Mars

Profile

In the verses of the Commedia, Mars is mentioned as a celestial body and as a figure of the classical pantheon. In Inferno XXIV, v. 145, the tercet describes an area of the Lunigiana whose vapors are drawn, that is, attracted and made to rise, by the planet Mars, which with its influence excites them and hides them from sight ("Tragge Marte vapor di Val di Magra"). In Purgatorio XII, v. 31, Mars appears instead as a painted image on the mystical chariot of the Procession, alongside Pallas and Thymbraean (Apollo), among the allegorical figures that adorn the side of the chariot. The authorized notes to canto II of the Purgatorio also clarify the cosmological role of the celestial bodies in Dante's system: the planets, moved by angelic intelligences, exercise different virtues and influences on earthly realities, and the same conception is recalled by the introduction to canto IV with regard to the gradation of the blessed in the different heavens. The name of the planet thus designates, in the cited verses, both an astrological influence and a figure of pagan mythology present in the allegorical scene of the chariot.