The Johns Hopkins University Press Dante Studies, With The Annual Report of The Dante Society

Vitruvius and Dante's Giants
Author(s): Richard Kay

Source: Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, No. 120 (2002), pp. 17-
34
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Vitruvius and Dante's Giants
RICHARD KAY
is the distinguishing characteristic of giants, and Dante

ingly stresses this feature when, in Inferno 31, he describes t
he encountered half immersed in rock at the top of the cl
separates the circles of simple and complex fraud. The poet d
however, plainly state how high these giants are; instead, he p
variety of precise details which should enable the curious reade
late the giants' size. Thus Nimrod's head is as big as the huge b
cone which still is displayed at Saint Peter's in Rome; moreov
distance from his navel to his shoulders is thirty hands (gran
spans), which, Dante says, is farther than three tall Frisians can re
31:58-66). Ephialtes is "bigger" than Nimrod (84), as is Briareu
while Tityus and Typhon are comparable in size with Antaeus
from chin to navel measures five ells (die, 113). The height of
is not just a matter of idle or pedantic curiosity, however, for
reader reaches the towering figure of Lucifer, he learns that h
know how high the giants are in order to compute the size o
(Inf. 34:30-33).
Despite the apparent precision of these indications, Dante's commenta-
tors differ widely in their calculations of the giants' height, with estimates
ranging all the way from 50 to 100 feet,1 while many others doubt that
any consistent solution can be derived from Dante's data.2 One reason for
these inconsistencies is that there was no single standard for the units of
measurement that Dante specified; instead, each Italian commune or re-
gion had its local standard. For example, the palmo varied from 0.1250 m
at Rome to 0.2918 m at Florence, with eighteen other values between
these extremes.3 The disparity is even greater when Italian equivalents are
17
Dante Studies, CXX, 2002
sought for foreign measures. Thus the commentators identify the alia, or
ell, as a unit used in England, or France, or Flanders, or Brabant, and, still
worse, they give a half dozen values for it in terms of Florentine braccia
and/ or canne.4 Strange to say, no modern commentator has attempted to
clarify, or even to control, these disparate figures by referring to the me-
ticulous metrological tables compiled by Ronald Zupko for Italy, France,
and England.5
The other reason that the results have been less than satisfactory is that
in making the calculations, human proportions have not been taken into
account. Undoubtedly they should be, since we are advised at the outset
that Nimrod's "other bones were in proportion" to his face - e a sua
proporzione eran Valtre ossa (Inf. 31:60). That this fact is relevant to the
calculations is finally made explicit when we are told that the pilgrim
compares better in size to a giant than giants do with Lucifer's arms - e
piu con un gigante io mi convegno, / che i giganti non fan con le sue braccia
(Inf. 34:30-31). To be sure, the importance of proportionality has been
recognized in calculating Lucifer's height,6 but this instance has not sug-
gested that human proportions are also of relevance in calculating the
height of the giants.
Commentators have had good reason not to invoke a canon of human
proportions, because the only one applicable to Dante's data7 that was
known in the Latin West during his lifetime was the list given by Vitruvius
in his treatise De architectura 3.I.2.8 And until recently, no one supposed
that Dante could have known this text, since its popularity in Italy cer-
tainly dates from the fifteenth century, when this product of Rome's Au-
gustan Age became the criterion of Renaissance art and architecture. To
be sure, Dante probably would have known the summary of the relevant
passage that appears in Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum maius,9 but in
abridging the passage Vincent omitted the numbers on which any calcula-
tions would have to be based.10
But now it appears that Dante would not have had to rely on excerpts,
because a recent census of Vitruvius manuscripts shows that the entire
treatise was available in Italy during Dante's lifetime. Before the thirteenth
century, although the De architectura had been copied in northern Europe
since Carolingian times (20 extant manuscripts), its presence in Italy is
first attested in a twelfth-century library catalog from Montecassino.11
Thereafter, copies of Italian provenance become increasingly common,
with five extant manuscripts from the thirteenth century and eight more
18
Vitruvius and Dante's Giants, Richard kay
from the fourteenth.12 A few of these can even be located close to Dante
in time and place: for example, a Duecento copy from an unknown mo-
nastic library was acquired in Florence by the British Library (Schuler, no.
30) ;13 an early Trecento copy was in the library of San Salvatore, Bologna
(no. 38), while another, dated 1319, belonged to the Visconti library in
Pavia (no. 44). 14 Furthermore, other copies, now lost, have left traces: for
instance, Petrarch annotated an old copy, probably in Carolingian minus-
cule, which in turn was copied together with his notes (no. 43). 15 The
manuscript evidence therefore indicates that the relevant text of Vitruvi-
us's canon was available in Dante's Italy.
Moreover, recent studies by art historians indicate that artists working
in Tuscany during Dante's lifetime were using Vitruvius's doctrine of
human proportions. Joel Brink has demonstrated that Cimabue used a
Vitruvian principle to design the superstructure of the Santa Croce cruci-
fix, and he argues that Vitruvius's geometrical principle of symmetry was
employed not only by Cimabue but also by other Florentine and Sienese
painters, including Duccio, Giotto, and Simone Martini.16 Furthermore,
it appears that in the Arena Chapel, Giotto usually divided human heads
into three equal parts in accordance with the proportions prescribed by
Vitruvius, except in the case of Judas, whose head is intentionally dis-
torted as he gives Jesus the betraying kiss.17 All these applications of Vi-
truvian principles, it should be noted, are practical and hence are not
involved in the now discredited mystical interpretation of the Vitruvian
man as a microcosm.18
Finally, we can be sure that Vitruvian proportions were known in Ital-

