Commentary Inf XXIX 54-57

God's unerring justice is portrayed as the punishing agent of the counterfeiters. But what does it mean that she records or 'registers' them? And where is 'here'? Most early commentators argued that 'here' referred to the bolgia. Beginning in the Renaissance, the majority believe that it refers to this world. But what sense does it make to say that justice 'registers' sinners in this world? The image is of writing down a person's name in a book. For a review of the debate over the line (57) see Hollander (Holl.1982.1), proposing that 'here' means 'this book,' i.e., Dante's Inferno, a solution that was put forth (although never discussed by later commentators) by John of Serravalle in the fifteenth century (DDP Serravalle.Inf.XXIX.52-57). Dante will once again (and only once again) use the verb registrare: see [Purg XXX 63], when his name, 'Dante,' is 'registered here,' i.e., in his text.

Pertile (Pert.2000.1), pp. 64-67, argues against this view, claiming that the reference of qui is to this world: 'God's justice punishes there in the tenth pouch the counterfeiters whom first she registers here on earth, when, still alive, they commit their sins' (p. 65). This explanation, which was first advanced by Gabriele and then Daniello in the sixteenth century, has the disadvantage of inventing a curious verbal construct: in what ways may we conceive of justice 'registering' sins on earth? The essentially bookish nature of the word supports the hypothesis that Pertile would like to displace. Further, if we examine all 47 uses of this locative adverb (which appears some 190 times in the poem as a whole) that precede this passage, the result is telling. Whenever Dante or Virgil (or other characters in the poem) speak within the narrative, 'qui' usually refers to hell in general or to a specific place in it, and even, though much less often, to a moment in an exposition, e.g., Ciacco is described as one who 'Qui puose fine al lagrimabil suono' (with that he ended his distressing words -- [Inf VI 76] [the same phenomenon is observed when Dante speaks as character, as at [Inf X 96], at [Inf XVI 127], and at [Inf XIX 88], or when Virgil does so at [Inf XIV 120] and [Inf XXIX 23]]). Still further, when Dante speaks as narrator, looking back upon his experience (e.g., [Inf VII 25]), he once also indicates a place in hell and not the earth. Not once, before this passage, does qui refer to this world. It will do so for the first and only time in Inferno at [Inf XXXII 15] when Dante/narrator addresses the treacherous imprisoned in the ice of Cocytus: 'O you misgotten rabble... better had you here been sheep or goats!' However, when, as narrator, he refers to a place indicated by the adverb qui he elsewise indicates his poem: [Inf II 9], [Inf XXV 143]. And for exactly the same phenomenon, see [Purg I 7], [Purg I 9], [Purg VIII 19], and [Purg XXX 63] (where qui and registrare are reunited, as was previously noted). He will also use qui to refer to the poem four times in Paradiso ([Par I 16], [Par V 109], [Par XVIII 9], [Par XXX 16]). In short, Pertile's reading, following the interpretation that became normative after the sixteenth-century interventions of Gabriele and his student, Daniello, has less support in Dante's usual practice than one might at first believe, and none deriving from a passage occurring before the one that we are studying. (For qui referring to the earth there are more instances in the last two cantiche [and especially the last one] than the single case found in the first: [Purg X 96], [Purg XXXII 61], [Par II 12], [Par II 37], [Par IX 71], [Par XII 16], [Par XIV 25], [Par XIV 112], [Par XVIII 22], [Par XVIII 128], [Par XXI 141].) What we can say with clear evidence is that when a first-time reader encounters the adverb in this passage Dante's previous usage would encourage the belief that 'here' means 'in my book.'

For another participant in the sixteenth-century debate over the claims for truthfulness put forward by Dante on behalf of his poem, see Jossa's study (Joss.2001.1), which grounds itself in the considerations of Weinberg's chapter, 'The Quarrel over Dante' (Wein.1961.1, II, pp. 819-911).