Commentary Par XXV 1

We may do well to remember the offer made to Dante by Giovanni del Virgilio, that he should follow his vernacular Commedia with a more worthy instrument of procuring the laurel (see C.Par.XV.28-30), a Latin poem with a political subject.  If the hypothesis shared by John Carroll and Lino Pertile is correct (see C.Par.XXIII.130-132), Dante composed his answering eclogue soon after he was writing that canto.  It is inviting to think that this insistence on his poem's being, on the contrary, dedicated to sacred things, is a defiant answer to that invitation, even if that may stretch chronological possibilities a bit much.  However, for Dante's sense of a recent (1315) Italian laureation and its impact on him, see C.Par.IX.29-30.  And see Hollander (Holl.2003.2), pp. 54-55, for the poet's handling of the temptations of fame.

Villa (Vill.2001.1) considers both the term poema sacro and the related phrase 'sacrato poema' at [Par XXIII 62].

This is the only presence in the poem of the verb contingere.  For the occurrences of the noun contingenza ([Par XIII 63]; [Par XIII 64]; [Par XVII 37]) and the participial adjective contingente ([Par XIII 99]; [Par XVII 16]), see the entries for those terms, both prepared by Alfonso Maierù (ED.1970.2).