ian artistic circles from the testimony of Ristoro d'Arezzo, a friar and
craftsman who himself practiced goldsmithing and illumination.19 In his
treatise La composizione del mondo (1282), he describes the canon of human
proportions currently used by "skilled designers - // savi disegnatori,"
which was based on a passage of the De architectural Although Ristoro
does not cite Vitruvius, even the skeptical Frank Zollner admits that Ris-
toro's informants knew the Vitruvian canon,21 and consequently we can
be sure that it was known, at least to artists, in Dante's milieu and lifetime.
Therefore it is entirely plausible that Dante himself knew the Vitruvian
canon, either directly from the De architectura or indirectly from the artistic
community.
These new resources and discoveries have encouraged me to attempt a
19
re-calculation of the dimensions of Dante's giants that is based on Zupko's

metrology and Vitruvius's canon of human proportions.22
1. Nimrod's face
(a) Inf. 31:58-59: "Lafacda sua mi parea lunga e grossa / come la pina di
San Pietro a Roma - His face seemed to me as long and huge as the pine
cone of St. Peter's at Rome."23
(b) The pine cone (pina) at Saint Peter's, Rome, is 3.56 meters in
height.24
(c) Therefore Nimrod's face is 3.56 meters high.
(d) According to Vitruvius, the human face is 1/10 of the total height
of the body.25
(e) Therefore Nimrod's total height is ten times that of his face:
3.56 m x 10 = 35.6 m (116 feet, 10 inches).
2. Nimrod's visible half
(a) Inf. 31:65-66: "pero cWV ne vedea trenta gran palmi / dal loco in giu
dov' omo affibbia 7 manto - for I saw thirty great spans of him down from
the place where a man buckles his cloak."
(b) According to Zupko, the length of the span (palmo) varied greatly
in Italy, ranging from 0.1250 m at Rome to 0.2918 m at Florence.26
(c) Assuming that Dante's gran palmi were the maximum, Florentine
measure, then 0.2918 m x 30 gran palmi = 8.754 meters.
(d) Exactly half of Nimrod was buried in the stone bank: Inf. 31:61-64
"la ripa, ch'era perizoma I dal mezzo in giu, ne mostrava ben tanto / di sovr
. . . - the bank, which was an apron to him from his middle downward
showed us full so much of him above" that three Frisians could not touch
his hair.
(e) According to Vitruvius, the navel is the midpoint of the human

body.27
(f) Moreover, also according to Vitruvius: "from the top of the breast
with the bottom of the neck ... to the crown, a fourth part."28 Dante,
like Vitruvius, begins measuring at the pit of the throat, but from there
measures down instead of up.
(g) The 30-span portion of Nimrod therefore is 1/4 of his total height,
20
Vitruvius and Dante's Giants, richard kay
or 1/2 of his visible height, since from (/) it is known that the other half
of his visible height is also 1/4.
(h) It is the lower half of Nimrod's visible body, therefore, that is 30
spans high, or 8.754 meters (28 feet, 9 inches).
(i) Consequently, Nimrod's total height would be 35.02 meters (4 x
8.754 m).
(j) This does not agree with the figure arrived previously arrived at (§
l.e) of 35.6 meters, but the discrepancy (58 cm) can be accounted for by
understanding "gran palmi" (Inf. 31:65; above, § 2.a) to mean "palmi
slightly larger than the Florentine palmo.9' Thus the discrepancy would be
removed if each gran palmo were merely 5 mm larger than the standard:
0.005 m + 0.2918 m = 0.2968 m; 0.2968 m X 1 20 gran palmi (Nimrod's
total height; above, § 2.g) = 35.62 meters, practically the same as the
height as previously calculated in § l.e (35.6 m).
3. The three Frisians
(a) Inf. 31:63b-64: "di giugnere a la chioma I tre Frison s'averien dato mal
vanto - three Frieslanders would have made ill vaunt to have reached to
his hair."
(b) Next we must account for the inability of three Frisians to reach
Nimrod's hair. Benvenuto explained that they were the biggest of the
Germans, who generally are large;29 somewhat later, he notes that, al-
though it is commonly supposed that no man could be higher than Her-
cules, who was seven feet tall, nonetheless men twelve feet high have
been reported in several instances.30 Let us try both values.
(c) Presumably, for the purposes of measurement, the three Frisians are
laid end to end, the highest one reaching for Nimrod's hair, so to their
combined height one must add the length of one Frisian arm.
(d) A man's arm is 3/8 of the height of his body. This figure is derived
from Vitruvius's terse statement that "the breast [is] also a quarter [part
of a man's height] - pectus item quartae" (De arch. 3.1.2). It is commonly
understood that Vitruvius means the width of the breast,31 so that when a
man stands with outstretched arms, his chest occupies 1/4 of the distance
from fingertip to fingertip; hence both arms together make up the re-
maining 3/4 of the distance, and one arm is accordingly 3/8 of the man's
arm span. This value is confirmed by Vitruvius's univocal assertion that a
21
man's height is equal to the breadth of his outstretched arms.32 Therefore,

