Commentary Par XV 26

It is a commonplace in the commentaries to say that 'musa' here means 'poet.'  See, among others, Pietro di Dante (DDP Pietro1.Par.XV.25-27): 'qui major musa, idest poeta, latinorum est' (who was the greatest muse, that is, poet, among the Romans).  And see Conv.IV.xxvi.8, where Dante refers to Virgil as 'lo maggiore nostro poeta,' and Mon.II.iii.6, where the Latin master is 'divinus poeta noster Virgilius.'  However, Bosco/Reggio (see C.Par.XVIII.33) offer strong reasons for taking musa to mean the text of the Aeneid rather than its author.

The first commentator apparently even to sense the possible condescension toward Virgil in this verse was Steiner (DDP Steiner.Par.XV.26-27), who attempts to downplay its significance.  That it took seven hundred years for a reader to say that this compliment might even seem to be backhanded is, one might say, remarkable.  Dante could easily have avoided introducing this concern about how much faith we should give to Virgil's poem as a record of event.  Merely to lodge the doubt is enough to identify Dante's motive, which is to call into question Virgil's final authority when faced with the certainties of the world of Revelation, in which the protagonist now finds himself.  (Of course, we can turn the same question back onto Dante, whose poem also may not merit our belief, either; it is a dangerous game that he has chosen to play.  And he knows that.)  Mattalia (DDP Mattalia.Par.XV.26) is a good deal more firm than Steiner, and sees the point of Dante's insistence on the fictitious nature of Virgil's account, but goes on to claim that Dante believed in the historicity of the events he narrates (a difficult position to accept as soon as one asks the inevitable question, 'Do the events narrated as taking place in the Elysian Fields have any verifiable reality outside Virgil's text?').  The firmest sense of the failing being lodged against Virgil found in contemporary commentaries is perhaps that of Singleton (DDP Singleton.Par.XV.26), sending the reader to his earlier comment (DDP Singleton.Inf.II.13).  And see C.Inf.II.28.  Nonetheless, the first clear statement of the problematic aspects of these dubiety-creating references to the Aeneid is probably Grandgent's (DDP Grandgent.Inf.II.Nota): 'It is worth noting that in introducing the example of Aeneas, Dante begins with "tu dici che ... ," and a few lines further on he uses the phrase "questa andata onde gli dai tu vanto"; so in Par. XV, 26, referring to the same episode, he adds "se fede merta nostra maggior Musa," meaning Virgil.  These expressions seem to imply a mental reservation with regard to the literal veracity of Aeneas's adventure.'  And see Hollander (Holl.1983.1), pp. 135-36.