When one examines the yellow and green partial chasuble on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art, with its silk, velvet, and gold-encased threads, one understands more vividly the critiques of Church opulence that Dante articulates in the Inferno. Dante was certainly not the first to point to the disconnect between Jesus' scorn for material wealth and the staggering richness of the Church, but his damnation of such materialism—including his placement of corrupt clergymen into some of the lowest chambers of Hell—was particularly vehement.
[...] Classical sources are replete with references to the use of gold to denote a “worldly and supernatural elite”; as the kings of the supernatural world, gods wore and owned similar demonstrations of power, such as a purple cloak or gold ornaments.[9] In an event alluded to in the Inferno, display of wealth in gold and silver as a symbol of supernatural elitism only truly became part of Church orthodoxy with the Donation of Constantine. This was the gift of “supreme temporal power in the West” to Pope Sylvester (who Dante calls first rich father”).[10] But while this might explain the use of gold and silver by the Church—in ornaments, crosses, or an article like the gold-threaded partial chasuble mentioned at the beginning of this paper—the idea that God should be glorified in this material way was certainly not a universally held belief. [...]
[...] Dante sustains this distrust of e argento” throughout the canto, repeating the phrase, along with “ill-gotten a total of four times. The metonymic substitution of wealth with “gold and silver” in both this Canto and Canto 7 is not merely poetic; indeed, Dante is purposely targeting the representation and ostentation symbolized by the hoardable properties of these precious metals. Dante implicitly argues that gold and silver become idols in a way that wealth in land or “limited” capital does not. [...]
[...] Wealth became, as Aristotle warned, an end in and of itself, or in Dante's words, an idol for clerics who honor the power given by gold above the honor of God.[13] Here again, it must be highlighted that Dante specifically calls “gold and silver your rather than wealth generally, gold and silver having particular qualities with respect to how easily it is divorced from worthwhile or productive function. As we have seen from both Dante's work and the work of modern scholars, gold and silver are not just symbols for wealth. [...]
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