Clasificación del régimen laboral por la función o cargo desempeñado

A question as unavoidable for a number based approach as it might be unwelcome is that of numerological significance. Dante himself draws the numbering of the cantos into the poetic text in the well-known opening to

Inferno xx: ‘Di nova pena mi conven far versi / e dar matera al ventesimo canto / de la prima canzon, ch’è d’i sommersi’ [Of a strange new punishment I must make verses / and take matter for the twentieth song / in this first canticle, which is of those submerged] (Inf., xx. 1–3).14 _{This is not the only}

time Dante refers to the formal structures of the poem but it is the only mention of the numbering and is enough of an imprimatur for us to consider the numbers, especially since they form the basis of the vertical reading of the poem.

Although 13, or XIII, might initially seem promising as a number of such ill portent that it has its own named phobia, the association of the number with bad luck seems to originate after Dante’s time. According to Vincent Foster Hopper, the first mention of the specific idea of thirteen at table being unlucky is found in the late sixteenth century in what is almost a passing remark in Montaigne’s Essais (III. viii).15 _{A more general negative}

interpretation of the number is also found in the sixteenth century, in a work specifically focussed on numerology, the Mysticae numerorum significationis liber (1585)of Petrus Bungus, or Pietro Bongo, of Bergamo.16 _{Each number}

is usually dealt with in a single section, but ‘De numero XIII. et XIV’. puts thirteen together with fourteen in quite a short treatment, most of which is taken up with a discussion around the number fourteen as it relates to the dating of Easter.17 _{Bungus links the number thirteen with the impiety}

of the Jews and gives a few examples from the Old Testament, beginning with the Jews murmuring against God in the desert when they set up camp

author see Alastair Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Philadelpha, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988). 14 Noted also by Zygmunt G. Barański,  ‘Without  Any  Violence’,  in Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’, pp. 181–202 (p. 182). Dante also uses the term ‘canto’ at Par., i. 12 (though here meaning cantica); v. 139; and xii. 6.

15 Vincent Foster Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Meaning, and Influence on Thought and Expression (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000), pp. 131–32.

16 Pietro Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significationis liber, 2 vols (Bergamo: Comino Ventura, 1585). This edition can be consulted electronically in the digital library of the Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek: http://reader.digitale- sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10147847_00001.html. This work forms the basis of the later Numerorum Mysteria (Bergamo: Comino Ventura, 1591).

for the thirteenth time.18 _{He states that since thirteen is the first number}

after twelve it denotes transgression of the teaching of the apostles and he concludes by quoting Hugh of St Victor’s Miscellanea.19

It is in Hugh’s De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris that we find guidelines for numerological exegesis, in chapter xv De numeris mysticis sacrae Scripturae.20 _{These take the form of nine principles: order of position,}

composition, extension to other numbers, disposition, computation, multiplication, aggregate parts, number of parts, and exaggeration. Russell Peck follows this list with a description of some of the more typical glosses on each number: one signifies unity, of course, and so God and everything to do with God; two represents ‘the other’ and can be negative, indicating the devil, division, cupidity and so on, but it can also be positive, in referring to the second person of the trinity for example; three is very positive, representing the trinity, perfection, the soul (man in the image of the triune God), and, by extension to thirty, the number of books in the Bible (according to Hugh of St Victor anyway); four denotes elements, humours, conditions, directions, gospels, evangelists, cardinal virtues, branches of knowledge (theoretical, practical, mechanical, logical) etc.; five is quintessence; seven, too much to mention here; and so on up to twelve, the number of months, apostles, tribes of Israel, completeness and the Apocalypse, with which his list ends.21

Numerological interpretation allows for almost infinite variations; virtually any number can be interpreted, often through manipulations themselves accepted as legitimate, so that it may represent almost anything

18 The list begins: ‘Haec numerus Iudaeorum taxat impietatem’. Ibid., II, p. 131. Besides the murmuring against God, Bungus also notes that Psalm xiii illustrates the anger of the Jews, and that thirteen is the age of circumcision. The most relevant biblical texts are

Exodus 16.1–35 and Numbers 20.1–5. See too Hopper, p. 131.

19 Bongo, Mysticae numerorum significationis liber, II, pp. 31–32. Bungus names Hugh as his source for a reference to the death of Christ, but the wording of the Old Testament examples immediately preceding this reference is also very close to the text of the

Miscellanea vi, titulus xxvi, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by J. P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1844–55), 177, cols 826–27. The work is attributed to Hugh, but listed in the Patrologia Latina as Incertus since it is not known whether it was compiled by Hugh himself or others.

20 Hugh of St Victor, ‘De Scripturis et Scriptoribus Sacris’, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by J. P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris: Garnier, 1844–1855), 175, cols 22–23. Russell Peck includes Hugh’s nine guidelines in an appendix. See Russell Peck, ‘Number as Cosmic Language’, in Essays in the Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature, ed. by Caroline D. Eckhardt (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1980), pp. 15–64 (pp. 58–59). Hopper also lists and discusses them (pp. 100–04).

else. Hugh’s methodology has been seen as an attempt to introduce some order, and place restrictions on the sort of ‘free form’ association which might otherwise result, although it does itself present quite a range of interpretative options.22 _{So the number XIII, according to Hugh’s rule six}

(factorization, including addition), may be interpreted as X, a number of perfection, plus III, associated with the Trinity among other things. Thirteen is also the number of St Paul as the thirteenth apostle, as Isidore of Seville explains in his Liber de numeris, on numbers in the Bible:

Denarius ternarius numerus propter tria et decem designat legem, et legislatorem, Decalogum, videlicet, et Trinitatem. Competenter autem hic numerus apostolo Paulo ascribitur, qui ejusdem tenet numeri locum in ordine apostolorum.

[The thirteenth number as three and ten designates the law and lawgiver, the Decalogue, and the Trinity. Moreover this number is properly assigned to Paul, who holds the place of the same number in the order of the Apostles].23 Three and ten have many other interpretations, and we might well share Hopper’s assessment in his discussion of the equally polysemous number seven: ‘In this twilight zone of symbolism, it is extremely hazardous to attempt or even look for an interpretation of such a widely significant number as 7’.24 _{In the context of the vertical readings, the cantos iii and x}

must have a prior claim to any numerological significance those numbers may have, and whilst it may shed light on other cantos, the numerological approach doesn’t appear to be particularly fruitful for the cantos xiii. Nonetheless, there is still perhaps a lesson in Hugh’s concern to set some ground rules. The Commedia has the potential for almost infinite connection, so how can the vertical reading stay grounded? Must any suggested connection be demonstrable in all three cantos? Hopper notes that three as a number of proof has deep roots in human culture, certainly antediluvian, perhaps even primeval.25 _{In addition, should there be some}

measure of exclusivity which limits the connection to the three same numbered cantos?

22 Hopper (p. 103) suggests that the creation of such a list indicates Hugh’s awareness of the problem of ‘looseness’ in the practice of numerological interpretation.

23 Isidore of Seville, ‘Liber numerorum qui in sanctis scripturis occurrunt’, in Patrologia Latina, ed. by Migne, 83, col. 193.

24 Hopper, p. 129. 25 Ibid., pp. 4–6.