Commentary Purg XXVIII 1

We enter the third and final part of the cantica. These divisions, antipurgatorium (the first naming of 'ante-purgatory' in the commentaries), purgatorium, and postpurgatorium, are found in Benvenuto da Imola (DDP Benvenuto.Purg.I.Nota).

Dante's first word, vago (eager) ties him to Ulysses, eager for adventure (for the word vago see C.Purg.XIX.22-24). Virgil had told him, in his final instruction ([Purg XXVII 138]), that in the garden he will be free either to sit (thus imitating Rachel, the contemplative life) or to move about (thus imitating Leah, the active life). We should not be surprised that Dante makes the latter choice. Since, as we shall see, his contemplative faculties are at this point faulty at best, his choice will be reflected in his intellectual difficulties with understanding the nature of the love represented by the beautiful woman he will shortly meet (and who is eventually identified as Matelda).

Matelda will only be named at [Purg XXXIII 119]. It may be helpful to the reader to deal with her identity and her role in the poem before then. However, the reader should not forget that Dante has presented this woman as nameless, perhaps, among other reasons, to make us pay attention to what she means rather than concentrating on who she is. For the question of her identity, see C.Purg.XXVIII.40-42. For a study of the numerological significance of the number of this canto, 28, which the writer demonstrates to have a long standing among Neoplatonists (Martianus Capella), St. Augustine (that 'reformed Neoplatonist'), and other Fathers of the Church (e.g., the Venerable Bede), see Kirkham (Kirk.1995.1), pp. 336-44. To them it was a 'perfect number' for several reasons, arithmetical and geometric in nature. Kirkham also points out (p. 348 [n. 29]) that Matelda is the twenty-eighth woman encountered in the poem. (See her earlier discussion in Kirk.1989.1). Kirkham's arguments are engaging. One wonders, nonetheless, how much of this tradition held Dante's attention as he wrote this canto; one wonders, as well, why the cantos numbered 28 in the other two cantiche seem not to have the same numerological proclivity (they are not, in any case, referred to in Kirkham's discussion).

For an extensive treatment of the principal enigmas found in this canto, see Pacchioni-Becker (Pacc.2004.1).