The distinguished medieval historian and Dominican friar Pierre Mandonnet’s monograph, Dante le Théologien, first published in 1935, finds itself translated into English for the first time as Dante the Theologian, edited by George Corbett and Patricia Kelly. George Corbett sets out in the editorial introduction, with which he prefaces the work, why he considers it particularly apt for translation. Mandonnet’s monograph was the target of a book-length refutation penned by Étienne Gilson in Dante le théologien (1939). Mandonnet having already died in 1936, he was unable to respond to Gilson’s criticisms. Whereas Gilson’s work was translated into English in 1948 and has been hugely influential amongst post-war receptions of Dante, Mandonnet’s book has never before been translated and, indeed, has been largely forgotten. What little discussion of Mandonnet there has been amongst subsequent Dante scholars has tended simply to echo Gilson’s negative judgement upon it and to dismiss Mandonnet fairly cursorily, whilst Gilson’s ideas have ‘met with rather uncritical acclaim’ (p. 17). By making Mandonnet’s argument more accessible, this translation looks to yield a re-examination of the case he made. This in turn promises to open up a more lively discussion and debate in which several dominant theses of Dante scholarship which were formulated in opposition to Mandonnet may be more thoroughly questioned and revised in contemporary discourse.

Corbett argues that a retrieval of Mandonnet’s book may fruitfully challenge what he sees as the excessive literalism that has predominated in the past century of Dante studies. Such a stress on the literal sense of the Commedia has, in different ways, been advocated by several prominent Dante scholars, be it Bruno Nardi’s belief that Dante was an inspired prophet who set down in ink a factually accurate vision of the afterlife, or Charles Singleton and Robert Hollander’s view that Dante intended the Commedia to be read as if it were a record of events that truly took place. This latter approach of an imaginative assent to the literal truth of Dante’s journey through the posthumous realms is based on the idea that Dante wrote the Commedia according to the ‘allegory of the theologians’. On this theory, Dante intended the Commedia to be read according to the fourfold sense of scripture, with the allegorical sense resting on a belief in the literal historical occurrence of the events detailed. Mandonnet instead viewed the Commedia as fittingly read according to the ‘allegory of the poets’; that is, the narration of fictional events that serve as signifiers pointing to deeper allegorical truths. There is a strong case to be made that the depth of Mandonnet’s grounding in medieval history rendered him more alert than Singleton or Hollander to the potential of the ‘literal sense’ to constitute such a signifier; for instance, the literal sense of the ‘arm of God’ denoting, not a historical arm, but the power of God. Paradoxically, if, with Mandonnet, one reads Dante according to the ‘allegory of the poets’, as was the norm in the commentary tradition prior to the twentieth century, then he can more readily be considered not just a poet, but also a theologian.

Intertwined with the extent to which literal truth should be ascribed to events depicted in the Commedia is the nature of Beatrice. Entering into a debate that was already established, Mandonnet argued that the ‘realist’ claim that the character of Beatrice was based upon a particular historical personage whom Dante loved has obscured the true role of Beatrice in the poem as a purely symbolic embodiment of the supernatural order. Having been impugned by Gilson, this purely symbolic interpretation of Mandonnet’s has, Corbett notes, ‘disappeared from scholarly view altogether’, the debate between various views on Beatrice having given way to a ‘seemingly unquestioned’ post-war realist consensus (p. 31). A re-engagement with Mandonnet’s work ought to prompt more scrutiny of this now little debated but historically controversial area of Dante studies.

Another key area in which this translation may facilitate a reappraisal of an interpretation of Dante which has become unpopular in the post-war period is the question of Dante’s relationship to Aquinas. Noting Dante’s praise for Aquinas in the Convivio, and the length of Aquinas’s speech in the Commedia, Mandonnet also argues that Dante aligns himself with distinctively Thomist positions. For example, Dante’s depiction of ever greater degrees of light in the ascent through paradise is read by Mandonnet as indicative of support for a specifically Thomist rather than Franciscan conception of the beatific vision – a question debated polemically after Aquinas’s death between William de la Mare and Giles of Rome (p. 186). Mandonnet ascribes to Dante ‘great fidelity to St Thomas’ (p. 187) and, in common with many early commentators on the Commedia, he attributes to Dante a special affinity for Thomism. Rejecting this view, subsequent scholars including Gilson have proposed that the early Dante was particularly attached to the doctrines of Siger of Brabant, and that the place Aquinas occupied for Dante was nothing more than that of one theologian amongst many.

For Mandonnet’s work to be made more widely available for a twenty-first-century Anglophone audience can only have an invigorating effect on the field of Dante studies. In many ways, this translation promises to disrupt and reorient the field by calling into question the seemingly habitual and relatively uncontested acceptance in the twentieth century of previously novel ideas which have since become consolidated into what Zygmunt G. Baránski termed ‘deeply ingrained critical orthodoxies’ (p. 36). Scholars can, furthermore, draw upon the wealth of Mandonnet’s understanding of medieval theology and intellectual history as a helpful resource for the study of Dante and his contemporaries. This book stands to be particularly engaging for those interested in the theology of Dante, the relationship between Dante and Aquinas, and the wider reception history of Dante. One need not necessarily agree with Mandonnet. His theory that Dante received minor orders as part of training for an unfulfilled clerical vocation, whilst it is an intriguing hypothesis, remains speculative. The present translation will help to ensure, however, that whether one finds Mandonnet’s arguments persuasive or not, he is at least given a fair hearing. That in itself is a worthy end.