the length of a single arm is 3/8 of the total height from head to toe.
(e) A 7-foot Frisian would stand about 2.13 m high; so three would be
6.39 m high; and the additional arm's length (2.13 m x 3/8 = 0.08 m)
brings their total reach to 7.19 m (23 feet, 7 inches).33
(f) On the other hand, a 12-foot Frisian would stand 3.66 m high; so
three would be 10.98 m high; the additional arm's length (3.66 m x 3/8
= 1.37 m) brings their total reach to 12.35 m (40 feet, 6 inches).
(g) The three Frisians, Dante says, would not be able to reach Nimrod's
hair. Medieval illustrators of the scene were not sure how a giant wore his
hair, but ten of them pictured it at shoulder length, while only four imag-
ined it was shorter.34
(h) Assuming that Nimrod's hair fell to his shoulders, the distance from
his navel, at ground level, to his hair would be the same as the 30 gran
palmi, which Dante says was the distance he saw "down from the place
where a man buckles his cloak" (Inf. 31:66). If one gran palmo is 0.2968
(§ 2.j, above), then 30 of them are 8.9 m (29 feet, 2 1/2 inches), which
would be the distance that the Frisians cannot reach.
(i) Evidently the three Frisians Dante had in mind were not 12-footers,
because such could easily reach Nimrod's hair. But 7-foot Frisians, reach-
ing only 7.19 m, would not be able to reach 8.9 m to touch his long hair,
which would be 1.71 m above them. Since this agrees with the text (a),
the lesser figure is the better one, although it is, of course, only approxi-
mate.
(j) The sense of the text, then, may be paraphrased thus: the dis
from Nimrod's navel to his shoulders was more than the combined reach
of three 7-foot Frisians (7.19 m), since it measured 8.9 m. The three
Frisians are mentioned simply to give the reader an approximation of the
height, which then is stated more precisely in gran palmi. Three Frisians
were in fact the appropriate number, for with an additional 7-foot Frisian
(2.13 m), a team of four would have more than made up the required
distance.
4. Antaeus's head
(a) Inf. 31:113-114: "e venimmo ad Anteo, die ben cinque alle, / sanza
testa, usciafuor de la grotta - and [we] came to Antaeus, who stood full fiv
ells, not reckoning his head, above the rock."
22
(b) In calculating Antaeus's height, the principal problem is to deter-

mine the length of the alia that Dante had in mind. The alia is not an
Italian measure,35 as the commentators recognized by identifying it with
measures used in England, France, Flanders, or Brabant. Commentators
medieval and modern provide a variety of conversion equivalents, most
of which yield a height for Antaeus that is either less than or the same as
that of Nimrod (see note 4).
(c) These results cannot be correct because Antaeus must be taller than
Nimrod. Dante explicitly states that one giant, Ephialtes, is " assai piu few
e maggio - far more savage and bigger" than Nimrod {Inf. 31:84), and
Briareus is of the same size, because he is said to be "fatto come questo -
fashioned like this one," i.e. like Ephialtes, though he appears to be more
ferocious (Inf. 31:104-105). Moreover, Antaeus must be approximately
the same height as the giants Tityus and Typhon, because either one could
have served as well as Antaeus to convey the travelers to the foot of the
cliff (Inf. 31:124). Now Lucan, who is Dante's principal source for An-
taeus,36 states that he excelled all the giants who were created before him
and fought at Phlegra:
Nondum post genitos Tellus effeta gigantas

Terribilem Libycis partum concepit in antris.
Nee tarn iusta fuit terrarum gloria Typhon
Aut Tityos Briareusque ferox; caeloque pepercit,
Quod non Phlegraeis Antaeum sustulit arvis.
(Lucan, Pharsalia 4.593-97)
[Even after the birth of the Giants Earth was not past bearing, and she conceived
a fearsome offspring [i.e. Antaeus] in the caves of Libya. She had more cause to
boast of him than of Typhon or Tityos and fierce Briareus; and she dealt merci-
fully with the gods when she did not raise up Antaeus on the field of Phlegra.]37
Consequently, we can conclude that Antaeus, far from being shorter than
Nimrod, must have been of much the same height as the other giants
who fought at Phlegra; if anything, he may have been somewhat taller.
(d) This indication enables us to select a suitable value for the alia
among the various ones suggested by the commentators. The one that
provides Antaeus with a height greater than Nimrod was first given by
Benvenuto da Imola: "alia est genus mensurae panni in Flandria, sicut canna
Florentiae - alia is a kind of measure of cloth in Flanders, like the canna of
Florence."38
23
(e) According to Zupko, the canna of Florence had two values: (1) the
smaller, or mercantile, canna was 2.334 meters long and equaled 4 braccia;
and (2) the larger canna, which other Tuscan cities used as well, was 2.918
meters long and the equivalent of 5 braccia.39 We can exclude the smaller
canna because it yields a total height for Antaeus of 31 .12 m (by the proce-
dure in § 4.i), which is unacceptable because it is less than Nimrod's
height.
(f) Thus, using the larger, more common canna, Antaeus's height can
be calculated thus: from navel to chin, he measured 5 alle, each 2.918 m,
which taken together come to 14.59 m (5 X 2.918).
(g) According to Vitruvius, the head is 1/8 of total height.40
(h) Exactly half of Antaeus is embedded in rock and hence invisible;
thus the visible half, less the head, amounts to 3/8 of total height.
(i) Since Antaeus's height from navel to chin is 14.59 m, and since this
is 3/8 of his total height, his head, which is 1/8 of the total height, must
be 4.86 m (14.59 -5- 3), giving him a half height of 19.44 m (1/8 + 3/8)
and a total height of 38.88 m (2 X 19.44), or 127 feet, 6 inches.
(j) Thus Antaeus at 38.88 m is considerably higher than Nimrod at
35.6 m, just as we would expect him to be (above, § 4.c).
5. The cliff
Antaeus picks up Virgil, who holds the pilgrim, and the giant transports
them from the top of the cliff to the bottom by bending over (Inf. 31:130-
45). It is not, however, as if he were touching his toes, because the rock
enclosing his lower half prevents him from bending his trunk at more
than a right angle. Thus he is said to have "raised himself like the mast of
a ship - e come albero in nave si levo" (145), the image being that of a ship
that has heeled over and then righted itself. In other words, Antaeus bent
until his trunk rested horizontally on the edge of the cliff, and only his
arms reached lower than the cliff top. The height of the cliff, therefore,
must be about equivalent to the length of Antaeus's arms, which, accord-
ing to Vitruvius, are 3/8 of his body height (see above, § 3.d). Since 3/8
of Antaeus's height is 14.59 m (above, § 4.i), his reach, and consequently
the cliff, must also be about that height, which amounts to 47 feet, 11
inches.
24
6. Lucifer's height
(a) Inf. 34:30-31: "e piu con un gigante io mi convegno, / che i giganti non
fan con le sue braccia - and I in size compare better with a giant than giants
with his arms."
(b) A man's arm is 3/8 of the height of his body (above, § 3.d).
(c) The text specified that Lucifer's arm is to be compared to multiple
giants (i giganti). This excludes Nimrod, who is smaller than the others (§
2.i and 4.c); therefore, the calculation must be based on the height of
Antaeus (38.88 m; above, § 4.i).
(d) To calculate Lucifer's height in accordance with the data provided
by the text (§ 6.a), we must also know Dante's height. Boccaccio states
that he was "of medium height,"41 and, to be more precise, we know that
Dante's exhumed skeleton measured 165 cm (about 65 inches).42
(e) Accordingly, the comparison posed by the text can be formulated
thus: let a = Dante's height, b = Antaeus's height, and x = the length
of Lucifer's arm; the relation will then be a : b :: b : x, or in algebraic
notation, a/b = b/x. Using the values for a and b proposed above, the
solution then is x = 916.15 meters.
(f) Lucifer's arm, therefore, is at least 916.15 meters long.43 Since his
arm is 3/8 of his total height (§ 6.b), his minimum height can be calcu-
lated as 2443 meters (916.15 -f- 3 = 305.38 = 1/8 of Lucifer's height;
305.38 X 8 = 2443 m), or 2.4 km = 8015 feet, or a bit over 1 1/2
miles.
(g) Lucifer's height is surely greater than this result, because the text
states that the ratio between Dante's height and a giant's is less than the
one that obtains between the height of giants and Lucifer's arm (a : b <
b : x). Consequently, we may safely round off our result upwards to say
that Lucifer is at least 2.5 kilometers high (well over 11/2 miles).
(h) Since Dante does not specify how much less one ratio is than the
other, it is always possible that Lucifer is considerably higher than the
minima we have been able to calculate; but not much higher, I should
think, or otherwise Dante would not have gone to such extraordinary
lengths to provide precise linear measurements and exact proportions.
■^n ^^ '^r'
The principal results of this investigation can now be convenien

