If Virgil represents the ancient tradition and Beatrice the new tradition and if, at the threshold of the Terrestrial Paradise, Virgil disappears before Beatrice, Beatrice also disappears when the divine mystery is grasped by Dante in its immediate realization and what then remains, above and beyond the two traditions unified forever is, climactically, Rome.
Virgil guides the poet through the world of Forms and Rhythms, in the two spheres of bodies and shadows, that he knows perfectly because he belongs to a tradition in which these two domains particularly were meticulously observed and studied, domains that constitute the subterranean and sublunar underworld whose secrets are fully treated in the three Virgilian works “sotto il velame delli versi strani” [“under the veil of strange verses”].
The ancient Roman tradition attached great importance to the knowledge of the immediate and psychic world governed by laws of internal, occult order, that embrace the totality of beings and things considered always with reference to the forces whose expression they are. The so called “concreteness” of the Romans was based exactly on the precise meaning of these forces that act most visibly in the existence of man inserting there a hidden network of which the events, especially “chance” events, as the common people believe, are the most significant effects: these forces are either propitiated, dominated, or determined. Virgil represents in the Comedy the knowledge of the two subterrestrial and superterrestrial worlds, the latter term however meant in the much more precise sense that must be given to the third element, the air, which symbolically corresponds to the subtle elements, the Rhythms, more through their “diffusivity” than for their nature.
In hell, we are present at the extreme concretion of these unchained forces and, so to speak, precipitated in the closed vortex of ignorance, while in Purgatary, we catch sight of them liberated from the formal element in their spontaneous structure of the subtle body, the shadow. Virgil guides his disciple with “art” up to the threshold of the Terrestrial Paradise from which ascent will begin at the paradisiacal levels, i.e., at the higher states that are forbidden to them because they realize only by means of Revealed Science, Beatrice.
Up to this point the two traditions remain separate even though the one is resolved in the other, that indicates Dante’s dismay at Virgil’s disappearance in the face of the vision of Beatrice. In the Terrestrial Paradise we have the explanation of the traditional integration, after the theory that leads the symbolic cart in front of the central tree which revives, discovering the reigns of the Silence where only the ascension to the divine states is accomplished. In other words, the second tradition is not opposed to but reveals the first, and completes it, bringing it back to the invisible centre from which everything emanates and to which everything returns as long as it is stripped bare to its original essence.
What in the first tradition is the Imperium [empire], is the Regnum [kingdom] in the second, while separately they indicate respectively temporal power and spiritual authority, there is an absolute seat in which while converging they merge into each other, and this seat, materially, symbolically, and actually is Rome. So that, while the second tradition illumines and reveals the first, the first precedes, prepares, and exists only for the affirmation of the second; there is an initial necessary opposition that is resolved only in Rome when, i.e., a unifying centre is found that is at the same time the neutral point where the traditional quarrel ends.
The question was rather redundant in hindsight.
I’m afraid, Matt, that I cannot provide every reference for every conceivable topic, as much as I try. Since Virgil did include ghost stories, it would be nice if readers can fill in the gaps … you cannot continue to expect George to do everything for you.
For those interested, a place to start is this painting by Ary Scheffer
“Shadow” here needs to be understood in the sense of shade, or ghost”
Kind of like a psychic corpse?
“Shadow” here needs to be understood in the sense of shade, or ghost, as the ancients understood the post-mortem state in the afterworld. Vigil leads Dante through the worlds of gross and subtle manifestation (forms and rhythms). These worlds were well understood by the ancients, as Virgil wrote of them in his own inspired poetic works.
The ancient Romans knew the occult forces behind those worlds, which they either propitiated in their rites or learned to dominate. The third dimension of depth, these occult forces, elude the minds of the vulgar, both in the past and even more so in the present.
Hell, then, is the most concrete form of gross manifestation, and Virgil shows the way to subtle manifestation. However, he yields to Beatrice who brings Dante to the threshold of understanding non-formal manifestation. Most men, because they either adhere to the ancients or the medievals, can see only a division and a separation. However, Dante reveals that this division is illusory.
De Giorgio’s view is quite different from that of Duke di Cesaro, who regards the ancient (and eventually even the medieval) tradition as something to be overcome and discarded in some evolutionary master plan. No, de Giorgio shows that the ancient tradition is fully revealed and completed in the medieval tradition, which itself would be partial and incomplete without the earlier.
The each have their role in the synthesis. The ancient tradition is the Empire, or temporal power. This is where Evola stops and it colours his understanding of the Medieval synthesis. The medieval tradition is the Kingdom of God, representing spiritual authority. Both wings of the eagle are necessary, and this is the meaning of the symbol of the two-faced Janus. Rome is the centre, and the quarrel between the two traditions must end, once this is understood.
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I’m glad the efforts are appreciated by someone. I plan more from de Giorgio, as his perspective adds new insights into Tradition. It may be of some interest to note how de Giorgio claims a continuity and a development of the Roman Tradition, while avoiding the evolutionistic errors of a Duke Colonna di Cesaro.
Those images are fascinating and merit some discussion in themselves.
This is possibly the best article I’ve read. Much appreciated, Cologero &c.
[Giorgio]”The ancient Roman tradition attached great importance to the knowledge of the immediate and psychic world governed by laws of internal, occult order, that embrace the totality of beings and things considered always with reference to the forces whose expression they are. The so called “concreteness” of the Romans was based exactly on the precise meaning of these forces that act most visibly in the existence of man inserting there a hidden network of which the events, especially “chance” events, as the common people believe, are the most significant effects: these forces are either propitiated, dominated, or determined.”
[Evola]”The Roman knew the divine as action. Before that of the deus, the sensation of the numen was deep in the Roman : and the numen is the divinity conceived of not so much as a ‘person’ than as a ‘power’, a principle of action ; it is the entity whose representation did not matter (at best, the ancient Roman used symbolical objects to represent the numen : the spear, the fire, the shield, and so on), but only its positive action”.
[Evola]”Let us now come to another characteristic of the Roman conception of the sacred. It’s ‘immanence’. In this respect, one should not think of the speculations of ‘idealist’ modern philosophy. … it can be said that the whole Roman history assumed, for our ancestors, the character of a true sacred history, of a story adumbrated constantly by divine meanings, revelations and symbols. The fact is that all this did not have as a counterpart an ecstatic and passive attitude, but rather an active, warlike attitude. It can well be said that the Roman made his history sacred, feeding invisible forces into it and acting united with them.
A particular aspect of ‘immanence’ concerns the human symbol. It is well-known that, at the origins of Rome, the pontifical dignity and the royal one were gathered in one single person…”
[Yockey]”“For the animals, that which appears — matter — is Reality. The world of sensation is the world. But for primitive man, and a fortiori for Culture-man, the world separates out into Appearance and Reality. Everything visible and tangible is felt as a symbol of something higher and unseen.”
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