‘Ben è altra cosa visibile’

Light and colour are prominent in the scene of arrival described in the second canto of Purgatorio. Pisces, Venus and the four stars near the southern celestial pole fade from our memory as we follow the two poets down to the shore to witness the ceremony in which Virgil ‘uncovers the colour’ in Dante's cheeks by washing away the ‘Fog’ deposited by Hell. When the sun reaches the horizon, the dawn sky changes from ‘white and vermilion’ to ‘orange’; and against this background a ‘reddish light’ appears over the sea, growing ever ‘more radiant’ as it approaches. An indeterminate ‘whiteness’ (‘un non sapea che bianco’) appears on either side of the red light. Then ‘another whiteness’ gradually issues from below the first. The closer the light approaches, the ‘clearer’ it becomes, until it overpowers Dante's eyes and he is forced to look down.

But other things than light and colour are visible; and the impact of the visibilia propria is completely transformed in this description – as in so many others in the Comedy – by the skilful way in which Dante blends them with his perception of the five sensibilia communia. These were listed in the Convivio, it will be remembered, as ‘la figura, la grandezza, lo numero, lo movimento e lo stare fermo’; and all five are present in this passage.