summarized in the following table.
25
object half height full height

Nimrod 17.8 m 35.6 m
(58 ft., 5 in.) (116ft.,10in. )
Antaeus 19.44 m 38.88 m
(63 ft., 10 in.) (127 ft., 6 in.)

Cliff
Lucifer >1221.5 m >2443 m

(>4007 ft., 6 in.) (>8015 ft.)
Discussion
In making these calculations, I have tried to respect the apparent ex

titude of Dante's indications, so that the results can approximate what
had in mind. Without attempting a critique of the many previous so
tions, I may illustrate my point by one simple example. Although t
correct height of the Vatican pina has been known for over a century
be 3.56 meters, or almost precisely 11 feet, 8 inches (note 18), Dant
modern commentators have rounded this off, sometimes to 11 feet
sometimes to 12,45 not to mention inexplicable outliers of 10 and 1
feet.46 Since Nimrod's height is ten times that of his face, rounding off
12 feet would make him a meter taller than the correct figure (4 inches
10 = 40 inches), while rounding down to 11 feet would double t
error, making him fully two meters too short (8 inches x 10 = 80 inches)
Therefore, at the risk of seeming overly precise, I have resisted the temp
tation to oversimplify the values.47
One may well wonder how precise Dante could have been in his ari
metic. The fact that he specified gran palmi, not the usual ones, sugg
that he was aware of the discrepancy that would result if the normal valu
of the palmo was used to calculate Nimrod's height (see above, §
Similarly, he could calculate how many Frisians it would take to re
Nimrod's hair (see above, § 3j). Finally, the data he provided to dete
mine Lucifer's height suggests that he was familiar with the "rule of thr
for finding the fourth term of a proportion in which three terms a
known.48
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Dante's problems concerni

the height of giants is the means he provided for verifying the solut
26
We are given two separate measures of Nimrod's height - in relation to

the Vatican pina and in terms oigranpalmi - and when the results of these
two distinct problems match, the correctness of the solution is confirmed
(above, § 2j). One advantage of this double calculation was to make it
clear that Nimrod's shoulder-length hair necessarily had to be beyond the
reach of three Frieslanders.
The validity of my calculations depends on the acceptance of two new

factors - the Vitruvian system of human proportion on the one hand and
revised values for units of measurement on the other. The importance of
having a precise value for the pina has already been discussed; its correct-
ness is confirmed because the result it gives for Nimrod's height is
matched by the alternate calculation by palmi. Contrariwise, the adoption
of the Florentine palmo is similarly justified by the results it yields in com-
puting a height for Nimrod that closely approximates the calculation
based on the pina (above, § 2j). The equation of Dante's alia with the
Tuscan canna, first suggested by Benvenuto, is less certain, but it nonethe-
less seems to be correct because it yields a height for Antaeus that is bigger
than that of Nimrod, who is smaller than the giants of classical antiquity
(above, § 2.i and 4.c).
The decisive innovation in my approach, however, is the use of Vi-
truvian proportions.49 1 say "decisive" because all of my calculations have
been based on them: Nimrod's face was 1/10 of his total height (above, §
l.d); the navel was the midpoint of his body (§ 2.e); from the top of his
breast to his crown was 1/4 of his height (§ 2.f); the arm length of the
Frisians, Antaeus, and Lucifer was 3/8 of total height (§ 3.d, 5, and 6.b);
and Antaeus's head was 1/8 part of his body (§ 4.g).
How can we be sure that Dante conceived his problems in terms of
these proportions? Again, the simple answer would be that the two calcu-
lations of Nimrod's height based on these proportions are in agreement,
but Dante's use of Vitruvius can be even more firmly established by two
additional circumstances. First, it explains why, as Kleiner observed,
"Dante has chosen, for some reason, to measure the giants only in seg-
ments - either a giant's head or a giant's headless torso."50 The reason that
eluded him is that in Vitruvius's system each of these mysterious segments
is proportionately related to total body height. By specifying that Antaeus
"stood full five ells, not reckoning his head, above the rock" (Inf. 31:113-
14), Dante requires the reader to know the proportion of the human head
to the rest of the body, and to its upper half, in order to determine the
27
giant's total and visible height. And in Dante's day, Vitruvius was the
sole source for such proportions. In Nimrod's case, the proportions are
somewhat different, for the pilgrim "saw thirty great spans of him down
from the place where a man buckles his cloak" (Inf. 31:66), which is to
say that this time Dante is excluding not only the head but also the neck.
This, too, is a Vitruvian segment, namely the part "from the top of the
breast with the bottom of the neck ... to the crown" (note 8), so once
again the poet has served notice that he is reckoning in terms derived
from Vitruvius.
The conclusive proof that Dante used Vitruvius is based on an inadver-

