Trajan

Gustave Doré, Purgatorio, Canto X, plate 17, The vision of Purgatory and Paradise by Dante Alighieri, trans. Henry Francis Cary, 1894. Gift of John McCutcheon. Rare Books, Archives & Special Collections
Hans Leonard Schäuffelin (German, 1480-1540), The Son of Emperor Trajan crushing a widow's child, 1534, woodcut engraving. Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959. Print Collection, Archives and Special Collections. 1959.3832.00B

The Roman Emperor’s Trajan's (53-117 AD) role in The Divine Comedy is complex. He is first mentioned in Canto X of the Purgatorio, where the poets behold an image of the popular medieval story of Trajan and the Widow carved in sculpture. The widow stands at the emperor’s bridle demanding vengeance for the murder of her son. In some variation on the tale the emperor or his own son are directly responsible for the death - Hans Leonard Schäuffelin's 1534 woodcut illustrates this scene in rather more graphic detail. Trajan delays his mission to the Dacian wars to provide justice, becoming an exemplar of humility. Despite the fact that Trajan was not a Christian, Dante later meets him in person in Canto XX of the Paradiso, where he is included as one of the five figures whose glorified bodies compose the eye of justice in a great imperial eagle. Asking how this could be, and whether those who knew nothing of Christ by accident of birth (like Virgil) could gain access to Heaven, he is informed of a curious loophole: because Trajan believed in the possibility of a Messiah who could save all souls, that act of imagination is evidence of his grace. He and those like him are therefore granted salvation.

John Flaxman, The Celestial Eagle, Compositions By John Flaxman, Sculptor, R.A. From The Divine Poem Of Dante Alighieri, Containing Hell, Purgatory And Paradise, 1807, London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. Rare Books, Archives and Special Collections