failings of his own Franciscan order:

La sua famiglia, che si mosse dritta
coi piedi a le sue orme, è tanto volta,
che quel dinanzi a quel di retro gitta;

Par. 12.115-17

All commentators agree that Franciscans have turned away from the path of St. Francis. La sua famiglia is the Franciscan order. Si mosse dritta: the family moved in a straight way. Coi piedi a le sue orme: with their feet in the footsteps of Francis. È tanto volta: the family has turned around (changed).

Che quel dinanzi a quel di retro gitta: the tormentatissima character of this passage lies precisely here. What does Dante mean by gitta? Gittare or gettare means “to throw” or “to toss.” Francesco Torraca pointed out that it is a strong word, associated with violent force, like something not natural.[2] The subject of gitta is quel dinanzi. The person or thing in front throws something (but what?) at the person or thing behind (quel di retro). Gittare is a transitive verb requiring a direct object, but there is no direct object in this sentence. Gettarsi means to throw oneself, but the objective pronoun si doesn’t appear in the passage, requiring the reader to supply a direct object. Quel is the masculine singular for “that,” “that one,” or “the one.” What are the antecedents of quel dinanzi and quel di retro? Since both instances of quel are masculine, they cannot refer to the feminine collective noun famiglia.

Cristoforo Landino (1485) was the first to suggest that quel refers to piedi  in l. 116, and that gitta means “put” or “place”: a toe is put where a heel had been. The idea carries the overall meaning that the order has turned away from its founder. Landino’s interpretation has been adopted by most modern commentators. Lorenzo Filomusi Guelfi offered the idea that quel dinanzi is the front of the human body, while quel di retro is the back,[3] but his explanation requires a body to throw itself into the one in back, requiring the objective pronoun si, which is non-existent. The weaknesses of  both arguments (that quel is a foot or the human body) are that they require stretching the definition of gitta to mean something other than “throw” or “toss”; nor do these views explain what is thrown.

All of the early commentators except for Landino saw quel dinanzi and quel di retro as Franciscan brothers instead of feet. Only four of the 23 modern commentators I examined agree; such has been the influence of Landino. In this reading, the brother in front throws something at the brother behind. Pietro di  Dante said that the brother in front is the one who follows the right path started by the earliest brothers. He distances himself from the one behind almost as if he had thrown a stone at him. Pietro says that the brother in front throws not just words, but a way of life (strict observance) at the brother behind, who has not lived up to the requirements of the Rule.[4]

Casini/Barbi say that l. 117 shows Dante’s awareness of a lively struggle between Spiritual and Conventual Franciscans. By Dante’s time the order had indeed fallen into conflict over the practice (observance) of poverty. The Conventuals can be thought of as the “moderns” who defended many lax practices, while the Spirituals represented the strict observance of poverty.[5] There were actually several groups of Spirituals, and they were not all of one mind, but they did agree that the order should be held to arcta paupertas, or strict poverty. One of the most radical was Ubertino da Casale, whom Bonaventure soon names in l. 124.[6]

Still we are no closer to understanding which brother is in front and which behind, nor do we have a definition of what is thrown other than words of contradiction or a way of life. Over a century ago Mario Sterzi suggested that what is thrown are seeds (sementa).[7] Robert Durling and Ronald Martinez (who may not have been aware of Sterzi’s article) have repeated the suggestion, which indeed offers a clue to both conundra.[8] This interpretation provides a dynamic link to tercet immediately following:

e tosto si vedrà de la ricolta
de la mala coltura, quando il loglio
si lagnerà che l’arca li sia tolta.

Par. 12: 118-20

The backdrop of this passage is the Parable of the Tares in Matthew 13:24-30 and 37-43. Here Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like the man who sowed good seed in his field. While his men were asleep, the enemy came and oversowed tares (zizania, lolium) in the field. As the plants grew, tares appeared among the wheat. The man’s servants wanted to gather up the tares, but he asked them to wait until the harvest lest they collect wheat with the tares. At harvest time they were to gather the tares into bundles for burning, and then to gather the wheat for his barn. When the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable, he told them that the good seed are the sons of the kingdom,[9] while the tares are the sons of the evil one, and the man who sowed them was the devil. The harvest was the end of the world, when the tares will be thrown into a furnace of fire, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

At one level Dante’s meaning is clear: the ricolta of l. 118 is the harvest. La mala coltura is the growth of the loglio, who will bewail the fact that the arca (barn) will be taken from them. A full review of this passage and its multiple levels of meaning will require a separate essay. Suffice it to say that the clues offered by Sterzi and by Durling and Martinez establish the link between the first and second tercet: the seed.[10] The modern brother in front, who has turned away from the footsteps of St. Francis, throws the seed of tares at the ancient one behind, who follows the way of the founder.
This reading solves both the question of who is in front and what he throws at the one behind. For those who follow this logic, the passage is no longer tormentatissima. Clearly Dante is not suggesting that a conflict has broken out within the order with both sides equally culpable. Instead he is saying that the order has completely changed its direction from the footsteps of St. Francis to a path entirely contrary to the way of the founder, namely to a way of living that failed to honor the prime importance of strict poverty that was imbedded in the Franciscan Rule and that was the hallmark of the Franciscans in their best days.

[2] Torraca: “Gitta: accenna a sforzo violento, come per cosa non conforme alla natura.”

[3] Lorenzo Filomusi Guelfi, “Che quel dinanzi a quel di retro gitta (Par. XII, 117),” in Studii su Dante (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1908), 481-95. A lively argument broke out near the turn of the twentieth century when he vigorously rejected the idea of quel as a foot, opposing the views of A. Moschetti, “Chiosa dantesca,” La Bibioteca delle scuole classiche italiane 6 (1892-1893) 45-46, and Antonio Boselli, “Un altro enimma dantesco? (Par., XII, 117),” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 50 (1907), 341-46.

[4] The Codice cassinese follows suit: the brothers in front are those “who best observe the rule,” while those behind are the ones who are the worst at following it.

[5] David Burr, Spiritual Franciscans (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press), 39-40 and 115-34, says that it is proper to use the term “Spirituals” for the rigorists in the Franciscan order only after about 1274. The Conventuals emerge as an identifiable group only  in the 1310s.

[6] In ll. 123-26 below, Bonaventure appears to hew a via media, condemning Ubertino for excessive strictness with regard to poverty and Matthew of Acquasparta for laxity. In a future essay I intend to argue that Dante may have intended for this passage be read in a different way.

[7] “Chiose dantesche,” Giornale dantesco 16 (1908), 60-62.

[8] The Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri, ed. and trans. by Robert Durling with notes by Durling and Ronald Martinez, Vol. 3, Paradiso (Oxford University Press, 2011), 260.

[9] It is worth noting that in the Parable of the Sower, Matt. 13:3-8 and 19-23, the seed is the word of the kingdom, not the sons of the kingdom.

[10] However Sterzi, “Chiose,” 60-62, did not connect ll. 115-17 to the Parable of the Tares. Durling and Martinez, comment to Par. 12.115-17, 260, unexplainably say that the seed represents Francis’s message which is “cast under the feet of those who come behind, causing confusion.” But the seed in the Parable is the bad seed of tares, not the good seed described in the Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13:3-8 and 18-23). Furthermore this conflict results in a separation of the two factions, resulting in clarity rather than confusion.