tent error. As just noted, in calculating the height of Nimrod's visible half,
Dante measures "down from the place where a man buckles his cloak"
(Inf. 31:66), which corresponds exactly to the point that Vitruvius de-
scribes as "from the top of the breast with the bottom of the neck - cum
cervicibus imis ab summo pectore" (De arch. 3.1.2). But the text of Vitruvius
is evidently corrupt at this point, because it allots 1/4 of body height to
the segment from shoulders to crown, which would reduce the shoulders-
to-navel proportion, elsewhere given as 3/8, to a mere 1/4, and would
elongate the neck to be 1/8 of the total, since the head had previously
been stated to be 1/8. Later, during the Renaissance, students of Vitruvius
noticed the discrepancy, so that artists such as Leonardo and Diirer at-
tempted to determine the correct proportions by observation, while Vi-
truvius's editors sought to remove the inconsistency by emendation.51
Dante, however, evidently based his calculations on the corrupt text, for
otherwise my two solutions for Nimrod's height would not match (§ 2.j).
More than any other indication, this shared oversight proves that Dante's
canon of human proportions was derived from Vitruvius.
* * *
The discovery that Dante employed Vitruvian propo

come as no surprise, for it simply adds one more author
long and ever-growing list of Dante's sources. This discov
ever, open up new perspectives on the poem, for the doc
proportions may illuminate other obscure passages in wh
body is divided, such as the varying degrees to which the
their neighbor are submerged in Phlegethon (Inf. 12
graded composition of the Old Man of Crete (14:106-11).
28
investigations lie beyond the scope of this paper, I cannot conclude with-
out addressing another question, one that is fundamental to my topic:
Why did Dante lay such stress on human proportions in connection with
the giants and Lucifer?
Those who think it is impossible to solve the problems Dante posed
concerning the height of Lucifer and the giants "have argued that the
purpose of the measurements is entirely stylistic, a function of the Inferno's
realism."52 But surely Dante could have conveyed an impression of exact-
ness without reduplicating the measurements and proportioning them to
segments of the human body. Consequently even those who are uncon-
vinced by any proposed solution cannot ignore these more general ques-
tions: Why did Dante, by multiplying measurements, repeatedly re-
emphasize the magnitude of the giants and Lucifer? And, moreover, why
did he relate these magnitudes to human proportions? Since the answer
would explain why Dante used Vitruvius, this paper may fittingly con-
clude by suggesting a possible rationale underlying Dante's concern with
human magnitude.
Humans have magnitude, as do all bodies; angels, being intelligences,
do not. Thus proposition 7 of the Liber de causis proves "that an intelli-
gence is a substance that has no magnitude. . . ,"53 Unlike angels, bodies
occupy space (locus), and they do so because they are made of matter.
Hence only material objects can be measured in the sense that they can
be divided into spatial units. Consequently, by stressing the measurements
of the giants, Dante is emphasizing their materiality.
The point of this emphasis on materiality is that Lucifer, although once
an angelic intelligence, is now reduced to an immense mass of matter. His
most impressive feature is undoubtedly his size, and by inviting us to
measure him, Dante not only draws attention to Satan's tremendous size
but also to the fact that he now has a material body. How this was effected
is not made explicit, but the explanation would seem to be that, according
to Aquinas, angels can assume bodies composed of air.54 This ability was
deduced from Paul's description of the devil as "the prince of the power
of this air - principem potestatis aeris huius,"55 and Dante himself explains
that the devil had this power "by the power his nature gave - per la virtu
die sua natura diede" (Purg. 5.114). Indeed, Lucifer in hell dramatically
exercises this power by beating his wings, which not only causes him to
be mistaken for a windmill (Inf. 34:6) but also ironically imprisons him by
making the waters of Cocytus freeze over, not to mention blowing the
29
stench of the last bolgia upwards as far as to the sixth circle {Inf. 11:4-5).
Since air was one of the four elements, or kinds of matter, these air-related
references reinforce the impression of Lucifer's materiality.
Lucifer is more than just a huge lump of matter, however: he is still
possessed of intelligence, as Buonconte da Montefeltro makes clear when
he describes the devil ("quel d'inferno," Purg. 5:104): "Evil will that seeks
only evil he joined with intellect - Giunse quel mal voler die pur mal chiede I
con lo yntelletto" (112-13). In this respect he resembles the giants, whom
Nature did well to cease making, the narrator comments, because "where
the instrument of the mind is added to an evil will and to great power,
men can make no defense against it - dove Vargomento de la mente / s'aggiu-
gne al mal volere e a lapossa, / nessun riparo vi pud far la gente" (Inf. 31:55-57).
Both giants and fallen angels have lost "the good of the intellect - il ben
de Vintelletto" (3:18) but not the intellect itself.
Lucifer and the giants therefore resemble humans both in being mate-
rial, and hence measurable, and in possessing intellect, but the significance
of these similarities is only revealed when we are told that the bodies of
all three creatures are related by the proportions of the human body (Inf.
34:30-31). This is not surprising in the case of the giants, since Scripture
declares that they were born of the "daughters of men" (Genesis 6:4), but
one must wonder why Lucifer assumed human shape when he material-
ized. For the same reason, one must suppose, that the other, obedient
angels are represented, both in Scripture and in the Comedy, as having the
form of human beings. The resemblance is due to a common exemplar:
both men and angels were created in God's image.56 Traditional theology
would restrict the comparison to the noncorporeal features that men and
angels share, especially intelligence, but I would suggest that for Dante
the human form was itself proportioned to God's image.
This appears from Dante's last riddle, the one that concludes the Com-
edy. The pilgrim, having seen God imaged as three circles, perceives "our
effigy - la nostra effige" depicted in the circle representing God the Son,
and he "wished to see how the image conformed to the circle and how
it has its place therein - veder voleva come si convenne / Vimago al cerchio e
come vi s'indova" (Par. 33:131, 137-38). The answer comes to him in a
flash (141), but the narrator leaves us to guess what it might have been.
My conjecture, which I argue at length elsewhere,57 is that Vitruvius pro-
vides the solution, for he asserts that "if a man lies on his back with hands
and feet outspread, and the centre of a circle is placed on his navel, his
30
fingers and toes will be touched by the circumference."58 This, of course,

