Commentary Purg XVI 53-63

Dante is bursting with a doubt, now made double by Marco's words: if the world is so thoroughly evil, wherein lies the cause?  Dante wants to be informed so that he may pass the knowledge on to others, some of whom believe the cause is found on earth, while others think it is situated in the heavens.  Is his doubt now 'double' because he has heard from Guido del Duca ([Purg XIV 37-42]) that all in the valley of the Arno flee virtue?  That is Benvenuto's (DDP Benvenuto.Purg.XVI.52-57) reasonable hypothesis, one that has many followers.  Wanting to know the 'cause' of evil (and his word, malizia [malice], is the word used in [Inf XI 22] to define the sins of the hardened will [see C.Inf.XI.22-27], those punished within the City of Dis), the protagonist triggers the heaviest use of this noun (cagione) in the poem; it occurs four times in 44 lines, at [Purg XVI 61], [Purg XVI 67], [Purg XVI 83], and [Purg XVI 104], thus underlining the centrality of this concern, to understand the root of human sinfulness, essential to the understanding of the concept of free will, as the next passage (Marco's rejoinder) and the next canto, when Virgil offers his discourse on the nature of love, will both make plain.