Commentary Purg XXXIII 43-45

This enigmatic passage has drawn an extraordinary amount of contradictory opinion.  For a review of the entire question, see Pietro Mazzamuto, 'Cinquecento diece e cinque' (ED.1970.2), pp. 10b-14b.  It is also helpful to consult Charles Davis's similar review of the first and similar prophecy in the poem, the veltro (hound) of [Inf I 101] ('veltro' [ED.1976.5], pp. 908a-912b). Most now argue, whether or not they believe that the number, if expressed by the Roman numerals DXV, is an anagram of DUX (or 'leader' [the Roman 'V' and 'U' being equivalent letters]), that the context of the passage makes it apparent that Beatrice is here indicating the advent of a temporal leader, one who will deal with the excesses of the king of France and the delinquent Church.  Further, if the canto is taken as having been written before his death in August of 1313, many believe that the prophecy points to Henry VII.  Some also believe that if the first reference is to a political leader, it also points beyond him to the second coming of Christ, the final emperor.  See Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 184-90, and the note to [Inf I 100-105].  A standard and useful treatment of the problem remains that of Moore (Moor.1903.1), pp. 253-83.

      For a brief history of the ancient Hebrew 'science' of gematria, the fitting of numbers to letters in a schematic way, as it comes into such writers as Dante, see Cherchi (Cher.2000.1).  He offers an example from a sixteenth-century Italian dialogue (pp. 337-38) that is usefully indicative of the sort of procedure at work in such calculations: 

A = 1

B = 2

C = 3

D = 4

E = 5

F = 6

G = 7

H = 8

I = 9

K = 10

L = 20

M = 30

N = 40

O = 50

P = 60

Q = 70

R = 80

S = 90

T = 100

V = 200

X = 300

Y = 400

Z = 500 

If one sets the equivalence of the Latin alphabet to numbers in this way, and if one is willing to play a bit fast and loose with the actual spellings of the names of important personages, one can contrive (find?) the following sort of result: 

M   A   R   T    I   N     L   U    T    E   R   A

30  1   80  100  9   40    20  200  100  5   80  1 = 666 

Distinct from numerological studies of Dante's work are those that study his numerical composition.  Thomas Hart's mathematical and geometrical studies of the Commedia are of this second kind, and are rich and challenging.  See a later one (Hart.1995.1), which picks up strands from his several earlier pieces and serves to summarize his long campaign to bring this sort of analysis to bear on Dante.  See also, for a much different kind of numerological study of Dante's texts, Manfred Hardt (Hard.1973.1 and Hard.1989.1).  And see G. R. Sarolli, 'numero,' ED.1973.4, pp. 87-96, and his monograph on the subject (Saro.1974.1).  For bibliography see Bologna (Bolo.1998.1), pp. 120-22.  A recent attempt to reformulate Dante's numerology is found in Wilhelm Pötters (Pott.2001.1 and Pott.2002.1), reopening the question of Beatrice's 'nineness' in the first study and attempting to measure Dante's cosmos in the second.  Insofar as his thesis depends on Beatrice being the sixty-first beautiful woman of Florence recorded in the sirventese described in V.N.VI.2 (Pott.2001.1, p. 36) and on the letters DIL in [Par XVIII 78] being read as 549 (and not 551 -- p. 41]), it is in some difficulty.  In the first case Beatrice already seems to be indicated as one among the sixty 'belle donne,' the ninth (and not the sixty-first; there is no sixty-first); in the second, there is at least as much reason to believe, if there is any compelling reason to count these letters as numbers in the first place, that DIL = DLI as to believe that it resolves, as Pötters is forced to insist, to DXLIX (DIL as an 'unorthodox' version of DXLIX).  Numerological arguments that ask one to surrender that much normal obstinacy (common sense?) possess a limited capacity to sway their judges.  For an interesting attempt to approach the problem of overarching structural concerns from the other side, as it were, the possibility of casual explanations for poetic phenomena in the poem, in this instance involving a study of repeating rhyme words in a canto, see Turelli (Ture.2002.1).

      Two studies, completed independently of one another, by Kaske (Kask.1961.1) and Sarolli (Saro.1971.1), pp. 259-88, link the DXV to the ligated initials of the liturgical formula 'Vere dignum est,' involving the capital letters 'V' and 'D,' joined in such a way that the right-hand stroke of the 'V' and the left-hand one of the 'D' form a capital 'X' (the sign of the cross).  Because both of these densely supported presentations tend to overlook the obvious political dimensions of the prophecy in favor of its Christological significance, they have failed to generate a groundswell of support, while they both remain a part of the continuing discussion.  For an attempt to show that Dante was referring to a division number in Gratian's Decretals (precisely to Distinction XV (i.e., D[istinction).XV] in Part I), see Kay (Kay.1979.1).  Stark (Star.1997.1) has argued, in a way similar to Kay's, for a reference to line numbers within another work, in this case Aeneid I.500, I.10, and I:5.  Neither of these two highly ingenious solutions of the enigma has received significant support from other students of the problem.

If it is true, as some argue, that Dante's number represents the number of years between great imperial events, e.g., between Charlemagne's coronation on Christmas Day, 800, and the hoped-for victory of Henry VII in 1315, then it seems at least possible that he had in mind for its model one of the most important prophetic passages in the Aeneid (I.260-277), in which the time between Aeneas's war to win new Troy and the establishment of Rome under Romulus is carefully measured out as 333 years. See Hollander and Russo (Holl.2003.1).