is the homo ad circulum made famous, not to say banal, by Leonardo da
Vinci's illustration of the Vitruvian text. If I am right in this proposal, it
would explain why Dante stressed human proportions in the last canto of
the Inferno: the discovery there of the importance of the Vitruvian canon
prepares the reader for its enigmatic application in the last and parallel
canto of the Paradiso.
* * *
The keys provided by Zupko's metrology and Vitruv

human proportions have enabled me to provide a consist
and comprehensive calculation of the dimensions not on
giants but also of Lucifer himself. The most significant
this discovery is the proof that Dante knew and used the Vit
which can accordingly be applied to interpret the Comedy
ences to the human body, most notably when it appears
final vision.
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
NOTES
1. John Kleiner, Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's "Comedy," F
Reading Medieval Culture (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 1
Typical is Giorgio Padoan, "Anteo," in Enciclopedia dantesca, 6 vols. (Roma: Istituto della Enc
italiana, 1970-1978), 1:296-297, who reckons the height of all the giants to be 25 m (82 ft.
recently, Robert Hollander calculated Nimrod's height at 70 feet: Inferno, trans. Robert a
Hollander (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 531, ad Inf. 31:58-66.
2. Notably, Kleiner, Mismapping, pp. 42-47, but also Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. M
in The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, vol. 1: Inferno, trans. Robert M. Durling (New York:
University Press, 1996), p. 492, ad Inf. 31:60.
3. Ronald Edward Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nin
Century, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 145 (Philadelphia: American
sophical Society, 1981), pp. 183-85.
4. The Dartmouth Dante Project (http://dciswww.dartmouth.edu) provides 57 comm
Inf. 31:113; I note the name of the first commentator to give the value of the alia plus the num
subsequent commentators who agree with this figure: 1 braccio (Graziolo de' Bambaglio
braccio + \/2palmo (Maramuro); 2 braccia (Guido da Pisa + 14); 2+ braccia (Pietro di Dante);
(Benvenuto); 1 canna = 2 1/2 braccia (Anonimo fiorentino + 15); 1 1/2 canne (Torraca).
5. See note 3, above; Ronald Edward Zupko, French Weights and Measures before the Revolut
Dictionary of Provincial and Local Units (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978); and idem
31
Weights & Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (Madison: The University of
Wisconsin Press, 1977).
6. E.g. by Robert Hollander, Inferno, p. 587, ad Inf. 34.30-31.
7. To explain how Noah's ark symbolized the body of Christ, Augustine provided some human
proportions: a man's total height is 6 times his side-to-side breadth and 10 times his back-to-belly
depth: De civitate Dei 15.26, ed. Eligius Dekkers and Jean Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum, Series
Latina, vol. 38 (Tumhout: Brepols, 1956), p. 493. But since Augustine gave no arm-to-height pro-
portion, these figures are of no help in determining Lucifer's height. For the considerable influence
of this passage, however, see Bruno Reudenbach, "In mensuram humani corporis: Zur Herkunft der
Auslegung und Illustration von Vitruv III 1 im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert," Text und Bild: Aspekte des
Zusammenwerkes zweier Kiinste in Mittelalter undfruher Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1980), pp. 651-
88, at pp. 675-77.
8. Vitruvius, On architecture, ed. and trans. Frank Granger, Loeb Classical Library, nos. 251 and
280, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931), 1:159-160. Subsequent
references are to this edition and translation unless otherwise stated.
9. Speculum naturale 28.2 (Douai, 1624; rpt. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1964),
quoted by Stefan Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter: Die Rezeption von "De architectural von der Antike bis in
diefnihe Neuzeit, Pictura et Poesis, no. 12 (Koln: Bohlau, 1999), p. 184.
10. The omission was noted as a general rule by Erwin Panofsky, "The History of the Theory of
Human Proportions as a Reflection of the History of Styles," in his Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers
in and on Art History (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955), p. 90, n. 64: "Vitruvius, so zeal-
ously exploited and interpreted by Renaissance writers, had not been unfamiliar to the Middle
Ages . . . ; but it is precisely the specifications of the proportions which were generally neglected by
mediaeval writers."
11. Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter, pp. 118 and 339.

12. Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter, p. 160 (table 6).
13. I refer by number to Schuler's repertory of Vitruvius manuscripts: Vitruv im Mittelalter, pp.
359-67.
14. Yet another early Trecento copy is Escorial, O.II.5, which Schuler inadvertently plac
among his thirteenth-century manuscripts, although he dates its Vitruvian part "Beginn 14. Jh
Vitruv im Mittelalter, p. 359 (no. 28).
15. Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter, pp. 92 and 95, citing Lucia A. Ciapponi, "II De architectura
Vitruvio nel primo umanesimo," Italia medievale e umanistica 3 (1960), pp. 59-99.
16. Joel Brink, "Carpentry and Symmetry in Cimabue's Santa Croce Crucifix," Burlington Mag
zine 120, no. 907 (Oct. 1978), pp. 645-58, at pp. 647-49, 651; see also his diagram H. See also Jo
White, "Measurement, Design and Carpentry in Duccio's Maesta," Art Bulletin 55 (1973), 334
and 547-69, at p. 357.
17. Mary D. Edwards, "A Possible Vitruvian Intrusion into the Painting of Giotto," Source Not
in the History of Art, 1, no. 4 (1982), pp. 6-8. Panofsky, however, considered the Vitruvian divis
of the face into thirds to be a medieval commonplace: "Human Proportions," pp. 90-91, n. 64.
18. See the critique of Rudolf Wittkower's thesis by Frank Zollner, Vitruvs Proportionsfigur: Quel
lenkritische Studien zur Kunstliteratur des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Worms: Werner, 1987) and
review by John Onians in the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain Newsletter, no. 39 (W
ter, 1988), 6-8.
19. Ristoro, La composizione del mondo 2.1: "[I know how to] disegnare e arteficiare oro
argento, e disegnare e mettere colori" (quoted by Anna Maria Finoli, "Ristoro d'Arezzo," in Enci
pedia dantesca, 4:983-84, at 983.
20. Ristoro (Restoro) d'Arezzo, La composizione del mondo 2.8.20, ed. Alberto Morino, La compo
sitione del mondo colle su casdoni, Scrittori italiani e testi antichi pubblicati dalT Accademia della Cru
(Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1976), p. 230; quoted Zollner, Vitruvs Proportionsfigur, p. 57, n.
21. Zollner, Viruvs Proportionsfigur, pp. 56-58 and 211.
22. In the following calculations, the metric system is employed; however, the U.S. equivalen
is given for each result, the conversion factor being 1 meter = 39.37 inches.
32
23. Unless otherwise stated, the translations are those of Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy
Translated with a Commentary, Bollingen Series, no. 80, 6 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1970-1975); Petrocchi's text of the poem is cited from the same source.
24. Walther Amelung, Die Sculpturen des vaticanischen Museums, vol. 1 (Berlin: Georg Reimer,
1903), p. 896.
25. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.2: "Corpus enim hominis ita natura composuit, uti os capitis a mento ad
frontem summam et radices imas capilli esset decimae partis - For Nature has so planned the human body
that the face from the chin to the top of the forehead and the roots of the hair is a tenth part."
26. Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures, pp. 183-84.
27. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.3: "Item corporis centrum medium naturaliter est umbilicus - Now the navel
is naturally the exact centre of the body."
28. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.2: "cum cervicibus imis ab summo pectore ... ad summum verticem
quartae." I report the passage as Dante would have read it, although later readers considered it
corrupt and proposed various emendations. Granger, like all modern editors, adopted the emendation
proposed in 1758 by Berardo Galiani, so the modern text reads: "cum cervicibus imis ab summo
pecore ad imas radices capillorum sextae, <a medio pectore> ad summum verticem quartae." Dante
plainly indicates that his measurement begins at the top of the breast, going "down from the place
where a man buckles his cloak" (Inf. 31:66). Cf. Panofsky, "Human Proportions,," pp. 55-107, at
p. 67, n. 16.
29. Benevenutus de Imola Comentum super Dantis Comoediam, ed. Jacopo Philippo Lacaita, 5 vols.
(Florentiae: Barbera, 1887), 2:464, ad Inf. 31:65-66: "Quamvis enim alemanni naturaliter et commu-
niter sint magni, tamen illi de regione Frisiae sunt maximi."
30. Benvenuto, Comentum, 2:473, ad Inf. 31:113.
31. Panofsky, "Human Proportions," p. 67, n. 16: "breadth of the chest = 1/4."
32. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.3: "Nam si a pedibus imis ad summum caput mensum erit eaque mensura
relatafuerit ad manus pansas, invenietur eadem latitudo uti altitudo . . . - For if we measure from the sole
of the foot to the top of the head, and apply the measure to the outstretched hands, the breadth will
be found equal to the height. ..."
33. Not too far off from the 22 feet posited by Hollander (Inferno, p. 531, ad Inf. 31:58-66), who
supposes that the Frisans are "standing on one another's shoulders" and adds an arm's length.
34. Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, ed. Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles S.
Singleton, Bollingen Series, no. 81, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1969), 2:300-07.
35. There is no entry for alia or its variant forms in Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures.
36. Padoan, "Anteo," in Endclopedia dantesca, 1:296-97.
37. Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), trans. J. D. Duff, Loeb Classical Library, no. 220 (London:
Heinemann, 1928), p. 219.
38. Benvenuto, Comentum, 2:473. The Anonimo fiorentino (ca. 1400) agreed, but stated that the
canna was the equivalent of 2 1/2 bracda. Presumably he meant the Tuscan braccio of 0.584 m that was
used at Florence (Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures, p. 46), in which case the statement is not true
for either of the Florentine canne (§ 4.e, above). Despite this discrepancy, the Anonimo and the 15
commentators who followed his lead (see n. 4, above) do agree with Benvenuto that the alia was the
equivalent of a canna, so my assumption of this equivalence has considerable support in the commen-
tary tradition.
39. Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures, pp. 65-66. The larger canna of 5 bracda was used at
Arezzo, Pistoia, San Miniato, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Pisa, Volterra, Siena, and Montepulciano.
40. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.2: "caput a mento ad summum verticem octavae - the head from the chin
to the crown, an eighth part."
41. Boccaccio, Trattatello in laude di Dante, [16]: "Fu adunque questo nostro poeta di mediocre
statura. . . ." In his Opere in versi, Corbacdo, Trattatello in laude di Dante, prose latine, epistole, ed. Pier
Giorgio Ricci, La letteratura italiana: Storia e testi, vol. 9 (Milano: Ricciardi, 1965), p. 608.
42. According to Ricci (see preceding note). Hollander, in his reckoning, was thus too generous
33
in adopting 6 feet as Dante's height "merely for the purposes of calculation" (Inferno, p. 587, ad Inf.
34:30-31).
43. Hollander, after making a similar calculation, mistakenly took the result to be Lucifer's height
rather than the length of his arm (Inferno, p. 587, ad Inf. 34:30-31).
44. Hollander, Infemo, p. 531, ad Inf. 31:58-66: "about eleven feet."
45. Singleton, Divine Comedy, 2:569, ad Inf. 31:59: "over four yards high"; Kleiner, Mismapping,
p. 46: "12 ft."
46. La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, ed. C. H. Grandgent, 2nd ed. (Boston: Heath, 1933),
p. 279 (ad Inf. 31:59): "originally perhaps ten or eleven feet in height"; Durling and Martinez, Infemo,
p. 492, ad Inf. 31:59: "now about thirteen feet high."
47. In making calculations, however, I have generally rounded off to the nearest hundreth (sec-
ond decimal place), e.g. Nimrod's height of 35.616 becomes 35.62 (§ 2.i).
48. The rule is that the product of the means equals the product of the extremes. It was well
known in the Latin West since the twelfth century from al-Khwarizml's Liber algebre: Michael S.
Mahoney, "Mathematics," in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, 13 vols. (New York:
Scribner's, 1982-1989), 8:205-22, at p. 212. Its geometrical equivalent is given by Euclid, Elementa
6.11-12.
49. Kleiner assumes that the proportion of Antaeus's "torso" to his "entire body" is "3/8"
(Mismapping, p. 37), but he does so arbitrarily, without explanation.
50. Kleiner, Mismapping, p. 37.
51. See note 22, above. On Renaissance revisions, see Panofsky, "Human Proportions," pp.
92-103.
52. Kleiner, Mismapping, p. 42.

53. Liber de causis 7, in Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans, and annotated
by Vincent A. Guagliardo, Charles R. Hess, and Richard C. Taylor (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1996), p. 54. Adriaan Pattin, "Le Liber de causis: Edition etablie a l'aid
de 90 manuscrits avec introduction et notes," Tijdschrift voor filosofie 28 (1966), 90-203, at p. 151,
71: "lam ergo verificatum est quod intelligentia substantia est quae non est cum magnitudine. . . ."
54. Summa theologiae, 1 q.51 a. 2 ad 3. See La Divina Commedia, ed. Natalino Sapegno, La lettera-
tura italiana: Storia e testi, vol. 4 (Milano: Ricciardi, 1957), p. 448, ad Purg. 5:112-14. Dante would
seem to have generalized this angelic power to form aerial bodies by extending it to disembodied
souls (Purg. 25:94-96).
55. Ephesians 2.2b. The air in question, according to the Glossa ordinaria, is the "misty" or
"foggy" air of the underworld: Biblia latina cum Glossa ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps
Adolph Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81, 4 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 4:371ra, ad v. "aeris huius"
"Caliginosus aer infernus est demonum." Aquinas, however, argues that until Judgment Day the
fallen angels have power over the air of this world: Super epistolam ad Ephesios lectura, cap. 2, lect. 1,
ed. Raphael Cai in S. Thomae Aquinatis . . . Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura, 8th ed., 2 vols. (Taurini
Marietti, 1953), 2:22 (no. 77).
56. Aquinas, Summa theol., 1 q.93 a. 3 resp. John of Damascus was perhaps the first to stat
expressly that angels were created in God's image: Jaroslav Pelikan, Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia
for Icons, Bollingen Series, no. XXXV/36 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990
p. 173.
57. "Vitruvius and Dante's Imago Dei," forthcoming in Word & Image.
58. Vitruvius, De arch. 3.1.3: "Namque si homo conlocatus fuerit supinus manibus et pedibus
pansis circinique conlocatum centrum in umbilico eius, circumagendo rotundationem utrarumque
manuum et pedum digiti linea tangentur" (trans. Granger, 1:161; I correct a misprint of "figure" for
"fingers").
34

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Vitruvius and Dante's Giants

Author(s): Richard Kay

is the distinguishing characteristic of giants, and Dante

Finally, we can be sure that Vitruvian proportions were known in Ital-

re-calculation of the dimensions of Dante's giants that is based on Zupko's

2. Nimrod's visible half

(e) According to Vitruvius, the navel is the midpoint of the human

3. The three Frisians

man's height is equal to the breadth of his outstretched arms.32 Therefore,

(b) In calculating Antaeus's height, the principal problem is to deter-

Nondum post genitos Tellus effeta gigantas

The principal results of this investigation can now be convenien

object half height full height

(63 ft., 10 in.) (127 ft., 6 in.)

Lucifer >1221.5 m >2443 m

In making these calculations, I have tried to respect the apparent ex

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Dante's problems concerni

We are given two separate measures of Nimrod's height - in relation to

The validity of my calculations depends on the acceptance of two new

The conclusive proof that Dante used Vitruvius is based on an inadver-

The discovery that Dante employed Vitruvian propo

fingers and toes will be touched by the circumference."58 This, of course,

The keys provided by Zupko's metrology and Vitruv

11. Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter, pp. 118 and 339.

52. Kleiner, Mismapping, p. 42.

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